"What lady?"

"At the hotel, one of the guests, she came in on this morning's plane. She knew your name and everything. She wants to see you. I told her I would see you tonight and give you the message."

"What is she like?" I asked Marion with interest. "She's beautiful, Mister Harry. Such a lady too."

"Sounds like my type," I agreed], and ordered a pint for Marion.

"Aren't you going to see her now? " With you beside me, Marion, all the beautiful ladies of the world can wait until tomorrow."

"Oh, Mister Harry, you are a real devil man," she giggled, and snuggled a little closer.

"Harry," said Chubby on my other side, "I'm going to tell you now what I never told you before." He took a long swallow from his tankard, then went on with sentimental tears swimming in his eyes. "Harry, I love you, man. I love you better than my own brother."

I went up to the Hilton a few minutes before midday. Marion came through from her cubicle behind the reception desk. She still had her earphones around her neck.

"She's waiting for you on the terrace." She pointed across the vast reception area with its emaz Hawaiian decor. "The blonde lady in the yellow bikini."

She was reading a magazine, lying on her belly on one of the reclining sun couches, and she had her back to me so my first impression was of ma.s.ses of blonde hair, thick and shiny, teased up like the mane of a lion, then falling in a slick golden cascade.

She heard my footsteps on the paving. She glanced around, pushed her sungla.s.ses up on top of her head, then she stood up to face me, and I realized that she was tiny, seeming to reach not much higher than my chest. The bikini also was tiny and showed a flat smooth belly with a deep navel, firm shoulders lightly tanned, small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and a trim waist. Her legs had lovely lines and her neat little feet were thrust into open sandals, the nails painted clear red to match her long fingernails. Her hands as she pushed at her hair were small and shapely.

She wore heavy make-up, but wore it with rare skill, so that her skin had a soft pearly l.u.s.tre and colour glowed subtly on her cheeks and lips. Her eyes had long dark artificial lashes, and the eyelids were touched with colour and line to give them an exotic oriental cast.

"Duck, Harry!" Something deep inside me shouted a warning, and I almost obeyed. I knew this type well, there had been others like her - small and purringly feline - I had scars to prove it, scars both physical and spiritual. However, one thing n.o.body can say about old Harry is that he runs for cover when the knickers are down.

Courageously I stepped forward, crinkling my eyes and twisting my mouth into the naughty small boy grin that usually dynamites them.

"h.e.l.lo I said, "I'm Harry Fletcher."

She looked at me, starting at my feet and going up six feet four to the top where her gaze lingered speculatively and she pouted her lower lip.

"h.e.l.lo," she answered, her voice was husky, breathlesssounding - and carefully rehea.r.s.ed. "I'm Sherry North, Jimmy North's sister."

We were on the veranda of the shack in the evening. It was cool and the Wspectacular sunset was a display of pyrotechnics that flamed and faded above the palms.

She was drinking a Pimms No. I filled with fruit and ice one of my seduction specials - and she wore a kaftan of light floating stuff through which her body showed in shadowy outline as she stood against the rail backlit by the sunset. I could not be certain as to whether or not she wore anything beneath the kaftan - this and the tinkle of ice in her gla.s.s distracted me from the letter I was reading. She had showed it to me as part of her credentials. It was a letter from Jimmy North written a few days before his death. I recognized the handwriting and the turn of phrase was typical of that bright and eager lad. As I read on, I forgot the sister's presence in the memory of the past. It was a long bubbling letter, written as though to a loving friend, with veiled references to the mission and its successful outcome, the promise of a future in which there would be wealth and laughter and all good things.

I felt a pang of regret and personal loss for the boy in his lonely sea grave, for the lost dreams that, drifted with him like rotting seaweed.

Then suddenly my own name leapt from that page at me, " - you can't help liking him, Sherry. He's big and tough-looking, all scarred and beat up like an old tom cat that's been out alley-fighting every night. But under it, I swear he is really a softy. He seems to have taken a shine to me. Even gives me fatherly advice!-" There was more in the same vein that embarra.s.sed me so that my throat closed up and I took a swallow of whisky, which made my eyes water and the words swim, while I finished the letter and refolded it.

I handed it to Sherry, and walked away to the end of the veranda.

I stood there for a while looking out over the bay.

The sun slid below the horizon and suddenly it was dark and chill.

I went back and lit the lamp, setting it up high so the glare did not fall in our eyes. She watched me in silence until I had poured another Scotch and settled in my cane, backed chair.

"Okay," I said, "you're" Jimmy's sister. You've come to St. Mary's to see me. Why?"

"You liked him, didn't you?" she asked, as she left the rail and came to sit beside me.

"I like a lot of people. It's a weakness of mine." "Did he die - I mean, was it like they said in the newspapers?" "Yes" I said. "It was like that."

"Did he ever tell you what they were doing out here?"

I shook my head. "They were very cagey - and I don't ask questions."

She was silent then, dipping long tapered fingers into her gla.s.s to pick out a slice of pineapple, nibbling at the fruit with small white teeth, dabbing at her lips with a pink pointed tongue like that of a cat.

"Because Jimmy liked and trusted you, and because I think you know more than you've told anyone, also because I need your help, I am going to tell you a story - okay?"

"I love stories," I said.

"Have you heard of the "pogo, stick'T she asked. ,, it's a child's toy."

"It's also the code name for an American naval experimental vertical take-off all-weather strike aircraft."

"Oh yes, I remember, I saw an article in Time Magazine. Questions in the Senate. I forget the details."

"There was opposition to the fifty million development allocation."

"Yes, I remember."

"Two years ago, on the 16th August to be precise, a prototype "pogo stick" took off from Rawano airforce base in the Indian Ocean. it was armed with four air-to-surface "killer whale" missiles, each of them equipped with tactical nuclear warheads----"

"That must have been a fairly lethal package."

She nodded. "The "killer whale" is designed as an entirely new concept in missiles. It is an anti-submarine device which will seek and track surfaced or submerged naval craft. It can kill an aircraft carrier or it can change its element air for water - and go down a thousand fathoms to destroy enemy submarines." wow I said, and took a little more whisky. We were talking heady stuff now.

"Do you recall the 16th August that year - were you here?"

"I was here, but that's a long time ago. Refresh my memory."

"Cyclone Cynthia,"she said.

"G.o.d, of course." It had come roaring across the island, winds of 150 miles an hour, taking away the roof of the shack and almost swamping Dancer at her moorings in Grand Harbour. These cyclones were not uncommon in this area.

"The "Pogo stick!" took off from Rawano a few minutes before the typhoon struck. Twelve minutes later the pilot ejected and the aircraft went into the sea with her four nuclear missiles and her flight recorder still aboard. Rawano radar was blanked out by the typhoon. They were not tracking."

it was starting to make some sort of sense at last. "How does Jimmy fit into this?"

She made an impatient gesture. "Wait," she said, then went on.

"Do you have any idea what the value of that cargo might be in the open market?"

"I should imagine you could write your own cheque give or take a couple of million dollars." And old bad Harry came to attention, he had been getting exercise lately and growing stronger. Sherry nodded. 'The test pilot of the "pogo stick" was a Commander in the US Navy named William Bryce. The aircraft developed a fault at fifty thousand feet, just before he came out through the top of the weather. He fought her all the way down, he was a conscientious officer, but at five hundred feet he knew he wasn't going to make it. He ejected and watched the aircraft go in.".

She was speaking carefully, and her choice of words was odd, too technical for a woman. She had learned all this, I was certain - from Jimmy? Or from somebody else?

Listen and learn, Harry, I told myself.

"Billy Bryce was three days on a rubber raft on the ocean in a typhoon before the rescue helicopter from Rawano found him. He had time to do some thinking. One of the things he thought about was the value of that cargo - and he compared it to the salary of a Commander. His evidence at the court of inquiry omitted the fact that the "pogo sticd" had gone down within sight of land, and that Bryce had been able to take a fix on a recognizable land feature before he was blown out to sea by the typhoon."

I could not see any weakness in her story - it looked all right - and very interesting.

"The court of inquiry gave a verdict of "pilot error" and Bryce resigned his commission. His career was destroyed by that verdict. He decided to earn his own retirement annuity and also to clear his reputation. He was going to force the US Navy to buy back its "killer whale" missiles and to accept the evidence of the flight recorder."

I was going to ask a question, but again Sherry stopped me with a gesture. She did not want her recital interrupted. "Jimmy had done some work for the US Navy - a hull inspection of one of their carriers - and he had met Bryce at that time. They had become friends, and so Billy Bryce naturally came to Jimmy. Between them they had not sufficient capital for the expedition they needed to mount, so they had to find financial backers. It isn't the kind of thing you can advertise in The Tftm, and they were working on it when Billy Bryce was killed in his Thunderbird on the M4 near the Heathrow turn-off."

"There seems to be some sort of curse on this thing," I said.

"Are you superst.i.tious, Harry?" she asked, looking at me through those slanted tiger eyes.

"I don't knock it," I admitted, and she nodded, seeming to file the information away before she went on.

"After Billy was dead, Jimmy went on with the project. He found backers. He wouldn't tell me who, but I guessed they were unsavoury. He came out here with them - and you know the rest."

"I know the rest," I agreed, and instinctively ma.s.saged the thickened scar tissue through the silk of my shirt. "Except of course the site of the crash."

We stared at each other.

"Did he tell you?" I asked, and she shook her head.

"Well, it was an interesting story." I grinned at her. "It's a pity we can't check out the truth of it."

She stood up abruptly and went to the veranda rail. She hugged her arms and she was so angry that if she'd had a tail she would have switched it like a lioness.

I waited for her to recover, and the moment came when she shrugged her shoulders and turned back to me. Her smile was light.

"well, that's that! I thought I was ent.i.tled to some of the rewards. Jimmy was my brother - and I came a long way to find you because he liked and trusted you- I thought we could work together - but I guess if you want it all, there's not much I can do about it."

She shook out her hair, and it rippled and shone in the lamplight. I stood up.

"I'll take you home now," I said, and touched her arm. She reached up with both arms, and her fingers locked in the thick curly hair at the back of my neck.

"It's a long way home," she whispered, and pulled my head down, standing on her tiptoes.

Her lips were very soft and moist, and her tongue was thrusting and restless. After a while she drew back and smiled up at me, her eyes were unfocused and her breath was short and fast.

"Perhaps it wasn't a wasted journey, after all?"

I picked her up, and she was light as a child, hugging my neck, pressing her cheek to mine as I carried her into the shack. I learned long ago to eat hearty whenever there was food, because you never know when the famine is going to hit.

Even the soft light of dawn was cruel to her as she lay sprawled in sleep beneath the mosquito net on the big double bed. Her make-up had smeared and caked, and she slept with her mouth open. The mane of blonde hair was a tangled bush and it did not match the triangle of thick dark curls at the base of her belly. I felt repelled by her this morning, for I had learned during the night that Miss. Sherry was a raving s.a.d.i.s.t.

I slipped out of the bed and stood over her a few moments, searching her sleeping face in vain for a resemblance to Jimmy North. I left her, and, still naked, walked out of the shack and down to the beach.

The tide was in and I plunged into the cool clear water and swam out to the entrance to the bay. I swam fast, driving hard in an Australian crawl, and the salt water stung the deep scratches in my back.

It was one of my lucky mornings, old friends were waiting for me beyond the reef, a school of big bottle-nosed porpoise, who came flashing to meet me, their tall fins cutting the dark surface as they steeplechased over the swells. They circled me, whistling and snorting, the blow, holes in the tops of their heads gulping like tiny mouths and their own huge mouths fixed in idiotic grim of pleasure.

They teased me for ten minutes before one of the big old bulls allowed me to get a grip on his dorsal fin and gave me a tow. It was a thrilling sleigh ride that had the water creaming wildly about my chest and head. He took me half a mile offsh.o.r.e before the force of water tore me from his back.

It was a long swim back, with the bull dolphin circling me and giving me an occasional friendly prod in the backside, inviting me aboard for another ride. At the reef they whistled farewell and slid gracefully away, and I was happy when I waded ash.o.r.e. The arm ached a little, but it was the healthy ache of healing and growing strength.

The bed was empty, and the bathroom door was locked. She was probably shaving her armpits with my razor, I thought. I felt a flare of annoyance, an, old dog like me doesn't like his routine disturbed. I used the guest shower to sluice off the salt and my annoyance receded under the rush of hot water. Then fresh but unshaven and hungry as a python, I went through to the kitchen. I was frying gammon with pineapple and. b.u.t.tering thick cuts of toast when Sherry came into the kitchen.

She was once more immaculate. She must have carried a complete cosmetic counter in the Gucci handbag, and her hair was dressed and lacquered into its mane and fall.

Her smile was brilliant. "Good morning, lover," she said and came to kiss me lingenngly. I was now well disposed towards the world and all its creatures. I no longer felt repelled by this glittering woman. The fine mood of the dolphins had -returned and my gaiety must have been infectious. We laughed a lot over the meal and afterwards I took the coffee pot out on to the veranda.

"When are we going to find the pogo stick?" she asked suddenly, and I poured another mug of strong black coffee without answering. Sherry North had evidently decided that a night of her company had made me her slave for life. Now I may not be a connoisseur of women, but on the other hand I have had some little experience - I mean I'm not exactly a virgin - and I didn't rate Sherry North's charms as worth four killer whale missiles and the flight recorder of a secret strike aircraft.

"Just as soon as you show me the way," I answered carefully. It is an old-fashioned feminine conceit that if a man pleasures them with skill and aplomb, then he must be made to pay for it. I have long believed that it should be the other way around.

She reached across and held my wrist, the tiger's eyes were suddenly big and soulful.

"After last night," she whispered huskily, "I know that there is a lot ahead of us, Harry. You and I, together!

I had lain awake for hours during the night and reached my decision. Whatever lay in the package was not an entire aircraft, but probably some small part of it - something that identified it clearly. It was almost certainly not either the flight recorder or one of the missiles. Jimmy North would not have had sufficient time -to remove the recorder from the fuselage, even if he had known where it was situated and had the proper tools. On the other hand the package was the wrong shape and size for a missile, it was a squat round object, not aerodynamically designed.

It was almost certainly some fairly innocuous object. If I took Sherry North with me to recover it, I would be playing only a minor card from my hand - although it would look like a major trump.

I would be giving nothing away, not the site of the crash at Gunfire Reef, nor any of the valuable objects a.s.sociated with it.

On the other hand, I would be beating the tall gra.s.s for tigers.

It would be very instructive to see exactly how Mademoiselle North reacted, once she thought she knew the site of the crash.

"Harry," she whispered again. "Please," and she leaned closer.

"You must believe me. I have never felt like this before. From the first moment I saw you - I just knew-" I roused myself from my calculations and leaned towards her, a.s.suming an expression of simple-minded pa.s.sion and l.u.s.t.

"Darling, I began but my voice choked up, and I enfolded her in a bear hug, feeling her stiffen irritably as I smeared her lipstick and ruffled the meticulously dressed hairstyle. I could sense the effort it required for her to respond with equal pa.s.sion.

"Do you feel the same way?" she asked from the depths of my embrace, smothered against my chest, and for the fun of watching her play the role she had a.s.signed herself, I picked her up again and carried her through to the frowsy rumpled bed.

"I will show you how I feel for you," I muttered hoa.r.s.ely.

"Darling," she protested desperately, "not now."

"Why not? "We have so much to do. There will be time later - all the time in the world! With a show of reluctance I set her down, although truthfully I was thankful for I knew that on top of a huge breakfast of gammon and three cups of coffee, it would have given me heartburn.

It was a few minutes after noon when I cleared Grand Harbour, and swung away south and east. I had told my crew to take a day ash.o.r.e, I would not be fishing.

Chubby looked down at Sherry North, sprawled bikiniclad on the c.o.c.kpit deck, and scowled noncommittally, but Angelo rotted his eyes expressively and asked, "Pleasure cruise?" with a certain inflection.