9 Days Falling, Volume I k-5

by John A. Schettler

  But Argos was a ship fully capable of taking care of herself. MacRae was standing on the deck of one of the most dangerous destroyers ever to sail the high seas, and that thought always put just a bit more starch in his collar. All the old British armament that had made the ship so deadly had been removed, of course, but Fairchild Enterprises was a well diversified company. One of her subsidiary ventures was an arms manufacturing operation servicing the Royal Navy. Argos Fire was therefore fitted out with a company modified, and vastly upgraded version of the Viper air defense system, advanced Sampson radars, and two 4.5” Mark 8 guns, well disguised and fully retractable below the fore and aft deck on a clever hydraulic lift system. She even had sophisticated sonar equipment and anti torpedo defense systems and, for some serious longer range punch, Fairchild had pressed a new ship-to-ship missile prototype into sea trials on the Argos Fire shortly after her maiden voyage, the GB-7, or Gealbhan for ‘Sparrow.’ Faster than the British Sea Eagle, it was a hypersonic sea skimmer much like the deadly Russian Sunburn missile, and it put the fire into the ship’s name to be sure.

  Largely gutted, with the interior completely rebuilt above the waterline, the ship now housed corporate offices at sea, and with lavishly appointed executive cabins, a full dining room, library, data center and expanded hanger space aft for four helos. To round things off, Ms. Fairchild insisted on a small company of her very own security men, all ex-military types sworn to their new posts in a secret ritual that none would ever openly discuss. This fifty man contingent of Argonauts sailed with the ship at all times, and they were outfitted with a small flotilla of fast boats for offshore and inshore service. Dressed always in commando black, the men were a formidable presence when deployed on any security mission requiring their particular talents.

  As he stepped out on the aft helo deck Captain MacRae noted that he was a good match for his ship, where a liberal use of naval white now covered her newly tapered lines. The more military colors, blues, grays, hazard schemes and dazzle paint, were not to be her dress code, ever again. Argos Fire was wearing dress whites in the service of Elena Fairchild now, and she would have to mind her manners in the bargain, just like the Captain and crew. But a ship never really could change her true temperament, no matter how she was rigged. MacRae could still feel the raw strength of the metal under his feet, the surging power her new engines were capable of, and he knew, more than any other, just how indelicate his vessel could be if it ever came to a brawl on the high seas in the service of the company—the reason Argos Fire had been built in the first place.

  It was a dangerous world out there, on both land and sea now that the long discussion of Hubbert’s Peak had finally resolved itself into an ever more serious decline in oil production figures. Peak oil was a reality that was now self-evident, and no amount of rock squeezing ‘fracking’ was going to change that. All the world’s major fields were in decline, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, Burgon in Kuwait, Cantarell in Mexico, the Russian fields administered by Lukos, and forget the North Sea. Only the massive young superfield of Kashagan in the Caspian was still viable, yet that area was now a hotbed of political contention—soon to be military contention, he thought. Britain, once a net exporter of oil, was now slowly starting to feel like Japan, relying more and more on imports.

  The Royal Navy ain’t what she used to be, MacRae thought. The sun had long since set on the British Empire as well—it was setting, in fact, on the American Empire at this very moment, though you couldn’t get a neocon worth his salt to admit that. This is why small producers and shippers like Fairchild were becoming more and more important in the service to the Crown. They filled and guarded the oil tankers, and brought the energy home to a still gluttonous society that was just starting to catch a glimmer of the truth about the world’s energy situation.

  But for now, decked out in his dress whites, Captain Gordon MacRae had more pleasant things to consider. It was nigh on four bells, eighteen hundred hours, six PM, well into the mid-watch. The Rotterdam was long gone, its captain probably still thinking about that case of Pinot Noir. The Argos Fire had slipped into the harbor for its brief visit and the helo from Alexandria was ready to land. His guest would be waiting, the dining hall would be receiving soon, and he thought he had better get moving.

  He stopped by the radio room on his way to check on local wire traffic. “Anything that might spoil my dinner on the black line?” he asked his radio man, Simms. The black line was for Intelligence feeds, connected to some very secure sources.

  “No good news tonight,” said Simms. “The Chinese are up in arms and ready to set sail for Taiwan, the Russian Navy has surged in the Pacific and Norwegian Sea, there’s trouble in the Gulf of Mexico and on the BTC pipeline through Turkey.”

  That got MacRae’s attention at once. “The BTC line?”

  “Bunker bust, Captain, and a big one. The PKK claims responsibility, and early reports are that they blew up a mile of pipeline and shut the whole line down.”

  “I see…” MacRae remembered a conversation he had with his Intelligence Master, Mack Morgan, two days ago. It seems they had picked up word that an attack was coming, but like all terrorist threats the target was difficult to nail down. Miss Fairchild won’t like that news, he thought. He knew she was here to look for a conveyance contract from Ceyhan, the terminal port on the BTC line, which stood for Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan.

  “And one more message, sir,” Simms scratched his head. “Not sure what to make of it. It’s another undisclosed threat in the Persian Gulf.”

  “Again?” MacRae shook his head.

  “Something about the Straits of Hormuz, sir.”

  “Well let me have it.” He took the decrypt, scanning it briefly and seeing a word there that gave him a chill…mines. He folded it quickly, slipping it into his pocket.

  “I’ll see that her ladyship is informed,” he said quietly.

  But she won’t like it, he thought as he went. She won’t like it one bit. She hustled three tankers out of bed last week and got them into the Med as though the company’s life depended on it. Some big operation is in the wind, no doubt, and she was counting on the BTC line delivering the goods. Trouble in the Gulf of Mexico, trouble on the BTC line, trouble in the Persian Gulf. Someone was making a rather obvious and deliberate effort to shut down all the vital oil and gas centers of the world. Mack Morgan had the first two on his black network days ago, but this bit here in my pocket is going to cause more than a few wrinkles in the plan. Princess Royal is in the Persian Gulf with a belly full of oil… Mines?

  Trouble… He could feel it. MacRae’s Scottish nose had a sense for danger like few other men, and he knew that before the night was over Argos Fire would be sailing into very dangerous waters.

  Part III

  The Martyr

  “It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.”

  ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

  Chapter 7

  “Listen, my friends,” said Mironov. “If you think you aren’t being watched, you are deluded. They watch everyone now, particularly on the trains. It’s the only way you can get from one place to another, and so the stations and coaches are crawling with Okhrana.”

  The three men sat at the table, leaning heavily over their half eaten breakfast, deep in conversation. Mironov nodded gravely as he finished, dipping a piece of sourdough bread into his kasha grain porridge. “Particularly you,” he pointed a finger at the young British reporter as the third man, a tall Uzbek guide, sopped up his egg yolk with a piece of bread. “Foreigners get special attention.”

  “I see,” said the reporter, a man named Thomas Byrne, speaking passable Russian, and enlisting the aid of his guide when he needed help. He looked over his shoulder, as if he might see a security agent leering at him from another table, but they were the first to arrive in the dining room that morning, a few minutes before seven, and the hotel was not heavily booked in any case. Even so, images of people he had seen on the long journey, lean faced, bearded men in blac
k overcoats and dark Ushankas, haunted his memories.

  “Ask him why the government would want to bother with the likes of me. I’m just a commoner, here to report on the Great Race for the Times of London.” Byrne decided to put his guide to work so he could focus on his porridge.

  Mironov spoke again, half smiling. “A commoner, he says.” The young man smiled at him. “Where foreigners are concerned there are no commoners. Every last one is suspect. I have little doubt that you were followed every mile and step of your journey, from the moment you set foot in our country, my friend. And you must be very cautious, because they will find out what you write and report, and if they don’t like it…” He let that dangle for a moment, a grin on his face. “Well, you could end up in prison, just as I did.”

  “You were imprisoned? What for?” asked the reporter, Thomas Byrne, his eyes bright with curiosity.

  Mironov was a young man too, handsome, with a broad forehead, dark hair and thin moustache. He had an energy and vitality about him that was very compelling, and his eyes seemed like dark fire when he spoke.

  “For saying things the government didn’t like. We were operating a small printing press—very secret of course. If that were found it would land me right back in prison again. I was only just released, you see. It was a long fourteen month sentence imposed on me for simply distributing leaflets. It is clear that I have long ago been labeled an enemy of the State, and so I have little doubt they will be looking for me again soon. I told them I was going south to Novosibirsk, and then traveled east instead to throw them off the scent. But they are everywhere. They will find out where I am again in due course.”

  “Very disturbing,” said Byrne with a sigh. It seemed to him that his little adventure in Siberia was going to be dangerous after all, and he chided himself that he had ever thought otherwise. He clearly remembered that morning when he had been summoned to the publisher’s office by Mister Harmsworth himself, and handed the assignment of a lifetime.

  “Now see here, Mister Byrne,” Harmsworth had said with a determined glint in his eye. “I understand that you are an enterprising man, with a good nose for a story. I also learned that you speak Russian. At least I've been told as much. Is that so?”

  “Well, sir. Yes, I can manage a bit. My grandmother was Russian, and she taught me when I was very young.”

  “Excellent! Then I have a job for you, my good man. If I'm to turn this mess of a newspaper around—and I will turn it round, mind you—then we'll need something gripping right out of the gate. This Great Race is going to be a big story this year, so I'm sending you,” he pointed.

  Harmsworth's eyes were seeing out to some distant horizon that no other man could glimpse, much less appreciate. When he spoke he would fix a man with a steady gaze, a projection of his will and the energy of his personality, all backed by his considerable girth. His short brown hair also caught the light, slicked back and neatly parted on the right side, as was his habit. The buttons on his suit coat glittered as well, along with the silken thread in his tie and the starched white collar of his shirt. All in all, the light seemed to treat him well, surrounding him with an aura, a presence, a glow of power and privilege to which he was all too well suited. And now his glimmering regard was turned on the naive young Byrne, who swallowed heavily before he answered, his voice a mere squeak compared to the deep baritone of Harmsworth.

  “Me, sir?” said Byrne. “All the way to Siberia?”

  “Where else? All the American papers will be in on the start of the race in New York, and the European papers will be huddled in Paris for the finish, but we're going to be right in the thick of things—in the heat of the action as it were. Can you imagine it, Byrne? You'll be right there in the greatest wilderness on earth watching them slog their way through all that tractless wasteland. You get the picture? Man versus the elements, right? The triumph of will and man's engineering over even the most formidable obstacles. Why, this Cook fellow is headed for one pole even as we speak, while Shackleton is heading for the other! The public will love this lot, but we don't have a man on either story, and that's one reason the Times of London has nearly gone the way of garbage wrappings these days. Well, now that I have acquired the paper all that is about to change. And you, my man, are going to help me change it.” Harmsworth poked the young reporter on his shoulder.

  “We're going to be right in the middle of this race to report on the story when these men are at their wits end—at the last extreme—lost in Siberia.” He ran his hand along the headline he imagined, left to right in front of his face. “It will make wonderful reading, I'm sure of it. So you are just the man to take us all there with the story. You leave tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? But sir…The race has only just begun. They have to cross the whole of the American continent first, and then get over the Bering Strait before they come anywhere near Siberia.”

  “Which gives you ample time to get there and find the best angles on this story. Talk to the locals, drum up some excitement. You'll know what to do.”

  “But what if they never even make it that far, sir? I'll go all that way for naught.”

  “Oh, they’ll make it, Byrne. Mark my words. These Americans have as much pluck as they have gall. They'll get to San Francisco, and find some way to make it into Asia, I'm sure of it. And if the Americans get that far, then the others will too—particularly the Germans. It's a pity that England won't have a car in the race. I’ve half a mind to have my own shipped over to New York so I could teach them all a thing or two about drive and perseverance. But I'll be too busy here getting the Times back on its feet. So I'm sending you, Mister Byrne.” Harmsworth tapped the younger man on the shoulder yet again, his point well made.

  Thomas Byrne sighed heavily, realizing he had gotten himself in it up to his britches this time—up to his hatband! When he pushed his name forward on the list for story assignments, he could never have imagined this one. Siberia? How in the world would he get there? How would he find these racing cars in all that emptiness? Wasn't there a war on? Weren't the Russian and Japanese still stewing over things in that region? Wasn't a revolution brewing in Moscow and St. Petersburg? The suddenness of the proposition took him by surprise. One minute he was thinking of a nice Earl Grey tea and cakes, and the next he got word from Old Bingsley at the Editor’s desk to get up to Harmsworth's office on the double.

  “Sir…” he began tentatively, his mind still wandering over the plethora of dangerous possibilities in the journey. “I wonder if the Russian authorities would even allow—”

  “You just leave that to me, Byrne. I'll arrange everything. You'll have proper papers waiting for you at the front desk tomorrow morning—passport, visa—it's all been arranged. There'll be a hundred pounds in an envelope for you, and fifty more in gold coin should the need arise. That first lot is against your normal salary, I might add, so don't get extravagant. But the coinage is yours to do with as you see fit. Think of it as a bonus for hazardous duty.” Harmsworth squinted as he looked down at Byrne's shoes. “I'd say you would do yourself well to invest in a pair of sturdy boots, my man. There's likely to be a good bit of mud over there. Miserable roads, or so I hear. Now then…You'll take a ferry to Dunkirk, of course, then go by train to St. Petersburg. Stop wherever you like along the way, but make the money last.” He held up a finger on that last point.

  “From St. Petersburg you can book passage on the new Siberian Railroad. It will take you all the way out to the hinterland—Tomsk is the place. Book yourself into a decent hotel somewhere and then have a good look around. If you can get further east before the racers reach that area, then all the better. I want you out in the middle of nowhere with a keen eye and a sharp witted pen, eh? Get familiar with the place. Find a good guide or porters if you need them. And I expect to get regular reports by wire. This isn't a pleasure trip, Byrne. You are in the employ of the Times of London the whole way through. Don't forget that. I have every confidence in you.”

  Byrne fiddled wi
th his hat, a hapless and forlorn look on his face. “Thank you, sir,” he managed. What else could he say? Harmsworth was already somewhat of a legend in the publishing business, and one of the most influential men of the day.

  The more Byrne thought about this sudden new assignment, the more it dawned on him that there was real opportunity here for the sake of his own fledgling career as well. He could get out of the newsroom for a change and do some real reporting. No more jostling with copy boys, though he would miss a few of those fresh young faces. No more listening to irascible old Margaret on the circulation desk reading addresses back to customers on the telly. No more questions from Aunt Agony for the reader's daily advice column. As he thought about it, it was actually beginning to feel a bit exciting! He blinked away his fears, and extended his hand to shake on the matter, accepting his assignment as he knew he would in the end. Yet instead of a handshake Harmsworth reached into his pocket and produced a thick rolled cigar, slipping it into his palm with a smile.

  “Enjoy it,” he winked. “The trip and the cigar. Take good care of that. It's a real Marcella brand, the landmark of enjoyment. Get the gullyfluff out of your pockets and keep it safe. Smoke it when you first set eyes on Siberia. It'll do you some good and put a bit of the dash-fire in you.” He looked at his watch. “Well now, that will be all, Byrne. Take the rest of the day off and get yourself squared away. But be here by six sharp in the morning. We'll have a car take you to the ferry. Cable me the first Monday each week and advise on your progress. Off you go now.” He waved at the door, his attention already diverted to a sheaf of papers on his thick mahogany desk top.