“ And then on an impulse. “But kiss me first.” She held up her face to him, and he wondered why he had said that. It was not to take farewell of her. He was sure of that. It was to lull her just that fraction, and yet as their lips met he felt the deep ache of regret that he had controlled for so long and as her mouth spread slowly and moistly open under his,
he felt as though his heart might break then. For a moment he felt that he might die himself before he could do it; dark waves of despair poured over him.
He slid his hand over her shoulder to the nape of her neck and her body flattened against his; he caressed her lightly, feeling for the place, and then settling thumb and forefinger a second, another second passed, and then she pulled him back softly.
“Hey, now!” she whispered huskily. “You stop that before I pile up on the reef.” He had not been able to do it with his bare hands. He just could not do it like that but he had to do it quickly, very quickly. Every minute delayed now led him deeper and deeper into deadly danger.
“Go!” she ordered, and struck him a playful blow on the chest.
“We’ve got time for that later all the time in the world. Let’s savour it, every moment of it.” He had not been able to do it, and he turned away. It was only as he went down the steel ladder into the cockpit of the Chriscraft that it suddenly occurred to him that during the lingering seconds of that kiss the fingers of her right hand had cupped lovingly under his chin. She could have crushed his larynx,
paralysing him with a thumb driven up into the soft vulnerable arch of his throat at the first offensive pressure of his thumb and forefinger.
As his feet hit the deck of the cockpit another thought came to him. Her other hand had lain against his body, stroking him softly under the ribs. That hand could have struck upwards and inwards to tear through his diaphragm his instincts must have warned him. She had been poised for the stroke, more so than he was; she had been inside the circle of his arms, inside his de fences waiting for him and he shivered briefly in the hot morning sun at the realization of how close he had been to death.
The realization turned instantly to something else, that slid down his spine cold as water down a melting icicle. It was fear, not the crippling fear of the craven, but fear that edged him and hirdened him. Next time he would not hesitate he could not hesitate.
He was instinctively carrying out her instructions as his mind raced to catch up with the problem. He lifted the lid of the seat locker. In the custom-fitted interior were arranged trays of fishing gear, swivels of brass and stainless steel in fifty different sizes;
sinkers shaped for every type of water and bottom; lures of plastic and feathers, of enamel and bright metal; hooks for gigantic bill fish or for fry and in a separate compartment in the side tray a bait knife.
The knife was a fifty-dollar Ninja with a lexan composition handle, cheque red and moulded for grip. The blade was seven inches of hollow ground steel, three inches broad at the hilt and tapering to a stiletto point. It was a brutal weapon, you could probably chop through an oak log with it, as the makers advertised. Certainly it would enter human flesh and go through bone as though it were Cheddar cheese.
It balanced beautifully in Peter’s fist as he made one testing slash and return cut with it. The blade hissed in the air, and when he tested the edge too hurriedly it stung like a razor and left a thin line of bright blood across the ball of his thumb.
He kicked off his canvas sneakers, so the rubber soles did not squeak on the deck. He was dressed now in only a thin cotton singlet and boxer type swimming trunks, stripped down for action.
He went up the first three rungs of the ladder on bare silent feet, and lifted his eyes above the level of the flying bridge.
Magda Altmann stood at the controls of the Chriscraft, conning the big vessel into the mouth of the channel, staring ahead in complete concentration.
Her hair still flew in the wind, snaking and tangling into thick shimmering tresses. Her naked back was turned to him, the deeply defined depression running down her spine and the crest of smooth hard muscle rising on each side of it.
One leg of her pants had tucked up slightly exposing a half-moon of round white buttock, and her legs were long and sup pleas a dancer’s as she balanced on the balls of her narrow feet, raising herself to see ahead over the bows.
Peter had been gone from the bridge for less than ten seconds, and she was completely unaware, completely unsuspecting.
Peter did not make the same mistake again; he went up the ladder in a single swift bound, and the bellow of the diesels covered any sound he might have made.
With the knife you never take the chance of the point turning against bone, if you have a choice of target.
Peter picked the small of the back, at the level of the kidneys where there was no bone to protect the body cavity.
It is essential to put the blade in with all possible power; this decreases the chance of bone-deflection and it peaks the paralysing effect of impact-shock.
Peter put the full weight of his rush behind the thrust.
The paralysis is total if the blade is twisted a half-turn at the same instant that the blade socks in hilt- deep.
The muscles in Peter’s right forearm were bunched in anticipation of the moment in which he would twist the blade viciously in her flesh,
quadrupling the size and the trauma of the wound.
The polished stainless steel fascia of the Chriscraft’s control panel reflected a distorted image, like those funny mirrors of the fairground. Only at the moment that Peter had committed himself completely, at the moment when he had thrown all his weight into the killing stroke, did he realize with a sickening flash that she was watching him in the polished steel control panel; she had been watching him from the moment he reappeared at the head of the ladder.
The curved Surface of the steel distorted] her face, so that it appeared to consist only of two enormous eyes; it distracted him in that thousandth part of a second before the point of the blade entered flesh. He did not see her move.
Blinding, numbing agony shot down his right flank and arm, from a point in the hollow where his collar bone joined the upper arm, while at the same instant something hit him on the inside of his forearm just below the elbow.
The knife stroke was flung outwards, passing an inch from her hip,
and the point of the blade crashed into the control panel in front of her, scaring the metal with a deep bright scratch, but Peter’s numbed fingers could not keep hold on the hilt. The weapon spun from his grip, ringing like a crystal wine glass as it struck the steel handrail and rebounded over the side of the bridge into the cockpit behind him.
He realized that she had struck backwards at him, not turning to face him but using only the reflection in the control panel to judge her blow with precision into the pressure point of his shoulder.
Now pain had crippled him and the natural reaction was to clutch at the source of it. Instead with some reflexive instinct of survival he flung up his left hand to protect the side of his neck and the next blow, also thrown backwards, felt as though it had come from a full-blooded swing of a baseball bat. He hardly saw it, it came so fast and hard there was just the flicker of movement across his vision,
like the blur of a hummingbird’s wing, and then the appalling force of it crushing into the muscle of his forearm.
Had it taken him in the neck where it was aimed, it would have killed him instantly; instead it paralysed his other arm, and she was turning into him now effortlessly matching his bull strength with a combination of speed and control.
He knew he must try and keep her close, smother her with his weight and size and strength and he hooked at her with the clawed crippled fingers of his knife hand; they caught for a moment and then she jerked free. He had ripped away the flimsy strip of elasticized cloth that covered her breasts, and she spun lightly under and out of the sweep of his other arm as he. tried desperately to club her down with his forearm.
He saw that her face was bone-white with the adrenalin overdose coursing through her blood. Her lips were
