Medusa

Evans nodded. ‘No problem. We’ll have her waiting for you there. Then you can see her and identify her through your glasses. Okay?’ And he added, ‘There’s some countries I been in where death is a way of life, as you might say. So don’t fool around with me, either of you, see.’ He turned on his heel then and left the cabin just as Sergeant Simmonds arrived.

Gareth told him to take me down to the armoury and issue me with whatever weapon he thought most suitable for holding a dangerous man hostage for half an hour or so. He was quite close to me when he said that and he gripped hold of my arm. ‘Don’t let him jump you. Just keep your distance and the gun on him the whole time.’ His fingers were digging into me, his hand trembling. God help me, I thought, he was scared of the man. ‘Just keep your distance,’ he said again. ‘All the time you’re alone with him on the island. Particularly at the moment of exchange. If it gets to that, if they actually bring her out to the island, then he’ll have those two thugs of his to back him up, so don’t let your eyes stray. He’ll be waiting for that, the moment when Soo moves towards you.’ And he added, ‘Both of you held as hostage would complicate things.’

His hand relaxed his grip on my arm. He turned and picked up his cap. ‘I’m going up to the bridge now. When you’re armed, you can join Pat at the gangway. By then the launch will be waiting to run you over to the island. And remember — watch him, every moment.’

Chapter Two

‘Zulu One Zero, this is Zulu One. Come in, Zulu One Zero. Over … Yes, I’ve been put ashore as agreed on the island. You can bring the woman down as soon as the frigate starts to fetch its anchor … Yes, of course they did. It’s the husband. That fellow Steele … Sure he’s got a gun, one of those Stirling sub-machine pistols, but I don’t know how good he is with it …’ He glanced across at me, his teeth gleaming in the light of my torch. ‘That’s right, wait till you see the frigate’s stern light disappear beyond Lazareto, then put her in the speedboat. You can come out for me soon as the Colonel reports he is locked on. Okay? … Good. Out.’

He turned to me, his teeth still showing white in that strange smile of his. ‘Relax, for Chris’sake. Another half-hour and with any luck you’ll have your wife back and I’ll be gone.’ He slipped the radiophone back into the pocket of his jacket and came down from the ruined wall on which he had been standing. I backed away, watching him, and he laughed as he came towards me. ‘Think I’m going to jump you? No way. I’ve seen the silverware in that room of yours above the chandlery.’ He walked right past me, out into the open where he had a clear view of the frigate. The launch was just going alongside and at the same moment all the upper-deck lights that gave the outline of the ship such a fairy look went suddenly out.

He walked past the dig, out to the northern end of the hospital’s long seaward-facing block. From there the frigate was no more than three cables away and we could hear the voices of the men on the fo’c’s’le as they waited for the order to weigh anchor. Evans lit a cigarette, his features picked out in the flare of the match. ‘Suppose Gareth boy takes his tin can out and you don’t get your wife back — what then, eh?’ He blew out a stream of smoke, watching me.

I didn’t say anything. The man was built like a tank, all hard bone and muscle. How many shots would it take to kill him? I had never fired a machine pistol before and I tried to remember what I’d been told. Was it high they fired, or low?

‘Well?’ He was grinning at me, but his eyes were cold and calculating in the torchlight, as though he were trying to make up his mind whether I was capable of shooting him down in cold blood.

A searchlight stabbed out from somewhere by the radio mast on the high point of La Mola, the beam blinding me. He could have rushed me then, but he had turned his head away and was staring out towards the frigate, now a black shape in silhouette. The clank of the anchor cable sounded loud in the stillness as they shortened in. The clanking stopped and in the searchlight’s brilliant beam I could see the chain itself hanging straight up and down from the bows. Shortly after that the hum of machinery told us they had got one of the two turbines going again.

‘Any minute now,’ I said, my voice sounding strained. I only said it to relieve the tension.

Evans was still staring intently at the ship and I heard him mutter, it’s against all his training …’ He swung round on me. ‘You reck’n he’ll take her out, or is he up to something?’ He started towards me. ‘If you and he …’

I told him to stay where he was, my finger back on the trigger. ‘Don’t make me fire this thing.’

I don’t think he heard me, for he had turned and was staring out again across the dark water. ‘Like I said, it’s against all his training. And if he thinks he’s going to lie off the entrance till you’ve got your wife back — ’