Deadly Impact--A Richard Mariner nautical adventure

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Konstantin wants to send someone up on the port side to check whether there has in fact been anyone moving around up there,’ came Steve’s voice in Richard’s headset. ‘That a good idea?’

  Richard looked across at the gaggle of men grouped round Aleks. He didn’t need to open Channel A on the comms to tell him what they were discussing. The gestures would have been clear enough even had they not been shouting at the tops of their voices. ‘Tell him to hang fire,’ he said. ‘Looks like Aleks is about to send someone up anyway.’ Richard immediately recognized the soldier Aleks sent up. It was Boris Brodski, the young man who had dared to disagree with him about whether or not the first death had been an accident. The lithe ex-soldier swarmed up the first few rungs with the loose-limbed confidence of an orangutan. Richard himself was just striding across the balcony with Aleks’ name on his lips to advise the use of a safety line when the lieutenant stopped the young soldier, handing him a lifeline himself. Grudgingly, the young man took the line and cinched it to the thick webbing of his gun belt before snapping the carabineer at the far end of it to the hand rail that ran up the fat curve beside the iron rungs. Then he was off. Pausing only to un-cinch the clip once or twice where the hand rail was secured to the whaleback by uprights like banisters, he raced up at incredible speed. ‘Take your time, Boris! This isn’t a race!’ warned Aleks.

  ‘Don’t worry, Lieutenant, I’ll be up there before you can spit and swear,’ called Boris by way of answer. And his boast seemed well-based, for he was swarming over the outer curve in record time, outlined against the hard blue sky like a mountaineer on an ice-cliff.

  ‘Take care!’ called Aleks as his soldier disappeared at last.

  ‘To fear death is never to be properly alive!’ called Boris’s voice, beginning to sound breathless at last.

  As epitaphs went, it was a fitting one – particularly for a soldier. For it seemed that no sooner had he called the mocking words than Boris was tumbling back down the side of the whaleback, face up to the hard blue heaven, etched against it in a capital X shape, arms and legs waving wildly as he fell. The safety line snaked out beside him, a solid, serpentine S against the sky. Becoming a bar-straight stripe against the white curve with terrifying speed as he reached its lower end and the carabiner clip at its upper end caught against the topmost upright of the hand rail.

  Boris was still spread-eagled, facing upwards, when the line snapped taut. He had cinched it to his belt buckle. And his unbreakable webbing belt was tight across the small of his back, just above his hips, as though protecting his kidneys.

  Because he fell absolutely silently, the rush of his motion and the twang of the tautening line were clearly audible to the stunned men in the pulpit beneath him. As was the crack! his spine made as it snapped, broken by the belt as efficiently as a neck being severed by a headsman’s axe, just at the moment he came level with them all.

  Boris’s broken body bounced back up as his headset and goggles came tumbling down. The black line scribbled across the white metal above him, then began to straighten once again as the body fell once more – this time with sufficient force to twist the carabineer open. The line sprang clear of the handrail. Trailing the useless rope like a disconsolate tail, the broken corpse tumbled down on to the outer rail of the pulpit. The outer edge caught it across the chest. Its arms and head flung wildly inboard, as though trying to grab safe hold or call for help. But that was an illusion. Even before anyone could move, let alone try to catch the limp and broken limbs, it slammed back and outwards from the rail, throwing up its hands in surrender, and giving everybody one last glimpse of Boris’s white, stricken face. And the black mark in the middle of his forehead, immediately above the bridge of his nose. Then he was gone.

  Aleks and Richard led the rush to the rail and craned to see over the side in a last faint hope that he had somehow survived after all, but there was nothing to see but the eternal royal blue of the deep water stretching like an ocean of ink back towards Rat Island Pass and forward towards Japan.

  It is 10 a.m. Moscow time as Ivan Yagula runs out of the Lubyanka exit of the Moscow metro and begins to stride across the square where the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky used to stand, towards the building which housed the grandson of the secret service he had fathered. The square is bustling. Tourists wander all agog, surrounded by the jewels of Russian history. Militsia in police uniform and the much maligned GIA traffic cops patrol. The old KGB headquarters building towers dead ahead, but Ivan tends to the left, past the blaze of Detsky Mir, the children’s emporium which is yet another example of the manner in which Russia is opening its doors to international business. The CEO of Russia’s most famous toy store might be Vladimir Chirahov, but the chairman of the board of directors is still the British business tycoon Christopher Alan Baxter. Like the old Gazprom/BP combo, thinks Ivan; like Bashnev/Sevmash and Heritage Mariner, though Richard’s not on the Russian boards any more than Felix or Anastasia are on his.

  Ivan is not heading for Detsky Mir. He plans to pass it instead and cross the car-choked road by Kuznetsky Most metro station, to go into the new building that houses the section of the much-expanded FSB to which he has just been summoned. Without pausing or deviating, the massive man in his long black coat strides through the teeming crowd of lesser mortals all the way across to the doorway with the brass plaque which states: FEDERAL SECURITY SERVICE BUILDING. Reception.

  Many Muscovites would be too nervous to go where Ivan is going, to talk to the men he is due to meet. But the most powerful of them, the federal prosecutor, is Ivan’s father, so he feels that he has little to fear. Probably. Even if the other two are almost as powerful as his fearsome father – otets. Viktor Ivanov, the current head of the FSKN, the Federal Drug Control Service, and Yuri Oleshko, the FSB’s Director of Investigation. So Ivan approaches the reception door on Kuznetsky Most and rings the bell, waiting impatiently to be identified and admitted.

  His father lingers, massively and impatiently immediately inside and they tower, shoulder by shoulder for a moment, seeming to fill the huge room between them. ‘Federal Prosecutor,’ says Ivan, equably, by way of greeting.

  ‘Hunh,’ growls the federal prosecutor by way of answer. ‘You’re late.’ He turns away and begins to walk briskly into the interior of the building.

  Ivan easily overcomes the urge to consult his Poljot President chronograph. They both know he is punctual to the second. So he follows, a metre or two behind, like a crown prince in the Tsar’s footsteps. Ivan the Terrible, perhaps. ‘What’s this all about, sir?’ he asks as the federal prosecutor – whom he has never actually thought of as otets – reaches the stairs. ‘Drugs,’ Lavrenty Michaelovitch Yagula, Federal Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, says over his shoulder. ‘Krokodil, heroin, cocaine, gang warfare, Afghans and Italians. Bashnev/Sevmash. Heritage Mariner.’

  ‘Anything in particular, sir?’ asks Ivan, showing none of the surprise or concern that he feels at his father’s cryptic words.

  ‘Yes!’ snaps his father, going from cryptic to obscure with typical abruptness. ‘Eleven bullets.’

  The Yagulas come into a large meeting room side by side. Ivan’s narrow eyes sweep at once over the two men at its far side and the news page enlarged on the screen between them. FSB operatives kill 11 Afghan terrorists, says the headline. Ivan recognizes it from yesterday’s Moscow News. But he is damned if he could see what this has to do with Bashnev/Sevmash or with Heritage Mariner. ‘That looks like a step forward,’ he probes, pointing at the news report with his chin. ‘Your men have done good work there, General.’

  Ivanov grunts – the sound is very much like those the federal prosecutor made. ‘Someone did good work,’ he growls. ‘But not the FSKN. My men were led by the nose. The whole thing was a set-up.’ He zooms in on the photograph that accompanies the article. Judging from the amount of blood around the shrouded figures, they had been all-but shot to pieces.

  ‘But who …’ asks Ivan, finding himself in the unaccust
omed position of not being able to join up the dots.

  Yuri Oleshko leans forward suddenly. ‘The facts are these,’ snaps the director of investigations, his deep voice forthright and forceful. ‘We – our agencies – have been fighting the drugs war on two fronts. The Eastern Front against the Afghans and the Chechen Mafiya gangs who import their heroin through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan then across the Caspian Sea into Georgia, the Black Sea and all the way up the Volga. And the Home Front against the local gangs who hit pharmacies and pharmacy supply companies for painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid, industrial cleaning oil, with which they make—’

  ‘Krokidil,’ spits the federal prosecutor.

  ‘The drug that eats its addicts,’ nods Ivan. ‘I’ve seen the pictures. And of the victims … what’s left of them, once the drug rots their flesh away. From the inside.’

  ‘Indeed,’ shrugs Oleshko dismissively. ‘But now we have a Western Front towards Italy and Eastern Europe with a new enemy opening up. And one cannot win a war on three fronts. Hence our reliance on espionage. A reliance that has resulted in this situation, and our request that you attend this meeting. Do you know this man?’

  The newspaper on the overhead is replaced by a passport photograph. It shows a lean, dark-eyed Mediterranean face. ‘Yes,’ answers Ivan, surprised. ‘That’s Leo Gatti. He’s one of our senior men at Bashnev Oil and Power …’ He pauses, his mind racing as he fights to recall the details of Leo Gatti’s position and responsibilities. ‘His main job is as executive liaison up in St Petersburg. He’s our man overseeing the docks, the cargoes, containers and so forth. Which makes him our chief liaison officer with Heritage Mariner Shipping up there.’

  ‘He was also,’ the federal prosecutor interrupts his son’s sudden flow of information, ‘working for us.’

  Ivan doesn’t pick up on the past tense at once. But he picks up on the rest of the words. ‘For you?’ he snarls, swinging round to lock his gaze with his father’s, making full eye contact for the first time.

  ‘He was our eyes on the Third Front,’ explains Oleshko.

  ‘Keeping us as up to date as possible on what was coming in. Especially from the Italian port of Gioia Tauro,’ adds Ivanov.

  ‘Have you heard,’ demands the federal prosecutor, ‘of the ’Ndrangheta?’

  ‘Of course I have!’ snaps Ivan, his mind a whirl of speculation. Were these people telling him Leo Gatti was some kind of Mafioso? No. Ivan had read his personnel file and recalled some of the details now – Leo had been a member of the anti-Mafia ‘Now Kill Us All’ group. He had joined it years ago while visiting his father’s parents in Calabria before the whole family settled in his mother’s home town of St Petersburg.

  ‘He was shot this afternoon,’ explains Oleshko. ‘Automatic weapon. Fired by a man on a motorcycle as he stopped at the lights at the intersection between Nevsky and Sadovaya.’

  ‘Shot,’ echoes Ivan, stunned.

  ‘Eleven times,’ confirms Oleshko. ‘They weren’t pissing about.’

  ‘But, and this is the point,’ rasps Ivan’s father, ‘he didn’t die …’

  Ivan’s mind reels.

  ‘Or rather, he didn’t die at once,’ the federal prosecutor continues brutally. ‘He was able to say a few words to the first officer on the scene, who seems to have been sharp and reliable, in spite of being a GAI traffic cop. Gatti was able to dictate several words and phrases to him, but he was dead by the time the paramedics arrived.’

  ‘OK.’ Ivan nods. ‘So what did he say?’

  ‘He had some information. Apparently, we’re not the only ones under attack. Bashnev Oil and Power is too. It’s being targeted for some sort of illegal takeover. Or so the scuttlebutt in Petersburg seems to suggest.’

  Ivan shrugs. ‘Sharks have been circling ever since Max Asov died.’

  ‘This is different. This is ’Ndrangheta,’ the federal prosecutor whispers. ‘Gatti seemed pretty certain …’

  ‘But what would the Calabrian Mafia want with …’ Ivan’s voice tails off as the pieces began to fall into place.

  ‘Precisely,’ nods the federal prosecutor. ‘Your distribution system. You supply oil to the entire country – in road tankers as well as pipelines. Since your arrangement with Heritage Mariner you also have a country-wide distribution network for the delivery of containers shipped in from all over the world. All coming in through St Petersburg and Archangel …’

  ‘And such a system could deliver heroin as efficiently as it could deliver everything else. I see. But how is the ’Ndrangheta planning to take control?’

  ‘We were wondering the same thing,’ inserts Oleshko. ‘Perhaps it will turn around the one element we can make neither head nor tail of. The one word we simply do not understand …’

  ‘Unless he was trying to play Paco Araya or James Bond and die with a clever quip on his lips …’ temporizes Ivanov.

  The federal prosecutor sees the confusion on his son’s face. ‘Sayonara,’ he rumbles. ‘It’s Japanese for ‘goodbye’. Sayonara. It’s the last thing Gatti said and we can’t work out whether or not sayonara is important …’

  60 Hours to Impact

  Richard and Aleks crouched on the top of Sayonara’s whaleback cover at midship. The vista of sea and sky was interrupted only by the stunted bridge house half the length of the hull distant. Other than that, there was only the horizon, beginning to draw inwards as the light failed. It was ten p.m. ship’s time but they were still in high latitudes. Neither man was interested in the view. All of their attention was on the cover’s top immediately beneath their feet. ‘No slip-marks,’ said Richard.

  ‘No footprints of any kind,’ agreed Aleks. ‘But what does that tell us?’

  ‘Nothing concrete,’ Richard admitted. ‘But it makes you wonder. If he didn’t slip then how come he fell?’

  ‘He was pushed, you mean?’

  ‘Yes,’ snapped Richard impatiently. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. Or attacked in some way, at least. I can’t get the picture of his face out of my mind. That black mark on his forehead – could it have been a bullet wound?’

  ‘I didn’t hear a shot,’ said Aleks.

  ‘But there was the wind in the deck furniture down there and up here. The motors. The waves. The conversation. If someone had used a silencer …’

  Aleks nodded grimly. ‘I suppose. But then, on the other hand, he could have hit his head as he fell.’ He sat back on his heels, looking around in perplexity. ‘I see your point. Is it coincidence? After what happened to Yoichi Hatta … Two fatal accidents one after the other, so close together.’

  ‘We need to go back down,’ said Richard decisively, ‘and talk this through with the others. If we don’t have a plan of action before nightfall, we’ll be on the back foot with a vengeance. And that is not where I like to be!’

  ‘Let’s go for the bridge,’ Richard advised the team twenty minutes later. ‘It’s the closest thing to taking to high ground aboard. It’s where we want to be – where we have the best chance of exercising control. It’s where there’s accommodation. Supplies, even. We’ll get up on to the top there where Aleks and I were and charge straight up to the bridge. There’s a walkway up there the entire length of the ship. Full frontal assault. Let’s go for it!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ temporized Aleks. ‘We’d be awfully exposed running along up there.’

  ‘The alternative could turn into a siege,’ warned Richard. He had thought one of Ivan’s best Risk Incorporated men would have been more decisive. But Richard was still of a mind to give him the benefit of the doubt. This was a situation that young Zaitsev had never encountered. And the fact that he was out of his depth was probably just further emphasized by the fact that the whaleback looked like the kind of Italian Alpine skislope that Aleks was the real king of. ‘Especially if we have to go through the hull inside and find more unwelcome surprises waiting for us. We’ll have to make up our minds quickly or we’ll be doing it in the dark.’

  They were all ass
embled on the midships balcony where Boris had died. The night was drawing on pretty quickly now and they really needed to weigh up their options and get into action, as Richard had already observed. Richard had been in situations like this before and was keenly aware of the need for level-headed balance. On the one hand they didn’t want to waver and lose momentum – they needed to keep going before morale sagged further and they started fighting amongst themselves. But on the other hand, they needed to avoid recklessness. They couldn’t afford to go charging ahead with no clear objective or shared purpose, or the opposition would be able to spring any number of traps on them. That would be worse than inactivity, just as the loss of life was worse than the loss of morale.

  ‘But what’s actually going on here?’ demanded Dom, shaking his head in frustration. ‘If this is an exercise to test security and anti-terrorist systems – as it was supposed to be, I thought – then it’s going too far now that people are actually getting killed. Even if they are getting killed by accident! We need to call it all off, shake hands and head for home – certainly before Harry Newbold and the Pitman stick their oars in. What is the alternative? Are we actually facing a team of real terrorists who really want to kill us? If so, they’re going about it in a pretty funny way!’

  ‘That depends,’ countered Aleks. ‘What if it’s a small team who haven’t quite got full control of the ship yet? Who don’t want to face us down because we’re a far larger – and better armed – force. They want to fight a guerrilla campaign for a while.’ He looked at Richard, frowning.