Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ Winter went up on deck to check for himself. The marine biological research the vessel was supposed to be engaged in was good cover for this purpose also – concealment of the weapons. Certain forms of research involve the use of explosives, and LeCat had organised the construction of a magazine on deck. A steel compartment was bolted to the deck; painted warning red, it carried the words 'Explosives Magazine' stencilled across two sides.

^ A bank of fog had drifted in during the evening. On deck seamen were moving about in the gloom, preparing for the ship's midnight departure; at the foot of the gangway a fog-blurred silhouette stood on guard. Winter shone a torch inside the magazine LeCat had unlocked. The contents looked innocent and standard, considering their resting-place- until LeCat lifted up several sticks of explosive to expose the Skorpion pistols underneath.

^ 'Under the pistols,' LeCat snapped irritably. 'Customs men don't like fooling around inside here…' Which was just as well, otherwise they might have wondered what was going on when they found stencils bearing the legend 'USCG' – United States Coastguard.

^ ^ paratus for when the time came for them to leave the hi-jacked ^ Challenger. ^ On their way to the carpenter's store under the high forecastle, Winter climbed up into the S. 58 Sikorsky now delivered by Walgren's pilot friend and sitting on the platform constructed over one of the fish-holds.

^ He kept LeCat waiting while he checked the fuel and oil gauges. As soon as dawn came on Saturday morning – when the Pecheur ^ ^ would be well out in the Pacific – he would take off in the helicopter for a trial flight. LeCat would fly with him; also the thirteen-man terrorist team which had flown from London to Montreal half an hour before Winter himself had departed for Anchorage three days ago. These men were now aboard the trawler they had filtered on to in parties of two's and three's when they reached Victoria. Once again Winter had decided on a rehearsal for the next stage of the operation – the seizure of the ^ Challenger.

^ Jumping back on to the main deck, he looked at the machine. It was painted pale grey, the standard colour of United States Coast Guard helicopters. During the night Andre Dupont would use the hidden stencils and spray-gun, painting on the necessary insignia; by morning the Pecheur ^ ^ would carry on her platform a perfect reproduction of an American Coast Guard helicopter. Winter led LeCat through the fog to the carpenter's store on the forecastle.

^ LeCat was sweating as he raised the hatch cover, cursing the Englishman for his insistence on seeing everything for himself, sweating because inside the carpenter's store was hidden the one thing Winter must not find.

^ The Frenchman went down the ladder first into the cramped compartment where wood shavings littered the floor; the atmosphere was tinged with their odour. 'There,' LeCat said. 'Satisfied?' Winter looked round carefully. An inflatable Zodiac, a large rubber craft to which an outboard motor could be attached, was roped to a bulkhead; the motor inside its casing stood in a corner. Inside several large suitcases – each of which LeCat had to open for Winter – fifteen wet-suits were packed with masks and air bottles. Against another bulkhead a large, box-like seat, made of new wood, was bolted to the deck. 'That wasn't there before,' Winter said. 'What is it?'

^ He held his breath, waiting for the Englishman's reaction. 'Good idea.' Winter went back up the ladder, followed by the Frenchman, who was sweating now with relief. As he closed the hatch LeCat glanced down at the carpenter's seat, a seat large enough to conceal a suitcase-like object made of steel, a case measuring sixty centimetres in length by thirty centimetres in width, an object weighing almost two hundred pounds, its canvas cover plastered with hotel labels from all over the world. Jean-Philippe Antoine's nuclear device.

^ A fresh signal from Kinnaird confirming the ^ Challenger's ^ latest position came in soon after Winter had arrived aboard the ^ Pecheur ^. ^ ^ It was added to the chart showing the British tanker's southern progress from Alaska by Andre Dupont. Winter was studying the chart when the ^ Pecheur ^ put to sea a few minutes after midnight, moving slowly through the fog, its siren sounding one long blast at the regulation two-minute intervals as it headed out past the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The Englishman pointed to a cross he had marked on the chart. 'My guess is we shall intercept ^ Challenger ^ somewhere about here – roughly about thirty-six hours from now. It will mean hanging about in mid-ocean, but that gives us a margin for error…'

^ Past midnight, it was already Saturday morning, January 18. The cross Winter had marked on the chart stood at latitude 47 ION, longitude 132 10 W – approximately two hundred and fifty miles west of Vancouver Island.

^ 'There is a limit. When a handful of men – primitive men with the minds and morals of bandits – lay their hands on the keys to a whole civilisation's survival, then we have reached that limit. Then is the time to act…'

^ US War Department report to National Security Council in Washington, January 17.

^ 'Satellite surveillance of the Indian Ocean area shows two British supertankers, ^ York ^ and ^ Chester, ^ leaving the Mozambique Channel, heading north-east towards the Persian Gulf. Photoanalysis reveals canvas-covered cargoes on the decks of these 200,000-ton ships which could be arms (no confirmation of this). Believed Britain may be bartering arms for oil at Abu Dhabi.

^ Comment: No recently concluded British oil deals with Abu Dhabi have been reported.'

^ It was fifteen minutes away from Friday January 17 when Larry Sullivan's Boeing 707 landed at Anchorage International Airport ten and a half hours behind schedule. He phoned the Nikisiki oil terminal from the airport and heard that the ^ Challenger ^ was now at sea.

^ Sharing a cab with three American oil men, Sullivan was taken to the leading hotel in Anchorage, the Westward, where he booked a room and went to bed. He gave up the attempts to sleep at three in the morning, got up, shaved and dressed. He was suffering from an overdose of jet lag, the disorientation of mind and body which comes from flying long hours across the roof of the world. Physically exhausted, he was mentally alert, excited as his internal clocks struggled to adjust themselves to the time lag.

^ At three in the morning in southern Alaska it was noon in London – the States was on daylight saving time. He put through a call to Victor Harper and sat on the bed smoking while he waited. Seen from London, he had felt there was good reason to come to Alaska – Winter had been placed in Hahnemann's office in Hamburg where he had studied blueprints of the ^ Challenger's ^ twin ship ^ Chieftain; ^ in MacGillivray's office he had been placed making specific enquiries about the ^ Challenger ^ herself. But that was seen from London.

^ Seen from Alaska at three in the morning, enduring the weird after-effects of jet lag, the reasons for making the trip seemed less weighty. For one thing the tanker had sailed safely; in about four days' time she would dock in San Francisco. The phone by his bedside rang.

^ 'Larry, Mr Harper is out of the country,' Vivian Herries, Harper's personal assistant explained. 'He's still in Genoa, so he can't be reached…'

^ 'Damn!' Sullivan said. 'Sorry, not you-I'm reeling from jet lag. Vivian, I just missed the ^ Challenger ^ by hours – she's on her way to San Francisco. As far as you know, is everything normal? Nothing out of pattern?'

^ 'As normal as anything is in the shipping business these days -with the energy crisis. Just a minute, there was one thing out of pattern – she has a woman aboard on this trip.' She chuckled. 'Can you imagine that, knowing old Mackay thinks his ship should be run like a St James's club – strictly for men only. But he's got a real live woman prancing about on board this trip.'