Dead Sea

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘Well, let’s hope the Tokyo Port Authorities have a bit more info,’ said Nic, round the last of his waffles, bacon and maple syrup.

  ‘And that they’re willing to share it with us,’ nodded Richard, pushing aside a half-eaten croissant.

  Richard and Nic had met in K’shiki on the thirty-eighth floor where they settled for the Western-style breakfast. Over coffee, after closing the disappointing laptop, they planned their working day, which was going to begin – and probably end – down on the docks. And they planned their evening by booking a table in Signature on the floor below.

  ‘Tapas is supposed to be brilliant, too,’ said Richard, pushing the laptop away as though he blamed it for the lack of infor-mation. ‘A bit like Sora but different food. The sweet at the end for pudding looks exactly like bacon and eggs. There’s all sorts of fun stuff. Quite an experience, I’m told.’

  ‘Yeah,’ answered Nic, who was footing the bill this evening. ‘But after last night I’d like something a little less theatrical. And in any case, Tapas is booked solid.’

  The Tokyo Port Authority Building might as well have been booked solid too. They were dropped off in front of the imposing building, which was surprisingly old and sturdy-looking amid the high-rise and neon-lit extravagance of much of Tokyo. They had to push their way in through the door and repeat their names and appointment time to several stony-faced receptionists before they got through to the interior. And even here they simply joined another series of queues. Not even shipping magnates like Richard and Nic could walk in off the street and expect to be seen at once – even though both men had arranged for their head offices to phone ahead. They ended up hanging around a little listlessly, watching sheets of grey rain falling over Tokyo Bay on a dull and darkening morning that even Disney was having trouble brightening up. ‘Maybe we should grab a bite of lunch then split up,’ suggested Richard at last. ‘I could try the pilot office while you work your way up the queue here . . .’

  But the idea wasn’t put to the test. They were called through even as Nic said, ‘Hey that’s a good . . .’

  The young woman port authority official was called Nanaka Oda, according to the ID badge on her lapel and the label on her desk. She rose to greet them and then sat when they filled the comfortable seats opposite her.

  ‘You require information about a vessel departing Tokyo port some days ago?’ she enquired formally, glancing from each of them across to her computer screen.

  ‘The Dagupan Maru,’ confirmed Richard. ‘All the information you can give us, please.’

  ‘Why you require this?’ she asked frostily.

  ‘We are interested in the vessel and her whereabouts,’ answered Richard.

  ‘You have authority for this enquiry?’ she probed.

  ‘No. Do we need any?’ asked Richard innocently.

  ‘For some information, obviously so!’ she snapped.

  ‘What can you tell us without authority?’ persisted Richard.

  She gave him a lingering look then turned to her computer. Her fingers flashed across the keyboard, and she began reading in a monotone. ‘Dagupan Maru. Vessel’s details as follows. Ship Type: bulk carrier. Year Built: 1992. Length and Breadth: one-hundred-and-ninety-four metres by twenty-three metres. Gross Tonnage: eleven thousand tons. Dead Weight: twenty-nine thousand tons. Last registered flag: Barbuda. Call sign . . .

  She had hardly even started before Richard realized she was simply reciting the information from MarineTraffic.com he had consulted already. But he sat and let her read it right through to the end, hoping that the port authority would have updated some of the information – or that she would be able, and willing, to add to it.

  But no. When the chilly Nanaka reached the end of the Marine Traffic information, she stopped.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Richard unbelievingly. ‘Is that all you can tell us?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said decidedly. ‘Unless you come back with authority, I can tell you no more!’

  As they rose to leave, Richard pulled a business card out of his pocket. ‘Miss Oda,’ he said, as forcefully as he could. ‘If anything else comes up, please give me a call. I’ve written the number of my Japanese cell on there. Any time.’

  She nodded and took the card with a tiny bow, avoiding the burning blue intensity of his gaze.

  And it suddenly struck him that this was more than simple civil service jobsworth obstructionism. Nanaka Oda was actually frightened to tell him about the Dagupan Maru.

  Convenience

  ‘Look,’ said Nic as they hit the street again. ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you see what you can get out of the pilotage people? I’ll try another tack. Gettit? Tack! Like yachts . . . Oh, never mind. Liberty would have laughed.’

  ‘What’s your plan?’ asked Richard.

  ‘You have your contacts. I have mine. I’ll run up to the TV centre and see whether there’s any news about Dagupan Maru. You’d be surprised what gets on the services these days. And besides,’ he laughed, ‘I know where there’s a really good burger bar up there.’

  ‘Hey, that’s a good idea!’ Suddenly Richard wanted to be on his own with a little time to think things through. ‘We’ll keep in contact by cell and meet up at the Mandarin – even at the restaurant if push comes to shove. OK?’

  They parted then and there, and Richard turned down towards the pilot’s office, leaving Nic on the roadside waving hopefully at passing cabs.

  Richard walked thoughtfully down towards the grey water of Tokyo Bay, sinking back into his darkening thoughts. It would require quite a lot of influence to make the Tokyo Port Authority so obstructive. And he could think of nobody in Tokyo – or Japan for that matter – who would want to take the trouble. Nobody legitimate, at any rate. Still deep in thought, he decided to grab a quick plate of sushi at the Ty Harbour Brewery on his way. He sat, alone and still thoughtful, surveying the old market, and ate a light lunch in many ways the equal of his dinner yesterday evening. Then, pulling himself almost physically out of his preoccupation, he went on down to the Harbour Pilot’s Building.

  Here his luck changed. The pilot who had guided the Dagupan Maru out into the Tokyo Roads was there, available, willing and able to speak to him.

  His name was Sato, and he turned out to be a garrulous, middle-aged man with sleepy-looking brown eyes and a round, childlike face. ‘Yes,’ he said affably, over a cup of tea in the pilot officers’ lounge. ‘Dagupan Maru. Sailed with the evening tide more than a week ago now. Ten days ago. Ten days tonight, in fact. Captain Yamamoto was in command as usual, though he must be nearing retirement age by now. I think First Officer Sakai really runs the ship . . .’

  ‘Any idea of her cargo?’ asked Richard, trying not to stare, mentally ticking off the things he most wanted to know; the things most likely to help him discover her background, track her course and find her current position.

  ‘She was laden with timber, I understand – that’s what her paperwork said, what I saw of it. Macassar Ebony.’

  Richard had never heard of that particular wood, so he asked the next question on his list. ‘Where was she bound?’

  ‘She was bound back to Vancouver,’ Sato answered easily.

  ‘Passengers? Did you see anyone you weren’t expecting to see?’ Richard probed gently.

  ‘No,’ answered Sato slowly, drawing out the negative thoughtfully. ‘There was no one aboard apart from the crew, as far as I’m aware. I saw no evidence of anyone.’ Sato sat forward, meeting Richard’s gaze earnestly. ‘As I say, I saw the lading documents and the port authority clearances. Customs, immigration and so forth. But nothing more than my duty required, really. There were no passengers mentioned. Everything is written down in the port authority pilotage and ship movement logbooks – though they’re all on line these days of course.’

  ‘Is there public access to those records?’ asked Richard hopefully.

  ‘Only with the proper clearances, I’m afraid,’ answered Sato, putting down his teacup with a d
ecided chink!

  And that was all the pilot could tell him. His personal pager sounded then and he excused himself courteously. ‘Ah. Duty calls, I’m afraid. My cutter awaits. Another vessel requires safe guidance out into the roads. The sister ship of Dagupan Maru, by great coincidence . . .’ He rose, bowed and he left.

  In the cab on the way back to the Mandarin, Richard took a call from Nic almost as soon as he had told the cabbie where to go – and long before he had any chance to collect his thoughts and assess what he had learned. ‘It’s the cargo that was in the news,’ said the American. ‘I’ll go into more detail over dinner, but here’s the headlines. Dagupan Maru apparently sailed with a full load of Macassar Ebony.’

  ‘I can confirm that,’ said Richard frowning. ‘The pilot Mr Sato told me . . .’

  ‘OK. Well, Macassar Ebony’s apparently incredibly rare. It’s sure as hell not supposed to be trafficked in bulk. Nowadays the trees only grow in Sulawesi, Maluku and Borneo in Indonesia. And there are hardly any of them left. That’s one of the reasons the wood’s worth so much. More than gold, ton for ton, the guys here say. Certainly nobody legit would get the chance to get enough to fill a ship out of the rainforest. Not even those guys you had a set-to with in Indonesia, the guys clearing the jungles illegally logging out all the precious hardwoods and slaughtering the wildlife . . .’

  ‘Luzon Logging, yes . . .’

  ‘But apparently there was a whole palace or something built of the stuff. Up in Tohoku Region near Sendai. Not a really ancient national heritage job. Turn of the 1900s. But a big place, you know? A palace and all of it made of Macassar Ebony. But then the palace was destroyed in the great earthquake of 2011, the one that brought the tsunami, screwed up the power stations. That one. Well, the palace was pretty badly damaged and before the local authorities could repair it these guys came in and took the wood. Thousands of tons. Priceless in today’s market. Pretty shady. There’s been a court case – but what can I say? The whole lot’s gone and it looks like it’s aboard the Dagupan Maru. Definitely is, if what you say the pilot saw is right.’

  ‘Excellent work, Nic. That’s the cargo and that’s why they might want to be a little secretive about it. Any news about the hull? Who owns her?’

  ‘According to the news morgue here, she’s registered to an outfit called Aruba Holdings in Barbuda. That’s about all. But wait! This just in as they say . . . The timber is apparently owned by some guys calling themselves Cook and Company, registered in Cayman. They’re the ones advertising it for sale in the States at any rate. But of course when you say “the States” . . .’

  ‘You mean, “Anyone who can get themselves or their representative to the States” . . .’

  ‘Like you say, old buddy. Flags of convenience fly both ways – and anyone can fly into the good old US of A from almost anywhere in the world and do business . . .’

  Over dinner they discussed what they had discovered so far and what they planned to do next. ‘So,’ started Richard, as he tucked into his Parma-wrapped langoustine tails, ‘they had more than one reason to keep Dagupan Maru’s comings and goings quiet. Illegal passengers and borderline contraband cargo.’

  ‘I wonder who these guys are,’ mused Nic, doing much the same as Richard in terms of ham and shellfish. ‘Aruba Holdings and Cook and Company.’

  ‘More flags of convenience, as likely as not,’ said Richard. ‘I wonder whether it’d be worth hiring a private detective, or at least some kind of enquiry firm, to look into them . . .’

  ‘Don’t you have that top-flight commercial intelligence section you call London Centre back at Heritage Mariner?’ mused Nic. ‘I thought they were among the best in the business.’

  ‘Already on the case,’ said Richard.

  ‘Then I vote we wait and see what they say. No sense in training a bloodhound then hiring a spaniel to do the same job.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Richard. ‘But it’s just that the waiting is—’

  ‘A bitch. Yeah.’

  They fell silent as the empty plates were whisked away and the next course arrived. Richard had gone for the rosemary roasted Dover sole. Nick for the grilled rack of lamb. ‘But still,’ said Richard, dropping his voice, ‘the more I think of it, the more I worry. I was thinking this all through from start to finish on my way down to the pilot office this afternoon. It seems to pan out like this: Reona and Aika Rei aren’t on a pleasure cruise and if they were they certainly chose the wrong ship. What they did choose was a vessel that didn’t mind taking people aboard in secret and smuggling them out against the law. And, more importantly, perhaps, we now know that it’s one that was going close to the course of that damn bottle. That has to be what they’re after. The good ship Cheerio. Dagupan Maru must be passing near it on the way across to Vancouver. And our young lovers seem to be after it in secret. Secrecy is so important that they’re willing to risk their lives for it. And there’s only one thing I can think of that’s worth that kind of risk.’

  ‘The lottery ticket,’ Nic said with a forkful of lamb, gnocchi and endive halfway to his mouth. ‘The lottery . . .’ he repeated.

  ‘I don’t know,’ nodded Richard. ‘What are the odds that the professor’s won the lottery with the ticket he put in the Cheerio?’

  ‘Or his gorgeous girlfriend has. And this is all about getting it back?’

  ‘One-hundred-and-ten-million dollars, if they can get it out and back in time.’

  ‘The odds of winning in the first place are so long that the rest probably wouldn’t matter. Like if you get hit by lightning on a golf course – what are the odds that you were holding a five iron or a putter when it happened?’

  ‘I didn’t know you played golf,’ said Richard.

  And his cell phone started ringing.

  He put down a fork laden with creamy Dover sole and pulled it out of his pocket. ‘They’ll frown at long phone calls in here,’ he said. ‘I’ll take this outside.’

  Outside the door of the restaurant was a waiting area with a bar on one side and a wall-mounted television on the other side. As dinner had just started, the little bar was empty apart from the barman. Richard paused here and put the phone to his ear. ‘Yes?’

  ‘News channel twenty-four,’ said a cool voice that reminded him forcefully of Nanaka Oda at the port office. Then the line went dead.

  ‘I say,’ called Richard to the barman at once. ‘Could you put that on news channel twenty-four?’

  The screen switched from a garish make-up advert to the grey of the security-lit docks. Richard thought he recognized the rotund shape of Police Officer Ozawa among a group of policemen in the background. A reporter in close-up was speaking rapid Japanese and an English translation was scrolling across the bottom of the screen:

  ‘. . . was a long-serving and respected member of the pilot office. He leaves a widow and two married daughters. Foul play is not suspected. The police are certain that this was nothing more than a tragic accident. Pilot Sato was just reboarding his cutter when he appeared to slip and fall into the water. Despite efforts to save him . . .’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Nic as soon as he saw Richard’s face. ‘Is it Robin? The kids?’

  ‘No. Not quite that bad.’ Richard sat back down and pushed aside the best Dover sole he had ever tasted, his appetite gone. ‘But it’s bad enough. You’d better get on to the chap you talked to at Tokyo TV this afternoon and tell him to watch his back . . .’

  The pair of them went through every implication they could imagine. Starting with the last fact Sato had let slip – the ship he died beside was Dagupan Maru’s sister. Was his death actually an accident? Or, as Nanaka Oda’s call seemed to suggest, was it something more? And, if more, was the motive for the tragedy because Sato had talked to Richard? Or that he had seen something ten days ago aboard Dagupan Maru herself? And, whatever might be the answer to these conundrums, what impact, if any, might that have on the knotty problem they had been wrestling with before Richard’s phone rang?


  ‘Whatever,’ decided Richard, as the coffee cups were cleared away, ‘we’re stuck at the moment, until we get updates from Flint or Katapult. Or from Crewfinders. We really need to know where the girls are and what’s happening . . .’

  ‘And, perhaps more importantly still,’ said Nic, ‘we need to know who these people Aruba Holdings and Cook and Company really are.’

  The answer came through at four next morning and it came to Richard’s cell phone. He was in such a deep sleep that he almost didn’t answer it in time, but he caught it on the last ring. ‘Mariner?’ he croaked, pushing the bright chill of the thing to his ear.

  ‘Evening, boss – or morning where you are. Sorry to come through at this ungodly hour but I thought you’d want to know as soon as we did.’

  It was Jim Bourne. That fact alone sent adrenaline through Richard’s bloodstream like Turkish coffee spiked with Red Bull. ‘Jim,’ he said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Crewfinders hit wall after wall,’ said Jim. ‘So they called London Centre in and we’ve had to do a fair amount of bulldozing I can tell you. Where shall I start? The flag?’

  ‘OK. I take it she’s no longer under Barbuda’s flag?’

  ‘Right. She and her sister were moved a year ago. All very hush-hush. New flag would have been a dead end too, except for the fact that you left some favours outstanding there. They’ve moved the flag to Tuvalu.’ He paused as Richard gasped, swore and switched on the bedside light.

  ‘Tuvalu,’ repeated Richard.

  ‘Tuvalu and Vanuatu are now offering flags of convenience apparently,’ confirmed Jim briskly. ‘Tuvalu has been since the early 2000s. That’s where Dagupan is registered now. Owners still registered as Aruba Holdings – but Aruba is just another Flag of Convenience state. So we’re calling in some of the favours you left outstanding in Tuvalu. Guy called Willy’s on the case.’

  ‘OK, Jim, that’s good to know. What else?’