The Tide Can't Wait (11 page)

Lenny found it hard to comprehend. She had the feeling that all this must be out of a book and that she could lay it aside when she chose.

She moved and her foot kicked against a small stone, sending it noisily into another. A form moved and the light in Portia's window was a tiny clear rectangle of yellow again.

The plopping sound came. But before she heard it, her ears registered the whine of a searching bullet just above her flattened body. And now the reality of this slammed into her.

From near the rock where they had been sitting, a noise made her twist her head. She could see the rock etched by the moonlight and another form arcing up, blurred by movement. It struck the grass near the cliff's edge. A figure rose, cutting off the light from Portia's window again. It moved, a dark bulk against the night, and then was gone. Lenny thought, Barr, drawing attention from her. But she dared not rise and run now. Either they were both marked for death or the stalker could not tell them apart.

Even so, she could not simply lie there and do nothing. Nor could she crawl forward over the rough ground. She did not know how to maneuver silently.

Her hands slid carefully along the grass until her fingers closed about the rough coldness of small stones. They were half-buried and she dug at the sod to loosen them. She broke a fingernail and swallowed a soft cry of pain. Finally she had three stones, each nearly the size of a baseball. Carefully she twisted around until she faced the direction she had last seen the stalker.

And she saw him again. A dark bulk rose, moved, disappeared. He was getting closer to the rock and she knew that he was trying to outflank Barr. The dryness of fear clogged her throat, making breathing difficult.

The figure appeared, moving toward the rock in a semicircle. There was no sound from Barr; it was as though he had never existed. Lenny got to her feet, ran forward, her eyes on the moving shadow, and then dropped to the ground, breathing hard, hurt where the rocks she carried gouged into her breast.

She repeated the process, angling so that she and the stalker would meet. When she saw him again, he could not have been over ten feet away.

She lay flat to the ground, fighting herself to keep from sobbing, forcing the muscles in her arms and legs to quiet. Pure terror gripped her.

Something moved not five feet to her left, and then she realized that this must be Barr. The stalker was standing almost invisible against rock, but moonlight glinted on the barrel of his gun. The only sound was the distant putting of a ship's motor from somewhere beyond the headland.

Barr moved again and she realized that he did not know she was near him. He was trying to get around to the other side of the rock and flank the stalker—as the stalker was trying to flank him. It was a deadly game of hide-and-seek.

Barr rose up. Lenny saw again the glint of moonlight on gunmetal as the stalker swung his weapon—Barr had been seen. She rose.

The rock was heavy and she knew that she had misjudged even as she released it. She could hear the soft plop in the grass off to her left, away from Barr and herself. The gun swiveled in that direction.

Lenny stood openly and threw the second rock, putting the swing of her shoulders behind it. When she heard the rock strike stone, she was already running. Her shoes wobbled on the uneven ground and she kicked them off, scarcely pausing.

Barr cried, “Lenny!” but she did not stop. She did not learn until later that her third rock had struck the stalker, not hard enough to down him but with enough force to give Barr the chance he needed.

Barr's topcoat flapped about her body and she shrugged out of it, every step expecting to hear that deadly plop and feel the shock of a bullet striking her.

“Lenny!”

She saw the pathway in the moonlight and plunged down it. Behind her someone was running. There was a gunshot, loud this time, unsilenced. She plunged on down the path.

“Lenny!” Barr cried her name for the third time, his voice close behind her now. But even if she had wanted to, she could not stop. She had to run to keep from falling.

Ahead of her was the soft, slow-moving darkness of water. She had forgotten about the tide. It was in and the lower end of the path had become part of the cove. Her right side struck bruisingly against the rubbly wall of the cliff face as she tried to slow down. A rock gouged her feet.

She could hear Barr behind her as she staggered away from the cliff. She knew it was Barr; the stalker would have shot her by now. She felt Barr's hand reach for her, and she plunged another step forward.

A harsh white light sprang up from directly ahead, blinding her, pinning them both against the backdrop of darkness. She threw up one arm against the light and felt herself being violently pushed from behind.

She fell with her arms flailing, and as she fell, she heard sounds that she had come to recognize instinctively. Someone was behind that merciless light, shooting at them.

She struck feet first and her dress billowed up about her, pushed by the water. She felt herself go all the way down until her feet struck bottom. She thrust with her legs and surfaced. The water came barely to her neck. Through the sting of salt in her eyes, she saw that the white light was gone. Barr's voice came from beside her, sharp and commanding.

“Diver!”

She went down instantly. Barr went with her, gripping her arm, his fingers hurting. She jerked free and caught the cloth of his coat, following him, using her feet to propel herself. She did not know in what direction they were going, nor what the reason was—she only knew that she must stay close to him.

Her clothing made her movements slow and awkward. Her lungs burned with the need for air, and finally she gave a tug at Barr's coat and let herself surface. They broke water together. As she took the first heady gulp of air, she heard the buzzing, like the searching of angry wasps. She went down, her lungs only half-filled, clinging to his coat with the violence of desperation, with no idea but that of survival.

He surfaced and she came alongside him. The light was back, sweeping the water where they had been, coming closer to where they were. Barr said, “Once more—on the other side of these rocks. Can you make it?”

There was no need for an answer. As the spotlight swept away from them, its backwash revealed a brief glimpse of a small launch, now inside the cove. She had only one choice—to follow Barr.

He went down and soon she could feel the roughness of rocks on both sides. She scraped an elbow, struck roughly with a kicking foot, and then his hand was on her arm, guiding her. She came up to find herself in water little deeper than her waist. The rocks rose sheer about them, forming the walls of a natural pool with the steep face of the headland at their backs. There was no wind here, but the air that struck her damp body was chill, making her teeth chatter.

“All right?”

She could barely see him in the darkness. Then as the light swept across the outer face of the protecting rocks, reflected light showed her the pain twisting his face.

“You're hurt.”

“Just a little shot,” he said with grim humor. The light went away and his voice came to her eerily out of blackness. “We'll have to get out of here before our friend up above figures out he can shoot down at us.”

“Who is it?”

“I can guess,” Barr said. “Whoever he is, you got him a good one with that last shot-put of yours. He lost his rifle and started using a revolver. That's probably why the boys in the launch opened up on us. They heard the noise and figured out they'd better get it over with. Gunshots attract people in these parts.”

“If we can hold out until the police arrive …”

“We're sitting ducks,” Barr said. “They'll figure out soon enough where we went.”

The putting of the launch grew louder and finally held steady. It was very close. “They have it figured out,” Barr said in a tight voice. “Come on.”

He was peeling off his coat. Thrusting it into a crevasse in the rock face of the wall at their backs, he went to work on his shirt and tie. Lenny realized that he meant to swim for it. She was a good swimmer, but the thought of the inky-black water all about and death lying in wait brought a cold knot of fear to her stomach.

Barr continued undressing and she followed suit, working out of her sodden dress and slip and hose, putting them with his clothing.

He said, “That was a damned fool thing you did up there, you know.” His voice was tight and through the unspoken thanks in it, she heard the first tremor of weakness.

She did not answer him. She was thinking,
I
have to get him to a doctor. I have to get him out of here.

Barr said, “When you have to surface, come up on your back. Try and fix it so that just your nose is out of water.”

“All right.” She swallowed. “I'm scared.”

“So am I,” Barr said. The launch was still putting softly close by. Only the shallowness of the water kept it from coming up to the rocks. The light flared up and she saw Barr's wound now, a dark spot high on the left shoulder.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Make for the driftwood when we hit the beach,” he ordered. “You go first.”

She filled her lungs and went under, feeling for the opening in the rocks. It seemed an agony of time before she found it and worked her way through, and only an instant before she had to surface for air.

The putting of the launch was a dull vibration in her ears, so close that she had the feeling eyes were watching her. She took all the air she could and went down again. And she knew that as she did so, they must have seen her.

Barr passed her. Deliberately she held herself back, letting him stay ahead in case his wound should give him more trouble than he expected. She could not explain why she felt such concern for him except that somehow his salvation was tied up with hers.

Swim and surface; suck in air, go down again. She did not let herself think about them waiting out there, the light ready, guns ready. Before she expected it, she felt the bottom and she knew she was in the shallows.

She felt the wash of soft waves and she flattened out and crawled. She wanted to look back, but she forced herself forward until finally the cold wash of air told her she was wholly exposed, that there was no more protection to be had from the dark water.

The beach lay just ahead, the first pile of driftwood slightly to her left. She saw Barr kick up from the water a dozen feet from her. He splashed to the beach and ran at an awkward, stumbling weave across the shingle. She looked back and saw the launch again. Moonlight glinted on metal and she made out a man standing in the bow, a rifle in his hands.

She leaped up and began to run, looking over her shoulder, curiously afraid to turn wholly away from the gunman.

She could see him hesitate and half-turn at her sudden appearance. Off to her left there came the sound of someone running along the headland and she began to weave as she had seen Barr do.

The few seconds' diversion gave Barr the needed time to make the temporary safety of the driftwood. And then she realized she was alone—the single clear target.

She sprinted, scarcely aware of the sharp pebbles jabbing into her bare feet. Breath sobbing, she raced for the driftwood, forgetting to weave, forgetting everything but the desire for safety.

She heard the shot and felt the spray of chipped rock against her ankle. The wood was close, very close. Another shot and splinters of water-logged wood flew up almost in her face.

She dived the last few feet. Something soft broke her fall, caught her, and dragged her deeper into shadow. It was Barr and she could only lie as she had fallen, against his chest, his arm about her, while she sucked in great gulps of air.

“You're a double-damned fool,” he said.

The tension built up in her wanted release in tears. She fought to hold them back. She couldn't cry now. They weren't safe yet.

She became aware that Barr had left her. He was peering over the driftwood. “It takes a real marksman to come as close to a moving target as that boy on the boat did,” he murmured. “And there's our pal on the headland. He could decide to come down here.”

She had breath now. “Why doesn't someone come?”

Only the inn showed life behind them—light screened away by drawn curtains. She glanced toward the inhabited headland. Darkness was there except for the lone light from Portia's cottage. On the tip of the headland, that light could be seen well out to sea.

“I don't know,” Barr said in answer to her question. “They might think it's smugglers out here playing games with the government. And no self-respecting Britisher would think of interfering with a jolly bit of smuggling.”

He looked over the driftwood. “If we go for the inn, we'll make perfect targets in this moonlight. If we wait here, they'll come for us sooner or later.”

She felt the cold air as her body heat, whipped up by her running, began to drain. A brassiere and panties were small protection against the damp night air. She said, “We might try for that next pile of driftwood and then for that old boat. Beyond that there's shadow. We could make it to your cottage.”

Barr studied the idea. “It's not much of a chance,” he said. “But it's the only one we have.” He was shivering, too, clad only in shorts. “Damn it, since when did Roget get an organization to work for him?”

For all Lenny knew, Leon might own an army.

Barr said, “Unless this means the boys who want to buy what he has to sell have come.”

“Then he could sell and go with them,” Lenny said.

Barr shrugged. “Unless he's afraid to go meet them personally right now. We have him pretty well watched.”

He had scarcely finished speaking when he was gone, sprinting for the next pile of driftwood. Without thinking, she raced after him. He was obviously in pain from his wound and she caught and passed him.