Year of the Golden Ape (32 page)

^{'The whole thing could blow up in our faces unless
York
and
Chester
reach the Persian Gulf in time . . . And I'm not happy
about that British tanker
Challenger
at San Francisco. Our military analysts think there could be a connection - between the massing of Syrian and Egyptian troops and the outrageous demands of the terrorists aboard that tanker.. .'}

^{Extract from Minister of Defence's comments to British Inner Cabinet, Wednesday January 22.}

^{Nine hours away across the world from where Winter and Cassidy had just completed their inspection of the bridge, Sheikh Gamal Tafak was pacing about restlessly inside the room he was beginning to regard as his prison. Baggy-eyed, he had stayed up all night, listening to the news bulletins, waiting for the report which would tell him the Americans had allowed the tanker inside the Bay.}

^{Instead, they had cancelled the permission - something about a collision, which Tafak did not for a moment believe. Nor had he received a message from Ahmed Riad confirming that Winter was flying back to Paris, from where someone else would instruct him to fly on to Beirut. Patience, he told himself, there will be good news soon .. ,}

^{The news of the hi-jack of the British tanker had captured the world headlines. It was the main item in all news bulletins from Washington to Tokyo. 'First major ship hi-jack...' And in Israel it had not gone unnoticed, where secretly the military chiefs suspected some link between this event and the disappearance from public view of Sheikh Gamal Tafak. It was a time of waiting - everywhere.}

^{They were engulfed in damp, clammy fog, so dense they could hardly see one another as they clung to the large scramble net like men scaling a wall, their feet balanced on rope rungs, their hands gripping the net above them, their DeLisle carbines looped over their shoulders, their .45 Colt revolvers tucked inside shoulder holsters, their knives tucked inside their belts. Winter also had a smoke pistol attached to his belt. When they were lowered inside the fog the temperature dropped and the net began swaying. They
could see nothing above them, below them, ahead - nothing but dense grey fog.}

^{The net was in front of them, pressed against their chests, and behind them there was nothing but space and fog and the ocean far below. The crane driver dropped them at a rate of one foot per second, sixty feet per minute. He had to hold them in mid-air precisely twenty feet above the ocean, which should mean they would just clear the oncoming forepeak of the vessel they couldn't see, couldn't hear. It had been pointed out to the crane driver that if he miscalculated by only a few feet, held them, say, sixteen feet above the water, then the oncoming steel bow would hit them like an express train - not in speed but in impact. They would be battered, torn from the net and dropped into the water while the 50,000-ton ship cruised over them.}

^{The drop went on. It would take three minutes precisely. Providing the crane driver dropped them accurately. Pinned against the net, his face running with moisture, Winter tried to see the illuminated second-hand on his watch. Two minutes to go.}

^{They went on dropping through the grisly fog, clinging to the net with numbed fingers. They seemed to be dropping at an alarming rate, plunging towards the ocean as though the crane mechanism was out of control, dropping, dropping, dropping... And the sway of the net was bad, worse than Winter had anticipated. Above them, attached to the hook which held the net, was a lead weight, a weight which was supposed to minimise the sway factor. It was like being on a swing, swaying backwards and forwards slowly through nothing, with nothing under them.}

^{Attached to the net, close to Winter's mouth, was a walkie-talkie linked direct with the crane driver now far above them in the clouds. If he saw something going wrong he might have time to shout a brief warning, which might reach the crane driver before it was too late. So many 'might's' he preferred not to think about them. At least they would be over the tanker when it passed below - the pinpoint accuracy of the radar set, Mackay's seamanship in keeping a steady course, and the one-hundred-foot width of the tanker practically guaranteed this. But when the hell was the descent going to stop ? Winter peered at the watch on his wrist.}

^{Ten seconds left and they were still going down like a lift. Had the footage counter - the instrument which told the driver how far he had lowered them gone wrong ? They went on dropping.}

^{LeCat had taken two precautions the men on Golden Gate bridge knew nothing about. He had placed one man - with a walkie-talkie - at the top of the foremast. A second armed guard stood at the forepeak of the tanker. Both men were peering into the fog as
Challenger
approached the bridge.}

^{Inside the wheelhouse it was no warmer than at the top of the foremast - the window smashed in the typhoon was letting in the fog. LeCat stood near the window, holding a walkie-talkie, irritated by everything - by the regulation blast of the siren sounding its fog warning every two minutes, by the vessel's incredibly slow movement. Obeying MacGowan's signalled instruction - which he didn't understand - Mackay was taking his ship through the channel at eight knots, which meant they were moving 'over the ground' at half a knot. 'We can hardly be moving at all,' LeCat snapped. 'I still do not see why we have to move like a snail...'}

^'Fog.'

^{The reply did nothing to quieten LeCat's nerves. They were, he guessed, close to the point where the cargo ships had collided. He was even wondering whether the diabolical Americans had left the cargo ships in the channel - so the tanker would hit them, go down, and it could all be passed off as an accident, problem solved. LeCat need not have worried: at dusk the three 'collision' vessels had been withdrawn to the east side of the Bay.}

^{Mackay turned his back on LeCat, went to stand by the helmsman. The steering was on manual, the engine beat was slow and regular, and for all they could see they might have been in mid-Pacific. Mackay went to the radar screen and stared down at the sweep as LeCat called up to the man at the foremast on his walkie-talkie.}

^{'André, any sign of the bridge yet?'}

^{'Nothing but fog.' The voice sounded sullen. 'Wait a minute -I can see something moving...'}

^{High up to the left the fog was thinning, opening out a hole in
the grey curtain. Andre pressed his glasses hard against his eyes. The fog swirled, the hole grew larger and his night-glasses picked it up, something moving - the blur of moving lights, car headlights. He adjusted the focus and saw the silhouette of a car.}

^{'I can see the bridge!' Andre sounded excited. 'I can see the bridge! We are close ...'}

^{'How close?' LeCat asked.}

^{Three hundred feet.. .' It was Mackay who had answered as he came away from the radarscope. 'We shall pass under the bridge within a matter of minutes...'}

^{On the bridge thin traffic proceeded steadily in both directions, traffic composed of cars driven by police patrolmen in plain clothes. They were moving along an elongated ellipse, driving off the bridge at either end, turning round and coming back again. There was even a Greyhound bus appearing at intervals, a bus with a handful of passengers who were Marines out of uniform and with their rifles lying on the floor. They were proceeding along the four inner lanes, leaving the outer lanes clear for the cars parked close to the sidewalks without lights.}

^{Mayor Peretti, muffled in a topcoat against the night chill, leaned over the rail, straining to catch a glimpse of the huge tanker somewhere below. The moonlight shone down on the rolling fog and he couldn't see anything - except the crane's cable dropping into the vapour.}

^{A Marine threw open the door of his parked car and ran along the bridge to where MacGowan was standing close to the mobile crane. 'Guy on the Marin tower just came through on the radio. The fog broke and he thinks there's a lookout top of the foremast ...'}

^{MacGowan climbed up to the crane driver's cab. 'Warn them,' he shouted. 'There's a lookout at the top of the foremast...'}

^{One hundred and seventy feet... one hundred and seventy-five feet. The driver heard MacGowan without replying, his eyes fixed on the footage counter, the instrument which warned him how low the net had gone. One hundred and eighty feet. He stopped the descent, spoke into his walkie-talkie. 'Winter, you're twenty feet above the ocean. From now on I'll be listening for any
instructions to drop you further. And Winter, I've just been informed they have a lookout top of the foremast...'}

^{The driver switched his walkie-talkie to 'receive'. He had one more vital operation to perform. He sat in his cab, staring at the weight indicator gauge. When that lost about five hundred pounds, the approximate weight of the three men, he would whip the net back up through the fog. The assault team would have gone aboard. Or into the ocean.}

^{'... a lookout top of the foremast.'}

^{Which is what we didn't foresee Winter thought grimly. He was in the middle of the net with Cassidy on his right, Sullivan on his left, the three of them pressed together shoulder to shoulder, like men stretched on a multiple rack. The net was swaying gently, stopped in mid-air, enveloped in fog so like porridge that they couldn't see anything, let alone the ocean twenty feet or so below. They turned slowly below the invisible hook above them. The distant dirge of a foghorn was the only sound as they hung and twisted on the net. There was not a breath of wind, only the clammy feel of the all-pervading fog, the clammy sweat of fear.}

^{They have a lookout on the foremast,' Winter whispered to Cassidy. 'Which is too damned close to where we'll land for comfort...'}

^{'Can't shoot him,' Cassidy said, 'that would alert them on the bridge before we could get anywhere near it...' Cassidy's voice sounded strained and unnatural in the fog. Winter was just about able to see him. How the hell was he ever going to see the ship's forepeak if it did pass below them?}

^{'Carpenter's store,' Winter said. 'We may have to wait in there a bit - it's on the fo'c'sle. Did you hear that, Sullivan?'}

^{'Too true I did,' Sullivan replied without enthusiasm.}

^{Winter peered up at his watch. Bloody thing should arrive any second now, all 50,000 tons of it, gliding across the water like a moving wall of steel... He tensed, he couldn't help it. The fog warning, one prolonged blast, sounded to be in his ear, going on and on and on. He gazed down. Porridge, nothing but porridge. Any second now and they would feel the ship - as it slammed against them. It was close enough, dear God - the ship's fog
warning blast was still deafening him. Where the hell was the bloody tanker -}

^{'Jump! Now!'}

^{The fog was not as dense as it had seemed. Less than six feet below a grey, blurred platform had started to glide past under them. Like a huge revolving platform. Winter thought he saw a man. Then he was gone. And Winter was gone. Dropping. With the others.}

^{Two hundred feet above, the weight indicator needle flashed back over the gauge. Four hundred and ninety pounds. Gone! The driver pressed a lever. Full speed. The scramble net whipped upwards, out of sight. 'They've gone!' he shouted to MacGowan.}

^{Winter hit the deck like a paratrooper, rolling, taking the impact on his shoulders as he slammed against the port rail. He came to his feet with a knife in his hand. A blurred figure came out of the fog, wearing a parka. Terrorist. . . The figure stopped, his head bent over backwards as Cassidy, behind him, clamped a hand over his mouth. Winter rammed in the knife, high up in the struggling man's chest. Still holding the knife handle, he felt the terrorist's last-convulsive spasm, then the man slumped in Cassidy's arms. Sullivan helped the American carry the body to the rail where they heaved it over the side. They heard no splash, only the steady beat of the ship's engines as
Challenger
glided in towards the Bay under Golden Gate bridge. Winter left the Skorpion which had fallen from the Frenchman's hand close to the rail - it would help convey the impression the man had fallen overboard.}

^{'Follow me,' he whispered, 'and keep close. The fog's thinner already...'}

^{'Too thin to risk moving past that foremast yet,' Cassidy agreed, 'and that lookout may have walkie-talkie communication with the bridge...'}

^{Winter found the hatch, began unfastening it while Cassidy looked aft, watching anxiously for the foremast. The fog was thinning - as it so often did east of Golden Gate. He swore under his breath as he saw the lower part of the foremast coming into view, but the top was still blotted out. What the hell was Winter playing at ?}

^{Winter was unfastening the hatch carefully, making sure he
made no noise. It was well-oiled, thank God, but this was a British tanker, not one of your Liberian efforts. He opened the hatch and let the others go down the ladder first, then he followed them, pausing when the hatch was almost closed, peering out through the inch-gap. The fog was still too thick to see the breakwater, let alone the bridge, but it was drifting away from the top of the foremast. Winter, peering through the narrow gap, saw the lookout clearly, staring south with night-glasses pressed to his eyes. Winter closed the hatch cover very slowly.}