The Fire Ship

by Peter Tonkin

  “Yes.”

  “Because if you do not, then no one else will.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if that action contravenes the law.”

  “It’s more complex than that.”

  “Even if you find yourselves associating with people who are outside the law.”

  It was not a question. Richard did not answer it. He had nothing to say on the point.

  “Even if you have to put lives at risk. Starting with your own lives.”

  Richard remained silent a little while longer, watching Suleiman. “Do you know the saying,” he asked at last, “ ‘Needs must, when the devil drives’?”

  Now it was the policeman’s turn to be silent. Then he tossed back the rest of the drink. “So what you are telling me is this. You and your wife are caught in a situation over which you have no control. But you are people of action, let us say, and so you try to take control. And you call upon anyone you know who can help you in this. It is understandable.”

  “Given that we know the right kinds of people: murderers, terrorists…” Richard tried to keep the irony from his voice. With limited success.

  “Yes. I was, perhaps a little heavy-handed yesterday.” Suleiman did not sound unduly contrite.

  “Your concern is understandable, Captain. But I have no intention of doing anything on Bahrain that would cause you or the Bahraini government any embarrassment.”

  “I think I believe that, Captain. And, of course, the real object of your actions is to punish the people who have already embarrassed the government. And myself. By taking Sir William from our airport. That is why I am content to remain a laughingstock. In the short term.” He put his empty glass down with a decided click on Angus’s coffee table and stood. “In the very short term.”

  The other two came in at 11:30, Robin running to Richard at once, laughing with relief at seeing him safe and well. Angus left them in each other’s arms and went upstairs. In this apartment he had two spare bedrooms as well as his own. In one of them Richard and Robin were camping. In the other he had set up the radio equipment so that they could stay in contact with Katapult. They hadn’t set up a proper routine yet, but Angus, in charge of communications, reckoned that Martyr, Chris, Sam, and Doc would just have dropped anchor. If they were all asleep, he would probably get no reply, but if they were up and about, Richard would want to know before he went to bed. Well, he’d see. He glanced at his watch as he sat down. 23:45. Give it fifteen minutes. No reply by midnight and he’d turn in himself. He turned to Katapult’s frequency and pressed TRANSMIT.

  “Katapult, Katapult this is base. Are you receiving me? Over…”

  Robin’s kiss of welcome had changed into something else entirely and after the blunt danger of the Soukh followed by the knifepoint negotiation with Captain Suleiman, Richard was more than ready to respond.

  Just as Robin’s body had felt full of fat and ugliness to her as she had walked beside her friend in the airport, now it felt full of heat and yearning. The extra curves her imagination kept adding to her still-slim frame were no longer those of sagging, stretched ugliness: now she saw her body in her mind as being full of vibrant voluptuousness, like the bodies of Indian maidens carved into the erotic friezes of pagan temples. The thought inspired her almost to a frenzy of passion. Every square inch of her skin glowed. Her right hand found the hair on the back of his neck and curled it around her fingers, raising her need almost beyond controlling. Her breath was coming in gasps as though she had been running. Her cheeks burned, her head swirled. The rest of the world withdrew very far away indeed. All that seemed important—immediate—was in her head and in her arms. She had never felt quite so full of desire before. It was glorious.

  Richard swept her up off her feet and carried her across the room, her face still pressed against his; her lips still burning against his own, slightly swollen and silky with desire. He fumbled with the door handle, impatient to be out. Her hand slipped down his neck to massage his tense shoulder beneath the crisp cotton of his djellabah. She had been eating fresh pomegranates and with every gasp she filled the air with their perfume. When he found the handle, he paused and risked another kiss, pressing his lips down onto her waiting mouth. The tips of their tongues touched with a sensation like an electric shock. The door opened outward and he stepped through it, pressing her to him closer still to keep her shoulders clear of the frame.

  That action crushed her breast against his chest and even through the layers of cotton and silk, it was as though their hot skin touched.

  He strode across the hall and paused at the foot of the stairs, glancing up to make sure they were clear. Whereupon she twisted lithely, fluidly against him and pressed her mouth to his neck below the lobe of his ear. The tip of her tongue traced languorous lines in the fine hair there working upward—as he mounted the first steps—to the lobe itself where her gentle teeth took over.

  By the time he reached the landing above, he was gasping with breath every bit as short as hers—winded, like her, with desire. Her tongue lazily followed the folds of the outer ear, pausing in its erotic exploration only to whisper the secret endearments that had become a most potent part of their lovemaking during the last ten years. Her golden curls filled his face as she moved her lips against him, full of the warm incense of her perfume. Glancing quickly at the spare room where Angus’s voice monotonously repeated Katapult’s call sign, he crossed to their bedroom door. It was open.

  Pressing her against him again, reveling in the feeling of her firmness, he carried her into the bedroom and released his hold on her legs. Her grip on his neck did not slacken—it intensified and he took her gently but firmly under the arms with broad, strong hands, holding her head level with his as that fragrant cloud of hair was replaced again by the burning beauty of her face. Her eyes were closed, her mind at once far withdrawn and utterly immediate. Her lips were hot and silken, her tongue wantonly probing. The heels of his hands pressed round her ribs into the resilient firmness of her breasts and, with every lithe muscle in her long, strong body at full stretch, she slid down the front of him, out of that fetal position he had held her in, to a full trembling pressure down his entire length. He felt—as she made him feel—every curve of side and hip and thigh as though they had been naked, oiled. And when she was there, her feet still inches from the warm Bokhara carpet, her arms still tight around his neck, her honey-slick lips sucking at his, she moved against him again, with every liquid fullness and hollow of breast and stomach and belly. And as she did so, deep in her throat, she began to purr, like a great golden kitten.

  One gold-strapped evening sandal fell to the floor.

  And,

  “Richard,” called Angus, his voice tense with alarm. “Richard, it’s Martyr, speaking from Katapult. There’s something terribly wrong…”

  They spread the chart on the bedroom floor and crouched over it, planning with desperate speed while Angus relayed ideas and suggestions feverishly back and forth, stunned by the massiveness of the blow.

  “They’re here.” Robin’s finger marked the spot deftly as Angus rattled off the figures. Richard was already calculating. “Four hundred and ten miles as the crow flies. Over five hundred by sea. Fifty hours flat out in Alouette. Out of the question. We need a plane.”

  “Or a chopper,” said Robin.

  “Or both.”

  “Not tonight,” said Angus. “I can scare you up whatever you need in the morning, but not tonight.”

  “Right, ask them if they can hang on until the morning.” Angus spoke into the radio.

  “Martyr says he can do more than that. Once Doc’s quiet, he and Chris can sail Katapult out of there.”

  “Right. That’s good. We’d have had to board her at sea in any case. Can they get round Hormuz and into the Gulf?”

  Angus spoke into the radio.

  “He says they got her out. Back should be easier.”

  “Right. Then it’s just a case of time and rendezvous point.”
/>   “I can get you in the air by nine. In whatever you want going wherever you want.”

  “Okay. But if we fly east in a small jet for speed we want to be able to pick up a helicopter somewhere along the line to get us aboard Katapult.”

  “Like that Navy chopper from the Mississippi,” said Robin.

  “Can you do that, Angus?”

  “Get the air-sea rescue boys? Yes, in an emergency.”

  “So we’re definitely up at nine. Down and in the helicopter by twelve. Looking for them somewhere by one. That’s near as damn it twelve hours’ time. Where can they be in twelve hours?”

  “Shall I ask?”

  “No. Martyr hasn’t got the chart, has he? Not by the radio. And from the sound of things, Chris’s got her hands full. Jesus, what a mess.”

  “They could get here in eighteen hours. Maybe less,” observed Robin, pulling him back onto line. Her long finger, with its short-cut, boyish fingernail, rested squarely on Fate. As it did so, a single, huge teardrop splashed down onto the sea beside it. “It’s a good rendezvous anyway,” she persisted. “Bloody great oil rig in the middle of the sea lanes. Hard to miss even in the afternoon, from Katapult or from the air. That’s where I’d meet them. Unless,” she offered, “you want them to go into harbor somewhere.”

  “And give the whole thing up?” He tested the suggestion. Examining her true meaning. Had they gone too far? Should they call a halt now? Hand everything over to the authorities after all? All they had to do was tell Katapult to head for the nearest port and it was all over.

  “No…you can’t.” Oddly, it was Angus who spoke. “You can’t do that. We’re too close. You can’t chuck it in now. Robin’s right. Get on to Salah. Tell him what’s happened. Then you can all go at dawn and meet them at Fate sometime tomorrow.”

  “Right.” Richard slapped his hand down onto the Gulf chart. “That’s it, then. We contact Salah, then get a jet first thing in the morning to take us down to Sharja. Air-sea rescue helicopter out to Fate. We’ll meet them there in eighteen hours’ time. Just before sunset tomorrow.”

  “Martyr,” said Angus at once into the microphone, completely unaware of any double meaning, “it’s Fate…”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chris ground the whole length of her body down against Weary’s tossing form, arms and legs spraddled, trying to control him. “It’s all right,” she said soothingly. She felt like screaming at him but she knew that would do more harm than good. She imagined strength into her spread limbs, therefore. Believed weight and substance into her long frame, and pinned him to the bunk by the simple force of her will. And as she did so, she feverishly searched her memory for the magic litany of phrases Sam Hood had used to bring him out of this.

  Sam Hood. The thought of him brought tears to her eyes and she blinked them fiercely away. She had only known the man for a day and had spent much of that time hating him for what he knew about her. So why was she crying for him? Above and behind her, she heard her father speaking urgently into the radio but had neither the leisure nor the inclination to listen to what he was saying.

  “It’s all right. Don’t be frightened. I’m here. It’s okay. Try to remember. You’re Doc. Doc Weary. Born Halloween, in Perth, Australia.” No, that simply wasn’t right. And a name. Hood had called him a full name. What was it?

  She couldn’t bear to look into those hurt, terrified little boy’s eyes of his. Instead, she buried her face into the hot angle between his shoulder and his neck, whispering like a lover while her mind raced.

  “You’re Doc Weary. Born Sydney, Australia, November fifth, nineteen forty-eight…” That was better, she thought. It was coming. “William Weary, born Sydney, Australia, November fifth, nineteen forty-eight.”

  But still he twisted and bucked beneath her. She rose against him, forcing him down with her hips, arching her back and breathing deeply. And so it was she noticed that his hair had fallen back, revealing the great scarred dome of his forehead. The sweatband! It came to her in a flash. The sweatband was his security blanket. Like her old plaid shirt and tatty jeans. He would never come back without it! It was in the bundle of gear under the bunk. She reached down for it.

  At once his freed hand was round her neck, forcing her down until mere inches separated their eyes. “Who am I?” he screamed.

  And, in the midst of the crisis it came to her. The answer. “Albert Stephen William Weary. Born Sydney, Australia, November fifth, nineteen forty-eight. Don’t be frightened, I’m here with you. You’re Doc and you’re going to be fine.” Her hand scrabbled among the rubber, fingers searching for that discarded strip of elastic toweling. Terrified instincts telling her to scream, struggle, tear free of his overwhelming power, and run. Cool, calm mind delivering the words gently to her softly whispering lips. And something started stirring in the lost depths of his eyes.

  Pain.

  Of course, it would be. He had run away into his nothingness because of the pain of Sam’s death, and here she was calling him back to face it. To suffer it. But she had no choice. Things needed to be done that only he could do. And he couldn’t stay away forever.

  Her fingers found the sweatband and she let go of his other arm, rearing up again against his weakening grip, thrusting both elbows into the mattress just above his shoulders. Still speaking soothingly, the calm tone never faltering, even as that second arm whipped around her waist, crushing her down again, she stretched the headband carefully and slid it gently over his head with shaking hands.

  And suddenly the pressure on her was lessened. Suddenly his lips were moving in a silent echo of hers. “Albert Stephen William Weary…”

  Until his eyes came to life again.

  For a time they lay as they had been, bizarrely like lovers, crushed against each other on the bunk. From who knows what hidden recesses deep within her, a terrible warmth washed over Christine Martyr then. Affection that she had kept dammed within her for nearly fifteen years burst its barriers at last and flooded out of her long green eyes in tears. So, as the pressure of his arms about her neck and waist slackened away at last and his strong, broad body lay absolutely still beneath her, she pressed her lips down on his lips and she kissed with all her might. She did not know if he responded. For now she did not care.

  After unnumbered, delirious moments, she broke away, gasping for breath. She looked down into the blue eyes that were watching her quizzically. Into a face as soaked in tears as her own. And when she spoke, her voice was broken, husky, as though she had been screaming for hours. “Welcome back, Doc,” she said.

  And he said, “Welcome back, Chris,” as though he knew how long she, too, had been away. Now it was her turn to look quizzical, and his turn to reach up and move gentle fingers across her forehead into the long spun gold of her hair. Then her father came down the companionway and so she rolled off him and sat up.

  Martyr hesitated in the doorway as they looked up at him. He was slightly confused for a moment, almost disoriented. Something seemed to have changed during the last few minutes. Something beyond Sam’s death. Something almost as crucial. He felt certain of it but he could see no evidence of it. Only Weary, back to normal, sitting beside Christine on the bunk.

  “They’ll meet us at the old Fate platform in about eighteen hours,” he said. “We’ll have to get moving if we’re going to be there.”

  They had two important duties to perform before they could up anchor. They had to stow the box of thunderflashes and they had to find some way of saying good-bye to Sam. Sam had been a preacher’s boy. He kept a Bible and a service book with him at all times. So, after they had put the box of grenades beside the Kalashnikhovs in the lazarette, they read a prayer over Sam. It was as simple as that. Unreal. Pack away the thunderflashes, read a prayer over Sam.

  They pulled up the anchor and got under way at 01:30 local time.

  The south wind that had been coming and going over the last few weeks was a phenomenon related exclusively to the fierce heat of the day. At nig
ht the prevailing wind returned, blowing stiffly from the north. For the next nine hours, they cut across this at speed until it began to falter in the midmorning. But by that time they were well north of Sirik. When the wind died, they tacked easily in the dead air and waited for the southerly to spring up as it had done at this time every day. And it didn’t let them down. While Martyr was checking on the radio with Angus at base, Chris and Doc set the sails and waited for the first furnace gust. It came within minutes and built to that steady rush of air they had grown used to. Katapult leaned steadily away from it and sped southwest across it, her automatic knot meter clicking up from fifteen knots through twenty to twenty-five. It was exhilarating sailing, and, but for the dark cloud cast by Sam’s death, they would have been ecstatic. Even so, Weary called across the keen song of the wind, “You wait till we put the spinnaker up. Then you’ll see something!” They hit a long comber and white spray exploded back across the cockpit, soaking them.

  She stripped her shirt off and let the spray hit her flesh, completely at ease in the bikini now. And yet the fact of this caused a twinge of memory and guilt. She looked across at Doc and he was frowning. Of course he was, she thought. She was herself, now. Well, let him mourn. There would be time enough to make him smile. Then, having nothing else to do, she leaped up to her favorite perch, on the weather side, by the shroud. “Put on a safety line,” he called at once. “We’d never be able to stop in time if you went over.” She was happy to do so. Especially as she realized that, for all his sad preoccupation, he had been watching her all along.

  As they sailed back in through Hormuz without even deviating from the rhumb line that would take them down to Fate, Martyr reported in again that they were running tight to time.

  They sighted the old platform at 16:15 local time and were beside it in ten minutes. They were all exhausted after the long, exhilarating run and, as Doc hit the buttons controlling the automatic sail-furling equipment, they looked around themselves, as if surprised to be here. Katapult began to pitch in the chop as the way came off her, that damaged mast moving in jerky arcs across the hard blue sky. A sense of anticlimax gripped the three of them as they stood gazing about at the empty sea.