The tide was running against Biff. There was a look of triumph on Dietz’s evil face.
“I came here with a fair proposition for you,” Biff said.
“Fair? Never heard the word,” Dietz replied, his voice scornful. “You’ve walked and talked yourself right into being my prisoner again. And this time, Crunch will make sure you don’t escape.”
Biff looked at the powerful Crunch. There was a big, silly smile on his face. He clenched and unclenched his hands, as if he could hardly wait to get Biff in his grip.
“You young fool,” Dietz said. “Don’t you know you and Keene can’t get the working permit to that fishery unless you sign for it?”
“Ha! That’s what you think. It so happens, you stupid boy, that I have a friend in the Fisheries Commission on Martinique. You and Keene may have stopped me once. But you won’t again. Crunch, take him away. And this time, if you let him escape—” Dietz drew the edge of his hand across his throat “—that’s what you’ll get.”
Crunch crossed to Biff’s chair. He seized Biff by one arm and lifted him out of the chair as if he weighed no more than a rag doll.
Biff knew it would be foolish to resist. His plan had backfired.
Why, he thought, with a sinking feeling, hadn’t he or Uncle Charlie realized that Dietz, thinking Biff to be Derek, would hold him, and make for Martinique as fast as he could? Biff realized now that, far from delaying Dietz’s trip to Martinique, he had afforded him the chance to go there sooner.
He knew this all too well as Crunch forced him down the hallway toward the door. He heard Dietz say to Specks:
“We leave for Martinique in the morning.”
Although Biff’s strategy had backfired, it did give his uncle a slight jump on Dietz.
Just after daybreak, Charlie Keene and Derek were at the waterport where Keene kept his seaplane. He warmed up the plane’s twin engines. He pointed the plane’s nose into the wind, and the aircraft streaked across mirror-flat water. The seal between plane’s hull and the sea was broken, and the plane was airborne.
Charlie Keene put the plane on a course direct for Martinique, a little over five hundred miles away. If all went well, they would land at Fort-de-France in under three hours. That would get them there in time for the opening of the office of the Fisheries Commission.