The Ocean Dove

by Carlos Luxul

  ‘It’s in the AIS archive. I plotted it all out.’

  Lars scratched his chin and took a swig of beer. ‘But it doesn’t mean anything.’

  On that I disagree … Dan thought, but he left the comment to ride as he sifted through other details in his mind. Last week, when Lars had emailed the Danske Prince’s voyage information, the shipowner’s statement had added something new: the sale of guns to the Indian navy hadn’t been a separate contract. Bofors had sold twelve guns in total. Four were shipped in March, four in July, and the last four loaded in November – on the Danske Prince. All three shipments had been contracted for by the Danske Prince’s owners. The two earlier voyages had delivered the cargo without incident and, during the July shipment, the ship also called en route at Port Elizabeth.

  ‘What do we know about the Ocean Dove?’ Dan continued. ‘Based in Sharjah. Run by a Turk. Egyptian master. Muslim crew.’

  ‘Yeah, but they got a good name. The master was on it when she was a Claus Reederie ship. He’s one of us, for fuck’s sake. Isn’t he? I asked around. They’re good operators, a good crew, good guys.’

  ‘Are they? The 9/11 guys all had pilot training and everyone said “But they were just like us.” We don’t know, do we? Terrorists aren’t just picked up off the street any more. They’ve got relevant backgrounds, skills, education. They blend in.’

  ‘Terrorists. Who’s saying terrorists?’

  ‘No one’s saying it. But who else would want four Bofors guns and ammunition? I ran all the Ocean Dove crew names through our systems and none of them registered, but I didn’t expect them to. And where did the Ocean Dove go straight after the accident? To the shipyard at Bar Mhar. The boss there is an expert in naval weapons installation – it says so on his LinkedIn page.’

  Lars’s forehead creased. ‘LinkedIn … is that what terrorists do now, put their CV on LinkedIn? Are you serious?’

  ‘The Ocean Dove was there. Twice.’

  Lars looked down, tapping his pockets and pulling out a tobacco pouch. He started to roll a cigarette in silence.

  ‘Look, the AIS says they were not there,’ he said after a while, putting his part-rolled cigarette down again. ‘At one time she was eighteen miles ahead when the Prince was just sitting there. Then she turned and was twelve miles away when the screen went, you know, finished. All the timings add up. The AIS on both ships and the InMarSat beacon on the Prince. It all adds up.

  ‘And one more thing,’ he added, picking up his paper and tobacco before putting it down again. ‘This you don’t know but we checked everything. We got help from the AIS guys, from InMarSat, and the Danish navy, and they got help from the American navy – you know they got all kinds of satellite stuff. So, we analyse all the sats. We plot all the ships. And there’s nothing in the area any time, just the Prince and the Dove. Okay, the American sat isn’t always clear and doesn’t cover the exact area, but it covers the next areas, so when there’s a gap there’s no time for a ship to be there before the gap closes. So we know there were no ships there, just those two, eh?’

  Dan chewed it over for a moment. ‘Did the Americans or your own security services say anything unusual to you, ask any strange questions?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Lars said, opening his hands.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you did that,’ Dan said, ‘but I never thought there was a third ship, and I don’t believe the data just because that’s what it says. It’s just computers.’

  Lars looked up from kneading his tobacco. ‘But there was nothing funny this time. We checked, all systems working, nothing funny. Okay?’

  Dan weighed it, noting the rising frustration a few feet across from him. ‘I don’t doubt the explosion, just how it happened,’ he said, willing a conciliatory tone to his voice.

  ‘No,’ Lars said, ‘and we weren’t there. We don’t know what the crew was doing at that moment. Maybe someone sees something, they hear something, smell something. Maybe they’re checking and then … It’s always total shit, you know that. Things start small, something stupid, and it just goes from there.’

  ‘A chain reaction.’

  ‘Yeah, a chain reaction.’

  Dan left it to settle before saying, ‘You going to smoke that?’

  ‘We can go out – fresh air?’

  ‘No problem,’ Dan said. ‘I’ll just open the window a bit.’

  In its reflection he saw Lars get up and head to the back of the room, to the bathroom. Dan thought about what he had learned. Not much so far. Though what Lars had said about the satellite analysis had been pertinent. InMarSat, the International Maritime Satellite Organisation, though now a private communications provider, had its roots in the maritime world. Its privatisation charter demanded it maintained its distress assistance to the world’s ships and planes, which it tracked through beacons – or blips on a screen. AIS was also just blips on a screen, but both AIS and InMarSat provided accurate data. More valuable perhaps was the eye-in-the-sky technology of the US military, which gave real imagery of real things. The middle of the Indian Ocean was nobody’s idea of a global priority, so resources were not thrown at it. As Lars had said, the satellite had holes in its coverage. But if something, a ship, had been in such a hole, then it stood to reason that at other times it must have been on another side of that hole, and this, as Lars had said, they had proved was not the case. If something wasn’t somewhere at a certain time, it was impossible for it to be somewhere else at another given time. Ships were large and ponderous movers. They couldn’t jump around and dodge satellites at will.

  ‘I don’t like it. I mean this whole thing,’ Lars said, emerging from the bathroom. He went over and stood by the window, searching his pockets for a lighter. ‘Terrorists?’ he added, shaking his head. ‘Shit, they’re just seamen, good seamen. They went to help. You know it.’

  ‘Another thing,’ Dan said. ‘What about the salvage? That would at least tell us if the guns are at the bottom of the Indian Ocean – and maybe the crew.’

  Lars was slow to reply, exhaling smoke heavily at the window.

  ‘There’s not going to be salvage,’ he said quietly. ‘Too expensive and no budget. Only two or three companies can do it that deep and they’re busy. We got a rough price – eight million dollars, and then more,’ he said, looking back out into the darkness.

  Dan turned to the window as well, to the darkness, but the real darkness he was seeing was at the bottom of the Indian Ocean in its deepest trench.

  ‘Six thousand metres. Convenient it’s so deep there, but in other parts quite shallow …’

  Lars’s face coloured, his voice rose. ‘I hear you, for fuck’s sake. But if you think I’m gonna do it for you, or Denmark will,’ he shook his head, ‘think again. We’re a small country. We don’t have all your … you know. I don’t want to know about this any more, and Denmark doesn’t want to know about it, you got it?’

  He looked at his watch, at the door, and was through it in seconds without a backward glance.

  Dan finished the last couple of inches of his beer and stared down at the empty bottle. Went well, he thought, shaking his head softly. Nice bedside manner, Dan. Well done. But that’s not the Lars I know.

  Seven

  Bulent Erkan was waiting behind the ropes as Choukri came through the doors from the immigration hall.

  ‘Hey,’ Bulent called, raising a hand and ducking behind the crowd to meet him. ‘Good flight?’

  ‘Fine. No problem.’

  ‘You hungry? Let’s get dinner.’

  ‘Somewhere quiet,’ Choukri said.

  They stepped through the doors, exchanging air-conditioned marble for concrete that radiated the day’s heat, a cloying humidity refusing to move in the still air.

  ‘Here we go,’ Bulent said as a valet-parking guy pulled up to them, the quiet disturbed by the roar from a powerful engine.

  They turned from the airport road on to the Al Ittihad Expressway that ran through downtown Dubai to Sharjah. Bulent accelerated hard.


  ‘Like it?’ he said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Choukri said, glancing around inside the car. ‘What is it?’

  Bulent looked across. ‘Porsche Cayenne.’

  ‘Oh … can we get pizza?’

  ‘Sure,’ Bulent said, without enthusiasm.

  He knew better than to press it. Ideologically there was little between them, though they set about it from different ends. He was also aware that sometimes he was prone to forget that the shipowner answered to the ship’s mate.

  The restaurant was behind a petrol station close to the Sharjah Expo centre. He had brought Choukri here before and knew its plainness met with his approval: a functional, modern building, but the lights were low, the tables well spaced and the Filipino staff attentive.

  Choukri ordered a Pepsi and Bulent did the same. This was Sharjah, a dry state. He would have to wait until he was home before he could have a cold beer.

  The waiter brought the drinks and some snacks. Bulent watched him put them down and walk away before he shifted his eyes to Choukri.

  ‘So what happened … The Danske Prince?’ he said.

  ‘There isn’t much to tell.’ Choukri shrugged.

  ‘But how did it go?’

  ‘As we planned. In minutes we had the ship.’

  Bulent looked across the table, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘We trans-shipped the guns,’ Choukri continued. ‘It was a good trans-shipment. The crew did well. Then we laid the charges and it sank quickly.’

  ‘And the crew?’

  ‘Like I said, they did well,’ Choukri said, scooping some hummus with his bread.

  Bulent shook his head. ‘Not ours, theirs.’

  ‘Oh,’ Choukri said absently, his mouth full.

  Bulent waited while he chewed half of it, making room to speak.

  ‘Buried at the mine in a container,’ Choukri eventually said before looking up. ‘You’re down a container, but don’t worry. I amended the asset inventory on board.’

  It evidently didn’t disturb Choukri. In the silence Bulent wondered if it disturbed him. He’d spent years with Europeans, got on well with Danes, and knew that individually the crew of the Danske Prince would have meant no harm. But any faith in people was one thing and entirely separate from the collectivity of states. In Germany he’d simply been a Turk, their Turk, their good Turk, who did their bidding. He dealt with difficult Turks in Turkey for them, difficult Arabs in Arabia, difficult Egyptians in Egypt, steering negotiations into a shape and outcome that benefited the German way of thinking. He earned their approval and no little amazement that he was actually capable of doing things the right way, their way, given that he was a Turk, a Muslim, and an altogether inferior being.

  The waiter cleared the dishes away and brought the pizzas and more drinks. Choukri was eating quickly, in silence, concentrating on his food, his eyes lifting only when someone passed in or out of the door. Eventually he pushed his plate away. ‘Khan showed me the firing scenarios. It has to be Moritz. In the morning we meet Rashid.’

  ‘I think Rashid is busy,’ Bulent said.

  Choukri’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then make him un-busy.’

  ‘You know they don’t like Moritz,’ Bulent said, opening his hands and looking across, his head tilted, his eyes requesting reasonableness.

  The eyes across from him only hardened. ‘I know, and we both know why. The old man wouldn’t hesitate, but Rashid …’

  Bulent understood. Moritz would drag STC in as well. In addition, there was a vocal lobby that said it was a sacrifice too far. Rashid’s father was an ideologist, not far from death and keen to go out in glory. Where he stood was clear, while Rashid enjoyed the trappings of wealth and a privileged future.

  ‘And what will you do?’ Choukri said, his tone unconcerned, and, as it seemed to Bulent, even mocking.

  ‘Disappear,’ Bulent replied casually. ‘We all will. And then who knows?’

  ‘And you’re ready to give up all this?’ Choukri said, reaching across and tapping a finger on the Rolex dangling from Bulent’s wrist.

  Bulent looked away but turned his eyes back to meet Choukri’s.

  ‘I might not be sacrificing as much as you,’ he said, with a thin smile and an ironic shake of his watch. ‘But I keep my end up.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The smile on Choukri’s face seemed to signal he was content to have got a rise from him, which Bulent acknowledged with a nod and a raised finger. ‘And,’ he said, ‘don’t push it. Don’t push it with STC. Don’t go in there swinging your muscles around. There’s plenty of people wishing you’d never come up with this.’

  ‘True. But not the Emir.’

  ‘Who’s changed his mind before,’ Bulent said.

  Choukri placed his hands flat on the table and leant in. ‘But I’m not changing mine.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Tomorrow,’ Bulent said, beckoning the waiter over. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’

  As he drove Choukri to his hotel, a three-star affair in keeping with the status of a ship’s mate, Bulent pondered the question – what will you do?

  Playing the international shipowner was fun, enjoying the respect of his peers, the interviews in trade magazines, the seats on panels at conferences. And then he would disappear, leaving people to shake their bewildered heads, thinking they had known him.

  Easing his foot off the pedal and slowing for the turn to the hotel, Bulent glanced across at the back of Choukri’s head. Tomorrow was Friday, the local weekend. Rashid would not be pleased about interrupting his leisure time to meet Choukri.

  Choukri got out of the car and leant down to the window. ‘Give me a call, early.’

  Bulent turned on to the expressway and checked his watch. It was half past nine. He put his phone in the holder and dialled.

  ‘It’s as I thought. He wants to meet in the morning.’

  The line went quiet for a few seconds. ‘Well don’t fucking bring him here. I don’t want him here.’

  ‘It’s Moritz. Your office?’

  ‘Moritz. Shit! Nine o’clock?’

  ‘Have to be eight.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ~

  Choukri checked the television news in his hotel room. CNN was leading with an Istanbul car bomb that had exploded outside Galatasaray’s stadium, just as the crowd were leaving the match. The numbers held his attention for a while, the dead and injured, but faded as his thoughts turned to the wish list. It was still in its infancy but starting to take shape, in his computer and in his mind.

  There were three options for the guns’ targeting programme – computer download of a target’s image, laser guidance and map coordinates. For simplicity, and for the vast majority of targets, he had chosen the last option: map coordinates. For the rest, downloaded images would be used, for which the internet generously offered a multitude of crystal-clear pictures to choose from.

  Long after midnight, with his eyelids heavy, he pushed up from the desk and stepped across to the open window. It has to be Moritz, he thought, and Bulent had been right. There were plenty opposed to it, and tomorrow he had to deal with Rashid, not his father.

  With the warm night air washing over him, he turned it over in his mind. The corporate world held no interest but he understood that, principally, Sharjah Trade and Commerce was a trading house. It dealt in various commodities and also operated manufacturing facilities, a cement works and a chemical plant. In the marketplace the relationship was out in the open. Everyone knew that STC was an important customer for OceanBird. Bulent courted them, serviced the account diligently and conducted all affairs in a textbook fashion. Their contracts were usually legitimate. When they weren’t, and should the shit hit the fan, each had a contingency to distance itself from the other. If arms were found in bags of cement, who put them there? Was it OceanBird or was it STC, or were they both innocent victims of something contrived by a third party?

  But the father was in his sickbed, close to death, and the son was running the compan
y now. He shook his head, regretting there would be no stories tomorrow of the old man’s nostalgia for his youth, the traditions of honour, the feuding and raiding, the bellow of camels, the old Mauser rifles – Turkish relics from the First World War – a few grains of rice and a mouthful of stagnant water, but mostly for a breed of men toughened by hardship. And the glory, especially the glory.

  Eight

  Shortly after nine o’clock on Friday morning, the phone on Dan’s desk rang. The caller’s voice was unfamiliar. He listened. Thirty seconds later he said, ‘Eleven o’clock. I’ll be there.’ Putting the phone down gently, he sat back in his chair. Christ, he thought.

  Fifteen minutes before the hour, Dan set off down Bell Street. The rendezvous was only at Alf’s, but he was certainly not going to risk being late. As he opened the door, he saw LaSalle was there already, pushing up from a table at the side and stepping across to the counter. He was a good few inches taller than Dan had first thought and, though dressed like an academic, carried himself like an athlete.

  His hand enveloped Dan’s own broad hand as though it were a child’s. ‘I understand the coffee’s good here.’ He smiled.

  Dan knew Edmund LaSalle by reputation only: a big beast at the top of the heap, Deputy Director of MI5, though without a specific portfolio, concentrating broadly on strategy and development. He sensed power in everything about him … understated, underlining. Behind those heavy-framed glasses were clear, perceptive eyes. They were not without a suggestion of kindness, but overwhelmingly they spoke of purpose.

  He took a seat at the table, facing him, waiting while LaSalle measured a level teaspoon of sugar, lowered it gently to his cup and stirred twice, clockwise. Dan said nothing, watching, repeating the ritual.

  ‘Rather quaint …’ LaSalle said, a curious smile playing on his face as he pushed an old-fashioned plate of biscuits across.

  ‘This is Alf’s,’ Dan said. ‘He does it his way.’

  LaSalle took a sip of coffee. ‘I’ve looked at your Indian Ocean report. What interests me is how you constantly argue against yourself – rather uncommon here – and at every turn present solid factual evidence for a tragic accident. Yet you don’t believe it?’ he added, looking up.