^ Admiral Worth's view of the British government's attitude was not entirely correct at the highest levels. In the previous September there had been an unexpected change of premiership when the previous prime minister resigned due to ill health.
^ The new man, who had risen to the rank of brigadier during the Second World War, immediately took a decision which went unreported in the British press. A large area of the west coast of Scotland was declared a prohibited military zone. It was rumoured locally that a new artillery range was being set up. The curious thing was that crofters on an offshore island heard no thump of artillery shells; instead they saw frequent practice parachute landings, some of the airdrops taking place from helicopters.
^ Another event which was also not reported was the prime minister's secret meeting with General Lance Villiers, Chief of General Staff. Villiers, reputed to be the most efficient and ruthless Chief of Staff for three decades, had only one eye – his left eye had been left behind in Korea in 1952. He wore a black eye-patch and moved in a curiously stiff manner, but he possessed one of the quickest brains in the United Kingdom. His earlier career had been spent with the airborne forces.
^ Sullivan met Harper in his office at five o'clock and they talked by candlelight while snow piled up in the street outside. The chairman of Harper Tankships, a restless, energetic man of fifty with thinning hair, immediately decided he would fly to Italy the following day to sort out the security of the tanker ^ Chieftain.
^ 'Of course,' Sullivan remarked at one stage, 'it just might not be the ^ Chieftain…'
^ 'Winter – if it was Winter in Hahnemann's office – made it a bit obvious the way he examined ^ Chieftain's ^ blueprints. And I have an idea this chap is clever – don't ask me why.'
^ 'Well, for one thing he's some kind of criminal – maybe adventurer would be the better word. And yet no one has any record on him. On my way here I phoned a chap I know at Scotland Yard and he'd never heard of him.' Sullivan leaned across the desk. 'No one's got him on record, for Pete's sake. You have to be clever to keep the slate as clean as that.'
^ It was agreed that Harper would still go to Genoa. It was also agreed that if Sullivan came up with something else while Harper was away, he could collect a cheque for more funds from Vivian Herries, Harper's secretary. At the end of a long day Sullivan went home.
^ It was probably his dislike of seeming to fall in with Admiral Worth's request to drop it which kept Sullivan going the following day. Refreshed by a good night's sleep, he checked every known source he could think of. Somewhere, someone must have heard of Winter.
^ He first tried a contact in Special Branch. The contact phoned him back later in the day. 'We've never heard of your chap, Winter. Doesn't ring any bells at all. Sorry…' He went back to Scotland Yard and his friend there, Chief Inspector Pemberton, told him he had been intrigued by Sullivan's enquiry. 'So, I checked further. Not a dicky bird. Drew a complete and total blank…'
^ Exasperated, Sullivan extended the net, began phoning outside the country. His call to the FBI in Washington was answered within an hour. 'Nothing in the States. In view of what's happening everywhere, I checked with one of the intelligence services. Nothing on a man called Winter. Have you tried Interpol?' Yes, Sullivan had tried Interpol. He phoned his good friend, Peter van der Byll of the South African police. The answer was negative. In the late afternoon he went back to see the one man he had missed when he visited Lloyd's of London before he had set out for Bordeaux.
^ 'It looks as though I'll be off this job for Harper Tankships,' he told MacGillivray. 'Bloody blank wall everywhere. It's beginning to annoy me.'
^ Jock MacGillivray was one of the backroom men concerned with the genera] administration of Lloyd's. When asked what he did, he was liable to reply, 'Help to keep the place going – or maybe it helps to keep me going. Never sure which.' He leaned back in his swivel chair and tossed a cigarette to Sullivan. 'So what's the problem?'
^ 'I missed you when I came here at the beginning of the year. As to the problem, no problem as far as I can see. I've checked with just about everybody and come up with sweet nothing.'
^ 'You haven't talked to me.' MacGillivray, freckled-faced and forty, grinned. The founthead of all wisdom.'
^ 'Nothing really…' MacGillivray was consulting his diary. 'Except for the chap who came in last Friday. He was doing a series of articles on the oil crisis for an American paper. He came in a couple of months ago, apparently, working on a previous series. He was asking about Harper's ship ^ Chieftain – ^ she's in dry dock at Genoa. Said he might go and have a look at her.'
^ ^ Hahnemann's staircase in front of MacGillivray who peered at it uncertainly.
^ 'Like this…' Sullivan showed him a profile print he had worked on the previous evening in his flat, eliminating Winter's moustache with white paint. 'I doubt if he'd be wearing the bowler this time…'
^ 'He wasn't,' MacGillivray said promptly. 'He had a tweedy thing on. That's him. Who is he?'
^ 'Yes. The ^ Challenger. ^ Was she exactly like the ^ Chieftain – ^ or was there any difference between the two vessels? I said they were twins and that was it, as far as I knew. Come to think of it, he asked quite a lot about that ship.'
^ 'How many crew she carried, whether she sailed with one or two wireless operators. What sort of man was the captain? I know Mackay, so I gave him a thumbnail portrait. I got the funny idea he knew most of these things already and he was just checking. That ship is on the milk run, you know – from Alaska to San Francisco and back.'
^ 'And that's a piece of history – a British tanker taking oil from one American port to another…'
^ 'Well, they did repeal the Jones Act of 1920 which said only Yank vessels could move cargo from one American port to another. They found they had a terrible shortage of tankers on the West Coast. What's the matter with Mr X?'
^ 'Probably everything.' Sullivan stood up, collected his two prints of Winter off the desk. 'I've got a lot to do in the next hour – collect some money, check with the airlines…'
^ Somewhere about this time Sheikh Gamal Tafak had his second secret meeting with the terrorist chiefs in the Syrian desert. Again he arrived in a motorcade of three cars, riding in the rear vehicle alongside his driver. The two cars in front, both of them black Mercedes like his own, also carried a driver and one passenger in the front seat. The waiting terrorist chiefs thought they understood the reason for this precaution: anyone lying in ambush and waiting to throw a bomb at Tafak could never be sure which car he was riding in. The real reason for the motorcade was more sinister.
^ Tafak detested dealing with these people, but these were the men he feared, whom he was anxious for the moment to keep on his side. One day it might be necessary to lose them; on that day the motorcade of three cars would contain other passengers, men with automatic weapons who would eliminate the terrorist chiefs. Meantime, let them get used to the arrival of the motorcade.
^ Anxious to get away, he explained what was going to happen in as few words as possible. He had told them before the plan was to create an outrage that would so appal the West that its press, radio stations and TV networks would scream with furious indignation at the Arabs. This, in its turn, would create an atmosphere in which Tafak could pressure all the Arab oil-producing states to stop the oil flow completely. Then they could launch the final attack against Israel while the West was immobilised. Everything depended on what happened aboard the British oil tanker once it bad been seized.
^ 'Winter, who knows nothing about the final outcome,' Tafak explained, Ms necessary for the hi-jack of the tanker. He is a better planner than LeCat -and being British he will know how to handle the British crew. Later, he will be withdrawn from the operation. LeCat will control the last stage.'