A Death in Geneva

by A. Denis Clift

  “One or two more dives—plenty of battery!” She had to shout over the boat’s diesel exhaust. “We have time?” She checked her watch, shaded her eyes against the sun.

  “Plenty of time. We lost you for a while, there. Glad to hear no problems. Dr. Tooms and the second sub made one dive, had to haul her out of the water again. Steering wasn’t answering the way it should.”

  “They alright?”

  “Yep, nothing too serious.”

  “Thank you for keeping an eye on us; we’re off again.” The boat skipper gave her a thumbs up, backed, and swung in a return loop for Octagon.

  In the murk of the bay, the external lights of the submersibles had one purpose, to assist in the mating and decoupling with the dock. The chariot took the descent slowly, touched forward first, settled on both of the semicircular cradles. Tonasi was in the water working his way forward, around the hull, clamping the four mooring hooks. With the lights extinguished, the darkness was almost total. They felt their way across the grating toward the glow of the trunk, emerged in the dry, bright interior of the habitat.

  Leslie hung up the intercom, threw a blanket across her shoulders, slumped onto a bunk and stared at the deck, exhausted by the run. “They should keep up there for a few minutes. Tooms was babbling away more than unusual.”

  “Paulo did well.” Tonasi yanked off his hood, combed his hair with his fingers, and rubbed his eyes and whiskered face. “Take time to repair that pin, fucked up until tomorrow, next day maybe? We’ve got time, don’t we, Les?”

  “We have to move. Tooms is excited, unpredictable. His last words were that he would stay above, but, I don’t trust him—”

  “He’s a pig, full of pig shit!” Tonasi was at the far end of the habitat. “A pig! How much longer?”

  “Two days. We strike on the third.”

  He rolled one of the white cylinders to the center of the deck space. “Two fucking days. He’ll be the first!” They were on their knees, warriors with impassive expressions. “Up on the bunk, have to turn her over, panel’s on the other side.” Tonasi braced one leg against a steel upright. They eased the fifty-kilo antiship mine onto its back. He studied the streamlined form, sucking in air, approving through his broken teeth.

  The mine was new, designed for the U.S. Navy’s SEAL teams. Its bloodlines ran back for more than four decades to the early days of the Second World War . . . to the limpets strapped to the waist of a swimmer, clamped to the bilge keels of the enemy’s ships. The limpets had left no trace. Their victims had sunk or been scuttled no matter how good the submarine nets or the deck watches.

  Tonasi removed the access panel, set it on the deck. His mind lingered over his suppressed hatred of Tooms. The screwdriver spun in his fingers. He released the timing mechanism from “lock-storage.” Malta, the Matabele should be in Capri by now. “Matabele in Capri?” His eyes flicked to hers with the question. “Take this.” She held the timer, keeping her fingers away from the numbered wheels.

  “Angelo said two to three weeks.”

  “He will do it faster. She’s in Capri.”

  “You are right Filippo. They should have her there.”

  She passed the plate back, watched as his scarred brown fingers set it in place, tightened the screws, turned to the second, propeller-activated timer. He removed packing from the tapered end of the mine. A circular shroud housing a small, bronze, three-bladed propeller was freed by his action. He turned the propeller slowly with one finger, studied a second set of dials. “Not hard to build . . . see, the shaft, gland seal, direct drive of the timer from the push of the water.” He set to work on the second, delayed-timing mechanism: this one elapsed knots rather than hours. “Minex Bravo, Les, this explosive.” He patted the shape. “Makes TNT look like sneezing powder, go through a tanker like a bullet.”

  Her mind went to the night kill in Geneva. She had seen his eyes beneath the mask . . . intensity, not emotion. The bullets were of no significance to him when he had closed for the kill. His young life was soaked in the acrid smoke of high explosive. For him, each murder was justified by the act itself, each shedding of blood, a retribution for a great, dimly defined evil.

  Tonasi finished with the dual activators. “Thirty-two hours, right, Les?”

  “Strike plus thirty-two. We want the first to blow in the open ocean, after the strike on the second. They detonate together.”

  “She’ll blow.”

  “You can handle the mines?”

  “She’ll blow. You get me there. These were designed to be delivered by swimmer vehicles—not heavy when you’re in the water. These grips, I keep the fat end facing me. The mine rides on the pallet, magnets down, insulated by the wood . . . for how long? Ten minutes? Fifteen minutes? When we submerge, I hit the activators.” His hand skipped from one to the other. “When the tanker takes us and we start to close, I cast off the last tie-down, wait . . . until we have the hull. When I hit ‘surface,’ the mine will be on the hull. She’ll blow.”

  Chapter 13

  The Towerpoint Partner slid under the twin spans of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge at 10:00 A.M. on July 3, four bells clanging in the wheelhouse, precisely on schedule for the down-bay rendezvous. She and her sister ship, the Towerpoint Mayan, had been designed and built for the Chesapeake-Campeche run, the ultramodern, hybrid creations of Starring’s naval architects.

  The streamlined bow of the nine-hundred-ninety-foot ship pushed cleanly through the bay with only the thinnest of curling white bow waves peeling off to port and starboard. To hold to schedule, she was loafing along at twelve knots, half her normal operating speed, only token demand on the fifty-thousand-shaft-horsepower gas turbine power plant driving her single, twenty-four-foot, five-bladed bronze-alloy propeller. At the foot of her bow, beneath the water’s surface, the hull extended forward in a protruding bulbous nose shaped to mold the flow of oncoming water encountering the enormous hull.

  Above the waterline, the tanker and her sister looked like no other ships in the world. Their paint was the Towerpoint scheme, midnight-blue with block-gold lettering on hull and stacks, white superstructure. From the forward lookout mast, the main deck stretched back eight hundred feet, its surface curving upward from sides to centerline to sculpt the housing for the six cylindrical holds which carried the liquefied natural gas. This long white housing was topped by port and starboard catwalks and bordered by deck cranes and machinery for the loading and offloading of her cargo.

  The Partner’s slim superstructure and twin smokestacks rose behind the cargo housing, with the hull, seen from either side, continuing aft main-deck high for another one hundred twenty before chopping off in a clean perpendicular cut at the stern. Viewed from her churning wake, the tanker’s stern revealed a raised barge-lift elevator recessed between the sides of her hull. A snub-nosed pusher tug was secured athwart-ship on the elevator. Barges loaded with machinery and supplies for the Campeche gas field and port-support facility rode forward of the tug. The Partner and the Mayan helped to produce the gas they hauled.

  The Partner’s second home port had been carved from the Campeche Banks, where the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula curves north from the State of Tabasco, along the Gulf of Campeche, before opening out onto the Gulf of Mexico. Inland from the banks, their lagoons and sand dunes, the peninsula bakes hot and dry. For centuries, only the Mayan pyramids at Uxmal and Chichen Itza had risen above the swamps and porous soil as the only heritage and visible reminder of a greater life. For generation after generation, the peons had scratched the poorest of existence from that land, harvesting the tough-fibered leaves for the manufacture of sisal rope, twine, and sacking.

  In the 1970s, new pyramids of structural steel had sprung from the land and coastal waters of Mexico. To the north, in a belt running from Monterrey to Reynosa, lay the first major discoveries of gas. To the south, in Chiapas, Tabasco, and the Gulf of Campeche, production crews had driven the drilling bits of their towering rigs into the earth to tap the expanding oil a
nd gas reserves.

  Towerpoint International had stayed on the fringes. The exploration and production had continued, and the economics continued to turn, until Tommie Starring struck the deal he wanted, then presided in person at the laying of the Partner and Mayan keels. From the outset, the entire operation had been designed as self-sufficient.

  The Campeche gas flowed from the off-shore wells to the liquefaction plant on the Yucatan coast, where it was transformed by refrigeration into liquid at minus 270 degrees and pumped through insulated pipes into the ships’ insulated cylindrical tanks.

  The Partner was steaming in ballast now, her first cargo already pumped ashore to expand more than five hundred times into gas again, and her tanks purged with inert nitrogen to reduce the risk of explosion. She moved without a tremor through the bay. The ship’s master cocked an eye at the blue sky, and handed the message board back to his second officer. “We have a good day. Have the deck crew rig the bunting from the starboard catwalk. We’ll want nothing adrift this afternoon. This young lady will be on camera. Make sure there’s a good, full belly to each bunting loop. You’ve read the instructions on flags?”

  “Yes sir—the national colors, Mexican flag, house flag—and the swallow-tailed ‘mission accomplished’ pennant from the forward mast.”

  The pilot stood beside them, smiling a sympathetic smile as he listened to the exchange. He had been briefed on the pass-in-review before boarding.

  The Partner continued south past the long line of empty ore carriers riding high at anchor. Her great blue hull glistened with reflected sunlight from the surface of the bay. Figures appeared along the ships’ railings to watch her pass. The master took the clipboard from its rack beside his chair, began to draft:

  FOR TOWERPOINT OCTAGON, HONORABLE THOMAS STARRING, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, TOWERPOINT INTERNATIONAL.

  1. TOWERPOINT PARTNER, ENROUTE GULF OF CAMPECHE, FIRST CARGO DELIVERED ON SCHEDULE, SALUTES TOWERPOINT OCTAGON ON COMMENCEMENT CHESAPEAKE . . .

  He hesitated, searched for the page with the title, continued:

  DIVERQUEST INTERNATIONAL EXPEDITION.

  2. HONORED TO BE MEMBER, TOWERPOINT INTERNATIONAL TEAM. VERY RESPECTFULLY, J.A. WILHELMSTEAD, MASTER.

  The Partner’s radio officer received the master’s instructions to transmit the message on first sighting of the Towerpoint flagship.

  At the dawning of July 3, Starring thought back to the Partner’s keel laying when he awoke aboard the Octagon . . . the shaping of the new venture, the bands, the bunting, the one-hundred-ton keel sections being lowered into the graving docks. He had kept the pressure on, ignoring the squeaks of the timid. The LNG operation was now a fact, a new, black profit bar of projected revenue in the stockholders’ report.

  Martin Tambling had died the day before, heart attack on the street, a tough competitor, the news a shock. Starring’s heart was steady. He could feel it as he tossed the sheet and blanket aside and sat for a moment on the edge of the bed. He didn’t like Tambling’s death, the reminder of mortality. So much to be done, so much—needs brains, guts, stamina. Tina worried about his health, the steady strain. She’ll be dead long before me. He turned on his bed light, flipped through the advance copy of her new Playbill. It had been with his papers when he returned from New York the night before. Good photo; she was working hard, would have a success . . . the cover, a splash of paint, made no sense.

  While he shaved and dressed, his mind was already twenty-four hours ahead, rehearsing his meeting with the president. With the development of Sea Star, he was reaching a generation into the future, in platforms, hulls, technology, the entire engine of ocean enterprise. He bathed his eyes with cool water, toweled his face and neck. He had to chart the route to the next higher peak from the summit on which he alone now stood. This he would share with the president and seek his guidance.

  The owner’s deck was shining with the earlier rain when he took his first deep breath of air rich with moisture and the sea-smells of the bay. Puffs of fast-moving gray clouds, the tail of the storm, were blowing to the east. As they thinned, wave tops shimmered silver in the emerging sunlight. From the far side of the bay, the faint engine coughings of boats still beneath the storm carried across to the catamaran. He took his binoculars from the bulkhead case. Commercial crab potters, three of them, were working separately in the quiet of the holiday Sunday, one waterman to each of the long, low white wooden hulls.

  Their boats were stacked with wire crab pots, a yard to a side in size, already baited with menhaden, each pot rigged with a coil of line and a marker float for retrieval later in the day. Only the engines’ pock pock reached his ears. The pots went silently over the side, leaving a lengthening line of white dots bobbing on the surface.

  On the foredecks, the crew was readying the catamaran for the day’s ceremonies. The string of signal flags was run up the dressing line to the masthead. Starring followed the ascent of the uppermost flag. There was blue sky above the mast, fair weather. It would be Towerpoint International’s day.

  Filippo Tonasi prayed in the darkness of his cabin in the predawn of July 3. The words, their utterance, the ceremony had stayed with him from childhood. Neither religion nor fear brought the prayers. The words were spoken to honor the importance of the day. He rose from his knees, rolled a doped cigarette, and stuck it behind an ear, to smoke on deck before they dived. He rolled a second and leaned back on his bunk, sucking each drag of smoke deep into his lungs.

  Paul Head was in the facing bunk, asleep, chest down, head to one side, one eye partly opened with only the white showing, the hand beside his face clenching, relaxing. He was at the railroad station in Geneva, on the platform, attempting to board his train. People, Swiss, were crushing against him, shaking their heads at his clothes: the coat, tie, and black wetsuit pants. The conductor was speaking French loudly at him, waving his hands in his face, barring his access to the steps of the waiting train. The faces on the train were African, silent, watching, pressed against every window.

  Head had his ticket, his passport outstretched. The conductor hit them away. Steam hissed from the cars’ undercarriages, exciting the crowd, driving him back. His voice—he was shouting. His father had pushed through the crowd and was glowering at him . . .

  Tonasi sucked in smoke, watched the fluttering eyelid, the hand—“Paulo! Zulu!” He gave the blond head a shove. The lids opened, the eyeball rolled into place. Head jammed his face into the mattress, then pushed up from the bunk, struggling to awake.

  “What were you up to, Zulu—at the castle, trouble with the queen?”

  Head was sitting up, his face blankly absorbing the cabin. He stuck out a thumb and forefinger. Tonasi passed him the cigarette. He hunched forward, the smoke circling around his eyes, the coal glowing from his lips. “Fuck you.”

  Leslie Renfro was ready when they knocked. She had slept until four o’clock, then arisen to prepare. She had rubbed lanolin deeply into her face, arms, legs, and body to fend against the hours of submergence. As her hands worked the heavy oil into her flesh, the fleeting happiness, death, horror, awakening, and revenge of her lifetime drove her subconsciously. Her mind again rehearsed each minute of the coming day.

  The three walked along the floodlit open decks to the galley. Theirs were familiar faces. The crew went about its business. They drew coffee from the urn and drank in silence.

  “Big day today?” A cook slid a plate of glazed brown rolls before them with his greeting.

  “Fucking right, mate,” Head answered across the lip of his mug. She waited while they smoked. When she rose, the two men followed. They shed their shoes and coveralls, returned them to their cabins. Most of the Octagon was still asleep, the bridge watch unaware. One by one, they climbed the center well ladder. Only the rubber fenders of the surface support float squeezing and complaining against the hull plating broke the still of the hour.

  Above them, through the crane, Venus was at its brightest. They dove, each with a hand on the toggled interv
als of the marker guideline, down to the faint circular glow of the habitat’s access trunk.

  “Stale!”

  “Smells like bloody Italy.” Head ran a hand across the atmosphere exchange panel, purged the canned atmosphere with fresh air from the surface. Tonasi stood naked in the center of the deck. She had already shed her suit, accepting their eyes, then pulled on thermal long underwear. The sweet smell of talcum mixed with the fresh flow of air. They lubricated the inner lining of their wetsuit bottoms with the powder, pulled them on.

  “Another day with your fat friend, eh Paulo?”

  “Shut up!” Her command brought silence. She covered the length of the cylinder, checked the mikes to make sure they were in their hooks, that they would not be overhead. The second hand on the bulkhead chronometer ticked past 5:30. She spun on both of them, eyes flashing, voice controlled. “Break out the weapons. Check them, pack them in the transfer container. We will want to take them up with us to the ship when we return.”

  Head and Tonasi wrestled with the fourth heavy cylinder, cracked its seals, laid out their arsenal on two of the bunks. They stripped and reassembled each piece, matching weapons with ammunition. With combat nearing, Head, without a word, took the first pistol, stuffed it into his nylon bag at the foot of the bunk. Bloody nuts to keep all the guns together. While they worked, she took them through the mission.

  “Tooms is the one we have to watch out for. His routine has not varied when Starring has been aboard. He will sleep until six-thirty; be sent for at seven-thirty to hold Starring’s hand, embroider on the lies they feed upon. He will find a note from me on his desk, which he will search for and find after Starring asks about our plans.

  “This will happen at nine. He will call down. I will tell him that we are heading out, working off the Western Shore, laying the first lines of the grid. He will be worried, because of Starring, but he is obsessed with that grid and the productivity experiment, so he will be pleased—”