Year of the Golden Ape (22 page)

^{It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the FBI men left the St Francis and Sullivan knew he still hadn't lit a fire under anyone. And the
Challenger
was due to arrive in sixteen hours' time.}

^{'Intelligence reports from Beirut indicate that the Gulf states are on the verge of drastically reducing oil output below the present fifty per cent cut. The reports, emanating from a source close to Sheikh Gamal Tafak, say this decision will be put into effect one
week from today...'}

^{The report was delivered to the British Inner Cabinet on Monday January 20. 'We need four more days,' the Minister of Defence commented. 'So long as they don't advance their decision we may
be just in time. I think there is a danger they will not only shut down the oil wells - they may dynamite them. The other report is highly worrying ...'}

^{The 'other report' was a message received from the British military attaché in Ankara. 'New attack on Israel appears imminent. Syrian tank forces have moved up overnight close to the Golan Heights. There is intense radio activity behind the Egyptian lines in Sinai...'}

^{In Israel at this time the population was depressed. In the streets of Tel Aviv and Haifa and Jerusalem men and women openly wondered how much longer they had left to live. And in the higher echelons of Israeli leadership there were bitter recriminations.
We should never have withdrawn from the December 1973 frontiers.}

^{Because now - yielding to pressure from the western nations -the Israeli army was well east of the Suez Canal. And the Egyptian army commanded by the fanatical General (self-promoted) Sherif was closer to Tel Aviv.}

^{As Tafak had said during a secret meeting with Gen. Sherif and the president of Syria in Damascus, 'Diplomacy squeezed the Israelis far enough back for the last strike to be launched. But first the stage must be set to guarantee that this time no reinforcements reach Israel at the final moment of truth. This is the operation I have already set in motion. The Israeli state will be destroyed on the West Coast of America - in San Francisco...'}

¹³

^{At ten o'clock on Monday evening the outriders of Typhoon Tara closed round the
Challenger,
great waves which rolled towards the ship at regular intervals. It was this irregularity which bothered Mackay. If the giant combers grew in size they could be very dangerous indeed.}

^{The British crew's counter-attack against the terrorists was due to be launched at the height of the typhoon. Hoping that sooner or later Mackay would remove his veto on the plan, Bennett had worked out the details meticulously, almost as meticulously as Winter had planned the seizure of the tanker.}

^{The total crew numbered twenty-eight men. Of this complement six men were on duty in the engine-room - excluding Monk - three more on the bridge (Mackay, the officer of the watch and the helmsman), and the cook and steward were on almost permanent duty in the galley. So eleven men were on duty while the remaining sixteen - again excluding Monk - were under guard in the captain's day cabin. It was this reserve of sixteen men cooped up in the day cabin which Bennett had his eye on.}

^{'First we get rid of LeCat,' he had suggested to Mackay during one of their frequent trips to the chart-room, 'then Monk helps me deal with my own escort guard when I go back to the day cabin - before I get there. The two of us then set about dealing with the armed guard on the day cabin ...'}

^{It was a planned escalation of release. And Bennett had also considered the problem of weapons. One pistol would become available when his own escort had been disposed of; a second pistol would be in their hands when the day cabin guard was eliminated. And other weapons could be improvised from the storage cupboard where Monk was still biding. Ropes, for example could quickly be converted into nooses for strangulation. In his own way, Bennett could be as ruthless as LeCat.}

^{But everything depended on the elimination of LeCat. If a fierce struggle developed for control of the ship and Winter died, LeCat must not be alive to assume control. With LeCat taking over command, the reprisals would be atrocious, both Mackay and Bennett agreed. LeCat must go first.}

^{The captain had listened to his first officer's proposal with some misgiving; he disliked violence and he mistrusted the odds against them - with the terrorists holding the guns. For the moment he had given approval for Monk to try and get rid of LeCat, but he had reserved judgement on the rest of Bennett's plan. This was the state of Mackay's thinking when Typhoon Tara began to close in on the
Challenger,}

^{And already another part of Bennett's plan was taking shape -the guards were beginning to feel the effects of sea-sickness. This was why he had planned the break-out for when the typhoon was at its height; he could expect maximum disorganisation of Winter's carefully-planned security system.}

^{The wind began to rise. LeCat, who had come on to the bridge where Bennett stood with Mackay, disliked the wind - it was so unpredictable. He stood at the front of the bridge as the wind rose, heaping up the seas in moving mountains which rolled all round the tanker. In the darkness there was a feeling of endless movement - the tanker pitching and tossing, the bridge tilting so LeCat had to spread his feet to counter the movement.}

^{Beyond the bridge window as LeCat peered out, wavetops loomed, their crests wobbling unsteadily, the waves bearing down on the ship like a roller-coaster collapsing. Everywhere - movement. Great sliding seas, high crests dimly seen, which made them even more terrifying. Mackay raised his voice loud enough for the French terrorist to hear him. 'It hasn't really reached us yet. Inside an hour we'll see this 50,000-ton ship shifting about like a rowing boat...'}

^{'You'll cope with it though . ..' It was Winter's voice. He had come quietly on to the bridge, had heard the remark, had seen that it was directed at LeCat. Mackay swung round and stared at the tall Englishman.}

^{'Winter, have you any conception of the power of a Pacific typhoon? Have you ever experienced one before?'}

^{'No, but I have sailed in the Aegean.'}

^{'The Aegean can be choppy, I grant you,' Mackay said grimly, 'but this is the big ocean. Out here nature has elbow room to marshal her power - and all the power man has harnessed in the atom bomb is like a match-flame compared with what we may see tonight...'}

^{The 'rowing boat' remark had frightened LeCat; now the inadvertent reference to a nuclear device reinforced his fears. The Frenchman was staring towards the distant forecastle which contained below decks the carpenter's store. Inside that tiny compartment he had stored away something which might have only the fraction of the power of a typhoon, but the thought that he might not have stowed it safely, that it might already be shifting about the bulkheads, cannoning against them under the impact of the rising storm, was making his hands sweat so profusely that they were running with moisture. And Mackay had said far worse was on the way.}

^{'Inside twenty-four hours we shall have left this ship,' Winter warned Mackay. 'We shall be no more than an unpleasant memory - so I advise you to nip in the bud any mad ideas Bennett may have about organising resistance. It's not worth it.'}

^{To hide his astonishment Mackay walked to the front of the bridge, walking upwards as the ship tilted. Winter's intuition was diabolical, as though he had guessed the first officer's plan, which was impossible. Quite apart from the growing fury of the typhoon as it came up to midnight, the atmosphere on the bridge was strained.}

^{Once again he had asked Winter what was going to happen when the ship reached San Francisco and once again the Englishman had refused to tell him anything. And there had been a violent argument about turning out all the lights - including navigation lights. It was criminal, Mackay had said bitingly, to sail in mid-ocean without navigation lights.}

^{But Winter had insisted; the lights had been turned out. The trouble was they were within only a few miles of the US weather cutter
Champlain
which was on two weeks' station in this part of the Pacific. Winter wanted no communication between the
Challenger
and this vessel, and if they sailed without lights the chances were they would pass her by unseen. Unless they collided with her in the dark...}

^{Storm, collision, explosion, shipwreck - these were the four hazards the master of a seagoing tanker feared. And two of them now faced the
Challenger
Mackay thought grimly as he stared down at the main deck. They were caught up in Typhoon Tara, and as if that were not enough to worry about, this madman, Winter, had seen to it that they might face collision with the weather cutter
Champlain
somewhere out there in the heaving ocean. Bennett was right Mackay told himself: we have to make
some effort to rid ourselves of these gangsters before they destroy us.}

^{With no lights on except the one over the wheel and the illumination from the binnacle, Mackay's night sight was exceptionally good. He almost stiffened, but held himself motionless when he saw a shadowy figure moving along the catwalk sixty feet below on the main deck. He immediately recognised the short, wide-shouldered figure from the agile way he moved. LeCat. Why the hell was he heading for the forecastle in conditions like these?}

^{For most of the day Monk, the seaman who had escaped from the engine-room when Brady filled the place with clouds of steam, had survived undetected inside a large storage cupboard for cleaning materials on the deck below the bridge. It was close to midnight when Monk opened the door cautiously, no wider than a crack. He saw LeCat walking away from him down the alleyway.}

^{Monk had just finished consuming the iron rations he had taken with him inside the roomy cupboard; two bottles of beer and sandwiches provided by Wrigley before he left the engine-room. Hemmed in by the large collection of brushes and buckets inside the storage cupboard, Monk was stiff from staying in the same cramped position for so many hours. He would have to watch that if it came to a hand-to-hand grapple with LeCat. Air supply had been no problem; ventilator holes had been drilled in the door to prevent a musty atmosphere building up, and the manic pitching and tossing of the ship was nothing new to Monk. He opened the door wider.}

^{The alleyway was deserted except for the diminishing figure of LeCat walking away from him. Monk waited until LeCat vanished round a corner and then left the cupboard, closing the door behind him. The alleyway tilted at a surrealist angle as Monk moved along it, splaying his legs to counter the motion. Somewhere, not far away, LeCat was moving ahead of him and Monk approached the corner with caution.}

^{In his right hand he held a marlinspike, as vicious a weapon as can be found aboard a ship. And he was dressed to merge with darkness; a thick, dirty grey pullover, a scarf of much the same
colour, and heavy trousers. His boots were rubber-soled. Close to the corner he paused, listening. The overhead lamps in the alleyway were dim, the shadows moved with the tilt of the ship, moved sometimes like a hunched, waiting man crouched behind a corner. The ship creaked and shuddered with the impact of the ocean. As he went round the corner a door began slamming.}

^{Thud-thud-thud . . . The slamming door was caused by the ship's movement, by the wind blasting into the alleyway Monk was looking along. Only seconds earlier LeCat must have stood in this alleyway, seconds before he went outside and down the ladder on to the main deck. Monk was surprised. Where could the French terrorist be going on a night like this?}

^{A bleak smile crossed his severe face. Couldn't be better: LeCat had gone down on to the open deck. In a typhoon a man could get washed overboard just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He crept towards the slamming door, held it open only a few inches. The wind pushed at the door, screamed through the gap in his face. He had to press his shoulder hard against it to hold it.}

^{He waited for his night vision to develop. Sharp-eyed from watching the quiver of gauge needles, the engine-room artificer watched the blurred shape below him on the main deck where sea was washing over it. In the darkness he caught movement rather than the outline of a man, the movement of the Frenchman climbing up on the catwalk. For some crazy reason LeCat was going away from the bridge, heading along the catwalk towards the distant forecastle. Monk took a firmer grip on the marlinspike. Couldn't be better.}

^{Monk waited until LeCat had disappeared along the catwalk, then he went out, closed the door and shinned rapidly down the swaying ladder. He reached the bottom as an inundation of sea swept inboard, swirling round his knees. Ignoring it, he held on to the ladder, staring up at the bridge. No glow of light, the whole vessel was in darkness. The bridge didn't worry him - he guessed that the guards were sea-sick and that the last place they would look was out over the ocean. If Mackay saw him it didn't matter. Monk was puzzled about the lack of navigation lights, but he assumed there must have been some temporary power failure. He
headed for the catwalk as the water subsided over the rail.}