“I already have copies.”
Pitt was tempted to believe Merchant, but he knew Posey well enough to trust his confidence. He decided Merchant was lying. It was an old Gestapo ploy, to make the victim think the accuser knew all there was to know. “Then why bother to inquire?”
“To find if you are in the habit of inaccurate statements.”
“Am I under suspicion for some hideous crime?” asked Pitt.
“My job is to apprehend smugglers of illicit diamonds before they traffic their stones to European and Middle Eastern clearinghouses. Because you came here uninvited, I have to consider your motives.”
Pitt observed the reflection of the guard in the windows of a glass cabinet. He was standing slightly behind Pitt, to his right, automatic weapon held across his chest. “Since you know who I am and claim to have bona fide documentation for my purpose for coming to the Queen Charlotte Islands, you cannot seriously believe that I’m a diamond smuggler.” Pitt rose to his feet. “I’ve enjoyed the conversation, but I see no reason to hang around.”
“I regret that you must be detained temporarily,” Merchant said, brisk and businesslike.
“You have no authority.”
“Because you are a trespasser on private property under false pretenses, I have every right to make a citizen’s arrest.”
Not good, Pitt thought. If Merchant dug deeper and connected him to the Dorsett sisters and the Polar Queen, then no lies, no matter how creative, could explain his presence here. “What about Stokes? Since you claim you know he’s a Mountie, why not turn me over to him?”
“I prefer turning you over to his superiors,” Merchant said almost cheerfully, “but not before I can investigate this matter more thoroughly.”
Pitt didn’t doubt now that he would not be allowed off the mining property alive. “Is Stokes free to leave?”
“The minute he finishes his unnecessary repairs to the aircraft. I enjoy observing his primitive attempts at surveillance.”
“It goes without saying that he’ll report my seizure.”
“A foregone conclusion,” said Merchant dryly.
Outside the hangar came the popping sound of an aircraft engine firing up. Stokes was being forced to take off without his passenger. If he was going to act, Pitt figured that he had less than thirty seconds. He noted an ashtray on the desk with several cigarette butts and assumed Merchant smoked. He threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat.
“If I’m to be detained against my wishes, do you mind if I have a cigarette?”
“Not at all,” said Merchant, pushing the ashtray across the desk. “I may even join you.”
Pitt had stopped smoking years before, but he made a slow movement as if to reach in the open breast pocket of his shirt. He doubled up his right hand into a fist and clasped it with his left. Then in a lightning move, pulling with one arm and pushing with the other for extra strength, he jammed his right elbow into the security guard’s stomach. There came an explosive gasp of agony as the guard doubled over.
Merchant’s reaction time was admirable. He pulled a small nine-millimeter automatic from a belt holster and unsnapped the safety in one well-practiced motion. But before the muzzle of the gun could clear the desktop, he found himself staring down the barrel of the guard’s automatic rifle, now cradled in Pitt’s steady hands, lined up on Merchant’s nose. The security chief felt as though he were staring through a tunnel with no light at the other end.
Slowly, he placed his pistol on the desk. “This will do you no good,” he said acidly.
Pitt grabbed the automatic and dropped it in his coat pocket. “Sorry I can’t stay for dinner, but I don’t want to lose my ride.”
Then he was through the door and sprinting across the hangar floor. He threw the rifle in a trash receptacle, cleared the door and slowed to a jog as he passed through the ring of guards. They stared at him suspiciously, but assumed their boss had allowed Pitt to leave. They made no move to stop him as Stokes opened the throttle and the floatplane began moving down the runway. Pitt leaped onto a float, yanked open the door against the wash from the propeller and threw himself inside the cargo bay.
Stokes looked dumbfounded as Pitt slipped into the copilot’s seat. “Good Lord! Where did you come from?”
“The traffic was heavy on the way to the airport,” Pitt said, catching his breath.
“They forced me to take off without you.”
“What happened to your undercover agent?”
“He didn’t show. Security around the plane was too tight.”
“You won’t be happy to learn that Dorsett’s security chief, a nasty little jerk called John Merchant, has you pegged as a snooping Mountie from the CID.”
“So much for my cover as a bush pilot,” Stokes muttered as he pulled back on the control column.
Pitt slid open the side window, stuck his head into the prop blast and looked back. The security guards appeared to be wildly scurrying about like ants. Then he saw something else that caused a small knot in his stomach. “I think I made them mad.”
“Could it be something you said?”
Pitt pulled the side window closed. “Actually, I beat up a guard and stole the chief of security’s side arm.”
“That would do it.”
“They’re coming after us in one of those armed helicopters.”
“I know the type,” Stokes said uneasily. “They’re a good forty knots faster than this old bus. They’ll overhaul us long before we can make it back to Shearwater.”
“They can’t shoot us down in front of witnesses,” said Pitt. “How far to the nearest inhabited community on Moresby Island?”
“Mason Broadmoor’s village. It sits on Black Water Inlet, about sixty kilometers north of here. If we get there first, I can make a water landing in the middle of the village fishing fleet.”
His adrenaline pumping, Pitt gazed at Stokes through eyes flashing with fire. “Then go for it.”
Pitt and Stokes quickly became aware they were in a no win situation from the very start. They had little choice but to take off toward the south before banking on a 180-degree turn for Moresby Island to the north. The McDonnell Douglas Defender helicopter, manned by Dorsett’s security men, had merely to lift vertically off the ground in front of the hangar, turn northward and cut in behind the slower floatplane even before the chase shifted into first gear. The de Havilland Beaver’s airspeed indicator read 160 knots, but Stokes felt as if he were flying a glider as they crossed the narrow channel separating the two islands.
“Where are they?” he asked without taking his eyes from a low range of cedar- and pine-covered hills directly ahead and the water only a hundred meters below.
“Half a kilometer back of our tail and closing fast,” Pitt answered.
“Just one?”
“They probably decided knocking us down was a piece of cake and left the other chopper home.”
“But for the extra weight and air drag of our floats, we might be on equal footing.”
“Do you carry any weapons in this antique?” asked Pitt.
“Against regulations.”
“A pity you didn’t hide a shotgun in the floats.”
“Unlike your American peace officers, who think nothing of packing an arsenal, we’re not keen to wave guns around unless there is a life-threatening situation.”
Pitt glanced at him incredulously. “What do you call this mess?”
“An unforeseen difficulty,” Stokes answered stoically.
“Then all we have is the nine-millimeter automatic I stole, against two heavy machine guns,” said Pitt resignedly. “You know, I downed a chopper by throwing a life raft into its rotor blades a couple of years ago.”
Stokes turned and stared at Pitt, unable to believe the incredible calm. “Sorry. Except for a pair of life vests, the cargo bay is bare.”