muttered Heller. Then his eye fastened on a distant floating body. He said, "I'm sorry, you guys. May your Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on your souls." He sounded very sad.
I was cursing. I didn't have anybody I could call.
But hope was not dead. The yacht had been alerted and he still had that gauntlet to run. That lighted landing stage could not be approached. Possibly they'd get Heller yet!
About ten minutes later I got another view. It was of a wire cable, lighter black against the darker black of night.
He looked up. He was on the dark side of the yacht. He was holding on to the edge of the rigged collision stage which lay against its side. From where he was, the wire that secured the stage went up twenty or more feet to the lowest visible deck.
There were two more decks visible above and a man was visible against the stars and faintly luminescent sky. A guard. With a rifle. He was looking aft and across the water to where the explosions had recently occurred. The light of a renewed burst of flame flicked against his white uniform.
Heller reached up and took hold of the wire cable. With his other hand he made sure that the semi-floating sack was secure to his scuba-tank straps.
Then, hand over hand, he began to lift himself up the cable.
"Ouch!" he said in a whisper. He was looking at his right hand while he held on with the other. He had apparently snagged his palm on a wire cable fray.
It made me feel better, with all the trouble he was causing me! He didn't have engineer gloves and wire cable always has loose strands like needles broken in it and sticking out. Served him right, getting in my way!
But it didn't stop him. With a glance at the guard above, Heller began to climb apin, hand over hand, up the wire.
I couldn't understand why the guard couldn't see him! All he had to do was look down!
Heller stopped twice more. The cable was biting his palms, tearing the cheap cotton gloves to bits!
Hand over hand he went. He glanced one final time at the guard above and went over the rail onto the deck.
Why hadn't that idiot seen him! Then I realized belatedly that the guard, glancing now and then at the fire on shore, was keeping himself night blind, the stupid fool! He couldn't see something black against black water.
Heller found a deck locker, probably life jackets. He opened it. He crushed aside whatever it held and then got out of his scuba tanks, mask, weight belt and flippers and put them in.
He picked up his sack and went to a deck door. With ear against it, he listened. Then he opened it and stepped into a passageway. The lights were on but they were dimmed for night.
He looked around, orienting himself.
Footsteps clattering down a ladder.
Heller opened a door and stepped in, closed it
behind him. He fumbled for a switch and turned the lights on.
A crewman was asleep in the bunk!
He was in the crew area of the ship!
A cook's hat was on a peg.
Heller shut the light off.
The cook turned over with a grunt.
Heller opened the door and listened. Only some machinery running.
He went out, located some steps and went up a deck. Suddenly he found what he could use: a posted emergency-drill plan of the ship. It was set in a brass frame upon a walnut-panelled wall. It gave an outline of the ship, deck by deck, with all lifeboats, fire hydrants and compartments plainly marked.
I had not realized how extensive this yacht was! But two hundred feet of vessel with lots of beam must make her at least two thousand tons. Music salon. Nightclub. Theater. Steam baths. Breakfast dining room. Luncheon dining room. Banquet hall. Gymnasium. Inside swimming pool. Sun swimming pool. Squash court. Race track... race track? Yes, there it was marked, and beside it, Miniature car garage.
Cabins, cabins, cabins. The ship must have room for fifty guests or more. In suites, yet! What a yacht! More like a liner! And apparently fairly new, judging by the modernness of the decor. It must have cost a fortune to build and was costing another one to keep up.
He found what he thought he wanted: Owner's Master Suite. He traced out the ways to get to it from where he was.
He went up another deck. He halted, listening, before he went into a passageway. He looked around carefully.
Polished walnut and mahogany and brass with colorful tiled decks.
In a rush he went to another cross passage, stopped and listened. Footsteps on the deck above. He froze. They receded.
He got something out of his sack. I held my breath. Was he going to shoot up this ship? Blow it up?
He moved into the passageway again. There was a big, impressive, brass-bound door ahead of him. Owner's Master Suite, Drawing Room. He passed it by. Next door, Owner's Master Suite, Bathroom. He passed it by. Next door, Owner's Master Suite, Dressing Room. He went by it. Then, Owner's Master Suite, Bedchamber. He halted.
He didn't try the knob. He went silently to work with a picklock.
He went in through the door so quickly and shut it so silently behind him that the surprise was absolute. The Countess Krak was propped up in bed, wearing a blue negligee. A silken cover was over her bent knees against which she was holding a neglected magazine. She was looking out through a square, brass-bound port toward fires on the beach. But her posture showed no interest.
Something must have made her aware that someone else was in the room.
She whipped her head sideways. She went white!
"THE BLACK!" she cried.
With all her might she hurled the magazine across the room!
It struck him with a thud in the chest.
"No, no," he said. "It's me. I'm sorry I frightened you!"
She peered at him, up on her knees now, on the bed. Then, "Jettero, get away from me! Your sins have blackened your face."
"Dear," he said, "you've got to listen."
"There is nothing to listen to!" she flamed. "You lied to me about other women! You married some cheap harlot! And then you married another one! You have blasted all my hopes and dreams! Get out! I never want to see you again!"
"Dear, are you going to listen to me or do I sit on you!"
"Don't you touch me, you philandering, unprincipled beast!" Her hands had been grasping about. She seized a bottle of sun lotion and hurled it at him with all her might!
It grazed his head and crashed against the wall behind him!
She leaped off the bed, grabbed for a chair to throw at him. It raised my hopes. She could kill men!
Heller suddenly dived. He hit her legs just above the knee.
She went down with a thump against the Persian carpet.
Instantly she was back at him, scratching, trying to bite.
He caught her arms and then quickly shifted to grip both her wrists with one hand. He sat down on her and
with one of his thighs, pinned her kicking legs to the floor.
"You brute!" she screamed.
She tried to bite the hand which held her wrists. He moved it and her wrists up above her head and held them against the floor.
"You," he said, "are going to do some listening!"
"I won't!"
With his free hand he was snaking his sack toward him. He fumbled inside it, brought out a stack of papers and laid them on the floor.
She struggled valiantly to get loose. Then she lay back, breathing hard, her eyes flaming. "Now I suppose you are going to rape me like you did those other women!"
Heller had taken a piece of paper off the stack. He opened it and shoved it in front of her face. "Look at this."
"I won't!" She turned her head away from it.
Remorselessly, using the elbow of the arm that held her wrists, he forced her head over the other way toward the paper he held. She closed her eyes, tightly and violently.
Heller said, "LOOK AT THAT PAPER! What is it?"
"You can prove nothing to me!" she said.
"Answer me. What is that paper?"
"You're hurting me. Ouch." She looked. Her eyes flamed. "It's that nasty suit by that awful Mexican (bleepch)!" She struggled to get free.