by Peter Watson
He thought quickly. One option was to radio the Admiralty for advice. He dismissed that. He was a captain and expected to use his initiative. If he slowed, or stopped, the image of five small boats holding up the might of the Royal Navy would flash around the world as surely as that picture of the individual Chinese who had stopped the tanks in Tianenmen Square. Lynn turned to the bosun. ‘Get out the launch.’ Then he called down to the engine room. ‘Randall! Stand by with the S3 canisters.’
There was a pause. Then: ‘Aye-aye, sir.’
While the launch was being made ready, Lynn gave the bosun his instructions.
Two hundred yards short of the line of boats, he throttled back to ‘Slow ahead’. He raised his binoculars again. The launch, with seven men aboard, shot forwards. At its prow was the bosun and his mate. The launch approached the boats between the ‘L’ and the ‘G’. As the launch closed with the line of other boats, the bosun extended his boathook and lifted the rope from the water. He brought a length of it aboard. His mate had an axe which he now brought into view. He lifted it – and slammed it down on the rope, snapping it at once. The ‘L’ and the ‘G’ boats jerked apart. Through his binoculars on the bridge of the Anglesey, Lynn observed all this. ‘Half ahead,’ he ordered quickly.
The Anglesey picked up speed. It was a hundred yards from the line of boats. The tide was taking the ‘E’ and ‘L’ boats to the left, to the port bank, whereas the ‘G’, ‘I’ and ‘N’ boats were still more or less where they had been. The launch kept its position between the two.
The Anglesey closed … fifty yards, twenty, ten. At that point, Lynn stepped out from the bridge and raised his arm. The bosun threw the throttle on the launch, its bow rose in the water, and it screamed downstream. At the same moment, Lynn shouted into his intercom: ‘Full ahead! Set S3 … fire!’
The frigate rumbled forward, into the gap between the small boats. At the same time, smoke began to pour from the rear of the Anglesey. In a matter of seconds, the line of boats, the entire river – including its banks where the television crews were located – was choked with dense, grey-black cloud.
Ahead of the line of smoke, completely obscured and thus unobserved by the TV cameras, the Anglesey made her escape.
Riley poured some soup into the mug. He passed it to O’Day. ‘There’s this place in Vienna, the Winkler … does a soup made from beer and –’
‘Shut up. I’ve had enough soup to last me a lifetime. And enough “compact” cars.’ Tonight’s was a green Taunus. It was ten to ten and they knew from experience that the phone would ring exactly on time. They sat in silence as Riley sipped his soup, watching Zakros, who had already arrived and had seated himself on a bench near the phone. By now they were in the suburbs of Basle but still near the same tram route.
Five to ten. Zakros stood up, took something from his pocket and began to fiddle with it. He put something into his mouth. ‘Chocolate,’ breathed Riley between sips. ‘There’s a place in Montreux, does Italian icecream with home-made orange-flavoured chocolate.’ The Greek walked forward a few paces and threw something, probably paper, into a waste bin. Then he returned to the bench and sat down again. At two minutes to ten he went to the booth and closed the door behind him. With the light on him, O’Day and Riley watched as he read the various posters inside the booth.
The phone rang. They watched as the Greek picked up the receiver. ‘Yes?’
‘Nicos –’
‘Shut up!’
‘Nicos!’
‘Remember that Frenchman Stamatis had to … get rid of? And the disappearance of Andover?’
‘Ye-es.’
‘I … I think I may have been burgled.’
‘What? Why do you say that?’
‘Well, this will sound odd – but there’s dust all over the hall. I don’t know what kind of dust it is, and I don’t know how it got there. But it’s there all right and it isn’t normally. It’s as if it was blown there, when a door opened maybe.’
‘Is anything missing?’
‘No … I don’t think so.’
‘Well, then –’
‘Nancy, they could be bugging us, following …’
‘Did you find a bug in the house?’
‘No.’
‘All our calls are to public booths. How could they bug you there? It’s a different one every day. We’ve been through this.’ She paused. ‘On the other hand … I wonder … Let me think … Look, go to the next phone. I’ll talk to Dimi and come back to you. Don’t panic – but hang up now – and watch, to see if you are followed.’
‘Ssshhit!’ hissed Riley. ‘There’s no time to tap the next phone, and we daren’t follow.’ He looked at O’Day. ‘I don’t like this one bit.’
Lockwood stared at the television screen. It was hardly ever switched on in the Number Ten flat but tonight was different. All of them – the Prime Minister, Hatfield, Slocombe, Midwinter and Leith – were staring at it grimly and in silence, listening to the presenter.
‘… The two ships which collided in the Thames today, blinded by the smoke released from HMS Anglesey, were the Venezuelan refrigerator ship, La Gran Sabana, and the Greek oil tanker, the Astakidhon. The Astakidhon, as these pictures show, was holed amidships, and three crew members were injured, including the captain, Samos Elasson. The tangled ships blocked the Thames for nearly three hours before they were both towed clear, to safety. We understand from the London Hospital that the condition of two of the crew is satisfactory but that Captain Elasson is in intensive care, having suffered a fractured spine. A spokesman for the Greek Embassy in London said …’
‘Enough!’ growled Lockwood, ‘Turn it off.’ He gulped some whisky as Midwinter pressed the remote-control button.
‘Damn!’ the Prime Minister breathed. ‘You take one pace forward, you’re shoved a giant leap back. Whatever possessed that frigate captain?’
‘Might’ve seemed like a good idea at the time, Bill.’ Slocombe was less fazed by this latest catastrophe than was anyone else.
Lockwood shook his head. ‘We’ve had enough bad luck. You’d think something good would come our way soon. The news isn’t any better from Basle. If Riley and O’Day can’t tap the phones, we lose contact with the way the other side is thinking.’
‘On the other hand, Bill,’ said Slocombe slowly, ‘Zakros does have to return to the bank at some stage, if their side is ever to deliver its threat.’
‘That’s all very well, Eric, but how are we going to force him to go to the bank? We never did decide that.’ Lockwood looked at Leith. ‘I understand that, if Lynn doesn’t mess things up again, the Anglesey will be off Kithira some time on Sunday?’
‘Yes,’ replied the inspector. ‘The captain has told us he intends to send one of the ship’s launches on ahead, to the western side of the island where it can’t be seen by the Strabo. They will take off Tatton and Andover some time during the hours of darkness.’
‘How on earth will they find them?’
‘Apparently the runway of the local airport juts out into the sea. Tatton and Andover will be waiting there. It’s hard to miss it, I’m told. They should be on board the Anglesey by dawn on Sunday. The frigate will then sail quite close to the east side of Kithira so there’s no chance of the Strabo missing her. We’d rather know where they are. Once she sets off in pursuit she will probably zigzag about, so that the crew of the Anglesey don’t notice she is following.’
‘That’s convenient in one way,’ said Lockwood. ‘It means we have four of this Brigade all together on the one boat. That means we have to take care of just the three others, separately.’ He looked at Slocombe. ‘I can see that the Shelby woman will be quite easy. And Tucker. But what about the Greek in Basle?’
‘Easy enough to pick him up, Bill, but the problem is still the stuff in the blasted bank. You know what the Swiss are like. If we just lift him, there’s no telling if they will play ball and let us get into the account. In an ideal world we would trap him into taking every
thing out and then, the minute he steps on to the Gerbergasse, bingo! We land the lot, him and everything else.’
‘Any ideas?’
Hatfield started to shake his head but Slocombe said, ‘Hold on a mo’. How about this … If the Strabo does follow the Anglesey, then, knowing what we know, all you have to do, Bill, is to order the frigate to change course away from Piraeus. Better still, she could change course and bear down on the Strabo. They would realize, at the last, that we had got on to them, they would also realize pretty quickly that we had been stringing them along, that we have been biding our time – and with luck they will panic and instruct Zakros to go public as they have threatened all along.’
‘But will they?’ Hatfield leaned forward in his seat. ‘Won’t they realize that, if we are on to them, we are on to the man in Basle as well? If they do, they’ll realize the best thing he can do is to go to ground. We might not catch him then but, even if we did, we wouldn’t get the paintings or documents.’
‘Aren’t we making too much of all that artwork?’ said Midwinter. ‘Why wouldn’t the Swiss government play ball, once they knew what was in that bank in Gerbergasse?’
‘Then you don’t know Swiss banks, Bernard.’ Lockwood smiled grimly. ‘Ask the Chancellor what he thinks.’ He looked at Slocombe. ‘We need a better plan.’
Everyone lapsed into silence.
‘What about this?’ Leith shifted on the sofa. ‘Why not have Ogilvy, at the British Museum, call in Eugenie Shelby and tell her that the Anglesey is not going to deliver the Marbles after all, that it is just a fake run, that the government never had any intention of handing over the Marbles but that it was just playing for time. He says the government is involved in some murky political game with the Greeks that he has no knowledge of but that it is all coming to a head and they are to prepare for the return of the Marbles. Her job as a conservator, a sculpture conservator, will be to check their condition after the voyage. I would imagine that the first thing Eugenie Shelby will do is alert Tucker, who would in turn alert the Strabo. They won’t know what to think but, the minute the Anglesey changes course they will believe that what she tells them is true. Then they will alert their man in Basle and he will hot-foot it to the bank.’ He drained his glass. ‘Then comes the tricky bit: to have it all working smoothly, we need to arrest Zakros at the same time as the Anglesey turns on the Strabo. At the same time, of course, we pick up Eugenie Shelby.’
There was another silence in the room, broken only by the Prime Minister walking across to Leith and refilling his glass. He turned back and faced Slocombe. ‘Seems good to me, Eric. Can you see anything wrong with it?’
‘Just this: they are already suspicious, because of the dust from Riley’s blow-machine. So … will they fall for this new thing?’
Leith shrugged. ‘Maybe that’s the luck the Prime Minister is looking for. Riley and O’Day aren’t following the Greek at the moment. It’s now Wednesday, four days to Sunday. Enough time, maybe, for them to lose whatever suspicions they have. And think how excited they will be, the closer the Anglesey gets to Greek waters.’
Lockwood nodded. ‘It’s worth a try, I think. What should be our timing on all this? When will the Strabo sight the Anglesey?’
Leith sipped his whisky. ‘According to the Admiralty, who are keeping in touch with the ship on our behalf, if she maintains her present speed, she should be abreast of Potamos around six to six-thirty their time, on Sunday morning. A bit early, I would have thought. Easy enough to slow her down, of course. No one will notice, especially under cover of night.’
‘Let’s work backwards,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Kithira is about a hundred and forty miles from Piraeus, am I right?’
Leith nodded. ‘Give or take. At twelve to fifteen knots, that’s around ten hours’ steaming.’
‘Ssso … if she keeps up her present pace, she’ll be in Piraeus by … half past three on Monday afternoon, Greek time.’
‘Correct,’ said Leith. ‘Half past one in London.’
‘Now let’s switch back to Eugenie Shelby. For it to look natural, we must have Ogilvy call her not too urgently. After all, the Marbles will take several days to return to Britain. Say he contacts her later in the week, or over the weekend even, and suggests a meeting on Sunday. If that meeting were to take place after lunch, here in London, it would be four or five o’clock in Greece. It would take her an hour to get through to the Strabo’s phone.’ Lockwood smiled at Leith. ‘The more I think about your idea, Bob, the better I like it. But here’s another gloss … The Anglesey must change course while the banks are open in Basle and with enough time for Kolettis and Kofas and Nancy Tucker to alert their man in Basle and give him time to get to the Gerbergasse.’ He helped himself to more whisky. ‘That means … that the Anglesey mustn’t change course until the next day, Monday morning –’
‘In which case, Prime Minister,’ said Hatfield, ‘may I suggest this: let’s assume the Anglesey picks up the Strabo some time on Sunday morning – when it follows her at a distance. The Anglesey could steam north for five hours at, say, ten knots, a respectable speed, and then hove to. That would make sense because, were she to carry on, she would arrive in Piraeus at around midnight, hardly a good time to berth, given her mission. The captain could let some men relax – water-skiing, swimming, exercises on deck, for instance – while others dressed the ship for arrival: flags, lights, that sort of thing. I was in the navy – years ago – and they do dress ships for arrival in foreign ports. That would all be happening around the time the people on the Strabo were getting their message from Eugenie Shelby –’
‘Excellent, Joss,’ said Lockwood, taking up the story. ‘For a while they would be getting conflicting signals. Either they would tell Zakros in Basle to act first thing the next morning, and remove the pictures and documents from the bank as soon as it opened –’
‘Or,’ said Slocombe, ‘they would wait all night, to see if the story from Mrs Shelby was really true. After all, with the crew relaxing, and with the ship being dressed, it would seem as if the ship was still preparing to enter Piraeus.’
‘Exactly. Only at dawn the following day will the Shelby story be confirmed, when they see the frigate turn for home. Then they will contact Basle, Zakros will have all day to visit the bank and, as he sets foot on the Gerbergasse with the pictures, the Marbles and the Queen, not to mention the government, are safe.’ Lockwood looked from one face to another. ‘Can anyone see any problems? Let’s have them now, while there’s still time to think them through …’
But no one could add to what Hatfield, Leith and the Prime Minister himself had conceived. On the contrary, an air of subdued excitement had entered the room. At last it looked as though events were coming their way after days, weeks, of seeing them beyond control.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ said Lockwood, putting the whisky bottle back on the trolley and thus ending the meeting. ‘Please use the back staircase … we need tight security more than ever now.’
23
Thursday
From the Daily Telegraph:
STOLEN STATUES GO ON SHOW IN INDIA
MUSEUM OBJECTS SURFACE IN HINDUPUR
From our own correspondent
The eight religious statues stolen last weekend from the Metropolitan Museum in New York have gone on show at the sacred Hindu shrine in Hindupur in the southern half of the country. The shrine is heavily guarded by Hindu zealots and only selected members of the press are being allowed access.
Hindu Heritage, the organization which claimed responsibility for the theft, issued a statement yesterday, saying: ‘The eight religious statues reclaimed from America are now back where they belong, at the holy centre of the religion which inspired them. This action was not done for personal gain, as may be seen from the fact that Hindu Heritage has handed over these sacred objects to the officials at the shrine.
‘Hindu Heritage apologizes again for the accident at the Metropolitan Museum, in which a security guar
d suffered a fatal injury. We are exploring ways of making amends to the security guard’s widow. We are also exploring ways of returning other items of Hindu Heritage which have been stolen from our homeland.’
A spokesman for the Indian government declined to comment on this latest development. But he said that Indian officials were studying remarks made by Mr Mason Farmer, US Ambassador to the UN, following the theft and that a reply would be issued shortly.
Our New York correspondent adds: The funeral of Mr Spiridon Panottis, the security guard at the Metropolitan Museum, who was killed last Sunday in the attack by Hindu Heritage, took place yesterday in Astoria, the predominantly Greek suburb of the city. More than a thousand people turned out to hear Mr Panottis’s brother, Mr Sophocles Panottis, denounce the Indians who made the raid but also Mr William Lockwood, the British Prime Minister.
Mr Panottis said: ‘Deep down, the British government and its Prime Minister, Mr Lockwood, bear a responsibility for my brother’s death … let the British government mark their responsibility for their action not just by returning these Marbles but in addition by paying Greece compensation for the loss she has suffered over many years. The British government should pay for the Marbles to be mounted back on the Parthenon – that would mark the Olympic Festival but also, I say, it would be a fitting memorial for my brother.’
‘One of the crew is sunbathing – topless. Nice figure. Bit like yours.’ Edward held the binoculars to his eyes though Victoria couldn’t see him. He was like a duck shooter in a hide. He had rigged up a number of towels on the balcony of their room, using a clothesline and the branch of a tree that was conveniently close. They could observe the Strabo without being seen. It was very hot already. There had been just the one room available in the hotel, and the bed could have been bigger. Victoria was still not entirely sure about Edward’s feelings regarding Nancy and hadn’t been able to relax as much as she might. But she was coming round.