Triple

by Ken Follett

  "Coffee?"

  "Good of you. Thank you."

  Koch handed him the mug. "Where are we?"

  "Here." The officer showed him their position on a chart. "Dead on schedule, in spite of the weather."

  Koch nodded. That meant he had to stop the ship in fifteen minutes. "See you later," he said. He left the bridge and went below to the engine room.

  His number two was there, looking quite fresh, as if he had taken a good long nap during his night's duty. "How's the oil pressure?" Koch asked him.

  "Steady."

  "It was going up and down a bit yesterday."

  "Well, there was no sign of trouble in the night," the number two said. He was a little too firm about it, as if he was afraid of being accused of sleeping while the gauge oscillated.

  "Good," Koch said. "Perhaps it's repaired itself." He put his mug down on a level cowling, then picked it up quickly as the ship rolled. "Wake Larsen on your way to bed."

  "Right."

  "Sleep well."

  The number two left, and Koch drank down his coffee and went to work.

  The oil pressure gauge was located in a bank of dials aft of the engine. The dials were set into a thin metal casing, painted matt black and secured by four self-tapping screws. Using a large screwdriver, Koch removed the four screws and pulled the casing away. Behind it was a mass of many-colored wires leading to the different gauges. Koch swapped his large screwdriver for a small electrical one with an insulated handle. With a few turns he disconnected one of the wires to the oil pressure gauge. He wrapped a couple of inches of insulating tape around the bare end of the wire, then taped it to the back of the dial so that only a close inspection would reveal it was not connected to the terminal. Then he replaced the casing and secured it with the four screws.

  When Larsen came in he was topping up the transmission fluid.

  "Can I do that, sir?" Larsen said. He was a Donkeyman Greaser, and lubrication was his province.

  "I've done it now," Koch said. He replaced the filler cap and stowed the can in a locker.

  Larsen rubbed his eyes and lit a cigarette. He looked over the dials, did a double take and said. "Sir! Oil pressure zero!"

  "Zero?"

  "Yes!"

  "Stop engines!"

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Without oil, friction between the engine's metal parts would cause a very rapid build-up of heat until the metal melted, the parts fused and the engines stopped, never to go again. So dangerous was the sudden absence of oil pressure that Larsen might well have stopped the engines on his own initiative, without asking Koch.

  Everyone on the ship heard the engine die and felt the Coparelli lose way; even those dayworkers who were still asleep in their bunks heard it through their dreams and woke up. Before the engine was completely still the first officer's voice came down the pipe. "Bridge! What's going on below?"

  Koch spoke into the voice-pipe. "Sudden loss of oil pressure."

  "Any idea why?"

  "Not yet."

  "Keep me posted."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Koch turned to Larsen. "We're going to drop the sump," he said. Larsen picked up a toolbox and followed Koch down a half deck to where they could get at the engine from underneath. Koch told him, "If the main bearings or the big end bearings were worn the drop in oil pressure would have been gradual. A sudden drop means a failure in the oil supply. There's plenty of oil in the system--I checked earlier--and there are no signs of leaks. So there's probably a blockage."

  Koch released the sump with a power spanner and the two of them lowered it to the deck. They checked the sump strainer, the full flow filter, the filter relief valve and the main relief valve without finding any obstructions.

  "If there's no blockage, the fault must be in the pump," Koch said. "Break out the spare oil pump."

  "That will be in the store on the main deck," Larsen said.

  Koch handed him the key, and Larsen went above.

  Now Koch had to work very quickly. He took the casing off the oil pump, exposing two broad-toothed meshing gear wheels. He took the spanner off the power drill and fitted a bit, then attacked the cogs of the gear wheels with the drill, chipping and breaking them until they were all but useless. He put down the drill, picked up a crowbar and a hammer, and forced the bar in between the two wheels, prising them apart until he heard something give with a loud, dull crack. Finally he took out of his pocket a small nut made of toughened steel, battered and chipped. He had brought it with him when he had boarded the ship. He dropped the nut into the sump.

  Done.

  Larsen came back.

  Koch realized he had not taken the bit off the power drill: when Larsen left there had been a spanner attachment on the tool. Don't look at the drill! he thought.

  Larsen said, "The pump isn't there, sir."

  Koch fished the nut out of the sump. "Look at this," he said, distracting Larsen's eye from the incriminating power drill. "This is the cause of the trouble." He showed Larsen the ruined gear wheels of the oil pump. "The nut must have been dropped in the last time the filters were changed. It got into the pump and it's been going round and round in those gear wheels ever since. I'm surprised we didn't hear the noise, even over the sound of the engine. Anyway, the oil pump is beyond repair, so you'll have to find that spare. Get a few hands to help you look for it."

  Larsen went out. Koch took the bit off the power drill and put back the spanner attachment. He ran up the steps to the main engine room to remove the other piece of incriminating evidence. Working at top speed in case someone else should come in, he removed the casing on the gauges and reconnected the oil pressure gauge. Now it would genuinely read zero. He replaced the casing and threw away the insulating tape.

  It was finished. Now to pull the wool over the captain's eyes.

  As soon as the search party admitted defeat Koch went up to the bridge. He told the captain, "A mechanic must have dropped a nut into the oil sump last time the engine was serviced, sir." He showed the captain the nut. "At some point--maybe while the ship was pitching so steeply--the nut got into the oil pump. After that it was just a matter of time. The nut went around in the gear wheels until it had totally ruined them. I'm afraid we can't make gear wheels like that on board. The ship should carry a spare oil pump, but it doesn't."

  The captain was furious. "There will be hell to pay when I find out who's responsible for this."

  "It's the engineer's job to check the spares, but as you know, sir, I came on board at the last minute."

  "That means it's Sarne's fault."

  "There may be an explanation--"

  "Indeed. Such as he spent too much time chasing Belgian whores to look after his engine. Can we limp along?"

  "Absolutely not, sir. We wouldn't move half a cable before she seized."

  "Damnation. Where's the radio operator?"

  The first officer said, "I'll find him, sir," and went out.

  "You're certain you can't put something together?" the captain asked Koch.

  "I'm afraid you can't make an oil pump out of spare parts and string. That's why we have to carry a spare pump."

  The first officer came back with the radio operator. The captain said, "Where the devil have you been?"

  The radio operator was the rotund, big-nosed man Koch had bumped into on the deck during the night. He looked hurt. "I was helping to search the for'ard store for the oil pump, sir, then I went to wash my hands." He glanced at Koch, but there was no hint of suspicion in his look: Koch was not sure how much he had seen during that little confrontation on the deck, but if he had made any connection between a missing spare and a package thrown overboard by the engineer, he wasn't saying.

  "All right," the captain said. "Make a signal to the owners: Report engine breakdown at . . . What's our exact position, number one?"

  The first officer gave the radio operator the position.

  The captain continued: "Require new oil pump or tow to port. Please instruct.
"

  Koch's shoulders slumped a little. He had done it.

  Eventually the reply came from the owners:

  COPARELLI SOLD TO SAVILE SHIPPING OF Zurich. YOUR MESSAGE PASSED TO NEW OwnerS. STAND BY FOR THEIR INSTRUCTIONS.

  Almost immediately afterward there was a signal from Savile Shipping:

  OUR VESSEL GIL HAMILTON IN YOUR WATERS. SHE WILL COME ALONGSIDE AT APPROXIMATELY NOON. PREPARE TO DISEMBARK ALL CREW EXCEPT ENGINEER GIL HAMILTON WILL TAKE CREW TO MARSEILLES. ENGINEER WILL AWAIT NEW OIL PUMP. PAPAGOPOLOUS.

  The exchange of signals was heard sixty miles away by Solly Weinberg, the master of the Gil Hamilton and a commander in the Israeli Navy. He muttered, "Right on schedule. Well done, Koch." He set a course for the Coparelli and ordered full speed ahead.

  It was not heard by Yasif Hassan and Mahmoud aboard the Nablus 150 miles away. They were in the captain's cabin, bent over a sketch plan Hassan had drawn of the Coparelli, and they were deciding exactly how they would board her and take over. Hassan had instructed the Nablus's radio operator to listen out on two wavelengths: the one on which the Stromberg's radio beacon broadcast and the one Tyrin was using for his clandestine signals from the Coparelli to Rostov aboard the Karla. Because the messages were sent on the Coparelli's regular wavelength, the Nablus did not pick them up. It would be some time before the Fedayeen realized they were hijacking an almost abandoned ship.

  The exchange was heard 200 miles away on the bridge of the Stromberg. When the Coparelli acknowledged the signal from Papagopolous, the officers on the bridge cheered and clapped. Nat Dickstein, leaning against a bulkhead with a mug of black coffee in his hand, staring ahead at the rain and the heaving sea, did not cheer. His body was hunched and tense, his face stiff, his brown eyes slitted behind the plastic spectacles. One of the others noticed his silence and made a remark about getting over the first big hurdle. Dickstein's muttered reply was uncharacteristically peppered with the strongest of obscenities. The cheerful officer turned away, and later in the mess observed that Dickstein looked like the kind of man who would stick a knife in you if you stepped on his toe.

  And it was heard by David Rostov and Suza Ashford 300 miles away aboard the Karla.

  Suza had been in a daze as she walked across the gangplank from the Sicilian quayside on to the Polish vessel. She had hardly noticed what was happening as Rostov showed her to her cabin--an officer's room with its own head--and said he hoped she would be comfortable. She sat on the bed. She was still there, in the same position, an hour later when a sailor brought some cold food on a tray and set it down on her table without speaking. She did not eat it. When it got dark she began to shiver, so she got into the bed and lay there with her eyes wide open, staring at nothing, still shivering.

  Eventually she had slept--fitfully at first, with strange meaningless nightmares, but in the end deeply. Dawn woke her.

  She lay still, feeling the motion of the ship and looking blankly at the cabin around her; and then she realized where she was. It was like waking up and remembering the blind terror of a nightmare, except that instead of thinking: Oh, thank God it was a dream, she realized it was all true and it was still going on.

  She felt horribly guilty. She had been fooling herself, she could see that now. She had convinced herself that she had to find Nat to warn him, no matter the risk; but the truth was she would have reached for any excuse to go and see him. The disastrous consequences of what she had done followed naturally from the confusion of her motives. It was true that Nat had been in danger; but he was in worse danger now, and it was Suza's fault.

  She thought of that, and she thought of how she was at sea in a Polish ship commanded by Nat's enemies and surrounded by Russian thugs; and she closed her eyes tightly and pushed her head under the pillow and fought the hysteria that bubbled up in her throat.

  And then she began to feel angry, and that was what saved her sanity.

  She thought of her father, and how he wanted to use her to further his political ideas, and she felt angry with him. She thought of Hassan, manipulating her father, putting his hand on her knee, and she wished she had slapped his face while she had the chance. Finally she thought of Rostov, with his hard, intelligent face and his cold smile, and how he intended to ram Nat's ship and kill him, and she got mad as hell.

  Dickstein was her man. He was funny, and he was strong, and he was oddly vulnerable, and he wrote love letters and stole ships, and he was the only man she had ever loved like this; and she was not going to lose him.

  She was in the enemy camp, a prisoner, but only from her point of view. They thought she was on their side; they trusted her. Perhaps she would have a chance to throw a wrench in their works. She must look for it. She would move about the ship, concealing her fear, talking to her enemies, consolidating her position in their confidence, pretending to share their ambitions and concerns, until she saw her opportunity.

  The thought made her tremble. Then she told herself: If I don't do this, I lose him; and if I lose him I don't want to live.

  She got out of bed. She took off the clothes she had slept in, washed and put on clean sweater and pants from her suitcase. She sat at the small nailed-down table and ate some of the sausage and cheese that had been left there the day before. She brushed her hair and, just to boost her morale a little, put on a trace of make-up.

  She tried her cabin door. It was not locked.

  She went out.

  She walked along a gangway and followed the smell of food to the galley. She went in and looked swiftly about.

  Rostov sat alone, eating eggs slowly with a fork. He looked up and saw her. Suddenly his face seemed icily evil, his narrow mouth hard, his eyes without emotion. Suza hesitated, then forced herself to walk toward him. Reaching his table, she leaned briefly on a chair, for her legs felt weak.

  Rostov said, "Sit down."

  She dropped into the chair.

  "How did you sleep?"

  She was breathing too quickly, as if she had been walking very fast. "Fine," she said. Her voice shook.

  His sharp, skeptical eyes seemed to bore into her brain. "You seem upset." He spoke evenly, without sympathy or hostility.

  "I . . ." Words seemed to stick in her throat, choking her. "Yesterday . . . was confusing." It was true, anyway: it was easy to say this. "I never saw someone die."

  "Ah." At last a hint of human feeling showed in Rostov's expression: perhaps he remembered the first time he watched a man die. He reached for a coffee pot and poured her a cup. "You're very young," he said. "You can't be much older than my first son."

  Suza sipped at the hot coffee gratefully, hoping he would go on talking in this fashion--it would help her to calm down.

  "Your son?" she said.

  "Yuri Davidovitch, he's twenty."

  "What does he do?"

  Rostov's smile was not as chilly as before. "Unfortunately he spends most of his time listening to decadent music. He doesn't study as hard as he should. Not like his brother."

  Suza's breathing was slowing to normal, and her hand no longer shook when she picked up her cup. She knew that this man was no less dangerous just because he had a family; but he seemed less frightening when he talked like this. "And your other son?" she asked. "The younger one?"

  Rostov nodded. "Vladimir." Now he was not frightening at all: he was staring over Suza's shoulder with a fond indulgent expression on his face. "He's very gifted. He will be a great mathematician if he gets the right schooling."

  "That shouldn't be a problem," she said, watching him. "Soviet education is the best in the world."

  It seemed like a safe thing to say, but must have had some special significance for him, because the faraway look disappeared and his face turned hard and cold again. "No," he said. "It shouldn't be a problem." He continued eating his eggs.

  Suza thought urgently: He was becoming friendly, I mustn't lose him now. She cast about desperately for something to say. What did they have in common, what could they talk about? Then s
he was inspired. "I wish I could remember you from when you were at Oxford."

  "You were very small." He poured himself some coffee. "Everyone remembers your mother. She was easily the most beautiful woman around. And you're exactly like her."

  That's better, Suza thought. She asked him, "What did you study?"

  "Economics."

  "Not an exact science in those days, I imagine."

  "And not much better today."

  Suza put on a faintly solemn expression. "We speak of bourgeois economics, of course."

  "Of course." Rostov looked at her as if he could not tell whether she were serious or not. He seemed to decide she was.

  An officer came into the galley and spoke to him in Russian. Rostov looked at Suza regretfully. "I must go up to the bridge."

  She had to go with him. She forced herself to speak calmly. "May I come?"

  He hesitated. Suza thought: He should let me. He's enjoyed talking to me, he believes I'm on his side, and if I learn any secrets how could he imagine I could use them, stuck here on a KGB ship?

  Rostov said: "Why not?"

  He walked away. Suza followed.

  Up in the radio room Rostov smiled as he read through the messages and translated them for Suza's benefit. He seemed delighted with Dickstein's ingenuity. "The man is smart as hell," he said.

  "What's Savile Shipping?" Suza asked.

  "A front for Israeli Intelligence. Dickstein is eliminating all the people who have reason to be interested in what happens to the uranium. The shipping company isn't interested because they no longer own the ship. Now he's taking off the captain and crew. No doubt he has some kind of hold over the people who actually own the uranium. It's a beautiful scheme."

  This was what Suza wanted. Rostov was talking to her like a colleague, she was at the center of events; she must be able to find a way to foul things up for him. She said, "I suppose the breakdown was rigged?"

  "Yes. Now Dickstein can take over the ship without firing a shot."

  Suza thought fast. When she "betrayed" Dickstein she had proved her loyalty to the Arab side. Now the Arab side had split into two camps: in one were Rostov, the KGB and Egyptian Intelligence; in the other Hassan and the Fedayeen. Now Suza could prove her loyalty to Rostov's side by betraying Hassan.

  She said, as casually as she possibly could, "And so can Yasif Hassan, of course."