Miraculously, out of the blazing mass, stumbled a figure — clothes alight. It staggered towards him, screaming. Ashton seized it and threw it to the ground, rolling it over and over in the damp heather until the flames were extinguished. He looked down. The flickering light of the flames lit up the face. Ashton retched immediately. There was no recognising the scorched features.
His head jerked as there came another scream nearby. He turned towards the inferno again.
A hand fell on his shoulder.
‘Are you alright, sir?’ A dark shape, a man in uniform, appeared.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m a policeman, sir,’ replied the figure. ‘Would you come down to the ambulance, sir?’
Ashton shook off the man’s restraining hand.
‘There are others — trapped. I’ve got to help.’
‘You’ve done enough, sir,’ pacified the policeman. ‘Come away now, sir. You can’t reach the rest of them.’
Ashton turned back to the flaming tomb.
‘No. I must help. Dubeaupuris!’
Christy Mike Tobin made a grab at him but Ashton had run forward.
‘Come back, sir. Sir! Watch out!’
Ashton heard the creaking noise, a descending, rushing sound like that of an express train.
He glanced upwards and started to scream.
Several tons of blazing girders and carbon plastic thundered down.
Christy Mike Tobin blinked and felt sick.
O’Mahoney came up and looked at the mess. The fires were dying down a little except around the main structure, high up in the hull.
‘Grief,’ he said, ‘is there anything more to be done here?’
The policeman shook his head slowly.
‘The army is on the way, Christy Mike,’ O’Mahoney said, ‘and the fire engines and ambulance men from Bantry and Cork City itself.’
Christy Mike Tobin stood staring at the flames roaring round the wreckage.
‘They’ll not find much of the bodies left either,’ he said, as if musing aloud. ‘There are a few scattered about — haven’t I counted twelve already?’
O’Mahoney nodded slowly.
‘God be merciful to them,’ he muttered.
Chapter Seven
It was Billy Heath who received the news first. Garry Carson and his crew had just started their second scheduled watch on the flight deck when the news came through. Billy Heath asked for the message to be repeated in a tone which caused the rest of the crew to look round with surprise.
‘It’s … it’s the Charles de Gaulle,’ he told them. ‘She crashed somewhere in the south-west of Ireland. There are only twelve survivors.’
There was an absolute silence on the flight deck. Then Carson asked:
‘How many was she carrying?’
‘Her manifest listed seventy-five.’
This time the silence was more prolonged as each wrestled with their thoughts.
‘Jesus!’ Danny Macmillan said at last, ‘the press are going to crucify us. We have been assuring them about the safety of airships and then this happens. No one will take any notice of us now.’
‘What about the sixty-three poor sods who have just got themselves killed?’ snapped Saxon.
Macmillan looked contrite.
‘I didn’t mean … ’ he began.
Carson silenced him.
‘Billy, can you get a casualty list? And is there any information about the cause of the crash?’
Saxon gave him a puzzled glance.
‘Why the casualty list?’
‘Because I understood that Sir Ashley Ashton was flying on the Charles de Gaulle.’
Saxon had forgotten that Claire Ashton was aboard.
It was a short time later that Billy Heath passed Carson a clip-board. The name of Ashton was at the top.
‘Those are the confirmed dead so far, skipper,’ said the navigator.
Carson bit his lip.
‘Poor bitch,’ he said compassionately.
‘Claire’s old man?’ asked Macmillan.
‘Yeah,’ nodded Carson, levering himself from the command chair. ‘The con is all yours, Tom. Billy, ask Badrick, Maclaren and Van Kleef to join me in my cabin in ten minutes and tell them it’s urgent. And let me know if any more details come in.’
Billy Heath nodded.
‘They say the media are already screaming about another R101 but the only thing known so far is that the French went down in a storm … burst into flames and practically incinerated themselves.’
Carson did not reply as he left the flight deck.
*
There was a brooding silence among the passengers of the Albatross. The news of the Charles de Gaulle had been broadcast on the ship’s internal communications system and any updated bulletins that came into the ship were immediately rebroadcast. The passengers sat about the lounges in glum morbidity. Maclaren had insisted that the canned music should continue to be piped through the ship and an atmosphere of false gaiety prevailed, which was given lie to by the long faces of those who sat about in small groups, talking in whispers. Even the press corps seemed unusually silent.
Badrick had not stirred from his cabin after the first news bulletin. A number of cablegrams of sympathy in his name had been despatched; prominently among them was one to Lady Ashton. But Badrick had not been able to face Claire Ashton. In the end his wife, Alice, had gone to break the news. Claire had stood quietly, solemn-eyed, showing neither surprise, horror or regret. She had simply said, in a small voice: ‘Thank you’. Then she had turned into her cabin and closed the door. Mrs. Badrick wondered whether it was just shock and if she ought to contact the Chief Purser.
In a corner of the main lounge of the Albatross, the Secretary for Air sat gazing thoughtfully at a tumbler of rye which he had been nursing for the last half-hour without touching. His British colleague leant forward in his seat, looking uncomfortable and nervous, sipping a gin and tonic. He kept fingering his moustache in an irritating fashion. Maclaren and Van Kleef sat with them but no one spoke. Occasionally the canned music would stop and the latest news broadcast concerning the crash would be read. There were few facts to go on. The storm. The fire. The crash. Not much else. They sat as if they were at their own wake; like worshippers in a church during a particularly boring sermon. Finally, after one newscast describing the fire, Maclaren cleared his throat.
‘It’s obvious from the description that Renard must have filled his tanks with hydrogen instead of helium.’
The Air Secretary glanced up in surprise.
‘Would that be allowed?’ he asked incredulously.
‘It’s only public opinion which doesn’t allow it,’ Maclaren replied. ‘The memories of the past dictate the use of an inert gas for the operation. We have often stated that it is not inconceivable to design a safe ship employing an inflammable gas like hydrogen. But so far as our project was concerned the only acceptable gas was helium which uniquely combines low density with non-inflammability.’
Van Kleef looked up from his brooding.
‘The trouble is the cost and relative scarcity factor. A ready access to the gas is essential. I understand Renard was having trouble getting his shipment of helium. Perhaps he decided to go for an easy option and fill his gas cells with hydrogen.’
The British government official coughed nervously.
‘Wouldn’t that, er, be dangerous?’
‘It depends on the conversion of the gas cells. Maybe Renard did a hurried job.’
‘So faced with the prospect of not getting helium,’ the Air Secretary recapped ponderously, ‘helium being inert but expensive and rare, he opted for hydrogen, which is inflammable but relatively cheap and easy to come by?’
‘That’s about the size of it, Mr. Secretary,’ agreed Maclaren.
‘But surely if Renard did not have access to helium,’ said the Britisher, ‘there are other gases he could have used?’
Van Kleef grimaced.
‘Let’s
face it, hydrogen has the best lifting capacity when all’s said and done. Helium comes second. Other gases like neon, ammonia, which is very dangerous, coal gas, natural gas, and methane are simply not on. Neon is the only inert gas out of the whole bunch, while coal gas, natural gas and methane, although cheap, are highly inflammable and the ratio of their density to lift makes them impracticable.’
Both government men looked bemused.
‘So what is your theory about the Charles de Gaulle’s crash, doctor?’ demanded the Air Secretary.
Van Kleef reflected.
‘I don’t like giving judgments without facts but, on the facts we know from the newscasts, I would say that Renard opted for hydrogen; that his safety levels in converting his gas cells to the new gas were insufficient. That there was probably some fire or explosion on board, or maybe even a lightning strike, and … ’
He gave a gesture of finality.
‘A lightning strike?’ The British official sounded dubious.
‘Certainly. An airship can be expected to receive a significantly higher number of lightning strikes than an aircraft, due to the much greater surface area. Our experiments have estimated a strike rate of once every six hundred hours in ordinary travelling conditions.’
The American politician pulled a face.
‘Say, that ain’t much.’
‘One strike, just one, not adequately spread is enough, Mr. Secretary,’ replied Van Kleef. ‘And if you have leaking hydrogen, well … ’
The British official looked very pale.
‘What would happen if the lightning struck the Albatross?’ he asked nervously.
It was Maclaren, smiling, who replied.
‘Don’t worry. We have spent a good deal of time on that subject. You are perfectly safe. Before Doctor Van Kleef chose the final material for the structure we conducted several experiments. For example, early on we found that a lightning strike could actually blow a six-inch-diameter hole clean through a sheet of high-tensile stainless steel. We had been thinking of making our outer skin with 0.060-inch-thick stainless steel. So we had to change our minds.’
Van Kleef leant forward nodding.
‘With our special honeycomb structure, with the disposition of the core depth, skin material and preparation and earthing arrangement, a direct strike only penetrated the honeycomb to a third the depth of the panel. So we proved that the design was safe from the viewpoint of a lightning strike. A direct strike would just allow the outer skin to burn feebly for a time. We experimented with outer skin strikes to the density of 550 coulombs, considerably in excess of existing CAA requirements … and these left our inner skin completely unmarked.’
The Air Secretary was bewildered.
‘Come again?’ he queried. ‘Coo-what?’
Maclaren explained.
‘Coulombs, Mr. Secretary. It’s the unity of quantity in measuring current electricity — the quantity furnished by a current of one ampere in one second.’
The politician sighed.
‘I guess I’ll leave the technical side to you boys. But what you are saying is, as I understand it, that Renard set off with a dangerous ship.’
Maclaren glanced at Van Kleef.
‘Is that what you’re saying, Oscar?’
‘I suppose it is,’ replied the chief designer, smiling thinly. ‘Sorry if I disguised it with too much technical data.’
The Air Secretary sniffed.
‘Well, so long as you boys know the cause. Trouble is, the crash is going to set airship aviation behind again, unless you can prove the reasons behind the crash and make the public understand them. The public are already scared stiff of airships. This French crash will really turn the screws.’
Maclaren sighed.
‘We have to convince the public that airships can be safe and economical and that modem technology has reached the point where airships can be safely and successfully constructed. We must show that we can overcome the difficulties of lighter than air flight because airships can economically fulfil a necessary role in the future.’
The Air Secretary smiled whimsically.
‘You wouldn’t like a job writing my speeches, mister?’ he said, then as he saw Maclaren’s offended expression, he reached forward and laid a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m with you all the way. Trouble is, when Joe Public is yelling his head off — scared to death — how do you turn round and tell him that he has no need to worry? In a democracy you have to move along at the rate of common prejudice and not informed opinion. If such things were left to you and I … ’ he sighed deeply. ‘But, hell, Joe Public out there, he’s a pretty dumb animal and he has to be pandered to, especially around election time.’
*
Terrasino was lying on his bunk, hands behind his head, gazing up at the bulkheads in his cabin. His mind was not on the shocking news of the Charles de Gaulle but on a more immediate problem.
The bomber was going to strike soon and Terrasino was trying to figure out what his likely target would be. It was quite obvious that he was a skilled technician and that he was highly placed in the project. Terrasino must know him well, or thought he knew him well. But who was it? Van Kleef? He certainly looked guilty when Terrasino rebuked him for destroying the fingerprints on the transistor scrambling device. Damn it, though. It could be anyone; any one of the flight deck crew, any one of the back-up engineers aboard, any one of them could be capable of screwing up the control circuits. Shit! If this were some cheap dime novel, he would now have a brilliant flash of intuition and be able to name the culprit. But this was real life, and in real-life detective work nothing came easy. It depended on checking and rechecking the facts.
His mind kept going back to the letters which the bomber had written. They must surely present a clue. He suddenly swung his legs over the side of the bunk and reached towards his attaché case. He had brought photostats of the notes with him. For the hundredth time he scanned each page, trying to seek a fresh clue. There was nothing. Yet those letters must provide a key to the personality of the man.
Terrasino tried to visualise what the bomber could be like. The late famous German psychiatrist, Ernest Kretschmer, had made a study of ten thousand patients in mental hospitals and noted that roughly eighty-five per cent of paranoiacs had an athletic body type. Alright, so fifteen per cent had other body types but the law of averages would be in favour. Seventeen to twenty, Terrasino reckoned, that the bomber was symmetrically built, well-developed with only few, if any, physical oddities. Terrasino wished he had a copy of Kretschmer’s Physique and Character with him. He couldn’t remember much about the actual correlation between physique and psychosis apart from some generalisations, and they were not really a help. A hell of a lot of people on board the Albatross were not only athletic types but also had the right technical qualifications to be the bomber.
He turned back to the letters and the signature ‘Max Prüss’. Why Max Prüss ? Prüss had been captain of the ill-fated Hindenburg. But what was the connection between Max Prüss and the bomber? The FBI had already run a check for any connection between Prüss and the personnel working on the project. Nothing. A big fat zero. Terrasino suddenly started. A computer would only come up with an answer on the basis of the information fed to it. Hayes had said that. What if they weren’t asking it the right question? What was the connection between the Hindenburg and the bomber? Perhaps the bomber was taking the name of the old airship captain as a symbol. Why Prüss ? Why not the captain of American airships like the Shenandoah, the Akron and Macon … Why use the name of the skipper of a German airship? Terrasino had thought the connection must have been between the bomber and Prüss, but what if the bomber was merely connected with the airship itself? That was it!
He grabbed the inter-stateroom telephone and called Billy Heath.
‘This is Terrasino, Billy. I want you to patch me through to the following Portland number … ’
He reeled off Hayes’ number and added: ‘This is a number one securi
ty priority.’
It took some time before a sleepy voice answered.
‘Hayes? This is Terrasino.’
‘Yeah?’ answered the FBI agent. Then, as if suddenly coming awake: ‘Jesus! It’s three o’clock in the morning. Aren’t you supposed to be in mid-Atlantic?’
‘I am,’ answered Terrasino. ‘Now listen. You recall we checked the entire personnel for a connection with Max Prüss?’
‘Is that what you’ve hauled me out of bed for?’
Terrasino ignored the protest.
‘I know the time,’ he grunted. ‘But you might like to know the saboteur has struck again and that knocks your theory about Keller on the head. The screwball is on board and we have to find him.’
Hayes started to talk but Terrasino shut him up.
‘I want you to run a list of Anglo-American personnel currently on board the Albatross against a list of all the passengers and crew who were on board the Hindenburg when it crashed. I want the data cross-checked against the names of survivors, their descendants and especially where a name change occurred. I want marriages, adoptions, anything. Got it?’
‘It’s going to be a long job.’
‘We don’t have much time. You federal guys have access to some pretty good hardware in computers. There has to be a link between our bomber and the Hindenburg.’
‘It’s still going to take some time,’ sighed Hayes. Then: ‘We’ll get cracking on it.’
‘It’s a long shot,’ admitted the security chief, ‘but we’ve got to get the bastard before he initiates a repeat performance of the Hindenburg disaster.’
*
Danny Macmillan paused outside the cabin occupied by Claire Ashton and knocked gently. There was no reply. He called urgently through the door.
‘It’s me, Claire. I’ve just got half an hour. It’s me — Danny.’
There was still no answer. He tried the handle and, to his surprise, found that it turned and the door was open. The cabin was in darkness. He closed the door behind him and peered round, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. Claire was lying face down on her bunk.
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