Surprisingly, Huntington showed some interest in our conversation. When he finally joined in, he was his old surly self. "Well, now that we've managed to fritter away another day, may I assume that we're heading back out to the reef and the real purpose for which we came down here?"
"The plan's about as simple as it can get, Byron. As soon as we get there, we're going down and get those three cylinders and get the hell out of there."
The answer must have satisfied him, because he graced us with what served for him as a smile, got up and headed toward the wheelhouse where Sargent had us aimed in the general direction of Big Doobacque.
It wasn't enough to satisfy Hannah, however. "Okay, Mr. Play-it-by-ear, what's your plan — step by step?"
"Putting all those nagging little questions aside — like why is Huntington even here? Who commissioned the Bay Foreman to find those cylinders? Why was Crompton killed? Who killed Chauncey Packer? What caused the Deechapal disaster? And a host of others. The plan is really quite simple. We get the cylinders, take them back to big daddy Bearing, tell him what we really think is in those metal tubes, collect the rest of our money, and all go our separate ways."
"Wrong," the lady came back, emphatically. "After we get the cylinders, we take a little side trip, and I give Deechapal a pretty good going over. I have every intention of having enough evidence on Zercher by the time I get back to the States to bring the entire Sixth Fleet down on the creep."
"What you do is your own business, Miss Holbrook, but I can assure you that the minute those tin cans are safe and sound on the deck of the Sloe Gin, I'm telling Sargent to zero in on Montego Bay."
I was expecting more of an argument than I got. Maybe Hannah was planning to wait until she thought she could convince me to do otherwise. Whatever the case, Sarge throttled back on the old girl, and we looked up to see a horizon laced with little fluffy white clouds. Beyond, I could see the first gray indication of the Cluster.
Queet was climbing down the steps from the wheelhouse, his weathered, black face grimly set. "Just got a call from Mookie, mon," he said somberly. "They're looking for you."
"Who's looking for me?"
"The Negril police, mon, that's who." Queet wasn't smiling.
Suddenly, one Mauser, an Eagle Scout badge and a fistful of good intentions didn't seem like a whole lot to have going for me. Sylvia was a friend, but not that good a friend. She didn't dare lie to the police. It occurred to me that once they started to put the pieces together, once they identified what was left of Poqulay, and once they talked to Bluebell, I could be in a heap of trouble.
"What did Mookie tell them?"
"He told them he thought you had gone to Montego Bay to get supplies, mon."
Good for Mookie, but that was only going to buy us a little time. It wouldn't take the police long to figure out where I was going with those supplies once I had them.
"Swell," I said sarcastically. "Any more good news?"
"It's not good news, mon."
"Damn it, Queet — what?"
"Mookie says there is a major storm brewing to the east of the mainland. The weather bureau up in Havana is forecasting it will be in the western quadrant of Jamaica by midafternoon."
I glanced up at all those fleecy white things that I had noticed earlier. They had already started to pale and thicken. Then I looked at Hannah.
"This is a helluva question to ask a lady."
"Try me."
"Do you have a gun?"
Hannah sighed and shook her head. "You know something, E.G.? You're a goddamned chauvinist! Of course I've got a gun, and you can bet your sweet butt I know how to use it."
Every now and then, Hannah Holbrook reminded me a whole lot of Gibby.
It was shortly after 12:00 when I slipped overboard and dropped into the Achilles. Hannah had spotted them. She had already made two runs with the PC-13A, tethered the submersible to the Sloe Gin and charted the exact location of the three cylinders. Now it was time for the rest of us to make our contribution.
Overhead there was mute evidence to the fact the weather forecasters in Havana knew what they were talking about. The sky had slowly evolved into a dull, slate gray with brooding, tightly packed clouds now stretching from one Caribbean horizon to the other. The swells were running three to four feet, and the wind gusts were steadily increasing. There was an unspoken growing sense of urgency. It was going to be a race.
The objective was simple — get the cylinders rounded up, hoist them aboard and get the hell out of there before the weather, the police or even Zercher came gunning for us. I wasted another minute or two cursing Bearing Schuster. He was the only man in the world who had secrets that half the world knew about.
Hannah lowered herself into the Achilles while I steadied the little rubber craft. She cleared her mask, tumbled backward and disappeared beneath the choppy surface of the water. Queet followed her, and I went last. Since we would have our hands full, it was left to Maggie to work the monitoring devices from the deck of the Sloe Gin. Huntington and Sargent were manning the mechanized boom, waiting for further instructions.
The world below the surface was decidedly less turbulent. My senses were trying to adjust to the almost deafening silence that is the underwater world, and since the mission this time was retrieval, we stayed together. This time there was no exploring. Hannah led the way, while I rode drag with the lifeline. We stopped at 30 feet and went through the ritual of checking and rechecking each other's gear. Everything checked out, and we ventured on down.
I did a double take when a huge devilfish glided nonchalantly past me, its small teeth casually straining a variety of crustaceans from the warm, salty waters. It seemed totally oblivious to our invasion. Closer to the Garl, a school of yellow fin groupers hovered close to the wall of the reef. Unlike the ray, they were highly suspect of our motives.
Hannah began gesturing. There it was — the one cylinder that was outside of the Garl. It was wedged into the debris near the ruptured metal plates of the fantail. I had been within 20 to 30 feet of it on two different occasions and hadn't spotted it. That was the one we would remove last. It would take a small charge to loosen it, and the way the stern of the Garl teetered on the edge of the trench, it only made sense to make sure we had everything out of the wreck before we took a chance with explosives. Hannah was convinced a charge sufficient enough to free the metal cylinder could be just enough to send the carcass of the Garl tumbling on down into the Tiger Reef trench.
Queet and Hannah disappeared into the shadows of the Garl, and I could see the beams of their halogens bouncing around in the darkness. It hadn't taken them long. With one eye on the divers, the other on the auxiliary EDM and a death grip on the lifeline, I waited. Suddenly Queet was back with the signal. I swam to the Garl with the hoist hook and lifeline clenched in the same hand. He disappeared and reappeared in a matter of seconds, this time with a cumbersome metal object covered with a slimy green substance. I had expected something different — something shiny with a big black swastika and a bunch of numbers painted on the side. It wasn't like that at all. Queet pushed the metal object into place and began to inch it through the hole. I took the other end, and we swam for a nice level spot on the floor of the reef next to the wreckage.
Actually, it was a whole lot easier than I had anticipated. The nylon web harness slipped easily around the cylinder, and I cinched it into place. The "bring 'er up" signal was three long yanks on the hoist line. That supposedly would trigger two more actions. Maggie would come down to the 30 foot level and escort the cargo up from there. All I had to do was get it there, then return to the Garl for number two.