The Dark of Summer

more alert than I expected her to be.”

“What happened?”

He said, “She got inquisitive. She wanted to talk about the fishermen, and I think she was close to telling me about you — about the ghost.”

“But she didn't?”

“Not quite. However, she did ask me what I knew about ISP, and she proved to be damned knowledgeable on the subject.”

“You don't think she knows?”

“No. Maybe she suspects something… though she musn't know just what. She thinks maybe the fishermen are behind the ghost.”

Penny said, “Ben, maybe we shouldn't go through with it.”

“It's not that bad,” he said. “I didn't mean to put you on edge, Penny. I only wanted to warn you that she's not a walking zombie, like we thought she'd be at this stage.”

“She may catch on—”

“No, she won't,” he said. “She'll tumble for it, and we'll break her down tonight for sure.”

“Well—”

“Think of all that money,” he said.

“I've been thinking of it for a hundred years.”

“We're too close now to back off.”

She was silent a moment, then said, “You're right. I'm going to go up there now and scare the hell out of that kid.”

“That's the stuff.”

“You be ready, according to the script.”

He said, “Have you ever known me to miss a cue?”

“Never.”

“Okay, go to work, love.”

The final act had begun.

NINETEEN

When darkness came to Jenkins' Niche, it brought Paul Morby with it, more of a ghost than Penny Groves could ever have been. For eight years, Morby had been a member in good standing of the United States Army's Green Berets, one of the world's most deadly, violent and insidious guerrilla warfare fighting forces. He'd spent four long years in Vietnam, having completed more than three hundred missions into enemy-held territory, all of which ended in success. He had killed men, and he had suffered no remorse, for that was what he had been trained to do. When he finally checked out of the service and came home, it was clear to Morby that his fortune lay in the use of those tricks and talents which the army had taught him, and he applied the methods of war to domestic, personal problems — for a fat fee. He had worked for out-and-out criminals, for borderline operators, and for men who were ostensibly honest, such as William Barnaby. Thus far, he had never had to kill anyone for money, and he avoided those jobs in which murder was almost essential or highly likely. He burned down houses, set up banks for men who wanted to rob them, and committed a dozen other prosecutable felonies, all without regret. The Green Berets preferred men with few scruples, then bred the last dregs of honesty from them. It was not in Paul Morby, then, to be sorry about anything that he did. When he came into Jenkins' Niche, just after dark, he did so with only one thought: do the job right, earn the money.

He never thought about taking the money and leaving the job undone, for he wanted to be given any repeat business that Barnaby might have for a man like him, in the future.

Like any good craftsman, he knew that the quality of his product must remain high, higher than any competition's product, if he were to survive at doing what he liked to do. The only difference between Morby and any other craftsman was that Morby's craft was far more dangerous than most; and his end product, rather than some tangible piece of goods like a pair of shoes or a leather wallet, was destruction. Morby liked to destroy, because it was exciting. He couldn't imagine going through life as a clerk or nine-to-five office worker.

He came in by sea, in a midnight black wet suit and diving tanks. He had entered the water farther up the shore, out of sight of the Niche, then swam just below the surface until he rounded the point and struck in among the docked fishing craft. Behind him, on a thin chain latched to his waist, he towed a waterproof tin box which contained the tools of his trade: a well silenced pistol with two spare clips of ammunition, a plastic-wrapped package of gelignite plastic explosives, a mini-timer to set off the charge when he was well away from the scene, and a set of keys which could open the locks on almost any boat made.

The docks were built out from the beach, forming a perfect cover for his final approach. He swam in beneath one of these and came out of the water in the shadow of the old wooden planking, where no one would see him.

He pulled back the black rubber hood that clung tightly to his head, and when his ears had adjusted, he could hear laughter and voices, not too far away along the beach.

Morby smiled to himself, because he knew that, in a little while, none of these men would feel much like laughing.

Unsnapping the chain from his waist, shrugging out of his oxygen tanks, he opened the tin box and took out his pistol, the gelignite, the timer and the keys. The last made a brief jangling noise as he tucked them into a snap pocket of the wet suit, but he was confident that no one had heard them.

Cautiously, he left the shadow of the pier and went to scout around, to locate the bulk of the fishermen who had the night duty in the Niche, and to find the most likely target for the gelignite. Barnaby hadn't cared which boat was blown up, just so one of them got ripped to shreds.

“The cops will find traces of the gelignite,” Morby had warned.

Barnaby had said, “But it's the only way to be sure the boat's a total loss?”

“Yes,” Morby said. “A fire can be fairly rapidly extinguished on a boat. If I set a fire, I'd have an escape problem, and I doubt I'd end up doing much damage.”

“The gelignite, then,” Barnaby said. “And so what if they find traces? Do you really think they'd come back to me, a respectable man of the community, a millionaire?”

“You're the only one who wants them out of the Niche, though,” Morby said, jabbing a thick finger at the older man.

“That's true,” Barnaby had said. “However, why should I pull a stunt like this when they'd have to be out in thirty days anyway?”

“That's a good point,” Morby had admitted. “That ought to convince the cops that you're clean, that on top of your good name and all your money.” He gave Barnaby a searching look and said, “But I've wondered the same thing myself. Why are you going to take a risk like this, when they'll be gone in thirty days, anyway?”

“That's personal,” Barnaby had said.

And Morby, aware that he could not push the point any further, had let it drop at that.

Now he was prowling the Niche in the darkness, listening to the fishermen exchange jokes around a large beach fire, and staking out the most likely looking ships to see which he wanted to blow to smithereens.

Morby went over the side of the Princess Lee, padded along the gangway to the galley steps, went down these one at a tune as silently as a cat on cotton. The galley door was closed, but not locked. He pushed it open without any trouble. He went in, followed a corridor aft, until he found a place against an inner partition, where the gelignite would do its best work. He bent down and began to mold the plastic charge to the base of the wall, stringing it out just enough to rip up the major seam in the floor and let the water in soon after the flames.

In a minute, he was finished. He picked up the mini-timer, set that to a full five minute fuse, jammed it into the gelignite.