Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ ^ indicated on the chart. 'That is barely half a mile from the San Francisco waterfront.'

^ 'That is correct. Now, will you do what I say or do I have Bennett brought to the bridge? Time is not on my side so I have no patience left…'

^ Without a word Mackay went back on to the bridge and gave instructions to the helmsman personally. Then he went to the front of the bridge and stood there with his hands behind his back, looking down the full length of the main deck where the fog cleared until he could see the distant fo'c'sle. He went on staring in the same direction, never giving a thought to the fact that under the fo'c'sle lay the carpenter's store.

^ At 3am the ^ Challenger – ^ which had increased speed inside the Bay – was anchored half a mile from Pier 31 on the San Francisco waterfront. Ship-to-shore radio-telephone equipment had been set up in MacGowan's office in response to a signal from LeCat that he wished to establish direct contact with the Governor of California. Foreseeing long hours ahead of the action committee, MacGowan had brought in beds which now occupied adjoining rooms. It appeared that the three-man assault team had gone to ground – as Winter had warned might happen.

^ Watchers along the waterfront and high up on the Bay bridge linking San Francisco with Oakland across the Bay had scanned the stationary vessel through powerful night-glasses. There were no lights aboard the vessel, no sign of movement anywhere. 'It must be the thinning of the fog which stopped them,' MacGowan told General Matthew Lepke of the Presidio. They dare not try and storm the bridge until the fog provides cover – there's six hundred feet of exposed deck between the fo'c'sle and the bridge at the stern. All the hostages would be murdered before they got ^ ^ there – and they would probably be shot down before they ever reached the bridge structure…'

^ Gen. Lepke, fifty-five years old and rumoured to be moving into the Pentagon over the heads of fifteen other generals, was a spare, wiry man with a bird-like face and restless eyes. 'Cassidy will know what he's doing,' he observed. 'Trouble is he may have to wait till tonight – another sixteen hours – before there's chance of more fog. You'll just have to spin out the negotiations with this terrorist chief, LeCat…'

^ 'Except that we're pretty certain that at some stage he's going to shoot the hostages anyway,' MacGowan commented.

^ The first message came through on the ship-to-shore minutes later. The Frenchman sounded confident and decisive as his voice came through the speaker. He repeated his warning.

^ 'All the twenty-nine hostages – including the American girl -will be shot instantly if the ^ Challenger ^ is approached by any aircraft, surface vessel or underwater craft…'

^ 'What about the casualties?' MacGowan demanded. 'Your earlier signal said you had nine injured people aboard – including Miss Cordell…'

^ 'There have been no casualties yet,' the Frenchman shouted. 'That was a mistake. Now, no more interruptions. I will only say it once…'

^ LeCat went on to say that his ultimate demand would be made in due course; in the meantime a Boeing 747 must be made ready to stand by at San Francisco International Airport with full fuel tanks; a Greyhound bus must be requisitioned, its windows painted over black, and then driven to Pier 31; finally, the sum of two hundred million dollars must be assembled at the Bank of America within five hours. 'You will be informed of where to take the money later,' LeCat ended.

^ MacGowan tried to protest, then realised LeCat had switched off the ship-to-shore. He had tried to intervene while LeCat was speaking, only to be talked down by the Frenchman. 'When I want you to speak I will tell you. Now, you will listen! If you interrupt again First Officer Bennett will be shot…'

^ ^ ^ single shot being fired. MacGowan glanced at Lepke sitting alongside him. The general's mouth had tightened. LeCat came back on the ship-to-shore. That bullet went out of the window. The next one goes into Bennett…'

^ 'He's a bastard,' MacGowan said when he had switched off the speaker. 'Is it possible that Winter got it wrong? Is he really going to negotiate? He made it sound damned convincing – the demand for a Jumbo, for the bus…'

^ MacGowan began using the phone at once, making arrangements about the bus, the Boeing 747, and enquiries about the money. It was important to appear to be cooperating at this stage – to keep LeCat in a state of suspension as long as he could, to buy time until the assault team aboard the ship could make a move. And still he was unsure about the genuineness of LeCat's demands, about whether Winter had been wrong.

^ Winter raised the hatch cover slowly, then held it open a few inches and peered along the main deck. The ship had stopped, his watch showed the time as 3am, a transparent trail of fog drifted across the fo'c'sle, but the main deck was clear. His night vision was good – he had switched off the light in the carpenter's store a few minutes earlier to get his eyes used to the dark. And the foremast was highly visible.

^ Something moved on the circular platform at the top of the foremast; a man was walking round it slowly, his back turned to Winter for a moment. The Englishman thought he recognised the man's movements, that it was probably Andre Dupont. He pressed the pair of miniature field-glasses he had brought with him to his eyes, adjusting the focus with one hand. The lookout was holding a box-like object in his right hand, probably a walkie-talkie. Cassidy had been right; there was communication between Dupont and the distant bridge.

^ He closed the hatch while the lookout was staring in the opposite direction, felt his way down the ladder in the dark, switched on the light. Sitting on the floor with their backs against a bulkhead, Sullivan and Cassidy looked up at him anxiously, a question in their eyes. 'No good,' Winter said. The deck is still practically free from fog – and the lookout is still on the foremast. He's carrying a walkie-talkie, I'm sure. He'd be reporting our presence before we even got off the fo'c'sle. Every hostage would be dead before we were half-way to the bridge…'

^ 'I can't be sure – there's a heavy belt of fog obscuring the shore, which means the people on the mainland won't be able to see the tanker. My guess is LeCat has stopped where I told him to – half a mile off Pier 31.'

^ 'Jesus!' Cassidy stretched a leg which was stiffening up. 'Looks as though we could be here for hours.' He looked round their cramped quarters. 'You say the escape apparatus was in here?'

^ 'Was…' The inflatable Zodiac was no longer in the store. The outboard motor had gone. The cases containing the wet-suits were no longer there. Everything pointed to LeCat opening up the planned escape route. It also destroyed Winter's first plan – to wait inside the carpenter's store until one or two of the terrorists arrived to collect the equipment. They could have eliminated the men quietly below deck, taken their outer clothes and then marched openly along the main deck in the dark. Now they would have to wait. It was an unnerving prospect and already tension was building up inside the carpenter's store.

^ On the bridge of the ^ Challenger ^ LeCat had let Mackay hear him talking to MacGowan over the ship-to-shore. Now he was in control, it seemed sensible to the Frenchman to keep the British crew quiet, especially its captain. As he ended his dictatorial monologue with the Governor and switched off, he thought he saw relief in Mackay's face at the reference to providing a bus, a plane. He checked his watch, noting when he must call up MacGowan again: the timing was important.

^ Earlier, as the tanker was passing Alcatraz Island, Dupont had reported to LeCat that the lookout on the forepeak was missing. LeCat had hurried to the fo'c'sle as the fog was thinning out. He had found the Skorpion pistol lying near the rail, and near that ^ ^ he had found an empty wine bottle. Cursing the lookout for drinking on duty, he had concluded the feeble-minded idiot must have toppled overboard. He had forgotten him as he went to his cabin to collect the miniature transmitter with an extendable aerial. From now on this instrument would accompany him everywhere he went.