The Rybinsk Deception

by Colin D. Peel

  At the mention of terrorism, Yegorov elected to offer an opinion. ‘You understand what that could mean, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, I understand.’ A knot in Coburn’s stomach had got worse.

  Yegorov swept his hand low over the table. ‘If the Indonesians ask for US help, think F16,’ he said. ‘Single aircraft, single pass – twenty millimetre cannons, cluster bombs and napalm. After that, all you’re gonna find is ash.’

  Shriver looked at Coburn. ‘Easy way for you to finish your job for the International Marine Bureau, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I’m sure they’d welcome one less rats’ nest of pirates in the Malacca Strait. But, of course, you and Mr O’Halloran must make that decision for yourselves.’ He stood up. ‘While you’re doing so, there are numerous attractions around Canyon City for you to visit. If you like to fish, you’ll find good spots further down the river.’ Without taking the trouble to say goodbye he turned to go. ‘You may keep the photos. I can’t say this has been a pleasure, but then I didn’t expect it to be.’

  Yegorov was slower to leave the booth, deliberately knocking into Coburn’s shoulder on his way out into the street where he made a point of spitting into the gutter.

  The gesture had been as empty as it was feeble. It was also a mistake.

  Coburn had been imagining what an airstrike on the village would be like. Now though, angered by Yegorov’s smugness, he was thinking more widely, balancing the consequences of an airstrike against the consequences of him doing nothing to save the Sandpiper.

  Had the stakes really become that high, he wondered? To protect the village, was he really prepared to walk away, when by doing so he’d be condemning the crew of the minehunter to a missile attack off the coast of South Korea?

  Or was he going to carry on – somehow or other finding a way to warn the Commander of the Sandpiper, and at the same time making sure Hari would be ready to organize an evacuation?

  Before he could begin to choose, he needed to sift through what he knew and what he didn’t, he decided. That the captain of the Pishan had been coerced into writing the affidavit was obvious enough. But how damning would it be in the hands of the Indonesians? Would they think to verify its accuracy, or find out why it had been written in the first place? And if they didn’t, would their reaction be as swift and as lethal as Yegorov had suggested it would be?

  Asking O’Halloran what he thought was not an option. The American was still clutching the photos of his twins, wearing an expression of deep concern.

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I told you before you started out on this stupid fucking witch hunt.’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘That you’re way out of your depth.’

  ‘We,’ Coburn said. ‘You didn’t have to come. I don’t remember talking you into it. Give me those.’ He took away the photos. ‘Look, Shriver’s full of shit. He knows that hurting your family won’t do him any good. It’s just an easy way for him to get you off his back.’

  ‘And an easy way for him to get you off his back is to threaten to wipe out that pirate village of yours. Shriver thinks you care about what happens to it. I think you do, too. It’s about time you told me why that is.’

  ‘It’s hard to explain.’ Coburn wasn’t much in the mood to try. ‘You need to have been there, or stayed there for a while.’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘You don’t understand. The guys who get paid to go out on raids aren’t your everyday doped-up drug smugglers and white slavers. They’re not allowed anywhere near drugs. Sure, they run down ships at night, but there are a hell of a lot nastier ways than that of making a living. They have wives, they have children, and they’re better off than three-quarters of the people you’ll ever meet in that part of the world. It’s not the kind of place you think it is.’

  ‘OK.’ O’Halloran was waiting. ‘I’m still listening.’

  ‘That’s it. What else do you want to know?’

  ‘I want to know if Heather Cameron’s there – that girl who was living on the beach in Fauzdarhat.’

  Coburn hesitated for a moment. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘Lucky guess. Have you been sleeping with her?’

  ‘Once – one night. That’s not the reason why I care about the village. If things go bad, the guy who runs it has enough boats to get the families out in half an hour. All I’d need to do is call him.’ Coburn stood up and put the car-keys on the table. ‘You drive.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘I don’t mind. Down to the river – anywhere quiet where we can think straight and sort out the mess we’re in.’

  If sorting out the mess they were in was going to be as simple as finding a quiet enough place to do it, Coburn would have been happy to put off his thinking until they reached the river. As it was, because he spent the drive searching for an answer to their problems, by the time they’d found somewhere suitable to park, he’d decided the only solution that stood a chance of working was of such high risk he’d never persuade O’Halloran to consider it.

  CHAPTER 17

  TWO DAYS AGO during their drive along the track to the clearing, once in a while stretches of the John Day river had been visible through the trees, but not until now had Coburn appreciated the true wildness of the countryside.

  O’Halloran had parked the Chrysler between two pickups at the end of a well-formed dirt road providing access for fishermen and a starting point for trampers who wanted to follow a signposted trail that led north from the parking area.

  Here, the river was wider and shallower than it was upstream where it flowed out of an enormous channel carved through what looked like ancient lava rocks, while some distance downstream where the water was swirling around a half-a-dozen car-sized boulders, Coburn could see rapids.

  Together with the scent of resin coming from the Douglas firs he could smell the river – the smell of fresh clear water that had travelled through the canyons to lose its energy and bubble over the stony bottom at his feet.

  To obtain a better view of the rapids he stepped out on to a flat-topped rock, nearly overbalancing and getting his shoes wet, but not caring, welcoming the warmth of the sun on his face while he endeavoured to make sense of the journey that had brought him here and tried to decide whether or not this is where it ought to stop.

  If he was to continue, he was almost certain it would have to be by himself. Since they’d left the diner in John Day, O’Halloran had said little, unwilling to share any more of his thoughts and driving so carelessly he’d nearly run over a teenage girl on a pedestrian crossing at the edge of town.

  Standing at the water’s edge with his hands in his pockets, the American looked as though he was waiting for Coburn to state his position before declaring his own.

  ‘Take another step and you’ll get really wet,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ Coburn turned round. ‘What did you make of Yegorov?’

  O’Halloran shrugged. ‘Probably not somebody you’d want to mess with unless you had a bigger stick than him, but I wouldn’t pick him as being too smart. He’s just Shriver’s hard man. If he’s told to go to Bangladesh, that’s where he goes. If Shriver’s told him to go to Korea, maybe that’s where he’ll be off to next.’

  Coburn had been wondering about it. ‘My guess is he’s been there before,’ he said. ‘You don’t organize an attack on a US warship without a whole lot of forward planning, and he can’t hope to highjack a North Korean patrol boat all by himself. He needs to have recruited locals who he already has in place waiting to help him.’

  ‘Assuming it’s Yegorov who’ll be handling the attack.’

  ‘He retrieved that stuff off the Rybinsk,’ Coburn said. ‘And he was behind what happened on the Pishan and the attack on the village. Why wouldn’t he handle this?’

  O’Halloran shrugged again. ‘I don’t give a rat’s arse who’s going to launch the missiles. If you want to worry about it, go ahead. It’s not my problem.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Coburn
said. ‘When you get out of bed and look at the front page of your morning paper on August 10th, the first thing you’re going to see is a picture of what’s left of the Sandpiper. All day at work you’ll be hearing people talking about what happened, and that night when you get home and turn on your TV, Shriver will be on CNN accusing the US Administration of being soft on North Korea. You’ll feel OK about that, will you?’

  ‘Better than I’d feel if something happened to my kids.’ O’Halloran took his hands out of his pockets. ‘And better than you’d feel if the Indonesians dropped napalm on your girlfriend in Sumatra.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen. If you don’t want to help me stop it, I’ll stop it by myself.’

  ‘Good luck trying. Are you going to spend all day standing on that rock?’

  ‘No.’ Coburn stepped back on to the drier pebbles. ‘Do one more thing for me.’

  ‘Depends what it is.’

  ‘Tell me why this won’t work. Imagine that somehow or other I get the commander of the Sandpiper to look at the stuff on your computer. Sure, he won’t know how genuine it is, and he won’t know whether to believe it, but what it will do is make him real careful.’

  ‘OK.’ O’Halloran started to say something else, but changed his mind.

  ‘Now imagine it’s the night of August 9th,’ Coburn said. ‘The commander’s already jumpy when he sees what he’s pretty damn sure is a North Korean patrol boat on his radar, and a minute later he receives a radio message telling him to change course.’

  ‘Which puts him between a rock and a hard place.’

  ‘Right. He’s not on the wrong side of the Demarkation Line, and the Koreans haven’t fired any warning shots, so what are his choices? Change course and hope like hell nothing happens? Or does he preempt an attack he’s half expecting and blow the patrol boat out of the water? According to the data sheet, Osprey minehunters are armed with two 12.7 millimetre machine-guns. A couple of five-second bursts from those and the patrol boat’s going to be matchwood, and no one’ll be left alive on board to launch the missiles.’

  O’Halloran was frowning. ‘I can’t see a US Navy Commander opening fire without some kind of direct provocation,’ he said. ‘It depends on his rules of engagement, but he’d have to think hard about using his guns when his only justification is a draft press release that’s been given to him by somebody he doesn’t know.’

  ‘That’s what I thought too.’ Coburn picked up a stone and skipped it out across the shallows. ‘So how about this? A couple of seconds after the captain of the patrol boat has used his radio, he runs into trouble. Somewhere below his waterline, explosions rip through his hull so he can’t launch his missiles, and before he knows it, he’s on fire and sinking. Maybe he’s been unlucky and rubbed up against one of those mines the Sandpiper was looking for. How does that sound?’

  ‘It sounds like a load of crap. Collect up every mine you can find floating in the Yellow Sea and have the Sandpiper drop them off, and you’d still have about as much chance of the patrol boat hitting one at the right time as you or I do of growing wings.’

  ‘I didn’t say it has to be a mine,’ Coburn said. ‘It could be anything. What if one of the missiles malfunctioned while the crew were arming it?’

  By now, O’Halloran should have been looking more interested, but he wasn’t. ‘Are you telling me you can arrange for an accident to happen?’ he said.

  ‘If I can, it screws Shriver and the FAL for good, doesn’t it? The commander of the Sandpiper gets Brownie points for rescuing the crew of a sinking boat, and he catches Yegorov trying to pass himself off as a North Korean naval captain. If Yegorov can’t explain why he was doing that, or if he won’t talk, you can bet your life the men he’s paid to help him will.’

  ‘Neat idea.’ O’Halloran remained indifferent. ‘Needs work, though, wouldn’t you say?’

  Coburn ignored the sarcasm. ‘I’m asking your opinion,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t have one. If you’re crazy enough to go all the way to Korea to see if you can get Commander Ritchie on side and set up your clever accident, that’s your business.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what the set up is?’

  ‘Probably better if I don’t. Tell me when you get back. If you don’t get back, I’ll read about it in my morning paper.’

  ‘So you’re not interested in going with me?’

  ‘Why would I be? I don’t have the time or the money. I’ve already been away from the office for five days. If I don’t show up there soon, people will start asking questions.’

  In case the issue of money was real, rather than a convenient excuse, Coburn made one last effort.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m not trying to twist your arm, but you work for the US Government, I don’t. Ritchie is going to take more notice of you than he ever is of me. If cash is a problem I can cover it.’

  ‘Backhanders from selling ships’ manifests to that guy who runs the village?’

  ‘Sort of. Why don’t you call your office and tell them you’re taking more time off, then you can phone your ex-wife, or whoever she is and tell her she needs to take your kids out of town for a while? If you do that, will you think about what I’ve said?’

  ‘I already have.’ O’Halloran started walking back to the car. ‘And I’ve already told you what I think.’

  Having spent half the afternoon and the evening by himself, Coburn had stopped trying to rationalize a decision that seemed less and less sensible the longer he thought about it.

  Earlier, while he’d been standing on the rock in the river outlining his intentions to O’Halloran, he’d attempted to sound positive. But with each hour that had passed since then, an increasing number of doubts had crept into his mind, undermining his confidence in an idea that he knew would never work without the involvement of other people.

  Where O’Halloran had disappeared to was a mystery. Within half an hour of them arriving back at the motel, the American had said he was going for a drive and had yet to return from wherever it was he’d gone.

  As long as he hadn’t gone to confront Shriver alone, Coburn thought. Was it possible he could be that stupid – believing that some kind of fresh initiative would change anything? Or because of the threat to his family, had he pulled out altogether?

  To hell with him, Coburn decided. When the only practical way of destroying the FAL was to play Shriver at his own game, and when the one chance of doing that was only eleven days away, it was time he stopped worrying about O’Halloran and started worrying about Hari and the village.

  For the last hour he’d been putting off telephoning Heather, knowing she’d expect him to explain everything, and preferring not to imagine what Hari’s reaction to his proposal was likely to be.

  When he finally decided to make the call, it was Indiri who answered, sounding embarrassed until Heather took the phone from her and said hello.

  ‘Chasing porcupines again?’ Coburn said.

  ‘No.’ She laughed. ‘I was putting a bandage on Hari’s finger. He cut it while he was sharpening a bamboo spear – you know, the kind that are used to catch those funny-looking fish that come round the jetty at night when the moon and tide are right. His finger didn’t need bandaging, but I didn’t say so.’

  ‘Is he still there? If he is I need to talk to him. That’s why I’m calling.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you’d want to talk to me.’

  ‘I do,’ Coburn said. ‘It’s just that I need to ask him a favour.’

  ‘Tell me what it is and I’ll ask him for you.’

  ‘It’s too complicated and I don’t want to explain it twice. I’ll make him promise to tell you afterwards. Is that OK?’

  ‘No it’s not. I want to know where you are and why you’re there. Or are you still worried about satellite phones not being secure enough?’

  ‘I’m still worried, but the way things have turned out I don’t have much choice. I’m in Oregon, but if I can talk Hari into helping me, in two or three day
s’ time I’ll be in South Korea.’

  ‘Why? What on earth for? Why are you going there?’

  ‘Long story. Ask Hari after I’ve spoken to him. He hasn’t changed his mind about not going on that raid, has he?’

  ‘No. He says it’s not worth the trouble. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Fuel,’ Coburn said. ‘I thought he might have used it up filling the tanks on the launches.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t.’ She was beginning to sound put out. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll hang up.’

  ‘Then you’ll never know what’s happening, will you? Come on, you’re using up your battery. Let me talk to Hari.’

  ‘Don’t you have anything nice to say to me?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Last night was the first night I haven’t had a dream about you. Will that do?’

  ‘If I believed you it would. I’ll pretend it’s true, though, then you can say what you want to say to Hari. Here he is.’

  ‘David, my friend.’ Hari sounded particularly cheerful. ‘Miss Cameron has just told me you are in the US state of Oregon, but soon will travel to South Korea. Can this be so?’

  ‘It depends. Has Heather told you anything else?’

  ‘I understand you discover it was not the US Government who sends the radioactive material to Bangladesh on the Rybinsk, but that is all I know. Miss Cameron has said that when you call her from Maryland you considered it unwise to reveal who was responsible. You wish to tell me now?’

  ‘It’s a US-based outfit called the Free America League,’ Coburn said. ‘Remember that guy you had photographed getting off the Pishan? He works for them. His name’s Yegorov. I met him today.’

  ‘I see. So to prevent you making trouble for the Free America League they send this man you call Yegorov to kill you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then now you have found him, you know what you must do.’

  ‘There’s a bit more to it than that,’ Coburn said. ‘The only way to fix up Yegorov and the Free America League is by pointing the Americans in the right direction so they trip over the truth themselves. Until that happens, they won’t have any reason to stamp out the FAL, and I can’t see anybody else doing it.’