In this way Sir William Heritage lived out some of the strangest days of his long life with nothing to do but to feel his way about the tiny room, await the daily rituals of feeding and slopping out, and rack his brains to think where he might be. It occurred to him he might be in a water tank, or something of the sort underground, for the warm walls felt more like metal than plaster to him, and the stale air smelled of iron. He imagined he might be aboard ship somewhere, moored in Beirut Harbor — but there was no movement of water beneath the keel; no grumble of generators for power.
Never during those long days and nights, in all his reasonings and thoughts and deductions, did he ever dream that he was aboard a disused oil platform at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
“Hey!” He hammered on the door, yelling as loudly as he could. “In here! In here!”
And his cries were answered at once by the sound of the bolts going back. He stood back, eyes narrow, expecting blinding light. But the door opened to reveal a tall figure dimly silhouetted. “Ah, Sir William,” it said, incongruously, in punctilious English. “So there you are! Come along. I think we’ll put you in with the others now.” Something in the man’s tone warned Bill that this was not the SAS, come to set him free.
It must be a ship of some kind, he thought as soon as he walked out into the corridor. The combination of white-painted, rust-streaked metal and bumpy, frayed linoleum had a decidedly maritime feel about it. The impression intensified as they climbed almost naval companionways. And yet the whole structure was rock solid. And he could hear traffic in the distance…
Light dawned, actually as well as metaphorically, when they came to deck level. They rounded a corner, and a window let in a shaft of light so fierce it had discrete edges as though it were a column of golden crystal. And outside, the unmistakable lines of an oil platform with the tanker-filled Gulf, sullen in the heat, equally unmistakable beyond. The rumble of traffic resolved itself into the sound of surf upon hollow iron legs.
“My God!” he said, his voice rusty from disuse. “It’s Fate.”
“Oh, Sir William,” said the tauntingly familiar voice of his guide. “It’s so much more than that!”
But then all conversation between them stopped. The guide opened a door and Sir William found himself on the threshold of a large lecture hall, where, under the guns of a dozen armed terrorists, stood the crew of his tanker Prometheus. At once his eyes were searching for the faces of John Higgins, Asha Quartermaine, Bob Stark. Only Bob was there, pale but defiant, leaning on Kerem Khalil. There was blood on Bob’s leg.
“You will have time to greet our other distinguished guest in a moment,” said the Englishman to them all. “In the meantime, listen to me. You know the rules. Keep to them. The guards may allow you to talk at their own discretion, but this is a privilege easily revoked. You will find life here a little harder than it was on Prometheus. There is no bedding or air-conditioning or videos or books. But I am sure you can adapt. Your discomfort is likely to be temporary. There will soon be enough for all. In the meantime, remember this. The watchword is obedience. Your lives depend upon it.”
“Who is that chap?” was Bill’s first question, a moment later.
“Your guess is as good as mine, Sir William. Mind if I sit down? This leg hurts like a son of a bitch!” Kerem helped Bob down onto the floor. “Only a scratch, and bandaged at that, but just at the stage of stiffening up. You know how gunshot wounds can be.” Tersely, he explained how he had come by it, putting Sir William’s mind at rest about the two missing faces. Then he asked, “How long have you been here?”
“As near as I can estimate, since the day after you were taken. I’d come to Bahrain to try to get you out. They took me at Manama. Drugged me. Brought me here. I thought I was in Beirut.”
“Thanks for coming to help us. Appreciate that.” The two friends looked at each other long and hard. Then Bob continued, “But if you were out here alone working to free us, that means State doesn’t want to know.”
“That’s the way it was when I came out. Even the President seems hesitant on this one. The Gulf is a powder keg at the moment. They say Iran is near to civil war: navy versus air force.”
“My father must be going mad with worry!”
“That he is. Or was when I flew out.”
A pause.
“Any idea what these people are actually up to, Bob?”
“Not really, Sir William. They were waiting for something, a signal or something, on Prometheus. I don’t think it ever came. Then they brought us down here anyway. Just ran out of patience, I guess.”
“Must be more than a signal, Bob. From the way that chap was talking just now, they’re expecting supplies, not messages. And that means…”
“A ship. God Almighty! Put terrorists together with a ship and what do you have?”
“Arms smuggling.”
“Right! So what we have here is a small group of hardline terrorists on an abandoned platform at the mouth of the Gulf with enough hostages to make sure that no one’s just going to sashay right up and blow them away. We know they don’t need small arms because, as we can see, they are well supplied with those already. So they have to be waiting for something heavier. Rockets, maybe. Wireguided missiles. What does this picture look like to you?”
“My God, Bob, they’re going to blockade the strait. They’re going to sit here threatening to destroy any tanker that tries to get past. And they could do it, too! They’re going to close the Gulf!”
Chapter Twenty-one
They moved the admiral’s big radio up onto Prometheus’s bridge and left the smaller communications center on Katapult. Richard had decided not to contact anyone — not even Angus, yet. But clearly, if they were going to fit into the pattern of Gulf shipping without arousing unwelcome interest until they reached Fate, they would have to be able to talk to other ships and coastal stations at the very least.
Two things obviously counted against their hopedfor anonymity, thought Richard. Firstly, who they were. The moment they told anyone that they were the Heritage Mariner tanker Prometheus II heading from Bushehr to Hormuz, alarm bells would start ringing from here to the White House. God alone knew who would come sniffing around then. Secondly, Prometheus would stick out like a sore thumb to the men on Fate even before they saw her name, because she would be the only unladen tanker going out of the Gulf. But that situation was not insurmountable either, for the tanker carried pipes that could be lowered over the side. She had pumps that could suck sea water aboard once she was under way, and distribute it evenly among the tanks until she appeared to be fully laden.
Just as Ben Strong had done on the original Prometheus ten years ago, to conceal a missing cargo of oil.
Ben! Richard drove his fist against the helm. He gazed out along the darkening length of Prometheus’s great green deck, but he saw nothing of the pipes, tank tops, hatches, Sampson posts, winch housings, pumps, steps, and walkways before him. Saw nothing of the early sunset beyond. Instead he saw the face of Ben Strong, his godson. He saw it as he had last seen it, mad and murderous, behind the handgun he was an instant away from firing. An instant before his ship broke in two and hurled the madman to his death, insanely singing out, “Good-byeeeeeeee.”