Capital Crimes

35

THEY WERE LESS THAN a mile from the island before Carpenter saw it, briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning. Sealand was a low, black collection of rocks, with no vegetation visible in the lightning flashes.

Sir Ewan opened the hatch and shouted, “Four men on deck to inflate the dinghy!”

The lights below were extinguished; four men clambered into the cockpit and began unrolling the rubber boat, which had been lashed to the stern pulpit.

“And switch off those nav lights!” Sir Ewan called down. “I want a man at the nav station to warn me of any vessel that comes within two miles of us!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” someone called back.

Sir Ewan turned and directed the men with the dinghy. “Plug the tube in right there,” he said, pointing to a port in the side of the cockpit. The tube was plugged in, a switch filled, and the electric pump began quickly inflating the rubber boat.

Carpenter hung back on the opposite side of the cockpit and watched the sixteen-foot pile of rubber become a boat.

“Team on deck,” Sir Ewan shouted down the hatch, and two other dark shapes joined them. The dinghy was slipped over the side, and, while two men held the bow and stern close to the yacht, the others began jumping into it, timing the boat’s rise with the waves. They were hove to with the storm jib aback, and the yacht’s wind shadow made a fairly calm area to leeward.

Carpenter looked down into the heaving dinghy and launched herself toward it, putting her faith in the Royal Marines’ desire to manhandle a woman. She was caught and lowered into the boat with only a minimum of groping. Four men began paddling toward the island.

At first there seemed no place to land, but as they progressed, a shallow bay opened behind a point of land, and when they were a couple of hundred yards out, a flash from the sky illuminated a short jetty.

“Thank God for the lightning,” the sergeant said. “Otherwise we’d have to use our torches and probably get spotted.” “We were told there wouldn’t be sentries,” Carpenter said. “Don’t believe everything you’re told,” the sergeant replied. “Just be ready to handle it.”

They came up on the leeward side of the jetty, and two marines jumped out and made the dingy fast. From that point, no one issued orders; everyone did as he had been instructed.

While the men fanned out to their assigned positions, Carpenter and Roofer followed the sergeant toward the only light. It began to rain heavily, and the light seemed to blink on and off as they approached, finally becoming steady as the outline of a portable building became visible.

Carpenter hunched up her slicker and pulled its hood tight around her head, for shelter and better visibility. She and the sergeant ran to a window and looked inside. Through the rain-spotted glass they could see the dimensions of a large room, lit by a single lamp on a desk. A single figure, a young woman, sat at the desk. “Looks good,” Carpenter said.

“Not yet,” the sergeant replied. “Check the other windows.”

They ran around to the other side of the building and found another window lit. Inside, a large lump of a man was slumped over a desk, apparently asleep, illuminated by a single lamp and the glow from a computer screen.

“Double trouble,” the sergeant said. “I can only use the blowpipe on one at a time, and they’re in different rooms.”

“I’ve got my compressed air pipe,” Carpenter said. “I’ll take one.”

The sergeant thought for a moment. “I’ll take the guy, you take the woman. We’ll go in as quietly as we can and try to sneak up on them.”

Carpenter shook her head. “The woman is in profile to the door. As soon as we go in, she’s bound to see us. And as soon as we open the door, she’ll hear the weather outside. Let me go in first and close the door behind me. Give me five seconds, or until I’m well past the office door. I’ll take care of her, then you can do the man.”

The sergeant shrugged. “Why not?”

Roofer spoke up. “What do you want me to do?”

“Stay outside. Don’t come in until I call you,” the sergeant said.

Roofer nodded.

They walked back to the door. “Ready?” Carpenter asked rhetorically, then opened the door, walked in and closed the door behind her.

The woman at the desk looked up as Carpenter entered. “What?” she said.

“God, it’s filthy out there,” Carpenter said, shucking off her slicker and hanging it on a hook by the door. She pulled off her watch cap and shook her hair free, then she started toward the woman at the desk, a hand in her pocket.

“Who are you?” the woman asked. “You weren’t on the boat this afternoon.”

Carpenter approached the desk, smiling. “They made a special run for me. I’m doing the software updates.”

“What fucking software updates?” the woman asked. “We download the software updates.”

Carpenter heard the door open and close behind her.

“Who’s that?” the woman asked.

Carpenter’s hand closed on the cylinder in her pocket and she brought it out. “It’s a new kind of disk drive,” she said, walking around the desk behind the woman, as if to look over her shoulder at the computer monitor.

“I don’t get this,” the woman said, as Carpenter held the cylinder near her neck and fired it. There was a small hiss, the woman slapped at her neck, and then she seemed to dissolve into a heap.

Carpenter stretched her out on the floor and glanced toward the door in time to see a large mass hurtle out of the office and collide with the sergeant. The blowpipe flew from his hand and bounced off the wall, out of his reach.

The man was very big, bearded, and bellowing. “And who the fuck are you, my man?” he yelled, sitting on the sergeant, a hand at his throat.

Carpenter began running toward them, aware that she had fired her only dart, and as she did, the outside door opened and Roofer stepped inside. Quickly, before Carpenter could get there, he held out his cylinder before him and fired it in the general direction of the big man’s head.

“Ow!” the man yelled, clawing at his face. He ripped the dart out and tossed it away.

“Oh, shit,” Carpenter muttered to herself. “The blowpipe, Roofer!” she called out, as she picked up a heavy bookend from a table and threw it at the big man’s head. It caught him high on the skull and knocked him off the sergeant, but he immediately began to get to his feet.

Carpenter threw the other bookend at him, striking him in the chest. Roofer tackled the man from behind and, for his trouble, was shucked off like a shawl.

Carpenter, out of weapons, pointed a finger at the man. “Listen to me, you stupid son of a bitch!” she yelled.

“Huh?” the man said, turning toward her.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No, I don’t,” he said, not noticing the sergeant’s movement.

“Well, you’d bloody well better get on the phone and find out, hadn’t you?”

The man looked at her, baffled. “The phone? Who am I supposed to call?”

The sergeant blew his dart from three feet, and Carpenter and Roofer simultaneously threw themselves onto the man.

“Just hold him!” the sergeant yelled, grabbing an arm.

Roofer grabbed the other arm and the man shook him like a puppy.

“Listen to me!” Carpenter shouted, inches from his face. “Listen to me!”

The man looked at her, ready to say something, then his knees gave way, and he fell forward, like a long sack of potatoes.

Carpenter stepped out of his way. “Nighty-night,” she said. “Roofer, get on the computer.”

The sergeant was on his hands and knees, searching for something.

“What are you looking for?” Carpenter asked.

“The other dart,” the sergeant said. “Help me. We’re going to need it.”

Carpenter began looking, too, and a moment later, the sergeant found it. He went to the big man, who was not quite unconscious, and stuck it into his neck.

“I don’t know how long this is going to last on someone of his size,” the sergeant said, “so tell your man to hurry.”

Carpenter looked over her shoulder. Roofer was at the computer, typing rapidly.