“Who are you and what do you want?” Her voice was not quite as steady as she might have
wished.
“Well, would you look at that, now?” Durand said admiringly. “You’d think she was used to being kidnaped every morning of her life.”
“This is a kidnap?”
‘Tin afraid so.” Durand sounded genuinely apologetic.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Vacation. Little island hi the sun.” Durand smiled. “You won’t be needing any swimsuit though. Please get up and get dressed.”
“And if I refuse?”
“We’ll dress you.”
“I’m not going to get dressed with you two watching me.”
Durand was soothing. “My friend will stand out in the corridor. I’ll go into the bathroom
Sea witch
there and leave the door open just a crack—not to watch you, but to watch the window, to make sure that you don’t leave by it. Call me when you’re ready and be quick about it.”
She was quick about it. She called him within three minutes. Blue blouse, blue slacks and her hair combed. Durand nodded his approval.
“Pack a traveling bag. Enough for a few days.”
He watched her while she packed. She zipped the bag shut and picked up her purse. “I’m ready.”
He took the purse from her, undid the clasp and upended the contents on the bed. From the jumble on the bed he selected a small pearl-handled pistol, which he slipped into his pocket
“Let’s pack the purse again, shall we?”
Marina did so, her face flushed with mortification.
A somewhat similar scene had just taken place in Melinda’s bedroom.
Twenty-five minutes had elapsed since the arrival of Durand and his men and their departure with the two girls. No one had been hurt, except in pride, and the intruders had even been considerate to the extent of seating Jenkins in a deep armchair in the front hall. Jenkins, as he was now securely bound hand and foot, did not appreciate this courtesy as much as he might have done.
About ten minutes after their departure, Lord Worth’s helicopter touched down beside his
03
Boeing in the city airport. There were no customs, no clearance formalities. Lord Worth had made it plain some years previously that he did not much care for that sort of thing, and when Lord Worth made things plain they tended to remain that way.
It was during the second leg of this flight that the second unfortunate occurrence happened. Again, Lord Worth was happily unaware of what was taking place.
The Tiburon’s (now the Georgia’s) helicopter had located the Torbello. The pilot reported that he had sighted the vessel two minutes previously and gave her latitude and longitude as accurately as he could judge. More importantly, he gave her course as approximately 315 degrees, which was virtually on a collision course with the Georgia. They were approximately forty-five miles apart. Cronkite gave his congratulations to the pilot and asked him to return to the Georgia.
On the bridge of the Georgia Cronkite and Mulhooney looked at each other with satisfaction. Between planning and execution there often exists an unbridgeable gap. In this case, however, things appeared to be going exactly according to plan.
Cronkite said to Mulhooney: “Time, I think, to change into more respectable clothes. And don’t forget to powder your nose.”
Sea witch
Mulhooney smiled and left the bridge. Cronkite paused only to give a few instructions to the helmsman, then left the bridge also.
Less than an hour later the Torbello stood clear over the horizon. The Georgia headed straight for it, then at about three miles distance made a thirty-degree alteration to starboard, judged the timing to a nicety and came round in a wide sweeping turn to port. Two minutes later the Georgia was on a parallel course to the Torbello, alongside its port quarter—the bridge of a tanker lies very far aft—paralleling its course at the same speed and not more than thirty yards away. Cronkite moved out onto the wing of the Georgia’s bridge and lifted his loud-hailer.
“Coast Guard. Please stop. This is a request, not an order. We think your vessel’s in great danger. Your permission, please, to bring a trained research party aboard. For the safety of your men and the ship, don’t break radio silence on any account!”
Captain Thompson, an honest sailor with no criminal propensities whatsoever, used his own loud-hailer.
“What’s wrong? Why is this boarding necessary?”
“It’s not a boarding. I am making a request for your own good. Believe me, I’d rather not be within five miles of you. It is necessary. I’d rather
85
Alistair MacLean
come aboard with my lieutenant and explain privately. Don’t forget what happened to your sister ship, the Crusader, in Galveston harbor last night.”
Captain Thompson, clearly, had not forgotten and was, of course, completely unaware that Cronkite was the man responsible for what had happened to his sister ship: a ringing of bells from the bridge was indication enough of that. Three minutes later the Torbello lay stopped in the calm waters. The Georgia edged up alongside the Torbello until its midships were just ahead of the bulk of the tanker’s superstructure. At this point it was possible to step from the Georgia’s deck straight onto the deck of the deep-laden tanker, which was what Cronkite and Mulhooney proceeded to do. They paused there until they had made sure that the Georgia was securely moored fore and aft to the tanker, then climbed a series of companionways and ladders up to the bridge.
Both men were quite unrecognizable. Cronkite had acquired a splendidly bushy black beard, a neatly trimmed mustache and dark glasses and, with his smartly tailored uniform and slightly rakish peaked cap, looked the epitome of the competent and dashing coast-guard-cutter captain which he was not. Mulhooney was similarly disguised.
There was only Captain Thompson and an idle
06
Sea witch
helmsman on the bridge. Cronkite shook the captain’s hand.
“Good morning. Sorry to disturb you when you are proceeding about your lawful business and all that, but you may be glad we stopped you. First, where is your radio room?” Captain Thompson nodded to a door set in back of the bridge. “Fd like my lieutenant to check on the radio silence. This is imperative.” Again, Captain Thompson, now feeling distinctly uneasy, nodded. Cronkite looked at Mulhooney. “Go check, Dixon, will you?”
Mulhooney passed through into the radio room, closing the door behind him. The radio operator looked up from his transceiver with an air of mild surprise.
“Sorry to disturb.” Mulhooney sounded almost genial, a remarkable feat for a man totally devoid of geniality. “I’m from the Coast Guard cutter alongside. The captain told you to keep radio silence?”
“That’s just what I’m doing.”
“Made any radio calls since leaving the Sea-witch?”
“Only the routine half-hourly on-course, on-time calls.’*
“Do they acknowledge those? I have my reasons for asking.” Mulhooney carefully refrained from saying what his reasons were.
“No. Well, just the usual ‘roger and out’ business.”
Allstair MacLean
“What’s the call-up frequency?”
The operator pointed to the console. “Preset.”
Mulhooney nodded and walked casually behind the operator. Just to make sure that the operator kept on maintaining radio silence, Mulhooney clipped him over the right ear with his pistol. He then returned to the bridge, where he found Captain Thompson in a state of considerable and understandable perturbation.
Captain Thompson, a deep anxiety compounded by a self-defensive disbelief, said: “What you’re telling me in effect is that the Torbello is a floating time bomb.”
“A bomb, certainly. Maybe lots of bombs. Not only possible but almost certain. Our sources of information—sorry, Fm not at liberty to divulge those—are as nearly perfect as can be.”
“God’s sake, man, no one would be so crazy as to cause a huge oil slick in the Gulf.”
Cronkite said: “It’s your assumption, not mine, that we’re dealing with sane minds. Who but a crazy man would have endangered Galveston by blowing up your sister tanker there?”
The captain fell silent and pondered the question gloomily.
Cronkite went on: “Anyway, it’s my intention—with your consent, of course—to search the engine room, living accommodations and every storage space on the ship. With the kind of search crew I have it shouldn’t take more than half an hour.”
Seawitch
“What kind of preset time bomb do you think it might be?”
“I don’t think it’s a time bomb—or bombs— at all. I think that the detonator—or detonators —will be a certain radioactivated device that can be triggered by any nearby craft, plane or helicopter. But I don’t think it’s fixing to happen till you’re close to the U.S. coast.”
“Why?”
“So we’ll have maximum pollution along the shores. There’ll be a national holler against Lord Worth and the safety standards aboard Ms— ah—rather superannuated tankers, maybe resulting in closing down the Seawitch or the seizing of any of Worth’s tankers that might enter American territorial waters.” In addition to his many other specialized qualifications, Cronkite was a consummate liar. “Okay if I call my men?” Captain Thompson nodded without any noticeable enthusiasm.