Year of the Golden Ape (21 page)

^{'So?' LeCat climbed very deliberately up on to the platform and beside Brady his assistant Wilkins was sweating. Not that it showed particularly; in the engine-room everyone sweats. LeCat himself was sweating enjoyably with the heat - it reminded him of summer in Algeria. He touched the chief's stomach with the tip of his Skorpion. 'One twitch of my finger and you are meat for the sharks...'}

^{Brady stood quite still, looking down at the pistol. 'One twitch of your finger and you'll never reach the mainland. I keep this ship moving - not even the captain can do that.'}

^{LeCat smiled unpleasantly, withdrew his weapon. 'You are right, of course,' he agreed. 'But when we do reach California we shall no longer need you, shall we?' Leaving Brady with this unsettling thought, he began counting the crew.}

^{They were scattered round the engine-room and LeCat had to thread his way among the machinery to find them. He didn't mind; he was convinced that his threat to shoot any man who moved would keep the British motionless. He counted three men and then found Foley round a corner, bent over a machine-guard, wearing vest and trousers, his bald head gleaming with sweat as he stood with his back to the Frenchman. 'Four...'}

^{LeCat moved on with the guard, went round another corner, and Foley moved. Hauling off his vest so he was naked to the waist, he grabbed a soiled cap from behind the machine, jammed it on his head, then he crawled on his hands and knees along the gratings until he was under the control panel. On the platform Brady, who was watching the catwalk guard above, made a signal. Foley stood up, walked five paces to stand beside Lanky Miller. Pulling a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles out of his pocket, he put them on.}

^{Thirty seconds later LeCat came round a corner and stopped to look at the two men carefully. 'Six... seven.' The full complement of engine-room staff. Lighting a cigarette, LeCat continued studying the two seamen. Lanky Miller was the tallest member of the crew, six foot two inches tall. Beside him Foley's height seemed to have shrunk. LeCat stared at him, frowning.}

^{Up on the control platform Brady's hand moved so swiftly no one saw the slight movement. Above the pounding of the machinery hammering at LeCat's ear-drums the Frenchman heard a sudden, hissing shriek. Steam billowed into the engine-room. 'Emergency!' Brady roared. 'Boiler overheating!' There was a clatter of feet across the gratings as the crew dispersed all over the engine-room. Miller and Foley rushed past LeCat and disappeared. The Frenchman looked round irritably, shrugged, went to the ladder and climbed up out of the hideous bedlam.}

^{The chief, a resourceful and determined man, noticing that LeCat had left the engine-room, that the guard above was still on the catwalk, increased the volume of steam until soon the entire engine-room was filled with a gaseous white mist which blotted out everything. He sent Wilkins to the storage compartment where Monk, who had missed the count, was hiding.}

^{Looking down from the catwalk above the guard could see nothing and it worried him. Anything could be happening below inside that seething white cauldron. Were they on the edge of disaster? Was the ship about to blow up? Should he warn Winter immediately? Then he heard a horrible scream just underneath him, a scream so penetrating it travelled up to him above the hammering of the machinery and the hissing of the escaping steam.}

^{He went down the ladder quickly, found himself at the bottom, enveloped in steam, but he was also resourceful. A seaman loomed up out of the mist and the guard grabbed him, forced the man to walk ahead of him with the Skorpion pistol pressed into his back. If anyone attempted to attack him as they moved through the steam clouds the seaman would be shot. He guided the man to the control platform and yelled up at Brady. 'What is this that happens?'}

^{'Just getting it under control,' Brady roared. 'Boiler got badly overheated... Nothing to worry about.'}

^{And it seemed that Brady knew what he was doing. The steam was beginning to thin out, the sinister hissing sound had stopped. The guard made his way back to the ladder and climbed up to the catwalk he had left unguarded.}

^{On the platform Brady wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he watched the guard leaving with grim satisfaction. The trial run had worked: they could fool the terrorists when the next man-count came. They had to fool them, in fact. Because next time there would only be six men in the engine-room. While the ladder was smothered in steam Monk had gone up it and was now hiding in a storage cupboard well clear of the engine-room.}

^{On the mainland some people took a swim each day even in January. Les Cord, a student at Stamford University near San Francisco, parked his car and went down on to Ocean Beach. The Pacific was grey, the heavy overcast hanging close above it was grey, and the combers coming in were large. It was the morning of Monday January 20.}

^{Cord was sitting on the beach, taking off his shoes, when he first noticed it, a disturbing sensation as though some massive force were approaching. Slipping his shoes back on again, he stood up and stared at the sky. It had a stormy look, but he had seen stormy skies before. A few yards away the giant combers coming in hit the beach. He looked out to sea.}

^{There was a storm swell now. Far out to where the grey horizon
almost lost itself in the ocean he saw an enormous swell building up, great windrows of endless width sweeping towards him. They had come in over vast distances, these windrows, and now he became more aware of the power of these combers crashing down on the beach. He felt their vibration through the soles of his shoes and the whole beach almost shuddered under the impact. Vaguely, he realised that this was what had first disturbed him, the massive thump of these great waves as they hammered down on the beach.}

^{He changed his mind, still unsure of what precisely was so disturbing, went back to his car and drove away to the city. He had broken his record of a swim a day, but it didn't worry him -he was just glad to get away from that beach, from that unnerving sensation.}

^{Les Cord didn't realise it, but what had shaken him was the rhythm of the incoming combers - they were advancing onshore at the rate of four waves to the minute instead of the normal seven. Nor did he know that at that moment seismographs as far away as Alaska were registering the massive shock of these waves, recording them as they would have recorded earth tremors. Typhoon Tara was coming, reaching out her fingers to tap a warning on the beaches of mainland America.}

^{At about the same time as Les Cord decided not to take his daily swim from Ocean Beach, a few miles away on the other side of the peninsula Sullivan was putting in a call to the chairman of Harper Tankships.}

^{Sullivan had arrived in San Francisco from Seattle late on Sunday afternoon, had waited one hour at the International airport for a yellow cab - owing to the gas shortage - and had been driven to the St Francis Hotel on Union Square. As the phone rang he was looking down from his bedroom window on the roof of a cable car heading up towards California Street.}

^{'Sullivan speaking. I'm at the St Francis in San Francisco . ..' He gave Harper the phone number. 'When does the
Challenger
get here?'}

^{'Estimated time of arrival at the moment is eight o'clock tomorrow morning - your time. Frankly, I wouldn't bet on it.'}

^{'Something's happened?'}

^{'I don't know, Sullivan . . .' Harper sounded perplexed. 'It probably doesn't mean anything, but Ephraim seems to have gone off his head...'}

^{'What does that mean ?'}

^{'We have the usual bulletin from Kinnaird on the ship's position, etc. - plus the weather report. According to Kinnaird Typhoon Tara has got them -just a minute, you probably don't know but there's a typhoon coming in from the north Pacific ...'}

^{'I do know - I picked up a weather bulletin in Seattle. I don't get the point...'}

^{'You would, if you listened to me. According to Kinnaird the
Challenger
at this minute is riding out this typhoon - there's been some damage and a couple of men injured ...'}

^{'And according to Ephraim ?'}

^{'Ship is still proceeding at seventeen knots through a gentle swell. I just don't understand it. Kinnaird, by the way, reported speed reduced to eight knots.'}

^{'Have you wirelessed Mackay?'}

^{'I was just going to do so when your call came through ...'}

^{'Don't! Don't send any signal to the ship referring to Ephraim.'}

^{'Why on earth not?' Impatience was creeping into Harper's voice.}

^{'I'm not sure why not - but don't, at least not yet. It's just a feeling,' Sullivan replied. 'How long ago was your mechanical friend put on board?'}

^{'Six months ago.'}

^{'During those six months has there been any other instance of conflict between a wireless operator and Ephraim?'}

^{'None at all. These computerised systems do snarl up though.'}

^{'What time lapse would there be between Ephraim's report and Kinnaird's?'}

^{'Hardly any -I checked that point...'}

^{'So the two reports are damned near synchronised? Harper, have you a number where I could call the International Marine Centre people at The Hague?'}

^{'Wait a minute.' Harper read out a number. 'You could get someone there now - or later. They run a twenty-four hour service. Typical Dutch efficiency. You'd really rather I held off contacting Mackay ?'}

^{'Yes, I want to find out if there's a chance Ephraim has gone on the blink...'}

^{'He must have. There's no other explanation...'}

^{'Yes, there is. Ephraim hasn't got hiccups and the ship is still moving through nothing fiercer than a gentle swell. In which case Kinnaird is sitting in his tight little radio cabin drunk as a lord -but he thinks it's the ship that's drunk...'}

^{'Is that some kind of a joke ?' Harper asked waspishly.}

^{'It could be a very grim joke.'}

^{A Miss Van der Ploeg, very precise and crisp, knew all about the master computer and Ephraim. No, there was no possibility of Ephraim transmitting misleading data. He might send a nonsense report, but it would be a nonsense report - a jumbled mess.}

^{Yes. Mr Sullivan, she had made a check while she kept him waiting on the line. The system was functioning perfectly. If Ephraim said the ship was proceeding at seventeen knots through a gentle swell, then that was what the ship was doing. Sullivan got the impression that she was slightly incredulous that he might think a mere human wireless operator could be superior to Ephraim...}

^{Sullivan thanked Miss Van der Ploeg, put down the phone and lit a cigarette. It was the first time he had been on the West Coast and he had no contacts out here. He'd better phone Bill Berridge of the New York Port Authority to get some local names. Alone in a strange city, Sullivan was in his element now he had one tiny indication suggesting that something weird was happening aboard the
Challenger.
The trouble would be to convince other people.}

^{By three o'clock in the afternoon Sullivan had tried everything he could think of. Using the introduction from Bill Berridge of the New York Port Authority had got him in to see Chandler of the San Francisco Port Authority, and that was all it had got him. Chandler, a large, friendly man, had listened to his story and had then pointed out that he hadn't one solid piece of evidence that anything was wrong aboard the incoming British oil tanker.}

^{'Except that the wireless operator aboard reported they were caught up inside a typhoon while the monitor, Ephraim, said the ship was in a gentle swell...'}

^{'There is a typhoon and it's just changed course. These mechanical devices can go wrong, Mr Sullivan,' Chandler pointed out politely as he lit his pipe. 'Now, my bank has a computer...'}

^{'I told you, I checked with the Dutch people at The Hague,' Sullivan said obstinately.}

^{'Naturally they'd have faith in their own system...'}

^{After all, Holland was a long way from San Francisco. And Chandler wanted more to go on before he pressed any panic buttons. 'Give me a real emergency and I'll report it fast enough,' he explained. 'In a real emergency I could escalate.'}

^{'How high?'}

^{Chandler counted it off on his fingers. 'First, O'Hara, my boss. The next step would be the mayor. He might contact the FBI. The Coast Guard would come in early, of course. If it was very big we might contact the Governor - of California. That's Alex MacGowan. He's due back from vacation in Switzerland soon . ..'}

^{The next step Sullivan took was to call the FBI. Rather to his surprise two men called to see him at the St Francis within half an hour. Special Agent Foster - Sullivan didn't catch the other man's name - was very polite and listened without interruption. Then he used almost the same words Chandler had used. 'If you could provide us with any real evidence...'}