I could follow him by ear long after I couldn't see him any longer; and the others were no better, the ones moving up the other shore of the island, presumably from another impromptu landing craft. I could trace the progress of the attack quite accurately from my elevated position by the snapping of twigs, the rustling of leaves, the clink of weapons, and the breathless curses. Well, Herbert Leonard could hardly be expected to have a squad of trained jungle fighters readily available, at least not a squad of trained jungle fighters he could trust to keep their mouths shut about a curious operation like this.
The sun had cleared the horizon now; and out on the water the college boy with the yachting cap had managed to push Leonard's boat free. He jumped back behind the wheel and started the craft moving slowly towards the dock, as a man made his way out along the catwalk holding a bulky object that turned out to be an electronic megaphone or bullhorn-loud-hailer, I believe our British friends call it. By now, another boat was coming into view far down the channel beyond the dock, the way Jarrel and 1 had come. It had been a carefully planned trap; the only trouble was, there hadn't been anybody to catch in it. The man with the bullhorn confirmed this loudly.
"Cabin secure, sir!" he bellowed across the water. "Nobody home!"
Leonard produced a howler of his own, and his voice reached me quite clearly: "Repeat."
"Cabin empty. No sign of occupation. Repeat, no sign of occupation. Empty. Unoccupied. Orders?"
On board the boat, the college-boy yachtsman produced a pistol and aimed it at Martha. The man on the dock lifted his megaphone once more.
"Orders, sir?" he repeated.
"Hold everything. I'm coming in," Leonard shouted.
I watched him come. I won't pretend that my pulse and respiration remained absolutely normal as my target moved slowly into range. The college boy put the boat alongside the rickety pier, and spoke to the bullhorn artist, who put down his instrument, unslung a machine pistol, and aimed it down at Martha. The college boy put his revolver away, pulled down his yachting cap more firmly, and climbed up to secure the dock lines. Leonard, still in the boat, gestured towards the girl, and the two men on the dock reached down and dragged her up between them. Only then did Leonard move to disembark.
I guess I'd known it was coming, as Mac must have known it was coming when he gave me a gun capable of shooting through a bull moose lengthwise. The heavy, souped-up rifle was as good as a written order. It said clearly: You will carry out your mission disregarding anything, or anybody, that may stand in your way.
Well, it wasn't the first time I'd had this decision to make, and had made it: and this time it wasn't even very hard. I mean, the girl really meant very little to me. I find it very easy to control my passion for cocky, treacherous young ladies who make it clear that they consider me a lecherous idiot, ready to park my brains behind the door at the sight of any willing female body.
It was like watching a bad movie the second or third time, with the same old beautiful-female-hostage scene coming up. They always try it, figuring, I guess, that what works on the screen ought to work in real life. I eased the rifle forward cautiously so I'd be ready to take a clear shot if Leonard gave me the chance, but he was careful not to. He was bright enough to know that he'd been decoyed here for some purpose, and he wasn't about to expose himself until he learned what it was. That's what he'd saved the girl for, instead of having her shot at once when he learned that her information had led him to an empty cabin.
Sitting in the boat, he'd given me no target, and he offered none as he came ashore, carefully sheltering himself behind the boat's windshield pillars and a dock piling. Then he had the girl in front of him. The whole procession was moving shorewards along the catwalk. I drew a long breath. With a rifle I'd sighted in myself, and with a steady rest, I'd have tried to slip one past the girl's head into the head of the man; but this gun could be six or eight inches off at this range, and I couldn't call my shots that well from my rickety perch, anyway.
I had no choice. I rose up deliberately and placed the black crosshairs carefully on Martha Borden's body, a little to one side, figuring the angle that would center the bullet in the body behind her. They came on, still unsuspecting. I placed my finger on the trigger, and my mind gave the order to the appropriate muscles, and nothing happened. I take no credit for humanitarianism. In my mind, the girl was dead. So sorry. If you don't betray people, sweetheart, you don't get shot. if you do, you do. Goodbye, Martha Borden…
But she was still coming, and so was the man behind her, and my sentimental fingertip simply wouldn't move the necessary fraction of an inch. Then there was a sudden flurry of movement down there. The girl threw herself back against Leonard, knocking him off balance, and jumped. She landed in six inches of mud, almost fell but caught herself, and started floundering diagonally towards shore. Leonard, recovering, spoke sharply to the ex-bullhorn-artist, who raised his current instrument, the machine pistol. It was a setup shot. With an automatic weapon like that, he couldn't possibly miss the girl struggling shore-wards only twenty yards away-but Leonard was standing unprotected at last, wide open, as fine a target as any marksman could wish for.
My finger finally decided to obey the urgent orders from my brain. The big rifle roared, and recoiled violently against my shoulder. The man with the squirt gun, as I like to call them, dropped his weapon unfired into the low-tide mud below the dock and followed it limply, dead before he hit.
xxviii.
As an exhibition of unprofessional idiocy, it would be hard to beat. It was exactly the kind of mushy behavior that makes me cringe and snap off the TV set when I see it on the screen: a supposedly trained and dedicated man with a job to do upon which the fate of millions supposedly depends, turning aside from his clear duty to perform heroic rescues of totally irrelevant young ladies.
By the time I'd recovered from the outsized kick of the rifle, worked the bolt, and swung the crosshairs to where I'd last seen Herbert Leonard, he was not, of course, there any longer. The man was catching on. His behavior this morning, unlike that of some people, had been thoroughly professional. The fact that somebody might have thought him afraid, hiding behind a woman, hadn't bothered him in the least. Now, at the sound of the shot, he'd jettisoned his dignity without an instant's hesitation, throwing himself into the muck on the far side of the dock and flopping out of sight behind one of the pilings.
The youth with the pipe and the yachting cap had taken refuge in the bottom of the boat. I had a great big rifle and nothing to shoot at; then a man rose out of the brush with another squirt gun-Leonard seemed to pass them around like visiting cards-and took aim at the girl as she gained the swampy shore. I dropped him neatly: another good shot wasted on a totally unimportant mark.
The flimsy blind was kind of disintegrating from the jolting of the Magnum rifle, getting shakier by the minute. It was time to go, anyway, before the college commandos got zeroed in on my position. I wedged the gun into the fork of a tree limb, dropped to the ground, and reached back up for it-climbing around in trees with loaded guns isn't considered proper firearms etiquette. I'd barely got it loose when at least three automatic weapons started drilling holes in the blind and the deserted osprey's nest above it, showering me with twigs and leaves and splinters.
I moved off a little ways, and crouched to listen, taking the opportunity to replace the two cartridges I'd fired. Listening wasn't much good. Every man on the island was now, it seemed, busily hosing down my recent hiding place with full-automatic fire. It sounded like 9mm stuff. The.45's used in the old Thompson choppers had had a heavier and more authoritative way of hammering at the ears. Nevertheless, the noise was impressive, and didn't give me much chance to listen for rustling leaves or stealthy footsteps.