The next day did little to help his mood of increasing tension and anger. He had set another triangular course, pursuing it with the same thoroughness and with the same results. But this time he returned to the lab ship before darkness, sent the same helpless one-word message to Hawk and turned off the lights in his cabin. But instead of sleep he lay awake in the dark, watching the night grow deeper through the porthole window. When darkness had completely seized the sea, he carefully slipped from the cabin and took up a position on the top step of the companionway to the engine room.

  He hadn’t long to wait. Leaving the light on in her cabin, she emerged in her two-piece suit, the raft already inflated in her arms, just barely managing to squeeze through the narrow passageway with it. As she disappeared up the steps, Nick went into his cabin where he had brought his equipment from the plane. He suited-up in moments, hurried on deck to see the little raft with the blond head in it moving out over the dark water.

  A full moon was beginning to move out from behind some clouds as he went over the side. In his scuba outfit, he swam easily behind the raft, submerged for the most part, a silent, unseen shadow. The full moon now cast a long, silvery pathway across the water, and Danielle was clearly visible in the raft. He didn’t like swimming at night in these shark-infested waters. There would be little chance of seeing them come, less chance of avoiding them. His powerful muscles were still fresh when he saw her destination, a small, shallow atoll, hardly more than a coral reef, jutting out of the sea. A few scrub palms rose hesitantly from the sandy top of the atoll. Danielle pulled the raft up on the atoll while Nick treaded water and watched. He was half-expecting her to uncover a small transmitting set someplace on the atoll. Instead, he saw her reach back, pull a clip from her hair and let it cascade down, a shimmering crown of gold reaching down below her shoulders. Then she reached a hand behind her, pulled off the bra of her swim suit and with one, quick motion, stepped out of the panties. Nick saw a goddess in the night, standing ankle-deep in the gentle waves, a daughter of Neptune, Botticelli’s Venus Rising from the Sea.

  He found his breath catching as he took in the absolute beauty of the girl standing naked under the moon. Her breasts round and fully shaped, her hips broad and inviting, a classic beauty of ravishing proportions. Nick felt his loins stirring as he watched her walk out into the water, tossing handfuls of the ocean over herself, luxuriating in the sensuousness of the water on her body. Her breasts floated like twin, pink-tipped peaches on the water, and then she plunged fully into the sea, swimming strongly, doing surface dives, turning on her back, a mermaid, a gorgeous porpoise, a creature thoroughly abandoned to her pleasures. Obviously she was an excellent swimmer and these stolen moments were her hour of pleasure—her secret indulgence—the tossing away completely of the proper marine biologist. But as he watched her, reveling in the absolute beauty of the girl, her naked body caught by the moonlight, not unlike the silver shimmer of a fish as it leaps from the water in exuberant joy, he found himself annoyed with her. Any moonlight swimming alone is risky. A sudden cramp, a muscle spasm, any unforeseen physical problem, and you were in bad trouble without someone around to help. And in these waters, with every type and kind of undersea killer about, it was courting danger. To top it all, she had chosen a coral atoll, favorite hunting spot for the most predatory of marine life who knew that the coral attracted the smaller fish for their diet of brine shrimp, isopods, ribbon worms and the like.

  As he watched her, thinking how beautiful she was, despite her foolishness, she dove down, finally bursting to the surface again. She did it twice more; the third time, she was long in surfacing, too long. Nick felt his brow furrowing, and he looked across the water, along the length of the atoll to see if she had surfaced farther away. But there was no sign of that shimmering, blond sea-sprite.

  Nick dove down instantly, his powerful legs kicking out, sending him through the water. The moonlight filtered down, giving some light in the inky blackness of the night sea. The reef was stag coral, he saw, as he made his way along its convoluted edges. Then he saw the struggling forms, the blond hair stretched out like some unique form of seaweed. Something long and thrashing was attached to her leg just above the ankle, one end half-hidden in the coral. In split seconds Nick saw that it was a giant moray eel, one of the most vicious creatures in the sea, lying in its lair in a coral reef, waiting to dart out and seize its prey. Strong jaws and sharp, needle teeth made short work of the average fish.

  Nick unsheathed the long-bladed knife at the waist of his suit and slashed out at the moray. The girl’s struggles were weak and he knew her breath must be about gone. As the knife cut into the moray’s thick, green skin, the giant eel whirled and Nick saw Danielle strike out for the surface. Nick hacked at the eel again, content to cut at it as best he could. He knew there would be no avoiding the moray’s lunge by maneuvering. Instead he grasped the under throat of the huge eel with both hands, only to have them slip from the smooth skin. He whirled and struck out for the surface. The moray, as his natural movements dictated, was unwilling to leave the protection of his coral cave to give chase. But the water was now red with blood and Nick knew all too well what this would bring in but a few, short moments. He surfaced to see Danielle still half in the water, pulling herself up onto the atoll. He came up beside her and helped her onto the sand. As she lay there, breathing heavily, he stripped off his suit and examined her ankle. He took the bra of her suit and made it into a bandage, wrapping it tight around the ankle to stay the flow of blood from the series of teeth marks.

  The girl looked up at him, color returning to her face. She tried to reach for the bottom half of her suit but Nick pulled it from her.

  “Forget it,” he said. “It’s much too late for that.”

  The girl rose up on one elbow, her breasts falling to one side—ripe, luscious fruits.

  “You were foolish,” Nick said. “You should know better. Moonlight swimming is something you don’t do alone.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life. I’m indebted to you for that, though I don’t appreciate being spied on. You obviously followed me here.”

  “Obviously,” he said, pushing her back down onto the sand, her hair forming a golden pillow, the moonlight giving her naked body an almost ethereal quality. He leaned over her, holding her arms behind her head with his one hand.

  “You really are a powerful personality, Commander,” Danielle said. “An ordinary girl would have no chance with you, I’m convinced.”

  “But you’re not an ordinary girl,” Nick said, and he meant it. He let his eyes rove up and down her nude body, letting the unabashed desire in them communicate itself to her. He saw the cool, electric blue of her eyes begin to darken. He bent his head down and gently brushed her breasts with his lips, back and forth, back and forth, ever so gently, feeling their pink tips eagerly rise under the soft touch of his lips. As he moved slowly from breast to breast, he saw the rapid rise and fall of her abdomen. He let his lips move up along her throat, saw her hands digging into the sand, felt the muscles of her arms tighten. With his lips just gently resting on hers, he moved away ever so slightly.

  “How’s the trained, scientific mind, Doc?” he breathed. “In control of the emotions?”

  “Yes—yes,” she said, squeezing the words out through shallow breaths.

  “Good,” Nick said, rolling to one side and sitting up. “Let’s have another look at that ankle.” He tightened the makeshift bandage and sat back, looking at the angry line of her jaw.

  “You’re still so very sure of yourself, aren’t you, Commander?” she said. “You’re amusing yourself.”

  “Immensely,” Nick admitted. “But I do admire the control you have. It’s fantastic, absolutely amazing.”

  She had placed the bottom of her suit over her pelvis. “You’re being sarcastic,” she said.

  “Heavens, not little ol’ me,” Nick said, wide-eyed.

  “I think we’d better start back,” she said.

  “Right,” Nick agreed. “I’m taking the raft with you this time. I’m not interested in playing tag with sharks. Besides, we can take turns paddling.”

  “I can’t go back just wearing the bottom of my suit,” Danielle protested.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to. If everyone’s asleep you can sneak aboard without being seen. If we see anyone, I’ll lend you the top of my diving suit.”

  “Why not give it to me now?”

  “I’m enjoying the view,” Nick grinned. Danielle walked to the raft, slipped on the bottom of her suit and glowered at him the entire trip back. She crossed her arms over her breasts. It didn’t work and she knew it, but she continued anyway. The Triton was quiet and they got back on board without seeing anyone. At the door to her cabin she paused and turned to him, her eyes wide and sincere.

  “Thank you, again,” she said, quietly. “I—I really am grateful to you.”

  “Not nearly as much as you’re going to be,” Nick grinned. Her eyes blazed and he blocked the slap, catching her hand as she swung.

  “Tsk-tsk-tsk, Doctor,” he said. “Physical violence? That’s an emotional act, I’d say.”

  “No, that was an intellectual decision,” she snapped and slammed the door. Nick laughed aloud as he went to his cabin. His suspicions had been blown apart and he was glad. In the morning he’d stop to check out that little ketch. He felt drawn to it, somehow. Maybe because it was the only out-of-the-usual thing he’d come across in three days. There was no getting around it. He was drawing a blank on this mission.

  CHAPTER V

  It was another cloudless, brilliant morning in the Caribbean, and the little plane flew at top speed, straight as an arrow. Nick had taken an accurate bearing on the little ketch and he had no trouble finding her. She was still there, still in exactly the same spot, except for having swung around with the morning tides. Once again there was no sign of anyone aboard her. Nick set the aircraft down near the ketch, taxied to the boat’s anchor and tied a line to it. He clambered from the cabin of the plane, lowered himself into the water and swam the short distance to the ketch. The water felt cool and refreshing after the hot glare of the Caribbean sun and he swam around the ketch, calling out as he did so. But there was no answer and he finally reached up to the gunwale and began to pull himself out of the water. He was just straddling the side, half on the deck, when he heard the voice. It came from the dark of the companionway leading below decks.

  “Don’t move, mister,” it said. “Stay right there.” Nick saw the revolver, first, a .38 police model, jutting out over the top step of the companionway. Then the girl appeared, moving slowly out onto the deck, holding on to the roof of the cabin with her other hand. She appeared to move with some difficulty, drawing her left leg after her stiffly. Nick straightened up.

  “Easy,” she cautioned. “I’d hate to shoot something as beautiful as you.”

  She wore yellow shorts and the yellow halter of a bathing suit. Nick guessed her to be about twenty-eight. She was fairly tall, brown-haired and brown-eyed, with a short, somewhat flat nose set in a high-cheekboned face—altogether a very attractive, mature girl. Her breasts behind the brief halter stood out attentively, her nipples prominent points pressing against the fabric.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I just came down to see if anyone needed help aboard,” Nick smiled. “You can put that thing down, really you can. Is it loaded?”

  “It’s loaded,” she said, grimly. “Who are you?”

  Nick gestured to the plane and the big, black letters along the sides. He saw the girl’s eyes take them in with a quick glance.

  “What’s the matter with your leg?” he asked, noticing she kept from putting any pressure on it.

  “My foot,” she said. “It’s all right, now. I stepped on a sea urchin over a week ago, but it’s coming around slowly.”

  Nick sympathized with her. The tropical water sea urchin exuded poison from its long spines, enough to kill a small child. Stepping on one was not only terribly painful and incapacitating, but dangerous.

  “You treated it yourself here?” Nick asked.

  The girl nodded. “I’ve a first-aid kit,” she said. “I was really sick for a week, but now it just hurts to step on it properly.”

  “How about putting that thing down before it goes off?” Nick asked, noting that the revolver had not wavered, had held him under steady sights. “What are you doing all alone out here in this little ketch, anyway? Who are you?”

  The girl surveyed him carefully. “You first,” she said. “Who are you?”

  “Carter,” Nick answered. “Commander Carter, Naval Research. I’m working with the oceanography expedition on some special projects. We’ve a laboratory vessel we use as our base.”

  “Are you really Naval research?” the girl asked, her eyes widening. “Yes,” Nick lied. She glanced at the plane again, taking in the identifying letters, then back at Nick. Finally, she lowered the revolver and thrust it into the top of her shorts. She passed a hand over her forehead and slumped against the roof of the cabin, suddenly a very tried, very worried-looking girl.

  “Oh, God, if I only knew what to do,” she murmured. “Maybe you can be of help.”

  She lifted herself up onto the cabin roof and looked at Nick, giving him a long, speculative look, obviously trying to decide what to say, how to say it, and how much to say. Nick moved over and sat beside her atop the cabin of the ketch, looking down at her, making her suddenly feel very small.

  “I’ll try,” he said. “What’s the trouble?”

  “I’m Joyce Tanner,” the girl said. “I’m from Miami.”

  “You sailed all the way down here alone in this thing?” Nick interjected in surprise. “I don’t mean to deprecate your little boat, but it’s not very big and from what I can see, not in tiptop shape.” His all-embracing glance had already taken quick note of the chipped paint of the hull, the scarred deck planking, the cracked transom and the worn wood of the boom.

  “It’s not mine,” Joyce Tanner said. “I rented it. It was the best I could afford. I got here by sailing pretty much along the coastline—island-hopping you might say—and paying strict attention to weather advices. One thing this old tub does have is a fantastic radio room. The guy who owned it was a radio enthusiast, I was told. He built a special room with sending and receiving equipment worth putting on a yacht. When I rented it the people at the agency showed me how to operate the stuff.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re down here all alone,’’ Nick commented.

  “I came down looking for my sister,” Joyce said. She took a deep breath and again the nipples of her breasts stood out pointedly under the halter. “I think I may have found her, but now I don’t know what to do.”

  Nick’s eyes showed his confusion and she smiled, a frank, appealing smile that turned into an equally frank, appreciative appraisal of his bronzed chest.

  “I’ll start at the beginning,” she said. “In Miami I’m manager of a department store. I’m divorced, live alone in a good-sized apartment, and my kid sister came tp visit me from Michigan. Junie is just nineteen, just out of secretarial school, filled with eagerness and adventure. She saw an ad in a Miami paper for a job as a secretary-companion to a wealthy man, a recluse on an island somewhere in the Caribbean. She went to the employment agency and they told her about the job, said she might fill the bill. They checked Junie out thoroughly, backwards and forwards. She told them I was her landlady because if she’d had any close relatives she wouldn’t have gotten the job. I know because they came around to my place checking.”

  Nick felt an iciness starting to creep over him as he listened to Joyce Tanner.

  “What was the name of this employment agnecy?” he asked, slowly.

  “Hammer Agency,” Joyce replied. Nick turned it over in his mind. Betty Lou’s agency had been called the Walton Employment Agency. “Go on,” he told Joyce, crisply.

  “Junie promised to write me,” Joyce continued. “It’s been over six months now, and I haven’t heard a thing. That’s not like Junie. I’m her only living relative, and she always wrote, regularly and often. I went to the Hammer Employment people and found they’d closed, gone out of business nearly six months ago. I got worried, and nobody seemed to know what to do. I even went to the police and they told me unless I had some kind of formal complaint to file they couldn’t act. Hell, I didn’t want to file a complaint. First of all, for what and against who? I decided to rent this ketch and go looking for her. I’d learned to be a pretty good sailor years ago on Lake Michigan. I sailed all over the Caribbean. Nobody seems to have heard of a wealthy old man living on his own island.”

  “And of course you found nothing further.”

  “No,” Joyce said. “But I think maybe I’ve found the place. Then I stepped on that damn sea urchin, got sick and anchored out here.”

  Nick felt his pulse leap. “You say you think you’ve found the place?”

  “I think so, but of course I don’t know. It’s a weird place. Just looking at it gave me a funny, creepy feeling. Maybe it’s not the place I’m looking for, but it’s certainly a strange one. It’s uncharted, a little island with a tiny atoll right next to it, midway between Cayo Noreste and Isla la Blanquilla.”

 

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