"Nice going, pal," Giordino congratulated him. "A motor will come in handy during our approach to the island."
"We were lucky the fuel cans were airtight and none of the contents evaporated after all these years.
As it is, the gas has almost turned to shellac, so we'll have to keep a sharp eye on the fuel filter. I'm not keen on flushing out the carburetor every thirty minutes."
"How many hours of fuel did York leave us?"
"Six hours, maybe seven."
Later, with Giordino's help, Pitt mounted the outboard motor to brackets on the stern section of the cockpit. For a final touch, the steering compass was installed just forward of the tiller. After the woven-mat sails were attached to the mast, gaffs and booms with spiral lacing, the sails were raised and lowered with only a minor bind or two. Then they all stood back and stared at their creation. The boat looked reasonably businesslike, but by no stroke of the imagination could she be called pretty. She sat squat and ugly, the outriggers adding to her look of awkwardness. Pitt doubted whether any boats that ever sailed the seven seas were as bizarre as this one.
"She's not exactly what you'd call sleek and elegant," mused Giordino.
"Nor will she ever be entered in the America's Cup Race," added Pitt.
"You men fail to see her inner beauty," said Maeve fancily. "She must have a name. It wouldn't be fitting if she wasn't christened. What if we call her the Never Say Die?"
"Fitting," said Pitt, "but not in keeping with mariners' superstitions of the sea. For good luck she should have a woman's name."
"How about the Marvelous Maeve?" offered Giordino.
"Oh, I don't know," said Pitt. "It's corny but cute. I'll vote for it."
Maeve laughed. "I'm flattered, but modesty dictates something more proper, say like Dancing Dorothy II."
"Then it's two against one," Giordino said solemnly, "Marvelous Maeve she is."
Giving in, Maeve found an old rum bottle cast off by Rodney York and filled it with seawater for the launching. "I christen thee Marvelous Maeve," she said, laughing, and broke the bottle against one of the beech logs lashed to the buoyancy tubes. "May you swim the seas with the speed of a mermaid."
"Now comes our fitness exercise," said Pitt. He passed out lines attached to the forward section of the middle hull. Everyone looped one end of a line around their waist, dug in their feet and leaned forward.
Slowly, stubbornly, the boat began to slide over the tree trunks laid on the ground like railroad tracks.
Still weakened from a lack of proper food and their ordeal, the three quickly used up their depleted strength dragging the boat toward a two-meter precipice rising from the water.
Maeve, as was to be expected by now, pulled her heart out until she could go no further and sagged to her hands and knees, heart pounding, lungs heaving for air. Pitt and Giordino hauled the great deadweight another ten meters before casting off the lines and dropping to the ground ahead of Maeve.
Now the boat teetered on the edge of the ends of two beech-log ways that angled down and under the low rolling waves.
Several minutes passed. The sun was a quarter of the way past the eastern horizon, and the sea was innocent of any sign of turbulence. Pitt slipped the rope loop from around his waist and threw it on the boat. "I guess there's no reason to put off the inevitable any longer." He climbed into the cockpit, swung the outboard motor down on its hinges and pulled at the starter rope. This time it popped to life on the second try.
"Are you two up to giving our luxury yacht a final nudge over the edge?" he said to Maeve and Giordino.
"After having gone to all this work to stir up my hormones," Giordino grumbled, "what's in it for me?"
"A tall gin and tonic on the house," Pitt replied.
"Promises, promises. That's sadism of the worst kind," Giordino groused. He slipped a muscled arm around Maeve's waist, pulled her to her feet and said, "Push, lovely lady, it's time to bid a fond farewell to this rockbound hell."
The two of them moved aft, stiffened their arms, hands against the stern, and shoved with all their remaining strength. The Marvelous Maeve moved reluctantly, then picked up speed as the forward section dipped over the edge onto the ways, and the stern lifted. She hung poised for two seconds, then dove into the water with a heavy splash that flew to the sides, before settling flat on the surface. Pitt's rationale for starting the outboard motor now became apparent as he had instant control of the boat against the flow of the current. He quickly circled it back to the edge of the low cliff. As soon as the bow gently bumped against the sheer rock, Giordino held Maeve by her wrists and gently lowered her down onto the roof of the deckhouse. Then he jumped and landed on his feet, as agile as a gymnast, beside her.
"That concludes the entertainment part of the program," said Pitt, reversing the outboard.
"Shall we raise my sails?" asked Maeve, personalizing the pride of her accomplishment.
"Not yet. We'll motor around to the leeward side of the island where the sea is calmer before we test the wind."
Giordino helped Maeve step past the deckhouse and into the cockpit. They sat down to rest a moment while Pitt steered the boat through the channel and into the swells sweeping around the north and south end of the two deserted islands. They no sooner reached the open sea than the sharks appeared.
"Look," said Giordino, "our friends are back. I'll bet they missed our company."
Maeve leaned over the side and peered at the long gray shapes moving under the surface. "A new group of followers," she said. "These are makos."
"The species with the jagged and uneven teeth only an orthodontist could love?"
"The same."
"Why do they plague me?" Giordino moaned. "I've never ordered shark in a restaurant."
Half an hour later, Pitt gave the order. "Okay, let's try the sails and see what kind of a boat we've concocted."
Giordino unfolded the woven-mat sails, which Maeve had carefully reefed in accordion pleats, and hoisted the mainsail successfully while Maeve raised the mizzen. The sails filled, and Pitt eased over the tiller, skidding the boat on a tack, heading northwest against a brisk west wind.
Any yachtsman would have rolled on his deck in laughter if he had seen the Marvelous Maeve bucking the seas. A boat designer of professional standing would have whistled the Mickey Mouse Club anthem.
But the peculiar looking sailboat had the last laugh. The outriggers dug into the water and maintained her stability. She responded to her helm amazingly well and kept her bow on course without being swept sideways. To be sure, there were problems to be ironed out with her rigging. But remarkably, she took to the sea as if she had been born there.
Pitt took a final look at the Miseries. Then he looked at the packet wrapped in a piece of Dacron sail that held Rodney York's logbook and letters. He vowed that if he somehow lived through the next several days he would get York's final testament to his living relatives, trusting that they would mount an expedition to bring him home again to be buried beside Falmouth Bay in his beloved Cornwall.
On the tenth floor of a modernistic all-glass structure built in the shape of a pyramid on the outskirts of Paris, a group of fourteen men sat around a very long ebony conference table. Impeccably dressed, wielding enormous power, immensely wealthy and unsmiling, the directors of the Multilateral Council of Trade, known simply to insiders as the Foundation, an institution dedicated to the development of a single global economic government, shook hands and engaged in small talk before sitting down to business.
Normally, they met three times a year, but this day they met in an emergency session to discuss the latest unexpected threat to their widespread operations.
The men in the room represented vast international corporations and high levels of government. Only one top-ranking member from the South African cartel was entirely involved with the selling of quality diamonds. A Belgian industrialist from Antwerp and a real-estate developer from New Delhi, India, acted as the Foundation's middlemen for
the huge illicit flow of industrial diamonds to the Islamic Fundamentalist Bloc, which was struggling to create its own nuclear destruction systems. Millions of these smaller industrial diamonds were sold underground to the bloc to make the precision instruments and equipment necessary to construct such systems. The larger, more exotic quality diamonds were used to finance unrest in Turkey, Western Europe, Latin America and several of the South Asian countries, or an other hot spot where subversive political organization could play into the hands of the Foundation's many other interests, including the sale of arms.
All these men were known by the news media, all were celebrities in their chosen fields, but none were identified with membership in the Foundation. That was a sec known only to the men in the room and their close associates. They flew across oceans and continents, weaving their webs in all sorts of strange places, takings toll while amassing unheard-of profits.
They listened with close attention in silence as the' chosen chairman, the billionaire head of a German banking firm, reported on the current crisis facing the diamond market. A regal man with a bald head, he spoke slowly in fluent English, a language every national around the to understood.
"Gentlemen, because of Arthur Dorsett we are facing a profound crisis in a vital area of our operations. Appraisal of his conduct by our intelligence network points to a diamond market headed into dark waters Make no mistake about it, if Dorsett dumps over a hundred metric tons of diamonds on the retail market street-beggar prices, as he is reported ready to do, this sector of the Foundation will totally collapse."
"How soon will this take place?" asked the sheik an oil-rich country on the Red Sea.
"I have it on good authority that eighty percent Dorsett's inventory will be on sale in his chain of recd stores in less than a week," answered the chairman.
"What do we stand to lose?" asked the Japanese head of a vast electronics empire.
"Thirteen billion Swiss francs for starters."
"Good God!" The French leader of one of the world's largest women's fashion houses rapped his fist on the table. "This Australian Neanderthal has the power to do such a thing?"
The chairman nodded. "From all accounts, he has the inventory to back him."
"Dorsett should never have been allowed to operate outside the cartel," said the American former secretary of state.
"The damage is done," agreed the diamond cartel member. "The world of gems as we know it may never quite be the same again."
"Is there no way we can cut him off before his stones are distributed to his stores?" asked the Japanese businessman.
"I sent an emissary to make him a generous offer to buy his stock in order to keep it out of circulation."
"Have you heard back?"
"Not yet."
"Who did you send?" inquired the chairman.
"Gabe Strouser of Strouser & Sons, a respected international diamond merchant."
"A good man and a hard bargainer," said the Belgian from Antwerp. "We've had many dealings together. If anyone can bung Dorsett to heel, it's Gabe Strouser."
An Italian who owned a fleet of container ships shrugged unemotionally. "As I recall, diamond sales dropped drastically in the early eighties. America and Japan suffered severe recessions and demand dropped, kindling a glut in supply. When the economy turned around in the nineties, prices shot up again.
Is it not possible for history to repeat itself?"
"I understand your point," acknowledged the chairman, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.
"But this time a chill wind is blowing, and anyone who depends on diamonds for a living will be frozen out. We've discovered that Dorsett has budgeted over $100 million in advertising and promotion in all the major diamond buying countries. If, as we have come to believe he will, he sells for pennies on the dollar, high diamond values will be a thing of the past, because the public is about to be brainwashed into thinking they are worth little more than glass."
The Frenchman sighed heavily. "I know my models would certainly look at other luxurious baubles as an eternal investment. If not diamond jewelry, I would have to buy them expensive sports cars."
"What is behind Dorsett's odd strategy?" asked the CEO of a major Southeast Asian airline. "Surely, the man isn't stupid."
"Stupid like a hyena waiting for a lion to fall asleep after eating only half its kill," replied the German chairman. "My paid agents throughout the world banking network have learned that Dorsett has bought up seventy, perhaps as high as eighty percent of the major colored gemstone producing mines."
There was a collective murmur of awareness as the latest information sank in. Every man at the table immediately recognized and assimilated Arthur Dorsett's grand plan.
"Diabolically simple," muttered the Japanese electronics magnate. "He pulls the rug from under diamonds before driving the price of rubies and emeralds through the roof."
A Russian entrepreneur, who ran up a vast fortune by buying shutdown aluminum and copper mines in Siberia for next to nothing and then reopening them using Western technology, looked doubtful. "It sounds to me like-- what is that saying in the West?-- Dorsett is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Does he really expect to make enough on colored gemstones to make up for his losses on diamonds?"
The chairman nodded to the Japanese, who replied, "At the request of our chairman, I asked my financial analysts to run the figures through our data systems, Astounding as it seems, Arthur Dorsett, the House d Dorsett chain of retail stores and Dorsett Consolidated Mining Limited stand to make a minimum of $20 billion American Perhaps as high as $24 billion, depending on a predicted rising economy."
"Good Lord," exclaimed a British subject who owned a publishing empire. "I can't begin to imagine what I would do with a profit of $24 billion."
The German laughed. "I would use it to buy out your holdings."
"You could send me packing to my Devonshire farm for a fraction of that amount."
The United States member spoke up. A former secretary of state and the acknowledged head of one of America's wealthiest families, he was the founding father of the Foundation. "Do we have any idea where Dorsett's diamond inventory is at the present time?"
"With his deadline only a few days away," answered the South African, "I should guess that the stones not being currently cut are in transit to his stores."
The chairman looked from the Italian shipping-fleet baron to the Asian airline magnate. "Either of you gentlemen have any knowledge of Dorsett's shipping procedures?"
"I seriously doubt he would transport his diamonds by sea," said the Italian. "Once a ship docked in port, he'd still have to arrange transport inland."
"If I were Dorsett, I'd ship my stones by air," agreed the Asian. "That way he could distribute immediately in almost any city in the world."
"We might stop one or two of his planes," said the Belgian industrialist, "but without knowing flight schedules, it would be impossible to close off the shipments entirely."
The Asian shook his head negatively. "I think intercepting even one flight is optimistic. Dorsett has probably chartered a fleet of aircraft in Australia. I fear we're closing the gate after the cows have escaped."
The chairman turned to the South African representing the diamond cartel. "It appears the great masquerade is over. The artificially created value of diamonds is not forever after all."
Rather than display any feelings of disillusionment, the South African actually smiled. "We've been counted out before. My board of directors and I consider this a minor setback, nothing more. Diamonds really are forever, gentlemen. Mark my words, the price on quality stones will rise again when the luster of sapphires, emeralds and rubies wears off. The cartel will fulfill its obligations to the Foundation through our other mineral interests. We'll not sit on our thumbs patiently waiting for the market to return."
The chairman's private secretary entered the room and spoke to him softly. He nodded and looked at the South African. "I'm told a reply from your emissary to nego
tiate with Arthur Dorsett has arrived in the form of a package."
"Odd that Strouser didn't contact me directly."
"I've asked that the package be sent in," said the chairman. "I think we're all anxious to see if Mr.
Strouser was successful in his negotiations with Arthur Dorsett."
A few moments later the secretary returned, holding in both hands a square box tied with a red-and-green ribbon. The chairman gestured toward the South African. The secretary stepped over and set the box on the table in front of him. A card was attached to the ribbon. He opened the envelope and read it aloud:
There is limestone and soapstone,
and there is hailstone and flagstone,
But behind Strouser's tongue
is one now cheap as dung,
the gemstone worthless as brimstone.
The South African paused and stared at the box gravely. "That does not sound like Gabe Strouser. He is not a man noted for his levity."
"I can't say he's good at writing limericks, either," commented the French fashion designer.
"Go ahead, open the box," pressed the Indian.
The ribbon was untied, the lid lifted and then the South African peered inside. His face blanched and he jumped to his feet so abruptly his chair crashed over backward, He ran, stumbling, over to a window, threw it open and retched.
Stunned, everyone around the table rushed over and inspected the hideous contents of the box. A few reacted like the South African, some reflected shocked horror, others, the ones who had ordered brutal killings during their rise to wealth, stared grimly without displaying emotion at the bloody head of Gabe Strouser, the grotesquely widened eyes, the diamonds spilling from his mouth.
"It seems Strouser's negotiations were unsuccessful," said the Japanese, fighting the bile that rose in his throat.
After taking a few minutes to recover, the chairman called in the chief of the Foundation's security and ordered him to remove the head. Then he faced the members, who had slowly recovered and returned to their chairs. "I ask that you keep what we've just seen in the strictest secrecy."