Chapter 30
Radio static crackled through the charged atmosphere before a disembodied voice sparked another few volts into the stand-off. ‘Janac, it’s Edi. Over.’
Tosh’s gaze swivelled back to Hamnet. Only the hazel eyes moved in the black face.
‘I would suggest you stall them if you want to work this out,’ said Hamnet.
Tosh moved his left hand slowly towards the VHF on his hip, while his right shifted the gun barrel under his damaged right thigh, up towards Hamnet.
‘Steady,’ threatened Hamnet, blinking his sight clear.
Tosh grimaced. ‘We’ve no done any deals yet, soldier.’ But the muzzle stopped moving. He found the radio and pushed down the transmit button. ‘Just wait a couple, Edi. Small problem with the captain. It’s under control — the show’ll be back on the road soon.’ His voice buzzed through the bridge, a feedback loop starting from Janac’s radio.
‘Roger, Tosh,’ replied the speakers in stereo.
Tosh reattached the VHF to his belt, the pain of the movement tugging at his carefully composed expression. He looked back at Janac. The eyes were closed. The body limp. Just the faintest rise and fall of the chest indicated the boss was still alive.
‘Janac was expecting you. Had you tailed, knew you’d gone to ground and figured you’d turn up out here. That’s why he brought the kid. He had this great little scene lined up. He wanted you to make the decision between the kid and three of the crew walking the plank. Bollocks to that. You should collect — there’s a Triad contract out on him.’ He gave out a hoarse, pain-laced laugh.
‘Tell them to send it to a charity for merchant-marine widows,’ said Hamnet. The nauseating head-spin had gone with the first rush of pain. Now there was only a dull throb, his arm didn’t feel broken, the bleeding had slowed a lot, and he wasn’t going to pass out. Not now — not this close.
Tosh grunted. ‘So if we don’t kill each other, how’s it going to work?’
‘Simple. Give up the gun. You’ll stay here until all your men are off the boat and I have my son back. There are no semiconductors on this ship as far as I know. I made that up. But you can take any payroll cash from the safe.’ The skipper shifted and moaned but the two injured men ignored him. Hamnet continued: ‘You tell your men on your radio to collect the money and get off. Bring my son here. Then I’ll let you go.’
The ponytail shook slowly. ‘We need more than that. We need another big take from this boat.’
‘You can have whatever you can find on the cargo manifest. If you want to stick around. I sent a Mayday message before I left the lifeboat.’ There hadn’t been time or opportunity to start up the equipment to do that, but even if Tosh suspected he was bluffing, Hamnet knew he couldn’t be sure.
Tosh considered. The money wasn’t worth the risk. He could claim he’d put Janac out of circulation, get the Chinese off his back, and he wouldn’t need to fortify the villa. Then maybe he could strike a deal for the future, with the Triads supplying the cargo and routing information for a cut of the proceeds, just as Hamnet had suggested. And his leg needed attention. Soon.
‘How do I know you’ll let me go once you have your kid?’ he asked.
‘Because you have a boat full of armed men who might just come back for you,’ retorted Hamnet. ‘I keep saying it, all I want is my baby.’
Tosh hesitated, then smiled faintly. ‘Aye, I guess it’ll do,’ he said.
Hamnet nodded. ‘Push the gun away. Can you get over and free the skipper?’
‘Aye.’ Tosh carefully rolled backwards off the gun and over again until his weight was on his good left leg. Then he dragged himself painfully across the linoleum to where the now motionless skipper lay. Hamnet followed him with the SIG. A Bowie knife came out from a shoulder sheath and Tosh cut the plastic cuffs. Then he heaved himself up against the back wall, beside Janac, as the skipper stirred and ripped off the gag.
‘God almighty, I thought I was dead,’ said the skipper in a thick voice. He propped himself groggily on his elbows, revealing a tanned, lined face and neatly clipped grey beard.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Hamnet.
‘Mandal, Fredde Mandal.’
‘OK, Fredde.’ Hamnet nodded towards Tosh and Janac. ‘Take the revolver away, and find something to bind up his leg and my arm.’
Mandal looked bemused. He glanced at Janac and grimaced. He shifted, then reddened, wiping a hand across his face. The smell that spread as Mandal stood told the story — bowel and bladder had opened at the first shot. Face down, he’d had no idea Janac had moved the gun off him to shoot Hamnet. The stench mingled with the smell of cordite. Hamnet just said, ‘Get on with it.’
Mandal picked the Smith and Wesson out of Janac’s limp hand and slid it towards Hamnet. Tosh’s knife followed. He then walked uncomfortably over to a cabinet, marked with a red cross, on the starboard bulkhead.
‘Do him first,’ said Hamnet, indicating Tosh as he pulled the Smith and Wesson towards him. He eased himself up and back so that he was sitting against the doorframe, and propped the SIG between his clenched knees. He watched Tosh push away the morphine shot. Mandal shrugged, then tied a tourniquet round the thigh and dressed the wound. It was rough and ready, but it staunched the bleeding.
‘Good,’ said Hamnet. ‘Now come over here and strap this up. Tosh, get on the radio and tell them the new plan. Pick up the cash, get your men off the boat, then fetch my boy and bring him here.’
Tosh nodded, unclipped the radio from his belt and started talking.
Hamnet listened carefully to the instructions. He smiled when he heard Tosh tell Jordi to get as far away as he could, to maintain a full radar watch and get ready for a search, as the coastguard were on their way.
Mandal worked in silence on Hamnet’s arm for a couple of minutes before he whispered, ‘You’re letting them take the payroll? There’s a hundred thousand dollars in that safe.’
‘They’re only interested in the money now,’ Hamnet murmured back. ‘We give them what they want and they’ll leave us alone. There’s still a crew of heavily armed men on your boat. Once I give them Tosh back, I don’t want them to have any reason to do anything except leave. You have a radio anywhere else on board?’ He flinched on the last word as Mandal lifted his wounded arm towards his left shoulder in a sling.
‘Sorry. No we don’t.’
‘I have a satellite phone in the lifeboat. Or I did have, but they could destroy it or take it with them on the way out. We can’t guarantee getting any help. We give them what they want. I trade Tosh for my son.’
‘Your son? I don’t understand.’
‘It’s a long story.’
The skipper nodded. ‘Would you have let me die?’ he asked.
Hamnet looked down. ‘That’s a long story, too.’ He hesitated. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about anymore. He had done what he knew to be necessary. ‘Janac had to be sure I would. Let’s leave it at that. When you’re done, take a look at the course, check the radar. No one’s paid it much attention for a while.’
‘What about him?’ Mandal nodded towards Janac.
‘I’d take a shower and change those trousers before worrying about him.’
Mandal helped the pirate crew into the safe, then they returned to the bulk carrier to fetch the baby. Tosh and Hamnet waited in silence as Mandal resumed command of his ship and then examined the still unconscious Janac.
The doors at the stern of the bridge banged open. A tall, blond, well-built man in his early thirties stood in the doorway. His white uniform shirt was sweat-soaked and filthy. ‘Capsson, first officer,’ he said in a heavy Scandinavian accent. ‘Your child’s here. With one of them.’
Hamnet nodded. ‘OK, let’s go. Help him.’ He waved at Tosh, who was now visibly struggling, face pale under the black paint, lathered with sweat, eyes wide.
‘I’ll stay here,’ interrupted Mandal, looking up from Janac. ‘He’s in a bad way, but we should do what we can.’
‘I’ve filled him full of morphine. If he does come round, he won’t even know where he is.’
Capsson took Tosh’s right arm round his shoulder and almost carried him down to the brightly lit boat deck. Hamnet followed, his wounded arm in its sling, the gun now solidly in his left hand. Half a dozen of the ship’s crew were waiting for them, armed with knives, a hammer, a single shotgun. They stood around Edi at the top of a rope ladder over the stern rail. The RIB buzzed fifty metres off.
The baby was tiny, cradled in Edi’s huge left arm. It was crying loudly, dryly — no tears on the red face. Hanging from Edi’s right shoulder, the strap twisted tight round his forearm, was a sub-machine-gun. It was levelled at the man with the shotgun. Tosh limped over to him and slumped against the stern rail.
‘Listen up. This is how it’s going to happen,’ said Hamnet, with the SIG pointed at Edi. ‘Tosh goes down the ladder. Then you hand the boy over and go. Jump if you’re worried. The RIB can pick you up.’
Tosh turned, glanced at Edi. ‘That’s good,’ he said.
Edi nodded silently, turned the gun onto Hamnet.
Tosh hauled himself over the rail, and laboriously, using his arms and good leg, lowered himself down the ladder. The group waited in silence, listening to the baby wailing, for the two minutes it took Tosh to get safely into the RIB. A shout told them he had made it. Edi eased himself, one leg at a time, over the rail. The weapon never left Hamnet. Edi stood on his toes on the outside edge of the deck, leaning forward so as not to fall. He held out the baby by the back of its yellow jump suit. Capsson had taken half a step towards the rail to take it when Edi let go and pushed backwards at the same moment.
Everyone dived forwards, but it was Capsson who just caught the howling bundle. Hamnet was only a second behind, the gun finally slipping from his hand and rattling onto the deck. He took the baby in his good arm. It had finally happened. The second son, the one he had turned his back on, was safe. The joy that welled up through him was so powerful he shook. A single tear trickled through the blood that still smeared his face.
He held the baby so tight for so long that Capsson laid a hand on his shoulder, worried he would suffocate it. Hamnet pulled back a fraction and looked the baby over. The yellow jump suit was dirty, the face still red, but the crying had stopped and the blue eyes were huge, curious.
‘We’re going to be OK, the three of us. We’re going to be OK now. I’ll never leave you again,’ said Hamnet in a choked voice. He looked up at the surrounding faces, all beaming. ‘We have any milk, anything we can feed him with?’ he asked.
‘Sure, in the kitchen,’ said a big man in a chef’s apron. ‘Follow me.’
Hamnet trailed after the chef, into the accommodation block, up three flights of stairs and into the dining room he had crouched outside so fearfully such a short time before. The kitchen was at the back. Hamnet carefully laid his son down on an empty stainless-steel surface. Behind him the chef busied himself with warming some milk.
Hamnet ran his hand through the tousled dark hair. Anna’s hair, he thought with a jerk as he carefully unzipped the jump suit and started to unfasten the nappy. ‘Oh my God.’
He could feel what little control he had left slipping away. His throat tightened, he bit his lip, his jaw clenched. But his eyes blurred and filled with tears. His son was a girl. He dropped his face into his good hand and cried like he had never cried before. The grieving had finally begun.
Hamnet had no idea how long he had been there. But he could tell that the firm hand squeezing his shoulder wanted something important. He looked up, breathing hard through his mouth, sniffing, wiping his face with his left arm. It was Capsson.
‘The pirate leader, he’s conscious. I think he wants you.’
Hamnet glanced at the chef.
‘I’ll look after the baby,’ said the big man. ‘You go.’
Hamnet strode after the Swede up to the bridge, still wiping away his tears. When he got there, Mandal — in clean trousers, Hamnet noticed despite himself — was bent over Janac. The bridge was bright under the white lights that had been switched on. Janac looked small and insignificant in the dark pool of his own blood.
Mandal looked up. ‘I've stabilised the bleeding and we have an IV bag coming up from the med room. He could make it if we got him to a hospital. But I think the bullet nicked his spine — he can’t feel or move anything below his chest. We don’t have much morphine left though, and the last lot’s starting to wear off.’
‘Check the aft lifeboat, see if my satellite phone is still there. Maybe we can get some help,’ said Hamnet as he crouched down beside Janac. Mandal stood up and moved away, waving to Capsson to go and look.
At the sound of Hamnet’s voice, Janac’s eyes flicked open. But his breathing was barely perceptible. He looked at Hamnet for a long moment. Then his lips moved, faintly, barely making a sound. Hamnet bent closer, his ear to the thin lips. Now he could hear.
‘Did you kill him?’
Hamnet pulled away, puzzled. ‘Who?’ he said, and leant back down for the answer.
‘The Filipino. In the lifeboat,’ rattled the whisper.
Hamnet smiled.
‘I have to know,’ Janac murmured eventually.
Hamnet rocked back onto his heels. He rubbed his cheek, looked at the blood-stained hand that came away. So much killing. Only three living people knew what had happened. None of them had ever told a soul. There was no need to change that now. Hamnet leant closer again, whispered right in Janac’s ear.
‘After what you put my wife and kids through? Fuck you.’
For a moment their eyes locked. Hamnet knew what the grey pools were telling him. He stood up, looked round the bridge and saw the MP5 still lying where Tosh had left it. He walked over and picked it up, feet sticky on the bloody floor. Then he turned and walked back to Janac. Mandal watched him, not quite understanding or believing. Until Hamnet leant down and placed the muzzle on Janac’s forehead. The grey eyes closed. Hamnet barely heard the shout behind him. He turned his head and for the last time pulled a trigger. The report crashed round the bridge, the reverberation seeping away under the doors. The expended cartridge rattled on the linoleum. Hamnet didn’t look back. Just pulled the gun off and threw it on the floor.
‘What the hell do you think you’ve done? Who do you think you are?’ Mandal’s voice was tremulous with righteous indignation, shock and more than a trace of fear.
Hamnet looked up at him, sighed a thousand-year sigh. ‘We don’t have the morphine to get him to a hospital. And even if we did it would have cost a fortune to treat him. And for what? To execute him? Jail him for life? I’d rather the money went on something useful. He’s better off dead, and he knew it. Why shirk the responsibility for the bastard?’
He didn’t wait for an answer. He pushed past Mandal and strode across the bridge, down the steps and away, back to his Anna.
*****
Have You Read The Defector?
It’s the book where Janac first appears...
Prologue – June 1992
It was Friday, and Fridays were always bad. This particular Friday was worse because of the rain. I love the place. Always have, and probably always will. Good old England. But I hate the rain, boy, do I hate the rain. And more than anything I hate driving in the rain. That day was typical, it was June and barely drizzling hard enough to get the wipers out of intermittent and into first gear, but there was a cloud of spray on the road so bad I could barely see the end of the bonnet on the BMW. And I was late. I was always late, I guess it was just a part of the lifestyle.
I saw the lorry a little late too, coming out from the slip road on my left. These guys, they think they own the road. And this one was typical, indicator on and just shove it out. I was doing nearly twice his speed and he only had to wait a few seconds and I'd be past him. But oh no, he wanted me to move over. But I didn't, I flashed the ligh
ts onto full beam, thumbed the horn and floored it. I'd just burst through the curtain of solid spray kicked up by the front wheels as they moved to avoid me. He over-reacted a little, I must have surprised him. I felt it more than saw it. The cab rocking and the squwoosh noise as the tyres let go on the wet road.
It was when I saw the trailer fill my rear view mirror that I knew it was going to be bad. Then there were the horns, the almost human wail of anguish as the inevitable slowly, hopelessly, became fact. The gate closed, the trailer just shut down the motorway behind me. I heard one crash, a high pitched screech that lowered into a grinding, ripping tenor howl before exhausting itself in a dull whumf. But by then I was gone, mist and drizzle and spray swallowed up the scene behind me. There was nothing, no one in the rear-view mirror. I watched a rain drop slide down the back window. I was the last one that made it through. I drove on, there was nothing else to do. You have to carry on, don't you?
Chapter 1
Seven months later: Ko Samui, an 'emerald island jewel set in the sapphire sea of the Gulf of Thailand' - or so the brochures would have you believe. But I knew it was costume jewellery, superficial glamour that barely hid a cheating heart. A heart I should avoid, but there I was, back on the dusty strip of bars and clubs where Ko Samui slinkily slipped out of its formal white sand and blue water into something more comfortable.
Chaweng Beach. The main drag. Midnight. Purple Haze pounded the air from a couple of bars down, the lights flared and the darkness turned into day-glo orange, then red, then green. The bar-girls shrieked at the conveyor belt of passing humanity. The women tourists looked away as their men leered. I picked up the glass of Mekong and coke and unsteadily raised it to my lips, ice was only a ghostly memory in the warm sugary fluid. I'd lost count of the evening's tally a while back. I gazed over the rim at the girl beside me. The beauty of Thai women is only matched by the country's reputation for selling it cheap: jet black hair, sultry eyes, the slim figure tucked neatly into the short, silk and very red dress. The brazen come-on was offset by a startling, almost luminous naiveté in her face. But it was the come-on quality I was interested in. The eyes said she was available - they all are, at a price.
The Wrecking Crew (Janac's Games) Page 24