Talbot said: ‘Is there any timing device, specifically a delayed one, fitted in a hydrogen bomb?’
‘None.’ The flat finality in the voice left no room for argument.
‘According to Vice-Admiral Hawkins, there may be a couple of conventional atom bombs aboard the sunken plane. Could they be fitted with timing devices?’
‘Again, I don’t know. Not my field. But I see no reason why they couldn’t be.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘Search me. Realms of speculation, Captain, where your guess is as good as mine. The only thing that occurs to me is a mine, a marine mine. Neatly dispose of any passing aircraft carrier, I should think.’
That’s thinking small,’ Van Gelder said. ‘A hydrogen mine would neatly dispose of any passing battle fleet.’
‘Whose passing fleet? One of ours? In wartime as in peacetime, the seas are open to all.’
‘Not the Black Sea. Not in wartime. But a bit far-fetched. How would this mine be activated?’
‘My continued ignorance must be a great disappointment. I know nothing about mines.’
‘Well, time was when mines were either magnetic or acoustic. Degaussing has made magnetic mines passe. So, acoustic. Triggered by a passing ship’s engines. Interesting, isn’t it? I mean, we’ve passed over it several times since we first heard the ticking and we’ve triggered nothing. So far. So maybe that ticking doesn’t mean that the mine is set to go off any time. Maybe it’s not activated — by which I mean ready to go off when a vessel passes over it — until the ticking stops. Or maybe it’s just set to go up whenever the ticking stops. Trouble is, we’ve no idea what started the ticking in the first place. I can’t see any way it could have been deliberate. Must have been caused by the explosion that brought down the plane or by the impact of striking the water.’
‘You’re a source of great comfort, Van Gelder,’ Hawkins said heavily.
‘I admit, sir, that the alternatives aren’t all that attractive. My own conclusions, which in this case are probably completely worthless, are that this ticking represents a period of grace — I mean that it cannot explode — as long as the ticking lasts and that it’s not designed to explode when the ticking stops but is then activated and ready to explode when triggered by passing engines. A guess, sir, but not necessarily a wild one. I’m going on the assumption that this mine could well be dropped by a surface vessel as well as a plane. In that case, the ship would want to be a large number of miles away before the mine was activated. So it would start the timing mechanism running at the moment it dropped it over the side. I am sure, sir, that the Pentagon could provide some illumination on this subject.’
‘I’m sure it could,’ Hawkins said. ‘And your conclusions are far from worthless, they make a good deal of sense to me. Well, Captain, what do you propose to do about all this?’
‘I rather thought, sir, that your purpose in coming down here was to tell me what to do.’
‘Not at all. I just came to make myself au fait with the situation and to garner some information in return for some I give you.’
‘Does this mean, Admiral — I say this carefully, you understand — that I have a hand in making the decisions?’
‘You don’t have a hand. You damn well make them. I’ll endorse them.’
‘Thank you. Then my first decision — or, if you like, a suggestion respectfully made — is that you and your two friends depart for Rome immediately. It’s not going to help anyone, and will be a considerable loss to both the scientific and naval communities, if you three gentlemen elect for self-immolation. Besides, by asking me to make the decisions, you have implied that there’s nothing you can do here that my crew and I can’t. Lieutenant-Commander Van Gelder is at your immediate service.’
‘The Lieutenant-Commander will have to wait. For me, at least. Your logic is sound but I’m not feeling very logical at the moment. But I do agree as far as my two friends are concerned. They could be back at their international conference in Rome tomorrow, without anyone having noticed their absence. We have no right to put the lives of civilians, not to mention two such eminent civilians, at risk.’
‘You’ve just put your finger on it, Admiral.’ Benson puffed comfortably on a sadly blackened pipe. ‘Eminent or not, we are civilians. Civilians don’t take orders from the military. I prefer the Aegean to Rome.’
‘Agreed,’ Wickram said. ‘Ludicrous. Preposterous.’
‘You don’t seem to have any more clout with your two friends than I have with the three of you.’ Talbot produced two slips of paper from his inner pocket. ‘I suggest you sign those, sir.’
Hawkins took them, looked thoughtfully at Talbot, scanned the two sheets, then read from one of them.
‘”Request urgent immediate dispatch of nearest salvage or diving vessel to 36.11N, 25.12E due south Cape Akrotiri, Thera Island, to recover one sunken plane, one sunken yacht. Further request immediate dispatch by plane to Thera Island two deep-sea divers with diving equipment for four, repeat four. Priority one double A. Signed Vice-Admiral Hawkins.”‘ Hawkins looked at Benson and Wickram. ‘This message is directed to Rear-Admiral Blyth, HMS Apollo. Rear-Admiral Blyth is the operational commander of European section of NATO sea forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. Priority one double A means drop everything else, this has absolute priority. Admiral Hawkins is, I take it, my good self. Why, Captain, the request for four diving suits?’
‘Van Gelder and I are trained divers, sir. Ex-submariners.’
‘I see. Second signal directed to Defence Minister, Athens. “Urgent contact Air Control Athens airport for information re aircraft, thought American, that crashed 1415 today south of Thera Island. Did it ask permission for flight path to, and landing in, Athens or other Greek airfield? Further request you enlist immediate aid of police and Intelligence re anything known about one Spyros Andropulos, owner of yacht Delos.” This message is also, I’m flattered to observe, signed by me. Well, well, well, Captain, I nearly did you a great injustice a minute or two ago, I thought you had not perhaps addressed yourself to the problem on hand. But you have, and in some style and quite some time before I arrived. Two questions.’
‘The aircraft and Andropulos?’ Hawkins nodded. ‘At 43,000 feet, the pilot didn’t have to bother to notify anyone about his presence. He knew he was alone in the sky. But once he started descending, it was a different matter entirely. He wouldn’t be too keen on bumping into anyone, especially not with the cargo he had on board. And, of course, he would require permission to land.’
‘But why Greece?’
‘Because the flight path he was following when we first located him would have taken him to Ankara in Turkey, or some place pretty close by. Now, even although Turkey is – nominally, at least – a member of NATO, I’m sure the Americans have no air bases at, or near, Ankara. I don’t even know if they have any air bases at all in Turkey. I’m certain they have no missile launching bases. In Greece, the Americans have both. So, Greece. As for Andropulos, several of my officers and I think he’s a leery customer and a suspicious one. Not one thing that could be proved in a court of law, of course. We suspect that he may know something about the downing of this plane that we don’t know he knows, if you follow me. He says the Delos was sunk as the result of an explosion. But it’s the old question of did he fall or was he pushed? In other words, was the explosion accidental or deliberate? If we could hoist the Delos to the surface we might well find out.’
‘We might well indeed. Still, first things first.’ Hawkins looked briefly at the signals again. ‘Seem to fit the task admirably. I’ll gladly sign.’ Hawkins produced a pen, signed and handed the papers to Talbot. ‘As you had all this figured out quite some time, I suspect, before I left Rome, why didn’t you send those signals yourself?’
‘Lowly commanders don’t give the instructions to Rear-Admiral Blyth. I haven’t the authority. You have. That’s why I asked you to join us as soon as was possible. Thanks for the signing, sir. That was the easy part. Now comes the difficult part.’
‘Difficult part?’ Hawkins said warily. ‘What difficult part?’
‘Have we the moral right to ask the crew of the salvage vessel or lifting vessel, not to mention the divers, to join us, in Lieutenant Denholm’s elegant phrase, in drifting through the stratosphere in vaporized orbit?’
‘Ah. Yes. A point, of course. What do you think?’
‘Again, not a decision for lowly commanders. Admirals only.’
‘Dear, oh dear. Then, if things go wrong, you’ll have nothing on your conscience and everything in the world to reproach me with.’