The Kremlin File

All we could do was buy time. Chase back to the doubtful sanctuary of the fortress? I didn’t know if we could make it. I turned the tug around and called behind me.

“Anybody here know how to run a boat?”

Both girls did. They’d only been on yachts, of course, but the tug handled the same way.

“Take over here. Go on back up. We’ll have to wait for dark to try again.”

Tara slid past Fleming, reached for the wheel saying tightly, “They’re too fast, Nick. We can’t make it.”

“Sure you will. Keep the faith.”

There wasn’t time for explanations. I jumped for the stem, grabbed the machine gun and ammo and dropped over the side. I waded to shore and dived into the jungle, climbing the sharp rise. The tug lumbered on taking the direct route. The patrols turned and their bow guns reached ahead. Little fountains popped up just short of our boat.

They were in too big a hurry, staying in the wake of the tug, running side by side. Lousy pilots. They jolted and bucked, grounded on the sandbar and hung. Everyone on board fell down. I was above them with the closer one in my range. My gun swept the deck, knocked the gunner over the rail, cut across the glass bridge and dropped both men there.

The second patrol was out of machine gun reach but I wasn’t out of theirs. I moved. They didn’t know just where I was, but both their long-range guns sent bullets peppering through the trees to find me. I stood behind a thick trunk waiting for them to get tired or run out of lead. Whichever it was, it didn’t take long. They had a bigger problem than a machine gun on a hill that couldn’t touch them.

The throb of their engine revved up to a high pitch, trying to back off the bar. The stem moved from side to side. All except the pilot went overboard to shove on the sharp prow. The boat moved an inch at a time, then it floated, the crew swung back on her and she crawled for deeper water. She turned toward Port of Spain and disappeared behind the far headland.

I went down to the shore where I could see along the cove. Our boat reached the cliff and everyone was on the steps, going up. I thought I had a nice surprise for them. If one patrol boat could be freed from the sandbar so easily, I should be able to float the other. We could leave Grand LaClare in style. And if some of us borrowed the crew’s uniforms, anybody seeing us at sea would take us for a part of Jerome’s fleet. There would be no problem in floating the vessel. I planned to go on foot to the fortress, pick up my people and bring the tug here. If it had enough power to haul barges, it had the power to tow the patrol boat off the sand. I felt very good indeed.

Until I heard the voices. And the crunch of boots uphill from me.

There were men up there, four or five at least, beating the jungle, calling to each other. Where the hell had they come from? Did it matter? Obviously the gunfire had brought them. It was time for me to leave. I considered the dinghy on the patrol boat. But it wasn’t smart to put out in the cove where they could see me. I could go down and swim under the cover of the overhanging brush. Sure. There was blood in the water again and there’d be more barracuda or sharks. What I needed was to get behind the soldiers, in an area they had already searched.

Edging toward the nose of land with as little sound as possible, I turned the corner, came out on top of a bluff, and saw open sea running against the shore. A third patrol boat lay close by and its dinghy was drawn up on a stretch of sand at a bottom of the hill. I guessed the boat carried a handful of men. If it had brought more, there would be many more voices in the searching party.

What to do now? Sit down and wait for the soldiers? The idea didn’t appeal to me. By nature I’m a hunter. I don’t like waiting for trouble to come to me. I go to it. A man on the offensive has the advantage. I had an extra edge here. Anyone I heard or saw had to be the enemy. Whatever movement or sound they caught, could be one of them. They would have to hold fire until they knew they weren’t killing each other while I could zero in on anything I saw.

The only way to go was through their line. I had another edge in the density of growth here, a deep mat of tangle on the ground, a three-dimensional web of vine between the trees. Visability was only about thirty feet in any direction.

Cradling the machine gun so it wouldn’t catch in the vine, I went with caution, keeping low, worming forward. Within a hundred feet something brown moved. A man with his back toward me crouched to go under a loop of vine, intent on something ahead. He brushed through tall ferns and I lost sight of him. I went after him. If I could take him out, it would leave a hole in their line for me to go through. The noise of my shot would bring the others, but then he could turn at any second, see me and blast away. And he wasn’t at knifing distance.