^ In the United States, as in Europe, the energy crisis was beginning to take on the character of a war – with oil in all forms as the ammunition dumps the enemy sought to destroy. The lights were starting to go out all over the continental mainland – in Texas where oil was moving away from the state to the hard-pressed north-east, so there was not enough oil left for home needs. The recent large-scale sabotage of the Venezuelan oilfields at Lake Maracaibo was turning a tense situation into near-disaster.
^ No one was sure who the saboteurs were – who had placed and detonated the charges at Maracaibo, who had blown up a section of the Alaskan North Slope pipeline being constructed to Valdez, who had blown up key refineries at Delaware and in Texas – in Britain and Germany and Italy. Arab terrorists were the obvious suspects; extremists employed by remote control by the sheikhs who wished to make their products even more valuable because it was daily becoming a scarcer commodity, already selling at fifty dollars a barrel, free on board Gulf ports.
^ Inside the States, the FBI worked on a theory that revived dissident groups like The Weathermen were behind the sabotage. Pamphlets were being distributed by the underground press -'Bring the Capitalist Colossus to its Knees! Burn Oil!' It was not a slogan appreciated by motorists searching for an extra two gallons to get them home. But whoever was responsible, the situation was becoming desperate. Europe – and America – were close to their knees.
^ The sabotage of the Maracaibo wells meant that, added to the other damage, the States needed ten per cent more oil from outside sources just to keep the machine turning over. The ten per cent was not available – except from Arab sources. As Sheikh Gamal Tafak well knew.
^ Oil became more valuable than gold – and was guarded with more security than gold. The Mafia was continuing to hi-jack tankers on highways and freeways. To counter this, Washington organised a convoy system not dissimilar to the Allied shipping convoys during the Second World War. It became normal to see ^ ^ huge fleets of petrol and oil tankers moving through the night with armed guards in the front and rear trucks. Freight trains transporting oil carried machine-gunners mounted on their roofs with searchlights playing over the surrounding countryside whenever a train was halted in the middle of nowhere. Like Europe, where similar precautions had to be taken, the United States was moving into siege conditions.
^ Refineries and pipelines became strategic points to be guarded night and day against the bombers. Bulldozers urgently scooped out tracks alongside pipelines – tracks along which jeeps carrying armed men could patrol. And still America was slowly grinding to a halt as the winter grew in severity, as blizzards swept down into the Middle West and as far south as northern Florida. 'Unprecedented temperatures in the north-east,' the US Weather Bureau reported.
^ In a locked file inside the White House rested a detailed forecast of the estimated gap between fuel requirements and fuel deliveries – assuming the Siberian weather continued. It was calculated the nation might just squeeze through to spring – with a lot of hardship-providing the Arabs maintained their oil cut at the savage fifty per cent. In the event of a fresh cut the forecast for the United States and Europe was summed up in one graphic word. Catastrophe.
^ Six thousand miles away in the Middle East terrorist teams waited for further instructions from Sheikh Carnal Tafak – to destroy the oil-wells if certain other sheikhs refused to cut their oil flow to zero when the moment came.
^ It was snowing when Winter arrived in Anchorage, Alaska, on board Flight BA 850. Because of the wide difference in time zones, although he had left London at 12.45pm he arrived in Anchorage at 11.45am, and it was still Wednesday January 15. In London it was 8.45pm on the evening of the same day and Sullivan had returned to his Battersea flat. He spent part of the evening packing, ready for his departure for Anchorage the following day.
^ At Anchorage International Airport. Winter presented his passport in the name of Robert Forrest. His profession was shown as geologist, but the Immigration official guessed he had something to do with North Slope oil before he even glanced at the false document Winter casually handed him.
^ There was the obvious clue: the folded copy of a British Petroleum house journal in the Englishman's sheepskin pocket. The passenger was also carrying looped over his shoulder a device which registers seismic shocks after explosives dropped into a hole have been detonated, a tool of the geologist's profession.
^ 'North Slope?' the Immigration man enquired with a grin. 'We need you guys to checkmate those A-rab bastards.'
^ 'Take more than North Slope to do that,' Winter replied non-committally. 'Is there a cab outside?'
^ 'If you run – after you get through Customs. Cabs are in short supply these days – you'll have to share…'
^ Winter was passed through Customs with equal good humour and speed. His case was chalked without anyone checking it, as though they were unwilling to hold him up a moment longer than was necessary. He shared a cab with LeCat and two other people, and the Frenchman gave no sign that he had ever met Winter before. Behind them the other two Frenchmen followed in a separate cab.
^ The Westward was a typical American hotel; tall, shaped like an upended shoe-box, it had a rooftop restaurant. Only half the lights were on in the lobby even though outside it was almost dark; a heavy cloud bank hung over the city whose streets were ankle-deep in slush. Nor, in this state which would one day be knee-deep in oil, was it very warm inside the lobby. Obeying government regulations, the manager had the thermostat turned down to sixty-two degrees.
^ Winter booked accommodation in the name of Forrest, dumped his bag in his sixth-floor room, and by the time he walked out of the hotel a hired Chevrolet was waiting for him at the kerb. Behind the wheel sat Joseph Walgren, the American Winter had last met in San Francisco two months earlier. In the back was LeCat, whom Walgren had picked up from another hotel.
^ 'Drive me to the Swan home,' Winter said abruptly. 'I want to check the timing…'
^ 'I checked it,' the fifty-year-old Walgren objected. 'You got the timing in the letter I sent to Cosgrove Manor…'
^ The first stage of the operation was the most difficult, the most likely to go wrong. The key man aboard any ship is the wireless operator, the man who communicates with the shore, however distant; Charlie Swan, the radio operator aboard the ^ Challenger, ^ had to be kidnapped so Winter could put his own man, Kinnaird, in his place before the tanker made its next trip to San Francisco.
^ 'The ^ Challenger ^ docks at the Nikisiki oil terminal at six this evening,' Walgren said as he drove out of the city, 'like I told you in the coded letter. Captain Mackay will come and stay overnight at your hotel, the Westward. Swan, the radio guy, drives home and stays there overnight. He'll drive back to the airport tomorrow, leaving home at 3.30 in the afternoon. He links up there with Mackay-who takes a cab from the hotel to the airport. Then they both get flown back to the oil terminal in the Cessna piloted by Mackay's buddy.'
^ 'I've been up here a month watching them.' Walgren switched off the windscreen wipers: it had stopped snowing. 'That makes three trips for the ^ Challenger – ^ in and out. Those two have schedules like a railroad timetable – never varies. They get so little time ashore they do the same thing. It's become a habit. Kinnaird is shacked up at the Madison downtown – this piece of paper gives you the phone number, and the Swan number.' Walgren gripped the wheel a little tighter. 'I'm glad the hanging around is over. So we make the Swan snatch tomorrow and we're in business…'
^ He stopped talking when he saw Winter's expression. Jesus, the Britisher was an iceberg, unlike the Frenchie behind who would sit and drink brandy with a guy like any other normal human being. Walgren tightened his thick lips and concentrated on his driving. For thirty grand he could put up even with Winter…
^ Heavy grey clouds hung over the Matanuska valley as they sped north-east along the highway and there was snow on the hills. More snow up in those clouds too, Walgren thought. 'You're exceeding the speed limit,' Winter said icily. Swearing inwardly, Walgren dropped down to fifty-five. Everybody exceeded the speed limit if they thought there was no patrol car ahead. It began to rain, a steady, depressing drizzle which blotted out the surrounding countryside. Walgren switched on the wipers, hunched over the wheel, hating the silence inside the car. He drove for almost an hour.
^ 'That's the Swan home coming up,' Walgren told Winter. 'You're almost ten minutes out on your timing,' the Englishman snapped.
^ 'So, I beat the limit a couple of times. Swan keeps the needle on fifty-five the whole way. At least he did the three times I followed him out here from the airport.'
^ Winter said nothing, hiding his annoyance. British, American or French, it seemed impossible to find people who were precise. He had the same trouble with LeCat. So he had to check every damned thing himself.
^ Walgren turned off the lonely highway down a track leading through a copse of snow-covered fir trees. Inside the copse he backed the car in a half-circle until it faced the way they had come. Through a gap in the snow-hung trees the Swan home was clearly visible, an isolated two-storey homestead three or four hundred yards back from the highway with a drive leading up to it. Behind the house stood an old Alaskan barn and a red Ford was parked at the front. In the bleak, snowbound landscape there was only one other house to be seen.
^ 'Won't that car freeze up?' Winter asked as he lowered the window and focused a pair of field glasses.
^ They got it plugged into a power cable,' Walgren replied. That keeps the immersion heater under the hood going. You forget to plug in your cable and inside two hours you got a block of ice instead of a motor…'
^ It was already getting cold inside Walgren's car; to save gas he had switched off the motor while he parked. From a chimney in the Swan household blue smoke drifted, spiralling up in a vertical column. The rain had stopped and the leaden overcast was like a plague cloud covering the Matanuska valley.
^ That house in the distance beyond the Swan place – know anything about it?' Winter enquired.
^ 'Belongs to some people called Thompson, friends of the Swans.' Walgren lit a cigarette. 'Sometimes when Charlie Swan is home the two couples get together – they did on the last trip.'
^ 'No, visit each other's homes. The Swans went over to the Thompson's. When you're home only once in ten days like Charlie Swan is you don't drive into town. You meet up with the folks next door.'
^ 'Used to be a private dick. There are ways. And,' Walgren said aggressively, 'I can't see why we came out here – the snatch is set up for tomorrow…'
^ 'Trial run,' Winter said brusquely. There was no point in explaining that this was another rehearsal, just as Cosgrove Manor had been a rehearsal for the ship hi-jack. He studied the house for a minute or two longer, then told Walgren, 'Drive back into town.'
^ On January 15 it was dark in Anchorage at three in the afternoon. Walgren dropped Winter near the Westward and the Englishman had a late lunch at a coffee shop. So that he was remembered as little as possible he would eat only one meal in the hotel restaurant. Walgren, who ate very little – he was badly overweight and had been reading the health ads – dropped LeCat at his own hotel. Next, he picked up Armand Bazin and started the long drive to Nikisiki oil terminal on the Kenai ^ ^ peninsula.
^ It was six o'clock in the evening when Walgren collected Winter again from the Westward after returning Bazin to his hotel. He drove the Englishman out of the city to an isolated spot where an old barn stood amid a clearing surrounded by evergreens. 'Everything is OK,' he told Winter as they pulled up in front of the building. 'You didn't really have to make the trip…'
^ Winter inspected the barn where Swan and his wife would be kept prisoner for a week. Everything, as Walgren had said, seemed OK. The place was secure, new padlocks had been put on all the windows and doors, and there was a Primus stove for cooking and an adequate supply of canned food, milk and fruit juices. The Swans should be as comfortable as it was possible to make them – including the provision of five oil-heaters and enough fuel to last them a month. Winter didn't bother to ask the American whether he had stolen the oil or brought it on the black market. 'Satisfied?' Walgren enquired drily when they were leaving.
^ 'It will do. Get me back to the hotel fast, Mackay should be arriving soon. But keep inside the speed limit…'
^ Which was a bloody contradiction in terms Walgren thought sourly as he gunned the motor and headed back for the highway. And this was one hell of a long day, the American reminded himself, a day which was by no means over. As soon as he had left Winter at his hotel he had to drive out to the airport, wait for the Cessna bringing Mackay and Swan, the radio operator, from the ^ Challenger's ^ berth at Nikisiki, then follow Swan all the way out to his home in the Matanuska valley.
^ 'Swan is the key to this part of the operation – we must be sure he has arrived home safely,' Winter had replied.
^ Winter got out of Walgren's car a short distance from the Westward and walked the rest of the way to the hotel. He had kept the key of his room in his pocket to avoid appearing too often at the reception desk and went straight up in the elevator. Once inside his room he checked his watch and then went over in his mind the present whereabouts of everyone involved.
^ 7pm. Captain Mackay would be landing at the airport in the Cessna in fifteen minutes; Walgren would be waiting there to follow Swan home. As he stripped off to take a shower Winter went on checking in his mind. LeCat would be at his own hotel, ten blocks away, probably in his room nursing a bottle of cognac. Armand Bazin and Pierre Goussin, who would guard the Swans while they were held in the barn, would beat their own hotel, eating dinner provided by room service while they pretended to pore over a pile of papers. No one would leave their hotel tonight -Winter was not risking someone falling on the icy sidewalks and breaking a leg – and Winter would be the only man eating in a restaurant. He turned on the shower. Finally, Kinnaird, the substitute wireless operator, would be keeping under cover at the Madison.
^ Ten thousand pounds. Every man has an amount at the back of his mind which he feels would give him freedom from the cares and worries of the world. For 'Shep' Kinnaird it was ten thousand pounds. Pulling back the curtain of his bedroom at the Madison he peered through the gap. It looked reassuring: a deserted, snowbound street dimly lit by street lamps which would be turned ^ off ^ at ten o'clock, and no car parked where someone might be keeping an eye on the hotel.
^ Kinnaird, thirty-seven years old, twice divorced – neither woman had been able to endure his gambling habits – was the wireless operator Winter had hired for the ^ Pecheur's ^ radio cabin during the smuggling days in the Mediterranean. Prior to that, Kinnaird had been with the Marconi pool of radio operators, working on the Persian Gulf-West Coast run. Now the ten thousand pounds was within his grasp – it was the payment for substituting himself for Swan, the ^ Challenger's ^ regular wireless op.
^ Less than a mile away inside the Westward Hotel, Captain James Mackay, fifty-five year old master of the ^ Challenger, ^ was sitting down to a late dinner in the rooftop restaurant. A heavily-built, florid-faced man who was surprisingly quick on his feet, Mackay had been on the shuttle run between Alaska and San Francisco for five months. It was a shade too straightforward for his liking: Nikisiki is approximately two thousand miles from San Francisco and the ^ Challenger, ^ travelling at an average speed of seventeen knots, made the trip to the oil terminal of Oleum on the east side of San Francisco Bay in a little over four days.
^ She discharged her precious Alaskan oil in twelve hours and then headed back for Nikisiki. It took a day and a quarter to take on more oil at Cook Inlet – the time in dock could have been shortened but Mackay, mindful of hurricanes in these waters, insisted on meticulous maintenance – and then she started south again for Oleum. So one trip occupied ten days. And it never stopped, the shuttle run. And this, Mackay thought as he studied the menu, was oil from the little known Cook Inlet field. What the hell would it be like when they opened up North Slope?
^ 'T-bone steak and French fries and a glass of beer,' Mackay ordered. He always studied the menu and then always ordered the same food. A widower for ten years, Mackay was a creature of habit, always coming to this same hotel to sleep overnight, always leaving it at 4pm the following day to return to his ship. The vessel then sailed for California at midnight. 'Follow a routine,' Mackay was fond of telling his crew, 'then you'll never forget anything important…'
^ He looked round the almost empty restaurant while he waited for his steak. Four tables away, a tall, thin man wearing horn-rim glasses sat absorbed in his newspaper. When his meal came Mackay ate it quickly – a shipboard habit – and he hardly noticed the man in horn-rim glasses leaving the restaurant just before he finished his own dinner.
^ In the lobby below Winter was studying some brochures when Mackay stepped out of the elevator and went into the bar. Again, part of the routine Walgren had described: after dinner Mackay always had a second beer in the bar before going up to his room early. The photograph of Mackay sent by Walgren to Cosgrove Manor had been a good likeness.
^ Winter wondered how Walgren had taken the picture without being seen, then he strolled over to the entrance to the bar, taking off his horn-rims and tucking them inside his pocket. Mackay was sitting with his back to him, reading a magazine. The barman behind the counter looked straight at Winter, who glanced away as though he had changed his mind and went across to a telephone booth.
^ Phoning Bazin's hotel at the number Walgren had given him, Winter waited to be put through. It was the last thing he had to attend to tonight. Bazin came on the line, confirmed cautiously that he was ready, which meant he was familiar with the Nikisiki oil terminal Walgren had driven him to in the afternoon, that Walgren had handed over to him what he would use – a thermite bomb.