Year of the Golden Ape

14

^ 'Challenger (t), British, Nikisiki, Harper Tankships, Oleum.' ^ Shipping notice under heading 'Arriving Today'. From ^ San Francisco Chronicle, ^ January 21.

^ The idea came to Sullivan when he was returning from breakfast at a coffee shop on Geary Street. He was going up inside the glass elevator at the St Francis Hotel, an elevator which moves up an open shaft attached to the outside of the building, so he had an unobstructed and dizzy view of Union Square far below. Turning the idea over, he hardly noticed the view.

^ He hurried to his room, took off his coat and threw it on the bed. He was going to do something he had urged Harper not to do; he was going to communicate with the ^ Challenger ^ while she was still at sea. It might be illuminating to see what reply he received – whether, in fact, he received any reply at all.

^ It took him a few minutes to work out a message on a scribble pad, a message which could do no harm if there was something seriously wrong aboard the tanker, and the message would have to pass through the replacement wireless operator, Kinnaird. When he had composed the message to his satisfaction he picked up the phone and spoke to the operator who relayed messages to ships at sea. The message was quite short but it compelled a reply – if everything aboard the ^ Challenger ^ was normal.

^ Suspect contraband was taken aboard at Cook Inlet. Possibly drugs. Please confirm immediately whether new personnel joined ship at Nikisiki for present voyage. Will expect immediate reply to Sullivan, St Francis Hotel, San Francisco. Repeat expect immediate reply. Sullivan.

^ When the ^ Challenger ^ was within twelve hours' sailing time of San Francisco it was almost a year to the day since the Gulf states, led by Sheikh Gamal Tafak, had cut the flow of oil to the West by fifty per cent. The reaction to this event inside Soviet Russia was strangely muted.

^ The Soviet government, which in the past had urged the Arabs to use their oil weapon, was appalled by the revelation of what it involved, by the sheer immensity of Arab power. It suddenly dawned on the Russians that they had spawned a monster. A Golden Ape was now stalking across the face of the earth, an ape which could destroy the great industrial machines of the West on which Russia depended for aid to develop her own industrial machine.

^ So, the Soviet government absorbed the shock, recognised the potential danger of the situation, and waited. While Sheikh Gamal Tafak remained convinced that he held all the trump cards, to the north of the Arab oil bowls the Russian colossus loomed like a giant shadow, patient, watchful, waiting.

^ Moving ever closer to San Francisco, the ^ Challenger ^ limped out of the embrace of Typhoon Tara. On the morning of Tuesday January 21, as the sun broke through a heavy overcast, the British tanker was a grim sight.

^ Her funnel was bent at a weird angle, although still functioning. The port derrick was twisted into a bizarre shape. Hatch covers had been blown away in the night. The port-side lifeboat had been wrenched clear of its davits and lost in the ocean. Three port-side portholes with inch-thick glass had been smashed in. The bridge window which Mackay had heard crack was gone, blasted into the bridge interior by a later wave, and it was only by a miracle that the men on the bridge at that moment hadn't been cut to pieces by flying glass. The bridge structure itself had a lop-sided tilt. The ^ Challenger ^ looked a wreck but she was still steaming for California at a speed of seventeen knots.

^ From the main deck Winter looked up at the ruination with quiet satisfaction. In this state he had no doubt the port authority at San Francisco would permit ^ Challenger ^ immediate entrance into the Bay beyond. It was a sentiment he was careful not to share with Captain Mackay. He looked up as LeCat called down to him from the battered bridge. 'A signal from the mainland has just arrived…'

^ Winter went up on to the bridge quickly and LeCat handed him the signal Kinnaird had just received. Reading it with an expressionless face, Winter stared critically at Mackay. The captain was grey with fatigue He had been on the bridge all night, guiding his ship through the worst Pacific typhoon in thirty years.

^ Mackay stared back at Winter with an equal lack of expression. The only Sullivan he could think of was Larry Sullivan, the man from Lloyd's he had once invited aboard the ^ Challenger. ^ Something told him to be careful.

^ Mackay blew his top. 'Damn you!' he roared. 'I've taken my ship through one hell of a typhoon. I've done that with you ^ ^ bastards aboard, standing around with your popguns in your hands, getting in the bloody way when my whole attention should have been concentrated on saving my ship…'

^ 'Jump over the bloody side! I've just about reached the end of my tether with you swine. If you talk to me like that again on my bridge I'll order the engine-room to stop the ship and you can do what you like…'

^ 'No, you shut up!' Mackay roared. 'You can shoot every man jack aboard and where will that leave you? Floating around out here in the bloody Pacific not able to sail one mile closer to San Francisco…'

^ Winter pushed down LeCat's pistol arm, told him to shove off the bridge. Mackay, driven too far, was on the verge of calling his bluff. Shoot us all… Winter wasn't prepared to shoot anyone. 'I withdraw the remark,' he said quietly. 'I think you ought to get a few hours' sleep in a minute. But first, could you tell me who this Sullivan is?'

^ Tired out as he was, Mackay had had time to think while he raved on at Winter. He wished to God he knew what was in that signal. He sensed that there could just be a chance to warn the mainland of the terrible situation aboard his ship. If only he could get a look at that signal – before he replied to Winter's questions.

^ 'So it wouldn't surprise you to hear that Sullivan was at this moment in San Francisco?'

^ Winter handed the signal to him. 'What do you make of that?' Mackay took his time absorbing it while Bennett read it over his shoulder. ^ Suspect contraband was taken aboard at Cook Inlet. Possibly drugs. Please confirm immediately whether new personnel joined ship at Nikisiki for present voyage. Will expect immediate reply to Sullivan, St Francis Hotel, San Francisco. Repeat expect immediate reply. Sullivan.

^ ^ ^ backwards and forwards. Contraband? New personnel? Was it even barely possible that Sullivan, who had turned up in California, had even an inkling that something was wrong? In a turmoil, Mackay felt he was treading through a minefield.

^ 'Why doesn't he know Kinnaird is a replacement wireless operator? Why the question about new personnel being taken on board? Isn't he in touch with head office? Didn't you tell Harper about Kinnaird?'

^ 'Then why doesn't Sullivan know about that? Isn't he in constant touch with head office?'

^ 'It's happened aboard the ^ Challenger ^ before?' Winter asked casually. He gave no sign that this was a trick question. If Mackay said yes, all he had to do was to question another member of the crew to check the captain's story.

^ 'Do what the hell you like.' Mackay stretched his weary shoulders. 'Mr Bennett, take over command on the bridge – I'm going to get a few hours' sleep. Call me if there's trouble of any kind,' he added.

^ He was in a dilemma. If he didn't reply to this Sullivan they might think something was wrong on the mainland, but he was suspicious. It seemed such a strange coincidence – that on this particular voyage there should be trouble of an entirely different nature. On the other hand. Mackay didn't seem to care whether he replied or not, which was exactly the impression the captain had struggled to convey. But if he didn't reply to this urgent request…

^ 'I've changed my mind,' he told them suddenly. 'We will reply…'

^ He watched the two officers closely as he made the remark. Mackay looked out of the bridge window, bored. Bennett took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. 'I'll word the reply myself,' Winter went on, 'telling him a search is being made of the ship and that you'll report the result when we dock at Oleum…' Mackay, who had hoped to word the reply himself, managed to hide his bitter disappointment. He started walking off the bridge.

^ 'Just a minute,' Winter called out. 'Sullivan is a pretty common name – and I want this message to reach him at the St Francis. What's his Christian name?'

^ The signal signed Mackay reached Sullivan at the St Francis at eleven in the morning of Tuesday – eleven hours before the ^ Challenger ^ was due to dock at Oleum. ^ Message received and understood. Am instituting general search of ship. Will report result on arrival at Oleum. ^ Sullivan stared at the signal he had taken down over the phone on a scribble pad, stared at the address. ^ Ephraim Sullivan, St Francis Hotel ^… He stood up, feeling almost light-headed, as though the jet lag had come back. I was bloody right, he said to himself, bloody right all the way from Bordeaux, and now I'm going to get some action.

^ After a lot of persuasive talking on the phone he was put through to the Mayor's secretary. Sullivan soon realised that she was well-chosen for her job of protecting the Mayor from crank callers. He went on talking and she was like a Berlin Wall. Taking a deep breath, he went overboard.

^ 'I'm trying to warn him about a threat to the whole city of San Francisco, an imminent threat – as from about ten o'clock tonight…'

^ Mayor Aldo Peretti was a handsome-looking man of forty who smiled easily and frequently. Dark-haired, smooth-skinned, he had propelled himself upwards in the world from lower than zero as he was fond of putting it. Which was quite true; his father had been a fruit-picker from Salinas in the Salinas valley. Because of this background, Peretti was a man deeply interested in all forms

^ of modern technology, in anything which could take the muscle-power out of work. He was especially interested in computers.

^ 'Let's go over it again, Mr Sullivan,' he said with a pleasant smile from behind his desk. 'You checked with the Marine Centre people in The Hague and they were sure the signals had to be accurate – that if Ephraim had crossed his circuits the result would be a mess, not a clear message?'

^ 'Which is my understanding of the way computers work-we're installing them this year in several more departments in the city. Frankly, what convinces me we ought to check is Ephraim – and the use of his name in this signal you got back from the ship. It almost suggests that someone, maybe the captain, was trying to tell us something is wrong.' He smiled again. 'You won't mind if I check myself with the Marine Centre at The Hague? Before I start raising hell I'd better make sure I have some kind of launch pad under me…'

^ It was one o'clock in the afternoon in San Francisco, nine hours before the ^ Challenger ^ was due to dock at Oleum.

^ As the ^ Challenger ^ steamed steadily towards San Francisco at seventeen knots, a battered, bruised, misshapen ship, but still with her engine power unaffected, an edgy tension grew on board. Which was strange because it might have been expected that morale would rise as they neared their ultimate destination which should see the end of their ordeal. Quite the reverse was happening.

^ The British crew and officers were badly affected by the unexplained disappearance of Monk, the missing engine-room artificer. Brady, the engine-room chief, tried to keep up the morale of his men by suggesting that Monk was hiding somewhere. 'It would take more than one of these froggie terrorists to put paid to a man like Monk,' he assured Lanky Miller. 'He just didn't get his chance to sort out LeCat, so he's gone to ground somewhere…'

^ Mackay and Bennett had taken a more realistic view in the chart-room when they discussed it early in the morning before dawn. 'I think the cat got him,' Bennett said. They had taken to referring to the French terrorist they most feared as 'the cat'.

^ 'I think you're probably right,' Mackay had replied. 'What I don't understand is why Winter has made no reference to it.'

^ 'And we can hardly ask him. How would we go about it? 'Mr Winter, we sent one of our men to kill your second-in-command and he's gone missing. Any news?' It's getting on the men's nerves, too. You know what seamen are – a man dying at sea rouses superstition, but a man disappearing, that's enough to send them round the bend…'

^ So LeCat's method was working, which was ironical. Winter had kept the crew under control earlier by being forceful but not brutal. He had, in fact, more than justified Sheikh Gamal Tafak's judgement that it would take an Englishman to control a British crew. Now, without anyone being aware of it – least of all Winter – LeCat's use of the terror weapon was also working, grinding away at the morale of the crew only a few hours' sailing time from San Francisco. LeCat observed what was happening through habitually half-closed eyes without apparently noticing anything. Soon Winter would leave the ship and he would assume control; meantime the crew was slowly losing its guts.

^ The tension on board was not confined to the prisoners; the ex-OAS guards themselves showed signs of mounting tension as they came closer and closer to the American mainland, and this showed itself in a stricter, more irritable, trigger-fingered attitude. Nor was Winter, cold and detached as he was, free from tension. It was not the approach to California which plucked at his nerves; the closer he came to the climax the more icy he became. It was the unexplained incidents which warned his sixth sense that something was going wrong. First, there was the second signal from the mainland which arrived at 2pm.

^ Please confirm urgently that all is well aboard your ship. I require a fully worded signal in reply. Certain of your signals have not conformed to normal practice. O'Hara. San Francisco Port Authority.

^ Winter immediately showed this signal to Mackay who had just come back on to the bridge after sleeping for four hours. 'I want to know what this means,' Winter demanded. 'You'll agree you wouldn't normally receive this kind of signal? What has aroused O'Hara's suspicions?'

^ 'Since you seized control of my ship you have sent all the radio messages. Somewhere, it seems, you blundered…'

^ 'I'm not dictating a reply,' Mackay said firmly. He turned his back on Winter and stared through the smashed bridge window. Betty Cordell stood beside him, noting all that was going on. Because there were always two British officers present, she was now spending most of her time on the bridge; there was an atmosphere of rising tension on the ship which worried her. Beyond the window the ocean was incredibly calm, a grey, placid plain under a grey, placid sky. Typhoon Tara was now ripping her way south, causing havoc on the sea lanes to Australia, while ^ Challenger ^ approached San Francisco from the south-west. This route – normally the tanker would have come in from the north-west -was being followed under pressure from Winter who planned to arrive unexpectedly at the entrance to Golden Gate channel.

^ 'You must work out your own reply,' Mackay repeated when he was asked a second time.

^ Winter let it go, decided not to make an issue of it with Mackay. Within a few hours' sailing time of his objective he was going to be very careful not to stir up more trouble. He wrote out the reply himself and then took it to Kinnaird.

^ He left the radio cabin, locking the door behind him and handing the key to the armed guard outside. Kinnaird began transmitting. ^ All is not well aboard my ship. Between 0100 and 0500 hours we passed through the eye of Typhoon Tara. Bridge structure extensively damaged but vessel seaworthy. Engine room unaffected. Proceeding on course for Oleum through calm waters at seventeen knots. Cannot understand your reference to my signals which have been transmitted as usual at regular intervals. Estimated time of arrival at Oleum still 2200 hours. Mackay.

^ Winter, who had catnapped for short periods later in the night when the typhoon subsided, became more active than ever, turning up unexpectedly all over the ship. He noted the edginess of the guards, but that was to be expected – as they came very close to the Californian coast they were bound to be apprehensive, and most of them were recovering from sea-sickness.

^ What puzzled him was the sullenness of the British crew. Hostility he could have understood – expected – but there was something furtive in the way they looked at him when he went down into the engine-room, some mood he didn't understand. He checked to make sure that no man had been injured by LeCat. He questioned LeCat himself.

^ 'Have you been threatening them?' he demanded when he was alone with the French terrorist inside the cabin he had taken over for his own use. 'There's a feeling growing on this ship I don't understand…'

^ 'A feeling of murderous resentment. If we're not careful there'll be an explosion just when I don't want it…'

^ Edgy as he was inwardly, Winter still remembered to send a guard to escort Betty Cordell off the bridge and back to her cabin; with LeCat now stationed on the bridge it was better to keep the American girl out of the way. At three o'clock in the afternoon there was a third incident, when the tanker was only forty miles off the Californian coast, something far more disturbing than the arrival of a fresh signal.

^ The US Coast Guard helicopter arrived at exactly 1500 hours, cruising in towards the tanker so close to the ocean that only a man with LeCat's sharp eyes would have seen it so quickly. He used the phone to call Winter to the bridge. Winter reacted instantly, ordering three seamen to be brought up from the day cabin.

^ 'You will go out on to the main deck,' he told them. 'Take those cleaning materials the guard has brought and pretend to be working. If you make any attempt to signal for help to this chopper three men in the day cabin will be shot. Their lives are in your hands…'

^ At the front of the bridge Mackay was looking sour; Winter was the devil incarnate. He thought of everything. At the moment the deserted deck had an abnormal, naked look. By the time the helicopter arrived it would look as though nothing were wrong.

^ 'Now let's all be quite clear about what's going to happen,' Winter said grimly as the three seamen were escorted off the bridge. 'Mr Mackay will stay where he is. You, Bennett, will go forward beside him. If the chopper flies alongside us you will wave to it. I shall be out of sight at the rear of the bridge, watching you…'

^ Mackay, still tired, tried desperately to think of some way he could indicate to the chopper pilot what was happening, but the problem defeated him. He watched this representative of the outside, sane world, the first representative he had seen since the terrorists came aboard, flying towards him. It was an anxious moment. For Winter also, as he stood well out of sight with LeCat beside him. The armed guards couldn't possibly be seen no matter how close the machine came.

^ It was heading straight for the bow of the ship, and through the open window they could now hear, above the throb of the ^ Challenger's ^ engines, the lighter, faster beat of the helicopter's engine. There was no doubt about it: the machine was coming to take a look at them, maybe even attempt a landing where, two days earlier, Winter himself had landed a Sikorsky which in appearance was the twin of the one approaching them.

^ Inside her cabin Betty Cordell had her porthole wide open. With her acute sense of hearing, sharpened by a childhood spent in the desert, she had heard it coming a long way off. At first she thought it might be the terrorists' helicopter returning, but when she poked her head out of the open porthole she saw the tiny blip just above the sea, flying in from the east, from the direction of the mainland. She decided to take a chance.

^ Grabbing one of the white towels from out of the bathroom, she used her felt-tip pen to inscribe the three letters large-size on the towel. SOS. She went back to the porthole and waited. It was much closer now, she could tell from the engine sound, although the bow of the ship concealed how close it was. If only it would fly along the port side, along her side of the ship. The engine beat became a sharp drumming staccato. She leaned out of the porthole again and still she couldn't see it. She licked her dry lips and waited with the towel in her hands.

^ The air coming in through the porthole was almost warm; the tanker was now moving through far more southerly latitudes than when it had sailed from Alaska. The engine beat of the incoming Sikorsky was rising to a roar when the cabin door behind Betty Cordell opened and the armed guard came inside. He ran across to the porthole, slammed it shut, pulled the curtain over it and dragged the towel out of her hand. 'You sit over the bed,' he said in halting English. She sat down on the edge of the bunk and clasped her trembling hands in front of her.

^ 'You are bad,' he said, looking at the marked towel. 'LeCat will not like…'

^ 'Tell Winter,' she said in a weary voice. 'He won't like it either…'

^ Inside the day cabin the seamen not on duty were lying face down on their stomachs while three guards stood close to the walls pointing pistols at them. The curtains were drawn over the portholes. The same scene was taking place inside the galley where Wrigley had joined Bates, the cook, on the floor. It was a further order Winter had issued on the bridge when he saw the Sikorsky coming – that the prisoners above engine-room level must be put in a position where it would be impossible for them to signal to the US Coast Guard plane.

^ The Sikorsky reached the bow, flew at fifty feet above the ocean along the port side of the tanker. 'Wave!' Winter shouted from the rear of the bridge. 'Do you want your helmsman to get a bullet in the back?' Bennett waved without enthusiasm, and then Mackay noticed something – the helmeted pilot inside his dome was not waving back. Which was damned odd.

^ The machine flew past the stern and Winter watched it going through the rear window. 'Doesn't the pilot normally acknowledge your wave?' he asked. 'I didn't see him wave back…'

^ 'They don't always,' Mackay lied. 'If they're near the end of a patrol they're only interested in getting back home…'

^ Half a mile beyond the tanker's stern the Sikorsky was circling; then, squat-nosed and small, it headed straight back towards the tanker steaming away from it. As it came closer Winter gave a fresh order. 'Don't wave at it this time. Just watch it go. Do they ever communicate with you by radio when they're as close as this?'

^ 'Not often,' Mackay said neutrally. He wasn't at all sure what was happening. The machine flew past them again, this time along the starboard side, still only fifty feet above the waves, which meant it passed below bridge deck level. On the main deck one seaman was hosing down the open areas while the other two seamen swabbed with brushes. They had decided to use the hose on their own initiative, to make it look good. As one of them said, 'Even if it lands and has Marines aboard those buggers will shoot our lads before they can get to them

…' Mackay, as he watched, had never seen them work harder. He thought he understood why. Kinnaird, pale-faced, came running on to the bridge a moment later. He handed a message to Winter.

^ 'I decided to bring it up…' Because you were scared, Winter thought, because you had to see what was happening. 'They've requested permission to land…'

^ Mackay swung round, his face grim and alert. And how are you going to cope with that, you bastard? Winter stood quite still for only a few seconds, watching the distant Sikorsky as it circled a mile ahead of the tanker which was now steaming towards it. He caught Mackay's expression and smiled bleakly, then gave the order to Kinnaird. 'Refuse permission to land. Tell them the deck-plates under the landing point were weakened by the typhoon, that we have two injured seamen aboard – not seriously – but they will need to go to hospital for a check-up when we reach Oleum…'

^ The Sikorsky flew over them once more, making this last run directly over the tanker at a height of one hundred feet, then it turned away and headed on a due east course until it was out of sight. 'Where would it have come from?' Winter asked.

^ 'Off some weather cutter, I suppose,' Mackay lied. 'How the devil would I know?'

^ But he did know. There was no chance of a weather cutter being stationed so close to the Californian coast. And the machine had

^ At 4.30pm on Tuesday, half an hour before dusk, Winter leaned out of the smashed window on the bridge and watched the blip coming in from the south on the starboard side, the Sikorsky returning from the trawler ^ Pecheur.

^ During the height of the typhoon Kinnaird had exchanged frequent position messages with the ^ Pecheur, ^ so they each knew where the other vessel was. And because the ^ Pecheur ^ had steamed through the night over a hundred miles south of the tanker she had escaped the typhoon. Which was just as well, Winter reflected: had the trawler endured only a quarter of the tanker's ordeal the Sikorsky would undoubtedly have been ripped from her deck and hurled into the ocean.

^ Winter had deliberately left it as late as possible before summoning the Sikorsky to return. A helicopter sitting on the ^ Challenger's ^ port quarter would hardly have heightened an impression of normality if they had been seen and reported on by a passing ship – let alone by the genuine US Coast Guard machine which had circled them three times. Winter was still worried about that incident, as he was about the unprecedented signal from the San Francisco Port Authority. He turned round as Betty Cordell came on the bridge.

^ 'We'll be standing off the Californian coast in less than an hour,' he told her soberly. 'We are scheduled to dock at Oleum at twenty-two hundred hours. Don't count on it,' he warned her.

^ 'Within forty-eight hours you are likely to be ashore – in San Francisco – with the story of your life,' he told her cynically.

^ Winter went down off the bridge to meet the machine when it landed. The sky had changed during the past few minutes, and now an overcast from the north was spreading itself above the tanker as it continued heading direct for San Francisco. Winter, secretive by nature, had not felt inclined to answer Betty Cordell's last question. In less than an hour he had to fly away from the tanker, leaving LeCat in sole command.

^ 'So we stop her where she is now – about ten miles off the coast,' Mayor Peretti said. 'We order her to stay in her present position and send out a vessel with Marines aboard. Is that agreed, gentlemen?'

^ The table in the mayor's office was large and there was just room for everyone. Seated on Peretti's right, Sullivan looked round the table and marvelled. God, what a change in only a few hours. Gathered round the table was a representative of almost every law-enforcement agency in the States. Karpis of the FBI was there. Next to him sat Vince Bolan, police commissioner. Col Liam Cassidy of the US Marine Corps sat beyond him, and beyond him was Garfield of the Coast Guard and O'Hara of the Port Authority. Several other men whose functions Sullivan hadn't grasped made up the balance.

^ The Coast Guard helicopter which had circled the ^ Challenger ^ three times, which had flown past her twice at lower than bridge level, had no sooner landed when its cameras had been rushed to the processing laboratory where technicians waited. It was the enlarged prints taken from these films, infra-red films which had penetrated into the shadows on the bridge of the tanker, which had brought these men rushing to the mayor's office from all over the city, from the Presidio itself. The prints clearly showed men with guns standing at the rear of the bridge, guns pointed in the direction of the officers at the front of the bridge.

^ Sullivan had tracked a whisper all the way from Bordeaux to Hamburg, had then crossed to London, finding nothing concrete, nothing he could put his finger on, but he had gone on – all the way to Alaska, then down to Seattle and on to San Francisco. 'If only you could provide some real evidence…' the FBI agent had said to Sullivan at the St Francis Hotel. Sullivan looked at the blown-up prints scattered across the table.

^ The three men with guns had come out with remarkable clarity, although the face of the tall, thin man was blurred. Was this Winter, Sullivan wondered? The face was too blurred to make any real comparison with the prints Paul Hahnemann had given to him in Hamburg of his very English visitor, Mr Arnold Ross. The pistols the men held were clear enough, so clear that Col Cassidy had guessed they could be Czech Skorpions. 'That's only a guess,' he had added, 'but goddamnit, they're pistols, that's for sure…'

^ The signal was drafted for immediate transmission, the signal ordering the ^ Challenger ^ to cease steaming ahead, to stay where she was. The signal ended on an ominous note. ^ Any further progress towards the Californian coast will be interpreted as a hostile act.

^ Dusk was gathering over the Pacific as the ^ Challenger ^ continued steaming for the coast of California at seventeen knots. The signal from the mainland had been received and Winter had shown it to Mackay, who gave no sign of elation as he read it carefully, then handed it back.

^ 'As I expected to be, sooner or later,' Winter replied coldly. 'Our great achievement has been to get so far undetected – right under the eyebrows of America. You will maintain present course and speed, Captain Mackay…'

^ 'You must be mad. Get it through your head, Winter – the whole operation is over, finished. Any minute now I expect to see a US destroyer on my starboard bow…'

^ 'That is highly unlikely. As I have just said, we have done better than I expected. Do you really think I did not foresee this contingency?'

^ Mackay felt a ^ ^ pricking of doubt. The supreme self-confidence this strange man had displayed from the moment he came on board was still there. At the front of the bridge, Betty Cordell, who had gathered the contents of the signal from their conversation, was studying Winter's cold expression to see how he took this overwhelming defeat. She couldn't understand his calmness, his detached aloofness. You might almost have thought he was seeing his plan working out…

^ ^ bling a reply for Kinnaird who was waiting, pale-faced, inside the bridge. 'That should do it,' Winter said, showing the reply to LeCat.

^ 'Also no underwater surveillance,' LeCat suggested. 'They may try and track us with a submarine…'

^ Winter completed the message, handed it to LeCat to take to Kinnaird, then looked along the main deck in the fading light where the helicopter was waiting for him. The signal should be clear enough to the men waiting on the mainland. They'll get the bloody message, Winter thought.

^ We have had complete armed control of the Challenger for two days. We are proceeding for San Francisco Bay at a speed of seventeen knots. The British crew are hostages. Ransom of twenty million dollars is demanded for their safe release. In the event of any attempt to board this ship the twenty-eight hostages will instantly be shot. No surface ship, no aircraft, no underwater craft must approach this vessel. Any non-cooperation will be treated as a hostile act. The Weathermen.

^ Mackay was a very frightened man as he left the bridge and went down to the main deck as quickly as he could. Then he was running along the raised catwalk with the armed guard chasing him behind, shouting to him to stop. Mackay hoped he wouldn't get a bullet in the back, but he was even more scared of Winter leaving the ship. Ahead he saw Winter, close to the helicopter, turn and roar out an order in French to the guard running behind him. Had the terrorist aimed his gun? Had Winter shouted a command not to fire? Mackay kept on running.

^ Winter waited for him on the main deck under the dropped helicopter blades. It was getting dark now. A misty dusk which foreshadowed the onset of night was closing round the tanker. Someone turned on the lights at the head of the foremast ready for the take-off. Mackay, breathing heavily, was startled by the sudden illumination as he reached the machine.

^ That was a damned silly thing to do – you could have got shot,' Winter snapped.

^ It was very strange. There was no hostility in Mackay's voice, only an undisguised concern and anxiety, as though he were seeing a friend leave for ever. Winter caught the note in the captain's voice and smiled. 'I should have thought you'd be glad to see me go, maybe even pray a little that my engine failed over the Pacific…'

^ 'Tell him to get away from us.' Mackay glanced back at the guard. Winter spoke briefly in French and the guard went back along the catwalk. 'You are not leaving us with LeCat?' Mackay demanded. 'Not with that animal…'

^ 'We have a plan which must be carried out. Part of that plan means I must leave the ship…'

^ 'You are British,' Mackay persisted. 'All right, you have taken my ship, the one thing no master can forgive. But you are British and I have a British crew to protect. If you stay, I shall remember it if things go wrong for you – I give you my word I shall speak up…'

^ Winter looked hesitant, the first time Mackay had ever seen even a hint of indecision in that cold, severe face. Mackay pressed home his plea. 'And there is the American girl – you know there has been one incident in her cabin already. I warn you, Winter, if you leave this ship there will be multiple rape…'

^ 'LeCat will have his work cut out to cope with what's coming. In any case, I have spoken to him. He knows he needs the cooperation of your crew to get the tanker into San Francisco…'

^ 'Yes.' Winter was studying Mackay's drawn face. 'Look, it will turn out all right. There will be negotiations with the authorities to secure your crew's safe release…'

^ 'I'm a confident chap.' Winter grinned. 'Always have been.' He swung round as he heard a boot scrape behind him. LeCat was standing near the nose of the machine, his pistol dangling from his hand. He had come quietly down from the fo'c'sle, creeping round the far side of the machine, and now he stood watching.

^ ^ ^ said? Winter climbed up inside the machine, slammed the door shut, and the slam sounded like a death sentence to Mackay.

^ LeCat sent Mackay back to the distant bridge with an armed guard. The foremast lights were switched off as soon as Winter's machine had taken off. So it was almost dark when LeCat descended alone into the carpenter's store, beaming his torch over the stacked suitcases wedged behind the table. He was sweating several minutes later when he went back up the ladder, carrying the two hundred pound case by its reinforced handle, then he transported it down on to the main deck.

^ Opening up the hatch cover of one of the empty tanks which had remained unfilled since the ship left Nikisiki, he went carefully down the almost vertical ladder leading to the depths of the tank. He rested for a moment on a steel platform, then went down the next ladder. Once, he caught the case a glancing blow on the ladder. Its hollow echo reverberated inside the immense metal tomb. LeCat was sweating horribly as he continued his descent. He had almost dropped his burden, dropped it from a height of twenty feet to the floor of the tank below.

^ His expert knowledge of mechanisms told him that nothing would have happened, the hellish thing could not possibly have detonated – the timer device wasn't activated, the miniature receiver was useless until the radio signals reached it, but LeCat was still sweating horribly. Reaching the bottom, he lifted the case, activated the magnetic clamps, and the case was attached to the hull of the ship.

^ He spent more time down in the bowels of the tank, fixing up the boobytrap – the anti-lift devices – he had earlier left at the bottom of the tank. And before he climbed the ladder he once again wiped sweat off his hands. When he returned to the main deck he closed the hatch and looked towards the bridge. No one could possibly have seen him in the darkness. Now there was only one other man on board who knew his secret; Andre Dupont, the man who had helped him bring the atomic physicist, Antoine, to Canada; the man who had watched over Antoine while he worked in the house on Dusquesne Street in Vancouver. And the nuclear device was in position, ready to be activated when the time came.

^ Part three The San Francisco experience