A Ravel of Waters

by Geoffrey Jenkins

  Arno's last agonized cry now came back to me. 'You killed Amo,' I said. 'That makes two murders.'

  'Arno could have lived, but he wouldn't cooperate. He was a key man. In his position he could have endangered Group Condor.'

  'Is that what you call your group of murdering hijackers?' I retorted.

  He flushed. ‘Puerio, sooner or later you will understand. Group Condor…'

  Then, thinking perhaps that by arguing I was playing for time, he ordered bluntly, 'Take that old goat away! Lock up the girl, too, for the moment. She's worth more to us than he is.' 'She's only the sail-maker!' I expostulated. 'Ah!' he echoed. 'Only the sail-maker! For what sails!'

  His jeer reduced me to silence. What other game might Kay also be playing? I simply could not believe it.

  'Clear the passageway,' Grohman ordered as the thug marched Sir James out in front of him. 'No one is to leave their quarters from now on — understood?'

  Jim Yell, I thought, wasn't the sort of man who would take kindly to being pushed around. Nor any others of the crew. They were paratroopers, trained to kill.

  'The rescue crew must be cared for,' I intervened. 'They've taken a beating.'

  'We'll see that they don't come to any harm,' said Grohman maliciously. 'Now — get on the phone. Check with Tideman on the bridge. And no tricks!' He gestured at the UZI.

  I stepped past Brockton's body. I noted in the cipher terminal case that there was a plug connection to link with the telephone. It certainly was sophisticated equipment. 'John?' I said when I had dialled the bridge.

  Tideman's voice was full of suppressed tension. He said, obviously marking time, 'You got Kay all right?'

  'She's going to be fine, I think. I'm in Paul's cabin in the stern.' 'Yes?' I could imagine that neutral reply being forced out of him with a gun at his back. Taul is dead.'

  Grohman made a silencing gesture. 'I am on my way to the bridge. With Grohman.'

  Tideman's voice was without inflexion. 'I've got problems here.' In other words, the take-over was complete. 'Everything functioning — shipwise, I mean?' 'Aye.' 'Keep her like that until I come.' 'I'll do that.'

  'Discretion is the better part of valour,' Grohman sneered further. 'First, the bridge. Then you'll enjoy my own recent experience of being confined to quarters. I am going to lock you up in the sick-bay — you'll be safer there. I want your cabin. Come!'

  Jetwind was running like a greyhound newly back in its stride. Tideman was carrying a press of sail. What puzzled me was that Grohman made no move to interfere. Maybe that was why Tideman had been left alive, to handle the ship.

  We made our way along the life-lines to the bridge via the radio office, Grohman behind me, UZI at the ready. Arno's chair was now occupied by one of Grohman's gang. Several alarms were buzzing away unanswered. 'Landajo! Who the devil wants us?'

  'One of them is the radio-telephone, the other is Weather Routing's call-sign,' answered the operator. 'You expecting a call?' Grohman asked of me.

  'Possibly Thomsen from Cape Town,' I replied. 'You can explain this situation, Grohman.'

  'Let them buzz,' he told Landajo. 'You are not to reply to anyone — total radio silence.' 'Very good, comrade.'

  Comrade! Brockton's warning about the Red threat in the Southern Ocean had become very real. Real enough for him to have paid with his life. 'This is to be the only signal — send this in our code. Landajo…' Grohman switched into Spanish. The message was brief, but I recognized the phrase, 'Las Malvinas son nuestras.'

  'You won't get away with this,' I told Grohman. 'International terrorism doesn't pay.'

  I did not appreciate how near the limit he was. He struck at me with his open hand, but I ducked. Before I could counter-punch, he had stuck the automatic in my stomach.

  'Don't try that again, you bastard!' he rapped out. 'When that signal is received a new era will begin! The Falklands will be ours again, after a century and a half of British oppression!'

  I kept a contemptuous silence. Then he snapped, 'We've wasted enough time!' Tideman and the helmsman were on watch. A trigger-happy hijacker stood guard at the rear of the bridge brandishing an automatic like Grohman's. He started nervously when we entered.

  'Las Malvinas son nuestras!' Grohman's catch-phrase relaxed the man immediately. It must have been the gang's password for the hijacking.

  'Tideman!' said Grohman. 'Put the ship on automatic! Face this way. You are at the wheel, keep your eyes ahead! If you turn, you die!'

  Tideman manipulated the controls, then turned and came to us. For all he knew, he was about to be blasted into eternity. 'What is all this about?' he asked coolly. Grohman indicated the UZI. 'It is all about this.' 'Do as he says, John,' I warned. Tideman gave me a quick glance. I could see the meaning behind it — did Grohman know his background? 'Stop!'

  The other gangman moved so that both he and Grohman had clear fields of fire.

  The slightly hysterical note returned to Grohman's voice. 'This ship is now under my command. You and Rainier will be locked up. Any attempt to escape and you will be shot.'

  I could see Tideman's tension ease. Grofiman wasn't wise to him! 'Yes.' Tideman's tone was completely neutral.

  Grohman ordered the guard. 'Search him! I'll hold your gun while you do it!'

  The two of them were as wary as if hunting leopards. The passing of weapons between them was so quick it was almost sleight-of-hand. There wasn't a chance of jumping either of them.

  The man frisked Tideman; from a pocket he pulled out the slide-rule which concealed the lethal blade. He raised it inquiringly to Grohman.

  Grohman said, 'It's for navigation. Put it back. It can't. hurt anyone.'

  When the search was over, Grohman returned the gunman's automatic. Then he backed to the ship's intercom, keeping his own weapon levelled on us. Bitch-box, Brockton had called it. The recollection was like a stab to the heart.

  'Grohman speaking,' he said. 'I have taken over command of Jetwind. I am now the captain. The ship is in the hands of Group Condor.' His voice rose. 'We are liberation fighters. The Falkland Islands — the Malvinas — have groaned under the British yoke for a hundred and fifty years. We, Group Condor, have come to liberate the oppressed populace. This is a great hour for my country. The capitalist-colonialist regime is about to end. The islands will be returned to my people. An Argentinian regime based on equality for all will be installed under my leadership. Argentinian justice will replace the colonial tyranny which has suppressed the people for so long. Las Malvinas son nuestras!'

  'Is that why you shot a harmless American reporter?' I said derisively when he had finished at the instrument,

  'Brockton was a spy!' he shouted. 'We caught him sending off a signal which would have wrecked our enterprise. That was his death warrant. He had to die!'

  'Enterprise? That's a goddam funny word for murder and piracy’,

  Grohman shrugged and went on in his hectoring tone. 'When Argentina freed itself from the colonial rule of Spain, the thieving British saw their opportunity in the upheaval which followed and stole the Malvinas from us. One American life is nothing beside that.'

  'How can you and four gunmen hope to seize such a spread-out group of islands?' I asked. 'You might perhaps get away with it for a while in a little place like Port Stanley. Also, think of the international stink you'll create…'

  Grohman seemed amused. 'You'll see, in a few days' time.'

  'It will take more than a few days for Jetwind to beat back to the Falklands into this gale,' I replied. 'A few weeks, more likely.'

  Perhaps Tideman felt that his continued silence was playing the situation a little too dumb.

  He said, 'I'll back that up, as a sailor.' The emphasis was on sailor.

  'Shut up, both of you!' retorted Grohman. 'Don't argue with me. I'm in command, and what I say goes. You are the enemies of Las Malvinas. Consider yourselves lucky that I do not shoot you out of hand. But I will let you live — provided you behave — for a few days. 'Until we reach Molo
t.'

  Chapter 23

  Molot was the riddle which bugged our long day in captivity in the ship's sick-bay. The ‘hospital' was situated underneath the port wing of the bridge — in exactly the same position but on the opposite side of my captain's suite. It had two curtained-off cubicles and a minute double 'ward' containing two surgical beds. A glass partition separated the sick-bay itself from an outer reception office, designed for a medical orderly. The sickbay did not seem to have had much use except as a junk room for ship's odds and ends. One of these was a survival suit stored on a hanger which, Tideman explained, was used in icy seas for inspection of Jetwind3 s drop keels.

  'Molot?' I asked Tideman for the hundredth time. 'Where the hell is Molot?'

  'It must be the base from which the attack on the Falklands will be launched,' he replied. 'That's about all I can guess.'

  'But Grohman is heading away from the Falklands,' I pointed out. 'He's kept Jetwind going like a bomb all day. Away from his objective. There is no land — whatsoever — between the Falklands and Gough Island.'

  'Perhaps Molot is a place we know by a different name — like Malvinas,' suggested Tideman. 'Even then, I don't get it. Grohman is holding Jetwind on the course you selected for Gough.' 'He's not doing it too badly either.'

  'There's nothing wrong with his sailoring,' replied Tideman. 'He's sailing by computer. Maybe we could get an extra knot or two out of her manually.'

  'The only possibility of land is the South Sandwich group,' I went on. 'But they're far to the south of our present course.'

  'South Sandwich it might be,' said Tideman. 'But that doesn't mean much. Most of the islands are volcanic. They're all coated with ice being so near Antarctica. I've heard that the only way to land is by helicopter. They would be totally unsuitable as a base. What if Molot is another name for Gough?'

  'No, John. Gough is a South African weather station. It's important — it's the only weather station in the central part of the Southern Ocean. Group Condor couldn't take it over without provoking a massive retaliation.'

  'The same objection applies to Tristan da Cunha which is only a couple of hundred miles northwest of Gough,' he answered. 'If Group Condor occupied either of them, it would prejudice the Falklands attack in advance because the secret would be out. Also, any assault force would then have to cross twenty-one hundred miles of ocean in order to reach the Falklands.'

  'Poor Paul!' I said. ‘I wonder if he got wind of Grohman's plans?' 'I'm in the same boat as Paul,' Tideman replied quietly.

  'Grohman doesn't suspect a thing,' I reassured him. 'If he had, you wouldn't be here, John.'

  'You're also living on borrowed time, Peter. Until Molot, Grohman said.'

  It all came back to Molot. When night came, we were no nearer an answer. Suddenly the outer sick-bay door opened. 'Kay!' I jumped up to go to her.

  'Keep back!' Grohman appeared behind her threatening with the UZI.

  Kay and I looked at one another for a long moment. Her eyes told me everything. She was still pale but smiling. The guard warily pitched her suit-case inside.

  Grohman looked strained. Holding down a crew of twenty-eight could not have been easy.

  'She's to stay here,' he said briefly. 'It's not for the pleasure of your company, let me assure you. It's because I can't spare one man solely to guard her.' 'What do you expect me to say to that?' I asked.

  'Listen, Rainier,' he said angrily. 'You and Tideman are expendable, understand? The final decision does not rest with me or else you'd have been overside already. This woman is not in the same category. She is valuable to us. Just as in another way Sir James Hathaway is valuable to us. A million dollars will help finance Group Condor's operations.'

  I deliberately tried to rattle him. I would have been prepared to risk the second gun if I could have grabbed his automatic. Tideman, I knew, would back me to the hilt — the hilt of that wicked dagger, which he had managed to keep.

  'You're going back to the Malvinas, you say — but you're heading in the opposite direction!'

  Kay broke in. 'What possible use can I be to Group Condor! Who'll pay a million dollars for me?'

  'You are an expert in sail aerodynamics — that is why you are valuable’ replied Grohman.

  'Sail aerodynamics!' she exclaimed. 'What has that to do with killing and murder and unsuspecting attacks?'

  'You play the innocent well,' said Grohman. 'But it doesn't wash. At Molot you will be transferred to Soviet protection. I have been notified that afterwards you will be transferred to Kyyiv in Russia itself where secret experiments are being conducted into sail aerodynamics.'

  I was stunned; Kay was speechless. If Grohman got wind of Tideman's connection with the Schiffbau Institut's tests, he was a dead man.

  Grohman looked triumphant. Perhaps it was his paranoid temperament which compelled him to boast of his superiority — in the face of murder.

  'I have been to Kyyiv,' he said. 'We admit that the Schiffbau's experiments are ahead of ours. This ship proves it. You will be a valuable asset to our research team.' 'Kyyiv! Me! I won't go!'

  Grohman stroked the finning along the UZI's barrel. It was a cat-like, sinister gesture.

  'The decision is not mine whether to force you or not,' he said. 'That rests with Command at Molot. But I advise you not to push your luck too far.' 'Soviet Command, you mean?' I asked. He looked surprised. 'Who else?'

  'Nothing will make me go to some secret test ground in Russia under threat!' Kay burst out.

  'You have about three days to think it over before we reach "Moiot,' replied Grohman. 'Think about it well, Senorita Fenton. You will be treated well if you cooperate. Otherwise…' He shrugged. 'You bastard!' I said. 'You crazy bastard!' He swung the automatic on me. For a moment his eyes went kill-blank. Then he relaxed. 'Three days — that is all you have, Rainier!'

  He backed out of the sick-bay; the guard took up his previous position behind the glass partition.

  I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. For fully a couple of minutes we all stood rooted. Finally, I broke the silence.

  'I'll put your case in a cubicle, Kay — any particular choice?' 'The closer to you both, the better.'

  I started to pick up the case and she said, 'They let me bring my transistor radio. It might help pass the time — until Molot.' She was close to tears. 'What is Molot? Peter? John?'

  'I wish we knew,' replied Tideman. 'We've been racking our brains all day.'

  She went into her cubicle. I followed. Inside, there was no need to say anything. She came into my arms. I could feel the dry sobs from her throat through her breasts against me. Her lips were a warm pulse of agony and denied ecstasy, wet with tears.

  'Just when I've found the man I want, I'm to lose him!' she whispered brokenly. 'Why didn't you just let me go this morning? It would have been better all round. Oh, my love, my darling!'

  I held her close and said those things which can only be said in the presence of new love. Finally her sobs quietened.

  I said, more to comfort her than with any plan in mind, 'Three days is a long time, Kay. Anything could happen before we reach Molot.'

  'Molot!' she echoed. 'How I hate that name already! What is it? What does it mean? It has an evil ring, like Trolltunga.'

  'It's Russian, that's for sure. What it means is as much a mystery as where it is.' -

  Then we joined Tideman in the main 'ward'. He was listening to Kay's radio, turning it every way to try and improve reception.

  'I had the Cape Town news’ he said. 'It reported concern because no signals had been received from Jetwind for a day. There was an interview with Thomsen. I couldn't hear clearly — something about no contact with the ship.'

  Kay voiced the concern uppermost in all our minds. 'John — Peter — why should the Russians be interested in me? I haven't any secrets!'

  Tideman switched.off the radio with a significant gesture. He said gravely, 'You have, Kay.' 'I? Secrets?'

  He waved us into a couple of
hard chairs round a low table. He opened a drawer by his bed and produced a pack of cards, obviously provided for patients. He nodded towards the watching sentry.

  'If we hold a discussion in the ordinary way I'm sure we'll rouse his suspicions,' he said quietly. 'We'll pretend we're playing cards. I'll explain.'

  Kay's hand was shaking when Tideman dealt the first round. 'Secrets?' she repeated incredulously.

  'Aye, secrets, Kay. Remember when the Schiffbau Institut was making the final wind-tunnel tests of Jetwind's sails and masts?'

  'Sure — I was there!' she exclaimed. 'You were there, too. That's where we met.'

  'I was — at the invitation of Axel Thomsen himself. He'd heard of my runs round the Horn as a member of the British Services Adventure Scheme and thought I might be able to contribute something practical to the theoretical tests.' 'I stressed the same thing to Thomsen,' I interjected.

  'That's what probably made him interested in you as a skipper — your practical experience in Albatros.' He looked anxiously round the sick-bay. 'I take it this place isn't bugged, is it? If so, we might as well say goodbye in the light of what I'm going to say now.' 'Grohman hasn't had any opportunity,' I replied.

  'Here goes, then. Both of you know, of course, that Jetwind's sails are made of dacron, not canvas.'

  He stressed his statement so carefully that Kay said, 'Of course, John — but that's no secret.'

  'Bacron is tougher and smoother and therefore more aerodynamically efficient than canvas.'

  Kay was staring at him, and he warned, 'Try and keep your eyes on your cards, Kay.'

  She gave a little shake of her head, half reproach, half incredulity.

  'Dacron is also far more expensive than canvas,5 Tideman went on. 'Therefore it is worth protecting in a way canvas need not be. Jetwind’s sails alone cost a fortune.'

  ' Albatros’s dacron sails at the end of my run were as thin from sun damage as the Ancient Mariner's ghost ships,' I said.