The Abigail Affair (22 page)

They kissed again in earnest. Toby put his arms around her waist and pulled her towards him. She smelt good, of brushed hair.

After a few seconds, Julia pushed him away. Toby saw that her eyes were moist. She wagged her forefinger in mock reproach. “OK, that’s all you’re getting. And it doesn’t mean I’m your girlfriend or anything. But I am mighty relieved to see you back in one piece. Now get the hell off the bridge and go polish something before Scott gets back. And do as I said. Just keep it nice and easy until we reach shore and we can both get to safety in a calm and dignified manner.”

“I’ll be careful,” Toby said. He opened the bridge door and looked inside. The yacht was steering itself on autopilot. The wheel turned almost imperceptibly now and then, as if under the control of an invisible helmsman. The radar screen swept around. The monitors showed Scott and Szczepanski still near the bow. Toby gave thanks for their distraction and scooted across the bridge and out. He retraced his steps back to the main stateroom. All was quiet there, too.

What next? Toby looked at the watch on his wrist. It was no longer his beloved G-Force but a rather anonymous Casio analogue, rather worn-looking at that, and with a scratched glass. However, it contained a voice recorder, a still and a video camera and a GPS locator beacon. Smithers had briefed him carefully. “They’ll never spot it unless you make it obvious by looking at it oddly or using it clumsily. Practise starting the recorder without raising your arm or drawing attention to the watch. If you’re sitting, you can just cross your arms and the device will shoot what you see as long as you keep your arms above any table. If you’re standing, you can fold your arms too. Practise putting your left arm on top, which isn’t natural for a right-handed person.”

“I thought this sort of thing was only in the movies,” Toby had said, awed by the power of the tiny device and its complete disguise.

“Well, now you know it’s for real,” Smithers had said with a smile. “Take some shots and recordings of any likely areas. Record any conversations between Spiegl and Krigov. They may talk in Russian and be indiscreet, knowing you don’t understand. But don’t endanger yourself. And before we take you back, I’ll also need you to sign a copy of the Official Secrets Act.”

“Does that mean I’m an agent for the British Government?”

“Of course.”

“So I’ll get paid?” Toby had said.

“Expenses maybe. Don’t count on a big payday.” But there was a twinkle in his eye.

Toby now had at least an hour of Krigov’s boasting voice on the recorder. He could record up to six hours of audio and two hours of video on the device’s mini SD card. Unfortunately, he had nothing concrete for his efforts, except possibly Krigov’s allegations about British involvement in his son’s death.

Disobeying Julia, he would have to venture deeper into the mega yacht to see what he could find.

Krigov had given him a “tea-break” and Scott thought he was still at his bar. How long would that give him for reconnoitring? Fifteen minutes?

And where to look? It seemed a hopeless task. The
Amelia
had a million hiding places. There were endless storerooms, lockers and cupboards, mostly well secured. There were watertight bulkhead doors with big wheels to close them—certain to have alarms. On the decks were numerous steel boxes and containers which stated they were filled with lifejackets, fire-fighting equipment and the like.

And those were only the obvious hiding places. If they really were using the vessel for smuggling or trafficking, you could be sure they’d have hidden the merchandise under false ceilings, in hollow walls, or in dummy tanks.

Toby began to regret his mission. It had seemed almost fun at the time to agree. No one had ever trusted him with such duties in his life. Now he wondered exactly what he had got himself into.

He glowed in the memory of the kiss. He really wanted Julia now. They had come through an ordeal together. They had both kept cool under pressure. They had lots in common. Once they were ashore and had made their escape from the
Amelia,
he would invite her to join him at a little beachside hotel, and ...

Voices made him look up sharply. It was Scott and Ski-Pants approaching from the outside walkway. Toby crossed to the bar and picked up a glass cloth. Scott came in from the side deck. “Everything OK, Robinson?”

“Yes, sir, the Boss said to take a break. He went to his quarters.”

“In that case report to Mr Szczepanski in thirty minutes for cleaning duty.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir,” Toby said. “I think I’ll take a nap.”

Scott was being very polite these days. Toby liked that. He also liked the thirty-minute window that Scott had just obligingly opened up for him.

He knew where he would start.

The boat bay.

Chapter 21

Toby reasoned that any illicit activity would take place at the waterline, with the
Amelia
anchored off a small bay, or even underway in calm water.

That meant that any contraband would enter the ship via the boat bay. Assuming the stuff was heavy, they wouldn’t want to take it far. So Toby decided to begin in the boat bay and work his way back, concentrating on the lowest levels.

There was a camera in the bay high up on the ceiling—one of those dome-type ones designed so you can’t tell which way it is aiming. However, Toby had ascertained during his short visit to the bridge that the camera was not selected on the main monitor bank. Toby reasoned that the bay was only monitored when in use. With no portholes or windows, it was completely dark inside unless you put the lights on, and so the camera showed nothing worth monitoring.

He vaguely wondered if putting on the lights might trigger the camera into action, but hoped that even the
Amelia
would be unlikely to have that level of sophistication.

So he made his way down into the bowels of the ship. It got hotter as he descended the steel service staircases. He passed through the generator room. One generator was in action, the same one as before, running smoothly and making little more noise than the engine on Toby’s father’s BMW. A green light glowed on its control panel and “110 volts” showed in the LED display. Timmins was not around. The little engineer really was the invisible man.

Toby pressed on and reached the next stairwell, the one in the form of a spiral staircase. He descended. It got hotter again as he went down. The single bulb in its wire enclosure still glowed.

Then he was at the entrance to the boat bay. He took a deep breath.
Here goes.

He opened the door and stepped in. As he had expected, with the sea doors closed, the place was in complete darkness. He found light switches inside the door and pressed them. Fluorescent tubes flickered to life.

The bay was as pristine as before. The boats lay on their cradles, with wide webbing straps holding them down. The jet skis sat on their racks as if in a showroom. Toby saw smaller sailing craft in various states of disassembly stacked up in a corner. Of course there was only one white RIB where before there had been two. The second was at the bottom of the ocean for sure—if anything was left of it.

A clinking noise made him jump. Was someone down here? He ducked down instinctively behind a metal container.

There it was again—a sharp chinking of metal on metal.

He looked up cautiously. The sound came from the far wall. After a bit, he worked out that it was only the diving cylinders moving in their racks as the
Amelia
rolled a little. He realised he had been holding his breath and exhaled.

How much time did he have before someone spotted him or came and searched him out? Not enough. And he was never going to find anything suspicious. This had been a stupid plan. He should have made an arrangement with Julia. He should have asked her to let him know when she was next going on watch. Then he would have had an hour, maybe several, to carry out an in-depth surveillance.

And yet ... Toby was sure that any illicit cargo would be near the water level and accessible from this boat bay. They would never crane it into the main hold in the bow. It was just a matter of working it out.

He crossed gingerly to the main bay door and stood with his back to it. The tender area was to his right, with its tracks and rollers and hydraulic pistons and the crane. To his left, the hanging rails of wet suits and clothing. Toby went over to them and checked the rubbery garments. Smooth metal behind. Nothing. He shoved the suits back into position.

He was definitely pushing his luck now. One last look. This was where they had forced him to change clothes before bundling him into the RIB with the corpse. There was the container of lifejackets where he had done that business with the uniform to get the cell phone into his pocket. Worth a look inside. He crossed to it and unlatched the lid. It creaked as he lifted it up.

Inside were—lifejackets. But wait—what was that? In the bottom of the container was a scrap of something reflective about the size of a key fob. Toby reached in, scooped it up and held it to the light.

It was actually a plastic nametag consisting of a metal crocodile-clip for the lapel, attached by a rivet to a clear plastic holder with a cardboard insert in it, bearing a barcode and the name Yulia Belova RN. Next to the barcode was a grey disc about the size and thickness of a penny. Small text underneath all this read, “Okeechobee Clinical Monitoring FL 34973.” Finally, there was a tiny icon of a pole with a snake twisted around it.

He was on to something. He put the nametag in his pocket. In haste, he reached into the container, grabbed the lifejackets by the armful, and flung them out. In a moment, the container was empty. He stuck his head back inside and saw that the container entirely covered and thereby disguised a small hatch, about the size of a manhole cover, in the floor. He could make out two recessed D-ring pulls. He reached in with both hands, got his fingers under the ring handles and lifted. The cover came off without protest.

Underneath was a small compartment containing a switch panel with a red and a green button and matching red and green indicator lamps. There was also a socket for a key, just like the ignition on a car.

He was on to something, and it was big! This switch had been deliberately hidden. The only problem, of course, was finding the key.

The last time he had needed a key, for the motor controlling the external window-cleaning cradle, it had been near to hand. Maybe the same this time? Toby ran his hand around the inside of the lifejacket container, hoping to brush against a key on a hook.

No luck this time.

He pushed the green button anyway. Nothing happened. He pushed the red button.

Something. In fact, a great deal. A motor whined to life. Toby looked around. The wall behind the hanging wet suits was sliding away. It made quite a noise. Toby hoped there were no microphones switched on.

He rushed over and elbowed aside the garments. The steel wall rumbled and a gap opened up little by little. He peered inside.

It was a large storeroom, dimly lit by emergency lights. Toby made out floor-to-ceiling racks. In the centre of the room stood a red forklift truck, strapped to the deck. It was electric—a charging lead led to a power outlet.

This was the mother lode. His heart pounded as he stepped inside. Dare he put the lights on? He would be dead meat if caught in here. He crossed to the nearest rack. It was stacked with wooden boxes. They were small, about the size of a box for a pair of Timberland boots. He reached up, got his hands around one on the top tier, and pulled.

Heavy. Really heavy. In fact, too heavy to lift down. Almost too heavy to shift at all.

What the heck is this?

He tried again, but the boxes seemed to contain lead or something equally weighty.

They had come loaded on small pallets and had been lifted into place on the racks with the forklift.

Perhaps he could open a box
in situ
.

He looked around for a suitable tool. He found a crowbar propped up against the end of the rack unit. He tried to wedge it under the lid of the most accessible box. The lid was firmly nailed down, with no gap to get the implement in. Quickly, he looked at the other boxes. Any different? Yes—here was one with a knot in the wood near the lid. He could knock it out to make a hole. Toby did this, then got his crowbar in the gap and wiggled and jiggled it until he had some purchase. Then he pulled down with all his strength. The nails yielded reluctantly and with squeals of protest. He saw that they were the sort which have concentric rings around them to make them harder to extract. Toby felt a little rivulet of sweat run down his chest.

This was madness.

He levered some more. The box was at chest height. He needed to climb up somehow, or he wouldn’t be able to see inside even if he got the lid off.

He moved his crowbar around the gap and worked on. Suddenly the nails lost their grip. In a moment, he had the lid free. Taking care not to spike himself with the protruding nails, he climbed up the racking.

He froze.

Was that a noise from the boat bay?

His heart pounded in his ears from the exertion. He tried to breathe silently with his mouth open. He listened.

Clink—clink.

Just the diving cylinders.

The light was not good enough to see whatever was in the shoebox. Toby cursed his haste. He could have picked up a flashlight.

He reached inside.

His hand touched metal, cool and smooth. There was a further metal box inside the wooden box. Or else it was a brick or bricks of some solid metal. Platinum? Gold? If the boxes all contained ingots of precious metal, he was looking at billions of dollars here. A floating Fort Knox with Krigov as Goldfinger. And the heavy cargo was all on one side of the vessel. No wonder the
Amelia
rolled so much more than she should at sea.