Deadly Impact--A Richard Mariner nautical adventure

by Peter Tonkin

  Felix Makarov reached for the last of the Stolichnaya Elit vodka that he favoured for both breakfast and lunch. ‘So,’ he rumbled, ‘you are satisfied?’ His gesture started with the remains of the steak then swept out to encompass this entire quarter of the VIP lounge’s restaurant. Richard nodded as his gaze swept over the men seated around the table Richard and Felix were sharing with Ivan. Men who had assembled slowly during the time it had taken Felix to empty his vodka bottle. They were very much as Richard and Ivan had discussed. The kind who gave doctors more work than they wanted. For Richard’s needs, however, they were just what the doctor ordered. They were a mixture in terms of their original training: GRU, VDV. Elite soldiers, the Russian equivalent to the Paras and the Green Berets. They all affected shaven heads like Felix and Ivan, and business suits, with the occasional lapel pin similar to Ivan’s telling of regiment, decoration, honourable discharge. They all looked what they were – powerfully competent and extremely dangerous.

  But the information downloaded from a memory stick Ivan had given him made it clear to Richard that their expertise was as wide as he could ever require. Although they were all alike, trained to the peak and ready for anything, he had weapons men, medics, engineers and communications men. Men with backgrounds in intelligence. A sergeant, a warrant officer and a lieutenant were in overall charge. Even in their business suits it was obvious that they made a solid squad. ‘They’ve been to Chechnya – right across the Caucasus, North and South Ossetia, and lived to tell the tale. That’s taken some doing, I can tell you. If the going gets tough, you stick by them. They’ll never let you down.’ Ivan emphasized, ‘Experienced, adaptable, trained to the top of any game in the world. Multilingual and exceptionally multitalented. They’re not just the best we’ve got. They’re simply the best there are.’

  ‘Looks like we won’t need the Pitman, then,’ said Richard without thinking.

  And looked up into a sudden silence; for his voice had carried across this area of the restaurant – and every eye was suddenly on the pair of them.

  Felix was frowning, the only one there who did not seem to see the importance of what Richard had let slip. Even Ivan had lost some of his usual confident bonhomie. ‘The Pitman?’ he probed. Less than happily, it should be said, leaning forward.

  ‘Plan B,’ said Richard easily. ‘If we have any trouble dealing with matters or getting our communications out, we have a back-up team. Harry Newbold and the Pitman. They work together out of Amsterdam, as I’m sure you know. They’re everything we have here distilled and refined. A world-class mercenary and a world-class hacker. I’ve dealt with them before and, with the possible exception of your men, they are the best. I know they specialize in similar areas to those you focus on, but they’re likely to cover any gaps in our defences one way or another. And I promise they’ll only come if there’s a problem we have trouble handling, especially as the other aspect of their reputation is that they are simply lethal.’ He looked around the room, meeting each pair of eyes there. Only one strikingly grey pair held his for a moment longer than the rest, their gaze angry and suspicious.

  ‘The Pitman,’ said Ivan, recovering his accustomed bonhomie and pounding the table in loud amusement. ‘That’s a bit like booking a main battle tank because you’re worried your limousine might break down! Well, we’ll have to look to our laurels, men, and watch our backs! Only you would use the Pitman as fall-back, Richard,’ and gave vent to a bellow of wry laughter that spread right across this section of the room. Eventually.

  ‘Time for a briefing before we move on,’ said Richard as the tense moment passed. ‘I’ll need my laptop for part of the proceedings, Ivan, but then I want you to hang on to it. I’m going into the kind of situation where things like laptops get broken – and insurers cut up nasty about it. Even insurers like Lloyd’s of London.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ rumbled Ivan. ‘I’ll keep it safe.’

  ‘Good. But as I say, I still need it for a moment more. I have something to add for the first full team briefing. But who’s going to give it, now that the team’s all here?’ He looked around. It was clear from the records on Ivan’s memory stick who the top dogs were – Aleks Zaitsev, ex-GRU lieutenant, the man with the cold grey eyes. Senior Warrant Officer Konstantin Roskov. And Master Sergeant Vasily Kolchak, operations and intelligence. ‘It’s of no use in this particular operation,’ said Ivan in a stage whisper, ‘but during my initial briefing of Aleks Zaitsev, I discovered that he is an Olympic standard skier. He’s master of the black piste at Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus and holds the records for the black pistes on Mount Cermis and Crevinia in Italy. Both the Matterhorn and the Zermatt runs. The Pitman would have trouble keeping up with that, eh?’

  Zaitsev stood up as Ivan finished speaking and there was immediate silence. The slim, broad-shouldered young officer swivelled his shaven head as though his grey eyes were gunsights, sweeping round the room. ‘We will go through,’ he said in a forceful baritone. But it was Richard who led the way. Then, while the others were crowding into the conference room behind him, he put his laptop on a table beneath a white screen and connected it to the OHP system so that when Aleks eventually called them all to order, the two men were standing on either side of a screen filled with a detailed schematic of Sayonara.

  The Russian pointed to the bow section of Richard’s schematic. ‘You see the whaleback on the weather deck – or main deck – begins several metres aft of the forecastle head,’ he said in near-perfect English. ‘There is just room for a helideck and this is our main point of access from the air. These marks in the forward wall of the whaleback immediately aft of the helideck are access points designed to allow maintenance and oversight of the Moss tanks in the interior during the various processes involved in loading and unloading LNG. The schematic makes it clear that these points, like these here and here and here’ – he pointed – ‘between the tanks themselves and these here at the aft, and of course these into the bridge itself – all give access to the interior of the hull.’ He traced passageways and galleries that ran between the double-hull of the vessel’s sides and the five perfectly spherical tanks it contained, like five beach balls in a banana boat. Inevitably, the tanks almost met at their widest points – but equally inevitably, there was much more space between them where they sat on the keel, areas where the lower halves of the ball-shaped structures curved away from each other. Areas where the strangers on board might hide themselves – or anything else they brought aboard with them. And, above the deck level where the spheres all but touched, there were equally inviting maintenance and work areas, runways and pipe sheaves under the whaleback of the bulbous deck-covering.

  In the bridge house there were rudimentary accommodation and ship-handling areas as well as computer areas – no longer sealed, unfortunately. And beneath these, in the engine rooms at the lower rear of the schematic, the big steam turbines that used the LNG as fuel to power the screws that drove the thing and moved the rudders that steered her according to the dictates of those computers. That still did so, in fact, following the course as pre-programmed – unless the computers controlling her course had been hacked into, just as the rest of the vessel had been pirated, and tampered with. He explained the fundamental set up of the computer programmes, each with its own set of back-ups. One that controlled the propulsion and steering. One that communicated with the orbiting GPS and guidance systems and used their information to vary the first set as proved needful depending on wind, weather and current. One that monitored the safe disposition of the cargo. And one that oversaw the on-board security. All apparently hacked and under the control of the pirates. Only the ship’s black box automatic broadcasts were still alive, allowing them to know the position of the vessel, her heading and her speed. But for how long? No one knew. She was now beyond the control of the remote command team still sitting hopefully but uselessly at the NIPEX facility in Japan, apparently yet to be given new programmed orders, and still, therefore, on course to reach Japan
in a little over eighty hours from now.

  The young ex-officer bounced on the balls of his feet and stared around the room. ‘We have to act fast, therefore. As soon as we have deplaned, we will use these forward access points to take our various teams of experts below. Remember, our first function is to secure these points that the engineers from NIPEX, Mitsubishi and Fujitsu need to access in order to find out what the opposition has been up to, especially with regard to the ship’s cargo, hull and computer systems. Then we need to keep those areas – and those personnel – safe from enemy action. Thirdly – and only in extremis – we may need to engage with the enemy, when we have worked out who they are, what they have done and what their overall plan is. And, indeed, whether this is the most testing exercise so far, or the real thing. Are there any questions?’

  In the face of continued silence, Aleks continued, ‘The point of this briefing, the fact that it is being held here and now, is that we need to be aware of elements that our Japanese and American colleagues do not need to be aware of. We are the iron fist. They are the velvet glove. We will be going in fully armed and combat ready. It is our job to get them where they need to go, to protect them while they are there and to help them reclaim control of the ship – if necessary – by electronic means. Not by physical means if it can at all be helped. We must still treat this as an exercise, not a war.’ The cold grey eyes rested for a moment on Richard. ‘Keep that fact at the forefront of your minds at all times, gentlemen. We are not there to start a fire fight. Quite apart from the fact that we are as yet unaware of the precise identity of whoever is onboard, or what their plans are, we can be absolutely one hundred per cent sure that they will have done their best to secure the ship against us – and that particular vessel is the last place on earth you want to start a fire fight in.’

  He leaned forward, raking the room with his steely eyes. ‘With the exception of a shootout on board an airliner in flight, this is the most dangerous place it is possible to imagine bullets going astray. The five Moss-type tanks are insulated, but they are not bulletproof. Each tank holds about thirty-five thousand cubic metres of gas in liquid form. And in order to remain liquid, the gas must be stored at minus one hundred and sixty degrees Celsius. There are carefully choreographed processes for getting it to and from that temperature, into and out of the tanks safely. None of which involve sending several ounces of steel-jacketed hot lead into the works. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to calculate what might happen under those circumstances …’ He looked once more at Richard, who picked up his cue without missing a beat.

  Richard stepped forward. He hit the keys on his laptop and YouTube flashed up on the screen. ‘This is what happens,’ he said tersely. ‘It’s footage taken in China back in 2012 when a road tanker carrying LNG crashed and ruptured. Five people died. As you will observe, they were lucky it was so few. You will also want to bear in mind that a standard road tanker carries about thirty thousand litres of LNG. As Lieutenant Zaitsev has observed, a Moss tank holds just under thirty-five thousand cubic metres. That’s just over a thousand times as much, in each of the five Moss tanks on board. The whole cargo is just shy of one hundred and seventy thousand cubic metres, therefore.’

  He looked around the room at a lot of very serious faces. He pressed PLAY and talked over the picture as it jumped into motion on the screen behind him. ‘What we see first is a video shot from a bus held up by the accident …’ A curve of highway filled the screen with a green peak in the distance. Against the distant scene was what looked like a cloud of white smoke hanging in the air. Then the smoke exploded. It turned from white gas into airborne fire instantaneously. The bus rocked. The camera fell.

  Immediately another shot replaced it, far closer to the accident, showing a fuming flood of liquid pouring along the highway. Figures were fleeing ahead of it, past a neatly loaded truck. Abruptly, incredibly, the white liquid simply exploded into nothingness. And the load, the figures, everything that had been close to it, was gone. The devastation was complete. A third angle opened, from the inside of a car. The date was 6 October 2012. And then the precise time: 10:45:57. As the hundredths started running and the cars in the picture slowed to a stop, Richard looked round the room. There was silence as the men watched the plume of distant gas with a new understanding of exactly what it meant. A woman in a striped top took a coat out of the back of the car in front of the car where the filming was being done. She ran past the window. The white plume exploded. The shockwave came roaring towards them. Within the roaring there were shouts and screams.

  ‘Sixty thousand times the force of that explosion, as near as I can calculate,’ Richard emphasized quietly. ‘Sixty thousand times. Enough said?’

  ‘Enough said,’ answered Ivan.

  75 Hours to Impact

  The Transaero A380 settled towards the newly extended runway at Yelizovo airport, thirty kilometres north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, capital city of the Kamchatka Krai. Richard looked out of the window at the dazzling brightness of the early morning and the breathtaking backdrop of their destination. The Pacific lay like a lapis lazuli inlay below, filling Avacha Bay and seeming to overflow into the seaport’s docks and past a delta into a blue river running north. The conurbation clustered along the shoreline in regimented blocks, its rigid town planning relieved by roofs of vivid red and blue. But if the sea was flat, the land seemed to rise in great waves, rearing out of the water and heaving itself up to the snow-capped peak of a volcano.

  Alex Zaitsev appeared and stooped beside Richard. ‘Hell of a view.’

  ‘Hell of a long way to come for it,’ replied Richard. ‘What am I? Literally halfway round the world?’

  ‘Yes, Captain. The international dateline runs down out of the Bering Sea just east of here. Opposite Greenwich. You know what that means?’

  ‘No. What?’

  ‘It’s breakfast time again.’ The Russian lieutenant returned to his own seat on the far side of the aisle, but their conversation continued. As the plane levelled out and began its final approach, Richard got a clearer view of the runway. ‘That looks like the Greenbaum International jet,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t see colours or logos from here,’ answered Aleks, shaking his head.

  ‘Nor can I but there won’t be many other Gulfstream G650s parked in this neck of the woods. Even for Russia, this is as close to the edge of the world as it gets, I guess. We passed the back of beyond several hours ago. But those look like what Felix and Ivan promised us. The Mil-17 chopper has a Bashnev logo, and so does that truck beside it. Are the troops up and about?’

  ‘Keen as mustard. Straining at the leash.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, we have to get them kitted up and all the others briefed and out before we Cry Havoc! And let them slip!’

  Fortunately the airport facilities at Yelizovo had been updated at the same time as the runway. Twelve billion roubles well spent as far as Richard was concerned, as although there were hotels nearby – the Eidelweis B&B in Yelizovo and the Best Eastern Avacha down in Petropavlovsk – they were too distant. No one had hours to spare for breakfast briefings and refreshment breaks. The whole team trooped up to the brand-new restaurant area for breakfast and briefing, therefore, while those in direst need tested the newly installed plumbing.

  Richard used the interim to call Heritage Mariner and report in. He had left his laptop with Ivan in Moscow as he was effectively coming into a war zone now, whether this was just another drill or the real thing after all, so he contented himself with his new Galaxy instead. It was one of the new generation phones, a smartphone capable of doing almost everything his laptop or tablet were capable of … but on a smaller scale.

  Robin was in the office, and a little worried that he had – again – been slow in contacting her. ‘You know what you’re risking with this foolishness,’ she said snappily. ‘You go outside the contact window one more time and I’ll call in Harry and the Pitman!’

  He looked around the hall with a start of guil
t at the bell-clear repetition of their names, remembering the reaction when he had mentioned them in Moscow. But he was alone, because the rest of his men had vanished now. And everybody else on board their flight had also gone off about their various business, for this was their final destination. There was nowhere else to go but the city and the docks. People only came here if they had a reason to be here, and most of them were going to stay.

  Except for Richard and his team. All in all there were twenty of them now, he thought as he joined them at last, slipping the Galaxy into his pocket. Richard and Aleks Zaitsev’s men were led by Senior Warrant Officer Konstantin Roskov and Master Sergeant Vasily Kolchak, recently arrived from Moscow, the iron fist in the techies’ velvet glove. The Japanese from NIPEX had flown in with the team from Osaka earlier and a couple of gas men from Anchorage had arrived in the gulfstream with executives from Greenbaum who Richard hadn’t met but who, like him, were there to observe proceedings and, in their case, make sure the cargo was safe. They had been waiting with the Japanese contingent. The Japanese team were completed by Moss-trained structural engineers from Mitsubishi and computer nerds from Fujitsu.

  As he surveyed the assembled faces in the airy restaurant, Alex Zaitsev unexpectedly managed to put his foot in his mouth. ‘If you do call up Harry Newbold and the Pitman,’ he said to Richard, ‘I think we’re going to need a bigger chopper to take us all home.’

  The Fujitsu computer men looked at him, their eyes dark and very suspicious indeed behind twelve thick black-framed spectacle lenses. ‘Excuse me,’ said the nearest of them, with icy formality. ‘I am Doctor Rikkitaro Sato. I lead the computer team. Did you say you were considering calling on Harry?’

  ‘It’s déjà vu,’ said Richard to himself. ‘Pure déjà vu.’