the ready use petrol, so they broke open the reserve tanks on the airfield The lot

was doctored with sugar--there's plenty of

that on San Fernandez--and now all the planes are grounded with sticky engines"
"He certainly gets full marks for effort," said Wyatt "Where do Manning and Fuller
come into all this?"
"I haven't got to the bottom of that yet I think they had something to do with
getting his war supplies Favel certainly knew
what he wanted -rifles, machine guns and mobile artillery, consisting of a hell of
a lot of mountain guns and mortars,
together with bags of ammunition it must have cost somebody a packet and I haven't
been able to find out who financed
all this"
"Manning and Fuller were in the right place," said Wyatt slowly "And the police
seemed to think they had a lot to do with
Favel They beat Dawson half to death trying to find out more"
"I saw his hands," said Causton "What did he tell them?
"What could he tell them? He just stuck it out"
"I'm surprised;" said Caustone "He has the reputation among us press boys of being
a phoney We know that the air crash he
had in Alaska a couple of years ago was a put-up job to boost the sales of his
latest book it was planned by Don Wiseman
and executed by a stunt pilot"
"Who is Don Wiseman?"
"Dawson's press agent I always thought that every view we've had of Dawson way
through Wiseman's magnifying glass"
Wyatt said gently, "I think you can regard Wiseman as being Dawson's former press
agent"
Couston lifted his eyebrows "it's like that, is it?"
"There's nothing wrong with Dawson," said Wyatt, stroking his clean-shaven check He
put down the dry-shaver "When do
I get to see Favel?"
Couston shrugged "When he's ready He's planning a war, you know, and right now he
may be on the losing ends I think
he's running out of tricks, his preliminary planning was good but it only stretches
so far Now he faces a slugging match
with Rocambeaw and he's not in trim for it He's got five Thousand men against the
Government's Fifteen thousand, and if
he tries a war of attrition he's done for He may have to retreat back to the
mountains"
Wyatt buttoned his shirt "He'll have to make up his mind quickly," he said grimly
"Mabel won't wait for him"
Couston sat in silence for a moment, then he said, almost pleadingly, "Have you
anything concrete to offer him, apart from
this hunch of yours?"
Wyatt stepped to the window and looked up at the hot blue sky "Not much," he said
"If I were back at the Base with my
instruments I might have been able to come to some logical conclusions, but without
instruments-" He shrugged
Causton looked despondent, and Wyatt said, "This is hurricane weather, you know
This calm sultriness isn't natural--
something has stopped the normal flow of the southeast wind, and my guess is that
it's Mabel" He nodded towards the sea
"She's somewhere over there beyond the horizon I can't prove for certain that she's
coming this way, but I certainly think
so"
Causton said, "There's a barometer downstairs, would that be any good?" He sounded
half-heartedly hopeful
"I'll have a look at it," said Wyatt "But I don't think it will be"
They went downstairs into the hurly-burly of the army headquarters and Causton
showed him the barometer on the wall
of the manager's office Wyatt looked at it in astonishment "Good God, a Torricelli
barometer--what a relic!" He tapped it
gently "It must be a hundred years old" Looking closely at the dial, he said, "No,
not quite;" Adameus Copenhans -
Amsterdam--1872'"
"ls it any good?" asked Ccuston
Wyatt was briefly amused "This is like handing a pickaxe to a nuclear physicist and
telling him to split some atoms" He
tapped the dial again and the needle quivered "This thing tells us what is
happening now, and mat's not very important
What I'd like to know is what happened over the last twenty-four hours I'd give a
lot to have an aneroid barograph with a
recording over the last three days"
"Then this is useless?"
"I'm afraid so It will probably give a wrong reading anyway I can't see anyone
having taken the trouble to correct this for
temperature, Latitude and so on"
Causton waxed sarcastic "The trouble with you boffins is that you've developed your
instruments to such a pitch that now
you can't do without them What did you weathermen do before you had your satellites
and all your electronic gadgets?"
Wyatt said softly, "Relied on experience and instinct--which is what I'm doing now
When you've studied a lot of
hurricanes -as many as I have--you begin to develop a sixth sense which tells you
what they're likely to do next Nothing
shows on your instruments and it isn't anything that can be analysed I prefer to
call it the voice of experience"
"I still believe you," said Causton plaintively "But the point is can we convince
Favel?"
"That isn't worrying me," said Wyatt "What is worrying me is what Favel will do
when he is convinced He's in a cleft
stick"
"Let's see if he's finished his conference," said Causton "As a journalist, I'm
interested to see what he does do" He mopped
his brow "You know, you're right this weather is unnatural"
Favel was still not free and they waited in the foyer watching the comings and
goings of messengers from the hotel dining-
room where the conference was being held At last Fuller came out and beckoned
"You're next," he said "Make it as snappy
as you can" He looked at Wyatt with honest blue eyes "Personally, I think this is a
waste of time We don't have hurricanes
here"
"Serrurier told me the same thing in almost the same words," said Wyatt "He isn't a
meteorologist, either"
Fuller snorted "Well, come on, let's get it over with"
He escorted them into the dining- -room The tables had been put together and were
covered with maps and a group of men
were conversing in low voices at the far end of the room It reminded Wyatt
irresistibly of the large ornate room in which
Serrurier had been holding his pre-battle conference, but there was a subtle
difference There was no gold braid and there
was no hysteria
Causton touched his elbow "That's Manning," he said, nodding to a tall white man
"And that's Favel next to him"
Favel was a lean, wiry man of less than average height He was lighter in complexion
than the average San Fernandan and
his eyes were, strikingly and incongruously, a piercing blue - something very
unusual in a man of Negro stock He was
simply dressed in clean khaki denims with an open-necked shirt, out of which rose
the strong corded column of his neck
As he turned to greet Wyatt the crowsfeet round his eyes crinkled and the corners
of his mobile mouth quirked in a smile
"Ah, Mr Wyatt," he said "I've been looking for you