Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers (59 page)

Anne was still shivering, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. She looked up towards the clifftop and felt Webb's fingers tighten over hers.

"Uh-uh. Not that way, baby. Because that's the way Ria will be coming if she decides to come looking. We're going to have to get wet, but if you remember your way back through the caves, we ought to make it before the tide gets much higher."

He hadn't asked her to trust him. Perhaps he knew he didn't need to. She nodded without speaking. Committing herself irrevocably. Bnt hadn't Webb just done the same? He had gone against orders and expediency by coming back here for her, she realized that.

He pulled the canvas cover back over the boat, then he gripped her hand and started pulling her along with him urgently. Now was not the time to ask him questions, especially not about Ria.

Once she was out of the room filled with all those stupid, laughing people, all intent on getting drunk to show how much they were enjoying themselves, Anna-Maria slipped off her shoes. There was no indecision in any of her movements as she ran lightly down the deserted passageway that led to a room opening onto the garden.

She paused only once, to retrieve the pair of rubber-soled shoes and black suede jacket she'd hidden earlier. Her dark-blue velvet jumpsuit wouldn't reflect the moonlight and would make her almost invisible in the darkness. Only the luminous dial of her watch glowed. She checked the time and smiled. It would take her less than ten minutes, if she ran all the way, to get to the little gate that was concealed by those twisted cypresses. She was athletic and slim, it would be easy to get there and back again without slowing down or losing her breath.

"Trust no one. And always make certain of even the tiniest little detail." As a member of the undercover terrorist organization known as the Red Guard, she had been trained well and had adapted to that training easily after her earlier training with the Cuban guerrillas. It had been her slight body and her innocent girl's face that had made them choose her for the assignment to the United States.

Anna-Maria smiled as she began to run, her feet making no sound on the path she followed. They had called her precocious as a child, and she had hated her parents for sticking her in a convent while they traveled. She had run away with the young man who seduced her and joined one of the guerrilla bands under Guevara, learning much more there than she could have under the tutelage of the nuns. Later, when she had come back crying to them with her pathetic story of seeing her parents shot before her eyes, the stupid cows had taken her in and smuggled her to the United States. Their contact there had arranged everything, including her job at the Languages Institute. It had all been very easy, until she had begun to fall in love with the man who was her quarry. Love was an emotion for fools! But still, a woman needed a man of her own who could be her equal. The Webb she had rediscovered wasn't the dotingly protective young man she remembered. He was harder, tougher, and more cynical. The fact that Harris Phelps had said he was an extremely clever contract man had decided her to take him, partially at least, into her confidence.

If he had been doing his part this evening, she would be sure-but still, she wasn't going to take any chances. It was necessary that Anne Mallory, whom she hated as both a rival and a symbol of the typical spoiled capitalist-leech female, should die.

Being what she was, Anna-Maria would not admit even to herself that there might be another reason she wanted the other woman to die.

She reached the top of the cliff, the gate, and paused there, checking the loads in her handgun. The moon, which had seemed to be following her, was still partially hidden behind the trees, and she let her eyes get used to the darkness, calling softly,

"Webb? Are you there?" Only the ocean answered her, and now she could see the outline of the boat, its canvas cover still drawn tautly over it. The boards of the deck were damp from sea spray; it meant the tide was getting higher. Perhaps he had come as silently as she had and done what he was supposed to do. If he had, he should be back at the house to meet her by now. She had given him exactly twenty minutes before she followed him out of that hot, overcrowded room.

Perhaps, she thought. But just in case ... A shaft of moonlight lit up the side of the boat, and she smiled as she leveled the gun, holding it across one wrist as she took aim.

"Good-bye, Miss Mallory," she called softly before she fired, emptying the clip, seeing the little holes spring up all the way across the top of the canvas in a pretty pattern.

The silencer and the crashing waves would cover any noise. She reloaded the gun with the ease and swiftness of long practice as she turned and sped back toward the house to look for Webb. She didn't notice what appeared to be the dim riding lights of a small fishing boat that rocked less than a mile out to sea, and if she had, she would not have paid it any attention. The moon, as it rose higher, still retained its jack-o-lantern glow, framed by another more ominous glow in the sky to the east. The fire.

Harris Phelps prided himself on his detachment and resolution, his ability to meet and cope with any crises that arose.

But the goddamned fire! He hadn't anticipated that it would be allowed to run out of control until it had assumed the proportion of a national disaster. He found it easy enough to calm everybody else down. Espinoza and Pleydel had too much at stake not to cooperate when he had told them what he planned to do.

"So we put the ever-famous Plan B into effect, eh?" Sal had said with one of his infernal sardonic smiles.

"Something like that," Harris replied curtly. "You can understand why, at all costs, we must preserve an atmosphere of normalcy here? Once I've had time to pack away all those tapes and get them out safely, we can act without delay. And there will be nothing Reardon can do to stop the avalanche."

"And Reardon's daughter?" Espinoza said softly, noticing that Harris flushed with annoyance. "There's no need for Anne to become too involved," he said stiffly. "I'm sure Hyatt will see that she's safe."

But then, soon afterwards, he couldn't find Anne. Her strange disappearance had both disturbed and distracted him, costing him valuable time.

Espinoza had been right, he was to think angrily later. He had come dangerously close to letting Anne become a weakness, disregarding all his father's warnings that had helped him shape his life so far. He would have sent a search party after her, if Sarah Vesper hadn't cornered him on his way upstairs.

"Harris darling, I know how very upsetting this all must be, but I thought you ought to know. I'm worried about her, too, you know! And so is Hal. So when Jean told me ..."

He had been impatient enough to interrupt her. "Told you' what, Sarah? For God's sake, it's getting dark, and ..."

He'd made light of it to Craig Hyatt, who had started to act far too proprietary since his arrival. And he was relieved that Hyatt, to keep busy, had volunteered to keep monitoring the radio. "Told you what?" he repeated.

"I was coming to that, Harris. She said she'd met Anne coming out of Webb's room, and well-Jean told her he'd gone down to the beach, so Anne said she might go to look for him. She asked Jean not to tell anyone else, so of course she didn't. Until Webb turned up with that Cuban woman he's taken up with recently, and neither of them had seen her. I mean, if she's had a fall, or got herself lost .. ."

A wave of rage had made Harris Phelps brush at his mustache, giving Sarah a surface smile. If she'd gone chasing after Carnahan again like a bitch in heat, disregarding everything he'd told her, all the warnings, she deserved whatever she'd gotten into.

"Anne was born on this island, Sarah, and she knows every inch of it. Actually, I suppose I should have mentioned it, but with so many things happening at once-I found a note she'd left, after I let myself get alarmed. She said she needed a very long walk to calm her down-in the moonlight. I've no doubt she's at the other end of the island by now, but I did send Palumbo after her. You might pass the word around to the others if you don't mind. And thanks for telling me."

He'd told Hyatt, noting with malice the look of angry displeasure on the other man's face.

"I thought you told me that was all done with? And especially after what both you and I told her damn!" He'd looked up at Harris, frowning. "Do you think ?"

They both knew what he meant. Harris shook his head thoughtfully. "Ria was with him, remember. She would have said something. It could be she reallydid get lost."

"I wonder where," Hyatt said, almost to himself.

Harris, still angry, told him abruptly that he was going down to the vault.

"Need help?"

"No. You'd better stay here and keep monitoring the damn radio, I suppose. We want to know what's happening about our threatened invasion." He gave a slightly twisted smile.

"Palumbo's getting the 'copter ready, and he's going to be waiting for me."

Now, he was almost done. All the tapes stacked neatly away in airtight containers were labeled, but it had been easy to pick out the ones he wanted, although he'd deliberately scattered them in with others. The important ones were numbered instead of titled.

Harris straightened his shoulders and allowed a sigh of satisfaction to escape him as he snapped the locks on his case shut. He looked around the vault and shrugged.

Pleydel would watch over his precious cans of film himself. And Hyatt could look out for Anne. It was a pity that she had turned out to be so deceitful and ungrateful after all, but he had more important things to think about right now.

Harris had reached the entrance to the vault when he saw Anna-Maria come slipping down the side stairway. She had a gun in her hand, but she lowered it with a sigh when she saw him.

"Harris? Thank goodness it is you. I thought that Webb ... have you seen him?" He said sharply, "I thought you were supposed to be watching him!"

"I was with him all the time. But when I went to powder my nose and came back, he was gone. I thought he might be here, or upstairs."

"He's not upstairs-not in the control room, anyhow. Hyatt's there, and he knows enough to keep the door locked." He looked at her sharply. "Jean Benedict says that Anne told her she was going down to the beach-to find Webb, Are you sure you didn't see her?"

"Ohl" Her eyes widened as if she had suddenly recalled something. "We had been walking, you know, and we came back to the dock-the boat that is usually there, you know the one? It was gone. But we were busy with other things and did not think about it." She dismissed Anne with a shrug as her eyes went to Harris's case. "The tapes? It's very wise of you to take them away before all those other people get here.

But how will you leave? Surely not by car ... ?"

He felt annoyed with her for the first time since he had known her, but in spite of his questioning thoughts-the boat, Anne, any connection? why should she attempt to get away? -he forced his voice to sound polite.

"I'm going to take the jeep as far as the landing pad. Palumbo has the helicopter all ready to go." Anna-Maria seemed apprehensive. Her teeth nibbled at her lower lip while she frowned.

"Harris, you are sure that Webb does not know this? That there is no way he could have found out? Please-let me ride with you. I have this gun and I am very good with it. I never miss. And"-her voice grew suddenly venomous, surprising him -"I would very much enjoy killing the bastard!"

He seemed to hesitate, then he shook his head decisively.

"No. You'd better stay here with the others. And I have a rifle in the jeep. Palumbo will be armed, too, and I really don't think Carnahan would have had the time to get that far. You don't have to worry about me, or these tapes. I'm going to make sure they're put to very good use."

Harris gave her an impatient wave as he climbed into the jeep, hefting the heavy case onto the seat beside him. He had reached for the garage door opener when he noticed that Ria had come up to him as if she had something else to say. He turned his head impatiently.

She was smiling. She kept smiling after she had shot him very neatly between the eyes and his body slumped backwards.

"But I think that I and my friends will put those tapes to an even better use, Harris amigo," she said softly as she reached over the still twitching body for the square black case.

THERE HAD BEEN A MOMENT, when Anne felt the icy water swirling up to her knees as she slipped down the last few steps, when sheer terror seized her again.

The receding wave sucked greedily at her, filling her shoes, like weights, with water.

Not death by drowning, not this way. She could face any other kind of ending with courage, if it had to be; but her nightmare took her by the throat, making her struggle so fiercely that they both almost lost balance.

She heard a voice gasping hoarsely, "Please, Webb, please don't make me, don't ..."

He swore under his breath, backing her up against one of the wooden pilings and holding her there so hard she could feel splinters dig into her back. He held her until her struggles stopped, with the weight of his body and his mouth against hers.

Another wave roared up and around them, flinging itself against the cliff with a shower of spray, trying to take her back with it. This time she clung to him, and the salty wetness on her face was as much from tears as the flying sea spray.

"Annie." She felt his lips move against her ear. "Annie love, this is the only way. Do you understand? The caves-you can find your way through them blindfolded, can't you? I don't have a flashlight, I didn't have time to find one. So it's up to you. You can't let go and become hysterical now, love. We've got to try it. I don't want anyone finding you but me."

She nodded, forgetting that in the blackness down here he couldn't see her. But he had sensed the movement of her head, his hands slid down her arms to grip her hands again.

"I-I'm all right now," she whispered. "I'm sorry I panicked, but it was-too much like the Dream, suddenly. I can find my way back through the caves." If only her teeth would stop chattering!