Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ From the bridge window the view was horrific. The ^ Challenger ^ was labouring amid a world of violence which never stopped moving, so the mind could never adjust as the ship wallowed amid waves ninety feet high – as high as a nine-storey building – from crest to trough. There was no moon, no sky, only the massive cauldron of seething ocean as the ninety-foot waves bore down on the vessel from all quarters. Mackay was standing close to the window when the wave struck.

^ The wind strength was now one hundred and ten miles an hour, the strength Winter had noted down in the signal he had earlier handed to Kinnaird for his imaginary typhoon. As a prophet Winter was being vindicated with a vengeance. The wind's scream was now so ferocious that it had drowned out the thump of the labouring engine beat, a manic scream which chilled the guards as they stared at each other across the width of the bridge. Then the scream was momentarily lost as another sound penetrated the bridge, a tremendous whoomph as a giant wave struck the port side.

^ A great column of surf and spume climbed for'ard of the port side of the bridge, then a white shadow broke full against the bridge, blinding all vision as the vessel shook under the impact. The thought flashed through Mackay's tired mind that they were caught between two powerful and competing wave systems, then there was a second whoomph as a second wave exploded, far too close to its predecessor. The wave rhythm had gone, the ocean had gone wild, the wind strength climbed to one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour as the bridge plunged and toppled like a building collapsing floor by floor.

^ The quartermaster damned near lost his grip on the wheel, the stocky guard on the port side let go of his grip on the rail and was thrown clear across the bridge, vomiting all over the deck as his pistol slid ahead of him. The other guard retrieved the weapon as it slid over and touched his boots. A head-breaking crack like a gun going off resounded inside the bridge. But it wasn't the head of the guard which had cracked – as the spray ran off the armoured glass of the window the captain stared at a zigzag fracture which disfigured the window. Carried forward at the speed of a projectile, the sea had struck the glass like lead shot. Walsh, who had lingered on the bridge, wanting to stay near his captain, winced.

^ 'My God, sir,' Walsh gasped. 'I've never seen that happen before…'

^ Winter came on to the bridge as he was speaking, as the stocky guard hauled himself to his feet, reaching out for his pistol with a trembling hand. 'I'll take that,' Winter said crisply, 'go get yourself cleaned up…' He waited until the tilting deck was momentarily level, then went across to join Mackay by the bridge window.

^ Winter had not been expected back on the bridge, for the simple reason that no one knew when to expect him. Tireless, he roamed all over the bridge structure from one level to another, checking, checking, always surprising people by his arrival – both the terrorists and the British crew. He deliberately followed no set routine because it kept them off balance, and never more than this night of the typhoon which he foresaw could be the time of maximum danger. If the crew – spearheaded by Bennett, of course -attempted a break-out it would be at the height of the storm, while the guards were disabled all over the ship with sea-sickness.

^ Wind speed rose to one hundred and thirty miles an hour -almost without precedent. Winter clung to a rail, watching Mackay, knowing that this man was the real barometer of the extent of their danger. Sixty feet ^ ^ below the bridge there was a surge of sea – the main deck vanished under the teeming ocean, was below water level. Catwalk, breakwater, pipes and valves -all had disappeared. Only the two derricks and the distant foremast showed above the raging surface. It was as though the ship had gone down except for the island bridge which floated like a remnant of a submerged ship. For two more hours Tara battered the ^ Challenger, ^ and then she turned away, heading south-west into the vast reaches of the Pacific.

^ As dawn came at 7.12am, it was a time of relief and bitterness for Bennett; relief that they had survived, and bitterness that they had lost their last chance to take back their ship. Monk had never reappeared after Mackay had seen him moving along the main deck after LeCat. The French terrorist had reappeared later in the engine-room when he had sprung his surprise head-count. There would, Bennett felt sure, never be another chance. If they hadn't managed it at the height of the typhoon when half the guards were seasick, they were unlikely to pull if off in broad daylight. And the ^ Challenger, ^ though much delayed and thrown off course by Tara, was now little more than twelve hours' sailing time from San Francisco. Winter had won the game.

^ 'Challenger (t), British, Nikisiki, Harper Tankships, Oleum.' ^ Shipping notice under heading 'Arriving Today'. From ^ San Francisco Chronicle, ^ January 21.

^ The idea came to Sullivan when he was returning from breakfast at a coffee shop on Geary Street. He was going up inside the glass elevator at the St Francis Hotel, an elevator which moves up an open shaft attached to the outside of the building, so he had an unobstructed and dizzy view of Union Square far below. Turning the idea over, he hardly noticed the view.

^ He hurried to his room, took off his coat and threw it on the bed. He was going to do something he had urged Harper not to do; he was going to communicate with the ^ Challenger ^ while she was still at sea. It might be illuminating to see what reply he received – whether, in fact, he received any reply at all.

^ It took him a few minutes to work out a message on a scribble pad, a message which could do no harm if there was something seriously wrong aboard the tanker, and the message would have to pass through the replacement wireless operator, Kinnaird. When he had composed the message to his satisfaction he picked up the phone and spoke to the operator who relayed messages to ships at sea. The message was quite short but it compelled a reply – if everything aboard the ^ Challenger ^ was normal.

^ Suspect contraband was taken aboard at Cook Inlet. Possibly drugs. Please confirm immediately whether new personnel joined ship at Nikisiki for present voyage. Will expect immediate reply to Sullivan, St Francis Hotel, San Francisco. Repeat expect immediate reply. Sullivan.

^ When the ^ Challenger ^ was within twelve hours' sailing time of San Francisco it was almost a year to the day since the Gulf states, led by Sheikh Gamal Tafak, had cut the flow of oil to the West by fifty per cent. The reaction to this event inside Soviet Russia was strangely muted.

^ The Soviet government, which in the past had urged the Arabs to use their oil weapon, was appalled by the revelation of what it involved, by the sheer immensity of Arab power. It suddenly dawned on the Russians that they had spawned a monster. A Golden Ape was now stalking across the face of the earth, an ape which could destroy the great industrial machines of the West on which Russia depended for aid to develop her own industrial machine.

^ So, the Soviet government absorbed the shock, recognised the potential danger of the situation, and waited. While Sheikh Gamal Tafak remained convinced that he held all the trump cards, to the north of the Arab oil bowls the Russian colossus loomed like a giant shadow, patient, watchful, waiting.

^ Moving ever closer to San Francisco, the ^ Challenger ^ limped out of the embrace of Typhoon Tara. On the morning of Tuesday January 21, as the sun broke through a heavy overcast, the British tanker was a grim sight.

^ Her funnel was bent at a weird angle, although still functioning. The port derrick was twisted into a bizarre shape. Hatch covers had been blown away in the night. The port-side lifeboat had been wrenched clear of its davits and lost in the ocean. Three port-side portholes with inch-thick glass had been smashed in. The bridge window which Mackay had heard crack was gone, blasted into the bridge interior by a later wave, and it was only by a miracle that the men on the bridge at that moment hadn't been cut to pieces by flying glass. The bridge structure itself had a lop-sided tilt. The ^ Challenger ^ looked a wreck but she was still steaming for California at a speed of seventeen knots.