Oil ministers do not become oil ministers because they are mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded. Patinos smiled a smile of wry resignation. "I do not relish the thought of personal ruin. Nor do I relish the thought of becoming a scapegoat for my government." He looked across at Borosoff. "We call off the dogs of war?"

Borosoff nodded. "Back to their kennels and no alas. I wish to return to my Russia and this will give me great face, for they will not have to lose face in the world."

Mr. A leaned back in his chair. His relief was manifest. "Well, that would seem to cover that."

"It covers most of it," Benson said. "But not all. Another very unpleasant and potentially terrifying crime occurred this afternoon. I heard of it only an hour ago and it will be the hottest topic in the nation tonight. I only hope to G.o.d that, although we were in no way responsible for it, we won't be implicated in it A place called Netley Rowan a.r.s.enal was broken into this afternoon. It's supposed to be just another arms depot insofar as the public is concerned- and so, mainly, it is. But it's also a TNW a.r.s.enal. TNW means 'tactical nuclear weapons.* Two of them were stolen in the break-in and appear to have vanished without trace."

"G.o.d above!" The expression and tone of the 2O7.

MacLean man from Honduras accurately reflected the shocked feelings of all around the table. "Cron-kite?"

"I'd bet on it. No proof, naturally, but who the h.e.l.l else?"

Henderson said: "No disrespect to Mr. Boro-soff here, but couldn't the Russians, say, have been seeking a prototype?"

Benson looked as weary as his voice sounded. "The Russians already have G.o.d knows how many of those things. It's public knowledge that they have thousands of them deployed along the border between the Warsaw pact and NATO countries-many of them, it is suspected, more sophisticated than ours. The Russians need our TNWs the way they need bows and arrows." Borosoff, despite the anxiety he shared with the others, permitted himself the ghost of a smile of complacency, "Cronkite. The man's running wild."

Mr. A said: "You think he's so totally crazy as to use a nuclear device against the Seawitch?"

"I do not profess to understand the workings of an obviously diseased mind," Benson said. "He's capable of anything."

Patinos said: "What's this weapon like?"

"I don't know. I phoned the Pentagon, a very senior official there, but although he's an old friend of mine, he refused to release highly cla.s.sified information. All I know is that it can be used as a land-based time bomb-I suppose that in- 268.

eludes the sea as well-or as an aircraft bomb. It can only be used in a limited number of supersonic fighter-bombers, which will already, I suppose, be under the heaviest security guard ever, which would strike me as a superfluous precaution as there is no chance that Cronkite, even with his obviously wide range of contacts, could know anyone who could fly one of those planes."

"So what happens?"

"I think we'd better consult an astrologer on that one. All I know is that Cronkite has gone stark raving mad."

Cronkite, aboard the Georgia, would have thought the same of them. He had a job to do and he was doing it to the best of his ability. Had he known of the possible withdrawal of the warships that had sailed from Cuba and Venezuela, he would not have been unduly concerned. He had had some vague idea that they might have been useful to him in some way, but he had primarily wished to have them as a cover and a smokescreen. Cronkite's vendetta against Lord Worth was a highly personal and extremely vindictive one and he wanted no other than himself to administer the coup de grace. Retribution exacted through the medium of other hands would not do at all.

Meantime, he was well content. He was convinced that the Seawitch was in his hands.

2O9.

Alistair Mactean Come the dawn it would be doubly in his hands. He knew of their defenses and radar. The Starlight, under Easton, was waiting until full darkness before it moved hi for the initial attack, and as rain had been falling steadily for some time now and the lowering sky blotted out the quarter-moon, it promised to be as nearly dark as it ever becomes at sea.

A message was brought to him from the radio office. Cronkite glanced at it briefly, picked up the phone to the helipad and reached the pilot in his shelter. "Ready to go, Wilson?"

"Whenever you say, Mr. Cronkite."

"Then, now." Cronkite closed a rheostat switch and a dull glow of light outlined the helipad, just enough to let Wilson make a clean takeoff. The helicopter made a half-circle, switched on its landing light and made a smooth landing on the calm waters less than a hundred yards from the stationary Georgia. - Cronkite called the radar1 room. "You have him on the screen?"

"Yes, sir. He's making an instrument approach on our radar."

"Let me know when he's about three miles out."

Less than a minute later the operator gave him the word. Cronkite turned the rheostat to full and the helipad became brilliantly illuminated.

A minute later a helicopter, landing lights on, 210.

appeared from the north through the driving rain. Just over another minute later it touched down as delicately as a moth, an understandable precaution by the pilot, in view of the cargo he was carrying. The fueling hoses were connected immediately. The door opened and three men descended-the alleged Colonel Farquharson, Lieutenant Colonel Dewings and Major Breck-ley, who had been responsible for the Netley Rowan a.r.s.enal break-in. They helped unload two large, double-handed and obviously very heavy suitcases. Cronkite, with suitable admonitions as to delicacy in handling, showed crew members where to stow the cases in shelter.

Within ten minutes the helicopter was on its way back to the mainland. Five minutes after that, the Georgia's own helicopter had returned and ail the helipad lights were switched off.

211.

Chapter 8.

JlT was due only to cruel ill luck and the extremely jittery state of Durand's nerves that John Roomer and Melinda Worth found themselves the first patients in Dr. Greenshaw's sick bay.

Durand was in a highly apprehensive state of mind, a mood that transferred itself all too easily to his four subordinates. Although he held control of the Seawitch, he knew that his hold was a tenuous one: he had not bargained on finding Palermo and his cutthroats on board, and even though he held the master keys to both the occidental and oriental quarters in his pocket- the drilling crew was in the former quarters, 212.

Palermo and his men in the latter-he was acutely aware that there were far too many windows in both quarters and he didn't have the men to cover every possible exit. He had broadcast a message over the external loud-speaker that anyone found on the platform would be shot on sight and had two men on constant patrol round the oriental quarters-he had no fear of the unarmed drilling-rig crew-and another two constantly patrolling the platform. He had no fear of Lord Worth, his seismologists and the girls-as sources of danger he held them in contempt. Besides, they were unarmed. Even so, the two men patrolling the platform had been instructed to do so in such a fashion as to make sure that at least one had an eye on the doors to the suite of Lord Worth, the laboratory and the sick bay, all three of which had intercommunicating doors.

No one inside those three places had heard the warning broadcast-and this, ironically, because Lord Worth was not above indulging in what he regarded as the bare minimum of basic creature comforts. Oil rigs can be uncommonly noisy places, and those quarters he had heavily insulated.

Mitch.e.l.l had been in his tiny cubicle of the laboratory at the time, reading the complete plan of the layout of the Seawitch over and over until he was certain that he could have found his way around the rig blindfolded. This had taken him 213.

about twenty minutes. It was in the fifth minute of his studying that the shots had been fired, but again, because of the soundproofing, the sound had not reached him. He had just put the plans away in a drawer when his door opened and Marina entered. She was white-faced and shaking and her face was streaked with tears. He put his arms round her and she grabbed him tightly.

"Why weren't you there?" she sobbed. "Why weren't you there? You could have stopped them. You could have saved them!"

Mitch.e.l.l took no time out to dwell upon the injustices of life. He said gently: "Stopped what? Saved who?"

"Melinda and John. They've been terribly hurt."

"How?"

"Shot."

"Shot? I didn't hear anything."

"Of course you didn't. This area is all soundproofed. That's why Melinda and John didn't hear the broadcast warning."

"Broadcast warning? Tell it to me slowly."

So she told him as slowly and coherently as she could. There had been such a warning but it had gone unheard in Lord Worth's suite. The rain had stopped, at least temporarily, and when Mitch.e.l.l had retired to study the plans, Melinda and Roomer had elected to go for a stroll. They had been wandering around the foot of the drill- 214.

irtg rig, where most of the lights had been turned off since Durand had ordered the abandonment of drilling, and it was there that they had been gunned down without warning.

"Terribly hurt, you said. How bad?"

'Tm not sure. Dr. Greenshaw is operating in the sick bay. I'm not a coward, you know that, but there was so much blood that I didn't want to look."

Arrived in the sick bay, Mitch.e.l.l could hardly blame her. Melinda and Roomer lay in adjacent cots and both were saturated with blood. Melinda already had her left shoulder heavily bandaged. Roomer had bandages swathing his neck and Dr. Greenshaw was working on his chest.

Lord Worth, his face a mask of bitter fury, was sitting in a chair. Durand, his face a mask of nothingness, was standing by the doorway. Mitch.e.l.l looked speculatively at both, then spoke to Dr. Greenshaw. "What can you tell so far, Doctor?"

"Would you listen to him?" Roomer's voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper and his face creased with near-agony. "Never think of asking us how we feel."

"In a minute. Doctor?"

"Melinda's left shoulder is bad, Tve extracted the bullet but she needs immediate surgery. I'm a surgeon, but I'm not an orthopedic surgeon, and that's what she must have. Roomer hasn't been quite so lucky. He got hit twice. The 215.

Alistair Madman one through the neck missed his carotid artery by a whisker, but the bullet pa.s.sed straight through and there's no worry there. The chest wound is serious. Not fatal but very serious. The bullet struck the left lung, no doubt about that, but the internal bleeding isn't that much, so I think it's a nick, no more. The trouble is, I think the bullet is lodged against the spine."

"Can he wiggle his toes?"

Roomer moaned. "My G.o.d, what sympathy."

"He can. But the bullet should be removed as soon as possible. I could do it but I have no X-ray equipment here. I'll give them both blood transfusions in a moment."

"Shouldn't they be flown to a hospital as soon as possible?"

"Of course."

Mitch.e.l.l looked at Durand. "Well?"

"No."

"But it wasn't their fault They didn't hear the warning.'*

"Tough. There's no way I'll fly them ash.o.r.e. Think I want a battalion of U. S. Marines out here in a few hours?"

"If they die it'll be your fault."

"Everybody's got to die sometime." Durand left, slamming the door behind him.

"Dear, dear." Roomer tried to shake his head, then winced at the pain in his neck. "He shouldn't have said that."

Mitch.e.l.l turned to Lord Worth. "You can be of great help, sir. Your suite is in direct contact with the radio room; can you hear what is being said in the radio room?"

"That's no problem. Two switches and I can hear both sides of any conversation, either on the telephone, earphones or wall receivers."

"All right-go, and don't stop listening for a second.'* He looked at the two patients on the cots. "We'll have them airborne for the hospital within a half hour."

"How can that be possible?"

"I don't know." Mitch.e.l.l sounded vague. "But we'll think of something."

Lord Worth left. Mitch.e.l.l pulled out a slender pencil flashlight and started to flick it on and off in apparent aimlessness. His complexion had gone pale and the hands that held the pencil light trembled slightly. Marina looked at him first uncomprehendingly, then in dismay, finally in something approaching contempt. Incredulously, she said: "You're frightened."

"Your gun?" Mitch.e.l.l said to Roomer.

"When they went off for help I managed to drag myself a bit nearer the edge. I unclipped the belt and threw the whole thing over the side."

"Good. We're still in the clear." He seemed to become aware of the tremor in his hands, put away his flash and thrust his hands into his pockets. He said to Melinda: "Who shot you?"

"A pair of very unpleasant characters named air Alistalr M acLean Kowenski and Rindler. We had trouble with them before."

"Kowenski and Rindler," Mitch.e.l.l repeated. He left the sick bay.

Marina said, half in sadness, hah* in bitterness: "My idol with the feet of clay."

Roomer said huskily: "Put out the light and then put out the light."

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say it. Man named Oth.e.l.lo. That's the trouble with you millionaires* daughters. Illiterate. First Mitch.e.l.l puts out the lights. He's got cat's eyes. He can see in almost total darkness where an ordinary man is blind. Did you know that?"

"No."

"Gives him a tremendous advantage. And then he puts out other lights."

"I know what you mean and I don't believe you. I saw him shaking."

"Ahh ... you don't deserve him."

She stared at him hi disbelief. "What did you say?"

"You heard me." Roomer sounded tired and the doctor was looking at him in disapproval. He went on in a somber voice: "Kowenski and Rindler are dead men. They have just minutes to live. He loves Melinda almost as much as he does you, and I've been his closest friend and partner since we were kids. Mitch.e.l.l looks after 218.

his own." He smiled faintly. "I'm afraid he takes care of things in a sort of final way."

"But he was shaking . . ." Her voice was now lacking in conviction.

"He isn't afraid of anything that lives. As for the shaking-he's a throwback to the old Scandinavian berserkers: he's just trying to hold in his rage. He usually smiles." He smiled. "You're shaking now."

She said nothing.

Roomer said: "There's a cupboard in the vestibule. If there's anything in it, bring it to me."

She looked at him uncertainly, left and returned in a few minutes, carrying a pair of shoes. She held them at arm's length and from the look of horror on her face might have been holding a cobra.

Roomer said: "Mitch.e.l.l's?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Better return them. He'll be needing them pretty soon."