Desmond Bagley - Night Of Error

I crossed over to Taffy, who was helping Clare, and made to assist him. 'Looks as though this is an officer's party, Taffy. You'd better stay pretty quiet unless you want to join the rest of the boys – they're in the cable hold.'

He nodded. 'I'll be all right,' he said, and rubbed the back of his neck in a curious gesture as if he had been hurt there.

One of the men with rifles said in Spanish, 'No speaking! Be silent, all of you.' I pretended not to understand and started to speak, but this time the gesture that went with the repeated instruction was clear, and I subsided. I had time to assess the situation now.

Neither Ramirez nor Hadley had actually entered the saloon with us – there were only the two armed guards. We were seven, and in the cable hold there were possibly four men. Danny lay dead on the deck – I could barely make myself think about that – and three were, with any luck, still at large.

I decided to try a gamble.

'It will be all right to let us speak,' I said in the best Spanish I could muster. 'Mr Ramirez will permit it.'

They glanced at one another, and one of them shrugged. I had guessed correctly – they were so accustomed to being given orders that they would accept this one even from me, spoken as it had been with an air of authority. I turned to Geordie and told him what I had said in Spanish, with a wary eye to the rifles, but to my relief the guards gave no further sign of stopping us.

Geordie said, 'What happens now?'

'That's not up to us. Ramirez has the next move, and I don't like to think what that will be. We can't do much while they're around.' I jerked my head very slightly in the direction of the guards.

'Seven here, four below,' Geordie murmured. He had done the same arithmetic that I had. 'And three – somewhere.'

I looked at Campbell who seemed to be recovering. 'They're a murderous lot of bastards, aren't they?'

'I wish I'd given Jim his head when he wanted to blow a hole in Sirena,' said Geordie viciously.

'Wishful thinking won't help us now. What bothers me most is that I think that's what they may be going to do to us.'

He shook his head irritably and we all lapsed into silence. Clare came over to me, unbuttoned my shirt, and proceeded to patch up what luckily proved to be no more than a skin graze, though it hurt me more than the slight wound warranted. I thanked God that we kept small first aid kits all over the ship. As she worked I felt her hands shaking just a little, and I grasped them to try and reassure her, but it was a wretched attempt.

There was a lot of movement on deck and a great deal of shouting. Ian looked up at the deckhead speculatively. 'I'm thinking they're having trouble, skipper. There's a hell of a tangle at the masthead.'

That was all to the good. The longer they took to separate the two ships the more time we would have to think of a way out of this mess. I looked at the guards and felt very depressed. They looked as though they'd murder their grandmothers for two pesetas, and they'd certainly have no qualms about shooting us if we tried anything.

It was nearly an hour before anything happened. We used the time to some little advantage; all of us achieved better control over ourselves and Clare brought her father to a degree of coherence. He had a pretty bad concussion – his speech was affected, although his thinking seemed clear enough.

'Goddam sonsa-biches,' he said indistinctly. 'Why d'you quit, Mike?'

'Hadley had Clare,' I said briefly.

'Haaaah,' he sighed, and sagged back on the settee. 'I shoulda lef her behind,' he muttered. 'Never lissen to a woman, Mike.' He closed his eyes and turned his head away, and Clare and I exchanged worried looks across his head.

'It's my fault,' Geordie burst out. 'I should have kept the lads up to scratch. We should have kept watch. We shouldn't have been surprised like that.'

'Shut up, Geordie,' I said. 'That won't get us anywhere. There's no blame – not on us. We weren't looking for trouble.'

'Aye,' said Ian softly. 'Yon Ramirez has a lot to answer for.'

Presently there was a rattle at the door and one of the guards opened it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Taffy slide into a corner, half-hidden behind the settee, and then Ramirez came in, as elegant as ever. 'I trust you are comfortable,' he said solicitously.

'Let's not have any blarney,' I said bluntly. 'What's the next move, Ramirez?'

He smiled, and seemed to be enjoying a huge joke.

'Why, I have to introduce you to someone,' he said.

He leaned out of the door and beckoned to someone in the passage. He turned back to me and said, 'I told you once that you shouldn't make libellous statements that you couldn't substantiate.'

The man who came into the saloon was about my size, dark and heavily bearded. He carried my laboratory notebook in one hand.

Ramirez said, 'An old friend for you. I think you all know Mr Mark Trevelyan.'* 2*

As I looked into Mark's eyes I think my heart seemed to miss three full beats and I felt the hairs bristle on the nape of my neck. It isn't often that one is confronted by a dead man -especially a dead brother.

There was a sound as of a long-pent breath being released throughout the saloon and then the silence was total. Ian was the first to stir. 'That's the mannie I found…'

His voice tailed off as Mark switched his eyes to him. 'Ah, Ian Lewis. So it was you who clobbered me, was it?' he said pleasantly, and then his voice hardened. 'You'd have done better to stay in your Highland hovel, you Scots peasant.'

The whole pattern of events of the last few months had suddenly been shuffled like the pieces in a kaleidoscope, to present an entirely new picture. It was no wonder that Ian hadn't recognised the bearded man he found on our raid on Sirena; he had last seen Mark as a boy. I might have recognised him, but I hadn't taken the trouble to look. We weren't looking for a dead man that night in Nuku'alofa.

I looked round at the others. Their expressions were a mixture of amazement and slowly dawning comprehension. Clare gave Mark one long, measured look, then made a small contemptuous sound and turned back to her father. Campbell took her by the wrist protectively, never taking his eyes off Mark. He said nothing.

Ian was furious and showed it, while Geordie merely stared speculatively at Mark under lowered brows. Paula had made a sudden move as if to go to him, but she shrank back and hid in the shadows at Geordie's back. Taffy didn't show himself at all.

Of them all, Mark was watching me. 'Hello, Mike,' he said soberly.

I said, 'Mark, for God's sake – I'

He was urbane where I was dumbfounded. He lifted the notebook and some papers in his hand. 'I've been rooting about in your laboratory. So kind of you to have done the preliminary survey for me. I couldn't have done it better myself.'

He dropped the papers on the table.

Ian looked at him with black anger in his eyes. 'I wish that I'd hit you a bit harder,' he said harshly.

Mark smiled at him but said nothing. He picked up my notebook again and flicked the pages with one hand. 'We seem to have struck it rich, Mike. There may be billions in all this, don't you agree? A pity you wasted your time but never mind, you saved me a bit of work.'

I spoke through a dry throat. 'You're a bastard, Mark.'

'Oh, come on, Mike. Aren't you maligning mother?'

He looked around. 'And who else have we? Yes, Wilkins, isn't it? What's it like on Tyneside these days, Geordie?'

Geordie showed his disgust. 'A bit cleaner than this saloon.'

'We will have our little jokes,' said Mark lightly. 'And my dear old boss, Mr Campbell, the fallen warrior – and Clare. I'm sorry you had to be here, Clare.'

She refused to look at him and said nothing. It irked Mark and he shrugged petulantly, turned away and peered behind Geordie. 'And who's the young lady sitting in the shadow?' he asked. 'I didn't know you were such a one for the ladies, Mike.'