Mark Abernethy: Second Strike

Maddo led them around the back of the wheelhouse and straight through a spring-loaded door into a dim passageway. It was hot and musty inside as Maddo led them down the steep companionway and along the low-ceilinged passage. They moved past storerooms, a sick bay and the fi rst mate’s offi ce, all the rooms tiny, steel-walled rat-holes. At the end of the passage was a companionway that led up, and one that dropped down. Maddo headed into the downwards companionway with Mac and then Pharaoh following close behind, all of them moving with one hand on the railings and the other on their handguns.

When they hit the next level down it was like walking into a steam room. Maddo signalled a three-way split to search down the passageway. This was where you’d fi nd the cabins on ninety-nine per cent of these coastal tubs and it was where Maddo and Mac expected to fi nd Akbar, probably hiding in a robe or cowering under a bunk.

Mac felt the sweat running freely under his wetsuit as he took the three cabins that Maddo had assigned him. He pushed the fi rst cabin door inwards and shouldered against the bulkhead. Slowly sticking his head around, he scanned the room: there were two double bunks against opposite bulkheads, a small gap between them with a mangy old tobacco-stained porthole. Each bed had a bare mattress with a sheet of Indian cotton on it and there were small piles of clothes and washcloths at the end of each bunk. Holding his breath to avoid the rancid smell of working men in the tropics, Mac crouched but there was nothing to look under: the bunks had two drawers in the base of the bottom bed.

Nowhere for Akbar to hide.

The second cabin was much the same, but someone was also sleeping on the fl oor, judging by the rolled-up mattress against the wall with a few folded clothes and a book – probably a Koran

– wrapped in a white crocheted cloth. There were exposed wires and a dangerous-looking jerry-built electrical plug that probably powered a fan when it got really hot.

Again, no Akbar.

The sweat rolled off Mac’s forehead as he came back into the cramped passageway, gulping for air, and saw Maddo at the other end. They shrugged at one another, the faint sound of sailors shouting echoing down to them before getting swallowed in the throb of the idling diesels.

Creeping into the last of his assigned rooms, Mac immediately realised he was in the guest’s cabin. It smelled of aftershave rather than BO, there were a couple of cot beds rather than double bunks and the portholes were open.

But still no Akbar.

Mac looked around, opened a wardrobe and found a couple of nice business shirts and a navy blue blazer hanging inside. He was speed-breathing again, an old reaction to nerves that fourteen months in the British military had been unable to beat out of him. Consciously deepening his breathing, Mac brought his Heckler up level with his chest, slowly gripped the door and pulled it back. No Akbar, although there was an expensive leather hold-all on the fl oor. He poked around the edges, trying to see if there were any wires or pressure pads before he opened the thing. It was clean and organised, a bunch of clothes and what looked like diaries. Mac pushed the far side up and found the letters AA stamped into the leather in gold. Ahmed al Akbar clearly liked the good things in life.

Leaning into the passageway Mac motioned Pharaoh over. Overhead the shouts of the navy boys and the replies of the Princess hands continued. As Pharaoh got to the cabin, Maddo fi nished his search and joined them. Looking down at his G-Shock, Mac realised they were running out of time.

‘This is Akbar’s cabin,’ he whispered to Maddo. ‘But he’s not here.’

Maddo gulped, his square face reddening in the oven-like atmosphere. ‘On deck?’

‘Nah – too risky,’ said Mac. ‘He’s down here somewhere. Three minutes, I reckon, then it’s time for Harold.’

‘Got that,’ said Maddo. ‘Any ideas?’

Mac shook his head. ‘You?’

The three men looked at each other. This wasn’t going well.

‘That smell?’ whispered Pharaoh. ‘That aftershave?’

‘Aramis, I reckon,’ said Mac.

Pharaoh jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘I smelled it back here.’

While Pharaoh led Maddo down the passageway, Mac stayed in Akbar’s cabin. Taking a Ziploc plastic bag out of his rebreather webbing, he pulled out the battered and folded letters he’d prepared at the embassy in Manila and slipped them into Akbar’s main diary in the leather hold-all. Written in Arabic, they purported to be from an assistant attache with the US Embassy in Jakarta, spelling out that should matters prove ‘overwhelmingly diffi cult’ in regards to his cover, his sponsors had an emergency extraction timed for 11 October from Endeh, on the southern side of Flores. All fi nancial arrangements would be honoured in any event, said one of the letters, with funds continuing to be transferred to his nominated accounts in Singapore.

Though it might seem like an obvious ruse, Mac had set up several numbered accounts at DBS in Singers with the same serials recorded in the letters. He’d even dumped some money in them. Al-Qaeda was a bourgeois organisation, and the fi rst thing they’d authenticate would be the banking details.

Maddo and Pharaoh stood outside what looked like a cool room or pantry door, with a big cantilevered chrome handle sitting horizontal over the latch and a huge long-shank padlock holding the handle in place. Mac slid around in the sweat that was building inside his rubber slippers as he got to the pantry door.

‘Think he’s right, Macca,’ whispered Maddo, pointing at the door.

‘Smell that?’

Mac smelled it immediately. It must have been broiling inside that locked box and the Aramis was wafting off whoever was wearing it like incense.

‘Good call, Pharaoh,’ whispered Mac, then asked him to tell Akbar that the Indonesian Navy were boarding and they needed to get him to safety.

Pharaoh aimed a torrent of Arabic at the pantry door, his tone friendly and fi rm, like a cop. A faint voice came back through the door and they looked at Pharaoh to see what had been said.

‘Says, Get me the fuck out of this oven,’ said Pharaoh. ‘Bloke’s ready for Harold.’

Sizing up the padlock, Mac slapped at a webbing pocket for his lock jiggers, but felt nothing. Fuck! The loggerhead turtle had taken off the webbing pocket with his jiggers and computer code-runners.

‘No jiggers, boys,’ whispered Mac, embarrassed. ‘New girlfriend’s got ‘em.’

Pharaoh put both hands up behind his neck, pulled at the A-frame on his back. Out off the backpack and over his head came the largest set of bolt-cutters Mac had ever seen. They stood as tall as a medium-height girl.

‘You taking the piss?’ asked Mac, realising what they were for.

Maddo shook his head, the sweat pouring down his face. Bringing the bolt-cutters down level, Pharaoh stepped up to the latch. As he did Mac thought he heard something, but no one had noticed. Probably nothing.

Pharaoh nuzzled the seven-inch jaws of the bolt-cutters up to the thick padlock shanks and jimmied his hands down the levers of the thing to the black rubber handles. Mac couldn’t believe it would work – the padlock looked enormous and was a German brand that special forces usually jigged or blew with a cone-shaped charge of C4.

Mac’s G-Shock indicated they had one hundred and fi ve seconds till the Indonesian Navy skedaddled. It was getting too fi ne. Then he heard the noise again as Pharaoh braced his legs and torso and got ready to try and clip the padlock. It was the sound of a vibration, something more than the idling diesels in the engine room.

‘Shit!’ hissed Mac. ‘They’re pulling out early.’

He and Maddo held their breaths as they heard the cavitating sound of another set of props increase their thumping against the hull of Penang Princess. It was unmistakable; the TNI Navy vessel was throttling in reverse. They were pulling away.