Thunder Point

“And then, Senor?”

“We’ll descend on them when they return to Caneel, possibly at the cottage. We’ll see.”

“So, what are your orders?”

“We’ll sail back to St. John and anchor off Paradise Beach again.” The phone was ringing in the radio room. “That will be Algaro calling back,” and Santiago went to answer it.

Algaro replaced the phone and turned to Guerra. “They intend to let those bastards get on with it and do all the work. We’ll hit them when they get back.”

“What, just you and me?”

“No, stupid, the Maria Blanco will be back off Paradise Beach in the morning. We’ll rendezvous with her then. In the meantime, we’ll go back to the launch and try to catch a little shut-eye.”

Jenny’s head, resting on the pillow, was turned to one side. She looked very pale, made no movement even as the doctor gave her an injection. Mary said, “What do you think, Doctor?”

He shook his head. “Not possible to make a proper diagnosis at this stage. The fact that she’s not regained consciousness is not necessarily bad. No overt signs of broken bones, but hairline fractures are always possible. We’ll see how she is in the morning. Hopefully she’ll have regained consciousness by then.” He shook his head. “That was a long fall. I’ll have her transferred to St. Thomas Hospital. She can have a scan there. You’ll stay with her tonight?”

“Me and Billy won’t move an inch,” Mary told him.

“Good.” The doctor closed his bag. “The slightest change, call me.”

Billy saw him out, then came back up to the bedroom. “Can I get you anything, honey?”

“No, you go and lie down, Billy, I’ll just sit here with her,” Mary said.

“As you say.”

Billy went out and Mary put a chair by the bed, sat down and held Jenny’s hand. “You’ll be fine, baby,” she said softly. “Just fine. Mary’s here.”

At three o’clock they ran into a heavy squall, rain driving in under the canopy over the flying bridge, stinging like bullets. Carney switched off the engine. “We’ll be better off below for a while.”

Dillon followed him down the ladder and they went into the deckhouse where Ferguson lay stretched out on one of the benches, his head propped up against the holdall. He yawned and sat up. “Is there a problem?”

Sea Raider swung to port, buffeted by the wind and rain. “Only a squall,” Carney said. “It’ll blow itself out in half an hour. I could do with a coffee break anyway.”

“A splendid idea.”

Dillon found the thermos and some mugs and Carney produced a plastic box containing ham and cheese sandwiches. They sat in companionable silence for a while eating them, the rain drumming against the roof.

“It’s maybe time we discussed how we’re going to do this thing,” Carney said to Dillon. “For a no- decompression dive at eighty feet, we’re good for forty minutes.”

“So a second dive would be the problem?”

Ferguson said, “I don’t understand the technicalities, would someone explain?”

“The air we breathe is part oxygen, part nitrogen,” Carney told him. “When you dive, the pressure causes nitrogen to be absorbed by the body tissues. The deeper you go, the increase in pressure causes more nitrogen to be absorbed. If you’re down too long or come up too quickly, it can form bubbles in your blood vessels and tissues, just like shaking a bottle of club soda. The end result is decompression sickness.”

“And how can you avoid that?”

“First of all by limiting the time we’re down there, particularly on the first dive. Second time around, we might need a safety stop at fifteen feet.”

“And what does that entail?” Ferguson asked.

“We rise to that depth and just stay there for a while, decompressing slowly.”

“How long for?”

“That depends.”

Dillon lit a cigarette, the Zippo flaring in the gloom. “What we’re really going to have to do is find that submarine fast.”

“And lay the charge on the first dive down,” Carney said.

“Baker did say it was lying on a ledge on the east face.”

Carney nodded. “I figure that to be the big drop side so we won’t waste time going anywhere else.” He swallowed his coffee and got up. “If we had the luck, went straight down, got in the control room and laid that Semtex…” He grinned. “Hell, we could be in like Flynn and out and back up top in twenty minutes.”

“That would make a big difference to the second dive,” Dillon said.

“It surely would.” The rain had stopped, the sea was calm again now and Carney glanced at his watch. “Time to get moving, gents,” and he went back up the ladder to the flying bridge.

In London it was nine o’clock in the morning and Francis Pamer was just finishing a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon which his housekeeper had prepared when the phone rang. He picked it up. “Pamer here.”

“Simon Carter.”

“Morning, Simon,” Pamer said, “any word from Ferguson?”

“No, but something rather shocking which affects Ferguson has happened.”

“What would that be?”

“You know his assistant, the one he borrowed from Special Branch, Detective Inspector Lane?”

Pamer almost choked on the piece of toast he was eating. “Yes, of course I do,” he managed to say.

“Killed last night when he was leaving the Ministry of Defence around midnight. Hit and run. Stolen car apparently, which the police have recovered.”

“How terrible.”

“Thing is, Special Branch aren’t too happy about it. It seems the preliminary medical report indicates that he was hit twice. Of course, that could simply mean the driver panicked and reversed or something. On the other hand, Lane sent a lot of men to prison. There must be many who bore him a grudge.”

“I see,” Pamer said. “So Special Branch are investigating?”

“Oh, yes, you know what the police are like when one of their own gets hit. Free for lunch, Francis?”

“Yes,” Pamer said. “But it would have to be at the House. I’m taking part in the debate on the crisis in Croatia.”

“That’s all right. I’ll see you on the Terrace at twelve-thirty.”

Pamer put the phone down, his hand shaking, and looked at his watch. No sense in ringing Santiago now, it would be four in the morning over there. It would have to wait. He pushed his plate with the rest of his breakfast on it away from him, suddenly revolted, bile rising in his throat. The truth was he had never been so frightened in his life.

Way over toward the east the sun was rising as Sea Raider crept in toward Thunder Point, Carney checking the fathometer. “There it is,” he said as he saw the yellow ridged lines on the black screen. “You get to the anchor,” he told Dillon. “I’ll have to do some maneuvering so you can hit that ridge at seventy feet.”

There was a heavy swell, the boat, with the engines throttled back, just about holding her own. Dillon felt the anchor bite satisfactorily, called up to Carney on the flying bridge and the American switched off the engines.

Carney came down the ladder and looked over the side. “There’s a rough old current running here. Could be three knots at least.”

Ferguson said, “I must say the water seems exceptionally clear. I can see right down to the reef.”

“That’s because we’re so far from the mainland,” Carney said. “It means there is very little particulate matter in the water. In fact, it gives me an idea.”

“What’s that?” Dillon asked.