Dark Ocean

by Nick Elliott

  Claire turned to Ishikawa for his response.

  ‘Thank you. We did not know of their plan to use UAVs. You have degraded their ability to launch an aerial attack. However, as I think you are saying, Angus-san, with the VX still on board they could still use the ship herself as the delivery weapon and our planning has been based on that assumption.’ He looked across at Captain Harada as he spoke.

  ‘Yes,’ said Captain Harada, addressing Ishikawa, it is possible, if they do intend to attack Hong Kong.’

  ‘Is what possible?’ I asked.

  Ishikawa replied. ‘We have clearance to launch a strike on the Toyama Maru if we, the people sitting at this table, believe it is necessary. This authority comes as a result of direct talks between our Prime Minister and the President of the People’s Republic of China. You will understand that their dialogue has great geopolitical significance. They are in complete accord on this matter.’

  ‘So are you saying there is the prospect of rapprochement between the two countries provided this operation succeeds?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Monty spoke. ‘I can’t believe the Chinese authorities have agreed to you waging a war in their waters.’

  ‘As I have said, the Chinese are collaborating fully with us in this operation,’ Ishikawa reiterated. ‘They have no wish to see Japanese terrorists run riot in their territory. We are sharing all related intelligence with them.

  ‘Now, all of you I think will agree that the correct course of action is to remove the threat posed by the VX nerve agent on board the Toyama Maru.’

  I spoke to Ishikawa again. ‘What would be the effect on the VX if you attack the ship? Would it still pose a threat?’

  ‘We have discussed this scenario with The Japanese Defence Ministry’s experts, and Ms Scott has discussed it with the people at Porton Down. If the ship is destroyed by the use of explosives and sunk, then there is virtually no threat from the VX. The Americans disposed of their Okinawa nerve agent stockpiles at Johnston Atoll by incinerating them. I understand from Captain Harada that his weaponry is more than capable of achieving this result – of incinerating the ship and the VX simultaneously.’

  ‘My ship is equipped with Type 90 SSM-1B guided missiles. Very suitable for this task,’ added Captain Harada, his manner calm.

  ‘What about the crew?’ asked Watanabe.

  Ishikawa sucked his teeth. ‘Cannot be helped I’m afraid, Watanabe-san.’

  There was silence as we all pondered the forthcoming fate of the ship’s largely innocent crew.

  ‘Can we warn them?’ Watanabe asked quietly. ‘They are seafarers, many of them are my friends. They had no knowledge of Genyosha’s involvement when they signed on.’

  ‘Too dangerous,’ Ishikawa spoke emphatically. ‘Lady, gentlemen, we have the authority to destroy the Toyama Maru. Captain, please prepare. I will give you final confirmation shortly.’

  ‘Hai!’ Captain Harada stood up and bowed. ‘Straight away.’ And with that he left.

  Claire stood and walked over to the coffee machine. ‘They’ve been discussing it all night. We were just waiting to get you off safely.’

  ‘So it’s a fait accompli,’ I said.

  ‘A consensus.’

  ‘Yes, but she’s sitting right on top of the wreck site – my wreck!’ Monty exclaimed.

  ‘Buchan-san,’ said Ishikawa, ‘it is my belief that once they see that their drones are destroyed and their radar shows a Japanese warship in their vicinity, they will make their move towards Hong Kong and away from the wreck site. Remember, they are fanatics. They will not surrender. It is not in accordance with their code of honour.’

  ‘But we can’t be sure they’ll release the stuff can we?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Once they’re in Hong Kong harbour the threat is sufficient in itself. It’s a ticking bomb they can use to bargain with.’

  At which point an officer burst into the room. After a hasty salute he spoke rapidly to Ishikawa who spoke to us in English.

  ‘The Toyama Maru is underway,’ Ishikawa said getting up from his chair. ‘We must act now.’

  ***

  We watched from the destroyer’s Combat Information Centre. The Toyama Maru was eleven miles to our north and heading in that direction back towards Hong Kong as we’d predicted. We watched her on the radar screens for a minute or two. ‘She is making eighteen knots,’ said Captain Harada. Very fast for that vessel: flank speed.’

  We all knew what would happen next but that didn’t detract from the spectacle. Captain Harada barked out his order which was repeated by another officer. There were a few seconds silence before the missiles shot from their vertical launching cells with a series of great whooshing sounds audible even from where we were gathered. A trail of flame and white smoke was left in their wake as they took off seeking their target, their trajectories no more than a hundred feet above the surface of the sea. The acceleration was almost incomprehensible. By the time they reached the Toyama Maru they would be travelling at Mach 4 – over 3,000 miles an hour.

  The missiles vanished over the horizon and barely a second later, struck their target. We saw the light first, a white flash that bleached the dark sky spreading out horizontally. Then, as smoke mushroomed up into the sky, the sound of the explosions reached us. There was no discernible blast wave at this distance and the whole event lasted no more than a minute from beginning to end. It was only after I watched it all in slow motion on the ship’s video monitors later that I could separate the sequence of events and make out each distinct element of the strike.

  There was total silence as we continued to stare out at the plume of smoke marking the Toyama Maru’s last position.

  Monty was the first to speak. ‘Bloody hell!’

  Chapter 32

  Monty, Claire and I were flown to Hong Kong in one of the ship’s H-60 helicopters later that night, exhausted and a little dazed.

  ‘The salvage op next?’ Monty asked as we alighted at the Shun Tak Heliport.

  ‘We’ll need assurance that the marine environment around the wreck site has not been contaminated,’ Claire said. ‘The Hong Kong government will want to do that anyway. But from what we heard from the Porton Down people, and based on the Americans’ Johnston Atoll disposal programme, the fact the VX was incinerated by the explosion should ensure no contamination from that source. Inevitably though there will have been damage to the marine environment, temporary I hope.’

  She was right. In the days that followed the Chinese and Japanese sent their own teams in to assist the local authorities. Four days later the Hong Kong government released a statement saying a privately-owned vessel had suffered a catastrophic explosion five miles south of Lamma Island resulting in her total loss. The Hong Kong Marine Department declared an exclusion zone around the area with an accompanying Notice to Mariners. On the day following these statements they approved the commencement of salvage operations at the Lady Monteith site, twelve miles south from where the Toyama Maru had gone down.

  We met in Sinclair Buchan’s offices: Monty, Susanna, Claire and myself. I tried to read the mood between Susanna and her father. They’d had time to discuss the ramifications of what had happened including Monty’s vanishing act. Superficially at least. Back on his home turf, Monty had returned to his former urbane self, while Susanna was looking concerned.

  We were discussing the Sino-Japanese collaboration in the survey and analysis study around the exclusion zone.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ said Claire. ‘China and Japan have been working together to destroy World War Two chemical weapons for years now so there’s plenty of precedent. Between them they know what they’re doing.’

  ‘But I have read that VX can persist for long periods in ocean waters,’ Susanna countered.

  ‘Yes, that’s believed to be true, but the power of the explosion would have incinerated it. Anyway, the consensus is, having checked the numbering on the crate you memorised, Angus, that the VX was old stock
dating back at least fifty years, which could well have degraded to the point of becoming harmless. And remember, they took two hundred seawater samples from the exclusion zone, which includes the Lady Monteith site, and they were all clear.’

  ‘Ergo,’ concluded Monty, ‘the salvage can go ahead.’ And that is what happened.

  Monty invited us both to dinner that night but Claire declined. She’d told me she had something important to discuss with me before she returned to Scotland so the two of us dined at her hotel.

  ‘The CMM would like you to stay on and attend the salvage operation. Can you do that?’ she asked sipping her Martini.

  ‘Sure, it’s what I’d figured.’ We were having a pre-dinner drink in the Pacific Bar of the Conrad overlooking the harbour. Claire was wearing a simple black dress.

  You look sexy in that,’ I said.

  ‘My little black dress? Every girl should have one.’

  I stretched back in my chair and looked out across the garish office blocks to the harbour. I was feeling relaxed.

  ‘There’s something else,’ she said, serious now. ‘Amber wants you to come on board, permanently. She says we can hardly cope, particularly now Alastair is no longer with us.’

  ‘I don't know,’ I said, taken off guard. ‘I’m getting too old for all this action-man stuff.’

  ‘No-one could have anticipated how this could have turned out. And you do tend to bring it on yourself don’t you: wading in with all guns blazing.’

  ‘I didn’t have much choice, did I? I wasn’t going to leave Zoe in the hands of those maniacs.

  ‘Of course, and you sure pulled it off this time. But we’re not talking about the James Bond escapades. You could do so much on the investigation side, Angus. We don't have anyone with your talents, your feel for it. You're a maverick, we know that. Alastair was the same. We don’t have a problem with that.’

  ‘Give me time to think about it.’

  ‘Good. I’ll tell Amber you’re seriously considering it. Now, there’s something else.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There's something I want you to do tomorrow, before I leave.’

  ‘And what's that?’

  ‘You've never been to the site have you? In the Mid-Levels.’

  Knowing what was coming I reached for my Martini and emptied the glass. Then I signalled the barman for another round. ‘No.’

  ‘I want you to come with me. Will you?’

  ‘I don't know why you think that might be a good idea, Claire.’

  ‘Because you've never really confronted your demons have you? I know it's hard but I really believe you'd be better for it. It’ll bring relief, closure.’

  ‘I doubt that. Listen, I've been through all this a thousand times in my head. Going up there isn't going to change a thing. What would be the point? It would just open old wounds.’

  ‘Wounds that have never healed, Angus. I've spoken to our psychologists. They agree. They did a vetting report on you.’

  ‘What? You've had your shrinks nosing into my personal history? That's a bloody liberty isn't it?’

  ‘You shouldn't be surprised. It’s normal procedure. Anyway, your strengths outweighed any reservations they may have had. But anyone who went through what you did, as a child, is bound to carry it around with them. We all have our personal baggage.’

  ‘Exactly!’ I said angrily. ‘That's what it is: my personal baggage.’

  ‘All I'm asking is we go up there in the morning, walk along the road, look around and reflect. There's little sign of it now, just where the hillside was stabilised and replanted. Pause and reflect.’

  ‘I'd remember things, Claire. Things that are best left buried.’

  ‘I know you would but I'm saying, and our shrinks agree, that it's best unburied. I know how sensitive this is for you. I wouldn't dream of raising it if I didn't think it would help. I want to help you, Angus. I can't bear the thought of you carrying those nightmare memories locked away inside your head.’

  We argued on about it but eventually, in a way only Claire could, she brought me round and I began to see the logic of her argument. Then we ate, we drank, we made love. Everything was perfect.

  And in the morning we took a taxi up there to that corner of the Mid-Levels on the northern slopes of the Peak where many years ago my world was literally turned upside down.

  Minor mud slips had already been noticed. The road was blocked by falling earth and mud from a construction site and several cracks had appeared in a retaining wall. Days later a slip occurred over the whole width of the road above ours. The surveyors noticed subsidence affecting several buildings and residents were urged to leave as a precaution. The following day it was still raining and the situation got worse. More cracks kept appearing in retaining walls, and more mud was falling down the hill. The road above us was cordoned off and nearby apartment blocks were evacuated. A large landslide was coming but no-one thought it would affect the road below.

  But that evening it did. In less than ten seconds it cleared a path straight down the hill destroying houses and retaining walls on its way. As it reached our road it knocked our apartment block completely off its foundations. In less than a minute, sixty-seven people were killed. The final toll was eighty-seven.

  The rescue operation was sporadic, hampered by the torrential rain and broken transport links. More landslips occurred and emergency personnel were pulled back. Eventually, after two days and along with a few other survivors, I was rescued.

  I'd read dozens of accounts of it over the years, particularly in my teens. But I'd never been back. Now I was. We paid off the taxi and walked along the road. It was raining. A mist hung over the hill wrapping itself round the upper floors of the tower blocks, most of which had been built since the accident and were twice as high as the one that had collapsed.

  ‘It must have been a day like this,’ I said. Claire linked her arm in mine as we walked. A Filipina maid walked past us pushing a buggy with a small child in it. A reluctant young boy dragged along behind her. He was carrying a school bag. The two children were Europeans. The maid was wearing a cheap waterproof, jeans and flip-flops.

  We reached the point where the slope had been stabilised. Trees covered the site now. They had been planted in neat rows, their purpose obvious.

  We stopped there. I looked back and saw the maid with her two charges entering a block of flats down the road. The boy looked back towards us.

  ’Ghosts,’ I said. I must have shuddered. She gripped my arm.

  ’No, Angus. Just people, like you and me.’

  ***

  I went out to the airport with her that night. We sat having a drink in the VIP lounge to which she’d magically arranged access for me. She was quieter than usual, withdrawn. Finally she turned to me. ‘I need you, Angus. I don't mean just professionally.’ Her eyes were full. I held her hand. Before I could say what I wanted to say they were calling her flight and we left the lounge. I took her in my arms and we hugged tightly for a long time. Then she broke away, hitched her carry-on bag onto her shoulder and headed off. She didn't look back.

  Claire and I would always be close but I didn’t often express my true feelings for her. Had I ever? I just assumed she knew. We both lived separate lives and perhaps that’s what kept our love for one another so alive. Did she want our relationship to become permanent, for us to live together? I didn’t think so. We were both fiercely independent, but then she’d never said she needed me before. Whatever the answer, I resolved to talk to her about it.

  ***

  But there was another matter that I had chosen not to raise with her: who had betrayed us?

  Whoever had revealed the wreck coordinates to Dark Ocean had either done so by accident, under duress, or as a deliberate act. I was convinced it was the latter. My intuition told me so.

  Of itself it might not have seemed so serious since, in the grand scheme of things, the salvaging of the golden Buddha from the wreck of the Lady Monteith was not critica
l to the success of the Dark Ocean/FOAS cabal’s overall plans. It was more symbolic than essential. But that was not the point. The point was that whoever had betrayed us, if they hadn’t been aboard the Toyama Maru, was still out there.

  My worry was that we were dealing with a Hydra: that we had decapitated the so-called Revival in a previous case which had led to the loss of the Astro Maria and her crew, and had nearly cost us, Claire and myself, our lives; and that now the Hydra had grown more heads in the shape of Dark Ocean and FOAS. Had we decapitated them only to see yet more appear?

  Chapter 33

  The weather had calmed and only a gentle swell disturbed the seas around the wreck site. We even had sunshine.

  The salvage operation had been re-planned and was now being run by a Japanese firm with a China Coast Guard vessel, much like the one that had chased me across Mirs Bay, attending as observers. Monty chose to remain on site throughout, taking up residence on the salvors’ support vessel. Along with Susanna and Nya Wang, I hitched a lift out from Hong Kong every morning on the agent’s launch. By the third day, using side-scan sonar and an array of ROVs, they had found the wreck of the Lady Monteith. Monty was beside himself. He went around hugging everyone he could get hold of. His voice breaking, he exclaimed, ‘I’ve waited so long for this, Angus. Now it’s here and I can’t believe it.’

  ‘They’ve still got to locate the cargo.’

  ‘Yes, yes. They’ll find it, don’t you worry.’

  ‘Remember too, Monty, your ship is a designated war grave under the definition of the Military Remains Act.’

  ‘Claire told me that had all been dealt with.’

  ‘Yes, the MoD has declared it a controlled site. You can dive onto it, but the rule to divers is look don’t touch.’

  ‘Yes but that applies to the skeletons right? Not the cargo.’

  ‘You’re right, Monty,’ I sighed. ‘I just don’t want you to forget that over two hundred POWs drowned when your ship went down and they’re still down there. They deserve some respect.’