Peterson was halfway up the companionway. He smiled.
“Well, as Lenin said, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”
He disappeared on to the deck. Simon looked at Mary.
“We who are about to be cracked salute you.”
“Jeff wouldn’t!” she said foolishly.
Simon settled back on the bunk with weary resignation.
“Oh, I think he would. In fact, I think he will. If he’s going to cause the deaths of several thousand people, what’s one egg more or less? As a matter of fact, you’re quite a dish yourself. Omelet?”
Mary turned to run up to the deck, calling out Peterson’s name. Rogers, the most muscular of Peterson’s fellow patriots, stopped her on the companionway.
“Sorry,” he said. “Jeff wants you here.”
“I don’t care what he wants! He doesn’t own me. I’m not his prisoner.”
“Look again,” Simon murmured.
The girl tried once more to shake off Rogers, who thoroughly enjoyed holding her. She yanked herself away and sat down furiously on the land-side bunk on the other side of the boat from Simon.
“What’ll we do?” she said angrily.
Obviously she was not the type to fall apart under pressure, and she did not take kindly to being pushed around — both qualities being in Simon’s favor.
“Why don’t we try escaping?” he suggested.
Rogers laughed, but the thin man, Benson, took offense.
“Shut up!” he barked. “Both of you!”
Rogers chuckled again.
“Well, Bill, which of us guards these tigers and which stands watch out there in the fog?”
“Who’d come here now?” Benson asked.
“Never mind what you think might happen. One of us has got to keep posted where we can keep an eye on the road, and get Templar’s car out of sight while we’re at it.”
Benson heaved a grudging sigh.
“All right, then. We’ll toss for it.”
They flipped a coin, and Rogers was chosen to stand first watch ashore. He took Simon’s car key, put on a slicker, and left the boat
“Better keep on your toes, Benson,” the Saint said.
Benson looked around uneasily.
“What are you talking about?
“Miss Mary might bash you in the head when your back’s turned.”
“My back won’t be turned,” Benson said.
He sat down on the steps of the companionway facing into the cabin. At that point the Saint sat up and swung his legs, which were not tied, to the floor. Benson was alarmed and instantly on his own feet.
“Lie down,” he ordered.
Simon stood up. Time was too short to allow for planning and caution. It was better to do something brash than nothing at all. He could only hope that Mary Bannerman would get the idea and go into action.
“Make me,” said the Saint with a look of mystifying and total confidence.
The look threw Benson off balance. For anybody trapped in a tiny bit of space with his hands tied behind him to look confident was completely unnerving.
“I told you to lie back down,” Benson said nervously.
“Going to call your mate to help?” Simon taunted him.
That did it. Benson’s spidery frame marked him as a man without much physical strength, which increased his hesitation to get involved with a man of the Saint’s reputation — even if his hands were tied — but at the same time made him all the more sensitive to aspersions on his courage. He moved toward the Saint, whose back was now to the door which led to the forward compartment of the boat.
“You asked for it, Templar,” Benson said with forced toughness.
That was when Mary Bannerman picked up the heaviest thing she could lay hands on — a large metal Thermos jug — and slammed him on the back of the head. He fell to his knees without so much as a grunt, and Simon finished lulling him to sleep with a charitably restrained toe of his shoe.
“You’re a bright girl, Mary. Now please untie me before that other creep decides to drop back in.”
“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “You’ll turn Jeff in, and...”
“Mary, do you realize what’s going on? This scheme you got yourself involved in is no righteous crusade to force a bad leader out of office. It’s a power play, and it means upsetting a very delicate equilibrium if it goes through. And when equilibrium is upset in a place like Nagawiland it means more than new elections. It means disemboweled women and men skinned alive...”
Mary flinched.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures.”
“Well, you’ll be seeing a lot more pictures like that if we don’t manage to stop your friend Jeff. Liskard may be a rat in your book, and he may not be the best leader in the world, but he’s a lot better than most.”
Mary came to him and began tugging at the knots which held his wrists.
“I feel like a traitor,” she said bitterly.
“If it makes you feel any better, Liskard never had any thought of using you — which I’m afraid is more than I can say for Jeff Peterson.”
“Tom told you that?”
“Yes. Whatever he did, there was nothing coldblooded about it.”
She stopped untying Simon’s wrists.
“Still, I can’t just... turn Jeff in like this. Isn’t there some way we could stop him without having him... put in jail or anything like that? Especially since I might get put in jail too, for helping him.”
“We’ll see,” Simon said. “In the meantime...”
He had been testing the bonds which still held his arms together. Mary had loosened them enough that he was able, with a sudden twisting movement and some quick work with his fingers, to tear them away. As he did it, he spun to face her.
“In the meantime,” he concluded, “you don’t have to feel guilty. I got away all by myself.”
She was frozen for a moment, and then she made a dive for the chart book, which she had dropped on one of the bunks. Simon knocked it aside and caught her squirming body up against his.
“See?” he said. “No guilt. You even fought back and tried to stop me.”
“I could scream,” she said tentatively.
She was squirming less. Simon smiled.
“Well, don’t. We need one another. Try using your head for a change. Can you do anything except pose for pictures?”
“Such as what?”
“Such as cast off those lines while I get this scow’s engine set to go. We’ll drift out quietly, then turn on the power and take off full speed.”
Mary did not offer any more arguments or resistance.
“I’ll handle the engine,” she said. “I’ve done it before.”
They both went on deck as soon as Simon had used the rope that had been taken from his own wrists to tie up, Benson. The fog was thickening, and he could scarcely see beyond the fence which ran along the shore, which conveniently meant that Rogers would not be able to see the boat either. Within a few seconds the Saint had cast off both lines and sent the boat drifting toward midstream with a shove of his foot against the bank. He joined Mary Bannerman at the wheel. The bow had been headed upstream. Now, as the current caught it it began to turn downstream toward London and the sea. The shore was five feet away, then ten, but the boat had still not entered the main current in the center of the river. The eddies it formed near the shore began to move the boat back toward land.
“Start it,” Simon whispered.
Mary Bannerman turned the ignition key. The engine turned over, coughed, and died.
“It’s tricky,” she said.
The boat had moved downstream only a few yards. It was turning and drifting back toward the bank. Mary tried the starter again. The engine seemed to catch, then stopped. In the abrupt silence Simon heard running footsteps on the murky shore.