Year of the Golden Ape

9

^ The 50,000-ton ^ Challenger ^ was rolling gently as she proceeded through the night at seventeen knots. She was now clear of Cook Inlet, heading out into the Pacific Ocean on her way to distant San Francisco. It was six in the morning and most of the crew were asleep, except for those on duty in the engine-room, the officer of the watch and the helmsman.

^ Seen from the sixty-foot high island bridge at her stern, this huge vessel was all deck, a vast platform of steel extending seven hundred and forty-three feet from stem to stern with a breadth of over one hundred feet. From the island bridge, five decks high, her endless main deck below was a maze of piping and valves with a breakwater in front of the main distribution area close to the base of the bridge – the area where pipes would be attached to suck out her desperately-needed cargo of oil when she reached the terminal near San Francisco.

^ A raised catwalk ran down the centre of her main deck to the distant forepeak, a catwalk men could move along when the main deck was submerged under heavy seas, a not infrequent hazard at this time of the year. Two large loading derricks reared up to port and starboard on either side of the catwalk near the bridge; five hundred feet beyond them the foremast loomed up with its crow's nest circular platform close to its summit. And these three vertical structures were the only mast-forms raised above the main deck beyond the bridge.

^ The ^ Challenger, ^ like so many other ships of her kind, was designed as a floating storage tank of oil, a tank divided into eighteen smaller tanks – one row of centre tanks and two more rows of wing tanks to port and starboard. This sub-division of the cargo-carrying space was vital because it provided stability and safety in turbulent seas: carried in one single, vast compartment fifty thousand tons of oil could endanger the life of the ship had it been able to sway and slosh about as one huge liquid unit. The weight alone would have become an unmanageable menace. On the morning of Friday January 17 the meteorological report forecast a quiet and uneventful voyage for the ^ Challenger.

^ Betty Cordell stirred in her bunk, switched on the light and saw that it was almost six in the morning. She hadn't been able to sleep for the past hour. First night on board, she assumed. Sitting up in her bunk, she yawned and stretched and then got up sleepily. It might be interesting to see what the ship was like at this hour. Might even make an interesting story angle: ^ While The Ship Slept.

^ Twenty-seven years old, slim and fair-haired, her hair cut short and close to the neck, there was a severity and detachment about her expression as she gazed critically at the reflection in the mirror over the basin. She knew people found her disconcerting when they first met her, that they described her as attractive but cold, and the description pleased her: it made people less inclined to draw her into a crowd. Like Winter, like Sullivan, even like LeCat, Betty Cordell was a lone wolf who preferred to go her own way.

^ She dressed quickly and without fuss: slacks, sweater and fur-lined parka. As an afterthought she decided to clean her teeth, then she collected her camera and opened the cabin door quietly. The ship creaked, rolled a little, tilting the deserted alleyway. She closed the door and went silently along the alleyway.

^ There was a light under the door marked 'Radio Cabin', which struck her as odd at this early hour. She paused, listening to the irregular tapping of a Morse key beyond the closed door, a familiar sound when her father had been a ham radio operator at their home in the Californian desert. She walked on, past the next cabin door, which also had a light underneath it, climbing a com-panionway, holding on to the rail. Bennett met her at the top.

^ 'Betty, please…' She liked Bennett: he had a quiet sureness of manner she found appealing. 'I thought it might be interesting to get the atmosphere of the ship when everyone was asleep,' she explained. 'This series of magazine articles I'm doing on the energy crisis – I want to get an unusual angle on it.' She smiled. 'In any case, I'm not the only one up – the radio operator is working.'

^ 'I'm not!' Her natural combativeness surfaced. 'There's a light under his door.'

^ Bennett was frowning again, as though he couldn't understand why she was going on about it. 'Are you on your way up to the bridge?'

^ 'It's all right – tell them I said you could come up. I'll be there myself in a few minutes. You'll find Walsh up there – he has this watch.'

^ 'Couldn't sleep.' He grinned, then went quietly down the companionway and along the alleyway. And she was right, he thought. There was a light not only under Kinnaird's cabin door but also under the radio cabin door. He stopped at the second door, listening, hearing nothing but the creak of the woodwork and the faint hum of the engines. He opened the door.

^ The lean-faced wireless operator jumped, swivelled round in his chair and stared blankly at the first officer. An open handbook lay in front of the transmitter, a notepad with a pencil by its side. 'You should be catching up on sleep, Kinnaird,' Bennett said.

^ 'I didn't know it was your watch,' the wireless operator observed.

^ 'You're an old friend of Swan's?' Bennett leaned against the bulkhead, watching the new man. He offered him a cigarette, but Kinnaird shook his head and said he didn't smoke. He waited while the wireless operator yawned before replying.

^ 'I've known him for years. I hope the flu gets better soon. It can lead to complications…'

^ Bennett shot the question quickly and unexpectedly, following his previous domestic enquiry, and he studied the reaction closely. Kinnaird looked bewildered. 'I haven't sent any message…'

^ 'She must have heard this.' Kinnaird picked up the pencil and beat an irregular tattoo on the table. 'I do it when I'm concentrating. Some people have music on -I tap a pencil.'

^ 'How would she know the difference?' Kinnaird shut the handbook. 'I think I will go back to bed. The met. report looks good.'

^ Because Victoria, Canada, is two hours ahead of Anchorage time, it was eight in the morning when Andre Dupont came on to the bridge of the ^ Pecheur ^ with a piece of paper in his hand. The first position signal has just come through from ^ Challenger,' ^ he told the French captain of the trawler.

^ The captain marked the position and the time carefully on the chart he had already. From now on they would receive a flow of signals as the ^ Challenger ^ moved hourly closer to an approximate position two hundred miles off the coast of British Columbia. By the time she reached that position the ^ Pecheur ^ would also be there. This would be the interception point.

^ The North West Airlines flight carrying Winter and LeCat to Seattle landed at that American city close to the Canadian border at 4.25am, local time. Both men were tired now – they had missed a night's sleep – so they took a cab to the Greyhound bus terminal in Seattle. Waiting fifteen minutes inside the bus station – they had now effectively broken any link between themselves and their airport arrival – they took another cab to the most expensive hotel in Seattle, the Washington Plaza.

^ Booking their rooms independently, as though they didn't know each other, they slept through most of the day. After a quick meal in an outside coffee shop, they took a cab back to the bus station, waited there another fifteen minutes, then travelled in a different cab to the railroad station. Boarding the 5.20pm train to Canada, they arrived at Vancouver at ten o'clock at night. Dupont was waiting for them with a powerboat to take them to Victoria.

^ By the time they boarded the ^ Pecheur, ^ Winter was in a hurry. It was close to midnight; soon it would be Saturday January 18 and zero hour was Sunday morning. 'I want this ship at sea by midnight,' he told LeCat. 'Tell your French crew to get off their backsides…'

^ LeCat returned to Winter's tiny cabin after carrying the Englishman's order to the bridge. 'The captain says he may manage it -for you,' he added sourly. 'He has informed the port authority…'

^ Winter went up on deck to check for himself. The marine biological research the vessel was supposed to be engaged in was good cover for this purpose also – concealment of the weapons. Certain forms of research involve the use of explosives, and LeCat had organised the construction of a magazine on deck. A steel compartment was bolted to the deck; painted warning red, it carried the words 'Explosives Magazine' stencilled across two sides.

^ A bank of fog had drifted in during the evening. On deck seamen were moving about in the gloom, preparing for the ship's midnight departure; at the foot of the gangway a fog-blurred silhouette stood on guard. Winter shone a torch inside the magazine LeCat had unlocked. The contents looked innocent and standard, considering their resting-place- until LeCat lifted up several sticks of explosive to expose the Skorpion pistols underneath.

^ 'Under the pistols,' LeCat snapped irritably. 'Customs men don't like fooling around inside here…' Which was just as well, otherwise they might have wondered what was going on when they found stencils bearing the legend 'USCG' – United States Coastguard.

^ ^ paratus for when the time came for them to leave the hi-jacked ^ Challenger. ^ On their way to the carpenter's store under the high forecastle, Winter climbed up into the S. 58 Sikorsky now delivered by Walgren's pilot friend and sitting on the platform constructed over one of the fish-holds.

^ He kept LeCat waiting while he checked the fuel and oil gauges. As soon as dawn came on Saturday morning – when the Pecheur ^ ^ would be well out in the Pacific – he would take off in the helicopter for a trial flight. LeCat would fly with him; also the thirteen-man terrorist team which had flown from London to Montreal half an hour before Winter himself had departed for Anchorage three days ago. These men were now aboard the trawler they had filtered on to in parties of two's and three's when they reached Victoria. Once again Winter had decided on a rehearsal for the next stage of the operation – the seizure of the ^ Challenger.

^ Jumping back on to the main deck, he looked at the machine. It was painted pale grey, the standard colour of United States Coast Guard helicopters. During the night Andre Dupont would use the hidden stencils and spray-gun, painting on the necessary insignia; by morning the Pecheur ^ ^ would carry on her platform a perfect reproduction of an American Coast Guard helicopter. Winter led LeCat through the fog to the carpenter's store on the forecastle.

^ LeCat was sweating as he raised the hatch cover, cursing the Englishman for his insistence on seeing everything for himself, sweating because inside the carpenter's store was hidden the one thing Winter must not find.

^ The Frenchman went down the ladder first into the cramped compartment where wood shavings littered the floor; the atmosphere was tinged with their odour. 'There,' LeCat said. 'Satisfied?' Winter looked round carefully. An inflatable Zodiac, a large rubber craft to which an outboard motor could be attached, was roped to a bulkhead; the motor inside its casing stood in a corner. Inside several large suitcases – each of which LeCat had to open for Winter – fifteen wet-suits were packed with masks and air bottles. Against another bulkhead a large, box-like seat, made of new wood, was bolted to the deck. 'That wasn't there before,' Winter said. 'What is it?'

^ He held his breath, waiting for the Englishman's reaction. 'Good idea.' Winter went back up the ladder, followed by the Frenchman, who was sweating now with relief. As he closed the hatch LeCat glanced down at the carpenter's seat, a seat large enough to conceal a suitcase-like object made of steel, a case measuring sixty centimetres in length by thirty centimetres in width, an object weighing almost two hundred pounds, its canvas cover plastered with hotel labels from all over the world. Jean-Philippe Antoine's nuclear device.

^ A fresh signal from Kinnaird confirming the ^ Challenger's ^ latest position came in soon after Winter had arrived aboard the ^ Pecheur ^. ^ ^ It was added to the chart showing the British tanker's southern progress from Alaska by Andre Dupont. Winter was studying the chart when the ^ Pecheur ^ put to sea a few minutes after midnight, moving slowly through the fog, its siren sounding one long blast at the regulation two-minute intervals as it headed out past the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The Englishman pointed to a cross he had marked on the chart. 'My guess is we shall intercept ^ Challenger ^ somewhere about here – roughly about thirty-six hours from now. It will mean hanging about in mid-ocean, but that gives us a margin for error…'

^ Past midnight, it was already Saturday morning, January 18. The cross Winter had marked on the chart stood at latitude 47 ION, longitude 132 10 W – approximately two hundred and fifty miles west of Vancouver Island.