“No time, friend, this is it. When it’s over I’ll explain. Not now. What about that ship?”
“She was spotted. In fact, the planes directed her through the best section of the blow.” He gave me the last coordinates and I wrote them down. “I know what you’re planning, baby. You got me on a hook and I can’t say a thing.”
“Don’t try.”
She was waiting for me by the plane, her eyes shiny with tears. “You think you can do this thing?”
“I’m going to try like hell, baby.”
“Then take my love with you, señor.” She reached up, her arms going around my neck and her mouth was a volcanic thing of sweetness and fire that said everything at once, promising everything, and I remembered what she did to save my life and felt a wild hunger for the woman she was, full and glossy, vibrant with a love she was giving to me.
When I took my mouth away from hers I said, “I’ll be back, Sharon,” then I climbed in the old 11–51 and went through the starting procedure.
The tower didn’t want to clear me, but I never gave him a chance to tell me so. I headed into the wind and eased the throttle forward and fought the side gusts until I was off the ground. Then I climbed to 30,000 feet, over the storm picked up my heading, held everything at max cruise and waited. The moon above made the rolling clouds of Ingrid look like grey snowbanks that gave way to the 60-mile width of the hurricane’s eye before narrowing across its southeast quarter. Then I passed it.
Chapter 8
I found the Leona ten miles off her course estimate. To make sure, I swept in low with my landing lights on, wheels and flaps down. There was her name plastered across the stern in fading white paint. I got the gear retracted before the first bursts of gunfire winked at me from the decks. I picked up altitude and circled the ship below.
Two chances, that was all I had.
I made the first pass from the stern, dumping her over from 15,000 feet and releasing my bomb at 2000. Behind me came a shuddering whump, and when I looked back I could see the yellow glow of the burst and the lurch of the ship as she caught the near miss. There were lights on the deck now and in their beams I could see the ant-like figures of men running. A spot flicked on and tried to catch me, but there wasn’t much chance of that. If they knew what they were carrying they’d be worrying about saving themselves, not killing me.
I took the Mustang up again and got set for another pass. I started to make a 180-degree turn into the run when I felt a sudden lightening of the ship, a quick uplift on the left wing and the insides wanted to drain out of me. Down below, the other bomb tore harmlessly into open water a half mile from the Leona.
It was too late after all.
For one second I thought of a suicide run, but I didn’t have the guts for it. In helpless anger I circled over the Leona, cursing that battered old hulk and wishing I still had the six .50s mounted that could at least tear some holes in her, damning the idiots that mounted the bomb, but mainly damning myself for not having checked everything out.
I took one last look below. This time there was something different. The ship had stopped. It had heeled over sharply to port and was low in the water. I took another chance and went in again with the gear down and the lights on. I saw what had happened.
The first bird had been a near miss, all right, but those rusted plates of the ship’s bottom were too old to take the concussion. They had folded and I had won. Damn it, we had won!
I eased the stick over and got out of there, getting on a return heading. But I couldn’t help looking back. I was far and high enough away to see it safely when it went off. No big flash. No mushroom cloud. The Leona must have been underwater when it happened. Just a beautiful, diffused glow that changed colors in a soft pattern that rippled out gently and just as gently receded.
Ingrid came into sight again, her eye and front quarter reaching out for Florida. I beat her in and taxied up to the hangar where Sharon was still waiting, the wind whipping the dress tight around her legs. The tower was trying hard to get me to get under cover and the lights of a truck were coming toward me. I waved the truck off, motioned that I was going up again and the guy yelled something unintelligible and swung around.
As he did, the motor coughed twice and began to run rough until I idled it at higher RPM’s. The old trouble was back again, despite Charlie’s work. I wouldn’t be able to shut down and re-start now without getting into it — and I wanted to get the hell out of there.
I edged in close to the hangar doors where there was a windbreak, locked the breaks, hopped out and chocked the wheels.
It was a bad thing to do, but I had no alternative.
Sharon came into my arms with a rush, burying her face in my chest, sobs of joy coming from her like that of a happy puppy. I shouted over the roar of the engine behind me, “She’s gone. It’s all right now... we have it made.”
“As long as I have you back, my big one...”
“Inside. I have one call to make.”
I pushed her ahead of me through the door into the hangar and felt for the light. The place was empty; everybody had cleared out in advance of Ingrid. I picked the phone off the wall and dialed my number.
The voice in the doorway said, “Hang up, Fallon.”
We both turned around.
Lois Hays stood there, her face a mask of pure hatred, the gun in her hand a cold, deadly thing. I put the phone back.
“Yes, I’m sure of it now, Lois, I knew how Del Reed, Jones and Smith could have found me, but not Andre Marcel. You were the only one who knew about the Paramount Motel.”
“You’re quite right. I told him.”
Outside, the wind was a tearing shriek. Ingrid was here. So was death. I felt Sharon’s hand grope for mine, find it and hold tight.
I said, “It’s too late, Lois. The Leona is down, the bomb is gone. The propaganda is a dead issue.”
“Is it? I think not.”
Somehow, she had figured an angle and I knew I was sweating. Her smile was as deadly serious as the gun in her hand. I measured the distance to her and thought about Sharon’s gun, but each time Lois Hays was following my thoughts as though she could read my mind.
“No,” she told us both, “there is not one thing you can do before I kill you. Not one thing.”
Trying to play for time, I said, “How can you make it, kid?”
“If you thought about it, you’d see. Tomorrow the papers will carry the story with Duncan Knight’s byline and we’ll still win. Pity you won’t be able to see it.”
“What story?”
“How an American citizen carried out an act of unprecedented violence — aided and abetted by authorized agents of this country — and destroyed a harmless Cuban vessel engaged in commerce with a neutral country. Don’t you just see how the rest of the world will eat that story up? Oh, I know what you intended the world to think... that the Leona went down in the midst of a hurricane, and certainly it could be assumed that such an old ship would succumb to hurricane seas. But you’re out of luck, Fallon. It will be my story.”
“And us?”
“When accused of the act, you tried to take me captive and I had to shoot you both. Who would deny that possibility when they know of the three men lying dead on the wharf. Fallon, you’re better off dead. And me, I’ll live to work another day. I’ll see that my story is well supported and I don’t think the government will want to go into the matter any more than is necessary. They want no part of a shooting war.”