Jesus, using his own daughter.
Carter hoped that one day he would cross Palmori before this was all over.
And he had a sneaking hunch that he would.
Seven
"I have them on the radar."
Santoni's voice at the hatchway brought Carter into instant wakefulness. He rolled from the bunk and checked his watch as he went up the ladder. It was 11:45.
"Right there, about eight miles to starboard. We should spot them in about five minutes."
Carter found the little clear blip on the radar screen. "I'll mount the twenty on the roof. Sophia…?"
"Yes?"
"Get the other Uzi from below and set up shop in the bow."
This time she nodded and moved without question. Carter narrowed his eyes and watched the blip move slowly toward their position on the grid.
"You're sure it's the Alamein?"
"Almost positive," Santoni replied. "There's not much out here tonight, and nothing that big so close to land."
Carter took his word for it and opened a bulkhead chest set against the port rail of the wheelhouse. From the chest he hoisted an 8mm Fiat Model 35 heavy machine gun to his shoulder. The Fiat's portable mount had been replaced with special cotter-key interlocks that fit the disguised stationary mounts on the wheelhouse roof.
There were four three-hundred-round, nondisintegrating belts laid out on the floor of the chest. Carter slung only one over his shoulder.
If three hundred rounds from the Fiat and damage from the two Uzis wouldn't squelch any double cross by Oakhurst, then nothing would.
On the roof he matched the runners, slid the bolts home, and snapped the keys into place. He fed four shells through, rammed one home, and left the weapon cocked.
The Fiat was a vintage gun with a lot of drawbacks, but it would more than do for the night's work. Just a look at its ugly snout and trailing ammo belt by the men on the freighter would probably be enough.
"There, on the horizon!"
Carter followed the line of Santoni's arm and saw the tiny dot of the freighter's superstructure growing in the moonlight.
He was just finishing the beamlight's rigging when Sophia came back on deck and passed below him, headed for the bow. She had donned a rain slicker and pulled the hood up until it covered her head and most of her face.
Carter wondered if she was worried about being recognized or if she though the Uzi in her hands would have more clout if its wielder's sex was unknown.
"Send them a couple of quick ones!" Santoni shouted, idling back on the throttles about ten knots.
Carter blinked the beamlight twice and narrowed his eyes at the freighter. There was no response. He waited a full two minutes, then repeated the signal.
This time there was a two-blink answer, and Carter could detect a slight alteration in course.
Santoni laid forward on the throttles again, and the Corsair leaped forward like a scalded cat.
Five minutes later they slid under the bow on the port side, and the Italian goosed the powerful boat into a 360. He laid up directly under the huge loading doors and idled back to about five knots, matching the freighter's speed.
"Ahoy, Alamein!" Carter shouted between cupped hands.
A tall, graying man in a long black greatcoat and a visored cap appeared at the rail. "Aye, we're the Alamein out of Marseille."
"And are you Captain Rhinemeye?"
"I am. And you?"
"Jasmine."
"May I come aboard?"
"You may."
A rope ladder slid out of the loading bay as Carter moved away from the machine gun and dropped into the wheelhouse. Minutes later, the tall captain came down the ladder and joined him.
"You look as if you are expecting trouble."
"We are," Carter intoned, unsmiling. "Your employer and my supplier tried to test me a few nights ago in Amsterdam»
The captain shrugged. "I know none of this. I only deliver and take my commission."
"Below," Carter said, and led the way.
It took Rhinemeyer only ten minutes to count and transfer the money from one briefcase to the other.
He's very practiced at it, Carter thought, leading him back on deck.
"Unload."
The arms of twin cranes rolled out almost before the word was out of the captain's mouth. Pallets, each holding two crates, were rigged on each of them.
There were twelve crates in all, and the complete operation was accomplished in another twenty minutes.
When the last two pallets were unloaded, the captain stepped up on one of them. He gestured, and without a word he was hauled up.
"I hope you get this done quickly," Santoni muttered. "I'd like Interpol to nail that bastard in Caracas."
"Our fish is much, much bigger than this guy," Carter growled. "Cut back your engines."
Santoni did, and the freighter glided on by.
When it was clear and picking up knots, he whirled the wheel and jammed the throttles.
"Think the added weight will make any difference on our ETA?"
Santoni shook his head. "This baby was built for this kind of hauling."
Carter nodded and went below. He stripped to his shorts and was just crawling into a night suit when Sophia dropped through the hatch. Carter was glad to note that Santoni had lifted the Uzi when she passed him.
"It went well?"
"Yes, it did," he replied. "There's a set of these for you on the bunk. They might be a little big. I thought you would be a man."
"They'll work."
Without turning her back, she pulled the sweater over her head and slipped out of the jeans. She wore no bra, and her panties were transparent and barely there.
Carter took one look and turned away.
Nick Carter stood by Tony Santoni at the wheel. Both wore night suits with skintight black gloves, and their faces had been darkened with midnight grease.
Sophia Palmori lay flat out on her belly in the bow. Like the men she had darkened her features, and now her black-gloved hands nervously fingered die action on the Uzi.
It was her show from here on. She knew who was waiting, where they were, and what they expected to see and hear.
One of the beamlights from the wheelhouse roof had been remounted on the bow deck right beside her. It had been fitted with an adjustable aperture snood that would take its powerful beam down to a sliver of light less than an inch in diameter.
She had already signaled once and had received a quick flash in response.
That had been from about four miles out. Now, with one of the Cummins diesels shut down, they were making their way in at less than five knots.
At that speed, the bow was doing a lot of pitching and yawing the closer they got to the beach. Though both Carter and Santoni knew the scenario of what had already occurred on the beach — and what was about to occur — they played it by the book, outwardly cautious, following Sophia Palmori's every barked command.
Santoni steered in, jerking and swerving like a slow-moving ruptured hare, sometimes easing back on the throttle and cutting his speed, but never once holding the wheel steady for more than a few seconds.
No words passed between the two men. They had already said everything that needed to be said.
Both Uzis — the one in Carter's hands and the one Sophia now cradled in the bow — held doctored magazines with soft rubber bullets. Santoni had seen to that.
Carter's fast friends — the Luger, Wilhelmina, and the stiletto, Hugo — were wrapped in an oilskin bag and secreted beneath the bar.
"I'll miss them. Take care of them and make sure I get them back after the break."
"Will do."
Carter's cut was back in Sophia's suitcase. If all went well, it would find its way back to the Liberia.