The Detonators Read Online Free PDF

thing travels, but some of them can break your back when they really start to go, if you aren’t prepared to absorb the jolting with your knees.”
    They’d given us a mystery man for company, wearing khaki uniform pants like the rest; but his navy-blue watch cap and turtleneck sweater carried no insignia of rank. He was a compact man of medium height with regular WASP features and a dark Mediterranean skin—it had to be more than just a deep tan—but his eyes were gray and the shape of his face was strictly Anglo-Saxon. Well, we’re all kind of scrambled genetically these days, but I had a hunch the Swedes and Scots in my own ancestry got along a little better than the widely diverse racial types, whatever they were, that had produced him. Thick black hair and strong white teeth. Age fifty, give or take five. Now he showed the fine teeth in a tolerant smile at my assumption of nautical knowledge.
    “It shouldn’t be that uncomfortable, Miss Barnett,” he said. “There’s not much sea running out in the Straits this morning, and we won’t be making that much speed. We won’t need to. He can’t have got very far. We should have his location by radio by the time we get out the channel.”
    Gray daylight was sneaking up on us now; and the lights of Miami—or was it Miami Beach here?—were going out along the heavily built-up shoreline as we threaded our way between the buoys of a pass leading seaward that was unfamiliar to me. But then, while I’ve had to learn how to handle boats after a fashion in the line of duty, it’s not my sport. I’ll take a horse or a four-wheel-drive vehicle and some nice desert of mountain scenery any time I’m offered a choice; to hell with a lot of salty water that leaves you sticky when you swim in it and can’t even be used to mix a drink with.
    I said, “His location is no problem. Why should it be? Didn’t anybody bother to look at his maps? Excuse me, charts, sir.”
    He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d be impressed by a lot of greasy sirs; but when you’re dealing with the uniformed services it’s always best to play safe. There was no telling what rank he held, but there was no mistaking the fact that he had some. Respect is cheap and doesn’t hurt a bit. At least I’ve never found it very painful, although I’ve worked with some younger agents who’d much rather be tortured than polite.
    “Belay the sirs,” he said. “The name is Sanderson. What do you mean, Helm?”
    I said, “If I know Doug Barnett, he’ll have it all worked out on paper, where he’s going from here. He’s a very systematic guy with a very systematic master plan. He told me about it once. As I recall, after Miami his next stop was to be Bermuda, about a thousand miles away, out in the open Atlantic.”
    Sanderson was watching me closely by the dim glow of the instruments around us. “We figured he’d head straight across to the Bahamas,” he said. “Less than fifty miles. We do have certain arrangements with the authorities over there, but we’ve got to be diplomatic about taking advantage of them. Once he’s in Bahamian waters, it’ll take a certain amount of red tape to get him back.”
    “Bullshit,” I said. “You talk as if you’re dealing with some kind of criminal in flight. As far as Doug Barnett’s concerned, he’s an innocent man who was attacked by pirates masquerading as law-enforcement officers. They stole his boat and beat him up and kidnapped him… Don’t argue with me, sir. I’m not the guy you’re chasing. I’m just telling you the way his mind is working. Remember he’s carried a badge of his own for a good many years; your pretty uniforms and fancy collar decorations don’t mean a damn thing to him. I don’t mean he’s nuts or anything. He simply refuses to accept your authority anymore; and he’s just taking back his boat going right on with the cruise you interrupted so rudely. If you leave him alone, everything will be fine. If you