Angel's Ransom (32 page)

‘We’re not getting any closer to Holtz or the story by standing here looking at them,’ he said. ‘Let
’s
get on with it.
Or aren’t you ready yet?’

‘We are ready,’ Neyrolle said. He lowered his glasses and turned away to lead the way down the steps.

The boat they were to use was tied up in the lee of the cutter manned by the Brigade Maritime. It seemed hardly
more than a rowboat with an outboard motor, a cockleshell
alongside the larger craft. An agent held it steady while the
three men stepped in and settled themselves. Another agent
handed
Corsi
a
mitraillette
, a light machine-pistol mounted
with a framework shoulder stock. Corsi examined the
weapon to satisfy himself that it was properly loaded, then
laid it on a piece of canvas in the bottom of the boat,
covered it with a flap of the same material, and made certain
that it could be easily exposed and swung to his shoulder by
rehearsing the movements several times. A small gallery of
uniformed men watched the rehearsal intently from the rail
of the cutter.

Neyrolle
’s
personal preparations consisted of unbuttoning the slicker he wore, and the coat beneath, so he could easily
draw the pistol he carried under his arm. To George he said,
‘Give me identifications as fast as you can make them out. If
we’re fired on, jump out of the boat. You’ll make a smaller
target in the water. Can you swim?’

‘I’ll stay with the boat,’ George said grimly. ‘I’m not going with you for a swim.’

‘Everybody set?’ Corsi asked. Sitting at the steering lever of the outboard motor, he sounded almost casual.

Neyrolle nodded. George nodded. Corsi pulled strongly at the starting cord. The motor popped, fired, and settled
down to its steady metallic clatter. One of the men watching
from the cutter
’s
rail raised his hand in silent salute as the
pilot boat puttered away from the jetty.

Aboard the
Angel
, Holtz was the first to see the boat
’s
approach. He and Blake were together in the pilot-house.
Jules stood outside on the bridge wing, his binoculars fixed
intently on the wave-washed rocks where he had landed
Roche. He had been watching the same point since the
cruiser
’s
arrival off the
harbor
, while Holtz explored port,
shore and quays with his glasses and Blake, holding the
Angel
’s
head to the sea with enough way on to keep from drifting
shoreward, doggedly strove to use his fatigue-dulled brain.

His chance had still not come. Jules had never been far off since the
Angel
turned back on its course, and Holtz seemed
to sense subconsciously the danger of coming within Blake
’s
reach. A diversion, something to take Jules away and bring
Holtz nearer, was essential, but he could not wait much
longer. Not even Holtz
’s
cocksureness would keep the
Angel
standing by all day for a signal that did not come. And each
hour that passed sapped Blake
’s
small store of energy, slowed
his reflexes further. The price he could afford to pay was
still only one bullet. He remembered three shiny cartridge
cases twinkling together in mid-air, spinning brightly in
bright sunlight -

Holtz said sharply, ‘What is that boat doing?’

Blake looked where the gang leader was pointing. A strong swell still rolled shoreward as an aftermath of the gale, and
he did not see the boat immediately in the long waves. Then
he picked it out as a chip near the mouth of the
harbor
. Hidden in the trough one minute, high on a crest the next,
the chip moved unmistakably in their direction.

The realization that it might be the diversion he wanted sharpened his wits. He said indifferently, ‘Pilot boat. She
’s
coming out to offer us a helmsman.’

‘S
ignal her that we’re not going in!’

‘I haven’t anything to signal with. You’ll have to wait until she comes within hailing distance.’

It was another encouragement that Holtz seemed
uncertain
what to do. He scowled mistrustfully for a moment, then called Jules in from the bridge to take his own look.

‘It
’s
the
pilotage
, all right,’ Jules agreed. ‘They think we’re waiting to be taken in. It
’s
normal enough in this kind of a
sea. I’ll wave her off as soon as - wait a minute!’

His binoculars had shown him something Blake could not make out. He sharpened the focus of the lenses, peering
intently at the boat bobbing on the swells.

Holtz said, ‘What is it?’

‘One of them isn’t
pilotage
. I’ve seen him before. He came down to the port in a
fiacre
with Farr and the others the day
we sailed.’

Holtz swore. For the first time since his initial show of arms in the pilot-house three days earlier, he came close enough to
Blake to jab the Walther into his middle.

‘Who is it? Talk quickly! Who was in the
fiacre
?
’

I could do it now, Blake thought. Even with Jules here. I could do it. With a bullet in the belly.

He said, ‘A newspaper reporter.’

‘What does he have to do with Farr?’

‘He
’s
writing, an article about him.’

‘I don’t like it.’ Jules said uneasily. ‘Let
’s
get out of here!’

‘I’ll make the decisions.’

‘I told you questions would be asked! And you can’t wave a reporter off the way you wave off a pilot! He’ll want to
know the answers!’

‘Be quiet! Let me think!’

The pilot boat had come hal
f way from the port, dipping
and soaring on the long swells. Jules had pushed in between Blake and the wheel and stood with his hands on the
throttles, waiting, tense.

Blake could see the angry indecision in Holtz
’s
face. With the pistol pressing into his middle, he thought,
Sidestep, chop
and grab. All you have to lose is a little blood. The bullet will go
right on through, this close
. His stomach muscles gathered into a
cold ache of dread and anticipation, but he was not to know
how far his courage might have carried him. Holtz reached
a decision first.

He stepped back, snapped, ‘Watch him!’ to Jules, and hurried from the pilot house.

Bl
ake needed no watching. The let-
down after the peak to which he had nearly keyed himself left him sweating and
weak. His knees were still treacherous when Holtz returned
wearing one of Cesar
’s
white mess jackets.

He was indecisive no longer. He said, ‘I have changed my mind about permitting you to answer questions, Captain. I
have a feeling that you might accept martyrdom if an
opportunity
arose. So that you will not be persuaded to recklessness, we are about to bring Farr on deck to deal with this
situation. He, not you, will suffer from any mist
akes of judgment
by either of you. Walk ahead of me.’

He marched Blake back to the salon and tossed the key to Freddy
’s
cabin on the stretch of carpet between them. He
was once more alert, cool and sure of himself when he gave
his orders.

‘Bring him up. Remind him and the others that he dies if they create a disturbance, and don’t waste time.’

Blake tasted the gall of humiliation as he bent to pick up the key. The workings of his own glands had betrayed him.
Holtz knew too well the power of terror. He turned away
from the
leveled
pistol, feeling more shamed by his fear
because it had followed such brave promises, and in that
instant, with the key to Freddy
’s
release in his palm, saw the
means to attack Holtz where he had no
defense
, the single
counter-weapon against which terror and the promise of
death were powerless.

He did not know exactly how he was going to use the
weapon when he went below, but he was thinking clearly again. He went first to Freddy
’s
cabin.

The door was barricaded. Behind it Freddy
’s
unsteady voice said,
‘
S
am?’

‘Yes. Open up. Hurry.’

The improvised wedges jammed between door and frame took a moment to displace. When the door opened, Blake
outlined
the situation quickly in a voice that would not
carry up the companionway.

‘We’ve got to do exactly what we’re told. Explain to Valentina and Marian that unless they stay away from the
portholes and keep quiet, you’ll get it. Let Holtz hear you.
He
’s
at the head of the companionway, and he’ll be listening.
Sound scared.’

‘I am scared.’ Freddy was ghastly pale. ‘What are you up to? Do we have a chance? Are we going to get out of this?’

‘We have a chance. That
’s
all I can say.’

The key to Laura di Lucca
’s
door, Holtz
’s
small
miscalculation
, was still in his pocket. He used it, stepped inside the cabin, and closed the door softly behind him.

She lay as before, supine, the crucifix clasped in her hands. Her eyes opened when he came in. She did not turn
her head, but looked at the ceiling. He could hear Freddy
talking urgently in the passageway and, through the port-hole, the swelling putter of the approaching boat.

He said, ‘Will you listen to me?’

She gave no sign that she had heard. He went to the bed and bent over her, his eyes on her blank unfocused eyes
while he spoke, slowly and simply. He did not know that his
words had penetrated behind that blind stare when he left
the cabin. He could only hope.

In the pilot boat, George said tensely,
‘That
’s
Freddy with the bandaged hand. The man in ducks is Blake. Don’t know
who is wearing the steward
’s
jacket. Holtz?’

‘He
’s
the right size,’ Neyrolle agreed.

‘He
’s
got a gun in Farr
’s
back,’ Corsi said matter-of-factly. ‘Look at the way they’re standing.’

The three men had come out on the cruiser
’s
deck while
the pilot boat was still a hundred
meter
s off. Blake and Freddy stood at the rail, Holtz inconspicuously in the rear.
His height was such that Freddy
’s
body effectively screened
him from the view of the men in the boat. They could see that
someone behind the other two wore a white coat. That was all.

‘We’ll be waved off in a minute,’ Neyrolle said. ‘Don’t notice it right away. We’ve got to get in closer.’

‘There
’s
another man watching us from the pilot-house,’ George said. ‘I can’t make out his face, but he
’s
big. Must be
the Provenç
al.’

‘Leave him to me,’ Corsi said. ‘At this distance, I’ll stop anything he starts before he gets started. It
’s
the little type in
the white coat who’ll give us trouble. He
’s
going to be hard
to get at behind all that protection.’

‘Closer,’ Neyrolle said fiercely. ‘Closer!’

Holtz said, ‘All right, Captain. Wave them off. Easy and friendly. Just tell them we’re not going into port.’

Blake made a megaphone of his hands. In the boat, Neyrolle cupped his hand questioningly to his ear at the shout. The racket of the outboard motor covered his order: ‘Keep
going.’

Blake shouted again.

The boat continued to putter on. At fifty
meter
s, Holtz said tightly, ‘An excuse won’t save Farr if you let them come
any closer. Stop them your own way.’

Freddy made an agonized sound in his throat. He was pressed up tight against the rail by the barrel of the pistol
boring into his back. Blake wigwagged his arms in a signal
to the other boat to sheer off.