made power-ship operation a highly questionable one.'
Sir James wasn't the man to lose his captive audience in their adulatory mood by giving them a lecture on ship economics.
He turned to me. 'I – and this audience – have had no time to arrange a formal presentation, but we ask you to place this old Cape Horn bell in a place of honour in Jetwind as a token of our admiration, and a symbol of the reopening of the once-great ocean route’
Neither I – nor anyone else – fathomed his meaning. He was aware of it. But he was, as I have said3 a showman. He waited long enough to let our puzzlement take root, then he drew a sheet of paper from his pocket.
He addressed me. His eyes were sparkling by contrast with the formality of his words.
'Captain Rainier, I wish to request official permission to have this signal transmitted.' Before I could respond, he went on. 'It is addressed to my ship-owner colleagues aboard the Agulhas. I qjuote the contents. 'Propose immediate formation fifty-million dollar consortium for construction fleet of aerodynamic sailing ships based on design and peformance factors Jetwind. I personally am satisfied…''
I couldn't believe my ears. I found myself on my feet. Sir James was pump-handling me; Kay and Tideman led the congratulatory queue.
The bitch-box cut in imperatively. I was startled out of the mood of the ceremony by the note in the operator's voice.
'Captain on the bridge, sir! Urgent! Radar sighting! Plane, forty-five miles, bearing red zero-zero-nine degrees, coming up fast! Heading our way, sir!'
It was there, all right. There was no mistaking the decisive blip on the big Decca radar screen when Tideman, Kay and I reached the bridge at the double. 'What do you make of it?' I asked Greg. 'She's big and she's stuffed with electronic gear.' 'How do you deduce that?'
'She started transmitting like the clappers a minute back,' he replied. 'She must have picked us up on her radar.' 'Radar?' Tideman interjected.
Greg laughed deprecatingly. 'I'd say, a lot of other sophisticated gadgets as well.' 'What is she signalling?' I demanded.
'Can't say, sir – code. All I know is that that sort of sending isn't commercial.'
I asked Tideman, 'Calling up the other dogs for the kill, do you think?' 'Greg’ asked Tideman, 'is there anything to suggest that the plane is in contact with a ship nearby?' 'A warship?' I added.
The faint green of the screen with its revolving range-finder washed across Greg's face. He concentrated a while and then said, 'She's changing course a little, sheering off.' 'Sniffing the bait?' I asked Tideman again. Kay said quietly, 'I thought we'd finished with all that.' Greg manipulated his instruments. 'There's another transmitter coming in!' 'Range?'
He listened carefully again before answering. 'It's coming a long way, that's for sure. That's all I can tell. It's in code too.' 'What's the plane's range now?' I asked.
He checked against the calibrations. 'Twenty-three nautical miles.' I had a sudden thought. 'Can you establish the altitude?' 'Low – very low. Under a hundred metres.'
'I don't like it, Peter,' Tideman said. 'If it were a long-range search plane looking for us it wouldn't cruise at such a low altitude because it'd be guzzling fuel. It would stay high until it picked up a surface contact and only then descend.'
'Unless it comes from a carrier. Perhaps that's where the code answer is coming from.' Kay formulated the fears which were in both our minds.
'Perhaps it's a plane looking for… for… Group Condor and the Red squadron.'
'It can't be that,' I replied. 'The plane would know the exact location of Molot and wouldn't need to search.' I spoke to Greg. 'What's the direction of approach of the aircraft?' 'Northnortheast, sir.'
The adrenalin which had seeped out of me after the Molot debacle was back in my veins. Maybe Jetwind hadn't won, after all. The screen with its regular blip exercised a kind of hypnotic effect. The four of us went silent. The target came closer, closer. At twelve miles, it hesitated, moved sideways. The hunter sniffing the trap further? Who was the hunter? Greg broke the silence. 'She sees us, for sure.’ 'Visually – surely not!’
'I mean, by means of whatever fancy equipment she's using. She's casing us.'
'Twelve miles – that's beyond immediate sea-to-air missile range,' murmured Tideman. 'She's playing it very carefully.' 'Any way of contacting the plane?' I asked Greg. 'If she speaks, I've got all the taps ready open.'
Silence again washed through the radar office on a background wing of electricity.
Then I was startled by a voice. It was so loud, it seemed right at my elbow.
'This is a T-3 Orion of the United States Tracking and Control Group speaking. Identify yourself. Immediately. Use this wavelength. I warn you not to try any tricks.'
I activated the UHF microphone we used for ship-to-ship conversations. 'Sailing ship Jetwind. Captain Rainier speaking.'
'Rainier! Well I'll be goddamned to hell!' The voice lost some of its suspicious, offhand note. 'You're Rainier! The guy who's been giving us the runaround all over the Southern Ocean!' 'Are you from Naval Securities Group Activities?'
The pilot clammed up. 'What do you know about NSGA?' 'Paul Brockton was my friend.'
There was a short silence. Then the pilot answered in a different, friendly voice. 'Mine, too. Yeah, this ship's from NSGA. Put Paul on the line, will you?' 'He's aboard. But he's dead.' 'Paul – dead!' 'I killed the man who killed him, if that helps.' 'It doesn't. Paul was a regular guy.'
I was still too raw over Paul's death and the other killings to want to talk about them. Instead there were a hundred questions unanswered about the presence of the American long-distance maritime search plane. 'What are you doing in these waters?'
He replied tersely with one word. '''Jetwind. Half the world wants to know what's happened to you. So does the other half – the boys behind the scenes.' ‘What do you mean?'
'If you were Paul's friend, I guess he told you something.'
That bridged a lot of conversational gaps. 'I get you,' I replied, 'but I don't understand why you should come searching here. A position signal was sent off from Jetwind days back saying she was dismasted and in no need of assistance…'
There was a snort of derision from the pilot. 'You can't dipsy-doodle NSGA with a decoy signal, fellah. We weren't born yesterday. The Group on Tristan was on full alert…' So Paul had got enough of his secret signal away to sound the alarm before Grohman's burst had killed him! 'That kind of half-Mayday didn't decieve us. Whoever sent it was a fool. The transmission time was long enough for us to get a position fix. When we compared that with where Jetwind claimed to be, we smelt stinking fish. To NSGA, the stink was to high heaven. It wasn't you who sent that corny signal, I guess?'
'No, it wasn't me. But why the time-lag? Why didn't the Orion come sooner? You could have saved a lot of lives.' 'Lives?' he echoed.
'Lives,' I repeated. 'That part of the story will keep for the present. Why didn't you come?'
'The logistics for mounting a search take time. So do the decisions. NSGA had to be convinced. It took a few days to arrange after Jetwind failed to respond to our signals. You're also a helluva long way from anywhere. This plane has been airborne since yesterday. I've flown all the way down the Big Pond. Thousands of miles.' 'From Lajes in the Azores?' *You were Paul's friend, so I can tell you secrets. Yes. From Lajes. Refuelled Ascension. They had to send an aenal tanker ahead specially to have the gas waiting for me. Maximum load. TACDIFIPS missions.5 'Translate, please.5 'Temporary active duty in a flying status involving operational flights.’ 'Operational?’
The pilot's reply was terse. 'This flight is operational, fellah. I'm armed with every sort of goodie in case of trouble. I'm coming in now for a visual intercept.'
'I also want to see you. I'm changing over to the bridge mike. I'll let you know when I sight you.' 'Okay.'
'Come,' I told Kay and Tideman. We went to the bridge. I opened a window in front of the wheel and took the microphone from its hook. 'There's the plane!’ exclaimed Kay.
Visibility was medium; Kay spotted the T-3 emerging from a cloud to the northeast. I imagined it approached watchfully, as if the pilot still did not wholly credit Jetwind's bona fides. I recalled his remark about the punch of 'goodies’ the Orion packed. The wires in behind-the-scenes secret counsels must have burned over Jetwind's
