The Mandarin Cypher

'Are we slowing?' he asked.

I stopped work and listened.

'Yes.'

There wasn't anything more I could do before it was time to put on the scuba so I went into the control room. Ackroyd turned his head fractionally.

'We're rigged for silent running,' he said.

'Understood.'

We spoke very quietly. All sound background had gone: the engines were running at slow and they'd shut down all fans, blowers, pumps and auxiliary motors. Next to me I could hear the diving officer breathing.

'Want to take a look?'

I went to the periscope.

The oil rig was dead in sights, a black skeleton structure rearing from the moon lit surface of the sea. Longitude 114, Latitude 22. The target for Mandarin.

Chapter Twelve: SOLO

It was a quick piping note: the call of the sea swallow.

Ferris left the tape running while he helped me with the scuba.

'This side okay?'

'Another notch on the buckle.'

The weight of the tanks shifted.

A seaman came to the doorway.

'The captain wants you to know they've got radar.'

'On the rig?'

'Yes, sir.'

The bloody harness still wasn't right.

'Back another notch on both, will you?'

'Will do. There's no hurry.'

But I could hear his breathing. We'd passed through Chinese territorial waters between the islands and the last report from the control room was that we were now standing off the rig at one mile.

'Feel better?'

I shrugged the scuba a couple of times.

'Yes.' I tipped my head back as far as I could, without feeling the regulators.

The nearest naval base was probably at Kitchioh or somewhere to the west along the South China coast, and even if they could send anything seaborne from Namtow they wouldn't get here before Swordfish was under way again: it was airborne attention Ackroyd was worried about. The chart gave the depth in this area of the continental shelf as eighteen fathoms and if the garrison sent a chopper out from the rig or one of the islands we'd have to crash dive but with periscope depth at sixty feet there'd be critically limited room to manoeuvre: with the sea calm and the moon clear we'd be a sitting duck for any kind of aerial reconnaissance.

'For Christ sake switch it off, will you, Ferris?'

That bloody bird was getting on my nerves.

He went over to the tape-recorder and pressed the stop button.

'Anyway, you'll know what to listen for.' I thought he said it rather deliberately.

'If I don't know now I never will.'

'What we call good briefing, if I may say so.'

There was an edge on his voice, the first time I'd heard it.

'Are they going to put it through the loudhailer?'

'With discretion.' A wintry smile. 'It's not meant to be a peacock.'

Ackroyd was standing in the doorway.

'How are things getting along, gentlemen?' He said it in a half whisper.

'Fine. Where's the head?'

'Through there.' As I turned away he said quickly, 'Don't flush it. We'll do it for you later.'

'Fair enough.'

They were still standing there when I came back. The silence was almost total now and I could hear the rustle of a sleeve as someone in the control room moved his arm. Nobody looked at me, but I was the only man among the whole of the complement they were thinking about. As soon as they could spit this bloody frog out of the escape hatch they could start engines and get the hell out of here before some yellow bastard spotted them.

'Skipper,' I said, 'I'd like to take a final look.'

'By all means.'

He led me into the control room.

I knew they wanted me out of Swordfish as fast as possible but I couldn't help that. I had to establish the image of the rig and I had to do it now and from this precise position because later it wouldn't be stable and I could lose my bearings. We were to the north-east of the thing and midway between it and the San-Men Islands and I wanted to memorize the rig's configuration from this exact angle because if a sea haze covered the Pole Star and the rig's structure sent my compass wild I'd have nothing left but this image as my guide.

'Up 'scope.'

Ackroyd stood aside and I took the grips, turning the sights until the cross-hairs swung to centre on the rig. At this distance it reached twenty or so degrees from the horizontal and I could see its riding lights. There was some kind of flood illumination hitting the cranes and derrick from lamps on the top deck, and a flare pilot was burning with a steady flame from the tip of a stackpipe.

At one side I could make out the black aerodynamic shape of a helicopter, the object we most feared, 'Thank you.'

'Our pleasure.'

The 'scope was brought down and I went through to the wardroom. A young seaman was coming the other way and stood aside for me, his leg catching one of my reserve air tanks: it hit the metal bulkhead and someone said shit under his breath and the seaman's face went white. We all stood perfectly still for a minute, trying to replay the sound in our memory to judge how bad it was.

It wasn't very good so I did a final synchronization check with Ferris and tugged the flippers on and carried the reserve tanks and other stuff along to the escape hatch. Ackroyd led the way personally, which I thought was civil of him.

Ferris helped me stow the gear against the bulkhead and I checked the faceplate for misting.

'Better you than me,' Ackroyd murmured. He had a very held-in smile.

'I wouldn't want your job either,' I said and put the mask on. They swung the door shut without making a noise and the last thing I saw was the pale and watchful face of Ferris, not much of his mind on me, most of it going through a lightning series of checks to see if we'd forgotten anything, overlooked anything, anything that could catch up on us a minute from now or an hour from now or at noon today when I was alone in the target zone and out of reach.

Flooding began.

The sickly rubber smell of the mask.

I shifted the lead belt around an inch, unnecessarily.

The water was waist high.

The thing I had to do was simple. Difficult but simple. During final briefing I'd asked Ferris why the hell didn't we take up station at the Golden Sands Hotel and do a snatch on Tewson the next time he was brought ashore to see his wife? There were three reasons, he'd said. One: Tewson might never go there again. Two: London wanted the evidence. Three: London wanted to know what the evidence was.

The water touched my chin. The mask had started to mist up so I pulled it off and spat into the faceplate and wiped it clear and put it back.

If Tewson never went to the hotel again we could lose him forever: he could disappear into mainland China and that would be that. Presumably the evidence London wanted was to be used against Tewson or through diplomatic channels against Pekin or maybe both. And the evidence London wanted was the evidence of what Tewson was doing on board the rig.

Water above my head. Vision distorted, sound magnified as the water gushed in from the pipes. Left hand stinging: salt in the wound.

Ferris would tell London straight away: he'd have to, because Egerton always insisted on phase situation reports going in on time and it was no good telling him later that you were up a steeple or down a drain. The moment this watertight hatch opened Ferris would have to say so, either through Admiralty Signals and Crowborough or ship-to-shore cable to Chiang in cypher, the standing contraction: Access phase open, executive in target zone.

The hollow ringing sound of the water died away and there was just the steady inspiration and expiration of my lungs, with the soft cathedral echoes. Then hinges turned and a circle of pale light appeared above me and I pushed gently upwards, floating away.