The Wrecking Crew (Janac's Games) Read online

  ‘So what did they look like?’

  Hamnet described everything he could remember about the two Americans while Dubre listened in silence, scribbling the occasional note in a small book. When he had finished, Dubre snapped the book shut and fixed him with a steady gaze. ‘I’ll have to go back to Singapore to check this out, chap,’ said Dubre.

  ‘Sure. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘It’s not a good idea for me to come back here again soon. Why don’t we meet in Bangkok? I can get some false papers for you while I’m in Singapore — you shouldn’t need them for the journey. Take one of the cheap buses with the backpackers — you won’t have any problems. Have you ever been to Bangkok?’

  Hamnet shook his head.

  ‘Alrighty. There are plenty of cheap hotels around Khoa San Road. They won’t ask any questions and you won’t need papers. We’ll meet at Wat Benjamabophit — it’s near the Chitlatda Palace. I’ll see you in front of the filthy great gold Buddha — you can’t miss it — in exactly a week.’

  ‘We don't have a week.’ Hamnet leaned forward.

  Dubre hesitated. ‘I don’t know how long this is going to take.’

  ‘Three days.’

  ‘No can do, old chap. I've got a lot of other work to clear. Five days.’

  ‘Three. It’s Anna’s life, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Four. I can’t do it in less than that without people wondering where the devil I’m off to in such a flying hurry and why. Take your pick.’

  ‘OK, four days,’ said Hamnet. ‘At eight thirty a.m.’

  ‘Any problems call me at home like you did before. But don’t leave a message if I’m not there.’ Dubre swallowed the last of his coffee and stood up. ‘Maybe I’ll know more when we meet again. I can’t make any promises here, Phillip, even about being of any more help. But I’ll check out this guy — we owe you that much after last time.’

  Hamnet shook his head. ‘No “we”, Dubre, just you and me — OK? I don’t trust those other bastards.’

  Dubre nodded. ‘I remember.’ He pulled a slim camera out of the top pocket of his shirt. ‘I need a photo for your papers. Smile, for God’s sake — it may never happen.’

  ‘It already has,’ replied Hamnet, stretching his lips in a rictus.

  The camera flashed. ‘I guess that’ll have to do. I’ll fly out this afternoon. Have to make it look like it was worth coming. But you might as well get out of here straight away. There’s a midday boat to the mainland.’

  Hamnet nodded. ‘I’ll be on it. Good luck.’

  ‘You too, chap.’

  Hamnet watched him go. Dubre had accepted there were questions about what had happened on the lifeboat that simply shouldn’t be asked. For that reason Hamnet had never had to lie to him. It had been the foundation of the bond between them — until now. Dubre had ambushed him with the question about the fisherman. And he had lied. Dubre had been right — it was different from last time. That bond had been broken. But did Dubre know?

  And Hamnet had killed a man with his own hands. An innocent man. He buried the thought deep. If there were a price to pay — moral, legal or emotional — it would have to wait.

  Chapter 10

  Janac leant over and tapped the mouse with a thin finger. The swirling colours of the screen-saver disappeared and the chart display redrew itself. ‘I would prefer it if you turned that thing off, Jordi. It’s beginning to annoy me,’ he said.

  The man seated in front of Janac turned to the computer and fiddled for ten seconds. Then he glanced over his shoulder at the figure standing behind him. ‘Apologies,’ he muttered, before returning to the box that been holding his attention.

  ‘Is it all right?’ asked Janac.

  ‘It seems so. The power output is down a fraction, but it’s still adequate. Would you like me to start the sequence?’ Oversized ears either side of a thin face twitched a little as Jordi spoke.

  ‘One mile of divergence to the west, input over thirty minutes,’ replied Janac.

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  Jordi pushed a button on the black box, which was the signal generator for the differential GPS transmitter, then snapped a couple of switches on the radar unit beside it. He glanced at the SSB and VHF radios to his right to confirm they were set to the emergency channels. Then his fingers clattered quickly over the keyboard, pausing only briefly to make a couple of adjustments with the mouse. He stopped and leaned back in his chair, a chewed fingernail hovering before the laptop screen. ‘In red is the ship’s actual position; in green is where his GPS is telling him he is.’ The fingernail came up to his mouth while his gaze stayed on the screen.

  ‘OK.’ Janac’s eyes narrowed as they focused momentarily on the back of Jordi’s head. Then he turned to where Bureya was propping up the cabin wall behind him. ‘The RIB ready?’

  Bureya leaned forward slightly to acknowledge. ‘Yes, boss.’ His arms remained folded across his barrel chest. His face was dripping only slightly less than the walls of the enclosed, fuggy bridge of the barge. Condensation streamed off the window beside him. Outside there was only the grey swirl of a dawn fog.

  ‘Weapons check?’

  ‘Complete.’

  Janac pulled the pack of Lucky Strike from the breast pocket of his tunic and snapped the Zippo. After the first deep drag, he looked back at Bureya. ‘You did a good job getting the girl up to Lee’s place. There are some broads there to deal with her.’ He paused for another pull. ‘The kids might be useful.’

  Bureya nodded slowly, heavy eyelids half closed. ‘Thanks, boss.’

  Janac turned back to the screen. The minutes passed as the red and green lines slowly diverged, cigarette smoke adding to the suffocating atmosphere. The green line headed for the Selat Limende channel, while the red line made straight for the Kelemar shoal.

  With the target half a mile from the reef Janac turned to Bureya. ‘Saddle ’em up.’

  The big man pushed himself upright and picked up the automatic weapon beside him. He moved through the bridge door silently. Janac pulled out the heavy Smith and Wesson from his shoulder holster and dropped out the cylinder. A quick spin confirmed what he already knew. He reholstered the weapon.

  ‘Any moment now,’ whispered Jordi. The red line crept off the white of navigable water and onto the green of the shoal. It stopped. Anticipation lay as heavily on the bridge as the fetid air. Finally the SSB crackled, once, twice; then came the urgent tones of accented English.

  ‘Mayday! Mayday!’

  ‘Nice job, Jordi,’ said Janac. ‘You know the script and the codes. Keep me informed.’ He tapped the tiny VHF radio hooked to his webbing belt as Jordi picked up the microphone. He stepped through the door and disappeared forward into the fog.

  Jordi breathed out loudly, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and glanced across at the barge captain. They exchanged the briefest of looks and the tension palpably eased. Jordi pressed the transmit button. ‘Station calling Mayday, this is the freighter MV Hope. What is your position and your situation?’

  Janac tossed the bow line down and swung himself into the RIB in a single motion. The twin outboards burped and puttered. Janac took the wheel, clunked the motors into gear and swung the boat slowly away from the side of the barge. He snapped the VHF off his belt. ‘How we doing, Hope?’

  ‘They’re taking on water quite badly. They’re expecting you and want to get some men off.’

  ‘Roger.’ The stricken ship was only a mile ahead, and the two hundred horsepower of the RIB’s big engines covered the distance across the flat, silent sea in just under two minutes. Lights loomed out of the fog and Janac cut the power. The boat fell off its bow wave and rolled awkwardly as he spun it sideways. Janac turned to the five men stationed in the stern. ‘Tosh, you and the boys under the tarp.’

  Tosh responded with a bob of a grey ponytail and a quiet ‘Aye’ in a soft Scots brogue. He threw the butt of a crumpled roll-up over the side before the fiv
e men flattened themselves onto the deck and Bureya threw a tarpaulin over them. Two remaining Indonesian crewmen in the bow tucked Heckler and Koch MP5 machine pistols under their loose jackets, Bureya following suit.

  ‘You know,’ said Janac, dropping his shoulder holster to the deck as Bureya returned to his side, ‘it’d be a lot more fun doing this with cutlasses in our teeth and the skull and crossbones flying.’ He almost smiled as he hit the throttle and the boat eased forward.

  He slowed again as the RIB drew alongside the steel hull of the stricken ship. It was clear something was badly wrong. The stern was jammed high in the air, exposing half the rudder, and the hull sheered away at a thirty-degree angle. Faces peered from above as a rope ladder tumbled down to the inflatable. Janac held steady beneath it with minor adjustments to the throttle and waved his point-man — one of the Indonesians — upwards. Bureya followed, surprisingly agile for someone of his size.

  There was a shout and a crash just as the American arrived at the top and stuck his head over the rail. Bureya saw his man go down to a blow from a pickaxe handle. Another crewman was wrestling the automatic from his lifeless hands. Bureya ducked and swore loudly as a bottle whistled over his head. He glanced down at Janac and yelled, ‘Trouble!’ as he pulled his weapon out from under his jacket. But he was hampered by his hold on the ladder and the ship’s crew were quicker. The wooden shaft struck his cheekbone as he pushed away from the ship in a frantic effort to avoid the blow.

  Janac was reaching for the revolver at his feet. He didn’t see Bureya bounce and roll wordlessly down the side of the hull, missing the bow of the RIB by centimetres as he smacked into the ocean. But he knew it wasn’t Bureya with the machine pistol as he looked back up. He fired twice, and the soft-nosed, heavy calibre shells exploding against the superstructure kept the gunner’s head down. But they didn’t stop the man pointing the pistol over the rail and opening up blindly. Janac had no choice — he hit the throttle and spun the wheel. The boat launched forward. Over the howl of the engines and the chatter of machine-gun fire, Janac didn’t hear the stifled scream of the still groggy Bureya. But he knew what the bump and churn of the prop meant as he accelerated. He glanced behind even as bullets peppered the fibreglass and rubber around him. The wash turned to blood red in the grey fog as Bureya’s body bobbed briefly into view. Janac slammed his hand onto the console in a white-hot lash of fury before his professional instincts cut in. He snatched the VHF from his belt. ‘X-ray Zebra, Hope, X-ray Zebra,’ he snapped into it.

  Aboard the barge, Jordi started jamming the emergency channels and scanning the others for transmissions from the crippled vessel.

  The RIB was quickly hidden by the fog. The machine-gunner aboard the freighter stopped his barrage. Behind Janac there was an excited buzz from the five men emerging from the tarpaulin. Two of the boat’s inflatable sections had been ripped open and flapped uselessly as they trailed in the water. Seating and deck had been shattered in several places, including less than half a metre behind Janac, who glanced around to assess the damage. A couple of holes were taking water, but as long as the boat kept moving it would be flushed out of the stern. He spun the boat hard on its rail and silenced the crew with a raised hand. ‘Tosh — you and Edi put down suppressing fire.’ He indicated the other two. ‘Grappling hooks, then use the frags.’ As the men prepared the ropes and grenades, the surviving bow-man moved back beside his boss. Janac slid his shoulder holster on, and the engines whined as the hammer went down and the boat sped back to re-engage.

  Janac powered past the stern of the freighter at twenty knots. Bloody foam indicated where the previous action had taken place, but the rope ladder had gone and there was no sign of Bureya’s body. And no heads along the rail. But someone could see them, for the machine gun chattered out again, kicking up a trail of splashes on their port side. The Heckler and Koch’s in the stern immediately opened up and the inbound fire stopped. Janac spun the wheel to bring the inflatable along the other side of the hull. The grappling irons clattered as they found purchase and the ropes pulled taut as the climbers’ hooked up the jumars and stepped into the loops. Nothing moved above. With the boarding party on its way up, Janac took the RIB back out to give the supporting fire a better angle — from just on the limit of visibility.

  An eerie silence descended — sharply broken when a figure appeared heading towards the assault ropes. Tosh was first to react, with a single measured burst, and the figure disappeared from sight. The two boarders were making heavy weather of the overhanging hull. Janac cursed their lack of fitness and technique. With Bureya gone, Tosh, Soey and Edi were the only ones he could rely on. The climbers paused a metre or so from the top. A grenade arced over the rail and went off three seconds later with a flash and a fog-muffled ‘wumf’. The two men followed, and Janac had the boat back under the ropes as the machine guns opened up above him.

  Tosh, Edi and Soey were on their way as Janac waved the remaining man to the wheel. As he started to climb, the gunfire stopped. He slid over the rail, the Smith and Wesson in his hands. He appraised the situation with a glance. His five men held covering positions that commanded the aft deck. He could see little beyond fifty metres, and an uneasy silence fell once more. The fog seemed to soak up sound as well as visibility.

  Janac indicated as he spoke. ‘Tosh, take your buddy and go to port. Edi, you and your man hold starboard. Kill anything that moves, but don’t start to clear inside until we’ve got the bridge. Soey, with me.’

  The two other pairs moved off cautiously as Janac led Soey towards the starboard companionway to the upper decks. He walked with a soft but solid step, upright, the barrel of the Smith and Wesson cradled business end forward in the crook of his forearm, following his eyes. The bridge-deck lights glowed above him. The pair passed two steel doors, both locked. There was a crash and the extended clatter of automatic fire from below. Finally, the radio on Janac’s belt buzzed with Tosh’s voice: ‘We got three.’

  A ladder led up to the wings of the bridge, looming overhead. No movement, no sign of resistance, but Janac didn’t like it: the bridge and the radio room were the places to make a stand. He backed up, checking the white steel wall that rose sheer two storeys above him, retreating to the far end of the walkway. Here, a service ladder ran upwards. He indicated to Soey, who slung his shotgun onto his back and started to climb. The pair paused as they drew level with the wing deck, but there was no sign of life. Once on the roof of the bridge they eased forward, Janac checking cautiously over the edge until they were above the side windows. He took the two grenades proffered by Soey, ‘On three.’ he said.

  A quiet count and the pair dropped lightly onto the wing deck below them. Soey‘s feet had hardly touched when the shotgun tore out the window. Janac lobbed the grenades through the hole and both men flattened themselves against the wall as the explosion ripped through the bridge. Janac snapped open the door and led inside with revolver and torch raised. Nothing moved in the gloom. The beam danced over the wreckage of paper, plastic and glass. Still nothing. Then he heard a plaintive cry from the back of the bridge. He flicked the beam up and found the radio room, with two figures prone on the floor. Both stunned by the blast, one bleeding from the ear drums.

  Janac strode towards the shattered pair. He raised his revolver to the closer of the two officers. The blood from the man’s ears was spreading a stain across his white shirt. He stared blankly up the barrel’s darkness with no apparent comprehension. Janac put a bullet through his forehead, and the top of his skull was whipped back into the second man. The mess of brains in his lap appeared to shake the survivor out of his stunned state. Fear flooded his face as the blood drained from it. The revolver crashed out again, and he, too, parted company with the top of his head. With the sound still ringing round the bridge, Janac lifted the radio. ‘Bridge is secure, begin clearing, no prisoners, repeat, no prisoners.’

  The radio confirmed the order and Janac clipped it back on his belt. He glared at the chaos around
him. ‘Fuck!’ he swore. ‘So, Phillip Hamnet, what are you going to make of this little fiasco?’

  Chapter 11

  Hamnet woke up sweating. He had gone to sleep sweating, too. He opened his eyes. Less than half a metre from his face a ceiling fan circled in leisurely fashion through air so heavy and moist you could wring it out. He watched it for a while, slowly absorbing place and circumstance into a mind befuddled by lack of sleep. Bangkok. The trip had been simple enough, but the time had passed so desperately slowly. Every minute on the boat, on the bus, in the fraught heat of this nightmare city, spent while Anna’s fate remained unknown.

  But today he was to meet Dubre. He sat up quickly. ‘Ahh!’ He had forgotten about the fan. He fell back on the bed, and it was all he could do to hold back the tears. The desire to pull the sheet over his head to make it all go away was almost overwhelming. But today was a day that had to be faced — somehow. He rolled out of the bunk and dropped heavily to the floor, then peered through red-rimmed eyes at the room around him. A dozen bunk beds, in four three-tiered arrangements, all painted a hard, metallic grey. Inert forms in five of them. The wreckage of several budget world tours was scattered about: backpacks, T-shirts, damp towels dangling. The hostel was a pit, but Dubre had been right. In the cosmopolitan crush of budget travellers, no one noticed a solitary, melancholy Englishman.

  Hamnet dressed slowly in the cheap shorts and T-shirt Dubre had provided, then walked down the corridor and through the single room that was lobby, restaurant and bar all in one. Tanned, pierced and pony-tailed youths sprawled and chatted over coffee. Hamnet glanced at his cheap new watch and kept walking. He had plenty of time but no stomach for breakfast. Outside, a side street was crowded with the bustle of a market. The smell — that humid putrescence of which all Bangkok seemed to be possessed to some degree — grew steadily as he approached. Already his shirt was clinging to his sweating body and dirt sticking to the cotton. But Hamnet didn’t notice any of it.