Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  Necessarily bewildering, for their complexity was in direct proportion to the exactness with which every ounce of oil aboard had to be dealt with. There was almost no end to the information stored here. And some of it had to be lies - lies which might reveal a deeper truth.

  He closed the door silently behind him and crossed to the main console. Drawing up a chair, he eased his long body into it and began to press the keys on the shadow-cloaked keyboard in front of him. As soon as he did so, the VDU screen lit up. The pale green luminescence emanating from the figures and diagrams was all the light he needed.

  His busy fingers worked in a blur, his narrow eyes never leaving the screen, stripping away layer after layer of information.

  The correct proportion of the cargo resided in each of the tanks - a fundamentally important fact, for any misloading would simply and quickly cause the ship to break into pieces. The weight of cargo in each tank was calculated by the computer from the volume of the tank occupied and the known weight of Gulf Light Crude Oil. The depth of the ullage, 'empty' space between the surface of the cargo and the top of the tank, also registered. This was a useful cross-reference to the volume readings. Other than unbolting the tank tops on the deck and going down into the tanks themselves, there was no way of checking the accuracy of these figures: it was all in the precision of the original programme. And opening the tanks in anything other than the greatest emergency was of course unthinkable, for as they were, the ullage spaces were full of deadly inert gases. And if those gases moved, then even more deadly hydrocarbon gases would be released instantly from the surface of the cargo.

  But Martyr knew that the. figures on the screen before him had to be lies. Had to be lies. And he was all set to prove it now.

  Nearly an hour passed, however, before he began to break into the truth. Even then he was closer to the heart of it than he knew. Temperature figures were beginning to run adrift. The volume of oil recorded by the computer varied - microscopically, but enough to register because the cargo was so huge - according to the temperature. In the cold Cape waters they had effectively been carrying a little less than in the warm tropic seas. The curve for the expansion and contraction of a known quantity of Gulf Light Crude was part of the programme, but there was a discrepancy between what the screen ought to be showing and what it actually was showing ... '

  And then again there was the ullage. The gauges read almost exactly what the programme said they should, and yet ...

  Perhaps he should try the Lading Schedules from scratch again. He pressed EXIT and the code for Lading Schedule One simultaneously.

  As he did so, two things happened in rapid sequence: a single, unmistakable gunshot came from the deck immediately outside, loud enough to jerk him on to his feet and cause his finger to hit the figure key again.

  The computer had an automatic ten schedule Lading Memory to allow for any possible variations in the disposition of the cargo. The signal to display Lading Schedule Eleven should have caused an immediate ERROR signal. Instead it brought to the screen a diagram of the ship similar to those Martyr had been studying, except that the great box of the central tank was outlined not in safe green, but in dangerous red. Beneath it were the words: LADING SCHEDULE ELEVEN ALL CARGO CENTRE TANK MEMORY LOGGED READY TO EXPEDITE.

  On the screen was all the proof that Martyr was looking for and more.

  But he was straining to see where the shot had come from, looking steadfastly through the window. So he didn't see what the screen had said at all. And when he did look down, ready to switch the computer off and go to find out what was happening, the screen was blank again.

  She stepped silently through his door at five past midnight and paused. He was not in his cabin as he usually was. After a second she realised he was in his office, sitting at his desk staring out along the dark deck. She crossed the little room to stand behind him. He made no move until she rested her hands on his shoulders, then he rubbed his right cheek against her knuckles gently, blue bristles rasping softly.

  'It sends you insane, doesn't it?' she inquired gently.

  'I can't put my finger on it, that's all.' He spoke calmly for someone being sent insane, but there was an element of agreement in the quiet rumble of his voice. 'I know there's something dangerously wrong here but I simply cannot put my finger on it.'

  'Is it Levkas?'

  'Yes, of course. I cannot have him running around the ship at all hours of the night ...'

  'Lock him in the Owner's suite after dark?'

  'It may come to that soon enough. But there's more ...'

  'Martyr.'

  'The unknown factor. And no, I can't confine him to his quarters for the rest of the voyage. Nor can I have him prowling around the ship all night every night as well. And ...'

  'The others.'

  'Others?' He was surprised she knew. His worries formed one of the few unexplored areas left between them.

  'At least one. Tsirtos for my money.'

  He nodded silently, his head moving against the tautness of her stomach. 'And Malik and Ho have patrols out, of course,' he added. 'It's a miracle they don't all fall over each other, prowling around the corridors all night.'

  'But what's the reason for it all?'

  'The money. Haji's murder. If it was murder, though they're all convinced it was. And ...'

  'And?' she prompted.

  'And the missing element, my love.' So, too restless even for love that night, they broke the pattern of behaviour since Durban and drifted back on to the bridge, which is where they were when the shooting started.

  Levkas had brought no mere Saturday Night Special. The gun which rested hidden in his clothing, never far from his nervous fingers whenever he went prowling at night, was a slim, deadly Uzi machine pistol, as capable of delivering a withering hail of fire as it was a series of single shots. Levkas was no marksman and was more interested in survival than fair play - he always had it set on automatic.

  That night, his exhaustive if nervous exploration of the ship had taken him back to the place he found most disquieting, the place where it had all began. To the Pump Room. Unlike Martyr, above in the Cargo Control Room, or the Captain in his dayroom, Levkas could not work - or think - in the dark. The ghosts pressed too close in the blackness. Since his experience on the fo'c'sle head, he had been nowhere dark at all. He closed the great steel door with something approaching quiet, and switched the lights on.

  What was he looking for?

  Even as he gazed around, he was uncertain. Not for the first time, he regretted his return. He had lied to the Captain that first day nearly a fortnight ago in more ways than one. Kostas Demetrios did not think this an unlucky ship. The American was not superstitious in the slightest. It was he, Levkas, who thought the ship unlucky. Nor did he think of himself as a lucky charm sent to set things right, but as a man constantly trapped into being less than he might have been; a soul held helpless in the grip of fate. Such a one as the bad luck busy on this ship might easily doom.

  Yet he had to know the face behind the mask. The lips whose words, misshapen into anonymity, had called that confession from him. He had to discover the owner of the hand which had held that picture of the boy before his dying eyes.

  Somewhere there had to be a clue to the identity of this man. Half a clue - no, not so much. Just enough of a clue to satisfy Levkas so that the quiet Greek could finish with his Uzi what the loud American had started so long ago with his Navy-issue Colt.

  With these thoughts in mind he began to search the room, working round it in a careful circle, starting and finishing at the door, minutely studying the pipe-clad walls from floor to eye-level, only venturing above that when he climbed part-way up the escape ladder reaching to the deck-hatch up the back wall. To search higher anywhere else would be impractical at the moment. He found nothing, but the tension the search built up in him came close to terror, even in the hard brightness of the place. All the whisperings and flutterings which had so disturbed even the phlegmatic
Haji Hassan before his death had an even deeper effect on this already nervous man. By the time he reached the door again he was almost as tense as he had been on the fo'c'sle head. Which was, perhaps, the reason he took his gun out as soon as he heard noises outside. He pressed his ear against the cold steel but could make out little beyond the patter of approaching footsteps. Without thinking, he switched off the lights and followed unerringly in the suffocating darkness the footsteps he had taken through the deadly gas. His experiences had imprinted the layout of the room on his mind.

  He was in the fire control room, crouching below window-level when Napier and two other men came in. Who the others were, Levkas never knew; nor why the three of them had come. He only recognised Napier's flat Mancunian accent. They switched the light on, talked briefly, switched the light off and left. As the darkness surged softly back and Levkas straightened, there came one extra click after the closing of the door. It was the lock. Napier had locked the Pump Room door from the outside. There was no way to open it from in here.

  Covered in sweat in an instant, Levkas stumbled out of the fire control room and crossed to the lights at a run. But even when they were on, things got little better.

  Calm, thought Levkas desperately. Keep calm! As calmly as he could, he crossed to the escape ladder and began to climb.

  But deep below the conscious level of his mind, the memory of his last ascension of this ladder - upside down and clinically dead - wrought even more havoc. He was white and shaking with terror by the time he reached the top. He no longer feared discovery or accusation. If he was caught, Mariner could accept his lies or be damned.

  He still had the gun in his hand as he hit the downside releases on the hatchway and slammed it open.

  So, when the shadowy figure on the deck whirled and fired at him, it was easy, natural - inevitable - that he return fire.

  The signal came in at midnight. Tsirtos was in the shack, not because he was expecting the signal any more, but because he had been put aboard to be in that place at that time and so he was. And the signal came in at midnight. Absolutely. Unmistakably. When and as expected - in spite of the fact that everything had changed.

  He made no acknowledgement: there was none to make. He simply sat, unbelieving, looking at the equipment in front of him as though it had changed, become monstrous, nightmarish.

  He knew the routine. He was to destroy the radio and then take the message to Nicoli. Nicoli would take the message to Captain Levkas. The Captain would sound 'Abandon ship'. They would all pack their suitcases and stock up with everything they needed or wanted before reporting to the lifeboats. They would abandon leisurely but would explain to their rescuers in a day or so's time that there had been too much urgent confusion for any logs or records to be saved.

  There would be no distress calls broadcast except from the lifeboats later.

  The last man off would be Nicoli and he would have opened the sea-cocks so that Prometheus would sink swiftly, silently and deep.

  But Nicoli and all the rest were dead and Levkas wasn't Captain any more. Who to tell, therefore: Levkas who had returned aboard, Martyr, or the man who had replaced Nicoli in the new scheme of things? He sat for a moment in indecision. But he hadn't been put here to hesitate. There was only one safe course of action that he could see. He leaned forward and hit two buttons. The second released his secret drawer and he lifted out the flat automatic pistol lying there, pumping a round into the chamber without a second thought, before he rose and went looking for Levkas. The first button he pressed took longer to react but as he exited there was a fierce hiss behind him and a cloud of acrid smoke filled the shack as the radio destroyed itself.

  The Owner's suite was empty. There was movement in the Captain's suite opposite, but Tsirtos didn't linger. He avoided the bridge and searched the three decks below it quickly and efficiently. Then he went on down to engineering, but the only person he bumped into was Napier who was on his way up from the Pump Room.

  Out he went on to the deck. He hesitated at the foot of the catwalk, looking down the massive, cloud-shadowed deck, and stood there just long enough to be overcome by a sudden, overpowering, unnerving feeling that he was being watched.

  So when the Pump Room hatchway slammed open by his feet, he cried out, whirled round and fired.

  He had a horrific glimpse of Levkas's face, lit from beneath at the heart of a column of light, exploding at the left cheek. Then it was gone and a rattle of gunfire snarled from below deck.

  He ran to kick the hatch shut, catching another, unwelcome, sight of the wounded man, dangling from the ladder, firing wildly - blindly - with his automatic pistol. Then the hatch was shut and Tsirtos was turning to run he knew not where.

  He had taken perhaps three steps before the first of Levkas's bullets hit Gallaher's bomb.

  Gallaher's bomb was in three main sections. First; the timer; made, as he had told Nicoli, from two old video timers rigged to run in tandem, delaying the explosion for anything up to sixteen weeks. The display on each was currently reading 00.00. The bomb should have triggered nearly two hours ago. It had failed to do so because Nicoli had knocked loose a wire when he touched it.

  It triggered now.

  The second part of the bomb was plastique, carefully moulded to spread its force sideways among the pipes like a scythe through corn. But because Nicoli had moved it, its force cut up and down instead of side to side. It destroyed not many pipes but one, filling the air with microscopic droplets of oil from the bunkerage - the oil used to drive Prometheus's engine.

  The third part of the bomb, designed to detonate a millisecond after the plastique, was a magnesium-based incendiary. Working with the air-suspended droplets released by the first explosion, it created a fireball which vaporised Levkas and blew open the decking beneath Tsirtos. It blew away the great steel door below and filled the corridor with flame, incinerating Napier and his men.

  It is doubtful whether the lethal fire-fighting equipment could have stopped the process even had the canisters been as full as their faulty gauges boasted. But they were mostly empty, so the fire burned unabated.

  At the first distant rattle of gunfire, Richard yelled, 'Down!' Unhesitatingly, every member of his crew obeyed, and to this order those that were quick enough owed their lives.

  The deck split open. The Pump Room hatch flew away like a champagne cork but that was nowhere near enough to alleviate the forces unleashed by the exploding oil. The deck split open from the foot of the bridge to the front of the coffer-dam space separating the engineering area from the first cargo tank. The edges of the wound folded back, white-hot in an instant, into a gap more than ten feet wide, nearly twenty feet long.

  Up out of the steel volcano came a column of force too great to be called mere fire. As it rose it pushed the air above it to either side with incredible power.

  All the windows on the front of the bridge exploded inwards.

  As it passed, it sucked air back with hurricane strength into the vacuum left behind it.

  Everything loose on the bridge was sucked out except for those things closest to the floor.

  The helmsman, still standing, and one of the watch-keepers who had only fallen to his knees, never stood a chance. They were mown down by the shrapnel glass from the windows coming in. What was left of them, before it had time to fall, before it had time to do anything other than mark the scorched back wall, was sucked back out a second later as though it had never been.

  So that Richard and his officers, and the second watch keeper who had obeyed his Captain with the rest, were aware only of a terrible screaming roar which robbed them of sense and breath, which was there, unendurable - and which was gone in an instant.

  Richard pulled himself to his feet and staggered over to the helm. He looked out of the holes which had been the windows down into the volcano on the deck. The first blast might have passed but there were still combustibles out of control down there. The decking below him was curved up into a blistered, du
lly glowing hillock sloping most strongly to port and starboard. Through the ragged lips of the opening at its summit, white-hot flames still roared, their breath enough to singe his eyebrows, fifty feet above.

  One look was enough. He hit the emergency button. Praying the PA was still working, he spoke crisply into the microphone. 'Attention. Your attention, please. This is the Captain speaking. There is a fire in the Pump Room and we are in danger of exploding. Abandon ship. Abandon ship.'

  In the confusion after Richard gave the order to abandon, the man who had left Haji Hassan to die and who had also poisoned the soup had no real difficulty in sneaking away alone. The tanker might explode; it might not. There was still work to be done.

  The murderer's course was fraught with danger. The possibility of an imminent explosion he took for granted, quelling his fear with thoughts of the immensity of his reward if he could incorporate this incredible new situation into his orders and still make it all go according to plan. At first there was no real danger from Prometheus's own complement, but the further he went out of the areas he would normally be expected to occupy, so the danger grew that if he was discovered, then he would have to kill again. And that thought, strangely, frightened him most of all.

  Where in hell's name had that bomb come from? Acutely, for he was a greedy man, not a stupid one, he suspected that the bomb had been part of the original plan, the one which had died with the bulk of Levkas's crew. What incredible luck that it should have gone off just at the right moment. Ah, but was it good luck or bad? Only time would tell. It had certainly panned out quite well for the Owner. No one was likely to question the loss of a ship which blew up and sank with most of the crew still aboard. These dark musings served to take him down to B deck where he almost ran into some of the crew. A line of wounded men - he could not see how badly they were hurt from the shadows where he hid himself - being led to safety by Kerem Khalil. He avoided them with ease and, pausing only to check in the burned-out wreck of the radio shack, he headed for his first destination.