Alistair MacLean - The Golden Rendezvous

Dr. Caroline climbed slowly down the two steps to the floor of the hold, dragged his gaze away from the missile, looked at me for a long moment with uncomprehending eyes, then smiled. “Do you know, Mr. Carter, the thought never even occurred to me.” his voice was quite steady and his smile wasn’t the smile of a crazy man. Dr. Caroline had known that he was going to die and then he hadn’t died and nothing would ever be quite so bad again. He had found that the valley of fear does not keep on going down forever: somewhere there is a bottom, then a man starts climbing again.

“You grab the trailing rope first and then release the autolock,” I said reproachfully. If I was lightheaded, who was to blame me? “not the other way round. You might remember next time.”

There are some things for which to make an apology is impossible, so he didn’t even try. He said regretfully, “I’m afraid I’ll never make a sailorman. But at least we know now that the retaining spring on the trembler switch is not as weak as we had feared.” he smiled wanly.

“Mr. Carter, I think I’ll have a cigarette.”

“I think I’ll join you,” I said.

After that it was easy — well, relatively easy. We still treated the twister with the greatest respect — had it struck at some other angle it might indeed have detonated but not with respect exaggerated to the extent of tiptoeing terror. We dragged it on its tarpaulin across to the other side of the hold, transferred the halftrac hoist to the corresponding ladder on the port side, arranged a couple of spare tarpaulins and blankets from the coffin to make a cushioned bed for the twister between baffle and ship’s side, hoisted the missile across the baffle without any of the acrobatics that had accompanied the last transfer, lowered it into position, pulled over the blankets, and covered it completely with the tarpaulins on which we had dragged it across the floor.

“It’ll be safe here?” Dr. Caroline enquired. He seemed almost back to what I should have imagined his normal self to be, except for the hurried breathing, the cold sweat on his brow and face.

“They’ll never see it. They’ll never even think to look here. Why should they?”

“What do you propose to do now?”

“Leave with all possible speed. I’ve played my luck far enough. But first the coffin — must weight it to compensate for the absence of the twister, then batten down the lid again.”

“And then where do we go?” “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here.” I explained to him just why he had to stay there, and he didn’t like it one little bit. I explained to him some more, pointed out carefully, so that he couldn’t fail to understand, that his only chance of life depended on his staying there, and he still didn’t like it any more. But he saw that it had to be done, and the fear of certain death eventually outweighed the very understandable and almost hysterical panic my suggestion had caused him. And after that fifteen-second lifetime when we had waited for the twister to detonate, nothing could ever seem so terrifying again.

Five minutes later I battened down the coffin lid for the last time, thrust the screw driver in my pocket, and left the hold.

The wind, I thought, had eased a little; the rain, beyond question, was heavier by far; even in the pitchy darkness of that night I could see the blur of whiteness round my stockinged feet as the heavy, wind-driven drops spattered on the iron decks and rebounded ankle-high.

I took my time making my way forward. There was no hurry any more, and now that the worst was behind I had no mind to destroy it all or destroy us all by undue haste. I was a black shadow, at one with the blackness of the night, and no ghost was ever half so quiet. Once two patrolling guards passed me by, going aft; once I passed a couple huddled miserably in the lee of “A” accommodation deck, seeking what little shelter they could from that cold rain. Neither pair saw me, neither even suspected my presence, which was just as it should have been. The dog never catches the hare, for lunch is less important than life. I had no means of telling the time, but at least twenty minutes must have passed before I once more found myself outside the wireless office. Every major event in the past three days, right from the very first, had in some way or other stemmed from that wireless office: it seemed only fitting that it should also be the scene of the playing of the last card left in my hand.

The padlock was through the hasp and it was locked. That meant there was no one inside. I retreated to the shelter of the nearest boat and settled down to wait. The fact that there was no one in there didn’t mean that there wasn’t going to be someone there very soon. Tony Carreras had mentioned that their stooges on the Ticonderoga reported course and position every hour. Carlos, the man I’d killed, must have been waiting for just such a message, and if there was another report due through then it was a certainty that Carreras would have his other operator up to intercept it. At this penultimate state of the game he would be leaving nothing at all to chance. And, in the same state of the game, neither was I: the radio operator bursting in and finding me sitting in front of his transmitter was the last thing I could afford to have happen.

The rain drummed pitilessly on my bent back. I couldn’t get any wetter than I was, but I could get colder. I got colder, very cold indeed, and within fifteen minutes I was shivering constantly. Twice guards padded softly by Carreras was certainly taking no chances that night and twice I made sure — was certain that they must find me, so violent was my shivering that I had to clamp my sleeve between my teeth to prevent the chattering from betraying me. But on both occasions the guards passed by, oblivious. The shivering became even worse. Would that damned radio operator never come? or had I outsmarted myself, had I double-guessed and double-guessed wrongly? perhaps the radio operator wasn’t going to come at all? I had been silting on a coiled lifeboat fall and now I rose to my feet, irresolute. How long would I have to wait there before I would be convinced that he wasn’t going to come?

Or maybe he wasn’t due for another hour yet, or more? Wherein lay the greater danger risking going into the wireless office now with the ever-present possibility of being discovered and trapped in there, or waiting an hour, maybe two hours, before making my move, by which time it would almost certainly be too late anyway? better a chance of failure, I thought, than the near certainty of it, and now that I’d left number four hold the only life which would be lost through my mistakes would be my own. Now, I thought, I’ll do it now. I took three silent steps, then no more. The radio operator had arrived. I took three silent steps back.

The click of a key turning in the padlock, the faint creak of the door, the metallic sound of it shutting, a faint gleam of light behind the curtained window. Our friend preparing to receive, I thought. He wouldn’t stay long, that was a safe enough guess, just long enough to take down the latest details of course and speed of the Ticonderoga. Unless the weather was radically different to the northeast it was most unlikely that the Ticonderoga could have fixed its position that night and take it up to Carreras on the bridge. I presumed that Carreras would still be there; it would be entirely out of keeping with the man if, in those last few crucial hours, he didn’t remain on the bridge and take personal charge of the entire operation as he had done throughout. I could just see him accepting the sheet of figures with the latest details of the Ticonderoga’s progress, smiling his smile of cold satisfaction, making his calculations on the chart…