several hundred yards. It was only a few more feet to the corner. He was beginning to tighten up. Suppose Otto happened to be looking this way just as he peeked around the corner? Well, for Christ’s sake, what could he do about it? Why get in an uproar over something entirely out of his control?

He was there. With his hand as near the deck as he could get it, he leaned forward and peered around. Otto was in profile fifty feet away, staring unwaveringly down into the well-deck in front of him. His belly was against the rail, and though his forearms were resting on it, he held the weapon at ready, in both hands, with a finger inside the trigger guard. Goddard took a long, deep breath, and waited, conscious of that impulse to yawn which in a situation like this was just the opposite of what it implied.

Thirty more seconds went by. She was giving him plenty of time to be set. But not too much, Danish doll; this can get pretty hairy. Now! Otto’s head was turning; he was looking to the left. The men in the well-deck had seen her. He tried to breathe against the tightness in his chest, and gathered himself to leap. Then Karen Brooke stepped out into the open at the other corner of the deck house. He stared, and almost forgot to go into action, with an impression he must be as goggle-eyed as Otto. She’d taken off Antonio’s jacket.

She was facing Otto completely nude above the nylon briefs, and if that weren’t enough to nail any normal male under ninety-five solidly to the deck, she was also as wet and dripping as if she’d just emerged from the sea, and drowned strands of blonde hair were plastered over her face. She made a beautiful ghost, he thought, but he almost felt sorry for Otto as he got into gear at last and started running softly across the long expanse of open deck. It seemed almost superfluous to hit him.

But if Otto was no longer a problem, the men in the well-deck were something else. As he ran, presumably in full view of them, he made a slashing Cut! gesture with both arms and then pushed toward them with his palms, but not a damned one of them had even seen him. And suppose he couldn’t even get Otto to whirl and swing that gun off her? Take him by the shoulders and turn him, like a manikin in Macy’s window? It was less than ten feet now, and he was driving.

‘Otto!’ he snapped, and whacked the rail with the wrench at the same time. That did it.

The big sailor came unglued at last, and started to wheel, and at the same time Karen jumped back out of sight around the corner. He swung down with the wrench, getting the wrist into it at the end, and it made a sound he was afraid Lind might hear on the bridge. Otto simply collapsed, two hundred pounds of bone and cabled muscle folding up and settling to the deck like a deflating pneumatic toy. There was a good chance he’d killed him, and while it might bother him later, at the moment he didn’t seem to care.

Strangely, the gun didn’t fire at all. With his left hand he grabbed it from the other’s lifeless grasp before it had a chance to drop. He turned. The men in the well-deck were catching up now, and when they saw him with the gun, two or three started to break for the ladders. He made a savage gesture of the arm: Back! But they didn’t get it fast enough. There was a shout from the bridge, followed by the crash of a gun. He dropped the wrench, pointed the gun out toward the sea, and pulled the trigger. It was on single fire, so he shot twice more.

He made the gesture again, and this time they all got it. Nobody had fallen at the shot from the bridge, but now he saw Barset, at his third shot, clap a hand dramatically to his chest, grimace with agony, sway, and fall forward on his face. Trust a con man to pick it up, but, God, what a ham.

The men were shifting back now, watching him with the same fear and hatred they had Otto, so it should be safe as far as the bridge was concerned. He gave it to them in pantomime: pointing to