"MacLean, Alistair - The Golden Rendezvous" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

the only two experts who were as yet sufficiently acquainted with it at
least ten minutes to arm it; but no one could guess what effect might
have been had upon the Twister's delicate mechanism by the jolting it
might have suffered in transit. Three hours later captain Bullen was
able to report with complete certainty that neither the missing
scientist nor weapon was aboard. Intensive would be a poor word to
describe that search; every square foot between the chain locker and
steering compartment was searched and searched again. Captain Bullen
had radioed the federal authorities and then forgotten about it, or
would have forgotten about it were it not that twice in the following
two nights our radarscope had shown a mysterious vessel, without
navigation lights, closing up from astern, then vanishing before dawn.
And then we arrived at our most southerly port of call, Kingston, in
Jamaica. And in Kingston the blow had fallen. We had no sooner arrived
than the harbour authorities had come on board requesting that a search
party from the American destroyer lying almost alongside be allowed to
examine the Campari. Our friend on the radarscope, without a doubt.
The search party, about forty of them, was already lined up on the deck
of the destroyer. They were still there four hours later. Captain
Bullen, in a few simple, well-chosen words that had carried far and
clear over the sunlit waters of Kingston harbour, had told the
authorities that if the United States Navy proposed, in broad daylight,
to board a British mercantile marine vessel in a British harbour, then
they were welcome to try. They were also welcome, he had added, to
suffer, apart from the injuries and the loss of blood they would incur
in the process, the very heavy penalties which would be imposed by an
international court of maritime law arising from charges ranging from
assault, through piracy, to an act of war, which maritime court, captain
Bullen had added pointedly, had its seat, not in Washington, D.C., but
in the Hague, Holland. This stopped them cold. The authorities
withdrew to consult with the Americans. Coded cables, we learnt later,
were exchanged with Washington and London. Captain Bullen remained
adamant. Our passengers, 90 per cent of them Americans, gave him their
enthusiastic support. Messages were received from both the company head
office and the Ministry of Transport requiring captain Bullen to
co-operate with the United States Navy. Pressure was being brought to
bear. Bullen tore the messages up, seized the offer of the local
marconi agent to give the radio equipment an overdue checkup as a
heaven-sent excuse to take the wireless officers off watch, and told the
quartermaster at the gangway to accept no more messages. And so it had
continued for all of thirty hours. And, because troubles never come
singley, it was onh the morning following our arrival that the Harrisons
and Curtises, related families who occupied the forward two suites on
"a" deck, received cables with the shocking news that members of both
families had been fatally involved in a car crash and left that
afternoon. Black gloom hung heavy over the Campari. Towards evening
the deadlock was broken by the skipper of the American destroyer, a
diplomatic, courteous, and thoroughly embarrassed commander by the name
of Marsi. He had been allowed aboard the Campari, been gruffly asked
into Bullen's day cabin, accepted a drink, been very apologetic and