Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30

by Ben Stewart

  They each have a VHF radio plugged into their ears. Anthony, still below them, is looking up, gripping his own radio, convinced they have to get out of there. He shouts, ‘Just get back down, get back down quickly!’ But the climbers can’t hear him, they’re being hosed in the head. Even things that are attached to them are flying off in the torrent of water.

  Sini can feel Kruso shaking. She’s known him for more than a week, long enough to know he’s not scared, that this is early hypothermia. Then bang bang bang. Gunshots. The guards in the RHIBs are firing over the side into the sea a metre from the Greenpeace boats. The activists are hit by the splash from the bullets. Anthony grabs the radio and cries, ‘Shots fired! Abort abort, move away.’

  Above them the climbers are trying to descend, but because Sini cut the line when the coastguard was swinging it, the rope now doesn’t reach the water. They have to attach a new line to the rope they’re hanging off, all the time under the cascade of freezing water from the platform workers above them. Eventually Sini descends far enough for the Russians to forcibly grab her and pull her into their boat, and a minute later Kruso’s next to her.

  The Greenpeace RHIBs are bobbing in the water a hundred metres away. Suddenly a coastguard officer pulls a gun and fires over their heads. Anthony shouts, ‘Go go go!’ and the boats swing around as two more shots are fired. ‘We need to go, we need to go!’ And the activists’ RHIBs rip out into the sea.

  A few minutes later they’re piling into the hold of the Sunrise, pulling off their helmets, unzipping their drysuits.

  ‘Fucking hell, did you see those guns? It was crazy out there.’

  ‘What the hell just happened?’

  ‘Did they shoot at you? I thought I saw them shoot.’

  ‘What happened to Kruso? Is Sini okay? We saw her fall in.’

  ‘They came down. They’re safe. We stayed out there till they were down.’

  Sini and Kruso are taken to the Ladoga and marched onto the deck. It’s swarming with armed men. Kruso is ordered to kneel, hands behind his back. Sini falls down and hugs his shaking body. She holds him as tightly as she can. A soldier reaches down and pulls at her drysuit; she holds Kruso even tighter but the soldier wrenches her away.

  Sini is marched across the deck and pushed into the mess room. She waits to be reunited with Kruso but soon realises they’ve taken him to another part of the ship. A guard brings her two big blankets and offers her a cup of tea. As she sips from the mug she listens to the ship’s internal radio on a speaker and hears the captain of the Ladoga issuing commands to his crew. She can’t understand what he’s saying, but she can tell he’s angry.

  On the bridge of the Arctic Sunrise Dima has the radio receiver at his mouth. ‘You have illegally detained two members of our crew. We demand that you return them to us immediately.’

  ‘Heave to and take on board our inspection team.’

  ‘We have absolutely no reason to let you on board. We’re in international waters, you have no jurisdiction here.’

  ‘You are in Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.’

  ‘Well, that’s right. So if you suspect us of illegal fishing, please let us know. Because that’s the only reason you can legally come on board our ship. Unless you think we’re pirates.’

  ‘If you do not submit to inspection, we will use all means at our disposal.’

  ‘You are not allowed on board. We are in international waters.’

  ‘We will use all means at our disposal, including warning shots at your vessel.’

  Dima looks at Pete Willcox, the captain of the Arctic Sunrise.

  ‘Warning shots,’ says Pete, shrugging. ‘Okay, let’s see.’

  The coastguard vessel is coming closer, and through his binoculars Dima can see the Russians taking the cover off a cannon at the bow of the ship.

  ‘You will be shot at unless you immediately stop.’

  ‘Officer,’ says Dima, ‘I want you to think very carefully about what you have just said to me.’

  In the mess room on the Ladoga, Sini has been listening to the increasingly demonic shouting on the internal radio. Suddenly there’s a bang and the ship shakes. Her tea sloshes in the mug and the surface breaks with ripples. On the Arctic Sunrise the activists see the muzzle flash, there’s a burst of smoke and a thud overhead.

  ‘Shit!’ cries Dima. ‘They’re actually shooting!’

  THREE

  The Russian coastguard keeps up the barrage, firing three shots into the sea beyond the Sunrise then demanding the activists take on an inspection party. The firing sounds like distant drum beats and each shot is accompanied by a little puff of smoke from the barrel of the cannon. Three more shots, another warning, then more shots – live shells that explode in the distance. Then around lunchtime, it ends. Silence. All afternoon they wait nervously for the firing to start again. But nothing. As the low Arctic sun dips below the horizon, the crew stand on deck and stare at the Lagoda. Somewhere on that ship their friends are being held.

  Alex Harris retreats to her cabin, sits at a laptop and writes an email to her family back home in Devon. She’s a 27-year-old British climate change activist who’s lived in Australia for four years. Her parents knew she was sailing to the Arctic, but no more than that.

  Just wanted to let you know that I’m well and safe. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the news but our activists attempted to climb an oil platform from RHIBs. The Russian coastguard got pretty violent, and started shooting guns in the air and water so we turned back. They are now holding two of our activists on their ship. I am perfectly safe, I have been away from the action, on the ship three miles away from the platform. We will stay beside the ship until they release our activists.

  When morning breaks the engineers start work on repairing the battered RHIBs. The others spend the day in the ship’s hold, painting a huge banner demanding the release of Kruso and Sini. Tomorrow they plan to fly it from the back of a boat and circle the oil platform and the coastguard vessel. By the time dinner is served by Ruslan Yakushev, the ship’s Ukrainian cook, the banner is drying and the plans for the next day have been agreed. The activists file into the mess and queue in front of a serving counter before taking their food to one of the long tables. It’s just gone six o’clock in the evening.

  Frank sits down and glances out of the porthole. The sea is turning orange as the sun sits low over the water. A full moon is hanging in a clear blue sky above the Prirazlomnaya. He pokes at his meal with a fork then looks through the porthole again before deciding dinner can wait. The colours outside are too beautiful to miss. He drops the fork, pulls on his sweater and walks out onto the helideck.

  Frank breathes in the air, pushes his hands into his pockets and feels the cold bite of the Arctic on his face. The coastguard ship is three miles away across the blazing water, the muzzle of its cannon now covered.

  Today the sea is flat calm. He wishes it had been like this yesterday morning, these conditions are ideal for a boarding. He kicks a chip of paint on the deck and squints his eyes. Then from behind the Ladoga he notices a black dot moving slowly to the left.

  It’s tiny at first, a little speck that’s hard to pick out, but it’s getting bigger, changing direction, like a wasp buzzing in front of his face, and from somewhere distant he can hear the low hum of a motor. It’s getting bigger, that dot, and staying low to the water, its outline clear against the light blue sky. And it’s heading straight for the Sunrise. Frank is standing motionless on the deck, his eyes fixed on the dot as he pulls his hands from his pockets and brings them slowly up to his face. Then he cups them around his mouth, turns to the rear window of the bridge and screams a single word.

  ‘Helicopter!’

  In the mess room Phil is watching the same speck crossing the porthole glass. He doesn’t say anything to Camila and Kieron – who are eating with him – instead he watches it with a curious detachment as it gets bigger and bigger. Then suddenly the sound of conversation and scraping cutlery is interrupt
ed.

  ‘Helicopter!’

  And again, this time from a different direction.

  ‘Helicopter!’

  The word is echoing around the ship, resonating through walls, shouted in different accents as boots start stamping on stairways and people push their plates away.

  ‘Helicopter!’

  Frank is standing on the H of the helideck, watching the chopper swinging around the Sunrise, the sound now deafening. His hat flies off his head, his boots slide and he has to lean into the force of the draught to stay on his feet. The side of the chopper is open, a helmet appears and Frank can see a man’s face looking down at him. The man drops a long rope that fizzes and zips as it piles up on the deck. A leg swings out of the helicopter, then another. Two big boots hang motionless for a second then an armed commando slides down the rope and lands right in front of Frank. The soldier unclips from the rope, Frank dances in front of him with his arms in the air. More people are with Frank now, maybe five activists, all with their arms raised. Phil is on the helideck, pointing his video camera at the chopper.

  Kieron’s running down a corridor in his flip-flops and a moment later he’s on the deck. And it’s just there, a few metres above him. He’s stood underneath it. It has a big red star on the bottom, his ears are splitting with the noise and all he can think is, wow, this is amazing, this is the best thing I’ve ever filmed; I just have to keep hold of the camera long enough to capture it.

  On the bridge Pete Willcox is trying to manoeuvre his ship out from underneath the chopper, but the icebreaker is clumsy and slow compared to a helicopter. Throughout the ship the activists are locking doors, screwing portholes closed, blocking every entrance.

  Dima is out on deck now, running into the rotor draught, shielding his face with an arm. He can see masks looking down through the open side door, uniforms, big guns, professionals. And they’re yelling, gesturing, but he can’t understand them. And then zzzzzzzip! Another trooper comes down. Dima thinks it’s a young kid, maybe nineteen or twenty, but his face is masked. The commando drops to his knees, unclips the rope then raises the barrel of his rifle. He’s yelling in Russian, Dima thinks he’s saying, ‘Get down! Get down!’ but the engine smothers everything, the force of the rotors makes it hard even to stay standing. The kid stabs the air with his rifle; another trooper lands on the deck, and another, and another.

  Heavily armed commandos are flooding the ship now. Frank and Dima make a run for the bridge. They know they need to defend it if they’re to stop the soldiers taking control of the Sunrise. Two of the troopers break away and chase them. Frank reaches the stairs first; the soldiers barge past Dima and throw Frank to the ground outside the bridge door. Dima hears more boots thumping behind him – boom boom boom – then he feels a hand on his shoulder pulling him back. He stumbles and falls on top of Frank. A boot kicks him in the side and another boot stamps into his back, squeezing the breath from his lungs. Beneath him Frank is yelling in pain as more boots go in. Dima twists his neck and looks back. On the helicopter deck his friends are lying down, commandos are standing over them pointing their rifles at their backs. And all over the ship, from bow to stern, the Arctic Sunrise is swarming with soldiers.

  ‘Frank, are you all right? Are you all right, Frank?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

  ‘Nothing broken?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘I think they’re FSB. Special forces.’

  Below deck Faiza Oulahsen – a 26-year-old Dutch climate change campaigner – is bashing numbers into a satellite phone. She makes a connection with London, hears the voice of Greenpeace oil campaign chief Ben Ayliffe and shouts, ‘We’re being boarded!’, before slamming down the phone and grabbing the two laptops on the table in front of her. She opens one and presses hard on the ‘off’ button, but the screen stays lit. She loses patience so starts pressing other buttons, trying to force it to shut down before the Russian security services can gain access to the entire encrypted email history of the campaign and the planning of the protest. She slams the computer closed, scoops up both laptops, runs down to her cabin and slides them under a duvet. As she rushes back into the corridor she bumps into Alex, who’s heading for the radio room.

  ‘Alex! We’re being boarded!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘Alex, armed commandos are storming the ship.’

  ‘I know!’

  Faiza pushes past, Alex watches her disappear around a corner then she runs down the corridor, throws open a door and is nearly blown off her feet by a Russian military helicopter disgorging soldiers. For a moment Alex stands there with her mouth open, hands over her ears, then she slams the door shut, locks it from the inside and rushes to the radio room. That’s where they’ll upload footage of the boarding to a server in Amsterdam, but they need to do it before the security forces cut off their communications.

  When she gets there, Colin Russell – the 59-year-old Australian radio operator – is waiting. Russian activist Roman Dolgov is sitting next to him, watching the scene on the helideck on a laptop screen through a webcam. Colin slams the door and starts activating a series of lock mechanisms and steel bars designed to give the communications team the few crucial extra minutes of freedom they need to upload the footage. Footage they don’t yet have. Alex falls into a chair. Through a porthole she can see masked men running past with guns, looking in.

  Kieron and Phil have retreated from the helideck with their cameras. Phil is trying various doors, looking for a way into the ship. He needs to get to the radio room and hand over the memory card in his camera. Kieron is running for the stairs to the upper deck but he slips on the first step, loses a flip-flop, stumbles and falls. As he’s getting to his feet he sees the Russian photojournalist Denis Sinyakov being tackled and thrown to the ground by a commando, his camera sliding along the deck, his arms twisted behind his back.

  Faiza is on the bridge now. Through the window she can see Dima on top of Frank. The soldier standing over them raises the butt of his rifle. He’s about to smash the window. Inside the bridge Pete glares at him, waves a finger and says, ‘No, no, no. I don’t want any windows broken, not on my ship.’ The commando’s rifle hovers over his shoulder. Pete walks towards him, flicks the lock and lets him in. Soldiers stream through the open door.

  For a man with the life story of Pete Willcox, this is just another day at the office. He’s being boarded at sea by armed men. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.

  Frank groans, Dima rolls off him, they help each other up and limp into the bridge. Inside there are five, maybe six troopers, and as many activists. On the deck below, Kieron is standing behind a crane, watching commandos running past, his camera held behind his back. He edges along the side of the ship towards the porthole of the radio room. Phil is already there, clasping his camera, banging on the glass. He nods at Kieron. ‘Did you get it?’

  ‘I got it, yeah. Unbelievable footage. You?’

  ‘Gold dust. It was nice of them to turn up at sunset and make it look like Apocalypse Now.’

  Alex is undoing the screws on the porthole but she can’t get the damn thing open. She’s unscrewing and unscrewing but the window won’t budge. Soon Phil and Kieron are looking at her with eyes wide open, like, hurry up, what the hell are you doing? Roman’s helping her and he’s a big guy, they’re both trying to open the window but it’s not happening.

  The sound of stomping boots can be heard all around them. Kieron wants to scream, ‘Jesus Christ, Alex. Just open the fucking window!’ But he can see her face, a picture of pure frustration as she strains at the screws. He takes a deep breath, pushes the camera into his underpants and walks away. Alex motions for Phil to go down the ship to the next porthole, where the campaign office is. Phil checks it’s clear and skips down the side. Alex unlocks the radio room door, checks for troopers then runs to the office. Phil is waiting for her on the other side of the porthole. Alex undoes the screws, flips them off and starts opening the window when su
ddenly out of nowhere a commando appears behind Phil.

  Phil sees him and waves his hand, shouting, ‘No, no, no!’ Alex slams the window in his face and furiously screws it shut. Phil darts away, and because he doesn’t have a belt on he can ram the camera straight into his pants. He shoves it right down there and just walks away from the soldier. But the commando pursues him, saying, ‘Camera, camera, camera.’ Two other soldiers approach from the other direction. Phil stops. He’s surrounded.

  One of them yanks Phil’s coat, spins him around and frisks him. But the soldier doesn’t go near his underpants and the large lump of digital equipment nestled between his upper thighs. Phil squeezes his legs together. He knows he won’t get to the radio room now, his footage won’t be on the TV news tonight, but he’s not about to give up his camera card.

  On the bridge eight masked soldiers are disabling the communications systems of the Arctic Sunrise – VHF radios, GPS tracking, satellite telephones. When the soldiers can’t find a button to switch something off, they simply yank on cables and rip them out. A commando is standing guard at each of the outside doors, and there’s another one on the inside staircase that leads from the bridge to the ship’s lower decks. And all the time an officer is pacing back and forth across the length of the bridge, speaking into his own radio in Russian, taking and giving instructions. Dima speaks Russian, he can understand what they’re saying, but not what it means.

  ‘Fifteen to ninety-four, are we doing the seven nine yet?’

  ‘Fifteen, affirmative. Seven nine complete.’

  Faiza pulls an iPhone from her pocket, flips on the camera and casually holds it out in front of her. One of the soldiers glances at her, and even through his mask she can see he’s smiling at her. It’s the one who kicked Frank. Faiza locks eyes with him, she takes a guess at his age – nineteen maybe – and holds his gaze. He’s definitely smiling behind the balaclava, those eyes are beaming, he’s staring at her. Then he lifts his chin, and in heavily accented English he says, ‘Hey, is that an iPhone 4 or an iPhone 5?’