and this damnable anti-matter can’t mean all the world to you. Yet I know — I don’t think — I know you’re willing to die to get inside that damnable prison. Why, Bruno, why?” “I don’t know.” She couldn’t see his face but for a moment it was disturbed, almost wary. “Perhaps you’d best go and ask the shades of Pilgrim and Fawcett.”
“What are they to you? You hardly knew them.” He made no reply. She went on wearily: “So you’re going to silence the guards. How are you going to find a way of silencing two thousand volts of steel fencing?”
“I’ll find a way, not by putting it out of action — that’s impossible — but by by-passing it. But I’m going to need your cooperation and you might end up in prison.”
“What kind of co-operation?” Her voice was toneless. “And what’s prison if you’re dead?”
Henry heard those words. Wherry had taken off his earphones to find some cigarettes and the conversation from Maria’s cabin, faint and tinny and distorted though it was, was understandable and unmistakable. Henry craned his head a bit more and saw that the radio was not the only piece of electrical equipment in the cabin. There was a small tape recorder on the deck with both spools slowly turning.
Wherry found his cigarettes, lit one, resumed his seat, picked up the phones and was about to replace them on his head when Henry pushed the door wide and stepped inside. Wherry swung round, his eyes wide.
Henry said: “I’d like to have that recorder if you don’t mind, Wherry.”
“Mr Wrinfield!”
“Yes, Mr Wrinfield. Surprised? The recorder, Wherry.” Involuntarily, as it seemed, Wherry switched his glance to a spot above Henry’s left shoulder and Henry laughed. “Sorry, Wherry, but that’s been done before.”
Henry heard the last sound he was ever to hear, an almost soundless swish in the air behind him. His ears registered it for the fleeting fraction of a second but his body had no time to react. His legs crumpled and Wherry caught him just as he struck the deck.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Maria’s voice was still colourless, without expression. “What’s prison, what’s anything, if you’re dead? Can’t you think of me? All right, all right, so I’m being selfish, but can’t you think of me?”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” He’d intended his voice to be harsh or at least cold but it sounded neither harsh nor cold to him. “We arrive in Crau on a Thursday and leave on the following Wednesday — it’s the longest stop-over of the tour. We have shows Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Sunday is free. So on Sunday we hire a car and have ourselves a little excursion into the country. I don’t know how far we’ll be allowed to go, I believe restrictions have been relaxed, but it doesn’t matter. We can always travel around in ever narrowing circles. What does matter — and this will have to be after dusk — is that on the way back we reconnoitre Lubylan and see if they have guards patrolling outside. If there are, I’ll need your help.”
“Please give up this crazy idea, Bruno. Please.” “When I’m climbing up the south side of the research building you’ll be standing at the corner of the south lane and the main west street. This, I didn’t mention, will be after the last show on the Tuesday night. The hired car, which I trust will be comprehensively insured, will be parked a few feet away in the main street. The windows will be open and you’ll have a small can of gasoline ready on the front seat. If you see a guard approaching, reach for the can, pour some fuel, not too much, on the front and rear upholstery, throw in a lighted match and stand smartly back. This will not only distract all attention but also the blaze will cast such a heavy shadow round the corner that I should be able to climb in almost complete darkness. I’m afraid you could be caught and questioned but the combination of Mr Wrinfield and Dr Harper should secure your release.” He considered this for a moment. “On the other hand, it may not.” “You’re quite mad. Quite.”
“Too late to change my spots.” He stood up and she with him. “Must get in touch with Dr Harper now.” She reached up and locked her fingers round the back of his neck. Her voice reflected the misery in her face. “Please. Please, Bruno. Just for me. Please.” He put his hands on her forearms but not to pull the fingers apart. He said: “Look, my lady-love, we’re only supposed to be falling in love.” His voice was gentle. “This way there’s a chance.”
She said dully: “Either way you’re a dead man.” Halfway to his stateroom Bruno found a phone and called Dr Harper. Harper was eventually located in the dining saloon. Bruno said: “My ankle’s acting up again.”
“Ten minutes and I’ll be across.”
And in ten minutes’ time Harper was in the stateroom as promised. He made free of Bruno’s liquor cabinet, made himself at armchair ease and heard out Bruno’s account of his conversation with Maria. At the end, and after due thought, he said: “I’d say it gives you at least a fighting chance. Better than mine, I must admit. When do you propose to carry this into effect?”
“The final decision is, of course, yours. I’d thought of making the reconnaissance on Sunday and making the entry on Tuesday night. Late Tuesday night. That seems like the best plan, the best time, for we will be leaving the following day and that will give the police less time for questioning if questioning there will be.”
“Agreed.”
“If we have to make a break for it — you have escape plans?” “We have. But they’re not finalized yet. I’ll let you know when they are.”
“Coming via your little transceiver? Remember you promised to show me that some time.”
“I shall. I’ve got to — I told you. I’ll do three things at one time — show you the transceiver, give you the guns and give you the escape plans. I’ll let you know when. What does Maria think of your idea?”
“A marked lack of enthusiasm. But then she was hardly over the moon about yours either. But, however unwillingly, she’ll co-operate.” Bruno stopped and looked around him in some puzzlement.
Harper said: “Something’s wrong?”
“Not necessarily wrong. But the ship’s slowing down. Can’t you hear it? Can’t you feel it? The engine revolutions have dropped right away. Why should a ship stop — well, anyway, slow down — in the middle of the Mediterranean? Well, I suppose we’ll find out in good enough time.” They found out immediately. The door was unceremoniously thrown open, with a force sufficient to send it juddering on its hinges. Tesco Wrinfield almost ran into the room. His face was grey, his breathing heavy and short at the same time. He said: “Henry’s missing. He’s missing! We can’t find him anywhere.”
Bruno said: “Is that why the Carpentaria is slowing down?” “We’ve been searching everywhere.” He gulped down the glass of brandy which Harper had handed to him. “The crew has searched, is still searching everywhere. There’s just no trace of him. Vanished, just vanished.”
Harper was soothing. He glanced at his watch. “Come on, now, Mr Wrinfield, that couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes ago. And this is a very big ship.”
“With a very big crew,” Bruno said. “They have a standardized routine for this sort of thing — searching for a missing passenger, that is. From the lifeboats to the hold they can cover every conceivable area in less time than you would believe possible.” He turned to the distraught Wrinfield. “Sorry I can’t offer you any comfort, sir — but is the captain slowing down so as not to get too far away from the place where your nephew may have fallen overboard?”
“I think so.” Wrinfield listened. “We’re picking up speed, aren’t we?”
“And turning,” Bruno said. “I’m afraid that means, sir, that the captain is pretty sure that Henry is not aboard. He’ll be taking the Carpentaria through a hundred and eighty degrees and tracking back the way we came. If Henry is overboard he may well be swimming or afloat. This sort of thing has happened before: there’s always a chance, Mr Wrinfield.” Wrinfield looked at him with distraught disbelief on his face and Bruno did not blame him: he didn’t believe it himself either.
They went on deck. The Carpentaria, retracing the course it had come, was making perhaps ten knots, no more. A motorized lifeboat, already manned, was swung out on its davits. Two powerful searchlights, one on either wing of the bridge, shone straight ahead. In the bows two seamen directed the beams of their portable searchlights almost vertically downwards. A little farther aft two seamen on either side waited with rope-attached and illuminated lifebelts. Beyond them still, rope-ladders, picked out in the beams of torches, hung over the side. Twenty minutes of steadily mounting tension and dwindling hope passed. Wrinfield abruptly left his two companions and made his way to the bridge. He found the master on the starboard wing, binoculars to his eyes. He lowered them as Wrinfield came by his side and shook his head slowly. He said. “Your nephew is not on the ship, Mr Wrinfield. That is for certain.” The captain looked at his watch. “It is now thirty-eight minutes since your nephew was last seen. We are now at the precise spot where we were thirty-eight minutes ago. If he is alive — I’m sorry to be so blunt, sir — he cannot be beyond this point.”
“We could have missed him?”
“Most unlikely. Calm sea, windless night, no currents hereabouts worth speaking of and the Mediterranean, as you know, is virtually tideless. He would have been on the line we have taken.” He spoke to an officer by his
