Year of the Golden Ape (20 page)

^{'Because it appears you may be safer not hidden away in a cabin.'}

^{'I meant why are you taking part in this horrible hi-jack?'}

^'Money.'

^{He left her abruptly and a few minutes later she started moving about the ship which was still proceeding through a gentle swell. It was a nerve-wracking experience which she never got used to -walking down an alleyway while a terrorist in the distance watched the fair-haired girl coming with a pistol in his hand; turning a corner into what she imagined was a deserted passageway beyond, only to find another terrorist guard just around the corner; being followed down another alleyway by a man with a gun, who, it turned out, was merely checking to see where she was going.}

^{Her mind was working at two levels - noting everything that might be copy for the story she hoped to write one day -
Eye-Witness Account of Terrorists' Hi-Jack -
and noting the precise position of all the guards, information she intended to pass to Bennett at the first available opportunity. There were no signs that the British crew were planning any resistance; outwardly they seemed still stunned by what had happened. But she detected an odd atmosphere, particularly in the engine-room.}

^{A guard with a blank expression stood aside to let her go inside the engine-room - Winter, with his usual efficiency, had passed the word to the entire terrorist team that she was allowed to move round the ship freely. Stepping over the coaming she stood on the high platform, already sweating a little in the steamy atmosphere as she gazed into the bowels of the ship. The noise was appalling, like the thunder of steam-hammers, and everywhere things moved; pistons chomping, machinery which meant nothing to her. She went down the vertical ladder.}

^{The steep, thirty-foot drop behind her as she descended didn't worry her - she had climbed near-precipices in the Sierras - and then she was threading her way among the machinery, seeing men she had earlier met and chatted with before the seizure of the tanker. Monk, a burly, thirty-four year old engine-room artificer, a very tough-looking character indeed, his dark hair plastered down over his large skull, nodded to her as he wiped his hands on an oily rag but he seemed abstracted, as though his mind was on something important.}

^{Bert Foley, a small, bald-headed man of forty, another artificer, did speak to her after glancing up to make sure the guard on the high platform couldn't see him. 'Things might turn out better than you imagine, Miss. Have patience . . .' Feeling better in the presence of the British seamen, she explored further. There was something here she couldn't put her finger on, a smell of conspiracy in the air. It didn't seem possible: Winter had severed all communication between one part of the ship and another. Then she saw Wrigley, the steward, coming down the ladder into the engine-room.}

^{The steward, carrying a tray with one hand while he used the other to support himself, reached the floor, hurried to the control platform where Brady, the chief engineer, was directing operations. Brady, a stocky, grey-haired man in his early fifties, took a mug of tea from the tray, helped himself slowly to a ham sandwich. Nothing strange there that she could see. She checked her watch; soon it would be time to report to the officer of the watch, to tell him the present position of every terrorist guard aboard the ship. She still couldn't rid herself of the feeling that something was going on under the surface. She climbed up on to the platform beside Brady, then pointed to a black box embedded into the control panel. 'What does that do - or do you keep your sandwiches inside it?' She was smiling; it was something to say. A man in trousers and spotless white vest standing close to the chief swung round with a startled expression.}

^{'Get on with your work, Wilkins,' the chief said calmly. He grinned at Betty. 'Just a standard piece of equipment, Miss.' He patted his ample stomach. 'I store my sandwiches in here.'}

^{It was unfortunate. The black box she had pointed to was the only outward evidence that Ephraim existed, and by now the chief had realised that the mechanical man was their only outside contact with the world - even if the communication was purely one-way.}

^{'It's like being back in my old prisoner-of-war camp,' Mackay murmured to Bennett in the chart-room. 'My own ship has become the cage. At least we've set up a communications system -the first thing to do when you're inside the cage...'}

^{The system of communication between Mackay and his crew hinged on Wrigley, the steward, who was being kept constantly on the move supplying food and coffee to both the British crew and their terrorist guards. Winter had foreseen this nutriment problem; he had placed a permanent guard outside the galley to escort Wrigley as he trotted all over the ship.}

^{What Winter had not foreseen was that Bennett would exploit Wrigley as a means of passing messages to anyone Mackay wished to communicate with. The messages were scribbled on small pieces of paper which Wrigley concealed under plates of sandwiches, under pots of coffee, under anything he happened to be carrying on his tray. Another development Winter neither foresaw nor noticed was the increase in the thirst of the man on the bridge; drinking far more coffee than ever before, they provided Wrigley with more opportunities to pass messages.}

^{Another change in the ship's routine which went unnoticed was the frequent discussions on navigation Mackay and Bennett felt compelled to indulge in during visits to the chart-room behind the bridge. The first time this happened the guard was suspicious.}

^{'We are going to the chart-room,' Mackay informed the guard, a man called Dupont, who understood English. 'We have to check our future course...'}

^{He walked off the bridge with Bennett and Dupont followed them into the chart-room. Mackay stood by the chart-table and stared at the Frenchman. 'Look, plotting a ship's course is a complex business - it calls for concentration. I can't work while you stand there pointing that gun at me. If you want us to get this ship to San Francisco you'll have to wait outside...'}

^{'You've searched this place,' Bennett pointed out, 'and you've locked the other door. Our only way out is back on to the bridge. If you don't leave us alone we're not taking this ship anywhere.'}

^{Dupont, who had been with Winter on the
Pêcheur
in the Mediterranean, who had been with LeCat in Paris when they tracked Sullivan up the French coast, hesitated as Mackay picked up a pair of dividers while Bennett concentrated on studying a chart. It was intimidating: both men were acting as though he were no longer there. He went back on to the bridge and took up a position where he could watch the open doorway.}

^{'Mr Bennett,' Mackay said quietly, 'the system of communication is working well. I'm not so sure about your idea of arranging for a man to go missing.'}

^{'We can't just stand around and let them get away with it,' the first officer murmured. 'Ultimately I want to organise a mass break-out. Subtracting the man who flew off in the chopper, there are fourteen terrorists and twenty-eight crew-we outnumber them two-to-one...'}

^{'But they have the guns...'}

^{'So we need to cut down the odds - by getting rid of one or two key terrorists. I don't think we'll aim to tackle Winter yet - he's the only one you can talk to, and I don't think he'd be an easy man to catch off guard. My plan is to go for LeCat - he's a very nasty piece of work and seems to be second-in-command.' Bennett unrolled a fresh chart as Dupont peered inside the chart-room, then disappeared. 'I had a word with the chief down in the engine-room while the guard was boozing wine. Brady says Monk would be more than happy to go after LeCat - if Monk can go missing and stay missing without Winter knowing ...'}

^{'I don't like it,' Mackay objected. 'Violence begets violence...'}

^{'The ship was seized with violence,' Bennett argued. 'LeCat was close to assaulting the American girl when Wrigley turned up in time. Some of these men are killers, LeCat certainly, I'm sure. And men do go overboard frequently at sea...'}

^{'I'll think about it.'}

^{'Dirty weather would help - and I think dirty weather is on the way.'}

^{'That typhoon should miss us...'}

^{'My bet is it won't, sir. Typhoons have a nasty habit of changing direction. I think we ought to be prepared - which means we must organise Monk's disappearance if we can.'}

^{'You could be right...' The captain stared down at the chart, weighing pro's and con's. If something happened to Winter and LeCat assumed control, he wouldn't give twopence for the lives of his crew. 'All right,' Mackay said, 'we'll give it a try - but warn Monk to be very careful...'}

^{'It will look like an accident,' Bennett said.}

^{At ten o'clock at night the
Challenger
was still proceeding through calm seas. Within two hours it would be Monday January 20.}

^{Typhoon Tara came out of the spawning ground of the most hellish and violent weather in the world - out of the north Pacific. A US weather satellite first spotted her menacing growth; a US weather plane confirmed that something enormous was building up north-east of Hawaii.}

^{Winter was the first man on board to receive all weather reports coming in from the mainland; receiving them from Kinnaird, he read them and promptly passed them to Mackay. After all, Mackay had to get the tanker to San Francisco. When the captain had absorbed this new signal reporting on Typhoon Tara, Winter took it back to the radio cabin where Kinnaird, increasingly nervous about the job he had undertaken to lay his hands on his dream bonanza - ten thousand pounds - sat in front of the transmitter. It was five o'clock on the morning of Monday January 20.}

^{'When does the next routine report go off to Harper in London?' Winter demanded.}

^{'Within the next hour ...'}

^{'Submit this weather report . . .' Winter was writing out the report in a quick, neat hand. 'Alter it to conform to technical jargon, but this is the gist of it.'}

^{Kinnaird stared at the message. 'I don't understand ...'}

^{'Because you can't think ahead - like so many people. Our great problem may be to persuade the authorities at San Francisco to let this ship enter the Bay as soon as we reach the entrance. There could be a delay for any number of reasons - a lot of shipping in the channel, fog ... The port authority is far more likely to let us steam straight in if they think we're in trouble - if we have men aboard injured while we were fighting the typhoon.'}

^{'You could be right...'}

^{'I have to be right - ninety per cent of the time - if we are to survive.'}

^{The signal Winter had written out was simple and graphic.
Moving through typhoon conditions. Two seamen injured and out of commission. Main deck awash. Speed reduced to eight knots effective. Wind strength one hundred and ten miles per hour. Mackay.}

^{Deep down in the engine-room, not one hundred feet from where Winter stood as he handed the signal to Kinnaird, the mechanical man, Ephraim, went on flashing out radio signals to the master computer a third of the way across the world in The Hague, diligently reporting on present conditions.
Speed seventeen knots...}

^{Just as the similarity with a prisoner-of-war camp had occurred to Mackay, so it occurred to Winter to reinforce security on the ship by checking the numbers of the British crew at frequent intervals. He had put this idea into operation within thirty minutes of coming aboard, and it was the engine-room which most concerned him. While at sea, and including the chief, Brady, there were seven men on duty inside the vast and cavernous engine-room. So easy for a man to go missing.}

^{It was six in the morning - the tanker was less than twenty-four hours' sailing time away from San Francisco - when Brady made a gesture to Monk, the engine-room artificer, and Monk dis-appeared behind a steel maintenance door flush with the wall. On his platform Brady wore his normal grim expression: he was taking a calculated gamble. This time it was LeCat who was going to check the seven men.}

^{The gamble lay in the fact that the Frenchman had spent little time in the engine-room; he was quite unfamiliar with the crew who worked there. The risk lay in the fact that it was LeCat himself who would personally count the crew. Brady watched him descending the vertical ladder backwards, hopeful that the terrorist might slip and plunge down to land crushed on the steel grilles below. It was an empty hope: LeCat descended swiftly and agilely, then gestured to one of the armed guards to come with him.}

^{'We will count the crew,' LeCat announced as he reached the control platform and stood looking up at the chief. 'Everyone will stay exactly where he is ...' He had his Skorpion pistol in his hand and it amused him to point it at the chief's large stomach. 'If anyone moves, he will be shot.'}

^{Brady exploded, shouting to make himself heard above the din of the machinery. 'If you want this ship to reach San Francisco you will get your bloody count over with and get to hell out of my engine-room.'}