Mark Abernethy - Golden Serpent

‘You know which one is the VX?’ asked Mac.

‘The what?’ said Wylie.

‘It’s nerve agent. They stole it, got it on this ship.’

‘Oh that. Is that what they call it? Yeah, they hauled these big black bags down to twelve -‘

‘Twelve?’

‘Bay Twelve. It’s the twelfth container from the stern. About halfway between the bridge and bow.’

‘Then what?’

‘We worked out it was twelve eleven eight-six.’

‘What was?’

‘The container they were working on. They knew all about the bridge gantries and ladders and lashing. They seemed to know their stuff.’

‘What’s twelve eleven eighty-six?’

‘It’s the container position,’ said Wylie. ‘It’s bay twelve, row eleven, tier eighty-six.’

Paul frowned. ‘In English that would be?’

‘It would be halfway to the bow, on the outside – starboard – side of the stacks, and high up. About second or third from the top of the stack.’

Mac mulled it. Twelve eleven eighty-six, exactly where the offi cers on Hokkaido Spirit said you’d have to put a container if you wanted to open it en route.

Mac beckoned Paul to another table, whispered, ‘We can’t pull the cops and the Yanks in here to do the bomb or these guys are going to lose family, right?’

Paul nodded.

‘So we have to get the TV cameras shut down. Make it look like the Singaporeans have moved to a new Em-Con level.

‘Once we can get those helos and cameras out of here, then Sabaya and Garrison are blind. They can hear those demands going out every thirty minutes, and they think it’s all going on. But they don’t know the Twentieth is crawling all over Golden Serpent trying to disarm their bomb.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

Mac went back to Wylie and Jeremy. ‘Mate, think we might have an idea,’ Mac said to Wylie.

Paul wanted to know how they’d been speaking with the Americans, and Wylie said, ‘The ship-to-shore phone.’

‘Where is it?’ asked Mac.

Wylie pointed at a table next to the starboard window. There was a heavy white handset face down on a white plastic cradle.

‘Got a number?’ asked Paul.

Wylie pulled a folded piece of white paper from his shorts.

Mac and Paul swapped a look. With the ship-to-shore phone not jammed it might be possible to get through to Sawtell or the Port Master or Hatfi eld. Mac wasn’t hopeful on that score. Once the EOC starts its business – especially a US military one for a terrorist threat – the lines of communication go so high that outside calls are not taken.

Hatfi eld would be sit-repping as high as CINCPAC, Joint Chiefs and maybe the Oval Offi ce. There wouldn’t be too many rubber-neckers getting through.

Still, it was worth a shot.

Mac checked his G-Shock: 1.25. He looked at Wylie, whose face fell off him like a fl esh waterfall. ‘Guys, you’re up again. Do what they tell you, all right? Don’t talk about us. We’re trying to get this sorted.

Do it by the book, right?’

The two offi cers nodded, gulped down some water and walked back upstairs, dragging their feet. Mac sat back. According to the Sabaya sheet, the whole thing timed out at six that evening. It gave them about four and a half hours to come up with something. If they couldn’t alert the Singaporeans and the Yanks within the next half-hour, Mac was going to slip back into the water and stealth round there himself. Or even better, get Paul to do it. He got out of Hasanuddin, piece of piss. He could try getting into a US Army EOC.

Mac walked to the starboard window, looked out. He could make out the fl ash of a rotor or a truck at intervals where you could see through the mountain of container stacks. There were black-clad Singaporean SWAT teams lurking between the containers. Mac wondered what they thought they were going to do: storm the VX consignment? Intimidate the CL-20?

The EOC had been mounted back from the apron. Tucked among the container stacks.

Mac could see broadcast trucks along the raised Ayer Rajah Expressway. There were at least thirty of them and there seemed to be a roadblock of more trucks and vans trying to get the circle seats.

Even without binos Mac could see their satellite dishes on the roofs, uplinking with a continuous feed. They were getting used to the thirty-minute spacing of the demands, perhaps. The AIS broadcasts meant CNN and Fox News could be getting their feeds from any one of the ships. Could even be getting it from a hobbyist with a VHF receiver who could hook into the maritime bands.

There seemed to be a fl urry of activity, then voomph, along the rows of OB trucks the klieg lights and refl ector brollies lit up and the row looked like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Mac wondered why the lights had gone on now, in the middle of the afternoon, then looked at his watch: 1.29. Golden Serpent had become the news cycle. Bottom of the hour live feeds to the anchors.

Lots of reports starting sentences with things like ‘We’re hearing’, and

‘There’s a real sense’, in lieu of having any information.

The next thing to arrive was going to be the anchors. They’d be coming in from Honkers, Sydney, KL, Manila, Jakarta and Bangers.

They’d want their own trailers. They’d want higher platforms than the others, better lighting, better synergies with the EOC. They’d need bigger OB trucks so the anchors could broadcast their shows out of Ayer Rajah, with Golden Serpent in the background. They’d need more producers, more lights, more make-up. They might even bring the weather girl and the sports guy.

They’d be clamouring for the Twentieth or the Singapore cops or the MPA to appoint a PR fl ak to manage the media. The PR fl ak would be so inundated with requests and demands from the producers and reporters that she’d have to requisition time, real estate and resources to create constant cycles of press conferences. People like Hatfi eld and the Port Master would tire of saying no. They’d fi nally drag themselves into the press conference, become annoyed, mumble something like, ‘Who ordered this gaggle-fuck?’ Which would become the next news cycle.

Mac wanted to short-circuit that process.

Standing back from the window, he looked up at the wall, saw a TV.

He found a remote beside it on the wall-mounted platform. Switched it on, found CNN, kept the volume low. There were panning shots of Golden Serpent with American voices narrating, bringing audiences up to date. A large container ship has been hijacked by terrorists and is currently berthed at Port of Singapore with what is believed to be a large amount of nerve agent rigged to a very large bomb.

The voices went on, talking about demands and Moro prisoners, had experts talking about what nerve gas does to people. The nerve gas guy kept trying to make a point, but he got talked over so they could seg to the OB. Mac thought he heard the nerve gas guy trying to say, ‘Are your people suited up?’

CNN cut to the OB. The reporter had a helmet of hair, a Banana Republic photo-journalist uniform and a beautiful delivery. But she wasn’t suited up and would have a major problem if she was still standing on Ayer Rajah when the VX blew.

The fi nal demand was at six o’clock. It was going to be a prime time nerve gas attack.

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.