Dead Sea

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Looks like you’re all right now. Flint’s OK as well, by all accounts.’

  ‘I know. We’ve been in contact with her. And we’ve uploaded some good footage that we took during the run up here. Some excellent close-ups of a waterspout, for instance. And a storm front like you wouldn’t believe. We should be all over the TV news by teatime. Teatime your time. It’s teatime our time already . . . Now, quickly, while whatever satellite up there continues to smile upon us, how are the kids?’

  Richard was still bringing Robin up to speed with family and business news when the connection faltered then failed. He sat looking at the screen thoughtfully for a moment or two, wondering what on earth Robin had been doing to get close-up pictures of a waterspout. Then, still deep in thought he rose, turned and walked back through to his dressing room. He had no memory of hitting the back button on his laptop, but he must have done, because, as he opened his underwear drawer, he was suddenly treated to another diatribe of excited Japanese.

  He gave a dry chuckle and dropped the towel round his waist. He stepped into his underwear then hopped from foot to foot pulling on his socks. He chose a white cotton shirt and a mid-grey suit. He had tightened the belt and was standing in front of the mirror perfecting his half-Windsor knot in a gold-patterned silk tie when one of the words in the Japanese broadcast caused him to stop.

  ‘. . . Tanaka . . .’ it said, quite clearly.

  Frowning, Richard walked back through into the sitting room.

  The same excitable news anchor from Japan Today had her head and shoulders framed on the screen. Behind her there was a picture of Professor Reona Tanaka, full face in close-up. No sooner were the familiar features there than they were gone. And the photograph of a young woman replaced them.

  Also missing is his colleague, Dr Aika Rei, said the translation across the bottom of the screen. Neither she nor Professor Tanaka have been seen for several days and the Tokyo Police have begun a manhunt.

  Richard was walking towards the laptop, shaking his head in simple surprise, when his cell phone started to ring again. He glanced at its screen as he picked it up. Nic Greenbaum’s picture looked back at him.

  ‘Mariner,’ he said, putting it to his ear. ‘You’re up late, Nic. Is it about Tanaka?’

  ‘Yeah,’ came Nic’s familiar voice, his usual laid-back California drawl absent. ‘But it’s not as late as you think. I’m at a meeting in Las Vegas just in from the glad-handing and the floor show. Only eight hours behind you, Buddy. Still, Tanaka’s chosen one hell of a time to go awol.’

  ‘You think something’s up?’ demanded Richard at once. ‘Something beyond some kind of a runaway romance?’

  ‘I don’t know, Richard. I mean, the guy seemed pretty level-headed to me.’

  ‘And to me,’ agreed Richard thoughtfully. ‘Far too sensible to walk out on a lifelong career at the pinnacle of his ambition, only ten days away from becoming the pin-up boy of the environmental lobby, if this Cheerio thing goes right.’

  ‘On the other hand . . .’ temporized Nic.

  ‘Yeah. He probably didn’t get out much. This woman could have turned his head, I suppose. God knows it’s happened before.’

  ‘No way of knowing. But the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is . . .’

  ‘Where does his disappearance leave us?’ Richard completed Nic’s thought. ‘And Katapult and Flint, come to that?’

  ‘Both Libby and Robin seem to be bang on course,’ said Nic. ‘And as far as I know, the bottle’s still there. Still bleeping out its little tracker signal.’

  ‘So what part of our plans will be messed up if Professor Tanaka doesn’t reappear in time?’ mused Richard. ‘And what do we need to do in the way of damage limitation?’

  ‘The next thing Professor Tanaka was due to be part of was the Tokyo reception to celebrate the recovery of the bottle. Preparations for that are well in hand, and building up nicely as Katapult and Flint close in – and the signal from that damn bottle stays loud and clear.’

  ‘We’re both due to be there for that,’ said Richard. ‘It’s all set to be the climax of the whole thing. I suppose we could cover for him to a certain extent if he hasn’t shown up again by then.’

  ‘Everything except the science, you mean.’

  ‘I suppose so. But it seems a bit cold-blooded. Look. Heritage Mariner have associates in Ōsaki district. How is Greenbaum International placed?’

  ‘Business centre just down the road from you. You think I should get some of our people busy on looking for poor old Reona?’

  ‘Not so much of the ‘poor old Reona’. Have you seen a picture of the girl he’s supposed to have gone off with?’

  ‘Hot, huh?’

  ‘And then some. But yes. I do feel we should at least ask around. I mean, I know he’s more Greenbaum International than Heritage Mariner, but even so, he’s—’

  ‘Family . . .’ said Nic thoughtfully. ‘The kind of family they used to have here in Vegas.’ He was speaking in a mock-mafioso accent and he paused for a moment so that Richard could get the message.

  ‘Yes. Well put. Family. And for all we know, he could be in trouble.’

  ‘Look,’ said Nic suddenly. ‘I tell you what. My desk is pretty clear now that this meeting is over and done with, what with seeing Libby off and just planning to pass through the LA office on my way to Tokyo. How’s your desk fixed?’

  ‘Like yours. I have a good team well briefed. I’ve really just been touching base on my way through too.’

  ‘Then let’s go for it. You and me both. The distance from Vegas is about the same as from London, give or take a couple of hundred miles. I’ll bet you dinner at the winner’s choice of menu and location that my guys at GI can get me to the Tokyo Hilton faster than your guys at HM can get you there.’

  ‘Except that I’d be heading for the Mandarin Oriental, you’ve got a bet. Menu and restaurant, winner’s choice.’

  Richard broke contact on his phone with his right hand even as he picked up the receiver of the internal phone with his left. Within five seconds he was talking to Audrey at Crewfinders once again, his heart racing; but not with worry this time. With excitement. ‘Audrey, I’d like you to get me to Tokyo as fast as you can,’ he said crisply. ‘And book me a suite at the Mandarin from tomorrow afternoon. Check-in time’s from two p.m., if I remember right.’

  Flight

  ‘The next flight out is the Etihad Airways A308 departing Heathrow Terminal Five at nine fifteen this morning,’ said Audrey. ‘Arrives at Tokyo Narita at one p.m. local time tomorrow.’

  ‘Book me on it,’ said Richard. ‘I’ll pick up any paperwork for the flight at the check-in desk. All my Japan documentation is current. I just have to get to Heathrow inside an hour.’ He looked at his Rolex and hesitated. ‘What’s the next one after the Etihad flight?’

  ‘BA to Tokyo Hadena International an hour later. Same terminal. Flight Number 007 direct. New service.’

  ‘Haneda’s thirty miles nearer the city centre. What’s the flight time?’

  ‘Fifteen hours. You should touch down before ten a.m. local. And you know your cell won’t work in Japan. You’ll have to pick up a local one.’

  ‘That’s OK, I’ll take my laptop. Email works. Book me a seat on that one too. I’ll decide when I get to Terminal Five.’

  ‘You want me to call for the chopper, Captain?’

  ‘No, thanks, Audrey. I think I know a quicker way.’

  ‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, the code for your satellite navigation system is TW6 2GA.’

  ‘Got it. Thanks, Audrey. But I know the way like the back of my hand. I’ll be in touch when I get there.’

  Fizzing with excitement, Richard ran through to the bedroom once again. In a specially adapted section of his wardrobe, he kept a travelling case that was always packed with his essentials – even his passport and his Kindle – so that he could grab and go at a moment’s notice. It was designed for use when some great ship some
where on a vast and distant ocean suddenly found itself without a captain or a senior navigating officer and Richard had to get from Heritage House to its command bridge in the shortest possible time. But the system was just as effective when it came to winning crazy wagers with old friends. It was a neat, efficient piece of kit and simply hefting it out of the wardrobe gave Richard an extra buzz of excitement.

  He pulled the case out with gleeful exuberance, therefore, threw it on the tumbled bed, ran back for his laptop and charger, pulling on the jacket to his charcoal-grey suit as he went, slid them into the special compartment, grabbed his cell phone and dropped that into his jacket pocket, slipped on his shoes and hit the front door. He grabbed a light Aquascutum off the coat stand on the way through – Tokyo would be hot and damp, he guessed. Thirty degrees Celsius, with an unseasonable amount of rain forecast for August. Finally, he caught up the keys to his Bentley Continental, which was sitting beside his E-Type Jaguar in the garage below, and tossed them gleefully into the air as he kicked the door closed behind him.

  In the lift on the way down, he ran through the familiar checklist in his head. He could rely on Audrey to update everyone who needed to know that he had gone. Heritage Mariner’s senior board were used to Richard and Robin appearing and disappearing at odd times. While the Mariners were increasingly the public faces of the company, they had been careful to put in place teams of executives who were more than capable of running things in their absence.

  But the first calls Audrey would make, Richard suspected, would be to finish making his reservation on the Etihad A380 confirming ticket and seat, with maximum legroom possible. Alerting the Mandarin to his flight arrival time, confirming his suite – an open-ended booking. Confirming with Heathrow that he would be occupying the secure slot that Heritage Mariner kept in the Terminal Five Business Car Park – as well as at all the others – for emergencies such as this. Then getting on to BA with his back-up plan and warning the Mandarin that things might change a little in an hour or so’s time.

  But high on the list, he knew, would be a quick call to Grimaud in the South of France to update his parents and his children on his latest hare-brained scheme. Then, no doubt, she would see if she could get hold of Katapult or Flint.

  With these thoughts tumbling through his mind, he stepped out of the lift into the company car park beneath Heritage House. A few purposeful strides took him to the sleek rear of his matt black Bentley, almost invisible in the shadows. He pressed the remote, unlocked the deadlocks, popped the boot and slid his case in, folded the raincoat and suit jacket in on top of it, closed the cool black metal and all but ran to the driver’s door.

  He eased into the red-stitched black leather driver’s seat and felt it adjusting automatically to him as he slid his custom key into the dash. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, popped up the cover, punched in the key code and pushed the starter. The whole car purred into life like a sleepy panther beginning to come awake. He slid his seat belt home, flicked the paddle gearshift into reverse and eased back into the turning area, feeling the car settle on to its haunches, ready to spring forward. It was all he could do not to make the tyres squeal as he let her roll forward, feeling his lips curl into an excited smile and thinking free at last, free at last . . .

  A moment later, the sleek black bonnet with its signature winged B came prowling up from the underground car park and out into Cornhill swinging smoothly down towards Mansion House Street like a big cat hunting gazelle. The alarm sounded quietly, reminding him that he was in the Congestion Charging Zone. Audrey would take care of that, he thought, as he tapped the paddle gearshift and eased his foot down on the accelerator. Thirty seconds later he was turning past the Grecian temple frontages of The Bank of England and the Mansion House opposite, and on to Queen Victoria Street. At six fifteen a.m. there was hardly anything else on the road except for delivery vans. Too early for buses or taxis yet; all those millions of tourists still tucked up in bed. Half of them, of course, Japanese. The thought made him chuckle out loud.

  Forty seconds later, he had eased carefully past the Central London Magistrates’ Court, and was heading along the all but empty Queen Victoria Street for White Lion Hill. The sun had been up in a clear blue sky for a little over forty minutes, but he was heading west so its brightness only dazzled occasionally in his rear-view, glinting off the windows of the taller buildings ahead. He felt a heady possessiveness as he guided his beloved car through the familiar thoroughfares, past some of the most important and historic buildings in London. This was his city, he felt. He had lived and worked all over the world; owned houses on the Scottish Borders, on the Norfolk coast and just along from the White Cliffs overlooking the Channel; but nevertheless he found himself singing in his best imitation Sinatra voice, ‘It’s my kind of town . . .’

  The Bentley rumbled down White Lion Hill into the sudden neon gloom of the Blackfriars Underpass, and for three minutes the bellow of the engine was contained within the tunnel, then Richard sent her – exactly on the speed-limit – out on to the Victoria Embankment. With the Thames on his left at full-flood, brown and golden in the morning light and the Temple Gardens, Somerset House and The Savoy speeding past on his right, he eased past the gilded thrust of Cleopatra’s needle snarled beneath the end of Hungerford Bridge then turned right at the lights on to Northumberland Avenue.

  Moments later still, the black panther of the Bentley was grumbling past Charing Cross Station, only just coming alive as the first commuters arrived and meandered, dazzled, out into the still-clear morning. Then, easing past the end of Whitehall under Nelson’s stony gaze – and the somnolent, almost kindred regard of Landseer’s lions, Richard entered the great roundabout of Trafalgar Square. He glanced up at the famous carvings and then he signalled left, sweeping through the gathering traffic and swinging beneath Admiralty Arch.

  Then, with a wiggle of her panther hips he eased the Continental into The Mall, giving a mental prayer of thanks that it was too early for the Changing of the Guard. The dusty pink perfection of The Mall led straight as a die through St James’s Park to the roundabout outside Buckingham Palace. Nelson’s gaze was replaced by that of Victoria, Queen Empress, also guarded by regal lions, as he swung round the fountain and past the front of Buckingham Palace itself and on to Constitution Hill.

  With the trees of Green Park on the one hand and Buckingham Palace Gardens behind the security wall on the other, he pushed the speed limit for another thirty seconds before swinging left into Duke of Wellington Place, with the Duke of Wellington Arch seeming to wheel around on his right. Then he bore right into Grosvenor Place and almost immediately left on to Knightsbridge.

  Easing the pedal down a fraction more, Richard sped past The Sheraton on his left with the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park almost opposite, past Harvey Nicholls and then, moments later, past Harrods as Knightsbridge became the Brompton Road. Ten minutes later the A4 had metamorphosed through Thurloe Place to the Cromwell Road to the Talgarth Road and leaped up on to the Hammersmith Flyover.

  Within half an hour of leaving Heritage House Richard was easing the Bentley through Hogarth Lane and down on to the M4 Motorway with the traffic beginning to thicken around him. A couple of quick flips of the gear-paddle and the Bentley had leaped up from forty mph to eighty, roaring with satisfaction as the little aerodynamic fin rose behind her rear window. Five minutes and seven miles later, he was purring past the slip road signposted Heathrow Terminals One, Two and Three. The six forty-five Virgin Jumbo eased itself into the air above him, heading for New York. He held steady until he reached the M25 turnoff, then disorientatingly followed the signpost to Gatwick, growling down the steep left curve on to the busy southbound motorway. Four minutes later still, he was swinging left again into the lane marked Terminal Five.

  Richard parked the Bentley at ten past seven and hefted his kit out of the back before turning down his shirt cuffs, slipping on his jacket, setting the deadlocks and strolling down to the pod stop. He checked the time on
his cell phone rather than his Rolex because he was calling Audrey as he waited. The pod rolled up at seven fifteen on the dot, just as he made contact.

  ‘The Etihad flight was overbooked,’ she announced apologetically as he folded himself with some difficulty into the little remote vehicle, pushing his case and coat on to the seat opposite, thankful that he was the only passenger. ‘But I’ve got you on the BA flight at ten thirty. First class. I take it this is company business because the flight isn’t what you’d call cheap.’

  ‘First class never is,’ he answered shortly. ‘And yes. I’m going early but I’d still have had to go sometime.’

  ‘But, on the plus side,’ she answered more gently, ‘there’s the Concorde Lounge for you to wait in.’

  Five minutes later, Richard unfolded himself from the pod like a large hermit crab coming out of a small shell outside Terminal Five. He strolled down the length of Departures and arrived at the BA first-class check-in desk at seven thirty on the dot. All his paperwork was waiting for him and he was happy to scan it in, check in the suitcase and sling his laptop bag over one shoulder while the Aquascutum went over the other, before he strolled on through Fast Track Security to the Concorde Lounge.

  The steel-haired receptionist on the Concorde Lounge desk checked his documents rather more thoroughly than the man at security had done before she grudgingly permitted him to enter her lair. But once he was past her, he was pleasantly surprised by the spacious brightness of the Concorde Lounge. The floor was of honey-coloured wood overlain with plain chocolate carpets. The ceiling was high and one whole wall appeared to be a series of tall windows opening out on to an exclusive covered balcony. Down the wall at ninety degrees to this there was a bar. On the other side the area opened further into a restaurant with further sections for work and rest beyond. There was even what appeared to be a large shower and spa section. Massage and foot spa were apparently available.