Aground by Charles Williams; Franklin W. Dixon

was.”
    “Patrick Ives,” she said.
    “Anyway, he was supposed to furnish the transportation and the know-how to get us down there. Said he’d been around boats a lot, and used to be a navigator in the Eighth Air Force during the war. From the looks of it, he wasn’t so hot. We could have used you.”
    “You did,” Ingram said. “That’s why I’m here. Where did you get the guns?”
    “We stole ‘em.”
    “All right, I’ll make you a proposition,” Ingram said. “I think I can get this schooner afloat when those guns are off. So we throw them over the side and take the schooner back to Key West. They’re contraband. Nobody can claim them legally, so there’ll be no charge against you except for stealing the boat. I think Mrs. Osborne’ll agree not to press that, if she gets the boat back undamaged, so probably the worst you’d get would be a suspended sentence.”
    “Nothing doing. We’re going to deliver the guns.”
    The throbbing in his head was agony, and he had to close his eyes against the glare of the sun. What was the matter with the stupid muscle-head; wasn’t there any way you could make him understand? He fought down an impulse to shout. “Listen, Morrison,” he said wearily, “try to use your head, will you? You’re not in a serious jam yet, but if you go through with this you haven’t got a chance. You’ll be facing a federal charge of kidnapping. They’ll run you down and put you away for life.”
    “Not me. I’ll be long gone.”
    “You think you’re going to hide out in Latin America? Did you ever take a look at yourself?”
    “It’s easy when you speak the language and you’ve got money and connections.”
    “Not when they want you for something big back here. The U.S. State Department’s got connections too.”
    Morrison’s eyes began to grow ugly. “I’m not asking you about this, pal. I’m telling you. We’re going to put those guns on that island. When we get the boat loose, we bring ‘em back.”
    Ingram looked out toward the narrow strip of sand. “The raft won’t carry over a couple of hundred pounds at a time. It’ll take the rest of the week.”
    “No, I’ve already got it figured out. We won’t have to ferry ‘em all the way. The water looks shallow over there. You haul ‘em to where I can wade out and meet you, and I take ‘em from there while you come back for another load. Like a bucket brigade. Now let’s get going.” He stood up and called down the hatchway. “You all set, Carlos?”
    “The ropes are off the left side,” Ruiz replied from below. “I’m starting on the right.”
    Ingram looked out at the surface of the water and could see the faint beginnings of movement. The tide had passed high slack and was starting to ebb slowly past the imprisoned hull. Well, let him go ahead and kill himself, he thought; it’d be one less to contend with. Then he shrugged uncomfortably, and knew he couldn’t do it; this wasn’t Ruiz’ fault.
    “You’d better tell your boy not to take the lashings off the starboard side,” he said to Morrison. “Not till he’s got room to unpile those cases.”
    “Why?” Morrison asked.
    “The tide’s started to drop. About two more degrees of port list and you’ll have to bring him out of there in a basket.”
    “Yeah, I guess you’re right at that. Youse is a good boy, Herman. Maybe we’ll put you on permanent.”
    “Go to hell,” he said. “If it’d been you, I wouldn’t have said anything.”
    He walked aft to the helmsman’s station while Morrison was talking to Ruiz. Something still didn’t quite ring true; they shouldn’t have been in here over the Bank. He stood frowning at the binnacle. He stepped down into the cockpit, removed the hood, and checked the heading on the compass. The lubber line lay at 008 degrees. There was no compass-deviation card posted anywhere that he could see.
    Rae Osborne came aft and stood beside him. “What are we going to do?”
    “Just what he says,