Free Year of the Golden Ape by Colin Forbes Page A

Both delivered bang on time, of course. I don't see how he could help ...'
    'Frankly, neither do I. Where are those ships now? In the Middle East?'
    'Neither of them. Chieftain is in dry-dock for repairs at Genoa, Challenger is on the Alaska-San Francisco run. Better come home, Larry. Call it a day...'
    'I may see you late this afternoon...'
    Sullivan put down the phone and yawned. He had made a night of it with Messmer before the Frenchman caught the morning train back to Paris. Paul Hahnemann wasn't going to tell him anything, so why hang about ? Yawning again, he began packing his bag.
     
    The telephone message travelled a devious route before it reached Gamal Tafak at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Damascus. Originating from Paris, the call was taken by a man in Athens who then phoned a number in Beirut. From there Ahmed Riad phoned the message to Damascus. Tafak was just about to have lunch when Riad called him from the Lebanese capital.
    'Excellency, KLM Flight 401 from Amsterdam to Paris has just been hi-jacked by terrorists. There is going to be trouble about this...'
    'Why?'
    'The plane is carrying three senior Royal-Dutch Shell executives, Including a managing director...'
    'Keep me in touch with developments.'
    Tafak replaced the receiver. If anyone had been listening in to the call, which was unlikely but not impossible the way the American intelligence services were tapping phones all over the world these days, the conversation would have seemed innocent enough.
    But the call told Tafak that the diversionary operation was under way. This had been Winter's idea, as was the timing. While LeCat set up listening posts to check on any loose security Winter had come up with a more imaginative plan. To mask the hi-jack of the ship, he had suggested a plane should be seized a few days before the real event, something to keep the newspapers busy, to divert anyone who might have heard a whisper of what was really going to happen.
    The hi-jack had been organised by the serious-faced man sitting on Tafak's right at the recent secret meeting in the Syrian desert. The KLM plane would now be kept hopping about from airport to airport while the main operation was under way. It still seemed easy enough to hi-jack a plane; Tafak hoped it would prove equally easy to hi-jack a 50,000-ton oil tanker.
     
    'It did strike me that if someone wanted to sabotage one of Harper's tankers they might try and check the layout and structure of the tanker they were after. Can you tell me, Mr Hahnemann, has anyone asked to see blueprints of a Harper tanker recently?'
    At the last moment before leaving Hamburg, Sullivan's natural obstinacy had made him stay. He had made an appointment to see Paul Hahnemann very late in the afternoon, so late that it was dark outside, too dark to see the falling snow. A letter of introduction from Victor Harper - 'to whom it may concern' - had got him inside the Wilhelm Voss shipyard. His Lloyd's of London identification had convinced the German he ought to see the Englishman. Hahnemann was a discreet man.
    'I find that a strange question,' the German said woodenly. 'You say you have heard vague rumours - about Harper. The shipping world lives on rumours. Surely you know that by now?'
    'I withdraw the question.' Sullivan smiled amiably. 'I've told you what I've been doing for the past week-coming up the Atlantic coast. Two nights ago someone tried to kill me in a Hamburg bar. That makes me think there is something - something in Hamburg I'm getting too close to.'
    'I don't see how I can help you,' the German replied. 'We have no one suspect here. We are very careful who we let inside this yard - you yourself had to produce proof of identity before you were allowed in.'
    Sullivan was in a difficult position. He realised that Hahnemann was too shrewd by half, that he wanted some evidence, that there was no evidence to show him. Sullivan wasn't even sure what he was looking for himself.
    There may be an Englishman in