Dark Ocean

by Nick Elliott

  ‘You’re absolutely right, old boy. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.’

  On the fifth day they found the Buddha. It had fallen away from the ship as she’d turned turtle. The crate that had protected it during its transit from the mountains of Yunnan had long since rotted away. And its appearance from the video footage taken by one of the ROVs, showed just a dark form encrusted with barnacles and other forms of marine life that had taken up residence. But the size was right. There was no doubting it was Nya Wang’s precious statue.

  On examining the footage, the team elected to use underwater air-lift parachute bags to raise it. Calculations were made on the assumption the Buddha was solid gold. Nya Wang had said it weighted nearly six tons and the salvors’ calculations confirmed this. It was therefore decided that eight-ton capacity bags should be deployed. These were airfreighted in from Japan and arrived the following day.

  I asked the Japanese salvage master about the operation. These men were at the top of their game. My previous encounters had mostly been with Dutch salvage teams but I recognised the same qualities in this man, chief amongst which was complete immunity from stress given the extreme sea conditions they so often encountered in their work. Few in the shipping business would disagree that it was the most dangerous sector of the maritime industry to be working in.

  As Salvage Master, Captain Fukuda was responsible for planning the operation while protecting his men against the many perils they faced. Such teams were expert in matters of naval architecture as well as chalking up years of seagoing experience. Besides an ice-cool temperament, probably their most important attributes were initiative and flexibility, for in any salvage operation there was always a high degree of unpredictability and that needed an equal amount of inventiveness to bring about a successful outcome. For these reasons I had respect for Captain Fukuda.

  ‘Force required to lift submerged object from bottom can depends on two things,’ he explained. ‘Weight of object minus buoyancy of displacement, we call apparent weight. Then breakout forces due to embedment in bottom, in the mud. This can be nothing, or sometimes major part of load. We see.

  ‘When Buddha breaks free of bottom, only the apparent weight remains. Then must manage decrease of resistance to lifting force. Understand?’

  Four divers went down to attach the lift bags to the Buddha which had settled deep into the silty sea floor. Underwater blowers were used to create a pit surrounding the statue. Finally on the seventh day the lift bags were safely attached and the controlled ascent of the Buddha began. We were watching an array of video monitors in the control room. The breakout force Fukuda had mentioned was considerable. The divers had swum well clear. As the air-lift bags did their job the Buddha suddenly sprung free, released from the mud which swirled around it.

  Now it rose from the mud cloud, eerily yet with a certain serenity, the bright orange air-lift bags buoying it upwards into clearer water. As it approached the surface the load was transferred to the crane of a flat-top barge waiting to take its precious cargo on board.

  We watched as the Buddha broke the surface. On the video feed we had seen the four divers swimming around it serving as reference points and giving us some idea of its size. Now we went out on deck and only as it was swung up into the air a few feet from where we were watching, did we see the full scale of the thing. Although seated in the lotus position it measured over fifteen feet from top to bottom.

  Beneath the marine growth, the statue was covered with what looked like plaster or stucco, which had been painted blue at some point long ago and inlaid with small pieces of coloured glass. But much of the plaster had crumbled away revealing the gold shining brightly beneath.

  It took an hour to get it safely loaded into the right position on the deck of the barge and temporarily lashed to keep it from shifting or toppling back over the side.

  Only now did the impact of what we were looking at strike us. And the mess of broken stucco, coloured glass, barnacles and weed that covered it made the thing all the more awesome.

  Nya Wang was as close to excited as I’d seen him. ‘This is a truly important moment.’ But he didn’t seem quite able to comprehend that it was actually standing, or sitting, there before him. ‘May I go to it?’

  Captain Fukuda assigned one of his crew to accompany him onto the barge which was tied up alongside the salvage tug.

  We watched as he walked around it reverentially touching the patches of gold where the stucco had worn away. Then he stood silently before it. When he returned he asked Fukuda if it could be covered.

  ‘We have heavy-duty tarps, dunnage too. We will secure your Buddha for the voyage, do not worry, Nya Wang. It will be safe.’

  Nya Wang turned to Susanna and Monty. ‘Our Buddha will always be yours too. We will return it now to our monastery, but you must know it is shared.’

  I looked at Monty wondering how he felt about it all. But it was Susanna who spoke. ‘Nya Wang, my father and I both know this. We hope one day to visit you in Ganlanba, if that would be possible?’

  ‘You are all welcome. Angus, you particularly are welcome. It is you I thank most warmly. Without you, we would not be standing here now.’

  And Ah Sun, I thought, and Alastair, Ronnie and Zoe.

  The following day the divers resumed their search of the wreck, this time entering the holds in case there was anything else of value. They found nothing. They stayed clear of number two hold which was where the POWs had been imprisoned. There was enough grisly evidence of their fate lying around the wreck in the form of skulls, bones and even a few skeletons still intact after all this time.

  The tug and barge carrying Nya Wang’s Buddha left the wreck site under escort of the China Coast Guard cutter bound for the southern Chinese port of Beihai where it would be transferred to a low-loader. Nya Wang would rendezvous with it there and accompany it on the long road journey west to Ganlanba.

  Meanwhile, in Hong Kong he was being feted as a national hero, albeit a reluctant one. The destruction of the Toyama Maru had received huge local media attention; the recovery of the gold Buddha even more. Not only this but the collaboration between Japan’s PSIA, China’s PLA Navy Intelligence, the Japanese Navy and the China Coast Guard, was being heralded as a breakthrough in diplomatic relations. The South China Morning Post was calling it “Buddha diplomacy”.

  At the invitation of Jardines, Monty, Susanna and I joined Nya Wang and his small entourage of monks, to fire the Noonday Gun on the waterfront at Causeway Bay. Jardines' uniformed guard rang a bell to signal the end of the forenoon watch. Then, looking uncomfortable, Nya Wang pulled the lanyard and fired the gun. It provided a little light relief but he was impatient to get down to Beihai having now become preoccupied with the task of supervising the Buddha’s return.

  Four days after the tug and barge with their escort had sailed from Hong Kong they arrived in Beihai with their prized cargo.

  ‘We owe you a great debt.’

  ‘But you can repay it, Nya Wang.’ I’d gone to the house in Kowloon Tong to wish him well before he caught his flight.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘I would like to take you up on your offer and visit your monastery.

  ‘You know you will always be welcome.’

  ‘Not as an honoured guest but as a retreat.’

  ‘Yes, a vassa we call it. You would meditate, practise a little Tai Chi perhaps?’

  ‘Not Kung Fu?’

  He hesitated before answering. ‘Our Kung Fu training is intense. It is for young men and those who have been studying for many years. We do not have a training programme for older men.’

  I laughed. ‘Tai Chi would suit me fine. But mostly I wish to experience your routine. Breathe your mountain air, eat your food, think about the future.’

  ‘This we can certainly do,’ he said. ‘I personally will teach you. It will be an honour for me to do so.’

  ‘Thank you. First though I must return to Greece to see to my business, and to Zoe. I haven
’t thanked you for arranging her return.’

  ‘Ah yes, the poor girl. When she came ashore from the sampan she was in a bad way, but a little better by the time she left Hong Kong. It will take time for her to recover.’

  And so it was settled. On her return to Scotland, Claire had called to say the IMTF’s file on the case had been closed. The CMM was closing its own file too. The cost of the salvage operation was being covered by the Japanese government and Monty Buchan had to accept that he wasn’t going to get rich from the venture. But Monty was a changed man. He’d been lucky to come out of it with his life, never mind a windfall. Humility wasn’t a trait I’d have associated him with but he’d accepted the outcome stoically. And he’d had the sense to step to one side by appointing Susanna as the firm’s CEO.

  I had dinner with her before I left. We talked about everything except the Lady Monteith. But we both knew the case was closed, as far as she was concerned at least. She had big plans for Sinclair Buchan’s future: selling off some of the older bulkcarriers in the fleet, and a liner service between India, Southeast Asia and Japan.

  ‘That’s a well-trodden route,’ I said.

  ‘Show me a trade that isn’t. I’ve been in talks with a Japanese carrier about a joint venture. I’m confident it will work. Just watch.’

  ‘Well, good luck. By the way, Claire said not to worry about your P&I cover. All things being equal, CMM will be glad to renew with you next year.’

  ‘Typical lawyer. Tell her that all things being equal, we’ll be glad to accept.’

  I booked my flights back to Athens. In Hong Kong I’d exorcised some of the ghosts from my past. I’d even grown to like the place. As the plane climbed heading northeast, I looked down from my window seat and realised we were passing over Mirs Bay. I could see Tung Ping Chau Island. A couple of fishing boats were anchored there. It looked a peaceful spot.

  But I wasn’t thinking about an idyllic little island in Mirs Bay. I was thinking about who gave the wreck coordinates of the Lady Monteith wreck site to Nakamura and his gang.

  Chapter 34

  ‘Coffee, black,’ Zoe announced, placing a mug on my desk. I worried about her. Her sense of fun was gone. I missed her insolence, her jibes, her self-confidence. Now she rarely smiled. I feared she was suffering from PTSD, just as I’d known Claire had suffered it after what had happened in Perama and on the island a year earlier. I’d broached the subject of therapy with Zoe but she’d rejected the idea out of hand. I’d talked to Claire about it and we’d agreed we should get Zoe over to Scotland. Claire had seen a psychotherapist herself and she’d promised to get Zoe in to see the woman. It would also be an opportunity for her to meet the CMM people, and refocus on her career and her legal studies which had lapsed.

  I blamed myself for what had happened to Zoe. I’d wake up in the night, my mind full of recriminations, and then the desire for revenge would creep into my mind. For me the case was far from closed, but there was more to it than just vengeance.

  I watched her walk back across the reception area. She’d lost weight for all the wrong reasons. She paused looking up at the wall. Then she turned and came back into my office.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Boris Kaliyagin.’

  I hadn’t heard that name for a while. She’d been looking up at the golden fleece that hung framed on the wall in the reception area. Boris Kaliyagin, an oligarch from Georgia, had sent it to me after he escaped, or was allowed to escape, following the showdown in Perama. From early times his people in the North Caucasus province of Svaneti had pegged out sheep’s hides in the river beds. The water from the mountains was heavy with sediment which carried flecks of gold that clung to the fleece. It glistened. Zoe and I cherished this unusual gift. She’d worried that it would be stolen and insisted that we had it insured.

  Boris was an oligarch but he had a conscience, of sorts. He’d enriched himself by smuggling ethyl alcohol across the border into North Ossetia where it was turned into cacha vodka for the Russian black market, but he wanted to enrich his people too. Not just his native Svans but all Georgians. And that meant grabbing power, which I presumed was still work in progress. Despite his dubious business dealings, or perhaps because of them, he was now an elected Deputy in the Georgian parliament serving on various committees each of which gave him access to various influential foreign government officials, NGOs and quangos.

  ‘Boris? I haven’t heard anything recently, Zoe. Why?’

  ‘I know you think there are still people out there,’ she said. ‘Remember, I found the list of passengers on the Toyama Maru when she came into Greek waters. When I was imprisoned on board in Hong Kong I heard things. You know as well as I do there are more than just the four FOAS people who came aboard there and were killed when they sunk the ship. Now you can’t let it go can you. You worry about me but you come into the office every morning looking like, I don’t know, not yourself. You haven’t met any of our clients. No new cases. We can’t go on like this, Angus, or the business will fail.

  ‘Anyway, this FOAS. They’re still there aren’t they. Why doesn’t your IMTF do something about them?’

  ‘They say they are. It’s political they say.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, Zoe. And I don’t want you worrying about it.’

  ‘Don’t you think I want these people finished?’ she shouted angrily. ‘After what they did?’

  ‘Of course.’ I was beginning to realise that therapy for Zoe meant exacting revenge.

  ‘I know you’ve always thought that there are people in your British government, your Foreign Office, your secret service, who are mixed up in these things. First they try and take over gold mines and countries that are broken. Now this, this co-prosperity thing. Don’t you think there’s a connection?’

  ‘It’s occurred to me,’ I said. ‘So you think because Kaliyagin was involved the first time, with the Revival, that he might know something about FOAS.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  Zoe was just voicing what I’d suspected.

  ‘Can you track him down, Zoe? Start with Gelovani Trading. Remember that was the front company he used to charter Kyriakou’s Delfina. Michael Kyriakou will help.’

  ‘Okay, she said. ‘I’ll find him.’ And at last I saw a spark of her old resolve. She wanted justice and she wanted revenge.

  ***

  That night I called Claire.

  ‘I told you, darling, the case is closed, at least as far as you and I are concerned. And how many times have I also told you that the IMTF operates on a need-to-know basis. They might well be pursuing this as we speak but they wouldn’t feel it necessary to give you a running commentary, or me either for that matter.’

  ‘Listen, Claire, someone leaked those coordinates to Dark Ocean and/or FOAS. The only people besides you and me who had them were Amber, Benedict Wood, Admiral Carvill and Tim Younger. One of them, willingly or under duress, disclosed them.’

  ‘I think you know who the most likely canary is don’t you?’

  ‘I know who you think it is: Younger, right?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Well, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Are you looking for a mole, Angus? A traitor within our own camp? You’ve been reading too many spy stories, my love. They got to Younger after you’d seen him. They must have followed you up to Pitlochry and you never knew it.’

  ‘Thanks for that. By the way, did you ever learn who was behind FOAS? I mean who founded it?’

  ‘Now you’re asking me things you don’t need to know.’

  ‘But you’re going to tell me anyway.’

  ‘It’s a man called Helmut Gertch. He’s a Swiss national. We’ve no reason to believe he had anything to do with the Dark Ocean business. That was a rogue faction. Anyway, Gertch might have founded FOAS but he’s retired now. And that is all you’re getting out of me because that’s all I know. They’d shoot me if they knew I
was still talking to you about the case.’

  I left it at that. I’d been stood down and I didn’t want Claire getting flak for betraying confidences. I spent the next hour searching online for anything about Helmut Gertch. There was nothing. The man was a spectre.

  Chapter 35

  ‘He’s on line two,’ Zoe called through.

  ‘Got it.’ I picked up the phone. ‘Boris?’

  ‘Ah, I recognise that voice. How are you my friend and to what do I owe this honour?’ Boris Kaliyagin’s English was remarkably good. He was a dapper man, an elegant dresser sporting a neat goatee beard. The first time I’d met him he was wearing an expensive grey overcoat with a black fur collar, the coat draped casually over his shoulders. The encounter took place in the tawdry outskirts of Tbilisi. He was surrounded by a gang of his henchmen all wearing dark glasses and black leather jackets. The contrast was palpable, as was intended.

  ‘We were just looking at that fleece you sent, Boris. It hangs on the wall of the office here.’

  ‘Yes, and I hope it brings you good fortune. Now tell me.’

  I told him what was worrying me, namely the possibility of a connection between the so-called Revival, of which he had been a fully paid up member, and FOAS.

  ‘And why would you want to know this?’

  ‘That I cannot say, Boris. But trust me, it’s important.’

  ‘I’m sure. And I am in your debt so I will tell you what I know which I’m afraid is very little. Only that the Revival had amongst its members powerful individuals from Whitehall and from your intelligence services, even your government. This much I think you knew, or suspected. I understand that some of those people later became associated with this FOAS you speak of.’

  ‘Do you know any of these people by name?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. They do not broadcast their identities you understand.’

  ‘And what about Helmut Gertch? He set up FOAS, right?’