‘Christ, half his head’s gone. Let’s check the deck below.’ He was already reaching for the radio to report the find to Janac.
Hamnet listened to the two men’s footfalls as they passed through one of the doors beneath him. He rolled to his feet. Adrenaline, fear, hate —all were forcing him forward. So close now.
His right eye was weeping badly — something was stuck under the lid. Through blurred vision, he could just see that the deck stretched forward to the back wall of the bridge. It was divided in two by the smoke stack, up the side of which ran a ladder onto the roof of the bridge. He pressed himself against the base of the stack and crept towards the ladder. The din of the engines bellowed and blubbered through the steel wall of the chimney. He dabbed his eye with a cleanish piece of shirt, blinking hard, tears trickling. Gradually it washed itself clean, and as it dried, clear sight returned. Yet again he wiped the palm of his right hand, and the gun grip. Then, cautiously, he climbed the ladder and wriggled onto the roof of the bridge. To his left, the lifeboat derricks, sticking up and out; to his right, the aerial tower that held the communications links. He was almost there.
With infinite stealth, he paced fifteen metres towards the leading edge of the roof. Five metres short he slid to his belly. He inched forward, gradually increasing his view of the container deck. It was dark below him, in the shadow of the bridge and accommodation superstructure cast by the moon. The fighting seemed to have stopped. He could hear nothing, could see no sign of activity. Had Janac gained control? He watched for a few moments, and then, in answer to his question, out from behind the nearest stack of containers trooped a shadowy line of figures in single file. As they approached the foot of the accommodation block some twenty metres below, someone threw open a door. White light spilled onto the deck. Hamnet counted twelve men with hands clasped behind their heads. To the rear, one to either side, two armed guards. Janac had control.
Hamnet glanced left and right. On the port side, a heavy green polythene sheet was stretched tight above the wing deck. He writhed silently over to it. It stuck out at right angles from the accommodation superstructure. He crawled aft, past the first lifeboat davit, from where he could see the wing deck was empty. He stretched for a fuller view. Red light fell on the deck; the bridge door was open. The lifeboat was little more than a metre below him. He eased himself over the edge and down onto the lifeboat cover. He crept forward, the material sagging under his weight. The bow sat a third of a metre short of the top railing of the wing deck. He stepped onto the railing, pulled in tight against the bulkhead beside the door and slid down onto the deck. He was just in shadow — a shaft of red from the night-lights fell on the deck at his feet.
He had arrived. This was it. A tremor shook his gun hand. His heart was bashing against his rib cage. His throat was suffocatingly tight. He hesitated. Ben and Jasmine were safe. He didn’t have to go through with this. He shut his eyes. Anna’s face swam into view. But nothing would bring her back. Not even this.
Three metres away, inside the bridge, MP5 slung diagonally across his chest as always, Tosh patted his trouser pockets and pulled out his leather pouch. He tapped a line of rolling tobacco into a cigarette paper. Janac listened to his report, but didn’t take his eyes off the only other person on the bridge — the ship’s skipper, trussed and gagged, lying at his feet along the back wall. Janac was still, dangerously still.
‘Dead?’ he said. ‘I thought we had them all trapped forward?’
‘No,’ Tosh mumbled past the completed cigarette. The disposable lighter wouldn’t fire again. He stabbed repeatedly at the ignition wheel, annoyed that he hadn’t replaced it.
‘And now?’
Tosh caught Janac’s tone this time, looked up, pulled the cigarette from his mouth to speak. ‘Almost — the whole crew accounted for, a couple wounded, no dead. But we have an extra on board like you expected. Someone’s been covert in the aft lifeboat. It’s full of piss and shit, some food, a GPS, computer, satphone. All the toys. Me and Edi had a pretty good look around but we couldn’t find him. The lads will sweep the boat again with a full squad as soon as the rest of the crew are secure.’
Janac smiled now, stubble bristling under the face blacking, his body relaxing a fraction. ‘So he is here. I thought he must be. Couldn’t see how he was reporting the position otherwise. What with the entire Singapore police force looking for him. Good job we brought the kid.’
‘We have to find Hamnet first. And he’s armed and dangerous — as they say.’ Tosh went back to his cigarette. It still wouldn’t light.
Janac listened to his lieutenant’s futile efforts with the lighter. ‘We’ll smoke him out the same way as last time if we have to,’ he said. ‘But I suspect he’ll wait for us to start the fun and games, then show. He probably wants to swap himself, rather than the crew, for the child. Like he did with his wife. If only it were that simple.’ He snorted a short, vicious laugh. He tapped the heavy revolver three times against the chart table he was leaning against.
It was the first sound Hamnet heard as he inched closer to the door. He had found him. Tap, tap, tap. Just as he’d heard at the beginning, all those weeks before. And now it was the end. All he had to do was step round the corner. All he had to do.
Chapter 29
Tap, tap, tap.
Anger started to boil. The sense of helplessness Hamnet had felt on the Shawould was gone. This time he could do something. He raised the gun to his shoulder, left hand supporting, his right index finger laid gently against the trigger. He tried to get a bearing on the noise. But it issued from the doorway with little hint as to whether the source was forward or aft of the opening. He took a long, slow, silent breath. Blinked hard to clear his eyes. Filled his mind with the image of Janac. He was the target. Turn, find the target and squeeze. It was as simple as that.
Hamnet rolled round the doorframe, extending the weapon in a smooth movement. The vertical white bead of the gun-sight tracking across the room. Janac was fifteen metres away, under one of the red night-lights. He was facing Hamnet, leaning against the side of the chart table, the back wall of the bridge to his left. It was less than a second before the white line danced on Janac’s face, but it was still too long. Janac had heard the faint rustle of motion and looked up from his prisoner. He didn’t have time to swing the unholstered revolver up, across and onto Hamnet, only to raise the muzzle a few degrees. A barely discernible motion. But the Smith and Wesson was now aiming its .45 calibre load at the back of the skipper’s head. Hamnet met Janac’s eyes with three-and-a-half pounds of pressure on the trigger and hesitated.
Three metres away and at ten o’clock, to Hamnet’s left, Tosh had his back to the new arrival. The Scot had been too preoccupied with the recalcitrant lighter to notice anything amiss. Until he saw Janac’s gaze shift, his gun move. Lighter and cigarette slipped from his fingers. He tensed to turn and fire. But he had way too much to do from such a slow start.
‘I’ll kill him!’ Hamnet half-shouted. ‘Don’t move!’
Like Hamnet, Tosh also hesitated. His right hand was halfway across his chest, only centimetres from the trigger of the MP5. The chest sling made the weapon as easy to ready and shoot from there as any other. But he had to turn and locate Hamnet, and the safety was on.
‘Hands away from the gun!’ Hamnet’s voice was still wild.
No one moved. Tosh looked across to Janac. But the grey eyes were consuming Hamnet, a vision smeared and splashed with Soey’s blood, glowing in the red light like some ancient demon.
Nor was the demon about to take his eyes off Janac. But it was to Tosh that he spoke again, cooler now. ‘Don’t do it. I’ve got time to drop Janac and you before you can get anywhere near that trigger. Just ease your hands out where I can see them, away from the gun.’
Tosh still didn’t move as he assessed the situation clinically. His initial, instinctive reaction had been the right one, he thought. If he had gone for the shot, Janac wouldn’t have made it. Years of loyalty to
his boss had checked his hand. Hamnet would have pulled the trigger, of that he was convinced. He had seen Soey. But now, for the first time, there crept into his head another question. He started to look at the situation differently, easing his hands away from his body, just far enough for Hamnet to be able to see them. At the same time he began slowly, smoothly, to turn.
Janac still held Hamnet with an implacable stare. If he was angry that Hamnet had evaded his men and got the jump on him, he didn’t show it. He knew that anger was no help to him now. And like Tosh, he also had no doubt that Hamnet would fire if provoked.
‘But equally, Phillip, I think you’d have to agree that I will kill the skipper as you kill me.’ A trace of a smile appeared on the thin lips, a touch of colour in the blacked-up face. ‘Always assuming you can hit me with a killing shot from fifty feet with that thing. Then it’s Tosh’s turn —and you die. And then your kid dies. He’s on our boat, Phillip. We’ve been expecting you. He’s yours now — this is the fourth ship. So just lower the weapon.’
‘Stop the turn!’ snapped Hamnet. He would have picked up the sudden movement if Tosh had gone for the MP5. But it was an unpleasant surprise to realise the Scotsman was now almost facing him on the edge of his visual field. Nevertheless, he didn’t move his eyes from Janac. ‘Tosh, is it? Hold it there — hands a little further away from the gun, please.’
‘Aye, OK. Relax.’ Tosh had frozen, staring at Hamnet, breaking down the angle, looking at the timing. It was tight. If Hamnet had been a professional, Tosh knew his chances would have been zero. As it was, Hamnet might still be good enough. Tosh didn’t share Janac’s confidence that he would walk out of there. Nor was he ready to murder a baby. But he figured Hamnet wasn’t to know that.
No one spoke or moved in the heavy silence that had settled following those last words. Hamnet’s knee beat out its damage in pain. But the SIG’s barrel remained locked on Janac. Tosh’s right hand was now a foot from the trigger of the Heckler and Koch. Janac’s Smith and Wesson still drilled at the skipper’s spine.
Hamnet swallowed hard. He traced his upper lip with the tip of his tongue. The skipper would die. Janac had the reflexes, unless he could get him with a head shot that closed down his nervous system instantly. Hamnet didn’t doubt there were people who could do that. But he knew he wasn’t one of them. He moved the sight down onto the bigger target of Janac’s chest and held it there without a quaver. He was pleased at how steady his hands were.
Janac watched the tiny movement of the barrel before repeating, ‘We’ve been expecting you. You can have your kid back. Don’t blow it now.’
A noise came from the skipper, muffled through the gag. His feet beat briefly on the deck before Janac stamped on a twisted ankle. ‘Silence,’ he hissed.
Why, Hamnet asked himself? Why did it have to be difficult again? The skipper was the price. Could he pay it? And would it be the last? Could he stop it there?
‘It’s him for me, isn’t it?’ said Janac. ‘I can see it going through your mind. But that’s not where it ends. You die too, Phillip. And your kid. Tosh will see to that. He’s the only one who walks away if you shoot.’
Hamnet adjusted his grip fractionally on the weapon. He felt Tosh tense, but his eyes never left Janac. ‘Don’t do it, Tosh. Don’t even think about it.’
Tosh froze once again and repeated, ‘Aye, OK. Relax.’
Hamnet nodded before speaking again, matching Janac’s quiet tone. ‘Yeah, you and me relax, Tosh. That’s good. Because I don’t think it’s going to happen like Janac thinks it is. I think there’s a price to pay. That’s what you’ve been teaching me, isn’t it Janac? That there’s a price to pay?’
‘You’ve paid already, Phillip. You’ve paid.’
‘So send Tosh to fetch my son. I want to see him before we do a deal.’
The grey eyes narrowed, the crow’s feet at their corners tightening. And in them Hamnet saw that Janac now knew for certain — that Tosh was the only thing preventing him from squeezing the trigger. He would pay the price of the skipper’s life.
‘No. Not till you lower the weapon,’ Janac spat. ‘Lower the weapon or shoot. What’s it gonna be, Lifeboat Man?’ he whispered, lips twisted in a sneer.
‘I’ll pay the price. You should know that.’ Hamnet paused for an instant at the muffled sound of a choking wince from the skipper, again cut short as Janac put pressure on the ankle. ‘But what about Tosh here? Think about those Triad drugs, Tosh. With Janac gone you can negotiate, cut them in. They’ll trust you, but they’ll never trust him. Think how much easier it’ll be with him gone. Triad informers for cargo-routing in Hong Kong and Singapore — with this operation you’ve got it made. And I’ll take him out for you. Just keep your hands away from the gun. Then you take what you can find, leave my son and go.’
That was it. He’d played his card, the only one he had. But he thought he could see the first sign of uncertainty. Janac’s sneer was gone. But the gun hand was rock steady.
Janac was quick to speak into the silence. ‘Divide and rule. Nice idea, Phillip. But Tosh and I go back a long way and this little venture has a great future. Triads or not. We’re not negotiating with those assholes. Or you. It’s make-your-mind-up time. Kill him on the count of five, Tosh. One.’
Hamnet could feel the sweat spring between his finger and the trigger. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to bring up his children. He wanted to see Ben again. He wanted to see Jasmine. He’d promised her.
‘Two.’ Janac’s voice betrayed not the slightest shred of emotion. The deep rumble of the engines was all that disturbed the warm, heavy air between counts.
‘Three. Put the gun down, Lifeboat Man.’
Hamnet’s finger tightened the pressure on the trigger by another half a pound.
‘I can’t get him, Janac,’ said Tosh. ‘He’ll take you out.’
Hamnet’s eyes still hadn’t left Janac’s face once. And they didn’t now. ‘All I want is the child, Tosh. Take your hands away from the weapon. Let us finish this.’
‘And the skipper, Phillip, the skipper?’ said Janac.
Hamnet could hear it now, in Janac’s voice. Uncertainty. ‘Like you said, Janac, there’s always a price,’ he growled. ‘I think this is as low as it gets. There are no better deals going today.’
There was a stifled sob from the floor.
‘Four,’ Janac bit back in response.
Hamnet daren’t breath. He needed the tiniest trace of uncertainty in Tosh’s mind. He thought it was there — that moment’s hesitation was all he needed to take out both of them. And, finally, his eyes flickered away from Janac towards Tosh, to see his face properly, to be sure.
It was exactly the mistake Janac had been waiting for. All too often, the hands follow the eyes. Janac knew only too well that Hamnet’s glance at Tosh should take his aim off his own chest. He also knew that with Hamnet prepared to let the skipper die and Tosh’s intervention questionable, this was the best chance he would get — and he took it.
The revolver came off the back of the skipper’s neck and tracked towards Hamnet. Its motion was a blur. But such blurs are what the peripheral vision of wild animals is for, and Hamnet had the sharpened instincts of the hunted. He knew he didn’t have time to think, never mind look back at where the SIG was pointed. He didn’t even try. He just squeezed the extra half-pound on the trigger. He was moving the weapon before he had even controlled the kick. His eyes were still on Tosh, who was spinning the MP5 down and across his chest, his thumb already flicking the safety. Hamnet fired a second time on instinct. This shot and another bellowed simultaneously. The combined report in such a confined space shook the air.
Hamnet felt the impact swat him, but at first nothing else. It flung him backwards, spinning and crumpling at the same time. He slammed into the doorframe and slid awkwardly down. His mind, which had been so focused, was suddenly scrabbling for a priority. Then the pain tore through him as he hit the floor, and he was slipping and sliding towards blackout.
But he saw Tosh — lying on a bloody right thigh, his gun trapped underneath him. Then he realised he couldn’t feel his right arm. The comforting weight of the SIG grip was gone. He lowered his eyes — the gun was lying some half a metre in front of him. He looked down further. And felt the nauseating landslide in his mind. He could see bone through the hole torn in the flesh that had been his forearm. Somehow he tore his fascinated gaze away. Tosh was struggling to clear the MP5 from under him. Their eyes met. Hamnet lunged for the SIG with his good left hand. He fell on his stomach, snatching up the gun and swinging it round as he did so. Pain shot through his shattered arm. Consciousness tripped and tottered.
‘No!’ screamed Tosh, agony etched across his face. The barrel of his weapon was still stuck in the bloody folds of his leg. But he almost had a bead through what remained of his thigh.
‘It doesn’t have to be like this,’ croaked Hamnet, eyes half closed. ‘I only want my son back.’
Tosh didn’t say a word. Just looked away. Hamnet followed his gaze. Up against the back wall of the bridge Janac lay in a broken heap. The hole in his chest was neat; a bloody stain spread across his tunic. Hamnet’s hand hadn’t wavered at all.
The skipper hadn’t moved either. Hamnet couldn’t see if he was dead or unconscious. He couldn’t see a wound. Perhaps he had just fainted. Then the grey eyes flickered in Janac’s ashen skin. They moved so slowly now. From Tosh to Hamnet. The revolver still lay in his open hand. He struggled for the strength to fire it one last time. But the weight, the pull on the .45 calibre — both were heavy. Hamnet looked back to Tosh.
‘It doesn’t have to be like this, Tosh. Take your men, your boat, and go. All I want is my son.’
Janac’s thin lips trembled as he tried to speak. A trace of blood trickled down his chin through the blackened stubble. All three men continued to bleed in the silence.
The Wrecking Crew (Janac's Games) Page 23