Алистер Маклин - Santorini

‘It could be,’ Hawkins said, ‘that the key is held at the missile base where the bombs were due to be delivered.’

‘With respect, sir, I think that unlikely. Those clamps had to be locked at the Air Force base where they were loaded. So they would have to have a key there. I think it would be much easier and more logical if they just took the key with them. Trouble is, a key is a very small thing and that’s a very big bomber indeed.

‘If there’s no key there are two ways we can remove that clamp. One is chemical, using either a metal softener or corrosive. The metal softener is used by stage magicians who go in for spoonbending and such-like.’

‘Magicians?’ Hawkins said. ‘Charlatans, you mean.’

‘Whatever. The principle is the same. They use a colourless paste which has no effect on the skin but has the peculiar property of altering the molecular structure of a metal and making it malleable. A corrosive is simply a powerful acid that eats through steel. Lots of them on the market. But in this case, both softeners and corrosives have one impossible drawback: you can’t use them underwater.’

Hawkins said: ‘You mentioned two ways of removing the clamp. What’s the other?’

‘Oxyacetylene torch, sir. Make short work of any clamp. It would also, I imagine, make even shorter work of the operator. Those torches generate tremendous heat and I should also imagine that anyone who even contemplates using an oxyacetylene torch on an atom bomb is an obvious candidate for the loony-bin.’

Hawkins looked at Wickram. ‘Comment?’

‘No comment. Not on the unthinkable.’

‘I speak in no spirit of complaint, Carrington,’ Hawkins said, ‘but you’re not very encouraging. What you are about to suggest, of course, is that we wait for the Kilcharran to come along and hoist the damn thing to the surface.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Carrington hesitated. ‘But there’s a snag even to that.’

‘A snag?’ Talbot said. ‘You are referring, of course, to the distinct and unpleasant possibility that the ticking might stop while the Kilcharran ’s winch engine is working overtime at hauling the bomber to the surface?’

‘I mean just that, sir.’

‘A trifle. There are no trifles that the combined brain-power aboard the Ariadne can’t solve.’ He turned to Denholm. ‘You can fix that, Lieutenant?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How, sir?’ There was a pardonable note of doubt if not outright disbelief in Carrington’s voice: Lieutenant Denholm didn’t look like the type of person who could fix anything.

Talbot smiled. ‘If I may say this gently, Chief, one does not question Lieutenant Denholm on those matters. He knows more about electrics and electronics than any man in the Mediterranean.’

‘It’s quite simple, Chief,’ Denholm said. ‘We just couple up the combined battery powers of the Ariadne and the Kilcharran. The Kilcharran ’s winches are probably diesel-powered. We may or may not be able to convert them to electrical use. If we can’t, it doesn’t matter. We have excellent electric anchor windlasses on the Ariadne. ’

‘Yes, but – well, with one of your two anchors out of commission you’d start drifting, wouldn’t you?’

‘We wouldn’t drift. A diving ship normally carries four splayed anchors to moor it precisely over any given spot on the ocean floor. We just tie up to the Kilcharran, that’s all.’

‘I’m not doing too well, am I? One last objection, sir. Probably a feeble one. An anchor is only an anchor. This bomber and its cargo probably weighs over a hundred tons. I mean, it’s quite a lift.’

‘Diving ships also carry flotation bags. We strap them to the plane’s fuselage and pump them full of compressed air until we achieve neutral buoyancy.’

‘I give up,’ Carrington said. ‘From now on, I stick to diving.’

‘So we twiddle our thumbs until the Kilcharran arrives,’ Hawkins said. ‘But not you, I take it, Commander?’

‘I think we’ll have a look at the Delos, sir.’

They had rowed about a mile when Talbot called up the Ariadne. He spoke briefly, listened briefly, then turned to McKenzie who was at the tiller.

‘Ship oars. The timing device is still at it so I think we’ll start the engine. Gently, at first. At this distance I hardly think we’d trigger anything even if the bomb was activated, but no chances. Course 095.’

There were nine of them in the whaler – Talbot, Van Gelder, the two divers, McKenzie and the four seamen who had rowed them so far. Those last would not be required again until they reached the last mile of the return trip.

After about forty minutes Van Gelder moved up into the bows with a portable six-inch searchlight which, on such a clear night, had an effective range of over a mile. The searchlight was probably superfluous for there was a three-quarter moon and Talbot, with his night-glasses, had a clear bearing on the monastery and the radar station on Mount Elias. Van Gelder returned within minutes and handed the searchlight to McKenzie.

‘Fine off the port bow, Chief.’

‘I have it,’ McKenzie said. The yellow buoy, in the light of both the moon and the searchlight, was clearly visible. ‘Do I anchor?’

‘Not necessary,’ Talbot said. ‘No current that’s worth speaking of, no wind, a heavy anchor weight and a stout anchor rope. Just make fast to the buoy.’

In course of time McKenzie did just that and the four divers slipped over the side, touching down on the deck of the Delos just over an hour after leaving the Ariadne. Carrington and Grant disappeared down the for’ard companionway while Talbot and Van Gelder took the after one.

Talbot didn’t bother entering the after stateroom. The two girls had stayed there and he knew it would hold nothing of interest for him. He looked at the dead engineer, or the man whom Van Gelder had taken to be the engineer because of his blue overalls, and examined the back of his head carefully. The occiput had not been crushed and there were no signs of either bruising or blood in the vicinity of the deep gash in the skin of the skull. He rejoined Van Gelder who had already moved into the engine-room.

There was, of course, no smoke there now and very little traces of oil. In the light of their two powerful flashlights visibility was all that could be wished for and it took them only two minutes to carry out their examination: unless one is looking for some obscure mechanical fault there is very little to look for in an engine-room. On their way out they opened up a tool-box and took out a long slender chisel apiece.

They found the bridge, when they arrived there, to be all that they would have expected a bridge on such a yacht to be, with a plethora of expensive and largely unnecessary navigational aids, but in all respects perfectly innocuous. Only one thing took Talbot’s attention, a wooden cupboard on the after bulkhead. It was locked, but on the understandable assumption that Andropulos wouldn’t be having any further use for it Talbot wrenched it open with a chisel. It contained the ship’s papers and ship’s log, nothing more.

A door on the port side of the same bulkhead led to a combined radio-room and chart-room. The chart-room section held nothing that a chartroom should not have had, including a locked cupboard which Talbot opened in the same cavalier fashion he had used on the bridge: it held only pilot books and sailing directions. Andropulos, it seemed, just liked locking cupboards. The radio was a standard RCA. They left.

They found Carrington and Grant waiting for them in the saloon. Carrington was carrying what appeared to be a portable radio: Grant had a black metallic box slightly larger than a sheet of foolscap paper and less than three inches thick. Carrington put his visor close to Talbot’s.