Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

Hatfi eld worked the main phone on the situation table. He was not in good shape. People from DC to Honolulu to Manila and Jakarta had questions. And Hatfi eld ate crow, said things like, ‘We’re working on it, sir. I have no idea, sir, but we’re getting there, sir.’

From the odd cold stare Hatfi eld gave him, Don must have been silently churning with fear. Though the Twentieth’s Technical Escort people had arranged the transportation of the VX to Johnston Atoll, Mac suspected the command responsibility had been DIA’s. Another one of those soldier versus spook things. Intelligence people were not supposed to make mistakes. Ever.

Brown kept turning back from his heated conversations with MICT and Surabaya, cursing to himself, getting ratty. ‘I can’t believe this.’

While intra-Asian trade was the busiest in the world, they hadn’t developed an advance-manifest system of the type used by the West.

In the US, Canada and Australia each ship had to forward its electronic manifest – collected from all the RFID tags – to the destination port authority twenty-four hours before berthing. But in most of the Asian ports, the only way the port authority knew what was coming in was through the freight forwarders and shipping companies.

Mac knew from Jenny Toohey that fi nding the containers criminals didn’t want you to fi nd was uniquely frustrating, especially when, like Jen, you were looking for container loads of women and children. She could spend two or three days without sleep, going out of her mind, while port security, customs and operations managers at the terminals shrugged, said things like, ‘Show me the box, I’ll get someone to open it.’ Jen always took that personally. It was probably why she was so good at it.

Hatfi eld was waiting for a confi rmation from CINCPAC in Manila that he was going to get cooperation from the Indonesian Navy. These were Indonesian waters and its navy was overworked and under-resourced for a military force expected to cover seventeen thousand islands. Back in the late 1990s, when Western powers wanted Indonesia to get tough on Malacca pirates, their navy had only twenty operable vessels.

Hatfi eld was starting to get cranky, acutely aware that time was ticking away. The atmosphere at the Chinook’s situation table was becoming smelly with fear and stress. The cigars on the screen were getting closer to the landmass of eastern Java. Mac couldn’t add anything more.

Hatfi eld looked at his G-Shock. Pushed his hand through his white hair. The Chinook they were on had a direct patch to the most powerful comms and signals-intelligence apparatus ever developed.

The Americans had keyhole satellites that could take images of a ten-inch object from one hundred and fi fty miles aloft. If it was cloudy or dark, they’d use their Onyx satellites, which could only distinguish objects of ten feet and over. They could point a directional mic from space and listen to conversations, pick up keystrokes on a keyboard or hear a number being dialled on a mobile phone. The United States had the computing capacity to simultaneously intercept thousands of emails and mobile phone calls and have those communications translated and logged in real time.

All of this infrastructure was buzzing and whirring in the background. Brown and his sidekick brought up screens, ran numbers, yelled at Manila, yelled at Surabaya, yelled at CINCPAC and pleaded with the propeller heads at the satellite imaging agency called NIMA.

But nothing. A cagey terrorist from Mindanao and his CIA mate had managed to have a US Army shipment of the second-most toxic substance known to science simply disappear off the screens.

Hatfi eld breathed out. Looked away from the table. Composed himself, then asked Don for options.

‘Pick the most likely ship on our list,’ said Don. ‘The one with the closest time-correlation to the VX going missing, and board her.’ He cleared his throat. ‘General.’

Hatfi eld looked at Mac, who said, ‘I agree. We have to stop one of these ships and have a look. Otherwise we’re going to have to shut down the whole shipping lane and I don’t know if the Indons will buy that. If we get into that discussion we could spend more time arguing than searching.’

After a silence, Hatfi eld breathed out, said, ‘Okay, let’s hear it.’

Mac grabbed the list of south-bound container ships from MICT.

Put it in front of Don. ‘We can strike out Golden Ram and Star of Bengal because one’s stopping in Cebu and the other is in Makassar as we speak, right? We know Sabaya and Garrison were motoring out into the Strait around eight o’clock yesterday morning, so we’re looking for a ship that left MICT around ten pm the night before.’

‘Which is a rough overlap with the time we realised the material was missing,’ said Don.

‘Right.’

Don ran his pen through a group of names: the ones on the top, too early. The ones on the bottom, too late.

Of the eight vessels, two were left: the RSL Puget Sound and the Hokkaido Spirit. Mac ticked two names, turned the list, slid it over to Hatfi eld.

Mac and Don held their breaths.

‘Which one, boys? And make it quick,’ snapped Hatfi eld.

Mac looked at Don, who wasn’t game to say it.

Mac turned back. ‘Both, General.’

Hatfi eld chuckled, almost laughed, until he realised Mac was serious. It was four in the morning and he was looking for a container of VX somewhere on the Java Sea. He had the most powerful military machine at his fi ngertips. And no one knew what the fuck was going on.

He shook his head, eyes looking tired, mumbled, ‘Fuck me sideways.’

Then he picked up the phone with a grunt, hit a speed dial.

‘Admiral? Hatfi eld. Twentieth. We have a target.’

Mac watched the boys from the Twentieth suit-up in their OSHA Level-A bio-hazard uniform, the only suit you could wear around nerve gas spills and what they called ‘unknowns’.

The soldiers on the Chinook were all sergeants and above. Working with CBNRE was a delicate and exact business and you couldn’t have some young dickhead wandering around deciding he knew best, especially when you were going to try to board a vessel at sea.

Mac watched the preparations. As machines were pulled out from the cargo area behind the airline seats, he recognised the percussion disrupter, an angular device that used shotgun blanks to stun detonation devices out of commission. He thought he saw a portable X-ray machine too.

Gantries were swung into place as Hatfi eld briefed a captain who was getting into his Level-A. Unlike the general-issue JSLIST suits that the world had seen on television during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Level-A didn’t have a canister that cleaned air from the outside. Level-As had their own forty-fi ve-minute supply.

Brown yelled over his shoulder, ‘General. CINCPAC on two.’

Hatfi eld picked up the receiver, hit a button. ‘Hatfi eld. Twentieth…

Got that, Admiral… Good to go, sir.’

The general put down the phone. ‘Brown! Sawtell takes Hokkaido and Myers takes Puget Sound. Tell ‘em stand-by for ten minutes and counting.’

Hatfi eld raised his G-Shock, squeezed two buttons and pushed another fi ve or six times. Others around him did the same. He picked up the phone again, hit a button, waited. ‘General Hatfi eld, Twentieth Support Command, United States Army. I’m -‘

He was interrupted. He waited, tapping a pen on the situation table, sweat marks under his armpits. He nodded, dragged a hand across his brow. Scratched it. The rest of them looked on. Big tension.

Hatfi eld blinked long, said, ‘Thank you, Commander. Appreciate your cooperation. Hope we can meet some time under better circumstances.’

‘Gentlemen, The Hokkaido Spirit and Puget Sound have been ordered by the Indonesian Navy to shut down power and stand-by to be searched. They’re giving us an hour. Let’s go,’ said Hatfi eld, clapping his hands.