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Captain Holst also agreed that he had been just within British territorial waters when the boarding took place. After that, it would be a matter for the lawyers, so long as Britain had jurisdiction. McCready did not want the IRA men removed to Belgium and promptly liberated, like Father Ryan.
The two bodies were brought to the main deck and laid side by side, covered in sheets from the cabins below. With the aid of the Greek-Cypriot crewmen, the covers were taken from the holds, and the cargo searched. The commandos of the SBS team did that. After two hours, the lieutenant who commanded them reported to McCready.
“Nothing, sir.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“A lot of olives, sir.”
“Nothing but olives?”
“Some crates marked office machinery.”
“Containing?”
“Office machinery, sir. And the three stallions. They’re pretty upset, sir.”
“Bugger the horses—so am I,” said McCready grimly. “Show me.”
He and Rowse followed the officer below. The lieutenant gave them a tour of the ship’s four holds. In one, copying machines and typewriters from Japan were visible through the sides of their smashed crates. In the second and third holds, tins of Cypriot olives spilled from broken boxes. No crate or carton had been left untouched. The fourth hold contained three substantial horse boxes. In each of them a stallion whinnied and shied in fear.
There was a feeling in McCready’s stomach, that awful feeling that comes with knowing you have been duped, have taken the wrong course of action, and that there will be the devil to pay. If all he could come up with was a cargo of olives and typewriters, London would nail his hide to a barn door.
A young SBS man was standing with the horses in their hold. He seemed to know about animals; he was talking to them quietly, calming them down.
“Sir?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Why are they being shipped?”
“Oh. They’re Arabs. Thoroughbreds, destined for a stud farm,” said Rowse.
“No, they’re not,” said the young commando. “They’re riding-school hacks. Stallions, but hacks.”
Between the inner and outer walls of the specially constructed transport boxes, there was a good foot of space. With crowbars they hacked at the planks of the first loose box. As the shattered timber fell away, the search was over. The watching men saw piled blocks of Semtex-H, serried ranks of RPG-7 rocket launchers, and rows of shoulder-borne surface-to-air missiles. The other horse boxes yielded heavy machine guns, ammunition, grenades, mines, and mortars.
“I think,” said McCready, “we can call in the Navy now.”
They left the hold and went back to the warm morning sunshine of the main deck. The Navy would take over the Regina and bring her to Harwich. There she would be formally seized and her crew and passengers arrested.
The Fair Maid had been pumped out to repair her wallowing list. The special-effects smoke grenades that had given her the appearance of being on fire had long been thrown into the sea.
For the IRA man with the shattered knee, the bleeding had been stopped by a rough but skillful tourniquet applied by the commandos. He now sat ashen-faced with his back against a bulkhead and waited for the naval surgeon-commander, who would come with the frigate, now only half a mile off the beam. The other two had been handcuffed to a stanchion farther down the deck, and McCready had the key to the cuffs.
Captain Holst and his crew had descended without demur into one of the holds—not the one containing the weaponry—and sat among the olives until the Navy men could drop them a ladder.
Stephen Johnson had been locked in his cabin belowdecks.
When they were ready, the five SBS men vaulted onto the cabin roof of the Fair Maid, then disappeared below. Her engine started. Two of the commandos reappeared and cast her loose. The lieutenant waved a last farewell to McCready, still on the Regina, and the fishing boat chugged away. These were the secret warriors; they had done their job, and there was no need for them to wait around.
Tom Rowse sat down, shoulders hunched, on the coaming of one of the holds, next to the supine body of Monica Browne. On the other side of the Regina’s deck, the frigate eased alongside, threw graplines, and sent the first of the boarding party across. They conferred with McCready.
A puff of wind blew a corner of the sheet away from the face beneath it. Rowse stared down at the beautiful face, so calm in death. The breeze blew a frond of corn-blond hair across the forehead. He reached down to push it back. Someone sat down beside him, and an arm came round his shoulders.
“It’s over, Tom. You weren’t to know. You weren’t to blame. She knew what she was doing.”
“If I’d known she was here, I wouldn’t have killed her,” said Rowse, dully.