The Rybinsk Deception (4 page)

She was amused, raising her eyebrows but making no attempt to provide O’Halloran with the assurance he was asking for.

Her response had been the one Coburn had expected, a predictable message to remind the American that he wasn’t in America, and that it might be an idea if he was to pull his head in.

She really was unlike anyone else, Coburn thought, not just because of her attitude, or the way she spoke or even how she looked, but because of something he couldn’t put his finger on.

Today she was wearing a sleeveless blouse, jeans and open-toed shoes – ordinary everyday clothes she’d brought with her from the beach, but clothes that on her looked anything but ordinary. No taller than five foot three, and with her hair tied back in a pony-tail, she had a good figure and rather small pointed breasts that were brushing against the fabric of her blouse each time she flexed her leg.

But it wasn’t her hair or her figure that made him want to keep looking at her, he decided, nor was it the shape of her mouth or the curious flecks in her eyes. It was more because she was unconscious of herself, or maybe because of some kind of underlying sensuality of which he was aware but of which she was not.

‘What’s the matter?’ She’d noticed him staring. ‘Don’t you want me to hear what you do for a living?’

He smiled. ‘It’s not that big a secret. I don’t think my cover’s going to be blown by somebody who lives in a shipping container on a beach in Bangladesh.’

O’Halloran had started glancing at his watch. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘If you’re happy for Miss Cameron to sit in, I’ll get right to it. All I know is that you’re on loan to the Singapore Government, and that by working undercover you’ve infiltrated what’s rumoured to be one of the largest pirate groups operating in the Strait of Malacca. Have I got that right?’

‘Yep.’ Coburn nodded. ‘So what?’

‘So your job’s just got harder. If North Korea’s sourcing uranium or plutonium from Pakistan as well as Russia – and we’re pretty sure they are – the IMB says you’re the guy we need to keep an eye on suspect ships passing through the Strait.’

‘I’m not the guy you want,’ Coburn said. ‘Trust me.’

The American carried on as though he hadn’t heard. ‘Starting next week, the CIA and the National Counter-Proliferation Centre will be supplying intelligence to your people at the IMB, who’ll pass it on to you together with ships’ manifests in the same way they do now. To help you persuade your pirate friends to target vessels that could be carrying illegal nuclear material, we’ll make sure these ships and these manifests include attractive cargo that’s easily off-loadable and easily traded on the international black market. That way you’ll have an excuse to go on board and have a look around.’ O’Halloran placed his hands palms down on the table. ‘Later today you’ll receive a call from London confirming what I’ve just said. In the meantime, are there any questions you’d like to ask me?’

Coburn could think of several. ‘You’re full of shit,’ he said, ‘so is Armstrong and so are the IMB. Have you any idea what it’s like boarding a freighter at night in bad weather, when you don’t know whether you’re going to be running into a battery of anti-piracy acoustic guns, water cannons or a nine-thousand volt electrified deck fence? And if I get through all that and don’t get shot by some crazy captain who’s been taking brave pills, I’m supposed to walk around on deck in the dark holding a fucking Geiger counter, am I?’

‘I’m not going to answer that.’ O’Halloran’s expression remained the same. ‘Nobody expects you to measure radioactivity with the kind of equipment you’re talking about. And you’re not being asked to go searching for weapon-grade pits of hot plutonium. All we need to know is whether or not stuff is being smuggled, and whether North Korea are acting alone or in conjunction with someone else.’

‘Someone else like who?’

O’Halloran shrugged. ‘That’s what you’re going to find out. It could be the Pakistani Government making some money on the side – although Pakistan’s pretending to be as worried as we are about Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. If the Koreans aren’t organizing things themselves, it’ll more likely be a terrorist group like the Movement for Islamic Unification who are busy supplying arms to anyone who has a grudge against America, or maybe it’s the owner of one of these shipyards here in Chittagong. It’ll be interesting to see, won’t it?’

Who it would be interesting for, Coburn wasn’t sure. Nor was he about to waste his breath telling O’Halloran to get lost. It was Armstrong who needed to understand what a stupid fucking idea this was, and Armstrong who would have to tell the Americans what they could do with it.

‘Well.’ O’Halloran stood up. ‘I guess we’re done. I want to have a look at those guns on the
Rybinsk
, so I’ll drive Miss Cameron back to the beach for you.’

‘You’ll get that nice suit of yours messed up,’ Coburn said. ‘And you’ll be wasting your time. The guns won’t be there. If you want to know why, ask Miss Cameron.’

She frowned. ‘How much are rifles like those worth?’ she asked.

‘Depends,’ Coburn said. ‘On the black market in Bangladesh, probably around a couple of hundred dollars each.’

‘Oh. I didn’t realize. That’s six months’ wages for a shipyard worker. So, no, they won’t be there any more. They’ll have been unloaded overnight and sold.’

‘Let me worry about that.’ O’Halloran was as anxious to end the conversation as he was to end the meeting. ‘Nice to have met you, Mr Coburn,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch. Good hunting in the Strait.’ Without offering to shake hands he went to hold the door open for Heather.

The American’s abruptness had irritated her. Before leaving the room, she made a point of ignoring him and came over to say goodbye to Coburn.

‘Thank you for yesterday,’ she said. ‘I hope everything turns out all right for you.’

He hoped so too. ‘If you’re ever in Singapore, give me a ring,’ he said. ‘The IMB can tell you where to find me.’

‘Yes, I will. Goodbye.’

After she’d gone, for a while he stayed where he was, wondering why he hadn’t wanted to walk with her to the car-park, but in the end deciding that he had more important things to think about.

How important they were was difficult to judge, but his drive back across town helped clarify his thoughts, and by the time he reached his hotel he had some idea of how best to tackle the new problem he was
facing, and had convinced himself that the prospect of getting to know Heather Cameron had always been more imaginary than it had been real.

In the hotel lobby he picked up copies of two English language newspapers, then went to his room intending to telephone London right away.

He was preparing to make the call, and was trying to work out whether or not the IMB office would have closed for the day when he caught sight of the headline and leading article on the front page of the
Bangladesh Observer
:

Coburn read through the article twice, more surprised by the speed at which the press had got hold of the story than he was about the absence of information on the guns and the lack of comment on how young some of the shipyard victims had been.

To see if any of the broadcast networks were carrying the story he switched on the television, selecting CNN as the channel he thought would be most likely covering the raid.

Rather as he’d expected, a news programme was in progress in which a young woman was interviewing a distinguished-looking, middle-aged man with silver hair who, according to a ribbon crawling across the bottom of the screen, was retired US Brigadier George Shriver from some organization called The Free America League.

The brigadier’s body language was as patronizing as his manner – traits that Coburn had seen before in Iraq when generals and politicians had visited on what were ostensibly fact-finding missions, but which in reality had been poorly received attempts to boost the morale of the US troops.

The BBC World Service had better coverage, but the reports added nothing to what he already knew, and although the other newspaper had a half-page picture of the
Rybinsk
, and an eyewitness account of the incident provided by a shipyard worker, there was no fresh information in that either.

Having decided it was probably too late to phone London now, for no good reason he could think of, for the next ten minutes he continued watching the interview with the brigadier, wondering if the story had been deliberately leaked by O’Halloran’s department, but soon becoming disenchanted by the familiar rhetoric about the dangers facing the US, and how the only means of protecting the American people was by turning North Korea into a nuclear wasteland.

Annoyed with himself for bothering to listen, he switched off the TV and except for taking a shower and eating dinner alone in the hotel restaurant, spent the remainder of the day doing nothing at all.

By the next morning, in spite of a vague feeling that there might be more behind the voyage of the
Rybinsk
than O’Halloran thought there was, he was ready to make his call to London, and by the morning after that, having had his future spelled out in a way that left him with no options if he wanted to keep his job, he was pleased to be getting out of Chittagong and equally pleased to be leaving Bangladesh.

For a weekday, the airport was reasonably quiet when he went through check-in, and at gate 17 the departure lounge for his flight was no more than half full.

The plane too was comparatively empty, giving him the opportunity to search for a row of seats where he could have three of them to himself.

He was waiting for a flight attendant to finish pushing her trolley down the aisle when he heard someone call his name.

It was Heather Cameron.

She was sitting by the window of an otherwise unoccupied row he’d just walked past, and was waving to attract his attention.

Hoping she wasn’t going to be stupid enough to pretend this was some kind of coincidence he went to sit beside her while he waited for an explanation.

She attempted a smile. ‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’

‘Depends. What are you doing on this flight?’

‘It’s sort of complicated.’ She leaned back and tried to make herself relax. ‘Mostly it’s because I’ve lost my job at Fauzdarhat. You see, by the time I got back to the beach my place had been broken into and trashed. One of the children told me my container is going to be used for storing asbestos fibre.’

‘Message from the shipyard owners?’

She nodded. ‘They blame me for what happened. They think that if I hadn’t made a fuss about the crew of the
Rybinsk
, those boys wouldn’t have been killed. I’ve been more or less run out of town, I suppose.’

‘How does that explain why you’re going to Singapore?’

‘It doesn’t. Well, not by itself it doesn’t. If you’ll stop asking questions
for a minute I’ll tell you. Once I’d realized I couldn’t work at the beach any more, instead of waiting for UNICEF to send me somewhere I didn’t want to go, I thought I’d see if I could get myself reassigned to an interesting-sounding place I’d heard about – you know, because it would be a change.’

‘And that’s Singapore, is it?’

She shook her head. ‘Not exactly. It’s the village where you’re working in Sumatra. I wouldn’t have known it existed if O’Halloran hadn’t mentioned it while he was driving me back. He only learned about the place himself because of the phone call the IMB made to him.’

Irrespective of how attractive she happened to be – and now she was sitting less than a foot away from him, it was hard not to be reminded – Coburn knew this wasn’t just another complication. As well as the idea being utterly impractical, it was so ridiculous it was out of the question.

‘So that’s your new assignment, is it?’ he said.

‘It was easier to arrange than I thought it would be. All I did was phone my godfather again and asked him to go and see your Mr Armstrong at the Marine Bureau. Mr Armstrong said he’d speak to a contact he had at the UN, and yesterday morning I got a call back from UNICEF.’

‘Giving you the OK?’

‘Mm – as long as I email them my report on Fauzdarhat by the end of next week. I think I saved them the trouble of deciding where I ought to be sent next.’

Although the smile she was giving him was less artificial, she was apprehensive and had yet to regain all of her confidence.

‘You’re out of your mind,’ Coburn said. ‘You don’t understand and you’re not going. Either get off the plane now or wait until you get to Singapore and catch another one to wherever you want to go.’