Seawitch

by Alistair MacLean

  Cronkite could attack the flexible oil pipe that connected the rig with the tank, but the three men agreed that this could be taken care of. After Conde and the Roamer arrived and its cargo had been hoisted aboard, the Roamer would maintain a constant day-and-night patrol between the rig and the tank. The Seawitch was well equipped with sensory devices, apart from those which controlled the tensioning anchor cables. A radar scanner was in constant operation atop the derrick, and sonar devices were attached to each of the three giant legs some twenty feet under water. The radar could detect any hostile approach from air or sea, and the dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns, once aboard and installed, could take care of those. In the highly unlikely event of an underwater attack sonar would locate the source and a suitably placed depth-charge from the Roamer would attend to that.

  Lord Worth, of course, was unaware that at that very moment another craft was moving out at high speed to join Cronkite on the Questar. It was a standard and well-established design irreverently known as the ‘pull-push’, where water was ducted in through a tube forward under the hull and forced out under pressure at the rear. It had no propeller and had been designed primarily for work close inshore or in swamps where there was always the danger of the propeller being fouled. The only difference between this vessel–the Starlight– and others was that it was equipped with a bank of lead acid batteries and could be electrically powered. Sonar could detect and accurately pinpoint a ship’s engines and propeller vibrations: it was virtually helpless against an electric pull-push.

  Lord Worth and the others considered the possibility of a direct attack on the Seawitch. Because of her high degree of compartmentalization and her great positive buoyancy nothing short of an atom bomb was capable of disposing of something as large as a football field. Certainly no conventional weapon could. The attack, when it came, would be localized. The drilling derrick was an obvious target, but how Cronkite could approach it unseen could not be imagined. But of one thing Lord Worth was certain: when the attack came it would be levelled against the Seawitch.

  The next half hour was to prove, twice, just how wrong Lord Worth could be.

  The first intimations of disaster came when Lord Worth was watching the fully-laden Torbello just disappearing over the northern horizon; the Crusader, he knew, was due alongside the tank late that afternoon. Larsen, his face one huge scowl of fury, silently handed Lord Worth a signal just received in the radio office. Lord Worth read it, and his subsequent language would have disbarred him for ever from a seat in the House of Lords. The message told, in cruelly unsparing fashion, of the spectacular end of the Crusader in Galveston.

  Both men hurried to the radio room. Larsen contacted the Jupiter, their third tanker then offloading at an obscure Louisiana port, told its captain the unhappy fate of the Crusader and warned him to have every man on board on constant look-out until they had cleared harbour.

  Lord Worth personally called the chief of police in Galveston, announced who he was and demanded more details of the sinking of the Crusader. These he duly received and none of them made him any happier. On inspiration he asked if there had been a man called John Cronkite or a vessel belonging to a man of that name in the vicinity at the time. He was told to hang on while a check was made with the Customs. Two minutes later he was told yes, there had been a John Cronkite aboard a vessel called the Questar, which had been moored directly aft of the Crusader. It was not known whether Cronkite was the owner or not. The Questar had sailed half an hour before the Crusader blew up.

  Lord Worth peremptorily demanded that the Questar be apprehended and returned to port and that Cronkite be arrested. The police chief pointed out that international law prohibited the arrest of vessels on the high sea except in time of war and, as for Cronkite, there wasn’t a shred of evidence to connect him with the sinking of the Crusader. Lord Worth then asked if he would trace the owner of the Questar. This the police chief promised to do, but warned that there might be a considerable delay. There were many registers to be consulted.

  At that moment the Cuban submarine steaming on the surface at full speed was in the vicinity of Key West and heading directly for the Seawitch. At almost the same time a missile-armed Russian destroyer slipped its moorings in Havana and set off in apparent pursuit of the Cuban submarine. And, very shortly after that, a destroyer slipped its moorings at its home base in Venezuela.

  The Roamer, Lord Worth’s survey vessel under the command of Conde, was now half-way towards its destination. The Starlight, under the command of Easton, was just moving away from the Questar, which was lying stopped in the water. Men on stages had already painted out the ship’s name, and with the aid of cardboard stencils were painting in a new name–Georgia. Cronkite had no wish that any vessel with whom they might make contact could radio for confirmation of the existence of a cutter called Questar. From aft there came the unmistakable racket of a helicopter engine starting up, then the machine took off, circled and headed south-east, not on its usual pattern-bombing circuit but to locate and radio back to the Questar the location and course of the Torbello, if and when it found it. Within minutes the Questar was on its way again, heading in approximately the same direction as the helicopter.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lord Worth, enjoying a very early morning cup of tea, was in his living-room with Larsen and Palermo when the radio operator knocked and entered, a message sheet in his hand. He handed it to Lord Worth and said: ‘For you, sir. But it’s in some sort of code. Do you have a code-book?’

  ‘No need.’ Lord Worth smiled with some little self-satisfaction, his first smile of any kind for quite some time. ‘I invented this code myself.’ He tapped his head. ‘Here’s my code-book.’

  The operator left. The other two watched in mild anticipation as Lord Worth began to decode. The anticipation turned into mild apprehension as the smile disappeared from Lord Worth’s face, and the apprehension gave way in turn to deep concern as reddish-purplish spots the size of pennies touched either cheek-bone. He laid down the message sheet, took a deep breath, then proceeded to give a repeat performance, though this time more deeply felt, more impassioned, of the unparliamentary language he had used when he had greeted the news of the loss of the Crusader. After some time he desisted, less because he had nothing fresh to say as from sheer loss of breath.

  Larsen had more wit than to ask Lord Worth if something were the matter. Instead he said in a quiet voice: ‘Suppose you tell us, Lord Worth?’

  Lord Worth, with no little effort, composed himself and said: ‘It seems that Cor–’ He broke off and corrected himself: it was one of his many axioms that the right hand shouldn’t know what the left hand doeth. ‘I was informed–all too reliably, as it now appears–that a couple of countries hostile to us might well be prepared to use naval force against us. One, it appears, is already prepared to do so. A destroyer has just cleared its Venezuelan home port and is heading in what is approximately our direction.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare,’ Palermo said.

  ‘When people are power-and money-mad they’ll stop at nothing.’ It apparently never occurred to Lord Worth that his description of people applied, in excelsis, to himself.

  ‘Who’s the other power?’ said Larsen.

  ‘The Soviet Union.’

  ‘Is it now?’ Larsen seemed quite unmoved. ‘I don’t know if I like the sound of that.’

  ‘We could do without them.’ Lord Worth was back on balance again. He flipped out a telephone notebook and consulted it. ‘I think I’ll have a talk to Washington.’ His hand was just reaching out for the receiver when the phone rang. He lifted the receiver, at the same time making the switch that cut the incoming call into the bulkhead speaker.

  ‘Worth.’

  A vaguely disembodied voice came through the speaker. ‘You know who I am?’ Disembodied or not, Worth knew to whom the voice belonged. Corral.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve checked my contact, sir. I’m afraid our guesses were only too accur
ate. Both X and Y are willing to commit themselves to naval support.’

  ‘I know. One of them has just moved out and appears to be heading in our general direction.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one to the south. Any talk of air commitment?’

  ‘None that I’ve heard, sir. But I don’t have to tell you that that doesn’t rule out its use.’

  ‘Let me know if there is any more good news.’

  ‘Naturally. Goodbye, sir.’

  Lord Worth replaced the receiver, then lifted it again.

  ‘I want a number in Washington.’

  ‘Can you hold a moment, sir?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s another code message coming through. Looks like the same code as the last one, sir.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’ Lord Worth’s tone was sombre. ‘Bring it across as soon as possible.’

  He replaced the receiver, pressed a button on the small console before him, lifting the receiver as he did so.

  ‘Chambers?’ Chambers was his senior pilot.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Your chopper refuelled?’

  ‘Ready to go when you are, sir.’

  ‘May be any second now. Stand by your phone.’ He replaced the receiver.

  Larsen said: ‘Washington beckons, sir?’

  ‘I have the odd feeling that it’s about to. There are things that one can achieve in person that one can’t over the phone. Depends upon this next message.’

  ‘If you go, anything to be done in your absence?’

  ‘There’ll be dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns arriving aboard the Roamer this afternoon. Secure them to the platform.’

  ‘To the north, south, east but not west?’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘We don’t want to start blowing holes in our own oil tank.’

  ‘There’s that. There’ll also be mines. Three piles, each half-way between a pair of legs.’

  ‘An underwater explosion from a mine wouldn’t damage the legs?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. We’ll just have to find out, won’t we? Keep in constant half-hourly touch with both the Torbello and the Jupiter. Keep the radar and sonar stations constantly manned. Eternal vigilance, if you will. Hell, Commander, I don’t have to tell you what to do.’ He wrote some figures on a piece of paper. ‘If I do have to go, contact this number in Washington. Tell them that I’m coming Five hours or so.’

  ‘This is the State Department?’

  ‘Yes. Tell them that at least the Under-Secretary must be there. Remind him, tactfully, of future campaign contributions. Then contact my aircraft pilot, Dawson. Tell him to be standing by with a filed flight plan for Washington.’

  The radio operator knocked, entered, handed Lord Worth a message sheet and left. Lord Worth, hands steady and face now untroubled, decoded the message, reached for the phone and told Chambers to get to the helicopter at once.

  He said to the two men: ‘A Russian-built Cuban submarine is on its way from Havana. It’s being followed by a Russian guided missile destroyer. Both are heading this way.’

  ‘A visit to the State Department or the Pentagon would appear to be indicated,’ Larsen said. ‘There isn’t too much we can do about guided missiles. Looks like there might be quite some activity hereabouts: that makes five vessels arrowing in on us–three naval vessels, the Jupiter and the Roamer.’ Larsen might have been even more concerned had he known that the number of vessels was seven, and not five: but then Larsen was not to know that the Questar and the Starlight were heading that way also.

  Lord Worth rose. ‘Well, keep an eye on the shop. Back this evening some time. I’ll be in frequent radio contact.’

  Lord Worth was to fly four legs that day: by helicopter to the mainland, by his private Boeing to Washington, the return flight to Florida and the final leg by helicopter out to the Seawitch. On each of those four legs something very unpleasant was going to happen–unpleasant for Lord Worth, that was. Fortunately for Lord Worth he was not blessed with the alleged Scottish second sight–the ability to look into the future.

  The first of those unpleasantnesses happened when Lord Worth was en route to the mainland. A large estate wagon swept up to the front door of Lord Worth’s mansion, carrying five rather large men who would have been difficult later to identify, for all five wore stocking masks. One of them carried what appeared to be a large coil of clothes rope, another a roll of adhesive tape. All carried guns.

  MacPherson, the elderly head gardener, was taking his customary pre-work dawn patrol to see what damage the fauna had wreaked on his flora during the night when the men emerged from the estate wagon. Even allowing for the fact that shock had temporarily paralysed his vocal chords he never had a chance. In just over a minute, bound hand and foot and with his lips literally sealed with adhesive tape he had been dumped unceremoniously into a clump of bushes.

  The leader of the group, a man by the name of Durand, pressed the front-door bell. Durand, a man who had a powerful affinity with banks and who was a three-time ex-convict, was by definition a man of dubious reputation, a reputation confirmed by the fact that he was a close and long-term associate of Cronkite. Half a minute passed then he rang again. By and by the door opened to reveal a robe-wrapped Jenkins, tousle-haired and blinking the sleep from his eyes–it was still very early in the morning. His eyes stopped blinking and opened wide when he saw the pistol in Durand’s hand.

  Durand touched the cylinder screwed on to the muzzle of his gun. As hooked a TV addict as the next man, Jenkins recognized a silencer when he saw one.

  ‘You know what this is?’

  A fully awake Jenkins nodded silently.

  ‘We have no wish to harm anyone in this household. Especially, no harm will come to you if you do what you are told. Doing what you are told includes not telling lies. Understood?’

  Jenkins understood.

  ‘How many staff do you have here?’

  There was a noticeable quaver in Jenkins’s voice. ‘Well, there’s me–I’m the butler–’

  Durand was patient. ‘You we can see.’

  ‘Two footmen, a chauffeur, a radio operator, a secretary, a cook and two housemaids. There’s a cleaning lady but she doesn’t come until eight.’

  ‘Tape him,’ Durand said. Jenkins’s lips were taped. ‘Sorry about that, but people can be silly at times. Take us to those eight bedrooms.’

  Jenkins reluctantly led the way. Ten minutes later all eight of the staff were securely bound and silenced. Durand said: ‘And now, the two young ladies.’

  Jenkins led them to a door Durand picked out three of his men and said softly: ‘The butler will take you to the other girl. Check what she packs and especially her purse.’

  Durand, followed by his man, entered the room, his gun in its concealed holster so as not to arouse too much alarm. That the bed was occupied was beyond doubt, although all that could be seen was a mop of black hair on the pillow. Durand said in a conversational voice: ‘I think you better get up, ma’am.’ Durand was not normally given to gentleness, but he did not want a case of screaming hysterics on his hands.

  A case of hysterics he did not have. Marina turned round in bed and looked at him with drowsy eyes. The drowsiness did not last long. The eyes opened wide, either in fear or shock, then returned to normal. She reached for a robe, arranged it strategically on the bed cover, then sat bolt upright, wrapping the robe round her.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ Her voice was not quite as steady as she might have wished.

  ‘Well, would you look at that, now?’ Durand said admiringly. ‘You’d think she was used to being kidnapped every morning of her life.’

  ‘This is a kidnap?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Durand sounded genuinely apologetic.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Vacation. Little island in the sun.’ Durand smiled. ‘You won’t be needing any swim-suit though. Please get up and get dressed.’

&nbs
p; ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘We’ll dress you.’

  ‘I’m not going to get dressed with you two watching me.’

  Durand was soothing. ‘My friend will stand out in the corridor. I’ll go into the bathroom there and leave the door open just a crack–not to watch you, but to watch the window, to make sure that you don’t leave by it. Call me when you’re ready and be quick about it.’

  She was quick about it. She called him inside three minutes. Blue blouse, blue slacks and her hair combed. Durand nodded his approval.

  ‘Pack a travelling bag. Enough for a few days.’

  He watched her while she packed. She zipped the bag shut and picked up her purse. ‘I’m ready.’

  He took the purse from her, unclipped it and up-ended the contents on the bed. From the jumble on the bed he selected a small pearl-handled pistol, which he slipped into his pocket.

  ‘Let’s pack the purse again, shall we?’

  Marina did so, her face flushed with mortification.

  A somewhat similar scene had just taken place in Melinda’s bedroom.

  Twenty-five minutes had elapsed since the arrival of Durand and his men and their departure with the two girls. No one had been hurt, except in their pride, and they had even been considerate to the extent of seating Jenkins in a deep armchair in the front hall. Jenkins, as he was now securely bound hand and foot, did not appreciate this courtesy as much as he might have done.