“Come on, Billy, he’ll only be mad at me, not at you.”
Billy thought about it for a moment, letting the logic of it sink in. “That may be so. I will give it a try, sar.”
“Let’s forget it, buddy.”
Chana had wanted the meeting held on board the Tellig, but Berger was insistent upon not going aboard any ship at any time, regardless of the consequences. Finally Chana relented and they met again in the same setting as before.
When Berger absorbed the information the team gave him, he nodded solemnly and folded his hands together. “Could be you solved the big mystery.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Chana stated.
“I don’t like answers that come real fast, lady.”
“Then give us your objections.”
“Look, you people are the brains. I just sit here and watch the world go by. Maybe I’ve been here too long, but I’m thinking more like these islanders do than the crowd in D.C. or Langley.”
“That’s not an objection.”
Berger’s interlaced fingers did a little dance, then he looked at them, each in turn. “If those mines all came from the same source and wound up on Scara, then why didn’t the rest of them do the same?”
Quickly Chana answered, “Because they weren’t all released at the same time. Different tidal effects got them and swept them in another direction. Not everything winds up on Scara.”
“True. If these mines were floating, then why weren’t they spotted? I can see a ship like the Arico Queen missing them, but the fishermen in the small boats see anythingand I mean anythingon the surface when they’re working their lines.”
Lee Colbert broke in with, “We discussed that and came up with a probability. Those mines had minimal flotation. At best, the tops would barely crack the surface, and any wave action at all could make them submerge, then reappear at great intervals. If they were below waterline levels they could make contact without being seen.”
“There was never any blast noise heard.”
“What little noise there was got muffled by the water.”
Berger said, “Ummm,” and twiddled his fingers again. “There was a sighting. Two natives, Poca and Lule Malli, brothers, you know... they saw something enormous. Everyone on the islands knows about that.”
“And everybody in the United States knows about Santa Claus too, only they don’t necessarily believe it. Except for the children, of course.”
Berger pulled his fingers apart and took a deep breath. He was starting to get annoyed again. At one time he thought a life in the States had given him all the answers, and here in the island he would be a man of supreme intelligence and wisdom among a population of inferiors. It didn’t take long for that idea to change. Now, he realized, he was simply tolerated with a good-natured humor, and sometimes pitied because he was deathly afraid of the sea around him. Yet, with all that, he realized how lucky he was and how much he liked it here.
With a deep sigh for their ignorance, Berger said, “I believe it.”
Chana’s eyes narrowed as she starred at him. “You know, Berger, it’s very possible that you’ve outlived your usefulness here. A reorientation program at Langley might be what you need.”
There was a hint of laughter behind Berger’s eyes. He knew it and realized that it was something he had held back too long. He let the smile show on his mouth, and what was in his expression made Colbert and Chana frown somewhat. Softly, Berger said, “Don’t hand me that crap, lady. I may be nothing much as a field hand out here, but I don’t take kindly to threats from you or the president of the U.S.A. or Castro or whoever’s running Russia at this point either. To keep you up to date, my paycheck’s gone into buying this place out along with several other pieces of property in the neighborhood. When Uncle Sam’s lease ran out the owners decided to sell to me rather than renew. I guess that piece of paperwork hasn’t caught up with your department yet. So, if you want an instant resignation from the spook work, just try that reorientation bit on me again.”
The quiet outburst was something neither of them had expected from Berger and they exchanged a quick look. “You surprise me,” Lee Colbert said. “Does the Company know about your attitude?”
“I don’t give a damn if they do or not. Now, do you want to get back to the business at hand?”
Lee Colbert saw the anger rising in Chana’s face and spoke before she could. “All right, forget the islanders. What other proof have we?”
“Mr. Hooker saw tooth marks on the bottom of the Soucan...”
“He thought he saw what looked like teeth marks,” Lee corrected. “That is hardly proof. There were other witnesses and they saw nothing.”
“Only Hooker was watching at the moment.”
“That’s not enough.”
Berger looked at Chana curiously. “Do you believe him?”
Right then she was almost furious enough to call Hooker a bloody liar and an idiot to boot, but she knew she would be wrong and that was one thing she hated most of all to be. She said, “I believe he saw something. How accurate his statement was, I don’t know.”
“What do you believe?” Berger asked her.
“That there was a hole in the bottom. It was big enough to be the result of a low-yield explosive. I don’t believe in teeth marks.”
Berger chuckled again. “That doesn’t leave you much of an option, does it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Until you find the source of those mines and learn how many are floating around, you are going to be on one hell of a fishing expedition. There’s a lot of water out there.”
Rather than answer him, Chana shut the miniature tape recorder off and stood up. Berger’s security clearance was at a level that didn’t require him to know certain facts, and she’d be hanged if she would give him any unnecessary information at all. “We’ll meet again later,” she said.
“I’m sure we will,” Berger told her.
“I trust this place hasn’t gotten into you too far. You did sign certain documents at Langley.”
“Of course, Chana, of course. I really don’t enjoy the thought of being targeted for extermination on account of a silly indiscretion. Such a waste of a bullet.”
“Regulations call for a minimum of two,” she said nastily.
As they left Berger called to her, “I hope they’re head shots. Or large-caliber to penetrate all my fat.”
“Oh, they’ll be both,” Chana told him over her shoulder.
When the door closed Lee shook his head. “You’re a pisser, Chana, a real pisser.” When she looked at him with a smirk he added, “You never mentioned the blast tape to him.”
“No need to know. Why alert anybody? We should be able to learn which boats were out and where they were working.”
“It was a good day. They all were out and working. And nobody is going to tell us anything that isn’t vague and uncertain, so get with it. Look in a different direction.”
Over at the main dock the Clamdip was tied to a piling fore and aft while Billy Bright filled the main tanks with the new unleaded gas. Hooker was seated on the transom, one leg up on the footrest of the fighting chair. He had a can of Miller Lite beer in his hand and when he saw her watching him, he raised it in a mock toast.
“Maybe I will,” Chana told Lee. “Later.”
Chapter Five
Billy Bright’s eyes had been watching the gas gauge for the past five minutes. A rag in his hand was ready to mop down any overflow that might splash on the console and a small grin made his mouth twitch.
Hooker couldn’t see anything really pleasurable or very funny about filling a gas tank and was about to ask him what he was daydreaming about, but a soft, low voice behind him said, “Good morning, Mr. Hooker.”