Jack Higgins - Thunder Point

Something knocked him to one side with tremendous force, he bounced around as one of the sharks brushed past. It turned and started in again and Carney, above him, a hand on the line, jabbed the power-head. There was an explosion, the shark twisted away, leaving a trail of blood.

The other two sharks circled it, then one went in, jaws open. Carney tugged at Dillon’s arm and started up the line. About halfway up Dillon looked down. The third shark had joined in now, tearing at the wounded one, blood in the water like a cloud. Dillon didn’t look back after that, surfaced at the dive platform beside Carney and hauled himself on board, tank and all.

He sat on deck, laughing shakily. “Does that happen often?”

“There’s a first time for everything.” Carney took his tank off. “Nobody tried to do that to me before.” He turned to Ferguson. “Presumably that was the launch? I expect the bastard came in on low power, then went up to full speed at the last minute.”

“That’s it exactly. By the time I got to the AK they were away,” Ferguson said.

Carney dried himself and put on a tee-shirt. “I’d sure like to know how they managed to follow us though, especially in this rain and mist.”

He went and hauled in the anchor and Dillon said, “I should have told you, Brigadier, I have my ace-in-the-hole stowed under here. Maybe you could have got to it faster.”

He ran his hand under the instrument panel to find it and his fingers brushed against the bug. He detached it and held it out to Ferguson in the palm of his hand. “Well, now,” Ferguson said, “we’re into electronic wizardry, are we?”

“What in the hell have you got there?” Carney demanded as he came round from the prow.

Dillon held it out. “Stuck under the instrument panel on a magnet. We’ve been bugged, my old son, no wonder they were able to keep track of us so easily. They probably did the same thing to Privateer in case we used that.”

“But she stayed close inshore this morning.”

“Exactly, otherwise they might have got confused.”

Carney shook his head. “You know I’m really going to have to do something about these people,” and he went up the ladder to the flying bridge.

On the way back to St. John there was a break in the weather, another rain squall sweeping across the water. The launch was well ahead of it, pulled in beside the Maria Blanco , and Serra and Algaro went up the ladder and found Santiago in the stern under the awning.

“You look pleased with yourself,” he said to Algaro. “Have you been killing people again?”

“I hope so.” Algaro related the morning’s events.

When he finished, Santiago shook his head. “I doubt whether Dillon sustained any lasting damage, this Carney man knows his business too well.” He sighed. “We’re wasting our time. There’s nothing to be done until the girl returns. We’ll run over to Samson Cay, I’m tired of this place. How long will it take, Serra?”

“Two hours, Señor, maybe less. There’s a squall out there off Pillsbury Sound, but it’s only temporary.”

“Good, we’ll leave at once. Let Prieto know we’re coming.” Serra turned away and Santiago said, “Oh, and by the way, phone up one of your fishermen friends in Cruz Bay. I want to know the instant that girl turns up.”

The squall was quite ferocious, driving rain before it in a heavy curtain, but having a curious smoothing effect on the surface of the sea. Carney switched off the engines and came down the ladder and joined Ferguson and Dillon in the deckhouse.

“Best to ride this out. It won’t last long.” He grinned. “Normally I wouldn’t carry alcohol, but this being a private charter.”

He opened the plastic icebox and came up with three cans of beer. “Accepted gratefully.” Ferguson pulled the tab and drank some down. “God, but that’s good.”

“There are times when an ice-cold beer is the only thing,” Carney said. “Once in Vietnam I was in a unit that got mortared real bad. In fact, I’ve still got fragments in both arms and legs too small to be worth fishing out. I sat on a box in the rain, eating a sandwich while a Corpsman stitched me up and he was out of morphine. I was so glad to be alive I didn’t feel a thing. Then someone gave me a can of beer, warm beer, mind you.”

“But nothing ever tasted as good?” Dillon said.

“Until the smoke cleared and I saw a guy sitting against a tree with both legs gone.” Carney shook his head. “God, how I came to hate that war. After my time I went to Georgia State on the Marines. When Nixon came and the police turned up to beat up the antiwar demonstrators all us veterans wore white tee-shirts with our medals pinned to them to shame them.”

He laughed and Ferguson said, “The Hook in Korea was just like that. More bodies than you could count, absolute hell, and you ended up wondering what you were doing there.”

“Heidegger once said that for authentic living what is necessary is the resolute confrontation of death,” Dillon told them.

Carney laughed harshly. “I know the works of Heidegger, I took a Bachelor of Philosophy degree at Georgia State and I’ll tell you this. I bet Heidegger was seated at his desk in the study when he wrote that.”

Ferguson laughed. “Well said.”

“Anyway, Dillon, what do you know about it? Which was your war?” Carney asked.

Dillon said calmly, “I’ve been at war all my life.” He stood up, lit a cigarette and went up the ladder to the flying bridge.

Carney said, “Hey, wait a minute, Brigadier, that discussion we had about the Irish army last night at Jenny’s Place when I made a remark about the IRA? Is that what he is, one of those gunmen you read about?”

“That’s what he used to be, though they like to call themselves soldiers of the Irish Republican Army. His father was killed accidentally in crossfire by British soldiers in Belfast when he was quite young so he joined the glorious cause.”

“And now?”

“I get the impression that his sympathy for the glorious cause of the IRA has dwindled somewhat. Let’s be polite and say he’s become a kind of mercenary and leave it at that.”

“I’d say that’s a waste of a good man.”

“It’s his life,” Ferguson said.

“I suppose so.” Carney stood up. “Clearing now. We’d better go.”

He went up the ladder to the flying bridge. Dillon didn’t say a word, simply sat there in the swivel chair smoking, and Carney switched on the engines and took the Sea Raider in toward St. John.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that Carney realized that the motor yacht bearing down on them was the Maria Blanco . “Well, damn me,” he said. “Our dear old friend Santiago. They must be moving on to Samson Cay.”

Ferguson climbed the ladder to the flying bridge to join them and Carney took the Sea Raider in so close that they could see Santiago in the stern with Algaro.

Carney leaned over the rail and called, “Have a nice day,” and Ferguson lifted his Panama.

Santiago raised his glass to them and said to Algaro, “What did I tell you, you fool. The sharks probably came off worst.”

At that moment Serra came along from the radio room and handed him the portable phone. “A call from London, Señor, Sir Francis.”

“Francis,” Santiago said. “How are you?”

“I was wondering if you’d had any breakthrough yet?”

“No, but there’s no need to worry, everything is under control.”

“One thing has just occurred to me. Can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before. The caretakers of the old hotel at Samson Cay during the war, they were a black couple from Tortola, May and Joseph Jackson. She died years ago, but he’s still around. About seventy-two, I think. Last time I saw him he was running a taxi on the Cay.”