Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ More than that, an emergency autopsy had been rushed through on the body of Ahmed Riad. The bruises on the neck and the condition of the corpse had confirmed Winter's story of the incident at the Clift. Riad had died of a massive coronary. It was five in the afternoon when MacGowan decided to take the plunge.

^ 'We're not getting anywhere,' he announced, 'and I can't hold LeCat off much longer. I think it's time we took a look at a plan for getting aboard that ship – Winter's plan.'

^ Waiting until the protests had subsided, MacGowan began talking forcefully, making no concessions to anyone, staring at them grimly from under his thick eyebrows as he pointed out that after hours of discussion they hadn't come up with even the ghost of a plan to tackle the situation. 'The one man who knows the real position aboard that ship is Winter, the one man who knows how the terrorists are liable to react is Winter, and…' he lifted his voice, 'the one man who might just get an assault team aboard the ^ Challenger ^ is Winter, whether you like it or not. In fact, I don't give a damn what you like -I want results…'

^ 'Having talked to him,' Sullivan intervened, 'I think the Governor is right. Winter managed to seize that ship, to get it right under the coast of California. Now, because he was tricked, he's ready to put the same energy and brain power into reverse -into getting the ship back.' Looking round the table where twenty men sat in a state of indecision, he smiled bleakly. 'You know, gentlemen, there is no more dedicated man than the convert to the opposing side. Winter, as an anti-terrorist, could be very formidable indeed…'

^ Winter was brought into the meeting, escorted by the police lieutenant who had become his permanent shadow. There was no humility in his manner, Cassidy noted as the Englishman sat down on MacGowan's left. His face was as cold and distant as when he had been subjected to the lie-detector test. He looked critically round the table, as though assessing each man, wondering whether he was any good. He's a cool bastard, this one, Cassidy was thinking; maybe a good man to go into the jungle with. But, as yet, the Marine colonel wasn't sure. The mayor immediately expressed his disapproval of the whole idea.

^ 'I propose he's sent out of here under armed guard,' Peretti snapped. Sitting on MacGowan's right, he faced Winter who studied him with interest. 'You are the guy who sicked this thing on to us,' Peretti went on. 'I don't agree with your even being in the same room with us…'

^ 'You want the hostages – including one American girl – to die?' Winter enquired. 'Because I'm sure now that LeCat will kill every hostage aboard that ship…'

^ 'You knew that when you started this thing?' Col Cassidy demanded, testing his reaction. 'Because if you did my vote is we put you in a cell and throw away the key…'

^ 'Belt up – and listen. I know these terrorists – which is more than you do. When I was flying in over Marin County I saw a way to get men on to the ship – I was trying to look at it the other way round, to see how we might be stopped. You have to drop on to the tanker from the air…'

^ 'Hopeless.' Cassidy sounded disappointed. 'We've thought of that – and rejected it. The chopper would have to land on -the main deck. It would get shot to pieces from the island bridge -and so would anyone coming out of the machine…'

^ 'We don't use a chopper,' Winter explained. 'A small team of heavily armed men waits on Golden Gate bridge. We give LeCat permission to enter the Bay – to pass under the bridge at night. As the tanker sails under Golden Gate the assault team drops on to her in the dark. If the fog lasts, the chance of success is that much greater.'

^ 'The fog thinned this morning,' MacGowan interjected, 'but it could come back again tonight.'

^ 'That's a crazy idea,' Commissioner Bolan objected, 'that tanker will be moving…'

^ 'Very slowly, if we box clever,' Winter said. 'I understand the tide will be flowing out to sea strongly in the early hours. Can someone tell me what its flow-rate will be?'

^ 'Seven-and-a-half knots until ten in the morning,' Garfield, the Coast Guard chief, said promptly.

^ 'So, we radio Mackay to come in at eight knots – which means moving against the tide, his actual speed will be only half a knot.'

^ 'The main problem is dropping three or four heavily armed men off the bridge span – off the highway level – down on to the ship as it passes under the bridge. We have to lower them ahead of the tanker coming in…'

^ 'Exactly,' Winter agreed. 'Or a cargo net – whatever we can grab hold of. Something men can cling on to during the long drop.' He looked round the table. 'How long a drop is it from the highway span ?'

^ 'Two hundred feet…' O'Hara, the Port Authority chief sounded dubious.

^ 'It can be done,' Winter said emphatically. 'For lowering the net we need a mobile crane – with a foot counter…'

^ 'Foot counter,' Cassidy repeated. He had been whispering to an aide by his side who was making notes. 'The guy operating the crane has to know how far he's dropped them – so he holds them just above deck level as the tanker comes in…'

^ 'So he knows when the men have dropped off,' Cassidy explained. 'Three men in the net weighing a hundred and sixty pounds apiece – makes four hundred and eighty pounds of man-load. The indicator loses that amount, the crane operator knows they're down, he whips the net back up out of sight. That way, if they get aboard unseen in the fog, they have time to assemble on the fo'c'sle and reconnoitre the ground before they go in to the attack.'

^ MacGowan, who was unusually silent, sat with his chin in his hand, carefully saying nothing as the technical side of the plan was worked out. Earlier, Winter had privately outlined this plan to the Governor, who found it possible – just possible if the fog was thick enough. It was a wild, audacious plan, but so had been Winter's previous plan to hi-jack the ^ Challenger – ^ a plan which succeeded because it had been so totally unexpected. And it was unlikely that LeCat and the other terrorists would foresee men dropping down on top of them like spiders suspended from threads.

^ Its greatest virtue, as MacGowan saw it, was that it got round LeCat's insistence that no aircraft, no surface or underwater craft must approach the tanker, on pain of shooting the hostages. The tanker itself would sail up to the airdrop point. And there was no other possible plan – God knows they had chewed that over long enough.

^ MacGowan found it fascinating as the discussion of the plan continued – the way Winter was gradually dominating the meeting. Personality, he decided, of a rare order. A man who was so sure of himself, so compelling, that they were all, reluctantly, falling under his spell. MacGowan had once known another man like this in his early days as state prosecutor, a man he had known as guilty of the charge brought against him. MacGowan had lost this case, the defendant had gone free-because of his cold, clinical personality, the way he had swayed the jury.

^ 'How will you know where to place that mobile crane?' the Governor asked ultimately. 'It has to be positioned exactly over the tanker's deck ^ before ^ she reaches the bridge?'

^ 'Radar,' Winter said. 'We need mobile radar positioned on the bridge to track the ^ Challenger's ^ approach. When Mackay sets a course he keeps it – and he won't start weaving about inside that channel…'

^ MacGowan leaned forward, his hairy hands clenched on the table. 'As we work it out, we should start setting it up. We can't keep LeCat outside for ever.'

^… ^ Golden Gate channel will be clear within a few hours. Await next signal which may well authorise your entry into San Francisco Bay. Arrangements have been made to take off your wounded.