'Where will you be all this time?' asked Kay in an anguished tone.
'Where the survival suit always hangs — up against Number Two cubicle wall,' I said. 'Arms outstretched, just like a suit on a hanger.'
'The guard will see your face — he must!' protested Kay.
'No. Before you leave you will pull the helmet right down over the visor, which normally leaves only the nose and eyes visible. It will restrict my range of vision, but I can't help that. In addition, I'll hang my head. The rest of the suit is so shapeless that the guard won't suspect that it's occupied.' 'Then?' Tideman demanded.
'I'll want your slide-rule dagger,' I said as matter of factly as a man can when thinking of a sudden knife-thrust to an unsuspecting victim's heart. 'The suit is unwieldy so I'll have only one chance to finish the guard in the cubicle. After that it's up to you to grab his automatic and cope with him further, if necessary.'
'Any chance shots will bring the rest of the gang at the double,' said Tideman. 'Action must be silent at that stage.'
Kay shuddered and glanced involuntarily at the sentry. He was staring the other way, probably yearning for a smoke.
'I won't be able to move fast in the survival suit,' I continued. 'John, you've got to take the bridge guard by surprise. You must keep control while I get up aloft to the top-gallant mast.’
'This is not going to work’ said Kay emphatically. 'You're both assuming that the bridge is the only place which is occupied by the gang. With the reinforcements Grohman brought there are now three Group Condors in the stern keeping watch over the crew. There's another in the engine room. Then there's Grohman himself — where will he be? As soon as shooting starts on the bridge, the gang will converge on it. John against — how many? He won't stand a chance.'
I had earlier realized the discrepancy of forces involved. I had rather pushed the risk to one side when thinking through the logistics and split-second timing of the operation. 'That's part of the risk…' I started, but she stopped me. 'The odds are too long for success.' 'What do you suggest?* I asked. 'I'll give you a more sporting chance.' ‘You, Kay?’ 'I want to rush the bridge with John.' I was about to protest, but Tideman interjected. ‘I agree.'
'While John is… accounting… for the guard, I'll make for the hydraulics control panel…' 'Kay,' I said impatiently, 'the hydraulics can come later.'
Kay's eyes were bright. She went on. 'Let's run over the position of various members of the gang — three in the stern, one in the engine room, another on the bridge, and finally our sick-bay guard. Grohman could be anywhere, but let's assume he will be in your cabin, Peter, when our attack goes in.'
'At the slightest sound of trouble he'll be out like a rocket — plus UZI,' I remarked.
'I intended stopping all of them from getting into orbit, like a rocket or anything else,' she said.
'What's in your mind?' demanded Tideman incredulously.
'Jetwind is practically unsinkable,' she replied. 'She has the most elaborate system of watertight bulkheads in case of damage — bridge, stern, engine room, the accommodation, the hull 'The hull's in no danger!' I exclaimed.
'The captain's and officers' quarters can be isolated in an emergency,' she went on. 'Your soundproof cabin doors double as bulkheads. As you know, all emergency doors are held open magnetically until they are released by a master switch on the bridge. One touch and the whole ship can be sealed off.' She emphasized her words. 'Sealed off. Equally, sealed in. The gang can be effectively sealed in.'
'Good girl!' Tideman exclaimed excitedly. 'Heavens, what a brain-wave!'
'Kay,' I said. 'You're wonderful! You've levelled the odds in our favour! We're going to make this operation work. It will, I hope, catch everyone off-balance. We'll play the detail by ear as we go.'
'So far, so good,' said Tideman. 'Let's assume we're in command of the ship and your part of the plan is working — you've aimed the pinnace loaded with the fused-up charges at the fleet. What next?'
'Your job, John, is to have Jetwind poised to high-tail the moment I get back aboard. Cut the anchor free, if necessary, manoeuvre ready to take off — you'll have the time while I'm making my way back from Trolltunga.'
'A lot depends on how fast the pinnace travels,' said Tideman. 'If our own craft of the same type are any criterion, it will cruise at something like seven or eight knots. Which means in turn it will tkke roughly fifteen minutes to reach the Red ships. Once I start to move Jetwind, the fleet is sure to spot her. We know Grohman has orders not to move. They'll suspect the hijack has misfired. The Reds are trigger-happy. A couple of 76 mm shells from the Sposobny or a missile will put paid to Jetwind.'
'The fleet has castrated itself already,' I answered. 'No ship dare fire. The flash would detonate the fuel in the same way that the pinnace will.'
Tideman riffled the cards in his excitement and repeated my words. 'We're going to make this operation work!'
‘I want Jetwind pointing northeast when I get back aboard from the pinnace,' I went on. 'She's lying roughly facing south now, head to wind.'
'Northeast?' echoed Tideman. 'Past the fleet? What will be happening to it at that stage? It's too risky, Peter. Rather head south, altogether clear of Molot. We don't know the location of Molot's shoals, remember.'
'The stranded icebergs will guide us. They mark the main exit channel to the open sea.' 'But…' objected Tideman.
'It's a waste of time to attempt to beat the wind,' I went on. 'If it holds as it is now, Jetwind will enjoy her best point of sailing the way I aim to go.'
'Why the hurry?' demanded Tideman. 'The fleet won't be able to chase us, if everything goes according to plan.' 'There is need for hurry,' I said. 'What do you mean?' 'Tomorrow Jetwind has an appointment with Seascan!'
'You still intend to keep the rendezvous? I'd overlooked that!' Tideman exclaimed in amazement.
'Of course. Then Jetwind has another appointment at Gough with Thomsen's party of shipping tycoons. With any luck I'll keep both.'
Tideman forgot himself as far as to throw down his cards and stare at me. 'You're a devil for punishment, Peter!' Kay asked quietly, 'When do we start?'
All three of us had now put down our cards. The guard still lolled aimlessly. The UZI, sinister and black, lay on the table only as far as his reach. 'Now,' I replied. 'Give me the dagger, John.'
Chapter 28
I do not clearly remember Tideman palming me the lethal slide-rule from his pocket, or my leaving the sick-bay. The nerve-stretched take-off to the operation produced a kind of amnesic blank in my mind. I surfaced in Kay's cubicle with her lips and her body against mine. She was shaking with emotion like a loose back-stay in a gale.
'Darling, my darling!' she whispered. 'I can't let you, I won't let you! This is plain suicide! You're not even seeing me, you're so preoccupied! I love you, I want you — I'm going to lose you!'
I kissed her, tried to soothe her. 'Even kamikazes have their moment of glory, my darling.'
Her mouth sought mine; it was salty with tears. 'There's no glory in a burst from an automatic,' she sobbed.
'What's the alternative?' I asked. 'Being led like sheep to the slaughter?'
Her head fell on my chest. 'What chance did our love get?' she asked brokenly. 'A week? A fall overboard? Being imprisoned together with this awful shadow hanging over us? And now…'
I kissed her fair hair and combed it back past her ears with my thumbs. 'There was no time, my darling — either then, or now.'
A final convulsive sob shook her body. Then she took control of herself. She eased me away from her. 'Don't kiss me goodbye,' she said, her head turned aside. 'I can't handle it. And it is — goodbye.'
I said nothing. Already part of my mind was focused on the guard.
The survival suit hung like a crucified monster on its hanger. It had big ungainly boots which were integral with the legs. The suit came in one size only and it was made of a substance called foam neoprene, the latest in survival gear. Tideman had told me that
the manufacturer claimed one could get into the suit in half a minute. Key feature of the outfit was a sealing zipper which had been developed for the United States space programme. Silently I handed Kay the dagger, indicating that she should not meddle with the blade release. The suit certainly bore out the maker's claims — with Kay's assistance I was into it in what seemed seconds. Almost immediately the insulation made me sweat; perhaps fear of being surprised by the guard also had something to do with it. The visor and cap came last. By pulling the cap forward and tilting my head, my face was hidden. In that position, however, I could see nothing of anyone above waist-level.
Finally, Kay clasped my fingers round the dagger. They were as ungainly as bandaged bananas. I wondered whether I would ever be able to trigger the blade release. My success depended on one lightning-quick stroke before the guard suspected the suit had an occupant. If I fumbled even for a second, I was done. Then Kay was gone. I maintained the hanger pose — slumped, head down, arms out. Time ceased to pass.
My sole clock to mark the passage of the minutes — or was it hours? — was the drip of my sweat. The suit became a sauna.
I could not hear because of the waterproof cap; I dared not raise my head in case the next moment found the guard there. The next moment he was.
My sight of him was like a cut-off television camera shot — a trigger hand, a finned barrel, a pair of legs, a firing crouch. The muzzle held steadied on the suit. On me.
I waited for the shot. A blob of sweat chased itself inside my neck, down my chest, past my stomach. I felt every millimetre of its progress. No shot.
The guard's torso swung away. Feet followed. His boots were a boxer's ankle-hugging type. Now!
My fingers inside the glove were slippery with sweat. I flexed them for the stroke.
The guard's toes swivelled. A boxer dodging a knockdown punch couldn't have matched their speed. They pointed straight at me. Had the gunman heard? Had he seen? I froze — if that was the word in a bath of sweat.
Maybe he had caught, animal-like, some vibration of my rolling tension. Perhaps he even smelt my fear. I kept my head low, my eyes unsighted. Slowly, slowly, I watched his knees ease their tension. Slowly, slowly, that on-target barrel shifted away from my guts.
I did not know how long I could keep every muscle tight as a fence-wire without one making an involuntary giveaway ripple. Sweat cascaded down my knife-fingers.
The guard's toes pivoted ninety degrees. His back was towards me. Now!
Perhaps the switch-blade gave a click on release. Perhaps my body movements beat it by a milli-second. Or perhaps he only sensed rather than heard anything. Whatever it was, he was already turning, left shoulder following the UZI round, when I lurched at him.
There wasn't time for the orthodox overhand dagger thrust. The clumsy suit would not have allowed it. It was a low, savage up-and-under to the heart.
The jar up my arm could have been a glance off the UZI's breech, or the bone armour of his rib-cage.
I fell on him, enveloped him — a crude parody of a rugby smother-tackle. My knife hand skewered him. If he screamed or uttered any sound, I did not hear it. We cannoned off a partition wall, pitched into the main sickbay, carrying the curtain with us.
I had a momentary sight of the UZI being snatched up by another hand — Tideman's. The guard and I lay face-to-face, I on top. I was grateful for my visor. The man's mouth was contorted. Tell-tale pink sprayed from it. blurring the Perspex. He gave a final convulsion and was still.
It was Kay with shaking hands who freed my cap. Tideman knelt a pace away with the automatic's barrel trained on the guard's head. There was no need. He was dead. 'Quick!' I rapped out. 'The bridge — both of you!'
There was no direct access to the bridge from the sickbay. The wheel-house, radio office, chartroom and pilot office were all situated on the floor above us. The route from sick-bay to bridge was along a corridor running athwartships, flanked by officers' cabins. At the far end was the captain's suite. There were twin upward companion-ways, one to port, the other to starboard. These ladders debouched from our level into a central well immediately abaft the wheel-house itself. This well was bisected by № 2 mast, which I now intended to climb via the servicing door which Kay and I had used during our first ascent. The whole of this well area could be isolated in an emergency by means of watertight bulkheads. In short, the central well was the junction of all routes to the bridge. Tideman and Kay started to the sick-bay door.
'John!' I said. 'In ten minutes — no sooner, no later — you will blow the mast charges. Is that understood?' 'Aye,' replied Tideman. 'Whatever.' 'Good luck!' The two sprinted off.
I ballooned along the corridor in their wake. I felt like a grotesque carnival figure. That is where the resemblance to fun ended. The knife was bloodied to the hilt.
I lost Tideman and Kay at the first ladder to the mastwell. I negotiated it with the nimbleness of a baby elephant.
I found myself in the well itself. The mast towered in front of me like a burnished lift-shaft. The access door was shut. It had a type of fancy quick-release press-catch. My banana fingers fluffed it. I shifted hands with the dagger, tried again. I felt it yield, open. Sound poured down from the floor above — a burst of automatic fire. Then — shorter, staccato. The mast was relaying the sound of the bridge action. One — two — single shots.
The UZI seemed to appear from the direction of the captain's suite before the man. A seeking black muzzle, the unmistakable heavy finning, a hand on the trigger, Grohman!
Why didn't he blast me? I shall never know. He could not have missed, at less than four metres. I think it must have been the sight of the ludicrous apparition which froze his finger. Or perhaps it was the sight of that bloody dagger,
In that moment of arrested time I realized that Kay had failed in her part. She had not reached the hydraulics console in time to throw the vital bulkheads switch which would have caged Grohman and the other Group Condors. Those last isolated rat-tat-tats from above could have been her epitaph.
My savage despair at the attack's misfire gave me the courage to stand there facing my killer for a split-second long enough to ensure that he would come up the mast after me.
I slammed the door shut. A siren-like whoop reverberated everywhere. Emergency alarm! Kay had managed the bulkhead switch! But it was too late. Grohman had escaped the trap.
I fumbled with the lock of the mast door. Against it from outside came a savage battering. It wasn't done by hand. It was a magazine full of 9 mm shells.
The emergency siren told me that my part of the plan was still on. I had to get aloft — climb with feet like snow-shoes, a suit the size of a hangover, and mittened hands 1 could scarcely feel through! The visor and cap I left loose against the nape of my neck. It would only take a second to zip them into place when the mast blasted off.
I couldn't climb with my weapon hand encumbered. So I put the dagger between my teeth and hefted my leg on to the first rung.
The confined space rang with two or three concussions. Grohman was trying to shoot open the lock, carefully aiming individual shots.
I levered myself up the ladder. The going was tougher than I had expected. Until I managed the rhythm of lifting the feet and understanding their non-feel against the rungs, I was certain Grohman would pick me off before I reached the level of the lower mainyard. All he would have to do, once he had blasted open the door, was to fire straight upwards. I presented the perfect target against groups of lights fitted for servicing purposes at the juncture of each yard with the mast. The first group was at the lower mainyard. I had to reach them before Grohman broke in the door. I fought my way up. "There was another rattle of shots from below. Heavy slugs began to tear through the door and were banging about at the foot of the ladder. Grohman wasn't inside yet.
The group of four naked electric bulbs was close. I threw myself up at them. One foot slipped, and I hung on by my right hand.
The mast door crashed open. I glanced down. G
rohman brought the UZI to his shoulder. I was clambering directly above him, like a bird waiting to be picked off a branch.
It is difficult to fire straight overhead. My position allowed him no angle, however slight. He would either have to lean completely backwards or lie on his back to aim.
In that brief interval while he gathered his aim, I made the remaining rungs to the lights.
I swiped madly with my heavy paw. There was a crash of breaking glass, a blinding flash of short-circuiting electrics. Then everything went dark. A general fail-safe switch tripped out the rest of the overhead lights inside the mast. I hurled myself up — fumbling, slipping, panting.
There was an ear-ripping jangle of sound. The blackness below was polka-dotted with red malice. The interior of the mast seemed full of ricocheting bullets.
Grohman was firing wild. He was hoping that the lethal spray would somehow find its target but the shots were all landing below me. He wasn't getting his angle of fire. The shattering sound cut off. I guessed the magazine was empty after that prolonged burst. To change it would give me a few precious moments. Up! Up!
Jetwind's yards were spaced at five equal intervals of ten and a half metres up the mast. The mast itself towered fifty-three metres above the deck. I had now covered the first ten and a half metres. The mast was divided into three sections; the lower mast, the top-mast, and the top-gallant. It was this latter which contained the ring charges at its juncture with the topmast thirty-four and a half metres above deck. The interior profile of the mast was elliptical and diminished progressively the higher one went.
A Ravel of Waters Page 21