^ 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.
^ 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.'
^ 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…'
^ 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 attache 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.
^ '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?'
^ '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
