“And he fell for it,” Marsh had said.
“I’m not sure if he really did fall for it,” Helen had replied. “But I had sown the seed of doubt. It was enough; it seemed to work anyway. He’s dead now, poor man.”
“Poor man?” echoed Marsh. “He tried to rape you.”
“Nobody deserves to die like that,” she reflected, “with the back of his head blown off.”
Marsh stood up from the rail and breathed in a lungful of the sea air. “You told me last night that Malik also killed another man.”
“Yes,” Helen agreed.
“I think that must have been Romulus Swain, poor bastard,” he added. “They mean business then.”
Helen thought she detected a note of resolution in his voice. “They mean to kill us, don’t they Marsh?”
The previous evening he had avoided coming to that conclusion for Helen’s sake. But he knew it was pointless trying to hide it from her, but he tried and came up with an indirect answer.
“We’ve got two more dives.”
“And then?”
He stared into the Atlantic. “Nothing has been decided.”
She touched his arm, closing her fingers round it tenderly. “Marsh, I do understand, but we must find a way of getting out.”
He closed his hand over hers. “If there is a way,” he said ruefully, “it’s going to take a lot of finding.”
“We have found Sweeting Mclean,” Inspector Bain informed Francesini solemnly, “with the back of his head blown off. Swain was there too; dead I’m afraid.”
“What about Helen Walsh?” Francesini asked even though he knew where she was.
Bain shook his head. “Gone.”
“Any idea where?” Francesini asked.
“No.” It was final.
Inspector Bain had phoned Francesini at the hotel. His voice sounded disappointedly dull. Francesini knew immediately that it wasn’t good news. He was already dressed because of his early morning phone call from Bob Cooke at C.I.A., so within five minutes he was driving his rented car over to Freeport Police headquarters.
After the preliminary discussion about the events of the previous evening, plus Francesini’s concern that he hadn’t been informed earlier, he tossed a manila envelope on to the desk in front of Bain.
“What’s this?” Bain asked.
“Open it,” Francesini told him.
Bain did as he was asked with a little difficulty because of his injured arm and studied the enhanced satellite photograph of three people walking away from the helicopter on board the Taliba. After a while he looked over the desk at Francesini without lifting his head, staring over the top of his glasses. He jabbed his finger at the picture.
“Helen Walsh?”
Francesini nodded. “She was taken on board the Taliba early last evening.”
Bain settled back in his chair and let the photograph drop on to his desk. He didn’t look too pleased.
“Why have you waited until now to inform us?” he demanded to know. “We could have boarded the Taliba and brought this whole episode to a conclusion.”
“It’s not that easy, Inspector,” Francesini told him. “I didn’t receive this until about two o’clock this morning. By the time we’d organised a boarding party, the Taliba would have been long gone.”
Bain eyebrows met in a deep frown. “What do you mean, long gone?”
“It looks like Khan has gone. By now the Taliba will be about two hundred miles away. At this very moment she is heading out into the Atlantic Ocean, and goodness knows where she’s going, but with luck, she won’t return.”
But as much as Francesini wished it were true, he doubted that was the end of Hakeem Khan and the Taliba.
It was night and the Taliba moved slowly through the water, the thrust of her engines almost gone, but with just enough power to keep her on station. The ship lifted with each wave that passed beneath its belly, but fate was being kind and the gentle swell was giving no trouble to those on board. There were no lights showing and she rode the waves like a ghostly chariot; a silent phantom on its unlawful occasions.
Marsh peered through the porthole of his cabin. He had no lights because all electrical power to the accommodation section had been turned off. Helen stood beside him, her arm round his waist. Malik had warned them not to venture outside their cabins until morning for reasons of safety. He wouldn’t explain quite what he meant by that, but Marsh saw no reason to antagonise the man.
Marsh was soon aware of the arrival of two ships. From his vantage point he saw one of the ships slide alongside the Taliba while the other disappeared from his view, but its speed suggested it had taken up station on the other side. He could hear shouted commands in a language he did not understand, but soon he understood that a cargo was being transferred from the ship that was now alongside the Taliba.
His mind went back to the night Greg Walsh had been killed, and in his mind’s eye he could see the loading operation taking place. So deep was the nightmare burned into his brain that he could see the two ships locked in a graceful embrace while one transferred the seed in its belly into the care of the other.
The whole operation lasted less than an hour, and soon the water boiled beneath the freighter in luminous phosphorescence as she edged away. Moments later she was gone, fading into the darkness like a wraith, and only Marsh’s sanity kept him from believing that it had never happened at all. He felt the Taliba’s engines power up and soon they were under way. He wasn’t sure of the heading but he guessed they were on their way back to the Gulf to plant another demonic seed.
As dawn broke over the Atlantic, Marsh woke and could feel the rollers lifting the ship with more power than previously. The Taliba was a sturdy vessel and could handle almost anything the sea could throw at it. He felt there was very little to concern him so he went up on deck with the intention of spending ten minutes there before having breakfast. He decided not to wake Helen who was now in her own cabin.
As Marsh came out on to the after deck and turned towards the bridge superstructure, his eyes gaped in amazement. The Taliba had taken on a different outline! He shook his head and looked again, but it was there as clear as day. He walked forward slowly, looking at other changes he could see. Around the superstructure he noticed that canvas awnings had been erected at strategic points, changing the outline of the ship. He ventured further forward and saw that the Challenger was hidden beneath a canvas awning stretched right across the deck. Parts of the deck and the bridge had been painted to give a subtle change to the appearance of the ship’s lines. He couldn’t believe it, but there was no mistake; under close scrutiny, certainly from overhead observation and even from a passing ship, the Taliba had ceased to exist.
As evil as Khan’s intentions were, he knew that the game had now entered its most dangerous phase. Marsh returned to his cabin with the absorbing and frightening thought that his own time was limited and there was very little he could do about it.
For the remainder of the day, Marsh and Helen were confined to their quarters. No reason asked, no reason given. They used the time to hatch various escape plans and to immediately discard them until the game became useless and an admission of defeat was all they could muster.