Frederick Forsyth - The Afghan

Foremost among these was the ship’s radar, casting its gaze twenty-five miles in all directions. He could see the blips made by the two cruisers either side of him, and, beyond them, those of other vessels going about their business. He also had at his disposal an Automatic Identification System, or AIS, which would read the transponder of any ship for miles around, and a cross-checking computer based on Lloyd’s records that would identify not just who she was but her known route and cargo, and her radio channel. Either side of the Queen, also on darkened bridges, the radar men of the two cruisers pored over their screens with the same task. Their duty was to ensure nothing remotely threatening got near the huge monster thundering between them. Even for a harmless and checked-out freighter, the closeness limit was three kilometers. On the second night, there was nothing nearer than ten. The picture created by the E2C Hawkeye was inevitably bigger because of its altitude. The image was like an immense circular torch beam moving across the Atlantic from west to east. But the great majority of what it saw was miles away and nowhere near the convoy. What it could do was create a ten-mile-wide corridor thrusting forward of the moving ships, and tell the cruisers what lay ahead of them. For the purpose of realism, it chose a limit on this projection as well. The limit was twenty-five miles, or one hour’s cruising. Just before eleven on the third night, the Hawkeye posted a low-level warning. “There is a small freighter twenty-five miles ahead, two miles south of intended track. It seems to be motionless in the water.”

The Countess of Richmond was not quite motionless. Her engines were set to MIDSHIPS, so that her propellers idled in the water. But there was a four-knot current that gave her just enough “way” to keep her nose into the flow, and that meant toward the west.

The inflatable speedboat was in the water, tethered to her port side with a rope ladder running down from the rail to the sea. Four men were already in it, bobbing on the current beside the hull of the freighter. The other four were on the bridge. Ibrahim held the wheel, staring at the horizon, seeking the first glimmer of the approaching lights. The Indonesian radio expert was adjusting the transmitting microphone for strength and clarity. Beside him stood the Pakistani teenager born and raised in a suburb of the Yorkshire city of Leeds. The fourth was the Afghan. When the radioman was satisfied, he nodded at the boy, who nodded back and took a stool beside the ship’s console, waiting for the call.

The call came from the cruiser, plunging through the sea six cable lengths to the starboard of the Queen. David Gundlach heard it loud and clear, as did all on the night watch. The channel used was the common wavelength for ships in the North Atlantic. The voice had the drawl of the Deep South. “Countess of Richmond, Countess of Richmond, this is U.S. Navy cruiser Monterey.

Do you read me?”

The voice that came back was slightly distorted by less-than-state-of-the-art radio equipment aboard the old freighter. And the voice had the flat vowels of Lancashire, or maybe Yorkshire.

“Oh, aye, Monterey, Countess ere.”

“You appear to be hove to. State your situation.” “Countess o Richmond. Aving a bit of overheating”-click click-“prop shaft”-static-“repairing as fast as we can.”

There was a brief silence from the bridge of the cruiser. Then…

“Say again, Countess of Richmond. I repeat, say again.” The reply came back, and the accent was thicker than ever. On the bridge of the Queen, the first officer had the blip entering his radar screen slightly south of dead ahead and fifty minutes away. Another display gave all the details of the Countess of Richmond, including confirmation her transponder was genuine and the signal from it accurate. He cut into the radio exchange. “ Monterey, this is Queen Mary 2. Let me try.”

David Gundlach was born and raised in the Wirral County of Cheshire, not fifty miles from Liverpool. The voice from the Countess he put at either Yorkshire or Lancashire, next door to his native Cheshire.

“Countess of Richmond, this is Queen Mary 2. I read you have an overheat of main bearing in the prop shaft, and you are carrying out repairs at sea. Confirm.” “Aye, that’s reet. ‘Ope to be finished in another hour,” said the voice on the speaker.

“Countess, give your details, please. Port of registry, port of departure, destination, cargo.”

“Queen Moory, we’re registered in Liverpool, eight thousand tons, general cargo freighter, coming from Java with brocades and oriental timber, heading for Baltimore.”

Gundlach ran his eye down the screened information provided by the head office of McKendrick Shipping in Liverpool, brokers Sie-bart and Abercrombie in London and insurers Lloyd’s. All accurate.

“Who am I speaking to, please?” he asked.

“This is Captain McKendrick. ‘Oo are you?”

“First Officer David Gundlach speaking.”

The Monterey, following the exchange with difficulty, came back.

“ Monterey, Queen. Do you want to alter course?” Gundlach consulted the displays. The bridge computer was guiding the Queen along the preplanned track, and would adjust for any change of sea, wind, current or waves. To divert would mean going to manual, or resetting the program, and then returning to original course. He would pass the hove-to freighter in forty-one minutes, and he would be two miles, or three kilometers, to his starboard. “No need, Monterey. We’ll be past her in forty minutes. Over two miles of sea between us.”

Formatting on the Queen, the Monferey would be less than that, but there was still ample room. High above, the Hawkeye and the EA-6B scanned the helpless freighter for any sign of missile lock-on, or any electronic activity at all. There was none, but they would keep watching until the Countess was well behind the convoy. Two other ships were also in the no-entry alley, but much farther ahead, and would be asked to divert, left and right. “Roger that,” said the Monferey.

It had all been heard on the bridge of the Countess. Ibrahim nodded that they should leave him. The radio engineer and the youth scuttled down the ladder to the speedboat, and all six in the inflatable waited for the Afghan. Still convinced that the crazed Jordanian would reengage the engine and attempt to ram one of the oncoming vessels, Martin knew he could not leave the Countess of Richmond. His only hope was to take her over after killing the crew. He went down the rope ladder backward. In the thwarts, Suleiman was setting up his digital photography equipment. A rope trailed from the rail of the Countess; one of the Indonesians stood near the speedboat’s bow, gripping the rope and holding her against the flow of the current running past the ship’s side. Martin held the ladder fast, turned, reached down and slashed the gray, rock-hard fabric over a six-foot length. The act was so fast and so unexpected that for two or three seconds no one reacted, save the sea itself. The escaping air made a low roar, and, with six on board, that side of the inflatable dipped downward and began to ship water.

Leaning farther out, Martin slashed at the retaining rope. He missed, but cut open the forearm of the Indonesian. Then the men reacted. But the Indonesian released his grip, and the sea took them.

There were vengeful hands reaching out at him, but the sinking speedboat dropped astern. The weight of the great outboard pulled down the rear end, and more salt water rushed in. The wreckage cleared the stern of the freighter and went away into the blackness of the Atlantic night. Somewhere downcurrent, it simply sank, dragged down by the outboard. In the gleam of the ship’s stern light, Martin saw waving hands in the water, and then they, too, were gone. No one can swim against four knots. He went back up the ladder. At that moment, Ibrahim jerked one of the three controls the explosives expert had left him. As Martin climbed, there was a series of sharp cracks as tiny charges went off.