“Nothing. We can go through the story again later in case we’ve missed anything important, but it all happened like we told you in the surgery just now, and I don’t think they gave anything away. Whoever this Englishman is, he’s damned clever. This thing has been carefully planned to make sure that nothing they’ve said or done has given anything away at all.”
“They’ve taken Bill Heritage too, you know.”
“No!”
“Yes. They’re holding him somewhere. Near here, I’d guess. Wherever Bob, Kerem, Twelve Toes, and the rest are bound for, probably. Poor old Bill will have been sitting there for a week now, waiting for them. But not knowing, I suppose. Kept as much in the dark as you all were.”
“Bastards! It fair makes your blood boil, doesn’t it?” John absently fumbled on the shelves by his chair and pulled out a briar pipe. Without thinking, he slipped the stem into his mouth and started chewing on it morosely.
In the distance, two tiny figures were sorting out the spinnaker on the forecastle head. Abruptly Katapult’s ruined masthead became visible. Richard watched the activity absently, his mind going over the cold ground of the events so far like a bloodhound searching for a scent.
“So, what do you want to do first?” asked John.
“The obvious thing is to get Prometheus out of here. Up anchor and move into safer waters. We’re too close to Iran here.”
“Anchor off the Saudi coast. Bring a new crew out. Get her back into business?”
“She’ll have to go back into business in the end. Though the thought of replacing her crew while they’re still…” Richard all but choked with frustrated rage.
“Perhaps, now that stage two of their plan has started, someone will actually hear from them.”
“I expect someone will. I just wish to God there was some way we could make sure they heard from us first. I’d give a lot to know where they’ve gone. If only Asha’s sister…”
“That’s so strange,” mused John, sidetracked. “Such a strange situation.”
“All too common these days.”
“Asha’s quite a woman though, coming out after her sister like that.”
“She is.”
Martyr appeared. “No chance of fixing the radio I’m afraid.”
“We’ll bring the big set from Katapult aboard,” said Richard. “Any chance of starting the engine?”
“I’ll go look,” said the American amiably.
Richard looked back out into the afternoon glare. Robin and Asha were carrying bits and pieces from Asha’s hideout back along the deck. Two tiny figures, deep in conversation, all but lost on the immensity of the deck. That was what they all were, thought Richard bitterly: pygmies at the mercy of giant forces. Powerless. Helpless. And it simply was not good enough.
Salah prowled in, his long, dark eyes everywhere. “There’s nothing,” he reported quietly. “Not a hint. Not a clue. It’s as though they were never here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I have, thought Richard.
“They were a strange lot anyway,” mused John. “I mean, who’s ever heard of a terrorist cell being led by a woman and an Englishman?”
We have, thought Richard. He and Salah exchanged lean smiles.
Just at that moment, Robin arrived. “Here we are,” she said. “We’ve moved most of Asha’s stuff back to her quarters. But we thought we’d better bring this back up here.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the chart she stole. You know she was going to jump ship and go across the Gulf in an inflatable. At night. Alone. Daft.”
“Here…” began John, leaping to Asha’s defense, for all that he agreed with Robin.
“Asha said they were upset about losing that,” said Richard. “Let’s have a look at it.”
Within seconds, the big British Admiralty chart 2858 was spread out in front of them and five pairs of eyes were scrutinizing it carefully.
“What’s that?” asked Robin at once. There was a design in flowing script written in the margin.
“It’s Arabic,” answered Salah. “It means Dawn of Freedom.” He looked across at Richard. “So Sinbad got that right as well.”
But Richard wasn’t listening. He was staring at the chart, thunderstruck. The Arabic script was written beside their present position. Then a long line charted a course away down the whole length of the Gulf. But the same script was written at the far side of the paper, right by the purple writing that said, “Adjoining Chart 707.” And this time a course was charted back across the Gulf of Oman then in through Hormuz.
To a rendezvous, where the two courses met.
“My God!” he breathed.
He blinked. Frowned. Concentrated. He had to be certain about this.
But he was certain. There could be no other explanation. It all made too much sense. It all made too much terrifying sense.
He knew where the terrorists were heading. And he knew what they had been waiting for. And he knew why they had waited in vain.
With shaking hands, he took his wallet from his pocket and opened it. The paper was there among a wad of old photographs, cards, receipts. He emptied them all out on the chart and spread them out until he found what he was looking for. A simple piece of white notepaper onto which he had painstakingly traced what he could remember of the pattern written on that flimsy he had taken from the dead radio officer a week ago. Taken and then lost in the waterspout. The writing that had been the name of the burning ship. He slid it across the chart until it was beside the writing that meant Dawn of Freedom. It was identical.
“Where did you get that?” asked Salah, awed.
Richard told him.
So the terrorists had been awaiting an arms shipment. One that would never come. And rather than wait here any longer for news, they had gone early to their rendezvous. That point on the chart where the two lines crossed.
Fate.
But even as Richard’s mind switched into lightning calculations of the impact of this information, his thoughts were interrupted by a gasp of shock from Asha. Suddenly she was sorting through his personal belongings spread out across the chart beside his empty wallet.
“It’s him,” she said, lifting a photograph of a smiling, open-faced young man. “It is him!”
They all turned toward her, Richard last. She was holding a photograph of a man who had been dead for years. Lost in the breakup of the first Prometheus. A photograph of his godson, Ben Strong. Over the top of it she looked at Richard with horror on her face. “What are you doing with a picture of the terrorist leader?” she demanded.
Chapter Twenty
As soon as he was certain that the distant voices were not just another trick of his imagination, Bill Heritage started beating on his door and yelling at the top of his lungs. During the time he had been in this dark, silent room, he had come to know it so intimately that he could see it in his mind’s eye almost as clearly as if the light were on. He moved about it unerringly now, for learning it had been what had kept him sane so far. Or nearly sane. So far.
When he awoke each morning — he called it morning when he woke up, though he had no idea what time it really was — he stripped altogether and did a long, complicated series of exercises. By the time he had completed these, he was always running with sweat, so, cosseting himself exactly as he would any of his thoroughbred racehorses, he walked gently round the room until he was dry. Only then did he dress. It was important to his self-esteem that he keep his clothes as clean and odorless as possible. Dressed in his shirt and trousers, he would then go for a tour of his room. He would explore it thoroughly, every bit as minutely as he had on the day of his arrival. He would test his memory by predicting what lay within a hand’s breadth of his fin- gers. He would take risks, gamble with himself, by walking rapidly in any direction then stopping, to find himself within an inch of the slop bucket, the bed, a wall. Every irregularity on these walls he knew by touch, but especially well he knew the doorway that never let in light or coolness or draft of fresh air. Whose round metal handle turned easily enough, but uselessly. To no avail.