The Ocean Dove

by Carlos Luxul

  Faisel’s eyes rolled as he looked away, but he said no more than, ‘It must be Bar Mhar.’

  ‘Must be …’ Assam said, slipping down from the bunk, a free hand patting down his erection.

  Mubarak’s door opened just as Faisel raised a knuckle to it.

  ‘I know,’ Mubarak said. ‘It woke me.’

  Faisel smiled; a change in the ship’s equilibrium was more effective than the alarm clock at his captain’s bedside.

  ~

  At first light they brought the ship in. The morning sun was rising slowly over India to the south-east, creeping above the headland in shards as pale as sandstone, the shadows on the coastline beginning to recede. The Ocean Dove’s bridge caught the first of the glare, then the lower decks and hull, until the ship and the bay were awash with light.

  Choukri shielded his eyes. The bay curved in front of him, five miles across, a mile deep. On its eastern fringe was an old gypsum terminal, now converted into the shipyard. Facing it across the bay was a village with low indistinct buildings sheltering under the cliffs. It had sprung up to house mine workers and was now mostly abandoned. Just a few people remained who found intermittent work at the yard, along with the elderly who had nowhere else to go.

  Jagged cliffs stretched in both directions, mottled greys, stone and dust, with no hint of green or trees, no mangroves at the waterline. There was a cleft in the shoreline behind the yard where a railway had once run down from the mine a dozen miles inland. Between the old gypsum mine and the shoreline was the main east–west coastal road.

  This was the western end of Pakistan, the Makran coast, close to the Iranian border. The land was barren, the rains sporadic and the heat unrelenting. The nearest towns with industry, with work, were many miles away. Bar Mhar was forgotten.

  The shipyard sprawled over forty acres of dust. Under the cliffs were warehouses, sheds and workshops in uniform sun-bleached paint. At the back, commanding a view across it all, was a three-storey office building of faded concrete panels. A jetty stretched out from the shore and turned through ninety degrees to create an artificial harbour. Smaller ships like the Ocean Dove were able to berth on its inner wall. The bulk carriers that once loaded gypsum had used the seaward side where the water was deeper.

  Just after eight o’clock, Choukri and Mubarak walked up the jetty and across the yard. A clerk showed them up the stairs to Hassan Khan’s office. Choukri stepped through the door, his eyes roaming around a large airy room with faded red lino on the floor and white painted walls. Broad metal-framed windows lined one side, overlooking the terminal. Khan’s desk was at the back. In the centre was a meeting table, with a pair of drawing-office tables to one side covered in blueprints and fluttering under a fan.

  Khan got up to greet them, a tall, slim, fine-featured man of about forty with a neatly clipped beard that wasn’t showing any grey. Over a shirt and tie he was wearing an engineer’s coat, with pens, pencils and a micrometer in a breast pocket.

  ‘Please,’ he said, extending a hand to the meeting table before telling the clerk to bring coffee.

  ‘What about security? I didn’t see anything,’ Choukri said, sitting down next to Mubarak, facing Khan across the table.

  ‘They saw you,’ Khan said, his eyes moving left and right between them. ‘I’ve got people on the yard and up in the cliffs. We do it ourselves, round the clock.’

  ‘And the village?’

  ‘They’re not involved. We give them work when we can, but nothing important,’ Khan said.

  ‘Exactly. Keep it that way.’

  Choukri got up and stepped across to the windows, leaning down and resting his hands on the sill, a pendant on a silver chain slipping from under his shirt. It swung free for a moment before he steadied it, working the small disc carefully between thumb and finger, looking out over the terminal before turning and gesturing with a hand.

  ‘Okay,’ Mubarak said, glancing across to Khan.

  The two of them began to go through the list of steel repairs to the floor of the ship’s hold and some of the fuel and ballast tanks. Khan clarified points for accuracy, making notes and cross-referencing with the scope of work from OceanBird’s technical department.

  Choukri followed the discussion closely but made no comments. The repairs were not complicated and there was a genuine need for them, unconnected with the guns. After a concluding lull, Mubarak turned to him and he stepped back to the table.

  Resuming his place opposite Khan, Choukri opened a slipcase and passed him a hand-drawn schematic.

  Khan studied it for a minute before pushing his chair back.

  ‘Come. I have it here.’

  At his desk, he clicked a file on the computer. A three-dimensional, multicoloured CAD animation filled the screen, rotating to provide viewpoints from every angle. He stood back as Choukri’s eyes darted around the images, narrowing in concentration on one point and then another. The guns were lined up in a row along the floor of the Ocean Dove’s hold. The first one was placed at the back of the hold, facing forward. A few metres ahead was the next, also facing forward, then the third and fourth. The fourth and last was far enough back in the hold to allow sufficient angle to fire and clear the forecastle at the bows of the ship. The ship’s hold was shaped like a shoebox. All it needed was to lift the hatch and open fire, virtually unseen, except from a bird’s eye.

  Khan cleared his throat. ‘There’s more.’

  Another simulation played, showing each gun traversing. The available angle of fire was superimposed in triangulated shading, with the barrel raised, lowered and panning left and right. The sharp point of the triangle was at the barrel tip, the shading expanding as it cleared the hold to the open air.

  ‘And the last,’ Khan said.

  Choukri’s head lifted with a gasp. He said nothing, leaning back down to the screen and reaching across to grip Khan’s forearm.

  Superimposed on a map, the Ocean Dove was moored at a jetty. Fanning out from the ship was red shading – the effective range of the guns. Numbered dots on the map corresponded with a list of specific targets.

  More than once Choukri lifted his head from the screen, but each time he was drawn back by another detail. Eventually he pulled away. ‘Where did you learn this?’ he said.

  Khan shifted his feet. ‘I trained as a naval architect and marine engineer. For ten years I was at the Gulf Arabian Shipbuilding and Repair Yard. Then I returned to Karachi and worked on the Zulfiquar-class frigates. I was responsible for all the gunnery installation.’

  December was winter in Pakistan, freezing in the northern uplands but mild on the coast. The air was warm when they stepped from the office building. It refreshed Choukri. He felt the tension falling from him as his purposeful march eased to an amble and the muscles in his face relaxed. He turned to Khan. ‘It’s good, very good,’ he said, allowing the suggestion of a smile to play in his eyes. ‘I had hoped, but …’

  ‘Thank you,’ Khan said, nodding his appreciation before pointing across the yard to the warehouse buildings. ‘We’ve got everything we need here. The mine had a machine shop and I’ve updated it with a CNC milling machine so we can design in CAD and make anything we need. The ammunition cassettes on carousels are my idea. You can fire continuously without the need to stop and change cassettes.’

  Khan opened the door of a sprawling building. It was high-ceilinged and cool inside. Swifts darted in the eaves, their shrill cries echoing. ‘This was the railway shed,’ he said.

  Choukri hesitated as Khan moved on. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ he said. ‘We’ve got eight bodies in a container on deck.’

  Khan stopped and looked back hesitantly. ‘A container … we can bury it too?’

  ‘We don’t want it back,’ Choukri said, surprised.

  ‘Right,’ Khan said. ‘I guess not.’

  He led them from building to building, his pride in the facility evident to Choukri, who approved of the order, the cleanliness and the general sense of improvement. The outsi
de may have been shabby but the content was sharp. He knew where the initial funds had come from, but the yard had to survive on its own in the world now, and Khan’s skill and dedication was making it happen.

  A breeze kicked up dust in the yard as Choukri stood and looked around, taking in the layout and putting Khan’s explanations into context. Khan offered lunch in the canteen, but Mubarak excused himself.

  They took a table to themselves at one side. Scattered around the room were about thirty men and a handful of women. Some wore office clothes or engineering coats. Some were in green-and-white overalls, the colours of Pakistan. The tables were Formica, the seats plastic, with the same red lino on the floor as in Khan’s office, Choukri noted.

  ‘All our people,’ Khan said, gesturing to the other tables. ‘They’re quiet today. They know who you are.’ He smiled. ‘The woman with the red ribbons – that’s Bashira, my wife. She’s Palestinian.’

  ‘Hamas?’

  ‘Hezbollah. But she’s clean now. Got a US visa last year, no problem. She comes with me when I’m in the States on my multi-entry visa.’ He smiled again.

  ‘Bashira – the bringer of good news?’ Choukri said.

  Khan raised an eyebrow. ‘Not always … And you?’

  ‘I have a wife and baby girl in Algiers.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Khan said, nodding. ‘And over there, the little guy at the end, he was wasting his time mending pickups in Syria.’ He shook his head. ‘He’s an electrical engineer, and a good one. Worked for Siemens in Germany on turbines and generators. Pickups, eh?’

  ‘What about the Russians?’ Choukri said, conscious of the effort it had taken him to force the final word out.

  Khan bent his head closer. ‘I don’t know. The Emir sent them, so …’

  He glanced across nervously, as though he might have spoken out of turn. People rarely met the Emir more than once and they were not allowed to discuss it. No mention was ever made of where the meeting took place, what he looked or sounded like, or any speculation about his background and who he might once have been.

  ‘Don’t worry. The Emir knows what he’s doing,’ Choukri said. ‘I’ll see them after lunch.’

  Food was brought over and set before them, but Choukri’s mind was on the Russians. The guns were computer controlled, and he didn’t have the codes. Their contact in the Indian navy worked in the logistics section and knew everything about delivery from Sweden. But the computer codes were always sent to another department after each shipment.

  ‘And they’ll build a new system?’ Choukri said.

  ‘All controlled by a laptop.’

  ‘And no fuck-ups?’

  Khan shook his head.

  Choukri sucked at a knot of food caught in his teeth. ‘I don’t trust the …’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Khan said, leaning across. ‘It’s not that complicated. We could do it ourselves. Don’t forget, we built all the AIS and VDR equipment for the RIB, and in many ways that’s more technical. But anyway, these guys are pros.’

  ‘So I’m told. Russians …’

  ‘It’s preprogrammed,’ Khan continued. ‘All we need is the exact location of the ship. You just push the button and …’ He peered across, his mouth pursed. ‘Will you get the time?’

  Choukri stretched out his fingers, pulling them back into fists. ‘I think so. In all the confusion, why not? No one’s going to be looking for a ship.’

  Khan nodded. ‘And the list of targets?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ Choukri said.

  Identifying specific targets was not a problem. Everyone and everything had a website these days. It was all available to him at the click of a mouse, with details, maps and schematics. Grey areas could be clarified by comparing incomplete information with online maps, Google Earth and GPS coordinates. And he was, after all, an expert navigator. Degrees, minutes, seconds and their fractions posed no difficulty whatsoever.

  There wasn’t a problem with information about targets. The problem was the overwhelming mass of it. He had time on his side and one by one the targets would be researched and added to his file, the wish list.

  And now Choukri had a clear picture in his mind of where he needed to position the ship. The choice was narrowed to a defined zone. It also influenced how they must approach getting the ship in the location in the first place. The location had to offer a degree of privacy and they needed a legitimate reason to be there. This was paramount.

  ~

  Darkness came down shortly after six. Choukri ordered the arc lights on deck to be turned off. They would unload with just the hold lamps. The motors were switched on and the ship’s hatch opened slowly.

  ‘Easy,’ he barked into his walkie-talkie at the crane operators, the men in the hold and those unhooking the cargo on the trailers, though he could see in their faces they felt the same way he did. This was the end of the first phase. They all wanted to get the guns ashore safely. One by one the packing cases and containers were lifted from the hold. Trailers ran along the jetty to the warehouse then back again to the ship. It was slow work, waiting for each trailer to return before it could take another load, but they were not pressed for time and the cargo needed to be handled carefully.

  ‘When the Danes come off the ship, you three go with them,’ Choukri said, glancing in turn to Faisel, Snoop and Assam. ‘And if the bodies are found, I’ll bury you with them.’

  Slings were hooked on to the orange container. It rose into the air, swinging over the ship’s rail to a trailer. On the quay, the truck driver turned the locks to secure it as Assam, Snoop and Faisel climbed into the back of a pickup.

  Choukri went up the stairs to the bridge. Through the far door, he saw Mubarak’s shoulders hunched over the rail on the wings.

  ‘Went well,’ Choukri said, stepping out to join him.

  A stony face turned. ‘Did it? No service. No words. A container for a coffin, a trailer for a hearse, a pickup truck in attendance. Not much of a send-off for the Danske Prince’s crew …’

  ‘Not much,’ Choukri conceded, remembering the day of the hijack and the unceremonious manhandling of the bodies below the rail of the Ocean Dove. But he was pleased the guns were now safely ashore, doubly pleased they had reached such a milestone, and reluctant to spoil the moment. ‘Remember the destination, not the road,’ he said quietly.

  Mubarak nodded. ‘It’s in here,’ he said, tapping a finger to his head.

  ~

  The men were back at work at seven o’clock in the morning. Yard technicians inspected the steel plating in the hold and discussed the processes. On the jetty, a trailer drew up with equipment and materials. Safety checks were carried out. Fire was a hazard during cutting, burning and grinding. Khan was there, talking to his foreman. The work they were doing was necessary to keep the ship in good working order and to comply with maritime regulations, but it was also preparatory. What they did now could not be allowed to affect the eventual fitting out.

  Welders were marking cut lines in chalk on the floor. The ship’s cranes hoisted materials into the hold: steel plate, trolleys with acetylene bottles, cutting torches. The sun crept over the bay, its shadow receding in the hold. In a few hours it would be overhead, the hold a steel box radiating heat where men were working with burning equipment.

  After lunch, Choukri was drinking coffee on the ship’s wings when a pickup truck appeared at the end of the jetty.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, wagging a finger at Faisel. ‘Our ride’s here.’

  Around the back of the office block they picked up a service road running alongside the railway. The track climbed steadily, passing through a divide in the cliffs, the valley rising steeply to either side and snaking ahead into the distance.

  ‘Hey, slow down,’ Choukri barked, giving the dashboard a slap as the pickup jolted on the rough track. ‘I want to see it.’

  After a few miles they passed under the Makran highway bridge; the railway ran through one gap in its pillars, the track through anoth
er. A slip to the highway branched up to one side. The valley was a bowl of mottled greys, pinks, apricot and chalky white, the pale blue of the sky ahead in the distance.

  The ground levelled on the southern tip of the Balochistan plateau. Mountains rose in isolation from their neighbours, separated by plain. Some were rippled with soft folds as if sculpted by a caring hand. Others were wilfully irregular, the colours unchanging – cream and grey and white. Fingers of rock stood like towers, some solitary, some in clusters, interspersed with smooth-faced monolithic slabs stretching laterally over the ground. The landscape competed with itself for incongruity – illogical and eerie. Choukri knew the desert and the corruptions of time and erosion, but this was unlike anything he’d seen before.

  He turned to Faisel. ‘Beautiful, eh?’

  ‘It’s not at all like Mannheim,’ Faisel said cautiously.

  Choukri sat back, looking contentedly at rock, his open hand stretched from the window in the cooling breeze.

  A puff of dust kicked up at the side of the track under a stunted tamarix bush. Disturbed from its slumber, an animal shape scuttled away, dark eyes glaring indignantly over a rolling shoulder.

  Choukri looked inquisitively at the driver.

  ‘A honey badger.’

  They took a long curve around the side of a towering rock, its shadow cast across the dust. The track straightened ahead of them, dipping to the mouth of a pale chalky crater, an amphitheatre a mile across. The ground was scarred with regular lines, the evidence of machinery – a smooth face here, a spiralling track climbing the walls there.

  ‘Stop,’ Choukri said as they neared the centre.

  The driver crouched at the side of the pickup, shielding his eyes from the sterile glare as Choukri walked across the pit. Under his feet the ground was compacted by the studded ridges of caterpillar tracks. He looked about him across to the distant walls. The criss-crossed lines gave no indication of what kind of work had been carried out, or precisely where. To one side, under the lee of the crater lip, was a heap of spoil the size of an office block. It may have been there a day, a month, or some years. Perhaps the container was beneath it, or maybe it was a couple of hundred paces away, but he couldn’t really tell in the mass of uniform tracks.