Thunder Point by Jack Higgins Read Free Book Online Page A

excitement was intense. Martin Bormann, Head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and Secretary to the Führer. Had he escaped from the Bunker at the end, or had he died trying to escape from Berlin? How many books had been written about that?
    He turned the page idly and another name came out at him: the
Duke of Windsor
. Baker sat staring at the page, his throat dry, and then he very carefully closed the diary and put it back in the case with the letter and photos. He closed the lid, put the case in the wheelhouse and started the engines. Then he went and hauled in the anchor.
     
     
    Whatever it was, it was heavy, had to be. He had a U-boat that had gone down in the Virgin Islands three weeks after the end of the war in Europe, a private diary kept by the captain which mentioned the most powerful man in Nazi Germany after Hitler, and the Duke of Windsor.
    “My God, what have I got into?” he murmured.
    He could go to the authorities, of course, the Coast Guard, for example, but it had been his find, that was the trouble, and he was reluctant to relinquish that. But what in the hell to do next, and then it came to him and he laughed out loud.
    “Garth Travers, of course,” and he pushed up to full throttle and hurried back to St. John.
     
     
    In 1951 as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, Baker had been assigned as liaison officer to the British Royal Navy destroyer
Persephone
, which was when he had first met Garth Travers, a gunnery officer. Travers was on the fast track, had taken a degree in history at Oxford University, and the two young officers had made a firm friendship, cemented by five hours in the water one dark night off the Korean coast, which they’d spent hanging on to each other after a landing craft on which they’d been making a night drop with Royal Marine Commandos had hit a mine.
    And Travers had gone on to great things, had retired a Rear Admiral. Since then he’d written several books on naval aspects of the Second World War, had translated a standard work on the Kriegsmarine from the German which Baker’s publishing house had published in the last year he’d been in the business. Travers was the man, no doubt about it.
    He was close inshore to St. John now and saw another Sport Fisherman bearing down on him and he recognized the
Sea Raider
, Bob Carney’s boat. It slowed, turning toward him, and Baker slowed too. There were four people in the stern dressed for diving, three women and a man. Bob Carney was on the flying bridge.
    “Morning, Henry,” he called. “Out early. Where you been?”
    “French Cap.” Baker didn’t like lying to a friend but had no choice.
    “Conditions good?”
    “Excellent, millpond out there.”
    “Fine.” Carney smiled and waved. “Take care, Henry.”
    The
Sea Raider
moved away and Baker pushed up to full power and headed for Cruz Bay.
     
     
    When he reached the house, he knew at once that Jenny wasn’t there because the jeep had gone. He checked his watch. Ten o’clock. Something must have come up to take her out. He went into the kitchen, got a beer from the icebox and went to his study, carrying the briefcase in one hand. He placed it on the desk, pulled his phone file across and leafed through it one-handed while he drank the beer. He found what he was looking for soon enough and checked his watch again. Ten after ten, which meant ten after three in the afternoon in London. He picked up the telephone and dialed.
     
     
    In London it was raining, drumming against the windows of the house in Lord North Street where Rear Admiral Garth Travers sat in a chair by the fire in his book-lined study enjoying a cup of tea and reading the
Times
. When the phone rang, he made a face, but got up and went to the desk.
    “Who am I talking to?”
    “Garth? It’s Henry — Henry Baker.”
    Travers sat down behind the desk. “Good God, Henry, you old sod. Are you in London?”
    “No, I’m calling from St. John.”
    “Sounds as if you’re in the next