`You'd better test it.' Tweed leaned forward. 'And may I suggest your boffins get their skates on? Delvaux has always known what he's doing before. He turned down that super-gun idea with the incredibly long barrel the Iraqis pinned their faith on. Delvaux did some mathematical calculations, said the theory was unsound.'
`Oh, we'll test it,' Noble assured him. 'Both Naval and Air Intelligence. And as a top priority. Did you notice my car parked outside with three men inside?'
`Yes, I did,' Tweed replied. 'A big job. Heavy looking.'
`Should be. It's armour-plated. And my escort is armed. Thank you, Tweed. If you don't mind, I'll get the show on the road…'
When Noble had gone Tweed swung round in his swivel chair. He faced Butler as he gave him the instruction.
`A job right up your street. Drive down to April Lodge, Brockenhurst. It's somewhere on the outskirts. Owned by a Mrs Goshawk. I think she had a lodger, a Dr Carberry- Hyde. Try and find out if she knows where he is now. If necessary, put on the pressure.'
`I'm on my way…'
`A man of few words but plenty of action,' Tweed commented to Monica when they were alone. 'And I have a job for you. Come over and look at this photo taken in Mexico City.' As she leant over his shoulder he pointed to the figure Rabin had identified.
`Dr Carberry-Hyde. I want the Engine Room wizards to blow up his picture to a size about five inches wide by five deep. Glossy prints. One hundred copies. If they kick up tell them I'm expecting another miracle…'
Monica paused at the door, the framed photo under her arm. Tweed looked up and waited.
`I was just wondering whether they really do exist – invisible ships. We know Stealth planes do – the Americans built the Stealth B2 bombers. But ships? I ask you.'
`I'm relying on Paula's eyesight that night when Boyd died in Lymington.' Tweed paused. 'But you're right – it does stretch the imagination.'
PART TWO
27
Latitude 39.55S. Longitude 18.22E. Several hundred miles south of the Cape of Good Hope, the ferocious gale had died as swiftly as it had blown up. The sea was now an oily calm and a dense fog was forming.
It was the strangest vessel ever built. The Mao III was proceeding on a north-westerly course, well clear of all traditional shipping lanes. A 20,000-ton ship, it resembled a huge submarine travelling on the surface – but minus the give-away conning tower.
It moved with a sinister silence, the low-noise-level propellers at the stern emitting little more than a whisper. The entire hull had a rounded profile which reduced its radar and infra-red signature almost to zero. No satellite would detect its steady forward movement.
The Mao's cooled exhaust funnel was nearly level with the rounded superstructure. The command and weapons control quarters were not located inside a normal bridge – which would have destroyed its non-image. Instead, they were buried below decks.
Captain Welensky stood in front of a battery of highly sophisticated Stealth laser-radar screens. A six-foot- two giant, the ex-hardline East European Communist dwarfed the neatly uniformed slim man beside him. Welensky, unable to pronounce his Oriental name, called him Kim. The common language they conversed in was English.
The neat little man of forty had a European-type face. The high cheekbones and narrow eyes of his original face had been 'attended to' by one of America's foremost plastic surgeons in Shanghai. The same surgeon had `attended to' a large number of Oriental patients.
When he had completed his work the American had suffered a fatal 'accident'. After drinking a cup of poisoned tea his body had been buried in an unmarked grave. The large fortune in dollars paid to him had been `confiscated' and transferred to the Treasury of the People's Republic of China.
`There is a vessel sailing straight towards us in the fog,' Welensky reported. 'If I alter course I should be able to avoid it. But I need a decision now.'
`Sink it. Put it below the waves,' Kim ordered in his smooth voice.
`I promise you I could evade it,' Welensky persisted.
`Is there something wrong with your hearing?' Kim asked. 'We have a smaller vessel travelling in convoy with us at our stern. Sink the intruder. Put it below the waves.'
Welensky shivered inwardly. He had made a bad mistake questioning Kim's first order. He knew it was a mistake he must not repeat.
The Stealth vessel, Mao III, its missile launchers housed for'ard, aft of the knife-like prow, maintained its course. The fog was growing denser.
`Do not forget to use the laser gun to wipe out their radio room,' Kim reminded the captain.
The Dutch freighter, Texel, 8,000 tons, had been forced badly off course rounding the southern tip of Africa by a ferocious gale. She was now well south of the course planned by her skipper, Captain Schenk. He was worried.
First, bound for Indonesia with his cargo, he was well behind schedule. Second, there was something wrong with his engines and he could only move at half normal speed. Third, when the storm had abated, it had been replaced by freezing fog. Ice was forming on the superstructure.
`Jan,' he ordered the first mate, 'keep your eyes glued to the radar screen.'
`I'm watching it non-stop,' Jan protested. 'Nothing to report. And there won't be any other ships as far south as this.'
`So why,' Schenk rejoined, staring through the window as he held the wheel, 'why am I certain I saw something in the fog – sailing towards us?'
Jan, as short and stocky as the ship's master, began to worry. Schenk's eyesight was legendary back in Amsterdam. Throughout Dutch shipping circles he was nicknamed Mr Radar. Jan stared fixedly at his radar screen and blinked to clear his vision.
Technically there couldn't be another ship within miles. The empty radar screen told him that. The trouble was Jan couldn't forget one famous occasion when Schenk had saved another ship from collision with an iceberg – despite the fact that the radar hadn't even shown a blip.
`I am sure there's something close to us,' Schenk repeated.
`Nothing on the-'
Jan never completed his sentence.
A huge shape loomed through the freezing fog on the port side. The Texel shuddered horribly under the impact of a frightful collision. The murderous tragedy happened in seconds.
The sharp, immensely powerful bow of the Mao sliced the Texel amidships. It cut clean through like a monster shark's teeth severing the body of a man at the waist. In his wireless room the Dutch radio op. sat in front of his high-powered transmitter. His fingers started to repeat Mayday…! At the same moment the beam from the Mao's laser gun – adjusted to target radio equipment – struck.
The radio op. reacted like a man in the electric chair when the switch is pulled. His body jerked rigid, his hair stood on end. A stench of burnt hair filled the cabin, his transmitter burst into flames, the radio op. sagged to the floor. Dead.
The freighter split in two, was sinking rapidly. Jan was outside on deck. He stared in stunned horror for a second as the stern floated away, amazed at the clean-cut break. He saw crewmen, wearing lifebelts, jumping overboard. Poor bloody fools – the sea was ice cold. They wouldn't last five minutes.
Captain Schenk was shouting: 'Lower lifeboats…'
