by John Gardner
Mostyn was shuffling through the papers. ‘The Warbash Admiral.’ He spoke almost to himself. ‘It’s largish. Gross tonnage around 60,000. Eight hundred feet long. A hundred and twenty-two feet across. Maximum speed sixteen knots. Twin diesels. Big bastard.’
‘Had to have a major refit.’ Boysie worried at it. ‘Milford Haven? It couldn’t be some new jet fuel could it? Milford Haven would have those facilities.’
‘Could,’ agreed Mostyn. ‘On the other hand it could simply be something of a fair size. Something heavy. Milford Haven and Finnart are the only two British ports that can take the really heavy tankers. Anyway, we’ll soon find out.’ His voice held a hint of concern behind the steady manner. ‘Let’s drink to it. Here’s to “Operation Star”.’
They drank. Boysie shivered. He had that nasty premonition that he always associated with forthcoming disasters and terror which seemed to emanate from smooth Mostyn’s unconcern. ‘Operation Star.’ he said gloomily.
CHAPTER THREE
SUPERCARGO
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood and sweet white wine.
CARGOES: John Masefield
Boysie still worried at the situation as he leaned over the rail of the observation platform on the forward part of the boat deck.
New York was slowly disappearing, going down with all hands off the starboard bow. If Boysie had been taking a home movie of the scene he would probably have made a note to back it with something by Gershwin. The Piano Concerto possibly. Boysie was pretty schmaltzy about NY, NY.
His original concern over the project was heightened when, once aboard the Warbash Admiral, it became apparent that nobody was going to do any talking or give them the full details of ‘Operation Star’. Captain Bone, who turned out to belie his name, being a man of gross proportions, had welcomed them cordially enough, but made it plain that the contents of the sealed orders were not going to be publicly revealed until much later in the trip.
Mostyn in particular had not taken kindly to this; especially when three CIA agents, whom they immediately dubbed ‘the three wise men’, obviously knew all the details.
However, the GRIMOBO team began by having a social drop of the CIA boys, having been given the promised superlative accommodation — cabins normally inhabited by the owner and senior officers — on the boat deck.
In turn the CIA found themselves crammed into two cabins on the starboard side of the poop deck. This meant a twice daily climb to the boat deck for lunch and dinner with the GRIMOBO quartet in the owner’s saloon.
Their first meeting was at lunch, when the CIA trio introduced themselves as Ed Frankenstein, Al Goldberg and Jimmy Meyer. Hence, the ‘three wise men’. They all sat uneasy through the meal — cold Virginia ham with four kinds of salad, followed by strawberry flan — while Mostyn attempted to make conversation with Ed, Al and Jimmy. But they would not be drawn, departing rapidly once the last mouthful of coffee disappeared.
‘The three bloody wise monkeys if you arsk me, not the wise bleedin’ men,’ commented Griffin.
‘Certainly not forthcoming.’ Mostyn was plainly niggled. ‘I wonder if Chicory …?’
‘Oh, no.’ Boysie was in there with flailing words to defend the amorous Miss Triplehouse. ‘I’m not letting Chicory do any of the Mata Hari stuff.’
‘Oh, Boysie,’ snuggled Chicory, part pleased, half put out.
‘All we need to know at this stage,’ pondered Mostyn, detached, ‘is the nature of the cargo.’
So, now, from his vantage point on the boat deck, Boysie quietly checked through the visible alterations which had been made to the ship.
The superstructure seemed to have remained unharmed, pushed, as it was, to the rear of the ship. Above him was the nerve centre, the captain’s deck and the navigation deck. Below were the poop and lower bridge decks, then the number one deck which led into the, presumably empty, bowels of the ship.
The great long deck, which swept away below the superstructure, seemed to have been cleared of the apparatus which formerly would have marked the vessel as a floating oil conveyor. The usual nest of pipes, which run, fore and aft, down the centre of the deck, had been removed, together with the big mobile gantry which normally spreads its jungle of metal girders across and above the deck, athwartships.
There was also no sign of the myriad small hatches which segment the main deck of a tanker. Instead, the deck seemed to have been re-built, a hairline crack showing that it had now become a pair of vast doors which would open from the centre. Impatient, Boysie desperately wanted to know what lay below that huge hatchway. That, at least, might provide a clue to their future cargo.
The sea was black satin, waveless, as still as the grave; and the ship seemed strangely silent, only the crushing thud of its twin diesels and the splash of the ocean against its heavy metal sides betrayed the fact of life within. Boysie moved himself to the rear of the deck and stepped quietly up the companionway which led to the hatch. There seemed to be little sign of life on the poop deck, so he followed the stairs down through the lower bridge deck on to the main deck. Here there was life, male marine life calling, echoing and singing to each other.
‘Abaft. Belay there ye rabble.’ Boysie mouthed silently. ‘Back to the fo’c’s’le ye lily-livered swabs. Har-har.’ Aloud he said, ‘Good evening,’ to a cook who appeared to be going on duty.
‘And good evening to you, too, ducky,’ replied the cook.
Boysie returned to the task in hand: getting into the area which had once housed gallons of oil. There was only one forward companionway which seemed to lead downwards. For a second Boysie wondered if he should go back and get a ball of string to trail in his wake. Then he began the long descent. The narrow stairs seemed to go on for ever, twisting at regular intervals, until he thought there was a distinct probability of ending up bang in the middle of old Father Neptune’s tea party. This set a train of thought going on to the more lustful and basic functions of man when faced with mermaids. He reached the final steps without having solved the problem of how and where. ‘Very tricky things, mermaids,’ breathed Boysie.
The steps had brought him into a small metal area, from which two passages spread out at angles moving forward. It was the way Boysie wanted. He entered the right hand passage and could see that it ended, some ten yards away, in a heavy bulkhead door. He had about six paces to go when the all too familiar pricking sensation rippled up the back of his neck. A second later the voice said, ‘Lost your way, Charlie?’
Boysie turned to find Jimmy Meyer, all six foot two of him, leaning against the passage wall, one hand lazily draped inside his jacket.
‘No. Course not. It’s okay.’ Boysie thought he sounded undismayed. He turned and took another step towards the bulkhead door.
‘Hold it.’ Meyer pronounced the words nice and easy, prolonging the ‘ho’ of hold.
‘Look. I’ve got a job to do.’
‘Haven’t we all, Charlie? Mine is guarding the bulkhead doors here and letting nobody through.’
‘And mine is going to have a look-see. I am employed by the owner after all …’
‘So you’re employed by the owner. The owner has nothing to do with it. This ship is on government business and the Central Intelligence Agency is in charge of all security aspects.’
Boysie moved back and stood close to him, as though measuring up. They were both about the same size and weight. Not that Boysie had any intention of tangling with the man.
‘Now look.’ Meyer smiled. ‘We don’t want any upsets. Why not just go back to your cabin and rest up before dinner.’
‘You mean you don’t recognize our position on board this ship?’
‘You asking or telling?’
‘Both.’
‘Well the answer’s yes on each count, sentences to run concurrently.’
Stalemate. Boysie gently gnawed the side of his lower l
ip and looked up at Meyer, sly with a lot of white showing and the pupils right up in the right hand corners. Cornered cornea. Then, quickly, as though he had made his mind up on a whim, Boysie took off with a light ‘Okay’. He trotted easily to the far end of the passage. At the foot of the steps he turned.
‘Hey!’ Boysie shouted back to Meyer. ‘What about the Bay of Pigs then?’
Meyer flapped a hand. A move-on-there gesture. Boysie’s foot was on the first step when Meyer thought of a retort.
‘What about Kim Philby?’
*
‘I’m sorry but they’re quite within their rights.’ Captain Bone faced Mostyn and Boysie across his desk. He looked more than a little embarrassed. Mostyn had exploded wrathfully when Boysie told him about the show of CIA strength. But his tidy military mind allowed that their only way to recognition lay through the Captain. So, within twenty minutes of leaving Meyer, Boysie found himself in the Captain’s cabin.
‘This is monstrous, Captain, absolutely monstrous.’ Mostyn was doing his practised imitation of a British senior officer, circa 1939, curry hot and peevish. It was just this kind of action that might bring Bone to his knees, or at least the fatty centres of his legs which passed for such. But Bone just did not have the authority.
‘To be fair with you, Colonel Mostyn, I begged Mr. Warbash not to put you aboard. The whole operation is government controlled as you can see. Yesterday I asked for permission to tell everyone once we were at sea. The orders came back very firm. I’m not to say a word until we’ve picked up the cargo and are at sea again.’
‘It’s ludicrous.’
‘I kinda agree with you. In a couple of days you’ll see the cargo coming aboard anyhow. And I’ve already got a large percentage of the crew who know.’
Mostyn made an ugly sneezing sound.
‘So my hands are tied,’ the Captain continued. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you just sat back and enjoyed yourselves.’ He chuckled uneasily. ‘Let the CIA play James Bond, eh?’
But Mostyn’s pride was hurt. Boysie watched him before dinner that night, brooding, the angry look on his face almost screaming details of the plot which was certainly thickening in his mind.
Before the CIA men arrived for dinner, Mostyn drew Boysie to one side.
‘Don’t say anything to the others.’ He muttered with secret sotto into Boysie’s ear. ‘Just wait. We’ll get the bastards tomorrow. Come and see me then.’
Boysie nodded like a trained dog. For his part the whole business had now become farcical, even though he still felt the inevitable uneasiness and worry. What the hell, thought Boysie. So we don’t know what the cargo’s going to be. We’ll know in a couple of days and to blazes with the CIA. Who cares anyway?
Meyer did not appear with Goldberg and Frankenstein for dinner.
‘He’ll be up later,’ Goldberg told them laconically.
Frankenstein eyed Chicory with blatant lasciviousness throughout the meal, while the whole of the GRIMOBO team ate through the menu in silence.
‘Like a lot of kids,’ observed Boysie later, in the soothing confines of the owner’s cabin.
‘Well let’s make this a bit adult, darling.’ Chicory’s voice came smooth as satin pants in the darkness that surrounded them. ‘Lifebuoy may not like BO but I do.’
On the following morning, Boysie presented himself at Mostyn’s cabin. Mostyn had about him the wicked aura of a child ready to practise evil.
‘That’s our answer, little Boysie.’ Mostyn held up a small medicine bottle.
‘I’m supposed to say, what dat, presumably.’
‘Indeed. And I answer in one word. Jalap.’
‘Jalap?’
‘That’s it, Oaksie, old love. Jalap.’
‘What dat?’
‘Something from my survival kit.’ Mostyn brim full of malice. ‘Jalap is a particularly powerful purgative. They don’t seem to use it much nowadays, but when I was a small boy …’
‘Purgative.’ Boysie mused. Some words seemed to have been permanently left out of his vocabulary.
Mostyn sighed and flicked some imaginary ash from his finely pressed slacks. ‘A purgative. Or, if it makes it any easier, a laxative …’
‘Oh, it makes you sh …’
‘It is obtained, I gather, from the tuber of a Mexican plant.’
‘Tuba? The Tijuana Brass again, hu?’
‘Tuber. B-E-R.’
‘Cut. Look, daddy, I’ve had trouble with Mexican juices before. You remember the mushroom soup in Berlin?’
‘Well.’ An affirmative from Mostyn. ‘Yes I remember it well, Oakes. But this tiny tincture has nothing to do with mushrooms, hallucinatory or otherwise.’
‘So what’s it do apart from making you sh …?’
‘That’s all it does. Few drops of this stuff, Boysie, and you could move a four months’ constipated elephant in fifteen minutes flat, and he would stop to remember.’
‘That powerful, eh?’
‘More. This is the answer to every bunged up bowel in the business. And if you aren’t bunged up its effect is catastrophic.’
Boysie looked hard at the small bottle and then at Mostyn. ‘Perhaps I’m dim, but I don’t see the connection.’
‘You are as dim as a red light on Knob Hill. The connection is that the CIA performs the changing of the guard directly after dinner.’
‘How come you know that?’
‘I took the trouble to follow them last night. I rather gather they keep up the watch round the clock. Goldberg relieved your friend Meyer after dinner last night. I’ve just seen him with Meyer this morning which means that Frankenstein is on duty now. He’ll probably be relieved after lunch and, in turn, tonight after dinner they’ll go through the routine again.’
‘And?’
‘And, Boysie, my dear oaf, the one who takes over after dinner tonight will be spiked.’ Mostyn paused for it to register. ‘Spiked. Full of Jalap, friend. Jalap which we feed into him over the merry festive board …’
‘How?’ Boysie was determined to be as cagey as possible with any plan concocted by Mostyn.
‘What do they drink?’
‘Can’t say I’ve noticed.’
‘Well I have. They’re strictly soda pop boys. No booze on duty. Not even a small carafe of harmless rose, my rosy lad. One coke each which they actually drink with their food.’
‘Ah.’
‘They must have palates like hardboard.’
‘So we spike the cokes.’ Boysie grinned, another infant joining Mostyn’s childhood jape.
‘We do, indeed. I’ve checked that as well. The steward keeps the freezer stacked up. Just before every meal it contains twelve cokes, twelve cans of beer, and four bottles of a rather inferior Burgundy: two white and two red. Before dinner tonight we move in, prise the caps off the coke bottles, insert a brace of drops in each bottle and push the caps on again.’
‘And what if I want a coke?’
‘You won’t.’ Mostyn shook his head hard. ‘Tonight coke’ll be the last thing you’ll want. And keep the others off it as well.’
‘How quick do you say this stuff works?’
‘We’ll give it between twenty minutes and half an hour. Yes about half an hour after they’ve taken it.’
‘Hope they don’t linger over the meal.’
‘They haven’t up to now.’
‘There’s always a first time, not that I’d mind being around when it happens.’
‘Yes, well you won’t be, will you?’ Mostyn cocked his head on one side.
‘No.’ Boysie got the message. ‘What you mean is that I’ll be risking life and limb going down to have a peek into the hold and hoping that the CIA bird-dog will be trapped in the loo.’
‘Couldn’t have summarized it better myself, lad.’
*
So it turned out that half an hour before dinner that evening Boysie and Mostyn crept into the boat deck saloon. Mostyn poured a couple of brandies from his hip flask and they began the
tricky job of systematically removing the caps from the dozen bottles of coke neatly packed into the bar freezer. The operation took them fifteen minutes. Caps prised off. Two drops of jalap inserted into each bottle. Caps on again and made tight with a pair of household tweezers. Up, up and away.
Shortly before dinner they were joined by the other two members of GRIMOBO in the saloon, followed, minutes later, by Goldberg and Frankenstein who made straight for the freezer and the coke.
‘That’s a good idea.’ It was Griffin who broke the silence in an attempt to be friendly. ‘You boys’ve got something. I really fancy a coke tonight.’
Mostyn flashed a look at Boysie which said, ‘Didn’t you warn him?’
Boysie’s look in return was a sombre, ‘No.’
By this time, Griffin was already lifting his glass, in toast to the pair of CIA men, quaffing the liquid with much smacking of lips.
Mostyn turned his head away so that nobody would see his lips moving surreptitiously. ‘It’s not such a bad thing, Boysie. They won’t be so suspicious if one of our people goes down with the dreaded bug as well.’
Boysie nodded and they took their places for the meal. The conversation remained as sporadic as ever, Goldberg and Frankenstein hurrying through their food like a couple of convicts on release morning. Within a quarter of an hour the two Americans nodded politely to Chicory, Mostyn, Boysie and Griffin, and headed for the door.
‘We’ve only got to hope that comrade Meyer gets up here fully relieved before either of them needs relief,’ muttered Mostyn.
‘Watch old Gruff,’ said Boysie.
They chatted amiably for five minutes or so. Then Meyer arrived looking irritable. He had barely taken his place at the table when Griffin let out an oath.
‘Christ,’ said Griffin loudly.
‘You all right?’ asked Chicory.
‘Whatsmatter, old son?’ queried Mostyn.
