The Wrecking Crew (Janac's Games) Read online

  The radar would help if he could pick up the island, or the first of those hills, and get a distance and a bearing. That and the depth should be enough for a position fix. The picture was full of junk as the radar signal bounced off waves and rain. He carefully tuned the display to remove the clutter, then glanced over at Richardson, who was keying the GPS from the manual.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered under his breath. But the radar screen was clearing under his deft touch, and the line of hills beginning to emerge. In front of them was a single blip — Pulau-Pulau Nangka Island. He switched the range ring on and dialled it in towards the dying glow of the radar return. The distance measurement clocked down and settled. Eleven miles. Adrenaline started to pump, and he realised how fuzzy his head had been from the wine. But it was clearing now — God knows it was clearing now. It needed only the most cursory glance at the chart to tell him what he already knew.

  Hamnet had started moving when he heard Richardson’s startled splutter. The depth alarm went off a half-second later. All three were too late. The Shawould stopped. Just like that. Nine thousand tons of decaying general-cargo carrier hit the mud bank at a little under nine knots and stopped dead. Hamnet was halfway to the wheel when it happened. He carried on at a little under nine knots, head first, and the bulkhead stayed in place to meet him. The lights went out.

  Chapter 2

  There was a thought, dragging him out of the darkness like a snarling Rottweiler with his arm in its teeth. What was the thought? He had to know. Phil Hamnet opened his eyes. He was instantly engulfed in the bright, white pain of light. His arm went up protectively, eyes clamped shut again. A rush of nausea, choked back.

  Toby Johns, engineer, looked on anxiously as his skipper’s face writhed, every muscle and sinew in the arm and balled fist clenched tight. Johns had watched Hamnet drift close to consciousness for the last couple of minutes, but now he needed him awake.

  ‘Skipper, we have to move you. We’re taking on water in the forward hold. We have a twenty-degree list. Richardson wants everyone aft, on the boat deck. There’s a ship standing by — they’re sending over a boat. He wants to take people off.’

  There it was, the thought. It frightened him. Hamnet let himself drift back into the darkness. But the darkness was going, burning away, the fog of unconsciousness receding before the light. Phil opened his eyes again, this time slowly, carefully.

  ‘It’s OK, I've switched over to the night-light,’ said Johns.

  Hamnet stared into the red gloom. The room was disjointed. Diffracting in watery vision. He moved the protective hand up and gingerly touched the throbbing area on his forehead. It was bandaged, and it hurt like hell. But the thought was crowding him now. His ship, Anna — what had he done? Johns’ words had been merely sounds, shifting frequencies and tones lodged in some preconceptual corner of his mind. But now they had meaning. Water, a twenty-degree list. He’d put his ship on the beach. And Anna — where was Anna?

  ‘Skipper, we have to move. Come on.’

  ‘Anna,’ Hamnet croaked desperately as he struggled to sit up. The movement startled the pain; it charged forward, threatening to engulf and overwhelm him. But this time there was no going back into the darkness. He steadied himself and spoke again, louder this time. ‘Where the hell is Anna?’ The face before him was still blurred, badly lit, but recognition was arriving. ‘Johns, where’s my wife?’

  ‘I'm not sure. I guess she’s on the boat deck with the others.’

  ‘And Richardson?’ He had it now, the knowledge of what he had to do.

  ‘On the bridge.’

  ‘I'm going up there. You go to my cabin and check that my wife has left and gone to the boat deck. Make sure she’s there with everyone else. When you find her, stay with her. Whatever we decide to do, I'm making you responsible for her safety.’ Anna would be furious at such treatment — it wasn’t as though, under normal circumstances, she couldn’t look after herself — but she was eight months pregnant. Johns nodded, his face clear, happy that the skipper was back in charge.

  Hamnet struggled off the bunk. His head was still pounding, his knees were shaky, but he had no time for that. ‘When you find her and get her to the boat deck, call up to the bridge and let me know. Now go.’

  Johns was already moving out of the cabin door. Hamnet stood for a moment, getting used to the tilted deck and his unresponsive legs. He was in the cabin they used as a rudimentary sick bay. The bridge was above him. He staggered to the door and grabbed the jamb, peering out. He saw the torn safety poster on the companionway wall. Its ripped edge spoke of carelessness. Carelessness, the bastard son of negligence. He could feel the sweat chill all over him. This would finish him — he’d never get another boat. He forced the thought away, made himself deal with the here and now, move on. There was a stairwell to the right. He let go of the door and stumbled forward. Gradually his feet and legs began to work, shuffling across the steel deck.

  He could feel the violence of the storm outside, spitting down the companionway from the open starboard-side door. Feel the tremor of the waves on the plates. The seas pounding on a hull that was unable to respond — except by breaking up. He had to get to the bridge and find out what was happening. Could they salvage her? They wouldn’t abandon the ship until the last possible moment. Ships were better than lifeboats. But Johns had said something about another vessel standing by — that would mean safety for Anna and nonessential crew. Then, if Richardson had contained the leak, maybe they could buoy her up and tow her off. They weren’t that far from Singapore. The necessary resources would be available there. But was it worth it for this old boat? Or would the company kiss it goodbye and collect the insurance? Damn it, was he going to lose another ship? He would find out soon enough.

  Arms out either side to steady himself, Hamnet lurched towards the stairwell and turned to start the short climb to the bridge. Then he saw him. If he’d had to do anything more than just fall back under the gravity supplied by the listing hull he wouldn’t have made it. But his legs let him go in a spasm of reflex and he was out of sight. At the top of the stairwell was a man with a sub-machine-gun. There were no firearms on the ship — that was standard industry practice. Now there were voices too, footsteps clattering down the stairs. He pressed himself back quickly, pushing open a door. There was no time to close it. The footsteps stopped momentarily at the bottom of the stairs. He slunk deeper into the room, into the shadow, scarcely daring to breath.

  ‘We can’t take the risk,’ said a voice in an American accent that hadn’t seen its homeland in a while. ‘The fact that they switched the GPS to receive just the satellite signals shows they suspected something. There can be no rumours on the docks in Singapore, you know that as well as I do, Mike. If we let these people go, there’ll be doubt about the sinking. If the insurance company doesn’t pay, we won’t get paid. However much pressure I put on the little prick that owns this piece of shit, he’s already bankrupt in all but name. That’s why he went for this deal.’

  There was a short silence. The musty smell of the room was heavy around Hamnet in the darkness. As heavy as the realisation that had struck him. A heavy blanket of grey, a leaden weight of oppression. And yet there was also wild and stupid relief. Wreckers, pirates — they had got hold of a differential GPS transmitter and sent out false position signals to lure the ship onto the beach. It hadn’t been his fault. These people were conspiring with the ship’s owner to collect the insurance. That’s why he’d had to wait in Muntok on the owner’s orders for a cargo that had never arrived. They had simply been waiting for another monsoon storm to lower visibility and mute the radar.

  The sound of movement. A man appeared in the section of corridor revealed by the open door. He was dressed in battered US army fatigues and calf-high black-leather boots. Hamnet had a side view of a hard, lined face and cropped ginger hair. In the man’s right hand was a big, old-fashioned, six-chamber revolver. There was a tap, tap of steel on steel as he banged the muzzle thoughtf
ully against the wall. When he spoke it was the same American voice as before. ‘Kill the crew and lose the bodies in the hold — I don’t want them found too easily. Launch the lifeboats as well — it’ll give the rescuers something to think about.’

  Hamnet felt the hot flush of fear and panic sweep through him. A second voice spoke — another American accent, but deeper, harsher, more recently from those shores. ‘We’ve found a woman too. She says she’s the wife of the skipper, but he isn’t among the crew. She’s, er,’ — there was a pause; Phil could feel the sneer — ‘with child.’

  The tapping stopped, and with it something inside Hamnet snapped. He started to shake, his mouth open in a silent scream, nails biting into his palms as he fought to control the urge to lash out.

  But the first man was already turning, moving away as he spoke. ‘I'll go and get the manifest and crew list from the master’s quarters. We need to know if we’ve missed anybody else. Keep the crew alive for now — we may need them to flush him out. Tell everybody to stay sharp while they’re unloading.’

  Hamnet had a brief glimpse of the second man striding past the open door — big, stubbled, greying blond hair, dressed in black. Then footsteps were clattering down the stairs as the two intruders headed for his cabin and the working deck. He fought to control an upsurge of anger, then the panic and fear again. Forcing himself to move slowly, quietly, he inched his way towards the door. He peered out into the corridor. It was deserted. Just the heaving of the ocean and the groaning of the ship. The noise was loud enough to hide the sound of anyone moving cautiously. That was both good and bad. He stepped out of the room, gently closing the door behind him — nervous, out in the open, in the light.

  He had to get help. The radio was on the deck above, at the back of the bridge. He could go up the stairs to his left, but he would be completely exposed. There was a crash behind him and he spun round, pulse hammering. The open starboard door swung back and smashed against the wall again, propelled by another violent gust of wind. It beckoned him outside, where there was a ladder to the wing deck on the side of the bridge. That had to be safer, but not on the windward side. He moved quickly along the corridor to port, stepping through and down, into the darkness of the shadow thrown by the interior light. The rain swirled through the air, rising and falling in waves, whipping over his head and away. But it was quieter here on the leeward side, protected from the wind by the bulk of the ship’s superstructure. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  He was looking downwind, which, unless the wind had shifted, was southeast. The leg of the channel they had been trying to turn into had run southeast too. He was sure they had hit the mainland shore by turning the corner too early. With the bow hard aground, the wind and waves had swung the stern, pulling the vessel broadside on to the weather. There was a heavy list to leeward, the ship being pounded that way by the storm. Break-up or capsize was a real possibility.

  To his right, the companionway ran up to the wing-deck ladder and the glow of the night-light on the bridge. Below him there were much brighter white lights, and now he saw motion too. One of the cranes had sprung into life, hauling out crates from the hold. To his left the companionway was unlit, disappearing as it dropped down another ladder to the deck that held the officer’s accommodation.

  Hamnet moved forward carefully, keeping below the rail, in the shadow cast by the lights on the cargo deck. He reached the ladder and started to climb, bubbles of rust rough under his grip.

  The view down onto the cargo deck below him opened up as he gained height. A barge or lighter had pulled alongside to leeward and was being made fast. The covers had been removed from over the centre hold, and men appeared to be unloading the crates of machinery from number three ’tween decks. The rain blew across the scene in sheets, illuminated by the deck lights. There were fourteen pirates that he could see, all armed, mostly locals, plus a couple of whites, who appeared to be controlling the operation. It took him a while to spot what he really should have seen first. Directly below the main cargo crane stood his crew. Huddled together under the guard of brandished weapons, they stood in a variety of attitudes: despair, defiance, resignation. All were soaked to the skin, rain running in rivers off their clothing. Hamnet pressed himself against the ladder in the shadow and counted — all eleven were there. And so was Anna, the flimsy robe glued to her body, feet bare, hair plastered to her face. Hamnet pressed the side of his head back against a rung and stared into the rain-soaked night.

  The Tannoy crackled into life three metres above him, cutting through his anguish. The sound came through the storm sporadically, gusts of wind whipping away half-words. ‘Hamnet. Understand me. Give yourself up, or your crew will die. In three minutes’ time I kill your first officer. Then the rest, one by one, three minutes each. Don’t make me do it. Give yourself up now, Hamnet, and you’ll all be safe.’

  Hamnet slumped on the ladder. A familiar sense of dread was rising in him. What good could he do by giving himself up when they planned to kill everyone anyway? What could he do in three minutes? Or six, or nine? How many would have to die for him to save the rest? If he could save the rest. Seconds slipped by. He was frozen in pain — the pain of memories he thought he’d beaten. But he had to move; if he wasn’t to surrender he had to do something. He glanced up the remainder of the ladder. The door to the bridge was closed against the storm, and he could see it was safe to pull himself up onto the wing deck. He eased himself over the metal rim, keeping low, close to the wall, inching forward. Surely there would be someone on the bridge — they wouldn’t have left that unmanned — and when he opened the door, the blast of weather from outside would instantly give him away.

  The Tannoy crackled again. A hiss of static, then the voice.

  ‘One minute, Hamnet.’

  He still had a clear view of his crew bunched together on the cargo deck. The rain and wind swirled amongst them. One of the pirates pushed into the group and pulled out Richardson, so that he was standing in front of them, body hunched. He had lost a shoe. A fussy, tidy man, whose shirt-tail now flapped in the wind. His hands hung loosely by his side. The pirate raised his gun to the chief mate’s head.

  ‘Thirty seconds. Show yourself, Hamnet, and no one will be hurt.’

  Hamnet buried his face in his hands. There was nothing he could do. He didn’t hear the shot, any sound dispersed by the wind, deadened by the rain. He stared at the water running down his hands. There was a thin, painful wail from the cargo deck, a high-pitched keening. He couldn’t stop himself from looking. Richardson was prostrate on the deck in front of the others. A pool of blood was washing away as quickly as it formed, running in diluted rivers across the deck. Anna was on her hands and knees, vomiting, held by Johns, the man he had sent to look after her. Sent to his death.

  Chapter 3

  Inside Phil Hamnet a terrible rage was slowly building. And as the rage grew, it swept away fear and caution. He stood and opened the door to the bridge. The red night-lights were still on inside, and the glare from the cargo deck threw most of the room into dangerous shadow. His ears gave him the clue he needed — a hiss of static from the radio room, on the starboard side. He strode quickly across the bridge, and was halfway to the door when he heard the words, ‘That you, boss?’

  He accelerated into a run, and got to the door to see a man half out of the swivel chair, reaching for a machine pistol propped against the wall. The man had a hand on the barrel when Hamnet lashed a foot into his groin. The force of the blow both doubled him up and flung him back against the table. His scream of pain was choked off as Hamnet buried the side of a fist in his throat. The blow snapped the pirate’s head back and smashed it against the steel case of the radio. His bones appeared to melt as he slid into a heap on the floor.

  Hamnet wasted no time. He picked up the microphone of the long-range single-sideband radio, hit the emergency-frequency button and snapped down for transmit. ‘Mayday. Mayday. This is the M.V. Shawould. We are aground on t
he south shore of the Bangka Channel and under attack from a pirate crew. Do you read me?’

  He forced himself to wait. Glanced down at the figure on the floor — another Caucasian, more army fatigues. The pinched face had relaxed into a serene expression, in contrast to the signs of violence — blood matting the dark hair and spreading around his feet. It occurred to Hamnet that he had killed the man. The adrenaline rush of hate and rage that had driven him onto the bridge was starting to recede, and he realised he was shaking violently. He pushed down on the transmit button again. ‘Mayday. Mayday. This is the M.V. Shawould. We are aground on the south side of the Bangka Channel and under attack by a pirate crew. Does anyone hear me?’ He released the transmit button. There was another silence, as the message propagated through the rain and into the night.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ muttered Hamnet under his breath, casting an eye anxiously through the door and onto the bridge.

  Then, through the crackle of static, came a response. ‘Shawould, Shawould. This is the oil installation AP Vargo. We receive your Mayday. Please give details.’

  A jolt of relief cracked through Hamnet’s body, but before he could press the transmit key again, the frequency dissolved into static.

  The answer came before he’d had time to formulate the question. The short-range VHF radio strapped on the dead man’s belt told him what was happening. ‘Boss, there’s someone on the SSB. You should get up there.’