Geoffrey Jenkins - Hunter Killer

I told them about the man's disappearance from the engineroom. Peace pursed his lips. No other identification?'

' Nothing except-' I nodded at the weapon-' that.'

The DNI sniffed the barrel. High-velocity powder. Been fired recently, too. Undoubtedly-' He stopped, looking at Peace for confirmation.

Hand-load,' he replied. Therefore probably American.

Bears out what John says about the CIA marks.'

The tense silence fell again. I had not yet recovered from the shock of Peace's return. I remembered the die-cut lettering

on the coffin '.

It seems to me far too many people were on the inside of this hoax-the C-in-C, for example.'

Peace became uneasy. What makes you say that, John?'

I told them about the Cammell-Laird nameplate. The DNI frowned. Too many loose ends, it seems, Geoffrey-especially when a man like John smells a rat. No, the C-in-C was not in our confidence.'

Nor am I,' I retorted.

' Touche,' replied the DNI, inclining his head. ' The coffin was built specially for the job, in England. It was-ahinsinuated in the right place at the right time'

I looked at the three. It was clear that Mam'zelle Adele knew all about it, too. I remembered the strange undertones in the DNI'S voice earlier.

You're not a couple of schoolboys to play a practical joke

– let's take it from there,' I snapped.

Mam'zelle Adele started to withdraw. My dinner is spoiling,' she excused herself.

The DNI did not give me the chance for further questions when, she had gone. He said to Peace, Was the pirogue in the right place, Geoffrey? No other leaks? No one in sight?'

We had an island boat waiting in a cove at Recif for me,'

Peace explained to me. I paddled here under cover of darkness. The coffin had an ejector device. I pulled the chain and it shot me clear. There wasn't anyone around.

How deep were you?' I asked.

Sixty, seventy feet.'

It seemed fishy to me that the C-in-C refused me a ride in the helicopter.'

He had his orders,' replied the DNI in his precise voice. Peace went on, I had to get out tonight. Tomorrow there was a chance that someone might have taken a boat o'er the grave where our hero was buried. They would have seen the coffin half-submerged.

I took the Colt from the DNI. The owner of this, for example.'

How much did he suspect?' Peace demanded.

' I didn't give him much of a chance. But we both heard the hiss of air escaping from the coffin. I don't like the idea of that coffin still floating around.'

The DNI shook his head. No. It was loaded with two explosive charges, one for Geoffrey's ejector seat, and the 38 other for a demolition charge. Geoffrey Peace is at the bottom of the sea, to the best of everyone's knowledge.'

Mam'zelle Adele came back. ' Dinner in ten minutes, whether you're changed or not changed.'

Her arrival broke the tension. Peace and the DNI went off. I stood silent, an avalanche of questions in my mind. Nossi Be rubbed himself softly and affectionately against me.

Adele said,, Another drink-John?'

Her eyes were level, unsmiling. I started to say yes, but stopped. Peace might drink whisky like that, but not me if I wanted to catch the 'undercurrents-there were plenty-of the DNI's words and Adele's.

She paused fractionally at my refusal, then picked up the elegant lemur and put him on the table. She was relaxed, easy. Come, my lovely one,' she said. ' Shake hands with our tough fellow-conspirator'

Nossi Be extended a jet-black paw. He was as much a creature of Limuria as Mam'zelle Adele-strange, lovely, sun-warmed, gentle. The creature's action momentarily stilled the tumult in my mind.

I scratched his chin. It's sheer magic.'

The eyes warmed above the high cheek-bones. Magic?'

Less than a fortnight ago I was sitting in an air-conditioned skyscraper office in Johannesburg,' I replied. My whole world revolved round NACCAM and its affairs. A touch of the button and-'

She smiled. A man under authority.'

I sounded a little' unreal to myself.

And now?' she prompted, when I fell silent.

Nossi Be,' I replied. Limuria. Mam'zelle Adele.'

' The languid charm of the islands,' she teased. Then that odd quality of light round her eyes dimmed. You underrate yourself,' she said quietly. I'd add, a man who half-kills another with a karate blow to the throat and is quite prepared to rough up a semi-conscious man to extort information from him. The chosen companion-in-arms of Commander

Geoffrey Peace.'

The suddenness of it took me aback. She picked up Nossi

134, who was grumbling under his breath.

There are things about you which also don't add up,' I said. You're French, for example, yet your English is impeccable.'

She knelt, putting Nossi Be on the floor, and looked up into my face. The V of her breasts under the slight cotton sent the blood into my ears.

I act as the DNI'S interpreter,' she replied evenly. He told you so himself. I speak Creole-well.'

But your English-'

She shrugged. I went to school in England. I learned my trade there.'

Trade?' I echoed, but she stood. up and turned away.

There were as many questions I wanted to ask her as I wanted to ask Peace and the DNI. Then, with an odd little gesture, she swung back and slipped her arm through mine and led me in to dinner.

Her dinner was a masterpiece, but my preoccupation prevented my enjoying it fully. The varra-varra was served with a beurre vert in tiny flat wicker baskets on a bed of fern-like langue de vache: the turtle steaks were sweated in butter with a thickish sauce of coconut flour flavoured with sherry. The wine was a favourite of Peace's, a superb South African Bellingham Grand CAI served in an ice-bucket' made from the famous double coconut-shells of the Seychelles.

Mam'zelle Adele sat at the head and the DNI at the foot. I faced Peace. We had just finished the varra-varra and I reached forward for the wine. The Colt fell, like a reminder, on the table. Mam'zelle Adele picked it up and handed it back to me.

The Colt Python's better,' she remarked. A sort of

Cadillac among hand-guns.

I saw Peace stiffen. He stared at her. His eyes were deadly cold and his mouth hard. The DNI caught the look. From that moment the meal seemed to go dead. The DNI's voice became more precise and he talked palaeontology. Peace was withdrawn. My conversation, I felt, fell flat. Mam'zelle Adele alone seemed unaffected, though she must have sensed the tension. She was gay, beautiful in her strange way as Nossi Be, who jumped on to her chair and curled his long tail round her neck in imitation of a fur. A frozen lemon sherbet rounded off the meal. We went back into the big room overlooking the harbour. Mam'zelle Adele brought coffee and cognac. The silence was intense.

The DNI swirled his Napoleon brandy round in its balloon glass. He said to me, ' You must be asking yourself what this is all about?'

His glance went over the rim of his glass to Peace, then to Mam'zelle Adele, and back to me. The prim voice was slightly defensive. I had to convince-ah-a number of people that Geoffrey Peace was dead.'

' Including John Garland,' I rejoined.

He went on, ' " The deep damnation of his taking off " had to be spectacular, something everyone could see for themselves.'

At least the CIA man had his doubts.'

Peace stirred in his deep cane chair. I wonder if you didn't overdo the business of the depth-charge mortar?'

There was that risk,' replied the DNI., But everyone had to see Geoffrey Peace go to his grave.'

It all looked very real and decorous on TV,' interjected Mam'zelle Adele.

Was the glass hatch a calculated part of the display?' I asked.

The DNI nodded. It was armour-plated, of course. Did you see anything publicly in the set-up to make you think it might be a fake?'