Santorini. Alistair MacLean
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say that that’s because you know what the Greeks are like because I don’t know what the Greeks are like. And we mustn’t forget that Andropulos may be as innocent as the driven snow and that there is a perfectly rational explanation for all that has happened. Anyway, it would do no harm to try and you never can tell, Vincent—she might turn out to be a classic Greek beauty.’
From the fact that the whaler was lying stopped in the water and that Cousteau, his hand resting idly on the tiller, appeared to be expressing no great degree of interest in anything, it was obvious that his wait had been a vain one, a fact he confirmed on his arrival on the bridge.
Talbot called the sonar room. ‘You have pinpointed the location of the plane?’
‘Yes, sir. We’re sitting exactly above it. Depth registered is eighteen fathoms. That’s the echo from the top of the fuselage. Probably lying in about twenty fathoms. It’s lying in the same direction as it was flying when it came down—northeast to south-west. Picking up some rather odd noises down here, sir. Would you care to come down?’
‘Yes, I will.’ For reasons best known to himself Halzman, the senior sonar operator, preferred not to discuss it over an open line. ‘A minute or two.’ He turned to Van Gelder. ‘Have McKenzie put down a marker buoy, about midships. Tell him to lower the weight gently. I don’t want to bump too hard against the plane’s fuselage in case we do actually come into contact with it. When that’s been done, I want to anchor. Two anchors. A stern anchor to the north-west, about a hundred yards distant from the buoy, then a bow anchor a similar distance to the south-east.’
‘Yes, sir. May I suggest the other way around?’
‘Of course, you’re right. I’d forgotten about our old friend. Taking a holiday today, isn’t it? The other way around, of course.’ The ‘old friend’ to which he referred and which Van Gelder clearly had in mind, was the Meltemi wind, referred to as the ‘Etesian’ in the British sailing directions. In the Cyclades, in the summer months—and indeed in most of the Aegean—it blew steadily, but usually only in the afternoon and early evening, from the north-west. If it did start up, the Ariadne would ride more comfortably if it were bows on to it.
Talbot went to the sonar room which was only one deck down and slightly aft. The sonar room was heavily insulated against all outside noise and dimly lit by subdued yellow lighting. There were three display screens, two sets of control panels and, over and above all, a considerable number of heavily padded earphones. Halzman caught sight of him in an overhead mirror—there were a number of such mirrors around, speaking as well as any other kind of sound was kept to a minimum in the sonar room—removed his earphones and gestured to the seat beside him.
‘Those earphones, sir. I thought you might be interested in listening for a minute.’
Talbot sat and clamped the earphones on. After about fifteen seconds he removed them and turned to Halzman, who had also removed his.
‘I can’t hear a damned thing.’
‘With respect, sir, when I said a minute, I meant just that. A minute. First of all you have to listen until you hear the silence, then you’ll hear it.’
‘Whatever that means, I’ll try it.’ Talbot listened again, and just before the allotted minute was up, he leaned forward and creased his brow. After another thirty seconds he removed the head-set.
‘A ticking sound. Strange, Halzman, you were right. First you hear the silence and then you hear it. Tick…tick…tick, once every two to three seconds. Very regular. Very faint. You’re certain that comes from the plane?’
‘I have no doubt, sir.’
‘Have you ever heard anything like it before?’
‘No, sir. I’ve spent hundreds of hours, more likely thousands, listening to sonar, asdics, hydrophones, but this is something quite new on me.’
‘I’ve got pretty good hearing but I had to wait almost a moment before I could imagine I could hear anything. It’s very, very faint, isn’t it?’
‘It is. I had to turn the hearing capacity up to maximum before I stumbled on it—not a practice I would normally follow or recommend—in the wrong circumstances you can get your eardrums blasted off. Why is it so faint? Well, the source of the sound may be very faint to begin with. I’ve been thinking about this, sir—well, I’ve had nothing else to think about. It’s either a mechanical or electrical device. In either case it has to be inside a sealed or waterproof casing. A mechanical device could, of course, operate in water even if it was totally submerged, but operating in water would dampen out the sound almost completely. An electrical device would have to be totally sealed against sea-water. The plane’s own electrical system, of course, has ceased to function, so it would have to have its own supply system, almost certainly battery-powered. In either event, mechanical or electrical, the sound impulses would have to pass through the waterproof casing, after which they must pass through the fuselage of the plane.’
‘Have you any idea as to what it might be?’
‘None whatsoever. It’s a two and a half second sequence—I’ve timed it. I know of no watch or clock movement that follows that sequence. Do you, sir?’
‘No, I don’t. You think it could be some sort of timing device?’
‘I thought about that too, sir, but I put it out of my mind.’ Halzman smiled. ‘Maybe I’m prejudiced against that idea because of all those cheap and awful video film cassettes we have aboard, with all their special effects and pseudo science. All I know for sure, sir, is that we have a mysterious plane lying on the sea-bed there. Lord only knows what mysterious kind of cargo it was carrying.’
‘Agreed. I think we’d better leave it at that for the moment. Have one of your boys monitor it, once, say, in every fifteen minutes.’
When Talbot returned to the bridge he could see the marker buoy just astern, bobbing gently in the very small wake Van Gelder was creating as he edged the Ariadne gently to the north-west. Very soon he stopped, juggled the engines to and fro until he reckoned the bows were a hundred yards distant from the buoy, had the anchor dropped, then moved just as slowly astern, the anchor chain being paid out as he went. Soon the stern anchor had been paid out and the Ariadne was back to where she had started, the buoy nudging the midships port side.
‘Neatly done,’ Talbot said. ‘Tell me, Number One, how are you on puzzles?’
‘Useless. Even the simplest crossword baffles me.’
‘No matter. We’re picking up a strange noise on the sonar. Maybe you’d like to take a turn along there, perhaps even identify it. Baffles me.’
‘Consider it done. Back in two or three minutes.’
Twenty minutes elapsed before he returned to the bridge where Talbot was now alone: as the ship was no longer under way, Harrison had retired to his Mess.
‘That was a long couple of minutes, Vincent, and what are you looking so pleased about?’
‘I really don’t know how you do it, sir. Incredible. I don’t suppose you have any Scottish blood?’
‘Not a drop, as far as I’m aware. Am I supposed to be following you, Number One?’
‘I thought maybe the second sight. You were right. A classic Greek beauty. Irene. Miss Charial, that is. Odd, mind you, blonde as they come. I thought all those warm-blooded young Latin ladies had hair as black as a raven’s wing.’
‘It’s the sheltered life you lead, Vincent. You should go to Andalucia some day. Seville. On one street corner a dusky Moorish maiden, the next a Nordic blonde. We’ll discuss pigmentation some other time. What did you learn?’
‘Enough, I hope. It’s an art, sir, this casual and inconsequential approach. The questioning, I mean. She seems honest and open enough, not ingenuous, if you know what I mean, but quite straightforward. Certainly didn’t give the impression of having anything to hide. Says she doesn’t