Year of the Golden Ape (30 page)

^{Winter hauled him back inside, shook him like a child's doll while the doll drooled with terror, hardly sane at this moment as he saw Winter's bony face through a shimmering mist of near-faintness. 'What is going to happen aboard the ship ?' the Englishman hissed through his teeth. He shook him with cold intensity. 'What is going to happen aboard the
Challenger
that I don't know about?'}

^{Riad was now choking for breath like a drowning man as his heart pounded so fast and heavily it felt it would burst out of his rib cage. He tried to speak, tried to tell Winter to stop shaking and he would speak ... He gasped, started taking in such violent, wheezing gasps of air that Winter was alarmed that he would faint so he held him still. The Arab looked up at him with a pathetic look of a child. They were both human beings, caught up in a plot of unimaginable violence planned by a man a third of the way across the world who thought nothing mattered but the freeing of sacred Jerusalem from the grip of the intruder.}

^{'They are... going to kill... all the hostages...'}

^{'Whatever happens ?'}

^{'They are going to ... kill...'}

^{Riad collapsed, went limp in Winter's grip, sagging while the Englishman still held him up, more of a weight than Winter would have imagined, but a dead man is always heavy.}

^{Ahmed Riad had not been well when he alighted from the plane at Los Angeles after his eleven-hour flight from London. The tension in the United States did nothing to improve his condition. The ordeal of hanging out of the window brought on the final, massive coronary which killed him - before he had a chance to say a word about the nuclear device which LeCat had smuggled aboard the tanker now waiting to enter the Bay.}

^{Believing that Riad had only fainted, in a great hurry to make a phone call, Winter left the unfortunate Arab lying on the carpet
while he lifted the receiver. The operator came on the line at once and Winter was mopping his forehead with a handkerchief when he spoke.}

^{'Get me the Transamerica building, please. I want to speak personally to the Governor of California...'}

¹⁷

^{It was 9.30am when Ahmed Riad died. Winter had been very brief on the phone. 'I'm not waiting here while you trace this call,' he told MacGowan's assistant. 'You have exactly forty-five seconds to get the Governor on the line and then I'm breaking the connection. I can tell him the complete structure of the terrorist team aboard that tanker outside the Bay . . .' MacGowan's growling voice had come on the line within thirty seconds - Winter had timed it by his watch.}

^{His call to MacGowan had been brief: Winter knew that if he was to carry any weight at all he had to get to the Governor as a free man, going to see him voluntarily. If they were able to arrest him first, they would never believe him.}

^{Realising now that Riad was dead, Winter hung a 'Do Not Disturb' notice on the outside door handle before he left his bedroom. Riad's diplomatic passport - trade representative of some obscure Persian Gulf sheikhdom - was in his pocket as he hurried along Geary and found a cab just emptying itself of its passengers in Union Square. Arriving at the Transamerica building, the strange, pyramid-shaped edifice overlooking the Bay - if your floor was high enough - he went straight up to the Governor's floor. It was high enough for a view of the Bay, and plain-clothes detectives were waiting for him.}

^{He had gambled on MacGowan's character, on the little he had heard about him, gambled on the independent-minded American wanting to see him. MacGowan came into the room while they were still searching him for weapons. They found nothing on him;
Winter had dropped the Skorpion pistol and holster from the Golden Gate bridge while Walgren had waited with the car. You don't, if you are staying at a good hotel in a city, arrive with guns. MacGowan, who had been watching Winter while they searched him, ushered the Englishman into his private office and shooed the police away. 'Hell, you searched him. I can take care of myself...'}

^{The interview between MacGowan and Winter behind closed doors went on for one hour - a long time for both men who were quick-witted and incisive, who went to the guts of a problem immediately. Part of that time was taken up by MacGowan, once a trial lawyer, grilling the Englishman. At the end of the hour MacGowan was convinced Winter was telling the truth. Others -when he held a full meeting of his action committee - were less easy to convince. Peretti, backed by Col Cassidy, was particularly sceptical. 'We have to be sure there are no explosives aboard that vessel,' he insisted. 'Winter should be subjected to a lie-detector test...'}

^{'Bloody waste of time,' MacGowan snapped. 'A scientist's toy for the enjoyment of idiots. Twenty years of criminal practice taught me to assess a man face to face. Anything that whirrs and flashes, Peretti, and you think it's God's answer to the human problem...'}

^{They subjected Winter to the lie-detector and they were all there, firing questions at him. Karpis of the FBI, Police Commissioner Bolan, Garfield of Coast Guard, Col Cassidy ... It was while he sat in the chair, with the electrodes on his arms, answering questions, that his almost hypnotic personality began to have an effect on the Americans. Sullivan, who had talked with him earlier at MacGowan's request, who had then agreed that Winter was telling the truth, watched the inquisition with growing fascination.}

^{'Your name?'}

^'Winter...'

^{The machine registered 'lie'.}

^{'You need something to check your box of tricks,' Winter observed.}

^{'How many terrorists aboard the ship?'}

^{'Thirteen - now I'm here!'}

^Truth.

^{'Did you intend to give yourself up when you arrived in San Francisco?'}

^{'Certainly not...'}

^Truth.

^{'Did Ahmed Riad tell you before he died that all the hostages will be shot whatever happens?'}

^'Yes...'

^Truth.

^{After fifteen minutes Cassidy asked the question which was worrying them all. 'Winter, you led the hi-jack of this ship and now LeCat is in control. Are there any explosives aboard that vessel?'}

^'No...'

^Truth.

^{Which, although no one knew it, exposed the limitations of a lie-detector. It may be able to tell when a man is telling the truth or lies - but it cannot tell when a man gives a reply which is a lie although he believes it to be the truth. It was not apparent at that moment, but the holding of this test probably made it inevitable -in view of what happened later - that the
Challenger
would be permitted to enter the Bay, bringing with it twenty-nine doomed hostages, thirteen ex-OAS terrorists, and one nuclear device.}

^{By three in the afternoon they had still found no even half-safe way of storming the oil tanker. They considered every possible approach but each time they were defeated by the conditions LeCat had imposed if the hostages were not to be shot - that no aircraft, surface or underwater vessel must come near the oil tanker. And, as MacGowan pointed out, they were running out of time. So far he had managed to keep LeCat at arm's length with a series of delaying messages. This can't go on much longer,' the Governor warned. 'From what Winter has told me LeCat is going to lose patience - he is going to start shooting hostages to prove he means business...'}

^{MacGowan was secretly planning his intervention very carefully. They had to have enough time to realise there was no apparent way of tackling the terrorist ship - because what he was going to propose was so outrageous they would reject it out of hand - unless they had reached the stage where they would grasp at any straw. Even Winter's straw.}

^{The Governor was now convinced that Winter was genuine. He had said as much privately to Cassidy. 'You mean he's undergone some kind of recantation - that he's sorry for what he's done?' the Marine colonel asked sceptically.}

^{'No! He's out for blood. First, he's been double-crossed, and that kind of man you don't cross with impunity. Second, he's not a killer. The death of that couple in Alaska has hit him hard, I think, but he doesn't say much about it.'}

^{And there were certain hard facts which reinforced MacGowan's conviction. Winter had handed over Riad's diplomatic passport to the Governor, warning him there could be one hell of an international incident over the obscure death of an Arab diplomat. Winter's solution to this problem was simple: lose the passport. It was still locked away in MacGowan's drawer and he had not yet informed Washington of its existence.}

^{More than that, an emergency autopsy had been rushed through on the body of Ahmed Riad. The bruises on the neck and the condition of the corpse had confirmed Winter's story of the incident at the Clift. Riad had died of a massive coronary. It was five in the afternoon when MacGowan decided to take the plunge.}

^{'We're not getting anywhere,' he announced, 'and I can't hold LeCat off much longer. I think it's time we took a look at a plan for getting aboard that ship - Winter's plan.'}

^{Waiting until the protests had subsided, MacGowan began talking forcefully, making no concessions to anyone, staring at them grimly from under his thick eyebrows as he pointed out that after hours of discussion they hadn't come up with even the ghost of a plan to tackle the situation. 'The one man who knows the real position aboard that ship is Winter, the one man who knows how the terrorists are liable to react is Winter, and . . .' he lifted his voice, 'the one man who might just get an assault team aboard the
Challenger
is Winter, whether you like it or not. In fact, I don't give a damn what you like -I want results...'}

^{'Having talked to him,' Sullivan intervened, 'I think the Governor is right. Winter managed to seize that ship, to get it right under the coast of California. Now, because he was tricked, he's ready to put the same energy and brain power into reverse -into getting the ship back.' Looking round the table where twenty men sat in a state of indecision, he smiled bleakly. 'You know, gentlemen, there is no more dedicated man than the convert to the opposing side. Winter, as an anti-terrorist, could be very formidable indeed...'}

^{Winter was brought into the meeting, escorted by the police lieutenant who had become his permanent shadow. There was no humility in his manner, Cassidy noted as the Englishman sat down on MacGowan's left. His face was as cold and distant as when he had been subjected to the lie-detector test. He looked critically round the table, as though assessing each man, wondering whether he was any good. He's a cool bastard, this one, Cassidy was thinking; maybe a good man to go into the jungle with. But, as yet, the Marine colonel wasn't sure. The mayor immediately expressed his disapproval of the whole idea.}

^{'I propose he's sent out of here under armed guard,' Peretti snapped. Sitting on MacGowan's right, he faced Winter who studied him with interest. 'You are the guy who sicked this thing on to us,' Peretti went on. 'I don't agree with your even being in the same room with us...'}

^{'You want the hostages - including one American girl - to die?' Winter enquired. 'Because I'm sure now that LeCat will kill every hostage aboard that ship...'}

^{'You knew that when you started this thing?' Col Cassidy demanded, testing his reaction. 'Because if you did my vote is we put you in a cell and throw away the key...'}

^{'Belt up,' Winter told him.}

^{'You said what?'}

^{'Belt up - and listen. I know these terrorists - which is more than you do. When I was flying in over Marin County I saw a way to get men on to the ship - I was trying to look at it the other way round, to see how we might be stopped. You have to drop on to the tanker from the air...'}

^{'Hopeless.' Cassidy sounded disappointed. 'We've thought of that - and rejected it. The chopper would have to land on -the main deck. It would get shot to pieces from the island bridge -and so would anyone coming out of the machine...'}

^{'We don't use a chopper,' Winter explained. 'A small team of heavily armed men waits on Golden Gate bridge. We give LeCat permission to enter the Bay - to pass under the bridge at night. As the tanker sails under Golden Gate the assault team drops on to her in the dark. If the fog lasts, the chance of success is that much greater.'}

^{'The fog thinned this morning,' MacGowan interjected, 'but it could come back again tonight.'}

^{'That's a crazy idea,' Commissioner Bolan objected, 'that tanker will be moving ...'}

^{'Very slowly, if we box clever,' Winter said. 'I understand the tide will be flowing out to sea strongly in the early hours. Can someone tell me what its flow-rate will be?'}

^{'Seven-and-a-half knots until ten in the morning,' Garfield, the Coast Guard chief, said promptly.}

^{'So, we radio Mackay to come in at eight knots - which means moving against the tide, his actual speed will be only half a knot.'}