They rolled back suddenly and Benedict’s head struck the solid leg of the desk with a crack that jarred his whole body. His grip on her throat loosened and she tore herself free with fresh breath hissing into her open mouth. She rolled away from him and in one fluid movement gained her feet, reeling back from him with the front of the mink torn open and her hair tangled across her face.
Benedict dragged himself up the desk on to his knees.
He was still screaming, a high keening note without form or coherence, as Ruby spun away from him and stumbled to the door.
Blinded by her own hair, fighting for strangled breath, she fumbled for the door handle with her back turned to him.
Benedict reached up and lifted the shotgun off the desk.
Still kneeling beside the desk he held the weapon across his hip.
The recoil was a liquid pulsing jolt in his hands and the muzzle blast was thunderous in the confines of the room. the long yellow flame lighting the scene like a photographer’s flash-bulb.
The heavy charge caught Ruby in the small of her back.
At that range there was-no spread of shot and it went through spine and pelvis in a solid shattering ball. It tore out through the front of her belly, spinning her sideways along the wall. She slid down into a sitting position, facing him with the mink flared open about her.
On his knees Benedict swung the gun to follow her fall and he fired the second barrel; again the brief thunder and flame of the muzzle blast flashed across the room.
At even closer range than the first charge it struck her full in her beautiful golden face.
Benedict stood in the garage with his forehead pressed against the cold metal of the Rolls-Royce. The shotgun was still in his hands, and his pockets were full with cartridges that he had picked up from the floor before leaving the study.
He was shivering violently, like a man in high fever.
“No!” he moaned to himself, repeating the single negative over an dover again, leaning against the big car.
Abruptly he gagged, remembering the carnage he had created. Then he retched, still leaning against the Rolls, bringing up the brandy mingled with his horror.
It left him pale and weak, but steadier. Through the open window he threw the gun on to the back seat of the Rolls, and climbed shakily into the driver’s seat.
He sat there bowed over the steering wheel, and now his instinct of self-preservation took hold of him.
It seemed to him there was but one avenue of escape still open to him. Wild Goose had the range to take him across an ocean - South
America perhaps, and there was money in Switzerland.
He started the Rolls and reversed out of the garage, the spin of tyres against concrete burning blue smoke into the beams of the headlights.
The Mercedes crawled through the thick sand, the headlights probing ineffectually into the bright orange fog of dust that whipped endlessly over the track ahead. The hot gritty wind buffeted the car, rocking it on its suspension.
Tracey sat forward in the driver’s seat peering ahead through eyes that felt raw and swollen with fatigue and mica dust.
From the main road to the coast this jeep track was the only land access to Cartridge Bay. It was a hundred miles of tortuous trail, made up of deep sandy ruts and broken stone where it crossed one of the many rocky ridges.
The radiator of the Mercedes was boiling furiously, overheating in the searing wind and the slogging low-gear grind through thick sand.
In places Tracey followed the track only by driving through gaps in the stunted knee-high growth of desert bush. Every few minutes a tumbleweed, driven by the wind, would bowl across the track like a frightened furry animal.
At times she was sure she had missed a turning and was now grinding aimlessly out into the desert, then reassuringly the twin ruts would show up in the lights ahead of her.
Once she did drive off the road, and immediately the Mercedes came to a gentle standstill with its rear wheels spinning helplessly in the soft sand. She had to climb out of the cab and, with her bare hands, scoop away the sand from behind the wheels and stuff bundles of turnbieweed into the depressions to give the wheels purchase. She almost wept with relief when the Mercedes pulled back sluggishly on to the trail again.
The slow dawn broke through the dust clouds and Tracey switched off the headlights and drove on until suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, she reached Cartridge Bay. The depot buildings loomed suddenly before her, and she left the Mercedes and ran to the living quarters. The foreman opened the door to her insistent hammering, and stared at her in astonishment before ushering her in. Tracey cut off his questions with her own.
“Where is Wild Goose?”
“She took Mr. Lance out to Kinesher, but she’s back now lying at the jetty.”
“Hugo Kramer - the Captain?”
“He’s aboard, holed up in his cabin.”
“Thanks.” Tracey left him, pushed the door open against the wind and ran out into the storm.
Wild Goose lay at her moorings, secured by heavy lines to the bollards, but fidgeting and fretting at the push of the wind. There was a gangplank laid to her deck, and lights showed at her portholes. Tracey went aboard.
Hugo Kramer came to the doorway of his cabin in a suit of rumpled striped pyjamas. Tracey pushed past him.
“You took Lance out to Kingfisher?” she accused him, her voice sharp and anxious.
“Yes.”
“You idiot, didn’t you realize there was something up?
Good God, why otherwise would he fly in through this weather?”
Hugo stared at her, and instinctively she knew that what Ruby had told her was true.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,“he blurted.
“You’ll know all right when we are all sitting behind bars we’ll have fifteen long years to think about it. Lance has tumbled to it, you fool, I’ve got to stop him. Take me out to Kingfisher.” He was confused - and afraid.
“I know nothing about-” Hugo started again.
“You’re wasting time.” Brusquely Tracey brushed his protests aside. “Take me out to Kingfisher.”
“Your brother - where is he? Why didn’t he came?” Tracey had anticipated the question. “Lance beat him up badly. He’s in hospital. He sent me.” Suddenly Hugo was convinced.
“Gatt!” he swore. “What are we going to do? This storm I may be able to get you out there, but I won’t be able to leave Wild Goose. My crew can’t handle her in this sea.
What can you do on your own?” “Get me out there,” said Tracey.
“Get me aboard Kingfisher and you can come back. The Italian, Caporetti, he and I will take care of Lance. In this storm a man can be washed overboard very easily.”
“ja.” Hugo’s face lit with relief.
“That’s it. The Italian!” And he reached for his oilskins hanging on the bulkhead.
As he pulled them on over his pyjamas he looked at Tracey with new respect.
“You,” he said. “I didn’t know you were in it.”
“Did you think my brother and I would stand by and let a stranger take our birthright from us?” Hugo grinned. “You’re a cool one, I’ll say that for you.
You had me fooled.” And he went out on to the bridge.
Johnny Lance and Sergio Caporetti stood shoulder to shoulder on
Kingfisher’s bridge. The ship was taking the big green seas over her bows, solid walls of water, and the wind whipped spray that spattered the armoured glass windows of the bridge house.
Kingfisher had slipped her moorings the previous evening, leaving the big yellow buoys floating on their anchor cables and she was
working free of her fetters. She was on computer navigation, holding her position over the ground against the swells and the wind by use of her engine and rudder.
