The Saint and the People Importers (20 page)

“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.

Above the opening in the bottom of the platform swung a cabin cruiser in a cradle. It could have been that the whole installation had been built into the original fort. Or it could have been that Fowler had managed to rig it up himself. In any case, the boat was there, and to the creak of pulleys and the metallic grinding of a winch it began to sink down through the opening and descend towards the surface of the water.

The Saint quickly dived under the hull of Kalki’s smaller boat and re-emerged on the far side, keeping his head well down in the water. He heard the cradle and keel of Fowler’s boat settle into the sloshing swells of the estuary, and the which overhead ground to a stop.

“Right!” Fowler’s voice called from just a few feet away. “I’ll get going. Follow my lights as soon as you can-but lock up first. We might want to use this place again when Templar’s out of the way.”

Simon heard the platform’s sliding panel groaning back into place, and over it the engine of Fowler’s cruiser, as it spat and coughed and grumbled into full life. He heard it pull away slowly, scraping lightly against one of the far legs of the fort, before it began to pick up speed.

Up above, Kalki was wasting no time. Simon heard him slam a metal door, rattle something, and then run across the metal deck. A moment later his large feet appeared on the topmost rung of the ladder.

The Saint was waiting in the water when Kalki reached the bottom of the ladder and stretched out a leg to grope for the side of his boat. Simon’s actions were lightning-swift and simple: he had formed the end of the anchor rope into a noose.

He slipped the loop around Kalki’s ankle, jerked it tight, and swung several half-hitches around the giant’s leg.

Kalki was taken so completely by surprise that he could only bellow, kick, and try to climb back up the ladder. Which only pulled the knots tighter.

“Give up?” Simon asked. “If you’re a good boy I’ll just tie you up and leave you for the cops.”

In time he saw Kalki’s fist stretch out from his body, clutching a small revolver. The Saint’s next act was even more deadly in its simplicity than the looping of the rope:: he grasped the anchor and pulled it out over the side into the water. At the same moment as its weight came on the rope, he added his own weight to it.

The sudden shock of the combination jerked Kalki’s hand and foot clean away from the ladder, With a howl he sailed over Simon’s head, and splash of the anchor was followed by the splash of Kalki. The howl was instantly swallowed up too, and there was only the sound of the water washing against the piers of the fort.

Simon hoisted himself with lithe agility into the speed-boat and waited for a minute or two with his automatic in hand to see if Kalki’s great strength would be enough to overcome about fifteen kilos of iron ballast. The seconds passed. Simon quietly put the gun back into the pocket of his dripping trousers. Kalki would break no more bones.

The Saint found a black slicker and hat in the boat. He put them on, started the motor, and cast off in pursuit of Fowler.

It was not a long chase. The lights of Fowler’s cruiser came into sight far ahead of him in the open water. It was simple then to follow, but it was important not to come too close. If Fowler should turn a spotlight on him and recognise that it was not his partner, Kalki, in the following boat, things would become considerably more complicated. He would have to time his approach carefully, coming up to Fowler when Fowler’s attention was diverted.

They churned on out to sea, Simon’s boat two hundred yards behind Fowler’s. Finally the Saint found the distance between himself and the bigger craft narrowing. The cruiser had stopped. He cut his own power, holding back. Over the splashing waves he heard a new, sharp sound: the smashing of an axe into wood. Fowler was hacking a hole in his boat’s hull just below the waterline.

Simon was already less than a hundred yards away. As he came closer he heard another sound: the yells and screams of the captive passengers below deck who now must see the axe blade and water breaking into the cabin where they were imprisoned.

The Saint pushed his throttle forward and bore down on the bigger boat at full speed, keeping his face hidden behind the black hat he was wearing. He turned on his own searchlight-a movable light that could be manipulated by the pilot at the wheel. In the beam he saw Fowler, a shotgun at the ready, facing the door from the cockpit and shouting over his shoulder:
“Hurry up! They’re breaking out! Get me off here!”

The Saint obliged, and as he continued to race the last yards towards Fowler’s listing boat he saw the doors burst open, wood splintering as the panic-stricken immigrants hurled themselves against it with a terror-inflamed vigour that Fowler had completely underestimated. Simon’s timing was such that he managed to ram the cruiser at just the instant that Fowler pulled the trigger of his shotgun. The blast went harmlessly into the air instead of into the Indians and Pakistanis who now swarmed frantically and furiously over Fowler like ants from a disturbed nest.

“I’m a friend!” the Saint shouted to them. “Some of you can get in my boat. And throw over the rubber dinghy on the cabin trunk-you know, the roof. Keep calm! There’s plenty of time for you all to get off.”

Simon was trying to hold his own confiscated craft alongside the cruiser. The foreign passengers paused, confused and uncertain. Fowler was prostrate. Somebody appeared to be standing on his arm.

“I didn’t exactly mean you’ve got all night,” Simon called. “Come on-get that dinghy launched!”

There was a babble of English and other languages. Two of the men climbed over into the speedboat while others untied and pulled down the already inflated Zodiac. They shoved it headlong off the deck, making it ship a few gallons of water, but fortunately it was by nature unsinkable unless punctured in several places.

Then Fowler made a bad mistake: he rolled over and tried to recover his shotgun, which had fallen nearby. Simon had just time to prove the validity of his good intentions to the Indians and Pakistanis by levelling his pistol at Fowler, but he did not have to use it. Dark forms pounced in the dancing glare of the spotlight, and three knives entered Fowler’s body almost simultaneously.

4

Fowler’s boat was listing heavily stern down, but before the water began to spill into the cockpit the Zodiac was ready loaded. If badly overcrowded, it at least floated. Nine men were in it, and three in the outboard with Simon.

“What happened?” one of the frightened passengers asked him. “Where are we?”

“The man who was supposed to take you ashore got frightened and decided to kill you instead.”

He got his party organised, tying the raft behind so that he could tow it. Then he set out at a low speed towards the coast.

A shout went up, and he turned to look back. The lights of Fowler’s cruiser had just disappeared beneath the waves, and the sea all around was dark except for the bead strings of lights along the distant shore.

Most of the way back to the vicinity of the fort was taken up by Simon’s explanations to the smuggled aliens of just what had gone wrong to destroy their hopes-and almost to destroy them.