by Peter Tonkin
‘... Mariner London, are you receiving me?’
‘Yes! This is Richard Mariner. You are faint but we can hear you! What ship is this, over?’
Silence again, except for that faint, sinister whispering.
‘They’re not broadcasting,’ said Rachel, her eyes on the green bars in front of her. ‘I’d say they received you. Wait for it. Here it comes!’
‘... hear you, Heritage Mariner. I have the captain ...’
‘You are very faint, over.’
‘I say again, this is Clotho and I have the captain for you, over.’
‘Thank God!’ shouted Richard and he yelled jubilantly into the transmitter, ‘Robin, this is Richard. We have you intermittent strength ten.’
‘Richard. I hear you. I’m sorry, Robin isn’t aboard. This is Nico. I’m afraid I have some very bad news ...’
CHAPTER NINETEEN - Day Nine
Thursday, 27 May 20:00
Richard turned on his heel and walked through to the Crewfinders office. In many ways the room was a smaller version of the office he had just left. There were only two secretaries. He crossed to the senior one, who in fact had a major stake in the company these days and a seat on the board. She had been the secretary with whom he had started the business, more than fifteen years ago, in the old offices in St Mary Axe which had been destroyed by the IRA bomb at the Baltic Exchange. ‘Audrey,’ he said crisply, ‘I need to be on our ship Clotho. She’s presently in the Labrador Sea. Here’s her exact position.’ It was written on a piece of paper which he placed on the desk in front of her. She picked it up and her practised glance went at once to the point on the world map about 150 miles off Kap Farvel, slightly to the south and west.
‘How soon?’ Her voice was quiet, calm and deep.
‘Now. Immediately. Atropos is gone and there are several dead. Jamie Curtis and Rupert Biggs at least. They’re damaged and in a bad situation. There may even be terrorists involved.’
‘My God! Those poor people. I’ll contact the Portsmouth police to break it to Jamie’s mum and dad. At least Rupert Biggs didn’t have any relatives, but ...’ She pulled herself together. She could cry later. She had to get Richard out there now. ‘You go and get your travelling bag together. We have your passport and papers in the safe here. Pick them up from the doorman on the way out.’
He hesitated for a second longer. He knew she saw Crewfinders as her own family. She had just lost two sons.
‘Hurry,’ she said. ‘I’ll have a cab outside the front door in five minutes.’
Suddenly aware that he had not used the services of his own company in this way for nearly a decade, he said, ‘Where shall I tell the driver to take me?’
She glanced up at him, her green eyes shaded by her long lashes, as calm and deep as her voice. And as full of tears. ‘You don’t tell him anything, remember? We take care of all that. We take care of everything.’
On the floor below, beside their own office, he and Robin kept a tiny bedroom with toilet facilities and changing rooms en suite. Here he put together a case of the basic necessities. He wasn’t really paying attention to what he was doing, however, because his mind was totally preoccupied with the news Nico had given him, trying to see the hand of Sir Justin’s mysterious eco-terrorists. It was worse than almost anything he could have imagined. But at least one ship was still afloat, so the extra element which the poster from La Guerre Verte had added to the situation did not seem to have come to full force yet. But two dead so far. Dear God in heaven! He couldn’t think what he needed. He grabbed his washbag, chucked in some shaving equipment and dumped it automatically in his briefcase. Should he bother with flannels? Soap? Towel? The thought of taking any clothes was too complicated even to consider.
With an attaché case ill-packed with little more than his shaving kit, he rushed downstairs. Sir William and Sir Justin were waiting for him in the lobby, as was the driver of the black cab at the door. The farewells were brief and understated. ‘Is there any way you can get the twins back up to Cold Fell and look after them there?’ he asked. Fortunately, it hadn’t even begun to dawn on him that little William and Mary might be targets for terror. He just wanted them out of town.
‘Of course we will, lad. Janet will take them up at once. They love Cold Fell. They’ll probably think they’re on an early summer holiday.’
Richard gave a cough of laughter at the bracing words. It seemed unlikely that even his children, whom he indulgently supposed to be outstandingly intelligent, would actually understand about holidays yet.
‘When Helen gets back from Moscow at the weekend, we’ll go up and see them settled in, I promise. But you and Robin will probably be back yourselves by that time.’ Helen Dufour was the chief executive in the Heritage Mariner office. Sir William was retired now and the Mariners came and went. They needed someone whose presence could be relied upon unless, as now, negotiations were called for which needed a special negotiator. Sir William missed the French executive particularly; they were in the throes of an affair.
‘I doubt we will be back,’ said Richard. ‘So give my love to Helen and kiss the twins good night from both of us ...’
The security man came forward with Richard’s travel documents. Richard took them automatically and rushed out through the door with the cabbie in tow. ‘You relax, guy,’ said the driver as he slammed the door behind his fare and climbed into the front. ‘We’re off to the heliport beside City Airport. Ten minutes in this traffic.’
Richard leaned back into the seat, eyes closed and mind busy. But really there was little enough for him to think about; nothing positive anyway. He had worries aplenty and speculations without number. But he was not a man who worried unless he had something specific to worry about, or who planned without basis. He had a habit of checking ahead for bridges to cross, but he never tried to cross them before he came to them.
Damn! He hadn’t packed his hairbrush. Had he remembered his aftershave? He used to be so organised! Not tonight, apparently. He took a deep breath, stopped worrying about what he had or had not remembered to pack, and cleared his mind.
So, he was in the velvet grip of his own organisation and, although he had not the faintest idea of where he was going in the short term, he was absolutely confident that he would be aboard Clotho as quickly as humanly possible. When he got there, he would be able to work with Nico Niccolo to decide the next step. If the weather continued to moderate and Clotho stayed afloat and out of trouble, then he would go and search for Atropos. In every other circumstance he would have to head for safety and leave Robin to fend for herself. She was an extraordinary woman and a captain of real genius. If circumstances conspired to overwhelm her, then her situation would have been far beyond anything he himself could have remedied in any case. Especially if the only steed he had upon which to ride to her defence was a ship with no bow section left. Some knight in shining armour, he thought wryly; not so much El Cid as Don Quixote.
The heliport building was a blaze of light in the gathering gloom of the spring evening. The cab pulled up outside it and the two men hurried in. Richard was at first surprised to find the cabbie so solicitous, but it soon became obvious that this was all part of the system. Richard himself was disorientated. His mind was full of the everyday concerns from which he had been torn away. He could hardly believe that he was about to travel a quarter of the way round the world with fewer preparations than were normally required to go shopping in the local supermarket with Robin and the twins. He was quite incapable of making sensible decisions about travelling at the moment. Much of Crewfinders’ success had been based on the fact that Audrey and he had realised this when they set up the system in the first place.
Another stranger swam into view and the cabbie handed Richard over to him. ‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m your helicopter pilot. We’re off to Gatwick. Follow me, please.’
Well, that was something, Richard thought, feeling a bit more in charge at once.
Together they
hurried out of the building by another door and across a concrete apron towards a flock of helicopters. All but one were at rest. They crossed at a half-run towards the one which was winding up. ‘Sorry to rush you, sir,’ yelled the pilot. ‘But you’re on the nine o’clock flight to Reykjavik. Time’s a bit tight.’
The helicopter heaved itself straight up into the air and Richard leaned forward. He loved helicopters, though it was Robin who had the licence to fly one. As the slim fuselage tilted, swinging them across the river, he craned like a child to see familiar landmarks. Then the sleek craft tilted forward as the pilot dropped her nose and began to race south towards the lights of the Oval, Brixton and Streatham. The pilot was too busy clearing their flight path and contacting Gatwick to indulge in conversation, so Richard had leisure to sit back and return to his thoughts.
He would take command from Nico. The big Neapolitan did not have his master’s papers yet. Not that there was any need to have very advanced qualifications in order to sit and wait for your ship to be rescued. His mind sheered away from the financial implications of the salvage claim on the sister ships if they both had to be towed home. Thank heaven they had been so punctilious about insurance, crippling though the premiums had been. But if the tow could be resumed, if Clotho, no matter which way round she was facing, could bring Atropos home herself, or at least to a safe haven, then that worry at least was sorted out.
Toothbrush! He had forgotten to pack his toothbrush. Good God Almighty!
*
Gatwick pounced upwards, an angular blaze of white and gold light against the satin blackness of the Sussex hills. Once again, the sense of purpose and urgency gripped Richard. He forgot about toothbrushes and pushed all the other worries to the back of his mind. He sat up and held his seatbelt, ready to jump down as soon as the wheels touched the ground. Again, the pilot accompanied him, carrying the ill-packed briefcase, guiding him into the maze of buildings and safely, swiftly, through the disorientating labyrinth of multi-level corridors.
His ticket was being held for him at the departure gate and the helicopter pilot took him straight there. The ticket was not the only thing waiting there. One of the Crewfinders secretaries lived in Cowfold, a village near the airport. She kept a small cabin-sized emergency suitcase packed and ready in her spare room. While he had been winging his way southwards, she had been driving north with the case. As he rushed through to the waiting aeroplane she pressed it into his hand so that when at last he sat back in the big, comfortable airline seat, his worries about forgotten necessities were at least quietened.
He had assumed that the grasp of the commercial airline would be impersonal when compared with the very personal service of Crewfinders, but this was not the case. The stewardess took him under her wing and made sure he had a clear view of where they were going and when they were due to arrive. This, too, returned his sense of control over the proceedings and he decided to use the next two hours to check on the contents of the suitcase and then do some serious planning as the plane beneath him hurled down the length of the runway and climbed into the air.
*
‘Captain Mariner, wake up, please. We are beginning our descent into Reykjavik now.’
Dazedly he opened his eyes and found himself looking into bright blue eyes fringed with dark blonde lashes and framed with ash blonde hair. For one confusing moment, he thought he had made it to heaven after all. It didn’t occur to him that this was less because the hostess looked like a Nordic angel than because he had been dreaming of death.
‘What time is it?’ he asked automatically. His watch said 23:20 but it was set to London time.
‘Iceland is on London time, Captain Mariner. We’re due to land at half past eleven. I have some documents for you to sign here. You will disembark first. I will be taking you straight across to your next plane.’
His eyebrows rose, and she smiled. ‘A message from your office was routed through direct to the flight deck. I think the pilot will be going to dinner with your Audrey the next time he’s in London.’
Reykjavik was extremely cold and for the first time he realised just how unsuitable his pinstriped suit was for travelling this close to the Arctic. The airport lights were bright as the hostess walked him across the windswept apron, her heels tick-tocking purposefully on the concrete in front of him, her shadow pointing darkly southwards as though suggesting he should go back home at once. At least the night was dry, though the wind felt as if it was sweeping directly from the Pole and it was strong enough to hurl his bags against his knees with jarring force. He was not looking forward to being on board a pitching ship in rough seas. He hoped fervently he had a good supply of painkillers in his washbag just in case. Heritage Mariner were unusual in that they kept doctors aboard their super-tankers but they relied upon senior officers and paramedic calls on their smaller ships.
The executive jet was small and fast-looking, and the engines were whining urgently as the hostess hurried him up the steps into the cabin. In the doorway he turned and looked back at her as she stood on the concrete beside the man who was waiting to roll the steps away. The cabin was warm and quiet behind him but he lingered until she looked up. Then they exchanged waves and wide grins as though they had been friends for years.
There was no one in the long cabin so he dumped his cases on a seat and went on up to the flight deck. The two pilots were busy, one balancing the engines and the other talking to the tower. ‘Welcome aboard, Captain Mariner. Sit down and make yourself comfortable, please. I’ll be back to talk to you once we’re in the air. We hope to be in Julianehab in two hours’ time.’
They touched down in Greenland’s major city two hours later, but because they had crossed two time zones, it was still just coming up to midnight. The airport would not normally have been open this late, unlike the port, which was open twenty-four hours. Richard’s Danish was severely limited, but the officials who saw him through the little airport and put him in a taxi down to the harbour spoke enough English for him to know what was going on. The formalities were basic, though the Danes had a reputation for punctiliousness, because he was only passing through.
As it was so dark, he was no more able to make out the countryside from the back seat of the old Volvo taxi than he had been from the window of the executive jet. He could feel gentle undulations, and gained the impression that the road was leading down a slight incline, but there was little to see beyond the headlight beams until they breasted a low rise and the little town clustered around the bright port was spread out below them. Beyond the citrine jewels of the street lights and the clustered whiteness of the dock lights, there was an enormous blackness. Close to the shore, it revealed itself in pale lines of foam. Further out, lines of brightness ran across heaving restlessness. Perhaps only his imagination saw the faintest reflective gleams on the big seas further out. He wound down the window and sniffed the icy sea wind until the taxi driver asked him to close it again. Even in Danish, there was no mistaking the message. When Richard had obeyed, the driver turned up the heater with a vicious twist of his wrist.
He had recovered his temper enough to help Richard across to the little heliport lying on a promontory to the east of the brightly lit port. Here a battered old Sikorsky was winding up. The pilot must have been warned that his passenger was on the way by the people at the airport, Richard guessed. He climbed aboard and strapped himself in as the taxi driver dumped his travelling cases in beside him. Then he slammed the door and the helicopter swooped up into the sky.
At first, Richard was content to sit and think. He had slept on the Lear jet as well so he was four hours’ rest better off than he had been at eight. His head was quite clear and he was in a position to start making some plans. He noticed that, like his brain, the sky was becoming clear as well. The buffeting from the wind did not lessen, but he suddenly realised that he was looking down at the broad white track of a full moon lying across the waves. If he looked up, he could see the familiar formations of the northern star
s. ‘It’s clearing up,’ he bellowed to the pilot.
The pilot pulled the right earpiece off his ear and let it rest on his cheek. ‘What d’you say?’ He had an American accent. But that could mean anything.
‘The weather. It’s clearing.’
‘Yeah. We’re in for a spell of winter high pressure.’
‘This’ll be the last of the north-westerly storm, then.’ The helicopter bucketed and bounced through turbulent air.
‘That’s about it. Great big high-pressure system on the icecap’s fallen over westwards. There’ll be no weather systems through here for days. This’ll be the last. When it’s gone, the rest’ll all run south through the States. Screw up springtime in Vermont.’
‘What sort of temperatures are you expecting?’
‘Daytime middling high, nighttime low.’
‘How low?’
‘Out on the icefields, maybe minus twenty. This air is cold as well as heavy.’
‘So it’ll start freezing up again.’
‘Maybe. More likely further north. This ship of yours we’re going out to, this Clotho, she should be okay. She’s south of the cape, south of the ice barrier. She can run on down through the calm if there’s a problem. Time it right, fit in your passage between depressions, and you can run her back to England in the warm between the storms.’
‘Yes. But I wasn’t thinking of Clotho. What’ll it be like further north? North of this ice barrier, say?’
‘Not so nice. Storm before this was a south-easter. Blew a lot of ice back up into the Davis Strait. This one will have fetched it out again. Freezing temperatures will keep the floes big and nasty. And I heard tell of an ice island out there somewhere too, but that’s more likely just a big berg. Still and all, I wouldn’t like to be up in the Labrador Sea till it all gets sorted out and comes back down south to melt.’