Mitchell looked at Roomer. “Why the hell didn’t you think of that?”
Roomer bestowed a cold glance on him and said to Robertson: “Maybe I should have you as a partner. What did you find out?**
“One pilot is standing by at the airport. Four of the others are at home. The one whose name I haven’t checked—John Campbell—isn’t home.
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^
I asked one of the other pilots about this and he seemed a bit surprised. Said that Campbell usually spends his afternoons fishing outside the back of his house. He’s a bachelor and lives in a pretty isolated place.”
“It figures,” Roomer said. “A bachelor in isolation. The kidnapers seem to have an excellent intelligence system. The fact that he doesn’t answer the phone may mean nothing—he could have gone for a walk, shopping, visiting friends. On the other- hand—”
“Yes. Especially on the other hand.” Mitchell turned to leave, then said to Robertson: “Does the gatekeeper have a listed phone number as well as the radiophone?”
“I’ve typed it on that list.”
“Maybe we should both have you as a partner.”
Mitchell and Roomer stood on Campbell’s back lawn and surveyed the scene unemotionally. The canvas chair, on its side, had a broken leg. The parasol was upturned on the grass, over an opened book. The fishing rod was in the water up to its handle and would have floated away had not the reel snagged on a shrub root Roomer retrieved the rod while Mitchell hurried through the back doorway—the back door was wide open, as was the front. He dialed a phone number, and got an answer on the first ring.
“Lord Worth’s heliport. Gorrie here.”
Seawiteh
“My name’s Mitchell. You have a police guard?”
“Mr. Mitchell? You Lord Worth’s friend?”
“Yes.”
“Sergeant Roper is here.”
“That all? Let me speak to him.” There was hardly a pause before Roper came on the phone.
“Mike? Nice to hear from you again.”
“Listen, Sergeant, this is urgent. I’m speaking from the house of John Campbell, one of Lord Worth’s pilots. He has been forcibly abducted, almost certainly by some of the kidnapers of Lord Worth’s daughters. I have every reason to believe—no tune for explanations now—that they’re heading in your direction with the intention of hijacking one of Lord Worth’s helicopters and forcing Campbell to fly it. There’ll be two of them at least, maybe three, armed and dangerous. I suggest you call up reinforcements immediately. If we get them we’ll break them— at least Roomer and I will; you can’t, you’re a law officer and your hands are tied—and we’ll find where the girls are and get them back,”
“Reinforcements coming up. Then I’ll look the other way.”
Mitchell hung up. Roomer was by his side. Roomer said: “You prepared to go as far as back-room persuasion to get the information we want?”
Mitchell looked at him bleakly. “I look forward to it. Don’t you?”
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“No. But Til go along with you.” Once again Mitchell and Roomer had guessed correctly. And once again they were too late.
Mitchell had driven to Lord Worth’s heliport with a minimum regard for traffic and speed regulations, and now, having arrived there, he realized bitterly that his haste had been wholly unnecessary.
Five men greeted their arrival, although it was hardly a cheerful meeting: Gorrie, the gateman, and four policemen. Gome and Sergeant Roper were tenderly massaging their wrists. Mitchell looked at Roper.
“Don’t tell me.” Mitchell sounded weary. “They jumped you before the reinforcements were to hand.”
“Yeah.” Roper’s face was dark with anger. “I know it sounds like the old lame excuse, but we never had a chance. This car comes along and stops outside the gatehouse, right here. The driver—he was alone in the car—seemed to be having a sneezing fit and was holding a big wad of Kleenex to his face.”
Roomer said: “So you wouldn’t recognize him again?”
“Exactly. Well, we were watching this dude when a voice from the back—the back window was open—told us to freeze. I didn’t even have my hand on my gun. We froze. Then he told me to drop my gun. Well, this guy was no more than
Seawlteh
five feet away . . , I dropped my gun. Dead heroes are no good to anyone. Then he told us to turn around. He was wearing a stocking mask. Then the driver came and tied our wrists behind our backs. When we turned around he was wearing a stocking mask too.”
“Then they tied your feet and tied you together so that you wouldn’t have any funny ideas about using a telephone?”
“That’s how it was. But they weren’t worried about the phones. They cut the lines before they took off.*’
“They took off immediately?”
Gome said: “No. Five minutes later. The pilots always radio-file a flight plan before take-off. I suppose these guys forced Campbell to do the same. To make it look kosher.”
Mitchell shrugged his indifference. “Means nothing. You can file a flight plan to anyplace. Doesn’t mean you have to keep it. How about fuel—for the helicopters, I mean?”
“Fuel’s always kept topped up. My job. Lord Worth’s orders.”
“What direction did they go?”
‘Thataway.” Gorrie indicated with an outstretched arm.
“Well, the birds have flown. Might as well be on our way.”
“Just like that?” Roper registered surprise.
“What do you expect me to do that the police can’t?”
Alistair MacLean
“Well, for starters, we could call in the Air Force.”
“Why?”
“They could force it down.”
Mitchell sighed. “There’s a great deal of crap being talked about forcing planes down. What if they refuse to be forced down?”
“Then shoot it down.”
“With Lord Worth’s daughters aboard? Lord Worth wouldn’t be very pleased. Neither would you. Think of all the cops that would be out of a job.”
“Lord Worth’s daughters!”
“It’s all this routine police work,” Roomer said. “Atrophies the brain. Who the hell do you think that helicopter has gone to pick up?”
Once clear of the heliport, Roomer extended an arm. ” ‘Thataway,’ the man said. ‘Thataway’ is northwest. The Wyanee Swamp.”
“Even if they’d taken off to the southeast they’d still have finished up in Wyanee.” Mitchell pulled up by a public booth. “How are you with McGarrity’s voice?” Roomer was an accomplished mimic.
“It’s not the voice that’s hard. It’s the thought processes. Til give it a try.” He didn’t say what he was going to try because he didn’t have to. He left for the booth and was back inside two minutes.
“Campbell filed a flight plan for the Seawitch”
“Any questions asked?”
17O
Seawiteh
“Not really. Told them that some fool had made a mistake. Anyone who knows McGarrity would know who the fool was that made the mistake.”
Mitchell started the engine, then switched off as the phone rang. Mitchell lifted the receiver.
“Jim here. Tried to ring you a couple of times, fifteen minutes ago, five minutes ago.”
“Figures. Out of the car both times. More bad news?”
“Not unless you consider Lord Worth bad news. Touchdown in fifteen minutes.”
“We got time.”
“Says he’s coming up to the house.”
“Sent for the Rolls?”
“No. Probably wants to talk private. And it looks as if he’s planning to stay away some time. Ordered a bag packed for a week.”
“Seven white suits.” Mitchell hung up.
Roomer said: “Looks as if we’re going to have to do some bag-packing ourselves.” Mitchell nodded and started up again.
Lord Worth was looking his old self when he settled in the back seat of their car. Not quite radiating his old bonhomie, to be sure, but calm and lucid and, to all appearances, relaxed. He told of his success in Washington, for which he was duly and politely congratulated. Roomer then told him in detail what had happened in
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his absence: this time the absence of congratulations was marked.
“You’ve notified Commander Larsen of your suspicions, of course?”
“Not suspicions,” Mitchell said. “Certainties. And there’s no ‘of course’ and no, we didn’t notify him. Tm primarily responsible for that.”
“Taking the law into your own hands, eh? Mind telling me why?’*
“You’re the person who knows Larsen best. You know how possessive he is about the Sea-witch. You yourself have told us about his anger and violence. Do you think a man like that, duly forewarned, wouldn’t have a very warm reception waiting for the kidnapers? Stray bullets, ricocheting bullets, are no respecter of persons, Lord Worth. You want a daughter crippled for life? We prefer that the kidnapers establish a bloodless beachhead.”
“Well, all right.” The words came grudgingly. “But from now on keep me fully informed of your intentions and decisions.” Lord Worth, Roomer noted with sardonic amusement, had no intention of dispensing with their unpaid services. “But no more taking the law into your own hands, do you hear?”
Mitchell stopped car and engine. Roomer’s amusement changed to apprehension. Mitchell twisted in his seat and looked at Lord Worth in cool speculation.