The Dark Crusader. Alistair MacLean

at my eye gives me a nasty dry mouth, makes my heart work overtime and uses up a great deal of adrenalin. I was just starting out to think what else I would like to do to him when he nodded across the bed.

      ‘Because if you are, you might have a look there first.’

      I turned slowly, so as not to excite anyone. Except only for the yellow of his eyes, the man on the other side of the bed was a symphony in black. Black suit, black sailor’s jersey under it, black hat and one of the blackest faces I had ever seen: a thin, taut, pinch-nosed face, the face of a pure Indian. He was very narrow and very short but he didn’t have to be big on account of what he held in his hands, a twelve-bore shotgun which had had almost two-thirds of its original length sawn off at stock and barrels. It was like looking down a couple of unlit railway tunnels. I turned away slowly and looked at the white man.

      ‘I see what you mean. Can I sit up?’

      He nodded and stepped back a couple of feet. I swung my legs over the bed and looked across to the other side of the room where Marie Hopeman, a third man, also black, standing beside her, was sitting in a rattan chair by her bed. She was dressed in a blue and white sleeveless silk dress and because it was sleeveless I could see the four bright marks on the upper arm where someone had grabbed her, not too gently.

      I was more or less dressed myself, all except coat and tie, although we had arrived there seven earlier after a long and bumpy road trip forced on lack of accommodation at the airfield at the other end of the island.

      With the unexpected influx of stranded aircraft passengers into the Grand Pacific Hotel the question of separate rooms for Mr and Mrs John Bentall had not ever arisen, but the fact that they were almost completely dressed had nothing to do with modesty, false or otherwise: it had to do with survival. The unexpected influx was due to an unscheduled stopover at the airfield: and what the unscheduled stopover was due to was something that exercised my mind very much indeed. Primarily, it was due to a medium-scale electrical fire that had broken out in our DC7 immediately after the fuelling hoses had been disconnected and although it had been extinguished inside a minute the plane captain had quite properly refused to continue until airline technicians had flown down from Hawaii to assess the extent of the damage: but what I would have dearly loved to know was what had caused the fire.

      I am a great believer in coincidences, but belief stops short just this side of idiocy. Four scientists and their wives had already disappeared en route to Australia: the chances were even that the fifth couple, ourselves, would do likewise, and the fuelling halt at the Suva airfield in Fiji was the last chance to make us vanish. So we’d left our clothes on, locked the doors and taken watches: I’d taken the first, sitting quietly in the darkness until three o’clock in the morning, when I’d given Marie Hopeman a shake and lain down on my own bed. I’d gone to sleep almost immediately and she must have done exactly the same for when I now glanced surreptitiously at my watch I saw it was only twenty minutes past three. Either I hadn’t shaken her hard enough or she still hadn’t recovered from the effects of the previous sleepless night, a San Francisco– Hawaii hop so violent that even the stewards had been sick. Not that the reasons mattered now.

      I pulled on my shoes and looked across at her. For the moment she no longer looked serene and remote and aloof, she just looked tired and pale and there were faint blue shadows under her eyes: she was a poor traveller and had suffered badly the previous night. She saw me looking at her and began to speak.

      ‘I – I’m afraid I –’

      ‘Be quiet!’ I said savagely.

      She blinked as if she had been struck across the face, then tightened her lips and stared down at her stockinged feet. The man with the yachting cap laughed with the musical sound of water escaping down a waste-pipe.

      ‘Pay no attention, Mrs Bentall. He doesn’t mean a thing. The world’s full of Bentalls, tough crusts and jelly inside, and when they’re nervous and scared they’ve just got to lash out at someone. Makes them feel better. But, of course, they only lash out in a safe direction.’ He looked at me consideringly and without much admiration.’ Isn’t that so, Bentall?’

      ‘What do you want?’ I asked stiffly. ‘What is the meaning of this – of this intrusion? You’re wasting your time. I have only a few dollars in currency, about forty. There are traveller’s cheques. Those are no good to you. My wife’s jewellery –’

      ‘Why are you both dressed?’ he interrupted suddenly.

      I frowned and stared at him. ‘I fail to see –’

      Something pressed hard and cold and rough against the back of my neck; whoever had hack-sawed off the barrels of that twelve-bore hadn’t been too particular about filing down the outside edges.

      ‘My wife and I are priority passengers,’ I said quickly. It is difficult to sound pompous and scared at the same time. ‘My business is of the greatest urgency. I – I have impressed that on the airport authorities. I understand that planes make occasional overnight refuelling stops in Suva and have asked that I should be notified immediately of any vacancies on a west-bound plane. The hotel staff have also been told, and we’re on a minute’s notice.’ It wasn’t true, but the hotel day staff were off duty and there would be no quick way of checking. But I could see he believed me.

      ‘That’s very interesting,’ he murmured. ‘And very convenient. Mrs Bentall, you can come and sit by your husband here and hold his hand – it doesn’t look too steady to me.’ He waited till she had crossed the room and sat down on the bed, a good two feet from me and staring straight ahead, then said: ‘Krishna?’

      ‘Yes, Captain?’ This from the Indian who had been watching Marie.

      ‘Go outside. Put a call through to the desk. Say you’re speaking from the airport and that there’s an urgent call for Mr and Mrs Bentall, that there’s a K.L.M. plane with two vacant seats due in for refuelling in two or three hours. They’ve to go at once. Got it?’

      ‘Yes, Captain.’ A gleam of white teeth and he started for the door.

      ‘Not that way, fool! ‘The white man nodded to the french doors leading to the outside veranda. ‘Want everyone to see you? When you’ve put the call through pick up your friend’s taxi, come to the main door, say you’ve been phoned for by the airport and come upstairs to help carry the bags down.’

      The Indian nodded, unlocked the french doors and disappeared. The man with the yachting cap dragged out a cheroot, puffed black smoke into the air and grinned at us. ‘Neat, eh?’

      ‘Just what is it you intend to do with us?’ I asked tightly.

      ‘Taking you for a little trip.’ He grinned, showing irregular and tobacco-stained teeth. ‘And there’ll be no questions – everyone will think you have gone on to Sydney by plane. Ain’t it sad? Now stand up, clasp your hands behind your head and turn round.’

      With three gun barrels pointing at me and the farthest not more than eighteen inches away it seemed a good idea to do what he said. He waited till I had a bird’s eye view of the two unlit railway tunnels, jabbed his gun into my back and went over me with an experienced hand that wouldn’t have missed even a book of matches. Finally, the pressure of the gun in my spine eased and I heard him taking a step back.

      ‘O.K., Bentall, sit. Bit surprising, maybe – tough-talking pansies like you often fancy themselves enough to pack a gun. Maybe it’s in your grips. We’ll check later.’ He transferred a speculative glance to Marie Hopeman. ‘How about you, lady?’

      ‘Don’t you dare touch me, you – you horrible man!’ She’d jumped to her feet and was standing there erect as a guardsman, arms stretched stiffly at her sides, fists clenched, breathing quickly and deeply. She couldn’t have been more than five feet four in her stockinged soles but outraged indignation made her seem inches taller. It was quite a performance. ‘What do you think I am? Of course I’m not carrying a gun on me.’

      Slowly, thoughtfully, but not insolently, his eyes followed every curve of the