Year of the Golden Ape (28 page)

^{As Sheikh Gamal Tafak stood in the front doorway, breathing in the morning air, his head and shoulders filled the telescopic sight, the vertical crosshair split him down the middle, the horizontal crosshair guillotined his neck. The target was in view, thirty metres from where the Israeli marksman lay sprawled out on a table inside a first floor room.}

^{The rifle was propped on a sack filled with sand and the muzzle pointed through an open window. The room was in shadow because the sun was aimed in the same direction as the rifle barrel. The marksman, Chaim Borgheim, took the first pressure. A second squeeze and Tafak was dead.}

^{Albert Meyer, the man who had quietly intimidated Lucille Fahmy, the switchboard operator who had provided a telephone number in Beirut, sat at the back of the room with an automatic weapon across his lap. He jumped when the phone rang, jumped because it could have disturbed his colleague's aim. He moved very quickly, scooping up the phone by his side. 'Albert here ...' His eyes widened as he listened, then he said 'understood,' put down the receiver and moved swiftly and quietly across the room. Albert was sweating.}

^{'No, Chaim . . .' He extended one finger carefully across the top of the rifle barrel, being very careful indeed not to touch the
weapon. He could feel sweat dribbling down his back. 'Jesus Christ.. .'Chaim released the first pressure,looked up with a blank expression.}

^{'I had him... what's wrong ? You look terrible.'}

^{'I thought I was too late. They just phoned through - not yet. Not yet, they said.'}

^{'They bloody near had it - so did he.'}

^{'Some crisis - in another part of the world. They cannot yet assess its implications. We must wait.'}

^{'So, the world is normal - some crisis, somewhere...'}

^{Through the fog the men on Mile Rocks lighthouse at the entrance to Golden Gate channel saw the
Challenger
burning.}

^{It was dark, it was foggy, but the glare of the flames broke through both darkness and fog, a hideous half-seen conflagration which chilled them even more than the night air round the exposed lighthouse. They immediately signalled the Port Authority, which transmitted their signal to the mayor's office, and this signal arrived at almost the same moment as a message from the tanker.}

^{The meeting in the mayor's office, which had gone on for hours, with a brief break for refreshments, was breaking up. Peretti listened on the phone, said wait a minute, then called out to the men leaving the room. 'Hold it! Something else is just coming through...'}

^{They waited while he went on listening, scribbling notes on his desk pad. They were tired, worn out with arguing, and Cassidy, by sheer force of character, had persuaded the mayor to wait until morning before he finally decided - whether or not to let the terrorist ship inside the Bay. There had been more threats from the ship, now signed by LeCat, and Peretti was wracked with anxiety that he might be responsible for the violent deaths of twenty-nine innocent human beings, one of them a woman. Reluctantly, he had given way to Cassidy.}

^{In his shirtsleeves despite the low room temperature - to save fuel the thermostat was turned down to sixty-two degrees -Peretti felt soiled and rumpled and badly in need of a shower. That was, before the phone rang. Now he had become alert again, staring at Cassidy while he listened on the phone. He put down the receiver, glanced at his notes. 'Get back to your seats, gentlemen, this thing isn't finished for tonight. It's only just beginning.' 'What's happened?' Cassidy demanded crisply. 'Two more signals - one from Mile Rocks lighthouse, one from the
Challenger
herself. There's been a serious explosion aboard the tanker, then a bad fire. Nine people have been very seriously hurt - five of them hostages, and one of them is Miss Codrell. They're asking for immediate permission to steam into the Bay so the casualties can be taken
off.
Four of them are terrorists ...' 'That's the signal from the
Challenger?
Cassidy asked. 'Yes.'}

^{'It could easily be a trick. I don't believe it...' Peretti exploded. How like the goddamn military ... 'You may not believe it - or want to believe it - but I have a message here from Mile Rocks lighthouse confirming that they have seen the tanker ablaze,' he rasped. 'The fire has gone out now, thank God. And I'm giving permission for that ship to enter the Bay...'}

^{'We could lift the casualties off the tanker by chopper maybe,' Garfield, the Coast Guard chief suggested.}

^{'The message repeats the earlier threat - if any aircraft, surface or underwater vessel approaches the tanker all the hostages will immediately be killed...' 'I still don't like it,' Cassidy said.}

^{'Colonel, no one is asking you to like it,' Peretti snapped. 'You just haven't thought this thing through. One wrong move on my part and those people on that tanker may die. I have to think of the British crew, helpless men with guns pointing at them. When we take off the casualties we shall have four terrorists in our hands for questioning. Some human contact even with terrorists is better than...'}

^{Even while Peretti was speaking they were hauling up the side of the hull of the
Challenger
the remnants of the two Carley floats which had been attached to her with cables. The floats, crammed with petrol-soaked rags, had earlier been lowered over the side, each with a tiny thermite bomb and a timer device aboard, so when they drifted with the current they were well clear of the tanker as they exploded and ignited the floats, creating the two separate blazes which had been seen from Mile Rocks lighthouse.}

^{'. . . human contact even with terrorists is better than trying to communicate across a void through the medium of radio signals,' Peretti continued. 'These misguided men are not necessarily all wild beasts ...'}

^{'You could have fooled me,' Cassidy said, then regretted the remark. It had sounded damned rude.}

^{Peretti sat up straight at the head of the table and spoke without rancour. 'You are a soldier, Colonel Cassidy. You have been trained to shoot at the enemy. Sometimes that is necessary, but here we have hostages from another country - from Britain - to think of. I am not putting this to the vote, I am taking the decision myself. The tanker
Challenger
will be given permission to enter the Bay ...'}

^{It was close to midnight when Governor Alex MacGowan's Boeing 707 approached the runway at San Francisco International airport, his flight much delayed owing to a petrol shortage which had kept him waiting for seven hours at Heathrow Airport, London.}

¹⁶

^{'From the point of view of the Red Army, if the western nations attempted to break the Arab stranglehold on their economies, then a favourable situation might arise whereby the Soviet Union could secure for itself certain oil reserves essential in the event of a future confrontation with the People's Republic of China...'}

^{Extract from photostat of confidential report from Marshal Simoniev to First Secretary of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics handed to Ken Chapin of CIA by Soviet defector, Col Grigorienko.}

^{* * * *}

^{'After a night in bed with his wife, Peretti is the kind of guy who has to be helped out of it in the morning...'}

^{'No need to be coarse, Alex,' Miriam MacGowan said quietly.}

^{'Before this thing is finished I'm going to get a whole lot coarser,' the Governor assured his wife. He peered out of the window into the dark. 'Where the hell is the airport ?'}

^{The Boeing 707 was losing altitude rapidly, coming in to the San Francisco runway from the north-east - all planes had been routed away from their normal entry over the Pacific so they wouldn't pass over the tanker
Challenger.
It was the flying moment Miriam MacGowan hated most - the downward drop at speed towards a solid concrete avenue somewhere out of sight. MacGowan's attitude was more brutally fatalistic - either we hit the deck and cruise along it - or we burn. He was careful not to express the sentiment.}

^{MacGowan was fuming. Half an hour ago, while the plane was flying over San Luis Obispo, he had received a radio message from an aide Col Cassidy had spoken to. Occasionally, in the States, when a military man does not agree with a decision, he has been known to leak the decision to a political friend whose views equate more closely with his own. MacGowan now knew that the terrorist ship he had heard about while changing planes at Los Angeles was going to be allowed inside the Bay. It was, of course, a typical Peretti decision. Milk in his spine and jello in his guts. MacGowan couldn't stomach the bloody matinee idol.}

^{The wheels touched down, bumped. Miriam swallowed, waiting for the hideous thing to slow down. It always seemed it was going straight through the airport buildings. MacGowan undid his seat belt before the green light came on. A stewardess leaned over to reprove him, but he forestalled her.'
You
are supposed to be seated while we're landing - and don't forget I'm the first off this aircraft ...'}

^{'Yes, Governor.'}

^{He was on his feet as the machine taxied to a halt, a short, heavily-built man with a large head, thick hair and thick eyebrows and a wide, grim-looking mouth. In build he was not dissimilar to LeCat. He ran down the mobile staircase and past a group of reporters. Inside Miriam apologised to the stewardess.}

^{'He's terribly worried about what's happening...'}

^{MacGowan used one of the phones in TWA's back office - the reporters had run after him, intrigued by his haste. His first call was to Peretti. 'I want that ship stopped. It's not coming into the Bay with an army of terrorists aboard . . . Don't argue, Peretti -if I have to, I'll call out the National Guard...'}

^{He called in rapid succession General Lepke at the Presidio, the US Coast Guard, the Harbor Police, and finally, Police Commissioner Bolan. Nobody had a chance to express an opinion; nobody really tried. But he did explain to Bolan what he was doing, telling him to phone Peretti the moment the call was over. This was simply to bring more pressure to bear on the mayor.}

^{'I want this thing put on ice till I get a grip on it. So the ship stays where it is for the moment. I've told Peretti to signal those bastards that there's been a collision - that no ship can enter or leave Golden Gate till the channel is cleared. They may not believe it but they won't be sure. And it will throw them off balance -first they get permission, then a temporary refusal. I'm coming in now...'}

^{It was typical of MacGowan to be in a fury but still to be thinking clearly - to freeze the situation and throw his opponent off balance at the same time. 'I've stuck my head in a political noose,' he told his wife during the drive into the city, 'but I don't care. I know I'm doing the right thing.'}

^{'Peretti will pull the skids from under you, give him half a chance,' she warned.}

^{'You've forgotten something - politically I'm finished anyway after the Grove Park business. Now I'm thinking of the hostages' problem.'}

^{'Peretti probably feels he's thinking of them, too...'}

^{'In the wrong way, in the Peretti way - let's all sit down over a cup of coffee and talk things out, I've got a hunch about this thing . . .' They were passing through Brisbane and he saw her looking at him, 'I mean we may have to kill every terrorist aboard that tanker...'}

^{Ten miles ahead of them a yellow cab was moving into San Francisco with four strangers sharing the vehicle. On the back seat was a passenger off the same flight as MacGowan, but
whereas MacGowan had travelled first class this passenger - to avoid being conspicuous - had travelled economy. Ahmed Riad sat upright, very tense on his first visit to the United States.}

^{When he arrived in the lobby of the Hotel St Francis on Union Square, he reserved a room in the name of Seebohm and was taken up in the glass elevator which crawled up the outside of the building. The experience terrified Riad as he gazed down at the tiny rooftop of a car turning into the car park under the square. Riad had a pathological fear of heights. Still, he would only be in this place one night. In the morning he would inform the Englishman of the change of plan, telling him to catch the first plane back to Europe.}

^{Aboard the
Challenger
LeCat had waited confidently for Mackay to receive permission to enter the Bay when the burnt embers of the Carley floats had been hauled up on the main deck. The signal granting permission had arrived later; the captain had prepared to sail into the channel; the next signal - refusing permission -had arrived just after midnight. It had been a thunderbolt for the Frenchman. His face working with fury, he waited on the bridge while Mackay absorbed the message.}

^{'You will take the ship into the Bay at once,' the terrorist ordered.}