The Fire Ship (22 page)

At about two the next morning, John was dozing uneasily in the humid heat when he became aware of the faintest tapping noise. The regularity of the sound jerked him awake and he realized it was Morse code. Someone was tapping in Morse code on the door by his head. It could only be her. An emotion welled up in him which made it hard for him to breathe. It took him a moment to get control of himself, and then he was tapping back.

Once they had established a dialogue, she made a brief report, telling him what she knew of numbers, dispositions, watches, and patrols. He did not interrupt with the questions he was burning to ask—How was she? How did she escape? Where was she hiding? Instead he waited until she finished by saying she thought she could get one person out safely.

—Bob, he tapped. He can try to take the helicopter

—Tomorrow

—Yes

—I will get this door key

—Yes

—Tomorrow same time

—Same time

She was gone.

Asha arrived at the door at 02:30 the next night. The same gentle sounds alerted the two men who had been wide awake since lights out at eleven. Once more, there was a brief burst of Morse code, then Asha took the greatest risk of all so far. She stood up. Outlined against the glimmer of the stars, visible through the glass top of the door should either of the guards look her way, she stood up to slide the key silently into the door’s lock. All three of them held their breath as she turned it, but the tongue slid back without a sound. The door opened a fraction. All three of them breathed easily.

And the lights went on. The far door was suddenly full of terrorists, the leader calling, “Get up! Get up!” in that raucous voice of his. There was an instant when Asha was plainly visible in the brightness, then she dropped to her knees and rolled away into the shadows of the deck. The crew sleepily began to sort themselves out as ordered. The captain and his chief feigned confusion, too, but they stayed by the open door and when that moment came that the better part of forty men were standing between them and their captors, they stepped out into the darkness on the deck.

Once out of the glare shining from the gym, the two of them felt liberated by the shadows. They walked upright. They briefly discussed the possibility of stealing fuel for the helicopter and getting away in that. They called out Asha’s name dangerously clearly, and it was not until she materialized at their side and hissed a warning, that they began to take proper care again. Silently she led them down the side of the bridge-house,
flat against the dew-damp metal walls, forward toward the main deck, their only obstacle a rack of BMX bikes. As they came past the big bulkhead door onto A deck, they hesitated by the ship’s office on the corner, before they dared go out onto the main deck. The curtains of the office were closed, but the windows were open—they probably had been since the air-conditioning was switched off. And an argument was going on inside. In English.

“But why?” demanded a woman’s voice. Both men were so busy eavesdropping they didn’t notice the expression on their companion’s face. “Why now? It is too early. We must wait until the message arrives.”

“No. It is taking too long. They are getting impossible to control. Moving them now will disorient them. Give us a few more days before we have to start executing troublemakers.”

“It is departing from the plan.”

“I know. But the plan is only of use when it serves our ends. And anyway, the doctor is doing too much harm. I am sure
she
took the chart. She is still aboard. Still a threat. If I can’t find her or kill her, I must move the others before the situation gets out of control.”

“But…”

“That is enough. No more discussion. I have decided. We go now, as I have arranged.”

“That is
not
enough! We have a plan. It is agreed with our friends on the high seas. It is agreed with our friends in Iran. We must stick to it.”

“No. There are aspects of this situation beyond even your knowledge. I have already contacted Iran…”

“Beyond my knowledge!
What is there beyond my knowledge?
”

“I will tell you in due course. I promise. We have no
time to argue now, we must act before it is too late. The transports from Queshm are on their way. We have to move
now
!”

The sound of the door slamming galvanized the three of them into action. They moved as one person, Asha taking the lead. She ran out toward the shadowed deck keeping low. Forward of the bridge-house they went, sprinting past the pump-room hatch, past the first tank tops, toward the accommodation ladder. “Where are we going?” gasped John at her shoulder.

“To my hiding…”

As she spoke, the deck lights came on, trapping them out here, yards from cover. The instant the brightness blazed, a disorienting roar of sound washed over them. Shouts in a mixture of accents, far off and disturbingly nearby. The pounding of running feet. The rattle of safeties coming off guns.

“This way,” yelled John, diving to his left. Three seconds of frantic movement brought them halfway to the shelter of the central pipes, but as they continued to run wildly forward, so the first shots rang out.

“Christ!” yelled Bob, “they’re going to blow us all to hell…” Then he was gone, spinning away with a howl of frustrated rage as a ricochet clipped his left calf and blew the leg from under him, sending him tumbling across the deck. John turned as Asha dived into the safety of the shadow beneath the pipes. “Bob,” yelled the captain, blinded by the light. And a single shot blasted him round, chucking him back into Asha’s arms.

And she was off with him at once, half carrying him, using the strength lent to him by the shock, moving him as fast and as far as she could, before he realized how badly he was hurt. Down the length of the pipes they went, toward the bow of the ship. “Not the forecastle head,” he called. “There’s no way off…”

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I know where I’m going.”

She took him to the farthest hatch connecting to the inspection tunnels beneath the deck. She led him down and guided him back, until, after nearly fifteen minutes, they were above her secret room, almost exactly beneath the spot where he had been shot. By this time, the numbness of shock had worn off and she could tell from his movements that pain had set in. And yet he refused even to slow up. Grimly he swung onto that last ladder, and down he went, and down. He almost made it to the bottom before his legs gave out.

She pulled him away from the foot of it and across her secret room. How he had kept going for so long before passing out she would never know. Clearly, behind that boyish blend of exuberance and diffidence there lay a good deal of unexpected grit. She felt herself fill with warm affection for him. He was, after all, quite a man. Having rolled him onto her makeshift bed, she knelt at his side, busily undoing the buttons of his oncewhite shirt, pulling it away from his red-matted chest.

As she did so, she gasped. The damage was even worse than she had feared. The bullet had gone in at the back, followed the curve of the ribs, ripped through the muscles of the upper thorax by his left armpit, and exploded out the front, leaving quite a severe exit wound. These facts, accepted numbly at first as she worked to render rapid first aid, abruptly triggered off a vivid memory. John had been looking for Bob when he was shot. Looking back toward the bridge. And yet he had been shot in the back. That should have been impossible. The terrorists never ventured out onto the deck, let alone this far down it.

Therefore…

Then the memory came. Bob falling, a small wound in the calf, blood flying, bright in the blaze. John turning back for him. And out of the darkness behind John, another figure rising up out of the ground. Seemingly through the steel of the deck. But no. Of course. If they were beyond the light then they were beyond the deck. And that meant they were coming up the accommodation ladder. Up from a boat below. Her hands froze. She sat for an instant trying to work out the implications. But they were incalculable. The situation was too new; the alternatives utterly unknown. Only observation would tell her anything now. And, as it happened, she would have to go back to the surgery in any case. John required much more than she had here.

She took the greatest care as she planned her return to the bridge, caught between the urgency of helping John, simple curiosity, and the certainty that they would be looking for her now more than ever. The leader seemed a fundamentally unbalanced person, holding himself on a path of relative sanity only by the exercise of massive self-control. She wondered what he would be like without the firm hand of Islam to control his actions. Deeply disturbed and disturbing, she thought, and she had no desire whatsoever to fall back into his hands. How had Fatima become involved with him? With this whole horrific mess? And
why
hadn’t Fatima contacted her? She felt like screaming.

Feeling a little like the Phantom of the Opera, she used the steel tunnels below the decks, showing herself only at the hatch covers she had left unlatched for this purpose. Only that one closest to the accommodation ladder itself was near enough to the action to be of any use and, having tried another farther away without success, she returned to this one, hoping to hear something
of the terrorists’ immediate intentions. She approached it with a great deal of care. On the deck above her she could hear a confused rumble of footsteps and, when she eased the hatch up an inch, she was confronted with a forest of booted legs. It was instantly clear what was happening: the captive crew were being taken off
Prometheus.

Hope swelled. Perhaps a ransom had been paid: perhaps they were going home.

Reality intruded: perhaps not.

“That’s the last of them,” a man’s voice called, in Arabic.

“Wait a moment,” answered the Englishman’s voice in the same language. “I want a last look around.”

“What about the two that are missing?”

“Forget them. Get ready to cast off.”

“Very well.”

Asha closed the cover silently and went back down the steps. Good. It seemed that her fears were unfounded. If he was content to have a last check around and then to leave, then she would be free to tend John. When he was comfortable, she would see about contacting the outside world. Her mind busy with plans, she crawled out onto the deck and ran for the bridgehouse. With hardly a second thought she sprinted down the corridor and in through the surgery door, straight into the arms of the terrorist waiting there.

Asha stood, paralyzed with shock, utterly incapable of movement. All for nothing, she thought. It was all lost now. She would have to take them to John or he would bleed to death. A sense of frustration swept over her. It was so acute it felt like fury.

“He knew you would come here!” snapped the terrorist. “You fool, Asha, how could you think he would not know?”

Asha stood, unable to breathe as the familiar voice went on.

“You hang around here risking your freedom to release your captain. Then you all but throw your life away to rescue him when he is wounded. Of course you will come back here the moment you think it is safe, to get what you need to tend him!”

“Fatima. It is you! Your voice, I…”

“Get down! Down on the floor.”

“Fatima. Darling…”

“Now!” The barrel of the rifle in her twin sister’s hand drove into Asha Quartermaine’s stomach and she dropped to the floor at once, winded. Then sturdy legs rolled her over and over as though she were a big beach ball and she was under the examining table, concealed by the cotton sheet upon it.

“Has she come yet?” enquired the harsh voice of the Englishman suddenly, from the doorway.

“No,” lied Fatima at once. “I told you she was too clever to fall into such a simple trap.”

“Well, never mind. We still have enough hostages to ensure no action will be taken against us until it is too late. Come on, then. It is time to go.”

“That was last night,” Asha said. “Just before dawn. I did some work on him then and let him sleep. When he was well enough to move, I brought him up here. Then you arrived and I thought they had come back. I made him move too quickly and we opened up his wound again.”

John sat, pale but wide awake, on the examination table in
Prometheus
’s surgery, listening to the last of the story. Richard, Robin, and the others clustered, spellbound, around them. While she talked, Asha continued to work. The wound in John’s back had been stitched, the track of the bullet disinfected and cauterized. Now the ragged pit of the exit wound at the front was being dealt with.

Richard hardly knew where to start. The fact that Sinbad’s story had been so close to the truth disturbed him most, pulling him away from a clear view of the problems that now confronted him and the further action needed to overcome them.

It was a damn nuisance that, apart from John and Asha, the rest of
Prometheus
’s crew had slipped through their fingers, spirited away to some other location as the second part of the terrorists’ plan began. But if Asha’s account of the conversation between her sister and the Englishman was correct, then things were not going
right for the terrorists either. They had held their hostages here unwillingly, for so long, because they had been awaiting the signal to begin part two. But that had never come. So they had gone ahead without it. Of all the welter of detail their story had revealed, this fact seemed the most important. But where had they gone? And with what purpose?

“First things first,” he said. “Let’s radio in. We’ve a fair number of people to inform about this…”

“I tried that,” said Asha quickly. “The radio doesn’t work.”

“I’ll go and take a look at it,” said Martyr at once.

“If you can’t fix it, we’ll call in from
Katapult
when we get back aboard,” called Richard after him. The central system for the handheld radios and the big transceiver Admiral Stark had donated to the cause of greater safety in the Gulf were still aboard
Katapult,
the heart of their simple communications system: perhaps it would be as well to move it all up here, thought Richard. And that, by association, took his mind to the multihull. “Better get
Katapult
shipshape,” he suggested to Weary.

“Too right, Captain. Don’t like having my spinnaker draped over your forecastle head, for a start,” said the Australian. He and Chris left together, almost like twins themselves.

An instant after they departed, Salah was gone, to prowl about the ship, looking for clues.

“Anything we can do for you?” Robin asked Asha, too well aware that Richard, lost in thought, would be like an automaton until he had sorted out whatever was on his mind. Where his men were and what to do next, she guessed.

Oh God, if only Daddy were here, she thought. The poignancy of his absence brought tears to her eyes. “I
beg your pardon?” Poor Asha had been talking to her in response to her question, and she hadn’t heard a word.

“When I’m finished here, there are some things I want to bring up from that hole I’ve been hiding in for the last few days.”

“Of course. I’ll give you a hand.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t have to stay here, do I?” asked John.

“No. If you’re careful, you can move around.”

“Good,” said John. Asha had filled him full of painkillers, so that he felt quite well and was itching to get up onto the bridge. The fact that Weary had assumed Richard was the captain of
Prometheus
galled him. He, John Higgins, was the captain. And his place was on the bridge. So, as soon as the last layer of bandage was firmly round his chest, he went. After an instant, Richard followed him. The two women exchanged glances and went out onto the deck.

“It’s just impossible even to guess where the murderous bastards are,” said John, easing his stiff frame into the captain’s chair on the port side of the bridge. Richard stood restlessly by the tiny helm, looking down toward the accommodation ladder, then out beyond it into the afternoon haze of the Gulf. Robin suddenly appeared, popping up out of the tiny hatch halfway down the deck, her golden curls glinting like guineas as the south wind tossed them in the sunshine.

“No clues at all?”

“Nothing. We can go through the story again later in case we’ve missed anything important, but it all happened like we told you in the surgery just now, and I don’t think they gave anything away. Whoever this Englishman is, he’s damned clever. This thing has been
carefully planned to make sure that nothing they’ve said or done has given anything away at all.”

“They’ve taken Bill Heritage too, you know.”

“No!”

“Yes. They’re holding him somewhere. Near here, I’d guess. Wherever Bob, Kerem, Twelve Toes, and the rest are bound for, probably. Poor old Bill will have been sitting there for a week now, waiting for them. But not knowing, I suppose. Kept as much in the dark as you all were.”

“Bastards! It fair makes your blood boil, doesn’t it?” John absently fumbled on the shelves by his chair and pulled out a briar pipe. Without thinking, he slipped the stem into his mouth and started chewing on it morosely.

In the distance, two tiny figures were sorting out the spinnaker on the forecastle head. Abruptly
Katapult
’s ruined masthead became visible. Richard watched the activity absently, his mind going over the cold ground of the events so far like a bloodhound searching for a scent.

“So, what do you want to do first?” asked John.

“The obvious thing is to get
Prometheus
out of here. Up anchor and move into safer waters. We’re too close to Iran here.”

“Anchor off the Saudi coast. Bring a new crew out. Get her back into business?”

“She’ll have to go back into business in the end. Though the thought of replacing her crew while they’re still…” Richard all but choked with frustrated rage.

“Perhaps, now that stage two of their plan has started, someone will actually hear from them.”

“I expect someone will. I just wish to God there was some way we could make sure they heard from us first. I’d give a lot to know where they’ve gone. If only Asha’s sister…”

“That’s so strange,” mused John, sidetracked. “Such a strange situation.”

“All too common these days.”

“Asha’s quite a woman though, coming out after her sister like that.”

“She is.”

Martyr appeared. “No chance of fixing the radio I’m afraid.”

“We’ll bring the big set from
Katapult
aboard,” said Richard. “Any chance of starting the engine?”

“I’ll go look,” said the American amiably.

Richard looked back out into the afternoon glare. Robin and Asha were carrying bits and pieces from Asha’s hideout back along the deck. Two tiny figures, deep in conversation, all but lost on the immensity of the deck. That was what they all were, thought Richard bitterly: pygmies at the mercy of giant forces. Powerless. Helpless. And it simply was not good enough.

Salah prowled in, his long, dark eyes everywhere. “There’s nothing,” he reported quietly. “Not a hint. Not a clue. It’s as though they were never here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I have,
thought Richard.

“They were a strange lot anyway,” mused John. “I mean, who’s ever heard of a terrorist cell being led by a woman and an Englishman?”

We have, thought Richard. He and Salah exchanged lean smiles.

Just at that moment, Robin arrived. “Here we are,” she said. “We’ve moved most of Asha’s stuff back to her quarters. But we thought we’d better bring this back up here.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the chart she stole. You know she was going to jump ship and go across the Gulf in an inflatable. At night. Alone. Daft.”

“Here…” began John, leaping to Asha’s defense, for all that he agreed with Robin.

“Asha said they were upset about losing that,” said Richard. “Let’s have a look at it.”

Within seconds, the big British Admiralty chart 2858 was spread out in front of them and five pairs of eyes were scrutinizing it carefully.

“What’s that?” asked Robin at once. There was a design in flowing script written in the margin.

“It’s Arabic,” answered Salah. “It means Dawn of Freedom.” He looked across at Richard. “So Sinbad got that right as well.”

But Richard wasn’t listening. He was staring at the chart, thunderstruck. The Arabic script was written beside their present position. Then a long line charted a course away down the whole length of the Gulf. But the same script was written at the far side of the paper, right by the purple writing that said, “Adjoining Chart 707.” And this time a course was charted back across the Gulf of Oman then in through Hormuz.

To a rendezvous, where the two courses met.

“My God!” he breathed.

He blinked. Frowned. Concentrated. He had to be certain about this.

But he
was
certain. There could be no other explanation. It all made too much sense. It all made too much terrifying sense.

He knew where the terrorists were heading. And he knew what they had been waiting for. And he knew why they had waited in vain.

With shaking hands, he took his wallet from his pocket and opened it. The paper was there among a wad of old photographs, cards, receipts. He emptied them all out on the chart and spread them out until he found what he was looking for. A simple piece of white
notepaper onto which he had painstakingly traced what he could remember of the pattern written on that flimsy he had taken from the dead radio officer a week ago. Taken and then lost in the waterspout. The writing that had been the name of the burning ship. He slid it across the chart until it was beside the writing that meant Dawn of Freedom. It was identical.

“Where did you get that?” asked Salah, awed.

Richard told him.

So the terrorists had been awaiting an arms shipment. One that would never come. And rather than wait here any longer for news, they had gone early to their rendezvous. That point on the chart where the two lines crossed.

Fate.

But even as Richard’s mind switched into lightning calculations of the impact of this information, his thoughts were interrupted by a gasp of shock from Asha. Suddenly she was sorting through his personal belongings spread out across the chart beside his empty wallet.

“It’s him,” she said, lifting a photograph of a smiling, open-faced young man. “It is
him!
”

They all turned toward her, Richard last. She was holding a photograph of a man who had been dead for years. Lost in the breakup of the first
Prometheus.
A photograph of his godson, Ben Strong. Over the top of it she looked at Richard with horror on her face. “What are you doing with a picture of the terrorist leader?” she demanded.