Golden Serpent

CHAPTER 38

Paul dialled the number and handed over to Mac, who was now watching Fox. ‘You want to do this?’ he said.

Mac nodded, put the phone to his jaw. When the phone picked up, it immediately auto-switched to a recorded message telling Singaporeans to make for the causeways, get into Malaysia. It gave bus pick-up points and told foreigners to get out of Dodge, phone their embassies

…

Fuck! The Americans had outsmarted themselves. To open a clean line between the ship and the EOC they’d diverted everything else, including all other ship-to-shore phones on Golden Serpent.

Mac had an idea.

‘Mate, what’s Weenie’s sat-phone number?’

Paul called it out and Mac dialled the handset. Weenie answered in two rings and Mac told him what he needed. Weenie’s laptop connected to the sat-phone and made him a travelling PABX switchboard through which Mac could be connected anywhere in the world.

‘Don’t worry about MPA,’ said Mac. ‘They’ll be off their feet. Get me Camp Enduring Freedom in Zamboanga.’

Mac waited for Weenie to go to the US Department of Defense directory and dial.

‘Through now, Mac,’ said Weenie.

The line rang and rang. Finally someone picked up. Mac recognised the voice. His old mate.

‘Alan McQueen, Australian Embassy. In a jam down here in Singers, mate. Could you get me through to Captain Sawtell quick-smart?’

There was a long sigh. ‘Captain Sawtell is operational, Mr McQueen.’

‘Yeah but – ‘

‘I would have thought you’d be quite aware of that if you’re in Singapore.’

Mac didn’t have the time. ‘Look -‘

‘So I’ll just have to take a message.’

Mac breathed long. ‘Look, Craig is it?’

‘Corporal Craig, yessir.’

‘Watching Fox News?’

‘Mr McQueen, I can’t -‘

‘Have a look at the deckhouse,’ snapped Mac. ‘Can you see it? Big white thing rising above the containers. Got it?’

‘Mr McQueen, I don’t see -‘

‘Count two windows below the bridge. The starboard bridge, the one you’re watching. See the window? Big square number?’

‘Yes sir, Mr McQueen, I see it. I’m sorry, I have to go -‘

‘Keep your eyes on that window, Corporal.’

Then Mac did what he had to do, before a worldwide audience.

‘See it, Corporal?’

There was a silence, then, ‘Oh my God!’

Mac composed himself. Tried to keep the anger down. ‘Now listen, Corporal Craig. Don’t make me say this again, okay? I’ve been on the go for six days chasing the people who are doing this. I’m working on secondment with the British government and I was previously on secondment to General Hatfi eld’s Twentieth Support Command.

At this very moment I’m on Golden Serpent, which means I’m sitting on top of a nerve gas bomb that could go up at any second. I’m tired, I’m emotional and I’m scared, mate. I need to talk with John. I need to talk with him now! So. Patch. Me. Through. Now! ‘

‘Through now, Mr McQueen. By the way, it’s a party line.’

The line buzzed and whined, then clicked.

‘Sawtell.’

‘ Darling! You don’t phone, you don’t write!’

‘That your lily-white, McQueen? Damn, that thing’s whiter than a Republican Christmas.’

It was always the way, using humour to defuse things, kid yourself that your life wasn’t on the line. They got to the business. Mac gabbled, Sawtell wanted lots of sit-rep but Mac didn’t have the time to go over everything. ‘Look, most of the crew’s dead except for two offi cers.

They’re reading off a sheet Sabaya gave them…’

‘McQueen, this is Hatfi eld. Twentieth. I’ve been listening to your account.’

‘Sir, I need you to promise me that when I fi nish the briefi ng, no one comes aboard until we can shut down the media. Please, these guys are beside themselves. You know what Sabaya’s like with hostages.’

‘I can’t promise that, McQueen. VX is at a level that takes us to algorithms. You understand what I’m saying, right, son?’

Mac understood. When you got to the higher echelons of CBNRE you had a set of algorithms that you had to work to. The lives of the three people related to Golden Serpent ‘s offi cers would be netted off against the potential harm of a mass VX device being detonated to aerosol over the city-state of Singapore.

So Hatfi eld wasn’t about to promise anything to anyone.

Mac felt sick but he had no choice. If Hatfi eld was mentioning algorithms, at some point they were all going to have to confront the old argument known as Greater Good.

‘General, there’s no tangos on this ship. And the list of demands these guys are reading from runs through to eighteen hundred hours.

We’ve got till chow to fi nd it, disarm it.’

Mac had barely got it out before the yelling started up and down the US Army party line. It was like a room full of dead clocks had started ticking. He heard Hatfi eld muttering a list of orders at his people. He was going so fast that Mac could only pick up snippets of information.

Mac cut into the din. ‘General, please shut down the media fi rst.

I mean, before you bring the bomb teams on board. These guys have family being held hostage.’

Hatfi eld couldn’t disguise his relief. He had roughly four hours to dismantle a nerve gas threat – and he had a tango-free environment in which to do it.

Hatfi eld had taken the information and done what good generals do. He’d made a decision.

Paul came down from the bridge having asked Wylie to open the gangway doors. Mac didn’t want to go up there and look at those blokes after he’d promised them the kids and wife would be fi ne.

Paul sat, gave Mac a look. Mac knew what he wanted. ‘What?’

‘What?’ said Paul, cocking an eyebrow.

Paul wanted to rescue the hostages, Mac just knew it.

‘Fuck’s sake, mate, I’m not Rambo,’ said Mac, looking away. He was so tired.

Paul laughed. ‘Come on, Tiger. Let’s give it one last roll. See if we can’t bag these cunts.’

Outside Mac saw the gangways being dragged by tractors to the side of Golden Serpent. SWAT teams, fi re fi ghters and lots of US Army were milling on the dock clad in either white, yellow or green bio-hazard suits. There were helos in the air, the clanking sound of Black Hawks, the throb of Apaches.

‘Okay,’ said Mac. ‘So we have one Moro terrorist and one CIA black sheep. They have a fi ve-hour head start. Where do you want to begin?’

‘Back on Brani you told me you might have an idea about that,’ said Paul.

Mac thought about it. ‘We’ll need Weenie. We’ll need a helo.’

Paul slapped Mac on the shoulder. ‘That’s more like it.’

Mac rose, almost lost his balance.

Mac slipped up to the bridge to have a word before the Yanks and Singaporeans came aboard and threw everyone into a three-day debrief.

He leaned in the door, silently beckoned to Wylie.

Wylie saw it in Mac’s eyes immediately. ‘We’re still on air, aren’t we?’

‘Mate, as soon as I told them there was a timeline on this thing, they moved in. Couldn’t stop it,’ said Mac. ‘I’m sorry.’

Wylie clenched his fi st, looked at the fl oor. ‘Fuck it! You promised us. You both promised us. We’ve done everything your way.’ His bottom lip trembled.

‘We’re going after them now,’ said Mac. ‘No promises, but we’re going to try.’

‘Really?’

Mac nodded. ‘I’ll need photos of Jeremy’s kids and your wife.

Need names, nicknames, cell phone numbers. Anything that could help us.’

Wylie went into the bridge, came back with Jeremy. They emptied their wallets of pictures. Jeremy had two dark-haired daughters, about fi ve and seven.

‘The younger one’s Rachel,’ said Jeremy. ‘The older one’s Fiona, but she answers to Feef.’

Mac wrote it on the back of the pic. Pulled out Wylie’s wife: slim, attractive, well dressed. A sort of 1980s blonde hairstyle with big Farrah fl icks down the side.

‘Her name’s Karen. She’s amazingly calm in a crisis. She’ll do what you ask her,’ said Wylie.

Mac saw Jeremy’s hands going to his face, freaking out. Ignoring it, he brought it back to Wylie.

‘Tell me more about what they were doing. They drop any hints about where they were going?’

‘They didn’t kill everyone. They took Irvine, one of my offi cers.

Someone belted him in the face and one of the guys in charge – the Filipino – said something like, “Don’t damage the goods, I don’t want him useless for the next leg.” I thought it was a strange thing to say

– the next leg – like it was a tour or something.’

‘Irvine?’ asked Mac.

‘Yes, Peter Irvine. Canadian. Highly experienced in these waters.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not that I can recall.’

‘How did they leave the ship?’

‘By tender. Rigid infl atable thing. Might have been from Brani Terminal.’

‘Which way did they go?’

Wylie pointed over the port side, across the channel to Brani Island.

Mac nodded. ‘Three of them, huh?’

Jeremy leapt in. ‘And the woman helming the tender makes four.’

‘Sorry?’ said Mac.

‘The woman,’ said Jeremy. ‘I went out on the deck when they left, had a look. There was a blonde woman driving the tender.’

Mac’s ears fi lled with blood, heart pumping behind his eyeballs.

‘Woman?’

‘Yeah. Mid thirties, very attractive professional type. Couldn’t work out what she was doing with these scum.’

‘How was she dressed, mate?’

‘Jeans and a shirt. Pale-blue polo shirt thing.’

Jeremy moved closer, as if something had occurred to him.

‘Umm.’

‘What else, mate? Could be important,’ said Mac.

‘Nothing really. It’s nothing.’

‘Come on.’

‘Well, she looked up and saw me watching.’

‘Yes?’

‘And didn’t tell the blokes.’