possessions had not been searched, but it was safe to presume they had.
Caliph would not neglect such an elementary precaution. ” The locks on doors and windows were inadequate, had probably not been used in years, for there had been no serpents in this paradise, not until recently. So he placed chairs and other obstacles in such a way that an intruder should stumble over them in the dark, and then he rumpled the bed and arranged the pillows to look like a sleeping figure, but took a single blanket to the long couch in the private lounge. He did not really expect an attempt before the other guests left the island,
but if it came he would confuse Caliph’s scenario as much as possible.
He slept fitfully, jerking awake when a falling palm frond rattled across the roof, or the moon threw picture shadows on the wall across the room. just before dawn he fell into a deeper sleep and his dreams were distorted and nonsensical, only the sharp clear image of
Melissa-Jane’s terror-stricken face and her silent screams of horror remained with him when he woke. The memory roused in him the cold lust for vengeance which had abated a little in the weeks since her rescue and he felt reaffirmed, possessed of a steely purpose once more,
determined to resist the softening, fatal allure of Caliph.
He rose in the slippery pearl light of not yet dawn, and went down to the beach. He swam out a mile beyond the reef, and had a long pull back against a rogue current, but he came ashore feeling good and hard and alert as he had not been in weeks.
All right, he thought grimly. Let it come. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.
There was a farewell breakfast for the departing guests, on the sugary sands of the beach that had been swept smooth by the night tide pink Laurent Perrier champagne and hothouse strawberries flown in from Auckland, New Zealand.
Magda Altmann wore brief green pants that showed off her long shapely legs to perfection, and a matching “boob tube” across her small neat breasts but her belly and shoulders and back were bare. It was the body of a finely trained athlete, but drawn by a great artist.
She seemed unnaturally elated to Peter, her gaiety was slightly forced and the low purring laughter just a little too ready and with a saw-edge to it. It was almost as though she had made some hard decision, and was steeling herself to carry it through. Peter thought of them as true opponents who had trained carefully for the coming configuration like prize fighters at the weigh-in.
After the breakfast they rode up in a cavalcade of electric carts to the airfield. The senator, revved-up with pink champagne and sweating lightly in the rising heat, gave Magda an over-affectionate farewell, but she skilfully avoided his hands and shunted him expertly into the Tri Islander after the other passengers.
Pierre, Magda’s pilot, stood on the brakes at the end of the runway while he ran all three engines up to full power.
Then he let her go, and the moment she had speed he rotated her into a nose-high obstacle-clearance attitude.
The Ungainly machine itimped into the sky and went over the palms at the end of the short strip with five hundred feet to spare and
Magda turned to Peter ecstatically.
“I hardly slept last night, “she admitted, as she kissed him.
“Neither did I,” Peter told her and then he added silently” for the same reasons, I’m sure.”
“I’ve planned a special day for us,”
she went on. “And I don’t want to waste another minute of it.” The head boatman had Magda’s big forty- five-foot Chriscraft Fisherman singled up at the end of the jetty. It was a beautiful boat, with long low attacking lines that made it seem to be flying even when on its mooring lines, and loving care had very obviously been lavished upon it. The paintwork was unmarked and the stainless steel fittings were polished to a mirror finish. The boatman beamed happily when Magda commended him with a smile and a word.
“Tanks are full, Baronne. The scuba bottles are charged and the light rods are rigged. The water-skis are in the main racks, and the chef came down himself to check the icebox.” However, his wide white smile faded when he learned that Magda was taking the boat out alone.
“Don’t you trust me? “she laughed.
“Oh, of course, Baronne-” But he could not hide his chagrin at having to give over his charge even to such a distinguished captain.
He handled the lines himself, casting her off, and calling anxious last-minute advice to Magda as the gap between jetty and vessel opened.
“Ne t’kquiet pas!” she laughed at him, but he made a dejected figure standing on the end of the jetty as Magda slowly opened up both diesels and the Chriscraft came up on the plane and seemed almost to break free of the surface.
Her wake was scored deep and clean and straight through the gin-clear water of the lagoon, a tribute to the design of her hull, and then it curved out gracefully behind them as Magda made the turn between the channel markers and lined her up for the passage through the reef, and out into the open Pacific.
“Where are we going?”
“There is an old Japanese aircraft carrier lying in a hundred feet of water beyond the reef. Yankee aircraft sank her back in “forty-four It is a beautiful site for scuba diving. We will go there first-” How? Peter wondered. Perhaps one of the scuba bottles had been partially filled with carbon monoxide gas. It was simply done, with a hose from the exhaust of the diesel generator:
simply pass the exhaust gases through a charcoal filter to remove the taste and smell of unconsumed hydra carbons and the remaining carbon monoxide gas would be undetectable. Fill the bottle to 30 atmospheres of pressure then top it up with clean air to its operating pressure of
I 10 atmospheres. It would be swift, but not too swift to alarm the victim, a gentle long sleep. When the victim lost his mouthpiece, the bottles would purge themselves of any trace of the gas. That would be a good way to do it.
“After that we can go ashore on The des Oiseaux. Since Aaron stopped the islanders stealing the eggs to eat, we’ve got one of the biggest nesting colonies of terns and noddies and frigate birds in the
Southern Pacific-” Perhaps a spear gun That would be direct and effective.
At short range, say two feet, even below the surface, the spear arrow would go right through a human torso in between the shoulder blades and out through the breast bone.
And afterwards we can water-ski-” With an unsuspecting skier in the water, awaiting the pick-up, what could be more effective than opening up both those tremendously powerful diesels to the gates and running the victim down? If the hull did not crush him, the twin screws turning at 500 revolutions per minute would cut him up as neatly as a loaf of pre-sliced bread.
Peter found himself intrigued with the guessing-game.
He found himself regretting the fact that he would never know what she intended, and he looked back from where they stood side by side on the tall flying bridge of the Chriscraft. The main island was lowering itself into the water already they were out of sight of anybody who did not have a pair of powerful binoculars.
Beside him Magda pulled the retaining ribbon out of her hair, and shook loose a black rippling banner that streamed in the wind behind her.
“Let’s do this for ever,” she shouted above the wind and the boom of the engines.
“Sold to the lady with the sexy backside,” Peter shouted back, and he had to remind himself that she was one of the most carefully trained killers he would ever meet. He must not allow himself to be lulled by the laughter and the beauty and he must not allow her to make the first stroke, His chances of surviving that were remote.
He glanced back again at the land. Any minute now, he thought,
and moved as though to glance over the side, getting slightly into her rear, but still in the periphery of her vision; she shifted slightly towards him still smiling.
“At this state of the tide there are always amberjack in the channel. I promised the chef I would bring him a couple of them kicking fresh, she explained. “Won’t you go down and get two of the light rods ready, cheri? The feather lures are in the forward starboard seat locker.”
“Okay,“he nodded.
“I’ll throttle back to trolling speed when I make the turn into the channel put the lines in then.”
OK.”
