“No.”

He pleaded with me. “On the top of the cliff then.”

“No.”

“God dammit, my men aren’t going to show themselves, you know that!”

“To Loveless? To an animal from the bush? He’ll smell them if they get within a hundred miles of him.”

“No he won’t, he’s cooped up in a cave a hundred feet below the road. If I’m to take all your goddamn likelihoods for truths.”

“And there’ll be a man on the beach, or at the top, just where you want to put your man, with a walkie-talkie, in contact with his commanding officer. We’ve got one of his men, but he’s still got Van Reck, remember? And that’s all he needs. He’ll have Van Beck posted outside the cave to keep watch, he’s bound to. He’ll see me go in, but I’m damned if want him to see anything else.”

“And Loveless will be waiting with a shotgun blast.”

“No. He’ll have to find out what I’m up to. He’ll have to.”

He was about to argue some more, but he gave up. The Maître came over and whispered in his ear, and Fenrek excused himself. I wondered if he had a couple of cards up his sleeve too, but I merely looked at him.

He said briefly: “The telephone.”

“Do me a favor while you’re on your feet. Check the wind for me, will you? It should be dying down about now.”

He nodded and was gone.

Astrid said quietly: “If he really is down there, he’ll never let you get away alive. He tried to kill us once, remember? Both of us.”

“I remember. And he’ll probably try again. But it’s the third time that’s always lucky, not the second.”

Estrilla said somberly: “I hope you know what you’re doing, Mr. Cain. I hope you’ve got a way picked out, a way to get out of there when the time comes.”

I said glumly: “I haven’t, as a matter of fact. But there’s not really an alternative, is there?”

And there wasn’t. I’d have to play it off the cuff again, but that’s not as messy a business as some people think. If you keep your wits about you, you’d be surprised at the unexpected advantages which are liable to show themselves. And if your plan’s too tight, you can’t make those advantages pay off, because they’re not part of the pre-arranged pattern.

Astrid looked at me unhappily and said: “He’ll put you down among the lobsters again, and this time I won’t be there to get you out.”

Fenrek hurried back to the table, livid with suppressed fury. He said grimly: “Two more deaths at Loveless’ door, Cain!” When I said nothing, he exploded: “Histermann. He’s escaped. Two men guarding him, and he killed both of them. God damn their eyes, I told them...”

I looked at my watch. “What time was this?”

“Two hours ago. They’ve been trying to get me ever since, but the line was down with that damned wind. One of the guards unlocked the cell door to give him his evening meal, and both the men in the cell with him were stretched out on the floor with their necks broken. He says Histermann moved out past him like a bolt of greased lightning, and no one was able to stop him. He got clear away.”

“And they’re following him?”

“There’s a dragnet out.”

“Call it off.”

He rubbed a tired hand over his narrow, aristocratic face. “And we’re sitting here, listening to a fado...All right, I’ll see they don’t track him down to the Bocca, if that’s what you want. Not that they’re very likely to.” He hesitated. “I suppose that’s where he’ll head for?”

“Of course. Even when he thought he was all set for a very painful death, didn’t you notice? He was straining not to tell us exactly where the boat was hidden. Just the glimmer of hope that he might not be dying after all. They die hard, those men, and they never know they’re dead until they’re buried. Even then, I suspect, they are never really sure.”

Fenrek said again impatiently: “For God’s sake, I told them he’d try and make a break for it! I told them he was more trouble than they thought, and still...”

I said gently: “Hardly your fault, Fenrek. Two men in the cell with him, that’s more than reasonable precaution. How was the wind?”

“Huh?”

“The wind?”

Even under the stress of the moment, he’d remembered to check. He said: “Dying down and veering to the west now.”

I got up to go. I tossed Estrilla the keys to the little bug and said: “This is where we trade cars again. Hope you enjoyed the Jensen.”

She gave me my keys. I finished my drink and looked at Astrid. Her face was terribly lined and worried. I said: “It’s all right, Astrid, I’ll be back.” I turned to Fenrek and said: “I’ll be back by daylight.”

“And if you’re not?”

It was hard to tell him. But there was so much that could go wrong. I said slowly:

“If I’m not...it’s no good waiting for that whaler to come out of there tomorrow night. He’ll have the toxin on him, and God knows it it will be properly protected. So, if you sink his boat...you might have a major contamination on your hands, a seaborne infection that’ll spread along the coast until...For God’s sake, I don’t even want to think about it.”

“So?”

“There’s only one thing to be done. If I’m not out of there by daylight, get the Navy to lob a couple of shells into the Bocca. Like that we’ll know it’s buried a hundred feet underground, the only safe place for it.”

“And you, Cain?”

I said: “If I’m not back on time, I’ll be quite past caring. I’ll see you.”

I went out into the cool, still night and listened for the roar of the Bocca. It was gone now. There was only silence, and that was all to the good.

CHAPTER 10

I drove down and parked near the Bocca; no attempt this time to hide the car; I wanted it to be seen.

I purposely parked below the skyline so that I would have to cross it on my way to the cave’s entrance; a large sized man looms larger in the darkness, and I didn’t want to be mistaken for a casual passerby. Not that there was much chance of that; anyone with any sense leaves the treacherous Bocca alone at night. I vaulted over the fence, hummed quietly to myself, and kept my ears peeled for any suspicious sound, like the slight click of a safety catch going off; I heard nothing. I didn’t expect to, really.

Now the wind had swung round, and the whole character of the Bocca had changed. A matter of a few degrees was all that it needed to send those heavy seas funneling into the caves in Wagnerian fury; but now, it was a calm and silent place, as though the sea gods’ had exhausted themselves and were resting, waiting for the next time.

I climbed over the precautionary rail, took hold of the iron ladder that had given me such a bad time a while back, and went down quickly to the cavern at the bottom. It was strangely quiet there after the tempestuous fury of the last time. The gate at the bottom was unlocked; so he hadn’t had time to close it, even if he wanted to.

I switched on the big flashlight I’d taken from the Jensen, and went inside. The water was lower and quieter here, and the long and winding tunnel that led to the underground lake was easier of access, brightly lit now by the powerful beam of the light. It took me less than four minutes, walking quickly, to find the whaler. As I’d expected, he’d begun to strip the carburetor down; just the first step in the fault-finding process that would have gotten him nowhere anyway. I looked at it and sort of snorted loudly, and then there was a sudden bright light behind me, the beam of a very powerful searchlight, something like five hundred thousand candlepower, a quartz-iodine flood that turned the darkness of the cavern into brilliant day.

He said, quite quietly, very much in control and not even sounding worried: “Stand absolutely still, not a move of any sort, don’t even put your hands up.”

I froze correctly.