Such a man would probably stumble through the snow crust into a trickling rivulet and, with wet feet, start to lose body core temperature at an alarming rate, leading to hypothermia and frostbite in the frozen toes.
Olsen’s message from Langley had left no room for doubt; under no circumstances must the fugitive reach Canada, nor must he reach a functioning telephone. Just in case.
Linnett had few doubts. His target would wander in circles without a compass. He would stumble and fall at every second step. He could not see in the blackness under the trees where even the moon, had it not been hidden by twenty thousand feet of freezing cloud, could not penetrate.
True, the man
had a five-hour head start; but even in a straight line, that would give him under three miles of ground covered. Special Forces men on skis could treble that, and if rocks and tree trunks forced the use of snowshoes, he could still double the speed of the fugitive.
He was right about the skis. From the drop-off point of the truck at the end of the track, he reached the wrecked CIA Cabin in under an hour. He and his men examined it briefly to see if the fugitive had come back to rifle it for better equipment. There was no sign of that. The two bodies, rigid in the cold, were laid out, hands crossed on chests in the now freezing refectory, safe from roaming animals. They would have to wait for the cloud to lift and a helicopter to land.
There are twelve men in an ‘A’ team; Linnett was the only officer and his Number Two was a chief warrant officer. The other ten were all senior enlisted men, the lowest rank being a staff sergeant. They broke down into two engineers (for demolition), two radio operators, two ‘medics’, a team sergeant (not one but two specialities), an intelligence sergeant and two snipers. While Linnett was inside the wrecked Cabin his team sergeant, who was an expert tracker, scouted the ground outside.
The threatening snow had not fallen; the area around the helipad and the front door, where the rescue team from Mazama had arrived, was a mush of snowshoe marks. But from the shattered compound wall a single trail of footprints led away due north.
Coincidental? thought Linnett. It was the one direction the fugitive must not take. It led to Canada, twenty-two miles away. But, for the Afghan, forty-four hours of hiking. He would never make it, even if he could keep in a straight line. Anyway, the Alpha team would get him halfway there.
It took another hour to cover the next mile, on snowshoes. That was when they found the other cabin. No one had mentioned the other two or three cabins that were permitted in the Pasayten Wilderness because they pre-dated the building prohibition. And this one had been broken into. The shattered triple-glazing and the rock beside the gaping hole left no doubt.
Captain Linnett went in first, carbine forward, safety catch off. Round the edges of the shattered glass two men gave cover. It took them less than a minute to ensure there was no one present, either in the cabin, the adjacent log store or the empty garage. But the signs were everywhere. Linnett tried the light switch, but the power clearly came from a generator when the owner was in residence, and that was closed down behind the garage. They relied on their flashlights.
Beside the deep fireplace in the main sitting area was a box of matches and several long tapers, clearly for lighting the logs in the grate; also a bundle of candles in case the generator failed. The intruder had used both to find his way around. Captain Linnett turned to one of his comms sergeants.
‘Raise the county sheriff and find out who owns this place,’ he said. He began to explore. Nothing seemed to be smashed, but everything had been rifled.
‘It’s a surgeon from Seattle,’ reported the sergeant. ‘Vacations up here in the summer, closes it all down in the fall.’
‘Name and phone number. He must have left them with the sheriff’s office.’ When the sergeant had them he was told to contact Fort Lewis, have them call the surgeon at his Seattle home and put him on a direct patch-through. A surgeon was a lucky break; surgeons have pagers in case of an emergency. This situation definitely rated.
The ghost ship never went near Surabaya. There was no consignment of expensive oriental silks to be taken aboard, and the six apparent sea containers on the Countess of Richmond’s foredeck were in place anyway.
She took the route south of Java, passed Christmas Island and headed out into the Indian Ocean. For Mike Martin the onboard routines became a ritual.
The psychopath Ibrahim remained mainly in his cabin and the good news was that most of the time he was violently ill. Of the remaining seven men, the engineer tended his engines, set at maximum speed regardless of fuel use. Where the Countess was going she would need no fuel for a return journey.
For Martin the twin enigmas remained unanswered. Where was she going, and what explosive power lay beneath her decks? No one seemed to know, with the possible exception of the chemical engineer. But he never spoke and the subject was never raised.
The radio expert kept a listening watch and must have learned of a sea search taking place right across the Pacific and at the entrances to the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal. He may have reported this to Ibrahim but made no mention of it to the rest.
The other five men took turns in the galley to turn out plate after plate of cold tinned food, and also took turns at the wheel. The navigator set the heading – always west, then south of due west to the Cape of Good Hope.
For the rest, they prayed five times a day according to scripture, read the Koran yet again and stared at the sea.
Martin considered attempting to take over the ship. He had no weapon other than the chance to steal a kitchen knife, and he would have to kill seven men, one of whom, Ibrahim, he had to presume had one or more firearms. And they were scattered from the engine room to the radio shack to the forecastle at the bow. If and when they came close to a clear target on shore he knew he would have to do it. But across the Indian Ocean he bided his time.
He did not know whether his message in the divebag had ever been found or was tossed into some attic unread; and he did not know he had triggered a global ship-hunt.
‘This is Dr Berenson, whom am I talking with?’
Michael Linnett took the speaker from the set on the sergeant’s back and lied.
‘I am with the sheriff’s office at Mazama,’ he said. ‘Right now I am in your cabin in the Wilderness. I’m sorry to have to tell you there has been a break-in.’
‘Hell, no. Dammit, is there damage done?’ the tinny voice speaking from Seattle asked.
‘He broke in by smashing the main front window with a rock, doctor. That seems to be the only structural damage. I just want to check on theft. Did you have any firearms here?’
‘Absolutely not. I keep two hunting rifles and a scatter gun, but I bring them out with me in the fall.’