Gibraltar Road (26 page)

And then—that mood vanished. Very quickly, very suddenly.

Away to their left, quite a long way off, where the road twisted a little, Shaw caught the beam of a headlight shining back the way they had come, saw it briefly as his mouth came down on the girl’s wind-ruffled hair.

“Debbie, look!” She left his arms as he stiffened and released her. “Nothing’s passed us going back towards Algeciras.”

“No.”

“That’s Karina, then. She hadn’t stopped—or not for long —just turned back on her tracks, though God knows why.” Before he’d finished speaking they were in the car again, and Shaw wrenched it round and started back along the road. Judging from the lack of speed of those headlights, it didn’t seem as though he need hurry unduly—Karina was still taking it fairly easily. Shaw didn’t switch on his own lights this time; he drove blind and trusted to luck. There was a moon, and the stars were bright, so there was light enough to help his eyes follow the road—but that worked both ways, meant he’d have to keep well behind Karina.

He murmured, “Wonder what the devil she’s up to now.”

They drove back at that slowish speed; it was nearly midnight when Shaw picked up the dark loom of Africa to the south, the mountains high across the Straits, Cape Trafalgar long and low behind them now. They were not far off Tarifa by his reckoning, and the road was getting closer to the sea all the time, running by a long, lonely, sandy beach stretching away to the meeting of the waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean below the deep purple hills of Spain and Africa.

Karina’s headlights had vanished. Easing his speed still more, Shaw crept on, listening intently to every murmur in the night. Then, not far ahead of him, he thought, his ears caught a faint, muffled sound like the beat of an engine; and as he looked out across the water his sea-trained eyes caught the loom of something blacker than its surrounding shadow, something solid which moved slowly to the westward of a bright patch of moonlight which dappled the Straits and faded into the North African hills beyond; something with a small white curfuffle of water pushing out before it. . . .

“So
that’s
it! Why the hell didn’t I rumble that one? That’s why she’s been coasting along. Filling in time and waiting for this to turn up.”

Debonnair asked, “What is it, darling?”

“It’s a fishing-boat. Once that little geezer Ackroyd gets aboard there it’s good-bye. He’ll be taken across to North Africa—or picked up by some ship out at sea.” The
Ostrowiec
, probably, he thought.

A little farther along he saw the scarlet-and-silver car pulled up beneath some trees to the left of the road. He let his own vehicle run down a slope of the roadway until it was clear of Karina’s, then he turned off into the scrub. Looking back, he saw the single flash of a blue-shaded light, a signal lamp from the unknown vessel; and then there was an answering pencil of white light along the sand below the road, some way ahead.

Shaw got out in silence, felt for his revolver; heard the girl’s sharp, indrawn breath. And then he pressed her arm, whispered to her to get out. When she’d obeyed Shaw beckoned the
guardia
out as well. To Debonnair he whispered, “When the shooting starts I want you to keep as clear as you can. But until then keep close to me. I’ll tell you when to scatter. You too,” he added to the
guardia
. Translating his previous remarks, he went on, “And listen. This is serious business. I’ll tell you here and now, these people we’re after are on the Communist side.” He poked his revolver into the man’s ribs. “Never mind who I am, but if you do anything to upset things some one isn’t going to be very pleased with you. Know who?”

The man licked his lips and stuttered something, eyes flickering in the dark, hard face.

“Generalisimo Franco,” said Shaw brutally. “He isn’t going to like you one little bit. If necessary I’ll get you up on a charge of Communist intrigue. Savvy?”

The man shook a little, and Shaw felt almost sorry for him when he saw the face paling under the moonlight and the scared, trembling lips opening to say,
“Si, si, señor.”

Shaw said, “Right. Now we leave the car here and go along on foot, and
quietly
. Debbie, we’ve got to get that little blighter back now or a hell of a lot of people have had it. We won’t get another chance now.”

She whispered something. He bent to kiss her, quickly, took her for a moment in his arms. Something told them both that this could be for the last time, the final good-bye. As he kissed her Shaw felt the salt of her tears on his lips.

She said passionately, “Please be careful!”

They went along first to Karina’s car, and Shaw immobilized it; to make quite certain he slashed at the tyres, and the big vehicle sank quietly to the ground. Debonnair asked if he wasn’t going to remove their own ignition key and lock the doors.

“No,” he said. “We may have to make a damn quick getaway. We’ll just have to make sure they don’t get past us.”

Then they went forward very quietly, very quickly. The sound of a boat’s rowlocks came to them across the star-filled night, and Shaw slipped off the safety-catch of his gun.

They were only partially hidden by a low, rocky outcrop as they headed towards the sand, keeping low and going forward in a crouching run. The small boat, rowing in from the parent fishing-vessel, was coming in to ground on the beach when one of the men with Karina turned and glanced casually up the slope which ran down from the roadway. Shaw motioned the other two to stop and duck, but already it was too late; there had been a glint of moonlight touching up the carbine which had been handed back to the
guardia
, and Shaw could tell by the movements of the man below that he was bringing up his gun.

Shaw dragged Debonnair down below the line of rocks as the
guardia
flattened; a stream of bullets accompanied by the
phut-phut-phut
of the sub-machine-gun blew chunks out of the rocks above their heads. Instinctively Shaw drew Debonnair to him, felt her body tremble a little against his own, saw the teeth come down hard on the lower lip as more bullets snicked the rock and whined away, glancing off over their heads.

Then Shaw moved cautiously to the edge of the rock-line.

That boat was getting close in; and Karina and one of the men were holding Ackroyd between them, ready, presumably, to hand him across to the rower in the boat. Shaw fired towards the man with the gun, missed, and dodged back. When he looked again the party seemed to have shifted be-~Eind a large boulder by the edge of the sea.

Shaw squeezed Debonnair’s arm, spoke softly. “Stay here, Deb. Keep your head down and keep quiet—but watch our friend here.” He jerked his head towards the
guardia
. “If he tries anything funny—I don’t think he will, but if he does— you’ll have to let him have it. Sorry—but you wanted to come along and help. Do you mind very much?”

She glanced at the
guardia
, squatting under cover just to her left, and not following their conversation. She was pale, but she whispered, “I don’t make a practice of shooting the innocents, darling, but I’ve handled a gun before and I can handle one again.” She smiled into his eyes, squeezed his hand quickly. “Stop treating me like expensive china . . . I’ll cope.”

“Good girl!” There was relief in his voice. He tapped the
guardia
on the shoulder. He asked quietly, though Debonnair could almost feel the ice in his tone, “You are going to obey orders?”

“
Si, señor.
" The man had had time to think a little now, to let Shaw’s revelations sink in. He’d been scared stiff at the mention of Communists. “I will do as you say. I am a loyal
falangisto
.”

“Right. Well, I’m going down to the left there—see?— where this rock ridge leads down to the sea. That’ll give me good cover. When I’m at the end, and abreast of those people down there, I’m going over the top. As soon as you hear firing you give me covering fire from this end, but only providing you can bear without endangering the small man—that’s important. He’s not to be hurt on any account. Understand,
hombrel”

The man nodded vigorously.

“Otherwise, shoot to kill—but don’t aim for the woman if you can help it. I’ll deal with her.” Shaw thought to himself, She’s a bitch, and a murderous bitch at that, but somehow I don’t want to leave Karina dead on the Spanish coast.

He moved away then. Debonnair called softly, “Esmonde, watch it, won’t you, darling? Look after yourself.”

Her hand was outstretched to him as he left her, but he didn’t look back and he didn’t see it. The girl’s face was all crumpled up in anxiety now; it hadn’t been so bad chasing along the roads, it was fun in a way, but this looked like being the pay-off, and she knew how things could go wrong, so easily, when the pay-off came. Shaw was making his way along behind the rock quickly now, and the boat wasn’t far off the beach. He got down to the water’s edge, heard the slow gurgle of the sea slopping up round his feet, the soft lap of the tiny wavelets; got the sharp smell of the seaweed. His feet dislodged a biggish stone which rolled down into the water, making what seemed to his overstretched nerves a devilish din; but there was no reaction from the other side of the line of rock. He waited a moment, his scalp pricking, then he edged slowly, cautiously, up the side of the rock so that he could look over. He was sure he hadn’t been heard, hadn’t been seen, that it was being assumed his party hadn’t yet split up. But he had to be careful now.

Infinitely cautious, he hauled himself up inch by inch until he was lying flat on top of the rock. He was in the full moonlight after that, but he kept dead still, and the attention of Karina’s party was engaged, and they never looked in his direction, never saw that humpy blur on the rock, a motionless humpy blur which perhaps looked like part of the rock itself. Moving as little as possible, Shaw brought up his revolver. The man with the sub-machine-gun was crouched low now, peeping round that boulder, his whole attention on that upper line of rock where Shaw had left Debonnair and the
guardia
. Karina and the second man were standing in the boulder’s lee, unprotected from Shaw’s line of fire, with Ackroyd moaning and sobbing between them, a horribly weird noise seeming to bubble from his lips, a noise which was somehow familiar, and made Shaw’s flesh crawl.

This poor, slobbering little chap—Domingo Felipe had told him he’d gone crazy, and by Heaven, he thought now, he sounded it . . . he was humming some kind of tune. And after a moment Shaw realized with a sense of shock where he’d heard something like this before;
Dum-da, dum-da, dum-da, dum-da
. He shivered.

Then he heard Karina’s voice calling softly to the man in the boat as it came within hailing distance, and he heard the man give some reply as he pulled in for the shelter of the boulder. He couldn’t hear what it was that passed between them, but he did catch the one word
Ostrowiec
. So—his hunch had been a pretty good one. Very likely Ackroyd was meant to be transferred from the fishing-vessel well out to sea beyond the Straits when the
Ostrowiec
had cleared the narrows.

The moon was catching Karina’s hair now, touching it up to a shower of almost liquid light, empaling the gold of her skin to make her look in some degree like a coldly arrogant goddess of a former civilization. She and her companion took the bows of the boat as it touched the beach, coming in under the lee of that big boulder under which the others still stood. They swung the boat round.

Well—they wouldn’t be looking now.

Hands outstretched, Shaw eased himself gently across the rock, dropped lightly down the other side and crouched in the shadows, his revolver ready. Unfortunately, the sudden movement had been noted, though Shaw didn’t think he’d actually been seen except as a ‘something’ which had moved across the rock. Anyway, he was going in now, so it didn’t matter.

He called, “All right, Karina. You’re surrounded and we’ve got you covered. Just move away from that boat.” His voice was very loud in that silence—shatteringly so. As soon as he’d spoken Karina had straightened, had jerked her body upright. Shaw had time to notice how perfectly the slim lines set off the taut, upthrust breasts. Then she stood motionless, just for a moment, until Shaw saw her head turn slightly as she spoke to the man who had been helping her with the boat; at once, as though obeying a sixth sense, Shaw flung himself violently sideways, and then flattened to ground. A bullet zipped into the rock just above his head—he could feel the wind of it, and the sharp pain as rock fragments tore into his shoulder. He felt the warm trickle of his blood down his back. At once he fired from the darkness, and the man dropped with a high scream of pain, twisting as he fell. Shaw saw him twitch once, horribly, on the sand, and then he lay very still.

The
guardia
had opened fire as ordered when the first shot had sounded up the beach, though in fact he couldn’t have seen anybody to aim at. Karina’s other companion, the one with the heavy gun, had remained in the shelter of the boulder and was now firing in bursts from there, edging round the side farthest from Shaw and dodging back the moment he’d let each stream of bullets wing up the beach. Shaw couldn’t help feeling anxiety for Debonnair. He knew she wouldn’t do anything damn silly, but she might be indiscreet if she thought he was hurt, might come out from cover. He himself was on his feet again now and was moving out, and as he came into the patch of moonlight he heard the
guardia’s
pathetic old carbine bang out again, and he saw the flat-backed black helmet glinting in the moon’s beams. The sub-machine-gunner was quick—too quick for Shaw, much too quick for the
guardia
; in a split-second his weapon was up and that wicked, chilling
phut-phut-phut
screamed up the beach, a sustained burst zipping across before Shaw could do anything about it. There was a sharp grunt of pain, very quickly nipped off, and the
guardia
seemed to rise into the air for an instant, and then his body flopped down on to the rock-line, hung there limply while the helmet fell from the shattered head and drooled grotesquely down the slope of the sandy beach.