At the top of the chain he paused, peering warily in through the hawse hole onto the forecastle head. The sun was shining strongly onto the green deck plates now, so that the air was full of the smell of hot iron and the glare hurt his eyes. Wherever the terrorists were hiding, there were none on the forecastle head. Hanging precariously, Richard gestured to Salah, then he turned back and dived through the oval opening onto the deck of his ship.
Like a parachutist making a textbook landing, he rolled for the nearest cover, hoping that the flash of his white robe would not be visible from the bridge.
He was still certain that someone — someone prepared to answer a hail or not — had to be on bridge watch. But it was early. It was bright. Any lookout would have to look straight into the low sun to see him. He reckoned he stood a good chance of remaining undetected.
A low whistle made him turn and his heart almost stopped. There was a terrorist crouching behind him. Only at the last instant before he launched himself into the attack did he realize that it was Salah. He had been concentrating so hard he hadn’t even heard the Palestinian come aboard. His shock put things in perspective for him, however, and suggested the next step. Salah was wearing the international terrorist’s uniform. With luck he could creep down the deck and see what was happening. As long as he was careful, it was quite feasible that he could get an accurate idea of everyone’s whereabouts without arousing suspicion. Information that would be invaluable on Sunday when they came back with the Kalashnikhovs and the thunderflash grenades.
Rapidly, whispering despite the fact that they were a quarter of a mile from the bridge, Richard checked that Salah was happy to risk a quick exploration. He was. Then, with a slap on the shoulder he was off, vanishing from Richard’s sight among the forest of pipes running the length of Prometheus’s deck.
Still taking care to remain concealed from any prying eyes on the bridge, Richard wormed forward from shadow to shadow until he had a clear view of the deck. Between himself and the bridge there lay an expanse of green-painted metal twice the size of a football field. The deck itself was simply green metal stretching from deck rail to deck rail where it folded down to become the tanker’s massive sides. Partway in from the rails was a series of tank tops standing five feet high, carefully clamped closed. There were small lateral pipes running from side to side between these, but by far the largest feature on the deck was that central sheaf of pipes stretching lengthways from just in front of him right down to the bridge itself. Five pipes each side measured six feet in diameter. Eight more beside them measured from two feet to four. The whole complex of thirty-six pipes was topped by a walkway running the length of the deck. Immediately beneath this, along the narrow tunnel between the pipes themselves, safe from all eyes, Salah was running silently. It seemed so quiet, so safe, that Richard was tempted to follow — but prudence dictated that he remain where he was.
As the minutes ticked by, however, the wait became well-nigh unbearable. He knew better than to look at his watch — that would only make things seem worse — but he counted his steady breathing unconsciously, as though he were diving. So he knew well enough that nearly ten minutes had elapsed before a tiny flash of movement warned him that Salah had entered the bridge-house.
During the next few minutes, while nothing further happened, he almost convinced himself that the two of them were in fact completely alone aboard.
But then his hopes were dashed and his darkest fears revived as the first flat rattle of automatic gunfire rang out.
Chapter Eleven
The run back down to Fujayrah was a disaster almost from the outset. Katapult got under way as soon as Hood returned with the Martyrs and Richard’s orders, pausing only at an all-night fuel-supply dock to load diesel for the engine. Weary, still unhappy to be continuing with the top of the mast damaged and so many of his instruments out of commission, nevertheless acquiesced to the plans and took the con while Sam went down to get some rest. Martyr, still full of vigor, still half a day behind them in the need for sleep, kept that first watch with him and they struck up a working relationship — if not a friendship — during the long night watch.
Christine went below with Hood and took her dunnage pointedly through to the small, forward cabin Richard and Robin had hardly bothered to use. Hood’s dark eyes followed her, clouded with confusion, and, as though aware of them, she first closed the door, and then she locked it.
So the first eight hours passed until the sun rose next morning. Martyr was near exhaustion now, and Doc, too, needed some rest. They simply changed watches: Hood took the con and Christine came up into the cockpit with him while the other two turned in.
The day was incredibly hot and, for all that, Katapult was skating across the wind on a strong port tack, seemingly airless. Christine was a sailor — and her father’s daughter to the last inch. After her release from the detox clinic, they had rebuilt their battered relationship during long summer days aboard his sloop Chrissie off Martha’s Vineyard. She was at her ease here on Katapult, therefore, almost at home. “You don’t need me for this,” she observed to Hood, quite correctly. He would not require any help until they reached the end of this tack up near Queshm, where they would have to come about and head down past the Quoins out of the Gulf.
Because she was so much at her ease, so far from home, and so far from her memories, she did something she hadn’t done in years. She simply slipped off her dress and lay back on the lazarette in the shadow of the sail, rubbing Ámbre Solaire onto her long, golden body. Her high-fashion bikini was a statement of new life for her: not since her father had brought her home had she dared wear anything like this. Heavy jeans and baggy shirts had been her fashion since — anything that would cover up her body and protect it from the eyes of men.
Even when she had come to work in the Heritage Mariner offices, she had followed a subtle variation of the same stratagem. Her hairdresser, enormously expensive but willing to follow orders, cut her hair carefully but unflatteringly so that it seemed as sexless as the clothes she wore, as the front she presented to the world.
Until now. In fact, she was an amazingly strong person. She had been through experiences that should have destroyed her but she had not allowed them to do so. Little by little, inch by inch, with her father’s help but mostly through her own inherent strength, she had adjusted. Recovered. To such an extent that she could now, more than ten years later, dare to wear a bikini.
Hood glanced across at her, a pretty girl oiling herself up to sunbathe. And he froze. He had been looking at her out of the corner of his eye since they had first met. There was something disturbingly familiar about her. And now the memory clicked into place. A memory he had hoped was gone forever.