Diamondhead

by Patrick Robinson

  For the next hour he just sat and stared at the ocean, thinking about Tommy and Anne, knowing he could not dare risk a call. He could risk nothing that might at some time be traced and betray the information that Lt. Cdr. Mackenzie Bedford had left Maine and had come to England. Nothing.

  At four o’clock he walked back to the newspaper shop in search of a better guidebook to France. The one he had bought in the hotel near Heathrow was okay, but not sufficiently detailed for his mission. At the back of the store he found a shelf with several guides to European countries, and right in the middle was a thousand-page tome, The Lonely Planet Guide to France, the traveler’s bible, containing enough information to conquer France, never mind visit it.

  Hardly a city, town, or village in the entire country escapes its scrutiny. There are vast area maps, local maps, street maps, hotels, restaurants, train stations, bus stations, airports, cathedrals, churches, post offices, shrines, government buildings, and God knows what else. It was probably the easiest sale that Brixham store ever made. And Mack was reading before he stepped back out into the street: Rennes, Brittany’s capital, is a hive of activity . . . a crossroads since Roman times . . . sits at the junction of highways linking Northwest France’s major cities. . . .

  He took the book back to his still-vacant bench and combed through the section on Brittany, the great westernmost promontory of France, jutting defiantly into the Atlantic, with thunderous rollers crashing onto its granite coast, its back to the rest of the country. In a sense, a lot like Maine.

  Mack checked out the big shipbuilding area around the French Naval port of Brest and wondered whether Foche might be planning a political speech somewhere along those vast dockyards. Then he came south to the Atlantic Coast and checked out Saint-Nazaire, another huge shipbuilding center in France. He’d read somewhere that Foche had major holdings in one of the yards.

  His Lonely Planet revealed that Great Britain’s massive new transatlantic cruise ship, Queen Mary II, was built there, and the mighty plane maker Airbus had a factory in Saint-Nazaire. Sounds like Foche’s kind of place, he muttered.

  But this perusal through the industrial and military strongholds on the French coast was the lightest possible piece of reconnaissance. The part with which he was most concerned was the southern shore of the Gulf of Saint-Malo, that yachtsman’s paradise stretching from the mast-filled twelfth-century walled seaport of Saint-Malo itself, east through Dinard, beloved of Picasso, and then past the headland of Cap Frehel, down to Saint-Brieuc.

  This was the other side of the English Channel, around 135 miles due south of this particular Devonshire bench upon which Mack sat and studied. As the afternoon wore on, his lifelong association with the sea kicked in, and he sensed a change in the weather. There was just a little coolness to the gentle southwesterly breeze. He could sense it on the back of his neck, and he had not noticed it before.

  Mack stared ahead to the horizon, and the crystal-clear line, which all day had separated sea from sky, was now less defined, as if someone had run a misty gray paintbrush along the far edge of the ocean.

  He glanced at his watch: half past five. And he checked again the parking lot where the Ford Fiesta was still standing. The attendant was back, just placing a ticket on the windshield of a Jaguar that had remained there too long without paying.

  Carrying his book, he walked again onto the harbor jetty and checked for activity. A couple of the trawlers were being fueled, but this was a quiet time in the fishermen’s day. He could see Eagle still moored in the same spot. Her decks were deserted.

  At six the parking attendant, wearing a light red windbreaker, came out of his kiosk and locked the door behind him. He walked up toward the town, and Mack immediately came over to finish wiping off the Fiesta. He pulled on his driving gloves and took the cleaning fluid off the floor in front of the driver’s seat. Then he hit the area all around the door lock and handle, rubbed hard, and removed all traces. He did the same to the rear door and the driver’s side; remembering his check in the wing mirror the previous night, he attended to that, too. He knew he had never opened the doors on the passenger side, nor had he touched the other wing mirror.

  Finally, still wearing his leather driving gloves, he used his key to open the trunk and placed his French guidebook in his bag. He took out the new trainers and a navy-blue sweater. He placed his black loafers and tweed jacket inside, zipped the bag up, and backed off, leaning over to put on his new footwear. He rammed down the trunk lid with his elbow. Then he squirted the liquid onto the lock, polished around that wide area, and the car was clean.

  Mack walked to a trash bin and dumped the plastic carton and the remainder of the dusters. As far as he was concerned it was now dinnertime, and he walked to a new pub one street off the seafront, and ordered fish and chips with a pint glass of sparkling water.

  He already missed his French guidebook, but although he did not mind being recognized by local people, he did not wish to be seen planning a trip to France. When he blew out of this fishing port, he wanted his destination to be a total mystery for as long as possible. He also knew that particular mystery might not stay secret indefinitely.

  His fish was perfectly fried cod, and he accepted the landlord’s advice of sprinkling salt and vinegar, the way the English prefer it. Professor Henry Higgins would have been perplexed at the strangeness of Mack’s accent, and the landlord, a retired fisherman, doubtless wondered whether he had ever eaten fried fish before.

  As good as the cod was, the fries were not to Mack’s taste; they were too heavy-cut, too big, and he did not wish to weigh himself down with that kind of food. Not tonight, when he would need to be sharp and agile. So he ordered another piece of delicious cod, and somehow had to leave two large portions of fries.

  He lingered for a while, sipped his water and ordered more, plus a large cup of black coffee. He could see outside the clouds were moving in. The bright summer day was gone, and if he was any judge there would be rain before midnight. By a quarter of nine he could see it was very gloomy, and the clouds caused night to fall early. He paid his bill, pulled on his driver’s gloves, and walked back to the deserted parking lot. There were lights along the jetties near the boats, but nothing was obviously preparing to get under way.

  Mack went straight to the parking lot, opened the trunk, and pulled out his toolbox and leather bag. He placed them close to the wall in the shadows and then went around to the front of the vehicle, pulled out his new screwdriver, and removed the license plate.

  He walked back down the side of the car and suddenly noticed the tax disk stuck in a clear plastic holder on the lower-left windshield. “Fuck,” he muttered, noting that the car registration was written on that disk. He reached for his key, gloves still on, opened the door and whipped the plastic off, and shoved it in his pocket.

  Then he moved to the back of the car and unscrewed the rear plate. Leaving his bags by the wall, he walked down to the water and skimmed both metal plates like Frisbees into the middle of the thirty-five-foot-deep harbor. He took the tax disk out of its holder, and ripped the red colored paper into about a thousand pieces and placed half of them in one trash bin and half in another.

  It was nine when he pulled on his driving gloves, gathered up the toolbox and bag, and walked down onto the deserted jetty. He could see the harbor master was not in his office, and he passed no one as he walked toward the section where Eagle was moored.

  The trawler was close in, no more than three feet off. Swiftly, he tossed the bag aboard and jumped across the gap, holding the toolbox. He made straight for the lifeboat, an inflatable Zodiac with an outboard, which was attached to a davit on the starboard side. He shoved the bag and box under the cover, and then clambered in himself, taking care not to dislodge his black wig.

  And there in the dark of this Sunday night, Mack Bedford waited. It was almost nine thirty when things began to liven up on the jetties. Mack could hear fishermen talking about the weather to the harbor master.


  Sea’s getting up out there—shouldn’t be surprised if we got a bit of a storm.

  Forecast’s not bad—the glass is falling, but they don’t think it will amount to much.

  Probably worse farther south—they’re saying it veered off toward the Channel Islands.

  Damn good thing too—stop the Spanish stealing our bloody cod.

  Evenin’, Fred. This weather putting you off?

  Not me. I’ve been out in a lot worse, and I need the money! Ready, Tom?

  Mack heard two men come aboard. Fred Carter and his first mate, Tom, who sounded much younger. They checked their gear for a few minutes, and then the rumble of twin diesels shuddered the boat.

  The wheelhouse was in a raised for’ard upperworks, with the engines astern, a deck below. Mack heard a door slam shut and guessed that Fred was at the helm while Tom was casting off. In fact, he heard the harbor master shout from the jetty, “Stern line comin’,” and he heard it drop on the deck as it was thrown over.

  Then Tom shouted, “Okay, Teddy, I’ll take it”—and again Mack heard a mooring line land, this time on the foredeck. The boat trembled slightly as Fred Carter opened the throttles very slightly with the wheel hard over. Then Eagle leaned to her port side, before straightening and moving dead ahead.

  The harbor was still flat calm, despite the rising wind, and the trawler moved slowly between the other boats, heading to the harbor’s outer reaches before coming a few degrees to starboard and making directly for the inshore waters down the south Devon coast.

  It was dark now, and Mack knew the flashing light on Berry Head was somewhere up ahead. He felt the rise of the ocean as they stood fair down the Channel, leaving the land behind, making around fifteen knots now toward the bad weather and, Fred hoped, toward those big shoals of cod or mackerel.

  The ebbing tide would be with them for the next thirty minutes until they crossed the estuary of the River Dart, hugging the shore until they reached the lighthouse at Start Point, fifteen miles from Brixham. Right there they would head out to the open sea.

  With the wind gusting from the southwest, Mack was certain he would know when they reached the lighthouse, and, simultaneously, the end of the shelter from the land. Conditions would surely deteriorate as Eagle began to take a buffeting from the hard Atlantic wind.

  He had not heard the wheelhouse door slam for a second time, and he was uncertain whether Tom had joined Fred. In a good-sized dragger like this, there were always a hundred different tasks to complete before the nets were dropped, and Tom could easily be in the hold preparing gear for the night’s catch.

  In any event there was not much Mack could do about it. So he just lay very still, awaiting the change in sea conditions and then making his move. It was almost twenty minutes past ten when he felt an unmistakable increase in the size of the swell. Eagle started to ride up and then wallow as she rode down into the trough of the wave.

  They were clear of Start Point now, no doubt in Mack’s mind. He risked a peep out from under the tarpaulin, aware that he might be looking straight into the eyes of Tom, the first mate, and then he would have to kill him, which he did not wish to do. He pushed the tarp higher and looked up into the wheelhouse. There were two men in there, and one of them had to be Tom, steering the ship.

  Mack climbed out of the lifeboat and made his way to the bottom of the short flight of steps, where there were two round white life preservers clipped to the bulkhead. He removed them and placed them on the deck. Then he climbed three steps until he could reach the door handle, opened it, and yelled, “Fred! Get the hell out here!”

  He heard Tom shout, “Who the fucking hell’s that?”

  At which point big Fred Carter came into the wheelhouse doorway and leaned out. Big mistake. Mack Bedford grabbed him by the balls and heaved. Fred roared and fell forward. Mack took him by the throat and, with an outrageous display of strength, using the full forward weight of the Eagle’s skipper, hurled Fred Carter over his head, straight over the side, and into the English Channel.

  Before Fred hit the water, Mack had the life preserver in his hands and dropped it about one foot from the powerful hands of Captain Carter. Instantly, Mack turned around to see Tom, with one hand on the wheel, standing gaping in the wheelhouse doorway, in shock at what he had just seen.

  Mack came up the steps like a panther, grabbed Tom by the belt, and hauled him forward. Mack dropped down to deck level, and Tom’s hand was torn from the wheel. Overbalanced, he fell forward, and Mack caught him, hurling him over the side into a full summersault, exactly like the boss. Tom hit the water with his backside, and plunged under the waves. The other life preserver almost hit him on the head as he came to the surface.

  Mack leaped into the wheelhouse and hauled back on the throttle, slowing down and sliding into reverse. He backed the trawler up forty yards to where the two fishermen were swimming, secure in the big life preservers. “Sorry, guys,” he yelled in his latest Leeward Islands accent. “I need boat. Don’t panic. You’ll be rescued. Warm water, eh? Very good.”

  Tom could not believe what he was seeing, and for the second time in as many minutes he demanded, “Who the fucking hell’s that?”

  “’Ow the hell do I know?” bellowed Fred. “He’s a fucking pirate, that’s what he is. And he’s not getting away with this. No bloody way.”

  “Have we been hijacked?” asked Tom. “I mean like you see on the news?”

  “Hijacked!” cried Fred. “We’ve been robbed, that’s what’s happened! That bastard up there with the fucking black beard has nicked the fucking boat, that’s what he’s done!”

  “He was as strong as a bear,” said Tom. “He just threw me up in the air. Talked funny as well, didn’t he?”

  “Never mind all that,” said Fred. “We have to get home. If the clouds break, we can follow the North Star—it’s got to be back there, the opposite way to Eagle. She’s headed for France; we have to swim to South Devon.”

  Mack checked the compass and held course at 135 degrees. He flicked on the GPS electronic map, which showed the south coast of England and the north coast of Brittany. The black triangle was just off the English coast. Speed on the sidebar showed 17.2 knots.

  He opened the throttles until the trawler was lurching along at around 20 knots, rolling with the swells, occasionally taking silver water over her bow.

  She felt very seaworthy, as Mack had been sure she would. She had a good motor, and she was definitely full of gas. Before him was a run of well over 110 miles, which at 20 knots would take him almost six hours. If the sea flattened out on the far side of the Channel, he could probably wind her up to 25, driving the motor hard in a completely empty ship.

  The trouble was he needed speed, as much speed as he could muster, because Fred and Tom in the busy sea-lanes off the coast of Devon stood a very fair chance of being rescued within two or three hours, and the ship-to-shore radio would take only moments to alert both French and English coast guards that a Brixham trawler had been hijacked by a pirate. It was even possible that someone would find the two fishermen by midnight. All stations would be alerted, and satellites would be sailing through the stratosphere looking for the Eagle.

  But none of it would be easy for the searchers, not in the dark, trying to scan a “possibility-zone” area of 110 miles by 110—that’s more than 12,000 square miles, and no one had the slightest idea in which direction this bearded monster was going. Especially since Mack intended to transmit nothing. He would steam to France with no running lights, no radar, and no sonar. He had his map of the south coast of England, the English Channel, and the north coast of Brittany. With the compass to guide him, Mack could find his way across the pitch-black, and probably rain-swept, Channel. But he needed to be in French coastal waters before first light around five thirty. That gave him seven hours’ running time.

  At 20 knots she could make it with time to spare, but if the sea slowed her badly, it would be touch and go. Eagle could run at 20, and Mack prayed the weat
her would not get much worse. His prayers, however, were not answered, and Mack presumed this was because the Almighty took an extremely bleak view of his hurling two perfectly honest, hardworking fishermen into the English Channel.

  The sea got up almost immediately after he took the wheel. The rain from the southwest belted down, but he found the windshield wipers easily, huge blades that swept water away, left and right, in great slashing arcs.

  Eagle was comfortable at 20 knots in this long, quartering sea, but any increase would have caused her to ride up and wallow too steeply. Boats are strange creatures, and a lifelong seaman like Mack Bedford, even after only fifteen minutes at the controls, knew precisely where that speed gauge should be. But it was not a comfortable journey; he was unfamiliar with the pull of the tide, and he needed to concentrate fully to hold course on 135.

  The wind was howling, and waves were breaking over the bow almost the entire time, hitting hard and cascading heavy water across the foredeck, with spray lashing the windshield. But this was a very tough trawler, as good as Mack had ever driven, and she shouldered her way defiantly through the heavy seas. She cleared the water quickly, and Mack could see it parting in two powerful surges, port and starboard, running down the length of the ship and out over the transom. Battened down, this thing was damn nearly as waterproof as a submarine.