that were discarded. These emptied into another chute directly above a large grating in the floor as big as a door. The steel grate that covered the black hole in the floor had an ominous look. It could have been the doorway to an oubliette. A sound came up through the grating. The sound of sloshing water. This room, originally used to store cable, had been converted into a processing room by the fishery. Now abandoned even in that role, it made a perfect place to hide in.
The big man sat with his back to me. He was listening to a VHF radio, his head bowed in concentration. A slender, lithe figure emerged from the far dark doorway and stopped and stared at us. John prodded with the gun and I sat down on a stack of pallets.
'Jim, look,' said the figure.
Schilling turned around and scowled at us. The slim figure disappeared into the dark doorway and reappeared immediately with something long and dark. It approached us silently, and then became fully visible a few feet from us. The delicate hands pointed a Colt Commando assault rifle at me.
'Ah the charming Doctor Adams. You surprised to find me here?' asked Laura Kincaid.
'Not really,' I answered. 'I realized that you were the only person who could have told Schilling about my suspicions. I told nobody else. And I think it was your big friend here who opened the front door while we were talking/out in the garden. I know you don't really have a maid.'
'Yes, it was a clever game you played with me. I realized too late who it probably was on the phone, and that made us even more anxious to get rid of you.'
'Ah, but we didn't,' said Schilling as he shuffled up behind Laura Kincaid. 'You were lucky. I hit you too lightly up in Gloucester. I knew it before you hit the water. You had turned a bit at just the right instant and the sap slid off the side of your head-'
'So you waited around to make sure.'
'But it wasn't good enough. You're a wily one, Adams, but stupid. Even our warning of the dog wasn't enough I see.'
I turned to Laura.
'I guess it's not too difficult to imagine what happened to your husband.'
She looked away impatiently for a second, then faced me, frowning. .
'I knew you were trouble as soon as you called me. I told Jim to put himself out underneath the car so he could get a good look at you as you left. You were stupid to hunt out Murdock.'
'And he was obviously stupid to help you,' I said. I looked at my watch. 'There are several things you should know. One: the police and Coast Guard all know I'm here. They also know you're not hanging around the Rose. Even they can spot a decoy as obvious as that-'
Schilling and Laura exchanged a quick glance. It was fleeting, but enough to tell me they were a little bit afraid.
'Second, this whole place is going to come alive shortly after four o'clock. That's in less than half an hour.'
Schilling lost control. With a deep, guttural roar he leapt forward and pasted me one on the side of the jaw and sent me sprawling on the smooth concrete floor. It was damp and very cold. Apparently I'd messed up his plans enough so that he was mighty irritated.
'It won't work, Adams, your making up a cock and bull story to throw us off balance. You're the one who's in trouble now. A few things you should know. First, the security here's air tight. It's a wonder you managed to get in at all but as we can see, you didn't get far. Second, there are four or five ways out of here, including that long tunnel behind us. If need be we'll leave that way and we've got some stuff back there that'll make anyone chasing us wish he'd never been born. We were just getting ready to make our last run; we got skunked earlier tonight but now we're ready and nobody's getting in our way. You're leaving here too, Adams, but by a different exit.'
He spun around and went over to the big grate, which he snatched up from a deep squat, just like an Olympic weightlifter. He staggered three steps with the huge metal screen and dropped it. It clanged down in a flurry of sparks. Schilling walked over to the pit and peered down.
'Put you right in here with all the old fish guts.'
I felt a deep sickening dread under my ribs. My lower half seemed made of water and my mouth had a fuzzy, electric feeling. I felt on the verge of some kind of seizure. I was very scared. I had to talk, to keep them talking. I needed all the time I could buy. I glanced over at John, who held his Walther muzzle down. In a sense he represented my only hope, and I didn't even have the faintest idea who the hell he was.
'I wouldn't have… wouldn't have become at all interested if it weren't for the boy's death,' I said.
'That was an accident,' said the woman. 'Jim saw the Navy insignia and panicked. The boy was on the far side of the boat and he took a swipe at him with a fish billy. He just… never came back up.'
'Ah. So that settles it. That easy is it?'
She struck me across the face with the muzzle of the rifle. The flash arrester did a nice job of opening up the left side of my cheek.
'You shut up. Shut up!'
'So you know my name. How did you find out?' asked the big man. He was built like a fullback, and had obviously worked out heavily to increase the beef up around his chest and shoulders, But there was something missing, something weak about the eyes and mouth that turned my stomach.
'I took your picture in Wellfleet. I'm not the only one who knows you didn't die in Alaska. Assuming you get away tonight, you've still had it, pal. They've got your number.'
'Who? Names!' screamed Laura. 'Name some names, quick! '
I did. I named Ruggles, Brindelli, Hannon, O'Hearn, and two others. I mentioned the army chap who couldn't wait to get his hands on the people who stole the army's rifles.
It was then I realized I had blundered into something that could make me inadvertently reveal something about John. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him visibly shudder. I saw his heavy shoulders sag a bit, and knew he was almost as distraught as I was.
Jim Schilling sat on an old crate and rubbed his big jaw.
'He knows the whole thing, Laura. I want him out. Now.'
'Won't do you any good. All of them know too.'
'Then where the hell are they?' he screamed, and glared at me.
He had me there. I sure as hell wished I knew.
'Just tell me,' I asked, 'who are the guns for?'
'They're going to Ireland,' said Laura.
'Then you are supplying the IRA-'
She smiled a smug grin and shook her well-groomed head back and forth.
'No. They're going to our people in the south, to give the Irish bastards a taste of their own medicine. The arms we send from here will be used to kill the IRA murderers and terrorists. If things get rough-as they will, I'm sure-then they'll be used against the populace of the south. If they can do it to us, we can do it to them.'
She smiled serenely. It looked totally incongruous that this middle-aged, stylish woman should be holding a military rifle. But hold it she did, and with evident familiarity too.
'I remember now, you're English-'
'My, my, you certainly have dug around; haven't you, Doctor? Yes, I'm British. But my home was Ulster, not England; My family owned a factory in Belfast, until it was bombed out by the thugs from the south. When my father wouldn't give in to them, they killed him and burnt the factory to the ground. We were ruined. We came here to start all over again. I was so desperate for money I married a man I couldn't stand,-a tinkerer-genius who founded his own company. Living with him was pure hell. For years I looked for a way out.'
She looked in Schilling's direction, then back at me. I looked at both of them quickly, then back at Laura. Then I shot a quick glance at John, who slumped scowling in the far doorway as if unsure what to do.
'Does he know about how you killed Walter?' I asked.
They were both silent for a few seconds. Then Schilling came back. I thought he was going to hit me again, but he didn't. Bless his cowardly heart.
'You may not know this,' he said to me, 'but changing the Windhover into Penelope was entirely Walter's idea. He made arrangements with Murdock's Boatyard and had the bogus papers drawn up in the name of Wallace Kinchloe-'
