Delta Factor, The (27 page)

 

Ten minutes out the sudden morning sun cut through the scud like a knife and we lifted to three thousand feet. The pilot hadn't had time to top his tanks before takeoff, and bucking the headwind to reach Nuevo Cádiz had depleted his gas supply to a point critical enough to give him barely a margin of safety. He picked up a direct course for Miami, grateful now for the wind at his back.

I sat next to Kim because she wanted it that way. Across the aisle Joey was holding a wet towel to his head, slumped in the window seat with Victor Sable beside him. Behind me was the third guy who came in, sitting there with a gun in his lap because Kim refused to let him shackle me the way he had wanted to.

Below us the sun was sparkling off the water. It was a nice day and in less than an hour we'd be in Miami. Kim sat there watching the day begin, her hands folded in her lap. Her fingers still held the slip of paper the guy behind me handed her, the receipt for my person. Her responsibility had ended and now I belonged to the man with the gun who had one of those bland faces of the professional who would kill if it was necessary and whom you couldn't fake out with words.

She knew I was looking at her and turned her head and smiled, impulsively reaching over for my hand. She squeezed gently and said, “I heard what he said, Morgan. I'll tell them everything, you know. They'll have to release you.”

I shook my head. “You don't know your own people, baby.”

Her puzzled frown was reflected in her eyes. “I ... don't understand.”

“You're a woman, my lovely wife. You're a luscious, sexy doll who's been running with a wild-assed guy and living with him legally joined in matrimony while we played the game, and women have been known to turn emotional under those conditions and forget what they came for. Right now you even got the look to go with it. In a million years, you couldn't make them believe we weren't in the sack together, and when you have your clothes off in the dark on a soft bed a woman is only a woman and a better one if she's a wife ... and when she becomes a wife she'd do anything to save her husband. It's as simple as that, Kim.”

Anger sparked her eyes open. “There's Sable and Jolley ...”

“Joey's word would count for nothing. They'd know what he is. And nobody will be talking about Victor Sable. What happened back there never happened at all, officially. There will be rumors and speculation, but the hurricane and the new bunch taking over will confuse the whole issue and even the Reds won't be able to make any propaganda out of it.

“No, baby, they won't talk about it and won't believe you and the only item that could turn the trick would be if Sal Dekker had told us where he planted all that beautiful money.”

For a moment she just stared at me, her eyes shiny with a wet film that welled into twin teardrops in their corners. “But he did, Morgan.”

This time I didn't understand.

She said, “Where your namesake hid his riches.”

“They never found that, either.”

“Maybe they never tried hard enough.”

I felt all the little hairs on my arms raise up and a tiny prickling sensation eat at my skin. I leaned back against the seat and said, “You know, maybe it would have been pretty damn good at that.”

“What, Morgan?”

“Suppose I could have been cleared? Suppose we had that forty million to turn in and they had to listen to you and take Joey and Sable's word for it.” I turned my head and looked at her. “What would you do about it now?”

Her smile was wry and she wiped the tears out of her eyes. “Nothing,” she said. “I wouldn't have to. We're already married.”

“You mean I wouldn't have to rape you?”

The smile laughed at me gently and her face was a glorious thing, dirty but beautiful; hair mussed but lovely, those full breasts pouting against the restraint of her clothes and the hem of the dress hiked up comfortably over full round thighs that were too exciting to look at long. “You might call it that,” she said, “but I'd help you.”

My hand squeezed hers. “I love you, Kim.”

The gentle pressure of her fingers said the same as her words. “I love you, Morgan the Raider.”

“I'm thinking again,” I said.

“I know you are,” she told me.

“They don't call me the Raider for nothing, you know.”

“Naturally not.”

“It might take a while, but you'll have to wait for me.”

She didn't even know what I was thinking, but whatever it was satisfied her completely. “Forever if I have to.”

“Nobody else?”

“They'd
really
have to rape me.”

“It's going to be fun,” I said.

“The best.”

“See you,” I said, and saw the confidence behind the puzzle in her eyes.

I raked my nails across the cut I had gotten from the knife of the guard back at the Rose Castle and started the blood running down my side again. I pulled my shirt away so they could see it wasn't a phony and winced loudly enough so Sable turned and looked at me. I caught his eyes, hoped my expression conveyed what I wanted when I let them focus on the canvas bag he had at his feet, the one I made him carry, then stood up with my shirt back so the guy behind me could see what had happened.

“This thing's bugging me, feller. Mind if I go back there and clean it up?”

He had the gun pointed at my head, but one look at the raw, open wound wiped any suspicion out of his face. I was his responsibility now and he wanted me delivered whole and healthy. He started to get up to go to the lavatory with me, and Victor Sable got into the act.

He picked up the bag, held up his hand and said, “Please, I am a doctor, among other things. Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

The guy frowned, nodded and sat back, but turned in his seat to watch us all the way.

Time and distance overlapped, that of the plane coinciding with that of the boat that was a small dot on the face of the sea below. We came out of the tiny lavatory with Sable leading the way so that he blocked the view of me in the chest pack, and when the guy did finally see it Victor Sable stumbled deliberately into him, smothering his gun hand with his clumsiness as I reached for the handle on the door of the plane and forced it open.

I had a wad of loot in my pocket to do what I had to do and if the guy in the boat was able to reach me he'd know what pennies from heaven really mean.

There was a happy glow in Kim's eyes and a laugh on her mouth and words that said,
“Go, husband!”
as she made a
V
with two fingers, crossed it with her other forefinger to make the sign of the delta factor, then pointed to herself so I'd remember that she was the only delta left for me.

I couldn't hold back the wild laugh and it must have been just like Old Henry himself let out when he mocked the whole world.

Then I jumped.