The Afghan (37 page)

Either side, her two escorting missile cruisers of the US Navy’s Atlantic fleet took up position several cables away and announced themselves to the captain. To port was the USS
Leyte Gulf
and to starboard the USS
Monterey
. In accordance with the courtesies of the sea, he acknowledged their presence and thanked them. Then he left the bridge to change for dinner. David Gundlach had the helm and the command.

There would be no escorting submarine, for this was not a carrier group. The submarine was absent for two reasons. No nation possessing the modern kind of submarine that could evade the missile cruisers’ detect-and-sink capacity existed, and the
Queen Mary
was so fast that no old-fashioned submarine could keep up with her.

As the convoy cleared the roads and the lights of Long Island dropped away, First Officer Gundlach increased the power to optimum cruise. The four mermaid pods, pounding out 157,000 horsepower between them, could push the
Queen Mary
to thirty knots if needed. Normal cruise is twenty-five knots, and the cruiser escorts had to move to maximum cruise to keep up.

Overhead the aerial escort appeared: one US Navy E-2C Hawkeye with radar scopes that would illuminate the surface of the Atlantic for five hundred miles in any direction around the convoy. And an EA-6B Prowler capable of jamming any offensive weapons system that might dare to lock on to the convoy and destroying that source with its HARM missiles.

The air cover would be refuelled and replaced at end of shift out of the USA until its mission could be relieved by identical cover coming out of the US-leased base in the Azores. That in turn would continue until it could be replaced by cover out of the UK. Nothing had been unforeseen.

The dinner was a triumphal success. The statesmen beamed, the wives sparkled, the cuisine was agreed to be superb and the crystal glittered as it was filled with vintage wines.

Following the example of the American President – the more so as the other delegations had long flights behind them – the diners broke up early and retired for the night.

The conference met in full plenum the following morning. The Royal Court Theatre had been transformed to accommodate all eight delegations with, sitting behind the principals, the small army of minions that each seemed to need.

The second night was as the first, save that the host was the British Prime Minister in the two-hundred-seat Queen’s Grill. Those less eminent spread themselves through the huge Britannia Restaurant or the various pubs and bars that also serve food. The younger element, freed from their diplomatic labours, favoured the Queen’s Ballroom after dinner or the G32 nightclub/disco.

High above them all the lights were dimmed on the sweeping bridge where David Gundlach was the officer of the watch. Spread out in front of him, just below the forward windows, was the array of plasma screens that depicted every system in the ship.

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 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 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 Mary
, 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 along between them. Even for a harmless and checked-out freighter the closeness limit was three kilometres. 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. Being realistic, it put a limit on this projection as well. The limit was twenty-four 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 idling so that her propellers turned slowly in the water. But there was a four-knot current which gave her just enough way to keep her nose into the flow, and that meant towards the west.

The inflatable speedboat was in the water, tethered to her port side with a rope-and-plank 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 teenager of Pakistani parents born and raised in a suburb of the Yorkshire city of Leeds. The fourth was the Afghan. When the radio man was satisfied he nodded at the boy who nodded back and took a stool beside the ship’s console, waiting for the call.

It came from the cruiser plunging through the sea six cables to the starboard of the
Queen Mary
. David Gundlach heard it loud and clear, as did all on the night watch. The channel used was 16, a wavelength monitored by all ships. The voice had the drawl of the Deep South.

‘
Countess of Richmond
,
Countess of Richmond
, this is US 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 Mary
the First Officer had the blip entering his radar screen slightly south of dead ahead and fifty minutes cruising away. Another display gave all the details of the
Countess of Richmond
, including confirmation that her transponder was genuine and the signal from it accurate. He cut into the radio exchange.

‘
Monterey
, this is
Queen Mary Two
.
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 Two
. 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
. Registered in Liverpool, eight thousand tonnes, 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 Siebart 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 Mary 2
along the pre-planned track and would adjust for any change in the sea, wind, current or waves. To divert would mean going to manual or resetting the programme and then returning to their original course. He would pass the hove-to freighter in forty-one minutes and it would be two miles or three kilometres 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 Mary
, the
Monterey
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 further ahead and would be asked to divert, left and right.

‘Roger that,’ said the
Monterey
.

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 re-engage 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 backwards. Behind 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 grey 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 downwards and began to ship water.

Leaning further 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 aft 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 down current it simply sank, dragged down by the outboard. In the gleam of the ship’s sternlight Martin saw waving hands on 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.

When Mr Wei had built the gallery masquerading as six sea containers along the deck of the
Java Star
from bridge to bow, he had created the roof or ‘lid’ of the empty space beneath as one single piece of steel held down by four strong points.

To these the explosives man had fitted shaped charges and linked all four to wires taking power from the ship’s engines. When they blew, the sheet-metal lid of the cavern beneath lifted upwards several feet. The power of the charges was asymmetric so that one side of the sheet rose higher than the other.

Martin was at the top of the rope ladder, knife in teeth, when the charges blew. He crouched there as the huge sheet of steel slid sideways into the sea. He put the knife away and entered the bridge.

The Al-Qaeda killer was standing at the wheel staring forward through the glass. On the horizon, bearing down at twenty-five knots, was a floating city, seventeen decks and 150,000 tonnes of lights, steel and people. Right under the bridge the gallery was open to the stars. For the first time Martin realized its purpose. Not to contain something: to hide something.

The clouds moved away from the half-moon and the entire foredeck of the once-
Java Star
gleamed in its light. For the first time Martin realized this was not a general freighter containing explosives; it was a tanker. Running away from the bridge was the cat’s cradle of pipes, tubes, spigots and hydrant-wheels that gave away her purpose in life.

Evenly spaced down the deck towards the bow were six circular steel discs – the venting hatches – above each of the cargo tanks beneath the deck.

‘You should have stayed on the boat, Afghan,’ said Ibrahim.

‘There was no room, my brother. Suleiman almost fell overboard. I stayed on the ladder. Then they were gone. Now I will die here with you,
inshallah
.’

Ibrahim seemed appeased. He glanced at the ship’s clock and pulled his second lever. The flexes ran from the control down to the ship’s batteries, took their power and went forward into the gallery where the explosives man, entering through the secret door, had worked during his month at sea.

Six more charges detonated. The six hatches blew away from above the tanks. What followed was invisible to the naked eye: six vertical columns rose like volcanoes from the domes as the cargo began to vent. The rising vapour cloud reached a hundred feet, lost its impetus and gravity took over. The unseen cloud, mixing furiously with the night air, fell back to the sea and began to roll outwards, away from the source in all directions.