Terrasino pulled an apologetic face at her and reached for the phone.
‘Yeah?’
‘Terrasino?’
‘Yeah. Who’s this?’
‘It’s Kurt Nieman. Can you get over to the project site immediately?’
Terrasino glanced at the clock on the mantleshelf.
‘It’s late, Kurt. We were just off to Garry Carson’s party. Is it important?’
There was a pause at the other end of the line. The project’s chief electrical engineer seemed to have trouble finding the right words.
‘I think so … I think I’ve discovered a bomb on the Albatross. Can you get here soon?’
Terrasino swallowed hard.
‘I’m on my way.’
PART TWO
Chapter One
Kurt Nieman met Terrasino by the guard’s hut at the end of the gigantic canvas construction which shielded the Albatross. The project’s chief electrical engineer looked nervous.
‘I haven’t told anyone else,’ he said, ‘but I’m pretty sure it’s a bomb.’
‘Where is it?’
‘It’s on deck level six in a recess by the junction of the fuel leads and gas valves.’
Terrasino frowned.
‘How much damage would that do if it explodes?’
Nieman looked puzzled.
‘I wouldn’t know. It depends on how much explosive the device contains.’
‘Sorry, I meant is the device placed in a vital position?’
‘It will blow the valves off the major gas cell controls but with the ship not being fully gassed up as yet that would not create an insurmountable problem. The most important area is that of the fuel leads. If there is enough explosive then the fuel reserve tanks could be ignited.’
Terrasino bit his lip and sighed.
‘Okay, let’s go and see this device.’
Nieman led Terrasino into the darkness of the ship’s hull. It look them ten minutes to make their way to deck level six where the chief electrical engineer took Terrasino along the corridors to a section which housed the complicated control systems for every gas cell in the ship. He halted before a particular series of panels and pointed at a recess.
Terrasino bent forward.
Lying in the recess was what, at first, he thought was a piece of metal pipe. It was about six inches long and an inch in diameter and there were plugs screwed into the ends. Terrasino’s brow puckered as he knelt down to examine it carefully with his flashlight.
‘Is it a bomb?’ Nieman asked.
Terrasino pursed his lips and nodded slowly. In the Air Force he had been on a course in bomb and incendiary devices and his trained eye picked out the wire soldered to the metal casing and clipped to the terminal of a flashlight battery which lay alongside the casing. Another piece of wire ran from the second terminal into the pipe through a spark gap, and out to an insulated mounting on a cheap watch which, so far as he could see, had its minute hand removed. When the hour hand reached this mounting and touched the wire it did not take an expert to see that the circuit would be completed and the spark would detonate the bomb.
Terrasino broke out into a cold sweat and was about to back off when he suddenly realised something.
The watch was not ticking.
He licked his lips which were incredibly dry.
‘I … I think this is a dud,’ he said slowly. ‘The watch is not working.’
‘Are you sure?’ Nieman demanded apprehensively, peering over his shoulder.
Terrasino set down his flashlight and, carefully and with deliberation, yanked the wires from the torch battery. Nothing happened for a few long seconds. Then he gave a deep sigh.
‘Our saboteur goofed on this one,’ he said finally, looking at the construction. It registered with him that it was a beautifully wrought piece of work. The saboteur, whoever he was, was certainly no mere oddball amateur.
‘Hey, there’s a piece of paper under the device,’ he said reaching forward and gingerly taking a corner of the paper between thumb and forefinger to draw it out. It was plain white typing paper and the message on it was printed in black ink. It was small, neat and very precise printing. It said:
‘Anglo-American, this is for you. Stop making these murder machines. You have been warned. Max Prüss.’
Terrasino shook his head slowly.
He examined the device and then the cryptic message. There was something curious about the note. If the device had exploded the message would have been destroyed. Why write it?
*
The telephone gave several long peals before Janine Renard remembered that she had given Bernard and his wife the evening off. She laid her book aside with a frown of annoyance and picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Madame Renard?’
‘Yes.’ She thought she ought to know the voice on the line.
‘This is Jacques Barjonet.’
‘Oh?’
She wondered what the Dirigeable-Commercial’s chief test pilot wanted. He knew that Charles was still in Canada until the end of the week.
‘Madame Renard, this may seem rather forward of me … in fact, very forward. I would like to invite you to come to the cinema with me.’
There was a pause before Barjonet plunged on.
‘You see, I have just noticed that there is a cinema in Caen which is showing a programme of two versions of The Hands of Orlac: the 1924 silent version by Robert Weine and the 1935 version with Peter Lorre. Tomorrow night is the last showing. Will you come?’
Janine Renard’s reaction was confusion. She had not been asked out by a man since Charles had courted her.
‘I … I couldn’t possibly … ’ she said but there was no conviction in her voice. She just didn’t know what to say to such an invitation. She was surprised to realise that her refusal was not out of loyalty to Charles but simply because she did not want the routine of her life to be altered.
‘Oh come,’ Barjonet’s voice was enthusiastic. ‘You would love these films. You know you would. I’m going anyway, so why not come?’
He made it sound ungracious to refuse; made it sound so … was ‘innocent’ the word she wanted? Well, why not? She was abruptly defiant. She hadn’t been to the cinema in years. Not since she married Charles. He never took her any more. On the other end of the line, Barjonet could almost sense her mind coming to its conclusion.
‘I’ll pick you up at six-thirty,’ he prompted.
‘Very well,’ Janine reached her decision. ‘I’ll be ready.’
When she replaced the receiver she realised that she was tingling with excitement. She felt mischievous and improper, as if she were about to do a forbidden thing.
*
Tom Saxon entered the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel, where he had his suite, and was crossing to the elevator when a voice called softly.
‘Tom!’
He swung round.
Helen Carson had been sitting on one of the couches in the lounge foyer. She rose and came across to him.
‘Hello, Tom. I’ve been waiting nearly an hour for you to come in.’
Saxon frowned slightly and then shrugged.
‘I was eating out.’
‘Can we go somewhere to talk, Tom?’
He took her by the arm and guided her across to Dunfey’s Lounge, the saloon bar which was part of the hotel complex. He found a secluded corner table and ordered some drinks.
‘I just had to come to see you, Tom.’
Saxon made no reply. He fixed his gaze on the table top.
‘It isn’t easy for me,’ Helen went on, a slight tone of desperation in her voice, but he made no attempt to help her.
‘I … I just wanted to know how things were with you; really were.’
He raised his eyes to hers and let his lips droop in a grimace. ‘I survive, Helen.’
‘Haven’t you been able to come to terms with things?’
Saxon’s brow puckered.
‘Terms?’ There was
an abrupt harshness in his voice. ‘How am I supposed to feel? Jan and Tom Junior are dead because of me. If she had not run away, if she had not found out … ’
Helen’s face hardened.
‘If, if, if … ‘ she said bitterly. ‘How long are you going to play that record, Tom? The whole world revolves on “ifs”.’
Saxon gave a harsh bark of laughter.
‘What was it that Shakespeare wrote? “Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If.’’ Much virtue!’
He sighed deeply.
‘I’m sorry, Helen. Sorry about everything.’
For a moment Helen recognised a genuine note of regret in his voice.
‘That’s what I’m saying, Tom. There’s no need to be sorry … just accept things and learn to live with them.’
‘Easier said than done, Helen.’
‘Tom, I came here to tell you that … oh damn!’
She stood up, almost knocking the drinks over, and turned abruptly, leaving Saxon gazing after her with an astonished expression on his face.
Chapter Two
‘Hi, Tom.’
Garry Carson grinned at Saxon as he entered the simulator. Saxon stared around him in amazement and let loose a low whistle of appreciation. The simulator was an exact replica of the Albatross flight deck.
‘It even works like the real thing,’ Oscar Van Kleef informed him with a ghost of a smile on his thin features. ‘Computer tapes respond to controls and navigational information and you will feel exactly as if you were really flying the Albatross.’
‘We have to log a minimum of forty-five hours on the simulator,’ explained Carson. ‘Maclaren is cautious, of course, and wants sixty hours.’
‘Have you been familiarising yourself with the flight theory?’ Van Kleef asked.
‘Yes but there are a few questions I’d like to ask. I noticed that while you have a manual back-up system, practically everything is computerised.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Van Kleef. ‘The Albatross is controlled in very simplistic terms compared with the cumbersome airships of fifty years ago. As you see, this is like the flight deck of any Transatlantic aircraft — like a 747, for example. Everything is compact and workable by a small crew.’
Saxon nodded. ‘It does come as a bit of a surprise that a ship of this size can be controlled by a normal aircraft flight deck crew.’
‘The controls of the Albatross are the result of nearly a decade of testing in wind tunnels and operational conditions with small models,’ there was pride in Van Kleef’s voice. ‘Before the operation of a large airship could become an economic possibility, the production of a structure of sufficiently low weight with acceptable airworthiness qualities had to be achieved. It is essential for structure weight to be minimised, representing as it does by far the largest item of total empty weight. With the Albatross we set ourselves a design target of no more than 30 per cent of the gross lift.’
‘What exactly is the Albatross made of?’ Saxon asked.
Van Kleef smiled proudly.
‘All earlier craft used a fabric outer covering which was supported by a complex skeleton of frames, longitudinals and bracing wires. The gas bags were separate and mounted internally and so difficulties with these and the coverings were not uncommon. We have solved those problems by using a fibre-reinforced glass and foam-supported single face panels. The Albatross, therefore, is of a reinforced plastic construction.’
‘Doesn’t that imply a prohibitively high constructional cost?’ Saxon asked.
Van Kleef laid a finger against the side of his nose.
‘That’s an Anglo-American secret I can’t reveal.’
‘I also expected there to be a terrific amount of framework inside the ship.’
Again Van Kleef allowed himself a thin smile.
‘I decided to base my design concept on the old ZMC2 airship.’
Saxon looked puzzled.
‘It first flew in 1929 and was scrapped in 1942, having flown thirteen years without any mishap,’ explained Van Kleef. ‘The basis of the design was what we call monocque, a streamlined fuselage shaped like an elongated egg with the structure forming a continuous shell or envelope. It cuts out all the braced framework such as was used in the Zeppelin designs or, for example, the British R101. You know the sort of complicated structure of polygonal cross-sections with a longeron at each vertex to provide bending strength and stiffness? Well, while that type of structure was easy to maintain, I found it was severely limited by the need to provide separately for the transverse shear and … ’
He broke off as he caught sight of Saxon’s blank face and tried to simplify the explanation.
‘Well, this girder structure added immensely to the airship’s weight and it complicated the interior of the structure of the ship. The structural basis in the Albatross lies in the outer covering, the fibre-reinforced glass panelling.’
‘How about gas capacity?’
‘The Albatross encloses a volume of 39,300,000 cubic feet or, if you like, 1,110,000 cubic metres, which gives it a total available lift at sea level using helium of 970 tonnes.’
Van Kleef paused and then went on: ‘You will see that instead of using the old gas bag idea, we use gas cells. The gas is the source of the relatively cheap static lift which is the main benefit of the airship against any other aircraft. The advantage has been that the gas cells can be any shape within reason which is not dependent on internal pressure. They become structurally more efficient with increasing size and can tolerate minor gas leaks. So our lifting gas cells are like a series of large rooms filled with helium. Each room is specially lined and so we have another improvement over the old airships by avoiding chafing between actual gas bags and rigid structure. According to our information, the French airship, the Charles de Gaulle, has opted for the old gas bag idea — a series of ballonets within the airship structure. It’s my belief that they’ll run into trouble with that design.’
Danny Macmillan and Billy Heath joined them. After a brief exchange of greetings, Saxon pressed on with his questioning.
‘As I see it,’ he said, glancing over the control panels, ‘the problem is low-speed handling.’
Carson grinned.
‘Dead right, Tom. In fact, many designers working in this field have tried to avoid the subject. One of the modem pioneers in the field, Morse, designed a passenger-carrying airship which had to work in conjunction with a small ferry aircraft.’
‘Which,’ interposed Van Kleef, ‘is going to introduce more problems than it resolves.’
‘So what happens with the Albatross?’ demanded Saxon.
‘Simple,’ replied the chief designer. ‘We have a vectoring propeller system and the airship itself will work like a gigantic helicopter. The pilot positions the craft over the mooring area and the ship then sinks to ground zero where it is secured in much the same way as helicopters are held to the decks of ships. The ground facilities are not too complex either.’
Carson nodded and added: ‘All payload handling is done from ground zero … a drive on and off situation via ramps.’
‘All that can be done with a vectoring propeller system?’ Saxon was surprised.
‘The right control forces can be obtained by varying the magnitude and direction of the propeller thrust,’ explained Van Kleef, ‘especially if — as we have on the Albatross — propellers are located at the extremities of the craft to give the maximum effect. You see, Saxon, vectoring the propeller thrust is no different from the technique employed for large hovercraft, and it does not give rise to any new mechanical problem. With the Albatross, the propellers are shaft-driven with the powerplants remotely located, and fail-safe requirements are used with a minimum number of thrust units dependent upon the layout adopted.’
‘It sounds simple.’
‘The best ideas are simple.’ Oscar Van Kleef allowed himself a self-satisfied smile.
Saxon examined the flight-control system and glanced at Carson.
�
��What about control ability at cruising speed and height?’
Carson grinned.
‘The Albatross suffers from a relative reduction of control power as size is increased, just like an aeroplane. The overall aerodynamic lift at a given speed is approximately proportional to the surface area and it decreases relative to volume. So the effect on control power is even more pronounced since moments of inertia are a function of length to the power of five, whilst the control moments vary as length to the power of three. Increases of speed can be used to compensate for these effects. The ratio of velocities required to maintain the same aerodynamic lift to displacement ratio is the displacement ratio to the power of one-sixth, whilst maintaining control moment ratio requires the square of that figure. But hell, don’t worry, everything is worked out by computer. In other words, you press the button and the computer flies the airship.’
Saxon nodded slowly.
‘I suppose the effect of low-speed control is somewhat similar?’
‘Sure,’ agreed Carson. ‘Speed cannot be used to compensate for size increase, so relatively greater power must be installed. For the same time response characteristics, the thrust of the control rotors is required to increase in proportion to length to the power of four, that is the installed power-weight ratio has to increase in proportion to the cube root of the relative displacement.’
‘Now,’ interrupted Van Kleef, ‘I think we ought to go over to the ship so that I can explain about the electronics. Have you met Kurt Nieman, our chief electrical engineer?’
Saxon shook his head.
‘Well, he will be able to brief you how the computer systems work as well as the electronics side of things. We have, in fact, several power systems, including solar panelling on the topside of the ship which can supply emergency running power during any nine-hour period in twenty-four. We are hoping we can gradually improve that performance.’
With Van Kleef leading the way, Saxon accompanied Carson, Macmillan and Billy Heath across to the Albatross, which lay dark and inert like some sleeping monster, and inside to the electronics centre of the ship. Kurt Nieman was introduced and carefully described all the circuits and controls so far as they concerned him as a pilot. Nieman, Saxon found, was a very precise man who explained things slowly and carefully, pausing to ensure that he was being understood before going on to the next step. Saxon was silently amused by the man’s pride in the electronics section, but then Nieman had every right to glory in the incredible systems which helped run the colossal vessel. Saxon himself was astonished at its size, its complexity and its awesomeness. In fact, Saxon realised with some amazement that he had been thinking of nothing during the last two hours but the Albatross. For him, that was a truly disconcerting discovery.
Airship Page 15