Hamnet exhaled a long sigh of relief as he made his way tremulously up the gangway. The ruse had worked. The priests who ran the merchant-marine hostels were regular visitors to ships in ports all over the world and rarely rated a second glance. They would palm a few hands, smile and promote their mission with a curious mix of God and cheap booze. It was the perfect cover. He hesitated for only a moment as he stepped aboard, then turned sharp left towards the stern. He took the companionway up to the second level before continuing aft. In a few steps the lifeboat was right in front of him. He slowed as he crossed the deck towards it. The plastic cover was hooked down with elastic ties. He looked back over his shoulder, and then upwards. There was no one on either this deck or those above. Why should there be? They had a schedule to keep, a ship to load.
He stopped next to the lifeboat and swivelled slowly round. He couldn’t be seen from the cabin of the crane, but the man from Manchester was visible on the quay below. Hamnet slid over to the port side of the ship to get out of sight. Then, in one swift movement, he released a couple of the ties on the cover and pulled it back. He dumped the holdall over the gunwale, climbed up the railing and followed it in. It took longer to reattach the ties from inside, and his hands shook as he fiddled with them, feeling for the hooks. But finally it was done. He was under cover, undetected. He slumped on the wooden deck, nervous tension pouring out of him. There was only one act left to play, and that was about three days away. It was a comforting thought, and allowed him to sleep.
Hamnet never knew what woke him, but he came to with a suddenness that didn’t match the soporific rumble of engines beneath him, the humid air that enveloped him, or the gentle motion that rolled him first one way and then the other. They were moving. He glanced at his watch: eight a.m. They had probably been moving for an hour or two. It was already hot under the cover.
Janac would be expecting a position report. He lay still and listened. Minutes passed. Nothing changed, nothing was moving outside. Struggling with stiff muscles, he raised himself onto one elbow and unzipped the holdall. Piece by piece, he pulled out all the electronic equipment, carefully set it up and switched everything on. The GPS went through its opening routine quietly enough, searching quickly for the satellites with which to calculate its position. But the computer’s hard disk clicked and rattled as it started up, unnervingly loud in the stifling silence of his hideaway. He was relieved he’d thought to turn off the machine’s speakers back in Singapore.
On the one hand he wanted to take things slowly, to pause after each step to check for movement outside. On the other hand he knew his gadgetry had a limited battery life, and that he would be pushing it to make it last all the way to the Philippines. Gingerly he switched on the phone. Meanwhile, the GPS had found itself and reported his latitude and longitude as well as a course and speed. They were doing fifteen knots to the northeast, which meant they were already in open water and clear of the Strait of Singapore. He opened the email application on the laptop and, depressing each key slowly so that it didn’t click, typed in his standard message and encoded it. Then he opened the Internet software and made the call on the satellite phone. The computer linked down the phone line and his position report was gone in an instant.
Hamnet smiled briefly with satisfaction. As far as Janac was concerned he was reporting from the Konsan office, just as he always had done. He would have the element of surprise on his side as they entered the endgame. Then the smile evaporated. No incoming emails — still no message from Jasmine.
Quickly he moved on to the marine-news website, downloaded the ‘latest updates’ file, logged off and powered down the phone and GPS to conserve their batteries. Then he looked at the news stories. The account of the execution of Mendez and Fairbrother verged on the hysterical. He switched off the computer and fell back against the deck with a thud he didn’t even notice.
The decision to provide Janac with a third boat had been an agonising one. But the first mate’s account of Johansen’s death had been unequivocal. The gutsy old skipper had died because he had recklessly tried to overpower their guard. Hamnet had had too much to lose to give up after this apparently unnecessary death. But now he was facing the consequences of his decision. He had gambled and lost — two more lives. Janac had coldly and deliberately raised the stakes.Pinta’s
Hamnet had all day to sweat over it, as the heat in his enclosed hiding place steadily increased. He knew that the response he had planned might lose him his second son, perhaps his own life, but there was no question now, it had to be done. Except — where were Jasmine and Ben? Had Dubre had Jasmine arrested, or simply stopped from leaving Singapore? If he’d forced her and Ben to stay within Janac’s reach, he was powerless. He couldn’t take any chances with Ben’s life, with Jasmine. Not after Anna. He simply couldn’t bear to lose them. But then how many crewmen was he prepared to see die? How could he just stay hidden in the lifeboat and watch? It was an impossible choice.
He made his two further reports that day in the hope that while he was on line word would come of their safe arrival in England. On each occasion the computer and phone seemed to emit impossibly loud sounds — never mind that such reason as he could muster told him the clickings and beeps were muffled by the heavy lifeboat cover and likely to be drowned by the background noise of engines and ocean. But still there was nothing. Wherever Jasmine was, she hadn’t, or couldn’t, let him know she and Ben were safe.
The night brought cooler temperatures and an end to the day’s reports. But sleep was impossible. Lying in a lifeboat for the first time since he had been pulled out of one half-dead, he was tormented by swirling demons old and new, too many to count.
As warmth and light began to penetrate the plastic cover, he realised the seemingly endless night was over. With cramped and shaking hands he switched the equipment back on for his early-morning report. He forced himself slowly and silently through the routine of measuring the ship’s position, of composing a message, of encoding it, of logging on and sending.
This time the computer flashed up the notice he’d been hanging on: ‘You have one mail message waiting.’ And there it was, one line: ‘Arrived safely. A plea from all three of us for news. Love Jasmine, Ben, Mother.’
Hamnet wilted under the relief — the strength-sapping release that seemed to soak into the wooden deck beneath him. It was a couple of minutes before he could compose a brief lie in reply: ‘Happy and safe in Singapore. Business nearly settled. Will be in touch by phone soon.’
Now things were simpler. The transaction was clearer. It would be completed in a day or two. But that day or two crawled by with excruciating slowness, extracting a full pound of flesh in exchange for its passing. The air moved even less than Hamnet himself, terrified as he was that a single noise might lead to his discovery. He came to know every square centimetre of his voluntary prison. The streaks of grey that ran down the outside of the cover, visible against the daylight, lost at night. The broken deck-board that threatened to creak and poke him in the back every time he moved. The spreading stain of sweat where his body pressed against the wood. He counted the screws in each rubbing strake, the knots in the wood of each thwart. He rolled a quarter turn every quarter of an hour to try to avoid sores. Each movement performed so slowly and carefully. When what he really wanted was to leap and stretch and scream.
Once, a noise sent a rogue chill through him — the clatter of a door opening and shutting, passing footsteps. But only on that one occasion did anyone come near the lifeboat. For the rest of the time, little marked the passing of the hours. There was a slight change in the ship’s motion as the breeze freshened briefly from the southwest, sending ripples across the not-quite-taut lifeboat cover. There was the return to a smoother passage as this quickly died, the Hanking Empire advancing under the umbrella of high pressure that still soothed and protected the South China Sea. The big moments were the two-hourly sips of water and biscuits. The four-hourly Granola bars. The eight-hourly tins of fruit. He urin
ated into the empty bottles. And defecated into the empty tins.
But time always passes, events always come to hand. No matter how long or slow or painful the wait, the end always arrives. Hamnet told himself this, and while he waited in the lifeboat, he built a future. Just like he had the time before. Then, Anna had made it worth carrying on. Worth taking one more dry, painful breath of hot, salty air across cracked, parched and bleeding lips. He told himself that this was easy by comparison. He had enough food, enough water.
This time he had Ben to carry on for. And Jasmine — was she waiting? Would she really be there when this was finished? He didn’t expect her to stay in England. For the most part he had made her life miserable since meeting her. Nor did he think he should expect it. Not so soon after losing Anna. It wasn’t right, was it? He didn’t really know. How did these things work? But her face, when he’d left her. He could hold onto that. For now, it helped.
Chapter 28
The chink of metal on metal was very close. Just the other side of the hull. Hamnet tensed against the shudder that prickled up his spine. It had started. He lay motionless in a flood of adrenaline. Fighting to control his breathing, to relax muscles hellbent on tensing. Another chink. A rustle. The sounds were coming from behind, on the port side. Then a scuffing noise — beside him, just forward of the lifeboat. He had control of himself now. His heart was thumping, but his mind was focused. Oh, so totally focused.
There were only a couple more noises — thin sounds, steadily moving away, forward. He listened to them go, then waited three minutes, carefully timed on his watch. Nothing but the beat of the engines, the breeze against the superstructure. No sound of any guard left behind. When was it time? Now. He should go now.
Just at that moment, he heard a gunshot — flat and dull, distant. He hesitated. And was lucky to do so. The buzz of radio static was right next to him. His pulse screamed through the two-hundred-a-minute barrier. Then a voice he recognised, on the radio, calling for support on the container deck. Janac was on board. Footfalls, muffled but distinct, faded at a run. A door banged open and shut. He daren’t consider how close he had been to blowing it.
Instead, he felt in the holdall for the SIG handgun. The warm plastic grips slipped against the sweat on his palm. He wiped his hand on his sodden shirt to little effect. He grasped the butt harder, until he could feel the pattern bite into his skin. He rolled onto his side and, supporting himself with his gun arm, gently unhooked and lifted the lifeboat cover. The darkness was tempered by a sliver of moon, and he could see the aft deck through the narrow gap he had opened. There was no movement. But there was the sound of another shot — again from a long way forward. He had to get on with it. He flipped the cover back and rolled out of the boat in a single motion, dropping to the deck in shadow. Nothing else moved among the windlasses, the coils of chain. He turned and checked astern, looking for the powerboat. He could see nothing but the cool, moonlit, blue-white wash against the dark ocean.
Cries and shouts now. And a short burst from an automatic weapon. Hamnet whipped back round, wiped his mouth with his gun hand. There was a war going on. The rules had changed. He wondered what had happened after the murder of Fairbrother and Mendez. Had the crews been armed, told to defend themselves? Or had they prepared to fight individually? He knew the latter was most likely. Practically and legally, the arming of untrained crew, with or without instructions to repel borders, was a nightmare. He felt an ice cube of guilt slip into his stomach. But he couldn’t have warned these men — they would have just pulled out, headed home, taken another route. This was the only way.
The sentry who had been called forward for support had headed into the accommodation superstructure. Hamnet wasn’t anxious to follow him. He knew the way he wanted to go — he’d had plenty of time to plan this. He tucked the pistol into his belt and stepped up onto the top of the stern railing. Supporting himself with the rope from which the lifeboat was suspended from the derrick, he straightened slowly until he was peering across the floor of the next deck up. He scanned the empty space — only a couple of metres before a set of three individual doors that led inside. He grabbed the lower railing half a metre above his head, and pulled himself up so he could lift a knee onto the deck. Silence in front of him, the edge of another deck three metres directly above.
He hopped over the railing and threw himself into the shadow at the side of one of the doors. No response — just another distant burst of automatic fire. The crew were obviously fighting a solid defensive action. He cupped a hand against the dark glass in the top half of the door and peered through. He could just make out an open area of tables and chairs that looked like a dining room. All that mattered was that it was empty. He stepped back across the two metres of deck, then up onto the railings again. This time he could only steady himself by bracing his left hand against the deck above. Slowly and carefully he stretched up, until he could peer over the lip of that deck.
There was movement. He ducked back down. His mind replaying what he had seen. One man, back towards him, standing in an open doorway, some kind of weapon held at his right side. He was a good ten metres away, at the entrance to the accommodation block. Beside him was a ladder that led up onto the top of the superstructure. From there, Hamnet knew he had only to go forward past the smoke stack to reach the bridge. He teetered on the railing, half-crouching, left hand pushing up against the deck to steady himself. He wiped his right hand again on the stinking, sweat-soaked shirt. He ran his tongue across his lips, pulled the gun from his belt. He would give the man a minute. He stared forward into the blackness behind the glass of the doors. He felt horribly exposed, perched out in the open. He daren’t glance away from the glass to look at his watch, counting the seconds instead. He had reached fifty when he heard a noise above him. He moved his head out just enough to look up.
The shotgun muzzle was the first thing he saw. It was one of those moments when there was no time to think, only to act, to react. To be a survivor or a casualty. Hamnet snapped his legs straight, jumping, left hand snaking out and up from under the deck. He felt the coarseness of the fatigue tunic under his fingers, locked on at the touch, half-aware of the stunned surprise in the face he yanked down towards him.
A moment before, Soey had been resting casually on the rail, staring out at the silver sea, the accommodation block supposedly cleared and secured. Now both men were falling in slow motion, Hamnet’s weight dragging Soey over the rail. Then a sudden resistance as Soey got a grip, both of the situation and with his free left hand. They stopped with a jerk. Soey was bent tight over the railing at his waist, Hamnet hanging off the handful of collar that he had a life-and-death hold on.
Hamnet saw the weapon move very clearly. He hadn’t taken his eyes off it. But it had to come up and over the railing, and even the short length of the sawn-off shotgun was a handicap in this hand-to-hand struggle. Hamnet was already powering into a single left-arm pull-up he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of, closing into his opponent, making it even harder for Soey to use the gun. The SIG came up in Hamnet’s right hand. He buried the muzzle of the nine-millimetre deep in the soft flesh above the Adam’s apple. Coursing with adrenaline, he once again forgot all about the safety. But this time it didn’t matter. His finger achieved the twelve pounds of trigger pull required for the SIG’s double action to push back the hammer and fire. Then the semiautomatic recocked, the single-action, four-and-a-half pound trigger pull so light in comparison the second shot was unintended.
And unnecessary. The first bullet drove up through the centre of Soey’s skull. Hamnet’s eyelids twitched and quivered as blood and brains spattered his face at each report. Soey died instantly, his left hand opened. They both started to fall again, but this time Hamnet was the only one who cared. He turned and twisted, desperately trying to push off the body and onto the boat. His left heel just clipped the railing and kicked him the right way. He hit the deck hard, with a jarring impact on his right knee. A moment later he heard th
e body land, with a wet, bloody slap, on the cover of the lifeboat below.
‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he hissed, desperately wiping his face with his shirtsleeve. Hands, arms, body — all were trembling violently. But his instincts were already clearing the gory mess from his mind, if not his face and shirt. He refocused on the next move, pushing distractions aside.
He stepped back to the railing, barely noticing the shooting pain from his damaged knee, and looked out and up for just an instant. No gunfire, no shouting, no lights. The dead man had been alone. He stuffed the gun back in his waistband and reached for the rail above. Still wet with blood, his hands struggled for a grip, but he managed to haul himself up and over. He scurried across the open deck to a ladder and started to climb. He was just in time. As he rolled onto the top of the accommodation block, the doors crashed open below him.
Tosh and Edi swept their MP5s across the deck. The Sure Fire torches built into the stocks caught the dark gleam of blood on the railing. The pair looked at each other, the whites of their eyes luminous in their blacked-up faces. Their advance onto the open deck was cautious, professional. But they heard nothing, saw nothing. Hamnet had backed another five metres away from the ladder, the SIG now trained on the top rung. He couldn’t see the scene below as Edi took a cautious first look over the railing. But he heard the sharp gasp as the big Indonesian caught sight of Soey’s body. Tosh, finally satisfied there was no immediate threat, joined him at the rail.
The Wrecking Crew (Janac's Games) Page 22