Page 59 of Passion's Wicked Torment

“Is ... is everything all set?” she asked tentatively. “Trust me, lady. I’ve got federal agents all up and down this pier.”

“Ironman is in there?” she asked, indicating the deserted, forbidding-looking amusement park.

“Ready and waiting.” Joel looked at her sharply. “What’s the matter, you getting cold feet? It was your idea to set the trap this way, with you as bait. This is your big chance to get him, like you want.”

“I know.” She stared at the splintered wooden gate that in the past had stood at the amusement park entrance, but which had long since been beaten down by vagrants and trespassers. “I just wish I could feel more confident about this whole thing.”

“Look. I told you, I got agents everywhere in there. You can trust me. Want a sample? Here, watch this.”

He pointed at a broken-down jumble of pylons and pieces of cut timber far across the pier near the other side. These had once been collection booths from which tickets had been sold to the public when the amusement park was in operation. “Hey!” Joel called out. “Hey! Come on.”

From behind the pylons a head tentatively poked up. It was a man whose expression was stunned. He obviously didn’t expect to be called into the open like this. Seeing the man made Kristin feel reassured. So federal agents were all over the area, after all, she thought.

“You go through the gate and keep walking forward,” said Joel. “There’s only one street, and you walk down it. You’ll meet Ironman, like you want. I can’t go with you, of course. If he saw an agent, it would ruin everything.”

Kristin took a deep breath, braced herself emotionally, then started forward.

“My men will pop out of the woodwork the second they’re needed,” Joel said to her reassuringly as she entered the darkness of the park. “And then we’ll bust him, or kill him if he tries to harm you.”

Joel watched her disappear inside the gate, then quickly turned around and headed toward Agent Antonio Georgio, who was still behind the pilings. Georgio watched him coming, puzzled by this new twist in the plan. He did not know much about Joel, only that he had been instructed not to discuss any classified information with him. He was amazed that the agent would turn up here like this. He was not surprised Joel knew he was stationed behind the piling though. It was common knowledge that all of Ironman’s major points of arrival and departure were under constant surveillance. And this pier from which he often embarked for the Daisy, offshore, was one of the main points.

“What are you doing here?” Antonio Georgio asked Joel in an irritated voice. “And why did you point me out to her like that? I’m on covert reconnaissance. Covert, get it? No outsider is supposed to know I’m here.” “I was sent here to help you out,” Joel said.

Georgio looked at him warily. “Well, I don’t know about that.” He paused. “I’ve got to report. They want to know about the girl arriving. If you want to help out, you stay here and keep watch. I’m going over there.” He pointed down the pier to the area used as a demarcation point for skiffs. A lone telephone booth stood shrouded in the fog.

“That’s a good idea,” said Joel. “You go report.” He smiled pleasantly.

When Antonio Georgio turned toward the phone booth, Joel stuck a snub-nosed .38 in his ribs and fired once. Once was all it took. The sound was muffled by the fog thick night and the closeness of their bodies. Georgio keeled over to the wooden planks of the pier, looking up at Joel in flabbergasted amazement. Within seconds, his eyes rolled shut.

Joel pocketed his .38 and looked toward the gate through which Kristin had passed into the amusement park. Ironman really was waiting inside to meet her. Joel had contacted him earlier and told him all about the supposed trap. Well, Joel thought cynically, grinning crookedly, that’s what you wanted doll—to meet Ironman. And that’s what you’re going to get.

Suddenly a staccato shot shattered the night, and Joel jerked spastically with the shocking physical impact. Another shot rang out. Joel pivoted and collapsed down on top of Antonio Georgio, his eyes staring in horror at the gun in the man’s bloody hand. Then all life went out of Joel’s eyes.

Georgio, for an instant, tried to crawl toward the phone booth off in the distance. It was hopeless. He had used every ounce of his energy just to remain alive this long. And now his energy—and that divine spark—were gone. The gun fell out of his lifeless hand as he collapsed facedown on the wooden pier.

When Hunter arrived at the pier, the first thing he did was go to the pylons to check in with his reconnaissance agent, Georgio. When he found the two lifeless bodies, side by side, he did not have to wonder what had happened. It was all too clear.

He glanced at the phone booth several yards down the pier. Then he glanced at the battered gateway to the amusement park. He knew he should call for reinforcements. The most basic rule of field work was that you covered yourself with superior firepower. There wasn’t time for that now though. It might already be too late. He hurried through the gates in a low crouch, his pistol in his hand.

He moved off to the side instantly, avoiding the single main street. There was a merry-go-round on his left. He circled around behind it, keeping his ears perked and his eyes alert. He hadn’t gone 20 yards into the park when he saw them outside an almost totally destroyed house of mirrors. Kristin was struggling against two of Ironman’s hoods who held her. Ironman was standing before her, his granite face looking merciless.

Where’s Riggio? Hunter wondered, remembering that Georgio’s last phone report said that Ironman had arrived with Riggio and the two hoods. He did not have long to wonder. A smashing blow from a pistol barrel caught him on the side of his head, causing brilliantly colored fireworks to explode inside his skull. He went careening into a whirlpool of blackness.

Twice he regained semiconsciousness, but he couldn’t tell if he were really semiconscious, or just feverishly dreaming. The first time, he felt wooden planks beneath his head and back, and cold salt sea spray was splashing in on him. He thought he was in the bottom of a rowboat, being transported somewhere. He blacked out.

The second time, he was being carried under the arms and ankles by two men, along the deck of what seemed to be the Daisy. The men were talking. One said, “Look there. Isn’t that a boat through the fog, turning in our direction?”

The other man laughed. “With a golden bow? What kind of a ship has a golden bow? You’re seeing the harbor lights reflecting off the water, diffusing through the fog.” Then they started talking about mirages in the desert and pots of gold at the ends of rainbows.

The third time Hunter came to, he knew that he was awake and not just dreaming, because Kristin’s concerned loving face was gazing down at him, and his vision was crystal clear, not hazy. She was sitting on the edge of the bunk he lay on. He tried to rise up. A burst of pain exploded in his head, making him wince sharply and almost swoon back into blackness.

“Careful,” she said. “They hit you really hard.”

He rose up more slowly this time, until he was sitting up in the bunk, his legs over the side. A wet cloth was on his temple, where the sharpest pain seemed to be focused. He felt the throbbing pulse of the Daisy's engines running beneath the floorboards. He knew the ship was steaming out to sea. To make sure, he slowly got up and went to the porthole. He opened it. The ship was moving swiftly. He took in a breath of salt sea air, refreshing himself.

As he looked out the porthole, the ship began to slow. He saw something

shoot down from one of the upper decks into the water. In the moonlight he could not tell for sure what it was, but it appeared to be a hunk of meat from the ship’s galley. The ship continued moving very slowly. Then, after a moment, it picked up speed again.

“What’s happening out there?” Kristin asked.

Hunter had a good idea, but he did not tell her. It was too gruesome. And besides, no purpose would be served by letting her know that the crew was deliberately attracting sharks, so that when it came time to throw the two of them overboard, there would be no remains to be discovered. “It’s nothing,” Hunter said, turning to her. He shut the porthole.

Kristin was clearly desperate about their predicament. “Do you think we should scream out of the porthole? Maybe there are still gamblers aboard the ship, and they’ll hear us?”

Hunter shook his head. “It’s too late. The last gamblers left hours ago, before we were even taken aboard.”

“Well, what’ll we do?” she asked.

He looked at her for a moment, not saying anything. His face was stern. His eyes, though, were gentle. “I want you to understand our situation,” he said. “None of my men know we’re aboard this vessel. We’re steaming out to the high seas; so there’s no chance of the Coast Guard saving us, even if they knew we were aboard, which I’m sure they don’t. We have no weapons. And Ironman has his entire crew aboard, armed, as usual.”

She waited for him to draw a conclusion from all this, to tell her what it all meant, and then what his plan might be to counter it all. But he said nothing more, not about a plan or anything else. He just came to her and took her hands and held them. He looked into her eyes while holding her hands tightly in his, and he let the look in his eyes tell her everything there was to know.

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