Part 8 (2/2)
”Your drop off will be twenty-five miles due east of Rastafa Point”
”Fine” I could check ood and sied schooner, a big one Your recognition signal will be the same Two lanterns on the mast, you will flash twice at thirty seconds, and the lower lauish You can then off load They will provide labour and will put down an oil slick for you to ride in I think that is all”
”Except for the money”
”Except for the money, of course” He produced an envelope froerly between thulanced at his calculations scribbled in ballpoint on the envelope
”Half up front, as usual, the rest on delivery,” he pointed out
That was thirty-five hundred, less twenty-one hundred for coker's commission and Daly's pay-off It left fourteen hundred, out of which I had to find the bonus for Chubby and Angelo - a thousand dollars - notoutside your office at nine o'clock to, Mr coker”
”I'll have a cup of coffee ready for you, Mister Harry” ”That had better not be all,” I told hihed and stooped once more over the marble slab
We cleared Grand Harbour in the late afternoon, and I made a fake run down the channel towards Mutton Point for the benefit of a possible watcher with binoculars on Coolie Peak As darkness fell, I -cah the inshore channel and the islands towards the wide tidal mouth of the Duza River
There was noand the break of surf flared with phosphorescence, ghostly green in the afterglow of the setting sun
I ran Dancer in fast, picking up ht, the break of a reef, the very run and chop of the water guided h the channels and warned of shoals and shallows
Angelo and Chubby huddled beside o below to brew more of the powerful black coffee, and we sipped at the stea for a flash of paleness that was not breaking water but the hull of a patrol boat
Once Chubby broke the silence ”Hear froht”
”Soreed
”Wally had to take hiot his job?” I asked
”Only just The elo joined in ”Judith was up at the airport at lunch time
Went up to fetch a crate of school books, and she saw hi out on the plane to the mainland”
”Who?” I asked
”Inspector Daly, he went across on the noon plane”
”Why didn't you tell me before?”
”Didn't think it was ireed ”Perhaps it isn't”
There were a dozen reasons why Daly o out to the mainland, none of them remotely connected with my business Yet it madearound in the undergrohen I was taking a risk
”Wish you'd brought that piece of yours, Harry,” Chubby repeatedbut wished the same
The flow of the tide had smoothed the usual turmoil at the entrance to the southern channel of the Duza and I groped blindly for it in the dark Thefish traps laid by the tribal fishermen, and they helped to define the channel at last
When I was sure ere in the correct entrance, I killed both engines and we drifted silently on the inco tide All of us listened with coine beat of a patrol boat, but there was only the cry of a night heron and the splash ofin the shallows
Ghost silent, ere swept up the channel; on each side the dark ed us in and the smell of the mud swamps was rank and fetid on the ht on the dark agitated surface of the channel, and once a long narrow dugout canoe slid past us like a crocodile, the phosphorescence glea from the mouth They paused to watch us for a , disappearing swiftly into the glooelo
”We will be drinking a lager in the Lord Nelson before they could tell anyone who matters” I knew that most of the fishermen on this coast kept their own secrets, close ords like
Looking ahead I saw the first bend coan to push Dancer out towards the far bank I hit the starter buttons, the engines ed back into the deep water
We worked our way up the snaking channel, corove ended and firently on each side
A mile ahead I saw the tributary mouth of the Salsa as a dark break in the bank, screened by tall stands of fluffy headed reeds Beyond it the twin signal lanterns glowed yellow and soft, one upon the other
”What did I tell you, Chubby, a milk run”
”We aren't hoelo
Get up on the bows I'll tell you when to drop the hook”
We crept on down the channel and I found the words of the nursery rhyh ht from the locker below the rail
”Three, Four, knock at the door, Five, Six, pick up sticks” I thought briefly of the hundreds of great grey beasts that had died for the sake of their teeth - and I felt a draught of guilt blow coldly along hter But I turnedthe agreed signal upstrea lanterns
Three tinition code but I was level with the signal lanterns before the bottoelo Let her go,” I called softly as I killed the engines The anchor splashed over and the chain ran noisily in the silence Dancer snubbed up, and swung around at the restraint of the anchor, facing back down the channel
Chubby went to break out the cargo nets for loading, but I paused by the rail, peering across at the signal lantern The silence was cos in the reed banks of the Salsa
In that silence I felt iant's heart It cah the soles ofthe beat of an Allison marine diesel I knew that the old Second World War Rolls-Royce marines had been stripped out of the Zinballa crash boats and replaced by Allisons, and right now the sound I was feeling was the idling note of an Allison elo,” I tried to keep ency ”Slip the anchor For Christ's sake! Quick as you can”
For just such an eency I had a shackle pin in the chain, and I thanked the Lord for that as I dived for the controls
As I started engines, I heard the thuelo drove out the pin Three times he struck, and then I heard the end of the chain splash overboard
”She's gone, Harry,” Angelo called, and I threw Dancer in to drive and pushed open the throttles She bellowed angrily and the wash of her propellers spehitely froh ere facing downstrea into her teeth and she did not juh