“Okay,” said Richard quietly. “We’re going out onto the deck.”
Demetrios paused under the shadow of the blunt bow, tempted almost beyond enduring simply to put his bomb against the relatively thin metal of the tank wall and get the hell away. But such an action would not be guaranteed to bring success. Success was all that could save him now. On this one last throw of the dice rested more millions than he could readily calculate, or absolute destruction. He was not the sort of a man who would go almost all the way and then back off, saying he had done his best really; knowing he had not. He went all the way under normal circumstances, no matter what the risk or cost. He was not about to shortchange himself now. The bomb was going into one of the tanks and Prometheus was going to the bottom. In as many million little pieces as he had dollars coming.
Thirty yards in front of the ship, a set of steps led down from the quay to the water level. Even in docks made for these oceangoing giants, some provision had to be made for smaller vessels. Demetrios swam across to these and pulled himself out of the water. Then he scampered silently up them and paused. With the bomb by his side, he crouched in the shadows, trying to catch his breath, waiting for some vigor to return to his chilled and weary body. Willing his dull brain to plan ahead.
The quayside was deserted. It gleamed in the security lighting as though it had just been varnished. It was far too bright for his taste. But at least there was nobody obviously watching out for him. Silently on his numb bare feet, he ran for the next shadow.
The deepest pool of darkness lay beneath a squat crane opposite the blunt end of Prometheus. He made it safely, and paused there, narrow-eyed, looking at his ship. A set of steps reached up from the quay to the deck just in front of the bridge house, but almost exactly opposite where he was standing, the automatic accommodation ladder also led down to his level, more because the mechanism was broken than because it had been set, by the look of things. That seemed his best bet. He took it without further hesitation.
As soon as he reached the deck, he ran for the nearest shadow again. This one was at the foot of the Sampson post that had once marked the halfway point of the deck, starboard side. Now it marked the end of the ship. He flattened himself against the white-painted steel upright and looked around. The deck seemed deserted. He could see a figure in the distant bridge windows, and he suspected there would be others invisible in the shadows on the bridge wings; but the deck at least was his alone.
He sucked in a great ecstatic breath. He had overestimated his enemies. He stood an excellent chance of pulling this off.
But then, in the distance, the A deck doors opened and in the brightness he saw them all coming out, the beams of their torches like golden swords cutting the darkness before them.
Richard led the starboard team, with Kerem, Robin, and a gang of seamen to back him up. Martyr led the port team, with McTavish, Salah Malik, and more seamen. Behind these two teams, in another thin line stretching from port, overlooking the water, to starboard, overlooking the dock, came Ho and the stewards.
They moved forward slowly, inch by inch, disturbing anything that might conceivably hide a man, their eyes busy at their feet. They remained quietly in contact with each other and with the men on the bridge, using the R/Ts that at least two of each team carried. The teams searched the most likely places methodically and thoroughly. The stewards behind them searched everywhere else. It was a system that should have been absolutely foolproof.
And there is no doubt that if Demetrios had stayed on the deck, they would have caught him with that first sweep. But he did not. Desperately, lent a touch of genius by the pressure, he ran forward from shadow to shadow, toward the line. He was lucky. Their eyes were on their feet and they did not see the pale oval of his face or the flash of movement made by his black wet-suit. The watch on the bridge wing missed it, too, and so did John, because the wily owner chose that moment to move when one of Martyr’s men called out and all eyes were on the port side for an instant.
There was no scupper at the edge of the deck. The flat green decking curved down to become the side without any runnel or channel to collect and guide the water. Welded to this rounded edge, just inboard of the line where horizontal green became vertical black, were the uprights supporting the deck rail. At the foot of one of these lay a small pile of rope, perhaps thirty feet in all, neatly coiled. It was obviously far too small to hide anything, and its neat, flat, circular shape made it obvious that there was nothing under it. But its edge was exactly at the foot of the upright. Demetrios saw all this and formed his plan, such as it was, in an instant. Then he had slid silently over the side, and was dangling there invisibly, a black shape against the black side, with his pale hands hidden beneath the rough coil of rope.
A slow count of ten brought the footsteps close. Unashamedly, he squeezed his eyes tight and ground his forehead against the icy side. If they found him like this, he was lost. Watching them come nearer would only make the tension unbearable. Then their voices came. Not the captain’s, thank God; but the girl talking to one of the Palestinians. “What’s that?”
“Where?”
“There! By the deck rail.”
“Rope.”
“Right.”
“Check it out?”
A pause. Demetrios could feel the sweat streaming down between his tanker and his cheek. The tip of his nose itched unbearably.
“No. Leave it. We’re falling behind anyway.”
Their footsteps moved away. Demetrios took a great shuddering heave of breath…
…and nearly lost it at once in a scream of fright as the rope moved. It was a Chinese steward. Demetrios had heard nothing. The man had approached on silent feet and conscientiously looked under the rope.
But he had looked under the inboard half only. Demetrios’s hands stayed safely hidden by the outboard coils as they lay piled against the white upright.
The movement of the rope stopped. This time he heard a sibilant shuffle of footsteps, like the slither of a snake over tiles, as the steward moved away.
At once, near the end of his strength in any case, he began to pull himself up. He paused with his eyes at deck level and glanced around. Fortunately there was no one nearby so he did not have to wait — he could not have done so in any case, for his muscles were jumping with fatigue. He hurled himself forward under the bottom rail. Luckily the bomb case landed on the rope with the dullest of thuds. The stewards, ten feet away, heard nothing. Sensed nothing. He was in a squat in an instant, bowed like a sprinter on the blocks. Then he was off into the shadow of the central walkway, under the fat, safe pipes.
“Richard!” John’s voice hissed over the captain’s R/T. Demetrios could just hear it. He froze and listened, running with sweat again. How could someone as cold as he was perspire this much? He slid the heavy metal ring of his wetsuit’s zipper down to the middle of his chest absently, listening with all his might.
“Yes?” The captain’s crisp reply.
“I thought I…”
“What?”
“No…It’s…Starboard bridge wing: did you see it?”
“Starboard bridge watch here: Did I see what?”
“…Nothing. It must have been nothing, then.”
“Captain here. Okay, John. Keep looking. We’ll do another close sweep on the way back. Did you get that, everybody?”
“Robin: affirmative.”
“Martyr: affirmative.”
All the rest of them.
Demetrios slithered into the shadow of the tank cap. The cap itself stood three feet high, and it was circular with a radius of three feet. It was designed to take the great pipe that would rapidly suck the tank dry. The cap itself was almost like the top on a massive bottle, except that it was held down by a series of clamps, like a hatch cover. In the security lighting from the dock, it cast a hard shadow like the center of a sundial. On a clockface with 12 at the bridge, the shadow would be pointing at five.