Heller walked to the back of the Sea Skiff. He picked up a big sack.
He pulled something down over his face.
He rolled off the stern!
Right into the churning wake!
SPLASH!
He bobbed up.
He had something in his hand, hard to tell, silhouetted against the lights of the distant town. It was wrapped in plastic.
He pressed it.
The Sea Skiff banked!
He pressed it again, watching the spray of the roaring craft.
The Sea Skiff banked the other way!
A radio control! (Bleep) him! He had rigged the autopilot to the craft's radio the moment I had my back turned. He was holding some sort of trigger in his hand!
The Sea Skiff was closing the distance to the bridge very quickly now. He made it zigzag.
A CHATTERING BURST OF MACHINE-GUN FIRE!
"I thought so," muttered Heller.
He pressed the control. The Sea Skiff banked into a steep turn.
Rifles were going now!
A ricochet came skipping over the water and made a vicious whine past his head.
The Sea Skiff headed to his right.
"I'm sorry," said Heller. "You were a good boat."
The Sea Skiff turned again. It passed under the bridge and was racing toward a nearby marina entrance.
The sharp staccato hammer of machine guns above the roar of engines.
The crash of a shattered windshield!
The vicious multiple whines of ricochets!
A heavier burst of fire!
Still surging toward the marina docks, the Sea Skiff seemed to stagger. Then it went lancing on!
A gout of flame!
The blue-white flash of exploding gasoline!
All the extra fuel cans must have gone up as one!
BLOWIE!
The remains of the rocketing speedboat hit the end of a pier!
CRRRRASHHHHH!
Wood and bits of metal flew into the flame-rent air!
What seemed to be a body was visible for an instant and then was gone!
Flaming bits of debris were spattering all around, hissing as they hit.
The end of a dock was burning and lighting up the scene.
A searchlight came on and raked the water.
Heller dived.
I was instantly on the phone. I demanded the harbor master. There was a wait. He came on the line.
"You missed him!" I shouted. "He escaped off the back of the boat before you fired!"
"Nonsense," said the harbor master. "The boat was under control and seeking to avoid us."
"He had a radio control!" I yelled. "He's still out there in the harbor."
"You bet he is," the harbor master said. "In bits and pieces. I saw him fly through the air myself and explode to nothing!"
"That was a dummy!"
"I know a live man when I see one that is dead!" said the harbor master. "We got him! Are you Feds trying to take away the credit?"
"No, no! The credit is all yours! But mind what I say. He's still alive. He will still try. You search that harbor and if you find him, kill him. It's a Federal order!"
"All right," he said and rang off.
I was fuming. How could Heller have known? Then I recalled that he had read the message sent by Captain Grumper of the Coast Guard and might have suspected it had gone to all points.
(Bleep) Heller! Him and his can of beer!
Haggardly, I watched to see what would happen next. All I got for two solid hours was an occasional slop of water and a bubble's-eye view of the harbor.
They had a workboat under searchlights recovering debris. But that was not important. They also had a patrol launch cruising around, sweeping the water with long beam fingers.
I couldn't really make out where Heller was. At length when he lifted his arm, I saw that he was wearing a wet suit. I cursed. He had had a whole afternoon and all the resources he could loot from the Coast Guard ship to prepare his entrance. He was operating in a practiced role, that of the Fleet combat engineer, an officer with a fifty-volunteer star. But he was in very hostile waters and I doubted if ever before he had had as accurate a spy device on him as I had placed: this very viewer system.
I called the harbor master twice more, telling him I knew for sure the man was in the water and would be making for the yacht. He said he was taking every precaution.
Then suddenly I got a clear view of the ship. The Golden Sunset was lying to anchor, well away from everything else. My, she looked big-like a liner.
Floating stages were all around her, secured to her by cables. On her starboard side, her own landing ladder and white side were bathed in her own floodlights.
The view vanished and I had only blackness.
Then suddenly another view: her bow loomed up like a knife. Then it was gone.
If I could just determine exactly where he would be, I could alert them!
Another view. The ship seemed far away. She was broadside on and the landing stage and floodlights were glaring beyond the black expanse.
Excitedly, I called the harbor master. "He's about a hundred yards abeam of the ship on her starboard side!"
"Got it!" he said and slammed the receiver down.
And he certainly did! I heard the approaching pulse of engines almost immediately. The harbor master, bless him, must be in radio contact with his patrol launch.
A brief view of the launch, coming head on at speed, directly toward Heller!
Then blackness in the viewer.
I waited, breathless. A minute, two minutes, three minutes...
Another view! He was directly astern! About fifty yards from the yacht! The scroll, Golden Sunset, New York, was plain in the shimmery harbor lights:
I got the harbor master again. "He's fifty yards astern of the yacht! GET HIM!"
"Right!" barked the harbor master.
The view was gone. But engines began to churn in the audio, getting louder.
A water-washed glimpse of the patrol launch showed. It was coming straight at him!
Blackness. One minute, two minutes, three minutes. I was holding my breath. Four minutes, five minutes... What the Hells was going on?
Dizzy and lightheaded from not breathing, I shook my head to clear it. My viewer was just staying black!
Scuba gear! He must be using scuba, taken from the 81! Yes, there was the hollow, rhythmical sound I had ignored. But where was he?
Time passed.
Then I thought I saw something. I could not be sure. It was just blackness against black.
I turned up the viewer gain all I could. Yes! An underwater piling! Heller was underneath a dock!
A view!
He was looking at a gas/diesel supply float with a huge sign on it. The Marina!
I grabbed the phone. "Now you've got him!" I shouted. "What's the dock directly across from your floating fuel stage?"
"That's my office!" said the harbor master.
"He's in the water under it!" I said. "SHOOT HIM!"
The phone went back on the hook hurriedly.
Voices! I heard voices in my audio.
"That God (bleeped) Fed on the phone says he's right under this dock!" It was the harbor master's voice!
"How the (bleep) would he know?"
"The hell with that! Get down on that fuel stage with rifles, fast. You, Hyper, get down that ladder and start shooting under there!"
Blackness.
The funky thud and moan a bullet makes going under water! Another shot. Another!
The churn of the launch engine.
A view!
It was from mid-channel, looking back at the dock.
BEROOOOOOM!
Flame geysering into the sky!
Concussion in the water!
The whole office went in slow motion up into the sky, turned over and fell apart in flaming chunks.
BEROOM!
The patrol launch disintegrated in a flash of fire.
BEROOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The whole fuel depot went up! A roaring mushroom of churning fire blossomed in the sky.
Fragments struck with a thunk and hiss close by.
At water level, a sweep of the scene.
It was just fires now, burning bright.
"Well, it wasn't underwater detection gear, anyway,"