"Yes. Both small fry, both local. And both are obviously green at this kind of business, otherwise you'd be a pair of real cold turkeys by now."
That was true, Rick knew. Experienced agents wouldn't have given him and Scotty the chances that they'd seized.
"The men must know what was under the water," Scotty said.
"Not necessarily. They just knew it was important, and they may have been ordered to protect it. But your former shadow was on the griddle all night, and told all he knew. It wasn't much. He didn't even know who had hired him. He wasn't stalling, either."
"What's the next step?" Rick wanted to know.
"Jimmy and I will drive you to the plane. Then you take off for Clipper Cay. And stay there until your vacation is over. Have you a short-wave radio, by the way?"
"Yes. Why?" Rick had an all-wave battery portable.
"Monitor the Navy command frequency. Here, I'll write it down for you. Listen every night at six for five minutes. If I want you, I'll send a message. I don't think I will, but it won't do any harm to set up a schedule."
Steve lowered his voice. "Now listen to me. This thing is big. The two you ran up against yesterday were not good samples. We're dealing with some tough professionals. I don't know who they are, but from what I've seen I can tell you they're dangerous. So you two are to stay out of this case. That is an order. Stay on Clipper Cay and have fun."
"I can add a small note to that," Lieutenant Kelly said. "I'm new here. I was ordered down from Norfolk only a week ago. A first-class intelligence officer had my job. He turned up in a hospital in the British Virgins after being missing for two days. He had a fractured skull. He still doesn't know what happened to him, and neither do we."