Dagger Magic

With a glance, he measured the remaining distance between their own vessel and the deck of the submarine, which seemed to be riding lower in the water than it had been.

"If we can keep him distracted, we'll soon be close enough to board," he murmured. "Noel, try to keep him talking."

"With pleasure," McLeod grunted. Raising his voice, he called, "Go ahead and try and leave the sub, if you think you can get away with it. But you're not taking those boxes with you."

Raeburn cast a glance over his shoulder at the approaching raft, then back at his challengers.

"Nonsense," he retorted. "These boxes are my property, by right of salvage. Interfere with them, and I'll have you up on charges of piracy."

McLeod raised his pistol, calmly taking a bead on Raeburn, who ducked behind the conning tower.

"We can split legal hairs later," he told Raeburn. "In the meantime, you'd best keep back from those boxes."

The raft was still several meters distant, still mostly shielded behind the conning tower. The man leaning into the paddle was blond like Raeburn, and hard-eyed, with an Uzi slung around the neck of his leather flying jacket. After darting a glance at him, Raeburn cast an appraising look at the cruiser easing ever nearer the sub, then ducked down to pick up one of the crates of diamonds, brandishing it before him.

"Do you know what's in here?" he cried. "Diamonds." Without further preamble, he pitched the crate into the water on their side, where it immediately sank from sight. "But if I can't have them, then neither can you."

As Peregrine started up with an exclamation of surprise and indignation, Raeburn picked up a second crate.

"The only way to stop me from doing this is to shoot me," he stated, "and you won't do that, because your kind can't kill in cold blood."

The second crate splashed down and sank with a gurgle.

"How inconvenient for you, that you believe in justice and fair trials," Raeburn observed, and bent down for the third crate.

As he did so, McLeod levelled the Browning and squeezed the trigger.

The crate seemed to leap in Raeburn's hands, partially exploding in a fountain of wood splinters. His balance momentarily disrupted, the crate slipped from his hands and smashed against the deck before sliding into the water, Raeburn flailing after it. Diving instinctively, as both McLeod and Magnus began firing, he surfaced some distance out from the sub, where the man in the inflatable raft was returning cover-fire. A second dive brought him up gasping behind the raft, where he clambered aboard and took over firing as his associate began paddling furiously back toward the seaplane.

It was just enough to keep their pursuers pinned down. The two policemen kept firing after the raft when they dared, but the pitch of the cruiser's deck played havoc with their aim.

Adam's attention, meanwhile, was reserved for the brass-bound chest still riding on the submarine's deck, which was settling ever lower in the water. Peeling off his waxed jacket, he directed Eamonn to bring the Lady Gregory as close as he could, for the sub clearly was sinking. Peregrine shucked out of his jacket as well, jamming his spectacles into a pocket before tossing it to Aoife, he and Adam swinging over the cruiser's port-side rail and dropping to the sub's deck as the Lady G came alongside the conning tower.

They landed ankle-deep in water, for the entire deck was now awash, waves breaking over the bow and rolling aft with every swell. The chest shifted ominously, and a spatter of Uzi fire from the direction of the raft warned them that Raeburn was still a danger.

"Keep as low as you can!" Adam shouted, as a chance burst churned the water between the two of them, and Peregrine recoiled.

Following his own counsel, Adam made a dash for the chest, and got a hand on it as a passing wave smacked it broadside. Even then, he feared for a moment that he was going to lose it.

Then Peregrine came to his aid, seizing hold of the other handle. Still ducking Raeburn's bullets - though his aim was becoming more erratic, the farther he got from the sub - they managed between them to manhandle the chest toward the dwindling island that was the conning tower. By the time they reached it, the water was past their knees.

Eamonn was fighting to hold the Lady Gregory in position, still hiding behind the conning tower as a shield and using it to keep the Lady G from grounding on the sub's sinking deck. Leaving Magnus to keep up the fire-fight from far forward, McLeod joined Aoife at the railing. Adam and Peregrine hoisted the chest aloft as their companions leaned out, ready to receive it. Even as the weight of it left their arms, the submarine's deck sank out from under them and left them swimming. The water was icy cold.

"Hang on a sec and we'll throw you a line," Aoife shouted down to them, as she and McLeod hefted the chest off the rail and onto the deck.