The Fire Ship (27 page)

Fatima turned away and ran on down the stairs after her men, only a moment or two behind them, so briefly had she needed to pause. She had eavesdropped for such a short time, but what she had learned was such a complete reversal of everything she had believed. She felt an overwhelming urge to stop and scream but she ran on in a daze of shock, her lean body moving by instinct. Her mind could feel itself thinking, so deep was the shock. It was like the moment she had realized the truth about her father’s so-called illness and his actual plans for her. She could hardly believe it was happening to her all over again. Blindly she ran on, her breath coming in ragged sobs, something deep inside her crying, “Trapped, trapped, trapped; betrayed, betrayed, betrayed.”

Ben’s plan stood fully revealed and so easy to understand now. The greed behind all that cant about liberating their brothers and sisters in the great international army of freedom fighters. The lies he had told about his friends in Iran—the lies he must have told
to
his friends in Iran. All so he could close the Gulf, as he was just about to do, not in the cause of freedom or in the cause of justice, but for a hundred thousand dollars a day. American dollars. In his own Swiss bank account.

To be paid by the men in Dahran who controlled the refineries at the port of Aqaba.
Aqaba,
at the far end of the longest desert oil pipeline of all. Aqaba, on the
Red Sea.
Aqaba, the only way left to get crude out of the
whole of Arabia when the Strait of Hormuz was closed. And how much would it be worth then to be the only people in the Middle East able to supply any oil at all? Compared with the likely profits of such a scheme, one hundred thousand dollars a day was less than nothing.

And then, there was the source of the money to be considered, too. That certainly bore careful thinking about. For Ben’s blood money was due to be paid by His Excellency, Prince Assad.

His Excellency, Prince Assad:
her father.

Two terrorists came round the corner at a run, without having checked ahead. It was such a gross mistake under these circumstances that it all but beggared belief. Certainly the confrontation was so unexpected that everyone froze. Richard, Kerem, and Twelve Toes had been moving forward so carefully in case their enemies were waiting in ambush, that to have two of them jump out like this was, to say the least, surprising. The five men stood there for an instant, about three feet apart. Then Richard hit the nearest on the side of the head with the stock of his gun. It was a roundhouse right hook, and would probably have felled the man even had Richard not been holding the MP-5. As it was, the first terrorist, instantly unconscious, flew into the second one, knocking him down as well. Kerem’s desert boot finished the almost silent exchange. “More presents,” said Richard lightly, as they stripped the men of their weapons. “Kerem, take these back to the others. Make yourself up a little commando unit of three. Look for Salah and C. J. Then come looking for me.”

Kerem was gone almost at once. “Now, remind me,” said Richard to the chief steward, “How should a turkey be trussed?”

The cheers that greeted Salah and C. J. were almost as loud as the cheers that had greeted Richard. Within moments the guns they brought had been distributed and the hostages were surging toward the doors like the mob assaulting the Bastille. None of the men notionally in charge could hold them and they dashed out into the corridor, looking for terrorists to kill. They found three immediately. Fortunately for
Prometheus
’s crew, Fatima, just catching up with her men, did not have time to deploy the machine gun properly, or she would have killed most of that first wave, if not all of them. The man holding the GPMG opened fire at them with it at once and all but blew himself off his feet. The tracer shots went high and wide, tearing prefabricated walls and ceilings into smoking ruins before it jammed. Fatima and the second man flicked the safeties off their assault rifles, and the shouting mob was gone.

“Set that up to cover the doors. Get it unjammed, fool.” Fatima ordered. “We will guard you from here.”

But even as she spoke, the head of the man she was addressing exploded. She whirled, searching for her enemy. The second man, beside her, staggered back crazily fast, as though this were a speeded-up film, throwing his rifle away. But Fatima could see him now, a tall Palestinian at the far end of the corridor, familiar from the captive crew. Kerem, they called him. Kerem was standing even as she was standing, looking down an assault rifle at her. She fired first and he fell.

Then she was swinging round incredibly quickly, knowing what had to happen next. The first man out through the lecture hall doors was tall, gray-haired, distinguished looking. She shot him in the chest. The second man out was another Palestinian.

But this time he shot her.

Salah crossed swiftly to the terrorist woman who had
shot Martyr all but through the heart and knelt briefly at her side as he moved her gun away. She lay still as death, huge dark eyes staring upward. They were running with tears and for a moment the tall Palestinian thought they were tears of shock or pain. But then he saw how wet her cheeks were and realized she must have been weeping all along. Then, for some time, he found his mind returning to her, wondering what in the world could have caused her to cry like that.

Ben was beating madly on the rim of the radar, howling with joy. There, in the bright green bowl, weaving their way through the slow tankers, coming to his aid at more than thirty knots, were the four gunboats his naval friend had promised him.

“Ben!” The voice called quietly from nearby. And from far away, down memory lane, Ben stopped what he was doing, as though carved in rock. Uncle Dick was just outside the door. Uncle Richard bloody Mariner was here.

Immediately at Ben’s right hand sat Ali, also looking into the radar bowl. Ready, one on either side of the door, were two more guards. Four in here. Now how many did his godfather have?

“Hello, Uncle Richard. What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to take you home, Ben.”

“But I don’t want to go home, Uncle Richard. I want to stay here with my friends.” He put on the lunatic singsong voice, thinking like a fox.

“But I’m afraid we can’t have that, Ben. They’re waiting for you at home.”

Ben began to turn, slowly, looking out through the door at his back. “But who’ll be waiting, Uncle Richard? My mummy’s been dead so long…”

At the far end of the corridor, he could see his enemy
standing looking in. Mariner’s hands were by his sides, but he seemed to be holding a pistol. Ben squinted. It was a short corridor, but dark. The light was coming from behind Richard, where another corridor went across. Why, it was a Heckler and Koch MP-5. Now where did you get one of those? wondered Ben. Well, it doesn’t matter now.

He raised his empty hands in a helpless, little-boy shrug. “My mummy’s been dead for so long,” he said.
“And my father went down with your ship kill the bastard!”

The two men behind the door spun out, guns ready. They understood the English word
kill.
Ali leaped up, grabbing for a gun as well, and all hell was let loose.

Richard dived forward as the two men jumped into the door. Twelve Toes leaned round the corner above him and sprayed them with automatic fire. They didn’t stand a chance. As they fell, Richard was looking beyond them at the twisting shapes farther in. A slight figure sprang forward. Richard squeezed off three. The figure stopped where he was, as though his mind had changed. Then Twelve Toes lobbed a thunderflash into the room and dashed past Richard’s prone form. Richard picked himself up the instant after the explosion and leaped forward as though coming up out of sprinting blocks. They went in through the door shoulder to shoulder, firing as they went. Ben was thrown back against the radar and the gun he was holding flew away. Richard stood following his slow slide to the floor, every inch, with the MP-5. “Check him,” he said to Twelve Toes, and the gun didn’t move until he had.

“I thought you’d give me a bit of a chance.” Ben’s voice was little more than a whisper.

“You’re out of your mind.”

“I know.”

Ben died with a smile on what was left of his face.

Richard frowned. He didn’t like that smile at all. Alternatives whirled in his head. Was the place booby trapped? Rigged to explode and kill them all? What was Ben doing when they arrived here? Start with that.

Looking in the radar. Richard looked into the radar. Four fast-moving blips were coming out of Queshm, cutting through the shipping lanes. He looked at his watch. They’d be here in fifteen minutes. “Twelve Toes,” he snapped urgently, “we’ve still got work to do.”

“How many do you think, Richard?” asked Sir William Heritage, softly.

“Four boats. Maybe twenty-five heavily armed men in each.”

“We don’t stand a hope against a hundred. Look what it’s cost us to fight thirteen!”

“You’re right, Bill.”

The others were clearing up below. Sir William Heritage, Bob Stark, Salah Malik, and Richard Mariner were in the blood-and-cordite-reeking mess of the command post. Through the north-facing windows, they could see the bright outline of
Prometheus
jammed against the side of Fate, but beyond that, there was only darkness.

Salah was looking down into the blood-smeared radar bowl morosely. “Five minutes, tops,” he said.

And Bob Stark muttered, looking down at Ben, “I’d like to wipe the smile off this bastard’s face!”

“It must always have been a part of his plan,” said Sir William. “Take over the platform. Close the Gulf. Hand it over to his friends in Iran.”

“They could always close the Gulf if they wanted to,” Salah reminded him. “Or close Kharg. The Iranian government has that right without going to these lengths.”

“But this isn’t the government,” said Richard. “This
is just some people from the navy in the middle of a power struggle. And getting pretty desperate, too.”

“They’re here,” said Salah.

And even as he spoke, the blustering roar started. Massive searchlights lit up every nut and bolt around. A huge, disembodied voice boomed, “Stay calm. Everybody stay calm, please. This is Admiral Walter Stark of the United States Navy. Our forces have been invited into the Gulf to help with this emergency. Our frigate
Hazard
will be here to oversee any danger arising from this collision in a matter of moments. I would like to thank the Iranian gunboats for their prompt offer of assistance but assure them we have everything under control…”

“Now, what is that,” said Sir William. “What in Heaven’s name is that?”

Richard crossed to the window and looked out. “That’s a couple of Kaman Seasprites,” he answered. “It looks like Robin is back.”

Nobody else knew where he had gone, but Salah and Richard did. They followed the bloodstains down the corridor to where it opened onto nothingness above the quiet sea. He was lying there, face down, with one arm hanging over the edge, as though he had tried to go down and join them but had run out of strength just here.

Richard turned him over. His face was like wax.

“Christ, Richard. It hurts.”

“I know.”

Neither of them was talking about the chest wound.

The American took a long breath. Richard could feel it bubble through the thin walls of his chest. “She was a good kid, you know? Best daughter a father could ever wish for.”

“I know.”

“But now she’s gone, I don’t feel much like hanging around.”

Richard looked up at Salah. In the face of so much grief, he simply did not know what to say.

Salah crouched down. “You should not give up,” he told his old friend. “I, too, had a child once, remember. And he was taken from me.”

Again, that long, rumbling breath. “Have you had one happy day since then, Salah?”

Salah’s silence was answer enough.

Martyr started to cough. Richard held him until the fit was over. “That’ll just about finish me, I think,” whispered the American like a ghost.

“Wait for Robin,” pleaded Richard. “It’ll break her heart if you don’t say good-bye.”

“I’ll try to hang on for Robin,” said Martyr. “But she’d better not take long.”

But Robin never came. She was tending the other wounded, Fatima among them, with Asha on
Prometheus.
Instead, an explosion of gasping and splashing suddenly came upward through the night.

And a voice, loud and triumphant: “What a hull, Chris, what a hull. Damn near impossible to break. Enough air still trapped in it to last for a perishing week. We designed it and we built her. Me and old Sam Hood.”

“Peter Tonkin has proven himself a master of seagoing adventure. Enough taut suspense and danger to satisfy any reader.”

—Clive Cussler

“A bang-up story, which Peter Tonkin tells with an insider’s skill.”

—
New York Daily News

“Plenty of adventure.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“This kind of story has built-in excitement…Convincing.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“While the complex story line commands full interest, this first novel is further strengthened by its description of supertanker operations that are routine only in their dangers.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“A tight, no-nonsense, seagoing adventure.”

—
The Kirkus Review

THE COFFIN SHIP

A LEISURE BOOK
^®

August 2009

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 1990 by Peter Tonkin

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