Deep Six (Dirk Pitt 7)

He called softly to agent Lyle Brock, who was manning post seven onboard, the boat. "Hey, Lyle. Can you hear me?"

A voice replied slightly above a whisper. "What do you want?"

"How about a cup of coffee from the galley?"

"The next post change is in twenty minutes. You can get a cup when you come onboard and take my place."

"I can't wait twenty minutes," Polaski protested mildly. "I'm already soaked to the bones."

"Tough. You'll have to suffer."

Polaski knew that Brock couldn't leave the deck under any circumstances, but he goaded the other agent good-naturedly. "Wait till you want a favor from me."

"Speaking of favors, I forgot where I go from here."

Polaski gave a quizzical look at the figure in the shadows on the Eagle's deck. "Look at your diagram, numb brain."

"It got soggy and I can't read it."

"Post eight is fifty yards down the bank."

"Thanks."

"If you want to know where post nine is it'll cost you a cup of coffee," Polaski said, grinning.

"Screw you. I remember that one."

Later, during the next post change, the agents merely waved as they passed each other, two indistinct forms in the mist.

Ed McGrath could not recall having seen fog this thick. He sniffed the air, trying to identify the strange aroma that hung everywhere, and finally wrote it off as a common oily smell. Somewhere in the mist he heard a dog bark. He paused, cocking one ear.

It was not the baying of a hound in chase or the frightened yelps of a mutt, but the sharp yap of a dog alert to an unfamiliar presence.

Not too far away, judging by the volume. Seventy-five, maybe a hundred, yards beyond the security perimeter, McGrath estimated.

A potential assassin would have to be sick or brain damaged or both, he thought, to stumble blindly around a strange countryside in weather such as this. Already, McGrath had tripped and fallen down, walked into an unseen tree branch and scratched his cheek, found himself lost three times, and almost got himself shot when he accidentally walked onto a guard post before he could radio his approach.

The barking stopped abruptly, and McGrath figured a cat or some wild animal had set the dog off. He reached a familiar bench beside a fork in a graveled path and made his way toward the riverbank below the yacht. He spoke into his lapel microphone.

"Post eight, coming up on you."

There was no reply.

McGrath stopped in his tracks. "Brock, this is McGrath, coming up on you."

Still nothing.

"Brock, do you’ read me?"

Post number eight was oddly quiet and McGrath began to feel uneasy. Moving very slowly, one step at a time, he cautiously closed on the guard area. He called faintly through the mist, his voice weirdly magnified by the heavy dampness. Silence was his only reply.

"Control, this is Cutty Sark."

"Go ahead, Cutty Sark," came back Blackowl's tired voice.

"We're missing a man on post eight."

Blackowl's tone sharpened considerably. "No sign of him?"