The dinghy was roaring along the outside of the breakwater out of the blackness. It was thirty yards off when McQuade saw it, bows up, streaking across the water. He bounded to the throttle and rammed it up to Full Ahead. The dinghy swung into a broadside against the Bonanza’s bow-section and two grappling hooks flew up and gripped the rail and in another instant two men were swinging expertly hand over hand up the ropes. McQuade snapped on the deck floodlights and two men in gas masks leapt aboard and raced for each end of the bridge. They disappeared under the wings and McQuade shouted, ‘Gas masks! And guard that door!’ Tucker dashed out onto the port side bridgewing with his stunbaton. McQuade snatched up his gas mask and bounded out onto the starboard side, chest heaving. He fumbled his mask on and crouched at the top of the companionway, ready, heart pounding.
Nothing happened.
No man came bursting out to fight his way up the ladder up to the bridge. And there was no sound, only his rasping and the doem-doem-doem of the engine. Then a voice shouted from the foredeck: ‘McQuade!’
He whirled around, astonished. Another man was leaping over the rail onto the foredeck into the floodlights. He had pulled his gas mask off his face to show himself.
‘Jim – this is Matt Mathews. Look at me!’
McQuade stared at him, his chest heaving. Then he lowered his gas mask and bellowed furiously: ‘Get off my ship, Mossad! This is fucking piracy!’
Matt shouted, ‘We’re already in control of your ship, Jim! But we want to make a deal with you!’
McQuade shouted furiously, ‘I’m armed and I’m going to use it against pirates!’
Matt stood there confidently, out in the open. ‘Jim, you haven’t got a chance! Not only are we better armed but we’ve got reinforcements on the way who can do thirty knots to your twelve! Not to mention the helicopter! So listen to our offer, Jim!’
McQuade crouched on the bridgewing. Reinforcements? Inside the bridge Elsie crouched at the wheel, blue-jowled and wide-eyed. McQuade looked astern for another dinghy but could see none. ‘So what’s your big deal?’
‘Now you’re talking, Jim! Now listen! … We offer you everything you want out of our mutual friend! We’ll interrogate him for you and find out everything you want to know and we’ll pass every detail on to you to do what you want with it!’
McQuade crouched in the shelter of the bridgewing, his mind trying to race. And of course the bastard was lying – no way would Israel mess up the confession of Heinrich Muller about the murder of six million Jews by interrogating him about sunken treasure on behalf of James McQuade. He shouted: ‘And how do you get him off this ship?’
‘Just keep going up the coast till you’re outside radar range of Walvis Bay. Then we take him ashore in the dinghy and radio the rest of our team where to pick us up. And it’ll be all over. As soon as he’s in Jerusalem we’ll get your information, tell the world we’ve got him and James McQuade will not only be an international hero, he’ll be off the hook with the South African police!’
McQuade crouched there. Willing Potgieter to come bursting out of the fo’c’sle door again and take the Mossad bastard from behind. He hesitated then shouted:
‘First call your goons off! Tell these two shit-hot Mossad men under the bridgewings to take their gas masks off and come out with their hands up! Then you come up to the bridge unarmed to talk about it!’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘It’s a deal if you throw your guns onto the foredeck first!’
McQuade felt the flood of battle rush to his face. ‘Tell me another one, Matt! Do you take me for such a fool that I’d disarm myself on my own boat?! Throw your weapons first!’
Matt shouted: ‘Do you take me for a fool, Jim? And remember we already control your boat! Now be a good chap and let’s get on with the deal!’
And McQuade’s mind reeled black with fury at the image of that bitch. ‘And remember how Horatio held the bridge!’ he bellowed. ‘There’s only one way to get up to this bridge and that’s by getting your head blown off first!’
‘Now be a good chap, Jim! Mossad doesn’t want to hurt anybody but if you give us any more trouble we’re going to make an exception! You’ve got five seconds to throw down your guns.’ He lifted his gas mask in readiness. ‘I’m starting to count! … One! … Two! … Three! … Four! …’
The rest was very confused. On the four Potgieter came charging out of the fo’c’sle door again, and Matt never knew what hit him. And McQuade gave a bloodcurdling bellow, rammed on his gas mask, leapt down the companionway and the gas-masked figure beneath never knew what hit him either. All he saw was McQuade’s shotgun at his hip then a blast of salt hit his chest like a baseball bat and he was flying backwards across the deck, senseless. There was suddenly the blinding stink of tear gas from the other side of the ship and up on the bridge Elsie was gasping, and McQuade swung his shotgun blindly and fired and the other Mossad man staggered backwards under the blast of salt. Potgieter had snatched off Matt’s gas mask and was pulling it on as he ran murderously at the other Mossad man. He was struggling to get up, clutching his chest, his body an enflamed mass of stinging flesh, and Potgieter slugged him on the back of the neck and he sprawled again. Potgieter ripped off the man’s gas mask and snatched up his gun. McQuade ripped off his gas mask sufficiently to bellow: ‘Lock them up in the fo’c’sle, Pottie!’ Tucker ran to help Potgieter and McQuade pulled the gas mask on again. He bounded feverishly up the ladder and burst up into the bridge. The canister of tear gas was still hissing inside the doorway. Elsie had fled into McQuade’s cabin. McQuade snatched up the canister and hurled it out into the sea. He looked at the compass and slapped the steering onto automatic.
It was then that he saw the reinforcements approaching. ‘OH SHIT!’
The dinghy was about two hundred yards off, coming from the direction of the lagoon, screaming across the water with about six men in it. McQuade bounded at the switch-box and snapped off the lights. The ship was plunged into darkness. He snatched up his pistol and dashed back to the bridgewing. The boat was fifty yards off now, screaming up on his port side.
Suddenly McQuade felt exultantly calm. He had done his best, he had beaten the bastards at their own bloody game! They thought that Matt Mathews was now in command of this ship but in fact he had them under the gun! Calmly, without a scrap of conscience, he raised his pistol in both hands and rested his elbows on the rim of the bridgewing. He sighted down the barrel at the sleek fat rubber bows.
The boat was screaming up alongside the Bonanza, twenty yards off. The men in it appeared grotesque in their gas masks. He followed the speedboat as it roared up alongside, took careful aim at the bulbous bows, and fired.
There was the shocking crack and instantaneously the rubber bows burst and the dinghy nose-dived to a halt and there was a mad scrambling and crashing, and the Bonanza creamed away from them.
McQuade calmly made his way up to the funnel deck, above the bridge, untied a life-raft, and heaved it overboard.