‘Whereabouts?’ asked Sarah, leaning forward on the desk.
‘Orono-Shima – a small island off the coast of Japan,’ said David. ‘The bodies washed up two days ago – not much to go on after the fish had a go at them but our people in Singapore identified the second in command through his dental records – it seems logical to assume the remaining bodies are the other crew members.’
Dan glanced at the fax over David’s shoulder. ‘What about the captain?’
Philippa shook her head. ‘No sign of him – we’re assuming they’ve held on to him.’
‘He’s still useful to them,’ added Sarah, regaining some of her composure.
Philippa nodded. ‘Exactly my thoughts.’
David stalked across the room and threw the door open. He stopped and turned. ‘Pip, get us into a bigger ops room within twenty minutes – one with an electronic tracking map. Get two analysts to help us. We’re running out of time.’
David rapped the surface of the table, bringing the varied conversations around it to a halt. ‘Okay people. Let’s have your full attention.’
Five faces turned his way.
‘Let’s get down to business. It’s now confirmed Delaney has taken over a cargo freighter.’ He picked up a remote and hit a button. One side of the conference wall was bathed in white light. David pressed another button and a map appeared. He dimmed the lights, and then turned to Dan. ‘I’ll let you run with this.’
Dan nodded, stood up and turned to face the room. He hit the remote and fired up the live satellite feed. The screen on the wall flickered, and then a series of dots and lines appeared across the top section of the map. ‘Okay, everyone listen up,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we can spot our freighter.’
He typed a series of keys on the keyboard in front of him and the satellite picture changed. It swooped down to the surface of the Earth and showed the northern coast of Russia.
‘We know the ship left Singapore in December and has been travelling north. Thanks to Philippa’s intelligence report, we now know the ship passed Busan in January. We then have a reported sighting from Severnya Zemlya on the north coast of Russia. The freighter seems to have travelled through the Arctic Ocean.’
Sarah stopped writing in her notebook. ‘How on earth did a freighter go through the Arctic Ocean at this time of year?’
‘The sea ice doesn’t freeze like it used to,’ explained Philippa. ‘It hasn’t been as thick over the winter months during the past couple of years. Delaney’s still taking one hell of a chance though.’
‘So from there, he could be headed anywhere,’ said David. ‘At what point do we tell our American friends they might be the recipients of a potential atomic weapon?’
Dan shook his head. ‘I don’t think Delaney has sent it there,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t got any business interests there and he wouldn’t want to jeopardise a potential future market.’ He turned to the screen as the satellite’s camera began to zoom out. ‘I have a feeling it’s coming here,’ he murmured.
He faced the team. ‘The transponder signal stopped two weeks ago. We don’t know whether that’s because it’s been found, or if the captain’s using a battery-powered version which may have gone flat. So, ladies and gentlemen, the only way to do this is the hard way.’
The group gathered around the conference table fell silent as they watched the progress of the satellite images on the screen. It moved along the coastline and then slowed as it approached the surface of the planet, and then Dan hit a key to tell the computer to stop the zoom. He punched in a series of commands and a list of data appeared on the left-hand side of the screen. It provided coordinates, date and time information and temperature data.
‘Right,’ said Dan. ‘This is the first in a series of historical images, gathered daily for the past three months. We know it would have taken the freighter at least four weeks to get to Severnya Zemlya from Busan, so we can discount those dates.’ He typed in a search string of data and hit the ‘enter’ key.
‘Starting from the middle of January,’ he continued, ‘we’ll work our way along the coast until we see the ship. We’ll then plot its course. David – can you hand everyone one of those library images of the freighter so they can see what we’re looking for?’
David reached across the table to a manila file, flipped it open and distributed an eight-by-twelve inch photograph to each person.
Dan looked at the familiar image in his hands. He felt like he knew every corner of the ship already. He wondered where in the cargo hold the black sedan was parked. He turned his back to the screen and addressed the familiar faces in the room.
‘This isn’t going to be easy, I know. However, we believe that even with the unusually warm winter sea temperatures we’ve been seeing recently the freighter will still need an ice-breaker as an escort through these waters. There’s no way Delaney’s going to risk losing this freighter just to cut corners. So keep your eyes open for anything which looks remotely like our ship – just call out and we’ll zoom in to get a better look and see if it’s got an escort in front of it.’
‘Alright, let’s get on with this. Starting in January, we’ll concentrate on the shipping lane north of the Kara Sea – they have to go through there so we can’t miss them,’ he said and hit a key. Six faces stared intently at the screen as the satellite images slowly changed from date to date.
Chapter 44
Barents Sea, Norway