Hell Gate (Richard Mariner Series Book 9)

by Tonkin, Peter

  As the morning passed, Marshall and Merrideth checked all of these new facilities and prowled further afield. Standing on the afterdeck, right in the blind spot, they luxuriated in the sensation — what they could feel of it — of sun on unmasked faces and discussed the feasibility of setting up one final little foxhole here where a couple of men could sit secure against the hurricane wind of full speed. But there was no realistic way of doing it. Even an open hatchway, with carefully-prepared support immediately beneath it, would not really offer sufficient protection.

  “And besides,” said Merrideth, closing the hatchway, “it’s the one position that we simply cannot be attacked from.”

  “You got aboard here,” Marshall reminded him. “And so did we. It’s the Achilles heel.”

  “They’re not going to send boarding parties when we make our run. They’ll send F18s with smart rockets and maybe cruise missiles,” observed Merrideth quietly. “They’re finished fucking around with Special Forces teams. Not that they ever actually started. Too slow even for that.”

  “And I guess it’s a dollar to a dime that a heat-seeker up the ass’ll do for us whether we’ve got some poor son of a bitch sitting on top of it or not. We’ll just have to rely on the Stingers like we planned and hope none of the jet jocks get a chance to squeeze one off.”

  “It’s a good plan, Ira. It’ll work. Even if it doesn’t go one hundred per cent as planned, we’ll still frighten the sorry bastards shitless and go down in glory.”

  “I hope so, Merrideth, I surely do. But either way’s OK with me. Mamma Marshall didn’t birth no boy to die a broken leper in some chicken-shit sanatorium. Same’s true for all my men.”

  “Mine too.”

  “OK. Let’s do the drill one more time.”

  They returned to the command bridge. Neither of them thought to call for the hold lights to be extinguished now that they had finished with them.

  *

  The five who had leaped into the lifeboat as New England sailed out of Great Egg Head were much less focused than Marshall, Merrideth and their men. They had no immediate plan and only the vaguest of long-term objectives. They were unarmed, except for Pitman, and hugely outnumbered. And they were all too well aware that there was no way back and very little chance of survival. They were quite comfortably ensconced in the lifeboat. They had easy access to the lower hold when they chose to step out. In the meantime, they had a well-supplied, very well-equipped little redoubt which might prove an effective hiding place. At a push it might even prove defensible — for as long as the flares and Pitman’s ASP held out against 13 Int.’s 203s.

  There was nothing to see over the lifeboat’s gunwale except a great plastic-wrapped pile in the centre of the hold. Richard wondered whether they should inspect it more closely, and that brought to mind the security cameras. Were they switched on? he wondered, straining his eyes to see the telltale red dots. He began to feel about, trying to locate the lifeboat’s binoculars. The first thing his hand encountered was soft, warm and rounded.

  “Apologise or die,” came a gruff whisper.

  “What are you doing here, Pitman?” he asked, moving his hand carefully away.

  “Damned if I know. Same as you, I should think. Beginning to regret it now?”

  “No!” came Ann’s voice, a little more loudly than Richard would have liked. “We have to stop these people.”

  “Shhhhh,” said Bob. “You’re right, Ann, we have to stop them before a lot of folk get hurt. But we won’t stand a chance if they find us. So let’s not alert them too soon, huh, honey?”

  There was an instant of silence during which Richard fully expected Ann to snap, “Don’t you honey me!” But the words never came. Son of a gun, he thought. Bob’s mellowing her!

  “But what are we actually going to do?” asked Harry.

  “Work out exactly what their plan is, then work out some way to stop it and walk away,” said Richard. “If we feel we’ve made a terrible mistake we can still back off if we have to, but we’ve got to be certain, we all have to agree and we’ve got to time it right.”

  “Back off how?” demanded Pitman. “This looks like a one-way ticket to me.”

  “The lifeboat,” Richard explained. “It got us in, it can get us out whenever we want.”

  “As long as New England’s not at full speed,” cautioned Bob.

  “And as long as we all agree. We can’t have just a couple going out and leaving the rest in the lurch.”

  “Perish the thought,” said Pitman. But she sounded more cheerful now that she had her escape route clear if it all went pear-shaped — which was, in her view, the most likely outcome. But there was something about these two men which put them above the common run. And it was more than their looks. If anyone could pull them through this, it would like as not be them. Richard in particular, she thought. She looked no further into who else was here or why she was here herself. One step at a time, she thought. One step at a time.

  “So, what were you looking for when you got on my tits, Captain?” she asked companionably.

  “Binoculars. We’ve really got to play this one carefully. Check the lie of the land before we put a foot out of here.”

  “Good thinking. D’you suppose they’ve got the surveillance cameras on?”

  “No red dots that I can see. We’d see them easily right across the hold, I think, but the binoculars will let me check more closely. Anyway, I doubt they had time, or reason, to fix them at wherever it was they held us, no matter what else they may have done.”

  “I’m sure it was Great Egg,” said Bob.

  “I agree, but I don’t think it’s important,” said Richard. “It’s where we are now and where we’re going that counts.”

  “We’re going to Hell Gate,” said Harry decidedly.

  “Right, Harry, but via where?”

  “You mean are we going past Staten Island and Liberty or are we skipping round Montauk and coming in through Long Island Sound?” asked Ann.

  “Yup. It’ll make a lot of difference, I should think.”

  “To what?” inquired Pitman as she explored, leisurely, looking for the binoculars too.

  “To their chances of pulling it off. And therefore to our chances of walking away.”

  “Can we be clear about that?” said Ann. “I mean, now that we are here, in another fine mess, so to speak, walking away is our highest priority. I mean, when the going gets tough, we all get going. Yes?”

  “Yes,” said Richard at once. “If these men want to kill themselves, that’s fine by me. I’d like to try and stop them destroying New England in the process and I certainly want to stop them killing anyone else while they’re at it, but the bottom line is just what you say, Ann. If anything hits the fan we pull the ripcord and that is that. You’ve all got lives to lead. I’ve got a wife and a family.”

  “As long as we’re all aboard when the lifeboat goes over the side, like you said, Captain Mariner,” said Harry.

  “Yes. It’s musketeer time, I suppose.”

  “All for one and one for all?” inquired Pitman.

  “That goes for us,” said Bob. “If it goes for you.”

  “I guess,” said Pitman.

  “Meaning?” There was a distinct threat in Bob’s voice.

  “Meaning I’m still trying to work out what in hell’s name tempted me aboard. And what I’m going to do now that I’m here.”

  “You came aboard to save your ass,” said Harry. “And working with us is your best bet for keeping it safe.”

  “Keeping it safe for what? That’s the question. Like as not you good folks will hand me over to the authorities the minute we’re out of this mess and I’ll spend the rest of my natural fighting off dykes in the prison showers. Am I right or am I right?”

  “Well, of course…” began Bob, who had every intention of seeing her rot in jail with the rest of Dall’s command if ever he got the chance.

  “No,” said Richard quietly but firmly. “This cancels al
l debts. It has to. We’re in this together and we get out together. It’s the only chance we have. The past is dead. Bury it.”

  “Wish these guys took that viewpoint,” said Pitman, her voice showing she was unconvinced.

  “They are the past,” said Ann. “And they’re dead, poor bastards. Dead men walking. They just want to be cold before they’re buried. That’s all.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” said Richard. “And this is more than their own peculiar style of cremation. They’re going to do a lot of damage and take a lot of people down with them unless we can stop it.”

  “You don’t trust the authorities to do that?” asked Ann, as though she was interviewing him.

  “Ultimately, no, I don’t. It’s not that I think the Coastguard, the Navy and the rest are incompetent. I just think these men have a plan more clever than the authorities have calculated. I think they’ll carry it through no matter what the cost and I think if we can’t stop them, no one will.”

  “This is getting a little circular,” observed Pitman. “Here.”

  Richard felt a cool rubberised column being pushed into his hand and he pressed the binoculars to his eyes without further words.

  “Can one camera be turned on and the others left off?” he asked at the end of his careful survey.

  “No,” answered Harry.

  “Right then. All the cameras I can see are off, so they must all be off. We’re safe for the time being.”

  “Relatively speaking, of course,” observed Pitman.

  Richard gave a quiet bark of laughter. He liked the gentle pressure coming from this mercenary. He had no doubt that, no matter what, Pitman would keep him up to scratch. He lowered the binoculars, squirmed down and round, and faced the others.

  They made a fairly motley crew. Three women and one other man, each in their own way widely experienced and capable. Each one, with the exception of Ann, brought something invaluable to the situation they were in. He could hardly have chosen better if he had had infinities of time and co-operation. Bob was the only man who knew the ship and her general capabilities better than he did himself. Harry was the only one who knew specific and vital areas better than both of them. Pitman understood the military implications of anything they might undertake and could assess better than anyone the likely reaction of the soldiers ranged against them. All four of them were also fit and strong. But he must not underestimate Ann Cable. She was much more than she appeared. Intrepid, intelligent, cool under fire. She had come through wars like the ones fought by Pitman in Africa. She had come through shipwreck and bomb attack and the first day of the Macey’s sale unscathed. No, Ann should never be underestimated.

  “So,” Richard said quietly, “how d’you think we’re going to pull this thing off then?”

  *

  They spent the morning in quiet discussion, safe in their little eyrie, careful to think everything through to the finest detail.

  Richard established that the plastic-covered bundle in the hold was Semtex, and Pitman, who knew more about explosives than the rest of them, confirmed that it was designed to blow the upper deck and its contents into airborne droplets. Chained to the deck of the upper hold was a carefully placed series of massive petrol tankers. These would become a huge cloud of lethal mist which would in turn explode into a firestorm triggered by the first explosion. The second explosion would take out a whole city block with ease. If the explosion went off in Hell Gate, everything on either side of the East River from the Triborough Bridge to the Queens Tunnel would be flattened as far as 21st Street on the Queens shore and Second Avenue on Manhattan. Everything from Astoria Park to the Empire State Building would be at risk.

  “And if they pull it off tonight,” emphasised Ann, “it’ll all go up in the middle of the United Nations inauguration party. The UN building is right in the middle of the blast area. I can’t tell you how many people will die at the reception, but Tom Hanks will be one of them and that’s enough for me.”

  “Yeah, but they have to know the UN building’s at risk,” said Pitman. “They’ll cancel the reception or they’ll close the river up tight. Or both.”

  “I agree,” said Richard, “except I’m certain these men have thought of a way round anything the authorities have planned so far. They’ll have thought this through as well.”

  “Something to do with the speed of the ship perhaps,” hazarded Bob. “I don’t think they’ve finished using that facility.”

  “Something to do with my computers,” said Harry. “Remember, they only went through Heaven’s Gate in Ireland so that they could set the automatic navigation system.”

  “And they stayed there just that bit longer so they could do so, in spite of the added risk of the Garda arriving on the scene,” added Pitman. “So I guess it was really important.”

  “And something else/ said Richard. “I can’t help thinking there’s something else we haven’t thought of yet. An extra edge they’ve got for themselves.”

  They never worked out the extra edge, or rather two edges, that the soldiers had, for they knew nothing of the powerboat and its black box; and only Professor Miles really knew just how invisible his ship could become to radar when the automatic beacon was out. All they could do was make the best possible plan, but as Pitman pointed out, effective action required intelligence as well as planning. Unless they knew the critical moment at which to take action, everything else would be pointless. So the first thing they had to do was break into the ship’s security and communications systems. Either physically or electronically, they had to be able to observe what was going on on the bridge and, if possible, influence it.

  Harry and Pitman went out of the lifeboat first to search the hold for anything that might allow access to the ship’s computer network. If there was nothing in the hold, they would report back and discuss their options before proceeding through the damaged walls into the stairwell.

  As he watched them move along the access balcony, Richard frowned. He did not trust Pitman at all and there was something disturbing going on between her and Harry which put Harry’s motives under serious question. But they were definitely the men for the job.

  *

  New England, her exercises complete for the time being, turned and began to move purposefully west and north. As she gathered speed, following the slow decline of the sun, three figures came out of the A deck bulkhead door and onto the forward weather deck. They walked towards the powerboat and climbed up onto the edges which stood out on either side of her sleek black frame like the running boards of an old-fashioned car. Corporal Tom Smith stepped into the boat and lowered himself into the vacant seat next to the black box. While Merrideth and Marshall watched, Tom adjusted the webbing straps so they fitted him perfectly.

  “You confident about handling this thing?” asked Marshall.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” said Tom. “It’s been my hobby for years. I was coming up to championship level when the disease became a problem. I may be a bit rusty but I’m well qualified for what we want.”

  “You want another dry run, Tom?” asked Merrideth quietly.

  “No thanks, boss. I know what I’ll be doing. There’s no need.” Satisfied that the straps were correctly adjusted, he unbuckled them and stepped out of the powerboat again.

  “Right,” said Merrideth. “Let’s put the cover in place now.” With an ease which belied the damage to their nerves and muscles, the three men pulled a white cover off the deck and slid it over the black boat and davits. When they had finished securing it to the deck, there was nothing but a white hump visible, and that would be distinguishable only from here or from the bridge. Any further away than that and it would merge indistinguishably with the hull.

  “That’s it, then,” said Marshall. “Nothing else to do until dark. I guess we can stand the men down. Let them have a bit of a rest.”

  “Except for the obvious ones, yes,” concurred Merrideth. “It’ll be their last chance.”

  “That it will,�
� said Marshall looking up at the bright warm sun whose heat he could no longer really feel. “That it will.”

  *

  Harry and Pitman sat side by side looking down at the little videophone handset they had taken from its clip by the door. It had escaped the blast damage that had affected the screens in the engine control room.

  “This would do to spy on the bridge,” said Harry quietly. “We did that all right when Dall was in charge. We can do it again. But we want to be able to do more than that.”

  “What do you want to do?” asked Pitman.

  “Access the computer through it.”

  “Like a portable phone going in through a modem?”

  “Exactly. So I need to get to a terminal and open it up in some way so it can communicate with this.”

  “But this is just a videophone. It has a ten-digit dialling pad. Surely you need a keyboard to control a computer.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “So, do you need access to a modem? Your own computer up on the bridge? A substation? The engine control room? The library? What?”

  “The library computer is linked to the Internet so it has a modem. All I have to do is tune this handset to the wavelength of the satellite phone link and then make sure the computer is on and controllable from here.”

  “Yeah, but that’s like saying to get moon rocks, all I’ve got to do is go to the moon.”

  “Not quite. I’ve an idea which might make everything we want to do quite feasible. But I will need to get to a terminal.”

  “The nearest one’s in the engine control room,” said Pitman.

  “Do you think they’ll be guarding it?”

  “They don’t know we’re aboard or they would have taken some action against us before now. So they have no need to guard it against anything as far as they know. Is there any reason why they would need to man it? Like to control the engines or anything?”