Geoffrey Jenkins - Hunter Killer

Our misery was made worse by the spray, salt and rain ' which percolated through the cutter's smashed planking over our heads. Boz carefully moved the DATICO gear, the vu firing radio and space-suits to the driest spots. Mac buried the jerrycans of petrol in the sand to deaden the smell of fumes. Since the tank of the cutter's auxiliary had been empty when we left Semittante-the reason why I had obtained the jerrycans from Mac-there was no need for us to worry about its standing upside down. We tried unavailingly to stanch the planking on the inside with our oilskins. Our mouths were raw with blown sand.

The hut, Adele had told me aboard Semittante, had been built by an eighteenth-century freebooter who had eloped with his mistress from Mauritius and been wrecked on LoveApple Crossing. They had waited fifteen years for a ship. It never came. She died. Her grave lay outside.

Previous cyclones had reduced the outlying parts to rubble, but the centre remained, made of substantial blocks of fourfoot coral. We could not stand up against the force of the wind; we could only crawl behind the shelter of the ruined walls. Whenever I did so, either Mac or Peace accompanied me, while the other watched Adele. We were evidently to be allowed no opportunity of telling what we knew. The rest of the island except the high-lying point where we were was completely submerged. On the second night, Adele lay in my arms in terror as the seas started to break into the shelter. MKG, his face caked with salt and stubble and his eyes red with sand, watched as the ocean reached out, sought our deaths, but could not quite touch us. A deep gloom fell over the launch team. We had eluded our pursuers, but the cost was plain: the stove-in cutter would never float again. I consoled myself with that thought in making bearable the secret inside the, which seemed to burn like fire whenever I looked across at the fine-drawn, tired features of the Vice-President. Radio reception was impossible with the storm and the blanketing effect of the walls and the boat. We could not have heard it, anyway.

Two days were left till the launch.

One afternoon, after I had lost count of time, something awoke me. Adele, her thin sweater stained with dried-out sea-water and her pants shrunk above her ankles, lay against my shoulder, the softness all gone from her fine, bleached hair. Andre's back was instinctively to the storm. Peace, his face gaunt, stubbled and dirty, sat propped up watching, the top of his black turtle-necked sweater caked with white salt. Mac lay sleeping on our other side. MKG, encased in an oilskin to try and keep out the file of the sand, slept under the decking aft with Boz, Trevor-Davis and the other scientists. The sand began its attrition the moment I opened my eyes on the grey, sleep-drugged, wet group-alive, but little more. We had eked out an existence on Andres sack of salted seabirds, although I wanted to gag every time I smelt one. Fire was out of the question; even the acetylene lamp would not stay alight, so we gave it up and lay in a twilight, uncaring state. Now, something touched my sailor's sense. Something, somewhere, was amiss.

The grating had stopped screaming.

I heard-heard-Adele's breathing against my neck. I lifted my head to speak to her, but the sand locked my tongue. Unceremoniously, I spat. The wind's dropped.'

My voice sounded like the crash of a shot in the confined space. Peace's eyes were alight. MKG and Boz started up, Boz letting out an oath as his head hit the planking above. By God!' exclaimed Peace. The salt caked the muscles of his face. Here-Mac MKG Andre!'

The others blinked unbelievingly and Adele pushed herself upright to a sitting position. Peace crawled across to MKG and clapped him on the shoulder. Let's get out of here we've still got today and tomorrow before the launch-'

MKG grinned back uncertainly. Let's get this damn' thing off our backs.'

Still acting like automatons, we threw our shoulders under the cutter and tipped her over. We got shakily to our. feet, staring over the low wall which had saved us.

Love-Apple Crossing had been sandpapered clean, except for a few snapped-off palm-tree trunks. Acres of white spume coated the lagoon and the shore. A sodden sea-bird lay snarled in the flogging-grating, pulped and smashed. The sun broke through as we stood in silent awe at the spectacle of devastation.

Peace said, ' If the cyclone is over at Love-Apple Crossing, it' s been finished in Tyler's area since last night.'

MKG said, The radio-'

The batteries are failing,' he said curtly. ' It will be used for operational messages only. There will be no time to listen to newscasts when we might miss a vital signal from either Tyler or Thornton. Only Adele operates the radio.'

Aw, gee,' objected Pete Allingham good-naturedly. I was looking forward to a little cha-cha-cha to brighten this tropical isle of beauty.'

There'll be enough music of another kind to face,' said

Peace cryptically.

Adele, anxious to steer the conversation away from the subject of the radio, said, Look, all the bois manioc has been washed away!'

Andre spoke. Andre says,' she translated, it is like the great cyclone of 1958-the landmarks are all gone.'

That may make it tougher for Tyler's men,' I added.

From a thousand feet up Love-Apple Crossing now probably looks more like a reef than an island,' Peace reflected. Except,' remarked Adele, indicating the grating and the hut, for this.'

That coat of spume will hide Little Bear if they come over the lagoon,' said MKG, screwing up his eyes.

Unless the boat is fixed, we can forget about the whole thing,' Boz Blair said gloomily.

MKG turned to Peace. Why don't we see if we can fix that cutter? You and Andre go take a look and the rest of us will scout for wood.'

Peace nodded reluctantly. I'll need John as well, and I want Mac to check the engine and Adele to see what the hunter-killers are up to.' Once again we were to be segregated from MKG. If there's any news of significance…' began MKG, but

Peace cut in quickly, Of course, Adele will note it down and we'll let you know. But I'm not going to waste precious power on hearing what Russia is up to, or whether Mrs Jones from Cardiff has murdered her six children.'

MKG looked unhappy. We've been completely out of touch for four days now, Commander.'

The sooner we can find some timber, the better for Little

Bear's chances,' he replied. I said, Adele can make a note of any significant news.'

Come on, fellers!' Pete Allingham gave a whoop and jumped over the wall. The others followed, grinning like schoolboys. Their carefree air seemed to drive away MKG's dark thoughts. He put his hand on the coral wall to vault over it, then he, too, grinned and said, Think the astronaut of the day after tomorrow had better get back into training.

I'll trot round the beach a couple of times.' He followed the others at an easy lope.

Peace went back into the hut and fetched the radio. This was the small set we had used in the cutter before. The VLF set was purely for firing Little Bear and could not be used for normal reception.

As Peace put it down, I asked, ' How long are you going to continue with this lie?'

His voice was controlled, but the emotion behind it was tight-packed. For as long as I think necessary,' he replied. Don't you see how this enhances the value of the spaceshot? MKG may be the first President of the United States to step into space.'

You're perpetuating the biggest fraud in history,' Adele protested. It was bad enough when the President was fully in control of the situation, but now.

I looked at the hard eyes, alive with dedication to Little Bear. I knew in my heart that Peace would stop at nothing. I had noticed his kinship with the DNI before; it was ablaze in his face now.