by Matt Rogers
‘Okay — you’re full of shit.’
‘I wish I was.’
‘Why the hell did you leave that in the hands of JSOC? What were they doing with it?’
‘We didn’t. One of ours was embedded in Niger with a coalition of US-Nigerian troops. Randall Neak being one of the American soldiers.’
‘One of ours? What does that mean?’
‘A Black Force intelligence official.’
‘Christ.’
‘We couldn’t confirm that he was killed until we knew for sure, and we certainly couldn’t tell the operatives about it. I’m taking a risk by telling you.’
‘What was he doing in Niger? On a recruiting mission?’
‘Black Force does many things. Most of which you know nothing about. And we’re going to keep it that way.’
‘So this laptop…’
‘You want the truth? You want my gut reaction?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t know how dead Randall Neak is.’
Xu’s eyes widened. He froze on the gangway, refusing to step foot on the freighter until he worked out exactly what Lars was talking about. ‘What are you saying?’
‘We have no evidence of their bodies.’
‘Lars, if I played a part in convincing you of some grand conspiracy, then I’m sorry. But I doubt Randall Neak is alive.’
‘Who else would Jimmy be in contact with? Put it together, James. Possibly the most important device we have in our military arsenal goes missing in a surprise attack by Islamic militants on our troops in Niger. I’ve seen photos of the aftermath. It’s not pretty. But five of our men have disappeared.’
‘Five?’
‘Randall Neak, and four other Special Forces operatives. They were a unit under JSOC.’
‘The militants probably hauled their corpses away. It happens.’
‘There’s over a dozen dead militants.’
‘You’re saying it was staged?’
‘I’m saying Randall and his buddies probably got rid of the enemy force. Then they realised they had the opportunity of a lifetime, and they turned on the Nigerian troops … and our guy.’
‘Killed them?’
‘And took the laptop.’
‘That’s as far-fetched as it comes, Lars.’
‘Not when I tell you this. We can’t get into the fucking laptop. And there’s signs of torture on our man. They left his body there.’
‘Torture?’
‘There’s burn marks on his arms and legs. His fingernails are gone. You think that happened after they killed him?’
‘You don’t even know that they killed him.’
‘Piece it together. Randall and his friends know what our man has. They know how much the right bidder would be willing to pay for that kind of information. But they know we’ve installed rigorous security protocols on the device to prevent exactly that situation from happening. So they see their opportunity to stage a slaughter when they’re ambushed by insurgents, and they take it. They work over our man until he gives them everything they need to get into the laptop and subsequently lock us out. Then they disappear.’
‘Which explains why his brother is making calls across Africa,’ Xu said. ‘Jesus.’
‘Nothing’s confirmed yet. But get on that ship. I have a feeling the next voyage is supposed to play an important role. I need to work on this. Try and make yourself at home. Pretend to be Neak. If you get into trouble, you know what to do.’
Xu stood there, halfway along the gangplank, with the Lagos Port Complex sprawling out behind him and the gigantic freighter dwarfing him ahead. He didn’t take the following decision lightly. If there were men on the merchant vessel who knew Jimmy Neak well, they would instantly recognise the deception. Then he would be stranded on a freighter in the Gulf of Guinea with no expedient way out. He could be tied down and slaughtered, for all he knew.
But if he turned back, he would never be able to forgive himself. Not if Randall Neak was out there. Not if the laptop vanished. Undercover operatives across the world would be slaughtered in droves. And James Xu would sit back with his head in his hands, aware that he was partially responsible for the madness.
He might have been able to prevent it, if he carried on with the mission.
He needed to look at the situation from a broader perspective. If he didn’t, his better judgment would never allow him to get on the ship. When deception of this magnitude was involved, the risks were indescribable. Every worker on the vessel might come hunting for his head at any moment.
The goddamn captain is involved, Xu thought.
He had to be. Xu had heard it directly from the British guy. Jimmy Neak had been scheduled to serve as deckhand on another ship, but had been transferred across to this freighter for no apparent reason. There was something happening, something dark and sinister and murderous.
Xu had already killed a man today.
What would another one be?
If he wanted to live out the rest of his days satisfied that he’d done everything he could in the line of duty, he would need to interrogate the captain. Whatever that took. He had a lead, and he couldn’t ignore it.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’m almost on board. I’ll find my room and keep my head down. Do the work if necessary. Play the part. In the meantime, find out as much as you can. I have a feeling I might get killed on board this thing.’
‘Then you would have died a noble death.’
‘Thanks. Makes me feel a lot better.’
‘There’s worse ways to go.’
‘Get onto it, Lars,’ Xu said. ‘Clock’s ticking.’
He ended the call and continued along the gangway, ignoring the piercing stares from the Brit and the Russian, both probably wondering why he’d frozen for such an extended period of time.
‘Just get on board,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You’ll figure this out.’
The storm clouds drew closer, and the wind grew colder.
Aside from his endeavours in New York, James Xu had never been so unsure of himself.
7
He stepped out onto an enormous swathe of deck, and it almost seemed like he’d touched down on dry land. But the ominous rocking of the freighter in its bay told him all he needed to know.
He had a bad feeling about what was to come.
Mountains of shipping containers covered the deck, restricting his view of the general shape of the freighter. Xu spotted a pair of men in high-visibility vests in the distance, their backs turned to him. They were striding across the weather deck toward the wheelhouse near the stern of the vessel, hundreds of feet in the distance.
Xu followed.
He didn’t know what he was doing. This was almost worse than Brooklyn, where he’d strode into a townhouse populated by underworld figures without a clue as to what he might find. But the fact that soon the freighter would cast off, leaving Nigeria behind, entering soulless international waters… it filled him with dread.
If shit hit the fan, there was no easy way out.
He could try and pilot a lifeboat, but even that would result in disaster. He knew precious little about the inner machinations of the international shipping industry, and if everything went to hell he couldn’t call on Black Force in a hurry. Instead, the organisation would deny his existence and throw him to the wolves. He’d lost count of how many times Lars Crawford had reminded him of that fact, and now it stewed in the recesses of his mind as he strode past a desolate sea of containers under a dark grey sky. The clouds swelled, and dusk began to fall.
Xu gulped and hurried to catch up to the two workers heading for the tower. They heard his pounding footsteps and twisted simultaneously, offering dual waves of greeting. Xu waved back and studied their features as he drew closer.
Both had European complexions, with deeply tanned skin and old grizzled faces. Both appeared to be in their fifties, but they could have been ten years younger. The sea etched years of age into faces, and Xu didn’t have the mental capac
ity to discern exactly how old they were underneath all the wrinkles and flaky skin. Most of his attention was preoccupied with debating whether or not he should even be here.
Xu had been through enough combat to be accustomed to the fear of a live situation. But this was different. This was the bottomless depths of the ocean. This was a hulking slab of steel plunging toward the murky horizon, with no easy escape routes and no backup plan if everything went to hell.
He couldn’t quite decide whether he’d made the right call, but there was nothing to do but follow through with it.
He wiped his palms, slick with sweat, against the sides of his jeans and offered a hand in greeting.
‘Jimmy Neak,’ he said.
One of the men — the older of the two — immediately scowled. ‘You got special privileges, don’t you, lad?’
Geordie accent, Xu noted. From Newcastle.
‘Not that I know of,’ he said.
‘Bullshit,’ the second guy said. ‘Captain brought you over. I remember when he tried to explain it to us. Told us there was a new deckhand that had been assigned to the crew. What’s all that about, like? That’s mad.’
Also a Geordie. Ends sentences with “like” for no apparent reason.
Xu shrugged, trying to downplay it, even though it was clearly enough of a notable event to draw the ire of both the Russian and these two men.
‘Couldn’t tell you,’ he said. ‘I got pulled off another vessel.’
‘What vessel?’
‘Oil tanker.’
‘What company?’
Xu sensed the point of no return — if he continued answering the questions, the guy wouldn’t stop asking them until he slipped up. And he would almost certainly slip up. Something wouldn’t add up in his lies — the only shipping company he could think of off the top of his head was Maersk — and then they would more than likely haul him off the freighter by force. He would have to co-operate — he could probably run through every single man on this ship in a fistfight, but violence would achieve nothing right now. There were countless sensitivities regarding why the captain had hauled Jimmy Neak off one freighter to take part in this voyage, and Xu wouldn’t learn any more details if he didn’t blend in.
So he switched tact.
‘What the hell do you want with all these questions?’ he snapped. ‘I want honest work, okay? It’s not my fucking job to determine where I go. I go where they tell me. Leave it.’
‘But—’ the second man said.
‘Leave it,’ Xu demanded.
The older Geordie shot a dark look in the younger man’s direction, and they both shut up for a few minutes. Relief washed over Xu. The pair led him up to a section of the wheelhouse labelled D-deck, through white metal corridors that reeked of powerful industrial-grade disinfectant barely suppressing all the unscrupulous odours of an international transport vessel. Xu stopped short of pinching his nose, but the general atmosphere didn’t help his mood one bit. He held his tongue as the men led him past a row of private rooms for the various crew members — the less he said, the better.
They stopped in unison in front of a tiny metal box with a door and a foggy, salt-stained rectangular window along the top of the opposite wall.
The older Geordie gestured inside, ‘Your quarters, sir.’
Xu sensed the sarcasm. ‘Look, boys, I don’t know if I’ve done something to piss you off, but—’
The younger Geordie leant forward and hissed in a low voice, ‘There were enough deckhands on this ship in the first place. Captain had to take someone off to make room for you.’
‘One of your friends?’ Xu said.
‘My cousin, actually.’
Xu shrugged. ‘Nothing I can do. I’m sure he’ll find other work.’
‘I hope he does.’
Xu didn’t respond to that. It was provocative, laden with agitation, demanding a reaction. The guy was uncomfortably close. He wanted a confrontation, and apparently he’d deemed this desolate part of the freighter the right location to do it.
Xu wouldn’t afford him the courtesy, because the guy would end up in a bloody, broken mess within seconds.
And he didn’t deserve that.
Not just yet.
Brushing off the unnecessarily hostile stare both men shot him, he stepped straight over the threshold and slammed the door to his quarters closed with a resounding clang.
He sat down on the bed, listened to the ship groaning all around him, and wondered how the hell he was going to achieve anything with most of the ship’s population wanting his head on the chopping block.
8
Xu spent ten minutes sitting on his rear, gazing around the forlorn cabin as the miscellaneous sounds of crew life echoed through the hallways outside. Deep voices bantered back and forth in a mixture of English and foreign languages, and for a moment he thought he recognised some Thai.
Then the ship settled, the activity seemingly dissipating, and a deep rumbling underneath him indicated they were in the process of casting off. The massive freighter swung to the right, barely perceptible due to the size of the vessel. The view outside Xu’s cabin window changed from the dreary Apapa Port to the Gulf of Guinea, sweeping into the horizon for as far as the eye could see.
‘Not a good idea,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Not good at all.’
You shouldn’t have done this.
He got off the bed and crossed to the steel door, moving one hand forward to hurl it open, almost in a trance. His measly cover would disintegrate at the first hurdle. He had zero understanding of what a deckhand was supposed to do, or when he was rostered on, or where he was supposed to head. He didn’t imagine he could figure all of that out without coming off as suspicious.
He touched the door handle and started to twist it downward when a lightning bolt of fear hammered through his chest.
The captain.
‘Fuck,’ he whispered under his breath, and took his fingers off the door.
That was a problem. The captain clearly knew what the real Jimmy Neak looked like — Xu wouldn’t pass the eye test for any longer than half a second. They were both deeply tanned Asian men, but anything beyond that wouldn’t stand a chance. The captain would notice him, do a double take, and then raise the alarm.
And then what?
Xu didn’t know. They’d already cast off. There would be no turning back. If anything, Xu wouldn’t put it past the men to hurl him overboard when the captain revealed the deception.
But, as the ship blasted its fearsome foghorn, cutting through the relative serenity of the cabin, Xu realised the captain would be up in the wheelhouse, responsible for guiding the freighter out of the port and into the open ocean.
If you’re going to leave, do it now.
Without a shred of a plan, he steeled his resolve and headed straight out onto the metal catwalk in front of his cabin. All around him the framework of the vessel groaned and creaked, sending ethereal moans through the open space. Xu momentarily froze up, unsure whether to head left or right, without a clue as to what he should be doing.
Getting information.
However you can.
The distant sounds of lively chatter seeped through the wheelhouse, breaking up the groaning of the ship. Xu honed in on the noise and headed in its direction. He strode through hollow metal tubes, each as cold and claustrophobic as the last. He tightened the jacket around his torso as the chill set in. A horrid shiver ran down the base of his spine.
Frustrated, he shook it off.
An operative of his caliber shouldn’t be experiencing nerves like this.
But the ship surged forward, free from its moorings, heading away from dry land at an indiscernible speed. With such a giant frame all around him, it was impossible to tell how fast they were moving. But the engine room far below deck vibrated incessantly, churning them through the swells. The deck underneath Xu rocked back and forth, and it took him some time to compose himself and find his footing.
By the time he made i
t to the mess hall, he found the two Geordies and the two men from the gangway hunched around a metal table, digging into small bowls of curry and rice. A thin Filipino man dressed in white overalls — Xu assumed it was the cook — finished serving the dishes and threw an inquisitive glance in the newcomer’s direction.
Xu nodded and dumped himself down between one of the Geordies and the big Russian guy — both of them shot dark looks at him. He hadn’t been expecting anything less. There was nowhere on the ship he could avoid confrontation — aside from his living quarters, which wouldn’t achieve a thing if he spent the entire voyage holed up in relative safety.
No, he needed to be out here.
In the shit.
The cook dropped a tiny wooden bowl of curry in front of Xu — he nodded his thanks. He tucked in without saying a word to any of the four men around him. They’d been mid-conversation when he’d arrived, and now they were strangely silent. Probably discussing him. He didn’t care.
Halfway through refuelling himself with curry and rice, Xu looked up. ‘Don’t let me stop you talking.’
‘What you doing in here?’ the Russian snarled. ‘You go see captain, no?’
‘No,’ Xu said.
The older Geordie said, ‘He’s the only one who wants you around, mate.’
‘Doesn’t bother me.’
‘You never say what you do here,’ the Russian said in broken English.
Xu shot him a look. ‘What do you think I’m here for?’
‘I do not play game. You just tell.’
‘I heard something,’ the younger Geordie said.
Xu turned his attention to the man and raised an eyebrow. ‘What did you hear?’
Please have something, he thought.
‘Word is we’re making an unscheduled stop out in open waters. Rumours float around. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, mate, would you?’
Xu wanted to say that he had no idea what the hell was going on, but he simply shrugged. ‘Not sure. Don’t think it has anything to do with me.’
The older Geordie had been scrutinising Xu for the duration of the conversation. Now, he piped up. ‘I don’t think you know a thing, mate. I don’t think you even know much about being a deckhand, like.’