‘Come on, amigo!’ cried Kendrick, gripping Emilio’s shoulder.
‘I cannot travel I have no leg!’
‘Well, I’m not going to die with you, you bastard! I’ve got a couple of loved ones, too, over there. Get off your ass or swim back to El Descanso and your ni๑os!’
‘ฟComo?’ shouted the Mexican furiously as he struggled to rise.
That’s better. Get angry! We’ve both got a lot to be angry about.’ His arm around Emilio’s waist, his barely functioning shoulder and legs supporting the Mexican, the two men walked out on the dark dock. The big boat on the right!’ yelled Evan, grateful that the moon had gone back behind the clouds. ‘You know about boats, amigo?’
‘I am a fisherman!’
‘Boats like this?’ asked Kendrick, propelling Emilio over the side on to the deck, laying the .45 on the gunwale.
‘You don’t catch fish on these boats, you catch turistas.’
‘There’s another definition—’
‘Es igua!… Still, I have run many boats. I can try… The other boats, se๑or! They will come out and find us for they are much faster than this beautiful one.’
‘Could any of them make it to the mainland?’
‘Never. They cannot take heavy swells, and burn fuel too quickly. Thirty, forty kilometres and they must come back. This is the barca for us.’
‘Give me your Sterno!’ yelled Evan, hearing shouts up on the main path. The Mexican yanked the small tin out of his right pocket as Kendrick removed his two and prised up the lids with the carving knife. ‘Open yours, if you can!’
‘I have. Here, se๑or. I go up to the bridge.’
‘Can you make it?’
‘I have to… El Descanso.’
‘Oh, Christ! A key! For the engine?
‘In these private docks it is customary to leave the key on board in case storms or heavy winds make it necessary to move—’
‘Suppose they didn’t?’
‘All fishermen go out with many drunken captains. There are panels to open and wires to cross. Get the lines, se๑or!’
‘Two ranches,’ said Evan as Emilio hobbled to the bridge ladder.
Kendrick turned, grabbing the Colt automatic from the gunwale and digging out the solid fuel of the Sterno with his fingers. He ran down the dock throwing handfuls over the canvas of each huge speedboat, heaving each empty can into each boat. At the last boat he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fistful of matches, crouching in pain and frantically striking one after another on the wooden planks of the dock and lobbing them into the globs of scattered jelly until the flames leaped up from all the coverings. At each speedboat he fired the automatic into the hulls near the water lines, the powerful weapon blowing large holes in whatever the light alloy was that permitted the boats their excessive speed.
Emilio had done it! The deep-throated roar of the fishing yacht’s engines broke through the water… Shouts! Men were racing down the steep path from the manor house on the hill, the fires beyond it now a steady glow.
‘Se๑or! Quickly… the lines!’
The ropes on the pylons! Kendrick ran to the thick pole on the right and struggled with the knotted line; it pulled free and slipped into the water. He lurched, barely able to stay on his feet, and reached the second pylon, yanking in panic until it, too, came loose.
‘Stop them! Kill them!’ It was the frenzied voice of Crayton Grinell, chairman of the board of a government within the government. Men swarmed on to the base of the island dock, their weapons suddenly on open fire, the fusillades shattering. Evan dived off the pier and into the stern of the yacht as Emilio swung the boat to the left, engines at full power, and curved out of the cove into the darkness of the sea.
A third and final immense detonation burst over the hill beyond the manor house. The distant night sky became a yellow cloud, then jagged streaks of white and red intruded; the last tank had blown apart. The island of the murderous government within a government was immobilized, isolated, incommunicado. No one could leave. They had done it!
‘Se๑or!’ screamed Emilio from the bridge.
‘What?’ yelled Kendrick, rolling on the deck, trying but unable to rise, his body jolting everywhere in torment, the blood from his wound forming bulges of floating liquid inside his shirt.
‘You must come up here!’
‘I can’t!’
‘You must! I am shot. The pecho—the chest!’
‘It’s your leg!’
‘No!… From the dock. I am falling, se๑or. I cannot handle the wheel.’
‘Hold on!’ Evan yanked his shirt out of his trousers; pools of blood poured on to the deck. He crawled over to the shellacked ladder and, calling upon reservoirs of strength he could not believe existed, pulled himself up rung by rung to the bridge. He breached the upper deck and looked over at the Mexican. Emilio was holding on to the wheel, but his body had sunk below the bridge’s windows. Kendrick grabbed the railing and got to his feet, barely able to steady himself. He lurched over to the wheel, appalled by the darkness and the swell of the waves that rocked the boat. Emilio fell to the floor, his hand springing away from the circular rudder. ‘What can I do?’ yelled Evan.
‘The… radio,’ choked the Mexican. ‘I haul nets and I am not a captain, but I have heard them in bad weather… There is a channel for urgencia, numero diedseis!’
‘What?’
‘Sixteen!’
‘Where’s the radio?’
‘On the right of the wheel. The switch is on the left. Pronto!’
‘How do I call them?’
‘Take out the microfono and press the button. Say you are premero de mayo!’
‘May Day?’
‘กSi!… Madre de Dios…’ Emilio collapsed on the bridge deck, unconscious or dead.
Kendrick lifted the plastic-coiled microphone out of its cradle, snapped on the radio and studied the digital readout below the console. Unable to think, the boat battered by swells he could not see, he kept tapping the keyboard until the number 16 appeared and then pressed the button.
‘This is Congressman Evan Kendrick!’ he screamed. ‘Am I reaching anyone?’ He released the button.
This is Coast Guard, San Diego,’ came the flat reply.
‘Can you patch me into a telephone line at the Westlake Hotel? It’s an emergency!’
‘Anybody can say anything, sir. We’re not a phone service.’
‘I repeat. I’m Congressman Evan Kendrick from the ninth district of Colorado and this is an emergency. I’m lost at sea somewhere west or south of Tijuana!’
‘Those are Mexican waters—’
‘Call the White House! Repeat what I’ve just told you… Kendrick of Colorado!’
‘You’re the guy who went to that Oman…?’
‘Get your orders from the White House!’
‘Keep your radio open, I’ll take your co-ordinates for the RDF-‘
‘I don’t have time and I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘It’s the radio directional finder—’
‘For Christ’s sake, Coast Guard, patch me through to the Westlake and get your orders! I have to reach that hotel.’
‘Yes, sir, Commando Kendrick!’
‘Whatever works,’ mumbled Evan to himself as the sounds from the console speaker erupted in different tones until there was the hum of a telephone ringing. The switchboard answered. ‘Room Fifty-One! Hurry, please.’
‘Yes?’ cried the strained voice of Khalehla.
‘It’s me!’ shouted Kendrick, pressing the button for transmission, then instantly releasing it.
‘For God’s sake, where are you?’
‘In the ocean somewhere, forget it! There’s an attorney, a lawyer Ardis used for herself, and he’s got a ledger that spells out everything! Find him! Get it!’
‘Yes, of course, I’ll reach MJ right away. But what about you? Are you—’
Another voice intruded, the deep commanding tones unmistakable. ‘This is the President of the United States. Find that boat, find that man, or all your asses are in a sling!’
The swells tossed the boat like an insignificant bauble in a furious sea. Evan could no longer hold on to the wheel. The mists returned and he collapsed over the body of the fisherman from El Descanso.
* * *
Chapter 43
He was aware of violently swaying weightlessness, then of hands grabbing him, and a harsh wind buffeting him, finally of a deafening roar above him. He opened his eyes to blurred figures frantically moving around him, unbuckling straps… then a sharp puncture in his flesh, on his arm. He tried to rise but was restrained as men carried him to a flat, padded surface inside a huge, vibrating metal cage.
‘Easy, Congressman!’ shouted a man in a white Navy uniform that gradually came into focus. ‘I’m a doctor and you’re pretty bashed up. Don’t make things more difficult for me because the President himself will officiate at my court martial if I don’t do my job.’
Another puncture. He could not take any more pain. ‘Where am I?’
‘A logical question,’ replied the medical officer, emptying a syringe into Kendrick’s shoulder. ‘You’re in a big whirly-bird ninety miles off the coast of Mexico. You were on your way to China, man, and those seas are rugged.’