Santorini (13 page)
Authors: Alistair MacLean
'You could have pitched it a bit more strongly, sir,' Talbot said, 'but I'd have to spend the rest of the night thinking how. You spoke earlier of sleepless heads along the Potomac. I think we should now talk of heads rolling along the Potomac. If I were you, sir, I'd keep clear of Washington for some little time, by which I mean the rest of your life.' He rose. 'The Kilcharran will be alongside in a few minutes. I assume you are in no hurry to meet Captain Montgomery?'
'You assume right. There is no charity in me.' He looked at his watch. 'Five-thirteen. My respects to the captain and ask him to join me for breakfast at, say, eight-thirty. In my cabin here.'
Captain Montgomery, whether by luck or design -- design, Talbot was certain -- brought the Kilcharran alongside the Ariadne with faultless precision. Talbot stepped across the two gunwales - they were almost exactly of a height - and made his way up to the bridge. Captain Montgomery was a tall, burly character with a jutting black beard, white teeth, a slightly hooked nose and humorous eyes and, in spite of the immaculately cut uniform and four golden rings on either cuff, could easily have passed for a well-to-do and genial eighteenth-century Caribbean pirate. He extended a hand.
'You'll be Commander Talbot, of course.' The voice was deep, the Irish brogue unmistakable. 'You are welcome aboard. Has there been any further deterioration in the situation?'
'No. The only deterioration possible, Captain, is one I don't care to imagine.'
'Indeed. I shall be sadly missed in the Mountains of Mourne. We're great ones for the lamentations, the weepings and the wailings in the Mountains of Mourne. Is this atom bomb, or whatever, still ticking away?'
'It is. I suppose you might call it a deterioration when the ticking stops. You shouldn't have come here, Captain. You should have nipped into the Gulf of Corinth -- you might have stood a chance there.'
'Not to be thought of for a moment. Nothing to do with heroics -- heroics are for those epics they make in Hollywood -- or the fact that I couldn't live with myself. I just couldn't stand the thought of what that man would say.'
'You'll be referring to Vice-Admiral Hawkins?'
'The very same. Maligning and blackening my character as usual, I dare say?'
'Hardly.' Talbot smiled. 'He did, mind you, make some casual remark about you being allergic to certain naval regulations. He also said you're the best in the business.'
'Aye. A fair man and a bloody good admiral -- but don't tell him I said so. I suggest coffee in my cabin, Commander, and perhaps you'll be kind enough to tell me all you know.'
'That shouldn't take long.'
'Eleven p.m.,' the President said. 'What's the time over there?' 'Six a.m. There's a seven-hour time difference.'
'A very forthright character, this Admiral Hawkins.' The President gazed thoughtfully at the two dispatches lying on his desk. 'You know him, of course?'
'Pretty well, sir.'
'An able man, General?'
'Exceptionally so.'
'He also appears to be an exceptionally tough s.o.b.'
'That's undoubtedly true, sir. But then you have to be to command the NATO Mediterranean sea forces.'
'Do you know him, John?' This was to John Heiman, the Defence Secretary, the only other person present.
'Yes. Not as well as the General, but well enough to agree with the General's assessment.'
'Pity I never met him. Who selected him for the job, General?'
'Usual NATO committee.'
'You were on it, of course?'
'Yes. I was the chairman.'
'Ah. The man with the casting vote?'
'No casting vote. The decision was unanimous.'
'I see. He -- well, he seems to have rather a low opinion of the Pentagon.'
'He doesn't exactly say that. But he does appear to have a low opinion, deep suspicions if you like, of a person or persons in the Pentagon.'
'Puts you in a rather unhappy position. I mean, there must be some stirrings in the Pentagon dovecote.'
'As you say, Mr President, a few ruffled feathers. Some are hopping mad. Others are giving the matter serious consideration. Generally, you could speak of an air of quiet consternation.'
'Are you, personally, prepared to lend any credence to this outrageous suggestion? Or what appears to be outrageous?'
'Think the unthinkable? I don't have any option, do I?
Every instinct says no, this cannot be, those are all my friends and colleagues of many years standing, all honourable men. But instinct is a fallible guide, Mr President. Common sense and what little knowledge of history I have tells me that every man has his price. I have to investigate. The enquiry is already under way. I thought it prudent not to involve the intelligence arms of the four services. So, the FBI. The Pentagon does not care to be investigated by the FBI. It's an extremely difficult and delicate situation, sir.'
'Yes. One can hardly go up to an admiral of the fleet and ask him what he was doing on the night of Friday the thirteenth. I wish you luck.' The President looked at one of the "papers before him. 'Your message re the krytron that provoked Hawkins's ire must have been badly handled.'
'It was. Very badly. The matter has been attended to.'
'This krytron device. Is it operational?'
'Yes.'
'Been sent?' The General shook his head, the President pressed a button and a young man entered. 'Take this message for the General here. "Krytron device en route. Would greatly appreciate up-to-date assessment of existing problems and measures being taken. Fully appreciate extreme gravity, dangers and complexities of the situation. I personally guarantee total and immediate repeat immediate repeat immediate support and co-operation in all measures undertaken." That should do it. Sign my name.'
'I hope he appreciates the three "immediates",' the General said.
'Eight-forty, sir,' McKenzie said. 'Admiral's apologies, but he'd like to see you. He's in his cabin with Captain Montgomery.'
Talbot thanked him, rose, washed the sleep from his face and eyes and made his way to the admiral's quarters. A shirt sleeved Hawkins beckoned him to join himself and Montgomery at the breakfast table.
'Coffee? Sorry to disturb you but these are times that are sent to try men's souls.' For a troubled soul Hawkins looked remarkably fresh, rested and relaxed and was attacking his breakfast with some gusto. 'Captain Montgomery has been reporting the state of progress and I thought you might like to hear it. Incidentally, our friend the timing device is still ticking merrily away.'
'We are making progress,' Montgomery said. 'Slow but steady -- slow, because the presence of what the Admiral calls your friend the timing device does have a rather inhibitory effect and we're probably taking some quite needless precautions as far as acoustic levels are concerned. But we're dealing with a devil we don't know and we're paying the devil more than his due. Our own sonar is now locked on to this device and the sonar room has suddenly become the focal centre of interest in the Kilcharran.
'We have achieved two things. First, by coupling up the battery resources of our two vessels we have ample electric power to lift this wreck. Your young Lieutenant Denholm looks and talks like a character out of P. G. Wodehouse, but he unquestionably knows his stuff. Your engineer officer, McCafferty, is no slouch either and neither is mine. Anyway, no problem. Secondly, we've cut away the port wing of the bomber.'
'You've what?' Talbot said.
'Well, you know how it is.' Montgomery sounded almost apologetic. 'It was three parts torn away in any case and I figured that neither you nor the US Air Force would have any further use for it. So I had it burnt off.' Despite his faint air of apology, it was quite clear that Montgomery had no regrets about what had been a wholly unilateral decision: as the only expert on the spot, he had no intention of consulting anybody. 'A difficult decision and a tricky operation. No one, as far as I know, has ever before cut away the wing of a submerged big jet. That's where the fuel tanks are located and though it seemed likely that the partial tearing away of the wing had also ruptured the fuel lines and spilled the fuel, there was no way of being sure and no one, again as far as I know, has ever come up against the problem of what happens when an oxyacetylene jet meets a fuel tank under water. But my men were very careful, there was no fuel and so no trouble. And now, at the present moment, my men are securing flotation bags and lifting slings to the plane.
'Removing this wing gives us two advantages, one minor, one major. The minor one is that with the wing and two very heavy jet engines gone we have all that less to lift although I'm certain we could have lifted the whole lot without trouble. The major one is that the wing, had it been left there, would have snagged on the underside of the Kilcharran as it surfaced and tilted the fuselage, maybe to so acute an angle as to make access to this damned bomb difficult or impossible.'
'Very well done, Captain,' Hawkins said. 'But surely there's still one problem. When the bomber surfaces, isn't the weight of the remaining wing and its two engines going to tilt it just as far in the other direction?'
Montgomery smiled in a kindly and tolerant fashion which any average person would have found more than wildly infuriating. Hawkins, fortunately, was not an average person.
'No problem,' Montgomery said. 'We're also securing flotation bags under that wing. When the fuselage surfaces, the wings will still be under water -- you know how low wings are set on a modern jet. In the first stage of surfacing, only the top of the fuselage will be above water-level - when we cut away a rectangular section over where the bomb is located I want as much water as possible below that section to dissipate the heat of the oxyacetylene torches. After we've made that hole in the top we'll lift the fuselage high enough to drain most of the water from it.'
'How long will it take to inflate the bags and haul the plane to the surface?'
'An hour or two. I don't know.'
'An hour or two?' Hawkins made no attempt to conceal his surprise. 'I should have thought a few minutes. You don't know, you say. I would have thought those things could have been pretty closely calculated.'
'Normally, yes.' Montgomery's air of massive restraint was on a par for provocation with his kindly tolerance. 'But normally we'd use powerful diesel compressors. Out of deference to the little lady lying on the sea floor, no diesel. Electricity again but using only a fraction of the power. So, an indeterminate period. Do you think I could have some more coffee?' Montgomery clearly regarded the conversation as over.
Van Gelder knocked on the opened door and entered, a message slip in his hand. He handed it to Hawkins.
'For you, Admiral. Came in a couple of hours or so ago. Not urgent, so I didn't think it worth waking you for it.'
'A wise decision, my boy.' Hawkins read it, smiled broadly and handed it to Talbot, who glanced at it, smiled in turn and read it out aloud.
'Well, well,' Talbot said. 'Hobnobbing with presidents. Perhaps, after all, sir, you could walk down Pennsylvania Avenue without being clapped in irons or whatever they do to you over in those parts. More importantly, you have the krytron and this splendid pledge of co-operation. Your indignation - the less charitable would call it calculated gamble - has paid off. I like the "repeat immediate" bit. The President would appear to have a sense of humour.'
'He would indeed. One has to be grateful to him for intervening personally. Very, very satisfactory. I note that he requires information. Would you, please.'
'Naturally. Emphasis, of course, on the gravity and the dangers?'
'Of course.'
'Another item of news, sir,' Van Gelder said to Talbot. 'I've just had a rather intriguing chat with Irene Charial.'
'I can well imagine that. Andropulos and company, of course, are now at liberty. How are they this fine morning?'
'Glowering a bit, sir. At least Andropulos and Alexander were. But the cook was in fine form and they seemed to be thawing a bit when I left them chattering away in Greek with Denholm sitting among them and not understanding a word they were saying. Irene wasn't there.'
'Oh? So, naturally, overcome by concern, you hurried up to my cabin to enquire after her health.'
'Naturally. I knew that was what you would want me to do, sir. She didn't look as if she had slept too well and admitted as much. Seemed worried, apprehensive even. At first she was rather reluctant to talk about what was bothering her. Misplaced loyalty, I should say.'
'I would say so too,' Talbot said. 'If, that is, I knew what you were talking about.'
'Sorry. Turned out she wanted to know if Uncle Adam had been sending any radio messages. It seems -'
'Uncle Adam?'
'Adamantios Andropulos. His parents have a lot to answer for. Seems that she and her pal Eugenia - both sets of parents live in Piraeus, the two girls are at the University in Athens -- were in the habit of phoning home every night. She wanted their parents to know that they had had an accident, were safely aboard a Royal Navy ship and would be home soon.'
'I hope she's right,' Hawkins said.
'Me too, sir. I told her no messages had been sent and suggested that if Uncle was a businessman. I thought it better not to mention that we already knew he was a multimillionaire businessman -- he might naturally tend to be secretive and that he might also be reluctant to broadcast the fact that he had lost his yacht through what might have been
his own fault. She said that was no excuse for not informing the next of kin of the three crew members of the Delos who had died. I asked her if she had raised the question with him and she said no. She was a bit evasive on this point. I gather she either doesn't know very much about Uncle Adam or doesn't care very much about what she does know.' Van Gelder produced a paper from his pocket. 'I told her to write a message and I would see it was sent.'
Talbot looked at the paper. 'It's in Greek. Perhaps this Uncle Adam -'
'We share the same nasty, suspicious mind, sir. I called Jimmy from the breakfast table. Quite innocent, he says.'
