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 thoughtfully 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 voi
ce.
‘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.
*****
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The Defector Page 30
