Santorini

‘So do I.’ Denholm lowered his glasses. ‘What’s all the frantic waving for? Surely to God they can’t imagine we haven’t seen them?’

‘They’ve seen us all right. Relief, Lieutenant. Expectation of rescue. But there’s more to it than that. A certain urgency in their waving. A primitive form of semaphoring. What they’re saying is “get us the hell out of here and be quick about it”.’

‘Maybe they’re expecting another explosion?’

‘Could be that. Harrison, I want to come to a stop on their starboard beam. At, you understand, a prudent distance.’

‘A hundred yards, sir?’

‘Fine.’

The Delos was—or had been—a rather splendid yacht. A streamlined eighty-footer, it was obvious that it had been, until very, very recently, a dazzling white. Now, because of a combination of smoke and diesel oil, it was mainly black. A rather elaborate superstructure consisted of a bridge, saloon, a dining-room and what may or may not have been a galley. The still dense smoke and flames rising six feet above the poop deck indicated the source of the fire—almost certainly the engine-room. Just aft of the fire a small motorboat was still secured to its davits: it wasn’t difficult to guess that either the explosion or the fire had rendered it inoperable.

Talbot said: ‘Rather odd, don’t you think, Lieutenant?’

‘Odd?’ Denholm said carefully.

‘Yes. You can see that the flames are dying away. One would have thought that would reduce the danger of further explosion.’ Talbot moved out on the port wing. ‘And you will have observed that the water level is almost up to the deck.’

‘I can see she’s sinking.’

‘Indeed. If you were aboard a vessel that was either going to go up or drag you down when it sank, what would your natural reaction be?’

‘To be elsewhere, sir. But I can see that their motorboat has been damaged.’

‘Agreed. But a craft that size would carry alternative life-saving equipment. If not a Carley float, then certainly an inflatable rubber dinghy. And any prudent owner would carry a sufficiency of lifebelts and life-jackets for the passengers and crew. I can even see two lifebelts in front of the bridge. But they haven’t done the obvious thing and abandoned ship. I wonder why.’

‘I’ve no idea, sir. But it is damned odd.’

‘When we’ve rescued those distressed mariners and brought them aboard, you, Jimmy, will have forgotten how to speak Greek.’

‘But I will not have forgotten how to listen in Greek?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Commander Talbot, you have a devious and suspicious mind.’

‘It goes with the job, Jimmy. It goes with the job.’

Harrison brought the Ariadne to a stop off the starboard beam of the Delos at the agreed hundred yards distance. Van Gelder was away at once and was very quickly alongside the fo’c’s’le of the Delos. Two boat-hooks around the guard-rail stanchions held them in position. As the launch and the bows of the sinking yacht were now almost level it took only a few seconds to transfer the six survivors—another had joined the group of five that Talbot had seen—aboard the launch. They were, indeed, a sorry and sadly bedraggled lot, so covered in diesel and smoke that it was quite impossible to discriminate among them on the basis of age, sex or nationality.

Van Gelder said: ‘Any of you here speak English?’

‘We all do.’ The speaker was short and stocky and that was all that could be said of him in the way of description. ‘Some of us just a little. But enough.’ The voice was heavily accented but readily understood. Van Gelder looked at Grierson.

‘Any of you injured, any of you burnt?’ Grierson said. All shook their heads or mumbled a negative. ‘Nothing here for me, Number One. Hot showers, detergents, soap. Not to mention a change of clothing.’

‘Who’s in charge here?’ Van Gelder asked.

‘I am.’ It was the same man.

‘Anybody left aboard?’

‘Three men, I’m afraid. They won’t be coming with us.’

‘You mean they’re dead?’ The man nodded. ‘I’ll check.’

‘No, no!’ His oil-soaked hand gripped Van Gelder’s arm. ‘It is too dangerous, far too dangerous. I forbid it.’

‘You forbid me nothing.’ When Van Gelder wasn’t smiling, which wasn’t often, he could assume a very discouraging expression indeed. The man withdrew his hand. ‘Where are those men?’

‘In the passageway between the engine-room and the stateroom aft. We got them out after the explosion but before the fire began.’

‘Riley.’ This to a Leading Seaman. ‘Come aboard with me. If you think the yacht’s going, give me a call.’ He picked up a torch and was about to board the Delos when a hand holding a pair of goggles reached out and stopped him. Van Gelder smiled. ‘Thank you, Doctor. I hadn’t thought of that.’

Once aboard he made his way aft and descended the after companionway. There was smoke down there but not too much and with the aid of his torch he had no difficulty in locating the three missing men, all huddled shapelessly in a corner. To his right was the engine-room door, slightly buckled from the force of the explosion. Not without some difficulty, he forced the door open and at once began coughing as the foulsmelling smoke caught his throat and eyes. He pulled on the goggles but still there was nothing to see except for the red embers of a dying fire emanating from some unknown source. He pulled the door to behind him—he was reasonably certain there was nothing for him to see in the engineroom anyway—and stooped to examine the three dead men. They were far from being a pretty sight but he forced himself to carry out as thorough an investigation as he could. He spent some quite considerable time bent over the third man—in the circumstances thirty seconds was a long time—and when he straightened he looked both puzzled and thoughtful.

The door to the after stateroom opened easily. There was some smoke there but not so much that he required to use his goggles. The cabin was luxuriously furnished and immaculately tidy, a condition which Van Gelder very rapidly altered. He pulled a sheet from one of the beds, spread it on the floor, opened up wardrobes and drawers, scooped up armfuls of clothes—there was no time to make any kind of selection and even if there had been he would have been unable to pick and choose, they were all women’s clothing—dumped them on the sheet, tied up the four corners, lugged the bundle up the companionway and handed it over to Riley.

‘Put this in the launch. I’m going to have a quick look at the for’ard cabins. I think the steps will be at the for’ard end of the saloon under the bridge.’

‘I think you should hurry, sir.’

Van Gelder didn’t answer. He didn’t have to be told why he should hurry—the sea was already beginning to trickle over on to the upper deck. He passed into the saloon, found the companionway at once and descended to a central passage.

He switched on his torch—there was, of course, no electrical power left. There were doors on both sides and one at the end. The first door to port opened up into a food store, the corresponding door to starboard was locked. Van Gelder didn’t bother with it: the Delos didn’t look like the kind of craft that would lack a commodious liquor store. Behind the other doors lay four cabins and two bathrooms. All were empty. As he had done before, Van Gelder spread out a sheet—in the passageway, this time—threw some more armfuls of clothes on to it, secured the corners and hurried up on deck.

The launch was no more than thirty yards away when the Delos, still on even keel, slid gently under the surface of the sea. There was nothing dramatic to mark its going—just a stream of air bubbles that became gradually smaller and ceased altogether after about twenty seconds.

Talbot was on deck when the launch brought back the six survivors. He looked in concern at the woebegone and bedraggled figures before him.

‘My goodness, what a state you people are in. This the lot, Number One?’

‘Those that survived, sir. Three died. Impossible to get their bodies out in time.’ He indicated the figure nearest him. ‘This is the owner.’

‘Andropulos,’ the man said. ‘Spyros Andropulos. You are the officer in charge?’

‘Commander Talbot. My commiserations, Mr Andropulos.’

‘And my thanks, Commander. We are very deeply grateful—’

‘With respect, sir, that can wait. First things first, and the very first thing is to get yourselves cleaned up immediately. Ah. And changed. A problem. Clothes. We’ll find some.’

‘Clothing we have,’ Van Gelder said. He pointed at the two sheet-wrapped packages. ‘Ladies. Gentlemen.’

‘A mention in dispatches for that, Number One. You said “ladies”?’

‘Two, Commander,’ Andropulos said. He looked at the two people standing by him. ‘My niece and her friend.’

‘Ah. Well, should apologize, I suppose, but difficult to tell in the circumstances.’

‘My name is Charial.’ The voice was unmistakably feminine. ‘Irene Charial. This is my friend Eugenia.’

‘We could have met under happier circumstances. Lieutenant Denholm here will take you to my cabin. The bathroom is small but adequate. By the time you bring them back, Lieutenant, I trust they are recognizable for what they are.’ He turned to a burly, dark-haired figure who, like most of the crew, wore no insignia of rank. ‘Chief Petty Officer McKenzie.’ McKenzie was the senior NCO on the Ariadne. ‘The four gentlemen here, Chief. You know what to do.’

‘Right away, sir. If you will come with me, gentlemen.’

Grierson also left and Van Gelder and Talbot were left alone. ‘We can find this place again?’ Van Gelder asked.

‘No trouble.’ Talbot looked at him speculatively and pointed towards the north-west. ‘I’ve taken a bearing on the monastery and radar station on Mount Elias there. Sonar says that we’re in eighteen fathoms. Just to make sure, we’ll drop a marker buoy.’

General Carson laid down the slip of paper he had been studying and looked at the colonel seated across the table from him.

‘What do you make of this, Charles?’

‘Could be nothing. Could be important. Sorry, that doesn’t help. I have a feeling I don’t like it. It would help a bit if we had a sailor around.’

Carson smiled and pressed a button. ‘Do you know if Vice-Admiral Hawkins is in the building?’

‘He is, sir.’ A girl’s voice. ‘Do you wish to speak to him or see him?’

‘See him, Jean. Ask him if he would be kind enough to stop by.’

Vice-Admiral Hawkins was very young for one of his rank. He was short, a little overweight, more than a little rubicund as to his features and exuded an aura of cheerful bonhomie. He didn’t look very bright, which he was. He was widely regarded as having one of the most brilliant minds in the Royal Navy. He took the seat to which Carson had gestured him and glanced at the message slip.

‘I see, I see.’ He laid the message down. ‘But you didn’t ask me here to comment on a perfectly straightforward signal. The Sylvester is one of the code names for the frigate HMS Ariadne. One of the vessels under your command, sir.’

‘Don’t rub it in, David. I know it, of course—more accurately I know of it. Don’t forget I’m just a simple landlubber. Odd name, isn’t it? Royal Naval ship with a Greek name.’

‘Courtesy gesture to the Greeks, sir. We’re carrying out a joint hydrographic survey with them.’

‘Is that so?’ General Carson ran a hand through his grizzled hair. ‘I was not aware that I was in the hydrographic business, David.’

‘You’re not, sir, although I have no doubt it could carry out such a survey if it were called for. The Ariadne has a radio system that can transmit to, and receive transmissions from, any quarter of the globe. It has telescopes and optical instruments that can pick out the salient features of, say, any passing satellite, even those in geosynchronous orbit—and that’s 22,000 miles up. It carries long-range and surface radar that is as advanced as any in the world. And it has a sonar location and detection system that can pick up a sunken object at the bottom of the ocean just as easily as it can pinpoint a lurking submarine. The Ariadne, sir, is the eyes and the ears and the voice of your fleet.’

‘That’s nice to know, I must say. Very reassuring. The ability of the commanding officer of the Ariadne is—ah—commensurate with this extraordinary array of devices he controls?’

‘Indeed, sir. For an exceptionally complex task an exceptionally qualified man. Commander Talbot is an outstanding officer. Hand-picked for the job.’

‘Who picked him?’

‘I did.’

‘I see. That terminates this line of conversation very abruptly.’ Carson pondered briefly. ‘I think, Colonel, that we should ask General Simpson about this one.’ Simpson, the over-all commander of NATO, was the only man who outranked Carson in Europe.

‘Don’t see what else we can do, sir.’

‘You would agree, David?’

‘No, General. I think you’d be wasting your time. If you don’t know anything about this, then I’m damned sure General Simpson doesn’t know anything either. This is not an educated guess, call it a completely uneducated guess, but I have an odd feeling that this is one of your planes, sir—an American plane. A bomber, almost certainly, perhaps not yet off the secret lists—it was, after all, flying at an uncommon height.’

‘The Ariadne could have been in error.’

‘The Ariadne does not make mistakes. My job and my life on it.’ The flat, unemotional voice carried complete conviction. ‘Commander Talbot is not the only uniquely qualified man aboard. There are at least thirty others in the same category. We have, for example, an electronics officer so unbelievably advanced in his speciality that none of your much-vaunted high-technology whizzkids in Silicon Valley would even begin to know what he’s talking about.’

Carson raised a hand. ‘Point taken, David, point taken. So an American bomber. A very special bomber because it must be carrying a very special cargo. What would you guess that to be?’

Hawkins smiled faintly. ‘I am not yet in the ESP business, sir. People or goods. Very secret, very important goods or very secret and very important people. There’s only one source that can give you the answer and it might be pointed out that their refusal to divulge this information might put the whole future of NATO at risk and that the individual ultimately responsible for the negative decision would be answerable directly to the president of the United States. One does not imagine that the individual concerned would remain in a position of responsibility for very much longer.’

Carson sighed. ‘If I may speak in a spirit of complaint, David, I might point out that it’s easy for you to talk and even easier to talk tough. You’re a British officer. I’m an American.’

‘I appreciate that, sir.’

Carson looked at the colonel, who remained silent for a couple of moments, then nodded, slowly, twice. Carson reached for the button on his desk.

‘Jean?’

‘Sir?’

‘Get me the Pentagon. Immediately.’

2

‘You are unhappy, Vincent?’ Vincent was Van Gelder’s first name. There were three of them seated in the wardroom, Talbot, Van Gelder and Grierson.

‘Puzzled, you might say, sir. I don’t understand why Andropulos and the others didn’t abandon ship earlier. I saw two inflatable dinghies aboard. Rolled up, admittedly, but those things can be opened and inflated from their gas cylinders in seconds. There were also lifebelts and life-jackets. There was no need for this the-boy-stood-on-the-burning-deck act. They could have left at any time. I’m not saying they’d have been sucked down with the yacht but they might have had a rather uncomfortable time.’

‘Same thought had occurred to me. Mentioned it to Andrew here. Odd. Maybe Andropulos had a reason. Anything else?’

‘The owner tried to stop me from boarding the yacht. Maybe he was concerned with my health. I have the feeling he wasn’t. Then I would much like to know what caused that explosion in the engineroom. A luxurious yacht like that must have carried an engineer—we can find that out easily enough—and it’s a fair guess that the engines would have been maintained in an immaculate condition. I don’t see how they could have caused an explosion. We’ll have to ask McCafferty about that one.’

‘That, of course, is why you were so anxious that we pinpoint the spot where the Delos went down. You think an expert on the effects of explosives could identify and locate the cause of the explosion? I’m sure he could, especially if he were an expert at determining the causes of aircraft lost through explosions—those people are much better at that sort of thing than the Navy is. Explosives experts we have aboard but no experts on the effects of explosives. Even if we did, we have no divers aboard—well, you and myself apart—trained to work at levels below a hundred feet. We could borrow one easily enough from a lifting vessel or salvage tug but the chances are high that he’d know nothing about explosives. But there’s really no problem. It would be a simple matter for any lifting vessel to raise an aircraft fuselage to the surface.’ Talbot regarded Van Gelder thoughtfully. ‘But there’s something else worrying you, isn’t there?’

‘Yes, sir. The three dead men aboard the Delos—well, to be specific, just one of them. That’s why I asked the doctor here to come along. The three of them were so smoke begrimed and blackened that it was difficult to tell what they were wearing but two of them appeared to be dressed in white while the third was in a navy blue overall. An engineer wouldn’t wear whites. Well, I admit our engineer Lieutenant McCafferty is a dazzling exception; but he’s a one-off case, he never goes near his engines anyway. In any event I assumed the man in the overalls was the engineer and he was the one who caught my attention. He had a vicious gash on the back of his head as if he had been blown backwards against a very hard, very sharp object.’

Grierson said: ‘Or been struck by a very hard, sharp object?’

‘Either way, I suppose. I wouldn’t know. I’m afraid I’m a bit weak on the forensic side.’

‘Had his occiput been crushed?’

‘Back of his head? No. At least I’m reasonably certain it hadn’t been. I mean, it would have given, wouldn’t it, or been squashy. It wasn’t like that.’

‘A blow like that should have caused massive bruising. Did you see any?’

‘Difficult to say. He had fairly thick hair. But it was fair. No, I don’t think there was any.’

‘Had it bled a lot?’

‘He hadn’t bled at all. I’m quite sure of that.’

‘You didn’t notice any holes in his clothing?’

‘Not that I could see. He hadn’t been shot, if that is what you’re asking and that is what I think you are asking. Who would want to shoot a dead man? His neck was broken.’

‘Indeed?’ Grierson seemed unsurprised. ‘Poor man was through the wars, wasn’t he?’

Talbot said: ‘What do you think, Andrew?’

‘I don’t know what to think. The inflicting of the wound on the head and the snapping of the vertebra could well have been simultaneous. If the two weren’t simultaneous, then it could equally well have been—as Vincent clearly seems to think—a case of murder.’

‘Would an examination of the corpse help at all?’

‘It might. I very much doubt it. But an examination of engine-room bulkheads would.’

‘To see if there were any sharp edges or protrusions that could have caused such a head wound?’ Grierson nodded. ‘Well, when—and if—we ever raise that hull, we should be able to kill two birds with one stone: to determine the causes of both the explosions and this man’s death.’

‘Maybe three birds,’ Van Gelder said. ‘It would be interesting to know the number and layout of the fuel tanks in the engine-room. There are, I believe, two common layouts—in one case there is just one main fuel tank, athwartships and attached to the for’ard bulkhead, with a generator or generators on one side of the engine and batteries on the other, plus a water-tank to port and another to starboard: or there could be a fuel tank on either side with the water-tank up front. In that case the two fuel tanks are interconnected to keep the fuel levels equal and maintain equilibrium.’

‘A suspicious mind, Number One,’ Talbot said. ‘Very suspicious. What you would like to find, of course, is just one fuel tank because you think Andropulos is going to claim that he didn’t abandon ship because he thought another fuel tank was about to go and he didn’t want his precious passengers splashing about in a sea of blazing fuel oil which would, of course, also have destroyed the rubber dinghies.’

‘I’m grieved, sir. I thought I’d thought of that first.’

‘You did, in fact. When the passengers are cleaned up see if you can get this young lady, Irene Charial, alone and find out if she knows anything about the layout of the engine-room. The casual approach, Vincent, the innocent and cherubic expression, although I doubt the last is beyond you. Anyway it’s possible she’s never been there and may possibly know nothing about it.’

‘It’s equally possible, sir, that she knows all about it and may well choose to tell me something. Miss Charial is Andropulos’s niece.’

‘The thought had occurred. However, if Andropulos is not all he might be, then the chances are high that there is some other member of his ship’s company in his confidence and I would have thought that would be a man. I don’t say that that’s because you know what the Greeks are like because I don’t know what the Greeks are like. And we mustn’t forget that Andropulos may be as innocent as the driven snow and that there is a perfectly rational explanation for all that has happened. Anyway, it would do no harm to try and you never can tell, Vincent—she might turn out to be a classic Greek beauty.’

From the fact that the whaler was lying stopped in the water and that Cousteau, his hand resting idly on the tiller, appeared to be expressing no great degree of interest in anything, it was obvious that his wait had been a vain one, a fact he confirmed on his arrival on the bridge.

Talbot called the sonar room. ‘You have pinpointed the location of the plane?’

‘Yes, sir. We’re sitting exactly above it. Depth registered is eighteen fathoms. That’s the echo from the top of the fuselage. Probably lying in about twenty fathoms. It’s lying in the same direction as it was flying when it came down—northeast to south-west. Picking up some rather odd noises down here, sir. Would you care to come down?’

‘Yes, I will.’ For reasons best known to himself Halzman, the senior sonar operator, preferred not to discuss it over an open line. ‘A minute or two.’ He turned to Van Gelder. ‘Have McKenzie put down a marker buoy, about midships. Tell him to lower the weight gently. I don’t want to bump too hard against the plane’s fuselage in case we do actually come into contact with it. When that’s been done, I want to anchor. Two anchors. A stern anchor to the north-west, about a hundred yards distant from the buoy, then a bow anchor a similar distance to the south-east.’

‘Yes, sir. May I suggest the other way around?’

‘Of course, you’re right. I’d forgotten about our old friend. Taking a holiday today, isn’t it? The other way around, of course.’ The ‘old friend’ to which he referred and which Van Gelder clearly had in mind, was the Meltemi wind, referred to as the ‘Etesian’ in the British sailing directions. In the Cyclades, in the summer months—and indeed in most of the Aegean—it blew steadily, but usually only in the afternoon and early evening, from the north-west. If it did start up, the Ariadne would ride more comfortably if it were bows on to it.

Talbot went to the sonar room which was only one deck down and slightly aft. The sonar room was heavily insulated against all outside noise and dimly lit by subdued yellow lighting. There were three display screens, two sets of control panels and, over and above all, a considerable number of heavily padded earphones. Halzman caught sight of him in an overhead mirror—there were a number of such mirrors around, speaking as well as any other kind of sound was kept to a minimum in the sonar room—removed his earphones and gestured to the seat beside him.