'Let go!'
The anchor cable roared out.
'Senorita!' Grohman's eyes were hard. 'You will come with me!' He addressed me. 'You and Tideman will stay here. I have ordered that if you make any attempt to interfere with the controls you will be shot. Is that clear?'
'Peter!' Kay appealed desperately to me.
It was blind rage - and love - and I lunged at Grohman. Maybe he'd been expecting this. The blast from the automatic seemed to go off in my face. I felt the cordite grains sear my left cheek. I spun round, stunned, caught a glimpse of a finned barrel clubbing at my head, and then everything went black.
I don't know for how long I was out. When I came round Tideman was propping me up. I felt as if the whole of Jetwind’s top-hammer had clouted my head. The bridge was empty except for Grohman's stooge with his finger on the trigger of his gun.
'Kay! Where's Kay?'
'Take it easy, Peter,' said Tideman. 'That was a stupid thing to do. You're lucky to be still alive.'
I felt sick and dizzy. 'John! Where is she?'
Tideman hefted me to my feet. 'There!' He pointed to the fleet.
The agony in my head was nothing to the sight of Jetwind's boat heading towards the Akademik Kurchatov, which was moored nearer Jetwind than the rest of the squadron.
He said quietly, 'I think you should make up your mind to the fact that you won't see Kay again.'
I staggered to the starboard wing of the bridge and watched the disappearing boat.
'Did she finally give in?' I asked at last.
'She fought like a wild-cat. They had to rope her to get her into the boat.'
Now I had only a distant sight of her receding into the fog. The way to Kyyiv. The way to hell.
'There are four of them in the boat,' I remarked.
'Yes. Grohman took another of his gang along. The fourth is Sir James.'
The mists swirling across my brain resembled those about the fleet. Like them, there were clear patches.
'Worth a million dollars.'
'Grohman has gone for orders from Molot Command. We can only wait and see when he returns.'
Another round of small explosions reverberated from Trolltunga.
'What the hell are they doing!'
'Explosion seismology is the name for it, Grohman said after consulting HQ,' explained Tideman. 'A party of Red scientists are using small charges to measure acoustically the thickness of Trolltunga below the water level.'
I spotted one of the group leaving the pinnace with an armful of fresh charges.
The idea tugged at the back of my mind. 'How far is that pinnace from Jetwind, John?
He eyed me. 'Three cables, a trifle more, maybe.'
'Five hundred metres?'
'About that.'
'Explosion - seismology.' I turned over the words slowly, thoughtfully. Tideman watched me, waiting for an explanation. As yet, my plan was too nebulous to formulate in words.
As we stood, the sun suddenly broke through the storm clouds. The sunset mist swirled and flowed and ebbed like pink foam from a lung-shot. Molot became even more unreal. The ice was blue-white; the grey lengths of the warships were tinged with red, the colour of their ensigns. Soon the long Antarctic summer night would begin, a night which never really got dark.
The boat with Kay vanished behind the Akademik Kurchatov.
'The sub's moving!' exclaimed Tideman.
His keen eye had spotted the narrowing of the sail's angle against the white back-drop of Trolltunga.
'She's coming out,' he added.
'No,' I replied. 'She's heading for the fleet replenisher.'
The sub edged towards her big sister. Which warship housed the faceless Molot Command?
The sub neared the Berezina.
'The gantry - look!' exclaimed Tideman.
My muzziness was passing; I could focus again. The cut from Grohman's blow was small and did not bleed much but the bruise felt the size of Trolltunga.
A section of the Berezina's prominent athwartships gantry slid out of its housing to reach over the sea like a horizontal crane. Then, cables with massive hooks attached spilled into the water.
'Watch!' said Tideman excitedly. 'This is something no
Westerner has ever witnessed! The fleet's fuelling! They're bringing up the jellifjed fuel from the undersea dump!'
Tens of thousands of hectolitres of jellified fuel! Each massive container in itself a bomb big enough to sink a ship! Molot itself - the whole anchorage - a more gigantic bomb still! It only needed a trigger to detonate it!
And then my plan was born: I knew how I would attempt it.
But it would kill Kay.
That was the thought which lacerated my mind for the nest hour while Tideman and I stood viewing the fleet begin its refuelling operation. The soundless process was punctuated at intervals by the detonation of more seisinic charges from Trolltunga. The mystic half-light of the Antarctic twilight, the swirls of mist and cloud, the ice skyscrapers brooding over the Red Fleet's secret base in an ocean as remote as the moon's Sea of Storms, made the scene as unreal in its own way as the one I had witnessed from Albatros. Progress was much slower than I had anticipated. Floodlights sprang up aboard the Berezina and Akademik Kurchatov. Strange reflections flickered off the ice and the blue-grey hulls of the squadron. The artificial light added a further dimension of unreality to the macabre scene - a mother sickling her brood with dragon's blood.
The time to strike was when the babes were at the fuelling teats. Tonight! But Kay! What about Kay!
I jumped off my stool in agitation. By now I had largely shaken off the effects of Grohman's blow. The sentry followed my movements with his automatic.
'Cool it, Peter!' warned Tideman in a low voice. 'Don't attempt anything again!' He broke off, staring at the warships.
'What is it, John?'
'Jetwind's boat - it's coming back!'
'There are several more men in the boat than Grohman left with,' added Tideman.
The craft sheered off its course and made for the scientists' pinnace at the foot of Trolltunga. Then one of Grohman's crew made his way laboriously up to the tent party above. It seemed to take an excruciating time for him to reach the summit. Finally he returned to the boat.
'They're coming our way! It looks as if Kay and Hathaway are coming back!' exclaimed Tideman.
The boat finally tied up alongside Jetwind. Now I could go ahead! With Kay back, I would set match to fuse of my plan the moment Grohman stepped on Jetwind's deck.
Kay climbed aboard under guard. Her progress to the bridge along the main-deck took a light year to my impatient senses.
Then she was with me. When a person walks in from the dead, words are not enough. Grohman had no need to guard us at that moment. I did not even notice him.
I came to earth when he ordered abruptly, 'Take them away - lock them up!'
He snapped something further in Spanish at the sentry, who had a half-smoked cigarillo between his lips. The man sullenly ground out the smoke with his foot.
Grohman addressed us. 'No smoking - even at this distance from the fuel. Orders from Command. One spark, and up would go the ships. Is that clear?
Too clear, Grohman. It is the heart of my plan.
He added, 'Molot Command has even stopped the scientists firing their charges during the operation because of the risk.'
'The ships are taking their time about it,' I remarked.
'Just you hope for the sake of your skins that it goes on for long,' was his comeback. 'Make no mistake, you're not coming along with Group Condor.'
He cradled the gun and spoke briefly to the guard. You couldn't call it a smile which crossed his face. He went on, 'If the English capitalist has his ransom paid, it will be a condition of his release that he keeps his mouth shut.'
'We have seen the operation, Tideman and I,' I pointed out.
His reply sent my stomach nerves into a spasm. 'Dead men tell no tales. The rest of Jetwind's crew will be giv
en the option of cooperating with us and keeping their mouths shut - or else. You two have got till the fleet has finished refuelling.'
'How long is that?'
'Why shouldn't you know?' he asked cynically. 'Operation Molot has been advanced - the squadron sails tomorrow morning. After the stir over Jetwind's disappearance, Command considers it unwise to delay. The fleet dares not risk detection; there is still the possibility of a chance interception. The attack must and will come like a bolt from the blue. If there is local resistance, the Almirante Storni will support Group Condor in crushing it.'
Kay took a step towards Grohman. 'You can shoot me along with Peter and John!' she blazed. 'I'd rather die than play along with terrorists who are planning to murder innocent civilians and seize their homes!'
Grohman said speculatively, 'I believe you mean what you say, senorita.'
'You can do what you wish, I will not cooperate!'
'You are a fool, senorita,' retorted Grohman. 'Do not love a man like this. Let him go. There are plenty more men. You can save your life - have a good life, even, at Kyyiv.'
'That's my business,' Kay answered hotly.
'Take them away!' he snapped. Then he added something in Spanish to the guard. There was no mistaking the threat in his voice. Nor the way it cowed the man.
He repeated it in English for our benefit.
'I have warned him that if any one of you attempts any funny business, he will be shot tomorrow with you.'
Chapter 27
'This is my plan.'
Kay, Tideman and I were back again in the sick-bay. I waited only long enough for the guard to settle behind the glass partition before sitting the others down at the table. The pretence of playing cards was agonizing. Guillotine victims did it with more aplomb. But they had no hope of escape.
'We are going to escape,' I added. 'Tonight.'
Kay's fan of cards trembled. Even Tideman's iron
control cracked.
'How?' he demanded. 'For pity's sake, how?'
'It is tonight or never,' I answered. 'Our one big chance - our only chance - is while the fleet is occupied fuelling.'
'Peter!' Kay started to remonstrate.
'Try to remember you are supposed to be playing cards,' I reminded her. 'You know what to expect if that gorilla out there suspects us. It's his neck as well as ours. I intend it to be his.'
'Go on,' said Tideman quietly.
I made a pretence of trumping a card.
'I intend to blow up the fleet.'
Tideman's incredulity, backed by the authority of a naval officer, was shattering.
Kay broke the ensuing silence. Her tone said everything. ‘I have never seen so many guns or so many men as there are in the squadron. Group Condor alone must number five or six hundred. Peter, what you propose is totally and wholly impossible.'
'Even if you weren't imprisoned,' added Tideman.
I tried to muster my words calmly despite my excitement.
'Soon every ship will be engaged in refuelling,' I said.
'The fleet will, figuratively speaking, have its pants down. Never will it be more vulnerable. The ships will be surrounded by tens of thousands of hectolitres of highly explosive jellified fuel. Molot Command itself is nervous -no smoking even here aboard Jetwind, kilometres away. No seismic explosions allowed on Trolltunga, either.'
'What's in your mind, Peter?' asked Tideman.
'Molot anchorage is one gigantic, ready-to-detonate bomb. One match would do it.'
'You could escape that way if you had a kamikaze death-wish. But you'd go up in smoke, too,' answered Tideman.
Nevertheless, I thought I detected slightly less scepticism.
'Aboard the pinnace is the scientists' supply of explosive charges,' I went on. 'I intend seizing the pinnace. I will set the charges on a time fuse. I will direct the boat at the fleet. The charges will blow. Up will go the fuel - up will go the fleet.'
'J am not going to stand by and watch you commit suicide, protested Kay.
I smiled, despite my tension. 'The pinnace will be unmanned. I will aim her at the fleet by locking the tiller. A bull's-eye isn't called for. A target that size is too big to miss. A flash anywhere near the fuel container will do the trick.'
'It's a good idea, Peter,' said Tideman. 'But it remains only an idea - there are far too many practical steps in-between that it doesn't take account of. The principle is excellent, your logistics are non-existent.'
'What steps?' I guessed what was coming.
'Let us assume for the sake of argument that somehow you managed to escape from the sick-bay - past a guard with an automatic weapon, past another similarly armed on the bridge, past Grohman himself...'
Kay added, 'Grohman brought two extra men back with him from the fleet to reinforce those aboard Jetwind. That makes six guards plus himself.'
'You've got to get from Jetwind to the pinnace. How?' Tideman resumed. 'By boat? Their automatics would cut you and the boat in half before you got clear of the ship. Also, the pinnace is within range of the AK-47 rifles the new guards have - they have the power, even if the UZIs don't. Forget it, Peter.'
'I wasn't thinking of using a boat, and besides they wouldn't dare shoot because of the danger of an explosion.'
‘Please, Peter, this is just talking!' Kay said agitatedly. 'It's simply killing time. Listen to John's advice - forget it.'
I went on. 'I need you two to win control of the bridge for as long as it will take me to climb up to Jetwind's topgallant masts. We'll work out the precise time. Then - ' I addressed Tideman' -1 want you to fire the chicken button on the bridge and blast away Number Two top-gallant mast directly overhead.'
'Ring charges - the ultimate emergency!' he exclaimed.
'That's it,' I replied. 'The ultimate emergency. Those charges are meant to blow away Jetwind’s top-hamper if ever she went over on her beam-ends in a storm. I intend using them for another type of emergency.'
Kay looked horrified. 'And you - where will you be, Peter?'
'Inside the crow's nest - above the site of the charges. The detonations will project the mast and me clear of the ship - the same principle as a pilot's ejector seat. The way the ship's head is lying at present and the direction of the wind will pitch the mast towards the pinnace. The mast is hollow so it'll float for a while. I'll reach the pinnace from it - you know my plan from that point onwards.'
'You'll be killed!' protested Kay. 'The blast inside the confined space will kill you!'
'Self-destruct charges like that are precisely calibrated to do their job and their job only,' I answered. 'In this case, it's to chop off the mast at a given point and throw it clear. The force of the explosion will be directed outward, not inward where I will be. The structure of the crow's nest in itself will be an additional protection.'
'This is plain crazy!' went on Kay. 'I won't let you do it, Peter! No experiments were ever carried out to establish how far the masts would be thrown by the ring charges. It's designed purely as a last-throw emergency!' 'I'll have to take the risk, Kay.'
'I'd like to hear what else you have in mind, Peter,' said Tideman speculatively. 'Before you do so, however, you might remember something else - the sea temperature, especially close to Trolltunga, is close to freezing point. You won't survive for more than a couple of minutes in it after the mast blast-off, even if the rest of your plan succeeds.'
'Deal another round of cards,' I told him. 'Don't either of you look up in surprise when I speak. The next step in my scheme is probably the most crucial of all. It's the way I aim to break out of the sick-bay.'
Kay gathered up the cards like a sleep-walker. Tideman dealt.
'In the sick-bay there's that anti-exposure survival suit for inspecting Jetwind's drop keels and underwater propeller nacelle. We moved it into the cubicle next to Kay's - it's hanging there still. That's what I intend to wear to overcome the problem of the near-freezing water.'
Tideman gave a silent whistle through his teeth. 'You half
convince me, man!'
'The anti-exposure visor will protect my face and eyes against flash from the ring charges,' I continued. 'The suit is foam-lined, which will help give me a soft landing when the mast hits the water. I'll swim from the floating mast to the pinnace, fuse the charges, and send the boat on its way to the fleet. Then I can swim back to Jetwind in safety - it's not far.'
'It might just work, Peter - it just could work!' Tideman's sceptical questioning had changed to a vibrant, excited undertone.
'We must be careful not to betray ourselves to the guard by any action or gesture,' I warned.
'He's the joker in the pack.' There was a near-sob in Kay's voice. 'We can't get past him.'
'We can,' I said. 'This is how. Again, the survival suit is the key. I've often accompanied you to your cubicle, Kay.
The guard is accustomed to it. Now - as soon as we've finished this discussion, you and I will go there. John will stay here, pretending to be listening to the radio. There's only a curtain between your cubicle and the empty one. We slip next door. You help me into the survival suit. It takes less than a minute, you said, John. Back you go into your cubicle, Kay. Then, after a while, you join John at the radio. I'll be missing. After a time the guard is certain to wonder about me. You can leave your cubicle's outer curtain drawn so he can see for himself that I'm not there. The idea is to draw him into the sick-bay.'
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