‘You mean you intend to kill all my innocent employees aboard the rig? Your mind, Cronkite, has totally gone. You are stark raving mad.’
‘Never saner. Can’t have any witnesses left who can identify us. Then we destroy two of the helicopters, immobilize your derrick crane, smash your radio room and take off in the other two helicopters. You may, of course, contemplate jumping into the Gulf, but your chances of survival would be about the same as a suicide jumping off the Golden Gate bridge.’
Mitchell nudged Marina. She said in a faint voice: ‘May I go to the ladies’ room?’
Cronkite was joviality itself. ‘Certainly. But be quick about it.’
Fifteen seconds later the deck lights went out.
It was Mitchell, with his unique capacity to see in the dark, who ran round the corner of the battered building, retrieved the two Schmeissers–he didn’t bother about the grenades–returned and thrust one into Larsen’s hands. Twelve seconds had elapsed but in eight seconds two men with sub-machine-guns can achieve an extraordinary amount of carnage. Larsen was firing blind but Mitchell could see and pick out his targets They were helped, in a most haphazard fashion, by Dr Greenshaw who flung grenades at random inflicting even more damage on the already shattered building but not actually injuring anyone.
The lights came on again.
There were still seven people left alive–Cronkite. Mulhooney, Easton, Gregson and three of his men. To those seven Mitchell said: ‘Lay down your arms.’ Shattered and stunned though the survivors were, they still had enough of their wits to comply at once.
Marina arrived back and was promptly sick in a very unladylike fashion.
Mitchell put down his Schmeisser and advanced on Cronkite. ‘Give me that detonating device.’
Cronkite removed it slowly from his pocket, suddenly turned the switch and lifted his arm preparatory to throwing it over the side. Whatever else, it would have meant the destruction of the Seawitch. Cronkite screamed in agony as the bullet from the silenced .38 shattered his right elbow. Mitchell caught the detonating device even before it could reach the deck.
He said to Larsen: ‘Are there two absolutely secure places with no windows and iron doors which can be securely locked without any possibility of opening them from the inside?’
‘Just two. Safe as the Fort Knox vaults. Along here.’
‘Search them and search them thoroughly. Make sure they haven’t even a penknife.’
Larsen searched. ‘Not even a penknife.’ He led them to a steel-reinforced cell-like structure, and he and Mitchell ushered them inside.
In spite of his agony Cronkite said: ‘You’re not going to leave us in here, for God’s sake!’
‘Just as you were going to leave us.’ Mitchell paused then added soothingly: ‘As you said, you won’t feel a thing.’ He closed the door, double-locked it and put the key in his pocket. He said to Larsen: ‘The other cell?’
‘Along here.’
‘This is madness!’ Lord Worth’s voice was almost a shout. ‘The Seawitch is safe now. Why in God’s name destroy it?’
Mitchell ignored him. He glanced at the timing device on the detonator. ‘Twenty-nine minutes to go. We’d better move.’ He placed the device on the floor of the cell, locked the door and sent the key spinning far out over the Gulf. ‘Get the men out of the Oriental buildings, free the men in the sensory, radar, sonar and radio rooms and make sure that all the helicopter pilots are safe.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Twenty-five minutes.’
Everyone moved with astounding alacrity except for Lord Worth, who just stood around with a stunned look on his face. Larsen said: ‘Is there a need for all this mad rush?’
Mitchell said mildly: ‘How do we know that the settings on that detonator are accurate?’
The mad rush redoubled itself. Thirteen minutes before the deadline the last of the helicopters took off and headed south. The first to land on the Roamer’s helipad held Mitchell, Larsen, Lord Worth and his daughter, in addition to the doctor and several rig men, while the other helicopter still hovered overhead. They were still only about fourteen miles south of the Seawitch, which was as far as the Roamer had succeeded in getting in that time, but Mitchell reckoned the margin of safety more than sufficient. He spoke to Conde who assured him that every vessel and aircraft had been warned to keep as far away as possible from the danger area.
When the Seawitch blew up, dead on schedule, it did so with a spectacular effect that would have satisfied even the most ghoulish. There was even a miniature mushroom cloud such as the public had become accustomed to in the photographs of detonating regular megaton atom bombs. Seventeen seconds later those in the Roamer heard the thunderclap of sound and shortly afterwards a series of miniature but harmless tidal waves rocked, but did not unduly disturb the Roamer. After Mitchell had told Conde to broadcast the news to all aircraft and shipping he turned to find a stony-faced Marina confronting him.
‘Well, you’ve lost Daddy his Seawitch. I do hope you’re satisfied with yourself.’
‘My, my, how bitter we are. Yes, quite a satisfactory job, even if I have to say it myself, for obviously no one else is going to.’
‘Why? Why? Why?’
‘Every man who died there was a murderer, some mass murderers. They might have escaped to countries with no extradition treaties with the States. Even if caught their cases might have dragged on for years. Proof would have been very difficult to obtain. And, of course, parole after a few years. This way, we know they’ll never kill again.’
‘And it was worth it to lose Daddy’s pride and joy?’
‘Listen, stupid. My father-in-law-to-be is–’
‘That he’ll never be.’
‘So okay. That old geezer is almost as big a crook as any of them. He associated with and hired for lethal purposes known and convicted criminals. He broke into two federal armouries and mounted the equipment on the Seawitch. Had the Seawitch survived, federal investigators would have been aboard within the hour. He’d have got at least fifteen to twenty years in prison, and he’d probably have died in prison.’ Her eyes were wide, partly with fear, partly with understanding. ‘But now every last tiny shred of evidence lies vaporized at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. A little in radiation clouds, maybe, but that’s not the point. Nothing can ever be traced against him.’
‘That’s really why you vaporized the Seawitch?’
‘Why should I admit anything to an ex-fiancée?’
‘Mrs Michael Mitchell,’ she mused. ‘I suppose I could go through life with a worse name.’
About the Author
Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was born in 1922 and brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 at the age of eighteen he joined the Royal Navy; two-and-a-half years spent aboard a cruiser was later to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. After the war, he gained an English Honours degree at Glasgow University, and became a schoolmaster. In 1983 he was awarded a D.Litt from the same university.
By the early 1970s he was one of the top 10 bestselling authors in the world, and the biggest-selling Briton. He wrote twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers that have sold more than 30 million copies, and many of which have been filmed, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key and Ice Station Zebra. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century. Alistair MacLean died in 1987 at his home in Switzerland.
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By Alistair MacLean
HMS Ulysses
The Guns of Navarone
South by Java Head
The Last Frontier
Night Without End
Fear is the Key
The Dark Crusader
The Satan Bug
The Golden Rendezvous
Ice Station Zebra
When Eight Bells Toll
Where Eagles Dare
Force 10 from Navarone
Puppet on a Chain
Caravan to Vaccarès
Bear Island
The Way to Dusty Death
Breakheart Pass
Circus
The Golden Gate
Seawitch
Goodbye California
Athabasca
River of Death
Partisans
Floodgate
San Andreas
The Lonely Sea (stories)
Santorini
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper
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1
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1977 under the pseudonym ‘Ian Stuart’ then in paperback by Fontana 1979
Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1977
Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © 1977 ISBN: 9780007289424
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