Sea of Gold

by Nick Elliott

  ‘Okay, Angus, but it’s urgent.’

  ‘I understand,’ I reassured him. ‘I’m leaving now.’

  Kyriakou’s office was in the affluent suburb of Vouliagmeni – it was a steel and glass building facing the sea. I took a taxi and arrived as a small helicopter was hovering over the roof preparing to land. The security guard escorted me into the lift and up to a waiting room on the roof. Ten minutes later I was strapping myself into the little MD 500 as it lifted off and swung out over the Saronic Gulf before heading west along the Gulf of Corinth.

  After an hour we flew over the engineering masterpiece that is the Rio Antirrio bridge and on into the Patraikos Gulf. Here the weather changed, the little aircraft suddenly buffeted by headwinds. We banked to head north skirting a rain squall as the blue sea below turned grey and the orderly procession of white horses became a confusion of spray.

  Greeks have a special relationship with the sea. Fishermen have wrested a living from its waters for millennia, besides which the islands have long produced generations of shipowners with their crews traditionally drawn from the home islands of the owners. Now crews were more likely to come from Ukraine or the Philippines but many Greek owners still preferred to recruit their senior officers from the home island.

  The Kyriakou family was from Kephalonia, which had produced its fair share of owners over the years, but our destination today was a little island north-east of there, closer to the mainland. An hour and a half after we’d set out we were landing on the lawn in front of a sprawl of low buildings that made up the estate.

  We’d flown out of the squall and the sun was shining brighter than ever, the air cleared by the rain. Shadows danced in the breeze to give the light a sharp, refracted quality not yet softened by the coming of autumn. As I walked away from the helicopter towards the house Michael Kyriakou hurried down to meet me.

  The family owned this island and these days the old man spent most of his time here. The house had been built back in the Sixties but its natural stone simplicity lent it an elegance that kept it from looking dated.

  Under different circumstances I might have paused to admire the place. I noticed a private chapel down towards the sea and the family’s beloved old Camper & Nicholsons yacht moored in the bay.

  ‘Thank you for coming so quickly, Angus,’ Michael said as we walked up towards the main house. ‘We appreciate it, my father, all of us. We are deeply troubled you understand.’

  We passed a pool surrounded by pergolas garlanded with deep pink and purple bougainvillea, and on up a flight of steps to the villa entrance.

  The hallway was dark after the glare outside, and cool. I made out statuary, free-standing columns and plinths on the marble floor, and modern art on the walls. Michael walked in front of me and into a large room, the dining hall.

  Three people sat at a long olive-wood table. All except Andreas Kyriakou stood up to shake hands. He was sitting slumped in a wheelchair at the far end of the table. A blonde, Slavic-looking nurse hovered behind him, immaculate in a crisp white uniform. I went over to shake his hand. It was cold and limp.

  Besides Andreas and Michael there were Electra, Andreas’s only daughter, and Captain Achileas Demopoulos who, I was told, had captained the Astro Maria prior to her fateful voyage, and was on leave, or had been until now.

  ‘Mr McKinnon, my children told me I should speak with you.’ The old man wheezed out his words with difficulty. He must have been in his late eighties and had suffered a stroke a few years back.

  He turned to his son. ‘Michael, tell Mr McKinnon what we know and what we don’t know. Then I will tell him what it is I want him to do.’ Despite his slurred speech he still asserted his authority convincingly enough.

  Michael walked over to a large whiteboard that had been erected against the wall. He uncapped a marker pen and wrote the ship’s name, Astro Maria, across the top, underlining it. Under this he wrote:

  Durban – General Santos Port, Mindanao. 9,200 tonnes mining plant, machinery and equipment, on voyage charter for account Coreminex Mineral Exploration Pte.

  He continued jotting down bullet points as he spoke.

  Sailed Durban 1120 UTC 2 October

  ETA General Santos 20 October

  Last daily report 12 October

  Reported position as 12° 5′1″south, 93° 12′6″ east at 1200 UTC

  0600 local time

  Course was 087° on a heading for the Sunda Strait.

  Michael carried on running through the report: distance covered since departure Durban, distance over last twenty-four hours, distance to go to General Santos Pilots and her ETA weather permitting. He read out bunkers remaining on board, fuel consumption over the past twenty-four hours and the ship’s draught, fore and aft. There were no special remarks and nothing untoward. Everything on board was normal.

  He moved to where an Admiralty chart showing a section of the Indian Ocean had been stuck to the wall.

  ‘So this position is approximately two hundred and fifteen nautical miles west-north-west of the Cocos Keeling Islands,’ he continued pointing at a cross that had been made in pencil on the chart, ‘or seven hundred and seventy nautical miles south-west of the Sunda Strait.’

  Michael walked back to the table. ‘Captain Achileas tell Angus about the Mayday signal will you?’

  Demopoulos got up and walked over to the chart. He was a burly man in his late fifties with the air of confidence common in sea captains.

  ‘You know about GMDSS I presume, Mr McKinnon,’ he began, referring to the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. ‘It’s a whole set of procedures, but using digital selective calling it provides automatic distress alerting and locating in cases where a radio operator doesn’t have time to send a Mayday call.’

  I had come across it before. DSC distress alerts consist of a pre-formatted distress message used to send out emergency communications with ships and rescue coordination centres.

  I nodded and he carried on. ‘So this automated message gave the ship’s position as just a few miles east-north-east of the noon position, sixteen nautical miles to be precise.

  ‘So we know where she is, or was,’ Michael interrupted.

  ‘Yes, and that means the ship is, or was, within the Australian Search and Rescue zone,’ Demopoulos continued. ‘We are in contact with their maritime safety authority, AMSA, through our agents in Sydney. AMSA is attempting to communicate with her, so far without success.’

  A maid had brought coffee and plates laden with kourabiedes, baklava and loukoumades. It didn’t seem the right time to be eating but I helped myself anyway.

  ‘What we want is for you, Mr McKinnon, to keep a close watch on developments along with Michaelis here.’ It was the old man speaking, his voice a barely audible rasp.

  ‘I fear for my ship, her officers and her crew. And that includes young Vassilis, my great-nephew and Electra and Michael’s cousin. He is serving as fourth engineer on the Astro Maria. I want to know what has happened, and if it is bad news, I want to know how it happened and who is responsible.’

  The enormity of the situation was stirring his emotions and restoring his strength. ‘If she is lost then there will be enquiries by many different parties. Hull underwriters, cargo underwriters, P&I, the flag state, the classification society, they will all be falling over each other.’

  He paused, breathing heavily. ‘There will be bureaucracy and red tape. I want you to monitor all this but you must conduct your own shadow investigation as well, Mr McKinnon, and report everything you find back to me and to my children here, Electra and Michael.’

  His ‘children’ were closer to my age, in their forties.

  ‘Then we can decide what action is needed as we move forward with this. You will have the full support of all of us around this table together with the resources of the company and our agents. Is that clear?’

  Electra interrupted. She looked severe – an impression intensified by her heavy, black-framed glasses. ‘My father is b
eing over-polite in your presence. What he is saying, Angus, is that if the ship has been sabotaged, destroyed, he considers this a personal tragedy and an affront, very personal. We all do. We know of your skills and all we want is for you to help us secure justice.’ She paused. ‘No, not just that, but retribution as well.’

  ‘Electra speaks plainly,’ the old man added, ‘but she is right. And for this service you will of course be well paid.’

  I was taken aback. I didn’t see my role as that of a vigilante.

  ‘I will follow the facts,’ I said, ‘and go where they take me. Hopefully they will lead us to the truth. Retribution is another matter.’

  ‘Of course, of course’ he said. ‘Let us see. You will start immediately?’

  ‘I’ll take the case but I have other work as you know. And I will need to notify the CMM.’

  ‘Yes. I will talk to your Mr Douglas too. We know him. He will understand the situation.’

  I nodded. I hoped Grant would be as understanding as Kyriakou expected.

  I already had a growing list of questions in my mind and would need to sit down with Michael and his colleagues to begin to build a clearer picture of what had happened.

  ‘And Michael will be my point of contact?’

  ‘Yes he will. You’ve worked with him before. It was Michaelis and Electra who proposed that we engage you. They both speak highly of you, Mr McKinnon. I trust you can live up to their expectations.’

  I hoped so too.

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘Well maybe this will draw your attention away from that dubious theory of yours.’ It was Grant. I’d called him before old Andreas Kyriakou got in first.

  ‘Maybe it will,’ I said to placate him. He was right. In the days that followed my visit to Kyriakou’s island I’d barely given the fraud cases a second thought. And events had unfolded quickly with the Astro Maria.

  An Australian search and rescue aircraft had been dispatched and two other ships in the area had diverted to her last reported position. An Australian frigate had also arrived in the search area. At first, media coverage was limited to Lloyd’s List and other shipping news sites. Then the Australian media pounced and, as it became apparent the ship had gone down with no sign of survivors, the rest of the world had sat up and taken notice.

  Moreover, the ship had sixteen hundred tons of heavy fuel oil and some two hundred and fifty tons of diesel on board so, besides the loss of life, there were environmental issues. If she’d gone down where we thought then she was well clear of the Sunda Trench, which, at depths approaching eight thousand metres and with frequent seismic activity on the seabed, would have made oil removal impossible, never mind salvaging the wreck itself.

  Instead it was thought, she would be lying in around four thousand metres of water.

  I was spending a lot of time with Michael Kyriakou, Achileas Demopoulos and a couple of the firm’s technical superintendents.

  ‘Remember that Soviet nuclear submarine – K-129 was it called? I said.

  Demopoulos leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. ‘Yes, I remember. That was fifty years ago. Salvaged from a depth of nearly five thousand metres, but a very different scenario. The CIA wanted to get their hands on it for “reasons of national security”. Such an operation would make no sense in this case; there is no justification for it, either commercial or political. The ship will stay where she is. And for the crew it is their grave.’

  But the oil was another matter. With fragile ecosystems on the coral reefs of the nearby Cocos Keeling Islands, the removal of the ship’s bunker fuel had to be considered.

  We talked about the Prestige. Everyone in the industry knew that case. The ship sank off Spain in 2002 contaminating several hundred miles of coastline.

  ‘She settled at a depth of four thousand metres and kept on leaking oil,’ Demopoulos said. He was more than just a skipper on leave. He knew his marine salvage.

  ‘At first cracks in the hull were sealed by a submarine to prevent further contamination but a large quantity of heavy viscosity oil remained inside the ship.

  ‘Finally, they used special vertical screw pumps. An Italian company took it on. It was complicated too, removing that oil. Containers were sunk to the wreck. Once holes were drilled in the hull, the viscous oil was allowed to float into these containers, which were then floated to the surface and pumped into waiting tankers. The experts are telling us such a technique might work on the Astro Maria but believe me, it would cost a fortune.’

  But the focus of my attention lay elsewhere. What had caused a well-maintained and efficiently manned and managed six-year-old ship to founder on an apparently routine voyage, in weather conditions that were of no threat to her safety?

  The DSC message, besides giving her position, also gave the cause: ‘sinking’. But the two most telling pieces of the puzzle were the ship’s Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon – the EPIRB - and the Voyage Data Recorder - the ship’s black box. On the Astro Maria the two devices were combined into one unit mounted on the bridge wing and must have floated free of the ship when she went down, as they were designed to. We learned that the EPIRB had given off its distress signal, detected by satellite, for forty-five minutes before it went dead. By the time the frigate reached its location the EPIRB, together with the Voyage Data Recorder, had disappeared, or at least not been found.

  ‘They may simply not have been located yet,’ I said. ‘Or malfunctioned, or sunk even.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for one second,’ Demopoulos said. He was a restless man, most comfortable when he was striding around the room as if he were on his bridge. He had developed his own conspiracy theory.

  ‘If you ask me, both those devices have already been picked up from where they were floating on the surface of the sea and then destroyed.’

  ‘You mean picked up by whoever sank the ship? What, you reckon she was being shadowed by another vessel?’

  ‘Sure, something like that.’

  ‘Why though?’

  He shrugged in a very Greek way. ‘That’s for you to find out, my friend.’

  I was keeping all options open, but the VDR is tamper-proof and designed to withstand the extreme shock, pressure and heat associated with a fire, an explosion or a collision. And whatever the cause of the sinking, the EPIRB and VDR had obviously survived long enough to send out a distress signal before vanishing. So maybe he had a point.

  We pored over all this and argued as to what might have happened. But we were speculating. We needed concrete evidence, and that lay four thousand metres beneath the waves.

  Meanwhile, as the old man had predicted, the various interested parties were all pursuing their own particular agendas, covering their backs and defending their positions, disregarding anything that did not serve their own interests in the case. It was in danger of turning into one big, slow-moving blame game.

  Even though, as the search continued, I was working out of Kyriakou’s offices for much of the day, I was following my other case work at the same time, and Manish had emailed. He apologised for not sending his full report but said I’d have it by the beginning of the week. He added that he had talked to the staff in the restaurant where Wongsurin and the mystery farang had dined prior to the murder, and he’d found Sriwan, the woman I’d met on the Lucky Hawk. He’d been promised a meeting with the Thai police the following day and would include anything useful that came out of that in his report.

  And following Claire’s cryptic advice, he was also investigating the fiscal aspects of the fraud. Mavritis had received his fifteen days’ charter hire through an account in the local Thai Mercantile Investment Bank and that money had been paid by the phony timecharterer, Universal Agriprods. But what about the much larger sum, the freight paid by Wongsurin’s Triumph Trading to UA? We knew it hadn’t gone into the same account that the charter hire had been paid from, so who had it been paid to? Manish had befriended a woman in the TMI Bank’s headquarters who had promised to run her own search
on Universal Agriprods.

  CHAPTER 12

  Just two weeks after the loss of the Astro Maria, having told Alastair Marshall that Eleni and I would have to postpone our visit to his island, I accompanied Michael Kyriakou to a meeting in London’s Trinity House convened for the parties concerned to air their views and decide on a course of action to determine what caused the casualty. This in turn would help establish liability and ultimately, which insurers would pay out for what. The question of how best, or whether, to remove the bunkers from the ship’s fuel tanks when the ship was found would also be addressed. There were other more sensitive issues to be discussed as well and for this reason we had all signed non-disclosure agreements binding us to confidentiality.

  We all knew the most likely causes of the casualty: either a catastrophic wave originating from one of the seismic underwater events common in that part of the world, which would have overwhelmed the ship before counter-measures could be taken; or an equally catastrophic man-made event such as an on-board explosion or an external attack.

  The DART buoys that monitor deep-ocean seismic activity and resultant tsunamis, had shown nothing unusual on the fateful day, neither had any other vessel in the area. This seemed to leave a sudden failure of the ship’s seaworthiness; whether by deliberate human intervention, by accident or by design, remained to be seen.

  Could the cargo have been poorly loaded or stowed in Durban? Shearing forces, bending and torsional moments can stress a ship’s hull causing it to hog or sag to breaking point, and these factors vary depending on the distribution or movement of cargo, ballast and fuel weights, particularly in heavy weather. Such massive pressures had sunk large bulk carriers in the past but not a ship of the Astro Maria’s age and size. So this had already been more or less ruled out as a cause. The loading data had been provided to the classification society who were best able to pass judgement on such a question, and they were shaking their heads.

  That left either an accident in the engine room, such as a crankcase explosion which, although serious, would not have led to her sinking so suddenly, if at all; or an explosion in the cargo holds. And this was the unacknowledged issue at stake. The manifest showed no item which could be described as hazardous cargo prone to spontaneous combustion or explosion, and this led to the uncomfortable conclusion that an act of sabotage had been committed by the use of some triggering device, either during the voyage or, possibly, by means of a timer set before she’d sailed.