Deadly Impact--A Richard Mariner nautical adventure (27 page)

There is some light in the locker, coming in from the hawse hole in the starboard bow. But she flicks on her flashlight as well. She looks around, breathing in the strange atmosphere of new stainless steel overlaid with the timeless smell of the sea. A smell that comes from below and all around her – not just through the hawse hole on the vagrant breeze. The locker is not large; it's little more than four metres across. As she is standing one rung up from the top of a great coil of chain she has no real notion of how deep the chain locker is but it rises little more than a metre above her as she straightens to full height. The bright yellow beam of the Surefire flashlight searches the walls and finds the wire almost at once. And it follows a clear line, carefully secured to walls and the deck head, over towards the brightness of the great square hole beneath which the anchor is secured. Glad of her Bates GLX Ultralite boots but wishing she had the extra security of her steel-toed Doc Martens, she steps down and begins to cross the slight hillock of anchor chain, her mind focused on following the vivid thread of wire. The massive hill of metal is unexpectedly hard to walk on. The links are like rocks on the seashore, round, unstable and slippery. On her second step she nearly falls. Her third step brings her close to the big square hole in the forecastle head, with its roller more than a metre wide at the bottom to ease the passage of the chain. The chain itself reaches out to where the anchor is secured against the flare of the forecastle head. The last few links, as big as rugby balls with a cross-section halfway down their length, are lying across the roller, bearing no weight because of the way the anchor is secured. She takes another, shorter step, craning to see the top of the anchor on the outside of the hull. A huge bolt secured through a massive metal ring shines brightly in the morning sunlight. The anchor itself hangs below – nearly two metres of it, ending in a flat wedge that stands out like a little platform. Under the water, this will dig into the sea bed and hold the vessel steady. And, somewhere behind that little ledge or behind the two metres of the shank or the cross-piece above it, there is the impact trigger that will set off Macavity's bomb. If only she can just get a good look at it.

But then disaster strikes.
Sayonara
gives another roll, which ends in the sideways twist that almost made her sick earlier. The motion is enough to make the chain move in sympathy. It stirs like a sleepy serpent; the hillock on which she is standing imitates the wave
Sayonara
has just crossed. The Pitman is thrown forward. She loses her grip on her rifle and only its shoulder strap saves it from flying through the hawse hole. The Pitman follows it, however. She slithers helplessly forward. Her head and shoulders slide out across the roller, which moves in turn. She just has the presence of mind – and the simple naked luck – to grab on to that final link of the chain. Then she is outside, hanging on for dear life, her feet scrabbling to find purchase on the flat ledge of the anchor secured below her.

The momentum of her disastrous tumble swings her right round until her back is to the flare of the forecastle head, nearly dislocating both wrist and shoulder in the process. Her rifle bangs against black metal at her side. She has a single horrified glance across the vastness of the ocean that begins so terrifyingly close below her feet. All movement stops. Her heart thunders in her ears. The wind buffets across her face. The waves hiss and roar against the foot of the ship's sharp bow, rolling off the bulbous torpedo shape like surf off a reef.

And the door into the chain locker slams open behind her. A rough voice with an accent frighteningly similar to her own calls, ‘Who's in there?'

M
acavity relieved Richard immediately after dawn. He put another helmsman beside the helm and set another of his men to stand watch while the computers were in command. Then he returned the almost comatose Richard to the cell in engineering from where he had been brought up the better part of twelve hours earlier to bring the ship safely through the typhoon. As the pair of them went down from the command bridge to the lower engineering decks, Richard saw none of the men he had brought aboard with him and assumed they were still in captivity too, unless they were in the makeshift clinic or had switched sides. Or, like Rikki Sato, seemingly, both. But the truth was he was far too tired to think straight. As soon as Macavity pushed him in through the door he used the latrine in the corner and, finding a sleeping bag on the floor – a pleasant surprise – he slept like a dead man for the next seven hours.

Macavity woke him at four in the afternoon, ship's time, and Richard realized immediately that something was seriously wrong. ‘Out!' ordered the South African, and Richard obeyed warily, his eyes narrow, his gaze shooting everywhere. Unlike Robin, he had the ability to spring awake firing on all cylinders, and it looked as though this ability was likely to serve him well in the immediate future, though he took his time in obeying Macavity's peremptory command, letting his mind clear just that little bit more as he assessed the new situation and checked his naked left wrist, looking for the time. Nearly all the men he had brought aboard were assembled in a line down the corridor leading towards the engine room with almost all of Macavity's command standing opposite them, guns on show. It was like a scene out of a war film:
Colditz
or
The Great Escape
. Richard glanced down the line on his left. Aleks Zaitsev was there. Konstantin Roskov, his right-hand man, stood at his shoulder. Then it was a straggle of Russians and Japanese. Of course, Master Sergeant Vasily Kolchak was with Rikki Sato and the others in the makeshift clinic with a couple of Macavity's men keeping an eye on them, no doubt. And there were at least two more pirates up on the bridge as well, Richard remembered, which explained why the two commands were of almost equal size, especially given that Richard's men had suffered fatalities so far – Yoichi Hatta and the unfortunate Boris Brodski.

But the problem for Richard was that he felt he could not trust these men. Ryzanoff was there, as were Theo Gerdt and Pavel Kosloff. The latter two had close associations to Italy, like Aleks and Sato – and who else? Then, last but not least, there was Ivan Karitov, the unit chef. Richard wryly wondered whether he specialized in the sort of Italian cuisine that would commend him to the Pitman while his suspicions were roused even further.
Paranoia's setting in with a vengeance
, he thought. The other faces in the line of soldiers were familiar but Richard hadn't had much to do with them personally. Engineers Murukami and Esaki were there with the rest of the computer men and the shipbuilders. And the last few relative strangers must be the NIPEX LNG men. Then, of course, there were Dom DiVito and Steve Penn – Steve now also high on Richard's list of men he suspected of playing a double game. He felt the back of his head automatically. His paranoia was well grounded on a painful swelling there. But it was not Richard who was first to express his disquiet.

‘
Right
,' said Macavity. ‘Now that we're all here, will someone please tell me just what in hell's name's going on?'

Richard simply gaped at the angry South African. His hand dropped to his side. ‘What on earth are you talking about?' he demanded, his face blank with genuine astonishment an instant before suspicion of the truth stabbed through him.

‘There's someone else on board!' snapped Macavity. ‘I'm almost certain of it. And if there's someone else on board then one of you people knows all about it.'

‘Have you seen anyone?' demanded Richard as his mind raced. ‘Anyone other than the people here or in the medical room or on the bridge?'

‘No. But …' Macavity wasn't giving much ground in spite of the negative. His eyes were narrow and, although Richard would never know it, his mind was filled with the disquieting suspicion that he had come within a whisker of discovering a stowaway in the starboard chain locker.

Richard followed up at once. ‘Then how can you be sure? Has any of your men seen anyone?'

‘No.' Grudgingly now, a little less certain.

‘So it's just a feeling. Nothing concrete …' Richard tried to sound dismissive without being challenging. He wanted to undermine Macavity's confidence and allay his suspicions without making matters worse. Ivan, Harry and the Pitman represented the only edge he had. They were his only real chance of working out exactly what Macavity was up to, who on board was helping him and of countering their plans. Without his Rolex or his Galaxy Richard had no notion of the time, and so wasn't sure how long they had to outwit the pirates, but without Plan B they were dead in the water.

He rounded on the men beside him. ‘Aleks,' he demanded forcefully – calculatedly – ‘have you or any of your men seen anyone else on board?'

‘Well, you said you were going to bring Harry Newbold and the Pitman …' answered Aleks sharply. Several of his men nodded, frowning.

Richard heard a sharp intake of breath from behind him. He could almost feel Macavity's icy gaze stabbing between his shoulder blades. His heart was thudding.
I've got to play this hand very carefully indeed
, he thought. ‘Right,' he agreed, keeping his voice steady and reasonable by a sheer effort of will. ‘But did they ever come aboard? Did you see them arrive? Have you seen them at all during the last few days? Did any of you see anyone other than the people here at any time since we arrived?'

‘Well …' Aleks frowned.

Richard thanked God that Ivan, Harry and the Pitman had been so careful and stayed completely invisible. ‘Except for the people we already know about?' he persisted. ‘Any strangers?'

‘No,' Aleks shook his head, eyes downcast.

‘And has anyone noticed anything unusual? Anything that's moved unexpectedly, except for things that have been tossed about in the storm? Has anything been open when you thought it had been closed? Have you heard anything? Suspected anything?' Richard swung round, raising his right arm to include the whole line. ‘Dom? Steve?' Both shook their heads.

Richard turned right round to face Macavity once again. ‘You see?' He shrugged. ‘We're a few men on a huge vessel. We're all tired and strung out, not to mention lucky to be alive after that typhoon. It's easy to get a bit paranoid under ordinary circumstances, let alone under these—'

‘Right,' snarled Macavity, quickly shutting Richard down, ‘what we're going to do is this. We're going to split you into teams. And there'll be a couple of my guys with each team – armed and with orders to shoot at the first sign of trouble. We're all armed with hollow-point bullets – manstoppers that won't go through to do any damage to the gas tanks.' He tapped his chest meaningfully. ‘They'll go in the front but they won't come out the back. Just make a horrible mess inside. And, all together, we're going to search this vessel from the sharp end to the blunt end; from the top to the bottom. Mariner, Zaitsev, DiVito and Penn, you're with me and Mr Verrazzano here. And let me just repeat: any trouble from any of you and we'll shoot you dead where you stand.'

NIPEX's new building was a modest skyscraper on the waterfront in the Ohashicho district of Choshi. It towered beside the city offices, in the middle of what in Blackpool would have been the promenade overlooking the port, the river mouth and the brand-new LNG facilities out beyond the point. Although the building itself faced northwards, the boardroom on the top floor had panoramic windows on three sides that commanded views stretching from Moromochi in the west across the Tone River to Kashmarosai on the isthmus of the far bank and then out across the ocean beyond to the space-age NIPEX installation dead ahead, and to the bustling city of Kujukuri across the bay down in the east. A horizon the better part of twenty miles distant, Robin thought.

As the board members of the huge Japanese energy company assembled, Robin and Anastasia were courteously shown the view by the company's chief executive, Mr Ikeda Hiroshi. ‘The view is one of the benefits of this poor building,' he explained. ‘Here we are forty-five metres above the ground. We can in consequence see more than thirty kilometres in every direction. You observe the aeroplane making its approach low over the ocean to the north-east of us. It is heading into Narita, and if we were to go to the observation platform at the rear of this floor, we would be able to observe it landing. By the same token, theoretically in sixteen-and-a-half hours' time on the horizon beneath that very aeroplane, thirty kilometres north across the water, we should be able to see
Sayonara
making her final approach to our LNG facility. But therein lies the problem we are gathered here to discuss, I'm afraid.'

They all assembled round the boardroom table and Mr Hiroshi made the necessary introductions. The names of the board members were all relatively familiar to Robin, but there were a couple of extra men there. One was in the uniform of a NIPEX engineer and the other was in the uniform of the Japanese coastguard service. These were the men she looked at most particularly as she sat on Mr Hiroshi's right and Anastasia sat on his left, beside the young man recording the conversation for the company minutes. Mr Hiroshi then brought the meeting to order. ‘Our purpose in meeting today is to discuss the
Sayonara
,' he said quietly in flawless English. ‘We are pleased to welcome Captain Mrs Mariner from Heritage Mariner who co-owns the vessel with us and who can represent Greenbaum International, who will soon complete the sale of the cargo to us. And Miss Anastasia Asov who represents Bashnev/Sevmash, who also have a stake in
Sayonara
and who is of course currently working with us to supply the power needed to complete the floating city of Kujukuri in the bay to the east and south of us. In courtesy to our guests we will conduct this meeting in English. I hope that is acceptable to everybody.' There were nods of agreement from around the table. ‘That is agreeable to you, Engineer Watanabe? Captain Endo?' Again, both men nodded. ‘Very well then, let us proceed.'