Keegan staggered to his feet and stumbled back to the main cabin of the shrimp boat. Tully Moyes was draped over the wheel, his arms still wrapped in the wheel, his feet turned on their ankles. He groaned and fell backward on the deck of the shattered cabin.
Keegan rushed to him, saw the bullet hole in Moyes’s shoulder and a gash over his eye but the shrimper waved him off.
“Go do your business, Keegan,” he said. “I ain’t dead yet.”
He took the Webley from Moyes’s belt and stuck it in his own. Carrying shotgun and .45, he ran to the front of the shrimp boat and jumped down onto the wet wreckage of the dock. He scrambled across the battered pier to the muddy ground. He saw movement to his left, fell against a tree, strained his eyes, then the sky lit up and he saw the gunnery mate scrambling ashore through the marsh grass.
The full fury of the storm was upon them. The German crawled onto hard earth and started running.
“Hold it,” Keegan screamed but his warning was lost in the wind. He started running parallel to the German, dodging trees. Both were running toward the tall clubhouse spire.
Inside the dining room there was chaos. Willoughby, his eyes bulging with fear and panic, stared through the windows of the dining room. In the gaudy flashes of lightning, he first saw the sub, then the glaring white spotlight, then heard the wrenching collision.
“My God,” he cried. “The sub’s been rammed!”
“Shut up!” 27 ordered as the dining room guests started to surge forward. He turned on them, leveled the gun at Grant Peabody and snarled, “Everyone stand where you are or I’ll kill Peabody. Now.”
The surge stopped for an instant, then Peabody yelled, “You can’t kill us all.”
Allenbee leveled the machine pistol at Peabody.
“No, but if anyone else moves an inch, you’ll be the first to die.”
He backed to the window and looked outside. Through the storm he saw someone running toward the dining room. Behind him was the prow of the shrimp boat, tilted crazily against the dock. No sign of the sub.
Keegan chased the German sailor through the storm but the gunner got to the clubhouse first, scrambling onto the porch and rushing through one of the French doors. Keegan was twenty feet behind him as the sailor burst into the dining room.
Twenty-seven whirled as the sailor staggered through the door and shot him twice in the chest. It was only after the body jackknifed to the floor that the one-time actor realized what he’d done. The room erupted with screams of alarm. Twenty-seven twisted and looked through the open door. For a second, in an explosion of lightning, he saw Keegan huddled in the rain, saw him raise his arm, heard the pistol shot. It skimmed 27’s cheek, took off his earlobe and as he spun out of the doorway he fired several shots at the sodden figure. But Keegan had already vanished in the darkness. -
Willoughby, totally confused, stared down at the dead U- boat crew man.
“My God! You killed one of our own.”
“You damn fool, the sub’s finished.”
“No,” the Englishman cried out. “No, it can’t be.” He started toward the door which was still open and banging in the wind. With an animal growl, Allenbee fired a burst into Willoughby. The bullets ripped into the older man’s chest and knocked him backward across a table in a shower of dishes, glasses and food. He sprawled there, arms outstretched, his legs dangling off the floor.
The dining room went crazy. Screaming guests suddenly panicked and rushed toward the rear doors. Twenty-seven realized he had lost control of the situation. His nemesis was out there somewhere and he was a perfect target in the brightly lit room. He grabbed a chair, threw it through a window and leaped out behind it.
A moment later a sodden Keegan rushed into the dining room. The chaotic mob turned instantly toward him.
He held up a hand. “My name’s Keegan, I’m with the U.S. Intelligence Service. Please . . . everybody stay in this room. If you go outside you’ll confuse things even more. If he comes back instead of me, kill the son of a bitch. There’s a wounded man in the shrimp boat down at the pier. He needs help.”
He stared down at Lady Penelope Traynor. “And keep your eye on her highness there.”
He jumped through the shattered window after 27.
The machine pistol chattered and a string of bullets ripped the mud behind Keegan as he landed and rolled behind a tree. Another burst tore into the tree. Keegan rolled over on the ground, fired several shots into the rainy darkness, then jumped to his feet, ran back to the side of the clubhouse and crouched in the darkness, listening. He heard only the rumble of thunder, the splatter of rain. He worked his way to the corner of the building and waited for lightning to brighten the compound.
Twenty-seven moved backward through the trees like a cornered fox. He too waited for nature to illuminate their battleground.
A jagged streak in the sky. A dark form dodging from one tree to another. He fired another burst of the pistol, was met immediately by several shots in return. He backed into the wall of a building. Startled, he whirled with a cry. Another shot smacked the wall an inch from his head. He crouched and ran along the side of the building, realized it was the indoor tennis court, found the door. It was locked. He smashed the window with his elbow, reached in, unlocked the door and jumped inside.
Fifty feet away, Keegan heard the window break and hurried toward the sound. He saw the door, its window shattered, in the long, low building and raced up to it, flattening himself against the wall. Inching his way to the opening and facing the wall, he stretched his arm around the jamb and fired two shots blindly into the building. They were answered instantly with a burst from 27’s machine pistol. Bullets chewed up the doorjamb. He was obviously across the indoor court somewhere.
Keegan ducked low and dashed into the darkened court. Another burst of gunfire followed him. He felt the hot searing pain as a bullet ripped through his shoulder. But he scampered across the floor and lurked in the darkness next to a scorekeeper’s table, listening. He touched his shoulder and flinched. The bullet had pierced the fleshy part just under the shoulder blade and exited.
He squinted in the darkness. The big room looked ominous, with its tennis net stretched from one side to the other and dark corners offering refuge to his enemy.
Where was he Keegan wondered.
In an opposite corner, 27 lurked and waited in darkness, just as determined to get rid of Keegan. He had to quell his anger to keep it from clouding his judgment. He had come too far, waited too many years, to fail completely. His mind formulated a new plan. The operation was not a total loss. First he had to kill the intruder. Ja, he would eliminate his nemesis and then return to the clubhouse. There he would kill Yankee millionaires until his ammunition was gone, then swim across to the marsh and make it to the mainland. He still had funds in New York. With luck, he could make it back to Germany.
But first things first. Where was the American?
A hundred feet away, Keegan checked his resources. Too much rain and thunder to hear his enemy breathing.
Keegan slowly reached down to the bucket, took a tennis ball, threw it across the room into a dark corner. Twenty-seven spun immediately and fired in its direction. Bullets ripped into the wall. Then suddenly, the gun stopped firing. There was the unmistakable sound of metal on metal as the firing pin snapped on the empty chamber. Enraged, 27 threw the empty pistol across the room and as he did, Keegan grabbed the bucket of tennis balls and threw them at the Nazi. They bounced around him, bounded underfoot, bounced off the walls and disoriented the German agent. Twenty-seven saw Keegan rise from behind the table and lurched toward him but he stepped on a tennis hail and then another. His legs pedaled frantically under him as he fought to keep from falling. Keegan leaped from the darkness, buried a shoulder into 27’s stomach and they vaulted through the window, tumbled in a shower of glass and wood into the mud outside.