The Intriguers

xxviii.

As an exhibition of unprofessional idiocy, it would be hard to beat. It was exactly the kind of mushy behavior that makes me cringe and snap off the TV set when I see it on the screen: a supposedly trained and dedicated man with a job to do upon which the fate of millions supposedly depends, turning aside from his clear duty to perform heroic rescues of totally irrelevant young ladies.

By the time I'd recovered from the outsized kick of the rifle, worked the bolt, and swung the crosshairs to where I'd last seen Herbert Leonard, he was not, of course, there any longer. The man was catching on. His behavior this morning, unlike that of some people, had been thoroughly professional. The fact that somebody might have thought him afraid, hiding behind a woman, hadn't bothered him in the least. Now, at the sound of the shot, he'd jettisoned his dignity without an instant's hesitation, throwing himself into the muck on the far side of the dock and flopping out of sight behind one of the pilings.

The youth with the pipe and the yachting cap had taken refuge in the bottom of the boat. I had a great big rifle and nothing to shoot at; then a man rose out of the brush with another squirt gun-Leonard seemed to pass them around like visiting cards-and took aim at the girl as she gained the swampy shore. I dropped him neatly: another good shot wasted on a totally unimportant mark.

The flimsy blind was kind of disintegrating from the jolting of the Magnum rifle, getting shakier by the minute. It was time to go, anyway, before the college commandos got zeroed in on my position. I wedged the gun into the fork of a tree limb, dropped to the ground, and reached back up for it-climbing around in trees with loaded guns isn't considered proper firearms etiquette. I'd barely got it loose when at least three automatic weapons started drilling holes in the blind and the deserted osprey's nest above it, showering me with twigs and leaves and splinters.

I moved off a little ways, and crouched to listen, taking the opportunity to replace the two cartridges I'd fired. Listening wasn't much good. Every man on the island was now, it seemed, busily hosing down my recent hiding place with full-automatic fire. It sounded like 9mm stuff. The.45's used in the old Thompson choppers had had a heavier and more authoritative way of hammering at the ears. Nevertheless, the noise was impressive, and didn't give me much chance to listen for rustling leaves or stealthy footsteps.

I moved cautiously towards the landing place, stalling, hoping the girl would hold a reasonably straight line through the thick cover: she'd been aimed in roughly the right direction when she came ashore. I caught a flash of blue among the trees, and there she was. I stepped out into a small opening. She saw me, veered towards me, and stumbled up to me, muddy and breathless.

"Matt, I-"

"Down to the shore and straight out into the water," I said, pointing. "Take the first streetcar that comes along. You'll recognize the conductor."

"Matt-"

"Sweetie, you're a sneaky, slimy little bitch-Judas, and we'll discuss it later, if we live that long. Get going!"

It took them a while to reach me, as I followed her deliberately, covering our back trail. They'd heard two shots fired and seen two men fall. It was making them cautious. They were probably brave enough to charge headlong into haphazard machine-gun fire; but this kind of selective, precision marksmanship-one bullet per body-has a way of slowing down a lot of would-be heroes. I was counting on that.

One more should make the point perfectly clear, I figured, giving us time to get away. I couldn't afford to miss, however. That would spoil the psychological effect. I passed up a fleeting target on the left, therefore, and waited until a gent in the center gave me a sure shot, in a little sunlit space he'd undoubtedly have detoured if he hadn't felt obliged to show his fellow-agents and his chief what a truly courageous fellow he was. He gave a very satisfactory scream as he went down. That should hold them for a little. I turned and ran.

Down at the water, when I got there, everything was developing well. The boat, with Jarrel at the helm, was racing in on schedule, making a fine dramatic picture and producing a spectacular wake. The girl was wading out towards it. I sloshed after her, gaining by virtue of my longer legs. Jarrel held his speed until I thought he'd run us down, but when he chopped the throttle, the boat dropped off plane and squished to a stop right beside us. Jarrel checked the last of its forward motion with a touch of reverse, and jumped to the side to help Martha aboard. I was reaching for the gunwale when the black man, glancing shorewards, said quietly, "Better give that feller some discouragement, cap'n."

I pivoted, lifting the rifle, and fired as the crosshairs,found a man on the shore, taking aim with a chopper. He went down, but at the same instant another submachine-gun opened up to the right among the mangroves. I slammed in a fresh 'cartridge and swung that way. The scope showed a face among the leaves, and a stuttering weapon. The nasty little jacketed pistol bullets seemed to be whistling and cracking and glancing off the water all around us; then my big rifle went off again, with its usual end-of-the-world bellow and kick. The face disappeared and the squirt gun fell silent. I turned, reached over the rail to lay the gun carefully in the cockpit-you don't toss around weapons that you may need again shortly-and kind of hauled and rolled myself aboard.

"Take her away!" I panted, but the boat didn't move.

There was no time to investigate. I just snatched up the rifle and threw it to my shoulder as I rose, aiming blindly at the shore. I had them well-trained by now. Three of them, all about to open up on the drifting boat, dropped flat, each one thinking the muzzle of the big Magnum was looking right down his throat.

"Matt," the girl wailed, "Matt, it's Jarrel-"

"Get us out of here!" I snapped without looking aside.

"But his face… he's bleeding…

"Jesus Christ!" I exploded. "We'll all be bleeding in about three seconds if you don't hit that goddamn throttle, now!"

I heard her scramble behind the wheel. I had the cross-hairs on a man who was beginning to show himself at the bow of the beached rowboat used by the attacking force, when the big motor opened up and our boat shot forward, throwing me off balance. I managed to get my finger off the trigger and set the safety, even while I was being shoved inexorably towards the stern by the thrust of all those horsepower. Something stopped my slide: a man's body.

"Zigzag!" I yelled over the screaming motor, as I crouched beside Jarrel White. There was a lot of gunfire astern. "Hard right rudder. Now left. Keep it up, but for God's sake don't run us aground. Here come the boys in the black hats, galloping in wild pursuit." The yellow runabout had just come into view around the island, throwing a wake like a junior-grade destroyer. "How fast is that bucket?" I asked.

Martha threw a glance over her shoulder. "It's fast," she shouted. "It's good for thirty-five, I think, maybe even forty."

"We can beat that, I hope," I said. "Hold it straight now; we're out of range. Open her up all the way, but watch it. You've got more power than you think. Let me get this tub trimmed right now…

With the weight of two men concentrated to port, the little boat was racing along awkwardly with a strong list in that direction. I dragged Jarrel into the center of the cockpit forward of the steering console and everything leveled off nicely. I looked astern. The yellow boat wasn't gaining, but it wasn't falling back much, either.

"Have you got her wide open?" I yelled at Martha, who nodded. "Then that's a faster boat back there than you thought, damn it. We should be doing well over forty-five, unless I looked down at Jarrel White. He was quite dead, and had been from the instant the bullet had struck him just below the right eye. His dead eyes, open, looked up at me calmly. I take my sports out and / bring them back, he'd said-and he'd have done it, too, if he'd lived. A good man. He would understand that I meant no disrespect by what I was about to do. I picked him up and dropped him over the side.

I was thrown off-balance once more as the boat slowed abruptly. The girl was staring at me, making some loud, outraged sounds. It was hard to believe she was Mac's daughter. Maybe her mother had slipped out one evening to daily with the executive director of the local SPCA- but of course there were those eyebrows. Well, a dog-breeder had once told me there were weak strains in all bloodlines that should be culled as they crop out. I'd had a good opportunity to cull this one, but I'd passed it up for sentimental reasons that were looking less and less valid.

The yellow boat was coming up fast. The pipe-sucking youth was at the wheel, his yachting cap shoved back from his forehead. Leonard had the other forward seat. There was mud in his disheveled white hair. He was holding something in front of his face. I didn't have time to determine what it was or what it signified. There were two men aft with the usual portable automatic firepower. They were getting ready to bring it into action as the range closed.

I grabbed Martha's bare arm, yanked the girl out from behind the controls, and slung her forward. I hit the throttle lever a reckless swipe, and grabbed the wheel one-handed, barely in time to keep from being left behind as the boat took off again like a dragster burning rubber at the start of the quarter-mile strip. 1 spent a moment or two pulling myself into place behind the console, fighting the impressive forces of acceleration; then 1 risked a glance over my shoulder.

Leonard's rear-seat passengers had lowered their weapons; the range wasn't closing any more. As I watched, briefly, I saw the yellow boat begin to fall back. Jarrel's weight had made the difference. According to a boat book I'd read, boning up on my borrowed vessel, the speed of a planing hull depends mostly on just two factors: the horsepower and the load. A hundred-and-fifty-odd pounds lighter, my little craft was now a knot or two faster, enough to give us the necessary edge.

I looked ahead. We were rushing down a fairly wide, mangrove-lined channel, two waterborne projectiles churning up the calm brown surface, but ahead the fairway broke into three passages. I had no idea which one to take. Then a large white cottage came racing into sight around a slow bend in the middle passage, far ahead. At least that was what it looked like-a white summer cottage perched on top of a blunt blue scow-but it was coming towards us doing at least thirty miles per hour. I realized that what Leonard had been holding had been a microphone. He'd got in touch with his communications ship, the houseboat the admiral had told me about. It was moving in to cut us off, following radio instructions, showing a nice turn of speed for such a clumsy-looking craft. The questions were: which of us would reach the crossroads first; and if I beat them to it, which way should I turn when I got there?

The girl was huddled in the cockpit forward. I didn't even bother to ask her. With her crazy reactions, she'd be just as likely to give me the wrong answer as the right one. As I stared ahead, searching for a clue, I saw something glistening white, a dead fish perhaps, drifting slowly out of the left-hand passage towards us. I remembered Jarrel's words: Remember the tide, cap'n. Man can always find his way out if he remembers the tide.

The tide, that had been ebbing last night, would be flooding now, moving in from the sea. All I had to do was run against it when in doubt, and with a little luck I'd be in open water eventually. I could see that I was going to beat the houseboat to the turn by a good margin, and the yellow runabout was by now a couple of hundred yards astern. I had it made. Pretty soon I'd have lead enough, and time enough, to start firing off white flares, bringing the Boston Whaler in to meet me with a crew of armed men.

There was only one catch. The admiral had also had a few words to say, to wit: Of course, it's expected that you'll have your job done before you signal for help.

Still wide open, my little boat approached the watery intersection. There was a man on the roof, upper deck, or whatever you want to call it, of the onrushing houseboat. He had something shiny and metallic in his hand, a pistol perhaps, but he wasn't even trying to use it yet; we had room to spare. 1 saw the white object-it was a dead fish – to port, and if that wasn't indication enough, there were some pink birds wading in the right hand channel which could not, therefore, be much over a foot deep. With prop down, my vessel drew over twice that at rest; over ten inches even while planing. I drew a long breath and turned the wheel sharply to the right.

"No! Hard a port! You're turning the wrong way! Port your helm, Matt!"

That was the girl, aroused, standing forward. The pink birds rose in panic as the boat roared at them. Their legs were even shorter than I'd estimated. There was a crash astern as the big motor, striking, was pivoted violently upwards; then the hull hit hard.