Operation Breakthrough (21 page)

There were no survivors.

I
DON
’
T
know how long it took us to reach Eleuthera.

Erikson and Hazel spelled each other at the wheel while the rest of us slumped on rag waste bales in attempted relaxation. Both Erikson and Hazel steered us into every patch of mist and every fog bank en route. At every movement inside the wheelhouse broken glass crunched underfoot.

Reaction had set in, and no one had much to say. Erikson spent his time during the intervals Hazel was at the wheel on the tug’s radio trying to raise the Miami marine operator. It took him quite a while, but he finally succeeded. When I heard him ask for a Washington phone number, I dragged myself from my waste bale and entered the wheelhouse.

“Are you going to be able to put a lid on this?” I asked.

“No problem,” he said confidently.

I pointed at Chen Yi dozing with her back propped against a bale. There were tired lines on her beautiful face. “She and her boy friend can’t go back.”

“Why not?” Erikson wanted to know. “We just made sure there were no survivors to report their involvement.”

“We left two back at the massage parlor,” I explained. “One with a crushed throat, but there’s nothing the matter with the other one’s voice. Even in custody he’ll get to talk to the syndicate’s lawyer.”

Erikson nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Since you obviously couldn’t have managed without them, Uncle Sam will see to it that they don’t suffer from the dislocation.”

“Can you talk openly to Washington like this?”

“It won’t be openly. When I get through to them, I’ll have the duty officer set up a one-way scrambler circuit which will make us half-safe. And if anyone understands what I’m saying from this end, he’ll qualify for solving code ciphers.”

I went back outside.

Almost another hour went by before Erikson called to me. “What was the order number on the crate containing the material that you shipped?” he asked when I went into the wheelhouse again.

I knew it by heart, but I took the slip of paper from my wallet and showed him where I’d written it down. “GSA1234510,” I said.

He transmitted it as letters of the alphabet and not consecutive letters. “Size and descriptive identification?” he asked.

I gave it to him as closely as I could remember. I held up a hand when he seemed to be nearing the end of his conversation. “Chen Yi’s boy friend, Candy Kane, is still in a hospital in Nassau,” I said.

“Send her in here, and I’ll take care of the details of moving him out right now,” Erikson replied. I went outside and roused the Chinese girl and sent her in to talk to Karl. She emerged in a few moments, smiling.

Karl Erikson was also smiling when he walked out onto the deck. “What now?” I asked him.

“We’ll have a police cruiser escorting us into an unused pier at Eleuthera.”

“Police!”

“No cells this time,” he assured me, his smile widening. “We’ll be guests but only until some special transportation is laid on. A few hot lines are glowing now between Washington and Nassau. Our favorite uncle has enough
quid pro quos
going for him in this area that we’ll be ushered out with no questions asked.”

“And then?”

“I’ve been instructed to tell you and Hazel to get lost for a month at Uncle’s expense. I have to go to Washington to make the formal report, but then I’ll do the same. Likewise Chen Yi and Candy. Suppose we leave it that I’ll meet you two at the ranch in a month to wrap up any possible loose ends?”

I swallowed the rejoinder on the tip of my tongue to the effect that I wasn’t overjoyed at the possibility of seeing him again that soon.

“Hazel tells me you bought her a twin-engine, six-passenger, two-hundred-fifty-mile-an-hour airplane,” Erikson continued. “Would it do any good for me to ask where you got the money?”

“It would not.”

His smile resembled that of a cat taking a dead bead on a canary. “We might find that airplane handy when she gets her ticket.”

I raised my voice so that Hazel could hear me where she stood at the wheel. “Tell the lady for me that she talks too much, will you?”

My redheaded broncobuster smiled and waved at me.

Chen Yi stepped up to me when I left the wheelhouse. “A fairy tale come true,” she said soberly.

“Nothing to it, baby,” I assured her airily. “You tell Candy for me when you see him that I’m sorry he got his black ass fussed up, but the man in there — “I gestured toward the wheelhouse” — is going to straighten out everything. You can do your masseusing anywhere, can’t you?”

“Yes. And Candy can do his gambling.” She smiled, easing the tired lines on her striking features. “Thank you.”

“Thank
you,”
I returned. I thought about it for a minute. “You’re the one who made it possible.”

Still smiling, she pointed over my shoulder.

I turned to see a dark land mass rising from the water that — knowing Erikson’s navigational talent — could only be Eleuthera.

Angling toward us was a low-slung white speedboat that — knowing Erikson’s talent for manipulation — could only be the water arm of the Bahamian police force.

“Another day, another dollar,” Jock McLaren said from beside me. He too was watching the approaching speedboat. He yawned and stretched in luxurious abandon.

I didn’t answer him.

Dollar or not, after the events of the previous night it was a damned fine day to be alive.

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Copyright © 1971 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.

Copyright Registration Renewed © 2000 by Robert Ragan
All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

eISBN 10: 1-4405-4216-3
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4216-9

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