by Peter Tonkin
All Richard’s old Hong Kong hackles were up with a vengeance. He had made many friends in the old Crown Colony - and had always counted Charles Lee amongst them. But he had made many enemies also. Relentless, implacable enemies who had tried to destroy him before. Major amongst these was a Triad whose shipments of crack cocaine he had unwittingly - almost accidentally but very effectively - disrupted. And they had called themselves The White Powder Triad.
During the hours after he had first set eyes upon the laughing Charles Lee on the multi-hulled Tin Hau off Christchurch Harbour, Richard had much leisure to think. For he was stuck on the trapeze until Doc called him in. And, in spite of the gut-wrenching shock of recognition and the blistering rage that it had brought about, he had no intention of coming back inboard before he was ordered - even though he carried crucially important news. And it simply never occurred to him that he should pass it on to the police.
For Bob Collingwood had hit him on the shoulder to warn simply that Tin Hau was overtaking them. Bob could never have recognized Charles Lee; may not even have seen the crucial relevance of her design. And Tin Hau continued to ease past and began to slip clear. Any movement now would simply have let Charles and his vessel, his bet - and his Triad-financed grip upon Heritage Mariner itself - slip further into the winning position.
Richard hung in his trapeze, therefore, as Katapult thundered relentlessly down the Channel, lost in thought. Attaining, as he sometimes managed in extremis, that crystal clarity of reasoning which allowed him to see all the patterns of a situation. Triad involvement explained so much. Triad involvement had remained unsuspected because the Triads themselves were creatures of the Far East, not of the West End. But it was the Triads, after all, who moved so many Chinese into and out of England under the noses of the authorities. Cockle-pickers, prostitutes, waiters and waitresses. How easy it would be for them to make Charles Lee disappear, shipping one more nameless body out among so many brought so anonymously in. How easy it would be for them to keep him concealed in Hong Kong, Shanghai or even in China itself. Or, as with Captain Jones and the Triad ship Sanna Maru, to simply sail him to Australia.
How simple it must have been for a Triad like the White Powder Triad to suborn several officers into going aboard and stowing away upon a Far Eastern registered container vessel apparently passing their sinking ship by chance. An agreement confirmed with that one quick call from the Fourth Officer to Elroy Kim. If there was a good enough reason on both sides of the bargain; a sufficiently profitable deal. A big enough bribe. A sufficiently total revenge. And if nobody really cared about risking the lives of sixty teenage cadets. Of all the rest of it, that terrible arrogance was what came close to making Richard’s heart burst with simple rage.
Even the name. Whitesand-Sandarkan. Was it close enough to White Powder? A Triad-owned Tiger Economy corporate raider seemed all too conceivable to Richard as he hung in his trapeze, the back of his head, super-sensitive, seeming to skim along the surface of the Channel - as his mind plumbed darker depths. For the end of the matter was clear now - the plan to steal his company and ruin, him; ruin his whole family. And, once the final game was obvious, as Jim said, how clear did everything else become.
For it was Oxford v. Moss after all. Charles had given his Triad masters nothing physical at all. But at the same time, he had given them everything important. He had stolen nothing tangible. He had taken no money, only the shares that were his own. But he had given them the most vital intellectual properties that Heritage Mariner owned - fully the equivalent of that test paper read through early. And here was examination day at last. For he had taken east with him his knowledge of the Katapult series - their most vital, hitherto unrivalled, asset. And his knowledge of how the Chinese could reproduce her. And he had taken with him his intimate understanding of how Heritage Mariner’s secretive corporate structure was organized. And he had placed it all in the hands of Richard’s Triad enemies.
Charles had sailed in all six generations of Katapult. He knew them all almost as well as Doc. Perhaps over the years his plans had been beginning to form already as an insurance should ruin ever really threaten; as it had with the collapse of his scheme to duplicate Goodman Richard as a commercial pleasure craft. Perhaps from the very beginning he had been preparing himself in secret for this very race or some other just like it - for this very gamble.
He had known about Lionheart’s test run. He had been able to dictate Goodman Richard’s position just within her reach, the square-rigger’s dismasting and the vanishing of the officers - hidden on Sanna Maru until presumed dead. And let the kids aboard take care of themselves. His own disappearance and the planned vanishing of the drowned Smithers. He had arranged clues, pressure, guidance - from the Australian advert in Argo with its crucial cellphone number to the arson that both Robin and Frances were sure had been yet more manipulation, not a serious murder attempt.
And that meant, as Richard had bitterly observed at Robin’s Welcome Back party, that the inquiry and the Corporate Killing case had both simply been manipulated. Not in terms of bribing witnesses and slipping backhanders to police and lawyers, perhaps, but in stage-managing the ‘facts’ of his guilt. And, eventually, crucially, the facts of his innocence. All under such an inevitable glare of world-wide publicity. For it had all been about money and power. Not truth and justice at all. The wrong kind of Corporate Killing.
The men who had bought their Heritage Mariner shares during the trial had seen the worth of their purchases rise by more than tenfold since its end. The White Powder Triad - Whitesand-Sandarkan - had made back many times over what Richard had cost them in lost cocaine all those years ago. And if Tin Hau won the Fastnet Race they would own Heritage Mariner into the bargain.
Richard had reached this stage in his reasoning when the Channel slapped him hard on the back of the head, Bob hit him on the shoulder again, and it was time to take his hot news back aboard.
Doc asked the obvious question first as they all stood in and around the cockpit, getting used to the new angle of the half-raised central hull - the new motion of their skimming vessel. ‘You saw Charles Lee. Did he see you?’
Doc was at the wheel. Amy was down at the chart table and Joan a little deeper, in the galley - which was perhaps the size of a modest cupboard. Harry, Bob and Ben were clustered round the cockpit with Richard.
‘He must have seen me,’ said Richard thoughtfully. ‘But I don’t believe he recognized me. He certainly didn’t give any sign.’
‘OK.’ The big Australian looked around. ‘Now does this make any difference to our race plan?’
‘Why should it?’ demanded Amy. ‘This Charles Lee can’t control the wind and the tide, can he? Even if Richard is right about what else he and his Triad contacts can control. But I think we should alert the authorities at once.’
‘I agree,’ said Harry. ‘The police have been looking for this man - as have we all - for a year. And now suddenly here he is. Why, they might even come and pull Tin Hau out of the race. That would suit your ends, wouldn’t it, Richard? A disqualified boat can’t win a race. The shares would be forfeit.’
‘I don’t think the police would do anything,’ countered Richard. ‘There’s no case left for Charles to answer, is there? That’s the real cunning of it, don’t you see? My acquittal was the trigger for the endgame. That’s when Whitesand-Sandarkan made their formal announcement. That’s when Charles Lee reappeared. There’s no case left at all. All that would happen if we went to the authorities now - if anyone in authority is actually going to want to speak to me of course - is that they’d likely check with Tin Hau and alert them that we know he’s aboard. And that would make a difference, wouldn’t it? It would make them much more alert and rob us of any advantage surprise might have given us.’
‘OK,’ temporized Amy. ‘I can see that. No authorities then. Not until we get to Portsmouth at any rate. Then we can call them up and get them down while we wait for Tin Hau to arrive.’ They all chuckled at that.
But Amy frowned suddenly and continued, ‘But just how far do you think these people are willing to go to win?’ She paused. ‘We’re back to the first question, aren’t we? Charles Lee can’t control the wind and the tide, can he?’
‘No,’ answered Richard. ‘But we now know the kind of person crewing Tin Hau, and perhaps who her secret sponsors are. We must ask - is there any way to cheat on the Fastnet?’
‘Lots of ways,’ said the ever practical Joan Rouse, her head popping up from the galley. ‘He could have some kind of a motor hidden aboard. He could arrange some way to sail a shorter course. Or he could be trying to nobble the opposition.’
‘That seems to be the preferred option. Having the opposition’s crewmembers run down on pelican crossings and beaten up outside public houses,’ said Richard. ‘But that would be just the beginning of the campaign. Thank God we berthed her in a secure, well-guarded commercial yard. Thank God we’ve all been sleeping aboard. But now we’ll have to look out for more of that thug-stuff under sail too.’
‘OK,’ allowed Joan. ‘But I don’t see how they could do all that much skulduggery without getting caught. Certainly out here. A motor would leave a tell-tale wake. All the major points are monitored and beyond them it’s every man for himself anyway. Maybe they just reckon they have some kind of an edge over the rest of us. That they’re going to be the best in any case. Given that they might try bully-boy tactics on the quiet. That’d be about it, though.’
‘Unless,’ said Richard thoughtfully - remembering whom they were dealing with in Triad terms. ‘Unless they have some kind of drug they’re trying out. Something that’ll overcome exhaustion, firm up sharpness, let the whole crew stay daisy-fresh for thirty-six hours on the trot. That might make a crucial difference.’
‘What!’ scoffed Joan as she passed up six steaming, fragrant mugs. ‘Something even better than my patented, magical, double-dark extra-black coffee? Be careful how you drink it. It’s been known to break teeth.’
‘Whatever,’ decided Doc. ‘Our best bet is still to keep up with him, watch him like hawks, and then outsail the bastard all the way home. Talking of which, I note the wind is dying down to the calm that Amy predicted. Come on people, coffee-break’s over. Get rigged for light airs.’ Under Start Point they went, therefore, and eased into the gathering sunset as the wind died away to nothing while the tide beneath them slowed and stilled. They used the stillness to grab a quick bite - bacon, eggs and sausages in great thick doorstops of bread with more sweet black coffee. Bananas and chocolate followed. ‘We’ve tried all sorts of rations,’ confided Bob later. ‘Special Forces stuff; custom-prepared - the lot. Dictated by weight and nutritional efficiency. Thank God we’re back to sanity.’
Start Point had become a beacon of sunset brightness on the darkening horizon behind them when the west wind stirred with the returning flood of the tide nearly an hour later. ‘Quick,’ bellowed Doc, hitting the button to spread the outriggers again. ‘Get the Genoa up. I want to go across this as fast as I can. Right, Amy? There’s a tidal gate getting ready to catch a good few off Ushant and I want us well out of it.’
After the relative respite of light-airs sailing - which had actually involved a great deal of tacking and heaving - they were happy enough to break out the big sails again and start to beat across the wind. Amy and Doc remained on close lookout in the gathering darkness. First at the state of sea, then at their instruments and what they revealed when the sea was no longer visible. The tidal gate gathered in the relative narrows between the Brest Peninsula and the Scillies, where all the water flooding into the Channel out of the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic beyond was constricted into a faster-flowing counter-current as the big spring tide began to gather towards the flood. Here the big boats with their deep keels could catch themselves at a serious disadvantage if they sailed too far south.
Doc worked them carefully westwards and only grudgingly southwards therefore, keeping the bulk of the wind, but letting some of it pass them as he hugged the shore well away from the inward flood. But the shore itself forced him further and further south as eight hours ticked away towards nine and the Eddystone Light heaved past to starboard - so close they could almost touch it - then fell far away behind.
They made The Lizard at 10.30 p.m., beginning to drop behind schedule, with Tin Hau well out of sight. But the wind was freshening, they were out of the grip of the tide, and they felt a surge of grim confidence as they came about. By 11, they had the Lizard Light away high on the starboard side, Wolf Rock away on the port, intermittently bobbing up over the horizon and Tater Du on the starboard quarter with Longships behind it a mile or so off Land’s End. And Pendeen on the road in towards St Ives, waiting to strike their eyes in another hour’s time.
The wind was gathering gustily but Katapult was racing handily across it, close-hauled but lively enough. The night had thickened into darkness except for the great Trinity House lights, the occasional gleams from the coast - of lone car or isolated house - and those of other ships to seaward.
Richard, still on deck, and grateful that the blackness had stopped Doc’s fussy search for better airs and slicker water, kept looking away to south-west, his eyes lingering on the spot where the Wolf Rock Light came and went almost mockingly, five or so miles away. That was where he was looking when the first rain spat in out of the wind, different from the spray only in that it was fresh-water, not salt. And that it signalled a change in the weather. ‘OK, ladies and gentlemen,’ shouted Doc as he too felt the sweet water on his lips, ‘let’s get the Genoa down and packed away. My navigator predicts a nasty blow coming. And so do my nose and my water as my Irish ancestors would have it.’
On the port tack, close hauled into the rapidly increasing wind and rain, Katapult chased Tin Hau away from Wolf Rock up into the Celtic Sea. And, with the last gleam of the place which had given him his reason for doing so still glittering in his slitted eyes, Richard chased Charles Lee. They hardly saw the Pendeen Light at midnight when it swung into the starboard quarter aft - like a reflection of Wolf Rock long gone from their port quarter aft. The weather had closed down in the meantime and the rain had become persistent, falling out of lowering clouds. But the wind continued to freshen as it swung round towards South South East. And while Doc held the course steady on 285 degrees according to the binnacle readout from the Fluxgate compass, the wind was coming equally steadily in from between 230 and 245. Their speed picked up to 20 knots and higher according to the complex digital display on the binnacle.
‘Take it in a reef or two, then Richard and Bob go down for a couple of hours,’ bellowed Doc. The watch and sleeping rota was something they had agreed last night - God! Was it only last night? thought Richard - when they had all of them slept aboard. But Doc was wise to remind them. Richard at least was semi-comatose, though alert enough to follow orders. By the time they were close hauled and ready for the long night run at 1.00 a.m., the Cornish coast was long gone behind them and the night was actually getting foul. There was nothing to see ahead or around. As the wind strengthened through the Beaufort scale towards Force 5, the seas were beginning to show white horses in the microseconds that he got to register the paleness before they reared over Katapult’s port outrigger - or the outrigger rode them down. The motion of the multihull was becoming lumpy and bellicose. The waters were beginning to batter her and she was fighting back.
Richard stepped down into the sole of the cockpit and saw at once that he would have to step mightily up over the weatherboard wedged in the door to the cabin below if he was going to get inside while keeping the ocean out. He found a handhold and moved down the stair like the Ancient Mariner. He staggered slightly and looked about, dazzled even by the dimness down here. Amy glanced up from her chart and pointed deliberately in three separate directions, one after the other. ‘Toilet. Sleeping bag. Sleeping quarters,’ she said distinctly, as though to a terminal drunk.
‘I’ll be able to pee if I’m careful. But I’ll never be able to sle
ep,’ said Richard. And, sure enough, his words were as slurred as if he’d just drunk half a bottle of Scotch. Better not get tangled in the anchor chain and pulled overboard like poor old Smithers, he thought as Amy gave a grunt of sceptical laughter and returned to the chart - on to which, Richard noted blearily, her sharp pencil was beginning to predict some really stormy conditions.
‘Richard. RICHARD! RICHARD!’
Richard exploded awake. He sat up, smacked his head hard enough to see stars, looked around, waiting for his eyes and his head to clear. He had no idea where he was or what was happening. Then a torch beam illuminated an egg, bacon and sausage buttie and a steaming mug of magic coffee. ‘You’re on watch in ten,’ said Joan. And, behind her words, a big sea thumped Katapult, making her stagger.
Ten minutes later, with the warm fullness of the meal still spreading from his stomach to the rest of his frame, Richard pulled himself into the cockpit. During the two hours of his sleep the wind had freshened through Force 5 to Force 7, just as Amy’s notes had predicted. Doc had been replaced at the wheel by Ben Caldwell, and Ben looked battered, exhausted.