better cause could there be? the generalissimo’s coffers are empty.
Not a soul in sight and his regime is tottering. Only one thing can
save the sick man of the caribbean-a transfusion. A transfusion of
gold. This ship that we’re going to intercept, carreras-how many
millions in gold bullion is she carrying?” marston was back in the
surgery now, and he and susan looked at me, then at each other, and you
could see their mutual diagnosis: delayed shock had made me lightheaded.
Carreras, I could see, wasn’t thinking anything of the kind: his face,
like his body, had gone very still. “You have access to sources of
information of which I am completely unaware.” his voice was hardly
more than a whisper. “What sources, carter? quickly!”
“There are no sources, carreras.” I grinned at him. “Should there
be?”
“No one plays cat-and-mouse with me.” he was still very quiet.
“The sources, carter?”
“Here.” I tapped my head. “Only here. This source.” he regarded
me for some seconds in cold silence, then nodded fractionally. “I knew
it the first time I saw you. There is a-a quality about you. A
champion boxer looks a champion boxer even in repose. A dangerous man
cannot look anything else but dangerous, even in the most domestic
situations, the most harmless surroundings. You have that quality. I
have trained myself to recognise such things.”
“Hear that?” I said to susan. “You never even suspected
it, hey? thought I was just like everybody else, didn’t you?”
“You are even more astute than I thought, mr. carter,” carteras
murmured.
“If adding two and two to make an obvious four is what you call
being astute, then, sure, i’m astute. My god, if I were astute, I
wouldn’t be lying here now with a shattered leg.” an occasional
reminder of my helplessness would do no harm. “The generalissimo
needing cash-i should have worked it out long ago.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Shall I tell you why brownell, our radio officer, was
killed?”
“I should be interested.”
“Because you had intercepted a message from the harrisons and
curtises, the two families recalled by cable from kingston. This
message said that the cables had been a hoax, and if we knew it had been
a hoax we would have started looking very closely at messrs. Carteras
and cerdan, the people who had taken their places. The point is that
the cables they had received came through your capital city, carreras,
which argues post office connivance and, by inference, government
knowledge. The government owns the post office.
“Secondly, there is a long waiting list in your country for berths
on the campari; you were near the bottom but were mysteriously jumped to
the top. You said you were the only people who could take immediate
advantage of the two suddenly vacant suites. Poppycock. Somebody in
authority-in great authority-said, ‘carteras and cerdan go to the top.’
and no one squawked. I wonder why?
“Thirdly, although there is a waiting list, none of the people on
it are your nationals, carreras. They are not permitted to travel on
foreign-owned vessels-and, in addition, find themselves immediately in
prison if caught in possession of foreign currency. But you were
permitted to travel-and you paid in u.s. Dollars. You’re still with
me?”
he nodded. “We had to take the chance of paying in dollars.”
“Further, the customs closed their eyes to those crates with your
men aboard-and those crates with the cannons. That shown”
“Cannons?” marston interrupted. He was looking almost completely
dazed. “Cannons?”
“The noise you can hear outside,” carreras said equably. “Mr.
carter will explain by and by. I wish,” he went on, almost with regret,
“that we were on the same side of the fence. You would have made an
incomparable lieutenant, mr. carter. You could have named your own
price.”
“That’s just about what mr. beresford said to me yesterday,”
I agreed. “Everybody’s offering me jobs these days. The timing of
the offers could have been improved.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” susan said, “that daddy offered
“Don’t panic,” I said. “He changed his mind. So, carreras, there
we have it. Government connivance on all sides. And what does the
government want? money. Completely desperate. Paid three hundred and
fifty million dollars to iron curtain countries in the past year or two
for arms. Trouble was, the generalissimo never had three hundred and
fifty million dollars in the first place. Now nobody will buy his
sugar, trade’s practically nonexistent, so how does an honest man raise
money? easy. He steals it.”
“Insulting personal remarks we can dispense with.”
“Suit yourself. Maybe armed robbery and piracy on the high seas
sounds more moral than stealing. I wouldn’t know. Anyway, what does he
steal? bonds, stocks, shares, convertible drafts, currency? not on
your life. He only wants something that can never be traced back to
him-and the only stuff he can get in sufficient quantity is gold. Your
leader, mr. carreras,” I finished thoughtfully, “must have a very
extensive spy network both in britain and amcrica.”
“If one is prepared to lay out sufficient capital on an affair such
as this,” he said indifferently, “a large spy system is unnecessary. I
even have the complete loading plans of the bullion vessel in my cabin.
Most men have their price, mr. carter.”
“I wish someone would try me someday,” I said. “Well, there you
are. The american government has made no secret recently of its great
success in recovering a large proportion of its gold reserves which went
to europe in the past few years. That bullion has to be transported-and
part of it, i’ll bet my boots, is in this ship we’re intercepting. The
fact that it is not due to arrive in norfolk until after dark is
interesting enough in itself; what is even more interesting is that
norfolk, in this case, almost certainly means the hampton roads naval
operating base where the ship can be unloaded with maximum security.
And norfolk, I would say, is the point that offers the shortest overland
route to fort knox, where the gold will eventually be stored. How much
gold, carreras?”
“One hundred and fifty million dollars,” he said calmly. “You have
missed very little. And nothing of importance.”
one hundred and fifty million dollars. I mentally examined this
sum from several different angles, but there didn’t seem to be any
comment to meet the case, so I asked, “why did you pick on the campari?”
“I thought you would have guessed that one too. In point
of fact we had three other ships under active consideration as
well, all ships on the new york-caribbean run. We have been studying
the movements of all four ships for some time. Yours suited best.”
“You cut things pretty fine, didn’t you? if we had been a couple
of days late in arriving in carracio-”
“There has been a naval vessel, a frigate, standing by and ready to
intercept you on a peaceful pretext ever since you left savannah. I was
aboard. But it wasn’t necessary.” so that explained the vessel we had
seen on our radar screens at night after leaving savannah: not an
american warship, as we had thought, but the generalissimo’s. “This way
was much easier, much more satisfactory.”
“And, of course,” I said, “you couldn’t have used the frigate for
this job. Hasn’t the cruising range. Hopeless in bad weather. No
derricks for heavy trans-shipment lifts. And conspicuous, far too
conspicuous. But the campari-who’s going to miss the campari if she’s
only a few days late in arriving at a destination. Only the head office
and
“The head office is being taken care of,” carreras said. “You
don’t think we overlooked the obvious, do you? our own transmitter was
brought aboard and is already in circnit. A stream of perfectly
satisfactory messages are going out, I assure you.”
“So you fixed that. And the campari has the speed to overtake most
cargo ships; it’s a good large sea boat for practically any weather, has
first-class radar for picking up other vessels and jumbo derricks for
heavy lifts.” I paused and looked at him. “We even have reinforced
decks for gun platforms both forward and on the poop. Most british
vessels have had those installed as a matter of course when building.
But I warn you that they have to be strengthened from below with angle
irons, a couple of days’ job in itself. Without them, anything more
than a three-inch will buckle and twist the plates beyond repair after
even only a couple of shots.”
“A couple of shots will be all that we require.” I thought about
that last remark. A couple of shots. It didn’t make any kind of sense
at all. What was carreras up to?
“What on earth are you both talking about?” susan asked wearily.
“Reinforced steel decks, angle irons-what is it all about?”
“Come with me, miss beresford, and I shall take pleasure
in showing you personally what I mean.” carreras smiled.