When she came back, Melinda said to her: **Do you really think you could marry a man who kills people?"

Marina shivered and said nothing. Roomer said sardonically: "Better than marrying a coward, I'd say."

In the generator room, Mitch.e.l.l found what he wanted right away-a circuit breaker marked "Deck Lights." He pulled the lever and stepped 219.

out onto the now darkened platform. He waited a. half minute until his eyes adjusted themselves to the darkness, then moved in the direction of the derrick crane where he could hear two men cursing in far from muted voices. He approached on soundless stockinged feet until he was less than two yards away. Still soundlessly, he held his pencil flash on top of the barrel of the Smith & Wesson and slid forward the flash switch.

The two men swung round in remarkably swift unison, hands reaching for their guns.

Mitch.e.l.l said: "You know what this is, don't you?"

They knew. The deep-bluish sheen of a silencer-equipped .38 is not readily mistakable for a popgun. Their hands stopped reaching for their guns. It was, to say the least, rather unnerving to see an illuminated silenced gun and nothing but blackness beyond it.

"Clasp your hands behind your necks, turn round and start walking."

They walked until they could walk no more, for the good reason that they had reached the end of the platform. Beyond that lay nothing but the 200-foot drop to the Gulf of Mexico.

Mitch.e.l.l said: "Keep your hands clasped and turn round."

They did so. "You're Kowenski and Rindler?"

There was no reply.

"You're the two who gunned down Melinda and Mr. Roomer?"

220.

Again there was no reply. Vocal cords can become paralyzed when the mind is possessed of the irrevocable certainty that one is but one step, one second, removed from eternity. Mitch.e.l.l squeezed the trigger twice and was walking away before the dead men had hit the waters of the Gulf. He had taken only four steps when a flashlight beam struck him in the face.

"Well, well, if it isn't smart-a.s.s Mitch.e.l.l, the scared scientist." Mitch.e.l.l couldn't see the man- and the gun undoubtedly behind the flashlight- but he had no difficulty in recognizing the voice of Heifer, the one with the sharp nose and ratlike teeth. "And carrying a silenced gun. Whatcha up to, Mr. Mitch.e.l.l?"

Heffer had made the cla.s.sic blunder of all incompetent would-be a.s.sa.s.sins. He should have shot Mitch.e.l.l on sight and then asked the questions. Mitch.e.l.l flicked on his pencil torch and spun it upward, where it spiraled around like a demented firefly. Heifer would have been less than human not to have had the instinctive reaction of glancing upward as his subconscious mind speculated as to what the h.e.l.l Mitch.e.l.l was up to: a speculation of very brief duration indeed, because Heifer was dead before the flash fell back onto the platform.

Mitch.e.l.l picked up the flash, still surprisingly working, pocketed it, then dragged Heffer by the heels and rolled him off to join his friends at the bottom of the Gulf. He returned to the sick-bay 221.

Allstair MacCean vestibule, donned his shoes and entered the sick bay itself. Dr. Greenshaw had both his patients on blood transfusion.

Roomer looked at his watch. "Six minutes. What took you so long?"

A plainly unnerved Marina looked at Roomer, half in disbelief, half in stupefaction.

"Well, I'm sorry." Mitch.e.l.l actually managed to sound apologetic. "I had the misfortune to run into Heifer on the way back."

"You mean he had the misfortune to run into you. And where are our friends?'*

"I'm not rightly sure,"

"I understand." Roomer sounded sympathetic. "It's hard to estimate the depth of the water out here."

"I could find out. But it hardly seems to matter. Dr. Greenshaw, you have stretchers? Complete with straps and so forth?" Greenshaw nodded. "Get them ready. Let them stay where they are meantime. Can you carry on the blood transfusions in flight?"

"That's no problem. I a.s.sume you want me to accompany them?"

"Yes, please. I know it's asking an awful lot, but after you've handed them over to the competent medical authorities, Fd like you to return."

"It will be a pleasure. I am now in my seventieth year and I thought there was nothing fresh left in life for me to experience. I was wrong." Marina stared at them in disbelief. All three 222.

men seemed calm and relaxed. Melinda appeared to have dropped off into a coma-like stupor, but she was merely, in fact, under heavy sedation. Marina said with conviction: "You're all mad."

Mitch.e.l.l said: "That's what a lunatic asylum inmate says about the outside world-and he may well be right. However, that's hardly the point at issue. You, Marina, will be accompanying the others on the trip back to Florida. You will be perfectly safe there-your father will see that the most ma.s.sive security guard ever mounted will be there."

"How splendid. I love being made a fuss over, being the center of attraction. However, mastermind, there's just one small flaw in your reasoning. I'm not going. I'm staying with my father."

"That's exactly the point I'm going to discuss with him now."

"You mean you're going out to kill someone else?"

Mitch.e.l.l held out his hands, fingers splayed. They could have been carved from marble.

"Later," Roomer said. "He appears to have some other things on his mind at the moment."

Mitch.e.l.l left. Marina turned furiously on Roomer. "You're just as bad as he is."

"I'm a sick man. You mustn't upset me."

"You and his berserker moods. He's just a killer."

Roomer's face went very still. "You know, I 223.

don't look forward to the prospect of having a mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded person as a sister-in-law."

She was shocked and the shock showed. Her voice was a whisper. "I don't really know you, do I?"

"No. We're the men who walk down the dark side of the streets. Somebody has to look after the people on the dark side. We do it. Do you know how much your father offered us to take you home?" Roomer smiled. 'Tm afraid I'm not much good in that department at the moment, but Mike will take care of it."

"How much did he offer you?"

"Whatever we wanted in the world. A million dollars to take you home? A hundred million if we'd asked for it? Sure."

"How much did you ask for?'* Her face wasn't registering much in the way of expression.

Roomer sighed, "Poor Mike. To think that he regards you as the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow. Poor me, too. Fm going to have to live with you too, even at second hand. Let's be corny. Your father loves you. We love you. To pile cliche on cliche, there are some things that can't be bought. Pearls beyond price. Don't make yourself an artificial pearl, Marina. And don't ever insult us again that way. But we have to live on something, so we'll send him a bill."

"For what?"

"Ammunition expended."

She crossed to his cotside, knelt and kissed 224.

him. Roomer seemed too weak to resist. Dr.

Greenshaw was severe. "Marina, he's not only having a blood transfusion, there's also the factor of blood pressure."

Roomer said: "My blood pressure is registering no complaints."

She kissed him again. "Is that apology enough?" Roomer smiled and said nothing. " 'Berserker* you said. Can anyone stop him when he's like that? Can I?"

"No. Someday, yes."

"The one person is you. Yes?**

"Yes."

"You didn't."

"No."

"Why?"

"They carried guns."

"You carry guns."

"Yes. But we're not evil people who carry evil guns to do evil things."

"That's all?"

"No." He looked across at Melinda. "You see?"

"Please."

"If Kowenski and Rindler hadn't been such d.a.m.ned lousy shots, she'd be dead."

"So you let Michael loose?"

"Yes."

"You're going to marry her?"

"Yes."

"Have you asked her?"

225.

Allstair MaeLean "No.**

"You don't have to. Sisters talk."

"Mike?"

"I don't know, John. Fm a running coward, running scared."

"Well?"

"He kills."

"I've killed."

"He'll kill aeain?"

"I don't know."

"John."

He reached out, took a lock of her gleaming black hair, picked out a single thread. "That"

"You mean?"

"Yes."

"I have to see." She kicked off her high-heeled shoes.

"So much to learn. Sit."

She sat on his bed. Dr. Greeitshaw rolled his eyes heavenward. She was wearing blue jeans and a white blouse. Roomer reached up and undid the top b.u.t.ton of her blouse. She looked at him and said nothing. Roomer said: "You do the rest. Navy or black jumper."

She was back in thirty seconds, wearing a navy polo- She looked inquiringly at Roomer, who nodded. She left the sick bay.

In Lord Worth's living room, he and Mitch.e.l.l were seated in adjacent armchairs. The wall-speakers were on. When Marina came in, Mitch.e.l.l waved her to urgent silence.

226.

Scawlfch Over the speakers Durand's unmistakable voice sounded testy. "All I know is that the deck lights went out some minutes ago and then came back on." Marina glanced at Mitch.e.l.l, who nodded. "All the light you need to land."

"Have you neutralized the radar scanner yet?"

Marina had never heard the voice before, but the tightening of Lord Worth's lip showed that Cronkite's voice was no stranger to him.

"We don't need to now."

"It was your idea. Do it. We'll leave in ten minutes, then about fifteen minutes' flying time."

" 'We'll leave'? That mean you're coming too?"

**No. I've more important things to do." There was a click: Cronkite had ceased to transmit.

Lord Worth said uneasily: "I wonder what that devious devil means by that?"