That, Carter thought, would be good for public relations.
"To the right… ten degrees." Sophia said in a hoarse whisper.
Santoni moved the wheel just a touch, and the bow responded.
The bright lights of Livorno to their left, and the smaller and dimmer cluster of Marina di Cecina to their right, were all but obscured now by the coastline.
The needle of the rev counter was barely bobbing now as Sophia flicked the light one last time. The reply was immediate.
"Take it straight in!" she hissed.
"Get ready to drop anchor," Santoni said, fighting to keep the bow against the tide.
Carter clamored to the fantail and hunched down over the anchor release. A few clouds had scudded over what moon there was, inking out even the coastline.
"Now!" Sophia rasped from the bow.
Carter released the anchor just as Santoni killed the single diesel. He felt the claw drag and then catch.
The big boat yawed and men began bobbing lazily around on the anchor chain, its movement dictated by me incoming and outgoing tide.
All was deathly still. But only for a second.
They were good, Carter had to give them credit for that. They had slid out to the boat on a raft completely unseen. The only sound was the rubber tires on the side of the raft gently bumping the boat before they came over the side.
The first one to hit the deck looked like a leftover from the Neanderthal period. He had long dirty hair spilling over the top of his turtleneck and spreading out over his massive shoulders.
He faced Carter with two round, evil little eyes and a flat face.
He grunted something unintelligible and walked toward Carter, holding out an enormous paw.
The Killmaster forced himself to give the hulk a friendly smile and took the paw in a shake.
Sophia was instantly at the man's side, beaming. She kissed his ugly face and introduced him as Wombo sometrung-or-other.
Two more men spilled over the rail after the beast as he eyed the crates.
"The raft will only take three of these at a time." His voice was like sandpaper over steel, and it sounded as though it came from deep in a well. "How many are there?"
"Twelve," Carter replied.
The man's face screwed into an intense mask of concentration. "That means four trips."
Carter was amazed he had figured that out by himself.
Wombo directed the other two to take one of the crates. They struggled with it a few feet, until Santoni and then Carter himself joined them. Finally the four of them managed to muscle it to the rail and rope it down to the remaining two men on the raft.
When they turned, Wombo stood patiently waiting, a crate balanced easily on his shoulder.
"My God," Carter gasped as the giant lowered it, also by himself.
"Wombo is very strong," Sophia said at his shoulder.
"I'd say that, yes," Carter replied, throwing her a sideways glance.
Her eyes were still beaming as she watched the unreal man go for another crate. Beneath the night suit. Carter could swear that he saw her breasts rise and fall with each of the big man's movements.
Now, that, Carter thought, is a very weird pair!
Carter rode the raft in and helped unload the first three crates. In the process, he strained his eyes into the darkness around and above him, but he could see no signs of movement.
They were about to push the raft off for the second set of crates, when Carter calmly remarked, "You do have perimeter guards around here somewhere, don't you?"
The giant replied with something that sounded like «Ugh» and pointed to three places in the cliffs.
Carter scanned them quickly and still saw no movement. But he wasn't worried. If Tony Santoni's team was as good as Santoni himself, the three watchmen would have already been taken out.
Trip two was uneventful and smooth. The third set of crates had just been loaded when Sophia started to crawl over the side into the raft.
"Where are you going?" Carter asked.
"Ashore. There are only three crates left."
Carter had to think fast. It was imperative that one person escape the net. Sophia was the logical person. She had to stay on the boat.
"There isn't any room on the raft."
"One of the others can stay."
Carter shrugged. "I'll stay myself."
Wombo and the girl exchanged looks. This arms dealer had his money, and there was still a small fortune in arms left on the boat in the three remaining crates.
"I'll stay," she said, slipping the sling of the Uzi from her shoulder and cradling it in her arms.
Carter smiled to himself and threw a quick look and a nod to Santoni in the wheelhouse. Just as he went over the side, he saw the SID man flip one of the toggle switches on the dash.
The switch would activate the twin bow running lights, but no white beams would go shooting through the night. Instead, there would be a dull purple glow behind the lenses barely perceptible to the human eye.
The SID men on the cliffs would be wearing night goggles. To them, the infrared beams emanating from the bow lights would be bright and clear.
So would their message: "Take them this trip!"
It took the five of them, plus Carter, several minutes to tug the raft far enough up on the sand to hold. Only then did big Wombo turn to scan the area around the crates already unloaded on the beach.
Carter could read every thought taking place in the man's minuscule brain from the way his flat face contorted, smoothed into puzzlement, and contorted with deep thought again.
Two men… were here… gone now… where the hell are they?
Twin light bulbs went on behind the vacant pupils of his eyes as portable floods bathed the beach and most of the cove in stark white light.
A voice boomed down at them from above, partially muted by a bull horn. "We are agents of the Italian government! You are completely surrounded! Put your hands behind your necks…"
That was all he got out. Wombo roared and dug a huge magnum from his belt. The other four men dived for rifles that had been left near the crates but were no longer there.
Carter unslung the Uzi, backpedaled a few steps into the water, and dropped to his belly.
Armed, black-suited men appeared as if by magic from the rocks. They moved forward to the very fringe of the light and dropped into a firing stance.
Behind him, Carter could hear the twin Cummins diesels fire up with a roar. At the same time, he heard the bark of Sophia's Uzi spraying rubber bullets into the rocky cliffs.
The short, staccato bursts from the boat seemed to be a catalyst.
All hell broke loose.
Carter sprayed rubber bullets from his own Uzi high into the cliffs. The men there returned the fire, but high. They wouldn't know which one was Ali Maumed Kashmir, and God help them if they hit him and the whole operation were over before it really got started.
Carter chanced a glance over his shoulder as more black-clad figures emerged from behind the crate and began to charge the Liberta members on the beach.
The powerful Corsair was already flying out of the bay, her bow cutting a high vee through the water, white spume tracking her wake.
Good man, Carter thought, rolling his gaze back to the fray.
Of the five, only Wombo had evidently thought to stick a handgun in his belt. Now he was blindly firing at the figures coming toward him. Most of the slugs were going wild, since the harsh floodlights shone right down into his eyes.
The other four were splitting off, two of them running down the beach, the other two trying to crack the oncoming line of black-clad SID men and gain the darkness and safety of the cliffs.
The latter two were overcome by onrushing bodies. The two going down the beach looked as if they might make it.