Mitchell brought his hands in front of him. The tremor was still there. Durand stepped forward, his right hand swinging back as if to strike Mitchell open-handed, then let his hand fall in disgust, which was, unwittingly, the wisest thing he could have done. Durand’s mind was incapable of picking up any psychic signals: had it been so attuned, he could not have failed to hear the black wings of the bird of death flapping above his head.
The only person who derived any satisfaction, carefully concealed, from this vignette, was Lar-sen. Although he had talked to Mitchell on the telephone he had never met him—but he had heard a great deal about him from Lord Worth, more than enough to make him realize that Mitchell would have reduced Durand to mincemeat sooner than back down before him. Mitchell had taken only seconds to establish the role he wished to establish—that of the cowardly nonentity who could be safely and contemptuously ignored. Larsen, who was no mean hand at taking care of people himself, felt strangely comforted.
Lord Worth said: “May I see my daughters?”
Durand considered, then nodded. “Search him, Aaron.”
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Aaron, carefully avoiding Lord Worth’s basilisk glare of icy outrage, duly searched. “He’s clean, Mr. Durand.”
“Across there.” Durand pointed through the gathering gloom. “By the side of the platform.”
Lord Worth walked off without a word. The others made their way toward the accommodation quarters. As Lord Worth approached his daughters, Heffer barred his way.
“Where do you think you’re going, mister?”
“Lord Worth to you, peasant.”
Heffer pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Mr. Durand? There’s a guy here—”
Durand’s voice crackled over the receiver. “That’s Lord Worth. He’s been searched and he’s got my permission to speak to his daughters.”
Lord Worth plucked the walkie-talkie from Heffer. “And would you please instruct this individual to remain outside listening range?”
“You heard, Heffer.” The walkie-talkie went dead.
The reunion between father and daughters was a tearful and impassioned one, at least on the daughters* side. Lord Worth was all that a doting parent reunited with his kidnaped children should have been, but his effusiveness was kept well under control. Marina was the first to notice this.
“Aren’t you glad to see us again, Daddy?”
Lord Worth hugged them both and said simply: “You two are my whole life. If you
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don’t know that by this time, you will never know it.”
“You’ve never said that before.” Even in the deepening dusk it was possible to see the sheen of tears in Melinda’s eyes.
“I did not think it necessary. I thought you always knew. Perhaps I’m a remiss parent, perhaps still too much the reserved highlander. But all my billions aren’t worth a lock of your black hair, Marina, or a lock of your red hair, Me-linda.”
“Titian, Daddy, titian. How often must I tell you?” Melinda was openly crying now.
It was Marina, always the more shrewd and perceptive of the two, who put her finger on it. “You aren’t surprised to see us, Daddy, are you? You knew we were here.”
“Of course I knew.”
“How?”
“My agents,” Lord Worth said loftily, “lie thick upon the ground.”
“And what is going to happen now?”
Lord Worth was frank. “I’m damned if I know.”
“We saw three other men come off the helicopter. Didn’t recognize them—getting too dark.”
“One was a Dr. Greenshaw. Excellent surgeon.”
Melinda said: “What do you want a surgeon for?”
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“Don’t be silly. What does anyone want a surgeon for? You think we’re going to hand over the Seawitch on a platter?-”
“And the other two?”
“You don’t know them. You’ve never heard of them. And if you do meet them you will give no indication that you recognize them or have ever seen them before.”
Marina said: “Michael and John.”
“Yes. Remember—you’ve never seen them before.”
“We’ll remember,” the girls said almost in chorus. Their faces were transformed. Marina said: “But they’ll be in great danger. Why are they here?”
“Something to do, I understand, with then-stated intent of taking you back home.”
“How-are they going to do that?”
Again Lord Worth was frank. “I don’t know. H they know, they wouldn’t tell me. They’ve become bossy, very bossy. Watch me like a hawk: Won’t even let me near my own blasted phone.” The girls refrained from smiling, principally because Lord Worth didn’t seem particularly perturbed. “Mitchell, especially, seems in a very tetchy mood.” Lord Worth spoke with some relish. “Near as a whisker killed Durand inside the first minute. Would have, too, if you weren’t being held hostage. Well, let’s go to my suite. I’ve been to Washington and back. Long tiring day. I need refreshment.”
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Durand went into the radio room, told the regular operator that his services would not be required until further notice and that he was to return to his quarters and remain there. The operator left. Durand, himself an expert radio operator, raised the Georgia within a minute and was speaking to Cronkite thirty seconds later.
“Everything under control on the Seawitch. We have the two girls here and Lord Worth himself.”
“Excellent.” Cronkite was pleased. Everything was going his way, but, then, he had expected nothing else. “Lord Worth bring anyone with him?”
“The pilot and three other people. A doctor— surgeon, he says, and he seems on the level. Worth seems to have expected some blood to be spilled. I’ll check his credentials in Florida in a few minutes. Also, two technicians—seismologists, or something like them. Genuine and harmless—the sight of a machine pistol gives them St. Virus’s Dance. They’re unarmed.”
“So no worries?”
“Well, three. Worth has a squad of about twenty men aboard. They look like trained killers and I’m pretty sure they’re all ex-military. They have to be because of my second worry—Worth has eight dual-purpose antiaircraft guns bolted to the platform.”
“The hell he has!”
“Yeah—also piles of mines on the sides of the
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platform. Now we know who heisted the Mississippi naval arsenal last night. And the third problem is that we’re far too thin on the ground. There’s only me and four others to watch everybody. Some of us have to sleep sometimes. I need reinforcements and I need ’em fast.”
“You’ll have over twenty arriving at dawn tomorrow morning. The relief rig crew are due in then. A man named Gregson—you’ll recognize him by the biggest red beard you ever saw—will be in charge.”
“I can’t wait that long. I need reinforcements now. You have your chopper on the Georgia.”
“What do you think I carry on the Georgia, an army of reinforcements?” Cronkite paused, then went on reluctantly: “I can spare eight men, no more.”
“They have radar aboard.**
“So they have radar. What difference does it make? You’re hi command.”
“Yeah, Mr. Cronkite. But your own golden rule—never take a chance.”
“When you hear our helicopter has taken off, neutralize it”
“Destroy the radar cabin?”
“No. We’re going to want to use it when we’ve completely taken over. The scanner will be on top of the drilling derrick. Right?”
“Right.”
“It’s a simple mechanical job to stop it from turning. All you need is someone with a wrench
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and a head for heights. Now tell me exactly where Worth’s men are quartered. Gregson will need this information.”
Durand told him what he wanted to know and hung up.
The dispensary-sick bay and the laboratory were next to each other. Mitchell and Roomer were helping Dr. Greenshaw unpack his very considerable amount of medical equipment. They were, understandably, not unguarded, but Aaron and his Schmeisser were on watch on the two outside doors, and Aaron was hardly in an alert or trigger-ready state of mind. In fact, he regarded his vigil as being close to pointless. He had been present when the three men disembarked from the helicopter and had formed the same opinion of them as Durand.
In the sick bay Dr. Greenshaw up-ended and removed the false bottom of one of his medical supply boxes. With a gingerly and patently nervous apprehension, he took out two belt holsters, two Smith & Wesson .38s, two silencers and two spare magazines. Wordlessly, Mitchell and Roomer buckled on the weaponry. Dr. Greenshaw, a man, as they were discovering, of a genuinely devout turn of mind, said: “I only hope no one discovers you wearing those pistols.”
Roomer said: “We appreciate your concern, Doctor. But don’t worry about us.”
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“I wasn’t worrying about you.” Dr. Greenshaw assumed his most somber expression. “A good Christian can also pray for the souls of the ungodly.”
A long distance away the meeting of ten was again assembled at Lake Tahoe. At the former meeting the atmosphere had been hopeful, forceful and determined, the participants confident that things would go their way, spuriously motivated by their expressed intent to avert a third world war. On this evening the spirit—if that was the word—of the meeting had changed about by 180 degrees. They were depressed, vacillating, uncertain and wholly lacking in confidence, especially in view of the fact that their allegedly humanitarian attempts to prevent the outbreak of war seemed to be having precisely the opposite effect.