H.M.S. Unseen (33 page)

Pressed further by the reporter, Captain Smyth added: “Seriously, the chances of a submarine catching a fishing net are millions to one against. The ocean’s a very big place. But until those trawlermen understand thoroughly that it
can
happen, there’ll be accidents. If they want to avoid them, they
must
have an axman on the stern. The submarine cannot see them, and it cannot feel them if it snags the line. Only the trawler can tell something’s wrong…and they’ve got about five seconds to swing the ax. It’s damned rare, though. You can understand them not always bothering.”

The captain got his photograph in the newspaper for that piece of intelligence. The italicized caption beneath it was a simple “quotation”:
Drunken fisherman have themselves to blame.
Three weeks later Reg Smyth received a mild rebuke from the Admiralty.

Ben Adnam was contemplative. He finished his chicken sandwich and ordered a cup of coffee. And he gave due consideration to the conclusions that might arise from the evidence of Ewan MacInnes.
If he is believed,
he considered,
then it will become obvious that someone got off the fishing boat and somehow found his way back to Mallaig. But that would be impossible given the gasoline situation. Which means, I suppose, that MacInnes cannot be believed. But a good detective would wonder. He might even wonder whether there might be a connec
tion between the Zodiac and the missing soldiers. I hope not.

Ben drank his coffee. Then he went up to his room and changed into his get-fit kit. He was next seen pounding along the A815 road along the loch, bound for the tiny village of St. Catherine’s, 4 miles away. Alas, he never made it. Ben gave out after 2 miles and was forced to lie down on his back on the wet grass to catch his breath. He walked back, feeling sick and sweating like a Japanese wrestler. Five months with no exercise can reduce anyone to middle age, even a man as fit as Ben Adnam once had been. And the realization of his condition made him doubly determined to get back into top shape.

Every morning for a week, he arose at 0600, pulled on his running shoes and track suit, and pounded his way toward St. Catherine’s. Then he tried again in the afternoon. On the fifth day he made it. On the seventh, he made it there and back. By the end of the second week, he was running effortlessly to St. Catherine’s and back, twice a day, timing himself. He also took charge of his diet, eating only fresh fruit, and cereal for breakfast, grilled fish and salad for lunch, fillet steak or roast lamb, and green vegetables for dinner. Temporarily he cut out all dairy products, and drank just a half bottle of Bordeaux with his dinner.

By Wednesday, March 29, one year to the day since he had stolen HMS
Unseen,
he felt that his body was back in shape. That day he abandoned the soft option of running along the A815, and instead took to the hills, running for miles in the mountainous foothills of Cruachnan Capull, which rises 1,700 feet above the loch, opposite the Duke of Fife’s Inverary Castle. For the first time in a year he felt, lean, hard-trained, and ready, if necessary, to kill to survive.

And yet…something had happened to the mind of Benjamin Adnam. For the first time in his life he questioned the things he had done. For the first time he asked himself whether they were right? Was he really the obedient instrument of Allah, fighting for a holy cause? Or was he just the pawn of power-crazed earthly leaders, who answered to the same god as the citizens of the United States: the god of money and possessions?

He believed in the triumph of Islam, and he believed in the cause of Fundamentalism. And yet…no man had ever done more than he, risked more than he, been more successful than he. And where had that put him? Nowhere. He was a total outcast throughout the Middle East. His massive contribution to the
Jihad
against the West had turned him into an Arab who was essentially stateless, with a price on his head in several countries. And the great Nation of Islam could, it appeared, offer him nothing. Not even loyalty. It could offer him only death, death by assassination, not death in battle, or in glory. Death in some back-street building at the hands of fourth-rate hired murderers. Was that a fit ending for Benjamin Adnam?

For the first time the commander began to reflect on the crimes he had committed. He now asked himself,
Were they crimes
, those massive blows he had struck against The Great Satan? Not if they were executed on behalf of Allah for the greater understanding of his word. But how could he now think that? The rejection by Iraq and then by the most learned Ayatollahs of Iran must surely mean that Allah was displeased. Otherwise, his humble disciple Adnam must have received some reward, or recognition, or even an
honorable
death and the eternal peace of the life hereafter.

But he had received nothing. Except treachery. And he had been responsible for the deaths of so many people, most of them entirely innocent. Thousands of American sailors and aircrew on the carrier, a packed Concorde airliner, Starstriker
,
the Vice President of the United States plus his entire staff. “My God, what have I really done?” The darkness came blood black for Ben Adnam on the night of March 29.

For hour after hour, his dreams were interrupted by the searing crash of high explosive, and he awoke frequently, cradling his own head low against the pillow, sweating, trembling at the impact, haunted by his own most terrible actions against humanity. He was afraid to go to sleep, afraid even to close his eyes, because the images were too stark, too real. He could not look at the burning men in the ships he had smashed, and the engulfing red tide of his dreams was not the heavenly sunset of his aspirations. It was too dark for that. And the screams were too loud. Twice he awakened, fighting to break free of the plastic body bag that was dragging him endlessly to the bottom of the Atlantic, weighted down by a concrete block.

He stood up, drank some water, and mopped his face with a towel. Sheer exhaustion drove him back to bed, to fitful sleep once more. But it did not last for more than a half hour. Before dawn broke over the peaceful waters of Loch Fyne, he had thrown himself violently to the side of the big double bed, gripping the sheet, trying with desperation to break free of the Army Land Rover as it plunged toward the water…gaining speed…down…down…down.

At 0600 on March 30, the great terrorist Ben Adnam was breathless; he was shaking like a leaf; and he thought he might be losing his mind.

While he lay quivering in his bed, on the eastern side of the loch, there was a flurry of activity on the western side, about a mile and a half to the north, in the wide sweeping front drive of the big white Georgian mansion owned by Rear Admiral Sir Iain MacLean.

The admiral was making an early start, and he had five passengers to fit into his Range Rover: his trio of black Labradors, Fergus, Muffin, and Mr. Bumble, and his two granddaughters, Flora, age six, and Mary, age nine. The evacuation was not easy because the youngest of them, the eighteen-month-old Mr. Bumble, had made a rush for the loch pursued by Flora, who had fallen onto the wet grass and wrecked her trousers and coat, while ridiculous Mr. Bumble was doing a fair imitation of Mark Spitz in the freezing water.

Lady MacLean arrived with towels, grabbed the dog from the shallows, carried him wriggling to the Range Rover, and threw him in the back with the others. Flora made her own way back, giggling and trying to restore her clothes, which was plainly impossible.

Sir Iain said he had no time to wait, because the plane would probably be early into Glasgow from Chicago. He told Flora that only God knew what her mother would think of her, covered in mud, but that her stepfather would almost certainly laugh. Lt. Commander and Mrs. Bill Baldridge did, after all, live on a vast ranch in the state of Kansas, surrounded by grassland and the miles and miles of mud that goes with grazing pastures in winter.

This was the first visit Bill and Laura had made to Scotland since first they had left together in the winter of 2004. Sir Iain had twice visited them in Kansas, but there had been terrible family scars caused by the brutal court battle that had taken place over the children.

Laura MacLean, mother of two, had, at the age of thirty-four, left her banker husband, Douglas Anderson, for the American Naval officer to whom she was married. The MacLeans and the Andersons, lifelong friends, had banded together to make the girls wards of the court in Edinburgh, and absolute custody had been granted to their father.

The judge had made it perfectly clear at the hearing that if Laura insisted on running off with her American lover, it would be a very long time before she would see the girls again. As the Anderson lawyer had pointed out, these girls were daughters of Scotland, granddaughters of a famous Scottish admiral on one side, and, on the other, of one of the most important landed families in the country. There were critical questions of inheritance to consider. No, the court would not permit them to be taken to the American Midwest, from where they might very well not have returned.

It was Admiral MacLean himself who had begun the healing process. He told his disapproving wife, Annie, that he could no longer bring himself to turn his hand against the daughter he loved. He added that he didn’t give a bloody fig for Douglas Anderson, whom he considered an extremely dreary man, and that he liked Bill Baldridge very much and was determined to do something about the situation.

Assisted by the fact that Douglas wound up in the London tabloids, having an affair with an actress from Notting Hill Gate in London, the admiral moved to have the court order overturned. And he succeeded, citing the facts that Lieutenant Commander Baldridge was the son of one of the biggest ranchers in Kansas, that he had a doctorate in nuclear physics from MIT, that he had been one of the leading weapons officers in the U.S. Navy, and was a personal friend of the President of the United States. “And, perhaps more significantly, of mine,” he added with uncharacteristic immodesty.

The admiral enjoyed firing a powerful torpedo, and the judge decided that without his support the court order was essentially worthless. Yes, the girls were free and entitled, and could by rights visit their natural mother during any and all school holidays. And now, the imminent arrival of Bill and Laura, on this day, was an occasion of great excitement. Because they were staying for ten days, then taking Flora and Mary to Kansas for the first time, for the remainder of Scotland’s long Easter break.

The other objective to be achieved was a reconciliation between Laura and her mother. The two had hardly spoken since the custody case ended, since Lady MacLean felt that poor Douglas Anderson had been dealt a cruel and unnecessary blow. But he had married the actress, and things were rather different, particularly since Douglas was fond of saying publicly, albeit self-protectively, “Natalie is a lot prettier than Laura, and a lot less bloody trouble.”

Sir Iain thought he was a lousy judge, a man to be pitied. But his wife, reversing course, had leapt to the side of her absent runaway daughter like a tigress defending her young, and began making no secret of the fact that, finally, she supported her daughter’s decisions. Both Sir Iain and Laura were hopeful that in the next few days the deep family rift would be healed.

The Range Rover made it to the airport a half hour early. They parked the car and headed for the international exit gate. Bill and Laura, traveling first-class, were among the first out. Bill, wearing a big leather cowboy jacket over a dark grey suit and tie, his rolling gait straight from the High Plains, was unmistakable.

Laura followed him through the door. She looked slim and quite stunning in a long, fitted, dark green suede overcoat with matching trilby hat and burgundy leather boots. Iain MacLean had never seen her look so well, nor so happy. The girls fell into her arms, and the two ex–Navy officers shook hands warmly. “She looks marvelous,” said the admiral quietly. “I was quite worried about her a couple of years ago. Thank you, Bill…for looking after her.”

The Kansan grinned. “And thank you, Admiral, for being so goddamned decent about the whole thing…neither of us could help it, you know. It just happened, and it wasn’t a mistake.”

“No. I know it wasn’t.”

Laura introduced the girls to their new stepfather, and for a few moments they just gazed up into the deep blue eyes of the six-foot-two-inch Midwesterner who looked like a young Robert Mitchum. In the end, the elder daughter, Mary, asked earnestly, “Sir, are you really a cowboy like my father says you are?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bill, grinning. “I sure am…ridin’ them dogies home, out there on the prairie…” This caused the little girl to fall over with laughter.

“And you’re really my stepfather?”

“Guess so, Miss Mary. Sure hope we git to ride the range together sometime.”

“Stop it, Bill,” Laura admonished, laughing. “Mary, ignore him. He really doesn’t talk like that at all.”

“Jest cain’t wait to git back in the saddle agin,” added the lieutenant commander.

With the introductions complete, Laura kissed her father, and they walked back to the Range Rover, and the frenzied barking of the Labradors. The 55-mile journey took them almost two hours, thanks to the morning traffic in Glasgow. Bill regaled the girls with tales of Wyatt Earp and the Dalton brothers, never once dropping his cowboy act. He told them about the prairies, and the fact that his mother was on the board of the cowboy museum in Dodge City, “where I’m sure gonna take both you girls, once I git you fixed up with a couple of six-shooters…jest in case we meet any cattle rustlers on the trail.”

Even Sir Iain was laughing by that time, and it was not until they headed north up the bank of the Gareloch that Bill suddenly offered his hand to Mary, and told her in a completely different accent, “Just kidding, Mary. Lieutenant Commander Baldridge. United States submarine officer by trade. You can call me Bill.”

Mary looked quite disappointed. “Hmmmm,” she said, “I wish you were still a cowboy.”