Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

Bert Ross smiled a wintry smile and helped himself to some more of the execrable white wine that was served aboard the Duke.

‘How heroic,’ said Rachel. ‘Perhaps you should be in a film yourself, Captain.’

Kate wondered what kind of film Rachel Dana could have in mind. She said, ‘Captain Jellicoe, if that’s how you keep your men out of mischief, I’d love to see what might happen when you were planning on causing trouble.’

‘Come, come, Captain Parmenter. It was just high spirits, that’s all.’ Jellicoe looked at Dave and said. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, sir?’

‘It sounds a blast.’ Dave grinned back at him, wondering how Jellicoe would react when he and Al enacted their own high-spirited caper. Badly, he thought. Jellicoe was the kind of guy who’d have called what Dave was planning ‘Piracy’. Well, that was OK by him. He’d always kind of liked Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power. When he was holed up somewhere, several million dollars better off, he might even grow himself a small mustache. Maybe even wear an earring again. When you were worth several million dollars you could wear more or less what you wanted and no one ever complained.

‘A blast?’ Jellicoe said. ‘Yes, I suppose it was.’

Kate smiled at Dave. ‘A few too many beers is as wild as it gets on the Carrera.’

Dave smiled back. ‘Same here,’ he said, although he was thinking that what had happened to Lou Malta and his boy Pepe would count as pretty wild.

Al, who had wisely stayed silent throughout dinner, leaned toward Dave’s shoulder and murmured, ‘That her? That the babe you were talking to earlier?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Cute. Very cute. The question is, does she have a good-looking friend?’

Dave looked at Al and shook his head. ‘No, Al, the question is, do I?’

After dinner, Dave asked the chief officer, Bert Ross, which of his officers was the radio officer.

‘Radio officer?’ Ross sounded surprised.

‘Yeah, only I’ve got a fist-mike that’s cutting out on me.’ Although this was true, Dave knew pretty much how to fix it. His real purpose was to find out where the ship’s radio was. The first part of his plan, when eventually it kicked in, would involve immobilizing the Duke’s VHF.

‘We’ve got an electrical officer,’ said Ross. ‘Radio officers went out with flared trousers. We’re all satellite and microchip these days. Fax, telex, digital selective calling, you name it. Most of the lads on this ship think Morse Code is the capital of Russia.’ He laughed and glanced at his watch. ‘As it happens, Jock — our electrical officer — he’ll be on the blower now. Gettin’ the soccer results from England. Come on, I’ll take you there myself.’

‘Thanks. That’d be great.’

‘No problem. What you want to do anyway? Have a chat with your personal trainer or something?’ Ross led the way out of the officers’ saloon. ‘After that dinner you’ll probably need a couple of hours in the gym.’

‘It was kind of heavy,’ admitted Dave, thinking how much the food had reminded him of the chow back in Homestead.

‘What we don’t eat, we use as ballast.’

They went along to a cabin close to the bridge where a thin, undernourished-looking man with the reddest hair Dave had ever seen that wasn’t on a dog, was seated in front of a series of teak-mounted transceivers and loudspeakers. In his hand was a digital telephone handset and on the table next to him was a sheet of paper covered with team names and scores.

‘This is Jock.’

The red-haired man looked up and nodded.

‘He’s Scottish, so don’t expect to understand a bleedin’ word he says.’

Jock replaced the handset on the cradle and sat back on his plastic office chair.

‘How’d the Arsenal do, Jock?’

‘Lost, three-nil.’

‘Bastards.’ Ross sighed and looked away in disgust. ‘Jock, this is Mister Dulanotov. One of our supernumos. He’s got a problem with his VHF.’

Dave answered a few rudimentary questions about the VHF system aboard the Juarista while at the same time he considered what would be the best way of taking out the ship’s radio. The sailor in him recoiled from the idea of simply putting a bullet in the radio and leaving a hundred people stranded on the ocean with no means of communication. But he could see no obvious alternative. At least that was how it seemed until, backing out of Ross’s way, he caught and tore the pocket of his chinos on the heavy steel door.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Ross.

But Dave was more interested in the discovery that there was a key in the door than in any apology. All he would have to do was steal the key and then hide it somewhere.

Jock leaned forward in his chair, frowning with puzzlement as through the loudspeaker came a sound like a fax machine in transmission. He said, ‘Odd. There it is again.’

‘What is?’ asked Ross.

‘That sound. One of the supernumos must be broadcasting a signal using a digital scrambler.’

‘So?’

‘So, it’s a little unusual, that’s all.’

‘What channel?’ asked Dave, curious.

Jock hit the squelch button on the transceiver to try and filter out the background atmospheric noise. He shook his head and said, ‘It seems to be between frequencies.’

Ross shrugged and said, ‘Whoever it is is probably trying to have a private business conversation, that’s all. There are a lot of nosey bastards around these days. You never know who’s listening to your blower. I was reading about it in the paper. Industrial espionage is on the increase.’

‘That’s true,’ said Jock in an accent as thick as porridge. ‘But digital’s sophisticated.’ He looked accusingly at Dave. ‘Even for some mega-rich supernumo. Normally it’s only the military and the intelligence community who get to play with these kinds of toys.’

‘Are you sure it’s coming from the Duke?’ asked Dave.

‘Positive. Look at that signal strength. We’re right on top of it. And what’s more, VHF has a very short range. Fifty miles max. If someone’s broadcasting then it’s to someone else who’s quite close.’

‘Can you get a fix on it?’ asked Dave.

‘Not with this kit.’ Jock picked up a half-smoked cigarette and puffed it back into life. ‘There is another possibility, if the signal’s not actually coming from the ship.’ He took a drag, stubbed out the cigarette in a saucer, and started to roll another.

Ross said, ‘Well, don’t make us change our underwear for it.’

Jock licked his cigarette paper and said, ‘It’s possible. Just possible, mind, that we’re over a submarine.’ He put the cigarette in his mouth and scraped a match alight. ‘Those bastards play all sorts of stupid games. If it is a sub, he’s probably using us as the subject of an exercise. Right now he could be going through the motions of firing a torpedo at us.’

Dave said, ‘That’s a comforting thought as we prepare to go to bed.’

Ross said, ‘Yeah. And to think that it’s to help us all sleep soundly in our beds that they do these bloody stupid things.’

Aboard the Carrera, Kate finished her conversation with the first officer of the USS Galveston, the 688-Class attack submarine that was, she had just been informed, 200 feet below the twin hulls of the Duke. She felt a lot better knowing they had company, even though it would only last as far as the Sargasso Sea. After that there would be several hundred miles across the Cape Verde Basin before they picked up their French nuclear sub escort at another underwater landmark, Great Meteor Tablemount.

She and Sam Brockman were seated behind the drawn shades and closed doors of the wheelhouse skylounge. Brockman was keeping one eye on the electronic chart, more out of habit than of necessity. A tall man — too tall to be really comfortable on the yacht: at six feet five his steel-gray hair was forever brushing along the Carrera’s suede-covered ceilings — Brockman had the air of someone who’d seen it all before. Kate liked him, finding confidence in his steady demeanor, admiring his attention to duty, but most of all enjoying the fact that he shared her own low opinion of Kent Bowen.