Free The Revengers by Donald Hamilton Page B

Paradise Towers Hotel, Nassau.”
    “What the hell is she doing in Nassau? I thought she was down in the Virgin Islands somewhere.”
    “The location is our business, friend; the motivation is yours.”
    I grimaced at a flying seagull, who didn’t seem to mind. “Well, that pretty well confirms my guess about what she’s really after; she must be checking up on that last ship that went down, but she reacts fast . . . Fairfax Constellation ,” I said. “Twenty-five-thousand-ton tanker, Liberian registry, out of Aruba, recently sunk somewhere off the Bahamas. It was in the Miami papers yesterday; probably others as well. Get what details you can and locate the surviving crew for me, will you? Although I have a hunch all I have to do is keep Miss Brand in sight and she’ll lead me to them.”
    “Request noted.”
    “Who’s our man in Nassau these days, Freddie?”
    “Fred is still our man in Nassau, yes.”
    The voice was expressionless; but there are very few secrets in the organization and I had a hunch that our man in Miami, a young standby agent named Brent with whom I’d worked in the past, was quite aware that there had been friction between Fred and me the last time I’d operated in the Islands. Fred thought I was a racist bastard and he was perfectly right. I am highly intolerant of black men who are slow pulling the trigger when my life is at stake; and the last time we’d worked together he’d been damned slow. Of course I’m also intolerant of white men, blue men, red men, and green men who display similar dilatory characteristics under similar circumstances.
    I said, “Can you set me up for the flight and the hotel?”
    “Already done, friend. Get yourself up to Miami today; you’ve got a room for the night at the Airport Hotel. You take Eastern out tomorrow morning at eight-oh-five and land on New Providence Island at eight-fifty. Your reservation at the Paradise Towers is waiting. The subject is in room four-oh-five. She has company along; male, blond, husky, handsome. Ostensible occupation, photographer, but I wouldn’t trust him to cover my wedding if I were getting married, which I’m not. More muscle than art, I’d say. Name, Warren Peterson. Room four-oh-seven. I believe there are connecting doors.”
    “I’m jealous already,” I said. “But that’s real service; I’ll mail you a gold star for your report card. A couple more things. Please find out for me what the hell is a COLREGS. Cee-oh-ell-are. . . .”
    “The latest International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea were promulgated in 1972 by the United Nations Inter-Governmental Marine Consultative Organization. They were updated recently, I believe in 1977. They are now known as COLREGS—Collision Regulations, get it? In case you’re interested, the organization itself is known as IMCO. Just as a seagoing toilet is nowadays known as a Marine Sanitation Device or MSD, a life preserver is a Personal Flotation Device or PFD, and a pump or bucket is a Dewatering Device or DD—well, I don’t vouch for that last contraction. All courtesy of the fun-loving linguistic jokers of the United States Coast Guard known as USCG. What part of the rules?”
    “Rule 18-a-iv.”
    “I don’t have it on tap but I can find it.”
    “It’s a relief to learn there’s something you don’t know offhand. I thought for a moment I might be hooked into our omniscient friendly neighborhood computer. Well, look it up and get it to me care of Fred, will you? Also a copy of an old article in Travel Times entitled ‘Kiruna Today,’ by a lady named Louise Taylor.” I gave him the date and waited while he wrote it down. He read it back to me to make sure he had it right. I went on, “I’d also appreciate it if you’d send somebody down here to keep an eye on Captain Harriet Robinson. You remember Cap’n Hattie. I have a hunch she knows too much to be perfectly safe.” There was something I had forgotten, but it came back to me.