White Gold (21 page)

Near Denchworth, Oxfordshire, England

Dan woke, sweat beading on his brow. His heart was racing. He ran his hand over his eyes.
How much longer
?

He realised the lamp next to the bed was switched on, and frowned.

‘Are you okay?’

He jumped at the sound of Sarah’s voice. ‘What?’

She stood at the end of his bed, concern in her eyes. ‘Same dream?’

He nodded. ‘Sorry if I woke you.’

She shrugged, her arms folded across her chest. He noticed she was shivering. The t-shirt she was wearing was no match for the cold winter night.

‘Here, get in before you get cold again,’ he said, pulling the blankets back.

She rolled her eyes and smiled. ‘I’ve heard some excuses…’

Dan shuffled over and Sarah curled up next to him. He pulled the blankets up around them and propped himself up on an elbow. Sarah gazed up at him. His blue eyes pierced through the gloom. Dan lowered his face to hers, and she tilted her head up.

Sarah hesitated, unsure. ‘Dan – I don’t know if I can do this.’ She put her hand on Dan’s chest, closing her eyes.

He rested his chin on her forehead, breathed in her perfume, then leaned back and took her face in his hands. ‘It’s okay.’

He leaned down and kissed her on her neck, his lips caressing her collarbone.

She groaned and leaned back. ‘Dan…’

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her towards him. She kissed him frantically, desperately searching out every part of him.

‘God, Sarah, you feel wonderful,’ Dan slid a hand down her body, caressing, touching.

Sarah dug her fingernails into his shoulder blades, relishing his touch. She pulled at his hair, desperate to get closer to his skin.

Then her mobile phone rang.

They both jumped. Sarah bit her lip. She sat up, torn between staying and finding out the identity of the caller. She pulled away.

‘Bloody mobile phones,’ said Dan under his breath, and let her go.

He could hear her padding about in the guest room as she switched on a light and tried to find her mobile phone before it stopped ringing. He groaned and let his head hit the pillow. Talk about bad timing. He heard Sarah answer the phone, then the murmurs of a short conversation before he heard her coming back to the room.

‘That was Philippa,’ she said, as she stood in the doorway and balanced on one leg, pulling on a pair of jeans. ‘David wants us back in the office. Now. She says they’ve found a trace of where the hijacked freighter’s been.’

Dan pushed open the door to the conference room and strode across to where Philippa sat staring at her computer screen. ‘Where?’

‘The Kara Sea, north of Russia. Turned up in an historical report on one of those satellite databases I told you about.’ Philippa handed him the report and glanced pointedly at Sarah, who blushed and sat down.

‘And,’ Philippa continued, ‘we just got a report in from the Japanese Coast Guard. They found the freighter crew. Well, what’s left of them anyway.’

‘Whereabouts?’ asked Sarah, leaning forward on the desk.

‘Orono-Shima – a small island off the coast of Japan,’ said David. ‘The bodies washed up two days ago – not much to go on after the fish had a go at them but our people in Singapore identified the second in command through his dental records – it seems logical to assume the remaining bodies are the other crew members.’

Dan glanced at the fax over David’s shoulder. ‘What about the captain?’

Philippa shook her head. ‘No sign of him – we’re assuming they’ve held on to him.’

‘He’s still useful to them,’ added Sarah, regaining some of her composure.

Philippa nodded. ‘Exactly my thoughts.’

David stalked across the room and threw the door open. He stopped and turned. ‘Pip, get us into a bigger ops room within twenty minutes – one with an electronic tracking map. Get two analysts to help us. We’re running out of time.’

David rapped the surface of the table, bringing the varied conversations around it to a halt. ‘Okay people. Let’s have your full attention.’

Five faces turned his way.

‘Let’s get down to business. It’s now confirmed Delaney has taken over a cargo freighter.’ He picked up a remote and hit a button. One side of the conference wall was bathed in white light. David pressed another button and a map appeared. He dimmed the lights, and then turned to Dan. ‘I’ll let you run with this.’

Dan nodded, stood up and turned to face the room. He hit the remote and fired up the live satellite feed. The screen on the wall flickered, and then a series of dots and lines appeared across the top section of the map. ‘Okay, everyone listen up,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we can spot our freighter.’

He typed a series of keys on the keyboard in front of him and the satellite picture changed. It swooped down to the surface of the Earth and showed the northern coast of Russia.

‘We know the ship left Singapore in December and has been travelling north. Thanks to Philippa’s intelligence report, we now know the ship passed Busan in January. We then have a reported sighting from Severnya Zemlya on the north coast of Russia. The freighter seems to have travelled through the Arctic Ocean.’

Sarah stopped writing in her notebook. ‘How on earth did a freighter go through the Arctic Ocean at this time of year?’

‘The sea ice doesn’t freeze like it used to,’ explained Philippa. ‘It hasn’t been as thick over the winter months during the past couple of years. Delaney’s still taking one hell of a chance though.’

‘So from there, he could be headed anywhere,’ said David. ‘At what point do we tell our American friends they might be the recipients of a potential atomic weapon?’

Dan shook his head. ‘I don’t think Delaney has sent it there,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t got any business interests there and he wouldn’t want to jeopardise a potential future market.’ He turned to the screen as the satellite’s camera began to zoom out. ‘I have a feeling it’s coming here,’ he murmured.

He faced the team. ‘The transponder signal stopped two weeks ago. We don’t know whether that’s because it’s been found, or if the captain’s using a battery-powered version which may have gone flat. So, ladies and gentlemen, the only way to do this is the hard way.’

The group gathered around the conference table fell silent as they watched the progress of the satellite images on the screen. It moved along the coastline and then slowed as it approached the surface of the planet, and then Dan hit a key to tell the computer to stop the zoom. He punched in a series of commands and a list of data appeared on the left-hand side of the screen. It provided coordinates, date and time information and temperature data.

‘Right,’ said Dan. ‘This is the first in a series of historical images, gathered daily for the past three months. We know it would have taken the freighter at least four weeks to get to Severnya Zemlya from Busan, so we can discount those dates.’ He typed in a search string of data and hit the ‘enter’ key.

‘Starting from the middle of January,’ he continued, ‘we’ll work our way along the coast until we see the ship. We’ll then plot its course. David – can you hand everyone one of those library images of the freighter so they can see what we’re looking for?’

David reached across the table to a manila file, flipped it open and distributed an eight-by-twelve inch photograph to each person.

Dan looked at the familiar image in his hands. He felt like he knew every corner of the ship already. He wondered where in the cargo hold the black sedan was parked. He turned his back to the screen and addressed the familiar faces in the room.

‘This isn’t going to be easy, I know. However, we believe that even with the unusually warm winter sea temperatures we’ve been seeing recently the freighter will still need an ice-breaker as an escort through these waters. There’s no way Delaney’s going to risk losing this freighter just to cut corners. So keep your eyes open for anything which looks remotely like our ship – just call out and we’ll zoom in to get a better look and see if it’s got an escort in front of it.’

‘Alright, let’s get on with this. Starting in January, we’ll concentrate on the shipping lane north of the Kara Sea – they have to go through there so we can’t miss them,’ he said and hit a key. Six faces stared intently at the screen as the satellite images slowly changed from date to date.

Barents Sea, Norway

Brogan checked his watch and looked out to the starboard side of the freighter. He shivered and instinctively pulled up his collar around his neck.

As far as he knew, no-one had found the transponder he’d fixed to the wheel arch of the black sedan. If they had, he knew he’d have joined the rest of the crew. Now they were safely out of the Arctic waters, he realised his time was limited. He felt angry, frustrated he couldn’t do anything more. And alone. Despite risking his life placing the transponder, it seemed no-one had heard his call for help.

When they had docked briefly at Severnya Zemlya to re-fuel and leave their escort behind, Brogan had been shocked to see the man with the glasses being led on board. He had grinned when he saw Brogan’s expression.

‘How’s my car?’ he had asked, before stepping into the cargo hold with the leader the other men called Terry.

Brogan had feared the worst then – surely they would check the car and find the transponder. But the man with the glasses and Terry had seemed pre-occupied with something
inside
the car instead and had appeared an hour later looking satisfied.

The ship had left the port half an hour later, the man with the glasses taking over one of the old crew member’s cabins for the remainder of the journey.

Brogan risked a glance at the hijackers’ leader, who was bending over the chart table, intent on making sure every step of the journey went to plan.

He jumped involuntarily as the man spoke.

‘How long until we reach the target?’

Brogan looked at his watch again and did the calculation in his head. ‘We’ll be there late afternoon on Saturday if we maintain this speed. We’ll have to slow her down approaching the coastline, then it’ll take about an hour to get to the dock.’

Terry grunted, satisfied. ‘Good. Right on schedule.’

‘Are we going through the lock?’

Terry nodded. ‘And it goes without saying you don’t say anything to the pilot when he gets on board.’ He smiled maliciously. ‘Just remember your daughter.’

Brogan shivered and turned away.

London, England

Dan walked around the conference table and looked at the handwritten plans the team had been drafting up. Philippa had located where the ship had been. Now all the team had to do was try to find it, predict where it was going, and when it would arrive at its destination.

‘Given the current speed it’s been keeping since leaving the Russian ice-breaker behind, the freighter should arrive in the North Sea very soon.’ Dan paused.

He held up his hand to silence the sudden murmurs. ‘Let’s keep this focused – I don’t want to miss a single suggestion.’ He paced around the table, five heads turning to follow his progress. ‘What’s his target?’

Dan stopped and looked at each person individually. ‘Think about it. What’s Delaney’s objective? What’s he trying to prove?’

He continued to pace, thinking out aloud.

‘We know he’s organised a like-minded group of people to finance all sorts of research to counter scientific studies into global warming. We know he’d do anything to protect his organisation, and anything to stop anyone investigating their current project. And we know it’s going to culminate in some sort of demonstration of power which could have catastrophic consequences.’

He reached his own chair, sat down and placed his hands on the desk before looking at each of the attendees in turn. ‘So – what’s the target, and how is he going to get to it from the ship?’

One of the analysts raised his voice. ‘We’ve got the Olympics coming up at the end of July. That would get everyone’s attention, if he attacked that.’

Dan turned to David. ‘What do you think?’

The other man shrugged. ‘There are a lot of security measures in place given the high potential threat status of the event. But Delaney doesn’t fit the profile of the sorts of organised terrorism we’ve been watching, so an attack like that would definitely make us sit up and take notice.’

Dan frowned. ‘He’s going to have to hide the ship somewhere for the next four months. I can’t see him risking bringing it all the way here now.’ He turned to the analysts in the room. ‘Get onto your colleagues bordering the North Sea. Find out if they’ve got anything they can give us.’

He watched as the agents hurriedly began filing out of the conference room back to their desks. He waited until they’d gone, walked over to the door and closed it, and then looked at the others. ‘You realise we’re grasping at straws?’

David nodded. ‘Part and parcel of the job, Dan. Get used to it.’

Forty minutes later, they all jumped as an analyst burst through the door, waving a fax at them. ‘Found it!’

He handed the document to David. The others watched anxiously while he read the fine print. And then began to smile. ‘Our friends in Norway have located the
World’s End
in real time,’ he grinned.

‘How did they manage that so fast?’ asked Sarah.

The analyst spoke. ‘We gave them the coordinates of the last historical data Philippa obtained. They’ve got a satellite system which can track automatic identification system transponders – the same the captain must’ve placed on the ship.’

Philippa nodded. ‘That makes sense – Norway has the largest sea area to manage in Europe.’ She looked at the fax David passed to her. ‘Even with the transponder going flat, it looks like they’ve perfected the software so it can trace the signature of the ship,’ she explained. ‘With the system they’ve got, they can give us the position, course and speed of the freighter.’ She smiled. ‘We’re back in business.’

‘The captain must’ve been the one who activated the tracking device,’ said Dan. ‘He’s obviously worked out for himself that Delaney’s up to no good and someone, somewhere will be looking out for that ship.’

‘Not to mention the fact he knows what happened to the crew will probably happen to him once the ship reaches its destination,’ said Sarah.

The room fell silent.

David stood up. ‘Well, he’s taken one hell of a risk, so let’s not waste the information.’ He turned to Philippa. ‘If we continue to plot where we know that ship’s been, and what its current position is, we might be able to clarify where it’s going and give ourselves some more time.’

Dan stood up and pulled one of the maps of the North Sea towards him. ‘Okay – let’s plot those coordinates on here and see if we can work out where it’s heading.’

He and Philippa moved quickly, Dan tapping in the information as Philippa read it out. When they were done, he hit the ‘enter’ key and everyone looked at the screen on the wall.

Sarah gasped.

After hours of searching, they’d found the
World’s End
. It was a lot closer than any of them had thought possible. After losing its ice-breaker escort at Severnya Zemlya, it had maintained a frantic pace through the northern Norwegian waters and was now heading straight towards England.

David looked at the others in turn. ‘Based on what we know to date, we
have
to assume that ship is headed for the Thames Estuary.’