The Fire Ship (26 page)

Richard, on one knee, looking around the wreckage, softly called out, “John?”

“Behind the chart table. Fifteen seconds to impact, I’d say.”

“I can’t control her anymore. They’ve destroyed the helm.”

“You mean, we’re actually going to ram Fate?”

“Looks like it.”

“Good God.”

Ben reckoned they had about ten seconds before the tanker hit. He looked down over the edge of the roof he was kneeling on. Fatima was already clearing the observation platform down there. Good. Up here he
had four men, all lying belly down. Three of them were firing their relatively useless assault rifles at the bridge; the fourth had the exceedingly effective generalpurpose machine gun. “Stay here as long as you can,” he ordered. “Keep firing at the bridge.” As he stood up, the bow of the supertanker, still belching a column of flame, came level with the edge of Fate. The whole platform began to shake and a deep bass note, so low and powerful it made his eyeballs tremble in their sockets, seemed to come from every plate of it. “Now it really begins,” said Ben to himself and ran to the steps that would take him down to the deck. He was on his way to the main command post in the central buildings.

Prometheus
’s flank ground along Fate’s great metal legs. The observation platform slowly bent upward as its edge caught the tanker’s deck railing. Then it folded back and tore away altogether. Beyond it, the second column of fire rose from the tanker’s deck, guttering now as the mortar bomb dissipated its force in the water in her hold. A protruding beam of metal caught on the nearest Sampson post. Fate seemed to stagger round. The whole manager’s office shook, threatening to tumble free.

It was at this point that Ben’s men stopped firing at the bridge and retreated, follow-my-leader. Thirty seconds after they had gone, the scythe of the starboard bridge-wing, ten feet wider than the ship, crushed into the shuddering platform, destroying what little was left there before it ground to a juddering halt.

The second that it did so, Richard’s long body dropped down from its after edge onto Fate, and rolled into the shadows of the wreckage.

Christine stood at the base of
Katapult
’s mast, looking upward. The last bundle of arms and grenades destined for the hostages had gone. Salah and her father were
waiting at the platform’s edge for Doc to climb up to them. He went up the swaying mast like a monkey, then paused at the top to look down at her. He waved. The mast swung. He leaped.

And the whole platform began to jump and shake. The two men on it fell to their knees as she watched in horror. Doc, flying toward it, never stood a chance. He hit it but he could not hold it. Chris watched, riven, as his body bounced back off it and began to fall. Then she, too, was in motion, running down the hull’s length, some half thought of catching him in her mind. But he fell free. Into the water, just in front of the sleek bow of his creation. She was there, reaching down, pulling him aboard the instant he came to the surface. But it was not until he was on the deck that she noticed his headband was gone.

She had seconds, if that, before the inevitable seizure began. She ran him back toward the cockpit and just about made it. The spasm hit him on the coaming and he tumbled in. She was beside him at once, cradling his head in her arms, looking down into his huge, lost eyes. “It’s all right,” she screamed over the horrific noise of the impact. “It’s all right…” But she was screaming into a sudden silence.

Then she saw something in those eyes she had never seen before and glanced involuntarily up over her shoulder.

And saw the massive metal section immediately above their heads tear itself loose from the platform and fall.

“
Chrissie!
” screamed Martyr, looking back like Lot’s wife; like Orpheus to lose his dream.

Salah and he had pulled themselves to their feet the instant after Weary fell, and stood for long enough to
see Chris pull him aboard. Then they had run across the bucking steel to the relative solidity afforded by the first of the buildings. Salah kicked the door in and they slung the bags into a long corridor, jumping in behind them. As they did so, the shaking stopped and a sudden, stunning silence replaced it. They knelt, gasping. And a tearing, screaming roaring overwhelmed them. A fountain of spray deluged them. A cold wind fanned them.

And Martyr looked back.

The metal platform they had just jumped onto, sixty feet by sixty, more than a foot thick, undergirdered for added strength, weighing God knew how many tons, was gone.
Katapult,
beneath it, was gone. The corridor they were kneeling in now looked out onto a heaving, foaming maelstrom where the multihull used to be. Where Doc and Martyr’s daughter used to be.

“
Chrissie!
I’ve got to go down after her, Salah.”

“It’s no use, Chief. They’re gone.”

“But you don’t understand. She’s all I’ve got! She can’t be gone. I’ve got to go down after her!”

“Look! We’ve got a job to do! I can’t do it alone. The others are relying on us.
Martyr!
” He used his most brutal tone. It shocked the man and he hated to do it. But what he had said was true. Without their effort, the whole enterprise was doomed. Martyr flinched. Some semblance of reason returned to those deep green eyes. “We’ll look for her later,” said Salah and they were off.

Behind them, the last of the bubbles rose out of the tossing water and the sea slowly returned to a calm, as though it had never swallowed anything at all.

Richard had the other Heckler and Koch MP-5 held out at arm’s length in front of him, pushing it forward along the deserted corridors. He left doors open behind him; the locusts followed him into the buildings,
hopping along the passages he had vacated. He was looking for Ben. He found no one. Nothing.

Behind the buildings ruined by the collision, there was an open space. In its center stood the rusting remains of the drilling equipment. Beyond it stood the hill of prefabs that had housed the rig’s crew in the days when it had been in service. Richard looked up at it, calculatingly. If he were in charge here, he would put his headquarters at the top. Better communications. Overview of everywhere around. And there were lights to be seen up there, strengthening his supposition. So, if the HQ was up there, that was where Ben would be. Ben was his prime objective. Ben was his responsibility: being a godfather counted for something, after all!

He ran to the rusting derrick and paused, looking around. The upper works of his ship peered over the destruction she had caused. Her lights lit up this part of the rig, showing it to be empty. He turned, then turned back, thinking that something was wrong. He saw what it was: the air was clear. The locusts had gone. He gave a lean smile and ran forward toward the illuminated shantytown of the prefabricated huts, crunching the last of the insects beneath his feet.

Salah went through the first doorway and entered the prefabricated building like a ghost. There was no one immediately to be seen, but the corridor ahead led to a stairway that was certain to be guarded. He paused for an instant, mind racing, then he slid out again, grabbing the bundle of bags Martyr was guarding. Together, they slung them through the doorway he had just checked. With his chin, Salah gestured toward the stairway. Martyr nodded. They left the bags of weapons where they were and raced forward on silent feet. If there was a guard there, he would have been alerted—
they had by no means come silently through the door that second time. And sure enough, when they reached the foot of the stairs, a hail of bullets greeted them.

So much for silent surprise, thought Salah, as he reached for a thunderflash.

Richard rolled through the doorway and into a massive room. At first, he paused, disoriented, trying to make sense of what he could see. Then the figures of his crew became part of the background, as someone started to shoot at him. He had been looking for the headquarters, expecting it to be up here, but instead he had stumbled into the lecture hall where the hostages were. This was not going according to plan at all. A wiry figure in battle fatigues spun toward him; he fired automatically, without even thinking, and the man spun away. At the corner of his vision, someone else stood up, aiming at him. He scrabbled round feverishly, trying to draw a bead, and the figure was gone under a pile of erstwhile prisoners. Inundated, without a further shot being fired.

He picked himself up, overcome. And they were gathered around him at once, wanting to shake his hand, thump him on the back…“No!” he called, above their cheering. “It’s not over!”

They quieted at once.

“Bob, you can’t come with me, not with your leg like that. You and Bill stay in charge in here, please. Kerem, you and Twelve Toes take the guns from the guards. We’re looking for the other terrorists. Watch out, the rest of you. If we don’t find them all, then some of them will be coming back in here.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Thirty-five unarmed men silently weighing up their chances if the terrorists did come back. So near yet so far after all.

“But Salah Malik and C. J. Martyr are on their way up with guns for you, too,” he added, and left them cheering again.

At the sound of the first thunderflash, Ben sent two more of his men hurrying toward the rear of the platform. That left four more in here with himself, Fatima, and Ali, who was trying to raise Queshm naval base on the radio. The main command center was the highest of the buildings on the platform, towering even above the lecture hall where the hostages were. It had been the rig’s communications center, much larger than the radio rooms Ben was used to even on supertankers. It had windows looking east, west, south, and north. Ben had brought tables and chairs, cooking equipment, as well as radios and the main radar in here. There was a cot in the corner for the watchkeeper and another one for Ben, who habitually slept here. For the little that he did sleep.

He was now using the room as his defense post. His defensive plan was simple and dictated by circumstances. He and his command team would remain here until he had contacted Queshm and called the Iranian gunboats in. As his enemies approached, so he would send out men to support the ring of guards already out. He was working on the assumption that Mariner could not have brought more than half a dozen with him; he could even list their names. As soon as he had talked to Queshm, he would move down to the lecture hall where he could make full use of the hostages.

As the door closed behind the first two, who unknowingly were going out against Salah and C. J. Martyr, Ali swung round in his chair triumphantly. “I have Queshm,” he announced.

Ben’s hand reached for the microphone, but stopped in midgesture. In the distance, he could hear cheering.

“Take two men down to the lecture theater,” he said quietly to Fatima. “Two men and the machine gun.”

Salah stepped over the body of the boy at the stair-head and glanced around the corner into a long, broad corridor. A flash of movement at the far end was followed by a burst of fire. He jerked back as the corner of the wall exploded into splinters. Then Martyr was there beside him, face white, hands shaking. It might have been fear but Salah knew better. “We’re pinned down here,” he whispered. “Long corridor. Good man at the far end. We’ll have to look for another way up.”

“Why bother?” asked Martyr. “Chuck a grenade.”

Salah slung another thunderflash around the corner and Martyr was gone after it on a count of three. He departed, seemingly, into the thunderous glare of it and Salah wasn’t far behind. Martyr was halfway up the corridor, AK-47 at his hip, hosing the far corner with fire. The thin wood of the prefabricated wall turned into a smoking colander and the terrorist using it for cover collapsed into view. Martyr ran over to him and kicked his weapons away. “Let’s get going,” he said.

Salah ran back for the bags with the American at his shoulder and a frown on his face. He was paired with a man who had decided he had nothing left to live for, and that was very worrying indeed.

Fatima flattened herself against the wall just outside the control center and listened as though her life depended upon it. Her men ran on before her with the generalpurpose machine gun as Ben had ordered, but she was
slower to obey. Ben spoke tersely to the Iranian naval officer at Queshm, the same man who had overseen the movement of the hostages from
Prometheus
to Fate; the man who was relying on Ben and the rest of them to close the Gulf and save his bacon before he became another victim of the ruthless purge going on in Iran at the moment. This part of the plan she knew all about and understood. But from the moment Ben had let slip that there was
more
going on—about that other timetable he had mentioned aboard
Prometheus
while they had been waiting for the gunboats to move the hostages—she had been on guard. It had been the final piece in a pattern of growing mistrust she could now see stretching back for a surprisingly long time.

At every opportunity she had spied and watched and listened, trying to discover what this man whom she had trusted with so much for so long was keeping hidden from her. And now, at this last moment, her efforts were rewarded. For, the moment Ben broke contact with Queshm, he was ordering Ali to contact someone else—and Fatima’s blood was running cold at the sound of his calm, hypocritical, lying voice.

“Get me Dahran now,” said Ben. “Here is the wavelength and the call sign.”

“Through,” answered Ali almost at once.

“This is the
Dawn of Freedom,
” said Ben, in English, which only he and Fatima understood, clearly speaking into the microphone. “I wish to speak to His Excellency Prince Assad.”

There was the briefest of silences and then Ben’s voice continued, dripping unctuousness, “Your Excellency, we are ready. Everything is at last complete. Please transfer the payment now. Yes, now is the time for you and your associates to move in Aqaba, before the story breaks worldwide. My payment: as you rightly
recall, one hundred thousand American dollars a day into the Swiss account. No, it has not gone absolutely smoothly, but we have nothing to fear. The reinforcements are coming in from Queshm as arranged. Yes, it will look like an Iranian affair as planned. Yes, of course the Americans will continue to hesitate, everyone will, and the Gulf will stay closed for as long as possible.
Only through Aqaba,
yes…”