'The rescue crew must be cared for,' I intervened. 'They've taken a beating.'
'We'll see that they don't come to any harm,' said Grohman maliciously. 'Now – get on the phone. Check with Tideman on the bridge. And no tricks!' He gestured at the UZI.
I stepped past Brockton's body. I noted in the cipher terminal case that there was a plug connection to link with the telephone. It certainly was sophisticated equipment. 'John?' I said when I had dialled the bridge.
Tideman's voice was full of suppressed tension. He said, obviously marking time, 'You got Kay all right?'
'She's going to be fine, I think. I'm in Paul's cabin in the stern.' 'Yes?' I could imagine that neutral reply being forced out of him with a gun at his back. Taul is dead.'
Grohman made a silencing gesture. 'I am on my way to the bridge. With Grohman.'
Tideman's voice was without inflexion. 'I've got problems here.' In other words, the take-over was complete. 'Everything functioning – shipwise, I mean?' 'Aye.' 'Keep her like that until I come.' 'I'll do that.'
'Discretion is the better part of valour,' Grohman sneered further. 'First, the bridge. Then you'll enjoy my own recent experience of being confined to quarters. I am going to lock you up in the sick-bay – you'll be safer there. I want your cabin. Come!'
Jetwind was running like a greyhound newly back in its stride. Tideman was carrying a press of sail. What puzzled me was that Grohman made no move to interfere. Maybe that was why Tideman had been left alive, to handle the ship.
We made our way along the life-lines to the bridge via the radio office, Grohman behind me, UZI at the ready. Arno's chair was now occupied by one of Grohman's gang. Several alarms were buzzing away unanswered. 'Landajo! Who the devil wants us?'
'One of them is the radio-telephone, the other is Weather Routing's call-sign,' answered the operator. 'You expecting a call?' Grohman asked of me.
'Possibly Thomsen from Cape Town,' I replied. 'You can explain this situation, Grohman.'
'Let them buzz,' he told Landajo. 'You are not to reply to anyone – total radio silence.' 'Very good, comrade.'
Comrade! Brockton's warning about the Red threat in the Southern Ocean had become very real. Real enough for him to have paid with his life. 'This is to be the only signal – send this in our code. Landajo…' Grohman switched into Spanish. The message was brief, but I recognized the phrase, 'Las Malvinas son nuestras.'
'You won't get away with this,' I told Grohman. 'International terrorism doesn't pay.'
I did not appreciate how near the limit he was. He struck at me with his open hand, but I ducked. Before I could counter-punch, he had stuck the automatic in my stomach.
'Don't try that again, you bastard!' he rapped out. 'When that signal is received a new era will begin! The Falklands will be ours again, after a century and a half of British oppression!'
I kept a contemptuous silence. Then he snapped, 'We've wasted enough time!' Tideman and the helmsman were on watch. A trigger-happy hijacker stood guard at the rear of the bridge brandishing an automatic like Grohman's. He started nervously when we entered.
'Las Malvinas son nuestras!' Grohman's catch-phrase relaxed the man immediately. It must have been the gang's password for the hijacking.
'Tideman!' said Grohman. 'Put the ship on automatic! Face this way. You are at the wheel, keep your eyes ahead! If you turn, you die!'
Tideman manipulated the controls, then turned and came to us. For all he knew, he was about to be blasted into eternity. 'What is all this about?' he asked coolly. Grohman indicated the UZI. 'It is all about this.' 'Do as he says, John,' I warned. Tideman gave me a quick glance. I could see the meaning behind it – did Grohman know his background? 'Stop!'
The other gangman moved so that both he and Grohman had clear fields of fire.
The slightly hysterical note returned to Grohman's voice. 'This ship is now under my command. You and Rainier will be locked up. Any attempt to escape and you will be shot.'
I could see Tideman's tension ease. Grofiman wasn't wise to him! 'Yes.' Tideman's tone was completely neutral.
Grohman ordered the guard. 'Search him! I'll hold your gun while you do it!'
The two of them were as wary as if hunting leopards. The passing of weapons between them was so quick it was almost sleight-of-hand. There wasn't a chance of jumping either of them.
The man frisked Tideman; from a pocket he pulled out the slide-rule which concealed the lethal blade. He raised it inquiringly to Grohman.
Grohman said, 'It's for navigation. Put it back. It can't. hurt anyone.'
When the search was over, Grohman returned the gunman's automatic. Then he backed to the ship's intercom, keeping his own weapon levelled on us. Bitch-box, Brockton had called it. The recollection was like a stab to the heart.
'Grohman speaking,' he said. 'I have taken over command of Jetwind. I am now the captain. The ship is in the hands of Group Condor.' His voice rose. 'We are liberation fighters. The Falkland Islands – the Malvinas -have groaned under the British yoke for a hundred and fifty years. We, Group Condor, have come to liberate the oppressed populace. This is a great hour for my country. The capitalist-colonialist regime is about to end. The islands will be returned to my people. An Argentinian regime based on equality for all will be installed under my leadership. Argentinian justice will replace the colonial tyranny which has suppressed the people for so long. Las Malvinas son nuestras!'
'Is that why you shot a harmless American reporter?' I said derisively when he had finished at the instrument,
'Brockton was a spy!' he shouted. 'We caught him sending off a signal which would have wrecked our enterprise. That was his death warrant. He had to die!'
'Enterprise? That's a goddam funny word for murder and piracy’,
Grohman shrugged and went on in his hectoring tone. 'When Argentina freed itself from the colonial rule of Spain, the thieving British saw their opportunity in the upheaval which followed and stole the Malvinas from us. One American life is nothing beside that.'
'How can you and four gunmen hope to seize such a spread-out group of islands?' I asked. 'You might perhaps get away with it for a while in a little place like Port Stanley. Also, think of the international stink you'll create…'
Grohman seemed amused. 'You'll see, in a few days' time.'
'It will take more than a few days for Jetwind to beat back to the Falklands into this gale,' I replied. 'A few weeks, more likely.'
Perhaps Tideman felt that his continued silence was playing the situation a little too dumb.
He said, 'I'll back that up, as a sailor.' The emphasis was on sailor.
'Shut up, both of you!' retorted Grohman. 'Don't argue with me. I'm in command, and what I say goes. You are the enemies of Las Malvinas. Consider yourselves lucky that I do not shoot you out of hand. But I will let you live -provided you behave – for a few days. 'Until we reach Molot.'
Chapter 23
Molot was the riddle which bugged our long day in captivity in the ship's sick-bay. The ‘hospital' was situated underneath the port wing of the bridge – in exactly the same position but on the opposite side of my captain's suite. It had two curtained-off cubicles and a minute double 'ward' containing two surgical beds. A glass partition separated the sick-bay itself from an outer reception office, designed for a medical orderly. The sickbay did not seem to have had much use except as a junk room for ship's odds and ends. One of these was a survival suit stored on a hanger which, Tideman explained, was used in icy seas for inspection of Jetwind3 s drop keels.
'Molot?' I asked Tideman for the hundredth time. 'Where the hell is Molot?'
'It must be the base from which the attack on the Falklands will be launched,' he replied. 'That's about all I can guess.'
'But Grohman is heading away from the Falklands,' I pointed out. 'He's kept Jetwind going like a bomb all day.
