heavyweight boxing champion of the Caribbean.”
“I’m frightened to death,” Algaro said.
After a while, Jenny came out on the porch and joined Billy. She wore white linen trousers, a short-sleeved blouse, looked fresh and relaxed.
“Now that’s better,” Billy said.
“Yes, I actually feel human again,” she said. “We’ll go back now, Billy.”
They got in the jeep and drove away and the two men emerged onto the dirt road. “Now what?” Guerra demanded.
“No problem,” Algaro said. “We’ll get her later. For now, we’ll go back to the bar,” and they set off down the road.
It was almost dark when Bob Carney went into Jenny’s Place and found her serving behind the bar with Billy. She came round and greeted him warmly with a kiss and drew him over to a booth.
“It’s good to see you, Jenny.” He put a hand on hers. “I was real sorry about Henry. I know what he meant to you.”
“He was a good man, Bob, a decent, kind man.”
“I saw him on that last morning,” Carney told her, “coming in as I was leaving with a dive party. He must have gone out real early. I asked him where he’d been, and he told me French Cap.” He shook his head. “Not true, Jenny. Dillon and I checked out French Cap, even had a look at South Drop.”
“But they’re sites people go to anyway, Bob. That U-boat couldn’t have just sat there all those years without someone having seen it.”
It was at that moment that Dillon and Ferguson entered. They saw Carney and Jenny at once and came over. Ferguson raised his Panama. “Miss Grant.”
She held out a hand to Dillon, he took it for a moment and there was an awkwardness between them. “Did things work out all right?”
“Oh, yes, I saw Henry’s sister. Sorry I was so mysterious. The truth is she’s a nun, Little Sisters of Pity. In fact she’s the Mother Superior.”
“I never knew that,” Carney said.
“No, Henry never talked about her, he was an atheist, you see. He felt she was burying herself away to no purpose. It led to a rift between them.”
Billy came up at that moment. “Can I get you folks some drinks?”
“Later, Billy,” she said. “We have business to discuss here.”
He went away and Ferguson said, “Yes, we’re all ears. Hopefully you’re going to tell us the location of U180.”
“Yes, Jenny.” Bob Carney was excited now. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know is the short answer,” she said simply.
There was consternation on Ferguson’s face. “You don’t know? But I was led to believe you did.”
Dillon put a restraining hand on the Brigadier’s arm. “Give her a chance.”
“Let me put it this way,” Jenny said. “I think I might know where that information may be found, but it’s so absurdly simple.” She took a deep breath. “Oh, let’s get on with it.” She turned to Carney. “Bob, the
“Sure, Jenny.”
Carney stood up and Ferguson said, “The
Carney explained. “Henry’s boat, the one he was out in that day. Come on, let’s go.”
They went down the steps to the road and went along the waterfront to the dock, and Algaro and Guerra watched them descend to an inflatable. Carney sat in the stern, started the outboard and they moved out into the harbor.
“Now what?” Guerra asked.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Algaro replied.
Carney switched on the light in the deckhouse and they all crowded in. “Well, Miss Grant,” Ferguson said. “We’re all here, so what have you got to tell us?”
“It’s just an idea.” She turned to Carney. “Bob, what do a lot of divers do after a dive?”
“You mean, check their equipment…”
She broke in. “Something much more basic. What I’m thinking of is the details of the dive.”
Carney said, “Of course.”
“What on earth is she getting at?” Ferguson demanded.
“I think I see,” Dillon said. “Just like pilots, many divers keep logs. They enter details of each dive they make. It’s common practice.”
“Henry was meticulous about it,” she said. “Usually the first thing he did after getting back on board and drying himself. He usually kept it in here.” She opened the small locker by the wheel, reached inside and found it at once. It had a red cover, Baker’s name stamped on it in gold. She held it out to Dillon. “I’m afraid I might be wrong. You read it.”
Dillon paused, then turned the pages and read the last one. “It says here he made an eighty- to ninety-foot dive at a place called Thunder Point.”
“Thunder Point?” Carney said. “I’d never have thought it. No one would.”
“His final entry reads: Horse-eyed jacks in quantity, yellow-tail snappers, angel and parrot fish and one type VII German Submarine, U180, on ledge on east face.”
“Thank God,” Jenny Grant said. “I was right.”
There was a profound silence as Dillon closed the log and Ferguson said, “And now I really could do with that drink.”
Algaro and Guerra watched them return. Algaro said, “She’s told them something, I’m sure of it. You stay here and keep an eye on things while I go down to the public phone and report in.”
Inside, they sat at the same booth and when Billy came over Ferguson said, “This time champagne is very definitely in order.” He rubbed his hands. “Now we can really get down to brass tacks.”
Dillon said to Carney, “You seemed surprised, I mean about the location, this Thunder Point. Why?”
“It’s maybe twelve miles out. That’s close to the edge of things. I’ve never dived there. No one dives there. It’s the most dangerous reef in this part of the world. If the sea is at all rough, it’s a hell of a haul to get there and when you do, the current is fierce, can take you every which way.”
“How do you know this if you’ve never dived it?” Dillon asked.
“There was an old diver here a few years back, old Tom Poole. He’s dead now. He dived it on his own years back. He told me he happened to be that far out by chance and realized it was calmer than usual. From what he said it’s a bit like South Drop. A reef around seventy feet, about a hundred and eighty feet on one side and two thousand on the other. In spite of the weather being not too bad, the old boy nearly lost his life. He never tried again.”
“Why didn’t he see the U-boat?” Ferguson demanded.
“Maybe he just didn’t get that far, maybe it’s moved position since his time. The one thing we know for sure is it’s there because Henry found it,” Carney told him.
“I just wonder why he even attempted such a dive,” Jenny said.
“You know what Henry was like,” Carney told her. “Always diving on his own when he shouldn’t, and that morning, after the hurricane, the sea was calmer than I’ve ever seen it. I figure he was just sailing out there for the pure joy of it, realized where he was and saw that conditions were exceptional. In those circumstances he would have dropped his hook on that reef and been over the side in no time at all.”
“Well, according to Rear Admiral Travers,” Dillon said, “and he talked extensively to Baker, Bormann was using the captain’s cabin except that it wasn’t really a cabin. It just had a curtain across. It’s on the port side opposite the radio and sound room, that’s in the forward part of the boat. The idea of having it there was so the captain had instant access to the control room.”
“That seems reasonably straightforward to me,” Carney said.
