The Windsor Protocol Page 9

  “Whoever they are,” he grunted, “they’re bloody unfriendly!”

  CHAPTER IX

  Tuesday, August 20, 1940

  Jessie’s head emerged out of the engine-room hatchway, her face was etched in startled surprise.

  “What the hell is…?” she began, but was cut off by another burst of sharp chattering from the machine-gun on the fast closing vessel.

  “Get down, Jess!” yelled Adams, swinging hard at the wheel.

  The girl bobbed back down into the engine room.

  “Conroy, can you break out the weapons?”

  “Aye, aye, skipper,” Conroy replied grimly and moved down into the saloon. Adams wrestled with the wheel once again. Conroy was nearly flung off his balance as the Eleuthera lurched and swung in the water. Then he could hear the roar of the two Kestrel engines as Adams opened the throttles.

  He found the panel behind which Adams’ arsenal was hidden. As well as the two Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistols, he saw that Adams had a US Ml Garand assault rifle. He thrust the pistols in his belt and grabbed the rifle and a couple of clips of ammunition. When he scrambled back into the cockpit he found Adams crouching low over the wheel. He glanced swiftly around to discover where their antagonist was.

  Adams was racing directly for the motor cruiser as if he were intent on ramming.

  “Attack is the better part of defence,” called the owner of the Eleuthera. “Can you use that?” He gestured to the Ml.

  Conroy jerked his head affirmatively. He was already feeding the eight round ammunition clip into the semiautomatic weapon.

  “I want to get nearer the cays,” yelled Adams, the wind almost whipping the words from his mouth. “At least we stand more of a chance with some land and rocks for protection than in the open seas.”

  Conroy glanced ahead with eyes narrowed. The two boats were closing fast on each other, neither appeared to be prepared to give way.

  “We’re heading for an almighty smash, skipper,” he ventured. He wasn’t sure whether Adams heard him. The owner of the Eleuthera was pushing the throttles even further down. Conroy could feel the throbbing vibration of the engines under the deck planking.

  Like two arrows, the boats ate up the distance between them, bow pointing to bow.

  “When she sheers off, try to pick off the machine gunner on the bow,” cried Adams.

  “Are you sure that she’ll sheer off?” returned Conroy, checking the rifle.

  Adams simply grinned. But there was little humour in the expression.

  The machine-gun from the other boat was still chattering away but the bullets were flying above them. Splinters of wood flew off the main mask. Conroy saw the machine-gun was mounted on a low tripod. Its outlines seemed recognisable as a Spandau. Beside him, he heard Adams swear loudly as the wood splintered from the mast. Conroy leant forward from the cockpit and levelled his weapon.

  The oncoming boat was still holding firmly to its course.

  Yards separated the two vessels. The black shadow of the machine-gunner on the bow leapt up shouting, or at least gesticulating for Conroy could hear nothing. Conroy could see he was unhappy at the impending crash. Conroy squeezed off a shot but his target dropped, unable to keep its balance on the racing deck of the other vessel.

  The bows rushed forward.

  “I don’t think…” began Conroy nervously.

  Then the oncoming vessel started to turn away to port. The black shadow of the machine gunner was now in his sights again. Conroy depressed the trigger three times, the gas operated mechanism fed three .30 calibre bullets into the chamber and the hammer crashed down on them in turn. The motor cruiser sped past and Conroy turned, but his vision was obscured by the superstructure of the vessel so that he could not see whether he had scored a hit or not.

  Adams gave a loud hoot of triumphant laughter.

  Conroy turned to see him grinning fiercely over the wheel.

  “Well manoeuvred, skipper,” he hollered. “What now?”

  Adams gestured to the islands.

  “We’ll try to play hide and seek.”

  Conroy turned back. Their assailant was curving back after them. He grabbed Adams’ binoculars and focussed them. There were two figures on the bow deck. One was bending over the other, which lay prone. So he had made a hit after all. He swung the glasses over the vessel. There was nothing to identify it.

  “Who do you think they are?” he demanded.

  Adams shrugged.

  “Obviously our friends from last night. When the sabotage to the boat didn’t work, they must have decided to get really tough.”

  “But who are they?”

  Adams replied with a simple shrug of his broad shoulders.

  Jessie popped her head up again, glanced round and came scrambling across the deck to the cockpit.

  “What the hell is going on, Harry?”

  “You’re guess is as good as mine. How’s the engines?”

  “We can’t keep up this speed for very long.”

  “I know it. I’m making for North Cat Cay.”

  “There’s little shelter there.”

  “But plenty of submerged rocks for the unwary. I’m hoping that whoever they are, they don’t know these waters like I do. Even so, stand by with that rifle, Conroy.”

  Conroy glanced behind towards the attacking vessel.

  “Whoever they are, their boat has a fair old burst of speed. They are coming up again pretty quickly.”

  “Okay,” Adams grunted, swinging the wheel sharply. The Eleuthera curved away.

  Conroy’s mouth suddenly gaped. A few yards away a long line of coral reef, with its jagged teeth barely a few inches or so above water level, sped by. He shivered abruptly and prayed Adams knew what he was doing.

  He saw Jessie grinning at him.

  “Don’t worry. Didn’t I tell you that Harry knows these waters?”

  Conroy did not reply but turned to concentrate once again on the oncoming vessel.

  Adams was bobbing and weaving now. The oncoming vessel, keeping in a straight line, was gaining rapidly. The machine-gunner, whom Conroy had hit, had been replaced by another man who opened up with an intensity of fire.

  The distance between the ships began to close once more, from one hundred yards to fifty yards. Conroy could feel the bullets striking the Eleuthera.

  “It’s not going to work, Adams,” Conroy cried, crouching on the deck of the cockpit.

  He tried to take aim and answer the fire from the machine-gun but Adams kept the boat twisting and turning so much that he could not get a clear shot.

  It happened with such abruptness that for several moments Conroy crouched, aiming his rifle, just staring.

  The speeding pursuer seemed to leap out of the water and take to the air with the terrible scream of metal and wood over sharp rock. The impact of the hull on the submerged coral had flung the motor cruiser into the air. There was a split second before a loud explosion and a ball of flame enveloped it. For several moments black burning objects fell out of the sky.

  Adams drew back the throttles to idling and stopped the Eleuthera dead in the water.

  He turned and gazed at the strewn wreckage floating across the water. One or two little patches were still on fire. He shook his head slowly.

  “Had we better see if there are any survivors?” asked Jessie quietly, a shocked expression on her face.

  “From that?” asked Adams dryly.

  He turned and open the throttles again, swaying gently at the wheel as he guided the Eleuthera back to the reef among the floating flotsam and jetsam.

  It was Conroy who spotted the body floating face down and called to Adams to nudge his vessel alongside.

  Using a boathook, he and Adams brought it up to the for’ard deck while Jessie was left in the cockpit to ensure the Eleuthera did not drift onto the reef.

  The body was that of a young man in his early twenties. His short hair was ginger and his sharp features were almost stereotype Germanic lo
oking. They were the sort of features which Hitler would enthuse as being truly Aryan. He was dressed in a neat tropical suit. Conroy felt through the pockets of his clothes. He drew a pistol from the hip pocket and placed it on the deck.

  “Luger Parabellum,” he grunted. “German issue. Thirty-two shot.”

  Adams watched silently as Conroy searched through the other pockets. There was a pocket book.

  He glanced through it and extracted a card which he handed to Adams.

  “Know what that is?” he asked Adams.

  Adams’ eyes narrowed.

  “Membership card of the German-American Bund signed by the Bund Fuhrer Fritz Kuhn himself.”

  Conroy stood up.

  “Chances are that the whole crew were members of the American Nazi movement. Easier to use local talent here than import agents directly from the Fatherland.”

  Adams compressed his lips.

  “So they were the opposition. Which means that they are on to you, Conroy. But how?”

  Conroy felt bewildered.

  “No one can know what I am here to do except the people who sent me.”

  Adams was clearly worried. “I reckon that there must have been a leak somewhere.”

  Conroy wasn’t convinced. The only flaw in his cover was his encounter with O’Regan at Foynes. But even if O’Regan had identified him as an agent there was no way he could have known what his mission was. Or could he? Had O’Regan’s midnight ‘phone call actually concerned him? It was just absurd. But, if it did, how could the opposition have traced him from Montreal? It stretched the imagination too far for credibility. He shook his head emphatically.

  “Well,” Adams conceded, “however our Bundist friends have discovered us, one thing is certain, they can’t have been acting on their own account. Their friends in the Bahamas will be waiting for us. They must know who we are.”

  “Can we change our identities? Get another boat, perhaps?”

  Adams thought a moment. “There’s a place I know about eighty miles, south-east of here, where we can give Eleuthera a change of appearance. But I think we are now playing the game with the cards stacked against us.”

  He glanced down at the body of the dead Bund member.

  “What about this?”

  Conroy gestured towards the sea.

  They said nothing as together they lifted the body and heaved it over the side.

  Conroy gathered up the Luger Parabellum and the pocket book.

  “Let’s keep these in a safe place. They might come in useful.”

  Adams gestured indifferently.

  “It’s your show,” he said, leading the way back to the cockpit.

  Joulter Cay was a large rectangular islet just to the north of Andros, the biggest but least populated of the main Bahama islands. They had reached the shade of the island by mid-afternoon without encountering any other vessels or, indeed, coming within sight of any other island. Conroy was surprised when Adams ran the Eleuthera into a shaded shrub-covered inlet, running her against an old wooden pierhead, by a small ramshackled shed.

  He saw, appreciatively, that it would be difficult for anyone to spot them from the sea.

  “This is a nice hide-out, Adams,” he observed, as he clambered ashore while Jessie and Adams secured the boat.

  “It has served its purpose before,” Adams admitted. “One or two bootleggers have used it before now.”

  Conroy glanced across to see whether Adams was being serious.

  “It’s true. About a decade ago, during the bad old days of Prohibition in the States, there was a lot of booze smuggling going on from the Bahamas into Florida and even further north. People with the nerve and fast boats stood to make tidy fortunes. In fact, many of the Bay Street Boys started their fortunes that way.”

  “The Bay Street Boys?”

  Adams grimaced.

  “The local white oligarchy in the Bahamas,” he explained. “The people who actually run the place. And don’t think they are “English gentlemen” types. They are a pretty ruthless crowd.”

  “Bay Street Boys?” pressed Conroy.

  “They take their name after the main Nassau thoroughfare, where the leading business life of the island is situated. They are a small white clique among the ten thousand white minority which rule over the sixty thousand poor blacks.”

  Conroy frowned at Adams. Again there was that unexpected bitter tone to his voice.

  “You sound as if you’re making a social comment, Adams?”

  Adams screwed up his features.

  “Maybe. Maybe I am at that,” he said shortly.

  He swung himself over the side of the boat and stood on the wooden quay letting his gaze run over the trim lines of the Eleuthera.

  Conroy found himself investigating the surrounding vegetation. It was a lush little islet. Unusual for the coral reefs which constituted the main group of islands. Sharp eyed cormorants wheeled overhead, fairly low in the sky, as they tried to spot the silver flash of anchovy. Sleepy giant lizards, which Adams identified as iguanas, blinked in the hot sunshine and simply ignored their presence. It was hard to think of death and destruction in this idyllic setting.

  Jessie began fixing some food below as Conroy turned back to Adams.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Well,” Adams rubbed his chin as he turned from examining the Eleuthera, “we can rig up an extra mast. There is a fitting for a small stay for’ard but I never rig it. We can also change her name. If our Bundist friends, before their untimely demise, sent off a description of the rig of the Eleuthera, then a change of that rig might fool anyone looking for her. Also a new paint job. Changing her documents is easy enough, should anyone grease the harbour authorities’ palms to make a check on the documentation of any new arrivals in Nassau. 1 carry a spare set of ship’s papers which identifies the Eleuthera as the Savanna- la- Mar, home port of Port Maria on the north side of Jamaica. Registered owner one Adam Harris. Neat, eh?”

  “But obvious,” commented Conroy.

  “Our opposition are so clever that the obvious becomes too easy for them.”

  Conroy was not too impressed.

  “If the opposition has been warned about us, then they’ll be watching for a yacht of the Eleuthera’s size, with two men and a girl, arriving from Miami.”

  Adams nodded.

  “So the Savanna-la-Mar, sailing out of Port Maria, Jamaica, will arrive in Nassau with just two men on her. We’ll have to fix you up with new papers and a new identity.”

  “But what happens to Jessie?”

  “Jessie’s aunt lives at Lyford Cay on New Providence. We’ll put her off there so that she can gather up any gossip or information and then she can meet us in Nassau in a few days’ time.”

  “And the identity changes?”

  “I think we should stick as near as possible to the original plan. You’re a businessman who has hired my boat for a trip around the islands and for some fishing.”

  “And who am I supposed-to be? And how do 1 get a passport?”

  Adams winked.

  “I have some blanks, kindly supplied for such emergencies by His Majesty’s Government. No problem. Who would you like to be?”

  Conroy sighed. He hated learning new identities. Most of his previous work he carried out using his real identity and cover as a travel writer. Only recently had he had to assume entirely different identities and it made him uncomfortable. He always felt a cheat.

  “How about Carson?” he suggested. “Nice and simple.” Adams nodded. “Okay. Same birth date and place?”

  “It makes it easy,” agreed Conroy.

  “Occupation — businessman?”

  “Agricultural implements importer.”

  “First name?”

  “Oscar.” The name came out automatically.

  Adams raised his eyebrows in mild amusement. “Oscar?”

  “I was reading A Picture of Dorian Gray the other week,” explained Conroy. “Yes; Oscar.”

&n
bsp; “Well, no one would believe that was a false name,” grinned Adams.

  “When do we begin the metamorphosis of the Eleuthera?”

  “Right after lunch, with a pot of paint and a bit of sweat.”

  “Sure you can handle the new documentation?”

  “Don’t worry, Conroy,” Adams replied dryly. “They taught us a few things at spy school! Now, Mister Oscar Carson. Welcome to the Savanna-la-Mar. After lunch you can get painting.”

  CHAPTER X

  Wednesday, August 21, 1940

  The conference room at the Ministry of Economic Warfare in Berkeley Square House, London, was a large, echoing, wooden panelled room that had once seen better days. Above the polished oak panels, which rose just over halfway up the walls to a height of eight feet, the plaster was worn, its once tastefully decorated surface was yellowing with age and there were patches which showed areas where valuable paintings had been removed from their hangings for safety and nothing had replaced them.

  At the head of the large reddish-brown polished table, the Minister, Doctor Dalton, sat in a worn leather upholstered chair. He had a note-pad in front of him on which he was doodling.

  To his left, Lord Skenfrith was slouched in his usual attitude of boredom. The third occupant of the room was the chief of MI5’s D(3) Section, Lieutenant Colonel Larry Dunnett.

  “The one item that we have in common is the business of Conroy,” Dalton remarked, as he drew a series of obscure designs on the pad. “I felt it best that we should remain in close touch on this matter since we are all closely involved and need to pass on the information to our respective principals.”

  Dunnett’s features were disapproving and seemed tinged with a little anxiety.

  “I thought this matter concerned only ourselves and our operative.”

  Skenfrith blinked indolently.

  “Dear fellow, HM needs to know. After all, it’s his bally brother.”

  Dalton nodded in agreement. “And the PM has asked me what developments there have been.”

  Dunnett hesitated and then shrugged.