Jack Higgins - Thunder Point

“You could say that. I’ve got it, Francis, right here on my desk, Bormann’s briefcase, and Korvettenkapitän Paul Friemel was right. The Reichsleiter wasn’t just shooting his mouth off while drunk. It’s all here, Francis. Hitler’s order to him, details of numbered bank accounts, the Windsor Protocol. Now there’s an impressive-looking document. If they forged it, I can only say they did a good job.”

“My God!” Pamer said.

“And the Blue Book, Francis, absolutely fascinating stuff. Such famous names and a neat little background paragraph for each. Here’s an interesting one. I’ll read it to you. Major, Sir Joseph Pamer, Military Cross, Member of Parliament, Hatherley Court, Hampshire, an associate of Sir Oswald Mosley, politically sound, totally committed to the cause of National Socialism.”

“No.” Pamer groaned and there was sudden sweat on his face. “I can’t believe it.”

“I wonder what your local Conservative Association would make of that? Still, all’s well that ends well, as they say. A good thing I’ve got it and no one else.”

“You’ll destroy it of course?” Pamer said. “I mean, you’ll destroy the whole bloody lot?”

“Leave it to me, Francis, I’ll see to everything,” Santiago said. “Just like I always do. I’ll be in touch soon.”

He put down the phone and started to laugh, was still laughing when Captain Serra came in. “Have you any orders, Señor?”

Santiago looked at his watch. It was just after seven. “Yes, I’ll go ashore for a couple of hours and eat at the restaurant.”

“Very well, Señor.”

“And make sure the deck is patrolled tonight, Serra, just in case our friends decide to pay us a visit.”

“I don’t think we need worry, Señor, they’d have trouble getting close to us without being spotted, but we’ll take every precaution.”

“Good, make the launch ready, I’ll be with you in a moment,” and Santiago went into the bedroom, taking the briefcase with him.

Sea Raider crept to the west side of Samson Cay, round the point from the resort and the main anchorage. Carney switched off the engines, came down the ladder as Dillon went in to the prow and dropped the anchor.

“Shunt Bay they call this,” Carney said. “I’ve been here before, a long time ago. Only four or five fathoms, clear sand bottom. You can’t get down to it because of the cliffs so when guests want to swim here they bring them round from the resort by boat. We’ll be safe here at this time of night.”

Ferguson checked his watch. “Ten o’clock. What time will you go?”

“Maybe another hour. I’ll see.” Dillon went into the deckhouse, opened the holdall and took out the AK47 assault rifle and passed it to Ferguson. “Just in case.”

“Let’s hope not.” Ferguson put it on the bench.

Dillon took the Walther from the holdall, checked it and put it in the dive bag with the Carswell silencer. Then he put in what was left of the Semtex and a couple of detonating fuses, the thirty-minute ones.

“You really are going to war,” Ferguson said.

“You better believe it.” Dillon slipped the night sight into the bag also.

Carney said, “I’ll take you as close as I can in the inflatable, and hope to see you on the way back.”

“Fine.” Dillon smiled. “Break out the thermos, Brigadier, and we’ll have some coffee and then it’s action stations.”

Santiago had enjoyed an excellent meal, starting with caviar, followed by grilled filet mignon with artichoke hearts, washed down by a bottle of Chateau Palmer 1966. Deliberate self-indulgence because he felt on top of the world. He liked things to go well and the Bormann affair had gone very well indeed. It was like a wonderful game. The information contained in the documents was so startling that the possibilities were endless.

He asked for a cigar, Cuban, of course, just like the old days before that madman Castro had ruined everything. Prieto brought him a Romeo and Julietta, trimmed the end and warmed it for him.

“The meal, it was satisfactory, Señor Santiago?”

“The meal, it was bloody marvelous, Prieto.” Santiago patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He stood up, picked up the Bormann briefcase from the floor beside the table and walked to the door where Algaro was waiting. “We’ll go back to the ship now, Algaro.”

“As you say, Señor.”

Santiago went down the steps and walked along the dock to the launch, savouring the night, the scent of his cigar. Yes, life could really be very good.

Carney took the inflatable round the point, the outboard motor throttled down, the noise of it a murmur in the night. There were yachts in the bay scattered here and there and a few smaller craft. Maria Blanco , anchored three hundred yards out, was by far the largest.

Carney killed the engine, took a couple of short wooden oars from the bottom of the boat and fitted them into the rowlocks. “Manpower the rest of the way,” he said. “The way I see it and with those other boats around, I can get you maybe fifty yards away without being spotted.”

“That’s fine.”

Dillon was already wearing his jacket and tank and a black nylon diving cowl Carney had found him. He took the Walther from his dive bag, screwed the Carswell silencer into place and slipped the weapon inside his jacket.

“You’d better pray you don’t get a misfire,” Carney said as he rowed. “Water does funny things to guns. I learned that in Vietnam in those damn paddy fields.”

“No problem with a Walther, it’s a Rolls-Royce,” Dillon said.

They couldn’t see each other, their faces a pale blur in the darkness. Carney said, “You actually enjoy this kind of thing?”

“I’m not too sure if enjoy is the right word exactly.”

“I knew guys in Vietnam like that, Special Forces mainly. They kept drawing these hard assignments and then a strange thing happened. They ended up wanting more. Couldn’t get enough. Is that how you feel, Dillon?”

“There’s a poem by Browning,” Dillon told him. “Something about our interest being on the dangerous edge of things. When I was young and foolish in those early days with the IRA and the SAS chasing the hell out of me all over South Armagh, I also discovered a funny thing. I loved it more than anything I’d ever known. I lived more in a day, really lived, than in a year back in London.”

“I understand that,” Carney said. “It’s like being on some sort of drug, but it can only end one way. On your back in the gutter in some Belfast street.”

“Oh, you’ve no need to worry about that,” Dillon told him. “Those days are over. I’ll never go back to that.”

Carney paused, sniffing. “I think I can smell cigar smoke.”

They floated there in the darkness and the launch emerged on the other side of a couple of yachts and moved to the bottom of the Maria Blanco’ s steel stairway under the light. Serra was on deck looking over. Guerra hurried down to take the line and tied up and Santiago went up to the deck followed by Algaro.

“Looks like he’s carrying the briefcase with him,” Carney said.

Dillon got the night sight from his dive bag and focused it. “You’re right. He’s probably afraid to let it out of his sight.”

“What now?” Carney said.

“We’ll hang on for a little while, give them a chance to settle down.”

Santiago and Serra descended from the bridge to the main deck. Guerra and Solona stood at the bottom of the ladder, each armed with an M16 rifle. Algaro stood by the rail.

“Two hours on and four off. We’ll rotate during the night and we’ll leave the security lights on.”

“That seems more than adequate. We might as well turn in now,” Santiago said. “Good night, Captain.”