'Here goes, then. Both of you know, of course, that Jetwind's sails are made of dacron, not canvas.'
He stressed his statement so carefully that Kay said, 'Of course, John – but that's no secret.'
'Bacron is tougher and smoother and therefore more aerodynamically efficient than canvas.'
Kay was staring at him, and he warned, 'Try and keep your eyes on your cards, Kay.'
She gave a little shake of her head, half reproach, half incredulity.
'Dacron is also far more expensive than canvas,5 Tideman went on. 'Therefore it is worth protecting in a way canvas need not be. Jetwind’s sails alone cost a fortune.'
' Albatros’s dacron sails at the end of my run were as thin from sun damage as the Ancient Mariner's ghost ships,' I said.
'That's it – sun damage!' he went on. cJetwind’s designers realized that to prevent sun damage from infrared and ultra-violet rays the sails would have to have a plastic coating. You realize the problem this poses – what plastic could stand up to the continual flexing, reefing, furling and endless changes in wind pressure? There was also the problem of cracking and flaking. The protective coating would have to withstand that also.'
Kay said, 'I remember the headaches that caused. But the Schiffbau team came up trumps in the end.'
'It was brilliant inventiveness,' Tideman went on. 'The specialists evolved a completely new plastic in the polymer group – the same chemical group as dacron itself. It was named polyionosoprene. The day we tested the new plastic and found that it absorbed infra-red and micro-waves was sensational.'
I threw down a card at random on the table. It was the top ace in the pack.
Tideman gave value to the pause, gathering up the pack and riffling the deck like a professional card-sharp. The guard beyond the glass partition was lolling, disinterested.
'That absorption was due – we believed though we couldn't prove it – to an unknown chemical reaction occurring between the dacron and polyionosoprene.' ‘That doesn't sound too dramatic, John.'
'I was there,' Kay added. 'Everyone seemed quite pleased but not over-excited at the discovery.'
A slight smile broke the seriousness of Tideman's explanation. 'It was in fact one of the biggest strategic breakthroughs of the satellite age.
'Infra-red and micro-waves are the basic elements of American and Russian spy satellites. However, infra-red rays are strongly absorbed by water vapour, with the result that a spy satellite cannot 'see' through cloud, which means restricting their use to cloud-free days.' He slapped down a card. 'Now – here is polyionosoprene, an artificial substance which similarly absorbs these rays.'
Kay looked dumbfounded. ‘I never guessed it was that important.'
'Micro-waves can actually penetrate water vapour -cloud, for example – but the deeper they penetrate the poorer becomes the resolution of the sensor image,' continued Tideman. 'I still don't quite get it,' I said.
'In the latest Nimbus series of satellite using microwave instruments, resolution is of the order of two hundred to three hundred metres. In other words, any object with a distinct water mass, say, an iceberg, with dimensions smaller than this will not show up on the spy satellite scan.' 'I still don't get the connection with Jetwind,' I said.
'The combination of heavy cloud cover and polyionosoprene-coated sails renders this ship undetectable by spy satellite,' said Tideman.
He gathered up the cards as a token gesture and reshuffled them.
'Polyionosoprene-coated sails also deflect most of what we call PECM – passive electronic counter-measures -which are used in the multi-sensor module installations of the latest American and Russian high-altitude spy- planes.' He dealt the cards.
'Jetwind's secret makes her of top strategic significance in today's world.'
Kay still seemed dumbfounded. 'Remembers John, when they told us in Hamburg that polyionosoprene was a big commercial secret and we were not to talk about it? I never dreamed it was anything as momentous as this.5
'Now then,’ Tideman went on. 'You, Paul and I discussed the importance of the Drake Passage as an antisubmarine choke point. We shall never know how much Brockton was in on what I am about to tell you now. When I learned the facts about polyionosoprene, I immediately thought of the Drake Passage, where cloud cover is total for twenty-five days in the month. A ship protected by polyionosoprene in those waters is almost undetectable by spy satellites. Even under light cloud cover conditions, Jetwind would show up on spy satellite instruments only as an amorphous white blob, indistinguishable from innumerable icebergs. In fact we have the biggest anti- surveillance breakthrough since the first spy-in-the-sky went into orbit.’
Kay made a helpless gesture. 'They simply referred to the danger of industrial espionage.’ 'What did you do about it?’ I wanted to know.
'I got back to London as fast as I could make it. After top-level discussions the Navy decided to keep the tightest security watch over Jetwind's proving voyage, which was then scheduled to take place from Montevideo to the Cape.’
'How does Mortensen's murder tie up with what you're saying now?’ I asked.
'My guess is that Grohman's Molot Command ordered him to kill him when the Soviet Navy lost track of Jetwind’
'Lost track? There was no secret about her position! Her journey was publicized throughout the world!5
'Lost track – from the sky. Satellite track. I think something happened which sent a powerful shock through the Red Fleet.' 'But why?'Kay asked.
'This ship had to be stopped from going anywhere near this Molot place, in case the alleged Soviet base was exposed.'
I said ruefully, 'And I, too, unwittingly headed for Molot from the Falklands.'
'I suppose that's why Jetwind was hijacked. She had to be stopped because she was invisible to Red spy satellites. Grohman knew he was safe in the Falklands – that's why he holed up there after Mortensen's death. Then you came along and threw a spanner in. the works. He never bargained you would get past the warship which was meant to detain Jetwind – orders for which originated, no doubt, right back at Soviet Naval Command HQ.' 'God, what a mess!' exclaimed Kay. 'Keep your eyes on the cards,' Tideman warned again.
'John,' I cut in. 'Don't you think you exaggerate the whole situation? Grohman is just a puppet whose strings are being manipulated. Suppose he is to lead an attack on the Falklands. There's no way he can count on a force of any size. All he can do is lead a small group of terrorists against Stanley and occupy the place. It would be a demonstration, a gesture – not an operation of international scope such as you have in mind.'
'Unfortunately, there's more to it than.that. The Navy's anti-submarine specialist team decided that if Jetwind proved herself, a fleet of five Jetwinds would be built. Their true purpose would constitute the newest and most novel form of anti-sub weapon. The projected fleet has even been given a name, the Cape Horn Patrol.'
There was a long silence. We threw down the cards mechanically, unseeingly.
'The operational area of the Cape Horn Patrol would be the Drake Passage and its ocean approaches. It has one overriding assignment – to monitor the passage of nuclear submarines. Drake Passage presents a unique problem in tactical detection which no major navy has yet mastered. It is impossible, because of the bad weather and lack of bases, to monitor the passage of nuclear subs by conventional means. If any navy attempted warship patrols of the Passage, they would be detected within hours by satellite. Powered ships are heat-emitting. They are easy game for infra-red sensors. In addition, engines make a noise a give-away to counter-sonar tracking by submarines. Submerged subs are out of satellite reach. Never forget that a nuclear sub is a noisy machine, that is its Achilles' heel. The latest Soviet Titanium class is, fortunately for the West, the noisiest of the lot.'
'What can Jetwind do that they can't?' Kay wanted to know.
'Jetwind, being wind-driven, is the silent stalker, the silent killer,' he said. 'In Southern Ocean conditions she is fast – faster than most warships can travel safely. She also offers what no powered vessel can – a stable operations platform. Her sails hold her hull down on the water.
'So you see,' he said, 'Jetwind is in fact a fast, silent, satellite-undetectable weapon against nuclear subs in an area which also happens to be a naval choke point of major global strategic significance.' I said slowly, 'Now we have it, John.'
He shook his head. 'At present something 'else alarms me – rather, did alarm me.' Kay and I waited anxiously.
'I was afraid that after the hijacking Grohman might turn back to the Falklands,' he said. 'That would have put paid to Jetwind’s major proving test.'* I felt my stomach muscles cramp. 'Is there more?' asked Kay, now even
