"Dean Ing - Soft Targets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

The water was cold only on his hands and feet, but he had trouble with the microbubbler in
darkness. Exhalations from SCUBA gear had been a clear signature of manfish since the e
Cousteau aqualungs, and a trained ear could identify this signature through a fiberglass hull.
microbubbler changed both pitch and rhythm of exhalations. It was an absolute neces-sity for
job.
He adjusted flotation on a B-four bag, tugged on his flippers, carefully made his way under
hulls by touch and emerged silently at the third hull. A quick surveillance assured him that he had
right boat; then he submerged again in the friendly blackness. His flashlight played across the g
weighted keel and, seeing rings set into the keel, he let fate smile for him. It would be necessar
bond only one ring to have a triangulated lashing. The work went quickly. To be on the safe sid
emplaced a second ring with the thermoset adhesive. He did not risk testing the rings too much,
lashed the sodden bag in place and took his bearing again before dousing the flashlight. Then
returned for the second bag.
It was two in the morning before he eased aching muscles from layers of cloth and rubber
wiped the Pontiac's interior with a cloth wherever some stray print might have clung, scrubbed
skin with the blue jacket to warm himself. What had he forgotten? Nothing.
Fool! The HP and the Llama both. The cold had made him stupid. He shoved the pistol in
rubber bag, leaving the zipper open for instant recovery, and set the HP alarm for a three-hour de
First light proved the Parisienne abandoned, strewn with expensive clothing and an empty att
case under a mummy bag. Charles Graham spent most of the morning belowdecks with his s
mains'l, applying spurious United States Registration. He was tempted to abandon this busines
was one thing to snuff someone you actively disliked or who—you suspected—might be setting
up. But it was something else to kill some poor old helpless stranger. It would be a pleasure to
little Baz-tan over the side into Juan De Fuca—but Baztan, he thought, might not be the one
went over. Baztan might also become downright unpleas-ant if Graham did not show up at
Angeles in the State of Washington. Sighing, Graham scanned the wharf for loiterers whil
brewed tea in the galley. He did not think about the Pontiac, or about nearby boathouses.
At half-past eleven Graham cast off, easing the hull back on her inboard diesel. He was too b
to notice the splop and swirl from a neighboring boathouse, and got underway without the sails
could crowd on plenty of sail once away from the Inner Harbour and into Victoria Harbour pro
but proceeded slowly until he could get some leeway. The diesel made a scant wake, but enoug
hide the myriad of tiny bubbles that closed the gap toward his rudder, then disap-peared torpedo
beneath his portside rail as he lounged at the tiller.
The Islander's sleek hull was designed to slip easily through the water and Graham assumed
some vagrant current was responsible for her sluggish performance. He would have reconsider
he had seen the excrescences that rode her keel. A fathom below her waterline, rock-climb
carabiners snapped into place one by one as the manfish struggled to place himself in such a
that he felt minimal force from the water. He was fairly warm in his wetsuit under cotton cloth
but he had not yet felt the currents of Juan De Fuca, cold and treacherous as a spider's bride.
He felt more vulnerable as the sloop forged ahead. It might have been better to risk a bo
crossing afoot into Montana or Washington, he thought, but increased border patrols and sens
devices had made that chancy, even for Quebecois, who had provoked those precau-tions.
fumbled for a spare tank in the nearest B-four bag, letting the sling straps bite under his shoulder
might not be such a bad trip, this way—unless his suit heater batteries failed.
The sloop coursed out from the city, under sail now, on a sou'easterly heading. Near the co
of St. Lawrence and Dallas streets a man watched her progress as he spoke into a teleph
"Yes-sir, no mistake, it's Graham's Bitch. Well, that's her name, Inspector, can I help it? Nossir,
could be on a tack toward Port Townsend or just on a pleasure cruise. Right, sir; not very likely
Charles Graham. All right, I have twenty-power glasses; I'll let you know if he heads for Dunge-
or Port Angeles." He replaced the receiver, took up the glasses again. For an hour he watched