Hamilton, Donald - Matt Helm 14 Read Online Free

but they're never really dull
when you're waiting like that in a duck blind, or by a deer trail, or in a
promising ambush.
                There was always the possibility, of
course, that my quarry had escaped in some other direction; but the most likely
theory was that he'd been working out of San Carlos like me, behaving like just another tourist
and keeping an eye on me.
                And if he'd come out of San Carlos , he'd want to check back in there, because
they keep track of the craft using their marina facilities. I considered it a
good enough theory that I was willing to wait until sunset and at least an hour
longer, if I had to.
                I didn't have to. At six-thirty,
with the sun just starting to dip behind the spectacular rock formations to the
west, his patience ran out, and he came. I first glimpsed a flash of spray well
out beyond the point; then I saw the white skiff driving along with the whitecapped waves that threatened to overwhelm it. I was
already reeling in my fishing line. This late in the afternoon, I saw, in this
weather, we had the whole Sea of Cortez to ourselves.
                Laying the rod down, I quickly
lowered the motor and turned the key. The big mill began to rumble behind me,
shaking the little fiberglass hull. I hauled up the anchor, dumped it aboard,
and backed the boat out of its hidey hole very cautiously: this was no time to
bend the propeller on a rock. Then I shoved the go-stick forward, and we took
off flying.
                He saw me coming. He turned, as soon
as the waves would let him, and tried to flee. It was kind of pitiful,
actually; just about as pitiful as me innocently chasing seals with his
telescope crosshairs tracking me. I shot down the bay at flank speed, mostly
airborne; but this time I throttled back in good time before hitting the heavy
stuff out past the point. He was plunging through it, or trying to, heading
hack the way he'd come. Actually, his light boat wasn't making much progress
against the waves and the wind. The extra weight and freeboard of my craft, not
to mention the extra horsepower, made it no contest. I simply walked up on him
as if his little motor had stopped running.
                I don't mean to imply that it was
smooth and easy. It was a rough, wet chase while it lasted, with a lot of spray
flying; but the big crested rollers out of the northwest turned out to be more
frightening to look at than dangerous to ride. At fifty yards he went for the
rifle. This was ridiculous. He couldn't even hold the thing to his shoulder for
managing the boat, and he couldn't have found me in the big sniper's telescope
if he had, the way the seas were tossing him around. He fired a couple of
times, kind of one-handed and from the hip. I never saw or heard the bullets.
While he was working the bolt for a third shot, a wave threw him off balance
and he almost fell overboard. The firearm went into the sea as he grabbed the
gunwale with both hands to catch himself. So much for that.
                The rest was simple. The most
vulnerable spot of his boat was the low stern, cut down to accommodate the
outboard motor. On larger boats like mine, that motor notch is protected by the splashwell inboard that I've already mentioned, that
catches a boarding wave and lets it drain back out again, but his little tub
had no such protection. Anything that came through the motor cutout wound up
right in the boat with him.
                On my first pass, he kicked his
stern aside at the last moment by yanking desperately at the motor's control
handle. I swung around with him, using all the throttle I dared in that seaway,
and he took in some twenty gallons of my wake in spite of his evasive maneuver.
The next pass was a clean miss as a rogue wave threw us far apart at the last
moment, but I came right around and had a beautiful shot past his stern as he
hit the next sea too hard, shipped more