“Perhaps somebody else brings the boat out after dark.”
“Possibly. But why would Fowler bother to go out — assuming somebody gave him a lift to the fort and left him — without his boat? It sounds very inefficient.” The Saint had often found that the way to find answers was to think the unthinkable. The technique worked now. “Unless the boat is there.”
“Wouldn’t we have seen it through the binoculars? And wouldn’t it be too dangerous for him to risk somebody seeing it? A lot of boats pass here during the day.”
“We’ll see when we get there,” Simon said. “Which won’t be long now.”
The sailboat cut quietly through the smooth swell. The wind was freshening, but still not enough to raise a chop on the surface of the estuary. The Saint did not say so, but he was worried now — worried that he might be too late. If Fowler had a boat concealed at the fort there was nothing to stop him from leaving almost immediately.
The dark shape of the metal monster that was their goal loomed against the sky only a hundred yards away. Suddenly Simon pushed the tiller hard a-lee.
“Get down,” he snapped at Tammy.
The swinging boom missed her head, but just barely.
“What’s the matter?” she asked angrily.
“I think I saw something move along the rail up there. They’ll be watching. I can’t risk taking this boat right up under their noses. I’m going to sail past the fort, and roll over the side as we go by. Don’t worry when you don’t see me come up — I’ll be swimming under water.”
He leaned forward, wanting somehow to push the boat along faster by sheer force of will. Precious moments were ticking by with each gurgle of water that passed the Sunny Hours’ prow.
“Wrap this pistol in that plastic bag for me, would you?” he said. “And here’s what you do when I’m over the side: it’ll take me a few minutes to swim to the fort.”
“How’ll you get on it? It’s standing up on those high stilts.”
“There must be a way. When you figure I’m getting near it, make some noise. Bang something on the bottom of the boat, as if you’d dropped it. And turn on the flashlight. Don’t let the light get on your face or reflect on it. Just aim it up at the top of the sail as if you think something’s gone wrong there. You should be a goodish way from the fort by that time, so they can’t possibly recognise you or think you’re somebody after them. But with someone around they’ll wait a bit before leaving. I’d try distracting them now, but I don’t want them to get too interested too soon.”
It took only a few more minutes for Simon to get his small boat into position. The last glow of the sunset had disappeared, but he had a feeling that even in the darkening twilight the eyes which watched from the fort might have detected the dirty white sail against the dark water.
He let go the tiller, and the boat came up into the wind, the sail starting to flutter.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “This is it. As soon as I’ve gone, head in towards those lights on the shore. In about three minutes stop just the way I’ve done and perform your little act with the flashlight Then put out the light and keep going towards the coast. Let them know then that you’re not interested in the fort.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be busy. Stay off at a safe distance — especially if you hear a boat starting up. I’ll give you a shout, or come and find you. Stay out between those lights and the fort so I know the general area you’re in.”
“What if...”
“What if what?”
“What if you don’t shout or come and find me?”
He pointed north in the direction of the Essex shoreline.
“There’s a lot of England thataway. You couldn’t miss it if you tried. And when you run aground, it’ll only be a muddy but easy walk to dry land.”
“Good luck,” she said, touching his hand.
“Thanks.” He zipped the pistol into his jacket, lying full length along the gunwale. “Man overboard.”
Then he rolled off horizontally into the icy water and struck out for the fort without surfacing. After covering a sufficient distance, he let his head come up just long enough to take a breath, to see that Tammy was under way again, and to relocate the fort. Then he slid back under the low swells like a seal and swam submerged with all the power he could command until his lungs were close to their limit of endurance.
When he came up again, he found that he was actually under the fort, having passed between two of the pilings it stood on without touching them. He was looking up from almost directly under the edge of the platform, which was fifteen feet or so above his head: only about thirty feet away from where Kalki’s boat was tied to the bottom ladder rung on one of the great cylindrical supports of the structure.
Then he heard a clattering noise behind him, and pulled his way into hiding around the nearest column and looked back. A light danced on the sail on the Sunny Hours some two hundred yards away.
Above, he could hear footsteps on the metal deck of the platform.
“Wait a minute!” a muffled voice called. “There’s that boat out there.”
The voice, he was certain, was Kalki’s. There were other hurried foot thumps on another part of the deck. He could not make out the words of the interchange that followed, but there was some very excited consultation going on. Simon took advantage of the distraction to swim swiftly but silently over to the leg of the fort where Kalki’s motorboat was moored. There was, he decided, no need to climb up on to the platform of the fort itself: he could wait there and make his move when the other men came down. On the ladder rungs, with their backs to him, they would be at the disadvantage.
“I think it’s going away.”
“Can you see?”
“It’s going away. They couldn’t be looking for us. It’s some fool who doesn’t know how to sail.”
Kalki and Fowler were speaking in voices of normal volume now that they no longer feared an immediate attack. The Saint looked over Kalki’s boat as he listened to the conversation.
“You have an axe on board?” Kalki was asking.
“Yes,” Fowler answered. “Don’t worry about the way I do my part. And I’ve got a rubber raft and flares. If you ran out on me I might not spend a comfortable night, but I’d survive — and in that case I can promise you I’d survive a lot longer than you will.”
“Do you threaten me,” Kalki replied in a haughty voice.
“Just be sure you get up alongside before I sink.”
“Don’t worry,” Kalki said. “The money would sink with you.”
Fowler’s rejoinder might have been edifying, but the Saint was now more interested in a little scheme he had conceived, involving the rope and heavy anchor which were perched on the bow of Kalki’s boat. He busied himself cutting the rope loose while the men above him made their last-minute preparations for leaving.
A moment later he heard a new sound above him. He lowered himself back into the cold water, clinging to the side of the speedboat. A very large sliding panel in the bottom of the platform was sliding back, and a dim shielded light showed him just enough to explain Fowler’s means of getting to and from the fort, and why it had not been visible from the Sunny Hours.