In this weather, he wondered? Only fools and birds would want to be airborne with a hurricane on their tail.
He screwed his face up and walked away, sniffing sharply, ignoring it. But as he came by the screen again, he knew that he could not ignore it. He picked up the bridge phone and pressed the button that linked him directly to Captain de Leon’s cabin.
“Are we expecting company?” he asked when the captain came on the line. He received a negative reply. “Only we have what appears to be a helicopter coming our way. It’s on radar.”
De Leon put the phone back, slipped on his shoes and went to the bridge. He studied the trace on the screen, larger now than when the officer of the watch first looked. He nodded absently in agreement and picked up the bridge phone.
Hakeem Khan was working on some paperwork when the phone rang beside him. He picked it up.
“Khan.”
“Sir, this is Captain de Leon. Could you come up to the bridge please?” he asked. “We have something I think you should see.”
Khan put on a waterproof jacket and rubber soled shoes, put his paperwork away and was on the bridge within minutes of de Leon’s phone call. The exertion had left him wheezing and quite breathless. He had his hand over his heart. De Leon showed him the contact on the screen.
“Whoever they are, they will be here in about eight minutes,” Khan observed as he studied the screen. He drew a deep breath, long and hard, knowing instinctively that the contact was hostile. Now that he was so close to completing his task, he could not help but hold the fatalistic view that he could still be stopped, even at his eleventh hour.
“Is the helicopter ready? He asked suddenly. De Leon nodded.
“Good. Have Malik meet me on the helipad in five minutes. I will fly to the rig from here.” He straightened up and went towards the bridge door. He paused and turned towards de Leon.
“Change course. Lead them off. If there is no danger, resume your present heading and meet me at the rig.”
He hesitated as if there was something else he wanted to say. Then he wished de Leon good luck and left the bridge.
Once inside his cabin, Khan hurriedly gathered together the papers he had been working on and stuffed them into a briefcase. Then he went up to the control console that he had so brazenly showed to Helen and unlocked a panel door.
Behind the door was a timer which Khan set to ten minutes. Then he rotated a Castell key which was set into a lock and pushed it forward. He closed the panel door and locked it.
He glanced around the cabin, satisfied. The Taliba would not fall into the wrong hands. In ten minutes the keel would be blown from the hull and the Taliba would sink to the bottom of the Caribbean like a stone.
Inside the Sea Stallion helicopter the Navy Seals sat in their seats staring ahead of them, each with their own thoughts. Santos had told them why the mission had to succeed; failure was not an option. Because the mission was of the highest priority, air to air refuelling had been laid on should the Sea Stallion look like it was about to exceed its 550 mile nautical range. The helicopter had been flying steadily for over thirty minutes now and was slowly beginning to feel the effects of the strengthening wind.
Francesini sat with the Seals. He had a headset on and was able to listen in to any talk from the helicopter crew and also Lieutenant Santos. Much of the chatter was of no interest to him until he heard the tone of the pilot’s voice change.
“Sir, Taliba is changing course.” The pilot of the Sea Stallion helicopter spoke to Francesini over the headphones. Francesini got up from his seat and leaned over the pilot’s shoulder. The pilot touched the radar screen with the tip of his gloved finger.
“Looks like someone is leaving too.”
The fluorescent blip that the pilot was pointing at, broke into two; one quite smaller than the other.
“Chopper!”
“Follow the Taliba” Francesini ordered.
Behind him the Seals sat patiently, all with their own thoughts. They were dressed completely in black and only their faces showed through their headgear. Around their waists they carried knives, stun grenades and pistols. And each man was clutching an automatic weapon. None of them shown rank or service insignia.
“Taliba!”
Francesini peered through the patch of windscreen being cleared by the wipers. In the murk he could se the white ship standing out clearly against the dull, grey sea. The whitecaps and spindrift whipped across the bows of the ship. He turned to the men behind him and held up two fingers.
“Two minutes!”
Captain de Leon could see the helicopter now. He knew why Khan had left but did not know the sentence of death the madman had passed on them all. The helicopter was almost certainly hostile and in their present position, de Leon and his crew were vulnerable.
He reached for the bridge handset and thumbed the speech button.
“Your attention please! Your attention please!”
The words rattled out of the deck speakers and were whipped away by the howling wind. Below decks his voice bounced around the bulkheads.
“The Taliba is likely to come under hostile action within two minutes. No man is to take action unless he feels directly threatened. Please remain below decks. I repeat…..”
The message rumbled on to its end and de Leon replaced the handset.
The Sea Stallion came straight at them. It slowed to a hover above the bridge and two dark figures dropped down on ropes. De Leon was looking up above him, as though willing himself to see through the deck-head yet not realising what was happening.
Suddenly both doors on either side of the bridge flew open and two black figures rushed in. They were brandishing automatic weapons.
“Nobody move!”
The order was quite unmistakeable and needed no repeating. De Leon said nothing. Through the windows of the bridge he could see the Sea Stallion hovering above the helipad and the remainder of the raiding party dropping on to it.
Within seconds the helicopter had moved away and taken up station about a hundred feet off the starboard quarter.
“You, slow engines!”
De Leon reached for the engine room telegraph and signalled the order to slow engines. Almost immediately the Taliba began to lose way.
Lieutenant Santos felt the change in speed and sprinted down the stairs to the lower accommodation deck where he knew he would probably find Marsh and Helen. He had one man with him.
He reached Marsh’s cabin door, remembering its location from his previous visit. He tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. He stepped inside quickly, but he could see there was no reason to linger. He had no time to dwell on the fact that Marsh was not there.
He then signalled his fellow Seal to work with him and they opened each cabin door. One would kick the door open; the other would go in, weapon raised and ready to fire. They flushed out a few crew members who gave no resistance at all. Then they found Helen’s cabin. The door was locked.
Just then the scuttling charges blew, sending a shudder through the whole of the ship as the explosion ripped the bottom out of the hull.
Even though the Taliba was slowing, the effect was devastating. It was like hitting a brick wall. The ship stopped as the sea crashed into her open belly and she dipped her nose into the windswept ocean.
Lieutenant Santos and his colleague picked themselves up, the assault forgotten. They both realised exactly what had happened. And as they struggled to their feet, they knew the ship would be gone in less than a minute.
Helen had listened to all the commotion, knowing what was happening because of de Leon’s broadcast. She could see little through the porthole of her cabin so had to content herself with hoping and praying that she would escape this hell hole she had been confined to.