“Debbie, look!” She left his arms as he stiffened and released her. “Nothing’s passed us going back towards Algeciras.”
“No.”
“That’s Karina, then. She hadn’t stopped — or not for long — just turned back on her tracks, though God knows why.” Before he’d finished speaking they were in the car again, and Shaw wrenched it round and started back along the road. Judging from the lack of speed of those headlights, it didn’t seem as though he need hurry unduly — Karina was still taking it fairly easily. Shaw didn’t switch on his own lights this time; he drove blind and trusted to luck. There was a moon, and the stars were bright, so there was light enough to help his eyes follow the road — but that worked both ways, meant he’d have to keep well behind Karina.
He murmured, “Wonder what the devil she’s up to now.”
They drove back at that slowish speed; it was nearly midnight when Shaw picked up the dark loom of Africa to the south, the mountains high across the Straits, Cape Trafalgar long and low behind them now. They were not far off Tarifa by his reckoning, and the road was getting closer to the sea all the time, running by a long, lonely, sandy beach stretching away to the meeting of the waters of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean below the deep purple hills of Spain and Africa.
Karina’s headlights had vanished. Easing his speed still more, Shaw crept on, listening intently to every murmur in the night. Then, not far ahead of him, he thought, his ears caught a faint, muffled sound like the beat of an engine; and as he looked out across the water his sea-trained eyes caught the loom of something blacker than its surrounding shadow, something solid which moved slowly to the westward of a bright patch of moonlight which dappled the Straits and faded into the North African hills beyond; something with a small white curfuffle of water pushing out before it…
“So that’s it! Why the hell didn’t I rumble that one? That’s why she’s been coasting along. Filling in time and waiting for this to turn up.”
Debonnair asked, “What is it, darling?”
“It’s a fishing-boat. Once that little geezer Ackroyd gets aboard there it’s good-bye. He’ll be taken across to North Africa — or picked up by some ship out at sea.” The Ostrowiec, probably, he thought.
A little farther along he saw the scarlet-and-silver car pulled up beneath some trees to the left of the road. He let his own vehicle run down a slope of the roadway until it was clear of Karina’s, then he turned off into the scrub. Looking back, he saw the single flash of a blue-shaded light, a signal lamp from the unknown vessel; and then there was an answering pencil of white light along the sand below the road, some way ahead.
Shaw got out in silence, felt for his revolver; heard the girl’s sharp, indrawn breath. And then he pressed her arm, whispered to her to get out. When she’d obeyed Shaw beckoned the guardia out as well. To Debonnair he whispered, “When the shooting starts I want you to keep as clear as you can. But until then keep close to me. I’ll tell you when to scatter. You too,” he added to the guardia. Translating his previous remarks, he went on, “And listen. This is serious business. I’ll tell you here and now, these people we’re after are on the Communist side.” He poked his revolver into the man’s ribs. “Never mind who I am, but if you do anything to upset things some one isn’t going to be very pleased with you. Know who?”
The man licked his lips and stuttered something, eyes flickering in the dark, hard face.
“Generalisimo Franco,” said Shaw brutally. “He isn’t going to like you one little bit. If necessary I’ll get you up on a charge of Communist intrigue. Savvy?”
The man shook a little, and Shaw felt almost sorry for him when he saw the face paling under the moonlight and the scared, trembling lips opening to say, “Si, si, señor.”
Shaw said, “Right. Now we leave the car here and go along on foot, and quietly. Debbie, we’ve got to get that little blighter back now or a hell of a lot of people have had it. We won’t get another chance now.”
She whispered something. He bent to kiss her, quickly, took her for a moment in his arms. Something told them both that this could be for the last time, the final good-bye. As he kissed her Shaw felt the salt of her tears on his lips.
She said passionately, “Please be careful!”
They went along first to Karina’s car, and Shaw immobilized it; to make quite certain he slashed at the tyres, and the big vehicle sank quietly to the ground. Debonnair asked if he wasn’t going to remove their own ignition key and lock the doors.
“No,” he said. “We may have to make a damn quick getaway. We’ll just have to make sure they don’t get past us.”
Then they went forward very quietly, very quickly. The sound of a boat’s rowlocks came to them across the star-filled night, and Shaw slipped off the safety-catch of his gun.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They were only partially hidden by a low, rocky outcrop as they headed towards the sand, keeping low and going forward in a crouching run. The small boat, rowing in from the parent fishing-vessel, was coming in to ground on the beach when one of the men with Karina turned and glanced casually up the slope which ran down from the roadway. Shaw motioned the other two to stop and duck, but already it was too late; there had been a glint of moonlight touching up the carbine which had been handed back to the guardia, and Shaw could tell by the movements of the man below that he was bringing up his gun.
Shaw dragged Debonnair down below the line of rocks as the guardia flattened; a stream of bullets accompanied by the phut-phut-phut of the sub-machine-gun blew chunks out of the rocks above their heads. Instinctively Shaw drew Debonnair to him, felt her body tremble a little against his own, saw the teeth come down hard on the lower lip as more bullets snicked the rock and whined away, glancing off over their heads.
Then Shaw moved cautiously to the edge of the rock-line.
That boat was getting close in; and Karina and one of the men were holding Ackroyd between them, ready, presumably, to hand him across to the rower in the boat. Shaw fired towards the man with the gun, missed, and dodged back. When he looked again the party seemed to have shifted be-~Eind a large boulder by the edge of the sea.
Shaw squeezed Debonnair’s arm, spoke softly. “Stay here, Deb. Keep your head down and keep quiet — but watch our friend here.” He jerked his head towards the guardia. “If he tries anything funny — I don’t think he will, but if he does— you’ll have to let him have it. Sorry — but you wanted to come along and help. Do you mind very much?”
She glanced at the guardia, squatting under cover just to her left, and not following their conversation. She was pale, but she whispered, “I don’t make a practice of shooting the innocents, darling, but I’ve handled a gun before and I can handle one again.” She smiled into his eyes, squeezed his hand quickly. “Stop treating me like expensive china… I’ll cope.”
“Good girl!” There was relief in his voice. He tapped the guardia on the shoulder. He asked quietly, though Debonnair could almost feel the ice in his tone, “You are going to obey orders?”
“Si, señor." The man had had time to think a little now, to let Shaw’s revelations sink in. He’d been scared stiff at the mention of Communists. “I will do as you say. I am a loyal falangisto.”