Power Play by Larry Johns

Author:Larry Johns [Johns, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Action Books
Published: 2014-10-01T23:00:00+00:00

NINE: The Launch

Wooden boats at sea. They’re all the same. They creak and groan and go up and down. The Patros Queen was no exception. The sea was up and there was a wind. The result, however, did have its compensations. Hadley’s monkey was no sailor. After feeding his lunch to the fishes he’d taken possession of the last available bunk in the cabin. Roberts was flat out on another. And Ina, still out from the doctor’s injection, had the other.

That left five bodies and not too many places to put them in any comfort. Which was a pity because I wasn’t feeling acme myself. Carlo was fine. So were Simon and what’s-his-name. The third member of Carlo’s team was called - using Carlo’s translation - Pepapolis the Younger. I called him Junior. And he and Simon were up front on the look-out for icebergs and me, Carlo and what’s-his-name were in the wheelhouse making in-roads into a bottle of Raki.

Carlo was not satisfied with my explanation about Werner. And, leave us face it, I was not either.

“I keep one eye on ‘im,” said Carlo, “and another on the sea.”

Actually it was quite dark and there was not a lot of sea in evidence. But he did have a point. Things did seem to be in a bit of a mess. Werner’s I.D. ran the course. And he’d convinced me that he knew enough about Hadley’s operation to be who he said he was. But it was a hard and a cold fact that nothing about this whole thing was as it seemed.

Another thing in Werner’s favour was that he would not have been able to manipulate the law the way he had unless he had a security clearance of some kind. Which was one way of looking at it if there was nowhere else to look. Which there wasn’t.

Unfortunately what’s-his-name did not speak English so he could not join in the conversation. But he was a good sort for all that. And he could knock back the Raki like there would be no tomorrow. His full-faced beard dripped the stuff like a bush of melting snow. And more was joining it there at every heave of the boat. But he grew happier as time went on, so some of it must have been finding its way down his throat.

I nodded sympathetically at Carlo’s observation and downed a hefty mouthful of the drink. The stuff was poison to an empty stomach. “Aren’t you s’possed to have lemon with it,” I asked, only a hiccup short of the giggles.

Carlo laughed. A safety-valve sort of laugh that started out in the toe of his sea-boot and oil-welled itself up to his mouth. It was nice to see him laughing again.

“Lemon for babies!”

What’s-his-name laughed, too. Out of politeness, I supposed. But just as deeply. Then Carlo says:

“Serious though…‘ow you know this man hokay?”

I got rid of the dregs of the laugh, then did the same for the Raki. “His papers are okay,“ I said non-committally.

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