Five lots of three brought him under the stern of the vessel. She was moving gently in the swell, and waves were slapping against her side. He gave Terry’s arm four squeezes to indicate that they were on target, then felt his way down the swept-out curve of the hull until his gloved hand bumped gently against one blade of the starboard propeller. Down there, well underneath the ship, they were far out of sight of anyone on deck, so he switched on his helmet lamp, and in less than five minutes he had the first charge in place, tied round the prop-shaft at the point where it disappeared into the hull. Then, paying out the white det cord as he went, he swam down, under the end of the keel, and back up to the other prop. By the time he had the second charge in position and wired up his watch said 0235; so he set the timer for twenty-five minutes and swam quickly away.
Twenty minutes later he and Terry were back on the beach. Freddie Taylor, the single guy on stag at the boats, welcomed them in as they peeled off their kit.
‘No problems?’ he asked.
‘Piece of cake,’ Merv answered. ‘We’ll whip up to watch the fireworks.’
Freddie had the boats fully inflated, ready for the quick carry to the water. Merv and Terry just had time to scramble to the top of the headland ridge.
‘Blue One to other Blues,’ he said quietly over the covert radio. ‘All go at our end.’
He didn’t expect, or get, any answer. By then the assault party was at close quarters, and nobody would want to speak. In the event Roger had taken six men with him. One of them was to head out along the airstrip road before things went noisy, so that he’d be well placed to put down diversionary rounds without having to out-sprint everyone else.
As the watchers lay on top of the ridge, the wind was coming from behind them, blowing onshore. Through 8 × 56 binoculars the buildings were clearly visible. A Russian-built Gaz jeep was parked outside, a few yards to the left of the objective.
‘There!’ said Terry suddenly. ‘Somebody crossed the front of No. 2. And another. They’re on the target, all right.’
‘Thirty seconds to go,’ said Merv over the radio link. ‘Twenty. Stand by, Stand by. Fifteen. Ten. Five. Four, three, two…’
Before he could finish, a heavy, dull thump sounded from across the water. A fountain of ‘water and spray flew into the air at the Santa Maria’s stern, and the whole ship gave a heave, a kind of slow flip from stern to bow. Then she settled back to her normal attitude, as if nothing had happened.
Lights went on in the ship’s accommodation. Men began shouting. Merv and Terry saw people running aft along the cargo decks — but they didn’t care too much about what was happening on board, their attention was focused on House No. 2. Now two men were visible outside, backed up against the wall, five or six yards apart, either side of the entrance.
‘They’re going to blow the door,’ said Merv tersely. ‘There she goes.’
A flash sparked out from the front of the house, and seconds later the boom of an explosion reached them. White smoke and dust billowed out in a ragged cloud. The assaulters disappeared. Then came two short bursts of automatic fire, the first and loudest in the watchers’ earpieces, the second more muffled and through the air.
Suddenly they heard Roger call, ‘Bolt-cutters!’ A moment later they picked up a snap, followed by clinking noises.
At that instant Merv saw a dark figure running up the road from the left.
‘Blue One,’ he snapped. ‘Watch out. One X-ray approaching from direction ship.’
Roger must have had a man outside on stag, because two more bursts rattled out, and the running figure dropped. Immediately afterwards they heard Roger say, ‘Let’s go. Run!’
Men poured out of the doorway — one, two, three, four, five. A sixth sprinted from the left to join them. Four ran to the right, while two temporarily vanished, having gone down to give covering fire. Then the two were on their feet and running. Hardly had they passed out of sight to the watchers’ right when a far louder explosion — the loudest of the night — took House No. 2 apart. In a few seconds the structure was on fire, flames pouring from the roof. More men appeared, running from the ship, but the sight of the blazing house brought them to a halt. The last radio call Merv heard was Roger telling Charlie — his man down the airstrip road — not to stage any diversion, because none was necessary, but to head for base.
The watchers were about to pull back to the beach when Merv took one more look at the Santa Maria.
‘Jesus!’ he cried. ‘She’s down at the stern. She’s sinking.’
‘Arse on the bottom, anyway,’ Terry agreed. ‘Let’s go.’
Five minutes later the assault group tumbled on to the beach, panting but elated. Peter Black still had a shackle and a few links of chain dangling from his left wrist; for the past forty-eight hours he’d been chained to the structure of whatever gaol he’d been in — one night in a safe house used by the narcos in Bogotá, then in a cabin on the ship, then in the island building. He was still in his party gear, or at least the remains of it: the jacket of his suit had disappeared somewhere along the way, and his shirt, once white, was now filthy and torn. But his dark city trousers and black shoes looked ridiculously out of place. He was holding a pistol that Roger had thrust into his hand in case of emergency.
‘Good to see you, boss,’ Merv said cheerily. ‘Had a nice holiday?’
‘Charming, thanks. Five-star treatment.’
‘Seriously — are you OK?’
‘Absolutely. But, Christ, am I glad to see you guys. What a fantastic effort!’
‘All part of the service. Now, let’s go for a little voyage.’
After a quick sweep to make sure they’d left nothing behind, they fitted the engines, launched the Geminis, and motored out into the wind. As they cleared the headland, well out to sea, they looked back and saw flames rising high above the creek. Merv switched on the satcom and went through to Tony Lopez in Bogotá to report the success of the operation.
Somebody lent Black a sweater, because the night was quite cool, and once he’d got some food and drink down him, he seemed pretty much himself. As the party headed out to sea, they filled him in on their side of the operation, but he seemed desperately eager to find out what had happened to ‘the others’.
‘Who are they, boss?’ Merv asked.
‘You don’t know?’
‘No. We came out so bloody fast, we never got a full briefing. All we knew was that we had to lift you, off the boat or wherever it stopped.’
‘Well…’ Black seemed at a loss for words. ‘It was the DA from the embassy, and the… woman who runs the comms office.’
‘They’re at some location in the jungle, and the training team from D Squadron’s gone after them. Their operation was due to go down at the same time as ours.’
‘Let’s ask the embassy what’s happened, then.’
They went through again on the satcom, and Black talked to Tony direct — but all the anchor-man could report was that no news had come up from the south.
‘What about the 319?’ Black asked Merv. ‘Can’t we raise them on that?’
‘We can try.’
The radio was in the other boat, so they closed on it and called across. But presently the answer came back: no contact.
At 0440 Merv took one last fix with his Magellan and saw that they were almost on their rendezvous, a few minutes early, so both coxswains throttled back their engines and cruised gently forward into the swell. Then a couple of men in each boat dangled their triangle-like signalling devices in the water, fishing for the submarine.