Seawitch Part 4

In the predawn darkness the hulls of the vessels cast so heavy a shadow from the powerful sh.o.r.elights that the men could have swum un.o.bserved on the surface. But Cronkite was not much given to taking chances. The mines were attached along the stern half of the Crusader's hull, thirty feet apart and at a depth of about ten feet. Five minutes after their departure the scuba divers were back. After a further five minutes the Tiburon put out to sea.

Despite his near-legendary reputation for ruth-lessness, Cronkite had not lost touch with humanity: to say that he was possessed of an innate 72.kindliness would have been a distortion of the truth, for he was above all an uncompromising and single-minded realist, but one with no innate killer instinct. Nonetheless, there were two things that would at that moment have given him considerable satisfaction.

The first of those was that he would have preferred to have the Crusader at sea before pressing the sheathed b.u.t.ton before him on the bridge. He had no wish that innocent lives should be lost in Galveston, but it was a chance that he had to take. Limpet mines, as the Italian divers had proved at Alexandria in World War II-and this to the great distress of the Royal Navy- could be devastating^ effective against moored vessels. But what might happen to high-buoyancy limpets when a ship got under way and worked up to maximum speed was impossible to forecast, as there was no known case of a vessel under way having been destroyed by limpet mines. It was at least possible that water pressure on a ship under way might well overcome the tenuous magnetic hold of the limpets and tear them free.

The second temptation was to board the helicopter on the Tiburorfs after helipad-many such vessels carried helicopters for the purpose of having them drop patterned explosives on the seabed to register on the seismological computer-and have a close look at what would be the ensuing havoc, a temptation he immediately regarded as pure self-indulgence.

73.He put both thoughts from his mind. Eight miles out from Galveston he unscrewed the covered switch and leaned firmly on the b.u.t.ton beneath. The immediate results were wholly unspectacular, and Cronkite feared that they might be out of radio range. But in the port area in Galveston the results were highly spectacular. Six shattering explosions occurred almost simultaneously, and within twenty seconds the Crusader, her stern section torn in half, developed a marked list to starboard as thousands of tons of water poured through the ruptured side. Another twenty seconds later the distant rumble of the explosions reached the ears of listeners on the Tiburon. Cronkite and Mulhooney, alone on the bridge-the ship was on automatic pilot- looked at each other with grim satisfaction. Mulhooney, an Irishman with a true Irishman's sense of occasion, produced an opened bottle of champagne and poured two br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.sfuls. Cronkite, who normally detested the stuff, consumed his drink with considerable relish and set his gla.s.s down. It was then that the Crusader caught fire.

Its gasoline tanks, true, were empty, but its engine diesel fuel tanks were almost completely topped up. In normal circ.u.mstances ignited diesel does not explode but burns with a ferocious intensity. Within seconds the smoke-veined flames had risen to a height of two hundred feet, the height increasing with each moment until the 74.whole city was bathed in a crimson glow, a phenomenon which the citizens of Galveston had never seen before and would almost certainly never see again. Even aboard the Tiburon the spectacle had an awe-inspiring and unearthly quality about it. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fire stopped as the Crusader turned completely over on its side, the harbor waters quenching the flames into hissing extinction. Some patches of floating oil still flickered feebly across the harbor, but that was all that there was to it.

Clearly Lord Worth was going to require a new tanker, a requirement that presented quite a problem. In this area of a gross oversupply of tankers, any one of scores of laid-up supertankers could be had just through exercising enough strength to lift a telephone. But 50,000-ton tankers, though not a dying breed, were a dwindling breed, princ.i.p.ally because the main shipyards throughout the world had stopped producing them. "Had" is the operative word. Keels of that size and even smaller were now being hastily laid down, but would not be in full operation for a year or two to come. The reason was perfectly simple. Supertankers on the Arabian Gulf-Europe run had to make the long and prohibitively expensive circuit around the Cape of Good Hope because the newly reopened Suez Ca.n.a.l could not accommodate their immense draft, a problem that presented no difficulties to Altstair MacLean smaller tankers. It was said, and probably with more than a grain of truth, that the notoriously wily Greek shipowners had established a corner on this particular market. The dawn was in the sky.

At that precise moment there were scenes of considerable activity around and aboard the Seawitch. The Panamanian-registered tanker Torbetto was just finishing off-loading the contents of the SeawitcWs ma.s.sive floating conical oil tank. As they were doing so, two helicopters appeared over the northeastern horizon. Both were very large Sikorsky machines which had been bought by the thrifty Lord Worth for the traditional song, not because they were obsolete but because they were two of the scores that had become redundant since the end of the Vietnam War, and the armed forces had been only too anxious to get rid of them: civilian demand for ex-gunships is not high.

The first of those to land on the helipad debarked twenty-two men, led by Lord Worth and Giuseppe Palermo. The other twenty, who from their appearance were not much given to caring for widows and orphans, all carried with them the impeccable credentials of oil experts of one type or another. That they were experts was beyond question; what was equally beyond question was that none of them would have recognized a barrel of oil if he had fallen into it. They were 7.

experts in diving, underwater demolition, the handling of high explosives, and the accurate firing of a variety of unpleasant weapons.

The second helicopter arrived immediately after the first had taken off. Except for the pilot and copilot, it carried no other human cargo. What it did carry was the immense and varied quant.i.ty of highly offensive weapons from the Florida a.r.s.enal, the loss of which had not yet been reported in the newspapers.

The oil-rig crew watched the arrival of gunmen and weapons with an oddly dispa.s.sionate curiosity. They were men to whom the unusual was familiar; the odd, the incongruous, the inexplicable, part and parcel of their daily lives. Oil-rig crews are a race apart, and Lord Worth's men formed a very special subdivision of that race.

Lord Worth called them all together, told of the threat to the Seawitch and the defensive measures he was undertaking, measures which were thoroughly approved of by the crew, who had as much regard for their own skins as had the rest of mankind. Lord Worth finished by saying that he knew he had no need to swear them to secrecy.

In this the n.o.ble Lord was perfectly correct. Though they were all experienced, hardly a man aboard had not at one time or another had a close and painful acquaintanceship with the law. There were ex-convicts among them. There were escaped convicts among them. There were those Allstalr MacLean whom the law was very anxious to interview. And there were parolees who had broken their parole. There could be no safer hideouts for those men than the Seawitch and Lord Worth's privately owned motel where they put up during then* off-duty spells. No law officer in his sane mind was going to question the towering respectability and integrity of one of the most powerful oil barons in the world, and by inevitable implication this att.i.tude of mind extended to those in his employ.

In other words, Lord Worth, through the invaluable intermediacy of Commander La.r.s.en, picked his men with extreme care.

Accommodation for the newly arrived men and storage for the weaponry presented no problem. Like many jack-ups, drill ships and sub-mersibles, the Seawitch had two complete sets of accommodation and messes-one for Westerners, the other for Orientals: there were at that time no Orientals aboard.

Lord Worth, Commander La.r.s.en and Palermo held their own private council of war in the luxuriously equipped sitting room which Lord Worth kept permanently reserved for himself. They agreed on everything. They agreed that Cronkite's campaign against them would be distinguished by a noticeable lack of subtlety: outright violence was the only course open to him. Once the oil was off-loaded ash.o.r.e, there was nothing Cronkite could do about it. He would 78.not attempt to attack and sink a loaded tanker, just as he would not attempt to destroy their huge floating storage tank. Either method would cause a ma.s.sive oil slick, comparable to or probably exceeding the great oil slick caused by the Torrey Canyon disaster off the southwest coast of England some years previously. The ensuing international uproar would be bound to uncover something, and if Cronkite were implicated he would undoubtedly implicate the major oil companies-who wouldn't like that at all. And that there would be a ma.s.sive investigation was inevitable: ecology and pollution were still the watchwords of the day.

Cronkite could attack the flexible oil pipe that connected the rig with the tank, but the three men agreed that this could be taken care of. After Conde and the Roamer arrived and its cargo had been hoisted aboard, the Roamer would maintain a constant day-and-night patrol between the rig and the tank. The Seawitch was well-equipped with sensory devices, apart from those which controlled the tensioning anchor cables. A radar scanner was in constant operation atop the derrick, and sonar devices were attached to each of the three giant legs some twenty feet under water. The radar could detect any hostile approach from air or sea, and the dual-purpose antiaircraft guns, aboard and installed, could take care of those. In the highly unlikely event of an underwater attack, sonar Allstair MacLean would locate the source, and a suitably placed depth charge from the Roamer would attend to that.

Lord Worth, of course, was unaware that at that very moment another craft was moving out at high speed to join Cronkite on the Tiburon. It was a standard and well-established design irreverently known as the "push-pull," in which water was ducted in through a tube forward under the hull and forced out under pressure at the rear. It had no propeller and had been designed primarily for work close insh.o.r.e or in swamps, where there was always the danger of the propeller being fouled. The only difference between this vessel-the Starlight-and others was that it was equipped with a bank of storage batteries and could be electrically powered. Sonar could detect and accurately pinpoint a ship's engines and propeller vibrations; it was virtually helpless against an electric push-pull.

Lord Worth and the others considered the possibility of a direct attack on the Seawitch. Because of her high degree of compartmentaliza-tion and her great positive buoyancy, nothing short of an atom bomb was capable of disposing of something as large as a football field. Certainly no conventional weapon could. The attack, when it came, would be localized. The drilling derrick was an obvious target, but how Cronkite could approach it unseen could not be imagined. But Lord Worth was certain of one BO.

thing: when the attack came it would be leveled against the Seawitch, The next half hour was to prove, twice, just how wrong Lord Worth could be.

The first intimations of disaster came as Lord Worth was watching the fully laden Torbello just disappearing over the northern horizon; the Crusader, he knew, was due alongside the tank late that afternoon. La.r.s.en, his face one huge scowl of fury, silently handed Lord Worth a signal just received in the radio office. Lord Worth read it, and his subsequent language would have disbarred him forever from a seat in the House of Lords. The message told, in cruelly unsparing fashion, of the spectacular end of the Crusader hi Galveston. -"'

Both men hurried to the radio room. La.r.s.en contacted the Jupiter, their third tanker then off-loading at an obscure Louisiana port, told its captain the unhappy fate of the Crusader and warned him to have every man on board on constant lookout until they had cleared harbor. Lord Worth personally called the chief of police in Galveston, identified himself and demanded more details of the sinking of the Crusader. These he duly received, and none of them made him any happier. On inspiration, he asked if there had been a man called John Cronkite or a vessel belonging to a man of that name in the vicinity at the time. He was told to hang on while a check was made with Customs. Two minutes 81.later he was told yes, there had been a John Cronkite aboard a vessel called the Tiburon, which had been moored directly aft of the Crusader. It was not known whether Cronkite was the owner or not. The Tiburon had sailed half an hour before the Crusader blew up.

Lord Worth peremptorily demanded that the Tiburon be apprehended and returned to port and that Cronkite be arrested. The police chief pointed out that international law prohibited the arrest of vessels on the high seas except in time of war and, as for Cronkite, there wasn't a shred of evidence to connect him with the sinking of the Crusader. Lord Worth then asked if he would trace the owner of the Tiburon. This the police chief promised to do, but warned that there might be a considerable delay. There were many registers to be consulted.

At that moment the Cuban submarine steaming on the surface at full speed was in the vicinity of Key West and heading directly for the Sea-witch. At almost the same time a missile-armed Russian destroyer slipped its moorings in Havana and set off in apparent pursuit of the Cuban submarine. And very shortly after that, a destroyer departed its home base in Venezuela.

The Roamer, Lord Worth's survey vessel 82.under the command of Conde, was now halfway to its destination.

The Starlight, under the command of Easton, was just moving away from the Tiburon, which was lying stopped in the water. Men on slings had already painted out the ship's name, and with the aid of cardboard stencils were painting in a new name-Georgia. Cronkite had no wish that any vessel with whom they might make contact could radio for confirmation of the existence of a cutter called Tiburon. From aft there came the unmistakable racket of a helicopter engine starting up, then the machine took off, circled and headed southeast, not on its usual pattern-bombing circuit but to locate and radio back to the Tiburon the location and course of the Torbello, if and when it found it. Within minutes the Tiburon was on its way again, heading in approximately the same direction as the helicopter.

83.

Chapter 4.

Worth, enjoying a very early morning cup of tea, was in his living room with La.r.s.en and Palermo when the radio operator knocked and entered, a message sheet in his hand. He handed it to Lord Worth and said: "For you, sir. But it's hi some sort of code. Do you have a code book?"

"No need." Lord Worth smiled with some self-satisfaction, his first smile of any kind for quite some tune. "I invented this code myself." He tapped his head. "Here's my code book."

The operator left. The other two watched in mild antic.i.p.ation as Lord Worth began to de- fti code. The antic.i.p.ation turned into apprehension as the smile disappeared from Lord Worth's face, and the apprehension gave way hi turn to deep concern as reddish-purple spots the size of pennies touched either cheekbone. He laid down the message sheet, took a deep breath, then proceeded to give a repeat performance-though this time more deeply felt, more impa.s.sioned- of the unparliamentary language he had used at the news of the loss of the Crusader. After some time he desisted, less because he had nothing fresh to say than from sheer loss of breath.

La.r.s.en had more wit than to ask Lord Worth ft something were the matter. Instead he said in a quiet voice: "Suppose you tell us, Lord Worth?"

Lord Worth, with no little effort, composed himself and said: "It seems that Cor-" He broke off and corrected himself: it was one of his many axioms that the right hand shouldn't know what the left hand doeth. "I was informed-all too reliably, as it now appears- that a couple of countries hostile to us might well be prepared to use naval force against us. One, it appears, is already prepared to do so. A destroyer has just cleared its Venezuelan home port and is heading in what is approximately our direction."

"They wouldn't dare,'* Palermo said.

"When people are power- and money-mad they'll stop at nothing." It apparently never oc- AliNtalr MacLean curred to Lord Worth that his description of people applied, in excelsis, to himself.

"Who's the other power?" said La.r.s.en.

"The Soviet Union."

"Is it now?" La.r.s.en seemed quite unmoved. "I don't know if I like the sound of that."

"We could do without them." Lord Worth was back on balance again. He flipped out a notebook and consulted it. "I think Til have a talk with Washington." His hand was just reaching out for the phone when it rang. He lifted the instrument, at the same time turning the switch that cut the incoming call into the bulkhead speaker.

"Worth."

A vaguely disembodied voice came through the speaker. "You know who I am?" Disembodied or not, the voice was known to Worth. Corral.

"Yes."

Tve checked my contact, sir. Tm afraid our guesses were only too accurate. Both X and Y are willing to commit themselves to naval support."

"I know. One of them has just moved out and appears to be heading in our general direction."

"Which one?"

"The one to the south. Any talk of air commitment?"

"None that I've heard, sir. But I don't have to tell you that that doesn't rule out its use."

"Let me know if there is any more good news."

"Naturally. Goodbye, sir."

Lord Worth replaced the instrument, then lifted it again.

"I want a number in Washington."

"Can you hold a moment, sir?"

"Why?"

"There's another code message coming through. Looks like the same code as the last one, sir."

"I shouldn't be surprised." Lord Worth's tone was somber. "Bring it across as soon as possible."

He replaced the phone, pressed a b.u.t.ton on the small console before him, lifting the phone again as he did.

"Chambers?" Chambers was his senior pilot "Sir?"

"Your chopper refueled?"

"Ready to go when you are, sir.**

"May be any second now. Stand by your phone." He replaced the receiver.

La.r.s.en said: "Washington beckons, sir?"

"I have the odd feeling that it's about to. There are things that one can achieve in person that one can't over the phone. Depends upon this next message."

"If you go, anything to be done in your absence?"

"There'll be dual-purpose antiaircraft guns arriving aboard the Roamer this afternoon. Secure them to the platform."

87.All stair JtfaeLean "To the north, south, east but not west?"

"As you wish."

"We don't want to start blowing holes in our own oil tank."

"There's that. There'll -eAso be mines. Three piles, each halfway between a pair of legs."

"An underwater explosion from a mine wouldn't damage the legs?"

"I shouldn't think so. We'll just have to find out, won't we? Keep in constant half-hourly touch with both the Torbetto and the Jupiter. Keep the radar and sonar stations constantly manned. Eternal vigilance, if you will. h.e.l.l, Commander, I don't have to tell you what to do." He wrote some figures on a piece of paper. "If I do have to go, contact this number in Washington. Tell them that Tm coming. Five hours or so."

"This is the State Department?"

"Yes. Tell them that at least the Under Secretary must be there. Remind him, tactfully, of future campaign contributions. Then contact my aircraft pilot, Dawson. Tell him to be standing by with a filed flight plan for Washington."

The radio operator knocked, entered, handed Lord Worth a message sheet and left. Lord Worth, hands steady and face now untroubled, decoded the message, reached for the phone and told Chambers to get to the helicopter at once.

He said to the two men: "A Russian-built Cuban submarine is on its way from Havana. It's 88.Seawltch being followed by a Russian guided-missile destroyer. Both are heading this way."

"A visit to the State Department or the Pentagon would appear to be indicated," La.r.s.en said. "There isn't too much we can do about guided missiles. Looks like there might be quite some activity hereabouts. That makes five vessels arrowing in on us-three naval vessels, the Jupiter and the Roomer." La.r.s.en might have been even more concerned had he known that the number of vessels was seven, not five: but, then, La.r.s.en was not to know that the Tiburon and the Starlight were heading that way also.

Lord Worth rose. "Well, keep an eye on the shop. Back this evening sometime. I'll be in frequent radio contact."

Lord Worth was to fly four legs that day: by helicopter to the mainland, by his private Boeing to Washington, the return flight to Florida, and the final leg by helicopter out to the Seawitch. On each of those four legs something very unpleasant was going to happen-unpleasant for Lord Worth, that is. Fortunately for Lord Worth, he was not blessed with the alleged Scottish second sight-the ability to look into the future.

The first of those unpleasantnesses happened when Lord Worth was en route to the mainland. A large station wagon swept up to the 89.front door of Lord Worth's mansion, carrying five rather large men who would have been difficult later to identify, for aU five wore stocking masks. One of them carried what appeared to be a large coil of clothesline rope, another a roll of adhesive tape. All carried guns.

MacPherson, the elderly head gardener, was taking his customary prework dawn patrol to see what damage the fauna had wreaked on his flora during the night, when the men emerged from the station wagon. Even allowing for the fact that shock had temporarily paralyzed his vocal cords, he never had a chance. In just over a minute, bound hand and foot and with his lips sealed with adhesive tape, he had been dumped unceremoniously into a clump of bushes.

The leader of the group, a man by the name of Durand, pressed the front-door bell. Durand, a man who had a powerful affinity with banks and who was a three-time ex-convict, was by definition a man of dubious reputation, a reputation confirmed by the fact that he was a close and longtime term a.s.sociate of Cronkite. Half a minute pa.s.sed, then he rang again. By and by the door opened to reveal a robe-wrapped Jen-kins, tousle-haired and blinking the sleep from his eyes-it was still very early in the morning. His eyes stopped blinking and opened wide when he saw the pistol in Durand's hand.

Durand touched the cylinder screwed onto the muzzle of Ms gun. As hooked a TV addict as the 9O.

next man, Jenkins recognized a silencer when he saw one.

"You know what this is?"

A fully awake Jenkins nodded silently.

"We don't want to harm anyone in the house. Especially, no harm will come to you if you do what you are told. Doing what you are told includes not telling lies. Understood?"

Jenkins understood.

"How many staff do you have here?"

There was a noticeable quaver in Jenkins's voice. "Well, there's me-I'm the butler-"

Durand was patient. "You we can see."

"Two footmen, a chauffeur, a radio operator, a secretary, a cook and two housemaids. There's a cleaning lady, but she doesn't come until eight."

"Tape him," Durand said. Jenkins's lips were taped. "Sorry about that, but people can be silly at times. Take us to those eight bedrooms."

Jenkins reluctantly led the way. Ten minutes later, all eight of the staff were securely bound and silenced. Durand said: "And now, the two young ladies."

Jenkins led them to a door. Durand picked out three of his men and said softly: "The butler will take you to the other girl. Check what she packs and especially her purse."

Durand, followed by his men, entered the room, his gun in its concealed holster so as not to arouse too much alarm. That the bed was occupied was beyond doubt, although all that could ei Alistalr MacLean be seen was a mop of black hair on the pillow. Durand said in a conversational voice: "I think you better get up, ma'am." Durand was not normally given to gentleness, but he did not want a case of screaming hysterics on his hands.

A case of hysterics he did not have. Marina turned round in bed and looked at him with drowsy eyes. The drowsiness did not last long. The eyes opened wide, either in fear or shock, then returned to normal. She reached for a robe, arranged it strategically on the bed cover, then sat bolt upright, wrapping the robe round her.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Her voice was not quite as steady as she might have wished.