Two dockings in the port of La Junares that evening were reported directly to President Rodriguez.
Security Minister Paco Zamora was admitted promptly into the presidential office, where Rodriguez sat waiting.
Zamora was a neat little man in a tropical-weight gray suit, white shirt, and gray necktie. The soft lighting reflected on his narrow, balding skull with its scant strands of black hair carefully combed from left to right. His thin upper lip sprouted a moustache that was like two short porcupine quills thrusting to either side.
The President's eyes were shadowed with weariness. His face was a mask of tolerant patience as Zamora consumed several moments clicking his heels, bowing, clearing his throat, and announcing that he was ready with reports for His Excellency. He was a good man, although at times Rodriguez wished the little guy were less primly proper and exacting in his sense of protocol. Paco's letters and written reports all had a starched look, and his files were as neat as a finicky old maid's sewing basket.
"Shall we take up the submarine Hangui first, Senor Presidente?"
Rodriguez nodded, beginning to drum impatiently on his desk with his fingertips.
"All her papers seem to be in order. Our customs people recieved most cordial treatment."
"Registry?"
"The Hangui flies the flag of Singapore."
Rodriguez mulled over it. The registry could mean nothing---or much. Many of the wealthy of Asia were based in Singapore because of the tax break offered by the small, luxurious Asian principality. But it was also true that a foreign agent could slip unnoticed into the restless jet set, if his government footed the bill for the needed front. Only an agent of the highest caliber would rate that kind of backing.
His train of thought deepened the shadow of worry in the President's eyes.
"Who owns the Hangui, Paco?"
"One Professor Law Zongxian, a respected oceanographer."
Rodriguez's fingers stopped drumming in mid-motion.
Zamora glanced at the curved hand, the stiffened fingers hovering over the desk top.
"Yes." The Security Minister nodded. "The sound of East Asia in the name also leaped at me. But a name change is so easy. If he were an agent, would he flaunt such a name in our faces?"
"Yes, he would," Rodriguez said, "in order to make us think the thought you have just expressed."
"True, true," Zamora agreed. "A genuine name is also much less suspicious if it happens to be traced."
"What's his story, Paco?"
"He's here to explore the Ybytecto Trench and the waters off Easter Island and the Galapagos. Says he's investigating reports of a giant sea creature unknown to science rumored to be living in the trench."
"Citizenship?"
"Born in Japan---if we are to believe his papers. Mentioned that he is the grandson of a mandarin who fled the Communist revolution in mainland China."
"He seems to mention all the convenient details."
"Well, hardly, Senor Presidente. One of our men went aboard with the customs officials and managed to idle in a few questions."
"You, Paco?"
"Si. I thought it a matter worth attending to myself, rather than depending on underlings."
Martinez folded his hands and leaned forward in his interest. "What's he like, Paco?"
The dapper little man shrugged. "Young, boyish, charming. If he is what he seems to be, you would enjoy a tour of his submarine and a luncheon in the galley."
Rodriguez elevated his brows. "Did he mention that?"
"He hinted that he would be honored and asked if an invitation sent to the presidential office would breach any local custom or protocol."
"I assume you left it open."
"Naturally. I pointed out that demands on your time are heave but that you could sometimes squeeze one hour from your schedule."
The two men regarded each other. A breeze stirred from the sea, wafting gently the purple linen draperies beyond the president's desk.
"What's your personal feeling about Law Zongxian?"
"I think he is cool, dangerous, and probably the agent of a foreign power," Zamora replied promptly.
Rodriguez regarded the man gravely. He trusted Paco's instincts more than figures in a ledger, which could be altered to add up to wrong answers.
"What convinced you? You went out there expecting him. How did he confirm it?"
"He didn't. Zongxian played his role of oceanographer perfectly, with just the right mixture of friendliness and veiled intellectual snobbery. It was the crew."
"The crew?" Rodriguez questioned.
"There are subtle differences between civilian and military sailors. Little things about the crew smacked of ingrained military discipline."
Rodriguez nodded slowly, warmth in his eyes. "Paco, without you I should be a lame burro in a fast field."
Paco's shoulders bent in a short, proper bow, although his face pinked up with pleasure. "Gracias, Senor Presidente."
"Any sign that Cidd Menendez had been aboard the Hangui?"
"None. Menendez returned with quite a catch aboard the charter and gave the fish to the people who gathered on the pier. He politicked a little, joking about the way some had voted in the last election."
"A handpicked crew to catch his fish and swear Menendez never left the boat....." The muscles in Rodriguez's jaws bunched and quivered. "I swear, Paco, I haven't the taste for the game. We are foolish buffalos in a place of cunning jaguars."
Paco stood ramrod still.
"What is wanted of me?" Rodriguez suddenly snarled. "What does la republica expect? How long must we fight for the rules Menendez and his kind use as protection in their efforts to destroy us?"
Paco's hand moved in a small, unconscious gesture of sympathy. But he controlled his feeling. He forced another degree of stiffness in his back. "You asked for the job, Senor Presidente."
"My first big mistake! I was more at home in the bush than in this..." his powerful, peasant's hand swept the enormity of the vaulted office...."this gilded tomb! At least out there the viper must come to terms before it can bite a man!"
"You need a siesta, Senor Presidente," Paco said bluntly. "Perhaps tomorrow morning you won't feel sorry for yourself."
Rodriguez's broad face burned red. Then a little of the strain eased from his shoulders. "How would you like a punch in the nose, eh?"
"If it would help---punch."
Rodriguez shook his head, unable to suppress a smile of affection. "You are impossible, mi amigo."
"Birds of a feather," Paco suggested mildly. "Not long ago you were a fugitive in the back country. Is it possible you have brought the country even this far?"
"Just how far is that, Paco?"
The little man shrugged. "Within seeing distance of a beginning. Farther than San Gonzalo has come before---too far for Menendez's taste. But if he fails this time, the forces he represents will have failed for good."
"That's what worries me most," Rodriguez said. "He feels a chasm at his back."
"In the kind of system he favors, the chasm would swallow him up right now," Paco said. "He'd be picked up and have the truth beaten out of him."
"The day we borrow Menendez's methods is the day we might as well hand la republica over to him."
"I know," Paco nodded. "And you know that I was not suggesting such a thing."
Rodriguez pushed back his chair, got up, and walked with his slightly bowlegged stride to the partially open French doors. The black velvet tropical sky was dusted with stars. Winking in nearer distances were the lights of La Junares and boats riding at anchor. Somewhere among the myriad of firefly-like points was the stark outline and running lights of the Hangui.
"Paco...."
"Si?" The little man drifted into the shadow of his president, standing at his side.
Rodriguez didn't move his gaze from the black sea. "Who might tell us about the submarine Hangui?"
"Los Americanos, obviously," Paco replied without hesitation. "If she's a spy sub, they would know."
"Exactly." The President's ridged forehead knotted into a hard frown. "But is it the very move Menendez wants us to make? The nub of his plan? Is he dangling the Hangui as bait---to trump up charges that we are handing the country over to a foreign power?"
"He couldn't prove such nonsense!"
"He wouldn't have to. He needs merely to drum up the makings of a crisis by involving the superpowers. He knows we can't afford a crisis."
"In truth," Paco agreed. A dismal note shaded his voice for the first time.
Rodriguez looked at the little figure. Such a little fellow, he thought, to carry so much weight. He flung an arm around the narrow shoulders.
"You asked for the job," Rodriguez chided, but hi stone was quite warm and gentle.
Paco grinned wryly. "My first big mistake."
They laughed together, and Rodriguez knew it was the best medicine for both of them.
"You, too, need a night's sleep, old friend. And in the morning---Well, we have skinned a few snakes in our time, have we not?"
"And survived some bits," Paco added.
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A few miles from the presidential office, a lagoon broke the primeval shoreline like a thumb punching in from the dark, empty sea. Detailed maps dubbed it Lago Machabu.
The water was hemmed on one side by a towering cliff of porous, volcanic rock. Moonlight glinted on a narrow crescent of beach at the far end. Beyond the beach, a few palm trees thre black, exotic silhouettes against the night sky.
The jungle growth thickened where the lagoon curved back along its southern shore. On this stretch, about midway from the lagoon's mouth, was the only evidence that a human being had ever set foot here.
Someone, many years ago, had beached a skiff on the narrow strip of sand. Possibly the small boat had been leaking badly, or its occupant had been in flight from the authorities.
Its remnants now stuck from the sand like jagged, brittle bones blackened by time and gnawed away by the weather. The damp sand about it was dotted with thousands of tiny holes, the homes of stone crabs. Often, in massed thousands, they moved in a rustling blanket, exploring the remains of the boat for bits of food left by the tides.
But tonight there was an interruption. The water of the lagoon swirled. A conning tower emerged from beneath the water, water dripping into the balmy air, forming the distinct impression of a partly submerged submarine.
The appearance of the monster sent the colony of stones scurrying to their holes.
Inside the Seaview, the helmsman and the surfacing crew remained at their posts in the control room, the latter easing off the whisper of power, per Captain Crane's orders. Crane would not blow the main ballast tanks yet, staying partially submerged.
"Mr. Collier, I believe it's time for you to go into action," Admiral Nelson said softly.
The young Negro was already wriggling out of his seat. He ducked behind Jim, Nelson and Crane and into the big chart room, where Willy, Molly, and Paris were shadowy forms.
Willy lifted what looked like ordinary binoculars. "I'll hand up the infrared glasses when you're ready. Just don't bang that hatch like a pair of cymbals and wake the countryside."
"If there's anything to wake up out there besides a cockatoo or jaguar, then Curley's a lousy navigator," Crane said. He reached overhead in the conning well and spun a silent ratchet the lowered a section of aluminum rungs. Barney disappeared into darkness as he began scaling the ladder, Willy in hot pursuit.
Wing nuts flipped, then metal creaked as Barney pushed open the Seaview's conning tower hatch.
In the hot staleness, the filtering of tropical air from outside was like the rush of a cool, refreshing waterfall.
Willy passed up the glasses and hunkered beneath Barney's feet on the ladder's 10th rung. "You see anything?"
Unruffled by Willy's impatience, Barney lifted the infrared glasses to his eyes. They peeped over the edge of the conning tower like the glinting eyes of a strange insect.
Barney viewed the landscape through the red end of the spectrum. Trees and jumbled rocks stood out in weird, reddish detail.
He studied the shoreline yard by yard, the glasses searching slowly along the beach, the encroaching foliage, and the slimy, jagged base of the cliff.
He lowered the glasses and dropped below. Willy and Barney descended the ladder back down into the Seaview's control room. Upon delivering their report to Crane and Nelson, the decision was made to bring the giant sub to full surface.
"Let 'er blow, Mr. Gleason!" Crane delivered the all-clear to the crewman in a tension-relieving mimicry of a tough Cockney seaman.
"So you threaded the eye of a distant needle for us," Willy grunted.
"What did you expect?"
"That you'd successfully thread the needle's eye," Willy grinned.
Phelps drew in a deep breath as he watched Gleason reach for the valve controls. It was nothing less than luxurious. The nitty-gritty moments out there on the bottom of Bahia La Junares still had the power to squeeze his insides. Then, the Seaview had assumed all the qualities of a fragile eggshell lying helpless under a poised bootheel.
Jim would long remember the casual way Kowalski, the radar operator, had announced: "The Hangui has resumed course. They've bought the idea of the galleon wreckage."
"We hope," said Nelson. "And by the way, Jim...."
"Yes, Harry?"
"Try taking a deep breath," Nelson had suggested. "You don't have to spare the oxygen for the rest of us now."
With a shake of his head, Jim had laughed.
"What's so funny?" Nelson had asked.
"I was just about to say the same thing to you, Lee, Willy, Barney, Paris, and Molly."
Jim shelved the moments in a private slot of memory and concentrated on the job at hand. The hiss of air was followed by the wash of water spilling from the hull. He felt the Seaview bob and steady.
It wasn't too long before Jim heard Crane's voice as he stood on the spine of the super-submarine. His men men inflated the raft that would be the IMF's link to shore.482Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGeLiOl5RFI
Molly thrust her head and shoulders into the control room. She was holding a cup of steaming Thermos coffee.
"Mr. Kowalski gave this to me. He thought you'd like this before Paris and I disembark." She handed the coffee to Jim.482Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN6H6F87kRl
"Thanks." Jim lifted the cup in a little toast. "Good luck with the President. A great guy.....but we can't let his impulses and good intentions gum up the works."482Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTE4oDSqgwG
"Paris and I will throw him off the track." Molly's face was touched with her sunny smile. Then she turned and, in a few moment she and Paris had disappeared into the night.482Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJkc8bGT1i0
