Reno gestured with his head. “Right there. Put your hand down on the lead, near the outer end, and slide it on as I slide mine off.”
Griffin already had his left hand on the lead surface and was beginning to slide it when his eyes suddenly widened. He cursed, and started to bring the gun up. Reno let go the lead container with both hands and grabbed him. He heard Patricia scream.
He had Griffin’s right arm with both hands. He twisted brutally, and the gun fell. It hit the stump, bounced, and fell to the ground between them. He caught the redhead’s shirt collar with his left hand and pulled him forward as he swung the right. It landed with a sickening impact, and Griffin’s knees sagged.
The crazy, black desire to kill was driving him now. Mac was in his mind, and Vickie, as he pulled himself across the stump and crashed to the ground on top of the other man. The lead container rolled off and came to rest beside them as he found Griffin’s throat with his hands and began closing them, slowly, tighter and tighter. …
Her arms were around his face, smothering him, and she was screaming. It seemed to take a long time for what she was saying to penetrate to him through the roaring of the black wind that went on and on, but at last he understood and released the still living man beneath him. He tried to sit up. She fell across him, with her arms about his neck.
They were ready to go. Griffin, his hands and feet bound, had been shoved into the small locker and the padlock snapped shut. The two lead containers lay in the after part of the cockpit out of the way. Reno and Patricia sat in the leather seat along one side, smoking a cigarette before they cast off.
“I’m sorry, Pat,” he said gently. “About your brother, I mean. I kept hoping there might be some other answer.”
“It’ll be all right,” she said. “I faced it a long time ago, and the worst part is already over.” She was silent for a moment, staring moodily out across the channel. Then she went on, “But let’s not think about it any more. Think of Vickie, and how she’ll feel a few hours from now. There won’t be any question at all now, will there?”
“No. Even if Griffin won’t talk, we’ve got enough evidence to get her out of there tonight.”
She shuddered involuntarily and shook her head. “I’ll have nightmares the rest of my life. How could you ever cut into that awful thing?”
He took her in his arms and kissed her, and then grinned. “The one I was working on was harmless enough,” he said. “And I think the other one may be, too, but I’m not going to open it to see. The police can take over, as far as I’m concerned.”
“But they were booby traps, weren’t they? I mean, one end filled with those cans of heroin and the other with explosive?”
“That’s right. But there was something Griffin and Counsel both forgot about.”
She raised her head and looked at him. “What was that?”
“Water pressure. It’s tough stuff to fool with after you get down past thirty feet. And to build something that’ll stay water tight for months at that depth, you’ve almost got to test it under pressure. It turned out I was right. I knew it as soon as I got the knife through it the first time. Water oozed out. There was a tiny flaw in the seam, and the thing was full of water before it had been down there a day.”
“And that killed the explosive?”
He shook his head. “Not the explosive. The detonating circuit. At that pressure, water would seep into the battery in no time, and destroy it. Griffin knew it too, but he found out too late. He was already within grabbing distance before he saw the water and knew I’d been leaning over it that way to hide it from him.”
She stared at him admiringly. “You’re amazing.”
“And you’re very beautiful.”
She smiled. “Shall we go around again? Or get started?”
He looked out along the bayou leading back toward the south and east where the highway and the camp should be and Vickie, and then San Francisco, and all the time ahead. Then he turned back to the very large and very lovely brown eyes looking up at him adoringly. He kissed her.
“You name it, Skipper,” he said.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1954 by Charles Williams
cover design by Katrina Damkoehler
978-1-4532-7346-3
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Charles Williams, Go Home, Stranger
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