Hunter Killer Read online

I cursed myself for not having broken through the obstructions when I first heard of Peace's death. Now it seemed too late.

  Don't you wish Commander Peace to be honoured?'

  Not in this way.'

  How, then, if I may ask?'

  I . . . I I. . . all I know is that he should have been buried quietly at sea . . .' My voice trailed off.

  The C-in-C rose to go. You have not made any of the

  constructive suggestions I had hoped for from someone so

  close to Commander Peace.' Bloody hypocritical bastard,

  thought. I think we may take it that the present arrangements will stand. Ackroyd will keep in touch with you. Can you have your things packed in, say, an hour? I must ask 21

  you not to come aboard Bellatrix except during the formal lying-in-state hours. Naval guards will be posted with orders.'

  He shrugged slightly. I hope you will not embarrass either

  Me or yourself. I suggest you be as accommodating as pos sible, Mr. Garland.'

  Captain Garland,' I reminded him.

  He smiled, the iron hand in the velvet glove. To me, mister. Had you fallen under my orders—well, this interview might have proceeded somewhat differently.'

  His remote, formal air was impenetrable. He picked up his cap and ground out his gold-tipped Benson and Hedges cigarette: The two officers matched his actions. A formal

  salute, and he was gone.

  The steel coffin creaked gently under Bellatrix's quiet lift. What had an American Intelligence agent sought to find out with that stethoscope? Had he suspected that Peace might

  not be dead? I didn't want to look at the dead face again,

  but the tumult of questions hammering in my brain drew me

  to the coffin itself. Those heavy rivets! I fingered them. Had Loch Vennachar's engineers indeed fabricated the strange contraption? Could they have made it in a brief two or three days?

  I was drawn to the glass trap. What secret big enough for

  the CIA to be interested in lay behind the closed eyes framed by the monkish cap? I had not noticed previously that Peace's head was pillowed on foam rubber. I wiped away the

  last of the whisky. The glass still wasn't clear. There seemed some condensation inside, but the humid climate would account for that. They must have embalmed the body.

  for it to lie another three days in state '—six in all since his death. Then I noticed that the entire interior was of foam rubber.

  I took the stethoscope, adjusted the plugs in my ears, and listened. Nothing. That layer of foam rubber would have damped any sound, however. Although the admiral had said Peace was to be fired from a depth-charge mortar, the body

  did not seem to be strapped in. I calculated the width of Peace's shoulders against the size of the cylinder and recalled his height. Strange! The coffin was much longer and wider than necessary. I explored the, foot. There was a heavy flange. I ran my fingers over it. The metal was rough and painted, but I felt something. I looked round for some instrument, then went and fetched an ice-pick from

  the bar. With it I scratched and found lettering. It read: Cammell-Laird, Ltd., Shipbuilders, Liverpool.'

  I reflected grimly that the key might well lie with the

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  unconscious CIA man. Mac and I would have to make him talk. As far as Cammell-Laird's were concerned, the coffin was probably a stray section of casing or tubing from a submarine bearing their imprint. That would account for its shape and size. The C-in-C had been very much on the defensive with me, but he had warmed a little when he had spoken of the DNI.

  The thought of the DNI decided me. I would go and visit the man whose fame behind the scenes was matched only by

  his anonymity outside the Service. He was, of course, Peace's friend. The C-in-C had said he had settled recently in Mahé. It would not be difficult to track him down in a small place like Port Victoria. Even at this late moment, I thought, he might be able to have some of the undignified extroversion

  of the funeral modified. He might also know Peace's secret. I started towards the engine-room, and as I did so I heard

  the naval guard of honour coming alongside.

  Mac was wry. ' The bastard's still out. Nothing to be had from him for hours.' He looked down at his oil-stained hands. ' We may have softened him up a little, though.'

  ' We've got to be off Bellatrix soon,' I reminded him, looking at the muscular figure lying on the gratings. Mac had patched up the wound on his head and he looked corpse-like with the blood cleaned away.

  ' We can't carry an unconscious man past the guard,' I pointed out. ' We'll lock him up and come back in an hour

  or two on the pretext that we've forgotten something.'

  Mac's voice was savage. ' And—question him.'

  I nodded. ' He'll be tough, though. The CIA boys aren't given to shooting off their mouths, least of all to a couple of amateurs like ourselves.'

  Mac said coldly: ' He tried to get at the skipper. That's enough for me. He'll talk—or else' He picked the man up under the armpits and half-pushed, half-threw him into one

  of the steel lockers. It had a latch, but no lock. It was the best we could do, with the guard already aboard.

  I pocketed the Colt and went to the cabin. The naval party

  had grouped themselves with reversed arms round the coffin. The officer-in-charge frowned to see Mac and me still there. I packed quickly, leaving some of my things as security to be allowed back aboard. From my locker I took the cherished yachting cap I had worn with Peace on the Skeleton Coast. I decided to carry the old cap at the funeral as a token of sentiment, despite the fact that I would be in civilian clothes. A boat was summoned to take us ashore. Before it arrived, I went and stood at Peace's head. A long shaft of sun struck

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  down over Morne Seychellois, enriching the sycamore panelling of the cabin. The curtains over the portholes shifted in the land breeze. It was all sunshine, softness and light: the

  "bizarre grey coffin was as out of place as a Viking hand-axe on a silk cushion.

  This was goodbye, yet I felt nothing. I would never look on Geoffrey Peace's face again. I tried to concentrate my thoughts on that square foot of rather dirty glass, but they kept wandering out across the gentle anchorage, listening to the sounds of the fleet, to the raucous note of a patrol-boat's loud-hailer keeping the curious at bay. I abandoned my silent farewell, telling myself that we'd looked death in the face together so often that now, when it had come in such

  common-place fashion, all I could do was to recognize the fact.

  Ashore at the hotel, I traced the DNI easily, though the English receptionist had been a little stiff, saying merely that he lived in a cottage with a companion. She didn't elaborate. Now I walked beyond the town up a valley towards the mountains. They were striking the Union Jack at Signal

  Hill, at the northern end of the red-soiled valley. It wasn't far.The high casuarina tree screen, with its tangled, lush undermat of plumbago, golden allamanda and hibiscus in which Creole negrillons played hide-and-seek, thinned to show me my objective. Here, indeed, were roses better than the DNI's in Kent, but there the resemblance ended. The cottage was

  topped by palm-leaf thatch and the slabs of pink coral of

  which it was built still held some of their underwater colour in the dying sun. My eye did not linger on its beauties. The object of the nêgrillons' interest was a Royal Navy petty officer with a sub-machine-gun at the gate. In the garden

  were more men with .45 Smith and Wessons and a walkietalkie. The petty officer looked severely at me. ' Sorry, sir. No

  admittance. Orders.'

  Tell the DNI it's John Garland—Commander Peace's friend. He'll understand.'

  The man's voice held a new respect, but he remained

  adamant. Nothing I can do about it, sir. It isn't for the DNI to say who comes and goes. I have a list here-" he tapped his pocket—' and you aren't on it.'

  Anger and frustration boiled in
side me. ' What the devil is all this?' I demanded. The negrillons, sensing a diversion, crept closer, chattering like monkeys. ' What's going on that 24

  an armed guard has to be thrown round the home of a harmless old man?'

  ' I wouldn't say that—'e's very spry still.' The petty officer gave a quick glance round and dropped his voice. Maybe she keeps 'im young, sir,' he leered.

  What do you mean?'

  Young lady in there.' He grinned. Now wot's 'e got that I

  ain't?'

  My concept of the DNI was shaken. .Peace had spoken of the dedicated aesthete ; here was a sailor leching over an old man and his trollop. In St Brandon the islanders will tell you how the women who come from the Seychelles have corrupted the men. And, certainly, to see a sega danced on neighbouring Agalega is to understand how easy it is to obtain a poultry-keeper '—trial bride or sleeping partner, as you wish. Agalega pioneered the system of a husband selecting from among his friends several to share his wife under a gentleman's agreement that the right man is at the right place on the right night. And Agalegans, who consider themselves moral, point accusing fingers at Seychelles women! No wonder the receptionist had been prim when I had asked about the DNI

  He was likely to be useless in the present crisis. My wish

  to see him left me..' It's nothing important,' I said.

  The petty officer reacted to my tone. We all 'eard about

  Commander Peace—you was 'is mate, wasn't you?' Yes—yes,

  you could call it that.'

  He went on: Did you 'ear the radio today, sir? BBC?

  We aint s'posed t'listen except on our own wavelength, but

  we did—was 'e really like that, sir?'

  An iron band seemed to constrict round my head. If I didn't break free of this publicity build-up and sloppy patriotism, I should. He was a brave, cruel, heartless, determined, ruthless bastard who killed more men than he could remember,' I grated. But if I had thought he would have had to endure

  this bloody rubbish when he died, I would have killed him

  long ago with my own hands.

  The petty officer gave a gasp. I swung on my heel and

  stalked down towards the town. I found Mac and, in a savage mood, I rowed out to Bellatrix. I rode rough-shod over the officer of the guard and Mac and I went to the engine-room. He let out an oath at the sight of the empty locker. An open porthole told its own tale. Either the intruder had been foxing us, or he had come round sooner 25

  than we had expected. Silent, angry, we returned to the port.

  •.,The morning of the funeral broke crystal clear, as had done a million other mornings in Limuria. I had been awake since

  first light due to the clump and clatter of the television crews moving out their equipment. I dressed and looked out.

  From seawards 'came the heavy revving of British and

  American jet carrier planes. Bellatrix looked forlorn, guarded only by a small naval launch. The prying small craft were

  missing. The reason was on the radio. The BBC said: ' Last night the body of Commander Peace, the British naval hero

  who is to be buried today with full honours at sea in the

  Seychelles Islands, was conveyed aboard H.M.S. Amirante. As listeners already know, Commander Peace will be committed to his final resting-place by the unusual method of firing his coffin from a destroyer's depth-charge mortar.

  Television cameramen have been stationed aboard the destroyer Amirante and, by courtesy of the Admiralty, viewers in many countries will be able to see' the actual moment of firing . .

  With an oath I switched off. Cap under my arm, I strode

  down to the pierhead to the launch taking me to Loch Ven- nachar. They hadn't expected me early and I had the bridge to myself. A few cables' length away was Amirante. Cameramen, reporters, news commentators and Tv crews clustered round the stern depth-charge throwers. Peace's coffin was

  lashed to one of them, shrouded by a tarpaulin. I tried to

  watch the fleet, but my eyes always went back to that.

  Two hours later I still stood alone on the bridge wing, as

  chief mourner who couldn't mourn. I had been treated by

  the C-in-C's staff as a sort of pariah, set apart by being

  Peace's friend, but without the status of a relative. The Defence Minister and naval officers stood together in reverent silence as the Fleet Chaplain intoned the well-known words

  into a microphone. Black cassock and white surplice blew in the wind, a foil to naval blue and gold braid and black formal coats. The fleet steamed slow ahead. For miles ahead and astern was a superb array of missile cruisers, aircraft carriers, fleet destroyers and corvettes. In the centre, near Loch Vennachar, were the tall sails or conning-towers of six nuclear submarines. This was Britain's crack Limuria

  Squadron. Parallel, a mile distant, was the American Seventh Fleet—the same ships in line ahead, but instead of six submarines, they had ten. Keeping precision station almost under my feet was Amirante, with Peace's body lashed to her mortars.

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  At the chaplain's wind-blown words, . . . Thou hast showed us terrible things and the wonders of the deep .. an officer stepped over and raised his hand to Amirante. If I disagreed with the C-in-C's publicity methods, I could not fault his ships. Amirante's engine-room bells rang. There was a quick thresh of water as her screws went full ahead.

  Simultaneously, the tarpaulin was jerked from the coffin.

  I looked for the last time towards Geoffrey Peace's body.

  Only then did I feel the surge of my pent-up emotions at the sight of the armada of fighting ships, the long swell rolling in on the south-easter, the throb of powerful marine engines, the scream of carrier jets trailing wing-tip smoke.

  . . . Thou sufferedst men to ride over our heads : we

  went through fire and water . .

  A dollop of sea creamed over the destroyer's stern, inundating the depth-charge throwers. Amirante raced down the line of ships. Recif Islet, a white, cuspate, guano-stained rock, fell astern and, fine on the starboard bow, was Frigate Island, where Peace had died. A flock of frigate birds circled over it, like a squadron of planes protecting a fleet. The swell was increasing—we were getting into the cyclone season—and the

  coral reefs and cays where Peace had spent his last hours

  were white. Amirante reached the head of the fleet. swung towards the American side and came round in a dramatic,

  full-ahead turn—a bone in her teeth, a splendid, unforgettable sight. The destroyer reached us. Her timing—and the chaplain's

  —were split-second. As he spoke the sonorous last words,

  Amirante was alongside.

  .. we therefore commit his body to the deep ..

  There was a sharp explosion, a puff of smoke at Amirante's stern. The ungainly coffin cartwheeled high into the air.

  Cameras locked on the grey object as it hurtled upwards and news commentators, hanging on to the stern rails with one

  hand and with microphone in the other, gave their word

  pictures. Slowly the thing rose up and up. It arced downwards. I thought almost I heard the splash above the destroyer's engines. The C-in-C allowed the raw drama to sink in. The chaplain was silent, too, before the Benediction. An officer pressed a button at the rear of Loch Vennachar's bridge. The deck trembled and shook. Four missiles leapt from the cruiser's

  launchers in a flurry of flame. Four others rose from an

  American cruiser. There seemed scarcely any time between

  the launch and a thunderous detonation overhead. Then a

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  helicopter was over Peace's grave and a huge wreath floated down at the end of a parachute.

  As it hit the sea, I felt a sudden impulse. Something of Peace for Peace's end. I reached out my hand' I wouldn't waste a good cap,' said a prim voice.

  Peace had spoken of that voice a thousand times: didactic,

  precise. The DNI stood next to me, scr
ewing up his eyes at the water. Like me, he was not in uniform.

  I held my cap—the Skeleton Coast cap—uncertainly.

  Ny anivon riaka,' he said, articulating the words with a slight forward throw of the lips, like an actor. He smiled. My Creole isn't the best, but it means, " that which is in the midst of the moving waters." Mam'zelle Adele says Creole was once a French patois, but no longer. Everything in Limuria seems to undergo a sea-change.'

  Could this indeed be the man whose influence over Peace

  had been so great? I could not equate his blathering about

  an obscure language in an obscure ocean with his knowledge

  of submarines and underwater strategy, which, Peace claimed, was greater than that of anyone living.

  He went on, ' You would not think that so scattered a community as the Limurian islanders could have a language

  with the subtletly of expression which Creole has. It's as

  diverse as their brede dishes—in South Africa there is almost the same word, bredie, which means rice with things like peppers and tomatoes. There are any number of nuances for

  bredes: brede giraumon, with pumpkin leaves ; brede martin; brede malabar---!

  No wonder Peace admired the Dm—they were equally

  heartless.

  ' You feel all this is appropriate to—?' I nodded towards the swiftly disappearing patch where Peace had been fired.

  He seemed amused. You yourself wanted to give him his

  own sort of farewell—from what I hear—but now you object to anything but formal funeral conversation about the departed hero'

  Departed hero! If a sneer is all Peace could expect . .

  He remained smiling, and gestured with his hand. It seemed wrong, too, that he should be smoking. ' I think you've missed your moment with that cap.'

  Annoyed, thrown off-balance, I went to the dodger. The

  mocking and ironical words followed me. I raised the cap to throw it.

  The camera crews are working hard to record the last

  dramatic gesture of Peace's comrade-in-arms.

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  I looked down—into a battery of 'cameras and telephoto

  lenses aboard Amirante.

  It would be a futile gesture, anyway,' went on the cool

  voice. During our cpnversation we gathered speed and I doubt if anyone could locate the spot now where they fired