Medusa (36 page)

‘Glad we were able to contact you.' His voice was flat. It seemed tired, and he didn't smile as he crossed the cabin, pulled up a chair and sat down facing me. ‘I don't know how long we've got. Not long.' He sounded resigned, his face grey as though he hadn't slept for a long time. I thought he had aged since I had seen him that morning, the broad forehead puckered deeper, the lines at the corners of eyes and mouth more pronounced, and he just sat there staring at me dumbly.

‘Where is she?' I asked.

He gave a little shrug. But he didn't say anything. It was as though he didn't know how to begin.

‘They've contacted you, have they?'

He nodded.

‘So where is she? Where is she being held?'

‘Then you know.' He seemed relieved, the knowledge that he hadn't got to break the news to me releasing his tongue. ‘I sent across to Bloody Island for you as soon as it was dark, but you weren't there. Then we saw lights in your place at Cala Figuera, so I took a chance and sent
young Leslie Masterton in to see if you were there. I'm glad you were.' His eyes were fixed on me. ‘What happened? Do you know?'

I told him briefly of the scene that had greeted me, and then, unable to restrain myself, I burst out, ‘It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't pushed your way into our lives. It's your bloody fault. All your fault.' And seeing that image again in my mind's eye, I leaned forward and grabbed hold of him. ‘Who was it came for her? Who were they that grabbed her so brutally. Benjie – that little dog of ours – was shit scared. He's always so clean, and a brave little beast normally. Those bastards must have been rough with her.'

‘All right, all right.' He was holding up his hand, pleading with me. ‘You've told me how they took her, and you're right, it's because of me. I'm sorry. It's my fault.' And then, his voice suddenly stronger, ‘But it's happened. You have to accept that. We both do.' His tone took on a note of authority. ‘The question now is how we handle the situation. They started piling on the pressure for me to take the ship out shortly after two o'clock local time, an emissary from some sort of military commander. He came out in a speedboat from Cala Llonga. I wouldn't allow him on board, of course, and I told him my position was unchanged – I could only put to sea when I had orders to do so. The same thing I had told that man Fuxa. Until then I would remain here. He came out once more, threatening to open fire on me, and I warned him that if he did so I had the authority of the British Government to take what action I considered necessary to defend my ship. In short, I asked him to tell his general not to be a bloody fool and push me that hard.'

‘Soo,' I said. ‘What about Soo?' My voice was too high and I tried to get a grip on myself. ‘All you've talked about so far is your problem. I'm not interested. It's my wife I'm concerned about.'

‘Do you think I'm not concerned? What the hell do you
take me for?' He straightened his shoulders, his hands clasped tightly. ‘I'm sorry.' The anger was gone from his voice. ‘My problems are my own. I agree. But they do concern you.'

‘No, you,' I said. ‘Not me. My concern –'

He suddenly banged the coffee table between us. ‘Will you listen, for God's sake. I've told you. We haven't much time. And my position, as Captain of one of HM ships, is very relevant to what has happened to Soo. I have my orders, and the fact that she's a hostage –' He was interrupted by a knock and his eyes flicked to the doorway. ‘Come in, Leading Seaman Stanway.' He was always very punctilious about rank and I had to sit silent while he went through a whole sheaf of messages.

‘We may be an old ship,' he said, as he dismissed the young seaman, ‘but they've fitted us out with a pretty sophisticated communications set-up so I'm getting a steady stream of messages, news briefs, and of course we're picking up secret naval information and orders. Besides Victor Sykes, who is not only fluent in Spanish, but also speaks French, German and Italian, I have a man on loan from one of the oil companies who speaks a number of the Arab languages, also a PO who has recently completed a Russian language course.' He was still looking down at the messages in his hand. ‘That Russian cruiser was sighted visually just south of Spartivento at 16.03. She was steaming at thirty knots plus. The course and speed of the other ships I mentioned suggest that they will rendezvous with her fourteen miles east of La Mola shortly after midnight. So it's like I said, we haven't much time.'

‘Time for what?' I was losing patience with him. ‘It's Soo I'm worried about. I want to know where she is, whether she's all right, and I want her back – safe.'

He didn't say anything, his hands clasped tight on the wadge of papers, his shoulders stooping forward. God! he looked tired, as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders and it was too much for him. ‘There's a signal
here says a D-20 class destroyer, two frigates and some fast attack craft have just left Barcelona. They'll be joined by a couple of subs.' Even his voice sounded tired. ‘There's some French warships about to sail from Toulon. They're too far away, of course, and they're not members of Nato. The Italians are even further. The earliest any of those ships can be off the entrance here is 03.00. That'll be at least two hours too late.'

‘Why are you telling me this?' But I knew why. I had been right about his role, ‘You're going to stay here. Is that what you're saying?'

He shrugged, an almost Gallic gesture, the palms of his hands spread.

Silence then, both of us thinking our own thoughts. He got slowly to his feet and began pacing up and down. Could I still persuade him? ‘If you could pretend to leave. A gesture. Enough at least to get them to return her …'

He turned on me then, his voice rising on a note of anger as he said, ‘Don't be a fool, man. You're not dealing with amateurs.' And he added, ‘You don't know Pat. I do. He's cold-blooded, ruthless. That's his nature, and all his adult life he's lived in the cold-blooded, ruthless world of violence and terrorism.'

‘But he let you go,' I said. ‘That's what you told me, sitting right here at your desk. You said he dropped you overboard up-tide of the buoy, so you'd drift down on it. And you promised you wouldn't tell anyone who he was.'

He nodded, standing in the centre of the cabin, a silhouette against the light so that I couldn't see the expression on his face. ‘Yes.' His voice was toneless. ‘He gave me my life, and I made a promise.'

‘Why? The blood tie? The fact that you share the same father. Is that why he saved your life?'

‘No.' And after a moment he went on slowly, ‘No, I don't think it was that, more a matter of putting me in his debt. I've never been a part of Pat's world, so I can't be sure, but I have an idea that, besides the ruthlessness,
there's a primitive sense of loyalty. You do somebody a good turn, then you're in credit with him and some day you can make a claim on him.' He glanced at his watch. ‘I'll find out about that soon enough. Won't be long now.'

‘You're expecting him?'

‘Yes.'

‘So what are you going to do?'

He sat down opposite me again and I thought for a moment he had reached a decision. But all he said was, ‘Have you any idea of the average age of this ship's company?' He was interrupted again. More messages. He flicked through them, nodded briefly to Stanway, turning back to me and saying, ‘Well, have you? The average age.' He slapped his hand on the table. ‘You won't believe this, but it's not quite twenty-three and a half. That's the
average
age of everybody, officers, senior rates, the lot. They're kids, most of them, with mothers and fathers, girlfriends, quite a few of them married, and I'm responsible. Not just for them, for their lives, but to all those people I've never met.'

‘All right,' I said. ‘So what
are
you going to do?'

‘What can I do?' He got suddenly to his feet. ‘You don't seem to realise – this potty little island is the centre of the world. Just for the moment. For the next few hours.' He started to pace up and down. ‘There are warships converging on it, the whole apparatus of military confrontation beginning to be put in motion. The heads of half a dozen of the world's most powerful countries will be consulting their advisers, despatching envoys with cautionary notes, even talking to each other direct, and all because of a little jumped-up peasant farmer called Ismail Fuxa, a bunch of disaffected locals and a couple of hundred highly trained professional soldiers, commandos probably, and almost certainly from an Arab country. In these circumstances, speed and ruthlessness, a willingness to take chances – hit the other fellow before he knows what's happening. God! I've had plenty of instruction on this. If
you strike fast enough and hard enough you can change the face of the world. And you're asking me …'

The loudspeaker interrupted him. ‘There's a boat coming out from Cala Llonga, sir. The speedboat again, I think.'

He picked up the mike. ‘Very well. It should be a man named Evans. Have him met at the ladder and if it is bring him straight to my cabin.'

‘Very good, sir.'

He turned back to me. ‘You're worried about your wife, and so am I. But just try to get this clear in your mind – you, me, Soo, all the boys on this ship, we're just pawns in a game that is being played on a world board.' He turned away, staring out to the lights of the waterfront. ‘It will all depend now on whether I can persuade Pat.' He gave a little shrug. ‘Frankly I doubt it. This must surely be the biggest thing he's ever been involved in.' He looked at his watch. ‘Cape Spartivento is about two-forty miles from here – eight hours' steaming, something like that, and it's nearly nine already. Five hours gone. By midnight a whole fleet of ships could be gathering off the entrance here. An hour after that they could be steaming in past Villa Carlos, and if they were able to do that unopposed … Then it would be a case of possession being nine-tenths of the law. International law, that is, and Fuxá has appealed to Moscow for help. Belatedly Spain has called upon her EEC partners to assist in maintaining her sovereignty here.'

He was running over it again for his own benefit, not mine. ‘And on our side –' He was at the port hole. ‘
Mahon-naise!
That's what Richelieu's chef called his version of the local
allioli
. You know what that was for?' He was talking for the sake of talking. ‘For the banquet. The French were holding a banquet here at Mahon after their victory over Byng. We'd held the islands for almost fifty years, from 1708 till 1756.
Mahonnaise!
' he said again. ‘Poor Byng!' His voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘We were here for another nineteen years, from 1763, and then yet again
for four very important years during the Napoleonic Wars. That was when Nelson was supposed to have stayed up there at Golden Farm.'

He turned back to me, smiling sardonically. ‘You see, I've been well briefed on the naval background. Grand Harbour, Mahon, Gibraltar, a string of naval strongholds stretching across the Western Mediterranean. We've held them all, and I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't quite a number of people back home, people who are in a position to influence events, who still hanker after them. So you see –' He hesitated. ‘What I'm trying to make you understand, Mike, is that we're all just pawns – all of us who are here on the spot where it's happening. Pat included. I don't know what he gets out of it, but there's nothing you or I could offer him –' He swung round at the sound of the loudspeaker again. ‘Yes?'

‘It
is
Mr Evans, sir. I'll send him up, shall I?'

‘Is he on his own?' Gareth's voice sounded suddenly nervous.

‘There's three of them altogether, but he's the only one who's come aboard and he's asking to see you personally.'

‘Then have him sent up right away.'

‘Very good, sir.'

The loudspeaker clicked off, Gareth standing by his desk fiddling with a ruler. Was he scared of the man? The spate of words he had been pouring out to me was in itself a sign of nerves. ‘Better let me do the talking.' He was on edge and I wondered how much of a hold this half-brother of his had on him. The years at
Ganges,
then on that houseboat in the mud gut at Felixstowe Ferry. And Evans – he must be very sure of himself, to come on board this ship.

The knock came sooner than I had expected. Gareth sat himself down abruptly at his desk. ‘Come in.'

It was Davison. ‘Mr Evans, sir.'

‘Show him in. Then draw the curtain and wait outside.'

He seemed taller, the face more craggy, and the neck solid as a stone column. He wore no hat, his dark hair
rumpled, and his shirt and the camouflage jacket were open at the neck. He was smiling, but no warmth in it, just an indication that he was prepared to be reasonable – or was he nervous, too, was there a certain insecurity under that tough exterior?

‘Come in, Pat.' Gareth had risen to his feet. ‘Sit down.' He waved him to a chair. ‘Mike Steele you know.'

‘Yeah, we've met before.' He sat down, smiling at me, his voice low key. ‘How's the boat behaving?' But he didn't expect an answer for he turned to Gareth, the smile gone from his face. ‘Well, when do you leave?' And he added. ‘It better be soon. Very soon.'

Gareth sat down opposite him. ‘Didn't they tell you, about the engines?'

‘Don't give me that crap.'

‘We have condenser trouble.'

‘I said, don't give me that crap.' The voice had hardened. ‘The oldest gimmick there is – can't move because the engines don't work.' He laughed, his voice a sneering mockery. ‘Considering why you're here, it's hardly likely their fucking Lordships would have let you to sea with engines that were on the blink. So you get your fancy marine engineer on the blower and tell him to start up.'