The Mandarin Cypher

by Adam Hall

  Ferris gave a companionable whinny.

  'So it's like that,' he said.

  'It's like that, gentlemen.'

  'Cross our fingers,' said Ferris, and Ackroyd glanced at him. We could both feel the chill coming out of him, though he'd been trying to deal with it. Ferris was claustrophobic, and the idea of being inside this thing when they dropped depth charges on it wasn't making him feel any better.

  'Let me explain,' said the captain. 'If they were worried enough about our presence so close to the rig they might try to blow us out of the water and later claim they did it when we were inside their territorial waters and that we drifted south before we bottomed. They'd have to knock us out at the first shy, or we'd start sending radio messages to the effect that we were being attacked in international waters.' He shrugged with his small pink hands. 'Provided they could drown us to a man before we could use the radio, how could anyone dispute their claim?'

  We didn't say anything.

  'That is the position, then. Of course I'm going to make every effort to avoid an incident. I have seventy crew on board.' His face went shut again and he looked down at the table. 'For the duration of this voyage, gentlemen, Swordfish has been placed on a war footing.'

  'This was our only way in,' said Ferris. 'I'm awfully sorry.'

  'Give us something to do. You called on the right people -the Silent Service!' A short burst of laughter while he plucked at his ear.

  'What time,' I asked him, 'do we expect to arrive off the rig?'

  'Come into the control room.'

  The glow of the bug was moving across the chart between Lamma and Cheng Chau Islands. 'We're heading north of this one, Hei Chou, and turning approximately south-east, instead of rounding this group here. The long way round, but safer. As you see, all these islands are Chinese territory and most of them maintain garrisons and of course coastguard units.' He glanced up at the chronometer. 'I estimate we'll reach our position in half an hour. Let us say 01.15.'

  We went back into the wardroom to keep out of their way.

  'Everything going nicely,' Ferris said, but he didn't look at me. He was behaving rather well: every time one of the bulk head doors was slammed somewhere in the ship he gave a quick blink but that was all.

  'Piece of cake,' I said, and began sorting out my gear. I didn't know what the conditions were out there: in an air drop you can study the target zone on your way down and pick out any features that could be dangerous or difficult, but all I knew on this trip was that the sea was calm, the temperature was in the region of 82 and moonrise had taken place twelve minutes ago. It wasn't much to know.

  In ten minutes the ship began heeling slightly as we turned south-east and headed straight for the rig, fourteen or fifteen miles distant.

  At 01.00 I went back to the control room, leaving Ferris looking at a copy of Penthouse, not really his cup of tea. His face had lost all its colour now and had a sheen of sweat on it. I noticed he'd pushed back the tuft of hair that had been sticking out.

  They'd changed the chart on the dead-reckoning tracer and we were now on 341 with the glow of the bug moving midway between Yai Chou Island and the San-Men group. Our heading was 142 and the oil rig was four sea miles distant, dead on our course.

  It was quieter now in the control room and I looked up at the blower grilles.

  'We've shut some of them down,' said Ackroyd.

  The engine-room telegraph was at half ahead both: we must have been slowing. Nobody was slamming doors any more. I looked at Ackroyd.

  'Same ETA?'

  'That's right.' His small bright eyes were very steady now as he watched the console.

  01.04.

  I went back to the wardroom. Ferris had pushed the copy of Penthouse to the end of the table and was sitting motionless, looking slightly upwards. I suppose that was where he was expecting to hear the crump, but the bloody things could go off anywhere, dead on our beam or below us, anywhere. He turned his head.

  'Are we still on our ETA?'

  'Yes.'

  Time to suit up, isn't it?'

  'Yes.'

  Talc floated up under the lights as I got into the wet-suit and zipped it to the throat and started on the final checks: tank pressure, valves, harness, backpack, buckles, a quick exhalation through the mouthpiece to clear the check valves. All normal.

  'Have you seen the rig yet?' Ferris asked me.

  'Not yet. But it's there.'

  I hit the valves a fraction to blow out any dust, making him flinch.

  'Sorry.'

  'Don't mind me.' I aligned the regulators, turning the butterfly bolts finger-tight.

  'Are we slowing?' he asked.

  I stopped work and listened.

  'Yes.'

  There wasn't anything more I could do before it was time to put on the scuba so I went into the control room. Ackroyd turned his head fractionally.

  'We're rigged for silent running,' he said.

  'Understood.'

  We spoke very quietly. All sound background had gone: the engines were running at slow and they'd shut down all fans, blowers, pumps and auxiliary motors. Next to me I could hear the diving officer breathing.

  'Want to take a look?'

  I went to the periscope.

  The oil rig was dead in sights, a black skeleton structure rearing from the moon lit surface of the sea. Longitude 114 , Latitude 22 . The target for Mandarin.

  Chapter Twelve

  SOLO

  It was a quick piping note: the call of the sea swallow.

  Ferris left the tape running while he helped me with the scuba.

  'This side okay?'

  'Another notch on the buckle.'

  The weight of the tanks shifted.

  A seaman came to the doorway.

  'The captain wants you to know they've got radar.'

  'On the rig?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  The bloody harness still wasn't right.

  'Back another notch on both, will you?'

  'Will do. There's no hurry.'

  But I could hear his breathing. We'd passed through Chinese territorial waters between the islands and the last report from the control room was that we were now standing off the rig at one mile.

  'Feel better?'

  I shrugged the scuba a couple of times.

  'Yes.' I tipped my head back as far as I could, without feeling the regulators.

  The nearest naval base was probably at Kitchioh or somewhere to the west along the South China coast, and even if they could send anything seaborne from Namtow they wouldn't get here before Swordfish was under way again: it was airborne attention Ackroyd was worried about. The chart gave the depth in this area of the continental shelf as eighteen fathoms and if the garrison sent a chopper out from the rig or one of the islands we'd have to crash dive but with periscope depth at sixty feet there'd be critically limited room to manoeuvre: with the sea calm and the moon clear we'd be a sitting duck for any kind of aerial reconnaissance.

  'For Christ sake switch it off, will you, Ferris?'

  That bloody bird was getting on my nerves.

  He went over to the tape-recorder and pressed the stop button.

  'Anyway, you'll know what to listen for.' I thought he said it rather deliberately.

  'If I don't know now I never will.'

  'What we call good briefing, if I may say so.'

  There was an edge on his voice, the first time I'd heard it.

  'Are they going to put it through the loudhailer?'

  'With discretion.' A wintry smile. 'It's not meant to be a peacock.'

  Ackroyd was standing in the doorway.

  'How are things getting along, gentlemen?' He said it in a half whisper.

  'Fine. Where's the head?'

  'Through there.' As I turned away he said quickly, 'Don't flush it. We'll do it for you later.'

  'Fair enough.'

  They were still standing there when I came back. The silence was almost total now and I could hear the rust
le of a sleeve as someone in the control room moved his arm. Nobody looked at me, but I was the only man among the whole of the complement they were thinking about. As soon as they could spit this bloody frog out of the escape hatch they could start engines and get the hell out of here before some yellow bastard spotted them.

  'Skipper,' I said, 'I'd like to take a final look.'

  'By all means.'

  He led me into the control room.

  I knew they wanted me out of Swordfish as fast as possible but I couldn't help that. I had to establish the image of the rig and I had to do it now and from this precise position because later it wouldn't be stable and I could lose my bearings. We were to the north-east of the thing and midway between it and the San-Men Islands and I wanted to memorize the rig's configuration from this exact angle because if a sea haze covered the Pole Star and the rig's structure sent my compass wild I'd have nothing left but this image as my guide.

  'Up 'scope.'

  Ackroyd stood aside and I took the grips, turning the sights until the cross-hairs swung to centre on the rig. At this distance it reached twenty or so degrees from the horizontal and I could see its riding lights. There was some kind of flood illumination hitting the cranes and derrick from lamps on the top deck, and a flare pilot was burning with a steady flame from the tip of a stackpipe.

  At one side I could make out the black aerodynamic shape of a helicopter, the object we most feared, 'Thank you.'

  'Our pleasure.'

  The 'scope was brought down and I went through to the wardroom. A young seaman was coming the other way and stood aside for me, his leg catching one of my reserve air tanks: it hit the metal bulkhead and someone said shit under his breath and the seaman's face went white. We all stood perfectly still for a minute, trying to replay the sound in our memory to judge how bad it was.

  It wasn't very good so I did a final synchronization check with Ferris and tugged the flippers on and carried the reserve tanks and other stuff along to the escape hatch. Ackroyd led the way personally, which I thought was civil of him.

  Ferris helped me stow the gear against the bulkhead and I checked the faceplate for misting.

  'Better you than me,' Ackroyd murmured. He had a very held-in smile.

  'I wouldn't want your job either,' I said and put the mask on. They swung the door shut without making a noise and the last thing I saw was the pale and watchful face of Ferris, not much of his mind on me, most of it going through a lightning series of checks to see if we'd forgotten anything, overlooked anything, anything that could catch up on us a minute from now or an hour from now or at noon today when I was alone in the target zone and out of reach.

  Flooding began.

  The sickly rubber smell of the mask.

  I shifted the lead belt around an inch, unnecessarily.

  The water was waist high.

  The thing I had to do was simple. Difficult but simple. During final briefing I'd asked Ferris why the hell didn't we take up station at the Golden Sands Hotel and do a snatch on Tewson the next time he was brought ashore to see his wife? There were three reasons, he'd said. One: Tewson might never go there again. Two: London wanted the evidence. Three: London wanted to know what the evidence was.

  The water touched my chin. The mask had started to mist up so I pulled it off and spat into the faceplate and wiped it clear and put it back.

  If Tewson never went to the hotel again we could lose him forever: he could disappear into mainland China and that would be that. Presumably the evidence London wanted was to be used against Tewson or through diplomatic channels against Pekin or maybe both. And the evidence London wanted was the evidence of what Tewson was doing on board the rig.

  Water above my head. Vision distorted, sound magnified as the water gushed in from the pipes. Left hand stinging: salt in the wound.

  Ferris would tell London straight away: he'd have to, because Egerton always insisted on phase situation reports going in on time and it was no good telling him later that you were up a steeple or down a drain. The moment this watertight hatch opened Ferris would have to say so, either through Admiralty Signals and Crowborough or ship-to-shore cable to Chiang in cypher, the standing contraction: Access phase open, executive in target zone.

  The hollow ringing sound of the water died away and there was just the steady inspiration and expiration of my lungs, with the soft cathedral echoes. Then hinges turned and a circle of pale light appeared above me and I pushed gently upwards, floating away.

  The sea was dead calm and the light milky, with the waning moon trailing a pale gold disc above me on the surface. Minutes later I thought I heard the pulsing of the sub's engines but I wasn't sure: the senses were having to adjust to the laws of this other world where the ears must listen under pressure and the eyes see things as larger than they were, and closer. Halfway to the rig I turned and floated on my back, sighting along the surface through the faceplate. The island was there on the near horizon: Heng-kang Chou. I'd been moving off-course, and when I turned again I saw the rig's configuration had altered noticeably. This worried me because there'd been no figures we could hope to work out for the target-zone duration: I could hold out for three days in terms of rations and drinking-water but that didn't have any reference to the amount of time I'd spend submerged. Standard practice was to economize with the air supply and leave a ten per cent margin of error in making calculations, and you don't economize with the air supply by going off-course.

  Watch what you're bloody well doing.

  I'd been using the compass because they had radar and there'd be look-outs on the rig. The phosphorescent dial was clear enough to read accurately but the steel substructure was beginning to send the needle wild and from now on I'd have to risk it and take direct visual checks at intervals with the faceplate clear of the surface till I could pick up the base of the rig below water. I was moving almost due south and the moon was climbing in the east and I'd have to avoid tilting my head to the left when I surfaced the faceplate, to minimize reflection from the glass.

  They didn't have sonar. We'd known that, long before we'd reached our position. If they'd had sonar they would have sent the chopper aloft to investigate our sound and we'd have seen it and Ackroyd would have turned about or surfaced, signalling difficulties. The main danger would have come from divers below the rig: if the substructure was under repair or there were modifications being made they'd have divers down and they would have picked up the sound of our screws.

  I submerged again, moving a few feet below the surface, low enough to prevent the kick of the fins from making a disturbance, high enough to preserve buoyancy. I began looking for the outlines of the substructure ahead of me now but the water was cloudy in patches: it could be just plankton or weed debris, or the machinery on board the rig was perpetually disturbing the sea bed. I began worrying about exhalation bubbles but there wasn't anything I could do: they'd still break the surface from whatever depth I went down to. Ignore.

  The world was silent around me, my own sound alone disturbing it: the hollow and echoing rhythm of my breathing as the living bellows of my lungs fed on the inert reservoirs of air and blew it out, each breath exhausting it by degrees, and irrecoverably. Sometimes the reserve tanks and the other gear caught an eddy from my fins and pulled me sideways a little, dragging on the nylon cord, and every time this happened I rose and broke the surface with the faceplate to correct my course: but I didn't like having to do it because this whole operation was so bloody sensitive.

  This was a Ministry of Defence thing and they'd got something so big on the board that they'd panicked and thrown us a crash-access and the Bureau hadn't been able to stop them. Control had been kicked into motion with almost nothing to go on: we had to reach Tewson as fast as we could and we didn't have to ask any questions. There was obviously a chance that he'd show up again at the Golden Sands but they couldn't give us time to mount an orderly snatch and that was all right but they couldn't have it both ways: they'd hair-triggered Mandarin
to the point where the target was so sensitive that I'd almost certainly blow it before I could get there.

  Tewson was the target: Tewson and the rig. And the instant they realized we were getting too close they'd whip him into China. Tell you what London had sent me here to do: I had to stalk a bird bare-handed and catch it before it flew up.

  Bloody London for you.

  The cord tautened again and I was pulled sideways, getting fed up with it. When I broke surface with the faceplate I saw the configuration had altered, but not too much: I was learning how to do it better, every time. The flare at the tip of the stack made a diffused glow and I took off the mask and demisted it, pulling the mouthpiece away for a moment to drag in the dry taste of ozone.

  The rig looked about half a mile away and as far as I could see there was no movement on board: the lights were stable and their pattern didn't change. I'd have liked to audio-survey for a few seconds but it wouldn't be easy: it wouldn't be any good just pushing one ear through the surface because it'd be full of water: I'd have to drain it and that meant putting the whole of my head through and if they had any short-range scanners they'd pick up the blob.

  I went down again and listened below water, holding my breath for five seconds. Nothing.

  From the information Ferris had picked up from local sources the oil rig had been operational for three months: the crude was said to be already on stream and they'd set up a tanker shuttle between the rig and the refineries along the South China coast. If they were burning residual lean gas at the flare pilot they must be running at production capacity and they ought to be working round the clock because on an operational oil rig there's no difference between night and day.

  There was on this one. No sound of machinery. No sound of life.

  I checked the time at 01.46. Airstream normal, buoyancy easy to manage, the spare tanks no real problem. During the next long haul I made two brief visual checks from the surface and then stayed below: the faint yellow stain of the flare pilot was now on the surface and I used it as my lode star until the dark trellis pattern of the substructure began showing against the sea bed a hundred feet below.