Terror's Cradle

CHAPTER THREE

I gunned the throttle and spun the wheel to try and get in beneath the cliff, but rifle bullets are faster than speedboats and another one smacked into the superstructure warningly. I glanced up at him again. The distance wasn't much more than eighty yards and I was worried the boat would already be taking water. Maybe that was what he intended: to sink the boat and let me drown. But no, he was pointing again, pointing up to the huge sheet of the upper lake.

There was no alternative; I brought the boat round again and began to move pbediently out of the canyon's funnel mouth, wondering where the hell I was supposed to be going, and why and who was sending me there. Presumably this all fitted in with last night's phone call. It also seemed to involve Susannah Rhodes, but for the life of me, I couldn't see why.. Susannah was a mixed-up, stupid blonde who happened to have been neatly assembled to a genetic pattern of current public appeal, but she had neither the willpower nor the reason to be involved in this kind of situation. Spinetti must be involved, though. A lot of fingers pointed to Spinetti. But I couldn't understand why, in that case, he'd been so surprised when I told him about the warning.

Glancing back, I could still see the rifleman, a dwindling figure now, high on the cliff, waiting to make sure I didn't turn and make a dash for it. But suicidal I'm not. War correspondents have to chance their lives; so sometimes do crime reporters and air correspondents; showbusiness writers never risk anything but cirrhosis. And for the moment, though not by choice, I was pure showbiz. I kept moving forward, swivelling my eyes across the water in the unjustified hope of finding some clue to what was happening. But there was nothing for several minutes. Then, from a dark gap in the rocks, two boats appeared behind me, power 'cruisers with rakish lines. They took up station perhaps half a mile back. Was one of them Dragonfly? Perhaps this whole stupid rigmarole was part of the rendezvous arrangements? Nonsense! Film stars do have bodyguards, but not to take pot shots at reporters arriving to keep an appointment for a story on which money is changing hands. All the same, I slowed. When the boats came near, my eyes would tell me if one was Dragonfly. They didn't, though. It must have been a moment or two before they realized what I was doing, because the gap closed a little, but then they slowed, too. All right. What would happen if I speeded up? I opened the throttle and my speedboat surged forward, bow rising to skim the water. In a minute or so I must have been doing forty miles an hour. But so were the cruisers.

That answered another question anyway. I couldn't outrun them. But why on earth were they just keeping station? I reached for the map and began to examine possibilities. There was something called Bonelli Landing more or less due south and ten miles away, but the indications were that it was just a place to go ashore and was surrounded by desert. For the rest, three places lay ahead. The names were Echo Bay, Rogers Spring and Overton Beach and none of them meant anything to me. Apart from them there was nothing but the water and empty desert country.

All I could do was to keep heading north,

After a few minutes I rounded a sharp foreland and the whole length of the upper lake came into view. I'd been heading east. Now I swung more or less due north and for a moment I entertained a faint and fatuous hope tht I was wrong about the cruisers, that their presence half a mile behind me was just coincidence and that they'd sheer off elsewhere. But the way they swung smoothly after me, they could have been under tow. How far to Echo Bay, then? Twelve or thirteen miles. All right, we'd see what happened there.

What happened was that a couple of miles short of Echo Bay one of the cruisers tore up on my left and inserted

itself between me and the shore. A man then appeared on the decking. He was holding a long thin something that was presumably a rifle and his arm pointed northward. So there was a purpose of some kind to all this! I tried to understand where and why, but the equation was insoluble; query plus query equals plus or minus query. Who the hell were those bastards!

Whoever they were, they had control. I'd turned the boat's nose a bit. Now I turned it back again and continued up Lake Mead. The cruiser between me and the shore remained between me and the shore; the other had moved out slightly. Four or five miles later Rogers Spring came and went. That left only Overton Beach. Beyond there, so the map told me, the lake forked in two: left fork blind, right leading into the. Virgin River. Well, they'd want me to steer one way or the other; no doubt they'd let me know. Now the cruiser to my right was closing, the other one dropping back, and Overton Beach was visible maybe a mile and a half ahead. The two cruisers were perhaps six hundred yards behind me, the three of us making the points of a neat equilateral triangle on the water.

It occurred to me that on sudden full throttle I might nip into Overton Beach before them. I stared ahead, wondering what I'd do when I got there. The cruisers wouldn't be far behind; there was at least one rifle aboard one of them, and perhaps more. On the other hand, north of Overton Beach the lake shore was uninhabited and there'd be nowhere to run. Along the Virgin River there wasn't even a road for twenty miles. Should I? Dare I? In the end it wasn't really a conscious decision at all; some instinct made the movement for me and the throttle was snapped open, the engine roaring and I was creaming in towards Overton Beach as fast as the speedboat could go. I crouched low, making as small a target as possible, uncomfortably aware that the petrol tank was squarely behind me. As the boat blasted towards Overton Beach I made out a jetty of sorts and a long, low modern building

behind that looked like a motel or restaurant or both. With the roar of the engine in my ears, there was no way of knowing whether anybody was shooting; I'd only know that if 1, or that damned petrol tank, were hit. But I'd made my choice: I was running and now I had to decide where I was running to!

It would be stupid to try to land on the jetty itself. There I'd be ludicrously exposed. I decided to drive the boat directly on to the beach. Unless I was desperately unlucky, the speedboat's shallow draught would make that possible for me, but the cruisers would sit deeper in the water and have to approach the jetty.

Something fizzed by me and 1 didn't need two guesses at what it was. Then I actually saw, ahead of me on the smooth water, the angry little splash of another bullet. It was mad to run; suddenly I knew how mad it was to run. But wouldn't it be equally mad to slow down, to let them catch me again, to offer myself tamely for whatever they had in mind?

I swung the steering wheel from side to side, zigzagging towards the shore, hoping that made me a more difficult target. Now the wooden jetty was leaping towards me and beyond it the grey desert shale sloped upwards from the water's edge. I tore in a wide arc towards the end of the jetty, then snapped the throttle shut as the boat raced towards the beach. Also, I bloody nearly killed myself. I realized suddenly that hitting the beach at that speed would be almost like hitting a wall, and swung up my legs to brace them against the edge of the front decking. The boat struck with a sudden, murderous grating sound, and the stern swung round like a whip, catapulting me into the shallow water. If it had flung me on to the shale, I'd have been skinned; as it was I was merely soaked and shaken and only a few feet from the edge.

Getting to my feet, I 'splashed wildly out of the water and began to run towards the building. A rapid glance back showed the two cruisers moving quickly towards the jetty. And up ahead, the building seemed deserted. I'd maybe sixty yards to cover and before I'd gone twenty I realized just how hot it was. On the water, moving fast, I hadn't felt the heat; here on land it was as though I'd stepped into an oven. God but I'd been stupid!

My soaking clothes clung to my skin as I raced up the slight incline. The whole place looked deserted, too; windows reflecting the sun back seemed both blind and blinding. I was out of the pan and into the fire with a vengeance. Another glance back as I came close to the building. The two cruisers were approaching the jetty now, one on each side, and men were poised aboard them to jump ashore and come after me. I ducked quickly round the corner of the building and saw the glass doors with the '

closed' sign hanging discouragingly. I looked round wildly, frantically, for some kind of bolt hole, but there was just the bare asphalt of the approach road. In a few minutes, I thought despairingly, I'd be trapped, held firmly in the sights of a rifle with the bleak choice of surrendering or being shot. If they gave me the choice!

I sprinted across the front of the building and turned the corner. A car park. Two cars. And a man getting out of one of them twenty yards away. Probably he ran the place and was just arriving to open up. He turned inquiringly as he heard my running footsteps.

`Happened to you?'

Ì'm being chased. Hunted,' I gasped. I knew how stupid it must sound. 'There are men with rifles! Help me, for God's sake!'

He stared at me for a second. I said, 'Quickly. Please. Get me away from here!' —

wondering what I'd have done in his place.

"Kay. Get in!' He flung the door wide and I more or less dived across the front seat, scrambling to the far side. Rapidly he slid in beside me. The motor spun and the tyres squealed as the car tore out of the park towards the road.

`Thanks. Christ, thanks!' I stared across him, waiting for my pursuers to come into view round the angle of the building. And they did; four men, moving fast. One raised his rifle and fired as the car lurched on to the approach road, but we weren't hit. A few seconds later they were out of sight as the car tore over a little rise. I began to explain: Ì

don't know why. They just—'

`Save it.' He was concentrating on what he was doing, whamming the big car along the shimmering tarmac with skill and judgment, hands easy on the wheel. The soft suspension bounced us, but he took the bends easily, sun-. tanned face still but watchful. After three or four miles there was a crossroads. Signs pointed left to Echo Bay and Las Vegas, right to Glendale. We took neither, ploughing straight on. As I stared ahead the scenery changed with startling suddenness from greyish shale to weird reddish rock. Another sign came up SCENIC RIM DRIVE: VALLEY OF FIRE STATE PARK and he swung left, away from it, plunging down a lesser road among the red rock formations. We'd both looked back pretty often, he through the mirror, I by turning in my seat. So far I'd seen nothing. But now I did. A blue car was racing over the rise behind us. I watched it in dismay. The empty car at Overton Beach had been blue, too .. . That was when he began to brake. I turned in surprise, but the braking was sharp and the big car slowed suddenly, flinging me forward, almost out of my seat. By the time I'd grabbed the padded ledge and was pushing myself back, he'd stopped. Also a revolver had appeared in his hand and was pointing at me.

Òut,' he said.

`But

Òut.'

The tanned face was expressionless. I said, 'They're right behind—'

Ì'll count to three.'

I forced my eyes /away from him, looking back up the road. The blue car was closing fast. I said, 'They'll kill me.' Òne.'

`Christ!' I reached behind me, for the door handle,

`Two.'

I pulled the handle, swung the door open and lurched out. The blue car was only a couple of hundred yards away and slowing. I looked round me desperately. There was a gap of sorts in the rearing rocks at the roadside. .I flung myself towards its doubtful shelter.