Cave Diver

by Jake Avila

  He scanned the banks of the river. The dense riverine jungle was like an alien world, and he knew he would not survive it either.

  ‘Your time is over,’ he said aloud. He would not see his beloved wife, Amirah, his son, Intan, or his three grandchildren again.

  The thought of them gave him pause. Even if he was consumed by the jungle, what if they took retribution on his family?

  Inshallah.

  He was too old to fight, too old to run – and that only left one option. He had to get word out about the evil happening here.

  Old muscles a-quiver, he began lowering the tender.

  Chapter 34

  Only by the dim light of a dying watch did Rob Nash know it was dawn outside. Even so, it took him more than an hour to summon up the courage to make the long swim back out of the darkness. The jade glow of the entrance pool welcomed him in like an old friend, but its comfort was fleeting. His sleepless vigil had provided no answers, and the hollow pit in the centre of his chest had returned.

  Huddled on a rock, trying to get warm, Nash was startled by a single thunderclap high above the escarpment. The wet was coming. Although it would buy him time, the thought of diving inside the flooded guts of the great submarine looming overhead made him feel even more chilled.

  A short time later, a huge green military chopper lumbered overhead, its enormous blades threshing down a thick rain of leaves and insects. Nash was baffled. Why all the subterfuge and needless death if General Suyanto had intended flying up here in the first place? Soon, he heard the snarl of chainsaws and guessed they had lowered men to cut a landing pad. There was a break, and then the chainsaws started up again. One helicopter left, another arrived, then Sura’s Jet Ranger flew overhead back up to the cave.

  All the anger and frustration at being trapped down here like an animal in a pit erupted, and he roared ‘Bitch!’ at the top of his lungs. It echoed around the sinkhole, and he yelled it again for good measure. The release of anger ignited something in his belly – a ball of radiant heat. Instinctively he knew it would need to burn a whole lot brighter if he was to survive.

  There was activity above, lots of swearing in Indonesian, and then eventually a rope and harness were sent down. Nash was hauled up by a team of soldiers in red berets, who roughly manhandled him at gunpoint. He was stunned to see they had already erected a camp next to a huge helicopter gunship. In a mess tent, he was given a bowl of spicy goreng. After twenty-four hours without food, he ate fast, cooling his traumatised throat afterwards with a bottle of iced tea.

  A shock of blonde hair through the fly screen drew his eye. He was already on his feet when Mia Carter was pushed inside the tent. She was in a man’s collared shirt, which was too big, and her hiking trousers were torn and bloodstained.

  ‘Mia!’

  Her eyes lit up and he pulled her to him.

  ‘Oh my God, Rob.’ They embraced, and then she pulled back to search his face. ‘What happened? You look . . . different.’

  ‘So do you.’ One side of her face was swollen, and she had a nasty black eye. ‘Who did this – Boerman?’

  A tremor of rage passed through him, and all he could think of was tearing the Afrikaner apart.

  Two sweating soldiers carried Douglas in on a grubby canvas stretcher and placed him on the ground. The old pilot was gaunt and ravaged, but undoubtedly alive. Delighted, Nash dropped to one knee to embrace him.

  ‘Uncle Frank! I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.’

  ‘I have some fine fellows and this angel of mercy to thank for that.’ Douglas smiled at them both. ‘Jeez, it’s good to see you, laddie.’ The old pilot was choking up, something Nash had never seen before.

  There was movement outside, and the two soldiers came to attention as Sura and a well-dressed Indonesian officer with a supercilious air came in. Seeing the rage in Mia’s eyes, Nash knew he had a new enemy.

  ‘This is your illustrious cave diver?’ Alatas chuckled sceptically. ‘He looks more like a drowned rat.’

  ‘The rain is coming, Kapten,’ Sura said curtly. ‘Mr Nash, you have your friends as promised. I want you inside that submarine, planning your strategy should diving become necessary. Be ready in an hour.’

  A distant roll of thunder underlined her instructions and, with a glance at Alatas, she led him out of the tent. The two soldiers took up position outside and another chopper flew overhead.

  Nash stared at Frank and Mia. ‘Why didn’t they just fly us up here?’

  Mia explained these were not Suyanto’s men.

  ‘You think Sura is double-crossing her father?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past her,’ muttered Douglas.

  With an hour to spare, they filled in the gaps. For Mia, the realisation that the Ford Missions were built on Axis gold was painful to reconcile with their purpose. Nash tried to put her at ease.

  ‘From the transcripts I read, Paul Ford’s father was no Nazi. So maybe it was about making amends?’

  ‘But wouldn’t it have been better to just come clean? I mean, is it really charity when it’s someone else’s money?’ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘They burned the mission when we left. What a tragic and stupid waste.’

  Nash told them about finding the sub, and what he knew of the Hoosenbeck system.

  ‘There’s a flooded exit passage at the bottom of the sinkhole. Last night I went in there looking for answers, but I didn’t find any.’

  Mia took his hand. ‘They’re not going to let us go, are they?’

  ‘Any ideas, Frank?’

  The old pilot lowered his voice. ‘The border is only ten klicks away. If we snatch one of these helicopters, I could fly us to Tabubil in less than half an hour.’

  Nash cleared his throat. ‘Are you really in a fit state to fly?’

  ‘Help me up.’

  Together they got Douglas into a sitting position and, after checking no one was watching outside, pulled him to his feet. He swayed, but stood on his own, before taking a tentative couple of steps and turning around.

  ‘Reckon I can make ten klicks.’ He chuckled at Mia’s amazement. ‘Maybe we should find that old witch doctor and cut a patent?’

  Nash grinned. ‘What’s to stop them following us over the border, Frank?’

  Douglas let Mia ease him down before answering.

  ‘Tabulil is the site of the Ok Tedi mine, one of PNG’s richest. I can’t see them coming in after us with a few hundred foreign mining workers watching on, can you?’

  It was a logical destination, but Nash had plenty of doubts. Douglas may have been able to stand up, but he looked like a living skeleton wobbling on his last legs, and there was still the question of how they were going to pull it off.

  Mia gave Nash a worried look. ‘Is there any other way?’

  ‘The gorge is a dead end hemmed in by thousand-metre cliffs. Even if Frank was healthy, they’d catch up with us long before we reached the Sepik. But I don’t know how we’re going to steal a chopper without a firefight. You said these Kopassus soldiers are special forces.’

  ‘Trained killers,’ confirmed Douglas. ‘I counted twelve troopers and the gunship pilot. Then we’ve got Boerman, Sura, and Hartono and that scumbag Alatas.’

  ‘Seems like long odds.’ Mia shivered, wrapping her arms around her knees.

  ‘But a dark night will go a long way towards evening things up. What we need is a diversion. Look for explosives, a gun, even fuel to start a fire. I heard them say they think the salvage will take a couple of days, so keep your eyes open and take the opportunity when it presents itself. When the shit hits the fan, don’t hesitate. And if we can’t get a chopper, you run, and you keep running.’ Douglas looked steadily at Nash. ‘And don’t bloody worry about me – agreed?’

  Taken at gunpoint to the sinkhole edge, Nash was amazed to see they had already constructed a scaffold of clamped steel props, which jutted out to support a heavy-duty block and tackle. A thin cable led down through the jumbled log pile. Sura was waiting w
ith one hand on her hip and a walkie-talkie in the other.

  ‘You will assist Jaap with the survey,’ she instructed, as he was fitted with a head torch and harness, ‘and report to me on the logistics of removing the gold and the opium.’

  He blinked at her. ‘Opium?’

  ‘According to the manifest, there were three tonnes bound for pharmaceutical plants in Germany.’ Impatiently, Sura indicated the end of the gorge, where dark clouds were massing over the escarpment. ‘Should you prefer working dry, I suggest you stop asking questions and get a move on.’

  They lowered him through the precarious log pile where, swaying from side to side, he caught sight of a sweaty Boerman bulging out of too-tight shorts and a vest. The Afrikaner had been busy constructing a plywood gantry, stayed with half a dozen steel cables, which led like a gangway to the split in the submarine’s belly.

  The haphazard affair swayed underfoot as Nash tentatively detached from the cable. Typical Boerman! And it was a sickening straight drop of fifty metres to the floor of the sinkhole, with one lousy guide rope to hang on to. Nash hadn’t planned on looking down, but halfway across, he couldn’t resist checking the crescent pool. Its area had already increased by a third as it crept across the sinkhole floor, and Nash realised the lonely beach he had spent the night on must now be completely flooded. Had he stayed another hour . . . he’d be dead.

  The gantry bowed and creaked ominously as Boerman joined him. Taking a secure hold of Nash’s harness, he bared his big teeth in a grin.

  ‘I go, you go. Now, tell me what is happening down there.’

  ‘It’s raining in the mountains and the run-off is entering the Hoosenbeck Cavern and finding its way into the sinkhole from below.’

  ‘Ja, ja, Nash, I know that, but how?’

  ‘This sinkhole must be on a side branch of the underground river. As its volume increases, it’s backing up and filling the sinkhole from below.’

  Boerman’s frown betrayed his incomprehension, and Nash used his hands to demonstrate.

  ‘The underground river runs from the exit passage you almost drowned us in, remember? To the resurgence, two kilometres downstream.’

  He did not share with Boerman what was going to happen once the subterranean discharge reached full capacity. Then, the Hoosenbeck Cavern would quickly overflow and pour down the old river bed; a torrent of white water would plummet into the sinkhole, and that huge passage he had free-dived would become a raging rocky drainpipe, at least a kilometre long! Just the thought of it made him shudder. Thank God he was never going back in there again.

  ‘Enough chit-chat.’ Boerman propelled him towards the submarine. ‘Now we work.’

  Bracing himself on the swaying plywood, Nash stared into the cavernous belly of the I-403. Inside the twin fused inner pressure hulls, dark passageways ran near-vertically towards the bow-like elevator shafts. There was another deck above this one, but from this angle he could not see far inside. Looking aft, he saw the hull had split along a bulkhead dividing the offset control room on the port side. The huge double-height space incorporated the base of the conning tower. A periscope dangled down, its bronze handgrips seemingly awaiting a captain’s guiding hand. Porcelain gauges gleamed whitely through their rusting cases. He could see levers and valves, the frames of rotted seats and an illegible sign on the wall.

  ‘You first, Nash. We’ll start with the bow.’

  Nash craned his head up. The long narrow tube was unnerving. God only knew what it would be like underwater.

  The big man gave him a shove. ‘Move your yellow ass, man.’

  Placing his right boot on a severed hull plate, Nash grabbed a broken steel beam and climbed inside. The experience was disconcerting, like being in a condemned apartment building that had frozen while toppling over. Nash tested every rusty handhold as he climbed. Many proved unsafe, and it was slow going. Resting on a horizontal door frame, he looked inside a small cabin scoured out by raging water. By the remains of a single bed frame, he guessed it had belonged to an officer.

  ‘God verdomp,’ Boerman growled behind him. ‘Hurry up.’

  After fifteen metres and twelve empty cabins, the vertiginous corridor terminated in a bulkhead hatch which Nash didn’t like the look of. Assuming that it could be opened, it looked poised to slam down on their heads, and he looked back enquiringly at Boerman.

  ‘Get out of the way,’ he snapped impatiently.

  Nash crouched on the wall of the adjacent cabin and watched the big man take a lump hammer from his belt. Like a blacksmith, he pounded the steel surface while Nash put his fingers in his ears to muffle the deafening clangs. The big man now grabbed on to the handle, swung his legs up and locked them into the sides of the passageway. Letting rip with a stream of unintelligible Afrikaans, he began to exert pressure. Hidden muscles on his arms popped out under the strain. With a shriek of protesting metal, the handle suddenly gave. With a grunt of satisfaction, Boerman began winding the door open.

  Nash could hardly stand it. At any moment, he figured the heavy door would drop down and bat Boerman into well-deserved oblivion. But he was to be disappointed. As an internal hatch, it was hinged to swing away from the control room – so as to protect it in the event of an emergency – and Boerman needed all of his brute strength to shove it up and over.

  Abruptly, the dank smell of a rarely visited basement washed over them.

  ‘Fucking unbelievable!’ Boerman exclaimed. ‘The water never got in here!’

  They were stepping back in time. The cabins were exactly as they had been abandoned more than seven decades ago. Beds were still made, albeit dangling from the wall, their linen black with mould. Threadbare caps and uniforms hung askew from hooks. Mottled pictures of loved ones, bags and belongings lay scattered in corners. Traditional Japanese items evoked the land of the rising sun: tatami mats powdering in a pile; shattered saki bottles and tea sets; a katana samurai sword.

  Nash felt like a grave robber disturbing a tomb. Boerman had no such qualms, and eagerly rifled through the artefacts. In the next cabin, they found a mouldy black uniform with death’s head badges, and a sleek machine pistol still shining under a thick layer of grease. Boerman picked it up and cocked the mechanism.

  ‘A fucking’ MP40 he breathed. ‘It’s in mint condition! I could pop you with it right now, Nash.’

  The Afrikaner had a worrying look in his eye that Nash recognised from the massacre.

  The last cabin in the compartment was the only one fitted with a solid steel door.

  ‘It must be a strongroom,’ said Boerman eagerly.

  Perhaps expecting it to be locked, he wrenched the handle and pulled. The heavy door swung down like an axe and slammed into the wall with a loud bang, missing Nash by millimetres. Boerman nonchalantly clambered inside.

  ‘Get up here, Nash. I need more light.’

  The tiny room was clearly a security store. Rows of empty lockable drawers lay in piles. The big man began tossing them out, and they clattered and banged eerily down the long passageway.

  ‘Ha!’

  Boerman reached into the far corner. There, in the middle of his wide hand, a golden ingot gleamed under their torch lights.

  ‘One bar?’ Nash tried not to sound too pleased.

  ‘There will be more.’

  It was much easier to open the next bulkhead door. On the other side they found a dry passageway of storerooms filled with jumbled piles of swollen tins of ancient food, and sacks of rancid rice flour hardened into bricks. Nash spotted an intact bottle of blue kerosene and a carving knife in a galley, but with Boerman watching his every move, he could do nothing beyond note them for future reference.

  The final bulkhead door led into the torpedo room. Here, every possible thing that could be dislodged had been flung backwards when the submarine crashed down. Nine-metre torpedoes had slid back out of their cradles like a collapsing stack of lumber, and the crumpled propellers were blocking the bulkhead door like a portcullis. Surveying the tan
gle of lethal debris above his head, Nash was amazed it hadn’t blown.

  Boerman led them back down to the second section and located a side door, which gave them access to the port-side pressure hull without having to go all the way back to the split amidships. There was no corresponding strongroom on the lower port side, but they found a ladder accessing the top deck, which had also remained dry, and from here were able to double back around to the upper starboard side.

  ‘You see,’ Boerman said happily, standing before an identical strongroom door. ‘What did I tell you?’ Finding it locked, he beamed. ‘Now we’re in business.’

  After a nerve-racking climb down, they returned to the gantry below the split hull and clambered into the ghostly control room. Here, even Boerman could make no impact on the bulkhead doors leading aft.

  ‘No matter,’ he reasoned, spitting on his inflamed palms. ‘We’ll cut our way in to the opium.’

  Then he ran untethered to the end of the gantry. Victoriously holding up the ingot of gold and the MP40 he expanded his mighty chest and roared ‘Banzai!’ at the top of his lungs.

  Chapter 35

  The Kopassus command post was a spacious TNI standard-issue twenty-man army tent with sealed floor and ridge poles. A desk and a computer had been set up, along with several folding chairs, a large whiteboard, two powerful fans and crates of assorted equipment. Outside, a generator purred quietly.

  ‘You’ve done well at short notice,’ Sura told Alatas, who was pouring them drinks at the small fridge. ‘This is very civilised.’

  It was strange how the man always looked like a well-pressed peacock, no matter the circumstances. She supposed it helped having a corporal as a personal valet.

  ‘Your father doesn’t do things by half. Neither do we.’

  ‘Is that inter-service rivalry, or something more primitive?’