The Wrecking Crew (Janac's Games)

by Mark Chisnell

  When he woke the ground under him was damp and cold. He knew instantly where he was. The sunlight had gone. He checked his watch in the bluish artificial light that crept through the slits in the trapdoor. It was ten in the evening. Six hours had slipped away like water through sand. He struggled to his feet, pain jabbing at him from cramped and stiff corners of his body. ‘Janac!’ he tried to scream, but there was only rasping. His throat was parched and painful. He’d had nothing to drink for over twenty-four hours. ‘Sons of bitches,’ he moaned to himself. ‘Come and get me. Please come and get me.’ But there was only silence. Not even the sounds of the camp reached him down here. Loneliness swept over him like flood water. He was so close, but so helpless.

  The sun woke him with its light and heat. Hamnet couldn’t believe he had slept. Couldn’t believe he had been left there. If the bastards wanted to torture him to death, why couldn’t they do it personally so he could beg for Anna’s life?

  His watch told him there was little time left. He could never have imagined, even in his worse nightmares, that he would set Anna’s execution date. He could picture Dubre, anxious to slit open the envelope, hovering by the phone. The news would be flashed out as a Navtex warning and the whole world would know in moments. And she would die wondering why he hadn’t come. Wondering where he was, where he had been on the Shawould. Why he hadn’t been there for her. She filled his mind with her touch, her smell, her voice, her laughter. His throat tightened and choked. The tears came now, as the sun burned its arc and took away the time. He wanted more than anything — more than it was possible to believe anybody could want anything — to see her. The tears rolled unbidden and unstoppable.

  It was a change in the light that told him something was happening. Dappled sunlight had been replaced by a bald glare, as if from a spotlight. He looked up and saw the trapdoor had been raised and a couple of faces were peering down at him. Expressionless, shadowed by the brightness behind. Hamnet had no words, choking on his emotion, on a throat that had screamed itself to incoherence. A ladder appeared over the rim of the pit and slid down towards him. He dragged himself up it into the daylight, struggling to keep his balance without the use of his tied hands. There was still time. ‘Janac?’ he managed, as he crawled over the edge, gazing at the figure before him. The man nodded, prodded him to his feet with a rifle butt and waved him forwards. As he staggered upright, he managed another glance at his watch: it was just before eleven.

  With the rifle in his back he stumbled towards the closest barrack block. The heat was searing, and he was weak from lack of food and water — giddy, struggling to hurry but his cramped legs and twisted ankle not cooperating. Sweat and dirt permeated his clothing, were ingrained in every pore and fold of skin, matted his hair. He fell, and there was a soldier at his elbow, shoving, pushing him up. The world closed in on him, and he focused only on the next yard of dirt, the next step. Then the hand under his arm let him go. He sagged to his knees, head hanging, trying to gather his strength. Janac, he knew that he needed Janac. There wasn’t much time.

  ‘Give him some water,’ said a familiar voice.

  Hamnet raised his head in recognition. There was an overwhelming sense of relief — and with it, of strength regained. He was here. There was still time to see her. It was too late to get her out before the news broke, but he was sure he would at least see her.

  A water bottle was shoved in his face. The precious liquid felt heavy and warm in his stomach. He mistimed a swallow, choked and spat. The water bottle was gone. He shook his head and wiped his mouth on his shoulder. He was facing a semicircle of men, most standing, some seated at a heavy mahogany table. Nearest of those seated, at one end of the table and turned towards him, was Janac, legs crossed laconically, thin fingers resting on a kneecap, cigarette smoke drifting into the still air. He appeared to be wearing the same fatigues as on the Shawould. Certainly the same heavy revolver lay on the table beside him.

  Janac turned to an elderly Chinese figure sitting opposite and raised his eyebrows curiously. ‘What’s this, General?’

  ‘We think he is crazy trekking tourist, but he want you,’ said the general, hands folded neatly in front of him, his green tunic spotless.

  Janac stubbed out a cigarette and turned the grey eyes on Hamnet. ‘So, who are you and what do you want?’

  Hamnet struggled to compose a sentence, to find words.

  ‘How long’s he been in the pit, General Lee?’ asked Janac, turning again to address the man opposite.

  Lee shrugged carelessly.

  ‘Day-and-a-half,’ croaked Hamnet.

  ‘Ah, it does talk,’ said Janac, turning back. ‘So, who the hell are you?’

  Hamnet squirmed onto his knees, tried to get to his feet. Just as he put his weight on them, they were kicked out from under him. He sprawled painfully in the dirt with a stifled moan.

  ‘Stay on your ass. That’s how the boys like you,’ said Janac. ‘And answer the damn question before I get pissed as well.’

  Hamnet took a deep breath, composed himself, and looked Janac defiantly in the eye — or as defiantly as he could, flat out in the dirt at his feet. Then he said, ‘I’m Phillip Hamnet, and I’ve come to exchange myself for my wife.’

  Something flickered across Janac’s face. Then he smiled with a slightly puzzled look. ‘Hamnet? Your wife’s dead. You broke your silence three days ago.’

  Hamnet heard the words with complete comprehension yet a total lack of understanding. He knew everything, yet knew only that the most precious thing in his life was gone. And she had died believing he had failed her. Strength came from a source deep inside him, a well still rich with water after a thousand years of drought. Hamnet rocked his feet under him and launched himself at Janac. But they had kept him sitting for a good reason. He was only just on his feet when the first restraining arm grabbed him. He shrugged it off with a roll of his shoulder, with no more trouble than a well-found ship taking a wave. He was a metre closer when the second and third got to him. But they weren’t committed either. They didn’t believe this filthy, slightly built, exhausted and bound man could be a problem. They were badly wrong. They had an arm each when Hamnet pulled down hard and spun himself forward into a somersault. They held on long enough to allow him to land on his feet in a squat, but their grip was broken by the final part of the turn. He was free and another metre closer.

  Hamnet extended his legs in a single explosive motion and the power of his thigh muscles flung him across the remaining space. But Janac had stood. His forearm and shoulder snapped up, took Hamnet’s momentum and redirected it with consummate ease. The throw put Hamnet on his back and momentarily knocked the wind out of him. It was enough. An instant later five men were holding him down. He struggled with all his strength, but there were too many. As the superhuman energy flowed away he was left shaking, sobbing, every muscle rock hard against those who held him. ‘I told him, that bastard, I told him to wait!’ he screamed. ‘We had a deal, that fucker Dubre! Christ, I’ll kill him! I swear I’ll kill him!’

  Janac glanced at Lee quizzically. But the old man was more interested in Janac’s fighting skills than the howling wreck buried under his men.

  ‘You still have good move, my friend.’

  ‘I had the best teacher,’ Janac replied with a smile.

  Lee nodded his serious acknowledgement of the compliment.

  Hamnet had exhausted his anger. It was all he could do to suck back air, his body taking over in a recovery reflex.

  Janac pulled out another cigarette and said, ‘We had a deal, Hamnet. You broke it. Must admit I was a little surprised at how quickly, even for you. But take the consequences like a man, for Christ’s sake.’

  Hamnet laboured for words between the desperate breaths, the wracking sobs. ‘I gave him the information. But he wasn’t to release it for three days, and then only if Anna or I didn’t come back. He promised. But he must have told them immediately. As soon as I’d left.’

  Janac lit the ci
garette, sucking his teeth. ‘That is unfortunate.’ He blew a smoke ring and glanced at Lee, smiling again. ‘You mind if we keep him for a while?’

  The general shook his head.

  ‘Take him back to the pit,’ said Janac, indicating one of the men with a wave of his hand. ‘Give him some food and water. And cut him loose so he can eat.’

  Hamnet went tamely. There was nothing left to fight for. The very last of his strength went into cushioning his fall. The trapdoor flipped shut and once again it was quiet.

  Chapter 15

  By the time they came again, Hamnet had slipped into a stupor. The leaf-wrapped rice balls and water bottle that had been thrown down to him lay untouched. His system was running on vapour, barely ticking over, his breathing slow and shallow, his mind avoiding any confrontation with reality by drifting into oblivion. The shouts from above failed to rouse him. He sat slumped against the wall, unable to deal with the new and vastly different world into which he had been propelled.

  The first shot that slammed into the dirt floor half a metre from his right kneecap brought only a flicker of curiosity to his face. He looked up at the rim of the pit, where yelling figures were indicating a ladder. He glanced at it briefly and turned away. But his mind was beginning to stir, if unwillingly. The second and third shots followed quickly and struck a lot closer. Dirt puffed from the impact and drifted over his thighs. Hamnet felt his hand lift almost automatically to brush the dirt away. He sighed a sigh of the deathly weary and pushed himself to his feet. They were leaden as he dragged them one after the other up the rungs of the ladder with immeasurable slowness.

  At the top he was greeted by the soft light and cool air of morning. He realised that a night had passed. The only darkness he could remember was despair. The climb finished him; he hadn’t the strength to walk. He dropped to all fours, and after some ineffectual prodding, two soldiers took an arm each and carried him. Once again he was deposited in a heap before Janac, who was seated at the same table, picking at a breakfast of mangoes and pineapple. General Lee again sat opposite, his plate empty. To Janac’s right was Tosh — unknown to Hamnet — whittling at a piece of wood, steam drifting from a coffee cup in front of him. The three guards who had delivered Hamnet stood beside the table while one of them addressed Janac. Hamnet heard the account of his refusal to eat and his indifference to the gunshots without understanding the foreign sounds, without listening, without caring.

  But Janac’s words cut right through him. ‘Your children didn’t die with their mother.’

  Hamnet’s mind pushed his body into a reaction it couldn’t cope with. The lack of food and water fell on him like a pile-driver as he tried to raise himself. He fainted from weakness. When he came to, there was a water bottle at his cracked lips. The tepid liquid slipped down easily and his body accepted it gratefully. The storm of depression had shifted. He was no longer in the dark silence of the eye, but adrift in the emotional gale that whirled around it. He ate the food placed in front of him — slowly at first, then with a growing anxiety that it would be taken away before he had finished. But when he did finish, they brought him more. Energised by both the food and the knowledge of his new responsibility, strength and life coursed back through him.

  Janac finished his breakfast, watching Hamnet in silence. General Lee observed them both implacably, with a faint air of disapproval. Hamnet was visibly slowing, his shrunken stomach already bloated, when Janac spoke again. ‘So you’re the Lifeboat Man.’

  Hamnet looked up and croaked painfully in a voice untested since the day before: ‘Where are my children? I want to see them.’

  Janac nodded. ‘All in good time. We’re going to talk first.’ Hamnet held his gaze for a fraction of a second before resuming his meal. ‘Three could live and four had to die. That’s right, isn’t it?’ continued Janac.

  Hamnet kept his head down and his mouth full.

  ‘So what happened out there? How did you choose the three?’

  Hamnet looked up, chewing hard, half-heartedly opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.

  ‘This isn’t the Waldorf,’ snarled Janac. ‘You can speak with your mouth full.’

  Hamnet swallowed, then said, ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I’m interested in the moral dilemma. And if you’re interested in your children, you’ll stop fucking me around.’ The tone was still harsh.

  Hamnet looked at Janac carefully, searching the lean face and the still, cold eyes. This was something he didn’t want to talk about. Particularly to this man. But what choice did he have? ‘We drew straws. The first one chosen took the supplies and gear.’

  ‘So you were in the draw?’

  ‘I ran it. Got left with the last survivor’s straw.’

  ‘And how did you feel when that happened?’

  There was a long silence between them this time, punctuated only by the chip, chip of Tosh’s whittling and the distant sounds of the parade ground. And Janac let it roll. Hamnet stopped eating and his hands fell away from the remaining rice. He stared, unseeing, at the dirt in front of him. Then he said, ‘I prayed for four days that we wouldn’t be found.’

  Janac nodded, pushed his plate away and wiped his hands on his khaki trousers. ‘What happened to the four?’

  ‘Three of them were very weak. They lost consciousness and died in the next six hours or so. The fourth was the Filipino mate. He’d been in good shape right through the storm. He wouldn’t swim away, but he went downhill pretty quickly all that day, without fluid.’ Hamnet could still see the man’s eyes — two unfathomable brown pools. ‘He died that night.’

  Janac listened to this with a face as expressionless as the general’s. Then he said, ‘Died? Of thirst?’

  Hamnet looked at him, feeling giddy, nauseous — whether from the sudden nourishment or the conversation he was unsure. ‘Yes, of course.’ He swallowed. ‘How else?’

  ‘There were stories about a flare gun, a shooting.’

  ‘Just stories. The papers.’ Hamnet shook his head slowly.

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of men in extreme situations, and I can’t believe this Filipino mate just sat there and died,’ Janac replied, crossing his legs.

  Hamnet shook his head again. ‘I guess that’s what the journalists thought too. But we had a deal. He was a man of honour.’ He wished he felt stronger, that he sounded stronger, more truthful. But he didn’t flinch from contact with the grey eyes as he spoke. Only three men living would ever know — and know that they knew — what had happened out there. And however improbable the truth, however unlikely the story, that was the way it would remain.

  Janac watched Hamnet closely, held his gaze steadily for a full five seconds. Then half laughed, half sighed, waited a moment and said, ‘And the other two?’

  ‘They weren’t good. I gave them the majority of the water. It rained on the fifth day. I don’t think any of us would have made it through that night if it hadn’t.’

  Janac tapped a thin finger slowly on the tabletop. ‘And then you were rescued, your actions entirely vindicated by events, and instead of hailing a hero the media strung you up for it.’

  ‘Something like that.’ Now Hamnet could look away.

  ‘You should’ve sat on your hands, done nothing, then you might’ve been dead but not guilty. You can’t be blamed for doing nothing — whatever the consequences. That’s what they all believe, isn’t it? All the little people?’ A sneer. ‘If they didn’t, they’d set themselves impossible moral standards, because they do nothing all the time — every time they walk past a charity box or see another drought on the TV news. And by this marvellous moral code of inaction, they continue to acquiesce silently with the worst evils in the world — and I continue to prosper.’

  The sneer widened into a smirk. ‘But you, you’re different. Rational action —three could live, four had to die. You couldn’t have stayed quiet after I had to kill the crew on that second boat — even for your wife. The price was too hig
h.’ He frowned. ‘She understood that, you know.’ He paused. ‘Anna — she understood what you would do.’

  Hamnet was barely listening. He had never been interested in any analysis of his actions, or his supposed actions, although there had been plenty of it. He knew what was right and wrong, and that was that. But when he heard Anna’s name, he thought: That wasn’t what I wanted her to think; I wanted her to know I had come for her. And in that he had failed. The thought sickened him to his very core. But for the children’s sake he couldn’t let despair take over. He concentrated on the feel of the warm sun on his back, the hot aroma of the jungle, the clatter and bustle of the camp. He needed something real to hold onto in this new world.

  Janac was watching for Hamnet’s reaction as he continued. ‘Nevertheless, the death of that crew was unfortunate for both of us. I need the money from these operations’ — he waved a hand at the man opposite — ‘so that I can buy some of General Lee’s very fine heroin. You’ve screwed that up. But I think you can still help me. Which is why I kept your children alive.’ Janac paused as Hamnet looked up. ‘You can go home — with one of your kids.’

  Hamnet shook his head even as his pulse picked up. ‘There’s a catch.’

  ‘It’s a reward for your courage in coming up here.’

  ‘One child?’

  Janac smiled again. ‘To get the second will require a little more effort. But we’ll talk about that in a moment. Come and see them first.’