By Stealth (68 page)

Wilson returned to the bridge. Dense fog everywhere. A curl of mist rolled over the prow. This wasn't going to lift. Confrontation was imminent. He gave the order.

`Missile section. Action stations. I may press the button at any minute. Aim for larger target …'

Tweed ran back from the Opel, flopped between Newman and Marler behind the ridge. Marler was squinting through his night scope, following a man patrolling the beach and holding an automatic weapon.

`Our friends — with Norlin in command — will arrive at any moment. Don't let them startle you. Any idea of how they'll proceed down there?'

`Yes,' Newman said briskly but quietly. 'They've been practising launching those dinghies lined up by the sea on the beach. They're going out to meet the Stealth ships when they arrive. Obviously the Stealth vessels will have to unload their passengers into those dinghies well off shore. I say we go after one of the last of the dinghies to be launched, grab it, get in amongst them.'

'An excellent tactic ...'

Despite Tweed's warning, Newman nearly jumped out of his skin as the voice spoke quietly behind him. He was swivelling his Smith & Wesson when Tweed's hand clamped down on his wrist. He had recognized Anton Norlin's voice.

Slowly they all turned round. Paula suppressed a gasp. She couldn't count the number of menacing figures which had crept up, unheard, behind them. All wearing Balaclavas and a neutral-coloured one-piece uniform which merged with the background.

51

`Erik . . . Landslide! Landslide! Landslide ...'

`Roger.'

Satisfied that his message had got through, Tweed ran back from the Opel to the ridge where rows of men lay prone on the ground. Again he flopped between Newman and Marler. Norlin was still holding a restraining hand on Newman's shoulder.

Earlier, the final message from Tug Wilson had arrived. `Targets stationary half a mile off shore. Moving in to intercept.'

Norlin had been crawling among his men, who appeared to be divided into sections with separate tasks. He had whispered orders, then had returned to lie down behind Newman. Tweed whispered his own order to Paula who lay next to Newman.

`You stay ashore. That's an order.'

`I heard you,' was all she replied.

Tweed had borrowed Marler's night-glasses, had them now focused on a familiar tall, heavily built figure wearing gumboots and striding towards the last but one dinghy putting out to sea. He could even see the pince-nez at that short range as the figure climbed inside a large dinghy held steady by four other men.

`Dr Wand — I want you.'

Although said under his breath Paula heard the words and was startled. She had never heard such cold ferocity in Tweed's voice. His right hand gripped his Walther. He had taken a Dramamine thirty minutes before: this was one occasion when he didn't want to feel queasy.

The dinghy's outboard motor burst into life, the remaining three men jumped aboard as Dr Wand sat at the prow. The dinghy moved straight out to sea, was swallowed up in the fog, the red light at its stern vanishing. Norlin pressed his hand firmer on Newman's shoulder, an action which caused Paula to smile to herself. The Dane knew who was straining at the leash. She slipped her Browning out of her shoulder-bag, a slow movement to ensure Tweed wouldn't see her action.

A final large dinghy was being hauled down to the edge of the sea by five men, all with automatic weapons looped over their shoulders. Newman stiffened, turned to glare at the unseen face of Norlin.

`That's the one we're supposed to grab, for Christ's sake.'

`Have patience. The strategy has been carefully worked out. And pass this message to your friends.
Our
dinghies will have green lights.
Green
…'

Newman passed the message to Paula on his right as Tweed repeated the instruction to Marler who, in turn, told Butler and Nield. It was then when Tweed saw the point of Norlin's holding Newman back. As the five men went on hauling their dinghy seawards, six men wearing Balaclavas appeared like magic from behind a nearby dune.

`My men,' Norlin whispered.

Fascinated, Tweed watched through his glasses. The six men moved with such speed and so silently they were on top of Wand's thugs in seconds. Four of them were felled instantly with savage blows from hand-gun barrels on their skulls. They slumped to the beach. One thug had time to tear his automatic weapon from his shoulders. A knife flashed up in the hand of a Balaclava man, flashed down, and was thrust up to the hilt into the thug's chest. He fell back into the water.

More Balaclava-clad men appeared carrying large stretchers. By the time they arrived the unconscious men had their wrists handcuffed behind their backs, gags plastered over their mouths. Without ceremony they were lifted, dumped into the stretchers. The thug who had fought sprawled motionless on a stretcher, the knife handle still protruding. As the stretchers were carried swiftly away to one of the bungalows another man appeared, flashed a torch three times.

`All clear,' Norlin said in a normal voice. 'One section was told to check the bungalows. Any men inside could have shot us in the back. Bungalows empty.' He took his hand off Newman's shoulder. 'Go, boy!'

Newman took off like a greyhound, Smith & Wesson in hand as he ran down the south-west slope, followed by Marler, Tweed, Butler and Nield. Tweed showed surprising agility as he slithered and hurtled towards the beach, overtaking Marler.

They reached the dinghy as Norlin drew level with Tweed. The Dane switched off the red light at the stern, removed the bulb, replaced it by another, switched it on. Green light. The others were aboard as he attached a small metallic disc with rubber suckers to the side of the craft well away from the outboard.

`A bleeper,' he explained quickly. 'Range twenty miles. You won't hear it, but we will if we have to come looking for you. As you'll see, there will be plenty of us to keep you company.'

Tweed, seated on a plank at the prow, glanced back. The beach was crowded with Balaclava men carrying a fleet of dinghies to the water's edge. Marler fired the outboard motor. As it burst into life a sixth figure climbed aboard and they were moving. Tweed glanced back again and swore under his breath. Seated on the rearmost plank next to Marler was Paula. She lifted her left hand and waggled it, giving him a little wave.

On the bridge of the
Mao III
Kim stood beside Captain Welensky, who for the first time sensed nervousness in the Chinese, although his face remained impassive. They were hardly moving and behind them the
Yenan
was also nearly motionless.

`Well,' the captain told Kim with unconcealed satisfaction, 'we have made our correct landfall. The radio messages from the shore prove it.'

No more than what I would have expected,' snapped Kim.

`You sound tired,' Welensky ribbed him.

`I sense danger.' Again Kim snapped.

Welensky followed as Kim moved towards the weapons-control complex. Kim gave the order over the fixed microphone.

`Prepare missiles for launching. Red alert.'

Standing in front of a console, Kim inserted a key. The metal lid slid out of sight. A row of inset buttons, each a different colour, appeared. He only had to pass one and a missile would be launched.

When he had given the order two flaps near the prow had opened back, exposing the mouths of the slim silos housing twelve missiles. Kim remained by the console, hands clasped behind his back.

`Are you crazy?' Welensky roared. 'We are just off the coast of Denmark — not out in the middle of the bloody Pacific.'

`Has the retractable staircase been dropped?' Kim asked, his voice now calm. 'It must be in place for General Chang to come aboard. I will receive him. Kindly leave the bridge.'

`I am the skipper of this vessel,' Welensky said quietly. `So long as I am, I remain on the bridge.'

`If you insist.'

Kim decided it was pointless having a confrontation with Welensky at this critical moment. Kim was quite capable of taking control of the ship. They would cut Welensky's throat, weight him, and throw him overboard on the return journey to Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam.

Peering out of the narrow window almost flush with the curved deck, Kim saw a large man mounting the staircase over the hull. He opened a door and bowed low as Dr Wand came on to the bridge.

`Welcome aboard my most humble ship, General.'

Seated at the rear of the dinghy alongside Marler, who had one hand on the tiller, Paula gripped the underside of the plank tightly. The nightmare was starting all over again.

She recalled her lonely vigil at Lymington marina. Dense drifting fog. The terrifying incident aboard the
Holsten
. Again, dense swirling fog on the Elbe. As the dinghy moved straight out to sea the same atmosphere overwhelmed her — more fog, drifting slowly, assuming horrific shapes. She peered into it, convinced that something was close — and not one of Norlin's dinghies.

The fog cleared away briefly. She heard the chug-chug of a ship's engine on the starboard bow, stiffened. Marler whipped up his rifle. Tweed was the first to see clearly the launch, slowing down: the tall figure wearing a roll- necked white sweater. Dave Lane. He shouted at Marler.

`Lower that blasted rifle. These are friends.'

`Care to come aboard?' Lane enquired. 'Told you I would be coming south from the harbour to join the party.'

`Yes, we would indeed,' Tweed said with feeling. 'Get us out of this damned toy boat ...'

He was the first on the launch's deck and helped Paula to come aboard. The others followed and then helped Lane and two of his crew to haul the dinghy aboard. Tweed became very active.

`We have to replace that light of yours with our green light. Immediately! It identifies us to a swarm of Danish marksmen floating around in dinghies.' While Lane removed the green bulb and substituted it for his own light, Tweed forced the beeper device off the side of the dinghy, wetted the suckers in the sea, attached it to the hull of the launch.

`A powerboat is roaring around somewhere in the fog,' reported Lane. 'One of your Danish friends' boats?'

`No. Certainly not as far as I'm aware.'

Tweed found the news disturbing. The launch was under way again as he asked his question.

`Did you hear a light aircraft flying down the coast?' `Yes, I did. I assumed it was checking out the lie of the land. Again, belonging to the Danish lot.'

`Norlin — the head of the strike force — decided not to fly in choppers until later so as not to alert the opposition.

I'm sure he wouldn't risk a light aircraft. It flew about fifty feet above the colony of bungalows — where we expect the Stealth ships to land more saboteurs.'

`So, a mystery powerboat, preceded by mystery plane. A weird business,' Lane reflected. 'And I think one of your people has seen something ...'

Tweed swung round. Paula had positioned herself at the prow of the launch. She was alternately pointing to something in the fog, looking over her shoulder to beckon to Tweed. He ran forward with Marler at his heels.

`There's something large and very close.' She saw the sceptical expression on the face of Lane who had joined them. 'Don't look at me like that! Use your bloody eyes ...'

The fog drifted away. A huge grey shape like that of a half-submerged giant whale appeared. Standing on the curved hull Dr Wand stared down at them. He snatched an automatic weapon from a man close to him, aimed it point-blank at Tweed.

Everything happened like a film running fast. The sound of a powerboat roaring in on the port side, stopping suddenly. A second before Wand sprayed them with a hail of bullets, Tweed fired his Walther, gripped in both hands, twice. Wand's right arm fell limp, the weapon tumbled to the deck. The shots flew harmlessly into the air. There were two more shots fired from the direction where the powerboat had stopped. Wand was hurled backwards against the low-profile bridge.

`That was a .45 gun,' said Newman, now behind them.

The powerboat's engine started up. As Tweed glanced to his left it disappeared into the fog, only its wake visible as it headed towards the shore. Lane grasped Tweed's arm.

`Look! To starboard. The
Minotaur
...'

The frigate was less than a quarter of a mile away where the fog had temporarily cleared. It was racing forward as they heard Wilson's order to the Stealth ship magnified over a powerful tannoy.