Assignment - Quayle Question by Edward S. Aarons

sparks as the metal fittings on the bow pulpit touched the fence. The wires were electrified. Deirdre bit her lip. At the same moment, there was the sharp crack of a rifle, and a bullet whipped across their bow.
    Henley rolled off the transom and raised his gun. Marcus ducked aft into the cockpit, his own weapon ready.
    A bullhorn spoke to them.
    “You people are intruders. This is private property! You have been warned. Turn back!”
    Durell looked up at the high sandy bank to starboard. Nothing else happened. The boat drifted against the electrified barrier again. More sparks showered over the bow. The electronic voice spoke again.
    “You people are intruders! This is private property! You have been warned. Turn back!”
    Durell said, “It’s a tape recording. Triggered to go off if the gateway is touched. There’s no one on guard.”
    “But someone fired a shot at us,” Deirdre said.
    He nodded. The boat slid aground on the sandy shore with a deep grating noise. The deck canted a little. “Marcus, see anybody?”
    Henley said, “He’s moving. A bit to the right of the highest tuft of sawgrass. Over there. Astern.”
    “Do you hear the other boat now?”
    “No.”
    Durell said, “I’m going ashore. Stay here, Dee. You too, Henley. Marcus, come with me.”
    He jumped for the steep embankment that sloped overhead, slid downward a little, touched the rail of the boat, and shoved himself upward again, gripped a clump of rough grass, climbed, found a foothold, and paused with his head just below the crest of the grassy dune. Although he was only ten feet or so above the deck of the boat’s flying bridge, the advantage of this height gave him a sweeping view to the west and south. The antenna of another boat among the marsh reeds caught the last beams of sunlight and reflected it in a thin, upright thread of bright metal. It was about a quarter of a mile behind them. Marcus jumped from the deck for the embankment after him. Henley stood beside Deirdre while Marcus clambered up beside him.
    “Did you know we were being followed for the last two hours, since we left the hotel, Sam?”
    “Yes.” Durell lifted his head carefully above the crest of the dune and looked through the high grass on top. The sound of the ocean surf was louder here. He could see the Atlantic, darkening by the moment, directly ahead, and the surf made long white combers on a wild-looking stretch of sand beach overgrown with wild plum and seagrape. To the right, where Atlantic City lay many miles behind them, there was a faint glow in the evening sky. The sea wind blew sand against his cheek. He looked the other way and saw Ca’d’Orizon.
    It was half a mile northward, a stone and clapboard structure of ominous bulkiness, with a ruined tower to the south end, nearest him, and a crenellated wall around the flat roof of the rest of the structure. A vista of dunes and a few wind-bent pines intervened between here and the building. There was a brooding sense of lonely isolation in the imitation palazzo. It stood on a rise of about six feet. The narrow Gothic windows were tightly boarded up. He tried to see how the land ran toward the palazzo, but the tangle of seagrape and high grasses blocked most of the view. He saw where jetties had been thrust into the surf to build up the sand. There were two sets of them, made of pilings and gray rocks, and he guessed these were outlets for the canals dug to satisfy Rufus Quayle’s whims. There should be some bridges, he thought, over the waterways.
    Directly ahead on the other side of the dune, the electrified fence that crossed the boat channel was continued across the width of the island. Beyond was another fence of barbed wire. He wondered briefly if there might be land mines. Anything was possible. There was an air of unreality about the huge house that seemed to float on a thin layer of mist that crept in among the dunes from the sea.
    Marcus moved uneasily beside him.
    Just then a second rifle shot