Dark Oceans

by Mark Macrossan

  She was looking at him blankly.

  ‘They came in here,’ Mikkel went on. ‘Have you seen them? My friends?’

  ‘Friends? No. Sorry. We closed now.’

  ‘But… They came in here. I’ve been standing just outside. Two men. You must have…’ He trailed off. Conscious of the desperation in his voice.

  ‘No no. No-one.’

  Mikkel could see a partly open door, and beyond, the dark interior of a large warehouse, lit in places by low down-lighting.

  ‘Perhaps they went inside,’ Mikkel suggested and moved towards the door. That got her going.

  ‘No sir no no sir very sorry you can’t go in there.’

  ‘It’s OK, let me just stick my head in.’

  ‘Sir!’ a man’s voice shouted out from behind him. ‘Sir! You must leave, we are closed!’

  A short Asian man dressed more like a real estate agent than a Broome business manager had come in through the front door. He confirmed he hadn’t seen Mikkel’s friends and that he, Mikkel, really had to leave. He thought of showing them his badge, but remembered he’d left it in Perth. Anyway, judging by the guy’s tone, it was a gun he needed, not a badge.

  He left them and tried more of the pearl shops in the vicinity (along Dampier Terrace and up Johnny Chi Lane) but it was the same story: they were either closed or closing and they hadn’t seen the two men. It was now after five. Something had gone terribly wrong.

  And when he returned to the awning he’d been waiting under earlier, the Landcruiser was gone. Gone! They’d left without him? Surely not. He couldn’t believe it, and looked up and down the street. Was this some kind of joke? Left for Perth without him?

  The red Porsche was still there, though. It seemed to taunt him. He looked it over again, desperate now for clues, but it was still maddeningly empty. In fact, with its immaculate interior and the rain washing away the red dust and mud, you could have sworn it was brand new and never been driven.

  Mikkel called the Broome police station and encountered a jovial receptionist with an English accent called Harriet (and… had she been drinking? had Friday night drinks kicked in already at work?). The Landcruiser had been returned: when Harriet looked out her window, apparently, she could see it parked in the street out front but no, they hadn’t seen Dean or Travis. He asked if he could speak to the Senior Sergeant.

  Eventually, he heard Brad’s voice on the line; Mikkel had been patched through to his mobile. He could hear the telltale sounds of clinking glasses and general hubbub.

  ‘Mate. How’s it going.’ Brad was slurring his words, just a touch.

  ‘Gedday Brad. Have you seen Dean or Travis?

  There was a chuckle at the other end.

  ‘You lost them already? Jeez.’ And then a big laugh, a single “Hah!”.

  ‘They left the car, the… Landcruiser out front. Of the police station. Which is strange because we were gonna leave it at the airport on our―’

  ‘Mate. This is Broome,’ Brad said. ‘Listen…’ And then he spoke slowly, as if Mikkel’s grasp of English was poor:

  ‘There’s no―such― thing―as strange here. Strange―is normal― in Broome.’

  Mikkel was losing patience with his host.

  ‘Well I don’t know where they are, Brad. So we’ve got a problem.’

  ‘Nuh. You’ve got a problem. As I say, this is Broome. And it’s Friday night. Make no mistake: there’s a fuckin’ shiteload of fun to be had here on a Friday night. They ain’t goin back to Perth tonight. Trust me.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Hey buddy, I gotta go. There’s a, er… a new recruit. Across the room, beckoning me and, er… they need a refill. If you catch my meaning. But listen. Hey this is important. You listenin’? Come and have a drink. While you’re waiting for your buddies. Before we hit the town.’

  ‘Yeah maybe. Thanks.’

  ‘You know where we are. And hey. Michael. Whatever you do… have fun, OK? You may as well, ‘cause we’re all shark bait in the end.’

  And Brad was gone. Shark bait?

  He knew there was no way Dean would have left him – either for the airport or a resort full of honeymooners or even a beer garden full of backpackers.

  The rain was roaring at full volume now, crashing down in a solid, endless barrage of water. Visibility was down to metres, like a thick fog. He almost didn’t hear his phone ringing. His phone! He didn’t recognise the number but knew it was Dean.

  But it wasn’t Dean, it was Rod. About the vehicle, the SUV. It was red. It was, yes, a Porsche. Yes, W.A. licence plates. And the guest’s surname was Song, he couldn’t read the first name. Mr Song from Seoul, Korea.

  After the call Mikkel just stood there under the awning, a month of rain in one minute, slamming down on the flimsy tin roof above him. He was staring at the red Porsche, semi-visible in the watery gloom. And the image of the girl in the boab tree came to him once more, and at precisely that moment, when that image appeared before his eyes, superimposed on the red car in the rain, he was aware of two Asian men walking towards him from The Pearl Mermaids and there was a clap of thunder or a gunshot or the sound of a meat cleaver hitting wood, he didn’t know, but he nearly jumped out of his skin, and then the men were gone and the only sound was the roar of the rain and Dean’s comment about the umbrella just gnawed its way into his brain uninvited and kept gnawing…

  24. Law Of Probabilities

  [Newtown, Sydney, N.S.W. (-33.8959, +151.1780), 19 Oct 2013, 2.02PM]

  And that was where the map ceased to unfold. For now, at least, because there was obviously more. Now, as he walked up Australia Street on his way to see his old friend James Lavelle, he could only piece together and guess, from the physical evidence he had with him. From the law of probabilities.

  From the fact that the clothes in his bag – his clothes – were wet. This, he assumed, was probably from the rain – he’d probably walked, or run, to the airport, it had been close enough, a kilometre, two at most. The clothes he was wearing he’d probably bought there, at the airport itself.

  From the old boarding pass in his bag. He’d probably caught the 7.10pm Qantas flight to Perth. Which would also explain why 1929 was in his head – it wasn’t the year, it was the flight number: QF1929. (He could now remember seeing a full moon shining down on monolithic clouds, another snapshot to add to the album.)

  But the law of probabilities had nothing to say about why he then boarded a flight to Sydney. And why the hangover. And why he had so much trouble remembering any of this in the first place. Unless something had happened, in Broome or somewhere else, something possibly even worse than what they’d seen in the desert. And unless someone was following him, someone he was trying to lose…

  Which is when he suddenly remembered.

  Drinking with Brad.

  He couldn’t put it into context – his memory was just fragments anyway – he couldn’t remember where they were, or how he got there, but they were out somewhere, the local pub most likely. He’d probably taken Brad up on that drink after all. But what he could remember was that it was crowded and everyone was drunk. Mikkel, for one, which obviously didn’t help the state of his recollection. And Brad’s slurring was even worse than before: his sentences were flowing like creeks in the Wet and his mouth was barely moving but somehow, words were still forming. It was as though his mouth was drunker than his brain. His brain though was not at its sharpest, and things were slipping out – words, reactions – that possibly shouldn’t have been. Although with Brad, it seemed, you never knew.

  Mikkel remembered talking about the Destino, and Brad not believing him.

  ‘It was probably just an old shack or a gunyah or something.’

  ‘The three of us Brad… We weren’t imagining it.’

  ‘Well you know, the desert does fuck people up, fucks with their heads… plays with their brains. Deep fried. And if you go on about it… it might make you look like a bit of dill, mate, so if I was you… you oughta…. you kno
w, I’d keep it a secret if I was you.’

  ‘We are.

  ‘We. Yeah. We are. You’re right there.’

  Whatever he meant by that. But as soon as Mikkel mentioned the carving they saw in the Destino, Brad’s face changed; his eyes narrowed and focused on Mikkel and he looked like he was trying to say something. And then he did, and asked Mikkel if they’d taken a photo of it (they hadn’t), and how well did he remember it, and could he draw it on a napkin? And then he came over all weird – or weirder – when Mikkel asked him why he was so interested, was he another history nut like Deano, and where the fuck were they by the way.

  ‘Don’t worry mate, they’ll show up. In one shape or another. This way or that.’

  Another memory: Brad trying to talk Mikkel into staying, into not flying back to Perth that night. He was going on, again, about how Broome went off on Friday nights, how it was a target-rich environment with all the backpackers, and there was this woman he knew – called Lena? – some hot Russian, he’d love her, but then almost as soon as he’d mentioned her – when Mikkel asked him something about her – he backpedalled a million miles an hour and changed the subject.

  As he did every time Mikkel mentioned the others – Dean and Travis. Changed the subject. It was surreal.

  But surreal wasn’t the word for it when the man in the batik shirt turned up.

  Mikkel remembered noticing him, hovering in the background. He was sure it was the same man he’d seen at the Cable Beach Resort. Stocky, not tall, maybe a little chubby but undoubtedly solid, and he was wearing the same clothes: a short-sleeved, brown and black, Indonesian-style shirt – with a batik design – light grey trousers, and white tennis shoes. On his sizeable right wrist hung a chunky, gold-plated Rolex. This time he could see his face and he was clearly East Asian: Chinese, Japanese… Mikkel couldn’t tell. But he definitely could have been Korean.

  Was it the owner of the red Porsche with the Bridgestones? That had been parked not just at Cable Beach, but also Sandfire? Was it, as Rod called him, “Mr Song from Seoul, Korea”?

  For an instant – and it was only an instant – the Asian stared straight at Mikkel, and it was no accidental glance. It was a stare full of purpose. He had a dark, round face, and mud-brown eyes. And then his lips parted and his teeth appeared, a brilliant white.

  ‘Song!’

  It was Brad. It was actually Brad, calling out to the guy, and motioning him over.

  They – Brad and “Song”, presumably the Korean – then had what was blatantly a private conversation, clearly keeping Mikkel out of it.

  But he did manage to pick up snippets. Soundbites, uttered by Brad. Two, to be precise, or at least they were the ones he could remember, but two was all it took, and now that they came to him, they shone brightly, rendering all else pale by comparison. They were:

  ‘D’ja deal with them? All fixed?’

  and

  ‘One to go. Don’t go far.’

  And that was enough for Mikkel, he was out of there.

  He could vaguely recall leaving – no goodbyes, he just backed away and walked – weaving his way through the sweating, shouting, drunken patrons – tourists and locals – wondering if Brad or Mr Song noticed him leave, wondering if he was being followed, and with two things going round and round in his head: firstly, the terrible realisation that Brad was in on it, whatever ‘it’ was, and secondly – call it copper’s instinct, but he knew this with as much certainty as he knew anything – that this Mr Song was death on legs.

  After that, the curtain descended. Another gap.

  Although he couldn’t recall how he got there, he assumed he must have made a bee-line for the airport. The airport wasn’t far – about one and a half kilometres if they’d been near the police station (the Roebuck Bay Hotel, for example) – but he wouldn’t have had much time to make the 7.10pm flight to Perth.

  Perth.

  A final memory ‘parcel’ arrived. The hangover wasn’t simply from his afternoon with Dean and Travis or his drink or drinks with Brad – unless Brad slipped him something? (now there was a thought) – but he remembered now, he’d been drinking in Perth as well. No idea where, either a beer garden, or a nightclub, or both – had someone lent him clothes? – and although he couldn’t remember exactly who he was with, he knew there were familiar faces, friends…. And one familiar face who wasn’t a friend.

  Mr Song. With his batik shirt and his gold Rolex. He was in Perth as well.

  Which left little room for doubt, when you looked at all the evidence: he was, most probably, being hunted.

  And so that would explain the flight to Sydney. In his, no doubt, alcohol-impaired and freaked-out state of mind, he probably decided to catch the first plane out of there, get away for the weekend, and to that end he probably rang James Lavelle, who probably would have laughed and said something like “yeah, jump on that plane, mate”…

  So he was right.

  Someone was following him. Someone he was trying to lose.

  It was just the law of probabilities.

  Hope you brought your umbrella.

  Part Four – Dark Oceans

  It is an unmistakeable fact that sexuality does not always, like the individual organism’s other functions, bring it advantages, but, in return for an unusually high degree of pleasure, brings dangers which threaten the individual’s life and often enough destroy it.

  Sigmund Freud

  from Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis Vol. 1, Lecture 26,

  “The Libido Theory and Narcissism”

  25. 16° 43' 9" S 121° 54' 4" E

  (Indian ocean: off the Kimberley Coast)

  11.02am Western Australian Time (03:02 UTC)

  Saturday, 19 October

  The ocean glider surfaced for the second time in about fourteen hours. The seas were choppy and grey and the 1.8 metre long autonomous craft (which looked like a bright yellow torpedo with wings) was, despite its colour, barely visible. The raised steering fin was probably the most observable feature, occasionally bobbing clear of the wave tops and looking like a person trying to keep their head above water.

  Operated by the Australian National Facility for Ocean Gliders (ANFOG), it was meandering its way in a north-westerly direction, collecting ocean data such as water temperature, salinity and dissolved organic matter – information used for research into ocean currents but which was also fed into the world weather communications network. The battery-powered vessel had just about every type of sensory receptor except for eyes (it was blind), and in the usual course of its operation it made its way to a chain of pre-programmed position points. It could also be communicated with by radio or satellite, allowing for a periodic update of navigational instructions and the collection of data. To be able to do this, it needed to surface.

  The last time it surfaced – the previous evening – the ocean glider had been positioned approximately twenty-five kilometres to the south-east, just off the Lacepede Islands. On that occasion, the surface of the ocean had been glassy. Glassy, because it had been a lovely, cloudless evening with hardly a breath of wind. Just a risen full moon hanging high in the sky, magnesium bright in the crisp air, illuminating large swathes of the otherwise dark expanse of ocean and turning night into day. When it surfaced, the yellow craft would have been readily obvious to anyone had they been around.

  And they had.

  Indeed if ocean gliders could see, this one would have observed a yacht only about fifteen metres away, and on the deck of the yacht, a man, staring at it, with large, disbelieving, blood-shot eyes.

  26. 33° 55' 11" S 18° 25' 11" E

  (Cape Town)

  5.02am South African Standard Time (03:02 UTC)

  Saturday, 19 October

  At the same time that Mikkel Backstrom was walking up Australia Street in Newtown, Sydney, and the ocean glider was surfacing in choppy seas off the coast of Western Australia, Ishiko Mizushima woke up suddenly in her hotel room in Cape Town.

  It wasn’t
a pleasant way to wake up: her heart was pumping furiously, she’d gone from being sound asleep to wide awake in an instant. She thought she’d heard something. Or had she dreamt it? It was becoming harder to tell.

  Sunrise wasn’t for another hour, although outside at least it wasn’t dark: the full moon was still burning bright, casting an eerie glow over the city. She usually kept her curtains closed – night and day, as a precaution – but for one night at least, for sanity’s sake, she’d made an exception. Even with the moon though, and the open curtains, it was still dark enough in her room, enough to make her nervous, and she quickly flicked the switch on her bedside light.

  No-one.

  And nothing out of place, as far as she could see. Which was fairly easy to verify, the room was tiny and bare: her grey, logo-free Muji sports bag was sitting zipped up on the floor where she’d left it, there was a small dressing table with a mirror, a phone and a hotel listings folder on it, there was a functional chair, and there was a wardrobe which she always left open, containing a couple of items of clothing which she’d hung up. She always made a habit of leaving the door to the bathroom open as well and she could see in there too, and her modest and neatly stacked collection of toiletries was clearly visible. As for the room itself: there was the same, stained, maroon carpet, blotchy white walls and dirt-smeared window panes overlooking the street, nine floors below. (If she stood in the right spot against the wall beside the window, she could see Table Mountain.)

  She looked at the burn wound on her right forearm, it had almost healed. But there’d be a scar. No problem in winter, but annoying in summer. Distinguishing features, never a good thing.

  Even at five in the morning there was no shortage of street noise outside – it never let up, the noise – and maybe, probably, that was what she’d heard. But ever since Lüderitz…