Santorini

4

‘You had an enjoyable tête-à-tête with Mr Andropulos, sir?’ Vice-Admiral Hawkins, together with his two scientist friends, had just come to the bridge in response to Talbot’s invitation that they join him.

‘Enjoyable? Ha! Thank you, incidentally, for rescuing us. Enjoyable? Depends what you mean, John.’

‘I mean were you suitably impressed.’

‘I was suitably unimpressed. Interested, mind you, but deeply unimpressed. Man’s character, I mean, not his quite extraordinary affinity for strong spirits. He comes across as whiter than the driven snow. A man of such transparent honesty has to have something to hide.’

‘And he got his slurring wrong, too,’ Benson said.

‘Slurring, sir?’

‘Just that, Commander. Thickened his voice in the wrong places to try and convince us that he was under the influence. Maybe he could have got away with it in his native Greek but not in English. Cold sober, I believe. And clever. Anyway he’s clever enough to hoodwink those two charming young ladies he has with him. I think they’re being hoodwinked.’

‘And his bosom friend, Alexander,’ Hawkins said. ‘He’s not so clever. He comes over as what he might well be – a paid-up member, if not a capo, in the Mafia. He was quite unmoved when I sympathized with them about the loss of the three members of their crew. Andropulos said he was desolated by the deaths of his treasured friends. Van Gelder had already told us that. Maybe he was overcome by grief, maybe not. In view of the fact that, like you, I regard him as a fluent liar and consummate actor, I think not. Maybe he is conscience-stricken at having arranged their deaths. Again, I think not. By that I don’t mean he couldn’t have been responsible for their deaths, I just mean that I don’t think he’s on speaking terms with his conscience. Only information I gathered from him is that he did not abandon his yacht because he thought his spare fuel tank was going to blow up. A man of mystery, your new-found friend.’

‘He’s all that. Very mysterious. He’s a multimillionaire. Maybe a multi-multi-millionaire. Not in the usual Greek line of tankers – bottom’s fallen out of that market anyway. He’s an international businessman with contacts in many countries.’

Hawkins said: ‘Van Gelder told me nothing of this.’

‘Of course he didn’t. He didn’t know. Your name attached to a message, Admiral, is a guarantee of remarkably quick service. Reply received to our query to the Greek Defence Ministry received twenty-five minutes ago.’

‘A businessman. What kind of business?’

‘They didn’t say. I knew that would be your question so I immediately radioed a request for that information.’

‘Signed by me, of course.’

‘Naturally, sir. Had it been a different matter I would of course have asked your permission. But this was the same matter. The reply came in a few minutes ago listing ten different countries with which he does business.’

‘Again, what kind of business?’

‘Again, they didn’t say.’

‘Extraordinarily odd. What do you make of it?’

‘The Foreign Minister must have authorized this reply. Maybe censored it a little. He is, of course, a member of the government. I would assume that the mysterious Mr Andropulos has friends in the government.’

‘The mysterious Mr Andropulos gets more mysterious by the moment.’

‘Maybe, sir. Maybe not – not when you consider the list of ten foreign trading partners he has. Four of them are in cities of what you might regard as being of particular interest – Tripoli, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad.’

‘Indeed.’ Hawkins thought briefly. ‘Gunrunning?’

‘But of course, sir. Nothing illegal about being gunrunners – Britain and America are hotching with them. But all governments are holier-thanthou in this respect and never publicly associate themselves with them. Never do to be classified as a merchant of death. Could well explain why the Greek government is being so cagey.’

‘Indeed it could.’

‘One thing strikes me as odd: why is Tehran missing from the list?’

‘True, true. The Iranians – with the possible exception of the Afghans, are more desperate for arms than any other place around. But gunrunners don’t specialize in blowing up planes in flight.’

‘I don’t know what we’re talking about, sir. The Hampton Court maze has nothing on this lot. I have the feeling that it’s going to take us quite some time to figure this out. Fortunately we have more immediate problems to occupy our minds.’

‘Fortunately?’ Hawkins lifted his eyes heavenwards. ‘Did you say fortunately?’

‘Yes, sir. Vincent?’ This to Van Gelder. ‘I should think Jenkins knows the requirements of the Vice-Admiral and his two friends by this time.’

‘You are not joining us?’ Benson said.

‘Better not. We expect to be quite busy later on tonight.’ He turned to Van Gelder again. ‘And give orders for our six shipwrecked mariners to return to their cabins. They are to remain there until further orders. Post guards to see that those instructions are obeyed.’

‘I think I’d better go and do this myself, sir.’

‘Fine. I’m all out of tact at the moment.’

Hawkins said: ‘Do you think they’ll take kindly to this – ah – incarceration?’

‘Incarceration? Let’s call it protective custody. Fact is, I don’t want them to see what’s going on in the next few hours. I’ll explain why in a moment.

‘The Ministry of Defence had another item of information for us. About the bomber. It had been in touch with air control in Athens and had been instructed to alter course over the island of Amorgós – that’s about forty miles north-east of here – and proceed on a roughly north-northwest course. Two fighter planes – US Air Force F15s – went up to meet it and escort it in.’

‘Did you see any such planes in the vicinity?’

‘No, sir. Wouldn’t have expected to. Rendezvous point was to be over the island of Euboea. The destination was not Athens but Thessalonika. I assume the Americans have a missile base in that area. I wouldn’t know.

‘Admiral Blyth on the Apollo has also come through. We’ve had luck here – two pieces of luck. A recovery ship en route to Piræus has been diverted to Santorini. Diving crews, recovery gear, the lot. You’ll know it, sir. The Kilcharran.’

‘I know it. Auxiliary Fleet vessel. Nominally under my command. I say “nominally” because I also have the misfortune to know its captain. Lad called Montgomery. A very crusty Irishman with a low opinion of Royal Navy regulations. Not that that matters. He’s brilliant at his job. Couldn’t ask to have a better man around. Your other item of good news?’

‘There’s a plane en route to Santorini at this moment with a couple of divers and diving equipment for four aboard. Very experienced men, I’m told, a Chief Petty Officer and a Petty Officer. I’ve sent Sub-Lieutenant Cousteau ashore to pick them up. They should be here in half an hour or so.’

‘Excellent, excellent. And when do you expect the Kilcharran?’

‘About five in the morning, sir.’

‘By Jove, things are looking up. You have something in mind?’

‘I have. With your permission, sir.’

‘Oh, do shut up.’

‘Yes, sir. It will also answer your two questions – why Van Gelder and I are on the wagon and why the six survivors have been – well, locked up out of harm’s way. When Cousteau comes back with the divers and equipment, Van Gelder and I are going down with them to have a look at this plane. I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to accomplish much. But we’ll be able to assess the extent of the damage to the plane, with luck locate this ticking monster and with even greater luck try to free it. I know in advance that we’re not going to have that kind of luck but it’s worth a try. You’d be the first to agree, sir, that in the circumstances, anything is worth a try.’

‘Yes, yes, but, well, you’ll excuse me if I frown a bit but you and Van Gelder are the two most important people on this ship.’

‘No, we’re not. If anything should happen to us personally, and I don’t see what can happen, you are, in your spare time, so to speak, accustomed to commanding a battle fleet. I can hardly see that a mere frigate is going to inconvenience you to all that extent. And if anything should happen on a catastrophic scale, nobody’s going to be worrying too much about anything.’

Wickram said: ‘You are a cold-blooded so-and-so, Commander.’

Hawkins sighed. ‘Not cold blood, Dr Wickram. Cold logic, I’m afraid. And when and if you come back up, what then?’

‘Then we’re off to have a look at the Delos. Should be very interesting. Andropulos may have made a mistake, Admiral, in telling you that he was scared that his spare fuel tank might blow up. But then, he could have had no idea that we were going to have a look at the Delos. That’s why he’s locked up. I don’t want him to know we’ve got divers aboard and I especially don’t want him to see me taking off with divers in the general direction of the Delos. If we find that there was no spare tank, we shall have to keep an even closer eye on him. And, for good measure, on his dear friend Alexander and his captain, Aristotle. I can’t believe that that young seaman, Achmed or whatever his name is, or either of the two girls can have anything to do with this. I think they’re along for the purpose of camouflage, respectability, if you will. In any event we should be back long before the Kilcharran arrives.’ He turned to look at Denholm who had just arrived on the bridge. ‘Well, Jimmy, what drags you away from the fleshpots?’

‘If I may say so with some dignity, sir, I’m trying to set them an example. I’ve just had a thought, sir. If you will excuse me, Admiral?’

‘I think that any thought you might have could be well worth listening to, young man. Not Greek literature this time, I’ll be bound. This – ah – hobby of yours. Electronics, is it not?’

‘Well, yes, it is, sir.’ Denholm seemed faintly surprised. He looked at Talbot. ‘That atom bomb down there, the one that goes tick… tick… tick. The intention is, or the hope, anyway, to detach it from the other explosives?’

‘If it can be done.’

‘And then, sir?’

‘One thing at a time, Jimmy. That’s as far as my thinking has got so far.’

‘Would we try to de-activate it?’ Denholm looked at Wickram. ‘Do you think it could be de-activated, sir?’

‘I honestly don’t know, Lieutenant. I have powerful suspicions, but I just don’t know. I should have imagined that this lay more in your field than mine. Electronics, I mean. I know how to build those damned weapons but I know nothing about those fancy triggering devices.’

‘Neither do I. Not without knowing how they work. For that I’d have to see the blueprint, a diagramatic layout. You said you had powerful suspicions. What suspicions, sir?’

‘I suspect that it can’t be de-activated. In fact, I’m certain the process is irreversible. The second suspicion is also a certainty. I’m damn sure that I’m not going to be the one to try.’

‘That makes two of us. So what other options are open to us?’

Benson said: ‘May a total ignoramus venture an opinion? Why don’t we take it to some safe place a hundred miles away and dump it at the bottom of the deep blue sea?’

‘A tempting thought, Professor,’ Denholm said, ‘but not a very practicable one. It is, of course, a hundred per cent certain that this triggering device is battery-powered. The latest generation of Nife cells can lie dormant for months, even years, and still spring smartly to attention when called on to do their duty. You can’t declare a whole area of the Mediterranean off-limits to all shipping for years to come.’

‘I prefaced my suggestion by saying that I was an ignoramus. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Another doubtlessly ludicrous suggestion. We take it to the self-same spot and detonate it.’

Denholm shook his head, ‘I’m afraid that still leaves us with a couple of problems. The first is, how are we going to get it there?’

‘We take it there.’

‘Yes. We take it there. Or we set out to take it there. Then somewhere en route the ticking stops. Then the triggering device cocks its ear and says, “Aha! What’s this I hear? Ship’s engines,” and detonates. There wouldn’t even be a second’s warning.’

‘Hadn’t thought of that. We could – I say this hopefully – tow it there.’

‘Our little friend is still listening and we don’t know and have no means of knowing how sensitive its hearing is. Engines, of course, would set it off. So would a generator. A derrick winch, even a coffee-grinder in the galley might provide all the impulse it requires.’

Talbot said: ‘You came all the way up to the bridge, Jimmy, just to spread sweetness and light, your own special brand of Job’s comfort?’

‘Not quite, sir. It’s just that a couple of ideas occurred to me, one of which will have occurred to you and one which you probably don’t know about. Getting the bomb to its destination would be easy enough. We use a sailing craft. Lots of them hereabouts. Aegean luggers.’

Talbot looked at Hawkins. ‘One can’t think of everything. I forgot to mention, sir, that in addition to being a student of ancient Greek language and literature Lieutenant Denholm is also a connoisseur of the small craft of the Aegean. Used to spend all his summers here – well, until we nabbed him, that is.’

‘I wouldn’t begin to know how to sail those luggers or caïques, in fact I couldn’t even sail a dinghy if you paid me. But I’ve studied them, yes. Most of them come from the island of Samos or Bodrum in Turkey. Before the war – the First World War, that is – they were all sailing craft. Nowadays, they’re nearly all engined, most of them with steadying sails. But there’s quite a few both with engines and a full set of sails. Those are the Trehandiri and Perama types and I know there are some in the Cyclades. One of those would be ideal for our purposes. Because they have shallow keels, a minimum draught and no ballast they are almost useless performers to windward but that wouldn’t matter in this case. The prevailing wind here is north-west and the open sea lies to the south-east.’

‘Useful information to have,’ Talbot said. ‘Very useful indeed. Um – you wouldn’t happen to know anyone with such a craft?’

‘As a matter of fact I do.’

‘Good God! You’re as useful as your information.’ Talbot broke off as Van Gelder entered the bridge. ‘Duty done, Number One?’

‘Yes, sir. Andropulos was a bit reluctant to go. So were Alexander and Aristotle. In fact, they point-blank refused to go. Infringement of their liberties as Greek civilians or some tosh to that effect. Demanded to know on whose orders. I said yours. Demanded to see you. I said in the morning. More outrage. I didn’t argue with them, just called up McKenzie and some of his merry men, who removed them forcibly. I told McKenzie not to post any guards, just lock the doors and pocket the keys. You’re going to hear from the Greek government about this, sir.’

‘Excellent. Wish I’d been there. And the girls?’

‘Sweet reason. No problem.’

‘Fine. Now, Jimmy, you said a couple of ideas had occurred to you. What was the second one?’

‘It’s about the second problem that the Professor raised. The detonation. We could, of course, try sympathetic detonation by dropping a depth charge on it but as we would be in the immediate vicinity at the time I don’t think that would be a very good idea.’

‘Neither do I. So?’

‘The Pentagon could have the answer. Despite feeble denials to the contrary, everyone knows that the Pentagon controls NASA – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA, in turn, is supposed to administer the Kennedy Space Center. “Supposed” is the operative word. They don’t. The centre is operated by EG & G, a major defence contractor. EG & G – Dr Wickram will know much more about this than I do – oversees such things as nuclear-weapons tests and the so-called Star Wars. More importantly, they are developing, or have developed, what they call the krytron, a remote-controlled electronic impulse trigger that can detonate nuclear weapons. A word from the Admiral in the ear of the Pentagon might work wonders.’

Hawkins cleared his throat. ‘This little titbit of information, Lieutenant. It will, of course, like your other titbits, be in the public domain?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘You astonish me. Most interesting, most. Could be a big part of the answer to our problem, don’t you agree, Commander?’ Talbot nodded. ‘I think we should act immediately on this one. Ah! The very man himself.’

Myers had just entered, carrying a piece of paper which he handed to Talbot. ‘Reply to your latest query to the Pentagon, sir.’

‘Thank you. No, don’t go. We’ll have another message to send them in a minute.’ Talbot handed the paper to Hawkins.

‘“Security at bomber base”,’ Hawkins read, ‘“believed to be 99.9% effective. But cards on the table. However unlikely, there may be one chance in ten thousand that security has been penetrated. This could have been that one chance”. Well, isn’t that nice. Absolutely useless piece of information, of course.

‘“Plane carried fifteen H-bombs of fifteen megatons each and three atom bombs, all three equipped with timing devices”. Well, that’s just fine. So now we have three of those ticking monsters to contend with.’

‘With any luck, just one,’ Talbot said. ‘Sonar picks up only one. Extremely unlikely that all three would be ticking in perfect unison. Point’s academic, anyway. One or a hundred, the big boys would still go up.’

‘Identified by size, they say,’ Hawkins went on. ‘Sixty inches by six. Pretty small for an atom bomb, I would have thought. 4000 kilotons. That’s a lot, Dr Wickram?’

‘By today’s standards, peanuts. Less than half the size of the Hiroshima bomb. If the bomb is the dimensions they say, then it’s very large for such a small explosive value.’

‘It goes on to say that they’re designated for marine use. I suppose that’s a fancy way of saying that they are mines. So your guess was right, Dr Wickram.’

‘Also explains the size of the bomb. Quite a bit of space will be taken up by the timing mechanism and, of course, it will have to be weighted to give it negative buoyancy.’

‘The real sting comes in the tail,’ Hawkins said. ‘“When the ticking stops the timing clock has run out and the firing mechanism is activated and ready to be triggered by mechanical stimulation”, by which I take it they mean ship’s engines. So it looks as if you were right about that one, Van Gelder. Then, by way of cheerful farewell, they say that enquiries so far confirm that the timing mechanism, once in operation, cannot be neutralized and appears to be irreversible.’

The last words were met with silence. No one had any comment to make for the excellent reason that everyone had already been convinced of the fact.

‘A message to the Pentagon, Myers. “Urgently require to know state of development of the EG & G krytron” – that’s k-r-y-t-r-o-n, isn’t it, Lieutenant? – “nuclear detonation device.”’ Talbot paused. ‘Add: “If operating model exists essential dispatch immediately with instructions.” That do, Admiral?’ Hawkins nodded. ‘Sign it Admiral Hawkins.’

‘We must be giving them quite some headaches in the Pentagon,’ Hawkins said in some satisfaction. ‘This should call for still more aspirin.’

‘Aspirins are not enough,’ Van Gelder said. ‘Sleepless nights are what are called for.’

‘You have something in mind, Van Gelder?’

‘Yes, sir. They can have no idea of the really horrendous potential of the situation here in Santorini – the combination of all those megatons of hydrogen bombs, thermal plumes and volcanoes and earthquakes along the tectonic plate boundaries and the possibly cataclysmic results. If Professor Benson here were to make a very brief précis of the lecture he gave us in the wardroom this evening it might give them something more to think about.’

‘You have an evil mind, Van Gelder. What a perfectly splendid suggestion. Uneasy will lie the heads along the Potomac this night. What do you think, Professor?’

‘It will be a pleasure.’

When Sub-Lieutenant Cousteau, together with the two divers and their equipment, returned from Santorini, they found the Ariadne in virtual darkness. With the thought of the malevolent listening bug on the sea-floor dominating every other in his mind, Talbot had sought Lieutenant Denholm’s advice on the question of noise suppression: Denholm had not been half-hearted in his recommendations, with the result that the use of all mechanical devices on the ship, from generators to electric shavers, had been banned. Only essential lighting, radar, sonar and radio were functioning normally: all these could function equally well, as they had been designed to do, on battery power. The sonar watch on the ticking device in the crashed bomber was now continuous.

The two divers, Chief Petty Officer Carrington and Petty Officer Grant, were curiously alike, both aged about thirty, of medium height and compact build: both were much given to smiling, a cheerfulness that in no way detracted from their almost daunting aura of competence. They were with Talbot and Van Gelder in the wardroom.

‘That’s all I know about the situation down there,’ Talbot said, ‘and heaven knows it’s little enough. I just want to know those three things – the extent of the damage, the location of this ticking noise and to see if it’s possible to remove this atom bomb or whatever, which I’m convinced in advance is impossible. You are aware of the dangers and you are aware that I cannot order you to do this. How does the prospect appeal, Chief?’

‘It doesn’t appeal at all, sir.’ Carrington was imperturbable. ‘Neither Bill Grant nor I is cast in the heroic mould. We’ll walk very softly down there. You shouldn’t be worrying about us, you should be worrying about what your crew is thinking. If we slip up they’ll all join us in the wide blue yonder or whatever. I know you want to come down, sir, but is it really necessary? We’re pretty experienced in moving around inside wrecks without banging into things and we’re both Torpedo Gunner Mates and explosives, you might say, are our business. Not, I admit, the kind of explosives you have down there but we know enough not to trigger a bomb by accident.’

‘And we might?’ Talbot smiled. ‘You’re very tactful, Chief. What you mean is that we might bang into things or kick a detonator on the nose or something of the kind. When you say “necessary”, do you mean “wise”? I refer to our diving experience or lack of it.’

‘We know about your diving experience, sir. You will understand that when we knew what we were coming into we made some discreet enquiries. We know that you have commanded a submarine and the Lieutenant-Commander was your first lieutenant. We know you’ve both been through the HMS Dolphin Submarine Escape Tower and that you’ve done more than a fair bit of free diving. No, we don’t think you’ll be getting in our way or banging things around.’ Carrington turned up palms in acceptance. ‘What’s your battery capacity, sir?’

‘For essential and non-mechanical purposes, ample. Several days.’

‘We’ll put down three weighted floodlights and suspend them about twenty feet above the bottom. That should illuminate the plane nicely. We’ll have a powerful hand-flash each. We have a small bag of tools for cutting, sawing and snipping. We also have an oxyacetylene torch, which is rather more difficult to use under water than most people imagine, but as this is just a reconnaissance trip we won’t be taking it along. The closed-circuit breathing is of the type we prefer, fifty-fifty oxygen and nitrogen with a carbon dioxide scrubber. At the depth of a hundred feet, which is what we will be at, we could easily remain underwater for an hour without any risk of either oxygen poisoning or decompression illness. That’s academic, of course. Provided there’s access to the plane and the fuselage is not crushed a few minutes should tell us all we want to know.

‘Two points about the helmet. There’s a rotary chin switch which you depress to activate an amplifier that lets us talk, visor to visor. A second press cuts it off. It also has a couple of sockets over the ears where you can plug in what is to all effects a stethoscope.’

‘That’s all?’

‘All.’

‘We can go now?’

‘A last check, sir?’ Carrington didn’t have to specify what check.

Talbot lifted a phone, spoke briefly and replaced it.

‘Our friend is still at work.’

The water was warm and still and so very clear that they could see the lights of the suspended arc-lamps even before they dipped below the surface of the darkened Aegean. With Carrington in the lead and using the marker buoy anchor rope as a guide they slid down fifty feet and stopped.

The three arc-lamps had come to rest athwart the sunken bomber, sharply illuminating the fuselage and the two wings. The left wing, though still attached to the fuselage, had been almost completely sheared off between the inner engine and the fuselage and was angled back about thirty degrees from normal. The tail unit had been almost completely destroyed. The fuselage, or that part of it that could be seen from above, appeared to be relatively intact. The nose cone of the plane was shrouded in shadow.

They continued their descent until their feet touched the top of the fuselage, half-walked, half-swam until they reached the front of the plane, switched on their flash-lights and looked through the completely shattered windows of the cockpit. The pilot and the co-pilot were still trapped in their seats. They were no longer men, just the vestigial remains of what had once been human beings. Death must have been instantaneous. Carrington looked at Talbot and shook his head, then dropped down to the sea-bed in front of the nose cone.

The hole that had been blasted there was roughly circular with buckled and jagged edges projecting outwards, conclusive proof that the blast had been internal: the diameter of the whole was approximately five feet. Moving slowly and cautiously so as not to rip any of the rubber components of their diving suits, they passed in file into a compartment not more than four feet in height but almost twenty feet in length, extending from the nose cone, under the flight deck and then several feet beyond. Both sides of the compartment were lined with machinery and metal boxes so crushed and mangled that their original function was incomprehensible.

Two-thirds of the way along the compartment a hatch had been blasted upwards. The opening led to a space directly behind the seats of the two pilots. Aft of this was what was left of a small radio-room with a man who appeared to be peacefully sleeping leaning forward on folded arms, the fingers of one hand still on a transmitting key. Beyond this, four short steps led down to an oval door let into a solid steel bulkhead. The door was secured by eight clamps, some of which had been jammed into position by the impact of the blast. A hammer carried by Carrington in his canvas bag of tools soon tapped them into a loosened position.

Beyond the door lay the cargo compartment, bare, bleak, functional and obviously designed for one purpose only, the transport of missiles. These were secured by heavy steel clamps which were in turn bolted to longitudinal reinforced steel beams let into the floor and sides of the fuselage. There was oil mixed with the water in the compartment but even in the weird, swirling, yellowish light they looked neither particularly menacing nor sinister. Slender, graceful, with either end encased in a rectangular metal box they looked perfectly innocuous. Each contained fifteen megatons of high explosive.

There were six of those in the first section of the compartment. As a formality, and not because of any expectations, Talbot and Carrington applied their stethoscopes to each cylinder in turn. The results were negative as they had known they would be: Dr Wickram had been positive that they contained no timing devices.

There were also six missiles in the central compartment. Three of these were of the same size as those in the front compartment: the other three were no more than five feet in length. Those had to be the atom bombs. It was when he was testing the third of those with his stethoscope that Carrington beckoned to Talbot, who came and listened in turn. He didn’t have to listen long. The two and a half second ticking sequence sounded exactly as it had done in the sonar room.

In the aft compartment they went through the routine exercise of listening to the remaining six missiles and found what they had expected, nothing. Carrington put his visor close to Talbot’s.

‘Enough?’

‘Enough.’

‘That didn’t take you long,’ Hawkins said.

‘Long enough to find out what we needed. Missiles are there, all present and correct as listed by the Pentagon. Only one bomb has been activated. Three dead men. That’s all, except for the most important fact of all. The bomber crashed because of an internal explosion. Some kindly soul had concealed a bomb under the flight deck. The Pentagon must be glad that they added the faint possibility that there was one chance in ten thousand that security might be breached. The faint possibility came true. Raises some fascinating questions, doesn’t it, sir? Who? What? Why? When? We don’t have to ask “where” because we already know that.’

‘I don’t want to sound grim or vindictive,’ Hawkins said, ‘because I’m not. Well, maybe a little. Should cut the gentlemen on Foggy Bottom, or wherever, down to size and make them a mite more civil and cooperative in future. Not only is it an American plane that is responsible for the dreadful situation in which we find ourselves, but it was someone in America who was ultimately responsible. If they ever do discover who was responsible, and it’s not without the bounds of possibility, it’s going to cause an awful lot of red faces and I’m not just referring to the villain himself. I’d lay odds that the person responsible is an insider, a pretty high-up insider with free access to secret information, such as closely guarded secrets as to the composition of the cargo, the destination and the time of take-off and arrival. Wouldn’t you agree, Commander?’

‘I don’t see how it can be otherwise. Not a problem I’d care to have on my hands. However, that’s their problem. We have an even bigger problem on our hands.’

‘True, true.’ Hawkins sighed. ‘What’s the next step, then? In recovering this damn bomb, I mean?’

‘I think you should ask Chief Petty Officer Carrington, sir, not me. He and Petty Officer Grant are the experts.’

‘It’s a tricky one, sir,’ Carrington said. ‘Cutting away a fuselage section large enough to lift the bomb through is straightforward enough. But before we could lift the bomb out we would have to free it from its clamps and this is where the great difficulty lies. Those clamps are made of high-tensile steel fitted with a locking device. For that we need a key and we don’t know where the key is.’

‘It could be,’ Hawkins said, ‘that the key is held at the missile base where the bombs were due to be delivered.’

‘With respect, sir, I think that unlikely. Those clamps had to be locked at the Air Force base where they were loaded. So they would have to have a key there. I think it would be much easier and more logical if they just took the key with them. Trouble is, a key is a very small thing and that’s a very big bomber indeed.

‘If there’s no key there are two ways we can remove that clamp. One is chemical, using either a metal softener or corrosive. The metal softener is used by stage magicians who go in for spoonbending and such-like.’

‘Magicians?’ Hawkins said. ‘Charlatans, you mean.’

‘Whatever. The principle is the same. They use a colourless paste which has no effect on the skin but has the peculiar property of altering the molecular structure of a metal and making it malleable. A corrosive is simply a powerful acid that eats through steel. Lots of them on the market. But in this case, both softeners and corrosives have one impossible drawback: you can’t use them underwater.’

Hawkins said: ‘You mentioned two ways of removing the clamp. What’s the other?’

‘Oxyacetylene torch, sir. Make short work of any clamp. It would also, I imagine, make even shorter work of the operator. Those torches generate tremendous heat and I should also imagine that anyone who even contemplates using an oxyacetylene torch on an atom bomb is an obvious candidate for the loony-bin.’

Hawkins looked at Wickram. ‘Comment?’

‘No comment. Not on the unthinkable.’

‘I speak in no spirit of complaint, Carrington,’ Hawkins said, ‘but you’re not very encouraging. What you are about to suggest, of course, is that we wait for the Kilcharran to come along and hoist the damn thing to the surface.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Carrington hesitated. ‘But there’s a snag even to that.’

‘A snag?’ Talbot said. ‘You are referring, of course, to the distinct and unpleasant possibility that the ticking might stop while the Kilcharran’s winch engine is working overtime at hauling the bomber to the surface?’

‘I mean just that, sir.’

‘A trifle. There are no trifles that the combined brain-power aboard the Ariadne can’t solve.’ He turned to Denholm. ‘You can fix that, Lieutenant?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How, sir?’ There was a pardonable note of doubt if not outright disbelief in Carrington’s voice: Lieutenant Denholm didn’t look like the type of person who could fix anything.

Talbot smiled. ‘If I may say this gently, Chief, one does not question Lieutenant Denholm on those matters. He knows more about electrics and electronics than any man in the Mediterranean.’

‘It’s quite simple, Chief,’ Denholm said. ‘We just couple up the combined battery powers of the Ariadne and the Kilcharran. The Kilcharran’s winches are probably diesel-powered. We may or may not be able to convert them to electrical use. If we can’t, it doesn’t matter. We have excellent electric anchor windlasses on the Ariadne.’

‘Yes, but – well, with one of your two anchors out of commission you’d start drifting, wouldn’t you?’

‘We wouldn’t drift. A diving ship normally carries four splayed anchors to moor it precisely over any given spot on the ocean floor. We just tie up to the Kilcharran, that’s all.’

‘I’m not doing too well, am I? One last objection, sir. Probably a feeble one. An anchor is only an anchor. This bomber and its cargo probably weighs over a hundred tons. I mean, it’s quite a lift.’

‘Diving ships also carry flotation bags. We strap them to the plane’s fuselage and pump them full of compressed air until we achieve neutral buoyancy.’

‘I give up,’ Carrington said. ‘From now on, I stick to diving.’

‘So we twiddle our thumbs until the Kilcharran arrives,’ Hawkins said. ‘But not you, I take it, Commander?’

‘I think we’ll have a look at the Delos, sir.’