Seawitch (3 page)

Of the two, Michael Mitchell was the taller, the broader and the less good-looking. With slightly craggy face, ruffled dark hair and blue chin, he could never have made it as a matinee idol. John Roomer, with his brown hair and trimmed brown mustache, was altogether better-looking. Both were shrewd, intelligent and highly experienced. Roomer was the intuitive one, Mitchell the one long on action. Apart from being charming, both men were astute and highly resourceful. And they were possessed of one other not inconsiderable quality: both were deadly marksmen.

Two years previously they had set up their own private investigative practice, and in that brief space of time had established such a reputation that people in real trouble now made a practice of going to them instead of to the police, a fact that hardly endeared them to the local law. They lived near Lord Worth's estate, where they were frequent and welcome visitors. That they did not come for the exclusive pleasure of his company Lord Worth was well aware. Nor, he knew, were they even in the slightest way interested in his money, a fact that Lord Worth

found astonishing, as he had never previously encountered anyone who wasn't thus interested. What they were interested in, and deeply so, were Marina and Melinda.

The door opened and Lord Worth's butler, Jenkins—English, of course, as were the two footmen—made his usual soundless entrance, approached the head of the table and murmured discreetly hi Lord Worth's ear. Lord Worth nodded and rose.

"Excuse me, girls, gentlemen. Visitors. Fra sure you can get along together quite well without me." He made his way to his study, entered and closed the door behind him—a very special padded door that, when shut, rendered the room completely soundproof.

The study, in its own way—Lord Worth was no sybarite but he liked his creature comforts as well as the next man—was as sumptuous as the dining room: oak, leather, a wholly unnecessary log fire burning in one corner, all straight from the best English baronial mansions. The walls were lined with thousands of books, many of which Lord Worth had actually read, a fact that must have caused great distress to his illiterate ancestors, who had despised degeneracy above all else.

A tall bronzed man with aquiline features and gray hair rose to his feet. Both men smiled and shook hands warmly.

Lord Worth said; "Corral, my dear chap! How

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Allstair MacLean

very nice to see you again. It's been quite some time."

"My pleasure, Lord Worth.' Nothing recently that would have interested you."

"But now?"

"Now is something else again."

The Corral who stood before Lord Worth was indeed the Corral who, in his capacity as representative of the Florida offshore leases, had been present at the meeting of ten at Lake Tahoe. Some years had passed since he and Lord Worth had arrived at an amicable and mutually satisfactory agreement. Corral, widely regarded as Lord Worth's most avowedly determined enemy and certainly the most vociferous of his critics, reported regularly to Lord Worth on the current activities and, more importantly, the projected plans of the major companies, which didn't hurt Lord Worth at all. Corral, in return, received an annual tax-free retainer of $200,000, which didn't hurt him very much either.

Lord Worth pressed a bell and within seconds Jenkins entered bearing a silver tray with two large brandies. There was no telepathy involved, just years of experience and a long-established foreknowledge of Lord Worth's desires. When he left, both men sat.

Lord Worth said: "Well, what news from the West?"

"The Cherokee, I regret to say, are after you."

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Seawitch

Lord Worth sighed and said: "It had to come sometime. Tell me all."

Corral told him all. He had a near-photographic memory and a gift for concise and accurate reportage. Within five minutes Lord Worth knew all that was worth knowing about the Lake Tahoe meeting.

Lord Worth who, because of the unfortunate misunderstanding that had arisen between himself and Cronkite, knew the latter as well as any and better than most, said at the end of Corral's report: "Did Cronkite subscribe to the ten's agreement to abjure any form of violence?"

"No."

"Not that it would have mattered if he had. Man's a total stranger to the truth. And ten million dollars' expenses, you tell me?"

"It did seem a bit excessive."

"Can you see a massive outlay like that being concomitant with anything except violence?"

"No."

"Do you think the others believed that there was no connection between them?"

"Let me put it this way, sir. Any group of people who can convince themselves, or appear to convince themselves, that any proposed action against you is for the betterment of mankind is also prepared to convince themselves, or appear to convince themselves, that the word 'Cronkite' is synonymous with peace on earth."

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Alistair MaeLean

"So their consciences are clear. If Cronkite goes to any excessive lengths in death and destruction to achieve their ends, they can always throw up their hands in horror and say, 'Good God, we never thought the man would go that far.' Not that any connection between them and Cronkite would ever have to be established. What a bunch of devious, mealymouthed hypocrites!"

He paused for a moment.

"I suppose Cronkite refused to divulge his plans?"

"Absolutely. But there is one odd circumstance: just as we were leaving, Cronkite drew two of the ten to one side and spoke to them privately. It would be interesting to know why."

"Any chance of finding out?"

"A fair chance. Nothing guaranteed. But I'm sure Benson could find out—after all, it was Benson who invited us all to Lake Tahoe."

"And you think you could persuade Benson to tell you?"

"A fair chance. Nothing more."

Lord Worth put on his resigned expression. "All right, how much?"

"Nothing. Money won't buy Benson." Corral shook his head hi disbelief. "Extraordinary, in this day and age, but Benson is not a mercenary man. But he does owe me some favors, one of them being that, without me, he wouldn't be the president of the oil company that he is now." Corral paused. "I'm surprised you haven't asked

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Seawitch

me the identities of the two men Cronkite took aside."

"So am I."

"Borosoff of the Soviet Union and Patinos of Venezuela." Lord Worth appeared to lapse into a trance. "That mean anything to you?"

Lord Worth bestirred himself. "Yes. Units of the Russian Navy are making a so-called 'goodwill tour' of the Caribbean. They are, inevitably, based in Cuba. Of the ten, those are the only two that could bring swift—ah—naval intervention to bear against the Seawitch." He shook his head. "Diabolical. Utterly diabolical."

"My way of thinking too, sir. There's no knowing. But I'll check as soon as possible and hope to get results,"

"And I shall take immediate precautions." Both men rose. "Corral, we shall have to give serious consideration to the question of increasing this paltry retainer of yours."

"We try to be of service, Lord Worth."

Lord Worth's private radio room bore more than a passing resemblance to the flight deck of his private 707. The variety of knobs, switches, buttons and dials was bewildering. Lord Worth seemed perfectly at home with them all, and proceeded to make a number of calls.

The first were to his four helicopter pilots, instructing them to have his two largest helicopters—never a man to do things by halves,

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Lord Worth owned no fewer than six of these machines—ready at his own private airfield shortly before dawn. The next four were to people of whose existence his fellow directors were totally unaware. The first of these calls was to Cuba, the second to Venezuela. Lord Worth's worldwide range of contacts—employees, rather—was vast. The instructions to both were simple and explicit. A constant monitoring watch was to be kept on the naval bases in both countries, and any sudden departures of any naval vessels, and their type, was to be reported to him immediately.

The third, to a person who lived not too many miles away, was addressed to a certain Giuseppe Palermo, whose name sounded as if he might be a member of the Mafia, but who definitely wasn't: the Mafia Palermo despised as a mollycoddling organization which had become so ludicrously gentle in its methods of persuasion as to be in imminent danger of becoming respectable. The next call was to Baton Rouge in Louisiana, where lived a person who called himself only "Conde" and whose main claim to fame lay in the fact that he was the highest-ranking naval officer to have been court-martialed and dishonorably discharged since World War II. He, like the others, received very explicit instructions. Not only was Lord Worth a master organizer, but the efficiency he displayed was matched only by his speed in operation.

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Sea witch

The noble Lord, who would have stoutly maintained—if anyone had the temerity to accuse him, which no one ever had—that he was no criminal, was about to become just that. Even this he would have strongly denied, and that on three grounds. The Constitution upheld the right of every citizen to bear arms; every man had the right to defend himself and his property against criminal attack by whatever means lay to hand; and the only way to fight fire was with fire.

The final call Lord Worth put through, and this time with total confidence, was to his tried and trusted lieutenant, Commander Larsen.

Commander Larsen was the captain of the Seawitch.

Larsen—no one knew why he called himself "Commander," and he wasn't the kind of person you asked—was a rather different breed of man from his employer. Except in a public court or in the presence of a law officer, he would cheerfully admit to anyone that he was both a non-gentleman and a criminal. And he certainly bore no resemblance to any aristocrat, alive or dead. But there did exist a genuine rapport and mutual respect between Lord Worth and himself. In all likelihood they were simply brothers under the skin.

As a criminal and non-aristocrat—and casting no aspersions on honest unfortunates who may resemble him—he certainly looked the part. He

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Sea witch

had the general build and appearance of the more viciously daunting heavyweight wrestler, deep-set black eyes that peered out under the overhanging foliage of hugely bushy eyebrows, an equally bushy black beard, a hooked nose, and a face that looked as if it had been in regular contact with a series of heavy objects. No one, with the possible exception of Lord Worth, knew who he was, what he had been, or from where he had come. His voice, when he spoke, came as a positive shock: beneath that Neanderthalic facade was the voice and the mind of an educated man. It really ought not to have come as such a shock: beneath the facade of many an exquisite fop lies the mind of a retarded fourth-grader.

Larsen was in the radio room at that moment, listening attentively, nodding from tune to time; then he flicked a switch that put the incoming call on the loudspeaker.

He said: "All clear, sir. Everything understood. We'll make the preparations. But haven't you overlooked something, sir?"

"Overlooked what?" Lord Worth's voice over the telephone carried the overtones of a man who couldn't possibly have overlooked anything.

"You've suggested that armed surface vessels may be used against us. If they're prepared to go to such lengths, isn't it feasible that they'll go to any lengths?"

"Get to the point, man."

"The point is that it's easy enough to keep an

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eye on a couple of naval bases. But I suggest it's a bit more difficult to keep an eye on a dozen, maybe two dozen, airfields."

"Good God!" There was a long pause during which the rattle of cogs and the meshing of gear wheels in Lord Worth's brain couldn't be heard. "Do you really think—"

"If I were the Seawitch, Lord Worth, it would be six and half-a-dozen to me whether I was clobbered by shells or bombs. And planes could get away from the scene of the crime a damn sight faster than ships. They could get clean away, whereas the U. S. Navy or land-based bombers would have a good chance of intercepting surface vessels. And another thing, Lord Worth—a ship could stop at a distance of a hundred miles. No distance at all for the guided missile: I believe they have a range of four thousand miles these days. When the missile was, say, twenty miles from us, they could switch on its heat-source tracking device. God knows, we're the only heat source for a hundred miles around."

Another lengthy pause, then: "Any more encouraging thoughts occur to you, Commander Larsen?"

"Yes, sir. Just one. If I were the enemy—I may call them the enemy—"

"Call the devils what you want."

"'If I were the enemy Fd use a submarine. They don't even have to break the surface to loose off a missile. Poof! No Seawitch. No signs

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Seawlteh

of any attacker. Could well be put down to a massive explosion aboard the Seawitch. Far from impossible, sir."

"You'll be telling me next that they'll be atomic-headed missiles."

'To be picked up by a dozen seismological stations? I should think it hardly likely, sir. But that may just be wishful thinking. I, personally, have no wish to be vaporized."

"I'll see you hi the morning." The speaker went dead.

Larsen hung up his phone and smiled widely. One might have expected this action to reveal a set of yellowed fangs: instead, it revealed a perfect set of gleamingjy white teeth. He turned to look at Scoffield, his head driller and right-hand man.

Scoffield was a large, rubicund, smiling man, apparently the easygoing essence of good nature. To the fact that this was not precisely the case, any member of his drilling crews would have eagerly and blasphemously testified. Scoffield was a very tough citizen indeed, and one could assume that it was not innate modesty that made him conceal the fact: much more probably it was a permanent stricture of the facial muscles caused by the four long vertical scars on his cheeks, two on either side. Clearly he, like Larsen, was no great advocate of plastic surgery. He looked at Larsen with understandable "curiosity.