There was a jump discontinuity in the program. In the next scene the three of them were looking at Troy, lying on his back on the floor somewhere, with enough wires and cords attached to him that he could have been Gulliver bound by the Lilliputians. The camera panned around the room. Two wardens were in one of the corners. Their upper body attachments were not even similar, but they both had the same central body, amoebalike, that had confronted Troy and Carol. On the other side of the room a pair of carpets were standing together. From their motions it looked as if they were engaged in a conversation. Nick and Carol and Troy watched while the camera stayed fixed for about ten seconds. The carpets apparently finished conferring and then flipped off in separate directions.
The final frames of the transmission were a close-up of Troy’s head showing more than a hundred probes and inserts connected to his brain. Then the screen went back to snow and static. “Wowee,” said Nick after a moment. “Can I have an instant replay?” He stood up from the bed. “You were terrific,” he remarked to Carol, “but I think your scenes will have to be edited if we want a PG rating.”
Carol looked up at him and blushed slightly. “Sorry, Nick, but I don’t think you make a good comedian. We have one already,” she nodded at Troy, “and I think that’s enough.” She glanced at the clock beside her bed. “Now I figure we have fifteen minutes or so to make plans. No more. And I have to dress as well. Why don’t you tell Troy about your decision and what you have concluded about the Santa Rosa loot while I change my clothes.” She grabbed a blouse and a pair of pants and headed for the bathroom.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Nick protested. “Aren’t we going to discuss who it was that broke into my condominium and your hotel room?”
Carol stopped outside the bathroom door. “There are only two possibilities that make any sense,” she said. “It’s either the Navy or our sicko friends from the Ambrosia. Either way we’ll find out soon enough.” She stopped a moment and an elfin smile played across her lips. “I want you two to see if you can figure out a way to steal Homer’s gold. Tonight. Before we go back to meet with our extraterrestrials tomorrow morning.”
9
Carol and Troy went over the details one last time and she checked her watch. “It’s eight-thirty already,” she said. “If I’m much later I know they’ll be suspicious.” She was standing outside Nick’s Pontiac in the parking lot of the Pelican Resort, a restaurant about three-quarters of a mile from the Ashford mansion at Pelican Point. “Where is he?” she fretted. “We should have finished with this fifteen minutes ago.”
“Just calm down, angel,” Troy replied. “We have to test this new unit first. It could be very important in an emergency and I’ve never actually used it.” He gave her a reassuring hug. “Your friends at MOI originally developed it.”
“Why did I have to suggest such a wild-ass idea?” Carol said out loud to herself. “Where’s your brain, Dawson? Did you leave it in the…”
“Can you hear me?” Nick’s garbled voice interrupted her. It sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of a well.
“Yes,” Troy answered into a tiny walkie-talkie shaped like a thimble. “But not too clearly. How deep are you?”
“Say again,” said Nick. “I did not copy completely.”
“Yes, we can hear you,” Troy shouted. He carefully enunciated each word. “But not very clearly. You must speak slowly and distinctly. How deep are you?”
“About eight feet,” was the response.
“Go down to sixteen and try it again,” said Troy. “Let’s see if it will work from the deepest part of the cave.”
“How’s he doing that?” Carol asked, while they waited for Nick to descend.
“It’s a brand-new system, built into the regulator,” Troy answered. “You have to speak while you’re exhaling for it to work. There’s a small transmitter/receiver inside the mouthpiece and an earphone attachment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work much below ten feet.”
Almost a minute later Carol and Troy heard something, very faint, not even recognizable as Nick’s voice. Troy listened for a moment. “We cannot read you, Nick. There is too much attenuation. Come on back now. I’m going to send Carol on her way.” Troy pressed a button on the walkie-talkie that would repeatedly transmit this last message.
He handed the communications unit to Carol. “Okay, angel,” he said, “you’re ready. We should be in the water around nine o’clock and out, if all goes well, by half an hour later. Keep them occupied with your questions. You should leave by ten-thirty at the latest and drive directly to Nick’s apartment. We will meet you there with your wagon.” He raised his eyebrows. “And the gold, I hope.”
Carol took a deep breath. She smiled at Troy. “I’m scared,” she said. “I would rather face a carpet or even one of those warden things than this trio.” She opened the car door. “Do you really think I should go in Nick’s car? Isn’t that certain to make them suspect something?”
“We’ve been through all this twice before, angel,” Troy laughingly replied. He gently nudged her into the car. “They already know we’re friends. Besides, we need your wagon for the diving gear, the backpacks, and the lead and gold.” He closed the door and planted a light kiss on her cheek through the open window. “Be safe, angel,” he said. “And don’t take any unnecessary chances.”
Carol started the car and backed into the middle of the parking lot. She waved at Troy and pulled into the dark lane that led through the marsh to the end of the island. The only light was from the nearly full gibbous moon that was already above the trees. All right, Dawson, she thought to herself. Now you’re in the middle of it. Just stay calm and alert.
She drove very slowly. She reviewed the plans for the evening several times in her mind. Then she started thinking about Nick. He holds on to things. Like I do. He still hates Homer and Greta for cheating him. He couldn’t wait to dive for the gold. She smiled as she turned into the circular drive in front of Homer Ashford’s house. I just hope there is some left over for him.
A split second after Carol rang the doorbell, Homer opened the door and greeted her. “You’re late,” he said in a pleasant monotone. “We thought maybe you were not coming. Greta is already in the pool. Do you want to change and join her?”
“Thanks, Captain Homer, but I decided not to swim tonight,” Carol answered politely. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m mostly here on business. I would prefer to start the interview as soon as possible. Even before dinner, if that would be all right with everyone else.”
Homer led Carol into a gigantic family room and stopped by a large wet bar. A magnificent hand-carved wooden statue of a swimming Neptune, about four feet long altogether, was on the wall above the bar. Carol asked for some white wine. Homer tried without success to talk her into something stronger.
The family room had a billiards table at one end. On the other side, a sliding glass door opened onto a covered patio that narrowed into a cement walkway. Carol followed Homer in silence, sipping from her white wine every twenty steps or so. The walkway wound past big trees and a lighted gazebo off to the left before it spread out around the huge swimming pool.
Actually there were two pools. In front of Carol was a classic, rectangular, Olympic-sized pool under strong lights. At one end was a slide and waterfall that ran down an artificial mountain into the swimming area. At the other end, in the direction of the second pool and the ocean, there was a sunken Jacuzzi constructed out of the same decorated blue tiles that rimmed the top of the main pool. The entire complex was cleverly designed to create the impression of moving water. There seemed to be a steady flow from the waterfall, to the large pool. down into the Jacuzzi, and then into a stream that meandered off in the direction of the house.