Sea of Troubles Box Set

by Peter Tonkin

  As soon as the four Englishmen had stepped aboard, the vessel surged forward with a thoroughly deceptive access of naked power. ‘Good God!’ said Andrew, as the full impact of the acceleration hit his system. ‘This thing pulls away like my Aston. What do you think, Tom?’

  ‘I think I ought to make an appointment to examine the pair of us. This is utter lunacy,’ he said bitterly as he followed the rest of them down past the wheelhouse into the depths of the cabin.

  But no one was paying any attention to him. Twelvetoes and Richard were crouching over a long box which stood open along the middle of the narrow cabin, made narrower by the fact that a round dozen of fiercely-armed young men and women were seated down each side with their knees pointing inwards. Richard glanced up from what he and Twelvetoes were doing. ‘Want a gun, Wally?’

  ‘Got a Webley? That’s about my speed.’

  ‘Not by the look of it. Smith and Wesson revolver any good?’

  ‘Richard,’ said Andrew urgently. ‘This is all terribly illegal. If you don’t get killed, you really are running the risk of ending up back in prison. And not in any cushy hospital room this time, either. Stanley, Shek Pik or even Sieu Lam. Bad news. You don’t want to think about it, believe me.’

  Richard looked up at him, blue eyes dazzling. ‘It’s like this, you see, Andrew. My wife Robin is on the Seram Queen. You’ve met her. You know what she’s like. I still only remember bits and pieces about the life we had before I went on the Sulu Queen but since I met her six weeks ago, I’ve fallen in love with her all over again. I know that she will have found a way of staying alive if there was a way to be found. She’ll probably be waiting and hoping for help. And I’m going to help her the best way I can no matter what. I won’t hang about and I won’t hesitate. I won’t go in unarmed and I don’t care who I have to kill. I’m going in to get her and I’m going to bring her out, if I can, no matter what it costs. Do you understand that?’

  As a matter of fact, Andrew had understood relatively little, up to now. But now he understood all too well. And what he understood was this: he was trapped aboard a high-powered, probably unregistered sampan with a small army of Triad soldiers, a considerable and certainly illegal arsenal, a senior Triad man and a lunatic. And the only person he could ask for help was caressing a Smith & Wesson revolver and looking fiercely ahead across the water. Suddenly the bravado of his last words to Tom struck him like a lead balloon coming down on his head as he realised that, with or without Maggie’s name on his lips, he might well die here. Really and genuinely die here. Perhaps he should take a gun after all, just to be on the safe side.

  Andrew ended up with a gun not dissimilar to Robin’s, equipped with a red-dot laser sight. It was the best gun Twelvetoes could supply for a man who had never shot. Then, after he had accepted it, Andrew followed Richard up out of the doors at the front of the long cabin and up onto a pointed forecastle head. Here, with the air thudding past them and the spray sheeting up on either hand as the lean vessel powered forwards at the better part of thirty knots, Andrew spent the better part of half an hour trying to hit bottles and cans which were thrown over the side as target practice. To begin with he missed everything, but by the time the half-hour had passed, he was hitting one in three. He was quite elated when he went back down below.

  They could not convince Tom, however. ‘I’m a doctor, for heaven’s sake, Richard! I know we don’t actually take the Hippocratic oath, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ran around slaughtering people!’

  ‘That isn’t the point,’ said Richard steadily, his eyes almost white with intensity. ‘The point is that when we get on board the Seram Queen —’

  ‘If we get aboard.’

  ‘All right, if we get aboard, then we will in all probability find a small army of men who will not think twice about killing us. All of them will be armed with pangas at the very least. Many of them will have handguns and some of them will have automatic weapons. I … I …’ but the wild certainty died. Richard had run hard up against the edge of his damaged memory.

  ‘There’s something else?’ asked Tom, overtaken by professional curiosity. ‘Something else important?’

  ‘Where do pirates get automatic weapons?’ grumbled Andrew.

  ‘From the Philippines,’ supplied Twelvetoes.

  ‘What are Filipino pirates doing this far north?’ demanded Wally, deeply offended by the unsporting nature demonstrated by Filipino pirates hunting outside their proper territory. ‘Surely …’ his voice tailed off, and he frowned.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Richard, his eyes narrow. ‘There’s a good reason for it, I just can’t remember what it is.’

  ‘You will, old friend,’ said Twelvetoes quietly.

  The sampan was raging along at near full speed but not quite at full throttle, for, as the lawyer in particular was all too well aware, it was following in the wake of a flotilla of much more official vessels. Ahead of them and on the right — ‘Starboard!’ bellowed Richard — raced an arrowhead of three white naval launches from HMS Tamar and a bluesided police cutter. ‘They’re never going to let us get involved anyway,’ said Andrew with considerable satisfaction as forty-five minutes of the wild voyage ticked by and noon came up on his watch.

  ‘That will depend upon what they are doing themselves, will it not?’ asked Twelvetoes and Andrew found himself running out of charity with the Chinese’s cryptic observations pretty quickly. But that might have been something to do with the tension he could feel cranking itself up towards terror in his breast.

  He opened his mouth to say something cutting to Twelvetoes but just as he did so, the young man in the wheelhouse leaned down into the cabin and yelled something to Twelvetoes instead. The Chinese looked across at Richard for an instant, but Richard was unaware of the calculating gaze. ‘OK,’ yelled Twelvetoes in reply and the young man disappeared again.

  ‘Are you going to stay aboard the sampan, Tom?’ Andrew asked conversationally.

  ‘I’ll plan to be wherever I think it’s safest,’ said the psychologist.

  ‘Wise move. Except that you left the safest places far behind when you got on board this boat,’ observed Andrew drily.

  ‘Must have been a rush of blood,’ admitted Tom. ‘And I wanted to be with Richard when he burnt out.’

  ‘I’m not going to bum out,’ said Richard.

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’

  ‘But then I bet you’re not a betting man, Tom.’

  ‘That’s true, Richard.’ Tom forced himself to keep his tone neutral, accommodating. It was a standard phase of treatment that the subject should start to experience negative thoughts towards the psychologist but Richard was going through too many standard phases in too rapid a succession for Tom’s peace of mind. Still, when you came right down to it, all he could do was watch and wait.

  ‘How much longer?’ asked Andrew, really beginning to regret his bravado now.

  ‘Not long. You should try some more target practice. One hit in three isn’t really good enough,’ said Richard.

  ‘It is if you’re going to avoid shooting at anybody.’

  ‘True.’

  On Richard’s slightly mocking monosyllable, the young man in the wheelhouse leaned down and called through to Twelvetoes in an impenetrable babble of Cantonese.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ said Twelvetoes. ‘The man says there are three boats there, the Seram Queen and two smaller ones.’

  ‘Is he sure he’s got the right ship?’ asked Richard.

  ‘Oh yes. We have been following the beam of a ship’s emergency beacon for some time now. Since noon, in fact. The beacon broadcasts Seram Queen’s call signal.’

  ‘Two other boats,’ mused Richard. ‘Big boats?’

  ‘Large cutters, perhaps,’ suggested Twelvetoes calculatingly.

  Richard’s face went blank and for a moment Tom feared that all his worst fears had come true and Richard had burned out.

  But no. ‘Cutters!’ said Richard, his voice scarce
ly more than a breath. ‘Coastguard cutters!’ His eyes ignited. Tom had never seen anything like it in his life. It was as though a pair of magnesium flares had gone off behind panes of deep sapphire. It was as though beams of brightness shone out of the lean, angular face. The effect was most unsettling. But that was nothing as compared with the tone of his voice. ‘Of course! That was it!’ His spread hand came up to slap his forehead with stunning force. Tom winced, but Richard did not seem to have hurt himself. That terrible, hate-filled voice grated on. ‘The pirates set us up and the coastguards all but wiped us out, then the pirates came back and finished the job. The Chinese coastguards.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Andrew. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘They have an arrangement! An agreement. The pirates send out a half-wrecked sampan full of corpses with a couple of their men apparently at death’s door in among the genuine Vietnamese. The two men shut down the radio and any other equipment they can and help the pirates aboard. The pirates go through the ship but the crew as likely as not makes a bit of a fight of it. Then next morning, bright and early, the Chinese coastguards show up and drive the pirates away. The crew comes out and the coastguards arrest them. Lock them away. Any argument and the coastguards kill them. Then the coastguards load whatever they want onto their cutters and leave the last pickings to the pirates. It was so … so … neat. We didn’t stand a chance, Wally. And when they discovered the containers weren’t carrying what they wanted, they all just went mad. Pirates, coastguards, the lot. I’ve never seen … I’ve never seen … And, God, Robin will fall for it all the way down the line. Robin will fall for it all …’ Richard’s voice faded away, and Tom realised with a visceral shock that his patient was actually remembering. Actually remembering everything which had happened on the ill-fated Sulu Queen. Facing everything he had run away from for the last seven weeks. Remembering because to do so was the only way he could hope to help his wife if she was trapped in the same situation now. It was a massive act of will, far in excess of anything Tom had ever considered possible. But, then, Tom had never actually been in love.

  Much struck by this melancholy thought, Tom went out onto the forward deck to have a word with the one other man aboard who he knew to be deeply in love: Andrew.

  As soon as the psychiatrist was gone, Richard swung round to focus his blazing glare on Twelvetoes. ‘And I think I can see where you fit into all this, too,’ he spat. His tone was cool enough to render the Chinaman’s still gaze faintly speculative.

  ‘Indeed. I said to Robin that you would be the first to see the whole pattern as soon as your memory returned.’

  That gave Richard pause. ‘You talked to Robin?’

  ‘Twice. And to Miss Patel. I offered such help as I could and such information as I knew. As much as was safe.’

  Richard’s lips narrowed; so did his eyes until they were as deeply slitted as the Oriental’s — the bright pupils still burning behind them like the last of the sky beneath the storm clouds off Singapore in that instant before the lightning struck. ‘Do these people speak English?’

  ‘Perfectly, all of them; but you need not hesitate to talk in front of them. They are my sons and daughters.’ Richard did not even hesitate to consider whether Twelvetoes meant that literally. He plunged on, pulled by the power of his awakening reason, adding what he had heard in evidence during his trial to what he had known before Huuk had shot him, carried away by it all like a novice astride a runaway horse. ‘It was all yours, wasn’t it? You have a Triad of your own and you concentrate on smuggling pirated goods, discs, CD Roms, software, videos. The White Powder Triad let it be known that the ghost containers were full of cocaine in order to cover the fact that it was the next shipment which would contain it. In the meantime the containers were really full of your goods. All those videos of Disney’s Sinbad; they were coming to you. You!’

  ‘And if it is true?’ whispered Twelvetoes.

  Richard hardly seemed to have heard his old friend. He plunged on, his words falling over each other, scarcely making sense at all. ‘And they took it all. They went through the containers until they found the marked ones — up on the top right out in the open — and then they went mad. They were expecting cocaine and they found Sinbad instead. Of course they went mad, But they took the containers nevertheless. And it was your shipment all along.’

  ‘I admit nothing, of course,’ said Twelvetoes more firmly. ‘But if it were true, then what?’

  ‘Then you have some scores to settle too. My God do you have some scores to settle.’

  Twelvetoes nodded once, a precise, chopping movement of the head — uncharacteristic in a man whose movements were always so fluid. ‘Hai,’ he said. ‘Then let us find the Little Mistress and settle our scores shoulder to shoulder, old friend.’

  There was a moment of silence while the two of them remained face to face, mere centimetres apart; then Richard pulled back with a bark of laughter. ‘Tell me you haven’t planned this, right from the start!’ he said. ‘As soon as you heard what had happened to your shipment and discovered what had happened to me, it all became part of your plan!’

  And Twelvetoes gave the ghost of a smile.

  The helmsman leaned in again and yelled, ‘Ngah fan!’: five minutes. Richard and Twelvetoes climbed back up into the wheelhouse, and as they did so, a gabble of conversation through the radio became audible. There were no familiar voices but the overlapping conversations were all in English and it was plain at once that they were coming from transmissions aboard the cutters and launches to starboard.

  ‘ … Chinese coastguard cutters still in position …’

  ‘ … Cutters not responding …’

  ‘Come in, Chinese coastguard. You are in Hong Kong waters …’

  ‘ … I have to inform you that you are in Crown Colony jurisdiction. Please reply or we will be forced to board you, over.’

  ‘Last container being winched into place …’

  ‘ … Men in uniform coming off the freighter now, sir …’

  ‘ … First cutter pulling away now, sir …’

  ‘Chinese coastguard cutter, heave to, please. I have to inform you that you are under arrest …’

  ‘Second cutter pulling away now, sir …’

  Then a familiar voice, tough and decisive. ‘This is Commander Lee. All Crown Colony vessels pursue Chinese coastguard cutters. I say again, all Crown Colony vessels pursue Chinese coastguard cutters. These vessels must not be allowed to escape!’

  The group of stunned listeners on the sampan looked away to the right as the arrowhead of official vessels swung away to the starboard and began to pursue the vanishing Chinese boats. And, dead ahead, the good ship Seram Queen lay dead in the water. Dead and, to all intents and purposes, deserted.

  They were all out on the forecastle by the time the sampan came in under the high counter of the quiet ship and began to nose in towards the lowered accommodation ladder, gently pushing its way through the first of the floating corpses as it went. It was lucky that the sampan was substantial and the accommodation ladder was fully extended, for the water was heaving. It would not have taken the sharks long to find the bodies of the stricken ship’s crew even had they not been chopped about by the blades of the fleeing cutters’ propellers. The presence of the boats and the activity going on around them had kept the ravening fish away until a few minutes ago and there were no large numbers yet and nothing like a feeding frenzy so far — but the water was clearly a lethally dangerous place to be and everybody aboard the sampan was well aware that they would have to be extremely careful how they moved.

  ‘Had we better do one full circle before we go aboard, just to scout things out?’ asked Wally, harking back to his long-past Navy days.

  His answer came in the sound of a single shot from high above. They all looked up as though their heads were moved by a single impulse. And as they did so, the port side of the sampan slid up against the platform at the bottom of the accommodation ladder. T
welvetoes leaned down into the long cabin and spat an order. At once the forecastle of the long boat was full of his soldiers. They held the boat in place as the first team of five went over and up, moving like a jungle patrol with swift, silent, shadowy liquidity, forming overlapping pairs and vanishing onto the deck. Another order was called, another patrol vanished upwards. ‘We go next,’ said Twelvetoes. ‘They take the point but we lead the main attack. We will not rush along the deck, however. We will form up at the head of the accommodation ladder until we are joined by the other two contingents, and wait for each wu to report. We will not proceed without intelligence.’

  ‘That sounds sensible to me,’ said Tom.

  ‘Like hell it does,’ said Andrew. ‘It sounds like that man is getting ready to go to war. We’re all going to get arrested. If we’re lucky enough to survive until the police get back.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ said Wally. ‘You want to live for ever?’

  Andrew thought about all the things he wanted to say to — and do with — Maggie DaSilva. ‘Yes,’ he said feelingly. ‘Yes, I bloody well do!’

  But this conversation was being continued as they all hurried down the length of the sampan and by the time Andrew came to his heartfelt conclusion, he was stepping across onto the platform at the foot of the accommodation ladder.

  Then, in silence, they all ran up the ladder and tumbled over onto the deck in a group, except that Richard and Twelvetoes somehow seemed to be in the lead. Andrew and Wally followed, and Tom came up behind them. Although Tom was no military strategist and had no idea he was listening to the precepts of Sun Tsu, Twelvetoes’ words had made it sound as though things would be well-organised and relatively safe up here. And one look at what was happening in the water beside the ship had put the psychologist off any ideas of staying below.

  The deck was littered. The Chinese coastguard had not been too particular about the way in which they unloaded the containers and, although some had been dumped over the side, others had been dropped onto the deck, leaving a jumbled terrain of smashed wood and wildly spewed contents.