Seawitch (17 page)

Melinda said: "My sister and I are taking a walk. We will return when you have quarters prepared fitting for Lord Worth's daughters."

Durand's face had definitely lost color and his voice was hoarse and not quite steady as he tried to regain a measure of authority. "So take your walk. Heffer, go with them. Any trouble, shoot them in the legs."

Marina stooped, picked up Kowenski's Colt, walked up to Heffer and rammed the muzzle into his left eye. Heffer recoiled, ho wring in agony. Marina said: "Fair deal. You shoot me through the leg—now, I mean—and Til blow your brains out."

"God's sake!" Durand's voice was almost imploring. He was one step removed from wringing his hands. "Somebody's got to go with you. If

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you're out there on your own and in no danger, Palermo's men will cut us to pieces."

"What a perfectly splendid idea." Marina lowered the pistol and looked in distaste at Heffer, a rodent-faced creature of indeterminate age and nationality. "We see your point. But this—this animal is not to approach within ten yards of us at any time. That is understood?"

"Yes, yes, of course." If they asked him for the moon, Durand would have somehow levitated himself and got it for them. Having overwhelmingly displayed what it was to have seventeen generations of highland aristocratic ancestry behind them, the two girls walked away toward one of the triangular perimeters. It was fully twenty yards before they both began, at the same instant, to tremble violently. Once started, they could not control the trembling and they prayed that the following Heffer could not notice it.

Marina-whispered shakily: "Would you do that again?"

"Never, never, never. Fd die."

"I think we came pretty close to it. Do you think that Michael and John would be shaking like us after an experience like that?"

"No. If there's any truth in what Daddy hints, they'd already be planning what to do next. And Durand and his obnoxious friends wouldn't be shaking either. Dead men don't shake very much."

Marina's  trembling  turned  into  a  genuine

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shiver. "I only wish to God they were here right now."

They stopped ten feet short of the platform perimeter. Neither girl had a head for heights. They turned and looked northeastward as the distant and muted roar of an aircraft engine came to their ears.

Durand and Larsen heard it at the same time. They could see nothing because dusk had already fallen, but neither man had any doubt as to the identity of the approaching helicopter and its occupants. With some satisfaction Durand said: "Company. This has to be Lord Worth. Where will they land?"

"The southeast helipad."

Durand glanced across the platform to where the two girls were standing with Heffer, gun carried loosely in his right hand, less than the regulation ten yards away. Satisfied, Durand picked up his machine pistol and said: "Let's go and welcome his lordship aboard. Aaron, come with us."

Larsen said: "You'd better hope Lord Worth proves more tractable than his daughters."

"What do you mean?"

Larsen smiled in sardonic satisfaction. "You caught a couple of tigresses by the tails, didn't you?"

Durand scowled and walked away, followed by Larsen and Aaron, the latter armed similarly to Durand. They reached the southeast helipad

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just as the North Hudson helicopter touched down. Lord Worth himself was the first out. He stood at the foot of the steps and stared in disbelief at the armed men. He said to Larsen: "What in God's name goes on here?"

Durand said: "Welcome aboard the Seawitch, Lord Worth. You can regard me as your host and yourself as a guest—an honored guest, of course. There has been a slight change of ownership."

Tm afraid that this man here—his name is Durand and I assume that he is one of Cronkite's lieutenants—"

"Cronkite!" Durand was jarred. "What do you know about Cronkite?"

"I can hardly congratulate him on his choice of lieutenants." When Lord Worth poured on his icy contempt he used a king-sized trowel. "Do you think we are such fools as not to know who your employer is? Not that Cronkite has long to live. Nor you, either, for that matter." Durand stirred uneasily—Lord Worth sounded far too much like his daughters for his peace of mind. Lord Worth directed his attention to Larsen. "One assumes that this ruffian arrived with accomplices. How many?"

"Four."

"Four! But with Palermo and his men you have over twenty! How is it possible—"

Durand was back on balance. When he spoke

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it was with a slight, if logical, smugness. "We have something that Larsen hasn't. We have your daughters."

What was apparently pure shock rendered Lord Worth temporarily speechless; then in a hoarse voice he said: "Great God almighty! My daughters!" Lord Worth could have had his Oscar just for the asking. "You—you are the kidnaper?"

"Fortunes of war, sir." It said much for Lord Worth's aristocratic magnetism that even the most villainous eventually addressed him in respectful tones. "Now, if we could see the rest of the passengers."

Mitchell and Roomer descended. In tan alpaca suits and horn-rimmed glasses they were innocu-ousness personified. Lord Worth said: "Mitchell and Roomer. Scientists—geologists and seismologists." He turned to Mitchell and Roomer and said dully: "They're holding my daughters captive aboard the Seawitch."

"Good God!" Mitchell was properly shocked. "But surely this is the last place—"

"Of course. The unexpected, keeping a couple of steps ahead of the opposition. What'd you come here for?"

"To find new sources of oil. We have a perfectly equipped laboratory here—"

"You could have saved your time. Can we search your bag and your friend's?"

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"Have I any choice?"

"No."

"Go ahead."

"Aaron."

Aaron carried out a quick examination of Mitchell's bag. "Clothes. Some scientific books and scientific instruments. Is all."

Dr. Greenshaw clambered down the ladder, reached up and relieved the pilot of various bags and boxes. Durand looked at the door and said: "Who the hell is he?"

"Dr. Greenshaw," Lord Worth said. "A highly respected doctor and surgeon. We did expect a certain amount of violence aboard the Seawitch. We came prepared. We do have a dispensary and small sick bay here."

"Another wasted trip. We hold all the cards, and violence is the last thing we expect. We'll examine your equipment too, Doctor."

"If you wish. As a doctor, I deal in life and not in death. I have no concealed weapons. The medical code forbids it." Greenshaw sighed. "Please search but do not destroy."

Durand pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Send one of Palermo's men across here with an electric truck—there's quite a bit of equipment to pick up." He replaced his walkie-talkie and looked at Mitchell. "Your hands are shaking. Why?"

"I'm a man of peace," Mitchell said. He crossed his hands behind his back to conceal the tremor.

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Roomer, the only man to recognize the signals, licked his lips and looked at Mitchell in exaggerated nervous apprehension. Durand said: "Another hero. I hate cowards."

Mitchell brought his hands in front of him. The tremor was still there. Durand stepped forward, his right hand swinging back as if to strike Mitchell open-handed, then let his hand fall in disgust, which was, unwittingly, the wisest thing he could have done. Durand's mind was incapable of picking up any psychic signals: had it been so attuned, he could not have failed to hear the black wings of the bird of death flapping above his head.

The only person who derived any satisfaction, carefully concealed, from this vignette, was Lar-sen. Although he had talked to Mitchell on the telephone he had never met him—but he had heard a great deal about him from Lord Worth, more than enough to make him realize that Mitchell would have reduced Durand to mincemeat sooner than back down before him. Mitchell had taken only seconds to establish the role he wished to establish—that of the cowardly nonentity who could be safely and contemptuously ignored. Larsen, who was no mean hand at taking care of people himself, felt strangely comforted.

Lord Worth said: "May I see my daughters?"

Durand considered, then nodded. "Search him, Aaron."

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Aaron, carefully avoiding Lord Worth's basilisk glare of icy outrage, duly searched. "He's clean, Mr. Durand."

"Across there." Durand pointed through the gathering gloom. "By the side of the platform."

Lord Worth walked off without a word. The others made their way toward the accommodation quarters. As Lord Worth approached his daughters, Heffer barred his way.

"Where do you think you're going, mister?"

"Lord Worth to you, peasant."

Heffer pulled out his walkie-talkie. "Mr. Durand? There's a guy here—"

Durand's voice crackled over the receiver. "That's Lord Worth. He's been searched and he's got my permission to speak to his daughters."

Lord Worth plucked the walkie-talkie from Heffer. "And would you please instruct this individual to remain outside listening range?"

"You heard, Heffer." The walkie-talkie went dead.

The reunion between father and daughters was a tearful and impassioned one, at least on the daughters* side. Lord Worth was all that a doting parent reunited with his kidnaped children should have been, but his effusiveness was kept well under control. Marina was the first to notice this.

"Aren't you glad to see us again, Daddy?"

Lord Worth hugged them both and said simply: "You two are my whole life. If you

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don't know that by this time, you will never know it."

"You've never said that before." Even in the deepening dusk it was possible to see the sheen of tears in Melinda's eyes.

"I did not think it necessary. I thought you always knew. Perhaps I'm a remiss parent, perhaps still too much the reserved highlander. But all my billions aren't worth a lock of your black hair, Marina, or a lock of your red hair, Me-linda."

"Titian, Daddy, titian. How often must I tell you?" Melinda was openly crying now.

It was Marina, always the more shrewd and perceptive of the two, who put her finger on it. "You aren't surprised to see us, Daddy, are you? You knew we were here."

"Of course I knew."

"How?"

"My agents," Lord Worth said loftily, "lie thick upon the ground."

"And what is going to happen now?"

Lord Worth was frank. "I'm damned if I know."

"We saw three other men come off the helicopter. Didn't recognize them—getting too dark."

"One was a Dr. Greenshaw. Excellent surgeon."

Melinda said: "What do you want a surgeon for?"

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"Don't be silly. What does anyone want a surgeon for? You think we're going to hand over the Seawitch on a platter?-"

"And the other two?"

"You don't know them. You've never heard of them. And if you do meet them you will give no indication that you recognize them or have ever seen them before."

Marina said: "Michael and John."

"Yes. Remember—you've never seen them before."

"We'll remember," the girls said almost in chorus. Their faces were transformed. Marina said: "But they'll be in great danger. Why are they here?"

"Something to do, I understand, with then-stated intent of taking you back home."

"How-are they going to do that?"

Again Lord Worth was frank. "I don't know. H they know, they wouldn't tell me. They've become bossy, very bossy. Watch me like a hawk: Won't even let me near my own blasted phone." The girls refrained from smiling, principally because Lord Worth didn't seem particularly perturbed. "Mitchell, especially, seems in a very tetchy mood." Lord Worth spoke with some relish. "Near as a whisker killed Durand inside the first minute. Would have, too, if you weren't being held hostage. Well, let's go to my suite. I've been to Washington and back. Long tiring day. I need refreshment."

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Durand went into the radio room, told the regular operator that his services would not be required until further notice and that he was to return to his quarters and remain there. The operator left. Durand, himself an expert radio operator, raised the Georgia within a minute and was speaking to Cronkite thirty seconds later.

"Everything under control on the Seawitch. We have the two girls here and Lord Worth himself."

"Excellent." Cronkite was pleased. Everything was going his way, but, then, he had expected nothing else. "Lord Worth bring anyone with him?"

"The pilot and three other people. A doctor— surgeon, he says, and he seems on the level. Worth seems to have expected some blood to be spilled. I'll check his credentials in Florida in a few minutes. Also, two technicians—seismologists, or something like them. Genuine and harmless—the sight of a machine pistol gives them St. Virus's Dance. They're unarmed."

"So no worries?"

"Well, three. Worth has a squad of about twenty men aboard. They look like trained killers and I'm pretty sure they're all ex-military. They have to be because of my second worry—Worth has eight dual-purpose antiaircraft guns bolted to the platform."

"The hell he has!"

"Yeah—also piles of mines on the sides of the

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platform. Now we know who heisted the Mississippi naval arsenal last night. And the third problem is that we're far too thin on the ground. There's only me and four others to watch everybody. Some of us have to sleep sometimes. I need reinforcements and I need 'em fast."

"You'll have over twenty arriving at dawn tomorrow morning. The relief rig crew are due in then. A man named Gregson—you'll recognize him by the biggest red beard you ever saw—will be in charge."

"I can't wait that long. I need reinforcements now. You have your chopper on the Georgia."

"What do you think I carry on the Georgia, an army of reinforcements?" Cronkite paused, then went on reluctantly: "I can spare eight men, no more."