Angel of Destruction

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘He isn’t. Because there’s no way he can. But he’s not going to be very happy when she disappears without trace, and now he knows where he can find me.’

  ‘So you think he’ll send a mob the next time. You don’t think I should stay now? We can contact Joe by radio.’

  ‘I won’t need you for another four days. And there are things I need that only you can provide.’

  He was frowning. ‘You’re losing me. You don’t need back-up now, but you will need it in four days’ time.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Sorry. I can’t figure that out.’

  ‘It is simply that in about four days’ time I will have to go away for a few days.’

  ‘Go away, where?’

  ‘It’s a private business trip.’

  ‘Joe know about it?’

  ‘I said, it’s a private business trip.’

  ‘So I’m not to tell him. He’ll be curious about these arrangements you want to make.’

  ‘Of course you can tell him. But it remains none of his business. However, as I’m damned sure this woman Strezzi’s turning up here is connected with the Russians, I need to find out who they’re employing in the States, and I think I’m entitled to ask for your help in protecting the cay while I’m away. Everyone else living on the cay is absolutely innocent of any involvement in my affairs, and that means, in this instance, in your affairs. I want to keep it that way.’

  He brooded some more, while Hog Island came over the horizon. ‘And you don’t think your people will wonder why I’ve come to stay with you when you ain’t there?’

  ‘I can sort that out. Now listen. I reckon you’ll need a team of three, and they all have to be people who can take care of themselves.’

  ‘Three? You sure have a low opinion of CIA operatives.’

  ‘I said, they’ll need round-the-clock surveillance.’

  ‘And you don’t.’

  ‘No, Jerry. I don’t.’

  He relapsed into another silence.

  ‘Now listen carefully,’ she said again. ‘These are what I require. Immediately, which means as soon as you get back to Washington and can see Joe, I need this woman’s identity and background and employers. Then I need a date for your return with your squad. And I need you to tell Donald I require two hundred five-shot magazines for my Walther.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m running low.’

  ‘How the hell am I supposed to get a box of a thousand cartridges through Nassau customs?’

  ‘You won’t have to. I’ll be in Miami in a couple of days and I’ll pick them up. When you have your squad assembled, give me your dates, my crew will come across to Miami and pick you up as well.’

  ‘To . . . that’s two hundred miles.’

  ‘No problem, man.’

  ‘Two hundred miles . . . in this?’

  ‘It’s two hundred and fifty, actually. Find yourself some good anti-seasick tablets,’ she suggested.

  *

  Having dropped Jerry off, and picked up a totally mystified Tommy, who had apparently spent the entire three hours they had been away sitting on the dockside waiting for her to come back, she put to sea again immediately, cooking the pair of them a late lunch. ‘I’m sorry about this afternoon, Tommy,’ she said, the cruiser being on autopilot while they ate.

  ‘No problem, ma’am. You’s the boss.’

  ‘Thank you, Tommy. However, I would not like anyone on the cay to know about the gentleman I was seeing. It is a completely confidential business matter.’

  ‘You got it, ma’am.’

  She had no doubt that he would keep her secret; not only did he have one of the best-paid jobs going in the Bahamas, with free housing and his keep thrown in, but, even if he had no idea of either her background or of what she was capable, he was totally in awe of her. But he would have to be told more to cover the situation of the boat. ‘Because something happened,’ she said.

  ‘Ma’am?’ He was instantly concerned.

  ‘I thought we could just cruise round while we talked, but the gentleman got seasick.’

  ‘I did see he wasn’t looking too good, and that is a fact.’

  ‘So I decided to put into a little cove we saw, drop anchor and give him time to recover. There was another boat anchored there, but I thought nothing of it, only when we approached, a man came on deck with a shotgun and fired at us.’

  ‘Ow, me lord, ma’am! He hit you?’

  ‘Only a couple of pellets. But they marked the topsides. Can you iron them out and paint them over?’

  ‘I can do that, sure, ma’am. But what you did when this guy fired at you?’

  ‘I got the hell out of there. I was scared stiff. I’ve never been shot at before.’

  ‘Well, ma’am, we got to report this. We can’t have people going around shooting at people.’

  ‘I don’t want to report it, Tommy. The gentleman I was with can’t afford any publicity. He wasn’t supposed to be in the Bahamas at all.’

  ‘Well, ma’am, if you saying so. But . . .’

  ‘Just let’s keep it as our secret.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he agreed enthusiastically.

  She felt that she had had a successful day in purely pragmatic terms. The fact that her bloodstained tally was now a hundred and four was not something to be proud of, but as with so many of her other victims, Lorna and her friend had been meaning to kill her; she refused to accept guilt for defending herself. And she had done all she could to keep things running smoothly until her return. She didn’t at all like the idea of absenting herself from the cay at this time, but she had to believe that after her arrangements it would still be there and functioning when she got back.

  Now it was time to concentrate entirely on the task ahead of her, and, of course, to survive the coming evening. It was past seven before they approached the reef, and she felt her way through, at dead slow, using her searchlight and with Tommy in the bow equipped with a powerful flashlight. But they both knew the waters very well, although it was a quarter to eight before they eased alongside the dock, where it seemed everyone on the cay was waiting for them.

  Anna had called ahead to warn them she would be late, but they all still seemed to be agitated.

  ‘How the hell did you find your way in through the dark?’ Billy inquired.

  ‘We had our light.’ Anna hugged and kissed the dogs.

  ‘And you had no problems with your business?’ Jane asked.

  ‘None that I couldn’t solve. Now, Mama, I had a very light lunch, so I hope there’s something good for dinner. And I feel like a stiff drink.’

  *

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ Clive said, as he got into bed beside her, ‘that you’d care to put me in the picture.’

  He had said very little during dinner, or after it, but had been watching her. Having known her now for eleven years, which in real terms made him closer to her moods and idiosyncracies than even her parents, he could tell that she had not spent the day sitting around a desk.

  ‘Off you go, darling.’ Anna gave a purring Isis a last kiss and moved the cat from her chest. She had already decided that he would have to know at least something of what was going on; apart from the fact that he could well be involved, she really didn’t want to keep secrets from him. ‘I was seeing a man,’ she said. ‘You may remember the name: Jerry Smitten.’

  Clive frowned. ‘Smitten. Not that character whose life you saved in Brazil, in 1946?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘He had got himself shot, hadn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right, too. That’s why I had to save his life; he got himself shot trying to protect me.’

  ‘And now he’s come back to show his gratitude.’

  ‘Not quite. He was sent by Joe, because we worked together before, and I have a potentially serious problem on my hands.’ She told him about Lorna Strezzi turning up in Nassau and asking questions.

  ‘Shit!’ Clive commented ‘It’s to do wit
h that Mexico job, isn’t it? That absolutely crazy telephone call.’

  ‘I had to do that,’ she said, quietly.

  ‘I know, my darling girl. I explained that to Billy. And was this Smitten able to help?’

  ‘Not immediately. I put him in the picture and sent him back to Joe. I need to know who this woman is and who she works for. You see, I have a gut feeling that she’s nothing to do with the Mexican police; the photograph she had was taken in Moscow, in 1940.’

  ‘You mean . . . my God! The MGB?’

  ‘I thought I was free of them. But are they employing an American squad? I’m hoping that Joe will be able to tell me that, and maybe deal with it at his end.’

  ‘And meanwhile this woman is still hunting around trying to find you.’

  ‘She found me, easily enough. I, and the cay, are well known in Nassau.’

  ‘Jesus! And she’ll have reported that to her employers.’

  ‘That’s what’s bothering me.’

  ‘Do you think she’s still around, in Nassau?’

  ‘No. She’s no longer in Nassau.’

  ‘How can you be sure of that?’

  Anna gazed at the ceiling. ‘I believe that her instructions were not only to find out if I lived in the Bahamas, and if so, where, but having done that, to reconnoitre my home and check out its defences, if there were any. So this morning she hired a boat and came out for a look at the cay.’

  He frowned. ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I have friends. Besides, I followed her.’

  ‘So that’s why you were so late. And you saw her cruising around the cay. What time was this? Billy and I were on the beach this afternoon, and we didn’t see you. Or any other boat.’

  ‘This was around lunch time. And she never actually got within ten miles of the cay.’

  Clive raised himself on his elbow. ‘You mean you caught her up? What on earth did you say to her?’

  ‘I went alongside, and introduced myself, and asked if I could be of assistance.’

  He stared at her. ‘Just like that? What did she say?’

  ‘Not a lot. She drew a pistol and tried to shoot me.’

  ‘Holy Jesus Christ!’

  ‘There were actually two of them,’ Anna explained. ‘She had a male back-up.’

  ‘Oh, my God, my God, my God! You mean you killed them both. You mean you carry a gun on that boat?’

  ‘Well, of course I have a gun on the boat. And what else was I to do? If I hadn’t shot them, they’d have shot me, and I wouldn’t be here now.’

  He got out of bed, and went to the bathroom, to pour himself a drink of water. ‘But don’t you realize . . . who was with you? That black chap, Tommy?’

  ‘No. I left him in Nassau. I didn’t want him involved.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ He came back to the bed, sat beside her. ‘You mean you handled this alone?’

  ‘I had Jerry with me. Not that he was a lot of help. Apparently he gets seasick.’

  He gazed at her for several seconds. ‘So what are you, we, going to do now? Billy hasn’t got you the carte blanche you want yet. There’s no guarantee that he’ll get it at all. Certainly after this.’

  ‘After what?’

  ‘Anna, my darling, you have just killed two people.’

  ‘I know. The tally is now a hundred and four. That includes that MGB squad in Germany in ’46. I know you and Joe and your friends accounted for a couple of them, but the responsibility was mine. It’s a bit of a weight to carry around. But these people never leave me any choice.’

  ‘Anna, the war is over. Killing people ad lib is no longer acceptable.’

  ‘I don’t think that is a point of view to which everyone subscribes. And until everyone does, I can’t afford to do so either.’

  ‘You do realize that they hang people for murder. OK, so it was, as always, self-defence. But the burden will be on you to prove it. Did this fellow Smitten actually see what happened?’

  ‘No. I told you, he was prostrate at the time.’

  ‘And you haven’t reported what happened. That’s a count against you for a start. What you should have done is either summon help, or towed their boat into Nassau and explain what had happened.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘It would have been tough, yes. And you would probably now be in a cell. But immediately reporting it would have been a big count in your favour. Now . . .’

  ‘I couldn’t tow the boat into Nassau, Clive. I sank it.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I cut a hole in its bottom, and it sank.’

  ‘But . . . they’re bound to find the wreck.’

  ‘I don’t think they will. It’s in about two thousand feet of water.’

  ‘And the bodies? They always come ashore. Even if a shark has had a go at them, the bullet wounds will be evident.’

  ‘I put the bodies in the wheelhouse and locked the door. They’re not going to come out until the wood rots, and they won’t come up then, either, because skeletons don’t float.’

  He scratched his head. ‘You did all that?’

  ‘I’m a professional.’

  ‘With no help from Smitten.’

  ‘I work better on my own.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Have you changed your mind about marrying me?’

  ‘My darling, I wouldn’t dare. Change my mind, I mean.’

  ‘Then come to bed. I’ve had a busy day.’

  He lay beside her. ‘We have to tell Billy.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Very definitely.’

  *

  They sat in the radio room after breakfast, as she was expecting a call, and she put Billy in the picture. She had exercised and had her swim and felt on top of the world. But she was just a little apprehensive; she needed his continued support every bit as much as she needed Joe’s. And Clive’s. He listened without comment until she was finished, then remarked, ‘I wonder if the millions of ordinary, innocent men and women going about their daily business realize how fortunate they are. I mean, that there is only one of you on this planet. I don’t think they could survive two.’

  ‘You say the sweetest things. Does that mean you’re jumping ship?’

  ‘You must be joking. As you reminded me the other morning, I’m on your island. But I need to know how this affects the situation. I mean, these people, whoever they are, are not going to take too kindly to having two of their people rubbed out.’

  ‘I think they are going to take a little time to discover that. Whoever is employing this woman sent her here to find out if I was living here. As far as I could gather from the people at the Royal Vic, she didn’t even have a name for me, only the photograph.’

  ‘Which I presume you removed.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Along with her passport.’

  ‘May I have a look at them?’

  ‘I sent them up to Joe Andrews.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘At this moment, Billy, and for the past three years, he has been my principal employer. In fact, until you turned up this time, he has been my only employer.’

  ‘She has a point,’ Clive put in.

  Billy gave him a dirty look.

  ‘So I regard him as being primarily responsible for my continued existence,’ Anna said. ‘Besides, it was an American passport. He’ll be able to use it to track her down far quicker than you could. The point I am making is that she turned up the day before you two, armed only with the photo. I don’t know how lucky she was, but I imagine her plan was to flash the photograph in every hotel, every major shop, and every bank, and see what turned up, but it seems unlikely that she had had any success before reaching the Royal Vic, otherwise she need not have bothered with them at all. But as I’m a regular guest there, she got what she wanted: a name. She must have spent the next day getting an address and as much info on me as possible, which would have been just about nothing, save that I appear to be wealthy and that I’ve lived here for more than two years. Now, I rec
kon, that she also got in touch with her bosses, and they told her to make a recce of the island; if they’re after me at all, they must have some idea of who and what I am, and would therefore suppose that the cay will be defended. They’ll want to know how.’

  ‘Is it defended?’ Billy asked.

  ‘It has me on it,’ Anna pointed out.

  He gulped.

  ‘So,’ Anna went on, ‘acting on instructions, Strezzi hires a boat yesterday and comes looking. It was her bad luck that was the day I went to Nassau to meet Smitten, and found out about it. Now she and her companion, and the hired boat, have disappeared without trace. Her principals will wait for a couple of days to hear from her.’

  ‘Won’t what happened be front page news?’

  ‘Tell me what happened, Billy?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘A couple of Yanks come over here and hire a fishing boat for the day. Obviously, they’re going fishing. They don’t come back, and there’s no trace of the boat. That might make the front page of the Nassau Guardian. But that sort of thing happens fairly regularly in these waters. Either they struck a rock and sank, and they couldn’t swim, or they caught a bigger fish than they bargained for. They’ll be looked for, of course. But they won’t be found. Clarence, the fisherman who hired them the boat, will be counting the insurance money. And after a couple of days it will be forgotten.’

  ‘They’ll put it down to the Bermuda Triangle,’ Clive suggested with a grin.

  ‘But,’ Baxter pointed out, ‘if this woman was working undercover for the Mexican police, as seems probable, and had reported back to them before coming out to the cay, they now have both your name and your address.’

  ‘She wasn’t working for the Mexican police.’

  ‘How can you be sure of that?’

  ‘Because they want me either to stand trial for murder, or to tell them who was responsible, as I was obviously there. To do either of those things, I have to be alive. That woman was sent to find me, yes, but she was also told, or at least given permission, to finish the job if she had the opportunity. When I turned up alongside her, on a very empty piece of water, apparently alone and with my face hanging out, she thought Christmas had come early. She shouted at her companion, “It’s her, and she’s alone. We can finish it now.” And they started shooting.’