smiled again, as only a Frenchman smiles at a pretty woman.
Magnifique! he murmured, and lifted one hand in a graceful salute of
admiration before he stepped out of the stateroom.
When Chantelle and Duncan were alone together, she turned to him slowly,
and she let the contempt show in her expression.
Any time you feel you have not got the guts for it, let me know, will
you? Chantelle! You have got us into this, me and Christy Marine. Now
you'll get us out of it, even if it kills you. Her lips compressed into
a thinner line and her eyes slitted vindictively.
And it would be nice if it did, she said softly.
The pilot of the Beech-craft Baron, pulled back the throttles to 2.2 of
boost on both engines, and slid the propellers into fully fine pitch,
simultaneously beginning a gentle descending turn towards the
extraordinary-looking vessel that came up swiftly out of the low early
morning haze that spilled over from the islands.
The same haze had blotted the low silhouette of the Florida coast from
the western horizon, and even the pale green water and shaded reefs of
little Bahamas Bank were washed pale by the haze, and partially obscured
by the ittent layer of stratocumulus cloud at four thousand interm feet.
The Baron pilot selected 20 of flap to give the aircraft a nose down
attitude which would afford a better forward vision, and continued his
descent down through the cloud.
It burst in a brief grey puff across the windshield before they were out
into sunlight again.
What do you make of her? he asked his copilot.
She's a big baby! the copilot tried to steady his binoculars. 'Can't
read her name. The enormously wide low bows were pushing up a fat
sparkling pillow of churning water, and the green decks seemed to reach
back almost to the limits of visibility before rising sheer into the
stern quarters.
Son of a gun/ the pilot shook his head. She looks like the
vehicle-assembly building on Cape Kennedy. She does too/ agreed his
copilot. The same square unlovely bulk of that enormous structure was
repeated in smaller scale by the navigation bridge of the big ship.
'I'll give her a call on 16. The copilot lowered his binoculars and
thumbed the microphone as he lifted it to his lips. South-bound bulk
carrier, this is Coast Guard November Charlie One five Niner overhead.
Do you read me? There was the expected delay; even in confined and
heavily trafficked waters, these big bastards kept a sloppy watch and
the spotter fumed silently.
Coast Guard One five Niner, this is Golden Dawn.
Reading you five by five - Going up to 22. Two hundred miles away the
Trog knocked over the shell-casing, spilling damp and stinking cigar
butts over the deck, in his haste to change frequency to channel 22 as
the operator on board Golden Dawn had stipulated, at the same time
switching in both the tape recorder and the radio direction-finder
equipment.
High up in Warlock's fire-control tower, the big metal ring of the
direction-finding aerial turned slowly, lining up on the transmissions
