while I had been talking i’d been studying two circular dials inset in
the panel on the twister. Now I spread the rug back in position with
all the loving care of a father smoothing out the bedcover over his
youngest son and started to screw the coffin lid back in position. For
a time susan watched me in silence, then said wonderingly, “mr. cerdan.
Dr. Caroline. The same person. It has to be the same person. I
remember now. At the time of the disappearance of the twister it was
mentioned that only one or two people so far know how to arm the
twister.”
“He was just as important to their plans as the twister. Without
him, it was useless. Poor old doc caroline has had a rough passage, i’m
afraid. Not only kidnapped and forced to do as ordered, but knocked
about by us also, the only people who could have saved him. Under
constant guard by those two thugs disguised as nurses. He bawled me out
of his cabin the first time I saw him, but only because he knew that his
devoted nurse, sitting beside him with her dear little knitting bag on
her lap, had a sawed-off shotgun inside it.”
“But but why the wheel chair? was it necessary to take such
elaborate”
“Of course it was. They couldn’t have him mingling with the
passengers, communicating with them. It helped conceal his unusual
height. And it also gave them a perfect reason to keep a non-stop watch
on incoming radio messages. He came to your father’s cocktail party
because he was told to -the coup was planned for that evening and it
suited carreras to have his two armed nurses there to help in the
takeover. Poor old caroline. That dive he tried to make from his wheel
chair when I showed him the earphones wasn’t made with the intention of
getting at me at all; he was trying to get at the nurse with the
sawed-off shotgun, but captain bullen didn’t know that, so he laid him
out.” I tightened the last of the screws and said, “don’t breathe a
word of this back in the sick bay-the old man talks non-stop in his
sleep-or anywhere else. Not even to your parents. Come on. That
sentry may come to any minute.”
“You you’re going to leave that thing her?” she stared
at me in disbelief. “You must get rid of it you must!”
“How? carry it up a vertical ladder over my shoulder? that thing
weighs about three hundred fifty pounds altogether, including the
coffin. And what happens if I do get rid of it? carreras finds out
within hours. Whether or not he finds out or guesses who took it
doesn’t matter: what does matter is that he’ll know he can no longer
depend on the twister to get rid of all the inconvenient witnesses on
the campari. What then? my guess is that not one member of the crew or
passengers will have more than a few hours to live. He would have to
kill us then no question of transshipping us to the ticonderoga. As for
the ticonderoga, he would have to board it, kill all the crew, and open
the sea cocks. That might take hours and would inconvenience him
dangerously, might wreck all his plans. But he would have to do it.
The point is that getting rid of the twister is not going to save any
lives at all; all it would accomplish is the certain death of all of
us.”
“What are we going to do?” her voice was strained and shaky, her
face a pale blur in the reflected light. “Oh, johnny, hat are we going
to do?”
“I’m going back to bed.” heaven only knew I felt like it. Then
i’ll waste my time trying to figure out how to save r. Caroline.”
“Dr. Caroline? I don’t see-why dr. Caroline?”
“Because he’s number one for the high jump, as things stand. Long
before the rest of us. Because he’s the man who’s going to arm the
twister,” I said patiently. “Do you think he’ll transfer him to the
ticonderoga and let him acquaint he captain with the fact that the
coffin he’s taking back to the states contains not senator hoskins but
an armed and ticking atom bomb?”
“Where’s it all going to end?” there was panic, open panic,
in her voice now, a near hysteria. “I can’t believe it, I can’t
believe it. It’s like some dark nightmare.” she had her hands twisted
in my lapels, her face buried in my jacket well, anyway, her old man’s
jacket and her voice was muffled. “Oh, johnny, where’s it all going to
end?”
“A touching scene, a most touching scene,” a mocking voice said
from close behind me. “It all ends here and now. This moment.”
I whirled round, or at least I tried to whirl round, but I couldn’t
even do that properly. What with disengaging susan’s grip, the weakness
in my leg, and the lurching of the ship, the sudden turn threw me
completely off balance and I stumbled and fell against the ship’s side.
A powerful light switched on, blinding me, and in black silhouette
against the light I could see the snub barrel of an automatic.
“On your feet, carter.” there was no mistaking the voice. Tony
carreras, no longer pleasant and affable, but cold, hard, vicious, the
real tony carreras at last. “I want to see you fall when this slug hits
you. Clever-clever carter. Or so you thought. On your feet, I said!
or you’d rather take it lying there? suit yourself.”
the gun lifted a trifle. The direct no-nonsense type, he didn’t
believe in fancy farewell speeches. Shoot them and be done with it. I
could believe now that he was his father’s son. My bad leg was under me
and I couldn’t get up. I stared into the beam of light, into the black
muzzle of the gun. I stopped breathing and tensed myself. Tensing
yourself against a.38 fired from a distance of five feet is a great
help, but I wasn’t feeling very logical at the moment.
“Don’t shoot!” susan screamed. “Don’t kill him or we’ll all die.”
the torch beam wavered, then steadied again. It steadied on me.
And the gun hadn’t shifted any that I could see. Susan took a couple of
steps towards him, but he fended her off, stiff-armed.
“Out of the way, lady.” i’d never in my life heard such
concentrated venom and malignance. I’d misjudged young carreras all
right. And her words hadn’t even begun to register on him, so
implacable was his intention. I still wasn’t breathing and my mouth was
as dry as a kith.
“The twister!” her voice was urgent, compelling, desperate. “He’s
armed the twister!”
“What? what are you saying?” this time she had got through. “The
twister? armed?” the voice malignant as ever, but I thought I detected
overtones of fear.
“Yes, carreras, armed!” i’d never known before how important
lubrication of the throat and mouth was to the human voice; a buzzard
with tonsillitis had nothing on my croak. “Armed, carreras, armed!”
the repetition was not for emphasis; I couldn’t think of anything else
to say, how to carry this off, how to exploit the few seconds’ grace
that susan had bought for me. I shifted the hand that was propping me
up, the one in the black shadow behind me, as if to brace myself against
the pitching of the campari. My fingers closed over the handle of the
hammer i’d dropped. I wondered bleakly what I was going to do with it.
The torch and the gun were as steady as ever.
“You’re lying, carter.” the confidence was back in his voice.
“God knows how you found out about it, but you’re lying: you don’t know
how to arm it.”
that was it: keep him talking, just keep him talking. “I don’t.
But dr. Slingsby caroline does.”
that shook him, literally. The torch wavered. But it didn’t waver
enough.
“How do you know about dr. Caroline?” he demanded hoarsely. His
voice was almost a shout. “How do you
“I was speaking to him to-night,” I said calmly. “Speaking with
him! but but there’s a key to arm this. The only key to arm it. And
my father has it.”
“Dr. Caroline has a spare. In his tobacco pouch. You never
thought to look, did you, carreras?” I sneered.
“You’re lying,” he repeated mechanically. Then, more strongly:
“lying, I say, carter! I saw you to-night. I saw you leave the sick
bay-my god, do you think I was so stupid as not to get suspicious when I
saw the sentry drinking coffee given him by kindhearted carter?locked it
up, followed you to the radio office and then down to caroline’s cabin.
But you never went inside, carter. I lost you then for a few minutes, I
admit. But you never went inside.”
“Why didn’t you stop us earlier?”