Year of the Golden Ape (8 page)

^{Winter had the main living-room, which was thirty-five feet long - roughly one-twentieth of the total length of the 50,000-ton tanker - cleared of all furniture and carpets. He had it well scrubbed and then with coloured chalks he reproduced a plan of the main deck. Again Winter trained each man individually, walking round the room with his student, drilling into him the position of the main features - catwalk, foremast, pipes, breakwater, helicopter landing point, loading derricks. It was the main deck he spent most time over - because this was where the helicopter would land.}

^{Inevitably, men not accustomed to this kind of study became restless, so each evening he let them have a party with plenty to drink. Winter himself drank very little and he left LeCat, who consumed enormous quantities and still stayed on his feet, to look after the drinking sessions. And LeCat himself grew restless. 'Is all this necessary?' he demanded truculently one morning as they waited for the team to return from a daily run through the estate grounds. 'In the Mediterranean we just did a job...'}

^{'Not a job like this,' Winter said coldly. 'When they land on that tanker's deck they must feel they have been there before. Within five minutes of the helicopter landing we must control the ship - or we have failed. Tomorrow we must help them grasp the scale of the ship...'}

^{Oil drums - symbolically enough - which had been brought to the house by truck, were placed at intervals across a vast lawn which ran away from the front of the house into the fields beyond. They were placed at intervals in two rows at right-angles to the house, each row one hundred and ten feet apart - the width of the
Challenger.
Earlier, Winter had paced out seven hundred and fifty feet from the steps of the house and he ended up with the tanker's bow in a field close to an old oak tree. Already several men were muttering about the size of the thing.}

^{From the steps of the house a double row of posts was erected right out to the distant oak tree, and this marked out the catwalk. Other poles represented the derricks and the foremast; a circle of rope on the port bow located the helicopter landing point. Then Winter took the team to the roof of the house which was fifty feet above the ground. They were now standing on the bridge of the
Challenger,
staring towards the distant oak which was the bow of the ship.}

^{'It's bigger than I thought,' LeCat admitted, staring at the distant oak.}

^{'It is a steep drop to the main deck,' Armand Bazin, a younger member of the team commented with surprise as he gazed down over the edge of the parapet.}

^{'Steeper than you think,' Winter warned. 'We are fifty feet up and it's a sixty-foot drop from the island bridge of the
Challenger.
All of you go down now on to the lawn, walk along the main deck, get some idea of what it will be like. And look up at this roof -which is the bridge. It will be like looking up a cliff...'}

^{They got ready to leave, but first Winter insisted on a huge cleaning-up operation. The oil drums were hidden inside a wood in the grounds. The sticks and poles which had represented catwalk and derricks and foremast were broken up and burned. Winter personally supervised a thorough scrubbing of the living-room floor to make sure that no traces were left of the chalk marks which had outlined the main deck. Furniture and carpets were put back as they had found them there.}

^{The debris of meals and drinking sessions - cans and bottles -were buried in a deep hole inside the wood, and French cigarette butts also went into the hole. No one had been allowed to smoke outside the house. These precautions LeCat appreciated - he remembered the care he himself had insisted on when the house on Dusquesne Street in Vancouver had been abandoned, when all the rooms had been Hoovered. And this, of course, was something Winter knew nothing about, just as he never dreamt there was a nuclear device hidden aboard the
Pêcheur.}

^{Late on the afternoon of Tuesday January 14. Winter counted the sketches of the tanker prior to burning them. Tomorrow they would fly to Alaska.}

^{Because Harper was out of town, Sullivan had to wait until Tuesday before he could phone the chairman of Harper Tankships at his London office in Leadenhall Street. Which meant that while Winter was packing up at Cosgrove Manor, Sullivan was still in Hamburg.}

^{'In a way I've got nothing,' Sullivan told Victor Harper, 'only the fact that a hired thug tried to kill me in a bar when I went round asking about your company. But it happened in Hamburg -as though there's something here they don't want me to find out. What connection has your firm got with Hamburg?'}

^{'Nothing that I can see might have any bearing on this situation.' Harper's precise voice sounded irritated. 'Is this whole business becoming rather a wild goose chase? And who is this friend you refer to so mysteriously - the one who told you this yarn about French terrorists?'}

^{'Can't even hint -certainly not on the phone.'}

^{'I'm inclined to drop the whole thing ...'}

^{'You've never had any connection with Hamburg at all ?' Sullivan persisted.}

^{'Built a couple of ships there, that's all...'}

^{'Which ships?'}

^{'Couple of 50,000-tonners - the
Challenger
first, then its twin, the
Chieftain.
Both of them at the Wilhelm Voss yard. Paul Hahnemann is the boss - good chap, typically German; he drives the place like a steam engine. Both delivered bang on time, of course. I don't see how he could help ...'}

^{'Frankly, neither do I. Where are those ships now? In the Middle East?'}

^{'Neither of them.
Chieftain
is in dry-dock for repairs at Genoa,
Challenger
is on the Alaska-San Francisco run. Better come home, Larry. Call it a day...'}

^{'I may see you late this afternoon...'}

^{Sullivan put down the phone and yawned. He had made a night of it with Messmer before the Frenchman caught the morning train back to Paris. Paul Hahnemann wasn't going to tell him anything, so why hang about ? Yawning again, he began packing his bag.}

^{The telephone message travelled a devious route before it reached Gamal Tafak at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Damascus. Originating from Paris, the call was taken by a man in Athens who then phoned a number in Beirut. From there Ahmed Riad phoned the message to Damascus. Tafak was just about to have lunch when Riad called him from the Lebanese capital.}

^{'Excellency, KLM Flight 401 from Amsterdam to Paris has just been hi-jacked by terrorists. There is going to be trouble about this...'}

^'Why?'

^{'The plane is carrying three senior Royal-Dutch Shell executives, Including a managing director...'}

^{'Keep me in touch with developments.'}

^{Tafak replaced the receiver. If anyone had been listening in to the call, which was unlikely but not impossible the way the American intelligence services were tapping phones all over the world these days, the conversation would have seemed innocent enough.}

^{But the call told Tafak that the diversionary operation was under way. This had been Winter's idea, as was the timing. While LeCat set up listening posts to check on any loose security Winter had come up with a more imaginative plan. To mask the hi-jack of the ship, he had suggested a plane should be seized a few days before the real event, something to keep the newspapers busy, to divert anyone who might have heard a whisper of what was really going to happen.}

^{The hi-jack had been organised by the serious-faced man sitting on Tafak's right at the recent secret meeting in the Syrian desert. The KLM plane would now be kept hopping about from airport to airport while the main operation was under way. It still seemed easy enough to hi-jack a plane; Tafak hoped it would prove equally easy to hi-jack a 50,000-ton oil tanker.}

^{'It did strike me that if someone wanted to sabotage one of Harper's tankers they might try and check the layout and structure of the tanker they were after. Can you tell me, Mr Hahnemann, has anyone asked to see blueprints of a Harper tanker recently?'}

^{At the last moment before leaving Hamburg, Sullivan's natural obstinacy had made him stay. He had made an appointment to see Paul Hahnemann very late in the afternoon, so late that it was dark outside, too dark to see the falling snow. A letter of introduction from Victor Harper - 'to whom it may concern' - had got him inside the Wilhelm Voss shipyard. His Lloyd's of London identification had convinced the German he ought to see the Englishman. Hahnemann was a discreet man.}

^{'I find that a strange question,' the German said woodenly. 'You say you have heard vague rumours - about Harper. The shipping world lives on rumours. Surely you know that by now?'}

^{'I withdraw the question.' Sullivan smiled amiably. 'I've told you what I've been doing for the past week-coming up the Atlantic coast. Two nights ago someone tried to kill me in a Hamburg bar. That makes me think there is something - something in Hamburg I'm getting too close to.'}

^{'I don't see how I can help you,' the German replied. 'We have no one suspect here. We are very careful who we let inside this yard - you yourself had to produce proof of identity before you were allowed in.'}

^{Sullivan was in a difficult position. He realised that Hahnemann was too shrewd by half, that he wanted some evidence, that there was no evidence to show him. Sullivan wasn't even sure what he was looking for himself.}

^{There may be an Englishman in this business somewhere,' he suggested.}

^{'Can you give me a name?' Hahnemann enquired.}

^'Winter.'

^{'I have never heard of or met anyone with that name.' The German clasped his hands across his stomach and looked up at the ceiling. 'Perhaps if you could give me a description?'}

^{'I've no idea what he looks like ...'}

^{Sullivan heard himself saying this. God, how vague can you get? In another minute or two the German would start shuffling papers on his desk, maybe even look pointedly at his watch. It was hopeless.}

^{'Would you like some coffee?' Hahnemann ordered coffee over the intercom and then excused himself. He was gone for thirty minutes by Sullivan's watch and the Englishman wondered whether he was calling the police. When he came back into the office he was followed by an attractive girl carrying a tray with the coffee. 'I will pour it,' Hahnemann said. He waited until they were alone. 'I apologise for being so long, but I decided to phone Mr Harper in London. I hope you don't mind - documents can so easily be faked these days.'}

^{'A wise precaution.' Sullivan was puzzled. Why would Hahnemann take this trouble if he had nothing to say to him? The German took out a photograph which he placed face down on the desk, then he poured the coffee.}

^{'Mr Sullivan, I imagine you know most of the top shipping people in London ?'}

^{'Most of them, yes - it's my job.' Sullivan carefully did not look at the concealed photograph as Hahnemann went back and sat down behind his desk.}

^{'Charles Manders?'}

^{'He's an old friend ...'}

^{'Willie Smethwick?'}

^{'Another friend...'}

^{'Arnold Ross?'}

^{'Had lunch with him a couple of months ago.'}

^{Hahnemann turned up the photograph and pushed it over the desk. 'Is that man familiar? Specifically, is he Manders, Smeth-wick or Ross?'}

^{'No, he isn't...'}

^{'He isn't Arnold Ross?'}

^{'Quite definitely not. Ross is a small, well-built man with a face like an amiable gargoyle. This time of the year, he's usually off on a cruise to the West Indies.'}

^{'That man called on me five days ago and passed himself off as Arnold Ross of Ross Tankers.'}

^{Sullivan stared at the picture with fascination, the first picture which had ever been taken of Winter, except for passport purposes when the likeness changed as rapidly as the names. It showed a distinguished-looking man wearing a bowler hat and an expensive overcoat striding up a staircase. He appeared to be staring at the camera without seeing it.}

^{Like a Guards officer, Sullivan thought. Trim moustache, erect bearing, a clipped look about the face. All the cliches. God, he even carried a tightly-rolled umbrella on his arm. The absolute personification of a European's idea of the City Englishman. And he existed - you could see him walking past the Bank of England each morning at 9.30. With nothing to go on, Sullivan had the strongest of hunches: this man was Winter.}

^{'How did you take the photograph?' Sullivan asked.}

^{Hahnemann looked embarrassed, then laughed. 'I am giving away my trade secrets. I have a fetish for security, I admit it. But we live in a dangerous world and one day someone who does not like my customers may try to sabotage a ship I am building. So everyone who conies into the building is secretly photographed. We have your own picture, Mr Sullivan. I hope I have not shocked you - Watergate and all that...'}