Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (2 page)

All right, so he had lost his wave. He was no longer cresting and racing. He was down and smothered in white water. But he could feel his head breaking the surface, and he was still on the break-line. He knew there was another big wave racing down on him. It was just beginning to peak and he knew he still had the strength to catch her, to get high and race again.

‘ I did it once - I'll damned well do it again ,’ he said aloud, and went down for breakfast.

He stepped into the saloon, and for a long moment nobody realized he was there. There was an excited buzz of comment and speculation that absorbed them all.

The Chief Engineer had an old copy of Lloyd's List folded at the front page and held above a plate of eggs as he read aloud. Nicholas wondered where he had found the ancient copy.

His spectacles had slid right to the end of his nose, so he had to tilt his head far backwards to see through them, and his Australian accent twanged like a guitar.

‘ In a joint statement issued by the new Chairman and incoming members of the Board, a tribute was paid to the fifteen years of loyal service that Mr. Nicholas Berg had given to Christy Marine. ’ The five officers listened avidly, ignoring their breakfasts, until David Allen glanced up at the figure in the doorway.

‘Captain, Sir, ’ he shouted, and leapt to his feet, while with the other hand, he snatched the newspaper out of Vinny Baker's hands and bundled it under the table.

‘ Sir, may I present the officers of Warlock. ’

Shuffling, embarrassed, the younger officers shook hands hurriedly and then applied themselves silently to their congealing breakfasts with a total dedication that precluded any conversation, while Nick Berg took the Master's seat at the head of the long table in the heavy silence and David Allen sat down again on the crumpled sheets of newsprint.

The steward offered the menu to the new Captain, and returned almost immediately with a dish of stewed fruit.

‘ I ordered a boiled egg ,’ said Nick mildly, and an apparition in snowy white appeared from the galley, with the chef's cap at a jaunty angle.

‘ The sailor's curse is constipation, Skipper. I look after my officers - that fruit is delicious and good for you. I'm doing you your eggs now, dear, but eat your fruit first. ’ And the diamond twinkled again as he vanished.

Nick stared after him in the appalled silence.

‘ Fantastic cook ,’ blurted David Allen, his fair skin flushed pinkly and the Lloyd's List rustled under his backside. ‘ Could get a job on any passenger liner, could Angel. ’

‘ If he ever left the Warlock, half the crew would go with him ,’ growled the Chief Engineer darkly, and hauled at his pants with elbows below the level of the table. ‘ And I'd be one of them. ’ Nick Berg turned his head politely to follow the conversation.

‘ He's almost a doctor, ’ David Allen went on, addressing the Chief Engineer.

‘ Five years at Edinburgh Medical School ,’ agreed the Chief solemnly.

‘ Do you remember how he set the seconds leg? Terribly useful to have a doctor aboard. ’

Nick picked up his spoon, and tentatively lifted a little of the fruit to his mouth. Every officer watched him intently as he chewed. Nick took another spoonful.

‘ You should taste his jams, ’ said David Allen addressing Nick directly at last. ‘ Absolutely Cordon Bleu stuff. ’

‘ Thank you, gentlemen, for the advice ,’ said Nick. The smile did not touch his mouth, but crinkled his eyes slightly. ‘ But would somebody convey a private message to Angel that if he ever calls me "dear" again I'll beat that ridiculous cap down about his ears. ’

In the relieved laughter that followed, Nick turned to David Allen and sent colour flying to his cheeks again by asking, ‘ You seem to have finished with that old copy Of the List, Number One. Do you mind if I glance at it again? ’ Reluctantly, David lifted himself and produced the newspaper, and there was another tense silence as Nick Berg rearranged the rumpled sheets and studied the old headlines without any apparent emotion.

THE GOLDEN PRINCE OF CHRISTY MARINE DEPOSED

Nicholas hated that name, it had been old Arthur Christy's quirk to name all of his vessels with the prefix Golden, and twelve years ago, when Nick had rocketed to head of operations at Christ y Marine, some wag had stuck that label on him.

ALEXANDER TO HEAD THE CHRISTY BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Nicholas was surprised by the force of his hatred for the m an.

They had fought like a pair of bulls for dominance of the herd and the tactics that Duncan Alexander had used had won. Arthur Christy had said once, ‘ Nobody gives a damn these days whether it is moral or fair, all that counts is, will it work and can you get away with it? ’ For Duncan it had worked, and he had got away with it in the grandest possible style.

As Managing-Director in charge of operations, Mr. Nicholas Berg helped to build Christy Marine from a small coasting and salvage company into one of the five largest owners of cargo shipping operating anywhere in the world.

After the death of Arthur Christy in 1968, Mr. Nicholas Berg succeeded him as Chairman, and continued the company's spectacular expansion.

At present, Christy Marine has in commission eleven bulk carriers and tankers in excess of 250,000 dead weight tons, and is building the 1,000,000 ton giant ultra-tanker Golden Dawn. it will be the largest vessel ever launched.

There it was, stated in the boldest possible terms, the labour of a man's lifetime. Over a billion dollars of shipping, designed, financed and built almost entirely with the energy and enthusiasm and faith of Nicholas Berg.

Mr. Nicholas Berg married Miss Chantelle Christy, the only child of Mr. Arthur Christy. However, the marriage ended in divorce in September of last year and the former Mrs. Berg has subsequently married Mr. Duncan Alexander, the new Chairman of Christy Marine.

He felt the hollow nauseous feeling in his stomach and in his head the vivid image of the woman. He not want to think of her now, but could not thrust the image aside. she was bright and beautiful as a flame - and, like a flame, you could not hold her. when she went, she took everything with her, everything. He should hate her also, he really should. Everything, he thought the company, his life's work, and the child. When he thought of the child, he nearly succeeded in hating her, and the newsprint shook in his hand.

He became aware again that five men were watching him, and without surprise he realized that not a flicker of his emotions had shown on his face. To be a player for fifteen years in one of the world's highest games of chance, inscrutability was a minimum requirement.

In a joint statement issued by the new Chairman and incoming members of the Board, a tribute was paid.

Duncan Alexander paid the tribute for one reason, Nick thought grimly. He wanted the 100,000 Christy Marine shares that Nick owned.

Those shares were very far from a controlling interest. Chantelle had a million shares in her own name, and there were another million in the Christy Trust, but insignificant as it was, Nick's holding gave him a voice in and an entry to the company's affairs.

Nick had bought and paid for every one of those shares.

Nobody had given him a thing, not once in his life. He had taken advantage of every stock option in his contract, had bartered bonus and salary for those options, and now those 100,00 0 shares were worth three million dollars, meagre reward for the labour which had built up a fortune of sixty million dollars for the Christy father and daughter.

It had taken Duncan Alexander almost a year to get those shares.

He and Nicholas had bargained with cold loathing. They had hated each other from the first day that Duncan had walked into the Christy building on Leadenhall Street. He had come as old Arthur Christy's latest Wunderkind. The financial genius fresh from his triumphs as financial controller of International Electronics, and the hatred had been instant and deep and mutual, a fierce smouldering chemical reaction between them.

In the end Duncan Alexander had won, he had won it all, except the shares, and he had bargained for those from overwhelming strength. He had bargained with patience and skill, wearing his man down over the months. Using all Christy Marine's reserves to block and frustrate Nicholas, forcing him back step by step, taxing even his strength to its limits, driving such a bargain that at the end Nicholas was forced to bow and accept a dangerous price for his shares. He had taken as full payment the subsidiary of Christy Marine, Christy Towage and Salvage, all its assets and all its debts. Nick had felt like a fighter who had been battered for fifteen rounds, and was now hanging desperately to the ropes with his legs gone, blinded by his own sweat and blood and swollen flesh, so he could not see from whence the next punch would come. But he had held on just long enough. He had got Christy Towage and Salvage - he had walked away with something that was completely and entirely his.

Nicholas Berg lowered the newspaper, and immediately his officers attacked their breakfasts ravenously and there was the clatter of cutlery.

‘ There is an officer missing ,’ he said.

‘ It's only the Trog, sir ,’ Dave Allen explained.

‘ The Trog? ’

‘ The Radio Officer, sir. Speirs, sir. We call him the Troglodyte. ’

‘ I'd like all the officers present. ’

‘ He never comes out of his cave ,’ Vinny Baker explained helpfully .

‘ All right ,’ Nick nodded. I will speak to him later.

They waited now, five eag er young men, even Vin Baker could not completely hide his interest behind the smeared lenses of his spectacles and the tough Aussie veneer.

‘ I wanted to explain to you the new set-up. The Chief has kindly read to you this article, presumably for the benefit of those who were unable to do so for themselves a year ago. ’

Nobody said anything, but Vin Baker fiddled with his porridge spoon.

‘ So you are aware that I am no longer connected in any way with Christy Marine. I have now acquired Christy Towage and Salvage. It becomes a completely independent company. The name is being changed. ’ Nicholas had resisted the vanity of calling it Berg Towage and Salvage. ‘ It will be known as Ocean Towage and Salvage. ’

He had paid dearly for it, perhaps too dearly. He had given up his three million dollars worth of Christy shares for God alone knew what. But he had been tired unto death.

‘ We own two vessels. The Golden Warlock and her sister ship which is almost ready for her sea trials, the Golden Witch. ’

He knew exactly how much the company owed on those two ships, he had agonized over the figures through long and sleepless nights. On paper the net worth of the company was around four million dollars; he had made a paper profit of a million dollars on his bargain with Duncan Alexander. But it was paper profit only, the company had debts of nearly four million more. If he missed just one month's interest payments on those debts - he dismissed the thought quickly, for on a forced sale his residue in the company would be worth nothing. He would be completely wiped out.

‘ The names of both ships have been changed also. They will become simply Warlock and Sea Witch. From now onwards "Golden" is a dirty word around Ocean Salvage. ’ They laughed then, a release of tension, and Nick smiled with them, and lit a thin black cheroot from the crocodile - skin case while they settled down.

‘ I will be running this ship until Sea Witch is commissioned. It won't be long, and there will be promotions then. ’

Nick superstitiously tapped the mahogany mess table as he said it. The dockyard strike had been simmering for a long time. Sea Witch was still on the ways, but costing interest, and further delay would prove him mortal.

‘ I have got a long oil-rig tow. Bight of Australia to South America. It will give us all time to shake the ship down. Y ou are all tug men, I don't have to tell you when the big one comes up, there will be no warning. ’

They stirred, and the eagerness was on them again. Even the oblique reference to prize money had roused them.

‘ Chief? ’ Nick looked across at him, and the Engineer snorted, as though the question was an insult.

‘ In all respects ready for sea ,’ he said, and tried simultaneously to adjust his trousers and his spectacles.

‘ Number One? ’ Nick looked at David Allen. He had not yet become accustomed to the Mate's boyishness. He knew that he had held a master mariner's ticket for ten years, that he was over thirty years of age and that MacDonald had hand-picked him - he had to be good. Yet that fair unlined face and quick high colour under the unruly mop of blond hair made him look like an undergraduate.

‘ I'm waiting on some stores yet, sir ,’ David answered quickly. ‘ The chandlers have promised for today, but none of it is vital. I could sail in an hour, if it is necessary. ’

‘ All right. ’ Nick stood up. ‘ I will inspect the ship at 0900 hours. You'd best get the ladies off the ship. ’ During the meal there had been the faint tinkle of female voices and laughter from the crew's quarters.

Nick stepped out of the saloon and Vin Baker's voice was pitched to reach him. It was a truly dreadful imitation of what the Chief believed to be a Royal Naval accent.

‘0900 , chaps. Jolly good show, what? ’

Nick did not miss a step, and he grinned tightly to himself. It's an old Aussie custom; you needle and needle until something happens. There is no malice in it, it's just a way of getting to know your man. And once the boots and fists have stopped flying, you can be friends or enemies on a permanent basis. It was so long since he had been in elemental contact with tough physical men, straight hard men who shunned all subterfuge and sham, and he found the novelty stimulating. Perhaps that was what he really needed now, the sea and the company of real men. He felt his step quicken and the anticipation of physical confrontation lift his spirits off the bottom.

He went up the companionway to the navigation deck, taking the steps three at a time, and the doorway opposite his suite opened. From it emerge d the solid grey stench of cheap Dutch cigars and a head that could have belonged to some prehistoric reptile. It too was pale grey and lined and wrinkled, the head of a sea-turtle or an iguana lizard, with the same small dark glittery eyes.

The door was that of the radio room. It had direct access to the main navigation bridge and was merely two paces from the Master's day cabin.

Despite appearances, the head was human, and Nick recalled clearly how Mac had once described his radio officer. He is the most anti-social bastard I've ever sailed with, but he can scan eight different frequencies simultaneously, in clear and morse, even while he is asleep. He is a mean, joyless, constipated son of a bitch - and probably the best radio man afloat.

‘ Captain ,’ said the Trog, in a reedy petulant voice. Nick did not ponder the fact that the Trog recognized him instantly as the new Master. The air of command on some men is unmistakable. ‘ Captain, I have an "all ships signify ” . ’

Nick felt the heat at the base of his spine, and the electric prickle on the back of his neck. It is not sufficient merely to be on the break line when the big wave peaks, it is also necessary to recognize your wave from the hundred others that sweep by.

‘ Coordinates? ’ he snapped, as he strode down the passageway to the radio room.

’
72° 16 south 3 2° 12 west. ’

Nick felt the jump in his chest and the heat mount up along his spine, The high latitudes down there in the vast a nd lonely wastes. There was something sinister and menacing in the mere figures. What ship could be down there?

The longitudinal co - ordinates fitted neatly in the chart that Nick carried in his mind, like a war chart in a military operations room. She was south and west of the Cape of Good Hope - down deep, beyond Gough and Bouvet Island, in the Weddell Sea.

He followed the Trog into the radio room. On this bright, sunny and windy morning, the room was dark and gloomy as a cave, the thick green blinds drawn across the ports; the only source of light was the glowing dials of the banked communication equipment, the most sophisticated equipment that all the wealth of Christy Marine could pack into her, a hundred thousand dollars' worth of electronic magic, but the stink of cheap cigars was overpowering.

Beyond the radio room was the operator's cabin, the bunk unmade, a tray of soiled dishes on the deck beside it.

The Trog hopped up into the swivel seat, and elbowed aside a brass shell-casing that acted as an ashtray and spilled grey flakes of ash and a couple of cold wet chewed cigar butts on to the desk.

Like a wizened gnome, the Trog tended his dials; there w as a cacophony of static and electronic trash blurred with the sharp howl of morse.

‘ The copy? ’ Nick asked, and the Trog pushed a pad at him. Nick read off quickly.

CTM.Z. 0603 GMT. 7 2° 16 ’ S. 32° 12 ’ W. All ships in a position to render assistance, please signify. CTM.Z.

He did not need to consult the R. T. Handbook to recognize that call-sign ‘ CTMZ .’

With an effort of will he controlled the pressure that caught him in the chest like a giant fist. It was as though he had lived this moment before. It was too neat. He forced himself to distrust his instinct, forced himself to think with his head and not his guts.

Beyond him he heard his officers voices on the navigation bridge, quiet voices - but charged with tension. They were up from the saloon already.

‘ Christ! ’ he thought savagely. ‘ How do they know? So quickly? ’ It was as though the ship itself had come awake beneath his feet and trembled with anticipation.

The door from the bridge slid aside and David Allen stood in the opening with a copy of Lloyd's Register in his hands.

‘ CTMZ, sir, is the call sign of the Golden Adventurer. Twenty-two thousand tons, registered Bermuda 1975. Owners Christy Marine. ’

‘ Thank you, Number One, ’ Nick nodded. Nicholas knew her well; he personally had ordered her construction before the collapse of the great liner traffic. Nick had planned to use her on the Europe-to-Australia run.

Her finished cost had come in at sixty-two million dollars, and she was a beautiful and graceful ship under her tall light alloy superstructure. Her accommodation was luxurious, in the same class as the France or the United States, but she had been one of Nick's few miscalculations.

When the feas i bility of operation on the planned run had shown up prohibitive in the face of rising costs and diminishing trade, Nick had switched her usage. It was this type of flexible and intuitive planning and improvisation that had built Christy Marine into the goliath she was now.

Nick had innovated the idea of adventure cruises - and changed the ship's name to Golden Adventurer. Now she carried rich passengers to the wild and exotic corners of the globe, from the Galapagos Islands to the Amazon, from the remote Pacific islands to the Antarctic, in search of the unusual.

She carried guest lecturers with her, experts on the environments and ecology of the areas she was to visit, and she was equipped to take her passengers ashore to study the monoliths of Easter Island or to watch the mating displays of the wandering albatross on the Falkland Islands.

She was probably one of the very few cruise liners that was still profitable, and now she stood in need of assistance.

Nicholas turned back from the Trog. ‘ Has she been transmitting prior to this signify request? ’

‘ She's been sending in company code since midnight. Her traffic was so heavy that I was watching her. ’

The green glow of the sets gave the little man a bilious cast, and made his teeth black, so that he looked like an actor from a horror movie.

‘ You recorded? ’ Nick demanded, and the Trog switched on the automatic playback of his tape monitors, recapitulating every message the distressed ship had sent or received since the previous midnight. The jumbled blocks of code poured into the room, and the paper strip printed out with the clatter of its keys.

Had Duncan Alexander changed the Christy Marine code? Nick wondered. It would be the natural procedure, completely logical to any operations man. You lose a man who has the code, you change immediately. It was that simple. Duncan had lost Nick Berg, he should change. But Duncan was not an operations man. He was a figures and paper man, he thought in numbers, not in steel and salt water.

If Duncan had changed, they would never break it. Not even with the Decca. Nick had devised the basis of the code. It was a projection that expressed the alphabet as a mathematical function based on a random six-figure master, changing the value of each letter on a progression that was impossible to monitor.

Nick hurried out of the stinking gloom of the radio room with the print-out in his hands.

The navigation bridge of Warlock was gleaming chrome and glass, as bright and functional as a modern surgical theatre, or a futuristic kitchen layout.