ALISTAIR MACLEAN

Seawitch

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1977 under the pseudonym ‘Ian Stuart’

Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1977

Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006164746

Ebook Edition © MAY 2009 ISBN: 9780007289424

Version: 2017-04-27

Dedication

To Lachlan

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue

Normally there are only two types of marine machines concerned with the discovery and recovery of oil from under the ocean floor. The first one, which is mainly engaged in the discovery of oil, is a self-propelled vessel, sometimes of very considerable size. Apart from its towering drilling derrick, it is indistinguishable from any ocean-going cargo vessel; its purpose is to drill bore-holes in areas where seismological and geological studies suggest oil may exist. The technical operation of this activity is highly complex, yet these vessels have achieved a remarkable level of success. However, they suffer from two major drawbacks. Although they are equipped with the most advanced and sophisticated navigational equipment, including bow-thrust propellers, for them to maintain position in running seas, strong tides and winds when boring can be extremely difficult; and in really heavy weather operations have to be suspended.

For the actual drilling of oil and its recovery – principally its recovery – the so-called ‘jack-up system’ is in almost universal use. A rig of this type has to be towed into position, and consists of a platform which carries the drilling rig, cranes, helipads and all essential services, including living accommodation, and is attached to the seabed by firmly anchored legs. In normal conditions it is extremely effective, but like the discovery ships it has drawbacks. It is not mobile. It has to suspend operations in even moderately heavy weather. And it can be used only in comparatively shallow water: the deepest is in the North Sea, where most of those rigs are to be found. This North Sea rig stands in about four hundred and fifty feet of water and the cost of increasing the length of those legs would be so prohibitive as to make oil recovery quite uneconomical, even although there are plans for the Americans to construct a rig with eight-hundred-feet legs off the Californian coast. There is also the unknown safety factor. Two such rigs have already been lost in the North Sea. The cause of those disasters has not been clearly evaluated, although it is suspected, obviously not without cause, that there may have been design, structural or metallic faults in one or more of the legs.

And then there is the third type of oil rig – the TLP – technically, the tension leg drilling/production platform. At the time of this story there was only one of its type in the world. The platform – the working area – was about the size of a football field – if, that is, one can imagine a triangular football field, for the platform was, in fact, an equilateral triangle. The deck was not made of steel but of a uniquely designed ferro-concrete, specially developed by a Dutch oil ship-building company. The supports for this massive platform had been designed and built in England and consisted of three enormous steel legs, each at one corner of the structure, all three being joined together by a variety of horizontal and diagonal hollow cylinders, the total combination offering so tremendous a degree of buoyancy that the working platform they supported was out of the reach of even the highest waves.

From each of the bases of the three legs, three massive steel cables extended to the base of the ocean floor, where each triple set was attached to large sea-floor anchors. Powerful motors could raise or lower it to a depth two or three times that of most modern fixed oil derricks, which meant that it could operate at depths far out on the continental shelf.

The TLP had other very considerable advantages.

Its great buoyancy put the anchor cables under constant tension, and this tension practically eliminated the heaving, pitching and rolling of the platform. Thus the rig could continue operating in very severe storms, storms that would automatically stop production on any other type of derrick.

It was also virtually immune to the effects of an under-sea earthquake.

It was also mobile. It had only to up anchors to move to potentially more productive areas.

And compared to standard oil rigs its cost of establishing position in any given spot was so negligible as to be worth no more than a passing mention.

The name of the TLP was the Seawitch.

Chapter One

In certain places and among certain people, the Seawitch was a very bad name indeed. But, overwhelmingly, their venom was reserved for a certain Lord Worth, a multi – some said bulti – millionaire, chairman and sole owner of Worth Hudson Oil Company and, incidentally, owner of the Seawitch. When his name was mentioned by any of the ten men present at that shoreside house on Lake Tahoe, it was in tones of less than hushed reverence.

Their meeting was announced in neither the national nor local press. This was due to two factors. The delegates arrived and departed either singly or in couples and among the heterogeneous summer population of Lake Tahoe such comings and goings went unremarked or were ignored. More importantly, the delegates to the meeting were understandably reluctant that their assembly become common knowledge. The day was Friday 13th, a date that boded no good for someone.

There were nine delegates present, plus their host. Four of them were American, but only two of these mattered – Corral, who represented the oil and mineral leases in the Florida area, and Benson, who represented the rigs off Southern California.

Of the other six, again only two mattered. One was Patinos of Venezuela; the other was Borosoff of Russia: his interest in American oil supplies could only be regarded as minimal. It was widely assumed amongst the others that his main interest in attending the meeting was to stir up as much trouble as possible, an assumption that was probably correct.

All ten were, in various degrees, suppliers of oil to the United States and had the one common interest: to see that the price of those supplies did not drop. The last thing they all wanted to see was an oil value depreciation.

Benson, whose holiday home this was and who was nominally hosting the meeting, opened the discussion.

‘Gentlemen, does anyone have any strong objections if I bring a third party – that is, a man who represents neither ourselves nor Lord Worth – into this meeting?’

Practically everyone had, and there were some moments of bedlamic confusion: they had not only objections but very strong ones at that.

Borosoff, the Russian, said: ‘No. It is too dangerous.’ He glanced around the group with calculated suspiciousness. ‘There are already too many of us privy to these discussions.’

Benson, who had not become head of one of Europe’s biggest oil companies, a British-based one, just because someone had handed him the job as a birthday present, could be disconcertingly blunt.

‘You, Borosoff, are the one with the slenderest claims to be present at this meeting. You might well bear that in mind. Name your suspect.’ Borosoff remained silent. ‘Bear in mind, gentlemen, the objective of this meeting – to maintain, at least, the present oil price levels. The OPEC is now actively considering hiking all oil prices. That doesn’t hurt us much here in the US – we’ll just hike our own prices and pass them on to the public.’

Patinos said: ‘You’re every bit as unscrupulous and ruthless as you claim us to be.’

’Realism is not the same as ruthlessness. Nobody’s going to hike anything while Worth Hudson is around. They are already undercutting us, the majors. A slight pinch, but we feel it. If we raise our prices more and theirs remain steady, the slight pinch is going to increase. And if they get some more TLPs into operation then the pinch will be beginning to hurt. It will also hurt the OPEC, for the demand for your products will undoubtedly fall off.

’We all subscribe to the gentlemen’s agreement among major oil companies that they will not prospect for oil in international waters, that is to say outside their own legally and internationally recognized territorial limits. Without observance of this agreement, the possibilities of legal, diplomatic, political and international strife, ranging from scenes of political violence to outright armed confrontation, are only too real. Let us suppose that Nation A – as some countries have already done – claims all rights for all waters a hundred miles offshore from its coasts. Let us further suppose that Nation B comes along and starts drilling thirty miles outside those limits. Then, horror of horrors, let us suppose that Nation A makes a unilateral decision to extend its offshore limits to a hundred and fifty miles – and don’t forget that Peru has claimed two hundred miles as its limits: the subsequent possibilities are too awesome to contemplate.

’Alas, not all are gentlemen. The chairman of the Worth Hudson Oil Company, Lord Worth, and his entire pestiferous board of directors, would have been the first vehemently to deny any suggestion that they were gentlemen, a fact held in almost universal acceptance by their competitors in oil. They would also equally vehemently have denied that they were criminals, a fact that may or may not have been true, but most certainly is not true now.

’He has, in short, committed what should be two indictable offences. “Should,” I say. The first is unprovable, the second, although an offence in moral terms, is not, as yet, strictly illegal.

‘The facts of the first – and what I consider much the minor offence – concerns the building of Lord Worth’s TLP in Hudson. It is no secret in the industry that the plans for those were stolen – those for the platform from the Mobil Oil Company, those for the legs and anchoring systems from the Chevron Oilfield Research Company. But, as I say, unprovable. It is commonplace for new inventions and developments to occur at two or more places simultaneously, and he can always claim that his design team, working in secret, beat the others to the gun.’

In saying which Benson was perfectly correct. In the design of the Seawitch Lord Worth had adopted short-cuts which the narrow-minded could have regarded as unscrupulous if not illegal. Like all oil companies, Worth Hudson had its own design team. As they were all cronies of Lord Worth and were employed for purely tax-deductible purposes, their combined talents would have been incapable of designing a rowing boat.

This didn’t worry Lord Worth. He didn’t need a design team. He was a vastly wealthy man, had powerful friends – none of them, needless to say, among the oil companies – and was a master of industrial espionage. With the resources at his disposal he found little trouble in obtaining those two secret advance plans, which he passed on to a firm of highly competent marine designers, whose exorbitant fees were matched only by their extreme discretion. The designers found little difficulty in marrying the two sets of plans, adding just sufficient modifications and improvements to discourage those with a penchant for patent rights litigation.

Benson went on: ‘But what really worries me, and what should worry all you gentlemen here, is Lord Worth’s violation of the tacit agreement never to indulge in drilling in international waters.’ He paused, deliberately for effect, and looked slowly at each of the other nine in turn. ‘I say in all seriousness, gentlemen, that Lord Worth’s foolhardiness and greed may well prove to be the spark that triggers off the ignition of a third world war. Apart from protecting our own interests I maintain that for the good of mankind – and I speak from no motive of spurious self-justification – if the governments of the world do not intervene then the imperative is that we should. As the governments show no signs of intervention, then I suggest that the burden lies upon us. This madman must be stopped. I think you gentlemen would agree that only we realize the full implications of all of this and that only we have the technical expertise to stop him.’

There were murmurs of approval from around the room. A sincere and disinterested concern for the good of mankind was a much more morally justifiable reason for action than the protection of one’s own selfish interests. Patinos, the man from Venezuela, looked at Benson with a smile of mild cynicism on his face. The smile signified nothing. Patinos, a sincere and devout Catholic, wore the same expression when he passed through the doors of his church.

‘You seem very sure of this, Mr Benson?’

‘I’ve given quite some thought to it.’

Borosoff said: ‘And quite how do you propose to stop this madman, Mr Benson?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’ One of the others at the table lifted his eyebrows about a millimeter – which, for him, was a sign of complete disapproval. ‘Then why did you summon us all this distance?’

‘I didn’t summon you. I asked you. I asked you to approve whatever course of action we might take.’

‘This course of action being? –’

‘Again, I don’t know.’

The eyebrows returned to normal. A twitch of the man’s lip showed that he was contemplating smiling.

‘This – ah – third party?’

‘Yes.’

‘He has a name?’

‘Cronkite. John Cronkite.’

A hush descended upon the company. The open objections had turned into pensive hesitation which in turn gave way to nodding acceptance. Benson apart, no one there had ever met Cronkite, but his name was a household word to all of them. In the oil business his name had in his own lifetime long become a legend, although at times a far from savoury one. They all knew that any of them might require his incomparable services at any time, while at the same time hoping that that day would never come.

When it came to the capping of blazing gushers, Cronkite was without peer. Wherever in the world a gusher blew fire no one even considered putting it out themselves, they just sent for Cronkite. To wincing observers his modus operandi seemed nothing short of Draconian, but Cronkite would blasphemously brook no interference. Despite the extortionate fees he charged it was more common than not for a four-engined jet to be put at his disposal to get him to the scene of the disaster as quickly as possible. Cronkite always delivered. He also knew all there was to know about the oil business. And he was, hardly surprisingly, extremely tough and ruthless.

Henderson, who represented oil interests in Honduras, said: ‘Why should a man with his extraordinary qualifications, the world’s number one, as we all know, choose to engage himself in – ah – an enterprise of this nature? From his reputation I would hardly have thought that he was one to be concerned about the woes of suffering mankind.’

‘He isn’t. Money. Cronkite comes very high. A fresh challenge – the man’s a born adventurer. But, basically, it’s because he hates Lord Worth’s guts.’

Henderson said: ‘Not an uncommon sentiment, it seems. Why?’

‘Lord Worth sent his own private Boeing for him to come cap a blazing gusher in the Middle East. By the time Cronkite arrived Lord Worth’s own men had capped it. This, alone, Cronkite regarded as a mortal insult. He then made the mistake of demanding the full fee for his services. Lord Worth has a reputation for notorious Scottish meanness, which, while an insult to the Scots, is more than justified in his case. He refused, and said that he would pay him for his time, no more. Cronkite then compounded his error by taking him to court. With the kind of lawyers Lord Worth can afford, Cronkite never had a chance. Not only did he lose but he had to pay the costs.’

‘Which wouldn’t be low?’ Henderson said.

‘Medium-high to massive. I don’t know. All I know is that Cronkite has done quite a bit of brooding about it ever since.’

‘Such a man would not have to be sworn to secrecy?’

‘A man can swear a hundred different oaths and break them all. Besides, because of the exorbitant fees Cronkite charges, his feeling towards Lord Worth and the fact that he might just have to step outside the law, his silence is ensured.’

It was the turn of another of those grouped round the table to raise his eyebrows. ‘Outside the law? We cannot risk being involved –’

‘“Might,” I said. For us, the element of risk does not exist.’

‘May we see this man?’

Benson nodded, rose, went to a door and admitted Cronkite.

Cronkite was a Texan. In height, build and cragginess of features he bore a remarkable resemblance to John Wayne. Unlike Wayne he never smiled. His face was of a peculiarly yellow complexion, typical of those who have had an overdose of anti-malarial tablets, which was just what had happened to Cronkite. Mepacrine does not make for a peaches and cream complexion – not that Cronkite had ever had anything even remotely resembling that. He was newly returned from Indonesia, where he had inevitably maintained his hundred percent record.

‘Mr Cronkite,’ Benson said. ‘Mr Cronkite, this is –’

Cronkite was brusque. In a gravelly voice he said: ‘I do not wish to know their names.’

In spite of the abruptness of his tone, several of the oilmen round the table almost beamed. Here was a man of discretion, a man after their own hearts.

Cronkite went on: ‘All I understand from Mr Benson is that I am required to attend to a matter involving Lord Worth and the Seawitch. Mr Benson has given me a pretty full briefing. I know the background. I would like, first of all, to hear any suggestions you gentlemen may have to offer.’ Cronkite sat down, lit what proved to be a very foul-smelling cigar, and waited expectantly.

He kept silent during the following half-hour discussion. For ten of the world’s top businessmen they proved to be an extraordinary inept, not to say inane lot. They talked in an ever-narrowing series of concentric circles.

Henderson said: ‘First of all it must be agreed that there is no violence to be used. Is it so agreed?’

Everybody nodded their agreement. Each and every one of them was a pillar of business respectability who could not afford to have his reputation besmirched in any way. No one appeared to notice that Cronkite sat motionless as a graven image. Except for lifting a hand to puff out increasingly vile clouds of smoke, Cronkite did not move throughout the discussion. He also remained totally silent.

After agreeing that there should be no violence the meeting of ten agreed on nothing.

Finally Patinos spoke up. ‘Why don’t you – one of you four Americans, I mean – approach your Congress to pass an emergency law banning offshore drilling in extra-territorial waters?’

Benson looked at him with something akin to pity. ‘I am afraid, sir, that you do not quite understand the relations between the American majors and Congress On the few occasions we have met with them – something to do with too much profits and too little tax – I’m afraid we have treated them in so – ah – cavalier a fashion that nothing would give than greater pleasure than to refuse any request we might make.’

One of the others, known simply as ‘Mr A’, said: ‘How about an approach to that international legal ombudsman, the Hague? After all, this is an international matter.’

‘Not on.’ Henderson shook his head ‘Forget it. The dilatoriness of that august body is so legendary that all present would be long retired – or worse – before a decision is made. The decision would just as likely be negative anyway.’

‘UNO?’ Mr A said.

‘That talk-shop!’ Benson had obviously a low and not uncommon view of the UNO. ‘They haven’t even the power to order New York to install a new parking meter outside their front door.’

The next revolutionary idea came from one of the Americans.

‘Why shouldn’t we all agree, for an unspecified time – let’s see how it goes – to lower our price below that of Worth Hudson. In that case no one would want to buy their oil.’

This proposal was met with a stunned disbelief.

Corral spoke in a kind voice. ‘Not only would that lead to vast losses to the major oil companies, but would almost certainly and immediately lead Lord Worth to lower his prices fractionally below their new ones. The man has sufficient working capital to keep him going for a hundred years at a loss – in the unlikely event, that is, of his running at a loss at all.’

A lengthy silence followed. Cronkite was not quite as immobile as he had been. The granitic expression on his face remained unchanged but the fingers of his non-smoking hand had begun to drum gently on the arm-rest of his chair. For Cronkite, this was equivalent to throwing a fit of hysterics.

It was during this period that all thoughts of the ten of maintaining their high, gentlemanly and ethical standards against drilling in international waters were forgotten.

‘Why not,’ Mr A said, ‘buy him out?’ In fairness to Mr A it has to be said that he did not appreciate just how wealthy Lord Worth was and that, immensely wealthy though he, Mr A, was, Lord Worth could have bought him out lock, stock and barrel. ‘The Seawitch rights, I mean. A hundred million dollars. Let’s be generous, two hundred million dollars. Why not?’

Corral looked depressed. ‘The answer “why not” is easy. By the latest reckoning Lord Worth is one of the world’s five richest men and even two hundred million dollars would only come into the category of pennies as far as he was concerned.’

Mr A looked depressed.

Benson said: ‘Sure, he’d sell.’

Mr A visibly brightened.

‘For two reasons only. In the first place he’d make a quick and splendid profit. In the second place, for less than half the selling price, he could build another Seawitch, anchor it a couple of miles away from the present Seawitch – there are no leasehold rights in extra-territorial waters – and start sending oil ashore at his same old price.’

A temporarily deflated Mr A slumped back in his armchair.

‘A partnership, then,’ Mr A said. His tone was that of a man in a state of quiet despair.

‘Out of the question.’ Henderson was very positive. ‘Like all very rich men, Lord Worth is a born loner. He wouldn’t have a combined partnership with the King of Saudi Arabia and the Shah of Persia even if it had been offered him.’

In a pall-like gloom a baffled and exhausted silence fell upon the embattled ten. A thoroughly bored and hitherto wordless John Cronkite rose.

He said without preamble: ‘My personal fee will be one million dollars. I will require ten million dollars for operating expenses. Every cent of this will be accounted for and the unspent balance returned. I demand a completely free hand and no interference from any of you. If I do encounter any such interference I shall retain the balance of the expenses and at the same time abandon the mission. I refuse to disclose what my plans are – or will be when I have formulated them. Finally, I would prefer to have no further contact with any of you, now or at any time.’

The certainty and confidence of the man were astonishing. Agreement among the mightily-relieved ten was immediate and total. The ten million dollars – a trifling sum to those accustomed to spending as much in bribes every month or so – would be delivered within twenty-four, at the most forty-eight hours to a Cuban numbered account in Miami – the only place in the United States where Swiss-type numbered accounts were permitted. For tax evasion purposes the money, of course, would not come from any of their respective countries; instead, ironically enough, from their bulging offshore funds.

Chapter Two

Lord Worth was tall, lean and erect. His complexion was of the mahogany hue of the playboy millionaire who spends his life in the sun: Lord Worth seldom worked less than sixteen hours a day. His abundant hair and moustache were snow-white. According to his mood and expression and to the eye of the beholder he could have been a Biblical patriarch, a better-class Roman senator or a gentlemanly seventeenth-century pirate – except for the fact, of course, that none of those ever, far less habitually, wore lightweight alpaca suits of the same colour as Lord Worth’s hair.

He looked and was every inch an aristocrat. Unlike the many Americanas who bore the Christian names of Duke or Earl, Lord Worth really was a lord, the fifteenth in succession of a highly distinguished family of Scottish peers of the realm. The fact that their distinction had lain mainly in the fields of assassination, endless clan warfare, the stealing of women and cattle and the selling of their fellow peers down the river was beside the point: the earlier Scottish peers didn’t go in too much for the more cultural activities. The blue blood that had run in their veins ran in Lord Worth’s. As ruthless, predatory, acquisitive and courageous as any of his ancestors, Lord Worth simply went about his business with a degree of refinement and sophistication that would have lain several light years beyond their understanding.

He had reversed the trend of Canadians coming to Britain, making their fortunes and eventually being elevated to the peerage: he had already been a peer, and an extremely wealthy one, before emigrating to Canada. His emigration, which had been discreet and precipitous, had not been entirely voluntary. He had made a fortune in real estate in London before the Internal Revenue had become embarrassingly interested in his activities. Fortunately for him, whatever charges which might have been laid against his door were not extraditable.

He had spent several years in Canada, investing his millions in the Worth Hudson Oil Company and proving himself to be even more able in the oil business than he had been in real estate. His tankers and refineries spanned the globe before he had decided that the climate was too cold for him and moved south to Florida. His splendid mansion was the envy of the many millionaires – of a lesser financial breed, admittedly – who almost literally jostled for elbow-room in the Fort Lauderdale area.

The dining-room in that mansion was something to behold. Monks, by the very nature of their calling, are supposed to be devoid of all earthly lusts, but no monk, past or present, could ever have gazed on the gleaming magnificence of that splendid oaken refectory table without turning pale chartreuse in envy. The chairs, inevitably, were Louis XIV. The splendidly embroidered silken carpet, with a pile deep enough for a fair-sized mouse to take cover in, would have been judged by an expert to come from Damascus and to have cost a fortune: the expert would have been right on both counts. The heavy drapes and embroidered silken walls were of the same pale grey, the latter being enhanced by a series of original Impressionist paintings, no less than three by Matisse and the same number by Renoir. Lord Worth was no dilettante and was clearly trying to make amends for his ancestors’ shortcomings in the cultural fields.

It was in those suitably princely surroundings that Lord Worth was at the moment taking his ease, revelling in his second brandy and the company of the two beings whom after money – he loved most in the world: his two daughters Marina and Melinda, who had been so named by their now divorced Spanish mother. Both were young, both were beautiful, and could have been mistaken for twins, which they weren’t: they were easily distinguishable by the fact that while Marina’s hair was black as a raven’s wing Melinda’s was pure titian.

There were two other guests at the table. Many a local millionaire would have given a fair slice of his ill-gotten gains for the privilege and honour of sitting at Lord Worth’s table. Few were invited, and then but seldom. These two young men, comparatively as poor as church mice, had the unique privilege, without invitation, of coming and going as they pleased, which was pretty often.

Mitchell and Roomer were two pleasant men in their early thirties for whom Lord Worth had a strong if concealed admiration and whom he held in something close to awe – inasmuch as they were the only two completely honest men he had ever met. Not that Lord Worth had ever stepped on the wrong side of the law, although he frequently had a clear view of what happened on the other side: it was simply that he was not in the habit of dealing with honest men. They had both been highly efficient police sergeants, only they had been too efficient, much given to arresting the wrong people such as crooked politicians and equally crooked wealthy businessmen who had previously laboured under the misapprehension that they were above the law. They were fired, not to put too fine a point on it, for their total incorruptibility.

Of the two Michael Mitchell was the taller, the broader and the less good-looking. With slightly craggy face, ruffled dark hair and blue chin, he could never have made it as a matinée idol. John Roomer, with his brown hair and trimmed brown moustache, was altogether better-looking. Both were shrewd, intelligent and highly experienced. Roomer was the intuitive one, Mitchell the one long on action. Apart from being charming both men were astute and highly resourceful. And they were possessed of one other not inconsiderable quality: both were deadly marksmen.

Two years previously they had set up their own private investigative practice, and in that brief space of time had established such a reputation that people in real trouble now made a practice of going to them instead of to the police, a fact that hardly endeared them to the local law. Their homes and combined office were within two miles of Lord Worth’s estate where, as said, they were frequent and welcome visitors. That they did not come for the exclusive pleasure of his company Lord Worth was well aware. Nor, he knew, were they even in the slightest way interested in his money, a fact that Lord Worth found astonishing, as he had never previously encountered anyone who wasn’t thus interested. What they were interested in, and deeply so, were Marina and Melinda.

The door opened and Lord Worth’s butler, Jenkins – English, of course, as were the two footmen – made his usual soundless entrance, approached the head of the table and murmured discreetly in Lord Worth’s ear. Lord Worth nodded and rose.

‘Excuse me, girls, gentlemen. Visitors. I’m sure you can get along together quite well without me.’ He made his way to his study, entered and closed the door behind him, a very special padded door that, when shut, rendered the room completely soundproof.

The study, in its own way – Lord Worth was no sybarite but he liked his creature comforts as well as the next man – was as sumptuous as the dining-room: oak, leather, a wholly unnecessary log fire burning in one corner, all straight from the best English baronial mansions. The walls were lined with thousands of books, many of which Lord Worth had actually read, a fact that must have caused great distress to his illiterate ancestors, who had despised degeneracy above all else.

A tall bronzed man with aquiline features and grey hair rose to his feet. Both men smiled and shook hands warmly.

Lord Worth said: ‘Corral, my dear chap! How very nice to see you again. It’s been quite some time.’

‘My pleasure, Lord Worth. Nothing recently that would have interested you.’

‘But now?’

‘Now is something else again.’

The Corral who stood before Lord Worth was indeed the Corral who, in his capacity as representative of the Florida off-shore leases, had been present at the meeting of ten at Lake Tahoe. Some years had passed since he and Lord Worth had arrived at an amicable and mutually satisfactory agreement. Corral, widely regarded as Lord Worth’s most avowedly determined enemy and certainly the most vociferous of his critics, reported regularly to Lord Worth on the current activities and, more importantly, the projected plans of the major companies, which didn’t hurt Lord Worth at all. Corral, in return, received an annual tax-free retainer of $200,000, which didn’t hurt him very much either.

Lord Worth pressed a bell and within seconds Jenkins entered bearing a silver tray with two large brandies. There was no telepathy involved, just years of experience and a long-established foreknowledge of Lord Worth’s desires. When he left both men sat.

Lord Worth said: ‘Well, what news from the west?’

‘The Cherokee, I regret to say, are after you.’

Lord Worth sighed and said: ‘It had to come some time. Tell me all.’

Corral told him all. He had a near-photographic memory and a gift for concise and accurate reportage. Within five minutes Lord Worth knew all that was worth knowing about the Lake Tahoe meeting.

Lord Worth who, because of the unfortunate misunderstanding that had arisen between himself and Cronkite, knew the latter as well as any and better than most, said at the end of Corral’s report: ‘Did Cronkite subscribe to the ten’s agreement to abjure any form of violence?’

‘No.’

‘Not that it would have mattered if he had. Man’s a total stranger to the truth. And ten million dollars expenses, you tell me?’

‘It did seem a bit excessive.’

‘Can you see a massive outlay like that being concommitant with anything except violence?’

‘No.’

‘Do you think the others believed that there was no connection between them?’

‘Let me put it this way, sir. Any group of people who can convince themselves, or appear to convince themselves, that any action proposed to be taken against you is for the betterment of mankind is also prepared to convince themselves, or appear to convince themselves, that the word “Cronkite” is synonymous with peace on earth.’

‘So their consciences are clear. If Cronkite goes to any excessive lengths in death and destruction to achieve their ends they can always throw up their hands in horror and say, “Good God, we never thought the man would go that far.” Not that any connection between them and Cronkite would ever be established. What a bunch of devious, mealy-mouthed hypocrites!’

He paused for a moment.

‘I suppose Cronkite refused to divulge his plans?’

‘Absolutely. But there is one little and odd circumstance that I’ve kept for the end. Just as we were leaving Cronkite drew two of the ten to one side and spoke to them privately. It would be interesting to know why.’

‘Any chance of finding out?’

‘A fair chance. Nothing guaranteed. But I’m sure Benson could find out – after all, it was Benson who invited us all to Lake Tahoe.’

‘And you think you could persuade Benson to tell you?’

‘A fair chance. Nothing more.’

Lord Worth put on his resigned expression. ‘All right, how much?’

‘Nothing. Money won’t buy Benson.’ Corral shook his head in disbelief. ‘Extraordinary, in this day and age, but Benson is not a mercenary man. But he does owe me the odd favour, one of them being that, without me, he wouldn’t be the president of the oil company that he is now.’ Corral paused. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t asked me the identities of the two men Cronkite took aside.’

‘So am I.’

‘Borosoff of the Soviet Union and Pantos of Venezuela.’ Lord Worth appeared to lapse into a trance. ‘That mean anything to you?’

Lord Worth bestirred himself. ‘Yes. Units of the Russian navy are making a so-called “goodwill tour” of the Caribbean. They are, inevitably, based on Cuba. Of the ten, those are the only two that could bring swift – ah – naval intervention to bear against the Seawitch.’ He shook his head. ‘Diabolical. Utterly diabolical.’

‘My way of thinking too, sir. There’s no knowing. But I’ll check as soon as possible and hope to get results.’

‘And I shall take immediate precautions.’ Both men rose. ‘Corral, we shall have to give serious consideration to the question of increasing this paltry retainer of yours.’

‘We try to be of service, Lord Worth.’

Lord Worth’s private radio room bore more than a passing resemblance to the flight deck of his private 707. The variety of knobs, switches, buttons and dials was bewildering. Lord Worth seemed perfectly at home with them all, and proceeded to make a number of calls.

The first of these were to his four helicopter pilots, instructing them to have his two largest helicopters – never a man to do things by halves, Lord Worth owned no fewer than six of these machines – ready at his own private airfield shortly before dawn. The next four were to people of whose existence his fellow directors were totally unaware. The first was to Cuba, the second to Venezuela. Lord Worth’s world-wide range of contacts – employees, rather – was vast. The instructions to both were simple and explicit. A constant monitoring watch was to be kept on the naval bases in both countries, and any sudden and expected departures of any naval vessels, and their type, was to be reported to him immediately.

The third, to a person who lived not too many miles away, was addressed to a certain Giuseppe Palermo, whose name sounded as if he might be a member of the Mafia, but who definitely wasn’t: the Mafia Palermo despised as a mollycoddling organization which had become so ludicrously gentle in its methods of persuasion as to be in imminent danger of becoming respectable. The next call was to Baton Rouge in Louisiana, where there lived a person who only called himself ‘Conde’ and whose main claim to fame lay in the fact that he was the highest-ranking naval officer to have been court-martialled and dishonourably discharged since World War Two. He, like the others, received very explicit instructions. Not only was Lord Worth a master organizer, but the efficiency he displayed was matched only by his speed in operation.

The noble lord, who would have stoutly maintained – if anyone had the temerity to accuse him, which no one ever had – that he was no criminal, was about to become just that. Even this he would have strongly denied and that on three grounds. The Constitution upheld the rights of every citizen to bear arms; every man had the right to defend himself and his property against criminal attack by whatever means lay to hand; and the only way to fight fire was with fire.

The final call Lord Worth put through, and this time with total confidence, was to his tried and trusted lieutenant, Commander Larsen.

Commander Larsen was the captain of the Seawitch.

Larsen – no one knew why he called himself ‘Commander’, and he wasn’t the kind of person you asked – was a rather different breed of man from his employer. Except in a public court or in the presence of a law officer he would cheerfully admit to anyone that he was both a non-gentleman and a criminal. And he certainly bore no resemblance to any aristocrat, alive or dead. But for all that there did exist a genuine rapport and mutual respect between Lord Worth and himself. In all likelihood they were simply brothers under the skin.

As a criminal and non-aristocrat – and casting no aspersions on honest unfortunates who may resemble him – he certainly looked the part. He had the general build and appearance of the more viciously daunting heavy-weight wrestler, deep-set black eyes that peered out under the overhanging foliage of hugely bushy eyebrows, an equally bushy black beard, a hooked nose and a face that looked as if it had been in regular contact with a series of heavy objects. No one, with the possible exception of Lord Worth, knew who he was, what he had been or from where he had come. His voice, when he spoke, came as a positive shock: beneath that Neanderthaloid façade was the voice and the mind of an educated man. It really ought not to have come as such a shock: beneath the façade of many an exquisite fop lies the mind of a retarded fourth-grader.

Larsen was in the radio room at that moment, listening attentively, nodding from time to time, then flicked a switch that put the incoming call on to the loudspeaker.

He said: ‘All clear, sir. Everything understood. We’ll make the preparations. But haven’t you overlooked something, sir?’

‘Overlooked what?’ Lord Worth’s voice over the telephone carried the overtones of a man who couldn’t possibly have overlooked anything.

‘You’ve suggested that armed surface vessels may be used against us. If they’re prepared to go to such lengths isn’t it feasible that they’ll go to any lengths?’

‘Get to the point, man.’

‘The point is that it’s easy enough to keep an eye on a couple of naval bases. But I suggest it’s a bit more difficult to keep an eye on a dozen, maybe two dozen airfields.’

‘Good God!’ There was a long pause during which the rattle of cogs and the meshing of gear-wheels in Lord Worth’s brain couldn’t be heard. ‘Do you really think –’

‘If I were on the Seawitch, Lord Worth, it would be six and half a dozen to me whether I was clobbered by shells or bombs. And planes could get away from the scene of the crime a damn sight faster than ships. They could get clean away. The US navy or land-based bombers would have a good chance of intercepting surface vessels. And another thing, Lord Worth.’

There was a moment’s pause.

‘A ship could stop at a distance of a hundred miles. No distance at all for the guided missile, I believe they have a range of four thousand miles these days. When the missile was, say, twenty miles from us, they could switch on its heat-source tracking device. God knows, we’re the only heat-source for a hundred miles around.’

Another lengthy pause, then: ‘Any more encouraging thoughts occur to you, Commander Larsen?’

‘Yes, sir. Just one. If I were the enemy – I may call them the enemy –’

‘Call the devils what you want.’

‘If I were the enemy I’d use a submarine. They don’t even have to break water to loose off a missile. Poof! No Seawitch. No signs of any attacker. Could well be put down to a massive explosion aboard the Seawitch. Far from impossible, sir.’

‘You’ll be telling me next that there’ll be atomic-headed missiles.’

‘To be picked up by a dozen seismological stations? I should think it hardly likely, sir. But that may just be wishful thinking. I have no wish to be vaporized.’

‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ The line went dead.

Larsen hung up his phone and smiled widely. One would have subconsciously imagined this action to reveal a set of yellowed fangs: instead, it revealed a perfect set of gleamingly white teeth. He turned to look at Scoffield, his head driller and right-hand man.

Scoffield was a large, rubicund, smiling man, the easy-going essence of good nature. To the fact that this was not precisely the case any member of his drilling crews would have eagerly and blasphemously testified. Scoffield was a very tough citizen indeed and one could assume that it was not innate modesty that made him conceal this: much more probably it was a permanent stricture of the facial muscles caused by the four long vertical scars on his cheeks, two on either side. Clearly he, like Larsen, was no great advocate of plastic surgery. He looked at Larsen with understandable curiosity.

‘What was all that about?’

‘The day of reckoning is at hand. Prepare to meet thy doom. More specifically, his lordship is beset by enemies.’ Larsen outlined Lord Worth’s plight. ‘He’s sending what sounds like a battalion of hard men out here in the early morning, accompanied by suitable weaponry. Then in the afternoon we are to expect a boat of some sort, loaded with even heavier weaponry.’

‘One wonders where he’s getting all those hard men and weaponry from.’

‘One wonders. One does not ask.’

‘All this talk – your talk – about bombers and submarines and missiles. Do you believe that?’

‘No. It’s just that it’s hard to pass up the opportunity to ruffle the aristocratic plumage.’ He paused then said thoughtfully: ‘At least I hope I don’t believe it. Come, let us examine our defences.’

‘You’ve got a pistol. I’ve got a pistol. That’s defences?’

‘Well, where we’ll mount the defences when they arrive. Fixed large-bore guns, I should imagine.’

‘If they arrive.’

‘Give the devil his due. Lord Worth delivers.’

‘From his own private armoury, I suppose.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘What do you really think, Commander?’

‘I don’t know. All I know is that if Lord Worth is even half-way right life aboard may become slightly less monotonous in the next few days.’

The two men moved out into the gathering dusk on to the platform. The Seawitch was moored in 150 fathoms of water – 900 feet – which was well within the tensioning cables’ capacities – safely south of the US’s mineral leasing blocks and the great east-west fairway, straight on top of the biggest oil reservoir yet discovered round the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The two men paused at the drilling derrick where a drill, at its maximum angled capacity, was trying to determine the extent of the oilfield. The crew looked at them without any particular affection but not with hostility. There was reason for the lack of warmth.

Before any laws were passed making such drilling illegal, Lord Worth wanted to scrape the bottom of this gigantic barrel of oil. Not that he was particularly worried, for government agencies are notoriously slow to act: but there was always the possibility that they might bestir themselves this time and that, horror of horrors, the bonanza might turn out to be vastly larger than estimated.

Hence the present attempt to discover the limits of the strike and hence the lack of warmth. Hence the reason why Larsen and Scoffield, both highly gifted slave-drivers, born centuries out of their time, drove their men day and night. The men disliked it, but not to the point of rebellion. They were highly paid, well housed and well fed. True, there was little enough in the way of wine, women and song but then, after an exhausting twelve-hour shift, those frivolities couldn’t hope to compete with the attractions of a massive meal then a long, deep sleep. More importantly and most unusually, the men were paid a bonus on every thousand barrels of oil.

Larsen and Scoffield made their way to the western apex of the platform and gazed out at the massive bulk of the storage tank, its topsides festooned with warning lights. They gazed at this for some time, than turned and walked back towards the accommodation quarters.

Scoffield said: ‘Decided upon your gun emplacements yet, Commander – if there are any guns?’

‘There’ll be guns.’ Larsen was confident. ‘But we won’t need any in this quarter.’

‘Why?’

‘Work it out for yourself. As for the rest, I’m not too sure. It’ll come to me in my sleep. My turn for an early night. See you at four.’

The oil was not stored aboard the rig – it is forbidden by a law based strictly on common sense to store hydrocarbons at or near the working platform of an oil rig. Instead, Lord Worth, on Larsen’s instructions – which had prudently come in the form of suggestions – had had built a huge floating tank which was anchored, on a basis exactly similar to that of the Seawitch herself, at a distance of about three hundred yards. Cleansed oil was pumped into this after it came up from the ocean floor, or, more precisely, from a massive limestone reef deep down below the ocean floor, a reef caused by tiny marine creatures of a now long-covered shallow sea of anything up to half a billion years ago.

Once, sometimes twice a day, a 50,000 dw tanker would stop by and empty the huge tank. There were three of those tankers employed on the criss-cross run to the southern US. The Worth Hudson Oil Company did, in fact, have supertankers, but the use of them in this case did not serve Lord Worth’s purpose. Even the entire contents of the Seawitch tank would not have filled a quarter of the super-tanker’s carrying capacity, and the possibility of a super-tanker running at a loss, however small, would have been the source of waking nightmares for the Worth Hudson: equally important, the more isolated ports which Lord Worth favoured for the delivery of his oil were unable to offer deep-water berth-side facilities for anything in excess of 50,000 dw.

It might in passing be explained that Lord Worth’s choice of those obscure ports was not entirely fortuitous. Among those who were a party to the gentlemen’s agreement against offshore drilling – some of the most vociferous of those who roundly condemned Worth Hudson’s nefarious practices – were regrettably Worth Hudson’s best customers. They were the smaller companies who operated on marginal profits and lacked the resources to engage in research and exploration, which the larger companies did, investing allegedly vast sums in those projects and then, to the continuous fury of the Internal Revenue Service and the anger of numerous Congressional investigation committees, claiming even vaster tax exemptions.

But to the smaller companies the lure of cheaper oil was irresistible. The Seawitch, which probably produced as much oil as all the government official leasing areas combined, seemed a sure and perpetual source of cheap oil until, that was, the government stepped in, which might or might not happen in the next decade: the big companies had already demonstrated their capacity to deal with inept Congressional enquiries and, as long as the energy crisis continued, nobody was going to worry very much about where oil came from, as long as it was there. In addition, the smaller companies felt, if the OPEC – the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries – could play ducks and drakes with oil prices whenever they felt like it, why couldn’t they?

Less than two miles from Lord Worth’s estate were the adjacent homes and common office of Michael Mitchell and John Roomer. It was Mitchell who answered the door bell.

The visitor was of medium height, slightly tubby, wore wire-rimmed glasses and alopecia had hit him hard. He said: ‘May I come in?’ in a clipped but courteous enough voice.

‘Sure.’ Mitchell let him in. ‘We don’t usually see people this late.’

‘Thank you. I come on unusual business. James Bentley.’ A little sleight of hand and a card appeared. ‘FBI.’

Mitchell didn’t even look at it. ‘You can have those things made at any joke shop. Where you from?’

‘Miami.’

‘Phone number?’

Bentley reversed the card which Mitchell handed to Roomer. ‘My memory man. Saves me from having to have a memory of my own.’

Roomer didn’t glance at the card either. ‘It’s okay, Mike. I have him. You’re the boss man up there, aren’t you?’ A nod. ‘Please sit down, Mr Bentley.’

‘One thing clear, first,’ Mitchell said. ‘Are we under investigation?’

‘On the contrary. The State Department has asked me to ask you to help them.’

‘Status at last,’ Mitchell said. ‘We’ve got it made, John, but for one thing – the State Department don’t know who the hell we are.’

‘I do.’ Discussion closed. ‘I understand you gentlemen are friendly with Lord Worth.’

Roomer was careful. ‘We know him slightly, socially – just as you seem to know a little about us.’

‘I know a lot about you, including the fact that you are a couple of ex-cops who never learned to look the right way at the right time and the wrong way at the wrong time. Bars the ladder to promotion. I want you to carry out a little investigation into Lord Worth.’

‘No deal,’ Mitchell said. ‘We know him slightly better than slightly.’

‘Hear me out, Mike.’ But Roomer’s face, too, had lost whatever little friendliness it may have held.

‘Lord Worth has been making loud noises – over the phone – to the State Department. He seems to be suffering from a persecution complex. This interests the State Department, for they see him more in the role of the persecutor than the persecuted.’

‘You mean the FBI does,’ Roomer said. ‘You’ll have had him on your files for years. Lord Worth always gives the impression of being eminently capable of looking after himself.’

‘That’s precisely what intrigues the State Department.’

Mitchell said: ‘What kind of noises?’

‘Nonsense noises. You know he has an oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico?’

‘The Seawitch? Yes.’

‘He appears to be under the impression that the Seawitch is in mortal danger. He wants protection. Very modest in his demands, as becomes a bulti-millionaire – the odd missile frigate, some missile fighters standing by, just in case.’

‘In case of what?’

‘That’s the rub. He refused to say. Just said he had secret information – which, in fact, wouldn’t surprise me. The Lord Worths of this world have their secret agents everywhere.’

‘You’d better level with us,’ Mitchell said.

‘I’ve told you all I know. The rest is surmise. Calling the State Department means that there are foreign countries involved. There are Soviet naval vessels in the Caribbean at present. The State Department smell an international incident or worse.’

‘What do you want us to do?’

‘Not much. Just to find out Lord Worth’s intended movements for the next day or two.’

Mitchell said: ‘And if we refuse? We have our licences rescinded?’

‘I am not a corrupt police chief. Just forget that you ever saw me. But I thought you might care enough about Lord Worth to help protect him against himself or the consequences of any rash action he might take. I thought you might care even more about the reactions of his two daughters if anything were to happen to their father.’

Mitchell stood up, jerked a thumb. ‘The front door. You know too damn much.’

‘Sit down.’ A sudden chill asperity. ‘Don’t be foolish. Of course it’s my job to know too damn much. But apart from Lord Worth and his family I thought you might have some little concern for your country’s welfare.’

Roomer said: ‘Isn’t that pitching it a little high?’

‘Very possibly. But it is the policy of both the State Department and the FBI not to take any chances.’

Roomer said: ‘You’re putting us in a damned awkward situation.’

‘Don’t think I don’t appreciate that. Horns of a dilemma, torn loyalties, biting the hand that feeds you, all that sort of thing. I know I’ve put you in a spot and apologize for it, but I’m afraid you’ll have to resolve that particular dilemma yourselves.’

Mitchell said: ‘Thank you for dropping this little problem in our laps. What do you expect us to do? Go to Lord Worth, ask him why he’s been hollering to the State Department, ask him what he’s up to and what his immediate plans are?’

Bentley smiled. ‘Nothing so crude. You have a remarkable reputation – except, of course, in the police department – of being, in that vulgar phrase, a couple of classy operators. The approach is up to you.’ He stood. ‘Keep that card and let me know when you find out anything. How long would that take, do you think?’

Roomer said: ‘A couple of hours.’

‘A couple of hours?’ Even Bentley seemed momentarily taken aback. ‘You don’t, then, require an invitation to visit the baronial mansion?’

‘No.’

‘Millionaires do.’

‘We aren’t even thousandaires.’

‘It makes a difference. Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. Good night.’

After Bentley’s departure the two men sat for a couple of minutes in silence, then Mitchell said: ‘We play it both ways?’

‘We play it every way.’ Roomer reached for a phone, dialled a number and asked for Lord Worth. He had to identify himself before he was put through – Lord Worth was a man who respected his privacy.

Roomer said: ‘Lord Worth? Mitchell and Roomer here. Something to discuss with you, sir, which may or may not be of urgency and importance. We would prefer not to discuss it over the phone.’ He paused, listened for a few moments, murmured a thank you and hung up.

‘He’ll see us right away. Park the car in the lane. Side door. Study. Says the girls have gone upstairs.’

‘Think our friend Bentley will already have our phone tapped?’

‘Not worth his FBI salt if he hasn’t.’

Five minutes later, car parked in the lane, they were making their way through the trees to the side door. Their progress was observed with interest by Marina, standing by the window in her upstairs bedroom. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then turned and unhurriedly left the room.

Lord Worth welcomed the two men in his study and securely closed the padded door behind them. He swung open the doors of a concealed bar and poured three brandies. There were times when one rang for Jenkins and there were times when one didn’t. He lifted his glass.

‘Health. An unexpected pleasure.’

‘It’s no pleasure for us,’ Roomer said gloomily.

‘Then you haven’t come to ask me for my daughters’ hands in marriage?’

‘No, sir.’ Mitchell said. ‘No such luck. John here is better at explaining these things.’

‘What things?’

‘We’ve just had a visit from a senior FBI agent.’ Roomer handed over Bentley’s card. ‘There’s a number on the back that we’re to ring when we’ve extracted some information from you.’

‘How very interesting.’ There was a long pause then Lord Worth looked at each man in turn. ‘What kind of information?’

‘In Bentley’s words, you have been making “loud noises” to the State Department. According to them, you seem to think that the Seawitch is under threat. They want to know where you got this secret information, and what your proposed movements are.’

‘Why didn’t the FBI come directly to me?’

‘Because you wouldn’t have told them any more than you told the State Department. If, that is to say, you’d even let them over the threshold of your house. But they know – Bentley told us this – that we come across here now and again, so I suppose they figured you’d be less off your guard with us.’

‘So Bentley figures that you’d craftily wring some careless talk from me without my being aware that I was talking carelessly.’

‘Something like that.’

‘But doesn’t this put you in a somewhat invidious position?’

‘Not really.’

‘But you’re supposed to uphold the law, no?’

‘Yes.’ Mitchell spoke with some feeling. ‘But not organized law. Or have you forgotten, Lord Worth, that we’re a couple of ex-cops because we wouldn’t go along with your so-called organized law? Our only responsibility is to our clients.’

‘I’m not your client.’

‘No.’

‘Would you like me to be your client?’

Roomer said: ‘What on earth for?’

‘It’s never something for nothing in this world, John. Services have to be rewarded.’

‘Failure of a mission.’ Mitchell was on his feet. ‘It was kind of you to see us, Lord Worth.’

‘I apologize.’ Lord Worth sounded genuinely contrite. ‘I’m afraid I rather stepped out of line there.’ He paused ruminatively, then smiled. ‘Just trying to recall when last I apologized to anybody. I seem to have a short memory. Bless my lovely daughters. Information for our friends of the FBI? First, I received my information in context of several anonymous threats – telephone calls – on the lives of my daughters. A double-barrelled threat, if you will – against the girls if I didn’t stop the flow of oil – as they pointed out I can’t hide them for ever and there’s nothing one can do against a sniper’s bullet – and if I were too difficult they’d have the Seawitch blown out of the water. As for my future movements. I’m going out to the Seawitch tomorrow afternoon and will remain there for twenty-four hours, perhaps forty-eight.’

Roomer said: ‘Any truth in either of those two statements?’

‘Don’t be preposterous. Of course not. I am going out to the rig – but before dawn. I don’t want those beady-eyed bandits watching me from the undergrowth at my heliport as I take off.’

‘You are referring to the FBI, sir?’

‘Who else? Will that do for the moment?’

‘Splendidly.’

They walked back to the lane in silence. Roomer got in behind the wheel of the car, Mitchell beside him.

Roomer said: ‘Well, well, well.’

‘Well, as you say, well, well, well. Crafty old devil.’

Marina’s voice came from the back. ‘Crafty he may be, but –’

She broke off in a gasp as Mitchell whirled in his seat and Roomer switched on the interior lights. The barrel of Mitchell’s .38 was lined up between her eyes, eyes at the moment wide with shock and fear.

Mitchell said in a soft voice: ‘Don’t ever do that to me again. Next time it may be too late.’

She licked her lips. She was normally as high-spirited and independent as she was beautiful, but it is a rather disconcerting thing to look down the muzzle of a pistol for the first time in your life. ‘I was just going to say that he may be crafty but he’s neither old nor a devil. Will you please put that gun away? You don’t point guns at people you love.’

Mitchell’s gun disappeared. He said: ‘I’m not much given to falling in love with crazy young fools.’

‘Or spies.’ Roomer was looking at Melinda. ‘What are you two doing here?’

Melinda was more composed than her sister. After all, she hadn’t had to look down the barrel of a pistol. She said: ‘And you, John Roomer, are a crafty young devil. You’re just stalling for time.’ Which was quite true.

‘What’s that meant to mean?’

‘It means you’re thinking furiously of the answer to the same question we’re about to ask you. What are you two doing here?’

‘That’s none of your concern.’ Roomer’s normally soft-spoken voice was unaccustomedly and deliberately harsh.

There was a silence from the back seat, both girls realizing that there was more to the men than they had thought, and the gap between their social and professional lives wider than they had thought.

Mitchell sighed. ‘Let’s cool it, John. Sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful child.’

‘Jesus!’ Roomer shook his head. ‘That you can say again.’ He hadn’t the faintest idea What Mitchell was talking about.

Mitchell said: ‘Why don’t you go to your father and ask him? I’m sure he’ll tell you – at the cost of the biggest shellacking you’ve ever had in your lives for interfering in his private business.’ He got out, opened the rear door, waited until the sisters got out, closed the rear door, said ‘Good night’ and returned to his seat, leaving the sisters standing uncertainly at the side of the road.

Roomer drove off. He said: ‘Very masterful, though I didn’t like doing it. God knows, they meant no harm. Never mind, it may stand us in good stead in the future.’

‘It’ll stand us in even better stead if we get to the phone box just round the corner as soon as we can.’

They reached the booth in fifteen seconds and one minute later Mitchell emerged from it. As he took his seat Roomer said: ‘What was all that about?’

‘Sorry, private matter.’ Mitchell handed Roomer a piece of paper. Roomer switched on the overhead light. On the paper Mitchell had scrawled. ‘This car bugged?’

Roomer said: ‘Okay by me.’ They drove home in silence. Standing in his carport Roomer said: ‘What makes you think my car’s bugged?’

‘Nothing. How far do you trust Bentley?’

‘You know how far. But he – or one of his men – wouldn’t have had time.’

‘Five seconds isn’t a long time. That’s all the time it takes to attach a magnetic clamp.’

They searched the car, then Mitchell’s. Both were clean. In Mitchell’s kitchen Roomer said: ‘Your phone call?’

‘The old boy, of course. Got to him before the girls did. Told him what had happened and that he was to tell them he’d received threats against their lives, that he knew the source, that he didn’t trust the local law and so had sent for us to deal with the matter. Caught on at once. Also to give them hell for interfering.’

Roomer said: ‘He’ll convince them.’

‘More importantly, did he convince you?’

‘No. He thinks fast on his feet and lies even faster. He wanted to find out how seriously he would be taken in the case of a real emergency. He now has the preliminary evidence that he is being taken seriously. You have to hand it to him – as craftily devious as they come. Not that we haven’t always known that. I suppose we tell Bentley exactly what he told us to tell him?’

‘What else?’

‘Do you believe what he told us to be truth?’

‘That he has his own private intelligence corps? I wouldn’t question it for a moment. That he’s going out to the Seawitch? I believe that, too. I’m not so sure about his timing, though. We’re to tell Bentley that he’s leaving in the afternoon. He told us he’s leaving about dawn. If he can lie to Bentley he can lie to us. I don’t know why he should think it necessary to lie to us, probably just his lordship’s second nature. I think he’s going to leave much sooner than that.’

Roomer said: ‘Me, too, I’m afraid. If I intended to be up by dawn’s early light I’d be in bed by now or heading that way. He shows no signs of going to bed, from which I can only conclude that he has no intentions of going to bed, because it wouldn’t be worth his while.’ He paused. ‘So. A double stake-out?’

‘I thought so. Up by Lord Worth’s house and down by his heliport. You for the heliport, me for the tail job?’

‘What else?’ Mitchell was possessed of phenomenal night-sight. Except on the very blackest of nights he could drive without any lights at all, an extraordinarily rare quality which, in wartime, made generals scour an army for such men as chauffeurs. ‘I’ll ‘hole up behind the west spinney. You know it?’

‘I know it. How about you feeding the story to Bentley while I make a couple of flasks of coffee and some sandwiches?’

‘Fine.’ Roomer reached for the phone, then paused. ‘Tell me, why are we doing all this? We owe nothing to the FBI. We have no authority from anyone to do anything. As you said yourself, we and organized law walk in different directions. I feel under no obligation to save my country from a non-existent threat. We have no client, no commission, no prospect of fees. Why should we care if Lord Worth sticks his head into a noose?’

Mitchell paused in slicing bread. ‘As to your last question, why don’t you ring up Melinda and ask her?’

Roomer gave him a long, old-fashioned look, sighed and reached for the telephone.

Chapter Three

Scoffield had been wrong in his guess. Lord Worth was possessed of no private armoury. But the United States armed services were, and in their dozens, at that.

The two break-ins were accomplished with the professional expertise born of a long and arduous practice that precluded any possibility of mistakes. The targets in both cases were government armouries, one army and one naval. Both, naturally, were manned by round-the-clock guards, none of whom was killed or even injured if one were to disregard the cranial contusions – and those were few – caused by sandbagging and sapping: Lord Worth had been very explicit on the use of minimal violence.

Giuseppe Palermo, who looked and dressed like a successful Wall Street broker, had the more difficult task of the two, although, as a man who held the Mafia in tolerant contempt, he regarded the exercise as almost childishly easy. Accompanied by nine almost equally respectable men – sartorially respectable, that was – three of whom were dressed as army majors, he arrived at the Florida armoury at fifteen minutes to midnight. The six young guards, none of whom had even seen or heard a shot fired in anger, were at their drowsiest and expecting nothing but their midnight reliefs. Only two were really fully awake – the other four had dozed away – and those two, responding to a heavy and peremptory hammering on the main entrance door, were disturbed, not to say highly alarmed, by the appearance of three army officers who announced that they were making a snap inspection to test security and alertness. Five minutes later all six were bound and gagged – two of them unconscious and due to wake up with very sore heads because of their misguided attempts to put up a show of resistance – and safely locked up in one of the many so-called secure rooms in the armoury.

During this period and the next twenty minutes one of Palermo’s men, an electronics expert called Jamieson, made a thorough and totally comprehensive search for all the external alarm signals to both the police and nearest military HQ. He either defused or disconnected them all.

It was when he was engaged in this that the relief guard, almost as drowsy as those whom they had been expecting to find, made their appearance and were highly disconcerted to find themselves looking at the muzzles of three machine-carbines. Within minutes, securely bound but not gagged, they had joined the previous guards, whose gags were now removed. They could safely shout until doomsday as the nearest place of habitation was over a mile away: the temporary gagging of the first six guards had been merely for the purpose of preventing their making loud noises and warning off their reliefs.

Palermo now had almost eight hours before the break-in could be discovered.

He next sent one of his men, Watkins, to bring round to the front the concealed mini-bus in which they had arrived. All of them, Watkins excepted, changed from their conservative clothing and military uniforms into rough work clothes, which resulted in the effecting of rather remarkable changes in their appearance and character. While they were doing this Watkins went to the armoury garage, picked a surprisingly ineffectual lock, selected a two-ton truck, wired up the ignition – the keys were, understandably, missing – and drove out to the already open main loading doors of the armoury.

Palermo had brought along with him one by the name of Jacobson who, between sojourns in various penitentiaries, had developed to a remarkable degree the fine art of opening any type of lock, combination or otherwise. Fortunately, his services were not needed, for nobody, curiously enough, had taken the trouble to conceal some score of keys hanging on the wall in the main office.

In less than half an hour Palermo and his men had loaded aboard the truck – chosen because it was a covered-van type – a staggering variety of weaponry, ranging from bazookas to machine-pistols, together with sufficient ammunition for a battalion and a considerable amount of high explosives. This done, they locked all the doors they had unlocked and took the keys with them – when the next relief arrived at eight in the morning it would take them all that much longer to discover what had actually happened. After that, they locked the loading and main entrance doors.

Watkins drove the mini-bus, with its load of discarded clothes, back to its place of concealment, returned to the truck and drove off. The other nine sat or lay in varying degrees of discomfort among the weaponry in the back. It was as well for them that it was only twenty minutes’ drive to Lord Worth’s private, isolated and deserted heliport – deserted, that was, except for two helicopters, their pilots and co-pilots.

The truck, using only its sidelights, came through the gates of the heliport and drew up alongside one of the helicopters. Discreet portable loading lights were switched on, casting hardly more than a dull glow, but sufficient for a man only 80 yards away and equipped with a pair of night-glasses to distinguish clearly what was going on. And Roomer, prone in the spinney and with the binoculars to his eyes, was only 80 yards away. No attempt had been made to wrap or in any way disguise the nature of the cargo. It took only twenty minutes to unload the truck and stow its contents away in the helicopter under the watchful eye of a pilot with a keen regard for weight distribution.

Palermo and his men, with the exception of Watkins, boarded the other helicopter and sat back to await promised reinforcements. The pilot of this helicopter had already, as was customary, radio-filed his flight plan to the nearest airport, accurately giving their destination as the Seawitch. To have done otherwise would have been foolish indeed. The radar tracking systems along the Gulf states are as efficient as any in the world, and any deviation of course from a falsely declared destination would have meant that, in very short order, two highly suspicious pilots in supersonic jets would be flying alongside and asking some very unpleasant questions.

Watkins drove the truck back to the armoury garage, de-wired the ignition, locked the door, retrieved the mini-bus and left. Before dawn all his friends’ clothes would have been returned to their apartments and the mini-bus, which had, inevitably, been stolen, to its parking lot.

Roomer was getting bored and his elbows were becoming sore. Since the mini-bus had driven away some half hour ago he had remained in the same prone position, his night-glasses seldom far from his eyes. His sandwiches were gone as was all his coffee, and he would have given much for a cigarette but decided it would be unwise. Clearly those aboard the helicopters were waiting for something and that something could only be the arrival of Lord Worth.

He heard the sound of an approaching engine and saw another vehicle with only sidelights on turn through the gateway. It was another minibus. Whoever was inside was not the man he was waiting for, he knew: Lord Worth was not much given to travelling in mini-buses. The vehicle drew up alongside the passenger helicopter and its passengers disembarked and climbed aboard the helicopter. Roomer counted twelve in all.

The last was just disappearing inside the helicopter when another vehicle arrived. This one didn’t pass through the gateway, it swept through it, headlights on but dipped. A Rolls-Royce. Lord Worth for a certainty. As if to redouble his certainty, there came to his ears the soft swish of tyres on the grass. He twisted round to see a car, both lights and engine off, coasting to a soundless stop beside his own.

‘Over here,’ Roomer called softly. Mitchell joined him, and together they watched the white-clad figure of Lord Worth leave the Rolls and mount the steps of the helicopter. ‘I should think that that completes the payload for the night.’

‘The payload being?’

‘There are twenty-one other passengers aboard that machine. I can’t swear to it, but instinct tells me they are not honest, upright citizens. The story goes that every multi-millionaire –’

‘Bulti.’

‘Bulti. The story goes that every bulti-millionaire has his own private army. I think I’ve just seen one of Lord Worth’s platoons filing by.’

‘The second chopper plays no part in this?’

‘Far from it. It’s the star of the show. It’s loaded to the gunwales with weaponry.’

‘Not a crime in itself. Could be part of Lord Worth’s private collection. He’s got one of the biggest in the country.’

‘Private citizens aren’t allowed to have bazookas, machine-guns and high explosives in their collection.’

‘He borrowed them, you think?’

‘Yes. Without payment or receipt.’

‘The nearest government armoury?’

‘I should imagine.’

‘They’re still sitting there. Maybe they’re waiting a pre-set time before take-off. Might be some time. Let’s go to one of the cars and radio-phone the law.’

‘The nearest army command post is seven miles from here.’

‘Right.’

The two men were on their feet and had taken only two steps towards the cars when, almost simultaneously, the engines of both helicopters started up with their usual clattering roar. Seconds later, both machines lifted off.

Mitchell said: ‘Well, it was a thought.’

‘“Was” is right. And just look at them go. Honest God-fearing citizens with all their navigational lights on.’

‘That’s just in case someone bumps into them.’ Mitchell thought. ‘We could call up the nearest air force base and have them forced down.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘Stolen government property.’

‘No evidence. Just our say-so. They’ll have to know Lord Worth is aboard. Who’s going to take the word of a couple of busted cops against his?’

‘No one. A sobering thought. Ever felt like a pariah?’

‘Like now. I just feel goddamned helpless. Well, let’s go and find some evidence. Where’s the nearest armoury from here?’

‘About a mile from the command post. I know where.’

‘Why can’t they keep their damned armouries inside their command posts?’

‘Armouries can and do blow up. How would you like to be sitting in a crowded barracks when an armoury blew up?’

Roomer straightened from the key-hole of the main door of the armoury and reluctantly pocketed the very large set of keys for the carrying of which any ill-disposed law officer could have had him behind bars without any need for a warrant.

‘I thought I could open any door with this little lot. But not this door. You don’t have to guess where the keys are now.’

‘Probably sailing down from a chopper in the Gulf.’

‘Like as not. Those loading doors have the same lock. Apart from that, nothing but barred windows. You don’t have a hacksaw on you, Mike?’

‘I will next time.’ He shone his torch through one of the barred windows. All he could see was his own reflection. He took out his pistol, and holding it by the barrel, struck the heavy butt several times against the glass, without any noticeable effect – hardly surprising considering that the window lay several inches beyond the bars and the force of the blows was minimal.

Roomer said: ‘And just what are you trying to do?’

Mitchell was patient. ‘Break the glass.’

‘Breaking the glass won’t help you get inside.’

‘It’ll help me see and maybe hear. I wonder if that’s just plate glass or armoured stuff?’

‘How should I know?’

‘True. Watch me finding out. If it’s armoured, the bullet will ricochet. Get down.’ Both men crouched and Mitchell fired one shot at an upward angle. The bullet did not ricochet. It passed through, leaving a jagged hole with radiating cracks. Mitchell began chipping away round the hole but desisted when Roomer appeared with a heavy car jack: a few powerful blows and Roomer had a hole almost a foot in diameter. Mitchell shone his torch through this: an office lined with filing cabinets and an open door beyond. He put his ear as close to the hole as possible and he heard it at once, the faint but unmistakable sound of metal clanging against metal and the shouting of unmistakably hoarse voices. Mitchell withdrew his head and nodded to Roomer, who stooped and listened in turn.

Five seconds was enough. Roomer straightened and said: ‘There are a lot of frustrated people in there.’

About a mile beyond the entrance to the army command post they stopped by a roadside telephone booth. Mitchell telephoned the army post, told them the state of defences at their armoury would bear investigation and that it would be advisable for them to bring along a duplicate set of keys for the main door. When asked who was speaking he hung up and returned to Roomer’s car.

‘Too late to call in the air force now, I suppose?’

‘Too late. They’ll be well out over extra-territorial waters by now. There’s no state of war. Not yet.’ He sighed. ‘Why, oh why, didn’t I have an infrared ciné camera tonight?’

Over in Mississippi Conde’s task of breaking into the naval armoury there turned out to be ridiculously easy. He had with him only six men, although he had sixteen more waiting in reserve aboard the 120-foot vessel Roamer which was tied up dockside less than thirty feet from the armoury. Those men had already effectively neutralized the three armed guards who patrolled the dock area at night.

The armoury was guarded by only two retired naval petty officers, who regarded their job not only as a sinecure but downright nonsense, for who in his right mind would want to steal depth-charges and naval guns? It was their invariable custom to prepare themselves for sleep immediately upon arrival, and asleep they soundly were when Conde and his men entered through the door they hadn’t even bothered to lock.

They used two fork-lift trucks to trundle depth-charges, light, dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns and a sufficiency of shells down to the dockside, then used one of the scores of cranes that lined the dockside to lower the stolen equipment into the hold of the Roamer, which was then battened down. Clearing the customs was the merest formality. The customs officials had seen the Roamer come and go so many times that they had long ago lost count, Besides, no one was going to have the temerity to inspect the ocean-going property of one of the richest men in the world: the Roamer was Lord Worth’s seismological survey vessel.

At its base not far from Havana, a small, conventionally powered and Russian-built submarine slipped its moorings and quietly put out to sea. The hastily assembled but nonetheless hand-picked crew were informed that they were on a training cruise designed to test the sea-going readiness of Castro’s tiny fleet. Not a man aboard believed a word of this.

Meanwhile Cronkite had not been idle. Unlike the others, he had no need to break into any place to obtain explosives. He just had to use his own key. As the world’s top expert in capping blazing gushers he had access to an unlimited number and great variety of explosives. He made a selection of those and had them trucked down from Houston, where he lived – apart from the fact that Houston was the oil rig centre of the south the nature of his business made it essential for him to live within easy reach of an airport with international connections. They were then sent off to Galveston.

As the truck was on its way another seismological vessel, a converted coastguard cutter, was also closing in on Galveston. This vessel, without explaining his reasons why, Cronkite had obtained through the good offices of Durant, who had represented the Galveston area companies at the meeting of the ten at Lake Tahoe. The cutter, which went by the name of Questar, was normally based at Freeport, and Cronkite could quite easily have taken the shipment there, but this would not have suited his purpose. The tanker Crusader was unloading at Galveston and the Crusader was one of the three tankers that plied regularly between the Seawitch and the Gulf ports.

The Questar and Cronkite arrived almost simultaneously. Mulhooney, the Questar’s skipper, eased his ship into a berth conveniently close to the Crusader. Mulhooney was not the regular captain of the Questar. That gentleman had been so overcome by the sight of two thousand dollars in cash that he had fallen ill, and would remain so for a few days. Cronkite had recommended his friend, Mulhooney. Cronkite didn’t immediately go aboard the Questar

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