Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (47 page)

They worked on through the afternoon, paying, paying and paying. Bunkers
and the other running costs of Warlock, interest and capital repayments
on the debts of Ocean Salvage, lawyers
’
fees, agents fees, the six
million whittled away. One of the few payments that gave Nicholas any
pleasure was the
12½
% salvage money to the crew of Warlock. David
Allen's share was almost thirty thousand dollars, Beauty Baker another
twenty-five thousand - Nick included a note with that cheque,
‘
Have a
Bundaberg on me!
’

‘
Is that all the payments?
’
Nicholas asked at last.

‘
Isn't it enough,
’

‘
It's enough.
’
Nick felt groggy with jet-lag and from
juggling with figures.
‘
What's next?
’

‘
Good news, next.
’
Bernard picked up
the second file.
‘
I think I've squared Esso. They hate you, they have
threatened never to use your tugs again, but they are not going to sue.
’
Nicholas had breached contract when he deserted the Esso tow and ran
south for Golden Adventurer; the breach of contract suit had been
hanging since then, It was a relief to have it aside. Bernard Wackie
was worth every penny of his hire.

‘
Okay. Next?
’

It went on for another
six unbroken hours, piled on top of the jet-lag that Nicholas had
accumulated across the Atlantic.

‘
You okay?
’
Bernard asked at last. Nicholas nodded though his eyes felt
like hard-boiled eggs, and his chin was dark and raspy with beard.

‘
You want something to eat?
’
Bernard asked, and then Nick shook his head
and realized that it was dark outside.
‘
Drink?
’
You'll need one for what comes next.
’

‘
Scotch
,’
Nicholas agreed,
and the secretary brought the tray through, and poured the drinks in
another respectful hush.

‘
That will be all, Mr. Wackie?
’

‘
For now, honey,
’
Bernard watched her go,
and then saluted Nicholas with his glass.

‘
I give you the Golden Prince!
’
And when Nicholas scowled, he went on
swiftly,
‘
No, Nicholas, I'm not shafting you. It's for real. You've done
it again, The Sheikhs are fixing to make you an offer. They want to buy
you out, take over the whole show, liabilities, everything.
O
f course,
they'll want you to run it for them - two years, while you train one of
their own men. A hell of a salary
,’
he went on crisply, and Nicholas
stared at him.

‘
How much?
’

‘
Two hundred grand, plus 2
½
% profits.
’

‘
Not the salary,
’
Nicholas told him.
‘
How much are they offering for the company?
’

‘
They
are Arabs, the first offer is just to stir the pot a little.
’

‘
How much?
’
Nicholas asked impatiently.

‘
The sum of five was delicately mentioned.
’

‘
What do you think they'll go
to?
’

‘
Seven, seven and half - eight, perhaps.
’

Through the fuzz of
fatigue, far off like a lantern in the window on a winter's night,
Nicholas saw the vision of a new life, a life such as Samantha had shown
him. A life uncluttered, uncomplicated, shorn of all but joy and
purpose.

‘
Eight million dollars clear?
’
Nicholas voice was husky, and he tried to
wipe away the fatigue from his stinging eyelids with thumb and
forefinger.

‘
Maybe only seven,
’
Bernard demurred,
‘
but I'd try for eight.
’

‘
I'll have another drink,
’
Nicholas said.

‘
That's a splendid idea,
’
Bernard agreed, and rang for his secretary with
an anticipatory sparkle in his eyes.

Samantha wore her hair in twin braids down her back, and hacked-off
denim pants which left her long brown legs bare and exposed a pale
sliver of tight round buttock at each step as she walked away. She had
sandals on her feet and sun-glasses pushed up on top of her head.

‘
I thought you were never coming
,’
she challenged Nick as he stepped
through the barrier at Miami International, He dropped his bag and
fielded her rush against his chest.
She clung to him and he had forgotten the clean, sun-drenched smell of
her hair.

She was trembling with a suppressed eagerness like a puppy, and it was
only when a small quivering sob shook her shoulders that he realized she
was weeping.

‘
Hey now!
’
He lifted her chin, and her eyes were flooded.
She snuffled once loudly.

‘
What's the trouble, little one?
’

‘
I'm just so happy,
’
Samantha told him,
and deeply Nicholas envied the ability to live so near the surface. To
be able to cry with joy seemed to him at that moment to be the supreme
human accomplishment, He kissed her and she tasted salty with tears.
With surprise he felt a choke deep in his own throat.

The jaded airport crowds had to open and trickle around the two of them
like water around a rock, and they were oblivious to it all.

Even when they came out of the building into the Florida sunlight, she
had both arms around his waist, hampering his stride, as she led him to
her vehicle.

‘
Good God!
’
exclaimed Nicholas, and he shied when he saw it. It was a
Chevy van, but its paintwork had been restyled.
‘
What's that? '

‘
It's a
masterpiece,
’
she laughed.
‘
Isn't it?
’
It was rainbowed, in layers of
vibrant colour and panels of fantastic landscapes and seascapes.

‘
You did that?
’
Nick asked, and he t
ook his dark glasses
from his
breast pocket, and inspected the seagulls and palm trees and flowers
through them.

‘
It's not that bad,
’
she protested.
‘
I was bored and depressed without
you. I needed something to brighten my life.
’

One of the panels depicted the translucent green of a curling wave, and
on the face of the wave a pair of human figures on Hawaii boards and a
graceful dolphin shape flew in formation together. Nick leaned closer
and barely recognized the male figure as himself each detail of the
features had been rendered with loving attention, and he came out of it
looking something between Clark Gable and Superman - only a little more
glamorous.

‘
From memory
,’
she said proudly.

‘
It's tremendous
,’
he told her.
‘
But I've got bigger biceps, and I'm more
beautiful.
’

Despite the wild choice of colour and the romantic style, he
realized she had real talent.

‘
You don't expect me to ride in that - what if one of my creditors saw
me!
’

‘
Get your mind out of its stiff collar and blue suit, mister.
Y
ou have just signed on for the voyage to never-never land by way of the
moon.
’

Before she started the engine she looked at him seriously out of
those great shining green eyes.

‘
How long, Nicholas?
’
she asked.
‘
How long have we got together this
time?
’

‘
Ten days
,’
he told her.
‘
Sorry, but I must be back in London by
the 25th. There is a big one coming up, the big one. I'll tell you
about it.
’

‘
No.
’
She covered her ears with both hands.
‘
I don't want to
hear about it, not yet.
’

She drove the Chevy with careless unforced
skill, very fast and efficiently, acknowledging the homage of other male
drivers with a grin and a shake of her braids.

When she slipped off highway 9
5 and parked in the lot of a supermarket,
Nicholas raised an eyebrow.

‘
Food
,’
she explained, and then with a lascivious roll of her eyes, 'I
reckon to get mighty hungry later.
’

She chose steaks, a bag full of
groceries and a jug of California Riesling, and would not let him pay.
‘
In this town, you are my guest.
’

Then she paid the toll and took the
Rickenbacker causeway across the water to Virginia Key.

‘
That's the marine division of the University of Miami and that's my lab
at the top of the jetty, just beyond that white fishing boat - see it?
’

The low buildings were crowded into a corner of the island, between the
sea-
quarium and the wharves and jetties of the University's town lie the
harbour.

‘
We aren't stopping
,’
Nicholas observed.

‘
Are you kidding?
’
she laughed at
him,
‘
I don't need a controlled scientific environment for the experiment
I am about to conduct.
’

And with no diminution of speed, the Chevy flew
across the long bridge between Virginia Key and Key Biscayne, and three
miles on she turned off sharply left on a narrow dirt track that twisted
through a lush tropical maritime forest of banyan and palmetta and palm,
and ended at a clapboard shack just above the water.

‘
I live close to the shop
,’
Samantha explained, as she clattered up on to
the screened porch, her arms full of groceries.

‘
This is yours?
’
Nicholas asked. He could just make out the tops of big
blocks of condominiums on each side; they were incompletely screened by
the palms.

‘
Pa left it to me. He bought it the year I was born
,’
Samantha explained
proudly.
‘
My ground stretches from there to there.
’

A few hundred yards,
but Nicholas realized the value of it. Everybody in the world wants to
live on the water, and those condominiums were pressing in closely.

‘
It must be worth a million.
’

‘
There is no price on it,
’
she said firmly.
‘
That's what I tell those awful sweaty little men with their big cigars.
Pa left it to me and it's not for sale.
’