9

Having finished breakfast, Marker and Cafell had almost three hours to kill before their meeting with Vice-Admiral Leo Baskin. As a quick glance through the tourist brochures in the hotel lobby made clear, there were plenty of sights to see in Key West, but none that appealed to both men in equal measure. They agreed to meet back at the hotel ten minutes before the time arranged for their collection.

There was in fact only one place that Marker really wanted to see, and he spent half an hour gradually working his way towards it through the grid of sun-drenched streets. The houses and luxuriant vegetation were a feast for the eyes in themselves, and the rising heat didn’t encourage haste. By the time he reached Tennessee Williams’s house the sweat was lining his brow.

The playwright’s former home was a modest affair, a single-storey white clapboard structure fronted by a white picket fence. The garden hosted several species of palms and palmettos, including a towering fan-shaped Traveler’s tree. The house was occupied, and there was no sign or plaque to advertise its famous former owner, only the street number quoted in the guide book.

Marker had loved all the films made from Williams’s plays, from the still-famous ones like A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to those that had been almost forgotten, like the original Glass Menagerie with Jane Wyman and the young Kirk Douglas. The man had understood something about people. How something pathetic could also be noble, maybe. He was a merciful writer, Marker decided.

And a gay one, he thought, as he took a different route back towards the town centre. It was ironic that he and the seriously macho Ernest Hemingway should be feted in the same place.

Hemingway’s house was as distinguished as Williams’s had been modest: a lovely two-storey mansion in Moorish-Spanish style. And it had been turned into a museum. Marker took the guided tour, and saw six-toed cats, hunting trophies, Papa’s taste in furniture, and the study in which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and the original To Have and Have Not. Marker had read the latter after loving the movie, and had to admit the movie was better.

Not much more than a five-minute walk away Rob Cafell was pursuing his different interests. Having already been round the Key West Lighthouse Museum, and admired the view from the newly restored tower, a hundred and ten feet high, he was now entering the portals of the oldest house in the town, a raised white clapboard building which was home to the Wreckers Museum.

Wrecking, as he had already learnt at the Lighthouse, had once been Key West’s main dollar-earner. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the poorly charted shallows and reefs of the Florida Straits had claimed ships almost weekly, and fortunes had been made by those able to salvage the cargoes. Not surprisingly the locals had not been enthusiastic lighthouse builders, and when the first major installation had been lost in a hurricane the celebrations had probably been audible in New York.

The museum rooms contained ship models, painting and ordinary household artefacts from that era. In one room a ‘House-Wife’s Guide’ sat on the table, in another an old sailing ship’s medicine chest. On the wall of the passageway had been pinned a collage of press cuttings to do with wrecks. Cafell was fascinated by all of it, and was only driven out into the back garden by the promise of more exhibits.

It was a lovely garden in itself, with well-groomed lawn and flower-beds surrounded by a variety of tropical trees. At the bottom a large shelter housed an illuminated map of local wrecks. Cafell pushed one of the buttons, and lit the spot where the Santa Margarita had gone down in 1554 with a cargo of gold today worth $17 million.

One day, he thought, he would really like to do some treasure hunting. Not for the treasure, but for the hunting. And the history.

He sat down on a wrought-iron garden seat and admired the garden. His mother would love this, he thought. She had always said the garden kept her sane through her husband’s long absences. He thought about his parents, and how hard they were finding the process of adapting to his father’s retirement. The old man’s only forte these days seemed to be getting in his wife’s way. Like she said: ‘You would think a man who had spent half his life on submarines would know how to move around in a confined space.’

Cafell smiled to himself. They would be all right once the dust settled.

It was almost ten-thirty. He reluctantly lifted himself out of the seat and went back inside. After signing the visitor’s book and saying goodbye to the museum keeper, he walked slowly back down Duvall Street. The number of gay-looking men was quite noticeable, mostly because they all seemed to want to dress like stereotypes. Cafell was rather glad they did. It made the place seem different. Not better or worse – just different. And he liked that.

Back at the hotel he found Marker changing into a fresh set of clothes, and decided to do the same himself. On their way down to the lobby he wondered out loud whether the Americans would be expecting uniforms.

‘Probably,’ Marker agreed.

Their chauffeur was early, and by eleven o’clock they were being waved through the gates of the US Navy Trumbo Annexe. The car drove down between a barracks block and a docked frigate before pulling up outside an art deco-style office building. Once inside they were left in a plush waiting area, where they drew enough curious looks to make them feel like goldfish in a bowl.

After about ten minutes a young lieutenant came to deliver them to Vice-Admiral Baskin’s office. The latter was not much older than they were – around thirty-eight, Marker guessed – with an open face, blue eyes and close-cropped blond hair. The man with him, a moustachioed Hispanic named Jiménez, wore the uniform of a commander in the US Coast Guard.

They all shook hands.

‘So,’ Baskin began, ‘what can we do for the British SEALs?’

Marker smiled. ‘We like to think of the SEALs as the American SBS,’ he said.

Baskin grinned back. ‘OK, so everyone thinks they’re numero uno. Now, business. Your bosses in London have asked us to fix you guys up with a boat that can tow one of your submersibles. Which is fine – we’ve got you a real doozy.’

‘Great,’ Marker said.

‘And we reckoned you wouldn’t want to be hauling it up and down in the elevator at your hotel, so we’ve found you somewhere more convenient to stay.’ He beamed at them. ‘It’s kind of suitable, in more ways that one. It’s in Marathon, which is on Key Vaca, one of the middle keys, about fifty miles east of here. Closer to where your friend is treasure hunting. The house has cable TV, gym, swimming pool – you name it. There’s a dock for the boat. And it’s private – the neighbours are a long way off. The place used to belong to one of the Colombian cartels, but it was confiscated when the police busted the small fry whose name was on the deed.’

‘Sounds ideal,’ Marker agreed.

‘That’s OK then. Next item. Jorge?’

The Coast Guard man came to life. ‘London asked us about a week ago for a discreet check on the Arcilla boat. Because of the discreet tag, we decided not to put it under continuous surveillance, but we’ve had a surface watch in force on and off for several days and through most of the nights. And we filled that out with aerial and satellite recon, so we don’t think we can have missed much. And’ – he entwined his fingers in front of his chest – ‘it looks like they’re doing what they claim to be doing.’

‘What about the submarine?’ Cafell asked.

‘It’s there. And it stays there . . .’

‘Are you sure?’

‘It was the first thing we looked for. For the obvious reasons. We don’t know the exact maximum speed it is capable of, but even at twenty knots – which I am sure you will consider outside the range of what is possible . . .’

The SBS men nodded.

‘Even at that speed it would need ten hours to make a round trip to either US coastal waters or the Bahamas, and the longest interval between sightings which we have is four hours.’ He shrugged. ‘So you see . . .’

‘Could it be meeting up with another boat?’ Cafell asked.

‘It could, but what would be the point? Why use a submarine at all if you don’t intend to use it where it really matters, in coastal waters?’

The argument seemed unanswerable.

‘What about the helicopter?’ Marker asked.

It only paid the one visit, on the Thursday night, which you already know about. It was there for about an hour and a half, sitting on the floating helipad they have out there, unloading supplies and taking on fuel.’

‘And then it headed back towards the Turks and Caicos?’

‘Yes.’

‘A mystery,’ Cafell murmured.

‘Maybe you boys’ll have to pay a visit to Mr Arcilla’s boat,’ Baskin said with an easy smile.

‘Maybe,’ Marker agreed. He had the unpleasant feeling that Baskin saw him and Rob as mercenaries on loan from the British government. Well, he would take the goodies that were on offer, and as long as their interests coincided he would play the grateful ally, but should those interests ever diverge then the Americans would find out that the SBS were not for sale. ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘We were briefed on recent history as far as the local drug traffic’s concerned, but if you could give us some idea of the current state of play.’

Baskin deferred to Jiménez, who thought for a moment before speaking. ‘It’s hard to say,’ he admitted. ‘Superficially, we’re going through a good patch. We’re using more aggressive tactics, and the interdiction rate is the highest it’s ever been. I’m not saying we manage to check out every boat or plane that enters our waters or airspace, but these days at least the bastards know they’re taking a big risk when they try. Of course this has meant a shift in the most-favoured routes, and now more stuff is coming in across the Mexican land border . . .’

‘You put a finger in one hole, and the stuff comes out of another one.’

‘Something like that.’

‘What about the local politics?’ Marker asked. ‘Haiti, for example.’

‘What about it?’ Baskin asked defensively.

‘Is there any evidence of official involvement in the drug trade – by the military, maybe?’

‘None that I’m aware of,’ Baskin said. Jiménez just shook his head.

Marker had the feeling he was stepping on toes, though he couldn’t see why. For several months the Americans had been threatening to invade Haiti and restore the exiled President Aristide, and the notion that they had no intelligence of what was going on inside the country was ludicrous.

Maybe they knew too much, he realized. Maybe there were political reasons why they needed Haitians whom they knew to be involved in illegal activities. That’s all we need, Marker thought – to discover that the CIA are behind Arcilla. He dismissed the thought. The Americans – or at least some of them – definitely wanted Arcilla dealt with.

‘Any other questions?’ Baskin was asking cheerfully.

Marker looked at Cafell, who shook his head. The four men got to their feet and shook hands again. ‘And of course we have a car for you,’ was Baskin’s parting shot.

The young lieutenant who had escorted them to Baskin’s office was waiting outside to show them their new means of transport. As they walked round the back of the building he handed over the keys to the SBS men’s new home, car and boat, and a sheet of paper containing names, contact numbers and wavelengths for when the need arose. The car was a bottle-green Nissan Bluebird.

The lieutenant travelled with them as far as the base gate, and told them that if there was anything else they wanted they only had to call and ask.

‘This is what I call hospitality,’ Cafell said, as he checked one of the maps which had been provided for the quickest route to their hotel. ‘And you’re supposed to drive on the right,’ he reminded Marker, as a taxi went honking past, missing the Nissan’s wing by inches.

They picked up their gear at the hotel, and drove east out of Key West along a wide road lined with junk-food outlets, miniature golf courses and discount warehouses. A sign told them it was forty miles to Marathon.

It was a beautiful day, with fluffy white clouds sailing across the sky to their left, and the sun shining down out of a clear blue sky to their right. The prominent mile markers on the single highway were not only there to indicate distances travelled, but also, as Cafell soon discovered, formed the crucial element in any address on the Florida Keys. ‘See,’ he explained to Marker, ‘there’s a restaurant advertised here and the address is just “45.3”. Everything is on the same highway, for a hundred miles.’

‘It’s not what you’d call beautiful, is it?’ Marker observed.

‘According to the guide book it gets better as you travel east,’ Cafell told him.

‘Good.’

They were traversing the fourth or fifth key by now, and so far the sea had been mostly hidden behind bushes, run-down buildings and the huge concrete poles by the side of the highway which carried both power lines and telephone wires.

Suddenly they were on a long bridge, sweeping out across a wide channel, with panoramic views of the bay and straits to either side. The next key was more the way Marker had imagined them. The highway was lined with palm trees, the neon motel signs adorned with crowns of bougainvillaea and hibiscus. Boats bobbed at anchor behind bait and tackle shops, and there were tantalizing glimpses of white-sand beaches lapped by turquoise water. The only possible catch was evident in one of the neon names – the Hurricane Resort Motel. Marker remembered the hurricane in Key Largo, one of his favourite films.

‘We’re coming to the Seven Mile Bridge,’ Cafell said, and a few seconds later they were on it. Double yellow lines divided the road between its beige concrete walls, making it seem like an old-fashioned racing track. A hundred yards or so to the left, the old railway bridge ran a parallel course. The two structures seemed almost to hang in space, somewhere between the sea and the sky.

‘Key Vaca’s next,’ Cafell said. ‘Look for 47.7.’

They were hardly off the bridge when the turn-off appeared. It was no more than a rough track, winding down from the highway through a stand of royal palms and past two other entrances before ending at the gates of Buena Vista.

Cafell got out and unlocked the gates for Marker to drive through.

The house was a modern, white-painted, one-storey building with a sun terrace. Steps led through more palms to where a picnic table had been placed near the water’s edge. A hammock hung between two of the palms.

Close by, the upright arm of a T-shaped jetty ran some thirty yards out into the Florida Straits. A boat was docked along the cross arm. The sixty-foot cabin cruiser, gleaming white with a pale-blue trim, was named the Slipstream Queen. It looked fast, Marker thought.

‘It’ll have to do,’ Cafell said sarcastically.

They went aboard. There were two cabins with four bunks each, a lounge area, galley, small bathroom and ample storage space, most of it filled with fishing tackle. On the bridge they found a folder containing Coast Guard charts of the local waters. The boat manufacturer’s manual was also prominently in evidence, but as far as Marker could tell the controls all seemed straightforward.

‘I wonder why they bothered with the house,’ he murmured.

‘There’s no TV here,’ Cafell told him.

They went back ashore and walked up to the house, noting the drums of marine fuel which had been stacked in the adjoining garage.

‘I don’t want to be in Poole when the bill for this lot arrives,’ Marker said.

The house offered more of the same: crisp sheets, a full refrigerator and drinks cabinet, a massive stereo TV. The two men opened up a huge bag of corn chips, cracked open cans of cold beer, and took it all out to the terrace, where they lowered themselves into reclining chairs, toasted their allies, and considered the next step.

‘I’ve got a feeling our hosts have fucked up over the submarine business,’ Cafell said. ‘1 mean, they’ve got boats watching, planes watching, satellites watching – it sounds like a case of too many watchers spoiling the broth to me.’

‘Broth?’ Marker repeated doubtfully.

Cafell threw a corn chip at him.

‘Maybe,’ Marker agreed, ‘but I wouldn’t bet on it. Tomorrow we’ll go and have a look for ourselves, unless you can think of a good reason for going out there tonight.’

Cafell considered. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘I think we should keep a night visit in reserve. Especially since you forgot to ask the Yanks what sort of warning system the Tiburón Blanco has.’

‘I didn’t forget – I already knew. Franklin told me the boat has radar.’

‘Then I think our first approach should be as innocent-looking as we can make it. We should let them see us coming. I can be happily fishing, and you can be doing your camp Humphrey Bogart impersonation on the bridge.’

Marker nodded. ‘Two men in a boat,’ he said.

‘We should get a dog from somewhere,’ Cafell decided.

Marker grinned. ‘Well, while you’re out looking for one I’m going to tell the boss what we’re planning. Just in case the opposition doesn’t buy our innocent routine, and decides to get nasty when there are no witnesses around.’

‘Good point,’ Cafell agreed through a mouthful of corn chips. ‘And while you’re at it, you can ask him where the famous frigate’s got to. Tell the boss we’ve seen Miami Vice, we know what we’re up against, and two handguns doesn’t seem like an adequate arsenal.’

Marker went to collect the radio, set it up on the terrace and sent the report, thinking how strange it felt to be using it in such surroundings. He had typed out messages on windswept Norwegian glaciers and in flooded holes on the sides of Falklands hills, but never before in the shade of palms on a rich man’s patio.

When he had finished they took the Slipstream Queen a little way out to sea, just to find out how she handled. Like a dream was the answer, and a speedy one at that. After tying up the boat, they took a swim. Then, with the light beginning to fade, they walked back up to the highway, crossed it, and found their way down to the shore of the bay. The sunset was as stunning as it had been the night before, and this time graced by the antics of the local pelican, who flew to and fro along the shore in front of them, as if he was auditioning for a part in a tourist board ad.

Back at the house they tried in vain to find something worth watching on one of the TV’s sixty-four channels. They then considered microwaving a couple of the TV dinners from the freezer, before deciding that their culinary expectations had been raised by the days on Provo. Relieved at finding an excuse to indulge their restlessness the two men climbed back into the car and headed east once more, Marker at the wheel and Cafell trying to make sense of the guide book.

The road was reasonably busy, causing Marker to wonder how bad it got during the tourist season.

‘Seen the film The African Queen?’ Marker asked.

Cafell shook his head. Marker looked at him with disbelief. ‘You haven’t!? Well, you should. It’s a classic. Anyway it was a boat. They’ve got the original here. It’s on Key Largo, I think. That’s another one you should see. Can you see it in that book of yours?’

Within seconds Cafell had found the place. ‘Yeah, it’s right by the Holiday Inn. But Key Largo’s another thirty miles.’

‘We’ve got all night.’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘I thought you said it was near a Holiday Inn.’

They arrived a little over half an hour later, and found the original African Queen tied up at the dock which ran alongside the restaurant’s parking lot. It looked smaller than it had in the film, Marker decided, as he tried to imagine Bogart and Hepburn sitting aboard. There was the boiler Bogart used to kickstart. It was all very strange, looking down at a craft which he had only ever seen in the context of an African river, and which now sat in the shadow of a modern hotel, close by a modern highway.

He couldn’t have been more than seven when he had first seen the film. Now, staring down at the boat, he had an almost overwhelming feeling that he had lost something, and that there was no way he would ever get it back. This might be the real African Queen in one way, but in another it was no more than an echo of the real thing. The film’s final scene on the German boat flashed through his mind, and then his marriage to Penny on that rainy day in Dorchester.

He turned away from the boat. ‘Let’s eat,’ he told the waiting Cafell.

Russell lay awake, listening to the steady hum of the air-conditioner and the random song of the cicadas. It was gone three in the morning, and the excess of booze which had put him out like a light had refused to leave him in this blissful state. His mouth felt like someone had filled it with sand, but he couldn’t persuade his legs to go and fetch him a long, non-alcoholic drink.

He was feeling sorry for himself. And sorry for himself that he was feeling sorry for himself.

A racking cough erupted in his throat, and finally forced him up off the bed and into the kitchen. He took the half jug of fresh mango juice out of the fridge and drank straight from it. It was far too sweet, but it soothed his throat. Russell wiped his lips with the back of his hand and sat down in the nearest chair.

Another month of this, he thought, and I’ll be drinking as much as that bastard Bodin. And probably forgetting to suture some kid’s artery.

There was no getting round it – he had to get out of this place. Up until the previous Friday he had been doing a fair job of convincing himself that he had a duty to stay and help Emelisse. An attempted escape, he had kept telling himself, would be selfish as well as dangerous.

The girl’s death had not destroyed the argument, but it had certainly weakened it. If he could get away, and expose this place for what it was, there would be an outcry. It wouldn’t matter a damn how many influential friends Joutard had in Port au Prince – someone would close him down. And there would be no more teenagers dying on Bodin’s operating table.

That was the optimistic view. Russell took another swig of the mango juice, and stared at the wall. A pessimist might predict that Joutard would react to the threat of imminent closure by liquidating all his human assets in one fell swoop. And become the first millionaire bone salesman.

Russell looked at the floor. He couldn’t make a break for it without offering to take her along, even though he was ninety-nine per cent certain she would refuse. ‘No, make that a hundred per cent,’ he murmured out loud. She couldn’t leave her orphans to the mercy of Joutard, Calderón and Bodin.

So how could he? ‘Self-preservation,’ he told the floor. If he didn’t escape, then sooner or later he was going to die here. And so, in all likelihood, were the others. If for some reason the boom came down on the enterprise there was no way Joutard was going to be handing out fat redundancy cheques and gold watches for devoted service. In fact the logical way to close this business down was to sell off first the patients and then the doctors, organ by organ, bone by bone. Two birds with one scalpel – they would be making money out of destroying evidence.

No, he was going to get out, or at least have a shot at it. But he wouldn’t tell her yet, not until he was ready.

Next morning the Slipstream Queen was already twenty miles south of the Keys when the appointed time for the transmission from Poole arrived. This was deliberate on Marker’s part – being out on the ocean, away from prying ears, would make it possible to conduct a normal conversation with the CO.

In fact there was not much to say. Colhoun approved of their plan of action, such as it was. ‘The next step will be the tricky one,’ he advised, ‘depending of course on whether you find out anything. If you do, then one of the most difficult decisions we’ll have to take is how much to tell the Americans.’

Cafell raised an eyebrow, but Marker immediately knew what he meant. ‘Russell’s just a name to them,’ he agreed.

‘Exactly. Assuming he’s alive, I want you to have at least one stab at getting him out of the firing-line before our friends go in with all guns blazing.’

‘Agreed, though at the moment I have my doubts as to whether we will find out anything.’

‘Take it as it comes,’ Colhoun said tritely. ‘The “famous frigate”, by the way, will be waiting for you tonight, from 19.00 hours, at . . .’ He reeled off a series of nautical coordinates, which Cafell took down. ‘That’s about thirty miles west of our friend’s treasure hunt,’ he added. ‘They have a submersible for you, an electric torpedo, a couple of Kleppers, and the guns you asked for. And they’re not going to wander far in the next week or so, just in case . . .’

‘Our own frigate on call,’ Cafell murmured to himself.

After the connection had been broken, he and Marker studied the relevant chart once more. A cross marked the location of the Tiburón Blanco. The question was where they should drop their own anchor.

‘If we’re pretending to be fishermen then almost anywhere will do,’ Cafell said, ‘but if we’re in the diving business, then we should be somewhere above the edge of this reef.’ He ran a finger along the undersea contour line.

‘Fishing’s a better idea,’ Marker said. ‘If they see us in diving suits they may start looking for us under their boat.’

‘OK, then it’s just a matter of how far off we want to be.’

‘Far enough not to make them suspicious, close enough to be able to see something. A mile sound too far?’

‘Slightly. Those binoculars aren’t that good. Make it a thousand yards.’

‘We don’t need to check their nose-picking style.’

‘We don’t know what we want to check. If we’re as careful as the Yanks must have been we’ll end up with what they got – which was nothing.’

Marker grimaced. ‘Maybe there’s nothing to get. But OK, a thousand yards. Which direction?’

Cafell thought about it. ‘South is the obvious bet – between them and the sun. But . . .’

‘To anyone with a suspicious mind that’ll look a bit too calculated.’

‘Yeah. West is the next best bet.’

‘Let’s go with that.’ Marker straightened and yawned.

‘I’ll get the tub moving again,’ said Cafell, moving across to the controls. ‘Why don’t you make us some more coffee?’ he added over his shoulder.

Marker eyed his partner’s bare back, bare legs, and the hideous Bermuda shorts which filled the space in between. It was as if some deranged fashion designer had finally found the secret of how to use every clashing fluorescent colour known to man in a few square inches of cloth.

‘You do look the part,’ Marker admitted.

‘The dashing captain or the keen fisherman?’

‘The rich prat.’

The sun was almost at its zenith when they had their first sighting of the Tiburón Blanco, a dot on the distant horizon, in the gap between the thin lines which marked the two Muertos Cays. The two boats were not alone on the ocean: doing a slow 360-degree turn in the stern, Marker counted twelve others visible to the naked eye. True, most of them were in motion, but at least three seemed to be anchored for one reason or another in the shallow waters of the Cay Sal Bank. Establishing a presence within sight of Arcilla’s boat would not seem as automatically suspicious as they had feared it would.

Cafell took the boat slowly towards the position they had decided on, as if he was engaged in looking for the perfect spot. As they approached the more westerly of the two small and barren cays the water grew increasingly clear. Even so, Marker, leaning over the side of the boat as part of the same pantomime, could not make out the bottom. The slope beneath them was steep.

It was, Marker admitted to himself, a good spot for treasure hunting. A wreck that had somehow been snagged near the top of this undersea slope would only recently, with the advances in underwater research technology, have become accessible. Maybe Arcilla really had found a fortune in gold.

As Cafell cut the engines he went forward to lower the anchor, and cast a casual glance over the flat blue sea towards the distant Tiburón Blanco. No doubt someone on board Arcilla’s boat had been watching them ever since they hove into view. And now it was clear that they were staying for a while the observation would become all the more intense.

‘If we’re not diving today we can have a beer,’ he told Cafell.

His partner obliged, returning from the galley with a couple of bottles. The two men settled into canvas seats in the shade of the awning and appreciatively sipped at the ice-cold beers. Marker had his back to the other boat, Cafell his profile.

‘Let’s hope they don’t have a telescopic microphone,’ Marker muttered.

‘So what’s the next step?’ Cafell asked.

‘We fish for a while. Then you can head indoors and start taking a closer look at them. After half an hour you can come back out with a couple of microwaved meals, as if you’ve been cooking.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

They finished the beers, collected two more cans, and set themselves up in the stern with the simplest fishing rods they could find among the boat’s ample supply. Cafell had not fished for many years, and his enthusiasm for the sport was not much greater than Marker’s, who had never held a rod in his life.

The fish didn’t seem to realize this, and each man caught a sizeable specimen within the first half hour. They threw them contemptuously back into the sea, had another apparent can of beer – Cafell filled two empties with water – and laughed uproariously at non-existent jokes. A couple of bikini-clad beauties, Marker thought, would have completed the impression they were trying to create.

Cafell got up to go inside, and, with a theatrical drunken stumble, disappeared from view. He walked through the lounge area and into the galley, where the steam vent had been chosen as the best available observation point. He collected the sheet of gauze veil from the table, and wrapped it around the telescope. This would remove the chances of tell-tale reflective flash with hardly any hindrance to his vision. Kneeling on the counter, he made himself as comfortable as possible and applied the telescope to one of the vent’s narrow apertures.

At first he could see only empty sea and sky, but a slight shift to the left brought the Tiburón Blanco into view. It more than filled the telescope’s field of vision, and Cafell could read the name painted on the bow without difficulty. Behind it, the floating helipad hardly seemed to move in the water.

The boat itself was big, but its lines were graceful enough. Examining it from bow to stern, Cafell counted five men in view, all of whom looked Hispanic. Two of them, one wearing a captain’s cap, were talking together in the enclosed bridge; another two, both wearing diving suits but bareheaded, were sitting in the stern taking it easy. Beside them, but not apparently part of their conversation, another man sat with a pair of binoculars around his neck and a shoulder holster draped loosely across one shoulder. As Cafell examined him, the man picked up the binoculars and took a cursory look across the water at the Slipstream Queen.

Cafell froze, but if the man had seen anything significant he gave no sign of it. He let the binoculars dangle once more against his matted chest and lit a cigarette.

This scene remained basically unchanged for the next half hour, and Cafell was about to abandon the observation for lunch when a flurry of movement in the water below the other boat caught his eye. Almost immediately a long, dark shape rose up into view – the submarine.

It was about twenty feet long, and cylindrical. Two bulbous growths had been added: one where the conning-tower on a larger submarine might have been, the other at what was presumably the bow end. This was divided into two large convex windows, which gave the whole craft an insect-like air. There were also large windows in the flanks, through which Cafell could see movement.

Four of the five men on deck were now looking down over the side, while the fifth had resumed scanning the Slipstream Queen through his binoculars. A hatch swung open in the top of the bulb on the roof, and a man in a diving suit clambered out through it, swung himself down on to the rungs welded into the side of the boat alongside, and climbed aboard. Another man followed him.

The central bulb had to be a small escape hatch, Cafell figured. Hence the diving suits. It was hard to imagine a craft better suited to treasure hunting.

Its two crewmen had disappeared inside the Tiburón Blanco, as had the two who had been relaxing. Even the man with the binoculars had vanished. They were all having lunch, Cafell guessed. He clambered down, found a couple of packets to microwave, and went back to the hatchway leading out to the deck. ‘Come and take a look,’ he said.

Marker followed him through to the galley, lifted himself up on to the counter and examined boat and submarine through the telescope. He was as impressed by both as Cafell had been. ‘I’d like to get a closer look at that submarine,’ he said. There were no markings to indicate its Soviet origin – only an outsize number three between the two observation windows on the side.

Nick Russell must have had a much closer view of it in the marina on Provo. But what could he have seen to provoke his own kidnapping?

The microwave pinged to announce lunch. The two men sat either side of the tiny table staring at the little plastic trays containing portions of Chicken Mediterranean on wild rice, carrots and broccoli, and raspberry cobbler. Cafell’s cobbler had oozed into the chicken compartment during the cooking process.

It didn’t taste bad. It hardly tasted at all.

Marker slid his tray into the rubbish container. ‘At least there’s no washing up,’ he said. ‘What do you think about paying them a visit?’

‘An announced visit?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What excuse are we going to use? That we want to borrow some sugar?’

‘I’ve heard worse.’

Cafell switched tack. ‘What’s the purpose of the exercise? What are you hoping to find out?’

Marker shrugged. ‘No idea. Something. Anything.’ He leant forward, arms on the table. ‘At least we’ll get some idea of who we’re dealing with. If they really are treasure hunting

‘They’ll be paranoid as hell. The guy watching us through the binoculars was carrying a gun . . .’

‘Suspicious.’

‘Not really. If they think they’re sitting on millions in gold bullion, then they would be idiots not to lay on some sort of protection for themselves, wouldn’t they?’

‘Yeah, OK. You don’t like the idea?’

‘Not a lot. Whatever excuse we make, it’s going to look like we’re snooping.’

‘If we went and introduced ourselves then at least they would know it wasn’t the US Coast Guard watching them.’

‘I still don’t like it.’

Marker sighed. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m just getting itchy.’

‘I know what you mean. We’d better get back outside.’

They spent the afternoon alternating fishing with sleeping, keeping both a casual watch and an occasional telescopic eye on the Tiburón Blanco. The second crew took the submarine back down soon after two, and reappeared three and a half hours later, by which time the sun was falling rapidly towards the western horizon.

The two SBS men upped anchor and set a course towards it. An hour later, as the last light of the day hung like a luminous curtain across the western horizon, they made first visual contact with Her Majesty’s frigate Argyll.

Half an hour later Marker was climbing up the rope ladder that had been thrown down to him. The captain greeted him warmly and offered the hospitality of the mess, which Marker declined on grounds of security. The shorter the rendezvous was, the less chance it would be observed.

The Type 23 frigate’s winch was already lowering the Vickers Pisces submersible, and in the calm sea it only took a few minutes to attach the tow-line from the Slipstream Queen. The electric torpedo and Kleppers followed, straight on to the cabin cruiser’s stern deck. All that remained was the transfer of one large canvas bag, the contents of which Marker checked through in front of the captain. The two MP5s with extra ammo were there, and the two harpoon guns. But no stun grenades.

‘We don’t have much need of them out here,’ the captain told him.

‘Let’s hope not,’ Marker said equably.

The bag was lowered to Cafell in the cabin cruiser below.

‘Good hunting,’ the captain said, as Marker swung himself back over the side. ‘And one day perhaps you can let me know what it was all about.’

Marker grinned and disappeared from sight.

Three hours later they were tying up the Slipstream Queen at the Key Vaca dock, having already manoeuvred the Vickers submersible around to the shore side of the jetty arm. Though hardly hidden from prying eyes, it could not be seen from either the open sea or the adjoining properties.

The two men felt both exhausted and vaguely depressed. They might have all the equipment they had asked for, but what were they going to do with it? The day’s observation of the Arcilla boat had yielded no new information, and no plan had come to mind which might offer more. If the worst came to the worst they could always invite themselves aboard the Tiburón Blanco and see what happened, but such a tactic seemed unlikely to succeed, likely to be dangerous.

‘It might look better in the morning,’ Cafell said. ‘I’m going to bed.’

Marker stayed up another half hour watching a soap on TV, and then reluctantly followed suit. But sleep wouldn’t come, and he found himself drifting almost helplessly through angry memories of the last few days of his marriage. How long was this going to go on, he asked himself. Until he found someone else? Certainly after he slept with someone else – Tamara had been proof of that. He had never enjoyed such powerful sex in his life, and yet Penny seemed to loom even larger in his mind. He felt like an animal in a trap, whose struggles to break free only increased the pain.

Two women, he thought sleepily. Two men in a boat. Two submarines. The number three on the side.

Marker jerked himself up on to his elbows. That was it! That was how they did it. He levered himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed and reached for his shorts. He thought about waking Cafell but decided there was no point.

It was about five in the morning in Poole. He collected the keys to the boat, and walked across the sun terrace and up to the path which led to the jetty. The slimmest of crescent moons had risen in the last hour, and was throwing a thin line of yellow-cream light across the rippling water.

He recovered the PRC 319 from the locker in which it had been stowed, and climbed on to the cabin cruiser’s roof. After getting an acknowledgement from the duty officer he applied his right index finger to the little keypad for several minutes, watching the letters slip past in the liquid crystal display. He told Colhoun what he had guessed, and suggested one possible source of confirmation. Finally, on the working assumption that he had guessed right, he asked the CO for another PRC 319, and a new, more specialized piece of equipment, to be flown out from England as soon as possible.

He then depressed the key which transmitted the message in a single burst, carefully refolded the antenna, and packed up the small set.

He didn’t go in immediately, preferring to sit awhile on the cabin cruiser’s roof, staring out along the narrow swathe of moonlit ocean. For the first time in several days Marker felt a sense of well-being within himself, and he was not about to waste it in sleep.