“I’ll have to get a SAG card,” Mako said.
Pell went on as if he hadn’t heard him at all. “Even the natives were great. The stories they had to tell! They probably exaggerated them, but there’s no doubt that they were completely unrehearsed. And what actors they were, the way they agreed to everything we said.”
“How’d you get them to hold still for a camera? I didn’t see any equipment on the beach.”
“Technology, Mr. Hooker. We have the latest miniaturized equipment made. Film sensitive beyond belief. It can be carried in a woman’s purse, a lunch box, practically anything that makes it unseen. You’d never even suspect that a movie with sound, in full color, was shot.”
Caustically, Mako asked him, “How is it powered?”
“That, my friend,” Pell told him, “is our secret.”
As though he had never heard of the new use of handheld digital cameras, Mako simply said a quiet, “Oh?”
The way Mako said that made Pell’s eyebrows come together. Then he smiled and said, “It’s not solar power, Mr. Hooker.”
Very offhandedly, Hooker said, “No, of course not.” Then he smiled too.
“It’s a bit of a secret,” Pell explained, for a moment unsettled by Hooker’s tone.
“You think you’ll have enough material for a movie?”
Pell laughed softly. “Hollywood, Mr. Hooker. If we don’t have enough, we’ll invent it. No trouble at all.”
Hooker asked, “What do you think this eater thing is?”
“Does it really matter? Even if it’s only a figment of some islander’s imagination, it will make a great story. Besides, whatever it is, we can come up with something better.”
Judy stepped forward and held up her hand. “Just supposing, though, that this... this eater is real...”
“Look, you know...”
“We don’t know, Mr. Pell. We just know that something is there and something is doing all these things. We’re not in an international conspiracy or a political squabble... we’re in the middle of something that has never happened before, something...”
“Extraterrestrial?” Pell interrupted.
“Who can tell,” Judy blurted, her face turning red.
Changing the subject, Mako said, “Could be better than The Lost King or Mineshaft.”
“Oh, you saw them?”
“Enjoyed them too. Pretty damn exciting. I know how the demolition company took down those old hotels, but how’d you get those close-ups?”
“The new technology, Mr. Hooker. We had already planted cameras that gave almost on-scene photography. No special lens work... just our new equipment. Great stuff, hey?”
“Sensational. What really got me was blowing up those bridges. Somebody is great at making miniature sets and...”
“Ah, no. No miniaturization at all. Those were real bridges.”
“How did you arrange for that?” Judy asked in a tone that was unbelieving.
Anthony Pell took on a subtle air of superiority. “Very simple. There still are several old unused bridges built by the railroads early in this century. There were two more in South America we used for covering shots too. We did a public service by taking them down; they were in such bad disrepair. Made a fine movie sequence, didn’t it?”
“Who handled the charges? You get some of the old army pros from World War Two?”
Pell gave his smug laugh again. “No, we simply hired a genius right out of the ranks of the experts that took down those condemned buildings.”
“Great,” Hooker said.
“Cost a pretty penny,” Pell added.
Hooker thought, And what is he making being an assistant prop boy and making snide remarks without getting his behind kicked? And what kind of a cussing-out did he get for not blowing up Hooker’s boat like he was supposed to? The slob might have known explosives, but he was a loser when it came to the intricacies of magnetic compasses. That son of a bitch had tried to take him out, but the order had come from somewhere else and for some good reason. Why?
The bartender came over and took their empty glasses. “Another?” he asked. All three held up their hands in a “had enough” sign.
Judy explained that they were going to the Midnight Cruise ship for a visit and invited Anthony Pell, but he declined, saying he had work to do on board Lotusland.
When they got to the boarding ladder Chana and Lee Colbert were there and Lee wanted to go back to the Tellig, but Kim accepted Judy’s invitation to join them on the cruise ship for a while. When Chana and Lee stepped into one inflatable, they slid into the other. The sailor handling the big Johnson outboard touched the ignition button and the engine came alive; and when he put it in gear, it started skimming its way toward the porthole lights and the bunting-and-flag-decorated decks of the great vessel.
It was a quiet night, the ocean flat again, a warm breeze churning up a delicious salty smell in the night air. This time there were no luminous streaks trailing behind fast-moving night predators in the water. Nothing flapped on the surface. Behind the inflatable the trail of the propeller made a bubbly path barely visible in the light of the rising moon.
Had anyone been looking, they would have seen a sudden break in the propeller track. It was wide and momentary. It was moving. It wiped out the track, then it was gone. But something had been there.
They were approaching the cruise ship from the starboard side; the sailor listened to a voice from his handheld radio, received an order and acknowledged it, then turned toward the stern, cleared it nicely and came up on the port side of the ship. As they skirted alongside, Mako’s eyes roamed the steel sides, scanning the portholes, taking in the large cargo doors that opened at dockside to take on supplies. Another smaller one was closer to the waterline and just before they reached the loading platform there was another, its sliding door slowly coming down, several sailors inside the ship guiding it, apparently repairing a malfunction.
When the outboard was cut off, muted music flowed down from the deck above, and over it were the squeals of delighted women and the louder voices of the men. Uniformed sailors helped them out of the inflatable, most of them recognizing Judy and saying hello to her. She treated them like they were friends, not hired hands in her business.
Mako said, “You have a lot of admirers here, kiddo.”
“Oh, they all worked for my father in the old days.”
“The young ones too?”
Judy laughed pleasantly. “They’ve just heard about me.”
“You leave quite an impression, lady.”
When they reached the deck Marcus Grey was waiting for them. He took Judy’s hand as if she were the queen, helped Kim onto the deck, then jokingly said to Mako, “I assume you’re much too vigorous to need any help from me, young man.”
“Oh, I could use a little push now and then,” Mako told him.
“Not from what I hear, sir. You seem to have quite a reputation of your own.”
“And what would that be, Marcus?” Judy inquired.
“For one thing, that business on the dive today. You seem to have come up something of a hero.”
“I don’t remember doing anything special except getting out of there.”
Marcus Grey smiled a little bit, creases forming around his mouth. “One of the divers saw you with a knife in your hand taking a big swipe at whatever it was attacking you.”
“Pure reflex, Mr. Grey. I was in the rear and had more time to size the situation up.”
“And what did you see?” Plain curiosity edged his voice.
“Frankly, nothing identifiable,” Mako told him. “It was simply big. The sand cloud obscured everything.”
“The diver said you stabbed at it...”
“Come on, Mr. Grey. What good would a six-inch blade be against something that huge? Everybody saw that much anyway. The damn thing came right toward us so fast, the current made us tumble around like driftwood. Hell, that was about all any of us felt.”