Seawitch (9 page)

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."

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"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."

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"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.

Cronkite lifted the loud-hailer and ordered the search party aboard. They came immediately, fourteen of them, all of them wearing stocking masks, all of them carrying machine pistols. Captain Thompson stared at them in stupefaction, then turned and stared some more at Cronkite and Mulhooney, both of whom had pistols leveled at him. Cronkite may have been looking satisfied or even triumphant, but such was the abundance of his ersatz facial foliage that it was impossible to tell.

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Captain Thompson, in a stupefaction that was slowly turning into a slow burn, said: "What the hell goes?"

"You can see what goes. Hijack. A very popular pastime nowadays. I agree that nobody's ever hijacked a tanker before, but there always has to be a first time. Besides, it's not really something new. Piracy on the high seas. They've been at it for thousands of years. Don't try anything rash, Captain, and please don't try to be a hero. If you all behave, no harm will come to you. Anyway, what could you possibly do with fourteen submachine guns lined up against you?"

Within five minutes all the crew, officers and men, including the recovered radio operator but with one other exception, were herded into the crew's mess under armed guard. Nobody had even as much as contemplated offering resistance. The exception was an unhappy-looking duty engineer in the engine room. There are few people who don't look slightly unhappy when staring at the muzzle of a Schmeisser from a distance of five feet.

Cronkite was on the bridge giving Mulhooney his final instructions.

"Keep on sending the Seawitch its half-hour on-time, on-course reports. Then report a minor breakdown in two or three hours—a fractured fuel line or something of the sort—enough that would keep the Torbello immobilized for a few

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hours. You're due in Galveston tonight and I need time and room to maneuver. Rather, you need time and room to maneuver. When it gets dark keep every navigational light extinguished —in fact, every light extinguished. Let's don't underestimate Lord Worth." Cronkite was speaking with an unaccustomed degree of bitterness, doubtless recalling the day Lord Worth had taken him to the cleaners in court. "He's a very powerful man, and it's quite in the cards that he can have an air-and-sea search mounted for his missing tanker."

Cronkite rejoined the Georgia, cast off and pulled away. Mulhooney, too, got under way, but altered course ninety degrees to port so that he was heading southwest instead of northwest. On the first half hour he sent the reassuring report to the Seawitch—"on course, on time."

Cronkite waited for the Starlight to join him, then both vessels proceeded together in a generally southeasterly direction until they were about thirty-five nautical miles from the Seawitch, safely over the horizon and out of reach of the Seawitch's radar and sonar. They stopped their engines and settled down to wait.

The big Boeing had almost halved the distance between Florida and Washington. Lord Worth, in his luxurious stateroom immediately abaft the flight deck, was making up for time lost during

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the previous night and, blissfully unaware of the slings and arrows that were coming at him from all sides, was soundly asleep.

Mitchell had been unusually but perhaps not unexpectedly late in waking that morning. He showered, shaved and dressed while the coffee percolated, all the time conscious of a peculiar and unaccustomed sense of unease. He paced up and down the kitchen, drinking his coffee, then abruptly decided to put his unease at rest. He lifted the phone and dialed Lord Worth's mansion. The other end rang, rang again and kept on ringing. Mitchell replaced the receiver, then tried again with the same result. He finished his coffee, went across to Roomer's house and let himself in with his passkey. He went into the bedroom to find Roomer still asleep. He woke him up. Roomer regarded him with disfavor.

"What do you mean by waking up a man in the middle of the night?"

"It's not the middle of the night." He pulled open the drapes and the bright summer sunlight flooded the room. "It's broad daylight, as you will be able to see when you open your eyes." '

"Your house on fire or something, then?"

"I wish it were something as trivial as that. Fm worried, John. I woke up feeling bugged by something, and the feeling got worse and worse. Five minutes ago I called up Lord Worth's house. I tried twice. There was no reply. Must

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have been at least eight or ten people in that house, but there was no reply."

"What do you think—"

"You're supposed to be the man with the intuition. Get ready. Til go make some coffee."

Long before the coffee was ready, in fact less than ninety seconds later, Roomer was in the kitchen. He had of course neither showered nor shaved but had had time to run a comb through his hair. He was looking the same way the expressionless Mitchell was feeling.

"Never mind the coffee." Roomer bore an almost savage expression on his face, but Mitchell knew that it wasn't directed at him. "Let's get up to the house/'

They took Roomer's car; it was nearer.

Mitchell said: "God, we're really bright! Hit us over the head often enough and maybe—just maybe—we'll begin to see the obvious." He held on to his seat as Roomer, tires screeching, rounded a blind corner. "Easy, boy, easy. Too late to lock the stable now."

With what was a clearly conscious effort of will, Roomer slowed down. He said: "Yeah, we're real clever. Lord Worth used a threat of the girls' abduction as an excuse for his actions. And you told him to offer the threat of the abduction as an excuse for our being there last night. And it never occurred to either of our staggering intellects that their kidnaping would be both logical and inevitable. Worth wasn't

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exaggerating—he has enemies, and vicious enemies who are out to get him. Two trump cards— and what trumps! He's powerless now. He'll give away half his money to get them back. Just half. He'll use the other half to hunt those people down. Money can buy any co-operation in the world, and the old boy has all the money in the world."

Mitchell now seemed relaxed, comfortable, even calm. He said: "But we'll get to them first, won't we, John?"

Roomer stirred uncomfortably in his seat as they swung into the mansion's driveway. He said: 'Tm just as sore as you are. But I don't like it when you start talking that way. You know that."

"I'm expressing an intention—or at least a hope." He smiled. "We'll see."

Roomer stopped his car in a fashion that did little good to Lord Worth's immaculately raked gravel. The first thing that caught Mitchell's eye as he left the car was an odd movement by the side of the driveway hi a clump of bushes. He took out his gun and went to investigate, then put his gun away, opened his clasp knife and sliced through MacPherson's bonds. The head gardener, after forty years in Florida, had never lost a trace of a very pronounced Scottish accent, an accent that tended to thicken according to the degree of mental stress he was undergoing.-On this occasion, with the adhesive removed, his

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language was wholly indecipherable—which, in view of what he was almost certainly trying to say, was probably just as well.

They went through the front doorway. Jen-kins, apparently taking his ease in a comfortable armchair, greeted them with a baleful glare. The glare was in no way intended for them; Jenkins was just in a baleful mood, a mood scarcely bettered by Mitchell's swift and painful yanking away of the adhesive from his lips. Jenkins took a deep breath, preparatory to. lodging some form of protest, but Mitchell cut in before he could speak.

"Where does Jim sleep?" Jim was the radio operator.

Jenkins stared at him in astonishment. Was this the way to greet a man who had been through a living hell—snatched, one might almost say, from the jaws of death? Where was the sympathy, the condolence, the anxious questioning? Mitchell put his hands on his shoulders and shook him violently.

"Are you deaf? Jim's room?"

Jenkins looked at the grim face less than a foot from his own and decided against remonstrating. "In back, first floor, first right."

Mitchell left. So, after a second or two, did Roomer. Jenkins called after him in a plaintive voice: "You aren't leaving me too, Mr. Roomer?"

Roomer turned and said patiently: 'Tm going to the kitchen to get a nice sharp carver. Mr.

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Mitchell has taken the only knife we have between us."

Jim Robertson was young, fresh-faced and just out of college, a graduate in electrical engineering in no hurry to proceed with his profession. He sat on the bed massaging his now unbound wrists, wincing slightly as the circulation began to return. As tiers of knots, Durand's henchmen had been nothing if not enthusiastic.

Mitchell said: "How do you feel?'*

"Mad."

"I don't blame you. Are you okay to operate your set?"

"I'm okay for anything if it means getting hold of those bastards."

"That's the general idea. Did you get a good look at the kidnapers?"

"I can give you a general description." He broke off and stared at Mitchell. "Kidnapers?"

"Looks as though Lord Worth's daughters have been abducted."

"Holy Christ!" The assimilation of this news took some little time. "There'll be all hell to pay for this."

"It should cause a considerable flap. Do you know where Marina's room is?"

'Til show you."

Her room showed all signs of a hasty and unpremeditated departure. Cupboard doors were open, drawers the same, and some spilled clothing lay on the floor, Mitchell was interested in

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none of this. He quickly riffled through drawers in the room until he found what he had hoped to find—her States passport. He opened it and it was valid. He made a mental note that she had lied about her age—she was two years older than she claimed to be—returned the passport and hurried down to the radio room with Robertson, who unlocked the door to let them in. Robertson looked questioningly at Mitchell.

"The county police chief. His name is McGar-rity. I don't want anyone else. Tell him you're speaking for Lord Worth, That should work wonders. Then let me take over."

Roomer entered while Robertson was trying to make contact. "Seven more of the staff, all suitably immobilized. Makes nine in all. I've left Jenkins to cut them loose. His hands are shaking so bad he'll probably slice an artery or two, but for me freeing elderly cooks and young housemaids is above and beyond the call of duty."

"They must have been carrying a mile of rope," Mitchell said absently. He was figuring out how much not to tell the police chief.

Roomer nodded to the operator. "Who's he trying to contact?"

"McGarrity."

"That hypocritical old brown-noser!"

"Most people would regard that as a charitable description. But he has his uses."

Robertson looked up. "On the line, Mr. Mitchell. That phone." He made discreetly to re-

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place his own, but Roomer took it from him and listened in.

"Chief McGarrity?"

"Speaking."

"Please listen very carefully. This is extremely important and urgent, and the biggest thing that's ever come your way. Are you alone?"