The Ocean Dove

by Carlos Luxul

  ‘They’re just facts, and they’re only true if you want to believe them.’

  ‘What you choose to believe?’

  ‘Yeah, you’ve got a choice. There’s a fact to back everything up, but only if you want to believe.’

  ‘And you’re not making that choice, you don’t have that faith. While others take them at face value?’

  ‘Yeah. They’ve made a choice.’

  ‘And I’m one of them,’ LaSalle said, an eyebrow rising. ‘Though I must say I understand your argument, which others do too. Though I dare say you don’t choose to believe that.’

  ‘That’s not fair. You’ve just told me. Why wouldn’t I believe you?’

  LaSalle smiled. ‘But we have to make an analysis, on both facts and supposition. And when the factual argument is overwhelmingly more convincing, which it is here, we must be guided by it.’

  He reached across and selected a biscuit. Dan followed his lead.

  ‘I’m not a seagoing man,’ LaSalle continued. ‘But I find the data compelling – the AIS, the InMarSat distress signals, the other satellite evidence …’

  ‘Me too. But I’ve been in these places, on these ships, carrying these cargoes. It’s too neat.’

  ‘Too pat,’ LaSalle mused. ‘Besides, won’t the Danes do our job for us?’

  ‘Forget Denmark. They just want out. I know the guy doing the report and he’s blanking everything. Doesn’t want to know. Too emotional.’ Dan stopped himself, aware for a moment of place and person, realising his voice had risen, that he’d been leaning across, crowding the space, too emotional in his railing against emotion. ‘We weren’t there,’ he continued, sitting back, lowering his tone. ‘We didn’t see it with our own eyes. They’re just blips on a screen. And they don’t prove there’s a ship attached to them. There’s only a ship there if you want one to be.’

  LaSalle snapped his biscuit in half, chewing it slowly, pondering. ‘The digital age … Its grip on otherwise intelligent people … However, I fear the philosophical implications belong in some other forum, and not here, not today.’ He rested the tips of his fingers under his nose, apparently deliberating over the last few words. He glanced at his watch. ‘Interesting discussion, Dan, but we must move on. I understand you’re in touch with Salim Hak?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dan said, wondering where this might be going.

  ‘Good. And what’s next?’

  ‘I’m meeting him, Azmi and Nick Pittman this afternoon.’

  ‘Good. I shall want to know everything to date, and everything that transpires between you, Hak and Azmi, and anyone else connected with your discussions. That’s everything you say and do, everything they say and do – and your observations …’

  ‘My observations?’ Dan said, tilting his head back.

  ‘Your observations,’ LaSalle confirmed, without elaboration. ‘And, for reasons too tedious to go into now, I’m arranging a raid on OceanBird in Sharjah. Or I should say, our friends in MI6 are arranging it.’

  Dan nearly spat a mouthful of coffee out. He straightened in his chair as LaSalle continued.

  ‘Things have been strained between London and the Emirates and we’re trying to rebuild the entente cordiale. I was there last week and we reached an understanding with their new head man, and a little joint operation is an ideal way to develop the relationship. So, will that suit you?’

  ‘Too right it will.’

  ‘Good. And you do not mention this to anyone. It may percolate to the surface, procedurally, in MI6. And should that be so, we’ll deal with it.’ He sighed.

  Dan took a sip of coffee. ‘And do I know about this?’ he said.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘What if they know that I know?’

  ‘Everything has its cost,’ LaSalle said, without irony.

  ‘And you’ll cover JC for me?’

  LaSalle nodded. ‘Keep me updated,’ he said, reaching in his pocket and pulling out a card. ‘Should you need to talk.’ He eased his chair back, ready to leave.

  ‘Just one thing,’ Dan said. ‘Do you believe Al Qaeda’s finished, the “big one” a thing of the past, just mopping up now, the lone wolves?’

  LaSalle sat back again and smiled. ‘You know it’s our policy.’

  ‘Yeah, but do you believe it?’

  ‘Let’s just say that for the mass of our resources it’s prudent.’

  ‘But you think there’s still a chance?’

  LaSalle smiled again. Perhaps, Dan thought, at his persistence, because there was nothing that suggested he was patronising naïveté.

  Eventually he said, ‘I’m not closed-minded to the improbable.’ He brushed some biscuit crumbs from the table to the plate and looked up. ‘I read your file – you’re an interesting man. And, as a naval man, you of all people should know about chains of command and their value, so I won’t labour the point. In my experience, the only men here who indulge the luxury of ignoring their superiors’ orders nearly always have private means or a rich wife. And you,’ he added, ‘have neither.’

  He got to his feet, extending his hand across the table. ‘And don’t forget, I’m not here to save you from JC, and I’m certainly not here to save you from yourself. Just try to bend to the wind, won’t you? In this business we meet a lot of wind and it’s mostly strong and foul smelling.’

  ~

  Dan walked along Millbank, gathering his thoughts. MI6 were just one bridge along the river, westward. It was a cold day with a bright sun filtering through the bare plane trees lining the embankment, though it failed to throw clear light on his coffee with LaSalle. The only thing he knew was that it had been both disorienting and encouraging if he put a conveniently self-centred spin on it. Meeting Azmi would be testing enough, without the disquieting feeling he would in effect be spying on a spy, an infinitely more experienced one than himself.

  But wherever his thoughts ranged, they kept returning to LaSalle. Could the raid simply be a matter of convenience, as implied, with MI5 and MI6 keen to use it just to help patch up a loveless relationship? If that’s the case, why tell me? They could just go ahead and, if something was found that incriminated OceanBird, they could tell me later, should they choose to. He couldn’t understand it fully but was grateful to simply accept it, feeling it had to be a definite step in the right direction.

  Lars was playing on his mind too. Leaving Hull to settle had seemed the best option, but he could not put off the inevitable indefinitely. He hadn’t contacted Lars and there had been no word from Copenhagen. And just how, he reflected, should he have pitched such a scenario anyway? How do you move seamlessly from tragic accident to full-blown terrorist assault? What would have been the best way to dismantle an essentially good man’s entire belief system and traduce his beloved sea and ships?

  Knowing his name would flash up on Lars’s phone, he took it as a positive sign when he heard him say, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Lars, it was good to see you last week and I’m sorry I had to lay all that on you.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I was wondering, now it’s been a while, maybe you’ve thought about it a bit?’

  ‘Yeah, I think about it, and I don’t want to talk about it, okay.’

  Dan stood still, staring at the pavement, gathering his thoughts, but Lars beat him to it, adding, ‘Don’t call me any more about this.’

  The line cut.

  ‘For fuck’s sake …’ Dan sighed, lifting his eyes and meeting the stern gaze of a smartly dressed woman walking a Dachshund.

  It was his first visit to MI6. He lingered, putting off the inevitable, his mind switching between the impending meeting and the phone call. I would have listened to your argument, he thought. I would have respected it. But you didn’t really have one. All you had was blind faith and extra time to confirm your prejudices. Taking a deep breath of cold air, he resolved to shut it out and focus on the here and now.

  He headed over the plaza to the main entrance, stepping across a security moat, the first
of two. The building’s creamy stonework and scarab green paint looked sharp in the harsh winter light, redolent of Egypt, a sphinx stretching languorously down to the river, as pleased with itself as a well-fed cat.

  At the reception counter an efficient woman – one of three – reassured a civilian who seemed anxious about her first experience of an outré world, fearing that once inside she would never be allowed to leave. Dan presented his ID as though it was routine. One of the receptionists phoned through to Hak and indicated a long row of leather seats across the atrium.

  His feet echoed on the stone floor, the sound reflecting from the high ceiling. Letting his eyes drop, he wondered what lay beneath, aware there were numerous subterranean levels housing sensitive departments and data centres.

  The space was momentarily quiet. When he’d stepped through the doors, thirty or more people were criss-crossing. Now there were barely a dozen. With sideways glances, he checked them out: civilians, diverse visitors, contractors, MI5 and GCHQ people and two men with an air of Special Branch about them.

  Obscured behind some exotic plants to his left were four Africans. Three of them sat stiffly in business suits, marginally apart from the remaining one, who was relaxed and resplendent in silks of green, tangerine and purple, his pillbox hat set at a jaunty angle. Across to the right, a Frenchman spoke in hushed English to a clean-cut American.

  After the momentary lull, the atrium was filling again. He recognised a man from MI5, comparing him for a moment with himself, with others, but failing to identify what might distinguish MI6 operatives from their counterparts in MI5.

  From behind the security barrier, Hak beckoned, swinging a lanyard in his hand.

  ‘Looks dangerous, but he’s really one of ours,’ he quipped to the guard.

  Dan held the visitor pass over the scanner and passed through the gate with a forced attempt at an appeasing smile, wondering if ‘everything’, in LaSalle’s book, extended to Hak’s possibly affected insouciance. But he made a mental note all the same, in case it should prove relevant when reporting his observations.

  Hak led the way through the inner sanctum, along a wide, lofty corridor to a row of lifts. The doors slid back with barely a hiss and Dan looked out through a tinted glass wall to layers of terraced geometric gardens, descending to the river beyond.

  ‘Babylon,’ Hak said, his eyebrows bobbing, as the lift rose as effortlessly as a hawk on a thermal.

  Dan hesitated at a ‘Meeting Rooms’ sign, on what he had noted was the eighth floor.

  ‘No, this way.’ Hak grinned. ‘He doesn’t trust meeting rooms. Sees spies everywhere.’

  ‘Even here?’ Dan said, casting a furtive glance around.

  ‘Doesn’t shake hands either. Just give him a nod,’ Hak said as they reached the end of the corridor. After a knock at the door, they stepped through to a large office.

  Befitting Azmi’s status, the fittings were expensive, though the decor was sombre and the bright lighting jarred. To make people feel less comfortable? Dan wondered, noting the low temperature and the seemingly careless, though perhaps contrived, way that the mundane paraphernalia of daily life was draped over and around everything. In the blink of an eye he took in dusty and tattered cardboard boxes haphazardly stacked against a wall, a bicycle wheel, and a grubby hi-vis jacket, partly on an expensive leather sofa and partly on the plush carpet. A waste-paper basket overflowed with food packaging, contributing to the musty scent in the air.

  A man looking at some wallcharts turned and smiled. He introduced himself with an iron handshake – Nick Pittman, Hak’s immediate boss and head of the Pakistan desk.

  ‘And this is Akhtar Azmi,’ he added, sweeping a hand towards the window, ‘head of the Indian subcontinent – 1.7 billion troublesome souls.’

  A small man emerged from behind a mountain of buff-coloured files piled across a large desk. He walked around it without haste and looked up, straight into Dan’s eyes, and said, ‘How do you do,’ with a perceptible nod. ‘Thirty-one million more if you count Nepal and Bhutan, which I am always mindful to do.’

  Both Hak and Pittman acknowledged Nepal and Bhutan with a nod.

  ‘So,’ Azmi said, gesturing to a table at the side of the room. ‘You’ve been with MI5 for a few months now. Settling in well?’

  ‘It’s all good.’

  ‘And you’re keen on brotherly communication between our agencies?’

  ‘Very much,’ Dan confirmed.

  ‘I’m not,’ Azmi replied, turning and casting a weary eye at his desk. ‘I have ample bloody paper, and so many memos from Miss Clymer. They gave me a present at Christmas,’ he added, glancing disdainfully to the floor at his side.

  Dan looked down. A box, still in its wrapping, the sealing tape unpicked – a shredder.

  ‘It was Mr LaSalle who put you on to me, I think?’ he said, switching the subject.

  Azmi nodded. ‘Indeed.’

  ‘He’s well informed.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ Azmi said, matter-of-factly.

  Hak smiled across the table, as if to say don’t mind the old man, he’s just warming up.

  ‘One thing before we get started,’ Nick Pittman said. ‘You know the Ocean Dove arrived in Bar Mhar the day before yesterday?’

  Dan nodded.

  ‘The customs office sent a man to deal with it, and we haven’t seen anything that suggests unusual circumstances.’

  ‘Pakistan customs report to you?’ Dan said.

  ‘Not really. We’ve got an intercept on their server. Anyway, the shipyard asked for a customs officer to be sent and he—’

  ‘When did they send the request?’ Dan cut in.

  Pittman smiled. ‘Twentieth November, I’m afraid – about two weeks before the ship disappeared.’

  ‘So,’ Azmi said, opening a hand. ‘India lost its guns and they’re unhappy. And you lost a ship and you’re unhappy. What caused this accident?’

  ‘Accident,’ Hak repeated, with emphasis.

  ‘Denmark’s running the investigation and it’s going to take a while,’ Dan said. ‘I know about the voyages, the cargo, the way it was packed, how it was stowed on the ship, but not what set it off.’

  ‘Well, tell me,’ Azmi said, opening his hands again in invitation. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘The Danske Prince loaded the guns in Varberg, Sweden, came through the Baltic, round the Skaw peninsula of northern Denmark and dropped down to Rotterdam,’ Dan said.

  Azmi raised a hand to stop the flow. ‘And loaded the ammunition in Varberg?’

  ‘The ammunition too.’

  ‘Continue … all the details please.’

  ‘In Rotterdam it picked up two containers of dynamite for one of the iron-ore mines upcountry from Freetown, Sierra Leone. Then there were three containers of small-arms ammo from England for delivery to the Nigerian Army in Warri, and—’

  ‘Which port in England?’ Azmi said without lifting his eyes, his pencil hovering over a notepad.

  ‘Sheerness.’

  ‘Continue.’

  ‘And the Nigerian cargo was manufactured at one of the old Royal Ordnance plants, now part of BAE – like Bofors.’

  Heads nodded at the mention of BAE.

  ‘From Sheerness it went out through the Channel, across Biscay and down the coast of West Africa. First port of call was Freetown. No problems there, in and out in twelve hours. Five days later they arrived in Warri where they sat for two weeks while the Nigerian military screwed up the import processes. It’s Nigeria …’

  ‘Shit happens,’ Hak said.

  ‘Port Elizabeth in South Africa was next, for fuel and stores, and to load two containers of ammonium nitrate for delivery to Colombo, Sri Lanka.’

  The other three all looked up. ‘Ammonium nitrate,’ Pittman said, making a note in his pad.

  The implication of ammonium nitrate was mutually understood. Its principal use around the world was as a fertilizer, but it could be unstable. Dan knew their thoughts were focused ent
irely on its notoriety as the explosive component of choice in IEDs.

  ‘I’m with you, but the local shipper was South Africa Petrochemical Corporation,’ he said, ‘and the amm-nit trade out of Port Elizabeth is well known, well regulated and totally legitimate. Accidents happen, but this is meat and drink to SAPET and the Danske Prince. They know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Knew,’ Azmi reflected.

  ‘Knew,’ Dan corrected himself. ‘I checked the cargo data. The packing and handling procedures were by the book, the stowage on board, the building of bulkheads in the hold to segregate cargoes – it was all correct.’

  ‘But something went wrong,’ Pittman said.

  ‘Something did,’ Dan said, looking around the table at each of them. ‘Now we move on,’ he continued. ‘The Ocean Dove’s voyage started in Jebil Ali, UAE, sailing directly to Maputo in southern Mozambique, which it left on the Monday morning, heading back north again, where its route converged, quite rightly, with the Danske Prince at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, but always with the Ocean Dove an hour or twelve miles ahead. For the next five days the ships kept pace with each other, with the Danske Prince a few miles behind.’

  ‘Is that normal?’ Hak said.

  ‘Yeah. They were both on the correct route and ships like to follow other ships—’

  Hak looked at him questioningly. ‘They do?’

  ‘The data tells you already who’s around and where they’re going – so you’re kinda familiar. And you can pass useful information, like telling the following ship about a hazard in the water, or just tell them to get their fishing lines out for a shoal of something.’

  They seemed satisfied with the explanation, so he moved on. ‘It’s better if you see this on screen,’ he said, plugging his laptop into the jack on the desk. He projected an image on the wall screen.

  ‘I worked back from the accident site, tracking both ships from when the Ocean Dove left Maputo an hour ahead of the Danske Prince, checking the gap between them and specifically when other ships intercepted them. The Mozambique channel is a busy route, so other north and southbound ships regularly passed by. When they left the channel and fanned out into the Indian Ocean there was still plenty of traffic around, but then it became less. So I set a hypothetical target: when was the first time the ships had a two- or three-hour window when no one would intercept them, when no one was within about fifty miles?’