Lloyd’s shipping list is probably still the world’s most complete archive, and the Edzell team set up a direct line to Lloyd’s, which was constantly in use. At Lloyd’s advice, they concentrated on vessels flying flags of convenience and those registered in “dodge” ports or owned by suspect proprietors. Both Lloyd’s and the Secret Intelligence Service’s Anti-Terrorist (Marine) desk joined with the American CIA and Coast Guard in slapping a “no approach to coast” label on over two hundred vessels without their captains or owners being aware of it. But still nothing showed up to set the wind socks flying in the breeze.
Captain Linnett knew his mountains, and was aware that a man without specialized footwear, trying to progress through snow over ground riddled with unseen trees, roots, ditches, gullies and streams, would be lucky to make a heartbreaking half a mile per hour across country.
Such a man would probably stumble through the snow crust into a trickling rivulet, and, with wet feet, start to lose body core temperature at an alarming rate, leading to hypothermia and frostbit toes. Olsen’s message from Langley had left no room for doubt: Under no circumstances was the fugitive to reach Canada, nor must he reach a functioning telephone. Just in case.
Linnett had few doubts. His target would wander in circles without a compass. He would stumble and fall at every second step. He could not see in the blackness under the tree canopy, where even the moon, had it not been hidden by twenty thousand feet of freezing cloud, could not penetrate. True, the man had a five-hour head start; but even in a straight line, that would give him under three miles of ground covered. Special Forces men on skis could treble that, and if rocks and tree trunks forced the use of snowshoes they could still do double the speed of the fugitive. He was right about the skis. From the drop-off point of the truck at the final end of the track, he reached the wrecked CIA cabin in under an hour. He and his men examined it briefly to see if the fugitive had come back to rifle it for better equipment. There was no sign of that. The two bodies, rigid in the cold, were laid out, hands crossed on chests in the now freezing refectory, safe from roaming animals. They would have to wait for the cloud to lift and a helicopter to land.
There are twelve men in an A team; Linnett was the only officer, and his number two was a chief warrant officer. The other ten were all senior enlisted men, the lowest rank being staff sergeant.
They broke down into two engineers for demolition, two radio operators, two medics, a team sergeant with not one but two specialties, an intelligence sergeant and two snipers. While Linnett was inside the wrecked cabin, his team sergeant, who was an expert tracker, scouted the ground outside. The threatening snow had not fallen; the area around the helipad and the front door, where the rescue team from Mazama had arrived, was a mush of snowshoe tracks. But from the shattered compound wall, a single trail of footprints led away due north.
Coincidental? thought Linnett. It was the one direction the fugitive must not take. It led to Canada, twenty-two miles away. But for the Afghan, forty-four hours of hiking. He would never make it, even if he could keep in a straight line. Anyway, the Alpha team would get him halfway there. It took another hour to cover the next mile on snowshoes. That was when they found the other cabin. No one had mentioned the other two or three cabins that were permitted in the Pasayten Wilderness because they predated the building prohibition. And this cabin had been broken into. The shattered triple glazing and the rock beside the gaping hole left no doubt. Captain Linnett went in first, carbine forward, safety catch off. Round the edges of the shattered glass, two men gave cover. It took them less than a minute to ensure there was no one present, either in the cabin, the adjacent log-storage shed or the empty garage. But the signs were everywhere. He tried the light switch, but the power clearly came from a generator that the owner shut down behind the garage when not in residence. They relied on their flashlights.
Beside the deep fireplace in the main sitting area was a box of matches and several long tapers, clearly for lighting the logs in the grate; also a bundle of candles in case the generator failed. The intruder had used both to find his way round. Captain Linnett turned to one of his comms sergeants. “Raise the county sheriff, and find out who owns this place,” he said. He began to explore. Nothing seemed to be smashed, but everything had been rifled. “It’s a surgeon from Seattle,” reported the sergeant. “Vacations up here in the summer, closes it all down in the fall.”
“Name and phone number. He must have left them with the sheriff’s office.” When the sergeant had them, he was told to contact Fort Lewis, have them call the surgeon at his Seattle home and put him on a direct patch-through. A surgeon was a lucky break; surgeons have pagers in case of an emergency. This situation definitely rated.
The ghost ship never went near Surabaya. There was no consignment of expensive oriental silks to be taken aboard, and the apparent six sea containers on the Countess of Richmond’s foredeck were in place anyway. She took the route south of Java, passed Christmas Island and headed out into the Indian Ocean. For Mike Martin, the onboard routines became a ritual. The psychopath Ibrahim remained mainly in his cabin, and the good news was that most of the time he was violently ill. Of the remaining seven men, the engineer tended his engines, set at maximum speed regardless of fuel use. Where the Countess was going, she would need no fuel for a return journey. For Martin, the twin enigmas remained unanswered. Where was she going, and what explosive power lay beneath her decks? No one seemed to know, with the possible exception of the chemical engineer. But he never spoke, and the subject was never raised.
The radio expert kept a listening watch and must have learned of a sea search taking place right across the Pacific and at the entrances to the Straits of Hormuz and the Suez Canal. He may have reported this to Ibrahim but made no mention of it to the rest.
The other five men took turns in the galley to turn out plate after plate of cold canned food, and took turns at the wheel. The navigator set the heading-always west, then south of due west to the Cape of Good Hope. For the rest, they prayed five times a day, read the Koran yet again and stared at the sea.
Martin considered attempting to take over the ship. He had no weapon other than the chance to steal a kitchen knife, and he would have to kill seven men, of whom he had to presume that Ibrahim had one or more firearms. And the men were scattered from the engine room to the radio shack to the fo’c’sle. If and when they came close to a clear target on shore, he knew he would have to do it. But across the Indian Ocean, he bided his time.
He did not know whether his message in the dive bag had ever been found or was tossed with the bag into some attic unread; and he did not know he had triggered a global ship hunt.
“This is Dr. Berenson. Who am I speaking with?”
Michael Linnett took over the speakerphone from the sergeant and lied. “I am with the sheriff’s office at Mazama,” he said. “Right now, I am in your cabin in the wilderness. I’m sorry I have to tell you there has been a break-in.”
“Hell, no. Dammit, is there damage done?” the tiny voice speaking from Seattle asked.
“He broke in by smashing the main front window with a rock, Doctor. That seems to be the only structural damage. I just want to check on theft. Did you have any firearms here?”