Starling put his cup down. “We need to know, Remo,” he said rather seriously. “I’ve got Ford and Navarro working on it, and I want you to pull out all the stops. Anything you need, anything, let me know. If Al Qaeda has those bombs, we could be in serious trouble.”
Francesini looked at him from his chair, rocking slightly. “So could a lot of people, sir. So could a lot of people.”
He couldn’t tell Starling what he already knew because his boss would only deal in facts, not conjecture. The only fact he had was that he had one person working on something that really was pure conjecture. But it was really too preposterous for him to reveal to Starling. His boss would probably laugh him out of the office.
But the fact was he had that ‘preposterous’ supposition locked in his safe. A proposition brought to him in a roundabout way by the man who had died when the Ocean Quest sank, although at the moment Francesini was unaware of the man’s death.
That man was Greg Walsh.
Marsh began to swim boldly, striking out for the land. He had waited for a while until the Taliba was far enough away to avoid being seen by anyone on board who might have seen him go overboard. Marsh was a strong swimmer but the lifejacket hindered him because he hadn’t been able put the thing on properly, so from time to time he rested up and allowed himself to drift with the current. He switched from swimming to drifting but soon realised that he was achieving very little, and the distant shoreline remained ever distant.
He was weakening a lot quicker than he had bargained for, his strength draining from him with each stroke. The lifejacket kept slipping above his head and he had to struggle to keep it beneath his chin. Each time he struggled, he slipped under the water and would surface, coughing and spluttering, and cursing.
Marsh could feel the battle slipping away. The shoreline never seemed to be getting any closer and all he wanted to do now was rest. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and struggled on, but he so desperately wanted to close his eyes and sleep.
He knew the game was over; he was losing and the fight now was just to keep going until, mercifully, he would succumb and sink below the surface.
Marsh suddenly realised that he no longer had the lifejacket. He knew it must have bobbed away when he had slipped beneath the surface. The fact that it was gone garnered a little strength for him, but it was too little, too late. He heard voices in his head and knew the end was now very close, and he slipped beneath the surface again.
The voices disappeared and he knew there was now no hope. He had no strength, no will.
He didn’t hear anybody dive into the water, but he was vaguely conscious of an arm going round his neck. He opened his eyes and looked into a round face. He tried to say something but the face filled his vision and something closed over his mouth. He could feel his lungs expanding under some strange force and his heart started pumping life into him as he passed out.
Chapter 4
Hakeem Khan’s dark eyes moved restlessly but he saw nothing because his mind was filled with a thundering and worrying curiosity. The man they had pulled out of the water, Greg Walsh; was it a coincidence or not? Why had he been there?
The Taliba had left Jamaica and was heading for the wide expanse of the Gulf of Mexico. The reason the ship called in at Kingston was that Khan wanted to achieve a sense of normality to any observers. It was paramount that no suspicion should fall on him or the Taliba, and it also meant the opportunity to restock with fresh produce and take on fuel.
But now Khan was troubled because he had not been able to put the discovery of Walsh’s body out of his mind, and he was persuaded by his own fears that the sense of normality he had been hoping to achieve was already under threat.
The broad expanse of ocean before him was now his hiding place; a great void in which to run. His hands were linked together behind his back and his bull head was thrust forward on hard, square shoulders. He was leaning forward, holding himself steady on the balls of his feet. Although Khan was a small man in height, his stature and presence dwarfed everyone around him. His dark eyebrows, almost satanic looking, added to his intimidating demeanour.
Captain de Leon and Malik were on the bridge with him, waiting for him to continue the dialogue he had started.
“After Walsh had worked for me on the commission in the Gulf, I had hoped he would have continued to work with us, but he pulled out for some reason.” He said nothing for a while. They waited. “Why would he show up at that precise moment?”
“Do you think he knew something, sir?” de Leon asked.
Khan shook his head. “Only Allah can tell us that. But we have to assume the worst. We have to assume that somehow, Walsh expected us to be there. Nothing else makes sense.”
“Perhaps he went to the Americans,” Malik suggested.
Khan looked at Malik. “Perhaps, but there is no point in dwelling on the imponderable,” he stated and left it at that.
“Then I think we must assume he went to the Americans and therefore we must act accordingly,” de Leon said after a while.
Khan agreed. “Yes, it’s the wisest course. From now on we have to remain extra vigilant.” He sighed deeply. “Captain, I want you to prepare a plan of action for the crew. If we are to assume the Americans have a suspicion of our intentions, then the crew have to be aware of their responsibilities. If we are stopped at all it will be because the Americans wish to board us, and we must not let them find what they are looking for; we must drop the device on to the sea bed.”
“Recovery might be difficult,” de Leon admitted.
“Nevertheless, it must be done. We can use the sea gallery.”
The sea gallery that Khan referred to was a large chamber, about one thousand square feet in area, about ninety square metres, within the bowels of the ship that had bottom doors which opened down from the floor of the chamber. It was used for diver recovery during inclement weather. The gallery was on a level with the sea so that when the doors were open, the sea did not flood into the large chamber. It was also convenient for lowering diving bells from within the ship. As a safeguard during stormy weather, and whenever the bottom doors were open, the doors in the bulkheads were watertight, and they could not be opened when the bottom doors were in use.
“Make provision for it,” he told the captain. “And pray to Allah that we never have to use it,” he added.
He left the two men on the bridge and went down to his cabin. As he reached the door, he felt a sharp pain across his chest. He cursed and clutched at himself with both hands, leaning his body against the bulkhead for support. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, drawing in long, careful draughts of air. As the pain subsided he opened his cabin door and went straight to a medicine cabinet in his bathroom. He took two pills from a small bottle and swallowed them with a drink of water.
After about ten minutes, Khan felt a little more comfortable. He sat at his desk and looked out of the forward facing windows. He stared at the Galeazzi Tower that was clamped to the forward deck. This was a tall, domed diving bell used in all deep dives. It could be suspended up to one thousand feet below the surface of the water and used by a team of divers on a saturation dive. This requires divers to breathe a mixture of helium and oxygen to guard against nitrogen narcosis; a kind of euphoria in which a diver is unable to comprehend the physical dangers that exist at such depths. The mind hallucinates with nitrogen narcosis and the result is usually death.