Seawitch

by Alistair MacLean

  Mitchell brought his hands in front of him. The tremor was still there. Durand stepped forward, his right hand swinging back as if to strike Mitchell open-handed, then let his hand fall in disgust, which was, unwittingly, the wisest thing he had ever done. Durand’s mind was brutalized to the extent where it was incapable of picking up any psychic signals: had it been so attuned he could not have failed to hear the black wings of the bird of death flapping above his head.

  The only person who derived any satisfaction, carefully concealed, from this vignette, was Larsen. Although he had talked to Mitchell on the telephone he had never met him: but he had heard a great deal about him from Lord Worth, more than enough to make him realize that Mitchell would cheerfully have reduced Durand to mincemeat sooner than back down before him. Mitchell had taken only seconds to establish the role he wished to establish–that of the cowardly nonentity who could be safely and contemptuously ignored. Larsen, who was no mean hand at taking care of people himself, felt strangely comforted.

  Lord Worth said: ‘May I see my daughters?’

  Durand considered, then nodded. ‘Search him, Aaron.’

  Aaron, carefully avoiding Lord Worth’s basilisk glare of icy outrage, duly searched. ‘He’s clean, Mr Durand.’

  ‘Across there.’ Durand pointed through the gathering gloom. ‘By the side of the platform.’

  Lord Worth walked off without a word. The others made their way towards the accommodation quarters. As Lord Worth approached his daughters Heffer barred his way.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going, mister?’

  ‘Lord Worth to you.’

  Heffer pulled out his walkie-talkie. ‘Mr Durand? There’s a guy here–’

  Durand’s voice crackled over the receiver. ‘That’s Lord Worth. He has been searched and has my permission to speak to his daughters.’

  Lord Worth plucked the walkie-talkie from Heffer. ‘And would you please instruct this individual to remain outside listening range?’

  ‘You heard, Heffer.’ The walkie-talkie went dead.

  The reunion between father and daughters was a tearful and impassioned one, at least on the daughters’ side. Lord Worth was all that a doting parent reunited with his kidnapped children should have been, but his effusiveness was kept well under control. Marina was the first to notice this.

  ‘Aren’t you glad to see us again, Daddy?’

  Lord Worth hugged them both and said simply: ‘You two are my whole life. If you don’t know that by this time, you will never know it.’

  ‘You’ve never said that before.’ Even in the deepening dusk it was possible to see the sheen of tears in Melinda’s eyes.

  ‘I did not think it necessary. I thought you always knew. Perhaps I’m a remiss parent, perhaps still too much the reserved Highlander. But all my billions aren’t worth a lock of your black hair, Marina, or a lock of your red hair, Melinda.’

  ‘Titian Daddy, titian. How often must I tell you?’ Melinda was openly crying now.

  It was Marina, alwavs the more shrewd and perceptive of the two, who put her finger on it. ‘You aren’t surprised to see us, Daddy, are you? You knew we were here.’

  ‘Of course I knew.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘My agents,’ Lord Worth said loftily, ‘lie thick upon the ground.’

  ‘And what is going to happen now?’

  Lord Worth was frank. ‘I’m damned if I know.’

  ‘We saw three other men come off the helicopter. Didn’t recognize them–getting too dark.’

  ‘One was a Dr Greenshaw. Excellent surgeon.’

  Melinda said: ‘What do you want a surgeon for?’

  ‘Don’t he silly. What does anyone want a surgeon for? You think we’re going to hand over the Seawitch on a plate?’

  ‘And the other two?’

  ‘You don’t know them. You’ve never heard of them. And if you do meet them you will give no indication that you recognize them or have ever seen them before.’

  Marina said: ‘Michael and John.’

  ‘Yes. Remember–you’ve never seen them before.’

  ‘We’ll remember,’ the girls said almost in chorus. Their faces were transformed. Marina said: ‘But they’ll be in great danger. Why are they here?’

  ‘Something to do, I understand, with their stated intent of taking you back home.’

  ‘How are they going to do that?’

  Again Lord Worth was frank. ‘I don’t know. If they know, they wouldn’t tell me. They’ve become bossy, very bossy. Watch me like a hawk. Won’t even let me near my own blasted phone.’ The girls refrained from smiling, principally because Lord Worth didn’t seem particularly perturbed. ‘Mitchell, especially, seems in a very tetchy mood.’ Lord Worth spoke with some relish. ‘Near as a whisker killed Durand inside the first minute. Would have, too, if you weren’t held hostage. Well, let’s go to my suite. I’ve been to Washington and back. Long, tiring day. I need refreshment.’

  Durand went into the radio room, told the regular operator that his services would not be required until further notice and that he was to return to his quarters and remain there. The operator left. Durand, himself an expert radio operator, raised the Georgia within a minute and was speaking to Cronkite thirty seconds later.

  ‘Everything under control on the Seawitch. We have the two girls here and Lord Worth himself.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Cronkite was pleased, and sounded it. Everything was going his way, but then, he had expected nothing else. ‘Lord Worth bring anyone with him?’

  ‘Apart from the pilot, three people. A doctor–surgeon, rather–and he seems genuine enough. Lord Worth appears to have expected some blood to be spilt. I’ll check his credentials in Florida in a few minutes. Also, two technicians–seismologists, or something of that kind. Genuine and harmless–even the sight of a slung machine-pistol gives them a severe attack of St Vitus’s dance. All are unarmed.’

  ‘So no worries?’

  ‘Yes.’ Three. Lord Worth has a squad of about twenty men aboard. They have the look of trained killers about them, and I’m pretty certain they’re all ex-military personnel. They have to be because of my second worry–Lord Worth has eight dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns bolted on to the platform.’

  ‘The hell he has!’

  ‘I’m afraid so. He also has piles of mines lining the sides of the platform. Now we know who broke into the Mississippi naval armoury last night. And the third problem is that we’re far too thin on the ground. There’s only myself and four others to watch everybody. Some of us have to sleep sometime. I need reinforcements and I need them quickly.’

  ‘You’ll have over twenty arriving at dawn tomorrow morning. The relief rig crew are due in then. A man called Gregson–you’ll recognize him by the biggest red beard you ever saw–will be in charge.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long. I need reinforcements now. You have your chopper on the Georgia.’

  ‘And what do you think I carry aboard the Georgia? An army of reinforcements?’ Cronkite paused, then went on reluctantly: ‘I can spare eight men, no more.’

  ‘They have radar aboard.’

  ‘No’ unheard of. What does it matter? You’re in charge.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Cronkite. But your own golden rule: never take a chance.’

  ‘When you get the word that our helicopter has taken off, neutralize it.’

  ‘Destroy the radar cabin?’

  ‘No. We’ll almost certainly want to use it when we’ve completely taken over. The scanner will be on top of the drilling derrick. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘It’s a simple mechanical job to stop it from turning. All it needs is someone with a spanner and a head for heights. Now tell me exactly where Lord Worth’s hard men are quartered. Gregson will require this information.’

  Durand told him what he wanted to know and hung up.

  The dispensary/sick-bay and the laboratory were next to each other. Mitchell and Roomer were helping Dr Greenshaw to unpack his
very considerable amount of medical equipment. They were, understandably, not unguarded, but Aaron and his Schmeisser were on watch on the two outside doors. Aaron could not have been accused of being in a very alert or trigger-ready state of mind, In fact, he regarded his vigil as being close to pointless. He had been present along with Durand when the three men had disembarked from the helicopter, and had formed the same opinion of them as his boss had done.

  In the sick-bay Dr Greenshaw up-ended and removed the false bottom of one of his medical supply boxes. With a gingerly and patently nervous apprehension he removed two waistband holsters, two Smith & Wesson 38s, two silencers and two spare magazines. Wordlessly, Mitchell and Roomer buckled on the weaponry. Dr Greenshaw, a man, as they were discovering, of a genuinely devout turn of mind, said: ‘I only hope no one discovers you wearing those pistols.’

  Roomer said: ‘We appreciate your concern, Doctor. But don’t worry about us.’

  ‘I wasn’t worrying about you.’ Dr Greenshaw assumed his most sombre expression. ‘A good Christian can also pray for the souls of the ungodly.’

  A long distance away the meeting of ten were again assembled at Lake Tahoe. At the former meeting the atmosphere had been hopeful, forceful, determined and confident that things would go their way, spuriously motivated by their expressed intent to avert a third world war. On this evening the spirit–if that was the word–of the meeting had changed 180 degrees. They were depressed, vacillating, uncertain and wholly lacking in confidence especially as their allegedly humanitarian attempts to prevent the outbreak of war looked like having precisely the opposite effect.

  Again, as it was his holiday home, Benson was hosting the meeting. But this time Benson was also undoubtedly the man in charge. Opening the discussion, he said: ’We, gentlemen, are in trouble. Not just simple plain trouble but enormous trouble that could bring us all down. It stems from two facts–we underestimated Lord Worth’s extraordinary power and we overestimated Cronkite’s ability to handle the situation with a suitable degree of discretion and tact. I admit that I was responsible for introducing Cronkite to you, but on the other hand you were unanimous in your belief that Cronkite was the only man to handle the job. And we were not aware that Cronkite’s detestation of Lord Worth ran to the extent of a virulent and irresponsible hatred.

  ‘I have friends in the Pentagon, not important ones but ones that matter. The Pentagon normally, like any other department of the State, leaks secrets as though through a broken sieve. This time I had to pay twenty thousand dollar to a stenographer and the same to a cypher clerk which, for a pair of comparatively lowly-paid government employees, represents a pretty fair return for a few hours’ work.

  ‘First, everything is known about our previous meeting here every word and sentiment that was expressed and the identities of all of us.’ Benson paused and looked round the room partly to allow time for the damning enormity of this information to sink in, partly to make it clear that he expected to be recognized for his very considerable outlay.

  Mr A, one of the vastly powerful Arabian Gulf potentates, said: ‘I thought our security here was one hundred per cent. How could anyone have known of our presence?’

  ‘No external agency was involved. I have good friends in California Intelligence. Their interest in us is zero. Nor was the FBI involved. For that to have happened we’d have had to commit some crime and then cross State lines. Neither of those have we done. And before we met last time I had an electronics expert in to check not only this room but the entire house for bugs. There were none.’

  Mr A said: ‘Perhaps he planted a bug?’

  ‘Impossible. Apart from the fact that he’s an old friend of immaculate reputation, I was with him all the time, a fact that did not prevent me from calling in a second expert.’

  Patinos, the Venezuelan, said: ‘We give you full marks for security. That leaves only one possibility. One of us here is a traitor.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I have no idea. We shall probably never know.’

  Mr A stroked his beard. ‘Mr Corral here lives very close to Lord Worth, no?’

  Corral said: ‘Thank you very much.’

  Benson said: ‘Intelligent men don’t make so obvious a link.’

  ‘As you said on our previous meeting, I’m the only person who has no declared interest in being here.’ Borosoff seemed quietly relaxed. ‘I could be your man.’

  ‘It’s a point but one which I don’t accept. Whether you are here to stir up trouble for the United States may or may not be the case. Again it comes down to the factor of intelligence.’ Benson was being disarmingly frank. ‘You could be, and probably are, a Soviet agent. But top agents are never caught in the role of agent provocateur. I am not complimenting you on your unquestioned intelligence. I prefer to rely on simple common sense.’ Benson, who appeared to have developed a new maturity and authority, looked around the company. ’Every word spoken here will doubtless be relayed to either Lord Worth or the State Department. It no longer matters. We are here to set right whatever wrongs for which we may have been–however unwittingly, I may say–responsible.

  ’We know that a Russian missile craft and a Russian-built Cuban submarine are closing in on the Seawitch. We also know that a Venezuelan destroyer is doing the same. What you don’t know is that counter-measures are being taken. My information–and the source is impeccable–is that Lord Worth was today closeted with Belton, the Secretary of State, in Washington. My further information is that Belton was only partially convinced of Lord Worth’s statement of suspicion. He was, unfortunately, wholly convinced when the news came through of Cronkite’s irresponsible folly in kidnapping Lord Worth’s two daughters. As a result a United States cruiser and a destroyer, both armed with the most sophisticated weaponry, have moved out into the Gulf of Mexico. An American nuclear submarine is already patrolling those waters. Another American vessel is already shadowing your destroyer, Mr Patinos: your destroyer, with its vastly inferior detecting equipment, is wholly unaware of this. Additionally, at a Louisiana air-base, a squadron of supersonic fighter-bombers is on instant alert.

  ‘The Americans are no longer in any mood to play around. My information is that they are prepared for a showdown and are prepared for the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation which John Kennedy had with Khrushchev over Cuba. The Russians, clearly, would never risk a local nuclear confrontation where the home territory advantages are so overwhelmingly American. Neither side would dream of mounting a pre-emptive strike over the issue of a few pennies on a barrel of oil. But if the hot line between Washington and Moscow begins to burn, national prestige will make it difficult for either side to back down until they arrive at a face-saving formula which could take quite some time and would, much worse, generate overwhelming world-wide publicity. This would inevitably involve us. So I would advise you, Mr Borosoff and Mr Patinos, to call off your dogs of war before that hot line starts burning. That way, and only by that way, can we survive with our good names left unbesmirched. I blame neither of you gentlemen. You may have given the nod to Cronkite but you did not reckon on the possibility that Cronkite would carry matters to such ridiculous lengths. Please, please believe me that the Americans will not hesitate to blast your ships out of the water.’

  Oil ministers do not become oil ministers because they are mentally retarded. Patinos smiled a smile of wry resignation. ‘I do not relish the thought of personal ruin. Nor do I relish the thought of becoming a scapegoat for my government.’ He looked across at Borosoff. ‘We call off the dogs of war?’

  Borosoff nodded ‘Back to their kennels, and no alas. I wish to return to my Russia and this will give me great standing for they will not have to lose face in the world.’

  Mr A leaned back in his chair. His relief was manifest. ‘Well that would seem to cover that.’

  ‘It covers most of it,’ Benson said. ‘But not all. Another very unpleasant and potentially terrifying crime occurred this afternoon. I heard of it on
ly an hour ago, and it will be the hottest topic in the nation tonight. I only hope to God that although we were in no way responsible for it, we won’t be implicated in it. A place called the “Netley Rowan Armoury” was broken into this afternoon. It’s supposed to be just another armoury insofar as the public is concerned and so, mainly, it is. But it’s also a TNW armoury: “TNW” mean “tactical nuclear weapons”. Two of them were stolen in the break-in, and appear to have vanished without trace.’

  ‘God above!’ The expression and tone of the man from Honduras accurately reflected the shocked feelings of all around the table. ‘Cronkite?’

  ‘My life on it. No proof, naturally, but who the hell else?’

  Corral said: ‘No disrespect to Mr Borosoff here, but couldn’t the Russians, say, have been seeking a prototype?’

  Benson looked as weary as his voice sounded. ‘The Russian already have God knows how many of those things. It’s public knowledge that they have thousands of them deployed along the border between the Warsaw Pact countries and Nato, many of them, it is suspected, more sophisticated than ours. The Russians need our TNWs the way they need bows and arrows.’ Borosoff, despite the anxiety he shared with the others, permitted himself the ghost of a smile of complacency. ‘Cronkite. The man’s running wild.’

  Mr A said: ‘You think he’s so totally crazed as to use a nuclear device against the Seawitch?’

  ‘I do not profess to understand the workings of an obviously diseased mind,’ Benson said. ‘He’s capable of anything.’

  Patinos said: ‘What’s this weapon like?’

  ‘I don’t know. I phoned the Pentagon, a very senior official there, but even although he’s an old friend of mine he refused to release highly classified information. All I know is that it can be used as a land-based time-bomb–I suppose that includes the sea as well–or as an aircraft bomb. We can forget the second use. It can only be used in a limited number of supersonic fighter-bombers, which will already, I suppose, be under the heaviest security guard ever, which would strike me as a superfluous precaution as there is no chance that Cronkite, even with his obviously wide range of contacts, could know anyone who could fly one of those planes.’