"What happened?" roared Pryce to the Australian, grabbing his blood-soaked shoulders.
"
"Eee was a bloody fuckin' bahstard!" whispered the mortally wounded man, "that's what he was. He wriggled his way out of the rope an' said he was goin' to free us. Instead, he picked up a winch handle and bashed us both, one after the other, so fast we didn't know what was .. . happening'. I'll see him in hell!" The Aussie expelled his last breath; he was dead.
Cameron looked over the gunwale; the motorized life raft was gone.
Its new helmsman could be heading to any one of five or six small islands. The immediate trail was ended. Cam raced back into the below-deck cabin.
"The son of a bitch got loose, killed the other two, and took the PVC!" he yelled.
"I can't break into the computer."
"There's still a telephone over there, young fella," said Scofield.
"I
realize it's not high tech, but I dialed our house and got the answering machine."
"You're a simplistic genius in a lousy high-tech world," said a relieved Pryce, rushing to the phone next to the computer. He pressed the coded numbers he knew would override satellite traffic and connect him to Langley, Virginia, to the Directorate of Operations, the Company's most sacrosanct of secret projects.
"Yes?" said the neutral voice on the line.
"This is Camshaft, Caribbean, and I have to talk to Deputy Director Frank Shields. This is a Four-Zero priority."
"Director Shields left the grounds hours ago, sir."
"Then patch me through to his home."
"To do that I'll need additional information-" "Try the name Beowulf Agate!" Cam interrupted harshly.
"Who, sir?"
"I thought that was me," broke in Scofield.
"I'm borrowing it, do you mind?"
"I guess not." "Beowulf Agate," repeated Pryce anxiously into the telephone.
Twelve seconds later, the voice of Frank Shields came on the line.
"It's been a long time, Brandon, over twenty years, I'd say."
"This isn't Brandon, it's me. Camshaft and Caribbean got me nowhere with your robot, so I borrowed the name. The owner didn't object."
"You found him?"
"A lot more than that, Frank, but this isn't the time to give you details. I need information fast. Is your Big Guy Eye still working?"
"BGI and its brothers and sisters never stop working, they hum around the clock; it's mostly junk. What do you need?"
"There's been a transmission or transmissions from here to God knows where, either by phone or computer via satellite within the past hour or so. Can you pull up the traffic you've intercepted?"
"Sure, how much material do you want, ten or twenty thousand pages?"
"Funny fellow. I've studied the charts. It or they were sent out from these approximate coordinates: longitude sixty-five degrees west; latitude eighteen degrees, twenty minutes north; the time span between midnight and two A.M."
"I admit that narrows it down considerably. That would be our Mayagiez station in Puerto Rico. What are we looking for?"
"I imagine Beowulf Agate to begin with. Scofield was told they were after him."
"The Matarese?"
"Exactly, according to a well-dressed scum bucket who's no longer befouling the planet."
"You have been busy."
"So have they. They followed in my footsteps-" "How could they? Everything was under wraps!"
"Because one or more of them are on our payroll."
"Oh, my God!"
"No time for supplications. Get to work."
"What's your number?"
"We're on a trawler and the number's been removed. But there's a computer here, screen and all."
"Pull up your equipment line in the confidential mode. I'll have Mayagiez contact you directly if they find something. Or even if they don't. I'll also give them a few more clues to look for."
"Find something, Frank," said Pryce, turning to the computer, touching the keys, and delivering the information Shields needed.
"An entire crew of fine young men were killed by those bastards." Cameron hung up and, breathing hard, leaned back in the chair.
"What do we do now?" asked Antonia.
"We wait, my girl," answered Bray.
"We wait until the sun comes up if we have to. Mayagiez has to filter out a lot of ozone traffic, if they can find anything."
"A two-hour time span with fairly accurate coordinates should reduce the difficulty," said Pryce.
"Even Shields agreed to that."
"Frank may have an impressive new title," Scofield mumbled, interrupting, "but he's still an analyst. He's comfortably in D.C.; you're in the field. In like situations, he's "Doctor Feel-good." Keep the on-scene talent happy."
"You really are a cynic."
"I've lived long enough, and outlived too many others, to be anything else."
"We wait then." The minutes went by, all eyes on the computer screen. Nearly an hour passed until the bright letters appeared.
In origin-com put-scrambler mode. No interception possible. Based on "Beowulf Agate' and additional info from D.C." we've cross-checked and send the following. Two transmissions from estimated coordinates may apply. Both verbatim telephone calls in French: "Expensive hawk arriving at Buenos Aires." Two: "Naval observers cooperative, neutral zone. Islands southwest of British Tortola." End of message. Receiver routing still under relay trace. Euro-Mediterranean stations narrowing down destination.
"My, oh my!" exclaimed the retired Brandon Scofield, "aren't they cute?"
"What do you mean?" asked his wife.
"They learned how to code from cereal box tops," said Bray.
"It's fairly obvious, I'll say that," agreed Cameron.
"What is?" said Antonia.
"
"Expensive hawk arriving at Buenos Aires,"
" replied Scofield.
"Translated, the expensive hawk-the hunter-is our new friend Pryce, spelled with an I. Buenos Aires is B.A." undoubtedly Beowulf Agate and that's me."
"Oh, I see what you mean," said the tall, attractive, and formidable Antonia, staring at the green letters on the black screen.
"And the rest?"
"I'll answer that," said Cameron angrily. "
"Naval observers cooperative' .. . and neutralized. They blew up the Coast Guard cutter.
Goddamn them!"
"The second transmission said "Islands southwest of British Tortola," " swiftly interrupted Scofield, "not a specific island, and outside of the Brasses there are at least another twenty south and southwest of us.
Let's head into our Twenty-six, and I'll use my equipment-we can also have a drink, which is profoundly necessary."
"You don't have a computer," objected Pryce.
"I don't need one, lad. I've got a telephone, one of those Comsat mobile-link jobs. Cost me a hell of a lot of money, but if you've got a friend in Hong Kong, you can get him on the line."
Suddenly, far away in the night sky, came the sound of distant thunder, but not a storm, not the weather. It was something else.
"What the hell is that?" said Cam.
"On deck!" yelled Scofield, grabbing his wife by the hand and pulling her to the short cabin staircase while hammering Pryce's shoulder.
"Get out of here!"
"What .. . why?"
"Because this is probably the tenth sortie, you idiot!" shouted the retired agent.
"They're searching for us. They see this boat, we're finished! Move, both of you. And over the side!"
All three did so, furiously swimming away from the hull as a jet fighter swooped down, dropping two bombs on the trawler, blowing it to the dark sky from which the deadly marauder emerged. It sank within moments.
"Toni, Toni, where are you?" screamed Scofield in the turbulent waters.
"Over here, my darling!" yelled Antonia, farther out in the water.
"Pryce? .. . Are you here, are you alive, Pryce?"
"You're damned right I am!" replied Cameron.
"And I intend to stay that way!"
"Swim to our island," ordered Scofield.
"We have to talk."
"What's there to talk about?" asked Pryce, toweling himself off on the porch of the dark cabin.
"They've ruined the life I've come to love, young man. They've taken away our happiness, our freedom."
"I can't do anything about that," said Cam as both naked men dried themselves off.
"I told you, I did my best to conceal your whereabouts."
"Your best wasn't good enough, was it?"
"Get out of my face. By your own admission, you weren't so damned hard to find."
"For you, no, but I was for them. With an exception I never figured on, but I should have. After all these years, they still have a mole in the Agency. A high-placed son of a bitch. Did you have any idea?"