Year of the Golden Ape

11

^ Lot. 47.50 N Lon. 132.45 W1300 hours.

^ The US Coast Guard helicopter was coming in at no more than a hundred feet above the grey waves. On the starboard wing deck of ^ Challenger ^ Captain Mackay focused his glasses and the machine crisped into his vision, filling the lenses, showing the insignia on its pale grey fuselage. ^ No. 5421. USCG. ^ First Officer Bennett ran out from the navigating bridge on to the wing deck.

^ 'Emergency, sir. That chopper is in trouble. Message just came in from her – permission to land before she crashes…'

^ Inside Mackay's glasses the machine blurred as it passed through a patch of mist, then its silhouette was crisp again. It was impossible to see inside the control cabin. A puff of black smoke was rising from the silhouette now and Mackay thought the engine was coughing.

^ 'Clear the main deck, Mr Bennett…' Mackay's expression tightened as the puff expanded into a billow of ominous smoke. 'Turn the ship into the wind. Reduce speed to fourteen knots.' Mackay walked quickly back on to the navigating bridge where Betty Cordell was keeping out of the way, staying close to the front of the bridge. Mackay stood beside her and she was careful to say nothing. The chopper was closer and smoke was pouring off her, plucked away by the wind.

^ Mackay looked grim: fire was something you could do without aboard a tanker carrying fifty thousand tons of oil. And he faced an impossible choice – either to let her land on deck or signal her to stand clear, in which case the chopper might sink before a boat could reach her.

^ Sixty feet below where he stood by the bridge window with the American girl, men were already evacuating the main deck. The engine throb was slower. The huge vessel was beginning her turn into the wind. Bennett issued more orders for fire stations to be manned. 'Shall I get off the bridge?' Betty Cordell suggested. Mackay shook his head. 'Might be a story in it for you – so long as it doesn't end in tragedy…'

^ The huge ship continued its turn as the helmsman gripped the wheel. Mackay checked the time by the bridge clock. It was exactly one in the afternoon of Sunday January 19. 'Get a message off to the mainland,' he ordered. 'I am picking up your helicopter Number 5421 …'

^ Bennett phoned the radio cabin, instructed Kinnaird to send the signal instantly, then returned to the front of the bridge. 'I wonder where she comes from, sir? We're over two hundred miles from the Canadian coast…'

^ There isn't one stationed on the chart within five hundred miles. I'm afraid I don't quite understand this…'

^ Thank God for small mercies,' Mackay growled. The smoke was disappearing; no more was emitting from the machine which was now turning in a circle to fly towards the bow of the ship, Mackay wasn't too happy about what might happen in the next few minutes. Landing a helicopter aboard a moving ship in mid-ocean calls for a certain skill.

^ They waited and it was very quiet on the bridge. All the necessary orders had been given. The tanker, originally proceeding at seventeen knots through a gentle swell, had reduced speed to fourteen knots, had turned into the wind. A skilled pilot should have no trouble landing his machine under these conditions -providing his engine kept functioning. Inside three minutes she should have landed.

^ Mackay looked down along the main deck. It had been cleared of all personnel except for three fire-fighting seamen on the forecastle – close to the landing point. Visibility was good: the white-painted circle on the port bow where the helicopter should alight showed up clearly. 'Permission to land,' Mackay said. Bennett relayed the message to the radio cabin.

^ The machine was hovering now, letting the 50,000-ton tanker steam towards it. 'Seems to have his machine under perfect control now,' the sceptical Bennett commented. 'Wonder what's wrong with it?'

^ Winter maintained his hover, letting the lozenge-shaped steel platform cruising over the ocean come towards him. He had turned off the tap which had fed heavy oil into the exhaust -creating the ominous smoke Mackay had seen from the starboard wing deck.

^ The psychological timing was important. First he had emitted smoke as they were approaching the ^ Challenger ^ to worry the captain, to persuade him to give permission to land. Then he had later turned it off in case Mackay became too worried and decided to refuse permission. The radio cracked and Kinnaird's signal came through. 'Permission to land…'

^ The ^ Pecheur ^ Winter had flown off was forty miles away, too far away for Mackay to see her even from his high bridge. It had been an anxious time, searching for the tanker even while Kinnaird wirelessed ^ Challenger's ^ position at frequent intervals, a reasonably safe action since this was the time of day when he sent a routine report to the London office. But they had found her.

^ Seated beside Winter, staring at the ocean, LeCat had heard the final words through his headset. 'We're going in…' His stomach muscles tightened. It was always like this just before an attack -the physical and mental shock to the system when you realised it was really going to happen. Just like Algeria…

^ 'Remember what I told you,' Winter warned. 'I go out first. You wait until I'm on the catwalk and almost under the bridge. The others stay inside – the sight of a dozen men piling out on deck will alarm them. We must seize control before the penny drops…'

^ LeCat took out his Skorpion pistol, balancing the weapon in his hand. A quite unnecessary gesture, it put a finer edge on his nerves. When they got moving it would be all right: it was the last few seconds before the landing which were unpleasant.

^ It was Winter who had chosen the Czech Skorpion. 32 pistol for arming the terrorists. LeCat would have preferred a heavier-calibre gun. The version which slipped inside a shoulder holster carried ten rounds; another version which would not fit inside holsters carried twenty rounds. It was, up to a point, like a small sub-machine gun. Winter had issued the strictest instructions that there should be no shooting, but in case something did happen a heavier-calibre weapon would have been more dangerous; after all, they were landing on a floating oil tank.

^ The ocean came up to them hungrily, a grey, white-capped ocean, cold and forbidding. Winter was descending towards the water as the tanker came on at fourteen knots, and it looked as though they could be submerged – with the massive steel bow riding over them. LeCat leant sideways, saw the unstable water coming up.

^ He disliked the sensation because he was wholly at the mercy of another man's skill. Slipping the Skorpion back inside its shoulder holster, he pulled his parka front together to hide it. Behind him another thirteen men crouched together nervously, not enjoying the experience, not looking at each other for fear their nervousness showed. There was Andre Dupont, who had flown with Winter the day they had attacked the Italian Syndicate motor cruiser in the Mediterranean, who had phoned through LeCat's order to Hamburg that Sullivan must now be killed. There was Alain Blancard, a veteran of Algeria and a skilled sniper. And there were eleven others.

^ LeCat, ignoring the intense vibration, the thumping beat of the rotor overhead, pressed his cheek hard against the window. Where was the bloody tanker? They were almost in the sea. Had Winter, despite his pilot's skill, mistimed it? LeCat's stomach ached with the strain and his hands were sweating. Where the hell was the ship? Grey steel slid past below them, so close he felt he could reach out and touch it. There was a bump. They were landing.

^ The pilot cut the motor, the rotor-whizz faded, the blades appeared, spinning fast, then more slowly before they stopped moving. The three seamen on the forecastle with fire-fighting apparatus ran down on to the main deck as the machine's door opened and a tall man jumped out, landed in a crouch, straightened up and headed along the catwalk for the bridge.

^ 'Doesn't waste much time, does he?' Bennett remarked. 'Big chap, must be six feet tall…'

^ The pilot was still wearing his helmet and face shield over his eyes and this gave him a sinister appearance as he half-ran along the catwalk, glanced up at the bridge, saluted and disappeared. In the distance Bennett saw two more men jump out of the machine and then start talking to the three seamen. It all seemed very normal, a routine rescue 'Five more men have come out of that machine,' Bennett said sharply. 'How many is the damned thing carrying?'

^ Mackay strode to the front of the bridge and stared along the main deck. He counted five more men coming out of the helicopter while he watched, but they were all staying close to the landing point, chatting with the three seamen as far as he could see. 'Send the bosun down there,' he said. 'Send him with a walkie-talkie…'

^ 'Stay exactly where you are, gentlemen. If anyone moves the captain dies from a bullet – instead of from old age -'

^ Mackay spun round. The pilot stood in the wrong place – he was standing at the entrance from the starboard wing deck. He must have dodged along under the bridge when he was out of sight. He held a pistol in his right hand and the muzzle was aimed at Mackay's stomach. The gun, with only one-and-a-half inches of the barrel protruding from the body of the weapon, had a highly lethal look.

^ 'This is a hi-jack,' the pilot warned. 'We shan't hesitate to shoot…'

^ 'The Weathermen. Stop asking questions. You…' The pilot gestured towards Bennett. 'Go and stand at the front of the bridge where my men can see you. Then wave to them – swing your arms round like a windmill.'

^ The helmsman, a man called Harris from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, gripped his wheel and kept the vessel on course. He had received no fresh orders from the captain. By the window Betty Cordell froze. 'Do as he tells you,' Mackay said quietly to Bennett.

^ 'Move!' The pilot elevated his pistol, aiming it point blank at Mackay's chest. 'Do you want to get your captain killed?'

^ Bennett moved, went over to the window and swivelled his arms in a windmill motion. A group of men came running down the catwalk at a fast trot, leaving two men behind with the seamen at the landing point. Bennett counted twelve men running down the catwalk, all of them armed, the man in front very nimble in spite of his short height and wide shoulders. They vanished under the bridge.

^ The pilot waited, holding the pistol very steady, and twice he glanced at the bridge clock as though checking the elapse of a ^ ^ specific number of minutes. The helmsman, a short, dark-haired man with quick eyes, stayed frozen behind his wheel. Betty Cordell stood stiffly, her hands clenched as she stared at the eyes behind the shield. They were stunned, all of them except perhaps Bennett whom Mackay had ordered to obey the pilot, sensing that he might have done something dangerous; so easy to make a quick gesture of resistance, and so easy to get shot when the other man has the gun.

^ There was a clatter of feet and two armed men appeared from the same direction the pilot had come – from the starboard wing deck. They took up positions on either side of the bridge, aiming their pistols so they had the prisoners in a potential crossfire. The pilot spoke to one of them in French, which Mackay understood. 'Has LeCat gone straight to the engine-room? Good. When I leave the bridge these people are to stay exactly where they are -including the woman.' He looked at Betty Cordell, speaking in English. 'Why are you on board?'

^ 'I'm Betty Cordell, a reporter. I came for a story. It looks as though I've got one…'

^ The pilot smiled bleakly. 'You may wish you had stayed at home. You will remain here on the bridge until I decide where to put you. You are a problem I didn't anticipate.' He looked at Mackay. 'Get your ship back on course, Captain.'

^ Mackay grunted. 'You know the penalty for piracy on the high seas?'

^ The pilot walked towards the captain, stopping when he was a few feet away, leaving a clear field of fire for the guards at either side of the bridge. Stripping off his helmet, he looked down at Mackay who was five feet eight tall, inches shorter than the thin, bony-faced Englishman. 'My name is Winter. I seem to remember I asked you to issue a certain order.' His voice was soft and menacing and Mackay stiffened. 'You do value the lives of your crew, I take it?'

^ 'Mr Bennett,' Mackay said crisply. 'Put the ship back on course for San Francisco. Increase speed to seventeen knots.'

^ Bennett issued the order to Harris, the helmsman, and then the bridge phone rang. 'That may be the engine-room chief, Brady,' Winter told Mackay. 'At this moment there are four armed men in that part of the ship. Warn Brady that he is to carry out any instruction they give him – and that he will continue to receive all navigational orders from you.' He smiled bleakly. 'Engine-room chiefs are notoriously men with minds of their own…'

^ Mackay said nothing as he lifted the phone, then personally gave the order to increase speed. He added his own warning: 'These men who have come aboard are armed and dangerous – do nothing that could affect the welfare of the crew, Chief…'

^ 'Very good.' Winter turned to Betty Cordell who had been watching him for several minutes as though trying to assess what kind of man this was. 'I say it again, Miss Cordell – you will not leave this bridge without my personal permission. You are a problem I shall have to work out…'

^ 'She is an innocent passenger,' Mackay broke in with a rasp in his voice. 'She is also an American citizen and I would advise you…'

^ 'When I require your advice I will request it. If you had let me finish what I was saying I would have said I am concerned for her safety.' Winter glanced at the French guards who did not understand what he was saying. 'Some of these men are not the best of company for women, so you must not do anything foolish. Later, I will decide whether you should be confined to your cabin for the rest of the trip…'

^ Winter left the bridge abruptly and Mackay stared at his first officer. 'I don't understand that man, Winter, at all. And who the hell are The Weathermen?'

^ 'A particularly savage bunch of American underground terrorists. They blew up a lot of banks in the States a few years ago. I thought they were all dead…'

^ 'Someone resurrected them,' Mackay muttered. 'And keep your voice down. I'm not convinced these two thugs with us on the bridge don't understand English. I also don't understand why ^ ^ Winter has Frenchmen with him when you say The Weathermen were Americans…'

^ Mackay looked across at the swarthy, tanned ruffian who was leaning against the starboard bulkhead, one ankle crossed over the other, his pistol barrel resting on his left forearm. The barrel was aimed at Bennett but it was the amused, insolent way the Frenchman was studying Betty Cordell's figure Mackay found most disturbing. 'One thing puzzles me, Bennett,' he said softly. 'Winter said this was a hi-jack – and yet he still wants us to continue on course for San Francisco. Doesn't make sense.'

^ 'It shouldn't be long before they tumble to the fact that something's wrong here, sir -I mean the people on the mainland,' Bennett murmured. 'Kinnaird got that signal off before these swine came aboard – reporting that we'd picked up a Coast Guard chopper. If Winter hi-jacked the machine as well, the Coast Guard will know where to look for it now.'

^ 'So maybe in a few hours we can look forward to a US cruiser looming over the horizon. In which case we shall have a lot to thank Mr Kinnaird for…'

^ Within fifteen minutes of landing aboard the ^ Challenger ^ – as soon as he left the bridge – Winter proceeded rapidly with certain precautions. He called Bennett down from the bridge to accompany him on his swift tour of the ship. His first trip was to the dispensary next to the galley. The poisons cupboard, containing drugs – including sleeping pills – was locked up and Winter pocketed the key. 'I wouldn't like the cook to start mixing something with our food,' he told Bennett. 'Most unprofessional…'

^ He then demanded that Bennett hand over the pass-key which opened every cabin door on the ship. Escorted by a guard, the first officer fetched the key from his cabin. Winter pocketed this key and then made his way to the boat-deck with Bennett and a guard. He waited while the guard climbed up into each of the two large boats and heaved the hand-cranked radio transmitters, part of the standard equipment of a lifeboat, overboard.

^ 'Something has happened to it,' Winter reminded him. 'And I don't want spare transmitters hanging about where some quick-witted seaman can send out an SOS. Now, I want all the walkie-talkies you use when you communicate with each other while the ship's docking…'

^ Winter also reserved the captain's day cabin for those of the ship's crew not on duty to be kept inside. This reduced the limited manpower at his disposal which had to be employed on guard duty. As Winter had foreseen two months ago when he met Ahmed Riad in Tangier, the most suitable ship for a hi-jack was a large oil tanker – with no passengers, a compact crew of twenty-eight men, and the living and working quarters concentrated in one part of the ship, in the island bridge, a fact which gradually dawned on Bennett. 'You've been planning this for a long time, I see,' he commented grimly as the walkie-talkies were locked away in the cabin Winter had reserved for his headquarters.

^ 'I worked the whole thing out in three days,' Winter told him. 'You must admit we're reasonably well-organised now. You can't poison us, you can't unlock a single cabin on the ship, you can't communicate with the outside world. Have I forgotten anything?'

^ 'If I think of something,' Bennett replied grimly, 'I won't let you know.'

^ 'I'm speaking from Seattle,' Sullivan told Victor Harper when the chairman of Harper Tankships came on the line. 'I tried to call you from Anchorage…'

^ 'I know,' Harper interjected irritably. 'There was a fire at the oil terminal so Mackay cleared out – with two tanks empty… Oh, bugger it. Wait a minute…' There was a pause. 'Just knocked over the damned candle. You wouldn't believe it but we're out of oil for the lamps – and I'm in the oil business. Power cut here, of course…' At 3.30pm in Seattle it was 10.30pm at Harper's home in Sunningdale. 'What's all this about the ^ Challenger?' ^ Harper demanded.

^ ^ don and then on to Anchorage and Seattle. Now I've lost him. And one or two things I came across made me wonder, but they were dead ends. Like that business about the wireless operator, Swan. It turned out to be nothing more than he'd taken his wife with him on the ^ Challenger…'

^ 'Taken his wife with him?' Harper's voice had an edge to it. 'Bad enough for Mackay having one woman aboard – and a journalist at that.'

^ 'An American journalist I know called Betty Cordell.' 'And you say Swan's wife isn't on the ship? I think you're wrong…'

^ 'That's what I'm beginning to wonder. Because he's not at home – neither is his wife. I've been out there. They both left for the ship at three-fifteen last Thursday…' 'You saw them leave?'

^ 'No, I didn't,' Sullivan said slowly. 'Come to think of it, no one saw them leave – but they're gone…'

^ 'Look, Sullivan…' Harper's growing impatience came clearly over the line. 'There's a replacement wireless operator aboard. Chap called Kinnaird. So Swan must be at home – unless he's in hospital.'

^ 'Any idea when all this happened? And how did Mackay come up with this Kinnaird so conveniently? In Alaska, for God's sake?' 'Swan knew him, recommended him. He just happened to be there. Short of a job, I suppose. As to the timing, I'll read you Mackay's cable. ^ 1518 hours. Wireless operator Swan taken ill. Recommended replacement George Kinnaird. Kinnaird sailing with us this trip. Mackay. ^ Straightforward enough…'

^ 'No, it isn't. At three-fifteen Mrs Swan phoned a neighbour from home saying she was just leaving to sail with her husband. At three-eighteen – according to that cable – Swan is ill and has found someone else to replace him. All inside three minutes?'

^ 'It's more than peculiar, it's bloody sinister. Is there anything unusual about this latest trip of the ^ Challenger! ^ Anything at all?'

^ 'Not according to Ephraim-nor from the routine reports coming in from Kinnaird…'

^ 'Sorry, I think you were away when I added him to the insurance cover. Ephraim is an automatic monitor I've had installed in the engine-room – one of those mechanical brain things which independently check the engine performance of the ship. And it is quite independent of the ship. It flashes radio signals to a computer at the Marine Centre in The Hague. The computer decodes the signals and the report comes to me by telex. Whole operation takes less than thirty minutes – seconds for the radio signals to get to The Hague, the rest of the time getting the data back here.'

^ 'Normal. The ^ Challenger ^ is moving through a gentle swell at seventeen knots. She should reach the oil terminal at Oleum -that's near San Francisco – on schedule.'

^ 'Again normal. Routine messages come through on time. It's fascinating to compare notes – to see how Kinnaird's weather reports exactly match Ephraim's…'

^ Latest toy, Sullivan thought. He'll soon get tired of it. 'I'll keep in touch,' he said. 'I may call you from San Francisco – because that's where I'm going…'

^ 'That's the end of the line for the ^ Challenger – ^ and I want to be there when she reaches it…'

^ Sullivan put in another call, this time to Mulligan, chief of police at Anchorage. He told him about the Swans, that they weren't aboard the ^ Challenger, ^ that maybe it would be a good idea if a patrol car went out to the Swan home and if someone talked to Madge Thompson, the next-door neighbour.

^ Mulligan reacted with his usual vigour. 'I think maybe we'll go further – we'll send out an all-points bulletin for the Swans. And I'll send patrol cars to take a good look at the whole Matanuska valley area. Of course, Swan could be faking the whole disappearance himself…'

^ 'Why?'

^ 'Supposing the guy reckons he's short on leave, wants to take his wife for some ski-ing up in the mountains? So he fixes up with a pal to take his place, phones Mackay to tell him he's ill, and then takes off for some ski-ing. How does that grab you?'

^ Sullivan broke the connection, then made a fresh call to get information on the next flight to San Francisco. He could have had no way of knowing – at that time – that the call he had made to Mulligan would have enormous repercussions which would reach half way round the world. Within a few days.

^ Winter had the whole ship sewn up tightly, absolutely under his control as he supposed. Two guards were mounted permanently on the bridge where Betty Cordell was spending most of her time. Three more guards were stationed in the engine-room, the heart of the ship. A sixth guard was on duty outside the locked day cabin where the crew not on duty were kept, and a seventh man kept an eye on the galley where Wrigley, the steward, and Bates, the cook, presided over the mysterious rites of their culinary arts. Yet another armed guard was on duty outside the radio cabin. Including Winter himself and LeCat, this left a reserve of seven men who could rest, in readiness to relieve other men at intervals.

^ 'He's a bloody good organiser, I regret to say,' Bennett whispered to Mackay on the bridge. 'And 1 have more bad news.'

^ 'Lanky Miller told me he saw Kinnaird going inside the radio cabin.'

^ 'Not while the armed guard stays outside the cabin – with the door closed in his face.'

^ 'Miller is very sure. You see what that means? They would never leave Kinnaird alone in there – with the transmitter – unless he's working with them.'

^ Mackay sighed heavily. 'So you were right – there was something funny about him.'

^ 'There had to be. I should have realised it at the moment the terrorists came on board. How else could they find us in the middle of the Pacific – unless Kinnaird was sending them regular signals reporting our position? Betty Cordell was right – she did hear him transmitting the other night.'

^ 'At least Winter has let her go back to her cabin.' Mackay glanced at one of the guards. 'I didn't like the way that thug over there was eyeing her. I think we're going to have to get accustomed to bad news on this trip, Mr Bennett.'

^ 'Since Kinnaird is working for them, that means he never sent your last signal – the one reporting to the Coast Guard that we were picking up their chopper. So forget the hope about a US cruiser looming over the horizon.'

^ 'I grasped that a moment ago,' Mackay said sourly. He dropped his voice to a shade of a whisper. 'Winter seems to have thought of everything, doesn't he? But luckily no one is perfect. The one thing he hasn't thought of is the crew member who isn't on the list – Ephraim. Which is ironical, Mr Bennett – that our lives may depend on Harper's bloody mechanical toy locked away in the engine-room – the only crew member who still has freedom of action aboard this ship.'

^ Engine Performance Remote Control Monitor – nick-named Ephraim. Quite independent of all other engine-room operations, the mechanical brain installed inside the control panel was relaying radio signals over many thousands of miles to the master computer in The Hague, reporting constantly on the tanker's performance for the duration of the voyage.

^ Ephraim reported many things – monitoring fuel consumption, boiler pressures, boiler temperatures, which boilers were fired up, which were not. He reported the speed of the engines and the speed of the ship – not always the same thing if an engine was functioning incorrectly. And he reported the degree of the tanker's pitching and rolling – which meant he was sending his own weather report.

^ In his London office, Victor Harper was never sure whether he had installed an expensive toy, or whether Ephraim might help to make voyages more profitable. And Ephraim was expensive. The signals he was constantly transmitting were received and decoded by the master computer at the International Marine Centre in The Hague; then the information obtained from the ^ Challenger ^ had to be re-transmitted to London by telex.

^ And Kinnaird was cooperating with Ephraim – without having the least idea he was doing so. Part of the ship's routine which had to continue if conditions aboard were to seem normal to the outside world, was for Kinnaird to transmit a radio message to London at regular intervals. This message confirmed the position of the ship – and included a weather report.

^ All would be well for Winter so long as Kinnaird continued 'cooperating' with Ephraim. But if for some reason Kinnaird was ordered to fake a weather report, to send to London a message pretending they were passing through quite different weather from what they were experiencing, then deep down in the guts of the ship Ephraim would become a mechanical spy, the only member of the crew who could tell London what was really happening.

^ The Armalite. 22 collapsible rifle with its 4 x 18 telescopic sight, three spare magazines and a yellow package of fifty spare rounds, lay beneath the underclothes almost at the bottom of Betty Cor-dell's suitcase. Not that it immediately looked like a rifle since the main object on view was a tortoiseshell-coloured stock which concealed inside it the dismantled elements of the weapon. The stock was fashioned of plastic foam: dropped into a pool or lake it would float.

^ Alone in her cabin, Betty Cordell picked up the package of. 22 hollow point ammunition and weighed it in her hand. It gave her a comfortable feeling, submerged for a few moments the state of terror she was adjusting to slowly. Then she replaced the package, took one last look at the stock and re-packed her case, filling it up with neat piles of underclothing until once again it had the innocent look of a woman's travelling bag.

^ Since late childhood she had owned her own gun. At her home near Pear Blossom in the southern Californian desert her father, a strange and independent character like his daughter, had trained the girl to use a weapon. 'It's a violent world we live in, pet,' he used to say. 'Look how your mother died in San Diego – and all that murdering thief got was her billfold. Twenty-five lousy dollars…'

^ From the age of eight she was brought up by her father, a farmer, and as the years went by Betty Cordell became skilled to the point of marksmanship with a rifle. She never hunted with it, never went in for competitions, but at twenty-seven she still carried it with her everywhere away from home. Sometimes, driving in the desert, she would stop, set up a line of tin cans as targets and blaze away, working off frustration. Every can was always punctured.

^ She lit a rare cigarette and stood in the middle of the cabin smoking. The huge tanker was swaying gently as it went on through the swell towards San Francisco, now less than thirty-six hours away. She was thinking that with the mags and the package of spare rounds she had enough ammunition to kill every terrorist on board. The trouble was Betty Cordell had never even shot a bird. She hated the thought of killing live things. Hearing the door open, she turned. LeCat stood in the doorway.

^ LeCat stood in the doorway holding a full bottle of red wine and behind him the armed guard was leering. LeCat shut the door in his face by leaning against it. Betty Cordell remained standing in the middle of the cabin, staring back at the terrorist with a cold expression which verged on arrogance. She had a constricted feeling in her throat. She was scared and furious with herself at the same time – furious because her heart was thumping and her legs felt weak.

^ 'There is nothing to fear,' LeCat said roughly. 'We did not expect to find a woman on board. Bui it will only be for a few days, so you might as well make the best of it. The best of it,' he repeated, looking at her closely.

^ At least her voice sounded steady, almost insolent. Hearing herself speak, she was surprised that her voice sounded so normal, thank God. I've got to deal with this, she told herself, get rid of him. Quickly. He put the bottle down on a table near the door and walked towards her. There were blobs of moisture on his upper lip below the curved moustache.

^ 'I am a bachelor,' he remarked as he stood close to her. 'My name is LeCat. I have known a lot of women – many beautiful women …'

^ His approach was so ridiculous, so ham-handed, that for one wild moment she wanted to laugh in his face. Waterfront whores, she thought cynically, that's about his taste and experience. With me he doesn't quite know how to go about it, but his bashfulness won't last for long. Then she caught a whiff of his breath. My God, he's drunk…

^ Even though he had consumed a third of a bottle of cognac, LeCat was not drunk. It was simply that his movements were a shade more deliberate than usual. Cognac he could take in generous quantities; he was still capable of hitting a moving target at a hundred yards. She moved casually sideways and stood with her back to the steward's bell. 'I was thinking of taking a bath,' she said. 'Could you please leave the cabin. Now!'

^ 'Get out of this cabin, LeCat. Get out now or I'll ask the guard to fetch Winter…'

^ 'Like myself, the guard is French. He takes his orders from me,' LeCat replied equably.

^ The longer-term significance of this remark did not strike Betty Cordell – her mind was fixed on only one objective. Survival. She lifted her head and clasped her hands behind her back, assuming a most arrogant posture. The animal likes that, she noted: a peculiar gleam came into LeCat's eyes and he wiped his lip dry with a ringer. While he was distracted her own index finger moved towards the bell-push on the wall. 'I think Winter will probably kill you,' she said.

^ ^ look of fury in his eyes, an undertone in his voice not far from hatred. Shaken by his ferocity, she felt her control going. She took a step away from him and pressed the bell hard. 'Go and get your bath,' he told her viciously. 'Do not bother to dress when you have had it…'

^ He was still standing close to her so she couldn't move towards the bathroom when the cabin door opened and Wrigley, the steward, came bustling in. A tall, stooped, middle-aged man with brisk movements, he carried a tray with a pot of coffee, cream, a cup and saucer. He stopped for a moment and frowned as LeCat glared at him over his shoulder, then, apparently noticing nothing wrong, he began chattering.

^ 'Fresh-made coffee, Miss Cordell – nice and strong the way you Americans drink it…' He began laying the things on the table. 'Better come and get it now while it's hot. Helps to keep up your strength under trying circumstances…' He glanced at LeCat. 'You may have a visitor any minute, Miss Cordell – Mr Winter was in the galley and said he'd be coming along here to see how you are getting along. Funny chap…'

^ Wrigley paused as LeCat turned his back and left the cabin. The steward glowered and made a forked, two-fingered gesture towards the empty doorway. 'Sorry about that, Miss,' he apologised, 'sometimes my feelings run away with me…'

^ 'Thank you, Wrigley,' she murmured as she picked up the pot. 'You were just in time…'

^ Winter heard about the incident within five minutes of its happening. Wrigley met him in the alleyway while he was returning to his galley, escorted by an armed guard, and had no hesitation in telling him about the near-rape. Winter reacted instantly. He summoned LeCat to his cabin.

^ Winter took three strides across the cabin and LeCat, seeing his expression, grabbed for the pistol in his shoulder holster. Winter's hand closed on the wrist, digging into the nerve centre. LeCat's hand, still holding the pistol butt he had no time to extract, felt paralysed. His limp fingers released the butt as Winter twisted the hand violently and spun the Frenchman round by the shoulder hinge until he was half-crouched with his back to the Englishman. The pain in his shoulder was acute and he dared not move for fear of breaking his arm.

^ Winter trundled the bent man forward until he was close to the edge of the bunk. Releasing his grip a little, he allowed LeCat to lift his head a few inches, then he used his other hand to press the Frenchman's head down over the bunk with his throat rested on the hard wooden edge. The hard edge of the bunk rasped his victim's Adam's apple. 'One sharp movement and your neck is broken, LeCat,' Winter said softly. 'You know that, don't you?'

^ LeCat was terrified. He knew exactly what could happen, what he had done to a man in a similar position in Algeria once. A movement, one horrendous jerk, and his neck would snap. He was almost sick with terror.

^ 'If you even go near that woman again for the rest of the trip, I'll kill you.' Winter's tone was detached, almost conversational.

^ Grasping a handful of hair, he lifted LeCat's head clear of the bunk, swung his body round and shoved him forward. Off-balance, the Frenchman cannoned hard against a bulkhead and fell on the floor. Getting up slowly, dazed by the impact, LeCat left the cabin. It hadn't made him love Winter any the more, but he felt the cause of his humiliation was the American girl. Added to his crude desire for her was a bitter hatred.

^ Less than an hour before night fell on the Pacific, the helicopter was flown away from the ^ Challenger ^ by the only terrorist – other than Winter – who could fly the machine. Guided by continuous radio signals from the ^ Pecheur, ^ he reached the trawler which was sailing a hundred miles south of the ^ Challenger. ^ The moment the plane landed its insignia were covered with canvas flaps specially prepared for the purpose. It didn't matter if a ship or a plane saw the machine sitting on the deck of the trawler, but it would have seemed very strange had it been spotted aboard the 50,000-ton tanker.

^ ^ Andre Dupont. The escape apparatus – the Zodiac inflatable boat, the outboard motor, and the wet-suits – were all stored away in the carpenter's store under the forecastle. And during this work, carried out many hundreds of feet away from the distant island bridge, there was also unloaded a steel case weighing almost two hundred pounds which was transported with some difficulty and carried down the ladder into the cramped compartment.