Police Commissioner Bolan, Garfield of Coast Guard, Col Cassidy… It was while he sat in the chair, with the electrodes on his arms, answering questions, that his almost hypnotic personality began to have an effect on the Americans. Sullivan, who had talked with him earlier at MacGowan's request, who had then agreed that Winter was telling the truth, watched the inquisition with growing fascination.
^ 'You need something to check your box of tricks,' Winter observed.
^ 'Did you intend to give yourself up when you arrived in San Francisco?'
^ After fifteen minutes Cassidy asked the question which was worrying them all. 'Winter, you led the hi-jack of this ship and now LeCat is in control. Are there any explosives aboard that vessel?'
^ Which, although no one knew it, exposed the limitations of a lie-detector. It may be able to tell when a man is telling the truth or lies – but it cannot tell when a man gives a reply which is a lie although he believes it to be the truth. It was not apparent at that moment, but the holding of this test probably made it inevitable -in view of what happened later – that the ^ Challenger ^ would be permitted to enter the Bay, bringing with it twenty-nine doomed hostages, thirteen ex-OAS terrorists, and one nuclear device.
^ By three in the afternoon they had still found no even half-safe way of storming the oil tanker. They considered every possible approach but each time they were defeated by the conditions LeCat had imposed if the hostages were not to be shot – that no aircraft, surface or underwater vessel must come near the oil tanker. And, as MacGowan pointed out, they were running out of time. So far he had managed to keep LeCat at arm's length with a series of delaying messages. This can't go on much longer,' the Governor warned. 'From what Winter has told me LeCat is going to lose patience – he is going to start shooting hostages to prove he means business…'
^ MacGowan was secretly planning his intervention very carefully. They had to have enough time to realise there was no apparent way of tackling the terrorist ship – because what he was going to propose was so outrageous they would reject it out of hand – unless they had reached the stage where they would grasp at any straw. Even Winter's straw.
^ The Governor was now convinced that Winter was genuine. He had said as much privately to Cassidy. 'You mean he's undergone some kind of recantation – that he's sorry for what he's done?' the Marine colonel asked sceptically.
^ 'No! He's out for blood. First, he's been double-crossed, and that kind of man you don't cross with impunity. Second, he's not a killer. The death of that couple in Alaska has hit him hard, I think, but he doesn't say much about it.'
^ And there were certain hard facts which reinforced MacGowan's conviction. Winter had handed over Riad's diplomatic passport to the Governor, warning him there could be one hell of an international incident over the obscure death of an Arab diplomat. Winter's solution to this problem was simple: lose the passport. It was still locked away in MacGowan's drawer and he had not yet informed Washington of its existence.
^ More than that, an emergency autopsy had been rushed through on the body of Ahmed Riad. The bruises on the neck and the condition of the corpse had confirmed Winter's story of the incident at the Clift. Riad had died of a massive coronary. It was five in the afternoon when MacGowan decided to take the plunge.
^ 'We're not getting anywhere,' he announced, 'and I can't hold LeCat off much longer. I think it's time we took a look at a plan for getting aboard that ship – Winter's plan.'
^ Waiting until the protests had subsided, MacGowan began talking forcefully, making no concessions to anyone, staring at them grimly from under his thick eyebrows as he pointed out that after hours of discussion they hadn't come up with even the ghost of a plan to tackle the situation. 'The one man who knows the real position aboard that ship is Winter, the one man who knows how the terrorists are liable to react is Winter, and…' he lifted his voice, 'the one man who might just get an assault team aboard the ^ Challenger ^ is Winter, whether you like it or not. In fact, I don't give a damn what you like -I want results…'
^ 'Having talked to him,' Sullivan intervened, 'I think the Governor is right. Winter managed to seize that ship, to get it right under the coast of California. Now, because he was tricked, he's ready to put the same energy and brain power into reverse -into getting the ship back.' Looking round the table where twenty men sat in a state of indecision, he smiled bleakly. 'You know, gentlemen, there is no more dedicated man than the convert to the opposing side. Winter, as an anti-terrorist, could be very formidable indeed…'
^ Winter was brought into the meeting, escorted by the police lieutenant who had become his permanent shadow. There was no humility in his manner, Cassidy noted as the Englishman sat down on MacGowan's left. His face was as cold and distant as when he had been subjected to the lie-detector test. He looked critically round the table, as though assessing each man, wondering whether he was any good. He's a cool bastard, this one, Cassidy was thinking; maybe a good man to go into the jungle with. But, as yet, the Marine colonel wasn't sure. The mayor immediately expressed his disapproval of the whole idea.
^ 'I propose he's sent out of here under armed guard,' Peretti snapped. Sitting on MacGowan's right, he faced Winter who studied him with interest. 'You are the guy who sicked this thing on to us,' Peretti went on. 'I don't agree with your even being in the same room with us…'
^ 'You want the hostages – including one American girl – to die?' Winter enquired. 'Because I'm sure now that LeCat will kill every hostage aboard that ship…'
^ 'You knew that when you started this thing?' Col Cassidy demanded, testing his reaction. 'Because if you did my vote is we put you in a cell and throw away the key…'
^ 'Belt up – and listen. I know these terrorists – which is more than you do. When I was flying in over Marin County I saw a way to get men on to the ship – I was trying to look at it the other way round, to see how we might be stopped. You have to drop on to the tanker from the air…'
^ 'Hopeless.' Cassidy sounded disappointed. 'We've thought of that – and rejected it. The chopper would have to land on -the main deck. It would get shot to pieces from the island bridge -and so would anyone coming out of the machine…'
^ 'We don't use a chopper,' Winter explained. 'A small team of heavily armed men waits on Golden Gate bridge. We give LeCat permission to enter the Bay – to pass under the bridge at night. As the tanker sails under Golden Gate the assault team drops on to her in the dark. If the fog lasts, the chance of success is that much greater.'
^ 'The fog thinned this morning,' MacGowan interjected, 'but it could come back again tonight.'
^ 'That's a crazy idea,' Commissioner Bolan objected, 'that tanker will be moving…'
^ 'Very slowly, if we box clever,' Winter said. 'I understand the tide will be flowing out to sea strongly in the early hours. Can someone tell me what its flow-rate will be?'
^ 'Seven-and-a-half knots until ten in the morning,' Garfield, the Coast Guard chief, said promptly.
^ 'So, we radio Mackay to come in at eight knots – which means moving against the tide, his actual speed will be only half a knot.'
^ 'The main problem is dropping three or four heavily armed men off the bridge span – off the highway level – down on to the ship as it passes under the bridge. We have to lower them ahead of the tanker coming in…'
^ 'Exactly,' Winter agreed. 'Or a cargo net – whatever we can grab hold of. Something men can cling on to during the long drop.' He looked round the table. 'How long a drop is it from the highway span ?'
^ 'Two hundred feet…' O'Hara, the Port Authority chief sounded dubious.
^ 'It can be done,' Winter said emphatically. 'For lowering the net we need a mobile crane – with a foot counter…'
^ 'Foot counter,' Cassidy repeated. He had been whispering to an aide by his side who was making notes. 'The guy operating the crane has to know how far he's dropped them – so he holds them just above deck level as the tanker comes in…'
^ 'So he knows when the men have dropped off,' Cassidy explained. 'Three men in the net weighing a hundred and sixty pounds apiece – makes four hundred and eighty pounds of man-load. The indicator loses that amount, the crane operator knows they're down, he whips the net back up out of sight. That way, if they get aboard unseen in the fog, they have time to assemble on the fo'c'sle and reconnoitre the ground before they go in to the attack.'
^ MacGowan, who was unusually silent, sat with his chin in his hand, carefully saying nothing as the technical side of the plan was worked out. Earlier, Winter had privately outlined this plan to the Governor, who found it possible – just possible if the fog was thick enough. It was a wild, audacious plan, but so had been Winter's previous plan to hi-jack the ^ Challenger – ^ a plan which succeeded because it had been so totally unexpected. And it was unlikely that LeCat and the other terrorists would foresee men dropping down on top of them like spiders suspended from threads.
