Fear is the Key (29 page)

‘Maybe I will, maybe I won't.' My voice, for all
its rasping hoarseness, had just the right shade of
indifference. ‘I've said I'd rather stay down here,
I mean I'd rather stay down here. It all depends.
Come here, Vyland.'

He rose trembling to his feet and crossed to
where I was standing. His legs, his whole body
were shaking so violently that he could barely
support himself. I caught him by the lapels with
my good hand and pulled him close.

‘There's maybe five minutes' air left; Vyland.
Perhaps less. Just tell me, and tell me quickly, the
part you played in this business up until the time
you met the general. Hurry it up!'

‘Get us out of here,' he moaned. ‘There's no
air, no air! My lungs are going, I can't – I can't
breathe.' He was hardly exaggerating at that, the
foul air was rasping in and out his throat with
the frequency of a normal heartbeat. ‘I can't talk.
‘I can't!'

‘Talk, damn you, talk!' Royale had him round
the throat from behind, was shaking him to and
fro till Vyland's head bounced backwards and forwards
like that of a broken doll. ‘Talk! Do you want
to die, Vyland? Do you think I want to die because
of you? Talk!'

Vyland talked. In less than three gasping, coughing,
choking minutes he'd told me all I ever wanted
to know – how he had struck a deal with a
Cuban service minister and had a plane standing
by for weeks, how he had suborned the officer
in charge of a radar tracking station in Western
Cuba, how he suborned a very senior civil servant
in Colombia, how the plane had been tracked,
intercepted and shot down and how he had had
Royale dispose of those who had served his purposes.
He started to talk of the general, but I held
up my hand.

‘OK, that'll do, Vyland. Get back to your seat.' I
reached for the carbon dioxide switch and turned
it up to maximum.

‘What's that you're doing?' Vyland whispered.

‘Bringing a little fresh air into the place. Getting
rather stuffy down here, don't you think?'

They stared at each other, then at me, but
remained silent. Fury I would have expected,
chagrin and violence, but there was nothing of any
of those. Fear was still the single predominating
emotion in their minds: and they knew that they
were still completely at my mercy.

‘Who – who are you, Talbot?' Vyland croaked.

‘I suppose you might call me a cop.' I sat down
on a canvas chair, I didn't want to start the delicate
job of taking the bathyscaphe up till the air – and
my mind – was completely clear. ‘I used to be a
bona fide salvage man, working with my brother.
The man – or what's left of the man – out there in
the captain's seat, Vyland. We were a good team,
we struck gold off the Tunisian coast and used
the capital to start our own airline – we were
both wartime bomber pilots, we both had civilian
licences. We were doing very well, Vyland – until
we met you.

‘After you'd done this' – I jerked a thumb in
the direction of the broken, weed-and barnacle-
encrusted plane – ‘I went back to London. I was
arrested, they thought I'd something to do with
this. It didn't take long to clear that up and have
Lloyd's of London – who'd lost the whole insurance
packet – take me over as a special investigator.
They were willing to spend an unlimited sum
to get even a percentage of their money back.
And because state money was involved both the
British and American governments were behind
me. Solidly behind me. Nobody ever had a better
backing, the Americans even went to the length
of assigning a top-flight cop whole-time to the job.
The cop was Jablonsky,'

That jolted them, badly. They had lost sufficient
of their immediate terror of death, they had
come far enough back into the world of reality
to appreciate what I was saying, and what
that meant. They stared at each other, then at
me; I couldn't have asked for a more attentive
audience.

‘That was a mistake, wasn't it, gentlemen?' I
went on. ‘Shooting Jablonsky. That's enough to
send you both to the chair; judges don't like people
who murder cops. It may not be complete justice,
but it's true. Murder an ordinary citizen and you
may get off with it: murder a cop, and you never
do. Not that that matters. We know enough to send
you to the chair six times over.'

I told them how Jablonsky and I had spent
well over a year, mostly in Cuba, looking for
traces of the bullion, how we had come to the
conclusion that it still hadn't been recovered – not
one of the cut emeralds had appeared anywhere in
the world's markets. Interpol would have known
in days.

‘And we were pretty certain,' I continued, ‘
why
the money hadn't been recovered. Why? Only one
reason – it had been lost in the sea and someone
had been a mite hasty in killing off the only person
who knew exactly where it was – the pilot of the
fighter plane.

‘Our inquiries had narrowed down to the west
coast of Florida. Somebody was looking for money
sunk in the water. For that they needed a ship. The
general's
Temptress
did just fine. But for that you
also needed an extremely sensitive depth recorder,
and there is where you made your one and fatal
mistake, Vyland. We had requested every major
marine equipment supplier in Europe and North
America to notify us immediately they sold any
special depth-finding equipment to any vessels
other than naval, mercantile or fishing. You are
following me, I trust?'

They were following me all right. They were
three parts back to normal now and there was
murder in their eyes.

‘In the four-month period concerned no fewer
than six of those ultra-sensitive recorders had been
sold privately. All to owners of very large yachts.
Two of those yachts were on a round-the-world
cruise. One was in Rio, one was in Long Island
Sound, one on the Pacific coast – and the sixth
was plodding up and down the west of Florida.
General Blair Ruthven's
Temptress
.

‘It was brilliant. I admit it. What better cover
could you ever have had for quartering every
square yard of sea off the Florida Coast without
arousing suspicion? While the general's geologists
were busy setting off their little bombs and making
seismological maps of the under-sea rock strata,
you were busy mapping every tiniest contour of
the ocean floor with the depth recorder. It took you
almost six weeks, because you started operating
too far to the north – we were watching your every
move even then and had fitted out a special boat
for night prowling – that was the boat I came out
on early this morning. Well, you found the plane.
You even spent three nights dragging for it with
grapples but all you could drag up was a small
section of the left wing-tip.' I gestured through the
window. ‘You can see how comparatively recent
that break is.'

‘How do you know all this?' Vyland whispered.

‘Because I had secured a job as a replacement
engineer aboard the
Temptress
.' I ignored the startled
oath, the involuntary clenching of Vyland's
hands. ‘You and the general thought you had
seen me aboard that Havana salvage vessel, but
you hadn't, though I had been with the firm. I
was five weeks on the
Temptress
and it wasn't till
I left that I dyed my hair this hellish colour, had
a plastic surgeon fix up this scar and affected a
limp. Even so, you weren't very observant, were
you, Vyland? You should have cottoned on.

‘So there you were. You knew where the treasure
was, but you couldn't get your hands on it –
anyone who started using diving bells and all the
complicated recovery gear necessary for a job like
this would have been putting a noose round his
own neck. But then someone had another brilliant
idea – this one, I'd wager anything, came from the
mind of our deceased engineer friend, Bryson.
He'd read all about those bathyscaphe trials that
were being carried out in the West Indies and
came up with the idea of using it in conjunction
with this rig.'

The air was almost back to normal inside the
observation chamber and though the atmosphere
was still stuffy and far too warm for comfort there
was plenty of oxygen in the air and breathing was
no longer any problem. Royale and Vyland were
getting their meanness and courage back with the
passing of every moment.

‘So, you see, everyone was having brilliant
ideas,' I continued. ‘But the real beauty, the one
that's brought you two to the end of the road, was
Jablonsky's. It was Jablonsky who thought that it
would be real kind and helpful of us if we could
provide a bathyscaphe for you to do the job.'

Vyland swore, softly and vilely, looked slowly at
Royale then back to me. ‘You mean –?' he began.

‘It was all laid on,' I said tiredly. I was taking
no pleasure in any of this. ‘The French and British
Navies were carrying out tests with it in the Gulf
of Lions, but they readily agreed to continue those
tests out here. We made sure that it got terrific
publicity, we made sure that its advantages were
pointed out time and time again, that not even
the biggest moron could fail to understand how
good it was for stealthy underwater salvage and
recovery of buried treasure. We knew it would be
a matter of time before the
Temptress
turned up,
and she did. So we left it in a nice lonely place.
But before we left it I jinxed it so thoroughly that
no one apart from the electrician who'd wired
it in the first place and myself could ever have
got it going again. You had to have someone to
unjinx it, didn't you, Vyland? Wasn't it a fortunate
coincidence that I happened to turn up at the right
time? Incidentally, I wonder what our friends the
field foreman and petroleum engineer are going to
say when they find that they've spent the better
part of three months drilling a couple of miles away
from where the geologists told them to: I suppose
it was you and Bryson who altered the reference
navigation marks on the charts to bring you within
shouting distance of the treasure and miles away
from where the oil strata lie. At the present rate
they'll end up with the pipe in the Indian Ocean
and still no oil.'

‘You're not going to get off with this,' Vyland
said savagely. ‘By God, you're not –'

‘Shut up!' I interrupted contemptuously. ‘Shut
up or I'll turn a knob here, pull a switch there and
have the two of you grovelling on your hands and
knees and begging for your lives as you were doing
not five minutes ago.'

They could have killed me there and then, they
could have watched me die in screaming agony
and the tears of joy would have rolled down their
cheeks. Nobody had ever talked like this to them
before, and they had just no idea what to say,
what to do about it: for their lives were still in
my hands. Then, after a long moment, Vyland
leaned back in his stool and smiled. His mind was
working again.

‘I suppose, Talbot, that you were entertaining
some idea of turning us over to the authorities.
Is that it?' He waited for a reply, but when none
came he went on: ‘If you were, I'd change my mind
about it. For such a clever cop, Talbot, you've been
very blind in one spot. I'm sure you wouldn't want
to be responsible for the deaths of two innocent
people, would you now, Talbot?'

‘What are you talking about?' I asked slowly.

‘I'm talking about the general.' Vyland flicked a
glance at Royale, a glance for the first time empty
of fear, a look of triumph. ‘General Blair Ruthven.
The general, his wife, and his younger daughter.
Do you know what I'm talking about, Talbot?'

‘What's the general's wife got to do –?'

‘My God! And for a moment I thought you
had us!' The relief in Vyland's face was almost
tangible quality. ‘You fool, Talbot. You blind fool!
The general – did it never occur to you to think
how we got him to come in with us? Did it never
occur to you to wonder
why
a man like that would
let us use his yacht, his rig and anything else we
wanted to? Didn't it, Talbot? Didn't it?'

‘Well, I thought –'

‘You thought!' he sneered. ‘You poor fool, old
Ruthven had to help us whether he wanted to or
not. He helped us because he knew the lives of his
wife and young daughter depended on us.'

‘His wife and young daughter? But – but they've
had a legal separation, haven't they – the general
and his wife, I mean. I read all about it –'

‘Sure. Sure you read all about it.' Vyland, his
terror forgotten, was almost jovial now. ‘So did
a hundred million others. The general made good
and sure that the story got around. It would have
been just too bad if the story hadn't got around.
They're hostages, Talbot. We've got them in a place
of safety where they'll stay till we're finished here.
Or else.'

‘You – you kidnapped them?'

‘At last the penny drops,' Vyland sneered. ‘Sure
we kidnapped them.'

‘You and Royale?'

‘Me and Royale.'

‘You admit it? A federal and capital offence –
kidnapping – you freely and openly admit it. Is
that it?'

‘That's it. Why shouldn't we admit it?' Vyland
blustered. But he had become suddenly uneasy.
‘So you'd better forget about the cops and any ideas
you have about delivering us to them. Besides,
how do you think you're going to get us up the
caisson and off the rig without being chopped into
little pieces? I reckon you're mad, Talbot.'

‘The general's wife and daughter,' I mused, as if I
hadn't heard him. ‘It wasn't a bad idea. You'd have
let them go in the end, you couldn't afford not to,
it would have been the Lindbergh case ten times
over had you tried anything. On the other hand
you knew the general wouldn't start anything
afterwards: it would only be his word against
yours, and up your sleeve you always carried the
trump card – Royale. As long as Royale walked the
face of America the general would never speak.
This whole operation probably cost him a cool
million – for the general a bagatelle compared to
the value of wife and children. A sweet set-up.'