‘I see.’ Ritchie returned to stand beside his desk. ‘You’d better tell me what it is then, hadn’t you?’
‘OK. This is the deal. Two seconds after you’re told to make your course change, you’ll see the patrol boat have a big accident. You can decide for yourself what set it on fire and why it’s sinking. It’s only if that doesn’t happen that you’ll have to choose whether or not you use your guns.’ Giving Ritchie no opportunity to interrupt, Coburn placed a photograph on the desk. ‘While you’re picking up the crew, that’s the guy you have to get your hands on. His name’s Juri Yegorov. He works for Shriver, so he’s the key to shutting down the FAL.’
‘Because his presence on the Korean boat will confirm what you’ve been telling me this morning?’
‘You can’t afford to wait until then,’ Coburn said. ‘If we don’t sort this out now and work together, you might not have the chance to get anything confirmed.’
Ritchie’s eyebrows had gone up again. ‘I think I can assess the risk without your assistance, Mr Coburn — unless of course there’s more I need to know.’
‘There is. As soon as you’re satisfied Yegorov was so damn close to attacking your ship you’re lucky the Sandpiper’s still afloat, you’ll have to contact someone in the States who has the authority to arrest Shriver before he can clean out his records and to stop him getting nasty. He’s already threatened O’Halloran’s family and he could make trouble for me, too.’
O’Halloran had sensed the need for diplomacy. ‘The FAL has recently come under investigation,’ he said. ‘If this goes down the way it’s supposed to, Washington will be able to indict Shriver for subversion.’
Since this was the first Coburn had heard about any investigation, was O’Halloran improvising, he wondered? And if so, why did he think he had to?
Ritchie’s expression made it impossible to tell what he thought of the plan, but if he wasn’t looking entirely convinced of its merits, at least he was looking more receptive than he had been a minute ago.
‘A two-second window,’ he said. ‘Not a three-or four-second window?’
‘Depends on you.’ Coburn smiled at him. ‘The quicker I get your go ahead on the radio, the quicker I can stop any missiles from being fired at you.’
‘And you’ll be where exactly?’
‘Not far behind you — somewhere up near the Demarkation Line.’
‘Well, well.’ Ritchie sat down. ‘In that case, seeing as how we seem to have a common interest and we’re all heading in the same direction, what do you say I give you a lift? If you and Mr O’Halloran would like to join the crew of the Sandpiper, I can keep an eye on you, and we can all keep our eyes open for a Korean patrol boat you’re saying is going to attack me. How does that sound?’
‘I’ll need to transfer from your ship a couple of days ahead of time,’ Coburn said. ‘Otherwise that’s fine by me.’ He glanced at O’Halloran. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Sure.’ The American nodded. ‘Why not?’
‘Right then. It’s settled.’ Ritchie picked up his phone. ‘If you care to tell me where you’re staying, I’ll have a staff car run you back to your hotel. The Sandpiper departs at 2300 hours on August 1st, but you’ll need to report here two or three hours before that so we can find somewhere for you to bunk down. If you haven’t been on board a minehunter before, there’s not much room so don’t expect to be going on a cruise.’
Because the offer made sense and had been made so casually, it wasn’t until Coburn was outside sitting in the car that he began to wonder how sincere it had been. A genuine invitation from a no-nonsense naval officer? Or a ploy that allowed Ritchie to detain the messengers of news he didn’t believe?
O’Halloran was looking as though he, too, had doubts, but decided not to voice them in front of the driver and made himself wait until they were back at their hotel and alone in the lobby.
‘Why do I have this feeling I’ve been out-manoeuvred?’ he said.
‘We’ve both been.’
‘There’s a difference. You told Ritchie you’ll be leaving the Sandpiper before the shit’s due to hit the fan. I’ll still be on board. He’s figuring on using me as his insurance.’
Coburn grinned. ‘Well, you’d better hope everything goes to plan then, hadn’t you? What was all that crap about the FAL being under investigation?’
‘It’s not crap. When I phoned the office to see if Yegorov was off to Korea, I was told his name’s been flagged, linking him to Shriver and questioning the reason for all his trips to Russia and Bangladesh.’
‘So someone else has made the connection,’ Coburn said.
‘Probably that guy who ran Yegorov’s facial recognition search for me. He could’ve put two and two together and made seven. Now you know why I changed my mind about coming with you. If Washington’s having a close look at the FAL, I’ll only get my share of those Brownie points if I’m in at the sharp end.’
‘So how far along is the investigation?’
O’Halloran shrugged. ‘No idea. I didn’t ask. You never know, though. I guess there’s always a chance you and I could be heading off up into the Yellow Sea for nothing.’
CHAPTER 19
Far away to the west where thin streaks of silver-edged cloud were gradually turning from pink to orange, the division between sea and sky had become indistinct. Of the six sunsets Coburn had observed from the foredeck of the Sandpiper, none had been as colourful as this one and he couldn’t remember seeing the ocean quite so flat or the air being this clear.
He’d been on deck for most of the last hour, wanting to be alone on what would be his last evening on board, hoping O’Halloran wouldn’t come to find him and telling himself that just because things had gone well up to now, it didn’t mean his luck was about to take a change for the worse.
Throughout the voyage he’d been counting down the days, but now the time for him to leave the ship had actually come, he felt unprepared, knowing that in a little more than twenty-four hours he’d discover whether his plan would be successful, or whether it would fail.
Until today he’d been able to exploit his unfamiliarity with life on board a minehunter as an excuse to avoid worrying about the consequences of failure, filling in his hours by learning about the Sandpiper’s capability and, with Ritchie’s approval, watching the crew operate some of the most sophisticated equipment Coburn had ever come across.
As well as having an I-band surface search radar, the ship was fitted with a variable-depth sonar system that was lowered by winch from a well in front of the bridge, and from which visual images were fed to data consoles that analysed all mine-like objects floating near or anchored to the seabed.
But by far the most advanced piece of equipment was the Sandpiper’s remotely controlled undersea vehicle, an SLQ-48 Raytheon neutralization device that could be deployed from a fantail on the side of the ship’s glass-fibre hull and tethered to it by a 1000 metre-long cable.
Since they’d left Chinhae, Ritchie had used the vehicle only once as an exercise, unwilling to waste time when tonight’s rendezvous with the Selina was vital, and when even a slight deterioration in the weather could have delayed their arrival time.
For a 900 ton vessel the Sandpiper was by no means a fast ship, powered by twin non-magnetic 800 horsepower Isotta Franschini diesel engines, but not able to travel at much more than ten knots, a speed that despite the calm summer conditions hadn’t given Ritchie the luxury of being able to hang around.