Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ 'She must be. Mr Harper just mentioned it in passing on his way out. I think it could be the chief engineer's wife – she's been longing to do the trip for months…'

^ Sullivan rubbed at his forehead; for a moment he had felt dizzy. 'Vivian, can you think of anyone here in Anchorage I can talk to about the ^ Challenger – ^ apart from the oil terminal people, that

^ 'Mrs Swan, the wireless operator's wife,' Vivian suggested promptly. 'She was in the office here about three months ago and she told me she lived outside Anchorage. Would you like the address?'

^ Sullivan noted down the address, said he might phone Harper tomorrow, said yes, he'd try and get some sleep, and put down the phone. Five hours later, having just eaten his second breakfast, he found Swan's number in the directory, phoned the number and couldn't get an answer. He decided to drive out to the Swan home.

^ The house had a shut-up look. There was snow on the mountains beyond the Matanuska valley, snow on a copse of fir trees on the far side of the highway. Sullivan rang the bell again and then strolled round the back. A very shut-up look indeed. He peered into a window in the barn and saw a power cable plugged into a red Ford. Anti-freeze measure. It was a wasted trip – he could have been sleeping at the Westward. Sullivan felt he could sleep now.

^ He walked round the front of the house back to his hired car as a blue Chevrolet came down a distant drive and turned on to the highway. He stood there as the car slowed, then turned into the Swan's drive. A red-haired woman of about thirty who wore a skull-fitting, fur cap rolled down the window as she stopped. 'Are you looking for someone?' 'For Mrs Swan. Place seems to be shut up.' 'They've gone away – on Charlie's ship. Are you a friend?' 'My company insures the ^ Challenger.' ^ Sullivan grinned. 'I'm the best friend they've got. I thought the captain didn't like women aboard too much?' It was something to say. The whole thing was explained now, including Vivian Herries' reference to a woman aboard the ^ Challenger. ^ Mrs Swan had struck lucky; she was travelling with her husband on the trip.

^ 'I'm Madge Thompson.' The red-haired woman extended her hand through the window. Sullivan gave her his name. 'Julie -that's Mrs Swan,' Madge Thompson explained, 'was in quite a rush. She phoned me about a quarter after three just before they left. The captain must have mellowed. I gather the whole thing was a last-minute arrangement. She sounded tense…' 'Tense?'

^ 'Excited. She's wanted to do the trip for ages…' They chatted for several minutes and then Mrs Thompson left for Anchorage. Sullivan had trouble starting his car – the engine was already starting to freeze up – and drove back to the city. He had come all the way to Alaska for nothing; no one was trying to sabotage the tanker. And he needed some sleep.

^ Sullivan asked the question as he sat at the bar of the Westward Hotel in Anchorage. It was 1 pm, Friday January 17. Almost asleep behind the wheel during his drive back from the Swan home, he had freshened up the moment he had stepped into the hotel lobby; ^ ^ still another reaction from jet lag. Now he felt strangely alert, hepped up as though he had taken drugs. It was the barman who had mentioned the fire at Nikisiki.

^ 'About a quarter after three in the afternoon,' the barman said as he served Sullivan his second Scotch on the rocks. 'They think it was sabotage,' he went on with relish. 'I guess the A-rabs are behind it – like in Venezuela. They want us to freeze to death. And we could do it here…' He glanced behind the bar. 'Thermostat turned down to sixty-two – in this climate, in this state which is swimming in oil…'

^ 'Not yet,' Sullivan reminded him, 'not until North Slope comes on tap…'

^ 'You British?' the barman enquired. 'Lots of people think the British are Australian, but I can always tell.' 'I'm British…' 'You got a car?'

^ 'I managed to hire one – cost me a fortune…' 'You remember to plug in the power cable? Guy was here yesterday who forgot to plug in the cable – though he reckoned someone pulled out his cable. He was British – a sea captain.' 'Not Captain Mackay?'

^ 'You know him? That was his name.' The barman chattered on. 'Took a call here at the bar and gave his name. He left in a …..

^ 'So they say. Well-built guy, your Captain Mackay – with a red face and those blue eyes sailors is supposed to have and seldom do. I got a memory for faces. A guy comes into this bar once five years back, comes in again tomorrow and I'm going to remember him. If he only looks in this bar and I see him, I remember him…'

^ 'That was Mackay,' Sullivan said absent-mindedly. Everything seemed to have happened at three-fifteen the previous day. The Swans had left home hurriedly at 3.15pm. Mackay had rushed out of the hotel about 3.15pm. The fire at the Nikisiki oil terminal had started at about 3.15pm. And the fire was sabotage.

^ He blinked, suddenly so tired he could have fallen over. He left the bar and went up to his room, trying to recall an idea which had passed through his head while the barman was chattering away. Something to do with remembering faces… Closing the door, he locked it, flopped on the bed and fell asleep.

^ When it was one o'clock in the afternoon, Anchorage time, as Sullivan listened to the barman at the Westward, it was midnight, Damascus time, as Sheikh Gamal Tafak savoured the cup of black coffee he was drinking.

^ It probably wasn't quite true to say that Tafak was savouring the taste of the black coffee, because it is difficult to relish two things at the same time. As he sat in his room in the Saudi Arabian embassy in the Syrian capital, Tafak was savouring the message he had received a few hours earlier. ^ Case Orange has been delivered. ^ Winter, he was thinking, was an ingenious man; anyone transmitting the message would assume that it was a mistake, that it meant cases of oranges had been delivered. To Tafak it meant that all was going well, that the British tanker ^ Challenger ^ had now left Alaska – with Winter's own wireless operator aboard.

^ He checked his watch. Soon the Mercedes would arrive, the car taking him to a secret headquarters where he would remain until the operation had been completed. He would stay there until the Frenchman, LeCat, had done the job, until all the British hostages aboard the ship had been killed, until San Francisco had been ruined by the catastrophic explosion. Then he would hurry back to Damascus for the next meeting of OAPEC, the Arab oil-producing countries' organisation. At that meeting he would persuade or compel all of them to cut off the oil flow to the West. If any country refused, the Arab terrorist dynamite teams would move in, destroying that country's oil-fields. Someone tapped nervously on the door. 'Come in,' Tafak called out.

^ It was 5.30pm on Friday evening when Sullivan walked back into the bar at the Westward. He ordered a Scotch on the rocks. 'Yes, sir!' The barman looked at Sullivan. 'You've changed your suit. Like I said, I notice things…'

^ 'Test the memory.' Sullivan laid the photo of Winter on the counter, the profile shot where he had painted out the moustache Winter had worn while visiting Paul Hahnemann. He picked up his drink and sipped it while the barman made a performance out of studying the print.

^ 'He's never been in my bar. I'll stake my job on it. Not while I was on duty…'

^ 'Disappointed?' The barman grinned at Sullivan who shrugged his shoulders. It had been a very long shot indeed. 'Not in my bar,' the American emphasised. 'But two nights ago he was standing in that entrance over there. He looked in, changed his mind and disappeared. Mackay was in here at the time, having a beer. Be about nine in the evening.'

^ Sullivan nearly choked on his drink. 'You're sure? Yes, of course you are,' he added hastily. 'Was he staying here?'