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“Look, Tubes, it’s never easy,” he said. “You’re always looking over your shoulder, always on edge. But then when you get out, you discover you miss that rush. You find nothing compares to being in. Ever.”
Fuller stared back and said, “Really?”
Canidy then suddenly grinned from ear to ear.
“Why the hell do you think I keep coming back in?” he said. “This time tomorrow, I’ll be itching to get back in.”
Canidy then checked his watch again.
“It’s 2050. Go get this on the air. And sometime soon—not tonight—get that backup suitcase radio set and find a secure place for it that only you know.”
Fuller nodded, and Canidy detected that he was feeling a little more confident.
“You can count on me, Dick.”
“I know I can, Tubes,” Canidy said solemnly. “You’re going to be all right.” He paused, then added with a grin: “As long as you let the big head do all the thinking.”
Canidy, floating and waiting in the kayak a little after midnight, heard the diesel engine of the cargo ship before he saw its vague outline on the horizon.
With my luck, the damn thing will plow over me right before the submarine gets here.
The boat slowly rumbled past.
It’s going around to the south of the island.
That’s the long way to Messina.
Or are they going to stage the nerve gas at a southern port?
And that boat is in no hurry.
What does that mean?
Twenty minutes later, Canidy was startled by the sudden rocking of the kayak.
He grabbed the gunnels and quickly lay down in the wet bottom, trying to keep his center of gravity low.
Damn ship wake.
Now’s not the time to sink, Dick ol’ boy.
The rocking subsided after what seemed an eternity.
Over the next half hour, Canidy worked at getting his breathing back to normal. He’d just about accomplished that when there was an enormous whoosh of large volumes of water being displaced.
Canidy about came out of his skin.
Then he looked and sighed when he saw the silhouette of the submarine conn tower.
“But what if this gas burns?” Commander Jean L’Herminier, chief officer of the Free French Forces submarine Casabianca, asked Dick Canidy.
They were in the captain’s office and drinking coffee.
“How much water are we in?” Canidy said.
“Maybe a thousand meters.”
“Then it really doesn’t matter if it burns,” Canidy said. “We’re far enough out, and at a point where no one is around. If there’s a cloud, it will dissipate. No concentration, no harm. And what doesn’t burn goes to the bottom.”
