Operation Stranglehold
Page 17
He turned and looked at the fleet bobbing at its shallow anchorage. “Th—that one, I g-guess,” he stuttered, pointing to the boat at the right hand end of the lineup.
Hazel and Lisa joined us, puffing from their hard-slogging route through loose, yielding sand. Lisa cast a sidelong glance at the moaning Guardia Civil, then looked away. “Walter’s picked a boat,” I told them. “Let’s get out to it.”
I started wading through the lukewarm water. Lisa was the next to move. She hitched her ever-present knapsack higher on her slim shoulders and followed me. Hazel and Walter finally got themselves in gear.
I gave Lisa the automatic to hold while I pulled myself up over the side of the fishing boat. She handed it back to me after looking it over curiously, and I gave her a hand up. Then Hazel. Walter scrambled aboard himself.
There were three men on the boat, all eyeing us silently. “Find out who’s the captain,” I said to Hazel.
“¿Quien es el capitán?” Hazel asked.
Two of the men looked at the third.
We all stood there dripping while I motioned to the first two men with the automatic. “Off,” I said. They may not have understood me, but they understood the movement of the gun. They went over the side with resounding splashes.
I looked at the captain, a middle-aged man. “Tell him he’s sailing us to Tangier, Hazel.”
“Tangier!” Walter exclaimed. “We’re going to Lisbon!”
“At the moment this is not a democracy, Walter,” I said pleasantly. “We’re going to Tangier.” I raised my voice when he tried to interrupt me. “Tangier is a free city that gives political asylum. Remember the hijacker with the half million? The Moroccan authorities sent back the half million, but they didn’t send back the hijacker.”
Walter turned away angrily. the same sulky, pouting expression on his face he’d had the first time I’d seen him in the mountains. I looked at Lisa. “You wouldn’t want him perfect, anyway, would you?” I said. “It wouldn’t leave you anything to shape up.”
She smothered a smile.
“Tell the captain,” I repeated to Hazel.
She jabbered at the man in the liquid-sounding syllables which remained incomprehensible to me. Before she was halfway through, the captain was shaking his head in a stubborn negative. “He says he has to live here, and he cannot afford to become involved with the authorities,” Hazel reported.
I showed the captain the automatic, much as I had the Guardia Civil earlier. “Tell him he’ll sail this floating matchbox to Tangier, or I’ll rework his face with the butt of this gun. Any more argument, and I’ll do the job well enough to let him prove he was forced to swim there, pulling the boat.”
There was no more argument.
The captain and a sullen-looking Walter hoisted sail while the western sky faded from orange to pink. The boat moved slowly out of the harbor of La Perla. As nearly as I could tell, the entire population was there to see us off.
Offshore the breeze freshened, and we picked up speed. “Check on his course with your compass,” I said to Walter when he returned to the stern.
He got down out of sight of the boat captain and took a reading. “He’s doing all right, as I see it,” he reported. “He’s certainly headed for North Africa, anyway.” He sounded civil again.
“Keep checking him from time to time.”
Night came quickly, and the air turned chilly. I found a piece of canvas in a locker when Hazel started to shiver. “First tell our boy at the wheel that he’s not making this trip for nothing,” I said to her. “Then we’ll wrap up.”
She returned after delivering the message. “You made his day, but he says you’ve got to make it look right for him.”
“I’ll make it look beautiful.”
We wrapped up in the canvas and stretched out under the lee rail. A dozen feet away Walter and Lisa resembled a similar cocoon. From time to time I could see Walter neglecting his major preoccupation while he took another compass reading. Then he would return to massaging Lisa.
The wind increased, and we began to roll. The old tub creaked and groaned as the chop slapped it around. I was in a hurry, but I didn’t want any more wind. It was a long night, despite the fact things were finally going our way.
Daybreak found us alone in a watery world. There was nothing in sight in any direction. “Are you sure this guy isn’t heading for Newfoundland?” I growled at Walter.
“He’s on course,” he insisted after another check. “You don’t make much time in these things. Five miles an hour; maybe a little better.”
I did a little mental arithmetic; sixteen or seventeen hours for the passage. I settled back again with what patience I could muster. A couple of hours later Hazel nudged me and pointed ahead. A dark mass was low on the horizon. “The Atlas Mountains,” she said softly.
We all perked up after that.
Shortly before noon the skeletal outline of a large city began to unfold in front of us. “Tangier?” I said to the captain. He nodded proudly. “Can you sail this lovely vessel the rest of the way into the harbor?” I asked Walter.
“Sure I can.”
“Then take the wheel.”
I beckoned to the skipper, and he and I did a little monetary business that left him smiling happily. He bowed to Hazel and me, and then went into the cabin. “Where’s he going?” Hazel wanted to know.
“To hide the money. It would be a giveaway if it were found on him.” The skipper came back, and I drew the automatic and showed him the butt. “One lump or two?” I asked him.
He didn’t know what I said, but he knew what I meant. He turned his back, and before he could flinch I rapped him on the skull where his hair was thickest, hard enough to give him a good-sized lump that he could show as proof that he’d been “forced.” He went bowlegged at first and then sank to his knees. “Tie him up so he’s comfortable,” I told Hazel.
The rest of the trip didn’t take long.
We must have committed a dozen nautical no-nos before we got halfway inside the harbor, because a police launch purred up, and a couple of gimlet-eyed types boarded us and listened to Hazel’s story.
After that we had an escort.
It was one of the few times in my life I wasn’t unhappy to see police uniforms.
• • •
“You mean the hundred thousand is mine?” Hazel asked.
It was two days later, and we were sitting in the Bascara Restaurant in Tangier where I had just surrounded an enormous meal of lamb-and-rice. Walter Croswell and a starry-eyed Lisa had flown to the U.S. that morning after the successful completion of Lisa’s business, but Hazel and I were in no hurry.
“That’s right,” I confirmed. “All you need is your signature on a release form at the main branch of the Washington Bank & Trust Company.”
“Well!” she said dreamily. “I believe I’ll have Nate Pepperman pick up the option on that Florida property I had him take out recently. And thank you, Horseman.”
She was silent then, and I looked up from my coffee to see a particular Hazel-smile.
“I know, I know,” I said, setting down my cup. “You’ve never done it in Tangier.”
We left the restaurant and went back to the hotel.
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Copyright © 1973 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
Copyright Registration Renewed © 2003 by Robert Ragan
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This is a work of fiction.
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