Desmond Bagley - The Freedom Trap

I looked up and saw the ensign-staff silhouetted against the sky and used that to mark the position of the rail. Holding a coil of the rope I threw up my grapnel so it went over the rail. There was a soft thud as it landed on the deck and, as I drew the line back, I hoped it would hold. It did; it caught on the rail and a steady pull told me it would be not unreasonable to climb the rope.

I bent down and whispered, ‘Well, this is it. I may come back with Slade or I may not. I may come over the side in a bloody hurry so stick around to fish me out of the drink.’ I paused. ‘If I don’t come back then you’re on your own and the best of British luck to you.’

I swarmed up the rope and managed to hook my arm round the ensign-staff, taking the strain off the shark hook. The pistol thrust into the waist of my trousers didn’t help much; as I twisted like a contortionist to get a foot on deck the muzzle dug into my groin agonizingly and I was thankful that I’d made sure there wasn’t a bullet in front of the firing pin.

I made it at last and in silence. At least nobody took a shot at me as I looked back at the water. Alison was nowhere to be seen and there was just a suspicious looking ripple where no ripple should have been. I stayed there quietly for a moment and strained my ears listening to the loud silence.

If there was a man, on watch he was being quiet in his watching. I hazarded a guess that anyone on watch would stay up forward, perhaps in the wheelhouse or comfortably in the dining saloon. To get to the stern cabins I didn’t have to go forward; the entrance to the cabin deck was by a staircase in the deck lounge, and the door to the lounge was just in front of me if the ship plans I had studied were correct.

I took out a pen-light and risked a flash. It was lucky I did so because the deck immediately in front of me was cluttered with diver’s gear — I could have made a Godawful clatter if I hadn’t seen that. I managed to navigate the booby traps safely until I got to the deck lounge door and was thankful to find it unlocked; which was just as expected because who locks doors on a ship?

The lounge was in darkness but I saw light gleaming through a glass-panelled door on the starboard side. There was just enough light spilling through to illumine the hazards of furniture so I stepped over to look through the door and I froze as I saw movement at the end of a long passage. A man came out of the dining saloon and turned into the galley and out of sight. I opened the door gently and listened; there was the slam of something heavy followed by the clink of crockery. The man on watch was enlivening the night hours by raiding the refrigerator, which suited me very well.

I crossed the lounge again and went below to the cabin deck. There were three cabins down there, all for guests. Wheeler’s master cabin was ‘midships’, the other side of the engine room, so I didn’t have to worry about him. The problem that faced me was if he had any guests, apart from Slade, occupying any of the three guest cabins.

The cabin that had been curtained in broad daylight at Gibraltar was the big stern cabin, and that was my first objective. This time the door was locked, and this raised my hopes because Slade would certainly be kept under lock and key. I inspected the lock with a guarded flash of the light. It wasn’t much of a problem; no one installs Chubb triple-throw locks on a cabin door and I could have opened one of those if I had to — it would have taken longer, that’s all.

As it was I was inside the cabin inside two minutes and with the door locked again behind me. I heard the heavy breathing of a sleeping man and flicked my light towards the port side, hoping to God it was Slade. If it wasn’t I was well and truly up that gum tree I had shown Mackintosh.

I needn’t have worried because it was Slade all right and I cheered internally at the sight of that heavy face with the slightly yellowish skin. I took the gun from my waist and pushed a bullet up the spout. At the metallic sound Slade stirred and moaned slightly in his sleep. I stepped forward and, keeping the light on him, I pressed gently with my finger at the corner of his jaw just below the ear. It’s the best way to awaken a man quietly.

He moaned again and his eyelids flickered open, and he screwed up his eyes at the sudden flood of light. I moved the pen-light so that it illumined the gun I held. ‘If you shout it’ll be the last sound you make on earth,’ I said quietly.

He shuddered violently and his adam’s apple bobbed convulsively as he swallowed. At last he managed to whisper, ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Your old pal, Rearden,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to take you home.’

It took some time to sink in, and then he said, ‘You’re mad.’

‘Probably,’ I admitted. ‘Anyone who wants to save your life must be mad.’

He was getting over the shock. The blood was returning to his face and the self-possession to his soul — if he had one. ‘How did you get here?’ he demanded.

I let the light wander to the nearest port. It wasn’t curtained, after all; plates of sheet metal had been roughly welded over the oval scuttles so that it was absolutely impossible for Slade to see outside — more security expertise on the part of the Scarperers. I grinned at Slade, and asked softly, ‘Where is here?’

‘Why — on board this ship,’ he said, but his voice was uncertain.

‘I’ve been following you.’ I watched with interest as his eyes shifted sideways to look at a bell-push by the side of his berth, and I hefted the gun so that it came into prominence again. ‘I wouldn’t,’ I warned. ‘Not if you value your health.’

‘Who are you?’ he whispered.

‘I suppose you could say that I’m in the same business as yourself, but in the other corner. I’m in counter-espionage.’

The breath came from him in a long, wavering sigh. ‘The executioner,’ he said flatly. He nodded towards the gun. ‘You won’t get away with it. You have no silencer. Kill me with that thing and you’re dead, too.’

I’m expendable,’ I said lightly, and hoped I wouldn’t have to make that statement stick. ‘Use your brains, Slade. I could have slid into this cabin and cut your throat in your sleep. It would have been messy, but silent. A better way would have been to stick a steel knitting needle through the nape of your neck and into the medulla oblongata — there’s not much blood. The fact that we’re talking now means I want to take you out alive.’

He frowned slightly and I could almost see the wheels spinning as he thought it out. I said, ‘But don’t have any misconceptions. I either take you out alive or you stay here dead. It’s your choice.’

He had recovered enough to smile slightly. ‘You’re taking a big chance. You can’t keep me under the gun all the time. I could win yet.’

‘You won’t want to,’ I said. ‘Not when you’ve heard what I have to say. My guess is that you were taken from that room we shared, given a shot of dope, and woke up in this cabin where you’ve been ever since. Where do you think you are?’

That set the wheels going round again, but to no effect. At last he said, ‘There’s been no temperature change, so I couldn’t have been taken very much north or south.’

‘This hooker has a very efficient air-conditioning plant,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t know the difference. Do you like Chinese food?’

The switch confused him. ‘What the hell! I can take it or leave it.’

‘Have you had any lately?’

He was bemused. ‘Why, yes — only yesterday I... ’

I cut in. ‘The ship has a Chinese cook. Do you know whose ship it is?’ He shook his head in silence, and I said, ‘It belongs to a man called Wheeler, a British MP. I take it you haven’t seen him.’