Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  Huuk’s newly naked cheek was unnaturally sensitive and so it picked up the first kiss of the dawn wind an instant earlier than usual as it puffed from the south, given extra impetus by the threat of a storm running up from down there. Huuk knew that if he glanced north and perhaps a little east now he would see just the very tip of the Peak aflame like a volcano. No sooner had he thought this than there, like a fallen star, low on the starboard quarter, came the light of the Wenweic Zhou. The point of brightness was so startling that Huuk was tricked into speculating whether, if he continued to watch in that quarter, he would be able to see the distant Fortaleza da Guia light at Macau.

  He stroked the stock of the AK74 and dragged his dazzled vision back. His fine-featured countenance remained as tranquil as the sea but within he was seething with anger. What was making his usually disciplined mind run on such trivialities? What childish forebodings were these which made him almost nervous of completing this mission? What spirits were moving among the last of the darkness warning of terrors to come? What sort of a leader would the men think him if he was not the first to sight their target — and the first to board her, and the first to draw blood? This was the pride which had put him here, at the cutting edge of the bloody business, keeping lookout without using his binoculars.

  The slightest stir behind his left shoulder alerted him that one of the others had sighted something and he glanced south, turning his still-sensitive face into the cool, charged oil-tainted wind. There, away on the dull, threatening, smoke-grey horizon, sat a freighter such as the one they were hunting, her long hull almost invisible in the shadows and her upper works seemingly ablaze. Huuk shook his head once, decisively. No. This was not their quarry. Too far south; on the wrong course; moving too fast. The intelligence out of Aberdeen had been precise about their quarry’s course and disposition at least. Huuk knew exactly what he was looking for, and precisely where it was going to be. Position and movement were, after all, of paramount importance. He narrowed his eyes and faced forwards once again.

  And there she was! Bow on, dead ahead, seemingly dead in the water, there was the ship they sought. Huuk let go of his AK74 for a moment and raised both his arms straight up into the air before gesturing forcefully forward, chopping both hands down like axes with the hard edges of his palms downwards over the hissing water, as though he was delivering two kite strike karate chops to the inoffensive air. This was also an agreed signal. The motors reached a new pitch of snarling frenzy and the three slim launches leaped forward as one, slapping through the still water, kicking up foaming bow waves as they went.

  Huuk looked, mesmerised, foreboding like a stone upon his slight chest. The ship came up towards them as though miraculously rising out of the water, still, silent, apparently deserted. There was no pale wave at her slim bow at all as she drifted north-eastwards into his territory just as the mysterious information had led him to expect.

  With her hull still a shadowy shape and her lines cloaked by a dull purple-grey mist, her superstructure glimmered spectrally as though given some kind of foul luminosity like meat beginning to rot. The square of her white-painted bridgehouse shone dully behind the black bars of her deck gantries, like something caged. As Huuk watched, narrow-eyed, the first great bolt of sunlight smashed against the equipment in the crow’s nest atop the stubby mast which stood above her bridge. The light seemed to shatter as though it was red-molten gold and spattered downwards like a firework, raining dazzling brightness. The tops of the hard-edged black gantries caught fire like candles, tall flames leaping forward in series along the main deck towards the speeding launches. The stormy dawn wind rumbled and thudded, as though echoing the sounds which ought to have accompanied the blinding pyrotechnics.

  That was just what they needed now, thought Huuk more happily. The freshening wind would cover the sounds of the racing motors as effectively as the waterfall of light would hide their long, shark-like shapes from the watch-keepers aboard — if there were any, which he had been led to doubt.

  He glanced down, past the lateral shape of the AK74, to the neatly coiled rope with its three-pronged boarding hook lying between the gleaming whiteness of his Reeboks. The trainers were expensive and, rarely for this neck of the woods, they were the genuine article. The Levi 501s were far more suspect, purchased cheaply like much of his clothing, in the night market on Temple Street. He knew for a fact that his shirt was not made by Yves St Laurent as its label claimed, and that his watch had never been anywhere near the Rolex manufactory in Switzerland. But he was a neat dresser and came well turned out even on a job like this one. Still, when push came to shove, his life could well depend on the steadiness of his stance, the swiftness of his step and therefore on the grip of his footwear, so his shoes and his equipment were the genuine article at least. He patted the butt of the AK74 one more time for luck, pulled down his balaclava and looked up.

  The mottled, varicoloured three-dimensional jigsaw of the deck cargo was alight now, glowing between the columns of brightness which were the main deck gantries or samson posts. The top of the superstructure, too, had risen into brightness and the long window across the front of the bridge gleamed ruby in the red dawn like the wound of a cut throat. Huuk looked away from the light again; the time for watching was well past now. As the prow of his launch came in past the sheer bow, still seemingly cloaked in the last of the shadows here at sea level, he slung the AK74 over his right shoulder and lifted the grappling hook, swinging it with an easy, practised motion, looking up.

  The side of the ship reached out to a slight overhang here at the bow. The metal near the water was mostly plain, rusty black but here at the forefoot there were white lading marks and the hint of red beneath the surface. Above, there was a slightly old-fashioned flare, painted white, where the side became deck rails round the forecastle head. Just below the white line, above and behind the rusty double hook of the anchor, also in neat white, the name was painted: SULU QUEEN. The light bludgeoning across the deck reflected out across the slight mist, giving the upper reaches, for an instant, a disturbing glory. The whole of the ship seemed to waver as though some unimaginable explosion was taking place within her. Even the bright solidity of her name seemed to tremble on the verge of dissolution. Then the light altered and reality settled back into place again.

  As they came aft of the name, Huuk threw up his boarding hook, tugged on the knotted rope to ensure that the hook was holding firmly, and swung up out of the safety of his launch. As he scrambled up the slippery, clammy side, he could hear the hiss, clatter and twang of half a dozen more hooks being thrown and when he scrambled over onto the deck itself, he was relieved to see five more hooks bedded safely in series. He looked up.

  Everything was different up here. The change was so absolute it was almost incapacitating, as though he had clambered onto a different plane of existence, into a different world. In the absolute daylight, the deck stank of metal and the air, already humid and hot, was filled with further smells from the metal sides of the high-piled containers and, more subtly, mysterious hints of whatever they contained. He had his back to the sun which smote down upon his shoulders through the spurious Yves St Laurent shirt. The containers hulked above his left shoulder and the wind muttered through the spaces in between them as though the ghosts of all his forefathers were there, trying to warn him about something too terrible to be discussed full voice. When he moved, the sole of his Reebok screamed and he jumped, shocked to find that he was sweating.

  By the time the first of his men swung themselves aboard, Huuk was down at the far end of the line of hooks. Stationed between them and the silent bridge, with his eyes darting everywhere and his AK74 cocked and sitting ready on his hip, he waited while the rest of them scrambled aboard and the last pair hauled up the two boxes of extra equipment. In a matter of minutes they were ready and he was able to give the signal. Still without a word having been said, the whole gang of them ran down the deck, keeping close to the shelter of the containers, in covering
pairs out of sight of any invisible watchkeepers on the bridge towards which they were heading.

  Action blanked Huuk’s mind to the intensity of sensation and the whirl of worrying, slightly superstitious speculation, as it always did. He was a natural leader, a combination of imagination and bloody-minded courage, of sensitivity and brutality, of cold calculation and explosive action which made his men worship him. They called him Tuan, Lord, in a way which was as impressive as it was old-fashioned, foreign and inappropriate.

  He arrived at the main door into the port side of the bridgehouse and paused. The heavy metal portal stood invitingly ajar and there was not a whisper of sound or breath of motion, but that meant nothing. This would be the first place Huuk would have mounted a trap had he been in command of the Sulu Queen. He flattened himself against the white-painted outside wall, eased the AK74 until it lay across his silently heaving belly, and waited.

  His men were up beside him within instants, fifteen of them, with himself the sixteenth. Two carried the boxes brought up from the first launch. The rest of them were armed with an assortment of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. They were dressed in an array of jeans, trousers or shorts in various states of cleanliness and repair, and in a range of shirts likewise. They all wore balaclavas or face masks, leaving uncovered only their long dark eyes, ablaze with the prospect of action.

  Huuk’s right hand chopped a series of silent orders and the first pair separated off. In a silent explosion of action they hurled themselves in through the innocently gaping door and were down in a crouch at once, their weapons sweeping from side to side, ready to lay down arcs of fire. Then they were gone and the next pair followed — one high, one low. Huuk stepped through with the last man in and stood, fully erect, with his own AK74 swinging from side to side covering their backs.

  Silence. Stillness.

  Not a whisper of sound. Not a flicker of movement.

  The still air settled, stinking of iron, redolent of something else — something putrid. A lone gull screamed in the distance and its cry set off a cacophony of calls accompanied by the beat of wings like distant thunder. And just at that moment, under that faraway disturbance, Huuk suddenly felt the short hair on his neck stir. For he had the strangest feeling that there was someone there, just out of sight, hidden away close by, watching. Waiting. Then the feeling was gone and the gulls’ cries whispered into silence.

  Huuk looked around the faces of the team crouching along the narrow alleyway in front of him. Their eyes met his one by one, each with the faintest shake of a head. None of them registered anything. He stepped back, leaned out through the doorway and gestured the others in. Still in silence, they trooped in through the door. At once the lateral alleyway was crowded and Huuk led his men swiftly down to the main companionway where they could spread out up and down the steps. Here a rapid series of gestures and clicks split the men into their assigned teams. The first of the black boxes was opened and Huuk handed the leader of each group a Motorola PRC 319 two-way radio. These had been set and tested earlier and needed no further checking now.

  Huuk snapped his fingers once again and despatched one team down to explore the engineering decks below, another to check out the accommodation and the navigating areas above, and left a third, fiercely armed, to guard the boxes here. The men went as ordered, some of them frowning now, for they clearly could not see the need for combat readiness and continued silence aboard this drifting, abandoned hulk. But their orders were clear and, for all they looked like a Triad street gang from the Wanchai, their discipline was absolute.

  As the brooding silence persisted to the point of monotony and his own radio stayed stubbornly silent, Huuk shook himself into action and crossed to the companionway leading up towards the bridge decks. Then, uncharacteristically hesitant, he changed his mind and returned. He handed his AK74 to one of the men guarding the boxes and bent to snap the second one open. There was a bundle of green material on the top and he lifted it out. As he swung it upwards, it unfolded, revealing padded sides, and by the time he had shrugged it over his slim shoulders it stood revealed as an ancient, almost threadbare, bulletproof jacket. He reached back into the black depths of the box and pulled out something else. This was a gun, but no gun like the old AK he had handed to the nearest guard. Where that had been slim and reassuringly fashioned with a light stock and a scimitar-shaped ammunition clip, this was squat, brutal and black. Its stock was skeletal, its barrel short, wide and gleaming obsidian. When he pulled it up to point at the deckhead above and sat it on one slim hip, it still looked more like a grenade launcher than a rifle; and even the open flap of the venerable flak jacket, swinging wide as he moved, could not conceal the brutal power of the thing. With his left hand he caught the tight neck-piece of the balaclava and wrestled it up over his short nose and high forehead until he was able to pull the thing off altogether and cast it impatiently aside.

  The man with the extra AK narrowed his eyes as he watched Tuan Huuk. He watched as the slight figure hunched forward, vibrant with concentration, head moving from side to side like a radar dish — or the head of a hawk in search of its prey. He watched as the bantam-weight body rocked up and forward onto the balls of its feet and was gone up the companionway like a wraith. The guard exchanged a glance with his nearest companion. A ghost of a nod was all that passed between them but it was enough. They knew that while the rest of his command was searching through this idle, abandoned derelict as it drifted across the South China Sea towards distant Hong Kong, Tuan Huuk himself was hunting.

  *

  Huuk crept up the companionway onto the lower bridge deck with every muscle taut, as controlled as a hunting cat. At the top of the stairway he hesitated, glancing left and right along the narrow alleyway on either side of which, he knew, the crew should have been housed. Everything was as silent and still as it had seemed when he first broke into the bridgehouse a mere ten minutes earlier. He paused again, calculating. He was certain that there was someone aboard, shadowing his men and watching. He was unsure what precisely was going on here. He didn’t entirely trust the information he had been given and in any case the situation as described had been all but incredible to begin with. That anyone would leave a fully-laden cargo ship of more than 20,000 tonnes adrift and abandoned just outside Hong Kong territorial waters, ripe for the picking, was more than even the most gullible of Huuk’s men could believe. And yet here it was, apparently exactly as described. It was all far too good to be true.

  ‘Tuan!’

  It was the first word which had been spoken since Huuk and his men came aboard and, in spite of the fact that it was whispered, it was enough to make Huuk’s lithe body lurch and jump with shock. The stubby black barrel swung towards the source of the sound and threatened one of his men who was frozen in the open doorway of the nearest cabin, his face the colour of old ivory, made pale with the depth of his shock. Huuk pulled the barrel of his new gun up until it was pointing at the deckhead immediately above him again. Once again he frowned, concerned that the tautness of his nerves should have frightened one of his men like that.

  But all too soon it became apparent that the man had not been frightened of the gun but had been sickened by what he had found. Huuk stepped through the door and found himself in a double cabin exactly of the sort he would have expected two crew to occupy or one officer to use as an office. And, indeed, just beyond the flip-flops of his own pale man there were the cabin’s occupants. They lay face down, side by side. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Huuk noticed this fact before he registered the pool of blood that they were lying in. The pool of blood congealed upon the linoleum flooring led Huuk to pay closer attention to the backs of the dead men’s heads. He hissed with shock and then at once, almost without thinking, he switched in his iron self-control. Three steps brought him to the edge of the black-red pool. Brutal brightness broke in through the forward-facing porthole with all the dramatic clarity of a spotlight. It played across the backs of the dead men’s head
s, revealing the bullet holes, placed execution-style, dead centre. The power of the light was such that it penetrated the rough circles in the black matted hair and the sharp bone beneath to reveal bruise-black swells of ruptured brain looking as though the ravaged skulls had been packed with ripe black-berries. Without taking a conscious breath, Huuk stepped forward and placed his almost priceless Reebok into the red-black circle and reverently nudged the side of the nearest dead face. It rolled over just enough to reveal the horror beneath. As it lifted, there came the loudest noise to disturb the brooding air aboard the Sulu Queen so far — the long, clear sound of a cotton bedsheet being torn in two. It was the sound the dead man’s face made as it was lifted off the floor.

  Clearly the man had been placed face down on the linoleum and then been executed by the discharge of a heavy-calibre gun immediately behind his head. The bullet had smashed through the head, rupturing the man’s brain and exiting through his face exactly between his eyes, tearing off much of his visage, making the eyeballs themselves explode and shattering the bridge of his nose. The floor was made of steel, covered with linoleum. The bullet had exploded against the metal and released its terrible energy into heat. Shattering, it had bounced back in a perfectly circular wave of molten pieces which had brought the instantly liquefied linoleum with it. Around the edges of the crater which was all that was left of the crewman’s face above the jaw, long strings of rubbery linoleum were indistinguishable from the thickening threads of hair, skin and brain matter. The circle on the floor, lifted like risen dough by the bubbles within the half-melted material, was speckled with bits and pieces of various sizes and colours and covered with the thick red semi-liquid ooze of dried blood. The whole mess reminded Huuk irresistibly of an obscene pizza and he had to be very careful not to vomit. Instead he looked up, his narrow eyes almost invisible behind the slits of speculation. Standing opposite him, beyond the bodies, was his armaments expert Tse Ho.