Santorini

be better off in your bunk. I'll let you know when we've cut away the section and are ready to lift.' He wiped rain away from his eyes. 'I hear you've lost your chief steward. Bloody odd, isn't it? Do you suspect foul play?'

'I'm at the stage where I'm about ready to suspect anything or anybody. Van Gelder and I are agreed that it couldn't have happened accidentally so it must have happened on purpose and not, of course, his purpose. Yes, foul play. As to what kind of foul play and the identity of the person or persons responsible, we don't have a clue.'

It should have been dawn, but wasn't, when Van Gelder roused Talbot shortly after six-thirty in the morning. The sky was still heavy and dark, and neither the wind nor the steadily drumming rain had improved in the past four hours.

'So much for your breathless Aegean dawns,' Talbot said. 'I take it that Captain Montgomery has cut away that section of the plane's fuselage?'

'Forty minutes ago. He's got the fuselage more than half way out of the water already.'

'How are the winch and the derrick taking the strain?'

'Very little strain, I believe. He's secured four more flotation bags under the fuselage and wing and is letting compressed air do most of the work. He asks if you'd like to come along. Oh, and we've had a communication from Greek Intelligence about Andropulos.'

'You don't seem very excited about it.'

'I'm not. Interesting, but doesn't really help us. It just confirms that our suspicions about Uncle Adam are far from groundless. They've passed on our messages to Interpol. It seems — the message, I must say, is couched in very guarded language ? that both Greek Intelligence and Interpol have been taking a considerable interest in Andropulos for several years. Both are certain that our friend is engaged in highly illegal activities but if this was a trial in a Scottish court of law the verdict would be 'not proven'. They have no hard evidence. Andropulos acts through intermediaries who operate though other intermediaries and so on until either the trail runs cold or, occasionally, ends up in shell companies in Panama and the Bahamas, where much of his money is stashed away. The banks there consistently refuse to acknowledge letters and cables, in fact they won't even acknowledge his existence. No co-operation from the Swiss banks, either. They'll only open up their books if the depositor has been convicted of what is also regarded as a crime in Switzerland. He hasn't been convicted of anything.'

'Illegal activities? What illegal activities?'

'Drugs. Message ends with a request ? sounds more like a demand the way they put it ? that this information be treated in total secrecy, utter and absolute confidentiality. Words to that effect.'

'What information? They haven't given us any information that we didn't already suspect or have. No mention of the one item of information we'd like to know. Who, either in the government, the civil service or the top echelons in the armed forces, is Andropulos's powerful protector and friend? Possibly they don't know, more probably they don't want us to know. Nothing from Washington?'

'Not a word. Maybe the FBI don't work at night.' 'More likely that other people don't work at night. It's eleven-thirty p.m., their time, the banks are shut and all the staffs to hell and gone until tomorrow morning. We may have to wait hours before we hear anything.'

'We're nearly there,' Captain Montgomery said. 'We'll stop hoisting ? in this case more lifting from below than hoisting ? when the water-level drops below the floor of the cabin. That way we won't get our feet wet when we go inside.'

Talbot looked over the side to where a man, torch in his hand pointing downwards, sat with his legs dangling through the rectangular hole that had been cut in the fuselage.

'We're going to get a lot more than our feet wet before we get there. We've got to pass first through the compartment under the flight deck and that will still have a great deal of water in it.'

'I don't understand,' Montgomery said. 'I mean we don't have to. We just drop down through the hole we've made in the fuselage.'

'That's fine, if all we want to do is to confine ourselves to the cargo hold. But you can't get into the flight deck from there. There's a heavy steel door in the bulkhead and the clamps are secured on the for'ard side. So if we want to get at those clamps you have to do it from the flight-deck side, and to do that you must pass through the flooded compartment first.'

'Why should we want to open that door at all?'

'Because the clamps holding the atom bomb in place have padlocks. Where is one of the first places you'd look if you were searching for a key to the padlocks?'

'Ah! Of course. The pockets of the dead men.'

'Enough, Captain,' the man on the fuselage called out. 'Deck's clear.'

Montgomery centred the winch and applied the brake, then checked the fore and aft securing ropes. When he had them adjusted to his satisfaction he said: 'Won't be long, gentleman, just going to have a first-hand look.'

'Van Gelder and I are coming with you. We've brought our suits.' Talbot checked the level of the top of the jagged hole in the nose cone relative to the surface of the sea. 'I don't think we'll be needing our helmets.'

They did not, as it proved, require their helmets, the compartment under the flight-deck was no more than two-thirds full. They moved along to the opened hatch and hauled themselves up into the space behind the pilots' seats. Montgomery looked at the two dead men and screwed his ryes momentarily shut.

'What a bloody awful mess. And to think that the fiend responsible is still walking around free as air.'

'I don't think he will be for much longer.'

'But you've said yourself you don't have the evidence to convict him.'

'Andropulos will never come to trial. Vincent, would you bang open that door and show Captain Montgomery where our friend is.'

'No banging. Maybe our friend doesn't like banging.' Van Gelder produced a large stilson wrench. 'Persuasion. Aren't you coming, sir?'

'In a moment.' They left and Talbot addressed himself to the highly distasteful task of searching through the dead men's pockets. He found nothing. He searched through every shelf, locker and compartment in the cockpit. Again, nothing. He moved aft and joined Montgomery and Van Gelder.

'Nothing, sir?'

'Nothing. And nothing I can find anywhere in the flight-deck.'

Montgomery grimaced. 'You were, of course, looking through the pockets of the dead men. Sooner you than me. This is a very big plane, the key ? if there ever was a key ? could have been tucked away anywhere. I don't give much for our chances of recovering it. So, other methods. Your Number One suggests a corrosive to cut through those clamps. Wouldn't it be easier just to use an old-fashioned hacksaw?'

'I wouldn't recommend it, sir,' Van Gelder said. 'If you were to try I'd rather be a couple of hundred miles away at the time. I don't know how intelligent this armed listening device is, but I would question whether it's clever enough to tell the difference between the rhythmic rasping of a hacksaw and the pulse of an engine.'

'I agree with Vincent,' Talbot said. 'Even if it were only a one in ten thousand chance ? and for all we know it might be a one in one chance ? the risk still isn't worth taking. Lady Luck has been riding with us so far but she might take a poor view of our pushing her too far.'

'So corrosives, you think? I have my doubts.' Montgomery stopped to examine the clamps more closely. 'I should have carried out some preliminary test aboard, I suppose, but I never thought those clamps would be so thick nor made, as I suspect they are, of hardened steel. The only corrosive I have aboard is sulphuric acid. Neat sulphuric, H2SO4 at specific gravity 1800 ? vitriol, if you like ? is a highly corrosive agent when applied to most substances, which is why it is usually carried in glass carboys which are immune to the corrosive action of acids. But I think it would find this a very meal to digest. Patience and diligence, of course, and i sure it would do the trick, but it might take hours.' Talbot said: 'What do you think, Vincent?' 'I'm no expert. I should imagine Captain Montgomery is quite correct. So, no corrosives, no hacksaws, no oxyacetylene ches.' Van Gelder hoisted the big stilson in his hand. 'This.' Talbot looked at the clamps and their mountings, then added. 'Of course. That. We're not very bright, are we? At least I'm not.' He looked at the way the clamps were secured to the side of the fuselage and the floor: each of the bases of four retaining arms of the clamps was fitted over two ts and were held in place by heavy inch-and-a-half nuts, 'We leave the clamps in situ and free the bases instead. See how stiff those nuts are, will you?'

Van Gelder applied the stilson to one of the nuts, adjusted the grip and heaved. The nut was big and tightly jammed in position but a stilson wrench affords great leverage: the nut turned easily.

'Simple,' Van Gelder said.