One thing Marsh promised himself was to remain professional about this new turn of events. Whatever happened, it behove him to act in exactly the same way as he would if he had been working on one of his own commissions on board the Helena. It was vitally important that he kept this attitude to the forefront of his mind, because to let his concentration wander when diving in the submersible could cost him his life; and possibly that of the divers who would be working with him.
After he had eaten and completed his morning shower, Marsh went up to the bridge. It was his intention to open up a dialogue with Captain de Leon about studying charts and way points with a view to getting himself into the right frame of mind for when he began trial dives with the Challenge.
He had been chatting with the captain when the sound of the bridge squawk box cut into their conversation. It was the forward lookout.
“Bridge, there’s a Coast Guard cutter off the port side. It’s about five miles distant, four o’clock.”
Captain de Leon walked out on to the port wing of the bridge, taking a pair of binoculars with him and scanned the sea until he could see the Coast Guard ship heading towards them.
He hurried back into the bridge and picked up the telephone that connected him directly to Khan’s cabin. “Sir, this is the bridge. There’s Coast Guard cutter off the port side. They’re heading straight to us.”
Khan heard the buzz on his speakerphone and thumbed the talk switch. As soon as de Leon had finished the message, he told him to stop engines and get Malik into the sea gallery.
“Remind Malik to turn the transponder on before he lowers the device. And be sure to mark the position as we planned. Be quick,” he added.
On the bridge, de Leon ordered a crewman to get down to Malik’s cabin as he rang the engine room telegraph. Marsh watched as an obviously well-rehearsed plan swung into action. He felt the Taliba begin to slow as the engine room killed the power according to de Leon’s telegraph signal.
Marsh turned and looked out through the windows and saw the Coast Guard cutter coming towards them. Its demeanour was one of determination and it was obvious that the Taliba was their quarry. It came up in an arc behind them until it was level with them on their port side. Marsh could see the name of the cutter quite clearly. It was the Lincoln.
Below decks, Malik had hurried down into the sea gallery. He closed the watertight door behind him as he stepped into the sea gallery and pushed a button situated on one of the bulkheads. Immediately a motor burst into life and the bottom doors began to open, swinging down into the sea beneath the hull of the ship. Sea water sloughed in and ran down into the scuppers on either side of the deck.
Malik than sprinted to the end of the gallery where two nuclear bombs were stowed in a frame and locked together like a pair of conjoined twins. They were mounted on a steel pallet which was attached to a block and suspended from a running block on a gantry that spanned the open doors in the floor of the sea gallery.
Malik released the clamps holding the bombs in place and lifted the hoist controller from its stowage point. He pushed a button and the steel hawser that was attached to the pallet by an open hook, shuddered into life and lifted the bombs clear of the deck.
Malik then used the traverse button to manoeuvre them out over the open space. Once it was hovering over the opening, he lowered the pallet into the sea. He let the hoist motor run for what seemed like an eternity, but was only about ten minutes, when suddenly the hawser went slack.
Once the heavy pallet was resting on the sea bed, and the weight was no longer taken up by the steel rope, the open hook swung free. Malik immediately reversed the motor and lifted the steel rope back up into the gallery. As the hook appeared above the waterline, Malik dashed over to the button that operated the doors and rammed his thumb against it. The doors immediately closed.
The sea water stopped swamping into the gallery once the doors were shut and the last residue was sucked noisily through the scuppers by the bilge pumps.
Satisfied that the job was done, Malik left the sea gallery and made his way up to the bridge.
“Coast Guard vessel, Lincoln to motor vessel Taliba! Do you read me? Over.”
Marsh’s attention was drawn to the bridge speakerphone. He saw Captain de Leon pick it up and thumb the talk button.
“This is Captain de Leon on board the Taliba. What’s your business Lincoln?”
“We wish to board you, Taliba. Over”
“This is Taliba. State your business Lincoln. Over.”
“This is the United States Coast Guard working for Homeland Security in defence against drugs and terrorist activity. We are empowered to board and search any vessel operating within these waters. Over”
“We are not terrorists, Lincoln, and we are not carrying drugs,” came de Leon’s stern reply.
De Leon felt Khan’s presence behind him. He turned round. “They want to come aboard,” he said quietly.
Khan nodded. “We were prepared for this eventuality, Captain. We have no choice: we have to let them board us.”
“How do you want to transfer, Lincoln?” de Leon called over.
“Drop a ladder over the side. We will come over in the dinghy.”
The talking was over. The two ships parted to allow a reasonable distance between them. Marsh watched the cutter lower an inflatable craft with four sailors in it. The crew of the Taliba dropped two rope ladders over the side. Within thirty minutes of seeing the cutter, four American Coast Guard officers were boarding the Taliba.
Marsh was intensely curious like anybody would be, but was not privy to whatever was unfolding below decks. Nor would he be allowed to. De Leon had escorted the Coast Guard officers, informing them before they went searching round his ship that none of them were allowed to be unescorted.
Marsh would have given almost anything to know what the Americans were up to. He even harboured a naive wish that this was to be his and Helen’s rescue, with Khan being denounced and arrested for whatever evil practice he was involved in. But it was not to be. He remained on the bridge with Khan and Malik until the Americans appeared on deck with de Leon.
It was almost an hour after boarding the Taliba that the Americans finally disembarked and were on their way back to the cutter. The Coast Guard captain watched the Taliba pull away from them as he ordered his helmsman to set a course in the opposite direction.
When the boarding party were on board the cutter, the captain left the bridge and went down on to the deck to speak to them
“Well?” he asked.
“Nothing sir,” his bosun answered. “She’s as clean as a whistle.”
A few minutes after the boarding party left the captain, two other navy men appeared. They were wearing wet suits and had obviously been in the water. They saluted the captain.
“Well?” he asked. “Anything under there?”
They both shook their heads. “All that’s on that hull are a few barnacles and not much else. There’s certainly nothing hanging underneath her.”