Santorini (19 page)

'Help yourself. Revelations, is that it?'

'I don't know how you'd classify it, sir, but I know you'll find it very interesting. Eugenia's father has quite a lot in common with Irene's father  --  apparently they're good friends  --  they're both wealthy businessmen, they both know Andropulos and both think he's a crook. Well, nothing new in that so far. We all think he's a crook. But Eugenia's father, unlike Irene's, is willing to talk freely and at length about Andropulos and Eugenia hasn't talked about it to Irene, because she doesn't wish to hurt her feelings.' Denholm sampled his drink and sighed in satisfaction. 'It would seem that Adamantios Soyros Andropulos has a pathological hatred of Americans. Who would suspect such a charming, courteous, urbane and civilized gentleman to have a pathological hatred of anyone?'

'I would. Well, we all know he's intelligent so he had to rave a reason.'

'He had. Two. His son and only nephew. Apparently, he doted on them. Eugenia quite believes this, because she says that Andropulos is unquestionably fond of Irene and herself, a feeling, I'm glad to say, that they don't reciprocate.'

'What about his son and nephew?'

'Disappeared in most mysterious circumstances. Never to be seen again. Andropulos is convinced that they were done in by the American CIA.'

'The CIA has a reputation, justified or not, for eliminating people they regard as undesirables. But they usually have a reason, again whether that is justifiable or not. Does Eugenia's old man know the reason?'

'Yes. He says - and he's convinced of this - that the two young men were heroin peddlers.'

'Well, well. Ties in all too well with what we have been increasingly suspecting. There are times, Jimmy, when I regard the CIA as being a much maligned lot.'

The atmosphere at the dinner table that night was noticeably, but not markedly, less relaxed than it had been at lunch-time. Conversation flowed rather less freely than it had then, and three men in particular, Hawkins, Talbot and Van Gelder, seemed more given than usual to brief and introspective silences, occasionally gazing at some object or objects that lay beyond a distant horizon. There was nothing that one could put a finger on and the insensitive would quite have failed to recognize that there was anything amiss. Andropulos proved that he was not one of those.

'I do not wish to pry, gentlemen, and I may be quite wrong, I frequently am, but do I not detect a certain aura of uneasiness, even of tension at the table tonight?' His smile was as open and ingenuous as his words had been frank and candid. 'Or is it my imagination? You are surprised, perhaps, Commander Talbot?'

'No, not really.' The only thing that surprised Talbot was that Andropulos had taken so long in getting around to it.

'You are very perceptive, Mr Andropulos. I'm rather disappointed, I must say. I thought  --  or hoped  --  that our concern was better concealed than that.' "Concern, Captain?'

To a slight degree only. No real anxiety yet. No reason in world why you shouldn't know as much as we do.' As Wickram had said, Talbot reflected, mendacity required s practice to become second nature: there was every reason the world why Andropulos should not know as much as he did. 'You know, of course, that the bad weather has forced us to suspend operations on the bomber?'

'I have seen that it is riding several hundred metres astern of us. Operations? What operations, Captain. You are trying to recover those wicked weapons?'

'Just one of them. An atom bomb.'

'Why only one?'

'Dr Wickram? Would you kindly explain?'

'Certainly. Well, as far as I can. What we have here is a situation of considerable complexity and doubt, because we are dealing largely with the unknown. You will be aware that a nuclear explosion occurs when a critical mass of uranium plutonium is reached. Now, there's no way to prevent a slow but continuous degree of radioactive emanations from a hydrogen bomb, and there are fifteen of them aboard that pane. This radioactivity builds up inside the atom bomb, which is of an entirely different construction, until the critical mass of the atom bomb is reached. Then the atom bomb goes poof! Unfortunately, because of something we call sympathetic detonation, the hydrogen bombs also go poof! I will not dwell on what will happen to us.

"Normally, because of this well-known danger, hydrogen bombs and atom bombs are never stored together, not, at east, for any period of time. Twenty-four hours is regarded as a safe period and a plane, as in this instance, can easily make a long-distance flight with them together, at the end of which, of course, they would immediately be stored separately. What happens after twenty-four hours, we simply don't know although some of us - I am one - believe that the situation deteriorates very rapidly thereafter.

'Incidentally, that's why I have asked the Captain to stop all engines and generators. It is an established fact that acoustical vibrations hasten the onset of the critical period.'

Wickram's deep, solemn and authoritative voice carried absolute conviction. Had he not known, Talbot thought, that Dr Wickram was talking scientific malarkey he, for one, would have believed every word he said.

'So you will readily appreciate that it is of the utmost urgency that we remove that atom bomb from the plane as soon as possible and then take it away  --  by sail, of course, that's why the Angelina is alongside, the critical mass will decay only very slowly - to some distant spot. Some very distant spot. There we will deposit it gently on the ocean floor.'

'How will you do that?' Andropulos said. 'Deposit it gently, I mean. The ocean could be thousands of feet deep at the spot. Wouldn't the bomb accelerate all the way down?'

Wickram smiled tolerantly. 'I have discussed the matter with Captain Montgomery of the Kilcharran.' He had not, in fact, discussed the matter with anybody. 'We attach a flotation bag to the bomb, inflate it until it achieves a very slight negative buoyancy and then it will float down like a feather to the ocean floor.'

'And then?'

'And then nothing.' If Wickram were having visions of a passenger cruise liner passing over an armed atomic mine, he kept his visions to himself. 'It will decay and corrode slowly over the years, perhaps even over the centuries- May give rise to a few digestive upsets for some passing fish. I don't know. What I do know is that if we don't get rid of that damned beast with all dispatch we're going to suffer more than a few digestive problems. Better that some of us - those concerned with the recovery of the bomb  --  have a sleepless night than that we all sleep forever.'

Chapter 8

Talbot stirred, half sat up in his bunk and blinked at the overhead light that had suddenly come on in his day cabin. Van Gelder was standing in the doorway.

'Two-thirty. An unChristian hour, Vincent. Something is afoot. Weather moderated and Captain Montgomery hauling in the plane?'

'Yes, sir. But there's something more immediately urgent. Jenkins is missing.'

Talbot swung his feet to the deck. 'Jenkins? I won't say, "Missing?" or "How can he be missing?" If you say he is, he is. You've had a search carried out, of course?'

'Of course. Forty volunteers. You know how popular Jenkins is.' Talbot knew. Jenkins, their Mess steward and a Marine of fifteen years' standing, a man whose calmness, efficiency and resource were matched only by his sense of humour, was highly regarded by everyone who knew him.

'Can Brown cast any light on this?' Marine Sergeant Brown, a man as rock-like and solid as Chief McKenzie, was Jenkins's closest friend on the ship. Both men were in the habit of having a tipple in the pantry when the day's work was done, an illicit practice which Talbot tacitly and readily condoned. Their tipple invariably stopped at that, just that even in the elite Royal Marines it would have been difficult to find two men like them.

'Nothing, sir. They went down to their Mess together. Brown turned in while Jenkins started on a letter to his wife. That was the last Brown saw of him.'

'Who discovered his absence?'

'Carter. The Master-at-arms. You know how he likes to prowl around at odd hours of the day and night looking for non-existent crime. He went up to the wardroom and pantry, found nothing, returned to the Marine Mess-deck and woke Brown. They carried out a brief search. Again nothing. Then they came to me.'

'It would be pointless to ask you if you have any ideas?'

'Pointless. Brown seems convinced he's no longer aboard the ship. He says that Jenkins never sleep-walked, drank only sparingly and was devoted to his wife and two daughters. He had no problems - Brown is certain of that - and no enemies aboard the ship. Well, among the crew, that is. Brown s further convinced that Jenkins stumbled across some-tiling he shouldn't have or saw something he shouldn't have seen, although how he could do anything like that while sitting in the mess writing to his wife is difficult to imagine. His suspicions immediately centred on Andropulos and company - I gather he and Jenkins have talked quite a lot about them  --  and he was all for going down to Andropulos's cabin and beating the living daylights out of him. I had some difficulty in restraining him, although privately, I must say, J found it rather an appealing prospect.'

'An understandable reaction on his part.' Talbot paused. "I can't see how Andropulos or his friends could have any possible connection with this or have any conceivable reason for knocking him off. Do you think there's a remote chance that he might have gone aboard the Kilcharran?'

'No earthly reason why he should have but the thought did occur. I asked Danforth - he's the Kilcharran's chief officer - if he'd have a look around, so he collected some of his crew and carried out a search. There aren't many places you can

hide - or be hidden - on a diving ship. Took them less than ten minutes to be sure he wasn't anywhere aboard.'

'Nothing we can do at the moment. I have the uncomfortable feeling that there's nothing we're going to be able to do either. Let's go and see how Captain Montgomery is getting on.'

The wind had dropped to Force 3, the sea was no more than choppy and the rain had eased, but only slightly, from torrential to heavy. Montgomery, clad in streaming oilskins, was at the winch: the plane, still bobbing rather uncomfortably, was slowly but steadily nearing the stern of the diving ship. The oxyacetylene crew, also in oilskins, were standing by the guard-rail, torches at the ready.

Talbot said: 'Your men are going to be able to maintain their footing?'

'It won't be easy. The plane should steady up a bit when we secure it fore and aft and we'll have ropes on the men, of course. And this confounded rain doesn't help. I think we should be able to make some progress but it'll be slow. Point is, this may be as good weather as we're going to get. No point in your remaining, Commander, you'd be better off in your bunk. I'll let you know when we've cut away the section and are ready to lift.' He wiped rain away from his eyes. 'I hear you've lost your chief steward. Bloody odd, isn't it? Do you suspect foul play?'

'I'm at the stage where I'm about ready to suspect anything or anybody. Van Gelder and I are agreed that it couldn't have happened accidentally so it must have happened on purpose and not, of course, his purpose. Yes, foul play. As to what kind of foul play and the identity of the person or persons responsible, we don't have a clue.'

It should have been dawn, but wasn't, when Van Gelder roused Talbot shortly after six-thirty in the morning. The sky

was still heavy and dark, and neither the wind nor the steadily drumming rain had improved in the past four hours.

'So much for your breathless Aegean dawns,' Talbot said. 'I take it that Captain Montgomery has cut away that section of the plane's fuselage?'

'Forty minutes ago. He's got the fuselage more than half way out of the water already.'

'How are the winch and the derrick taking the strain?'

'Very little strain, I believe. He's secured four more flotation bags under the fuselage and wing and is letting compressed air do most of the work. He asks if you'd like to come along. Oh, and we've had a communication from Greek Intelligence about Andropulos.'

'You don't seem very excited about it.'

'I'm not. Interesting, but doesn't really help us. It just confirms that our suspicions about Uncle Adam are far from groundless. They've passed on our messages to Interpol. It seems - the message, I must say, is couched in very guarded language  --  that both Greek Intelligence and Interpol have been taking a considerable interest in Andropulos for several years. Both are certain that our friend is engaged in highly illegal activities but if this was a trial in a Scottish court of law the verdict would be "not proven". They have no hard evidence. Andropulos acts through intermediaries who operate though other intermediaries and so on until either the trail runs cold or, occasionally, ends up in shell companies in Panama and the Bahamas, where much of his money is stashed away. The banks there consistently refuse to acknowledge letters and cables, in fact they won't even acknowledge his existence. No co-operation from the Swiss banks, either. They'll only open up their books if the depositor has been convicted of what is also regarded as a crime in Switzerland. He hasn't been convicted of anything.'

'Illegal activities? What illegal activities?'

'Drugs. Message ends with a request  --  sounds more like a demand the way they put it  --  that this information be treated in total secrecy, utter and absolute confidentiality. Words to that effect.'

'What information? They haven't given us any information that we didn't already suspect or have. No mention of the one item of information we'd like to know. Who, either in the government, the civil service or the top echelons in the armed forces, is Andropulos's powerful protector and friend? Possibly they don't know, more probably they don't want us to know. Nothing from Washington?'

'Not a word. Maybe the FBI don't work at night.' 'More likely that other people don't work at night. It's eleven-thirty p.m., their time, the banks are shut and all the staffs to hell and gone until tomorrow morning. We may have to wait hours before we hear anything.'