We’ve got enough trouble without that.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Benedict demanded.
“Okay, then,” Hugo agreed.
“Kingfisher,” Benedict spoke into the microphone. “We are coming to you. I’ll be coming on board to finalize matters.”
“Fine.” Through the static they could hear the relief in Sergio’s voice. “I’ll be standing by.” It took nearly two hours for Wild Goose to slug her way back to where Kingfisher lay beneath the ghostly white shapes of
Thunderbolt and Suicide, and it was after midday before Hugo began manoeuvring Wild Goose into the big ship’s lee.
“Don’t waste time,” Hugo cautioned Benedict. “The sooner we get on our way - the better for all of us.”
“I’ll be about half an hour,” Benedict answered. “You lay off and wait for us.”
“Are you taking that bloody shotgun?” Benedict nodded.
“What for?” But Benedict did not reply, he looked up at the sky.
The sun was merely a luminous patch of silver light through the ceiling of sea-fret and wind-driven mist, and still the storm hunted hungrily across the sea.
“It will slow you up on the ladder.” Hugo harped on the shotgun.
He wanted very much to part Benedict from it, he wanted it over the side - for its presence aboard would prejudice the plans that Hugo had been forming during the last few hours - plans that took into account the ready market for diamonds in South America, and the undesirability of sharing the proceeds with two partners.
“I’ll take it.” Benedict tightened his grip on the stock of the weapon. Without it he would feel naked and vulnerable - and it was part of his own private plans for the future.
Benedict’s brain had also been busy during the last two hours.
“Suit yourself.” Hugo resigned himself to Benedict’s refusal; there would be an Opportunity later, during the long passage across the
Southern Atlantic. “You better get up for and.” This time Hugo’s approach was neatly executed; in a lull between the colossal swells he touched Wild Goose’s bows to the steel side of the factory ship.
Benedict stepped across the gap and was up the landing ladder and standing at Kingfisher’s rail before the next wave came marching down on them.
He waved Hugo off, then hanging on to the rail, made his way aft to Kingfisher’s bridge works.
“Where is Lance?” he demanded of Sergio the moment he stepped on to the bridge, but Sergio glanced significantly at the inquisitively listening helmsman and led Benedict through into his cabin.
“Where is Lance?” Benedict repeated the moment the door was locked.
“He and your sister they are in the conveyor room.” The conveyor room?” Benedict was incredulous.
“Si. They find out about Kammy’s machine. They open the hatch and go inside. I close both doors. Lock them good.” They are in there now?” Benedict asked to gain time to reconstruct his plans.
“Si. Still there.”
“All right.” Benedict reached his decision.
“Now listen, Caporetti, this is what we are going to do. The whole thing has blown up on us. We are going to wipe out as much of the evidence against us as possible, then we are clearing out. We are going to run for South America in Wild Goose.
You have got the diamonds - haven’t you?”
“Si.” Sergio patted the breast of his jacket.
“Give them to me.” Benedict held out his hand, and Sergio grinned.
“I tink I look after them. They keep my heart warm.” A frown of annoyance narrowed Benedict’s eyes, but he let the moment pass.
“All right.” His tone was still friendly. “Now, what you have to do is get down to the control room and wipe out Kaminikoto’s programme.
Get his name off that reel. He showed you how to do that?”
“Si.”
Sergio nodded.
“How long will it take?”
“Half an hour, not longer,“Sergio answered, and Benedict checked his wrist watch, sure that this would give him time enough to do what he had to do.
“Good! Get cracking.”
“Boss.” Sergio hesitated at the cabin door.
“What about my boys, my crew? They good boys, no trouble for them?”
They’re clean,” Benedict pointed out irritably. “I’ll get them together now, and explain that you have to go ashore.
They can keep Kingfisher hove to waiting for you to come back.
After the storm blows out they are bound to radio base and find out we have disappeared. They’ll be all right.” Sergio nodded his satisfaction.
“I’ll call them all to the bridge now. You talk to them.”
“The five crew members were gathered on Kingfisher’s bridge, and Sergio had disappeared down below.
“Any of you speak English?” Benedict demanded, and two of them affirmed that they did.
“Right,” Benedict addressed them. “You will have been wondering about all the coming and going in this weather.
I want you all to be ready to leave the ship. I want you to get all your valuables - now!” Quickly they translated to the others, who looked apprehensively at Benedict. He was a strange wild-eyed figu with the shotgun tucked under his arm. A “Right - let’s go.” And there was no dissent from any of them as they trooped to the companionway.
Benedict followed them along the passageway towards the crew quarters, and glanced quickly at his wrist watch.
Seven minutes had elapsed. He looked at the men ahead of him.
The backs of their heads formed a solid target. He had shot guineafowl like that in Namaqualand when they were on the ground running away from him in a thick file, down on one knee and aim for the thicket of heads, knocking down half the flock with both barrels.
He knew he could take all five of these men with two shots. just let them get a little further ahead so the shot could spread. But he remembered Ruby and his stomach heaved. The other way was just as sure.
“Stop!” he commanded as the five men came level with the paint store. They obeyed and turned back to face him.
Now he held the shotgun so that there was no mistaking its menace.
They stared at the gun fearfully.
“Open that door.” He pointed at the paint store. Nobody moved.
“You.” Benedict picked on one of those who spoke English. Like a man in a trance he went to the steel door and spun the locking handle.
He pulled the door open.
“In!” Eloquently Benedict gestured with the shotgun.
Reluctantly the five of them filed into the small windowless cubicle, and Benedict slammed the door on them. He spun the lock, throwing all his weight on the handle to set it.
Now he had a clear field, and his wrist watch gave him another twenty minutes. He hurried for-and, he wanted to keep well clear of the control room and Sergio Capotetti.
Using the forward companionway he dropped down to the working deck, fumbling out his duplicate set of keys.
WARNING. EXPLOSIVES. NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY.
He unlocked the door, and laying the shotgun flat on the deck he lifted a twenty-five pound drum of plastique down from its rack.
In his haste he tore a fingernail on the lid of the drum, but hardly felt the pain. He uncoiled a six-foot length of the soft dark toffee-coloured material and slung it around his neck. Next he selected a cardboard box of pencil time fuses. He read the label.
