Watchers

canvases that had been left behind in Santa Barbara. A couple of weeks ago, using a friend’s return address to insure that no link would exist between him and Nora “Aimes,” Garrison Dilworth had shipped the paintings to their new house.
    Now, unpacking and unwrapping the canvases, creating piles of paper padding in the living room, Nora was transported. Travis knew that, for many years, this work was what she had lived for, and he could see that having the paintings with her again was not only a great joy to her but would probably spur her to return to her new canvases, in the spare bedroom, with greater enthusiasm.
    “You want to call Garrison and thank him?” he asked.
    “Yes, absolutely!” she said. “But first, let’s unpack them all and make sure none of them is damaged.”
     
     
    Posted around the harbor, posing as yacht owners and fishermen, Cliff Soames and the other NSA agents watched Dilworth and Della Colby and eavesdropped on them electronically as the day waned. Twilight descended without any indication that Dilworth intended to put to sea. Soon night fell, yet the attorney and his woman made no move.
    Half an hour after dark, Cliff Soames got weary of pretending to fish off the stern of a Cheoy Lee sixty-six-foot sport yacht docked four slips away from Dilworth’s. He climbed the steps, went into the pilot’s cabin, and pulled the headphones off Hank Gorner, the agent who was monitoring the old couple’s conversation through a directional mike. He listened for himself.
    “.. . the time in Acapulco when Jack hired that fishing boat. .
    “.. . yes, the whole crew looked like pirates!”
    “.. . we thought we’d have our throats cut, be dumped at sea. .
    but then it turned out they were all divinity students . . studying to be missionaries. . . and Jack said. .
    Returning the headphones, Cliff said, “Still reminiscing!”
    The other agent nodded. The cabin light was out, and Hank was illuminated only by a small, hooded, built-in work lamp above the chart table, so his features looked elongated and strange. “That’s the way it’s been all day. At least they have some great stories.”
    “I’m going to the john,” Cliff said wearily. “Be right back.”
    “Take ten hours if you want. They’re not going anywhere.”
    A few minutes later, when Cliff returned, Hank Gorner pulled off his headphones and said, “They went below decks.”
    “Something up?”
    “Not what we’d hope. They’re gonna jump each other’s bones.”
    “Oh.”
    “Cliff, jeez, I don’t want to listen to this.”
    “Listen,” Cliff insisted.
    Hank put one earphone to his head. “Jeez, they’re undressing each other, and they’re as old as my grandparents. This is embarrassing.”
    Cliff sighed.
    “Now they’re quiet,” Hank said, a frown of distaste creeping over his face. “Any second they’re gonna start moaning, Cliff.”
    “Listen,” Cliff insisted. He snatched a light jacket off the table and went outside again so he wouldn’t have to listen.
    He took up his position in a chair on the stern deck, lifting the fishing pole once more.
    The night was cool enough for the jacket, but otherwise it could not have been better. The air was clear and sweet, scented with just a slight tang of the sea. The moonless sky was full of stars. The water slapped lullingly against the dock pilings and against the hulls of the moored boats. Somewhere across the harbor, on another craft, someone was playing love songs from the forties. An engine turned over—whump-whump-whump—and there was something romantic about the sound. Cliff thought how nice it would be to own a boat and set out on a long trip through the South Pacific, toward palm-shaded islands— Suddenly that idling engine roared, and Cliff realized it was the Amazing
    Grace. As he rose from his chair, dropping the fishing pole, he saw Dilworth’s boat reversing out of its slip recklessly fast. It was a sailboat, and subconsciously Cliff had not expected it to move with sails furled, but it had auxiliary engines; they knew this, were prepared for this, but still it startled him. He hurried back to the cabin, “Hank, get Harbor Patrol. Dilworth’s on the move.”
    “But they’re in the sack.”
    “Like hell they are!” Cliff ran out to the bow deck and saw that Dilworth had already swung the Amazing Grace around and was headed toward the mouth of the harbor. No lights at the aft end of the boat, the area around
    the wheel, just one small