‘No need, Monterey. We’ll be past her in forty minutes. Over two miles of sea between us.’
Formatting on the Queen Mary, the Monterey would be less than that, but there was still ample room. High above, the Hawkeye and the EA-6B scanned the helpless freighter for any sign of missile lock-on, or any electronic activity at all. There was none, but they would keep watching until the Countess was well behind the convoy. Two other ships were also in the no-entry alley, but much further ahead and would be asked to divert, left and right.
‘Roger that,’ said the Monterey.
It had all been heard on the bridge of the Countess. Ibrahim nodded that they should leave him. The radio engineer and the youth scuttled down the ladder to the speedboat and all six in the inflatable waited for the Afghan.
Still convinced that the crazed Jordanian would re-engage the engine and attempt to ram one of the oncoming vessels, Martin knew he could not leave the Countess of Richmond. His only hope was to take her over after killing the crew.
He went down the rope ladder backwards. Behind the thwarts Suleiman was setting up his digital photography equipment. A rope trailed from the rail of the Countess; one of the Indonesians stood near the speedboat’s bow, gripping the rope and holding her against the flow of the current running past the ship’s side.
Martin held the ladder fast, turned, reached down and slashed the grey rock-hard fabric over a six-foot length. The act was so fast and s
o unexpected that for two or three seconds no one reacted, save the sea itself. The escaping air made a low roar and with six on board that side of the inflatable dipped downwards and began to ship water.
Leaning further out, Martin slashed at the retaining rope. He missed but cut open the forearm of the Indonesian. Then the men reacted. But the Indonesian released his grip and the sea took them.
There were vengeful hands reaching out at him but the sinking speedboat dropped astern. The weight of the great outboard pulled down the aft end and more salt water rushed in. The wreckage cleared the stern of the freighter and went away into the blackness of the Atlantic night. Somewhere down current it simply sank, dragged down by the outboard. In the gleam of the ship’s sternlight Martin saw waving hands on the water, and then they too were gone. No one can swim against four knots. He went back up the ladder.
At that moment Ibrahim jerked one of the three controls the explosives expert had left him. As Martin climbed, there was a series of sharp cracks as tiny charges went off.
When Mr Wei had built the gallery masquerading as six sea containers along the deck of the Java Star from bridge to bow, he had created the roof or ‘lid’ of the empty space beneath as one single piece of steel held down by four strong points.
To these the explosives man had fitted shaped charges and linked all four to wires taking power from the ship’s engines. When they blew, the sheet-metal lid of the cavern beneath lifted upwards several feet. The power of the charges was asymmetric so that one side of the sheet rose higher than the other.
Martin was at the top of the rope ladder, knife in teeth, when the charges blew. He crouched there as the huge sheet of steel slid sideways into the sea. He put the knife away and entered the bridge.
The Al-Qaeda killer was standing at the wheel staring forward through the glass. On the horizon, bearing down at twenty-five knots, was a floating city, seventeen decks and 150,000 tonnes of lights, steel and people. Right under the bridge the gallery was open to the stars. For the first time Martin realized its purpose. Not to contain something: to hide something.
The clouds moved away from the half-moon and the entire foredeck of the once-Java Star gleamed in its light. For the first time Martin realized this was not a general freighter containing explosives; it was a tanker. Running away from the bridge was the cat’s cradle of pipes, tubes, spigots and hydrant-wheels that gave away her purpose in life.
Evenly spaced down the deck towards the bow were six circular steel discs – the venting hatches – above each of the cargo tanks beneath the deck.
‘You should have stayed on the boat, Afghan,’ said Ibrahim.
‘There was no room, my brother. Suleiman almost fell overboard. I stayed on the ladder. Then they were gone. Now I will die here with you, inshallah.’
Ibrahim seemed appeased. He glanced at the ship’s clock and pulled his second lever. The flexes ran from the control down to the ship’s batteries, took their power and went forward into the gallery where the explosives man, entering through the secret door, had worked during his month at sea.
Six more charges detonated. The six hatches blew away from above the tanks. What followed was invisible to the naked eye: six vertical columns rose like volcanoes from the domes as the cargo began to vent. The rising vapour cloud reached a hundred feet, lost its impetus and gravity took over. The unseen cloud, mixing furiously with the night air, fell back to the sea and began to roll outwards, away from the source in all directions.
Martin had lost and he knew it. He was too late and he knew that too. He knew enough to realize he had been riding a floating bomb since the Philippines, and that what was pouring out of the six missing hatches was invisible death that could not now be controlled.
He had always presumed the Countess of Richmond, now become again the Java Star, was going to drive herself into some inner harbour and detonate what lay below her decks.
He had presumed she was going to ram something of value as she blew herself up. For thirty days he had waited in vain for a chance to kill seven men and take over her command. No such chance had appeared.
Now, too late, he realized the Java Star was not going to deliver a bomb; she was the bomb. And with her cargo venting fast, she did not need to move an inch. The oncoming liner had only to pass within three kilometres of her to be consumed.
He had heard the interchange on the bridge between the Pakistani boy and the Deck Officer of the Queen Mary 2. He knew too late the Java Star would not engage engines. The escorting cruisers would never allow that, but she did not need to.
There was a third control by Ibrahim’s right hand, a button to be hammered downward. Martin followed the flexes to a Very pistol, a flare-gun mounted just forward of the bridge windows. One flare, one single spark . . .
Through the windows the city of lights was over the horizon. Fifteen miles, thirty minutes’ cruising, optimum time for maximum fuel–air mixture.
Martin’s glance flicked to the radio speaker on the console. A last chance to shout a warning. His right hand slid down towards the slit in his robe inside which was his knife, strapped to his thigh.
The Jordanian caught the glance and the movement. He had not survived Afghanistan, a Jordanian jail and the relentless American hunt for him in Iraq without developing the instincts of a wild animal.