“You want to put an airbag on it?”
“Yes, I’ll lift it with an airbag and then tow it away from the reef.”
I reversed Dancer in gingerly towards the yellow balloon that played lightly in the angry coral jaws of the Break. “That’s as close as I’ll go,” I shouted down into the cockpit, and Jimmy acknowledged with a wave.
He waddled duck-footed to the stern and adjusted his equipment. He had taken two airbags as well as the canvas cover from the sledge, and was roped up to the coil of nylon rope.
I saw him take a bearing on the yellow marker with the compass on his wrist, then once again he glanced up at me on the bridge before he flipped backwards over the stern and disappeared.
His regular breathing burst in a white rash below the stern, then began to move off towards the reef Guthrie paid out the bodyline after him.
I kept Dancer on station by using bursts of forward and reverse, holding her a hundred yards from the southern tip of the Break.
Slowly Jimmy’s bubbles approached the yellow marker, and then broke steadily beside it. He was working below it, and I imagined him fixing the empty airbags to the object with the nylon slings. It would be hard work with the suck and drag of the current worrying the bulky bags. Once he had fitted the slings he could begin to fill the bags with compressed air from his scuba bottles.
If Jimmy’s estimate of size was correct it would need very little inflation to pull the mysterious object off the bottom, and once it dangled free we could tow it into a safer area before bringing it aboard.
For forty minutes I held Dancer steady, then quite suddenly two swollen green shiny mounds broke the surface astern. The airbags were up - Jimmy had lifted his prize.
Immediately his hooded head surfaced beside the filled bags, and he held his right arm straight up. The signal to begin the tow.
“Ready?” I shouted at Guthrie in the cockpit.
“Ready!” He had secured the line, and I crept away from the reef, slowly and carefully to avoid up-ending the bags and spilling out the air that gave them lift.
Five hundred yards off the reef, I kicked Dancer into neutral and went to help haul in the swimmer and his fat green airbags.
“Stay where you are,” Materson snarled at me as I approached the ladder and I shrugged and went back to the wheel.
“The hell with them all, I thought, and lit a cheroot but I couldn’t prevent the tickle of excitement as they worked the bags alongside, and then walked them forward to the bows.
They helped Jimmy aboard, and he shrugged off the heavy compressed air bottles, dropping them to the deck while he pushed his faceplate on to his forehead.
His voice, ragged and high-pitched, carried clearly to me as I leaned on the bridge rail.
“Jackpod” he cried. “It’s the-‘ “Watch id” Materson. cautioned him, and James cut himself off and they all looked at me, lifting their faces to the bridge.
“Don’t mind me, boys,” I grinned and waved the cheroot cheerily.
They turned away and huddled. Jimmy whispered, and Guthrie said, “Jesus Christ!” loudly and slapped Materson’s back, and then they were all exclaiming and laughing as they crowded to the rail and began to lift the airbags and their burden aboard. They were clumsy with it, Dancer was rolling heavily, and I leaned forward with curiosity eating a hole in my belly.
My disappointment and chagrin were intense when I realized that Jimmy had taken the precaution of wrapping his prize in the canvas sledge cover. It came aboard as a sodden, untidy bundle of canvas, swathed in coils of nylon rope.
It was heavy, I could see by the manner in which they handled it - but it was not bulky, the size of a small suitcase. They laid it on the deck and stood around it happily. Materson smiled up at me.
“Okay, Fletcher. Come take a look.”
It was beautifully done, he played like a concert pianist on my curiosity. Suddenly I wanted very badly to know what they had pulled from the sea. I clamped the cheroot in my teeth as I swarmed down the ladder, and hurried towards the group in the bows. I was halfway across the foredeck, right out in the open, and Materson. was still smiling as he said softly. “Now!”
Only then did I know it was a set-up, and my mind began to move so fast that it all seemed to go by in extreme slow motion.
I saw the evil black bulk of the .45 in Guthrie’s fist, and it coming up slowly to aim into my belly. Mike Guthrie was in the marksman’s crouch, right arm fully extended, and he was grinning as he screwed up those speckled eyes and sighted along the thick-jacketed barrel.
I saw Jimmy North’s handsome young face contort with horror, saw him reach out to grip the pistol arm but Materson, still grinning, shoved him roughly aside and he staggered away with Dancer’s next roll.
I was thinking quite clearly and rapidly, it was not a procession of thought but a set of simultaneous images. I thought how neatly they had dropped the boom on me, a really professional hit.
I thought how presumptuous I had been in trying to make a deal with the wolf pack. For them it was easier to hit than to negotiate.
I thought that they would take out Jimmy now that he had watched this. That must have been their intention from the start. I was sorry for that. I had come to like the kid.
I thought about the heavy soft explosive lead slug that the .45 threw, about how’it would tear up the target, hitting with the shock of two thousand foot pounds.
Guthrie’s forefinger curled on the trigger and I began to throw myself at the rail beside me with the cheroot still in my mouth, but I knew it was too late.
The pistol in Guthrie’s hand kicked up head high, and I saw the muzzle flash palely in the sunlight. The cannon roar of the blast and the heavy lead bullet hit me together. The din deafened me and snapped my head back and the cheroot flipped up high in the air leaving a’trail of sparks. Then the impact of the bullet doubled me over, driving the air from my lungs, and lifted me off my feet, hurling me backwards until the deck rail caught me in the small of the back.
There was no pain, just that huge numbing shock. It was in the chest, I was sure of that, and I knew that it must have blown me open. It was a mortal wound, I was sure of that also and I expected my mind to go now. I expected to fade, going out into blackness.
Instead the rail caught me in the back and I somersaulted, going over the side head-first and the quick cold embrace of the sea covered me. It steadied me, and I opened MY eyes to the silver clouds of bubbles and the soft green of sunlight through the surface.
My lungs were empty, the air driven out by the impact of the bullet, and my instinct told me to claw to the surface for air, but surprisingly my mind was still clear and I knew that Mike Guthrie would blow the top off my skull the moment I surfaced. I rolled and dived, kicking clumsily, and went down under Dancer’s hull.
On empty lungs it was a long journey, Dancer’s smooth white belly passed slowly above me, and I drove on desperately, amazed that there was strength in my legs still.
Suddenly darkness engulfed me, a soft dark red cloud, and I nearly panicked, thinking my vision had gone — until suddenly I realized it was my own blood. Huge billowing clouds of my own blood staining the water. Tiny zebrastriped fish darted wildly through the cloud, gulping greedily at it.
I struck out, but my left arm would not respond. It trailed limply at my side, and blood blew like smoke about me.
There was strength in my right arm and I forged on under Dancer, passed under her keel and rose thankfully towards her far waterline.
As I came up I saw the nylon tow rope trailing over her stern, a hight of it hanging down below the surface and I snatched at it thankfully.
I broke the surface under Dancer’s stern, and I sucked painfully for air, my lungs felt bruised and numb, the air tasted like old copper in my mouth but I gulped it down.
My mind was still clear. I was under the stern, the wolf pack was in the bows, the carbine was under the engine hatch in the main cabin.
I reached up as high as I could and took a twist of the nylon rope around my right wrist, lifted my knees and got my toes on to the rubbing strake along Dancer’s waterline.
