Year of the Golden Ape (7 page)

^{'They would have carried me out of here on a stretcher on my way to the morgue. Who is controlling this operation ?'}

^{'Paris ... so I heard.' The Frenchman's face twisted with pain as he stared piteously at bis limp fingers. 'I don't know who. Just Paris ...' He fainted, keeling over heavily until he lay sideways on the table, his head cushioned on a pile of papers.}

^{On the morning of Sunday, January 12, Sullivan phoned the home number of Pierre Voisin of Interpol. The French policeman, who had a private income and was therefore quite incorruptible financially as well as by inclination, lived in the rue de Bac; as it happened only a stone's throw from the flat where LeCat and Dupont had tracked Sullivan's progress through the ports of France.}

^{'How are you, my friend?' Voisin enquired.}

^{'I nearly got killed last night.'}

^{A pause, then, 'You ask too many leading questions.'}

^{Sullivan gripped the receiver a little tighter. With Voisin you could never be sure; sometimes he hinted at things. 'And what does that mean ?' he asked.}

^{'It is your profession-to go round asking questions, sometimes, dangerous questions. You are all right ?'}

^{'Yes, I'm all right.' Sullivan was still unsure. 'Sorry to bother you at home, but this is urgent - to me. Have you ever heard of an Englishman called Winter? Like the season ...'}

^{'No, never.' This time there was no pause. 'But I could check for you - this morning, as a matter of fact. We have a bit of a flap on, as your countrymen say, so I have to go into the office. The records people will be there too.' Voisin chuckled. 'It is an outrage, is it not - Frenchmen working at the weekend ? These are difficult days, with our Arab friends, and so forth . . .'}

^{Sullivan gave him the number of the Hotel Berlin and put down the receiver with a frown. Really, you could never tell whether or not Voisin was hinting at something. That reference to 'our Arab friends'. The hired French assassin had referred to 'Arab money...'}

^{It was less than a straw in the wind, but a faint theme was beginning to recur - the Arabs . . . Paris. He felt relieved that his oldest friend, Francois Messmer of French counter-intelligence, would be arriving in Hamburg tomorrow. And that was a strange incident. He had called Messmer at his Paris flat before phoning Voisin, and to his surprise Messmer had cut the call short, saying only that he would be at the Hotel Berlin on Monday morning. It was after the mention of the name Winter. So Messmer, at least, had heard something about him. Voisin phoned back just before lunchtime.}

^{'We have no record on the name of the English criminal you mentioned . . .' Voisin sounded crisper, more businesslike, as though he had adopted his official manner. 'Nothing official at all,' he added.}

^{'Anything unofficial?'}

^{'I mentioned it to one or two non-political friends...' His voice had a cynical tinge now. He was referring to men he knew who were without political ambition and who could, therefore, be relied on to tell the truth. 'No one has ever heard of this man. I am sorry.'}

^{'Thanks for calling back...'}

^{'Be careful, Larry. You are always going about asking these questions some people do not wish you to ask.
Au revoirl'}

^{Later in the afternoon of Sunday, January 12, while Sullivan was waiting in Hamburg for the arrival of Francois Messmer, while Winter had arrived at Cosgrove Manor in East Anglia, Sheikh Gamal Tafak was holding a secret meeting at the edge of the Syrian desert, two thousand miles away from Hamburg.}

^{'I can now reveal the plan,' he said quietly, 'the plan to deliver a terrible shock to the western nations...'}

^{Tafak paused as he looked down the long trestle table inside the tent. Five serious-faced men in Arab dress sat round the table, the five leaders of the most extremist terrorist groups in the Middle East. Outside the wind blew off Mount Hermon, shivering the canvas like the flap-flap of a vulture's wings.}

^{They did not look so dangerous, these five men. Three of them had a studious air and wore glasses; they could have been professors planning the curriculum for some new university. But all the men inside the tent - including Gamal Tafak - were on a secret Israeli list of men who must be eliminated before there could be any hope of lasting peace in the Middle East.}

^{'Before our armies engage Israel in the final war,' Tafak continued, 'we must first immobilise the West so no fresh arms can be sent to Israel as they were in 1973. To do that we need an excuse to cut off all oil from the West - all oil,' he repeated. 'That will immobilise them. But I foresee difficulty in persuading all Arab states to agree, so we must create the atmosphere in which they will have to agree. We must make the western countries scream at us, call us again Golden Apes. Then all Arab states will agree to cut off the oil.'}

^{'But how are you going to do this?' the serious-faced man on Tafak's right enquired.}

^{'By creating a terrible incident. If that does not make everyone fall into line - if, say, Kuwait, will not cooperate, then the sabotage teams you have organised will fly there and blow up the oil wells when I give the order...'}

^{Gamal Tafak was, in his own way, a sincere man. He could not stand the thought that in Jerusalem Arab holy places were in the grip of the detested Israelis, but he was also ruthless, a man who was prepared to bring down the world if necessary to achieve his ends. He did not like these five men he was meeting. He even fore-saw the day when they would have to be eliminated if the new rulers in Saudi^ Arabia and Egypt were to keep their power. This is always the dilemma of the extremist; he looks over his shoulder at men even more extremist than himself. Terror is an escalating movement.}

^{'And how,' the same serious-faced man enquired, 'are you going to outrage the West when this British tanker has been seized. You have given us no details - we do not even know where the incident will take place.'}

^{'I will give you all the details when we next meet,' Tafak replied. 'But I will tell you now that it concerns a very large bomb which will destroy a city.' Tafak indulged in his liking for a theatrical departure. He stood up. 'I am talking about San Francisco.'}

⁶

^{'When Sheikh Gamal Tafak came to Paris one year ago he demanded the release of a criminal, Jules LeCat, from the Sant
é
prison. I think it all began then, Larry ...'}

^{Francois Messmer, a member of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire - French counter-intelligence - stopped at the edge of the lake to light another Gauloise. The Aussen-Alster in Hamburg is the larger of two lakes in the centre of the city and here, in green parkland, you can talk without risk of being overheard.}

^{On Monday January 13 it was cold in Hamburg. The savage winter, worse even than in the previous year - even nature seemed to be on the side of the sheikhs - had frozen the river Elbe and the lake they walked beside was a sheet of ice. Both men huddled in heavy overcoats and the wind from the north froze their faces.}

^{'Surely that was going beyond the limit - even for a sheikh,' Sullivan suggested. 'We have to stand up somewhere ...'}

^{'You think so?' Messmer, a small, compact man in his fifties with a face like a monkey's, smiled cynically. 'I think this is a lesson the British still have to learn - that there is no limit where these golden apes are concerned. They have western civilisation by the throat and they intend to squeeze our throat until we are gasping for air - for oil. When total power is available the extremists move in for the kill - they have literally killed the King of Saudi Arabia and the President of Egypt. Tafak is a fanatic - he may well be replaced by an even greater fanatic. So, when he threatened to cut off more oil, our government gave way ...'}

^{'Released a criminal ?'}

^{'Not officially. Officially LeCat, who was arrested in Marseilles for illegal activities, is still in the Santé - in solitary confinement. Which means no one ever sees him.' Messmer grinned sourly. 'It is rather like Dumas' man in the iron mask. Some poor devil is in solitary who is called LeCat - but from what I hear . . .' He shrugged.}

^{'What has this to do with the Englishman called Winter?'}

^{'Winter is an associate of LeCat's ...'}

^{They walked slowly across the snow along the lake shore. A seagull landed on the ice-bound lake and beyond the far shore the apartment blocks and hotels kept their distance. A few cyclists rode along the nearby highway. No cars - not with the fifty per cent oil cut in force.}

^{'Tell me something about this man, Winter,' Sullivan said.}

^{'I know nothing - he is only a name. No record, so no pictures, no fingerprints. He is like a ghost...'}

^{'Tell me about LeCat then. And any reference you have heard to Harper Tankships.'}

^{'I do not know that name. As to LeCat, there are rumours - that he has recruited a team of terrorists from his old OAS associates -the secret army organisation which revolted in Algeria, which was beaten. He had many men to choose from, of course - men in need of money who still dream of the old days when life was an adventure.' Messmer became caustic. 'He chose only from the elite - a special team of absolute bastards for this operation.'}

^{'Any idea what kind of operation ?'}

^{'None. No one knows anything. The word has gone out - LeCat is in the Santé. Forget him.' Messmer screwed up his monkey-like face to keep smoke out of his eyes. 'You see, my friend, everyone is embarrassed about what happened to LeCat, so they hope it will soon all be over. I have heard that the operation is vast and very expensive, that it is taking a huge sum of money to finance -who knows, maybe Arab money. They are the ones who can do these things now, not us.'}

^{'You're not saying that Paris - the French government - is behind this operation?' Sullivan asked carefully.}

^{'I don't think they know what's going to happen - I heard they put a shadow on LeCat and he shook it off. He would, of course. But they have not interfered with his efforts to recruit a team of terrible men. You know why I insisted on coming here to talk when you phoned me yesterday?'}

^{'No. I was surprised.'}

^{'My phone is tapped.' Messmer gave his wry smile again. 'In France it will soon be a distinction not to have your phone tapped. We are becoming a police state - and I am a policeman. I think they will make me retire soon. I was foolish enough to protest over the Tafak affair - I have been watched ever since. And that is why I came to Hamburg, Larry - I thought that someone ought to know what is happening, however little information I have given you.'}

^{'Thanks.' Sullivan looked round the view of the city. 'You know, Francois, I came all the way up the Atlantic coast asking questions and no one tried to warn me off - until I got here. I think there is something somewhere in Hamburg, but where, for God's sake?'}

^{That is your problem. Tell your government we cannot all go on giving in to Arab power for ever. Although I fear they will, they will...'}

^{'It is not only the Arab allocation of oil, it is the money. We face a situation without precedent in history - and when an unprecedented situation arises which threatens to ruin the West financially, then we must consider unprecedented action ...'
Minute of Prime Minister's comments at British Cabinet meeting the previous November.}

^{On Monday January 13, Sullivan was walking along the shore of the Aussen-Alster as he talked with Francois Messmer. On the same morning Winter was at Cosgrove Manor, the house he had leased two months earlier during his flying visit to London.Twelve miles from King's Lynn, isolated inside its twenty acres of grounds, it suited his purpose perfectly. LeCat and the fifteen-man OAS terrorist team were with him. The final stage of the operation prior to action - training - was almost completed.}

^{The plan of attack on the British oil tanker
Challenger
had been meticulously organised. From memory Winter had reproduced sketches of the blueprints he had seen in Paul Hahnemann's office of the
Challenger'?,
twin tanker
Chieftain.
Each of the terrorists had to study these sketches until he was thoroughly familiar with the tanker's layout. And Winter cross-examined each member of the team personally when they had studied the sketches, determined to make every man walk mentally over the vessel as though he were already on board.}

^{'The entrance to the coffer dam is through the hatch on the starboard side of the ship,' he pointed out to Andre Dupont during one of his briefing sessions.}

^{'No! It is on the port side! The helicopter landing point is on the starboard side...'}

^{'Which means you have just transposed everything on the main deck.' Winter unfolded his sketch and showed it to the Frenchman. 'Take the drawing away, start all over again, and make your own sketch ...'}