Year of the Golden Ape

10

^ 'There is a limit. When a handful of men – primitive men with the minds and morals of bandits – lay their hands on the keys to a whole civilisation's survival, then we have reached that limit. Then is the time to act…'

^ US War Department report to National Security Council in Washington, January 17.

^ 'Satellite surveillance of the Indian Ocean area shows two British supertankers, ^ York ^ and ^ Chester, ^ leaving the Mozambique Channel, heading north-east towards the Persian Gulf. Photoanalysis reveals canvas-covered cargoes on the decks of these 200,000-ton ships which could be arms (no confirmation of this). Believed Britain may be bartering arms for oil at Abu Dhabi.

^ Comment: No recently concluded British oil deals with Abu Dhabi have been reported.'

^ It was fifteen minutes away from Friday January 17 when Larry Sullivan's Boeing 707 landed at Anchorage International Airport ten and a half hours behind schedule. He phoned the Nikisiki oil terminal from the airport and heard that the ^ Challenger ^ was now at sea.

^ Sharing a cab with three American oil men, Sullivan was taken to the leading hotel in Anchorage, the Westward, where he booked a room and went to bed. He gave up the attempts to sleep at three in the morning, got up, shaved and dressed. He was suffering from an overdose of jet lag, the disorientation of mind and body which comes from flying long hours across the roof of the world. Physically exhausted, he was mentally alert, excited as his internal clocks struggled to adjust themselves to the time lag.

^ At three in the morning in southern Alaska it was noon in London – the States was on daylight saving time. He put through a call to Victor Harper and sat on the bed smoking while he waited. Seen from London, he had felt there was good reason to come to Alaska – Winter had been placed in Hahnemann's office in Hamburg where he had studied blueprints of the ^ Challenger's ^ twin ship ^ Chieftain; ^ in MacGillivray's office he had been placed making specific enquiries about the ^ Challenger ^ herself. But that was seen from London.

^ Seen from Alaska at three in the morning, enduring the weird after-effects of jet lag, the reasons for making the trip seemed less weighty. For one thing the tanker had sailed safely; in about four days' time she would dock in San Francisco. The phone by his bedside rang.

^ 'Larry, Mr Harper is out of the country,' Vivian Herries, Harper's personal assistant explained. 'He's still in Genoa, so he can't be reached…'

^ 'Damn!' Sullivan said. 'Sorry, not you-I'm reeling from jet lag. Vivian, I just missed the ^ Challenger ^ by hours – she's on her way to San Francisco. As far as you know, is everything normal? Nothing out of pattern?'

^ 'As normal as anything is in the shipping business these days -with the energy crisis. Just a minute, there was one thing out of pattern – she has a woman aboard on this trip.' She chuckled. 'Can you imagine that, knowing old Mackay thinks his ship should be run like a St James's club – strictly for men only. But he's got a real live woman prancing about on board this trip.'

^ 'She must be. Mr Harper just mentioned it in passing on his way out. I think it could be the chief engineer's wife – she's been longing to do the trip for months…'

^ Sullivan rubbed at his forehead; for a moment he had felt dizzy. 'Vivian, can you think of anyone here in Anchorage I can talk to about the ^ Challenger – ^ apart from the oil terminal people, that

^ 'Mrs Swan, the wireless operator's wife,' Vivian suggested promptly. 'She was in the office here about three months ago and she told me she lived outside Anchorage. Would you like the address?'

^ Sullivan noted down the address, said he might phone Harper tomorrow, said yes, he'd try and get some sleep, and put down the phone. Five hours later, having just eaten his second breakfast, he found Swan's number in the directory, phoned the number and couldn't get an answer. He decided to drive out to the Swan home.

^ The house had a shut-up look. There was snow on the mountains beyond the Matanuska valley, snow on a copse of fir trees on the far side of the highway. Sullivan rang the bell again and then strolled round the back. A very shut-up look indeed. He peered into a window in the barn and saw a power cable plugged into a red Ford. Anti-freeze measure. It was a wasted trip – he could have been sleeping at the Westward. Sullivan felt he could sleep now.

^ He walked round the front of the house back to his hired car as a blue Chevrolet came down a distant drive and turned on to the highway. He stood there as the car slowed, then turned into the Swan's drive. A red-haired woman of about thirty who wore a skull-fitting, fur cap rolled down the window as she stopped. 'Are you looking for someone?' 'For Mrs Swan. Place seems to be shut up.' 'They've gone away – on Charlie's ship. Are you a friend?' 'My company insures the ^ Challenger.' ^ Sullivan grinned. 'I'm the best friend they've got. I thought the captain didn't like women aboard too much?' It was something to say. The whole thing was explained now, including Vivian Herries' reference to a woman aboard the ^ Challenger. ^ Mrs Swan had struck lucky; she was travelling with her husband on the trip.

^ 'I'm Madge Thompson.' The red-haired woman extended her hand through the window. Sullivan gave her his name. 'Julie -that's Mrs Swan,' Madge Thompson explained, 'was in quite a rush. She phoned me about a quarter after three just before they left. The captain must have mellowed. I gather the whole thing was a last-minute arrangement. She sounded tense…' 'Tense?'

^ 'Excited. She's wanted to do the trip for ages…' They chatted for several minutes and then Mrs Thompson left for Anchorage. Sullivan had trouble starting his car – the engine was already starting to freeze up – and drove back to the city. He had come all the way to Alaska for nothing; no one was trying to sabotage the tanker. And he needed some sleep.

^ Sullivan asked the question as he sat at the bar of the Westward Hotel in Anchorage. It was 1 pm, Friday January 17. Almost asleep behind the wheel during his drive back from the Swan home, he had freshened up the moment he had stepped into the hotel lobby; ^ ^ still another reaction from jet lag. Now he felt strangely alert, hepped up as though he had taken drugs. It was the barman who had mentioned the fire at Nikisiki.

^ 'About a quarter after three in the afternoon,' the barman said as he served Sullivan his second Scotch on the rocks. 'They think it was sabotage,' he went on with relish. 'I guess the A-rabs are behind it – like in Venezuela. They want us to freeze to death. And we could do it here…' He glanced behind the bar. 'Thermostat turned down to sixty-two – in this climate, in this state which is swimming in oil…'

^ 'Not yet,' Sullivan reminded him, 'not until North Slope comes on tap…'

^ 'You British?' the barman enquired. 'Lots of people think the British are Australian, but I can always tell.' 'I'm British…' 'You got a car?'

^ 'I managed to hire one – cost me a fortune…' 'You remember to plug in the power cable? Guy was here yesterday who forgot to plug in the cable – though he reckoned someone pulled out his cable. He was British – a sea captain.' 'Not Captain Mackay?'

^ 'You know him? That was his name.' The barman chattered on. 'Took a call here at the bar and gave his name. He left in a …..

^ 'So they say. Well-built guy, your Captain Mackay – with a red face and those blue eyes sailors is supposed to have and seldom do. I got a memory for faces. A guy comes into this bar once five years back, comes in again tomorrow and I'm going to remember him. If he only looks in this bar and I see him, I remember him…'

^ 'That was Mackay,' Sullivan said absent-mindedly. Everything seemed to have happened at three-fifteen the previous day. The Swans had left home hurriedly at 3.15pm. Mackay had rushed out of the hotel about 3.15pm. The fire at the Nikisiki oil terminal had started at about 3.15pm. And the fire was sabotage.

^ He blinked, suddenly so tired he could have fallen over. He left the bar and went up to his room, trying to recall an idea which had passed through his head while the barman was chattering away. Something to do with remembering faces… Closing the door, he locked it, flopped on the bed and fell asleep.

^ When it was one o'clock in the afternoon, Anchorage time, as Sullivan listened to the barman at the Westward, it was midnight, Damascus time, as Sheikh Gamal Tafak savoured the cup of black coffee he was drinking.

^ It probably wasn't quite true to say that Tafak was savouring the taste of the black coffee, because it is difficult to relish two things at the same time. As he sat in his room in the Saudi Arabian embassy in the Syrian capital, Tafak was savouring the message he had received a few hours earlier. ^ Case Orange has been delivered. ^ Winter, he was thinking, was an ingenious man; anyone transmitting the message would assume that it was a mistake, that it meant cases of oranges had been delivered. To Tafak it meant that all was going well, that the British tanker ^ Challenger ^ had now left Alaska – with Winter's own wireless operator aboard.

^ He checked his watch. Soon the Mercedes would arrive, the car taking him to a secret headquarters where he would remain until the operation had been completed. He would stay there until the Frenchman, LeCat, had done the job, until all the British hostages aboard the ship had been killed, until San Francisco had been ruined by the catastrophic explosion. Then he would hurry back to Damascus for the next meeting of OAPEC, the Arab oil-producing countries' organisation. At that meeting he would persuade or compel all of them to cut off the oil flow to the West. If any country refused, the Arab terrorist dynamite teams would move in, destroying that country's oil-fields. Someone tapped nervously on the door. 'Come in,' Tafak called out.

^ It was 5.30pm on Friday evening when Sullivan walked back into the bar at the Westward. He ordered a Scotch on the rocks. 'Yes, sir!' The barman looked at Sullivan. 'You've changed your suit. Like I said, I notice things…'

^ 'Test the memory.' Sullivan laid the photo of Winter on the counter, the profile shot where he had painted out the moustache Winter had worn while visiting Paul Hahnemann. He picked up his drink and sipped it while the barman made a performance out of studying the print.

^ 'He's never been in my bar. I'll stake my job on it. Not while I was on duty…'

^ 'Disappointed?' The barman grinned at Sullivan who shrugged his shoulders. It had been a very long shot indeed. 'Not in my bar,' the American emphasised. 'But two nights ago he was standing in that entrance over there. He looked in, changed his mind and disappeared. Mackay was in here at the time, having a beer. Be about nine in the evening.'

^ Sullivan nearly choked on his drink. 'You're sure? Yes, of course you are,' he added hastily. 'Was he staying here?'

^ 'No idea. He never came back. Wednesday night it was. You could enquire at reception…'

^ Sullivan drank the rest of his large, neat Scotch in one gulp and didn't feel a thing. Winter was in Alaska.

^ Sleep was the last thing Sullivan thought of during the next few hours as he stirred up half Anchorage, asking questions, showing the photograph, checking, checking, checking… The night clerk at the Westward recognised the picture, confirmed that Winter had stayed there one night, the same night Mackay had stayed at the hotel, that he had registered in the name of Robert Forrest, that meals had been sent up to his room – the duplicate copy of the bill was full of information. Winter had booked out the following day, Thursday January 16, the same day the ^ Challenger ^ had sailed from Nikisiki at ten in the evening.

^ Chief of Police Jo Mulligan of Anchorage took Sullivan's information very seriously when he saw the Lloyd's of London identification. Within one hour – close to midnight – an all points bulletin was circulating throughout the whole of Alaska with Robert Forrest's name and description and reproductions of the photograph Sullivan had supplied. And Sullivan himself was driven in a patrol car to the oil terminal at Nikisiki. He arrived there at two in the morning, hardly able to keep his eyes open.

^ It was something that Winter, believing there was no photo of himself on record, could never have foreseen – that a photograph taken secretly in a German shipbuilder's office in faraway Hamburg would be transported by a persistent British investigator to Alaska, that it would be identified by a barman whose conceit and hobby was his ability to remember people he saw for only a few seconds.

^ And Chief of Police Mulligan acted with vigour because he immediately linked Winter's record and presence in Alaska with the firebomb attack on the oil terminal. Who knew – Mulligan might be the first policeman in the world to get a lead on the international terrorist gang or gangs which were blowing up pipelines and oil refineries all the way from California to central Europe? He went to the International airport himself.

^ Sullivan found nothing at the oil terminal. No one had seen Winter in that sensitive area. The departure of the ^ Challenger ^ had been perfectly normal. 'Sure,' the terminal superintendent informed Sullivan, 'the ship left two hours ahead of schedule with two tanks unfilled. But Mackay registered his early departure in advance – he was worried about the fire spreading to the jetties. And no one gets aboard that ship without Mackay knowing about it – he's one hell of a careful guy. There's a seaman at the foot of the gangway until they haul it aboard.'

^ Dropping from lack of sleep, Sullivan was driven back in the patrol car to the Westward where he flopped into bed at six in the morning and slept through the day. He was consuming a large steak, washed down with a gallon of strong coffee, when the call came through from police headquarters at seven in the evening. Mulligan had found something.

^ 'Thursday, close to midnight, Robert Forrest took the night flight for Seattle. He moved out just as you were moving in, Sullivan. The airport girl who recognised his picture came back on duty an hour ago; hence the delay. Want some more coffee?'

^ Jo Mulligan was a round-bodied man of fifty, hard-looking and with his still-dark hair cut short to the scalp. A smile rarely crossed his face and he talked quickly. Sullivan liked his businesslike approach to life.

^ 'So, we've lost him,' he said as the chief of police poured more coffee. 'It's curious, you know – he spends twenty-four hours here and he's away.'

^ 'Long enough to detonate that bomb inside the terminal. He could have organised that North Slope pipeline bust we had a couple of months back. My guess is he comes in at the critical moment, sees that the bombs detonate, then moves out. And my further guess is he's on his way now to another prime piece of oil property.'Mulligan leaned back in his swivel chair.'Maybe Texas. There are some nice targets for him in Texas. We're extending the all points bulletin to cover the whole of the States – the FBI are in on this thing now.'

^ 'So you don't think that tanker – the ^ Challenger – ^ is involved?'

^ 'No!' Mulligan was emphatic. 'They're not hitting tankers. Yet. These bastards are going for gut – the refineries processing the oil we so desperately need, the pipelines which carry the juice through our industrial veins. Those A-rabs are out to bring western civilisation toppling – so long as Israel exists. The extremists have got the whole Middle East oil bowl in the palm of their hands.' Mulligan sighed. 'We should have seen it coming after 1973. We should have seen it coming…'

^ The machine landed with a heavy bump, roared forward, its engines filling the interior with vibration. It seemed to be going too fast, to be heading for disaster, and the view beyond the window was a blur. Sullivan pushed a magazine into the pocket of the seat in front of him and relaxed as the Boeing 707 slowed. For the first time in his life he was in Seattle.

^ It was just after two o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday January 19 when he alighted from the plane. FBI agents Peters and Carmady were waiting for the flight and took him into a private room. They listened to his story without too much enthusiasm when he talked about the ^ Challenger, ^ it seemed to the Englishman; perhaps it was because they were so polite.

^ 'You can forget the tanker,' Peters advised. 'This man is sabotaging refineries. After he came off the plane last Friday he spent several hours at the Washington Plaza Hotel here. A reception clerk who booked him in recognised your photograph. And we found a cab driver who dropped him at the bus terminal later. Then he vanished.'

^ 'We'll go on trying,' Peters said reassuringly. 'Interpol have nothing on him – and our Washington records don't have him, But one day, somewhere, he has to surface…'

^ When they had gone Sullivan sat in the airport coffee shop drinking more coffee. The trail had gone dead, and now he was inclined to agree with Mulligan and the FBI agent that the tanker was not involved. When he had finished his coffee he would put in a phone call to Harper, telling him he was catching the Pan Am evening flight back to London.

^ Staring through the window he was looking north-west where the sun was filtering through a heavy overcast. Somewhere in that direction, about five hundred miles away, the ^ Challenger ^ was proceeding southwards on another uneventful voyage.