The Cauldron (64 page)

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"That ship is escaping.' Paula said bitterly. 'You can see it's on the move. Moloch has made it. Nothing can stop him now.'

'Listen.' said Tweed.

The silence of the night was broken by the beat-beat of aircraft engines. Three helicopters appeared from an inland direction. One by one they swooped low over the retreating vessel, so low they were barely above the level of the complex radar system perched on top of the mast above the bridge.

"The crew is removing the canvas covers from those mysterious objects on the decks.' Tweed reported, holding the glasses to his eyes. 'Oh, my Lord, they have ground-to-air missile launchers.'

Appalled, he watched as two of the helicopters returned to buzz the vessel again. One was diving low over the sea when they all heard a sinister
whoosh!
A missile had been fired off the deck, it struck the incoming helicopter. The machine turned sideways, nose-dived into the sea. Paula watched with growing horror as the second helicopter tried to take evasive action. There was a second whoosh! The helicopter turned over sideways, its main rotor blown to pieces, then it soared downwards, hit the water with a tremendous splash, vanished under the sea.

'Moloch has gone mad.' Newman burst out.

Paula was watching the third helicopter, further away. It had time to turn away, heading out to sea before it curved and disappeared inland. There was a sense of deep shock as Tweed and his companions watched the
Venetia
getting up speed. Newman was the first to break the silence.

"Those were choppers from Culdrose, the RAF training base for trainee pilots. Culdrose is an airfield beyond Constantine - it's near the top of the Lizard.'

'See that powerboat with the red pennant at its stern?' Tweed said. 'It has Marler on board.'

'What on earth can he do?' Paula asked vehemently. 'Not a thing. I notice he's keeping his distance from the
Venetia
. Thank Heaven for that. Let's hope he keeps away.'

'So that was what Howard was keeping from me on the phone.' Tweed said quietly. "The MoD had ordered helicopters to buzz the ship. They didn't know it was heavily armed with missile launchers. It's a tragedy. Young pilots uselessly slaughtered so that man can build up even more power.'

'I can hear a different kind of aircraft coming.' Paula told them. 'Its engine sounds so different from those of the choppers ...'

She stopped speaking as an advanced supersonic warplane appeared from high up in the sky. Tweed guessed it had been standing by, had been summoned by the third chopper which had escaped. Moving with incredible speed the new plane suddenly started to descend from a great height. Tweed caught sight of it for a brief moment in his glasses.

'It's armed with missilesRIGHT SQUARE BRACKET' he began.

He stopped speaking as they all heard a more high-pitched whoosh! A missile from the supersonic plane landed in the water, no more than fifty yards from the bow of the
Venetia
. Exploding, it erupted a huge column of water near the ship.

'A deliberate miss, that one.' Tweed said. 'What they used to call a shot across its bows c'

Inside his stateroom aboard the vessel Moloch had seen the missile land close to the Venetia. He jumped up from the table so suddenly he upset his meal. With the briefcase dangling from his wrist, he ran out and up a companionway on to the deck where a Sikorsky rested on its helipad. Climbing the ladder, he leapt through the doorway the co-pilot had opened when he saw him coming.

'Get me off this vessel
now
!' he shouted. 'You have extra fuel tanks so you can reach France. Roscoff is your destination. We'll radio ahead for a car to pick me up. But for God's sake get this thing into the air!'

Marler had stood in the stern of his powerboat, watching everything that had happened through his monocular glass. He had even seen Moloch scrambling up the ladder with the briefcase chained to his wrist. Time to take a hand in the proceedings.

He opened up the throttle and the powerboat surged forward, only slowing down, then stopping when he was much closer to the hull of the
Venetia
. The skipper of the luxury yacht, scared witless by the missile which had landed just ahead of his bows, slowed the engines, then stopped the ship.

Marler calmly picked up his Armalite, went towards the stern, perched the barrel of the rifle on the top of the cabin, looked through his sniperscope. The rotors on the Sikorsky were whirling madly. It suddenly took off, climbing vertically up from the helipad.

Marler elevated his rifle. The crosshairs closed on one of the extra fuel tanks. The Sikorsky was hovering for a few seconds, prior to flying off out over the sea. Marler pressed the trigger. The explosive bullet burst inside the fuel tank.

There was a terrific explosion, heard onshore. Fire engulfed the Sikorsky, turned it into a fireball. It fell as it had risen. Vertically onto the deck close to a missile which had not been fired. There was a second even more tremendous detonation. The Sikorsky vanished inside the scorching flames which soared up the full length of the vessel. The exploding missile had torn a huge hole in its starboard side. The
Venetia
was transformed into an even more gigantic fireball from stem to stern. Slowly, it heeled over to starboard. There was a terrible hissing, boiling sound and then the ship sank, vanishing altogether.

Epilogue

At Park Crescent everyone was present except for Vanity, who was waiting in Newman's car by the kerb outside the front door.

'I've had a long chat with Vanity,' Tweed explained. 'She said she'd prefer to wait outside. She's really a very modest lady. And she is a lady. That story about how she had prowled the States, living with one rich man after another, was only a cover story. It gave her charisma to become Moloch's assistant. Cord Dillon cooperated fully. He was responsible for her apparently not having any real identity. Cord and I decided that was the best way to protect her.'

'Protect her?' queried Paula.

'Yes. She is actually one of the bravest undercover agents I have ever dealt with. Her father was English, her mother French. Which is how she came to work for counter-espionage in Paris. I borrowed her because she was least likely to be known in America. She was Hoarse Voice.'

'You mean,' Monica said in a tone of amazement, 'that you had infiltrated her inside Moloch's organization?'

'I, with Cord's help, did exactly that. Which explains why, whenever I met her, I ignored her, appeared to dislike her. More cover for her. And Cord arranged, unofficially, for Alvarez to continue helping us. Vanity warned me, among many other things, about the Xenobium bomb.'

'Now happily, I assume, non-existent.' Marler drawled.

"That's right. You told me Moloch carried aboard the Sikorsky a briefcase chained to his wrist. I'm sure that contained the know-how for making the bomb.'

'What about Grenville?' Paula asked. 'Why was the Ministry of Defence so close-mouthed about him?'

'My contact there at last agreed to be frank. Grenville was a major in the Channel Regiment. He was thrown out quietly for embezzling large sums of money. The Army never did like its dirty linen being washed in public - or even in private.'

'And the mysterious Maurice?' Paula persisted.

'He was unofficially on leave. Actually his job was to find out what Moloch was up to. He's returning to his old job with them.'

'He's asked me out to dinner.'

'I should accept,' Newman said with a smile.

'I'll think about it. I wonder how Mrs Benyon is getting on?'

'She's settling down in Cheltenham very quickly.' Tweed said. 'I had a long chat with her on the phone. She's rejoined a bridge club and several charities she belonged to long ago. I gathered she was very relieved to be back in Britain.'

'Then that about wraps it up.' said Butler, speaking for the first time.

'Not quite. Vanity gave me a list of MPs, et cetera in this country who accepted payments from Moloch, plus another list of senators in the States who accepted even larger sums. I sent it on to Cord. They'll all have to answer some pretty awkward questions. And Cord has found evidence that Joel Brand murdered all Moloch's missing women assistants.'

'But what will happen to AMBECO?' Newman wanted to know.

'I've heard moves are afoot to break up the whole conglomerate. It will probably be sold off bit by bit to other firms. No one will get a big slice of it. Both Washington and London have had enough of too much power in the hands of one huge organization.'

'I'd better get off.' Newman said, standing up. 'Otherwise Vanity will start kicking up.'

'Don't forget her real name is Vanessa,' Tweed warned. 'She was the one who invented Vanity - to build up the false image of herself she had created. And her other name is Julie. So make your choice. Taking her out to dinner?'

'Yes. I know rather a nice restaurant in Paris...'

He was followed out by Marler, Butler and Nield. Paula and Monica remained behind their desks.

'So everything is cleared up in the end,' remarked Paula.

'Everything except the catastrophic ravages of the earthquake.' Tweed was glancing at more pictures of the disaster in a newspaper. 'It will take a long time before what Ethan Benyon caused to happen in his madness becomes only a distant memory.'