Marina smiled, albeit a trifle wanly. «We could have met under happier circumstances, Commander.»
Larsen nodded. «Your kidnapers. This can carry a death sentence.» He looked at Campbell. «Why did you fly those criminals out here?»
«Because I get very cowardly when I have a pistol barrel stuck in the back of my neck all the way from takeoff to touchdown.» Campbell spoke with a certain justifiable bitterness.
Larsen looked at Melinda. «Have you been mistreated in any way?»
«No.»
«And they won't be,» Durand said. «Unless, of course, you refuse to do as we tell you.»
«What does that mean?»
«You close down the Christmas tree.» This meant closing off all the oil supplies from the ocean floor.
«I'll be damned if I do.» Larsen's dark piratical face was suffused with fury. Here, Durand realized, was a man who, even without arms, could be highly dangerous. He glanced briefly at Rindler, who struck Larsen on the back of the neck with his machine pistol, a blow calculated to daze but not knock out. When Larsen's head had cleared he found that he had handcuffs and shackles around wrists and ankles. His attention then focused on a pair of gleaming stainless-steel medical cutters of the type favored by the surgical fraternity for snipping through ribs. The handles were in Durand's firm grip: the unpleasant operating end was closed lightly round the little finger of Melinda's right hand.
Durand said: «Lord Worth isn't going to like you too much for this, Larsen.»
Larsen, apparently, was of the same opinion. «All right, take those damned pliers away and get these bracelets off. I'll close down your damned Christmas tree.»
«And Fll come with you just to see that you really do turn it off. Not that I would recognize one if I saw it, but I do know that there are such things as flow gauges. Til be carrying a walkie talkie with me. Rindler here has another. FU keep in constant contact with him. If anything should happen to me—» Durand looked consideringly at the medical cutters, then handed them to Heffer, the fifth man in his team. He told Campbell to put his arms behind his seat back and handcuffed his wrists.
«Don't miss much, do you?» Larsen's voice was sour.
«You know how it is. So many villains around these days. Come on.»
The two men walked across the platform in the direction of the drilling rig. After only a few paces Durand stopped and looked around him admiringly.
«Well, well, now. Dual-purpose antiaircraft guns. Piles of depth charges. You'd almost think you're prepared to withstand a siege. Dear me, dear me. Federal offense you know. Lord Worth, even with the millions he can pay for lawyers, can get at least ten years in the pen for this.»
«What're you talking about?»
«Hardly standard equipment aboard an oil rig. Ill bet it wasn't here twenty-four hours ago. Fll bet it was inside the Mississippi naval arsenal that was broken into last night. The Government takes a dim view of people who steal military equipment. And, of course, you got to have specialists aboard who're skilled at handling stuff like that, and that's hardly part of the basic training of oil-rig crews. I wonder if those crews are also carrying special equipment—like, for instance, what was stolen from a Florida arsenal last night. I mean, two unrelated arsenal break-ins in the same night is too much coincidence. Twenty years in prison, with no chance of parole for you too, for aiding and abetting. And people call us criminals.»
Larsen had a few choice observations to make in return, none of which would have received the approval of even the most tolerant board of censors.
The Christmas tree was duly neutralized. The pressure gauges registered zero. Durand turned his attention to the Roomer, carrying out its short and wearisome patrol between the rig and the huge floating oil tank. «What's our friend up to?»
«Even a landlubber like you ought to be able to guess. He's patrolling the pipeline.»
«What the hell for? You could replace a cut line in a day. What would that get anybody? It's crazy.»
«You have to use crazy methods to deal with crazy people. From all accounts, Lord Worth's enemies should be locked up for their own good. For everybody's good.»
«Worth's band of cutthroats aboard this rig— who's their leader?»
«Giuseppe Palermo.”
«That mobster! So the noble Lord, along with his grand larceny, is an associate of convicted felons.»
«You know him, then?»
«Yeah.» Durand saw no point in elaborating upon the fact that he and Palermo had spent two prison terms together. «I want to talk to him.»
The talk was brief and one-sided. Durand said: «We've got Lord Worth's daughters prisoner. We're going to bring them toward the living quarters here, but we don't want you taking our two aces away from us. You'll stay inside in your quarters. If you don't you're gonna hear a lot of screaming and see pieces of fingers or ears dropped through your windows. I hope you believe me.»
Palermo believed him. Palermo had a reputation for ruthlessness that matched Durand's, but it couldn't begin to match Durand's unholy joy in sadism. Durand was perfectly capable of not only doing what he threatened but of deriving immense satisfaction in so doing.
Palermo returned to his Oriental quarters. Durand called up Rindler on the walkie-talkie and told them all to come across, including Campbell, the pilot. Campbell was tough and resourceful and it was just possible that, by standing up, he could slip his manacled arms over the back of his seat, step through them and take off. Whether he would have enough fuel for the return flight would be a problem for him, even though he would almost certainly head not for Florida but for the nearest spot on the mainland, which would be due south of New Orleans.
As the prisoners and guards disembarked from the helicopter Durand said: «Accommodations?»
«Plenty. There are spare rooms in the oriental quarters. There's Lord Worth's private suite.»
«Lockups?»
«What do you mean? This isn't a prison.»
«Storerooms? Ones that can be locked from the outside?»
«Yes.»
Durand looked at Larsen consideringly. «You're being very co-operative, Larsen. Your reputation says otherwise.»
«Two minutes' walk around and you could confirm all I'm saying for yourself.»
«You'd like to kill me, wouldn't you, Larsen?»
«When the time is ripe, yes. But it's not yet ripe.»
«Even so.» Durand produced a pistol. «Stay about ten feet away. You might be tempted to grab me and try to make the men let the girls go. A tempting thought, no?»
Larsen looked at him yearningly and said nothing.
The girls, the pilots and their four escorts arrived. Durand said: «Well, now, we gotta find some suitable overnight accommodation for you.» He led the way to the first of several storehouses and opened the door to reveal a room packed roof-high with canned goods. He shoved Campbell inside, locked the door and pocketed the key. The next storehouse contained coils of rope, a powerful smell of crude oil and an active, scuttling population of those indestructible creatures, cockroaches. Durand said to the two girls: «Inside.»
The girls took one shuddering look, then turned away. Marina said: «We will not go inside that disgusting place.»
Kowenski said in a gently chiding voice which accorded ill with the Colt he held in his hand: «Do you know what this is?» Rindler had a similar weapon trained on Melinda.
Both girls glanced briefly at each other and then, in what was obviously a prepared and rehearsed movement, walked toward the men with the guns, seized the barrels with their right hands and hooked their right thumbs behind their trigger forefingers, pulling the guns hard against themselves.
«Jesus Christ!» Durand was badly shaken; he had run up against many situations in his life, but this one lay far beyond his most remote conception. «You trying to commit suicide?»