by Peter Tonkin
“Now row!” yelled Laughton and they rowed for dear life. Behind them the Wanderer slid faster and faster under the water. Waves swept restlessly up the foredeck and crashed against the mid-deck bridge. With the ease of a stiletto, the ship plunged into the bosom of the Indian Ocean. White spume reached up like fingers grasping the funnel. The waves met other waves cascading out of the great hole amidships.
With all of the crewmen slick with sweat at the oars, gasping under the furnace heat of the afternoon sun and the passengers lying in the bilge all nearly as helpless as Alec Stone, they took the lifeboat through the water in great lurches of effort away from the stricken ship. The angry waves roared around the poop, driving the last of the air out of cabins and passageways in great roars and belches and screams of sound. A mountain of froth spewed upwards whipped by the force of the water out of the bowels of the drowned steel shell. And she was gone.
But in going she had torn a great hole in the ocean and the water rushed to fill it in a quietly hissing and infinitely ominous whirlpool. And the lifeboat began to move with it sliding back down the liquid slope.
“Row!” yelled Laughton, his voice breaking with the strain. But their effort faltered and ultimately they sat in stunned silence as their tiny craft was swept in a rocking spiral back towards the madly spinning foam at the centre of the whirlpool. They had gone round three times and were starting on the fourth and last, their boat at a dangerous tilt, when O’Keefe whispered, “It’s weakening.” And it was.
A few moments later, still caught in the terrible fascination of the thing, they were sitting motionless in the boat, spinning round and round like a mad compass needle in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where the vortex had been, still moved by its power.
They sat long after the boat had stopped moving, sucking the boiling air into their straining lungs. But eventually Slobowski coughed, Stone stirred, O’Keefe’s ratty little eyes strayed to the opulent curves of Rebecca Dark’s bosom and he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. It was 1625, local time.
“I wish I knew what the hell happened,” said Laughton.
Chapter Four: The Plans
15 Bowstring Alley, Beijing, 18 July 1997
Feng was watching the wall. It seemed such an ordinary wall, hard and solid-made of grey stone blocks the length of an arm, flaking a little admittedly and not without long lines of rust-coloured moss, but a solid, stable, ordinary wall. Except that every time he took his eyes off it, it would become liquid, vibrate for a moment, begin to sag, and slowly turn into a great drop of stone and trickle onto the floor. It seemed to Feng that it would be a truly beautiful thing to examine this phenomenon, but it never happened when his eyes were fully on it. This was extremely frustrating.
But there was a lot more going on around him so he was not too upset. There was the chair upon which he was sitting, for example. He could not see that, of course, but its surface and curves felt so beautiful. The ease of the back, so solidly founded but rising by infinitely slow degrees to the soft ridge supporting his shoulders. The solidity of the seat, so hard, so flat, yet so delicately curved: the length of the legs, surely raising him so high. So very high.
The wall sagged. Feng’s eyes snapped back to it: too late. His face pouted like that of a disappointed child. “You’re sure you haven’t given him too much?” asked the Bee. The doctor shook his head: “No.”
“What do you see, Feng?” asked the Bee quietly. It was always the first question because he needed to know what sort of a trip Feng was on each time. A really bad trip was useless and could be fatal. He didn’t want Feng mad or dead. Not yet. Therefore he asked, “What do you see, Feng?”
Feng said, “Wall.” He said it slowly, savouring the shape of the word, examining the movements of chest, throat and mouth which made it. Confident of the totality of the communication.
“What about the wall?” snapped the Bee. He needed to break down Feng’s drug-induced self-confidence or he would get nothing but useless one-word answers. He had already had days - weeks - of one-word answers. This was why Feng was on the chair, no longer in the comfortable, ego-bolstering bed. “Wall,” said Feng again. The Bee closed his eyes. In spite of his occidental appearance, however, in spite of his jug-handle ears, his fair white skin, his flat broken nose and round blue eyes, he had a truly oriental patience. He was infinitely patient; infinitely painstaking. “What is the wall doing, Feng?” he asked again quietly, calmly. Feng’s eyes snapped back to the wall: too late. “Sagging.”
“Why is the wall sagging, brother Feng?”
“Watching. Not watching.”
“Come now, Feng. You are not being very clear.”
“Wall.”
“What about the wall?”
“Wall sagging.”
“Why?”
“Not watching.”
“EXPLAIN!” cried the Bee, hoping to shock Feng out of the senseless round.
It was actually becoming extremely important to Feng that he should share this unique experience. He made the supreme effort: “Wall is sagging when not watching.”
“I understand,” congratulated the Bee. “That was not so bad, was it?” he soothed. He allowed himself a brief feeling of elation. This was the first half-sensible utterance in ten days. He watched Feng, waiting for a new line of questioning to present itself: one which could be twisted by infinite degrees into a series of questions about the attempted defection - who had he seen? What had he done?
Feng held on to the chair with both hands. “Why are you holding on to the chair brother?”
Feng began to sort out the question into some sort of form. Inside him the chemicals mixed and melded. The nature of the trip subtly began to change. Suddenly he was icy cold. But Feng was preoccupied with the question. The chair, the chair, the chair: “The chair.”
“Why are you holding it, brother?”
The chair. Why? Why? Why chair? Why holding? Why holding chair? WHY HOLDING CHAIR: “Fall off.” “Why?” persisted the Bee.
Why? Why fly buy sigh die high my pie try HIGH: “High,” ply by cry fry dry pry cry die die die.
“The chair is high?” prompted the voice of God booming from the Heavens.
HIGH die try die DIE: HIGH: SIGH: SILL: WILL: WELL: WALL: WALL! WALL! WALL!
Feng’s whole body slewed round. Every muscle and tendon etched clearly beneath his rice-paper skin. Every vein bulged. His eyes started out of his face. The heavy wood chair groaned as its joints strained. The straps binding Feng threatened to snap. The Bee stepped back instantly: “Doctor!” he snapped. The doctor bustled forward but he was far too late.
Feng watched the wall bulge and flow onto the floor like a massive drop of water. Its edges broke away from the hard edges of reality and it came towards him like a tidal wave. As it hit the floor it gained height. It broke through the roof, its leading edge hollowing until it was a vibrant cliff overhanging him. His body slammed back into the chair, neck straining his head far enough back to see its mountainous crest. High, high, high among the stars he saw a line of white foam. Distantly he heard a roar like the massive jets at Kai Tak and Changi International. The wave was breaking down on him! He just had time to scream before it closed over his head and he drowned.
The Doctor looked up at the Bee, no emotion evident on his bland, round face. “The man is dead,” he said. The Bee picked him up and threw him across the room.
The Chinese secret service is called the Social Affairs Department (SAD). It has its headquarters at No 15, Bowstring Alley, Beijing. In the main conference room of this tall old house the Bee reported to his masters a little later. In the discussion that followed, the whole case of the misguided Feng and the action which had grown up around him was examined.
The Chairman himself did not attend the Fourth National Peoples’ Conference held between 13 and 17 January that year. However, 2,864 locally elected delegates did, and this mass of excellent party members felt it their duty to streamline their Party. The Party, its mech
anics and its civil service. Amongst those whose services were misapplied in political work was Feng. He was moved from a responsible position with the Social Affairs Department itself, to a communal farm near Tsingato. He was a single man, long widowed and childless. He had been accounted effectively childless even before his daughter was killed in Tiannenman Square.
That much was clear. After that, the sequence of events went slightly out of focus. Feng was informed in early June of the decision. He showed no emotion, praised the wisdom of the perspicacious People, and disappeared. He did not go to Tsingato. He did not go anywhere. Apparently he lingered in Beijing briefly, eluding the authorities - who were admittedly overstrained because of the sheer numbers of comrades also streamlined out of their jobs by the wise delegates of the newly Maoist Peoples’ Conference.
By the time it became clear that Feng had actually left Beijing, out of control, he was running free. The nature of his work (Second Senior in the Near-Western Section, SAD) made it seem most likely that he would run north into Russia, taking with him some tit-bit of information with which to buy sanctuary. He had been among the brothers seemingly fortunate enough, in the far-off days before the new purity, to have been educated in Moscow. He might therefore have contacts. It was all very feasible. The northern border was closed tight, therefore, while the files in Feng’s department were searched. Nothing was missing - but there might, of course, be copies.
Soon it became clear, however, that Feng was not running north, and a new urgency entered the game. The southern borders had not been so carefully patrolled, for what would he want in Hong Kong? Especially as the Colony would revert to the People’s Control in a matter of days. Unless, in Moscow during the time of detente he had met agents of another power - America, perhaps, always looking for the main chance.
Lately returned from a delicate mission overseas, the Hummingbird and the Bee were set upon the defector’s trail. This pair of agents were used to working outside China, as spies, agents provocateurs, assassins. They were part of a new breed of officer in the SAD. They were people used to taking pro-active action, to moving in those areas traditionally closed to the historically re-active organisation. But nowadays, of course, China was a Tiger of the Pacific Rim - a player upon the world stage. There was a new section to the SAD whose main responsibility was to work overseas, filling the vacuum left by the shortage of the CIA and the FSS as America and Russia discovered what life was like now that the Cold War was a thing of the past. And the Hummingbird and the Bee were the cutting edge of the new, active, department. They were the best.
They tracked Feng south, eating away his two weeks’ lead with casual ease. They were close behind when he crossed the New Territories into Hong Kong on the night of 25 June. So close that when the four operatives of CIA Local Station had picked Feng up, the Hummingbird and the Bee had picked up the American agents too. It was a moment’s work to dispose of three of them, but unfortunately in the confusion they had lost contact with Feng.
The defector did not know the city. His contact with the CIA had been brief. If they had managed to slip him directions it was unlikely that he would follow them for he would realise that the confusion covering his escape from the two Chinese agents was in fact the epitaph of his protectors.
Even with Check Lap Kok accepting flights, the quickest way out of Hong Kong is Kai Tak airport. They went there immediately just in time to see Feng board a plane for Singapore. With practised ease they disposed of a couple of latecomers, took their tickets and followed Feng onto the plane.
In Singapore they had been unlucky. Last in the queue for baggage check and customs at Changi International they had watched him cross the concourse and saw the two CIA agents pick him up. By the time they had found him again in his bright canary taxi, closely followed by the black Mercedes Benz, he was on his way down to the docks.
They had been deeply disturbed by his visit to the Wanderer because they could not work out why he had done it and it was their experience that inconsistency was inevitably sinister. For this reason, when they did eventually get hold of Feng - in the Gentlemen’s toilet of a restaurant, where he had stopped to have some tea - the Bee brought him back while the Hummingbird went onto the ship.
At first the plan had seemed to be beautiful in its utter simplicity. Hummingbird would look through the ship and find out who Feng had talked to. But Feng had talked to no one. Furthermore, although there was some coming-and-going, no one resembling an agent went near any place which might serve as a dead letter drop. Feng’s information must therefore have remained on board.
The plan changed a little, but became no less beautiful. Hummingbird would remain on board the ship - even should she sail. Feng would be asked to reveal why he had gone aboard. Hummingbird would be told and would act upon the information. But Feng had not broken. The Wanderer had sailed with the Hummingbird aboard.
The final plan was even more elegant than the others. Even in the face of Feng’s recalcitrance it could be put into effect. The Hummingbird had a small bomb. This would not be used immediately. Sufficient time must pass for the Chinese freighter Glorious Revolution to catch up with the British ship. At Hummingbird’s discretion, in mid-ocean, the bomb would cripple the Wanderer. Glorious Revolution would pick up the distress calls and go to her aid. Everyone
aboard would be removed. They and the ship would be taken apart.
This last was the most beautiful plan of all: nothing could possibly go wrong.
Chapter Five: The Boat
17-19 July
At first when he woke Stone thought he was blind. All he was aware of was the movement of the boat, an uneven pitching movement which made his stomach reel almost as wildly as his head. He lay without moving, engrossed in the all-consuming endeavour of not being sick. Then, terrifyingly, there washed over him the realisation that he was at the centre of a total absence of light. Sweat ran in a moment all over his body. He felt cold and began to shake.
As a child he had had a recurring nightmare. It always began like this with utter darkness. Soon, he knew, he would find it hard to breathe. Then he would begin to fight against the dark but it would assume substance and become invisible blankets surrounding him, cutting off his air. His struggles would become wilder, using up his small store of oxygen the quicker, wilder and more unavailing and the blindness in his eyes would begin to spread as numbness to his brain and heaviness would hold his arms and legs until the knowledge that he was dying was no longer sufficient motive to make him move as the blankets of the dark bound him tighter and tighter until they became his winding sheet and shroud.
“Mr Stone! Mr Stone, are you awake?” A distant voice, soft and distant. Miss Dark, thought Stone without really being aware of who Miss Dark was. “Mr Stone!” That same voice, more insistent. Stone shook his blind head and it hurt. Unconsciousness was seeping away unnoticed. Stone began to feel external things - hardness under his back, cramp in his legs, the cold: he shivered. “Mr Stone. Alec.” The same voice. But Stone was hearing other things now - the mutter of low conversation, the sighing of the restless wind, the irregular lapping of waves on wood beside his head. And he smelt the sea, heavy and salt mixed with something sweeter and more elusive - scent, a woman’s scent. He had smelt such scents before, in Paris with Anne. They cost £50 an ounce. He moved his head slightly, exploring the scent. “Anne?” he said.
“Alec?” The quiet voice: not Anne. A slight movement in the corner of his eye. He moved his head. Nothing. “I can’t see,” said Stone.
“It’s dark,” said Miss Dark. Miss Dark in the dark.
“I’m not blind, then.”
“No. You hit your head.”
A vivid flash of memory. He had helped Mrs Gash and Miss Buhl to their feet in the bar after the first explosion. The three of them had gone outside. There was a noticeable list on the ship: she was down by the head. “Come on,” he had said, “We’d better go to our muster stations - I don’t like the look of this.” They had been goin
g down the steps on the front of the bridge towards the forward deck when Mrs Gash had wedged the heel of her shoe in one of the steps. Miss Buhl had gone on down to the deck before turning back to see what was happening. Stone, last in line behind Mrs Gash, went down on one knee and pushed his hand under the instep of the wedged shoe to try to lift it free. Mrs Gash had clung onto the railing. At that moment from behind the bridge had come a terrible explosion. The ship had seemed to leap out of the ocean and then tilt to one side at an ever-increasing angle. Miss Buhl, thrown to the deck, had begun to roll helplessly down the slope towards the boiling ocean.
Stone had taken the rest of the steps at a leap and had run at full tilt down the deck after her. At the last moment he had thrown himself on his belly, arms reaching to her. He had caught her wrist just as she went over the side. Her weight, together with the angle of the deck and the power of his dive, drove him forward head-first into the white upright of the railings. Through a maze of bright colours he had seen his left hand swing down the sheer black side of the ship to grasp Miss Buhl’s other wrist. “I will not let go,” he had thought. And then the darkness had come.
“It must be very dark, then,” he said to Rebecca Dark.
“It is.” There was fear in her voice. “It was OK at sunset, but a couple of hours ago the clouds started to come over, and the wind’s picking up strength.”
“What do the sailors say?”
“We say it’s a bleedin’ typhoon.”
“Shut up, O’Keefe.” This last, the young officer’s voice - what was his name? Spooner?
“Even if it is a typhoon,” continued Spooner, “there’s nothing we can do about it.” He spoke with calm authority. He had taken command, clearly, as was only right and proper.