Quietly, “sprong” said the radio-room door.
Jigger, screwdriver held in both hands, looked up and down the hall. Nobody. Sassi Manoon and her boy friend were out on the beach together, and the Rushby fink was napping in her room down on the second floor. Jigger took a deep breath and stepped into the room.
The door wouldn’t close completely any more, but it was good enough. If she had bad luck and somebody came up to the third floor, they’d hear her anyway, whether the door was closed or not.
She switched on the light and looked at the bank of electronic equipment hulking enigmatically along the opposite wall, staring at her blank-faced with all its dials. “Damn it,” she whispered.
The window was to the right, and faced the sea. She went over and saw Sassi and Frank lying on the blanket, but could no longer see Nothing Ventured IV. It was out there somewhere in all that ocean.
She was not going to cry. She was going to turn on that radio and contact the police, being sure to leave enough time so she could warn Kelly and the others and give them a chance to get away. She had to do at least that much, no matter what.
She thought about movie contracts, the publicity she would get out of this, the chances for stardom, and she tried to ignore how flat and uninteresting it all sounded. It was what she’d wanted all her life, and now it was within her grasp and how stupid to let an emotional hang-up spoil it now. Kelly was lost to her anyway, she might as well get something she wanted out of all this, whether she wanted it or now.
She turned away from the window and sat down in the swivel chair in front of the microphone. There was a switch near her right hand that said On-Off, and it was turned to Off, and she turned it instead to On. The she cleared her throat, leaned close to the mike, and said, “Hello? Hello?”
The two submarine sleds came slicing through the water like flat sharks. Kelly rode one and Robby the other, their feet against the padded boards at the rear of the sleds, their hands on the handlebars. They wore bathing suits, air tanks, rubber gloves, utility belts, and goggles.
They had stopped Nothing Ventured IV a good distance from the drop zone, and from its deck they’d watched the two helicopters appear far to the east, the one veering westward and gradually fading from sight, the other hovering in one place for a moment or two, then circling around and heading south again, its mission obviously done.
The Major had pointed, saying, “That other chap’s the lookout. Up where you can’t see him for the sun.”
“Just like we figured,” Robby’d said.
“We’ll be back soon,” Kelly had said then, surly. He’d spent most of the trip out from the island down with Starnap, playing kalah.
They’d dropped the sleds over the side, jumped over after them, started them, and headed north, keeping eight to ten feet below the surface, skimming along through a dark green-blue world in which an occasional fish looked at them pop-eyed as they passed, then itself darted away into the even darker depths below.
They were both good at the sleds now, having practiced with them around Montego Bay every chance they’d gotten in the last week. It had originally been Frank and Robby who were supposed to operate the sleds, but Frank turned out to have something weird wrong with his sense of balance or something. Whatever it was, it made him invariably steer the sled on a downward slant, and he had to be pulled to the surface every time. In shallow water this merely meant he stirred up mud when he hit bottom, but out in the deep ocean it would be goodbye, Frank. So Kelly had taken over.
They had an hour of air in the two tanks on their backs. The drop was nearly six miles from where they’d left the boat, and it took the best part of half an hour to get there. But when they did arrive, it was a snap. Nothing to it. Kelly held both sleds while Robby used his knife to cut through the straps holding the package and the marker buoy together. They tied the package to Robby’s sled, and then turned and headed back again, two flat shadow creatures flying through a blue-green world with an orange roof.
And now, ahead, there was the flashlight suspended in the water below Nothing Ventured IV turning this way and that with the movement of the water, guiding them home.
They surfaced beside the boat, the Major threw a line over to them, and they climbed aboard, Robby going first, towing his sled up after him.
When Kelly and the other sled were aboard, they untied the dripping package and carried it down into the main cabin, where the Major carefully cut it open.
Green.
They stood looking at it in awed respect, and gradually all three of them began to smile. Even Kelly seemed to have forgotten his bad mood for the moment.
The Major broke the silence. “Gentlemen,” he said, “fortune has smiled upon us.”
“And now,” Robby said, “we smile upon our fortune.”
“Let’s get back,” said Kelly.
(5)
Dos Equis
Miss Rushby checked the Webley, found it in proper working order, fully loaded and safely on safety. She then checked her slip, found it wasn’t showing, and left the bedroom.
She’d hoped all three of them would be on the beach, but the Jigger girl was missing. Too bad, but not vital. Frank was the important one to worry about.
Actually, she was sorry about what she’d had to do to Jigger, and she was just as pleased not to have to meet the girl’s eyes directly just now, when she would be having so much else to concentrate on.
Her sensible shoes really weren’t very sensible when it came to walking on sand, and she traveled across it in long slow strides as though in imitation of someone walking through waist-deep water. She stopped where Frank and Sassi were sitting together on a blanket, and said, “Good afternoon.”
Frank looked around. “Hi, Miss R.”
“Hello, Frank.” Miss Rushby showed him the Webley. “Hands up,” she said.
“Gently,” said the Major. “We don’t want to drop that in the ocean.”
“We know,” said Robby, with only a trace of apparent sarcasm. He was in the process of handing the bulky package of money over the side to Kelly, who was standing in the dinghy. The Major, also in the dinghy, was holding it steady against the side of Nothing Ventured IV.
Kelly got the package and lowered it gently into the dinghy, then helped his friend over the side and in. “I’ll row,” Robby said. No one contradicted him, so he rowed. Kelly sat in the prow, twisted around to face the shore, and the Major sat in the stern, smiling benignly on his two partners.
Adelaide was waiting on shore, the signal that everything was all right. The Major had a strong sudden impulse to smile broadly and wave his arms at her, but that would be undignified and childish, so he contented himself with a small smile and a small nod of the head, neither of which she could see.
The dinghy pulsed toward shore, Robby rowing with practiced ease. The shore itself was in shadow now, the sun low enough to be hidden behind the bulk of the house and the island, but out here on the water it still peeked over the manor roof, glaring suspiciously into the Major’s eyes and making him squint.
Robby timed it nicely, giving one last strong heave on the oars just in conjunction with a long rolling wave that carried them well inshore and receded with the first third of the boat beached on nearly dry sand.
“We’re here,” said Kelly, with satisfaction, and Robby shipped the oars.
The Major withdrew his Walther automatic and pointed it at Robby. “On your feet, gentlemen,” he said. He could see Adelaide, onshore, pointing her Webley at Kelly.