[The Girl From UNCLE 03] - The Golden Boats of Taradata Affair - Latter Simon - Страница 19

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Mark saw Kazan's launch speeding towards the ship.

"Your rich boy-friend has arrived. Devoted, ain't he?" said Chas. "Why don't you hail him and ask him to take you off for a trip?" There was a hard edge to his voice.

"Why should I? If it's any of your business?"

"Suit yourself. Only trying to be helpful," said Chas. "But if you don't get off now — you'll stay aboard. The island is barred to visitors on this trip."

"What have they got?" said Mark. "Rabies?"

The brown eyes surveyed him calmly, quizzically. "It'd be nice to know," said Chas softly. "Very nice, it would be — to know just what they have got."

April looked steadily at him. "It had to come, Chas. You knew that, didn't you? Both ends against the middle is okay while you can keep swinging. Comes a time when they close up. Then you duck out and let them go ker-plonk. But if you can't duck…"

Mark said: "Ker-runch! Nasty! Not nice, eh, Chas?"

"Nah!" The brown eyes danced with defiant laughter. "Like you say, mate — not nice."

"Mate?" said Mark. "Not sonny?"

"You got to grow up sometimes. Could be now."

"Not money, Chas," said April. "We've got money. From us you can't buy."

Chas nodded. "And a Navy over the horizon."

"But you don't scare?" said Mark.

"Daddy warned me," said Chas. "They've never done this before. You tell. I play. There comes a time."

"Palaga backing?" said April. "Palaga company? The Taradata boat trade? Economy sewn up? Restricted travel? A deposed chief? Introduction of guards? All radio contact through new authority? Slow, very slow."

"And plenty profit for the taking?" said Mark. "Lush pickings. New engines, special cargo rates. Even pirates never had it so good."

Chas nodded. "You know some good history. That's how it was."

"So now you want out?"

"Nah — I want in. Some of my people are in the valley." He jerked his thumb at the shore-line. "Up to two trips ago they came to meet me. Then only a few. Then none at all. Now they've sealed the port. No one goes out. No one comes in — except them lot. I'd empty the ship at Lagelo. Fill it with my people. I'll open this port — you bet. Thugs I take as part of the game. But not funny-looking phials, nor top scientists. Not on these islands."

April took off her headscarf and flagged the launch. Kazan saw and zoomed an arc, to curve back to the ship.

"I'm going to reccy," she said. "Hold Kazan while I get my gear."

The launch bumped the side as April reappeared. Captain Sidano came down from the bridge. Chas said: "Go astern, Cap'n."

"But Maleski says…"

"Rot your guts!" Chas bellowed. "Go astern!"

April said quietly to Mark: "Crunch coming. You can handle?"

"Sure. Get going. We'll be in touch. Warn the sub and Waverly."

She was down the rope ladder and into the launch when Maleski came thumping up.

"Get below — both of you," he snarled.

Chas winked at Mark.

"Get knotted," said Chas.

"My sentiments entirely," said Mark.

"Come," said Maleski. "Move." A gun was levelled on them.

Mark moved. So did Chas. Mark chopped the gun-wrist, crashed a foot against Maleski's knee-cap. Maleski buckled, but swung a fist, spinning Mark away. His foot kicked the gun. Sheer luck. It shot overboard.

Maleski bellowed orders. Chas whistled — a long, fluting call. Maleski went to put the boot in as Mark stumbled. Chas hooked his foot under Maleski's raised leg. Maleski fell on Mark, who squirmed away, rolling, then jumping, cat-like.

Maleski's men came pounding from amidships. Chas's own seamen sprang from the bridge and positions aft. Followed melee-filled seconds of turmoil. Difficult to see who was doing what to whom. Mark and Maleski, clear of the THRUSH men. Maleski heavier, swinging blows, using the boot to groin and stomach. Mark weaving, darting in with numbing blows.

Leader of the THRUSH men, flaying air with a cargo hook, reached them as Mark pivoted to dance out of Maleski's boot range. Maleski lunged into the man's path as the hook slashed down, intended for Mark's face. It tore open Maleski's skull. The blow, together with his own impetus, crashed him against the deck rail. He crumbled, dangling doll-like, before sliding over — bumped once on a porthole, and dropped into the sea.

Mark caught the THRUSH man, who stood transfixed by surprise, and applied a lever lock with such force that the man's arm snapped and his shoulder was dislocated. The hook dropped as he sprawled away.

Two more THRUSH men broke clear of Chas and his sea men. Mark attempted to leap away so as to strike as they came past. His foot stumbled on the THRUSH leader. As his body angled, so a heavy shoulder crashed into him like a charging bull. Mark was flung up and back. He hit the rail, grabbed vainly at air, then plummeted backwards.

His brain flashed warnings. From this height a belly-flop into the sea would split his guts open. He spun his body in mid-air, straightened arms and legs as the cool green mass rushed up at him.

Not really cool. Surprisingly warm. He went deep in a tortuous, unending dive. Tortuous because his lungs, already pressured by the fight, had not had time to fill. Steel clamps locked around his chest. His ears sang with pressure. He had no breath to exhale. Could not inhale.

Willpower alone kept him from panic, forcing his body to act smoothly to help his upward travel. Long, agonizing seconds moving through a green cavern. Then growing lighter, amber-green, to burst into sunlight, mouth retching, gasping, as he trod water.

Swiftly recovering, Mark began to swim. Maleski's body lay, face downwards, sleeping on the green-sea couch. The ship now was going astern, very slowly. Mark swam around — saw the launch heading towards Taramao Point.

Suddenly the ship's engines stopped. Mark trod water, searching for a rope, not wanting to go back to where the ladder hung. He heard a low whistle, looked up as a rope snaked down: Captain Sidano's head appeared over the rail as he hitched the rope to a stanchion. Mark swung up, using feet on the hull and fast-hauling on the rope.

Sidano said: "Maleski is dead?"

"Yup. You changed sides, skipper?"

"I am still captain of a ship. I cannot support murder or mutiny, nor leave a passenger to drown."

"Hallelujah!" Mark squeezed water from his hair. "Thou hast seen the light!"

Sidano's heavy face creased in what appeared to be a smile. It made him look as if he were going to cry.

"And great shall be my salvation! I must lower a boat to pick up the body. Maleski was killed by one of his own men. You are a witness."

"What goes on?" Mark indicated the far side, now hid en by the superstructure.

"Chas is in control. The seamen have overpowered Maleski's men. I do not know who you are, but legally you are a free man, even though we signed you on from the same prison as them. There are things I do not understand."

Mark thumped the captain's chest with a stabbing finger.

"In that, my crafty captain, you are not alone. But this I tell you — there now is only one side on this ship. You will obey orders, or, so help me, I'll call up our Navy and have you and the whole caboodle arrested."

"But I have done nothing wrong. Even now, I do all the right things. I do not break the law of the sea."

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