The Devil's Trinity

Chapter 14

The knock on Marsh’s cabin door was short and perfunctory. Marsh was lying on his bunk reading a yachting magazine, although his mind was not wholly absorbed by what he was reading but more on what he had threatened at the debrief. He wondered if he really had the courage to carry his threat through. Marsh was not by choice a brave, fearless fighter of a man, although his unquestionable courage in working beneath the ocean surface was undeniable; but he was wise enough to see the folly of standing up to someone like Malik in a physical confrontation, which is surely what he believed this whole thing could lead to.

The Taliba was sailing on a course that took them in a south easterly direction, away from the site of their first dive. Naturally Marsh was not privy to Khan’s plans, but the ship had turned on to the new heading immediately after the dive. About the same time, Batista and Malik had left in the helicopter. That had been twenty four hours ago. Now the helicopter had returned. He wondered idly why the two men had left the ship for that short time. Not that it mattered; it was none of his business.

He began to think about their new heading and from the feel of the wind buffeting the ship; it seemed that they were heading towards the growing hurricane. He wondered if this was the change in schedule Khan had referred to when he asked de Leon about the freighter. The strengthening wind was beginning to affect the smooth passage of the ship as it moved across the growing wave tops.

He put the magazine to one side and swung his legs off the bed. He pulled a pair of shorts on and went to the door. He was not surprised to see Malik standing there because he was usually the errand boy.

“Mister Khan wants to see you on the bridge,” he told Marsh, and waited.

Marsh picked a tee shirt up off the bed, slipped it over his head and followed Malik out of the cabin.

On the bridge, Khan waited a little impatiently, not because of the deteriorating weather, but because of the recent turn of events. They had not been of his choosing but the elimination of the two men guarding Helen Walsh could only add to the preponderance of police now looking increasingly closer at any link he might have with their murders. On the brighter side though, he hoped the turn of events would lead to a lessening of Marsh’s truculence.

Khan turned as he heard Malik open the door and step onto the bridge with Marsh.

“We have something for you,” he said sharply to Marsh, and pointed to Captain de Leon’s cabin behind the bridge.

Marsh hesitated at first but then he walked over to the cabin and opened the door. At first he saw nothing, so he stepped inside. Helen was sitting on a chair, her head bowed. She looked up and turned towards the door. As her eyes fell on Marsh she stood up quickly, her hand flying up to her mouth in a gasp. Marsh just stared for a moment, then closed the door behind him and went over to her. He barely had time to clear the threshold and she was in his arms.

They said nothing, just held each other tight, blotting out the memory of what had been and what might come. Their circumstances were not of their choosing, but they both needed the warmth and pleasure of each other’s contact. Marsh held her so tightly he wondered if she would cry out in pain. Soon he had to release her, push her back gently and look into her eyes.

He could see pain there, but not from him. The pain had been inflicted deep within her, in her soul. Her face looked drawn and frightened. He could see the extensive scratches and bruising on her exposed flesh as he held her at arm’s length.

“In God’s name, what did they do to you?” he asked softly.

“The man who did this is dead.” She shivered. “Oh Marsh, it was horrible.” She buried her head in her hands and began sobbing fitfully. He pulled her in close again and held her tight until her tears stopped.

Suddenly the cabin door opened and Khan stepped into the room with Malik. Marsh turned towards him.

“Was there any need for this, Khan?”

“No,” Khan agreed. “But the man responsible has paid for it. As you can see, I’ve kept my word; your woman is safe now, which means we can continue with our work and you will make the dive.” He turned to Malik. “Take them aft.” Then he turned and walked away without another word.

Francesini had been weighing up all the pros and cons until his head was busting open and had finally managed to doze off when the phone rang. He opened his eyes, slightly disorientated because of his strange surroundings. He reached for the phone and plucked it from its cradle, held it to his ear and sank back on to his pillow.

“Sir? This is Cooke.”

At first he didn’t recognise the voice at the other end of the line, but that was probably because he hadn’t expected to hear from him.

“Cooke? Oh, Bob. Hi!” It was the young man who worked in the photographic intelligence section at C.I.A. headquarters. “What can I do for you?”

“Is this a secure line, sir?” Cooke asked.

Francesini smiled and shrugged, looking round the hotel room. Not exactly five stars he thought to himself.

“Didn’t know I was coming here myself until a couple of hours ago. You can say what you like, so long as it isn’t a State secret.”

“Thank you, sir. Well, it’s like this. You know the ship we’ve been keeping an eye on?” Francesini was pleased he hadn’t mentioned the Taliba by name. Cooke carried on before waiting for a response. “Well, the helicopter left the ship yesterday with two men on board. It returned today with three people; one of them a woman. I enhanced the image and she looked to be in some distress. Does this mean anything sir?”

Francesini sat up immediately. Helen Marsh; it had to be Helen Marsh!

“Mean anything?” he repeated. “Cookie, if we get through this unscathed, I’m going to recommend you for a medal. Do me a favour and fax me the photo to this hotel. Do it now, will you?” He searched round for the hotel information booklet and found the hotel’s fax number. He read it out to him and put the phone down. The he got dressed and went down to the hotel reception to wait for the photograph to come through.

Marsh leaned on the aft rail with Helen. The Taliba was in open water. The Bahamian Islands had long since disappeared into the distance behind them and could no longer be seen. It was now early morning and the Atlantic Ocean looked unwelcoming and threatening. But for the two of them it seemed to offer a haven of tranquillity; an escape from the events that had happened to them. The wind that Marsh had been concerned about had all but disappeared, although he knew from questioning the captain that the wind was approaching from a southerly direction and they had sailed through the rim of a low pressure system.

The night before, the two of them had talked long into the night. They had talked of what had happened to Helen, what had happened to Marsh. They had talked of their fears and their futures, if they had one. Helen had told Marsh how she convinced Sweeting Maclean that she was the wife of an Obeah man. Marsh had commented that it was ‘powerful medicine’.

“And he fell for it,” Marsh had said.

“I’m not sure if he really did fall for it,” Helen had replied. “But I had sown the seed of doubt. It was enough; it seemed to work anyway. He’s dead now, poor man.”

“Poor man?” echoed Marsh. “He tried to rape you.”

“Nobody deserves to die like that,” she reflected, “with the back of his head blown off.”

Marsh stood up from the rail and breathed in a lungful of the sea air. “You told me last night that Malik also killed another man.”

“Yes,” Helen agreed.

“I think that must have been Romulus Swain, poor bastard,” he added. “They mean business then.”

Helen thought she detected a note of resolution in his voice. “They mean to kill us, don’t they Marsh?”

The previous evening he had avoided coming to that conclusion for Helen’s sake. But he knew it was pointless trying to hide it from her, but he tried and came up with an indirect answer.

“We’ve got two more dives.”

“And then?”

He stared into the Atlantic. “Nothing has been decided.”

She touched his arm, closing her fingers round it tenderly. “Marsh, I do understand, but we must find a way of getting out.”

He closed his hand over hers. “If there is a way,” he said ruefully, “it’s going to take a lot of finding.”

“We have found Sweeting Mclean,” Inspector Bain informed Francesini solemnly, “with the back of his head blown off. Swain was there too; dead I’m afraid.”

“What about Helen Walsh?” Francesini asked even though he knew where she was.

Bain shook his head. “Gone.”

“Any idea where?” Francesini asked.

“No.” It was final.

Inspector Bain had phoned Francesini at the hotel. His voice sounded disappointedly dull. Francesini knew immediately that it wasn’t good news. He was already dressed because of his early morning phone call from Bob Cooke at C.I.A., so within five minutes he was driving his rented car over to Freeport Police headquarters.

After the preliminary discussion about the events of the previous evening, plus Francesini’s concern that he hadn’t been informed earlier, he tossed a manila envelope on to the desk in front of Bain.

“What’s this?” Bain asked.

“Open it,” Francesini told him.

Bain did as he was asked with a little difficulty because of his injured arm and studied the enhanced satellite photograph of three people walking away from the helicopter on board the Taliba. After a while he looked over the desk at Francesini without lifting his head, staring over the top of his glasses. He jabbed his finger at the picture.

“Helen Walsh?”

Francesini nodded. “She was taken on board the Taliba early last evening.”

Bain settled back in his chair and let the photograph drop on to his desk. He didn’t look too pleased.

“Why have you waited until now to inform us?” he demanded to know. “We could have boarded the Taliba and brought this whole episode to a conclusion.”

“It’s not that easy, Inspector,” Francesini told him. “I didn’t receive this until about two o’clock this morning. By the time we’d organised a boarding party, the Taliba would have been long gone.”

Bain eyebrows met in a deep frown. “What do you mean, long gone?”

“It looks like Khan has gone. By now the Taliba will be about two hundred miles away. At this very moment she is heading out into the Atlantic Ocean, and goodness knows where she’s going, but with luck, she won’t return.”

But as much as Francesini wished it were true, he doubted that was the end of Hakeem Khan and the Taliba.

It was night and the Taliba moved slowly through the water, the thrust of her engines almost gone, but with just enough power to keep her on station. The ship lifted with each wave that passed beneath its belly, but fate was being kind and the gentle swell was giving no trouble to those on board. There were no lights showing and she rode the waves like a ghostly chariot; a silent phantom on its unlawful occasions.

Marsh peered through the porthole of his cabin. He had no lights because all electrical power to the accommodation section had been turned off. Helen stood beside him, her arm round his waist. Malik had warned them not to venture outside their cabins until morning for reasons of safety. He wouldn’t explain quite what he meant by that, but Marsh saw no reason to antagonise the man.

Marsh was soon aware of the arrival of two ships. From his vantage point he saw one of the ships slide alongside the Taliba while the other disappeared from his view, but its speed suggested it had taken up station on the other side. He could hear shouted commands in a language he did not understand, but soon he understood that a cargo was being transferred from the ship that was now alongside the Taliba.

His mind went back to the night Greg Walsh had been killed, and in his mind’s eye he could see the loading operation taking place. So deep was the nightmare burned into his brain that he could see the two ships locked in a graceful embrace while one transferred the seed in its belly into the care of the other.

The whole operation lasted less than an hour, and soon the water boiled beneath the freighter in luminous phosphorescence as she edged away. Moments later she was gone, fading into the darkness like a wraith, and only Marsh’s sanity kept him from believing that it had never happened at all. He felt the Taliba’s engines power up and soon they were under way. He wasn’t sure of the heading but he guessed they were on their way back to the Gulf to plant another demonic seed.

As dawn broke over the Atlantic, Marsh woke and could feel the rollers lifting the ship with more power than previously. The Taliba was a sturdy vessel and could handle almost anything the sea could throw at it. He felt there was very little to concern him so he went up on deck with the intention of spending ten minutes there before having breakfast. He decided not to wake Helen who was now in her own cabin.

As Marsh came out on to the after deck and turned towards the bridge superstructure, his eyes gaped in amazement. The Taliba had taken on a different outline! He shook his head and looked again, but it was there as clear as day. He walked forward slowly, looking at other changes he could see. Around the superstructure he noticed that canvas awnings had been erected at strategic points, changing the outline of the ship. He ventured further forward and saw that the Challenger was hidden beneath a canvas awning stretched right across the deck. Parts of the deck and the bridge had been painted to give a subtle change to the appearance of the ship’s lines. He couldn’t believe it, but there was no mistake; under close scrutiny, certainly from overhead observation and even from a passing ship, the Taliba had ceased to exist.

As evil as Khan’s intentions were, he knew that the game had now entered its most dangerous phase. Marsh returned to his cabin with the absorbing and frightening thought that his own time was limited and there was very little he could do about it.

For the remainder of the day, Marsh and Helen were confined to their quarters. No reason asked, no reason given. They used the time to hatch various escape plans and to immediately discard them until the game became useless and an admission of defeat was all they could muster.

There was nothing either of them could do. Marsh knew he could refuse to pilot the submersible, but he also knew that Khan could take over, even if his heart was suspect. Khan would probably survive the dives; his own fanaticism would push him beyond his own limits. Marsh understood that.

And Marsh also understood that he would not be allowed to live beyond a refusal to cooperate. And they had no way of knowing what would happen to Helen; probably the same fate. No, Marsh decided that while he was still in some kind of control, with some part to play in Khan’s evil scheme, he might have a small bargaining counter that could guarantee his and Helen’s freedom. But in his heart, he knew he was kidding himself.

Francesini arrived back at his office with a degree of pessimism clouding his day. Such was the urgency now of Francesini’s mission, he had flown from Freeport direct to Langley Air Force Base, and was picked up by a staff car. It had been a demanding flight, not from the point of being tiring, but he had so many unanswered questions floating about in his mind and no-one to bounce them off that he had almost succumbed to melancholia.

It didn’t help when Admiral Starling had admitted to him that he too was under pressure from the President’s National Security Adviser; he wanted results. This meant that the President’s man was under pressure from the President himself. And this meant that the pressure rolled all the way down to the man at the front: Francesini. The buck may stop at the Oval Office, Francesini had told the admiral, but it was certainly uncomfortable from where he was standing.

He thought about the child’s song he would sometimes chant when he was at junior school. ‘Big fleas have little fleas on their backs to bite ‘em. Little fleas have littler fleas and so ad infinitum’.

Did we sing that? He wondered as he sat down at his desk. There was a yellow ‘post it’ note on his desk. The message was scrawled in almost unintelligible writing.

‘Your phone is off. Ring me please.’

It was signed by Cooke, the young man in the satellite imagery department. Francesini frowned and pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. Sure enough it was switched off. He shook his head and turned the phone on. He remembered switching it off during the flight. He reached for the desk phone and dialled Cooke’s number.

“Hallo Bob, Francesini here. What can I do for you?”

“We’ve lost the Taliba, sir. It’s gone!”

Francesini sat bolt upright. “What?”

“It’s gone sir; disappeared during the night. We tracked her image into the Atlantic. Her signature was pretty strong for a while, but when I came in to work this morning.” He paused there. Francesini could hear him breathing. He sounded nervous. “Well sir, it’s like I said; she’s gone.”

“Have you checked all the images?” Francesini asked. He knew it was unnecessary.

“All of them, sir. She just faded away.”

Francesini felt the ‘fleas’ on his back. “I’m coming down to your office. Have the images ready for me, will you?”

“Yes sir.”

He put the phone down, the song running through his head. ‘….little fleas have littler fleas and so ad infinitum’.

Marsh thought the Challenger was beautiful. To others she was ugly and ungainly, which she certainly was. But Marsh looked at her from an engineer’s point of view, from an oceanographer’s perspective. Everything on that submersible was designed with a distinct purpose in mind; there was nothing surplus. She may not have had an aesthetic appeal, Marsh realised that, but he was still fascinated by her.

He clambered up the short ladder to check the umbilical was securely attached and while he was on top of the submersible, he checked the security of all the lifting rings. He then dropped down the far side and continued his checks along the whole length of the submersible. When he was satisfied that everything was in order, he opened the door of the acrylic polymer cockpit bubble and climbed in.

The Taliba had maintained a good speed to get back on station below the Florida Keys. The dive had been planned for early dawn about twenty four hours after being alongside the freighter. A grey light was beginning to seep over the horizon but it was still dark as Marsh began his internal checks. When he had completed those he thumbed the speech button.

“Taliba, this is Challenger. How do you read? Over.”

“Loud and clear Marsh,” Khan’s voice came back to him. “Dive should commence in thirty minutes.”

Before Khan could close the communication link, Marsh heard a voice in the background. “It’s the rig, sir.”

A moment later Khan came back to him. “Challenger, we shall be on station in fifteen minutes. Computed drift rate four knots, twenty degrees north, north east, surface wind, force five.”

“Challenger acknowledged, roger and out.”

A fresh breeze thought Marsh. The rim of the hurricane was drawing closer. It was a good thing it didn’t blow under water, he mused, although it could still cause a lot of problems.

Batista appeared at the front of the Challenger and motioned to Marsh that the lift was about to begin. Marsh acknowledged him and waited. Suddenly the submersible moved and slipped sideways about three or four inches as the deck winch took the weight of the Challenger and lifted just clear of the deck.

The four lifting hooks attached to each lifting eye spun momentarily and then stabilised. All eyes were on the lift as they swung the submersible over the side of the Taliba, looking curiously odd in her hastily renewed superstructure. Marsh wondered if the dummy rigging on the ship would survive the strengthening winds, but he was sure Khan would have allowed for that and for time being on his side.

As Challenger rotated slightly on the lifting ropes, Marsh though he saw another ship off Taliba’s beam, but the light was too bad to discern any real shape. And whatever it was, it was soon hidden from view. He ignored it and concentrated on getting the submersible settled on to the surface.

Once the Challenger was on the water, the lifting sling, with its four wire ropes was quickly detached. Marsh waited for an all clear signal from the Taliba and allowed the Challenger to slip beneath the waves, calling out the depth as it sank slowly towards the sea bed.

When the submersible was thirty feet from the bottom, Marsh trimmed her out and held her there. Batista and Zienkovitch left the chamber. At that moment Khan’s voice crackled inside the bubble.

“Marsh, we estimate the well-head is three hundred feet off your port beam.”

Marsh frowned. It was not like Khan to make such an error and miss the well-head by such a margin.

“One hundred yards off port beam,” he repeated. “Still holding at two hundred feet and turning left.”

Marsh piloted the submersible almost blindly, relying on the Taliba to call out his position. He could have navigated using the Global Positioning System on board, but it was much easier to let Khan guide him on.

The two divers followed him as he brought Challenger over the well-head. He reduced power to the thrust motors and settled the submersible above its station, keeping an eye on the hand signals from both divers. Ten minutes later the Challenger was attached to the well-head by its skirt and Marsh sat alone in the bubble. He felt detached and alone in the underwater world that surrounded him.

Francesini put the tip of his finger on the grainy, satellite photograph. He could see the Taliba clearly. At least, that’s what Cooke had told him. But the subsequent photographs showed a fainter, less clear image. Weather conditions had done much to obscure the ship, plus the time: two o’clock in the morning. The final print showed nothing, simply a computed position of where the ship would probably be, given that she had stayed on the same heading and not changed course.

“The weather didn’t help sir,” Cooke offered. “But we have these.”

He pulled up a picture on his computer screen that showed several erratic traces. Closer inspection showed that there were actually three distinct traces layered one above the other.

“This top trace,” Cooke was saying, pointing at the screen “is the Taliba’s signature. The other two are unknown.” The screen changed as Cooke punched a finger at the keyboard. “Here the three signatures merge. Almost as if three ships are about to collide,” he added. “Taliba’s computed direction brings her into this contact with the others. And in the next shot,” he said, pulling up another image, “they all merge into one, indistinguishable blob.”

Francesini straightened. “These signatures are through the cloud, right?” Cooke nodded. “And you think the Taliba has made a rendezvous with two other ships?” Cooke nodded again. “So how come you couldn’t pick up Taliba’s trace once the ships had parted company?”

“The satellite was ordered to lock on to the three signatures. But for some reason, it only locked on to two. Neither of them was the Taliba.”

Peering through the gloom, Marsh thought he saw something. Whatever it was lay just on the edge of the arc spread by Challenger’s powerful lamps. He leaned forward instinctively, hoping to get a clearer view, but it didn’t help. He wondered if it was a natural feature of the sea bed; a small outcropping of rock perhaps. He put the submersible’s radar scanning head on and looked at the image on the radar monitor. It was unclear and, as far as Marsh was concerned it was unimportant, but he had little to do except wait until he received instructions from either the divers or the Taliba.

He looked up from the screen and peered out again through the polymer cockpit, but the longer Marsh stared at it, the more bewildering it became. It began to dance and change shape and become distracting, so he gave up looking at it. The important thing was to think more about Batista and Zienkovitch and to keep Challenger functioning; not concern himself with some illusory object of no importance.

Soon the operation was complete and another bomb had been lowered into mother earth. Marsh flooded the ballast tanks to compensate for the weight of the bomb and trimmed the submersible to rise a few feet once he had received the signal from the surface.

Khan’s voice crackled through. “We have a small problem Challenger.”

Marsh’s heart skipped a few beats. “Say again Taliba.”

“A problem Marsh, but don’t worry. A squall has appeared on radar. We had hoped it would pass us by, but judging from its present course, it will pass through us. It will make recovery difficult.”

“I’ll remain on station, Taliba.”

“Negative, Challenger, drift with the stream for a while. It should take you clear. Say three miles.”

“Acknowledged Taliba,” Marsh replied. “Three miles, drifting now.”

There was nothing wrong with this type of manoeuvre and the Taliba had all the necessary sonar and GPS tracking gear to keep station almost immediately above him, so Marsh was not concerned. And he realised it was simple expediency to move away from the path of the squall to recover a few miles distant.

In the event the recovery operation was completely successful and the Challenger was on board the Taliba and hooked into the ship’s generators in less than two hours. Marsh clambered down from the cockpit in a sombre mood. Two bombs were now in position, one left to be planted. The more he thought about it, the more his own fears grew; and the more probable and realistic they became.

If Marsh was right and he had figured out exactly what Khan was up to, then only a terrible catastrophe could result. The line was right, the depth was right. One more bomb, one more chance to do something; but no hope in hell of getting away and telling the world.