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The port of Abadan in Iran,
baked by the August sun, had no visible signs of life.
The still gantry cranes hovered over the empty docks
like a ganglia of prehistoric beasts. The fifty-foot-high
rotary pumps, looking like carousels turned on their
sides, were motionless. They no longer turned to suck
the oil from the wells in the north of Iran hundreds
of miles away. The enormous cylindrical tanks, which
had sounded like teakettles when they boiled the toxic
fumes from the oil, were now deathly silent. So were
all the other enormous pressure cookers that once refined
half of Europe's oil.
It was far too quiet
for Captain Ambros. He poured himself another drink
of ouzo as he watched Iranian soldiers struggle to connect
a hose to his ship, the S.S. Sansi, which flew the flag
of Liberia. He was not inherently a brave man, and it
was only because of the bonus he had received from Onassis
that had agreed to make such a dangerous run. As the
oil gurgled into the tank of the S.S. Sansi, the ship
slowly sank in the water until its gunnels were barely
three feet above the water line. She was carrying her
maximum load, one thousand tons of oil. Ambros looked
at his watch. It was past midnight and time to finally
open his sealed orders. They were not particularly surprising.
He was to head directly for the Suez Canal, stopping
nowhere, and keeping at all times in international waters.
Once through the Canal, he was to deliver his consignment
of oil to The ENI refinery at Callagia, Sicily, and
receive his $5,000 bonus. He would use it to buy land
in Greece he thought, as he ordered the lines cast off.
He stayed on deck all night, guiding the Sansi through
the Straits of Hormuz and out of the Persian Gulf. He
was worried about the squadron of British warships stationed
at the Tunb Islands, but they seemed to take no notice
of his tiny ship. The next day he sailed around the
horn of Arabia without incident. just as he began the
passage into the Red Sea, he heard the drone of airplane
engines. On his right was the British colony of Aden,
which he had been ordered to avoid at all costs; on
his left were the shoals of Africa. Straight ahead,
and almost within reach, was the Suez Canal. Squinting
into the bright sun, he could see planes circling lazily
overhead. Through his field glasses, he could see the
Royal Air Force markings on their wings. By his count,
there seemed to be eight fighters. A minute later, the
lead plane rolled out of the formation and flew directly
across the bow of the ship. The pilot motioned him to
turn right-toward Aden. Ambros carefully checked his
charts to make sure the Sansi was still in international
waters. It was. Thinking of the bonus waiting for him
in Sicily, he ordered the helmsman to continue on his
course to the Suez Canal. The planes widened their
circle overhead. Then, one by one, they fell out of
formation and opened fire with their machine guns at
the water five hundred yards ahead. The bullets raised
a foot-high barrier of water in the path of the Sansi.
Ambros kept on course for another five minutes, but
with the wall of machine-gun fire coming closer, he
realized that he had no choice. One stray bullet could
explode his highly flammable cargo. Throwing up his
hands in a gesture of mock surrender, he ordered the
helmsman to make a ninety-degree turn to starboard.
Despite his orders, he would be landing at Aden. On
the dock in Aden, a lawyer stood ready to serve a writ,
impounding the oil as the property of the Anglo-American
Corporation. It was a far cooler day at the Queens Club
in London. Lord Crumonde lobbed the ball high over Raven's
position at the net. "Good show in Aden, Tony," he chatted
as he watched Raven race back on the grass court. It
had been too high a lob. Raven was well behind the
base line now. He measured the high bounce carefully,
then sliced down on it. Lord Crude, he knew, would never
rush in to return a drop shot. "We couldn't let the
Sansi get through with that cargo. Onassis was testing
our will. Crumonde saw the drop shot coming, and accepted
his defeat graciously. He knew if he rushed in to retrieve
it, Raven would just lob the next one over his head.
"Your game," he conceded. "Let's have something to drink."
In the bar, Raven instructed the bartender, "Just pour
it over the ice, American style." The bartender gave
him a scowl, disapproving the propriety of mixing Scotch
with ice at the Queens club. He more approvingly gave
Crumonde his usual Gin and Schweppes. "Wasn't it a
bit dicey getting that ship into a British port?" asked
Crumonde. "Just required a few RAF planes." Raven explained
that the British government had been reluctant to violate
international law, but if Onassis managed to break the
blockade, with even a thousand tons of oil, American
tankers might follow suit. "We made it clear that if
the Americans got involved, Eisenhower might delay Ajax."
"You got through to Churchill at 10 Downing Street,
did you?" "Indirectly, but Sir Winston got the message.
He personally ordered the Commander of the Air Squadron
in Aden to stop that damn ship." In Washington, in
his air-conditioned office in the CIA, Allen Dulles,
huddled over his desk, reading the telexed report of
the British action in international waters. Behind him
were photographs of all his relatives who had served
the United States, including three secretaries of state
and an ambassador to the Court of St. James's. There
were also pictures showing his own progress from the
playing fields of Groton to his graduation from Princeton
to his wartime OSS service in Switzerland. He now was
confronting the kind of decision he had been bred for.
As he mulled over the situation in Iran, his yellow-tinged
teeth clenched around the stem of his thick briar pipe
What if the SS Sansi had not stopped? What if it had
been blown up by a British plane in international waters?
What if it had been an American-owned ship? What, if
it had eluded the British, and broken the blockade?
He realized every day the US waited there could be a
contingency that derailed Ajax. He knew the time had
come to act. He picked up the telephone, repeatedly
jiggled the plunger on it, until his efficient-sounding
assistant came on the line. "Put me through to my brother,
the Secretary of State." The Grand Salon at the Casino
was cooled by a Mediterranean breeze. Onassis, wearing
wrap-around sun-glasses, watched with interest as the
last of the masterpieces in the Gulbenkian collection,
an exquisite Degas sketch of a dancer, was mounted on
the wall. Christina, in her bare feet, white duck sailor
pants and a SS Christina T-shirt directing the French
workmen with the flair of a movie director. Through
her skimpy T-shirt, he could discern, in a remarkable
coincidence, that the outlines of her nipples dotted
each of "i" of Christina. He did not see his assistant
rush into the room. "Sorry to disturb you, Sir," Jean
Noel said, and handed him the sealed envelope. Onassis
read the telegram inside. SANSI INTERCEPTED IN INTERNATIONAL
WATERS BY BRITISH WARPLANES STOP ENTIRE CONSIGNMENT
OF OIL IMPOUNDED IN ADEN STOP HOW SHOULD WE PROCEED."
Onassis's face whitened. He realized that his gambit
with the Sansi had failed. He also realize that Churchill,
who had been his guest in Monte Carlo a year earlier,
had, when push came to shove, sided with the oil cartel.
Iran would remain closed. So, there was no way, he could
proceed to break the blockade. This news could not
have come at a worse time. Bled by the upkeep on over
100 empty tankers, he was on the verge of running out
of money. Two weeks earlier, Satrap, a mysterious company
in Luxembourg, had made him a ridiculously low offer
to buy his entire fleet. He had turned it down, but
now, after the Sansi incident, he would be pressured
by his creditors to sell his ships to Satrap at whatever
they offered to pay. Christina had finished mounting
the Degas picture. She looked at Onassis and could see,
even with the sunglasses shielding his eyes, something
was terribly wrong.
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