Angel's Ransom Read online

  ‘What happens after we get there is still a problem, isn’t it?’

  ‘Probably more of a problem than what will happen if we don’t get there. We’re on a straight heading for port. Tell Freddy to keep an eye on the compass tell-tale in his cabin. If there’s more than a small change of course during the night, it will mean that Holtz has heard something on the radio and is running away.’ He was reluctant to speak the brutality, but it might be his only chance to pass a necessary warning. ‘The best thing for all of you then is to try to barricade your cabin doors and stay behind them. You may be able to hold out longer than he can afford to spend getting at you.’

  ‘And what will you be doing?’

  The unexpected sharpness of her tone surprised him. He said, ‘The best I can in the circumstances.’

  ‘As you did with Jules this afternoon.’

  ‘I almost got his gun.’

  ‘You almost got yourself killed! What became of the promise we all made that nobody would do anything reckless without talking to the others first? Or was that just to tie our hands, and not your own?’

  ‘I didn’t have time to talk about it first. I had to take the chance when it came.’

  ‘That’s what Bruno did! That’s how he died!’ Her eyes were bright, hot with anger. ‘Why are you different? You can be murdered as easily as he was! You’re not bullet-proof!’

  He said patiently, ‘Certainly I’m not bullet-proof. But I’m the captain of this ship. It’s my job to try to recover command.’

  ‘You’re not! You’re not!’ She was paying no attention to wheel or compass. ‘You’re not the captain of anything anymore! You’re just Sam Blake, in trouble like the rest of us! You don’t have any more obligation to risk your life than any of us! You don’t have the right!’

  He said, ‘That’s not quite true,’ and took the wheel from her. ‘If I don’t have command, I still have responsibility.’

  ‘For what? To whom? Would you have to go down with your ship if Holtz sank it? You’re so blinded by your stupid traditions of the sea that you can’t face simple truths! Your only duty now is to try to keep yourself alive, like the rest of us! Nobody expects you to be a hero!’

  ‘You’ve changed your mind pretty thoroughly in the last couple of days!’ He began to feel an anger responsive to her own. ‘Two nights ago you called me a coward because I thought we all had good reason to try to avoid trouble.’

  ‘I was wrong! I apologized for saying it! I h-hadn’t realized!’ She was on the verge of angry tears. ‘You don’t have to prove how wrong I was by putting yourself in danger!’

  ‘I’m not trying to prove anything! I’m trying to get us out of the trouble your foolishness got us into!’

  Having said it, he was instantly, appallingly, sorry. It was as if he had struck her across the mouth. Anger and color faded together from her face. Her lips moved, but no words came. He said, ‘I’m sorry. There was no excuse for that,’ but knew that no apology would ever remedy the damage his words had done. She turned away, blindly.

  ‘Wait!’ He had time to seize her wrist. While she struggled to pull free, her face averted, he said, ‘We’re in it together! We’re going to get out of it together! We can’t afford to fight each other now! Think what you like about me, but save your fight for Holtz! Do you understand?’

  She still battled him, silently, bitterly. He could not manage her and the wheel together, and had to release her. Only after she had gone did the sorry realization come to him that he had chosen to release a human being in pain and shame rather than an inanimate wheel-spoke. In a flare of rage at his bondage to the Angel, he doubled his fist to smash at something hard and tangible - wheel, bulkhead, anything.

  He did not strike the senseless blow. Reason said, The ball and chain won't feel it. Save your own fight for Holtz. The long, dangerous night was still ahead.

  Under the storm clouds, darkness came early. The hours dragged again until one of the motors began to fire irregularly, skipping and stuttering a counterpoint to the steady purr of its mate. Blake passed uncomfortable minutes watching the tachometer reading of the faulty motor fall, jump, and fall again, before Jules, in slicker and sou’wester, came dripping out of the rain to the pilot-house. The sailor switched on the overhead light to peer at the marks the fight had left on Blake’s face.

  ‘You’ve got a shiner,’ he said worriedly. ‘You’ll have to keep the left eye out of the light. Take fifteen minutes this time, and watch out for Holtz. He’s prowling again.’

  ‘I need more than fifteen minutes. The fuel strainers are clogging up, I’ve got to –’

  Jules cut him off with a foul word.

  ‘I know how long it takes to clean a strainer! Don’t push your luck any further than you have already, Captain. Luck is all that’s carrying you now. Luck and this.’ He slapped the wrench that bulged his jersey in place of the lost pistol. ‘Holtz hasn’t noticed anything wrong yet, and I’m not going to give you another chance to cook up trouble. Fifteen minutes it is.’

  He took the wheel, but put out his big hand to stop Blake before he could leave.

  ‘Listen to me. I’m risking my neck with Holtz to get you back alive if it’s possible, but if it comes to a showdown you’re finished, not me. I don’t go to the guillotine for you, the blonde poule, or anybody. I’ll strangle you all first myself, with my hands. Quick. Understand?’

  ‘I never doubted it.’

  ‘Good. Now move fast. Fifteen minutes is your limit.’

  Blake moved fast.

  He was more than surprised to find Freddy and Valentina waiting at the bottom of the engine-room ladder. The sling hung loose from Freddy’s neck, and he nursed the splinted finger in a way that told of the pain the descent of the ladder must have meant to him. But there was determination in his stubble-bearded face.

  ‘Holtz is wandering around pushing his rat nose into everything on deck,’ he said. ‘I figured this was one place we could talk without his butting in. I want you to do something for us, Sam.’

  ‘I’ve got to do something for the fuel strainers first. I haven’t much time.’

  ‘You’ve got time enough. I tipped a little sugar into the port strainer, that’s all.’ Freddy hesitated, stuttered, and finished with a rush. ‘Marry us while you’re cleaning it.’

  Valentina said calmly, ‘Go about your work, Captain. I did not know why he wanted to bring you here, or I would have stopped him. I thought he had something of importance to discuss with you.’

  ‘It’s important to me.’ Freddy was stubbornly insistent. ‘I want to be married. You can do it, can’t you, Sam? Ship’s captain on the high seas?’

  ‘It wouldn’t hold without witnesses, and I doubt that it would hold even with them. I’m not in command.’ Blake worked rapidly at the strainer. He could not help adding, ‘This is no time for gestures, Freddy. We’ve only got a few hours ahead of us before a showdown, one way or another.’

  ‘That’s the reason I want you to marry us.’ Freddy turned to Valentina. ‘It’s more than a gesture, doll. If something happens to me, and you get out of it, you’ll have my money.’

  ‘Why do you want me to have your money?’

  ‘Because for the last couple of days it hasn’t meant anything to you,’ Freddy scowled intently at his bandaged finger, avoiding the blonde girl’s eyes. ‘I know why you first took up with me. It doesn’t matter. I was ready to pay for your time. When Holtz got into the act, you lost your chance but you were — nice - just the same. You treated me like a human being instead of a slob with a check-book. You and Sam are the only two people in the world who ever gave a damn for me apart from what I could be worked for, and he’s already in my will. I want you to have something too, if there’s anything I can do about it.’ He ended lamely, ‘There probably isn’t. But I wanted to try.’

  ‘Thank you for trying.’ Valentina put her hand on his good hand, just for a moment. Her husky voice was soft. ‘Thank you very much for trying.’

&
nbsp; Blake said, ‘I wish you hadn’t said that about your will.’

  ‘Why? Didn’t you expect to be in it?’

  Tight-mouthed, Blake was remembering Holtz’s jeer: In such close contact with six million dollars, is it too much to hope that some of it will rub off on you?

  He changed the subject to a grimmer one by repeating for both of them the warning he had given Marian earlier. If the Angel’s course were changed markedly during the night, it would be the signal of immediate danger. To barricade themselves and hope for rescue before Holtz could penetrate the barricades or sink the cruiser would then be their only chance, although Blake took some of the ominousness from the warning by explaining his reasons for hope that the Angel would reach the port for which she was headed. He sent them back up the engine-room ladder before it occurred to either to ask the all-important question for which there was no answer: What awaited them in Monaco, when and if they arrived?

  The stuttering motor required the full quarter-hour and minutes over before he had it running smoothly. He expected to pay for the extra minutes when he returned to the pilot-house, but Jules was too concerned with bad weather and poor visibility to make an issue of the tardiness.

  The Angel was heading squarely across the coastwise shipping lanes, a dangerous course in foul weather, and her position off the coast was beyond calculation by dead reckoning in the strong following sea. When Blake relieved the wheel, the sailor used the direction-finder to plot half a dozen coordinates on the chart before he was satisfied that he knew where they were.

  ‘This wind is kicking us along like a sailboat,’ he grumbled. ‘Let’s not tangle gear with the Messageries Maritimes before we have time to sheer off. Cut it to half-speed, and keep a sharp eye out.’

  Blake moved the controls, reducing speed. Jules came to stand at his side and peer through the area of windscreen cleared of rain by the clacking wipers.

  Leaning forward, his face close to the glass, the sailor was an easy target for a blow to the base of the skull. Blake was only briefly tempted. He had failed once, and disposing of Jules, even if he could manage it, would not help greatly as long as Holtz had the only gun. The Walther was the key to everything. Holtz he could handle easily in a test of physical strength. If he could be tricked somehow, brought within reach and his wary attention diverted for even a moment...

  A blast of wind and moisture from the quickly-reclosed door made him and Jules look round. Holtz, in dripping oilskins too big for his small body, said demandingly, ‘Why have we reduced speed?’

  ‘The wind is giving us a push, and we’re in the steamer lanes.’ Jules reached for the light switch, plunging the pilot-house into darkness except for the small glow on the com-pass card. ‘Anyway, we’re ahead of schedule.’

  ‘What did you do that for?’

  Unconcealed suspicion was in Holtz’s question. The oil-skins crackled as he put his hand on the pistol they covered.

  ‘Turn off the light? It throws a reflection on the glass. You can’t see through it.’

  ‘Turn it on!’

  Jules snapped the switch, but not before Blake had had time to remember his swollen eye. When the light came on again he was facing the windscreen. Jules’s quick thinking had saved the moment.

  Behind him, Holtz was silent. Blake could picture the way the mistrustful eyes would be going over the pilot-house, probing at Jules for a better explanation of the extinguished light, only gradually losing their doubt. They would never lose their caution. They could only be misdirected.

  The oilskins crackled again, faintly. Holtz said, ‘When will we arrive?’

  ‘At this speed, around two o’clock. Maybe a little later.’

  ‘It must be before two.’

  ‘Open it up, Captain. Not too much.’

  Blake nudged the controls. The drum of the motors changed again.

  Holtz said, ‘So you will both know, this is our schedule. At one o’clock, Jules, you will take the wheel. You, Captain, will then bring your passengers, one at a time, down to their cabins, where you will lock each one in with the key I shall give you in the salon and reclaim afterwards to make sure that you have used it properly. I shall accept no excuses or delays. If it is necessary for me to come after any of you, it will be to shoot, and for no other reason. Is that clear?’

  ‘What comes after I’ve taken them below?’

  ‘It is not necessary for you to know.’

  ‘You want cooperation. I don’t want to be shot, or see anyone else shot.’ Speaking to the windscreen, Blake felt a crawling tension in the muscles of his back. ‘I can get them to their cabins more easily by explaining what it means than by dragging them. What happens after they’re locked in?’

  Holtz hesitated, considering.

  ‘Very well. At two o’clock we will be standing off the port of Monaco. Roche will signal on the hour if it is safe for us to go ashore. We will take the launch, and Jules will leave you tied in a way to permit you to work loose after we are ashore. You will be free then to take such steps as you like.’

  ‘You might as well shoot us. In this blow, an unmanned craft will drift on the rocks in fifteen minutes and break up in ten.’

  ‘Jules will put down an anchor before we leave.’

  ‘We don’t have enough chain to anchor off the port. The depth is too great.’

  Jules said furiously, ‘Ah, shut your mouth! We’ll anchor off Monte Carlo beach, then! Stop dreaming up more trouble than you’ve got!’

  ‘I don’t have to dream it.’ Blake felt old, tired and beaten in more than a physical sense. ‘What happens if Roche doesn’t signal?’

  ‘It will mean that he has not yet freed himself from the surveillance the Swiss banker will have placed over Farr’s hundred thousand dollars. We will wait as long as necessary for the signal that he has been able to do so.’

  ‘What if he never signals?’

  ‘Don’t suggest that, Captain!’

  Holtz spat the command in a way that made the crawling sensation in Blake’s back turn to an ugly knot of expectation. He waited, rigid, for the rustle of oilskins that would mean the Walther leveled at his back. The windscreen-wipers clacked once, twice, three times.

  ‘Don’t ever suggest that,’ Holtz repeated in another tone. ‘It implies miscalculation. I do not miscalculate.’

  The strong winds of the storm pushed tons of water in through the mouth of the little port, giving the tideless Mediterranean a flood to lift the hulls of the vessels moored in the shelter of the sea wall. One of them was the patrol boat, a sleekly powerful cutter with an over-large search-light on its deckhouse roof and a 50 mm. swivel gun mounted in the bow. The cutter had been designed primarily for use against cigarette smugglers, and the swivel gun was intended less to do damage than to make a loud noise, ordinarily enough to stop craft the cutter could not out-run. The gun had never yet been fired with intent to damage. It was Neyrolle’s prayer that its first such use would not have to be against the Angel.

  He had taken over the Bureau du Pilotage as temporary headquarters. The Bureau was a small office in the base of the beacon tower from which the steady green eye of the north jetty stared at its winking red companion on the far side of the harbor entrance. There was barely room in the Bureau for a table, several chairs, and the three men who were there: Neyrolle, George, and Cesar.

  Neyrolle was patiently questioning Cesar about the Angel’s capabilities and limitations. He said, ‘How near could she come to shore, safely, in a storm like this?’

  Cesar made a weary gesture that dismissed the weather.

  ‘I have told you before, this is a breeze for her. The captain could bring her into port as easily as you park a car. With someone else at the wheel it might be another matter, but as I have said a dozen times at least’ - the steward looked his appeal at George, who was scowling at the floor and did not catch the look - ‘whoever took her out of the harbor nearly smacked the breakwater on a calm day. With that kind of a wheelsman, there is no such wo
rd as “safely”.’

  ‘But anyone could bring her close enough to send a boat ashore?’

  ‘Anyone could bring her close enough to try to send a boat ashore. Me, I would not choose to be in it.’

  George made a sound of impatience.

  ‘It’s useless to hope they’ll launch a boat without a signal,’ he said. ‘You’re wasting your time.’

  ‘I am prepared for all eventualities,’ Neyrolle answered. ‘Unless they are frightened off, which they will not be except by extreme carelessness or a stupidity beyond belief, they must make contact with the shore somehow. Thieves as bold as these do not abandon thirty-five million francs without an effort to recover the loot.’ He spoke again to Cesar. ‘We know that the Angel carries a fifteen-foot power-boat. Have you any real reason to believe that it could not be launched, or would not be seaworthy even in this weather?’

  The door to the Bureau opened while Cesar was conceding that the Angel’s launch would probably float and steer regardless of weather. The hiss of wind-driven rain and the roar of waves riding hard on the sea wall interrupted the council as a man in dripping foul-weather clothing put his head through the doorway to announce, ‘The water level in the harbor is up almost a meter. We’ve got the radar ranging at fifteen kilometers.’

  His name was Corsi. He was one of the two plain-clothes men George had seen bending over the diagram on Neyrolle’s desk earlier that day. Neyrolle said, ‘What’s the length of the shadow from the sea wall?’

  ‘About as far as you can see in this soup. If a boat comes inside the shadow, we ought to be able to spot it with binoculars - if it carries running lights, that is. Dark, it would be hard to say.’

  ‘Keep the look-outs on their toes. And let me know if the water-level changes, either way.’

  Corsi touched a finger to his sou’wester, then stepped backward into the storm and pulled the door closed against the push of the wind.

  George said, ‘What’s that all about? How are you using radar?’

  ‘One or two of the larger yachts in port have it,’ Neyrolle explained. ‘A difficulty was the height of the sea wall. It throws a shadow seaward for some distance, more or less depending on the elevation of the apparatus on the ship’s mast. I am not wholly familiar with the principles, but it seems that without the help of the storm swell to lift the antennae above the interference of the jetties, we might not have been aware of the presence of a small boat within a certain minimum distance unless we sent one of the radar-equipped yachts to stand outside the harbor. In a storm like this, that would have been plain warning of a trap.’