Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

Paul held the stance, chest heaving. Then Paul’s SIG was at his side and he was laughing at the ceiling.

Mac walked over. Looked around the Kleenex stacks and saw a West Highland terrier panting back at them.

White.

They found the biggest pile in the kitchens. Mac counted eleven Filipino sailors, most of them in pale blue ovies. They were lying across each other, under the stainless-steel kitchen tables, along the lino fl oor. One sat in a chair in an offi ce, slumped, tongue out slightly, eyes open, bullet hole in the forehead. A psychedelic screensaver pattern repeated on the laptop in front of him.

Paul and Mac avoided each other’s eyes. This many corpses, so well organised, meant there’d been a decent-sized posse on this ship at some point. The signs were not of struggle: no tracked blood, the bowls and knives were undisturbed on benches.

‘Mate, let’s stay out of the blood, eh?’ said Mac.

‘Yeah, and no touching.’

If they could defuse the bomb and save this ship Mac wanted the Singapore cops all over this, wanted a proper crime scene, wanted Garrison and Sabaya sitting in a courtroom, getting nagged to death by a public prosecutor. One charge of murder after another would be harder on a couple of egos like theirs than dying of lead poisoning.

They went back out into the lino-fl oored dining room, took a seat at a table. The offi cers’ was on the other side, with mahogany panels and big crystal decanter sets. The place was set for a meal.

Paul grabbed a bottle of mineral water and they both slugged on it.

‘They must have had at least ten guys in here to do this lot so fast,’ said Paul.

Mac hoped they weren’t still aboard, hoped they didn’t get to the bridge and fi nd a greeting party. He was starting to have these weird feelings, as if Garrison and Sabaya had been expecting him to come here all along. Like it was some kind of game. He was so tired he could no longer judge if what he was thinking was sensible or not.

The next step was going to be tricky. Mac’s assumption was that Sabaya had someone in the captain’s family and had him making contact with the Emergency Operations Command at set intervals.

He’d also be watching on CNN. Would have told the captain that.

‘You know, Sabaya does kill these people. He’s serious. So how are we going to do it?’ said Paul, worried.

‘I have an idea for that,’ said Mac. ‘But fi rst, let’s see that song sheet.’

The bridge wasn’t secured, even though it could be locked in the same way as the engine room. There were two stairways into the bridge.

Paul and Mac took the port side one. They were assuming whoever was on the bridge would have all their attention focused to starboard and the Emergency Operations Centre behind the pile of containers on Keppel Terminal.

The port bridge door had a large glass window in it. Looking through it, Mac saw one man in a white shirt slumped in what looked like a huge La-Z-Boy. It looked out through tinted glass along the entire loaded deck of Golden Serpent. The man seemed to be gnawing on his fi ngers.

Mac craned his neck to the starboard side of the bridge, couldn’t see anyone else, and looked at Paul. ‘One there at the moment. Want me to take him?’

Paul gave thumbs-up and Mac eased the door inward. It made no sound. Still a relatively new ship.

Glancing behind him, he saw that Paul had stowed the SIG, had a small pad of lined paper and a pen.

Mac pushed through, took two strides, cupped his hand over the reclining bloke’s mouth. Paul moved to the starboard end of the bridge. As he did, a face poked out, white-haired, middle-aged, a steel teaspoon in his hand, mouth open, confused.

Paul didn’t blink. Veered straight into him, hand over the mouth, swung him round into a half-nelson.

Mac brought his mouth down to his bloke’s ear. Whispered, ‘No sound. Okay?’

His head nodded.

‘Speak English?’

Nodded.

‘They got your wife?’

Head shook.

‘Kids?’

Nodded.

Mac felt a gulp.

‘They’re listening in, right?’ whispered Mac.

Shoulders shrugged, then head nodded, a yes, maybe.

‘My name’s Mac, Australian intelligence. That’s Paul, British intelligence. We’re here to help but they can’t know we’re up here or they’ll kill the hostages. Okay?’

The head nodded. Another gulp.

‘We’re going to communicate by writing, okay? Talk to the other guy, but not us. We’ll try to sort this. Okay?’

Nodded.

Mac let him go and he turned slowly. Dark hair, fortyish, long face, eyes red. Been crying a lot.

Mac offered his hand and they shook.

Paul let the other guy go and they walked over to Mac. All shook hands. Silent. The two ship guys looked hollowed out with stress and lack of sleep.

Paul got to the map table behind the big recliner chairs, put the pad on the map table. The older guy put on half-glasses.

Where’s your song sheet? Mac wrote on the pad.

The older guy walked to the starboard wing of the bridge, picked up a piece of paper, came back.

They looked at it. The last announcement had been and gone at one pm. The next was for one-thirty. They looked to the last page.

The fi nal demand was at 6.05 pm – essentially, a long screed of Moro invective and praises given to Allah.

Mac fl ipped back. The next demand to be broadcast was going to be: We demand the fourteen Moro separatist prisoners being held illegally in Manila be released before six pm local time tonight and brought to this ship, or we will detonate the VX nerve agent.

Mac looked at his G-Shock: 1.13 pm.

He beckoned the offi cers, and they all left the bridge, moved down two fl ights to the dining room where they introduced themselves.

Jeremy was the younger one – a New Zealander; Wylie was American and the captain. They were both based out of Singapore, where their families lived.

Jeremy shook his head. ‘How are we, I mean, how can we…’ His voice broke, unable to go on.

Wylie looked at Paul as if to say: See what I’ve been putting up with?

‘No one wants to be here, right Jerry?’ said Paul.

Jeremy nodded.

‘But here we are all the same. We’re gonna try and sort it, but we’re gonna need you, mate. Up for it?’

Jeremy nodded. Looked away. Embarrassed at his state.

‘We’re betting these guys have gone into the AIS system and switched on the bridge broadcast system,’ said Mac.

‘The one that only cuts in after a collision?’ said Wylie.

‘That one, yeah,’ said Mac, liking Wylie already. ‘We think your conversations are broadcasting to all ships, and that’s how Sabaya and Garrison are listening in.’

‘Is that their names?’

‘What are they like?’ asked Mac.

Wylie grimaced. ‘Well, they know how ships work, they knew what we were doing and where we’d be. I mean, they weren’t like what you expect of a pirate or a terrorist.’

‘What were they focused on?’

‘The American kept talking about clarity, kept reminding me that anyone who commanded a vessel this large had to have an adult grasp of clarity.’

Wylie exhaled, grabbed at a glass of water. ‘Then he put that sheet on one side of the table, and the photo of my wife on the other, said, Here’s how it works. And we’ve been up here ever since, broadcasting this rubbish.’ He slapped the song sheet against his thigh.

Jeremy sniffed. Paul eyeballed him, said, ‘Come on, mate.’

Mac wanted more. ‘They tell you they’d be watching on TV?’

‘Yes, sir. Told us that this was a tailored CNN incident.’

Mac’s ears pricked up. Didn’t know why. ‘The American. He said incident?’

‘Sure did. Said it several times. Said he’d be watching it on CNN and if we got stormed before the set time on the sheet, he’d blow the place up and kill his hostages.’