The Detonators (25 page)

“It looks as if this death-defying passage might even wind up in the right place,” she said, lowering the big binoculars through which she’d been studying the land ahead. “Right on course for Nassau, skipper. We should be picking up the fort above the town pretty soon. Fort Fincastle. Very picturesque and totally useless, even way back when it was built. Like Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas.”

“Or the Maginot Line?”

She laughed and studied my face for a moment. We were sitting in the cockpit finishing our after-lunch coffee while the Tiller Master steered the boat.

“Hey, you,” she said softly.

I grinned. “Hey, yourself.”

“You seem to do all right with older women. Not world-champion caliber, perhaps, but quite adequate.”

“Thanks for the testimonial, Grandma.”

She laughed. “In fact, very adequate,” she said a bit ruefully, with a glance at her blemished shoulder. “I’d better put on a shirt before we come into harbor, hadn’t I?”

“That,” I said, “makes two of us.”

“No problems at all. So what’s the trouble with you and young girls? Usually it’s the other way around; it takes the young ones to turn them on. Or is it just one particular young girl who chills you?” Gina glanced at me shrewdly. “I think I get it. She’s a rather fragile personality, isn’t she? And it would be a bit inhibiting, I guess, to make love to somebody you were afraid of damaging. Who the hell wants to be gentle in bed?”

“Not you, that’s for sure,” I said rather sharply.

She frowned at me, hurt. “Sorry. Most men don’t mind talking about it… Or are you angry because I took the little princess’s name in vain?”

“You didn’t,” I said. “You don’t even like to concede her right to have a name; she’s always just an odd little nameless object that amuses you. What’s the matter, can’t you bear to talk about an attractive younger woman as if she were a real human being?” I shook my head quickly. “Don’t get mad, Gina. You’re a lovely lady, and I don’t like to hear you making yourself sound cheap by forever sniping at the girl in that phony patronizing way. She’s not all that young and helpless, and you know it. As for the two of us, what’s to talk about? You can talk things to death, particularly good things like last night. So tell me what lines and fenders you’re going to want when we come in, and where you’ll want them.”

By this time I had a pretty good idea what dock-side equipment was required, but it wouldn’t hurt to maintain her illusion that I was a nautical moron, totally dependent upon her instructions.

She shook her head. “No rush, it’ll be several hours yet, even if the wind holds.” She gave an odd little laugh. “You’re a funny man, so sensitive in some ways. Considering what you do for a living… Anyway, I guess what I really can’t stand about Miss Amy Barnett is the way she reminds me I’m not getting any younger.”

“I didn’t notice any conspicuous signs of advancing senility last night. Gina…”

“Yes, Matt.”

“The guidebook says we have to report by radio to Nassau Harbor Control before we pass the breakwater, right?”

“Yes. They like to be able to keep little yachts out of the way when the big cruise liners are entering and leaving.”

“So anybody who’s waiting to intercept us here will know we’re arriving just by listening to the VHF?”

“Yes. What are you driving at, darling?”

I said carefully, “It’s an old maxim in the outfit: What happens in bed has nothing to do with what happens anywhere else.”

She looked at me hard and licked her lips. “I don’t think I’m going to like what you’re going to say when you get around to saying it.”

I said, “I don’t expect you to betray your principles, whatever they are, because of what happened between us last night. Don’t expect me to betray mine. Whatever
they
are.”

She laughed quickly. “Heavens, you sound as if you thought I’d slept with you in order to influence…” She was trying to work up a convincing show of being amused at the ridiculous idea, but the right attitude wouldn’t come. Her voice faded away uncertainly. We sat in silence for a little, listening to the gurglings and splashings of the boat’s steady progress southward.

At last I said, “You’ve made no attempt in a couple of days of sailing to run us aground or sabotage the boat in any way, so it seems that shipwreck is not on the agenda. Violence horrifies you, so it seems unlikely that you really came aboard to slit my throat. But you obviously came for a purpose, and what’s left? Why be shy about it now? You told me last night, quite honestly, that you were here to seduce me and we might as well get on with it, didn’t you? It seemed like a worthy night’s project for two reasonably experienced, unattached adults, so I was happy to be seduced. And I have no complaints whatever, Mrs. W.; I simply don’t want any misunderstandings.”

She licked her lips. “Matt, I….”

When she left the sentence uncompleted, I said, “Let’s assume that there’s something your organization wants this conscientious government employee to do, or not do, that’s not entirely consistent with his assigned federal duties. Since she was already established here on board, Amy was the logical person to do the persuading, using the customary feminine techniques; but apparently she didn’t have the stomach for the job. If stomach is the right word. She hadn’t had enough experience with sex to be willing to use it in that calculating way; she still clings to the naive notion that the sexual act should have something to do with affection, not to use a big word like love. So your PNP outfit pulled rookie Barnett out of the game and put in Williston, a seasoned veteran of the playing fields of
amour.
No qualms, no conscience, right? But talk about naive! The shabby old Mata Hari routine, for Christ’s sake! Lady, do you know how many times this gag’s been pulled on me in the line of business?”

She spoke at last: “You’re the one who didn’t want to talk it to death. What do you think you’re doing now?”

I said, “I know, but it occurred to me that there are worse ways of spoiling it; and I don’t want them to happen to us. Your head may be full of ingenious plans, Gina, and Nassau may be full of your PNP troops all ready to pounce on me as we dock, or later. Or deal with me some other way, once you pass the word that you’ve got me amorously softened up, an easy mark. Don’t let them. Keep them out of my hair, doll, all of them. Remember what you saw, and didn’t like, out in the Northwest Providence Channel two nights ago.”

She said stiffly, “You’re being a little paranoid, aren’t you? A moment ago you were saying you didn’t think I’d been sent to kill you; now you talk as if you expect me to lead you into a murder trap the minute we set foot on shore.”

“I don’t know what to expect,” I said. “Amateurs confuse hell out of me. They never behave logically by my standards, which is why I want to cover all possibilities. Let me make my position clear, Gina. I have two missions going here. Immediately, I’m supposed to locate a certain mysterious harbor, for reasons that have not been confided to me. Eventually, I’m supposed to locate and deal with a certain unpleasant individual who’s been declared, shall we say, overdue. Maybe these two operations are intertwined; maybe they aren’t. I don’t know enough to decide that yet. Maybe you do. But whether you do or not, please don’t interfere in any way. Don’t let your associates interfere. Regardless of how we spent last night, I won’t go around you if you get in my way. I’ll go right over you, baby, and that goes for your friends, too. I’d regret it terribly if I had to hurt you; I’d regret it all my life. But there are already lots of things and people I regret, and I can live with a few more. End of proclamation.”

A little gust of wind caused
Spindrift
to heel sharply. A wave sloshed over the leeward rail and ran along the deck. The knotmeter needle hit five on the dial, and then six, trying for seven. We waited to see if action should be taken to prevent the boat from being overpowered, but the gust soon died away and the speed dropped back to where it had been.

Gina spoke as if there had been no pause: “You really are an arrogant man!”

“Hell, I said please, didn’t I?” I made a sharp gesture. “Yesterday you were screaming at me because I mowed down some pistol-toting goons without warning. So today, because I like you and enjoyed making love to you, I’m giving you warning; and you’re still calling me names. A man can’t win around here!”

She said maliciously, “I do believe he’s mad at me because he’s got a guilty conscience! He’s had two different women in his bunk in four days, and it makes him feel terribly wicked and promiscuous. I think that’s sweet!”

We glared at each other. She was perfectly right, of course. I’d made a certain emotional commitment to one lady and before I’d resolved that situation, one way or another, I’d wound up in bed with another, and it bothered me—perfectly ridiculous for a man in my line of work who’d been around as long as I had. I felt my mouth twitch, and I saw little crinkles of amusement appear at the corners of her fine eyes. Suddenly we were both laughing.

Then we stopped, looking at each other in a totally different way. More of a sailor than I, she instinctively threw a quick glance around to make sure no dangers were bearing down on us. There was a sail far ahead and a fishing vessel passing in the distance to starboard, but nothing was close enough to bother us very soon. Gina smiled and came into my arms. The knitted upper garment was no problem, or the denim lower garment, or the surprisingly pretty little nylon panties underneath that seemed to suggest she’d considered the possibility that they might somehow get exposed to my view when she’d elected to wear them today. Far from being disturbed by this evidence of calculation, I found it rather touching. We discovered that the cockpit seat, although not as soft as the bunk below, wasn’t really as impractical for the purpose as we’d thought.

It felt pleasantly illicit to lie there afterward, with a couple of life-preserver cushions for comfort and a warm woman for company, in the bright Bahamas sunshine under the clear blue sky without a stitch of clothes on. The autopilot made its little whirring sounds as it guided our twenty-eight-foot ship toward the land that was gaining color and substance ahead.

Gina touched my shoulder. “I didn’t realize last night what a beat-up object you are, darling. Bullet-holes?”

“Oh, that. An ancient submachine gun with corroded ammunition. Lucky for me. It jammed after three or it would have taken my arm off.”

“Where did it happen?”

“That was in Norway, quite a while back. Maybe I should have my scars labeled with places and dates, like museum exhibits. Do you know a tattoo artist who needs a job?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be snoopy.”

I looked at her face, very close, and said, “Let’s consider that your mission is a success and you have me madly in love with you, totally infatuated, all willpower destroyed. Just what is it, that you want me to do for you?”

There was a little pause. “Let him live,” Gina said at last. “Let him live long enough to do his job for us.”

“Minister? Your Alfred Pope? I haven’t found him yet.”

“You will. I’ll even take you to him, if…” She hesitated. “We discussed all kinds of ways of dealing with you, some pretty drastic. And one man’s life shouldn’t really count for much, considering what’s at stake; but I can’t bear the thought of any additional violence. Unnecessary violence. It’s going to be bad enough, ugly enough, without that. So if you give your word… Just promise not to touch him until he’s finished his work for us. After that he’s all yours.”

I started to tell her sharply that I wasn’t as easy to kill as she seemed to think; but I’d already done my breast-beating exercises for the day. And it wasn’t my place to inform her that honor and words of honor don’t play a very large part in the business.

I said, “I have no authority to commit Washington or any other agents who may be assigned to the job. I can only speak for myself.”

“That’s all we ask. That’s all I ask.”

“Before I commit myself,” I said carefully, “I really ought to know what Minister is doing for you.”

“I can’t tell you that. It’s not my secret; at least not mine alone. But it’s nothing you’d disapprove of, I swear it.”

That seemed unlikely. Alfred Minister had never yet, to my knowledge, done anything I approved of; and there was no reason he should start now.

I said, “Okay. You’ve got a deal.”

After a moment, she sat up on the cockpit seat to look at me, frowning. “You said that much too easily, Matt. You’re holding something back.”

I had a mental image of that supposed suicide Doug Barnett, very much alive, sniffing industriously along the trail of the man responsible for the shattered body, and the shattered life, of the woman he’d hoped to marry, like a persistent hound on the track of a marauding mountain lion. And I’d made it quite clear that I wasn’t committing him to anything, only myself. It was a small price to pay for the information about Minister’s whereabouts Gina could supply.

“Sure,” I said cheerfully. “Aren’t you?”

When we approached the harbor entrance and got on the VHF, Nassau Harbor Control told us to sail right in and make ourselves at home. It’s a long, skinny harbor, or you could call it a wide channel, between the large bulk of Providence Island to the south, on which the business and residential districts are located, and the narrow strip of Paradise Island to the north that holds the casino and the fancy new hotels—although the enormous pink structure of the old Sheraton Colonial Hotel, which confronts you on the southern shore as you pass the breakwaters, is pretty fancy, too. The first time I’d visited the Bahamas, a good many years earlier, it had been known as the British Colonial, but times do change.

With our little diesel thumping bravely under our feet, Gina steered us past the cruise-ship docks and under the arching bridge, which, seventy feet high over the channel, shouldn’t have made me nervous about our forty-foot mast but did. Turning sharply toward Paradise Island to port, she guided
Spindrift
into the small, sheltered basin of the Hurricane Hole Marina and docked us expertly in the slip to which we were directed. If I’d had any strong masculine pride in my own boat-handling abilities, I might have been envious of her skill. As it was, I simply admired a smart job of maneuvering. I wished she were equally smart in other respects. Any woman who considered seduction a reliable weapon against an experienced government agent had obviously been watching too much TV. It scared me to think of what Other naive and dangerous Hollywood notions might have taken up residence in her handsome head.