Wyatt’s Hurricane / Bahama Crisis. Desmond Bagley

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СКАЧАТЬ think he’d rather have Guantanamo and no Americans.’

      ‘I’ll bet he would.’

      ‘The Navy is trying to build up Cap Sarrat as a substitute for Guantanamo in case Castro gets uppity and takes it from them. I suppose there is a possibility that it might happen.’

      ‘There is,’ said Causton. ‘I don’t think he could just take it by force, but a bit of moral blackmail might do it, given the right political circumstances.’

      ‘Anyway, here is Cap Sarrat,’ said Wyatt. ‘But it’s not nearly as good as Guantanamo. The anchorage in Santego Bay is shallow – all it will take is a light cruiser – and the base facilities will take twenty years and a couple of hundred million dollars to even approach Guantanamo. It’s very well equipped as an air base, though; that’s why we use it as a hurricane research centre.’

      ‘Miss Marlowe was telling me about that –’ began Causton, but he was interrupted by the return of Hansen and Julie and he took the opportunity of asking Julie to dance.

      ‘Aren’t you going to ask me to have a drink?’ demanded Hansen.

      ‘Help yourself,’ said Wyatt. He saw Schelling come into the room with another officer. ‘Tell me, Harry; how did Schelling come to make Commander in your Navy?’

      ‘Dunno,’ said Hansen, sitting down. ‘Must be because he’s a good meteorologist, because he’s an officer like a bull’s got tits.’

      ‘Not so good, eh?’

      ‘Hell, one thing an officer’s got to do is to lead men, and Schelling couldn’t be a Den Mother for a troop of Girl Scouts. He must have got through on the specialist side.’

      ‘Let me tell you something,’ said Wyatt, and told Hansen about his conversation that morning with Schelling. He ended up by saying, ‘He thinks that meteorology is an exact science and that what the textbooks say is so. People like that frighten me.’

      Hansen laughed. ‘Dave, you’ve come across a type of officer that’s not uncommon in the good old USN. The Pentagon is swarming with them. He goes by the book for one reason and one reason only – because if he goes by the book he can never be proved wrong, and an officer who is never wrong is regarded as a good, safe man to have around.’

      ‘Safe!’ Wyatt almost lost his voice. ‘In his job he’s about as safe as a rattlesnake.The man has lives in his hands.’

      ‘Most Navy officers have men’s lives in their hands at one time or another,’ said Hansen. ‘Look, Dave, let me tell you the way to handle guys like Schelling. He’s got a closed mind, and you can’t go through him – he’s too solid. So you go round him.’

      ‘It’s a bit difficult for me,’ said Wyatt. ‘I have no status. I’m not a Navy man – I’m not even an American. He’s the chap who reports to the Weather Bureau, and he’s the chap they’ll believe.’

      ‘You’re getting pretty steamed up about this, aren’t you? What’s on your mind?’

      ‘I’m damned if I know,’ admitted Wyatt. ‘It’s just that I’ve got a funny feeling that things are going to go wrong.’

      ‘You’re worried about Mabel?’

      ‘I think it’s Mabel – I’m not too sure.’

      ‘I was worried about Mabel when I was rumbling about in her guts,’ said Hansen. ‘But I’m pretty relaxed about her now.’

      Wyatt said, ‘Harry, I was born out here and I’ve seen some pretty funny things. I remember once, when I was a kid, we had news that a hurricane was coming but that we’d be all right, it would miss Grenada by two hundred miles. So nobody worried except the people up in the hills, who never got the warning anyway. There’s a lot of Carib Indian in those people and they’ve had their roots down in the Caribbean for thousands of years. They battened down the hatches and dug themselves in. When that hurricane came up to Grenada it made a right-angle swerve and pretty near sank the island. Now how did those hill people know the hurricane was going to swerve like that?’

      ‘They had a funny feeling,’ said Hansen. ‘And they had the sense to act on it. It’s happened to me. I was once flying in a cloud when I got that feeling, so I pushed the stick forward a bit and lost some height. Damned if a civilian ship – one of those corporation planes – didn’t occupy the air space I’d been in. He missed me by a gnat’s whisker.’

      Wyatt shrugged. ‘As a scientist I’m supposed to go by the things I can measure, not by feelings. I can’t show my feelings to Schelling.’

      ‘To hell with Schelling,’ said Hansen. ‘Dave, I don’t think there’s a competent research scientist alive who hasn’t gone ahead on a hunch. I still say you should bypass Schelling. What about seeing the Commodore?’

      ‘I’ll see how Mabel behaves tomorrow,’ said Wyatt. ‘I want to see if she’s a really bad girl.’

      ‘Don’t forget your feelings about her,’ said Hansen.

      Julie’s cool voice spoke from behind Wyatt. ‘Do you really have feelings for this bad girl, Mabel?’

      Hansen laughed and began to get up, but Julie waved him down. ‘I’m having my feet danced off, and I haven’t had a drink yet. Let’s sit this one out.’ She looked at Wyatt. ‘Who’s Mabel?’

      Hansen chuckled. ‘One of Dave’s girls. He’s got a string of them. Dave, remember Isobel last year? You certainly had fun and games with her.’

      Wyatt said, ‘She roughed you up a bit, if I remember rightly.’

      ‘Ah, but I escaped from her clutches.’

      Causton snapped his fingers and said with sudden perception, ‘You’re talking about hurricanes, aren’t you?’

      Julie said with asperity, ‘Why must they give girls’ names to hurricanes?’

      ‘They’re easy to remember,’ said Wyatt with a straight face. ‘And so hard to forget. I believe the Association of Women’s Clubs of America put in an objection to the Weather Bureau, but they were overruled. One round won in the battle of the sexes.’

      ‘I’d be interested to see your work,’ said Causton. ‘From a professional point of view, that is.’

      ‘I thought you were on holiday.’

      ‘Newspapermen are never really on holiday – and news is where you find it.’

      Wyatt discovered that he rather liked Causton. He said, ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t come up to the Base.’

      Hansen grinned. ‘Schelling won’t object; he’s a sucker for publicity – of the right kind.’

      ‘I’d try not to write any unkind words,’ said Causton. ‘When could I come?’

      ‘What about tomorrow at eleven?’ said Wyatt. He turned to Julie. ‘Are you interested in my hurricanes? Why don’t you come too?’ He spoke impersonally.

      ‘Thank СКАЧАТЬ