Seawitch

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘Your security was lousy. We’ll phone your HQ in an hour or so, let them know where they can find you. I trust there are not too many rattlesnakes around.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Robertson looked up from the radio console. ‘Chief McGarrity.’

  Mitchell took the phone. ‘Mitchell? We’ve found the kidnappers’ estate wagon. Down by the Wyanee swamp.’ McGarrity sounded positively elated. ‘I’m going there personally. Tracker dogs. I’ll wait for you at the Walnut Tree crossing.’ Mitchell replaced the receiver and said to Roomer: ‘McGarrity’s got it all wrapped up. He’s found the estate wagon. Well, someone else did, but it will be made clear eventually that McGarrity did.’

  ‘Empty, of course. Doesn’t that old fool know that this makes it more difficult, not easier? At least we knew what transport they were using. Not any more. He didn’t mention anything about bringing along a newspaper photographer that he just sort of accidentally bumped into?’

  ‘Tracker dogs were all he mentioned.’

  ‘Did he suggest source material for the dogs to sniff at?’ Mitchell shook his head, Roomer shook his and after a few minutes Jenkins appeared. ‘Will you get Louise, please?’

  Louise appeared very quickly. Roomer said: ‘We’d like an article, a piece of clothing, that the ladies used to wear a lot.’

  She looked uncertain. ‘I don’t understand–’

  ‘Some things we can give bloodhounds to sniff so that they pick up scent.’

  ‘Oh.’ It required only a second’s thought. ‘Their dressing-gowns, of course.’ This with but the slightest hint of disapproval, as if the girls spent most of the day lounging about in those garments.

  ‘Handle as little as possible, please. Put each in a separate plastic bag.’

  A police car and a small closed police van awaited them at the Walnut Tree crossing. McGarrity was standing by the police car. He was a small bouncy man who radiated bonhomie and who only stopped smiling when he vehemently denounced corruption in politics. He was a police chief of incomparable incompetence, but was a consummate and wholly corrupt politician, which was why he was police chief. He shook the hands of Mitchell and Roomer with all the warmth and sincerity of an incumbent coming up for re-election, which was precisely what he was.

  ‘Glad to meet you two gentlemen at last. Heard very good reports about you.’ He appeared to have conveniently forgotten his allegation that they gave a lot of trouble to the local law. ‘Appreciate all the co-operation you’ve given me–and for turning up here now. This is Ron Stewart of the Herald.’ He gestured through an open car window where a man, apparently festooned in cameras, sat in the back seat. ‘Kind of accidentally bumped into him.’

  Mitchell choked, turning it into a cough. ‘Too many cigarettes.’

  ‘Same failing myself. Driver’s the dog-handler. Driver of the van is the other one. Just follow us, please.’

  Five miles further on they reached the turn-off–one of many–into the Wyanee swamp. The foliage of the trees, almost touching overhead, quickly reduced the light to that of a late winter afternoon. The increase in the humidity was almost immediately noticeable, as was the sour nose-wrinkling miasma as they neared the swamps. A distinctly unhealthy atmosphere, or such was the first impression: but many people with a marked aversion to what passed for civilization lived there all their lives and seemed none the worse for it.

  The increasingly rutted, bumpy road had become almost intolerable until they rounded a blind corner and came across the abandoned station wagon.

  The first essential was, apparently, that pictures be taken, and the second that McGarrity be well-placed in each one, his hand, for preference, resting in a proprietorial fashion on the hood. That done, the cameraman fitted a flashlight and was reaching for the rear door when Roomer clamped his wrist not too gently. ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Never been on a criminal case before? Fingerprints is why not.’ He looked at McGarrity. ‘Expecting them soon?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be long. Out on a case. Check on them, Don.’ This to the driver who immediately got busy on his radio. It was clear that the idea of bringing fingerprint experts along had never occurred to McGarrity.

  The dogs were released from the van. Roomer and Mitchell opened up their plastic bags and allowed the dogs to sniff the dressing-gowns. McGarrity said: ‘What you got there?’

  ‘The girls’ dressing-gowns. To give your hounds a trace. We knew you’d want something.’

  ‘Of course. But dressing-gowns!’ McGarrity was a past master in covering up. Something else, clearly, that had not occurred to him.

  The dogs caught the scents at once and strained at their leashes as they nosed their way down a rutted path, for the road had come to an abrupt end. Inside a hundred yards, their path was blocked by water. It wasn’t a true part of the swamp but a slow, meandering, mud-brown creek, perhaps twenty feet across, if that. There was a hitching-post nearby, with a similar one at the far bank. Also by the far bank was a warped and aged craft which not even the charitable could have called a boat. It was built along the lines of an over-sized coffin, with a squared-off end where the bows should have been. The ferry–probably the most kindly name for it–was attached to the two hitching-posts by an endless pulley.

  The two dog-handlers hauled the boat across, got into it with understandable caution, and were joined by their dogs, who kept on displaying considerable signs of animation, an animation which rapidly diminished then vanished shortly after they had landed on the far bank. After making a few fruitless circles, they lay down dejectedly on the ground.

  ‘Well, ain’t that a shame,’ a voice said. ‘Trail gone cold, I guess.’

  The four men on the near bank turned to look at the source of the voice. He was a bizarre character, wearing a new panama hat with a tartan band, gleaming thigh-length leather boots (presumably as a protection against snakebites) and clothes discarded by a scarecrow. ‘You folks chasin’ someone?’

  ‘We’re looking for someone,’ McGarrity said cautiosly.

  ‘Lawmen, yes?’

  ‘Chief of Police McGarrity.’

  ‘Honoured, I’m sure. Well, Chief, you’re wasting your time. Hot trail here, cold on the other side. So, the party you’re looking for got off halfway across.’

  ‘You saw them?’ McGarrity asked suspiciously.

  ‘Hah! More than one, eh? No, sir. Just happened by right now. But if I was on the run from the law that’s what I’d do because it’s been done hundreds of times. You can get out midway, walk half a mile, even a mile, up-stream or downstream. Dozens of little rivulets come into this creek. You could turn up any of those, go a mile into the swamp without setting foot on dry land. Wouldn’t find them this side of Christmas, Chief.’

  ‘How deep is the creek?’

  ‘Fifteen inches. If that.’

  ‘Then why the boat? I mean, with those boots you could walk across without getting your feet wet?’

  The stranger looked almost shocked. ‘No siree. Takes me an hour every morning to polish up them critters.’ It was assumed that he was referring to his boots. ‘Besides, there’re the water-moccasins.’ He seemed to have a rooted aversion to snakes. ‘The boat? Come the rains, the creek’s up to here.’ He touched his chest.

  McGarrity called the dog-handlers to return. Mitchell said to the stranger: ‘Any place in the swamps where a helicopter could land?’

  ‘Sure. More firm land out there than there is swampland. Never seen any helicopters, though. Yes, lots of clearings.’

  The dog-handlers and dogs disembarked. Leaving the stranger to flick some invisible dust off his boots, they made their way back to the estate wagon. Mitchell said: ‘A moment. I’ve just had a thought.’ He opened up the two plastic bags containing the dressing-gowns and presented them to the dogs again. He then walked back up the rutted lane, past the two cars and van, beckoning the dog-handlers to follow him, which they did, almost having to drag the reluctant dogs behind them.


  After about twenty yards the reluctance vanished. The dogs yelped and strained at their leashes. For another twenty yards they towed their handlers along behind them, then abruptly stopped and circled a few times before sitting down dispiritedly. Mitchell crouched and examined the surface of the lane. The others caught up with him.

  McGarrity said: ‘What gives, then?’

  ‘This.’ Mitchell pointed to the ground. ‘There was another vehicle here. You can see where its back wheels spun when it started to reverse. The kidnappers guessed we’d be using tracker dogs–it wasn’t all that hard a guess. So they carried the girls twenty yards or so, to break the scent, before setting them down again.’

  ‘Right smart of you, Mr Mitchell, right smart.’ McGarrity didn’t look as pleased as his words made out. ‘So the birds have flown, eh? And now we haven’t the faintest idea what the getaway vehicle looks like.’

  Roomer said: ‘Somebody’s flown, that’s for sure. But maybe only one or two. Maybe they’ve gone to borrow a helicopter.’

  ‘A helicopter?’ The waters didn’t have to be very deep for Chief McGarrity to start floundering.

  With a trace of weary impatience Mitchell said: ‘It could be a double bluff. Maybe they reversed the procedure and took the girls back to the station wagon again. Maybe they are still in the swamp, waiting for a helicopter to come and pick them up. You heard the old boy back there–he said there were plenty of places in the swamp where a helicopter could touch down.’

  McGarrity nodded sagely and appeared to ponder the matter deeply. The time had come, he felt, for him to make a positive contribution. ‘The swamp’s out. Hopeless. So I’ll have to concentrate on the helicopter angle.’

  Mitchell said: ‘How do you propose to do that?’

  ‘Just you leave that to me.’

  Roomer said: ‘That’s hardly fair, Mr McGarrity. We’ve given you our complete confidence. Don’t you think we’re entitled to some in return?’

  ‘Well, now.’ McGarrity appeared to ruminate, although he was secretly pleased to be asked the question, as Roomer had known he would be. ‘If the chopper doesn’t get in there, it can’t very well lift them out, can it?’

  ‘That’s a fact,’ Roomer said solemnly.

  ‘So I station marksmen round this side of the swamp. It’s no great deal to bring down a low-flying chopper.’

  Mitchell said: ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

  ‘No indeed.’ Roomer shook his head. ‘The law frowns on murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ McGarrity stared at them. ‘Who’s talking of murder?’

  ‘We are,’ Mitchell said. ‘Rifle or machine-gun fire might well kill someone inside the helicopter. If it brings down the helicopter they’d all probably die. Maybe there are criminals aboard, but they’re entitled to a fair trial before execution. And has it occurred to you that the pilot will almost certainly be an innocent party with a pistol pointed at his head?’ McGarrity, clearly, had not thought of that. ‘Not going to make us very popular, is it?’

  McGarrity winced. Even the very thought of unpopularity and the forthcoming election made him feel pale inside.

  ‘So what the devil do we do?’

  Roomer was frank. ‘I’ll be damned if I know. You can post observers. You can even have a grounded helicopter standing by to chase the other one when it takes off. If, that’s to say, it ever comes in the first place. We’re only guessing.’

  ‘No more we can do here,’ Mitchell said. ‘We’ve already missed too many appointments today. We’ll be in touch.’

  Back on the highway Roomer said: ‘How do you think he’d do as a dog-catcher?’

  ‘Place would be overrun by stray dogs in a few months. How much faith do you have in this idea that they might use a helicopter?’

  ‘Quite a lot. If they just wanted to change cars they wouldn’t have gone through this elaborate rigmarole. They could have parked their station wagon out of sight almost any place. By apparently going into hiding in the swamp they hoped to give the impression that they were preparing to hole up in there for quite some time to come. They hadn’t figured on our backing–your backtracking–up the lane.’

  ‘We’re pretty sure that their destination is the Seawitch. We’re pretty sure they’ll use a helicopter. Which helicopter and pilot would you use?’

  ‘Lord Worth’s. Not only are his pilots almost certainly the only ones who know the exact coordinates of the Seawitch, but the very distinctly marked Worth Hudson helicopters are the only ones that could approach the Seawitch without raising suspicion.’ Roomer reached for the phone, fiddled with the waveband and raised Lord Worth’s house. ‘Jim?’

  ‘At my post, Mr Roomer.’

  ‘We’re coming back there. Look for Lord Worth’s address book. Probably right by you in your radio room. Make us a list of the names and addresses of his helicopter pilots. Is the gatekeeper at the heliport on the radiophone, too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get that for us too, please.’

  ‘Will do.’

  He said to Mitchell: ‘Still think we shouldn’t warn Larsen about our suspicions?’

  ‘That’s for sure.’ Mitchell was very definite. ‘The Seawitch is Larsen’s baby, and the kind of reception he’d prepare might all too easily be over-enthusiastic. Or would you care for the job of explaining to Lord Worth how come his daughters got caught in cross-fire?’

  ‘I would not.’ Roomer spoke with some feeling.

  ‘Or even explaining to yourself how Melinda got shot through the lung?’

  Roomer ignored him. ‘What if we’re wrong in our guesses about his lordship’s pilots?’

  ‘Then turn the whole thing over to that ace detective, McGarrity.’

  ‘So we’d better be right.’

  They were right. They were also too late.

  John Campbell was both an avid fisherman and an avid reader. He had long since mastered the techniques of indulging his two pleasures simultaneously. A creek, fairly popular with fish, ran within twenty feet of his back porch. Campbell was sitting on a canvas chair, parasol over his head, alternating every page with a fresh cast of his line, when Durand and one of his men, stocking-masked and holding guns in their hands, came into his line of vision. Campbell rose to his feet, book still in hand.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  ‘You. You’re Campbell, aren’t you?’

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘Like you to do a little job for us.’

  ‘What job?’

  ‘Fly a helicopter for us.’

  ‘I’ll be damned if I do.’

  ‘So you are Campbell. Come along.’

  Following the gesturing of their guns Campbell moved between the two men. He was within one foot of Durand’s gun hand when he chopped the side of his hand on the wrist that held the gun. Durand grunted in pain, the gun fell to the ground and a second later the two men were locked together, wrestling, kicking and punching with a fine disregard for the rules of sport, altering position so frequently that Durand’s henchman, gun barrel now in his hand–the last thing he wanted to do was to shoot Campbell–at first found no opportunity to intervene. But the opportunity came very soon. The unsportsmanlike but effective use of Campbell’s right knee doubled Durand over in gasping agony, but enough instinct was left him to seize Campbell’s shirt as he fell over backwards. This was Campbell’s downfall in more ways than one, for the back of his head simply cried out for the attentions of a gun-butt.

  The man who had felled Campbell pulled Campbell clear, allowing Durand to climb painfully to his feet, although still bent over at an angle of 45 degrees. He pulled off his stocking mask as if to try to gain access to more air. Durand, surprisingly, was Latin American. He had a pale, coffee-coloured face, thick black curling hair and a pencil-line moustache and might even have proved to be handsome when the twisted lines of agony ceased to contort his face. He straightened inch by inch and finally obtained a modicum of breath, enough, at least, to
allow him to announce what he would like to do with Campbell.

  ‘Have to be some other time, Mr Durand. He can’t very well fly a chopper from a hospital bed.’

  Durand painfully acknowledged the truth of this. ‘I hope you didn’t hit him too hard.’

  ‘Just a tap.’

  ‘Tie him, tape him and blindfold him.’ Durand was now about twenty degrees off the vertical. His helpmate left for the car and returned in moments with cord, tape and blindfold. Three minutes later they were on their way, with a rug-covered and still unconscious Campbell on the floor at the back. Resting comfortably on the rug were Durand’s feet–he still didn’t feel quite up to driving. Both men had their masks off now–even in the free-wheeling state of Florida men with stocking masks in cars were apt to draw just a little more than passing attention.

  Mitchell glanced briefly at the list of names and addresses Robertson had given them. ‘Fine. But what are those ticks opposite five of the names?’

  Robertson sounded apologetic. ‘I hope you don’t mind–I don’t want to seem interfering–but I took the liberty of phoning those gentlemen to see if they would be at home when you called. I assumed you’d be calling because you asked for the addresses.’

  Mitchell looked at Roomer. ‘Why the hell didn’t you think of that?’

  Roomer bestowed a cold glance on him and said to Robertson, ‘Maybe I should have you as a partner. What did you find out?’

  ‘One pilot is standing by at the airport. Four of the others are at home. The one whose name I haven’t ticked–Mr John Campbell–isn’t home. I asked one of the other pilots about this, and he seemed a bit surprised. Said that Mr Campbell usually spends his afternoons fishing outside the back of his house. He’s a bachelor and lives in a pretty isolated place.’

  ‘It figures,’ Roomer said. ‘A bachelor in isolation. The kidnappers seem to have an excellent intelligence system. The fact that he doesn’t answer the phone may mean nothing–he could have gone for a walk, shopping, visiting friends. On the other hand–’