Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ 'I worked the whole thing out in three days,' Winter told him. 'You must admit we're reasonably well-organised now. You can't poison us, you can't unlock a single cabin on the ship, you can't communicate with the outside world. Have I forgotten anything?'

^ 'If I think of something,' Bennett replied grimly, 'I won't let you know.'

^ 'I'm speaking from Seattle,' Sullivan told Victor Harper when the chairman of Harper Tankships came on the line. 'I tried to call you from Anchorage…'

^ 'I know,' Harper interjected irritably. 'There was a fire at the oil terminal so Mackay cleared out – with two tanks empty… Oh, bugger it. Wait a minute…' There was a pause. 'Just knocked over the damned candle. You wouldn't believe it but we're out of oil for the lamps – and I'm in the oil business. Power cut here, of course…' At 3.30pm in Seattle it was 10.30pm at Harper's home in Sunningdale. 'What's all this about the ^ Challenger?' ^ Harper demanded.

^ ^ don and then on to Anchorage and Seattle. Now I've lost him. And one or two things I came across made me wonder, but they were dead ends. Like that business about the wireless operator, Swan. It turned out to be nothing more than he'd taken his wife with him on the ^ Challenger…'

^ 'Taken his wife with him?' Harper's voice had an edge to it. 'Bad enough for Mackay having one woman aboard – and a journalist at that.'

^ 'An American journalist I know called Betty Cordell.' 'And you say Swan's wife isn't on the ship? I think you're wrong…'

^ 'That's what I'm beginning to wonder. Because he's not at home – neither is his wife. I've been out there. They both left for the ship at three-fifteen last Thursday…' 'You saw them leave?'

^ 'No, I didn't,' Sullivan said slowly. 'Come to think of it, no one saw them leave – but they're gone…'

^ 'Look, Sullivan…' Harper's growing impatience came clearly over the line. 'There's a replacement wireless operator aboard. Chap called Kinnaird. So Swan must be at home – unless he's in hospital.'

^ 'Any idea when all this happened? And how did Mackay come up with this Kinnaird so conveniently? In Alaska, for God's sake?' 'Swan knew him, recommended him. He just happened to be there. Short of a job, I suppose. As to the timing, I'll read you Mackay's cable. ^ 1518 hours. Wireless operator Swan taken ill. Recommended replacement George Kinnaird. Kinnaird sailing with us this trip. Mackay. ^ Straightforward enough…'

^ 'No, it isn't. At three-fifteen Mrs Swan phoned a neighbour from home saying she was just leaving to sail with her husband. At three-eighteen – according to that cable – Swan is ill and has found someone else to replace him. All inside three minutes?'

^ 'It's more than peculiar, it's bloody sinister. Is there anything unusual about this latest trip of the ^ Challenger! ^ Anything at all?'

^ 'Not according to Ephraim-nor from the routine reports coming in from Kinnaird…'

^ 'Sorry, I think you were away when I added him to the insurance cover. Ephraim is an automatic monitor I've had installed in the engine-room – one of those mechanical brain things which independently check the engine performance of the ship. And it is quite independent of the ship. It flashes radio signals to a computer at the Marine Centre in The Hague. The computer decodes the signals and the report comes to me by telex. Whole operation takes less than thirty minutes – seconds for the radio signals to get to The Hague, the rest of the time getting the data back here.'

^ 'Normal. The ^ Challenger ^ is moving through a gentle swell at seventeen knots. She should reach the oil terminal at Oleum -that's near San Francisco – on schedule.'

^ 'Again normal. Routine messages come through on time. It's fascinating to compare notes – to see how Kinnaird's weather reports exactly match Ephraim's…'

^ Latest toy, Sullivan thought. He'll soon get tired of it. 'I'll keep in touch,' he said. 'I may call you from San Francisco – because that's where I'm going…'

^ 'That's the end of the line for the ^ Challenger – ^ and I want to be there when she reaches it…'

^ Sullivan put in another call, this time to Mulligan, chief of police at Anchorage. He told him about the Swans, that they weren't aboard the ^ Challenger, ^ that maybe it would be a good idea if a patrol car went out to the Swan home and if someone talked to Madge Thompson, the next-door neighbour.

^ Mulligan reacted with his usual vigour. 'I think maybe we'll go further – we'll send out an all-points bulletin for the Swans. And I'll send patrol cars to take a good look at the whole Matanuska valley area. Of course, Swan could be faking the whole disappearance himself…'

^ 'Why?'

^ 'Supposing the guy reckons he's short on leave, wants to take his wife for some ski-ing up in the mountains? So he fixes up with a pal to take his place, phones Mackay to tell him he's ill, and then takes off for some ski-ing. How does that grab you?'

^ Sullivan broke the connection, then made a fresh call to get information on the next flight to San Francisco. He could have had no way of knowing – at that time – that the call he had made to Mulligan would have enormous repercussions which would reach half way round the world. Within a few days.

^ Winter had the whole ship sewn up tightly, absolutely under his control as he supposed. Two guards were mounted permanently on the bridge where Betty Cordell was spending most of her time. Three more guards were stationed in the engine-room, the heart of the ship. A sixth guard was on duty outside the locked day cabin where the crew not on duty were kept, and a seventh man kept an eye on the galley where Wrigley, the steward, and Bates, the cook, presided over the mysterious rites of their culinary arts. Yet another armed guard was on duty outside the radio cabin. Including Winter himself and LeCat, this left a reserve of seven men who could rest, in readiness to relieve other men at intervals.

^ 'He's a bloody good organiser, I regret to say,' Bennett whispered to Mackay on the bridge. 'And 1 have more bad news.'

^ 'Lanky Miller told me he saw Kinnaird going inside the radio cabin.'

^ 'Not while the armed guard stays outside the cabin – with the door closed in his face.'

^ 'Miller is very sure. You see what that means? They would never leave Kinnaird alone in there – with the transmitter – unless he's working with them.'

^ Mackay sighed heavily. 'So you were right – there was something funny about him.'

^ 'There had to be. I should have realised it at the moment the terrorists came on board. How else could they find us in the middle of the Pacific – unless Kinnaird was sending them regular signals reporting our position? Betty Cordell was right – she did hear him transmitting the other night.'

^ 'At least Winter has let her go back to her cabin.' Mackay glanced at one of the guards. 'I didn't like the way that thug over there was eyeing her. I think we're going to have to get accustomed to bad news on this trip, Mr Bennett.'

^ 'Since Kinnaird is working for them, that means he never sent your last signal – the one reporting to the Coast Guard that we were picking up their chopper. So forget the hope about a US cruiser looming over the horizon.'

^ 'I grasped that a moment ago,' Mackay said sourly. He dropped his voice to a shade of a whisper. 'Winter seems to have thought of everything, doesn't he? But luckily no one is perfect. The one thing he hasn't thought of is the crew member who isn't on the list – Ephraim. Which is ironical, Mr Bennett – that our lives may depend on Harper's bloody mechanical toy locked away in the engine-room – the only crew member who still has freedom of action aboard this ship.'

^ Engine Performance Remote Control Monitor – nick-named Ephraim. Quite independent of all other engine-room operations, the mechanical brain installed inside the control panel was relaying radio signals over many thousands of miles to the master computer in The Hague, reporting constantly on the tanker's performance for the duration of the voyage.