^ The machine landed with a heavy bump, roared forward, its engines filling the interior with vibration. It seemed to be going too fast, to be heading for disaster, and the view beyond the window was a blur. Sullivan pushed a magazine into the pocket of the seat in front of him and relaxed as the Boeing 707 slowed. For the first time in his life he was in Seattle.
^ It was just after two o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday January 19 when he alighted from the plane. FBI agents Peters and Carmady were waiting for the flight and took him into a private room. They listened to his story without too much enthusiasm when he talked about the ^ Challenger, ^ it seemed to the Englishman; perhaps it was because they were so polite.
^ 'You can forget the tanker,' Peters advised. 'This man is sabotaging refineries. After he came off the plane last Friday he spent several hours at the Washington Plaza Hotel here. A reception clerk who booked him in recognised your photograph. And we found a cab driver who dropped him at the bus terminal later. Then he vanished.'
^ 'We'll go on trying,' Peters said reassuringly. 'Interpol have nothing on him – and our Washington records don't have him, But one day, somewhere, he has to surface…'
^ When they had gone Sullivan sat in the airport coffee shop drinking more coffee. The trail had gone dead, and now he was inclined to agree with Mulligan and the FBI agent that the tanker was not involved. When he had finished his coffee he would put in a phone call to Harper, telling him he was catching the Pan Am evening flight back to London.
^ Staring through the window he was looking north-west where the sun was filtering through a heavy overcast. Somewhere in that direction, about five hundred miles away, the ^ Challenger ^ was proceeding southwards on another uneventful voyage.
11
^ Lot. 47.50 N Lon. 132.45 W1300 hours.
^ The US Coast Guard helicopter was coming in at no more than a hundred feet above the grey waves. On the starboard wing deck of ^ Challenger ^ Captain Mackay focused his glasses and the machine crisped into his vision, filling the lenses, showing the insignia on its pale grey fuselage. ^ No. 5421. USCG. ^ First Officer Bennett ran out from the navigating bridge on to the wing deck.
^ 'Emergency, sir. That chopper is in trouble. Message just came in from her – permission to land before she crashes…'
^ Inside Mackay's glasses the machine blurred as it passed through a patch of mist, then its silhouette was crisp again. It was impossible to see inside the control cabin. A puff of black smoke was rising from the silhouette now and Mackay thought the engine was coughing.
^ 'Clear the main deck, Mr Bennett…' Mackay's expression tightened as the puff expanded into a billow of ominous smoke. 'Turn the ship into the wind. Reduce speed to fourteen knots.' Mackay walked quickly back on to the navigating bridge where Betty Cordell was keeping out of the way, staying close to the front of the bridge. Mackay stood beside her and she was careful to say nothing. The chopper was closer and smoke was pouring off her, plucked away by the wind.
^ Mackay looked grim: fire was something you could do without aboard a tanker carrying fifty thousand tons of oil. And he faced an impossible choice – either to let her land on deck or signal her to stand clear, in which case the chopper might sink before a boat could reach her.
^ Sixty feet below where he stood by the bridge window with the American girl, men were already evacuating the main deck. The engine throb was slower. The huge vessel was beginning her turn into the wind. Bennett issued more orders for fire stations to be manned. 'Shall I get off the bridge?' Betty Cordell suggested. Mackay shook his head. 'Might be a story in it for you – so long as it doesn't end in tragedy…'
^ The huge ship continued its turn as the helmsman gripped the wheel. Mackay checked the time by the bridge clock. It was exactly one in the afternoon of Sunday January 19. 'Get a message off to the mainland,' he ordered. 'I am picking up your helicopter Number 5421 …'
^ Bennett phoned the radio cabin, instructed Kinnaird to send the signal instantly, then returned to the front of the bridge. 'I wonder where she comes from, sir? We're over two hundred miles from the Canadian coast…'
^ There isn't one stationed on the chart within five hundred miles. I'm afraid I don't quite understand this…'
^ Thank God for small mercies,' Mackay growled. The smoke was disappearing; no more was emitting from the machine which was now turning in a circle to fly towards the bow of the ship, Mackay wasn't too happy about what might happen in the next few minutes. Landing a helicopter aboard a moving ship in mid-ocean calls for a certain skill.
^ They waited and it was very quiet on the bridge. All the necessary orders had been given. The tanker, originally proceeding at seventeen knots through a gentle swell, had reduced speed to fourteen knots, had turned into the wind. A skilled pilot should have no trouble landing his machine under these conditions -providing his engine kept functioning. Inside three minutes she should have landed.
^ Mackay looked down along the main deck. It had been cleared of all personnel except for three fire-fighting seamen on the forecastle – close to the landing point. Visibility was good: the white-painted circle on the port bow where the helicopter should alight showed up clearly. 'Permission to land,' Mackay said. Bennett relayed the message to the radio cabin.
^ The machine was hovering now, letting the 50,000-ton tanker steam towards it. 'Seems to have his machine under perfect control now,' the sceptical Bennett commented. 'Wonder what's wrong with it?'
^ Winter maintained his hover, letting the lozenge-shaped steel platform cruising over the ocean come towards him. He had turned off the tap which had fed heavy oil into the exhaust -creating the ominous smoke Mackay had seen from the starboard wing deck.
^ The psychological timing was important. First he had emitted smoke as they were approaching the ^ Challenger ^ to worry the captain, to persuade him to give permission to land. Then he had later turned it off in case Mackay became too worried and decided to refuse permission. The radio cracked and Kinnaird's signal came through. 'Permission to land…'
^ The ^ Pecheur ^ Winter had flown off was forty miles away, too far away for Mackay to see her even from his high bridge. It had been an anxious time, searching for the tanker even while Kinnaird wirelessed ^ Challenger's ^ position at frequent intervals, a reasonably safe action since this was the time of day when he sent a routine report to the London office. But they had found her.
^ Seated beside Winter, staring at the ocean, LeCat had heard the final words through his headset. 'We're going in…' His stomach muscles tightened. It was always like this just before an attack -the physical and mental shock to the system when you realised it was really going to happen. Just like Algeria…
^ 'Remember what I told you,' Winter warned. 'I go out first. You wait until I'm on the catwalk and almost under the bridge. The others stay inside – the sight of a dozen men piling out on deck will alarm them. We must seize control before the penny drops…'
^ LeCat took out his Skorpion pistol, balancing the weapon in his hand. A quite unnecessary gesture, it put a finer edge on his nerves. When they got moving it would be all right: it was the last few seconds before the landing which were unpleasant.
^ It was Winter who had chosen the Czech Skorpion. 32 pistol for arming the terrorists. LeCat would have preferred a heavier-calibre gun. The version which slipped inside a shoulder holster carried ten rounds; another version which would not fit inside holsters carried twenty rounds. It was, up to a point, like a small sub-machine gun. Winter had issued the strictest instructions that there should be no shooting, but in case something did happen a heavier-calibre weapon would have been more dangerous; after all, they were landing on a floating oil tank.