Jack Higgins - Thunder Point

“It’s of no consequence,” Ferguson said. “We can walk there in five or six minutes. Good night to you. Excellent meal,” and he went down the steps.

It was Carney who noticed the station wagon just as they reached the airstrip. “What’s he doing over there?” he said and called, “Jackson?”

There was no reply. They walked across and saw the body at once. Dillon got down on his knees and got as close as he could. He stood up, brushing his clothes. “He’s been dead for some time.”

“The poor bastard,” Carney said. “The jack must have toppled over.”

“A remarkable coincidence,” Ferguson said.

“Exactly.” Dillon nodded. “He tells us all about Francis Pamer and bingo, he’s dead.”

“Just a minute,” Carney put in. “I mean, if Santiago knew about the old boy’s existence, why leave it till now? I’d have thought he’d have got rid of him a lot earlier than this.”

“But not if he didn’t realize he existed,” Ferguson said.

Dillon nodded. “Until somebody told him, somebody who’s been feeding all the other information he needed.”

“You mean, this guy Pamer?” Carney asked.

“Yes, isn’t it perfectly dreadful,” Ferguson said. “Just shows you you can’t trust anyone these days. Now let’s get out of here.”

He and Carney got in the rear seats and strapped themselves in. Dillon got a torch from the map compartment and did an external inspection. He came back, climbed into the pilot’s seat and closed the door. “Everything looks all right.”

“I don’t think he’ll want to kill us yet,” Ferguson said. “All the other little pranks have been aggravation, but he still needs us to hopefully lead him to that U-boat, so let’s get moving, there’s a good fellow, Dillon.”

Dillon switched on, the engine roared into life, the propeller turned. He carefully checked the illuminated dials on the instrument panel. “Fuel, oil pressure.” He recited the litany. “Looks good to me. Here we go.”

He took the Cessna down the runway and lifted into the night, turning out to sea.

It was a magnificent night, stars glittering in the sky, the sea and the islands below bathed in the hard white light of the full moon. St. John loomed before them. They crossed Ram Head, moving along the southern coast, and it happened, the engine missed a beat, coughed and spluttered.

“What is it?” Ferguson demanded.

“I don’t know,” Dillon said and then checked the instruments and saw what had happened to the oil pressure.

“We’ve got problems,” he said. “Get your life jackets on.”

Carney got the Brigadier’s out and helped him into it. “But surely the whole point of these things is that you don’t have to crash, you can land on the sea,” Ferguson said.

“That’s the theory,” Dillon told him and the engine died totally and the propeller stopped.

They were at nine hundred feet and he took the plane down in a steep dive. “Reef Bay dead ahead,” Carney said.

“Right, now this is how it goes,” Dillon told them. “If we’re lucky, we’ll simply glide down and land on the water. If the waves are too much we might start to tip, so bail out straightaway. How deep is it down there, Carney?”

“Around seven fathoms close in.”

“Right, there’s a third alternative, Brigadier, and that’s going straight under.”

“You’ve just made my night,” Ferguson told him.

“If that happens, trust Carney, he’ll see to you, but on no account waste time trying to open the door on your way down. It’ll just stay closed until we’ve settled and enough water finds its way inside and equalizes the pressure.”

“Thanks very much,” Ferguson said.

“Right, here we go.”

The surface of the bay was very close now and it didn’t look too rough. Dillon dropped the Cessna in for what seemed like a perfect landing and something went wrong straightaway. The plane lurched forward sluggishly, not handling at all, then tipped and plunged beneath the surface nose-down.

The water was like black glass, they were already totally submerged and descending, still plenty of air in the cabin, the lights gleaming on the instrument panel. Dillon felt the water rising up over his ankles and suddenly it was waist deep and the instrument panel lights went out.

“Christ almighty!” Ferguson cried.

Carney said, “I’ve unbuckled your belt. Be ready to go any second now.”

The Cessna, still nose-down, touched at that moment a patch of clear sand at the bottom of the bay, lifted a little, then settled to one side, the tip of the port wing braced against a coral ridge. The rays of the full moon drifting down through the water created an astonishing amount of light and Dillon, looking out through the cockpit window as the water level reached his neck, was surprised at how far he could see.

He heard Carney say, “Big breath, Brigadier, I’m opening the door now. Just slide out through and we’ll go up together.”

Dillon took a deep breath himself and as the water passed over his head, opened his door, reached for the wing strut and pulled himself out. He turned, still hanging on the strut, saw Carney clutching at the Brigadier’s sleeve, kicking away from the wing, and then they started up.

It was usually argued that if you went up too fast and didn’t expel air slowly on the way there was a danger of rupturing the lungs, but in a situation like this there was no time for niceties and Dillon floated up, the rays of moonlight filtering down through the clear water, aware of Carney and the Brigadier to the left and above him. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, curiously dreamlike, and then he broke through to the surface and took a deep lungful of salt air.

Carney and Ferguson floated a few yards away. Dillon swam toward them. “Are you all right?”

“Dillon.” Ferguson was gasping for breath. “I owe you dinner. I owe you both a dinner.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dillon said. “You can take me to the Garrick again.”

“Anywhere you want. Now do you think it’s possible we could get the hell out of here?”

They turned and swam toward the beach, Carney and Dillon on either side of the older man. They staggered out of the water together and sat on the sand recovering.

Carney said, “There’s a house not too far from here. I know the people well. They’ll run us into town.”

“And the plane?” Ferguson asked.

“There’s a good salvage outfit in St. Thomas. I’ll phone the boss at home tonight. They’ll probably get over first thing in the morning. They’ve got a recovery boat with a crane that’ll lift that baby straight off the bottom.” He turned to Dillon. “What went wrong?”

“The oil pressure went haywire and that killed the engine.”

“I must say your landing left much to be desired,” Ferguson said and stood up wearily.

“It was a good landing,” Dillon said. “Things only went sour at the very last moment and there has to be a reason for that. I mean, one thing going wrong is unfortunate, two is highly suspicious.”

“It’ll be interesting to see what those salvage people find,” Carney commented.

As they started across the beach, Dillon said, “Remember when I was checking the plane back at Samson, Brigadier, and you said you didn’t think he’d want to kill us yet?”

“So?” Ferguson said. “What’s your point?”

“Well I think he just tried.”

The man Carney knew at the house nearby got his truck out and ran them down to Mongoose, where they went their separate ways, Carney promising to handle the salvaging of the plane and to report back to them in the morning.

Back at the cottage at Caneel Dillon had a hot shower, standing under it for quite some time thinking about things. Finally, he poured himself a glass of champagne and went and stood on the terrace in the warm night.