The Rybinsk Deception (9 page)

By dawn he was tired and glad when work was interrupted by the arrival of the fuel supply boat.

Coburn had never asked where the village obtained its fuel, always assuming it was purchased in bulk from one of the coastal townships – a guess that seemed to be confirmed when the captain called out to him and started waving a large manila envelope that looked as though it could be mail from the outside world.

Today the fuel boat was in the care of Hari’s trusted lieutenant, the versatile Somalian who, once he’d tied up alongside the
Selina
hurried across to hand the envelope to Coburn.

‘Please to deliver this,’ he said.

The envelope had been sent by courier from Singapore to Bengkalis. It was addressed to Hari, marked urgent and, by the feel of it, contained documents of some kind.

‘You do it now?’ the Somalian asked.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Coburn was glad of the excuse to leave. ‘You worry about unloading the fuel. I’ll find Hari.’

The overnight restoration of the jetty made his return trip easy. Locating Hari was more difficult.

The Frenchman wasn’t celebrating victory with any of the village ladies he liked to call his wives. Neither was he supervising the demolition of the ruined huts nor, according to a little girl who was busy collecting spent bullet casings, had he visited either of the containers lately.

He was at Coburn’s hut, drinking coffee with Heather in the kitchenette. The strain of last night was showing on his face and he looked weary.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘You come from the river?’

‘Yep. This is for you.’ Coburn tossed the envelope on to the table. ‘The fuel boat brought it.’

‘Ah.’ Hari put it to one side. ‘You enjoy the fight?’

‘No.’ In the light of day, everything seemed too damn normal, Coburn thought. One of the windows in the hut had been shattered by a stray bullet, and in the corner of the room his Steyr that Heather had brought back for him was propped up against the wall beside her
M16, but otherwise, in this part of the village at least, today could have been any other day.

‘You have by chance searched the bodies on board the boat?’ Hari asked.

Coburn shook his head.

‘Then you will not have seen these.’ Hari produced four small photographs which he slid across the table.

Two were charred around the edges, the other two were smeared in blood, and all of them were photographs of Coburn.

‘Oh, Jesus.’ He sat down.

‘They are interesting, are they not?’ Hari picked up one. ‘Together with cheap cameras of the kind you can throw away, the men who die in the swamp carry these pictures of you in their pockets.’

Coburn knew where they’d come from. So did Heather.

‘They’re copies from your IMB job application file,’ she said. ‘Look at the back of the one that’s burnt the most.’

Coburn read out what was scrawled across it in ballpoint pen. ‘Twenty thousand ringgit,’ he said.

‘It’s a bounty.’ She took the photo from him. ‘Don’t you see? It’s the
Pishan
all over again. We weren’t attacked by local pirates who wanted to take over the village; we were attacked by men who thought they could get a big reward for killing you.’

‘Twenty thousand ringgit in exchange for a photo of me with a hole in my head?’

Hari was grinning. ‘For such money I myself would deliver your head with a hole in it,’ he said. ‘You are lucky to be so valuable.’

Coburn felt more bewildered than lucky, unable to comprehend how he could have become such a threat that, twice in the space of a single week, an attempt had been made to kill him – the latest not during a raid far out at sea, but by launching an attack on a whole village in which women and children lived.

‘The IMB,’ Heather said. ‘It’s them. It has to be.’

‘No it doesn’t.’ In the back of his mind something was warning Coburn to be cautious, something so fleeting that it was gone before he could figure out what it was, dispelled in part by Hari ripping open the end of his envelope and removing a sheet of paper.

‘So.’ The Frenchman read through what appeared to be a note then emptied the contents of the envelope on to the table. ‘Please to look,’ he said.

Spread out in front of Coburn now was another set of photographs. But these weren’t of him. They were of the
Pishan
tied up at a wharf against a background of cranes and warehouses. The photos were also much larger; half the size of an A4 sheet and taken by someone who’d used a powerful telescopic lens.

Except for one, they’d been shot from the same vantage point in bright daylight, a dozen or more high-definition colour prints, each showing a different man in the process of disembarking from the freighter.

‘How the hell did you get these?’ Coburn was astonished.

‘After we fail in our raid on the
Pishan
I tell you to leave the matter in my hands. That is why I telephone a business associate in Singapore and ask him for this favour. Two months ago I help him recover a small quantity of cocaine for which he was not paid, so he has been happy to do what he can for me when the freighter berths in Singapore. Please to tell me which of these pictures shows the man who drives his truck in Bangladesh.’

Coburn was trying to find him. The
Pishan
’s captain was easy to recognize, and a few members of the crew had faces that seemed familiar, but there were other faces he knew he’d never seen before – the gunmen who’d been lying in wait in the lighter, he realized.

‘He is there?’ Hari sounded anxious.

‘Hang on.’ Coburn was still looking, wanting to be absolutely sure. ‘This guy with his collar up.’ He pointed. ‘That’s the bastard right there.’

‘Then we are fortunate. He thinks he is clever by obtaining a picture of you, but now we also have a picture of him.’

‘So what?’

‘So it seems he is not so clever after all.’ Hari finished his coffee and lit up a cigarette. ‘You see, according to the note that comes with these photographs, my associate believed he could have obtained more pictures by going to the building where all arrivals must show their passports before they are permitted to enter Singapore. But he
discovers many closed circuit television cameras inside, so he decided it was not wise for him to try. Instead, he says he waited and watched.’

‘And?’

‘Of all the men who come off the ship, only one was careful to shield his face with his hand so that the CCTV cameras could not get good photos of him.’

‘Our friend with his collar up?’

‘Indeed.’ Hari thumbed through the prints until he found the one he wanted. ‘The man makes only this small mistake, but my associate was suspicious enough to follow him by taxi to the cheap hotel you see here.’ He gave the photo to Coburn. ‘Now we know where he stays in the city, and now our boats have fuel again, I shall make arrangements for us to visit him tomorrow.’

‘I’ve told you once,’ Coburn said, ‘it’s not your business. I’ll do it.’

Hari shook his head. ‘You are wrong. For last night, and for what this man does to us on the
Pishan
, he has made it my business. Please do not interfere.’

Too worn out to press the point, and knowing that if Hari hadn’t chosen to become involved the breakthrough would have never happened, Coburn wanted to believe this was at last a lead that was going to provide some answers. It damn well better, he thought, because if it didn’t he had no idea of where else to look, and even less idea of what the hell he was supposed to be looking for.

H
A
RI’S BUSINESS ASSOCIATE
was a Chinese gentleman called Lin, a giant of a man with such heavily tattooed arms that it looked as though the black singlet he was wearing had multi-coloured sleeves, yet who was as softly spoken as he was well mannered.

From the moment he’d picked them up in a dinghy after their trip across the Strait in the
Selina
, he’d been particularly polite to Heather, and had twice apologized unnecessarily for his less than faultless English.

After a delayed start from the village to allow the
Selina
’s machinegun to be removed, the crossing back to Singapore had been uneventful, marked only by the disposal of the bodies which Hari had heaved overboard unceremoniously in mid-Strait until a long line of them had been left bobbing up and down in the
Selina
’s wake.

They would sink later, he’d explained, although he’d also said he couldn’t see it mattering if they didn’t – a remark that Coburn had thought might have elicited a reply from Heather. But she’d kept her opinions to herself, appearing to accept the need to dump the bodies with the same peculiar equanimity that she’d accepted the violence of last night.

This morning she hadn’t said much about anything and refusing to let Coburn help her disembark when they’d dropped anchor off a coastal promontory some thirty miles east of the city – a suitably remote location that, according to Hari, would guarantee them privacy if they were later forced to bring their prisoner on board for the purposes of interrogation.

Even after they’d reached the shore she’d remained in one of her quieter moods and had spent the last three-quarters of an hour sitting beside Coburn in the back seat of the car with her mouth shut as though she had no intention of opening a conversation.

Quite what he’d done to fall out of favour, he wasn’t sure. In recent days, having discovered that the harder he tried not to think about her the more he tended to do so, he’d been making a conscious effort to treat her as he had done when he’d first met her, telling himself that she was no more interested in him than she was in anyone else.

Today her attitude was verging on hostile, mainly he thought, because she’d overheard him talking to Hari about the wisdom of bringing her back to Singapore, and because after the attack on the village she’d changed her mind about being ready to leave and for reasons of her own had wanted to stay on there.

Now they were well into the suburbs of the city, Lin was being forced to drive more slowly, being careful to look after his Mercedes in the heavy traffic. The car was a late-model CL500, bought with drug money, Coburn presumed, or with the profits from whatever other business the large man was in.

‘Soon we shall be there.’ Lin reached into the glove compartment and took out two small cardboard boxes, one of which he gave to Hari and the other to Coburn. ‘I bring these guns for you,’ he said. ‘They are gifts so you should not laugh at the calibre. At close range they are most effective. A round from a.25 will penetrate a man’s skull, but because it has not the energy to leave again it will go round many times inside his head.’

The guns were brand new Heckler & Koch pocket autos of a kind Coburn hadn’t come across before, nicely made and fully loaded, but unlikely to be of much help even in the confines of a hotel room.

Hari was of the same opinion. ‘We seek this man for questioning,’ he said. ‘We require to find out only what he can tell us.’

‘I understand.’ Lin smiled. ‘But if he will not say anything, by shooting him in the knees the guns will help you to persuade him. You wish me to go with you?’

Hari shook his head. ‘Since Miss Cameron accompanies us today, I would be grateful if you would stay in the car with her. We will not be away for long.’

‘Then you should get ready.’ Lin reduced speed and began searching for a place to park. ‘If you will look ahead you can see the hotel I photograph for you. It is called the
Golden Butterfly
and is on the right-hand side just before the intersection.’

The street was located in a seedy area of the Geyland district; dirty by Singapore standards, run-down and filled predominantly with Arabs and Malays, some of whom were eyeing the Mercedes with suspicion.

While Lin manoeuvred the car into a slot between a grocery van and a red Toyota pick-up, Hari turned to speak to Heather.

‘Let us hope things go well,’ he said. ‘But if the man proves difficult and we must take him back to the boat with us, it is best if you come to sit here in the front seat while we are gone.’

‘You’re still going to kill him in the end though, aren’t you?’ She looked at him. ‘Tell me.’

‘We shall see what we shall see.’ Slipping the handgun into his pocket, Hari got out of the car and waited for Coburn to join him on the sidewalk. ‘It is a pity she does not like me,’ he said. ‘But for you I am glad she allows you to share her bed.’

‘Yeah.’ Coburn didn’t bother to enlighten him. ‘What if this guy’s not by himself?’

‘Then we have these little automatics with which to defend ourselves.’ Hari grinned. ‘You are nervous?’

‘No.’ Coburn knew he should be, but he wasn’t – the result of being in a position where for once he had the upper hand, he thought, a welcome change after the events of the last few weeks.

In Lin’s photograph, the
Golden Butterfly
had a less than upmarket look about it. Viewed at close quarters it was a lot worse, a three-or four-storey ramshackle building behind an unpainted wooden façade in the middle of which was a door covered with graffiti and so many cigarette burn marks that it had a blackened band across it.

‘We should ask ourselves why anybody would choose to stay in such a place.’ Hari paused with his hand on the doorknob. ‘Perhaps as a cautious man he believes he is safer here than in a nice hotel downtown.’

The lobby of the
Golden Butterfly
was thick with smoke and the
rancid smell of cooking oil, and although the place was reasonably clean, the impression was one of advanced decay and shabbiness.

An elderly Indian behind the desk had seen them come in. Lifting his head from the newspaper he’d been reading he removed his spectacles and coughed. ‘You wish for one room or two?’ he enquired.

‘I come for another reason.’ Hari placed the photo of the truck driver on the desk and put down a $50 bill beside it. ‘You can tell me if this friend of mine stays here?’

The Indian put his glasses back on and peered at the photo. ‘It is difficult for me to be sure,’ he said. ‘We have many guests.’

Hari produced another $50 bill.

‘I remember now.’ The old man took both of the notes. ‘He pays in advance for two weeks. Room 23.’

Hari leaned over the desk to look for a switchboard. ‘You can inform my friend that he has visitors?’

‘It is not possible.’ The man coughed again. ‘The rooms do not have telephones and guests may use the house phone only and must pay in advance for all outgoing calls before they are made.’

‘Of course.’ Hari smiled. ‘Then if I may have the key we shall go to surprise him.’

This time the Indian was more reluctant, shuffling his feet and waiting to see if another handout was in the offing before he slid the key across the desk.

‘You are most kind.’ Hari put it in his pocket. ‘I shall return this to you when we leave.’

By now Coburn was having second thoughts, wondering whether they were underestimating the occupant of room 23, someone with the resources to hire gunmen wherever in the world he went, yet who seemed to believe that by checking into a nondescript hotel in Singapore he’d be impossible to track down.

Hari was more confident. He set off for the stairs, but stopped at the landing on the second floor. ‘You think this is too easy?’ he asked.

‘Maybe.’ Coburn looked along the corridor. It was poorly lit, and the smell of cooking had been replaced by the odour of urine and what he thought was bleach. ‘Let’s go and see.’

Room 23 was a quarter of the way along with nothing to distinguish
it apart from its number and a plastic ‘do not disturb’ sign hanging from the doorknob.

Coburn was wary of the sign. An invitation to be careless, he wondered, or at the very least a warning?

Hari had taken his gun from his pocket and was gripping it in one hand and holding the room key in his other. ‘Please to knock,’ he whispered. ‘But because you sound too English, allow me to do the speaking.’

After checking his own gun to make sure it had a round in the chamber, Coburn stood aside and tapped twice on the door with his knuckles.

‘A gentleman wishes to talk with you on the telephone,’ Hari called. ‘He says you will know who it is.’

The response was immediate – not from room 23, but from the one across the corridor where a baby had started crying and a woman was shouting obscenities in what sounded like Malay.

For a few seconds Hari listened. Then he inserted the key in the lock, twisted it as quietly as he could and threw his whole body against the door.

It had been a wasted effort. The room was unoccupied. Worse still, it appeared to have been unoccupied for some time.

The rubbish bin contained no scraps of paper, the bed was neatly made, no clothes were hanging in the wardrobe, and in the bathroom the towels were dry and the soap was unused, still lying in its cellophane wrapper.

‘Fuck.’ Coburn sat down on the bed, too disheartened to know what else to say.

Hari looked more angry than disheartened. He went to kick the door shut and began pacing round the room. ‘I am sorry for this mistake I make,’ he said.

‘It’s not your fault. For all we know, the bastard could’ve only stayed one night. Maybe we can run him down somewhere else.’

‘You have another plan?’

Coburn wished he did. ‘Depends on how involved Armstrong is,’ he said. ‘I need to see if he’s sent me an email or a fax before I do anything else.’

‘You wish for Lin to drive us to your apartment?’

‘If he doesn’t mind. We can grab a taxi if he does.’

‘No, no. He will be happy to.’ Hari took a last glance around. ‘For all we have achieved today, Miss Cameron will think we both are fools.’

Heather wasn’t sitting in the front seat of the car. She was waiting across the street, but had seen them leaving the hotel and realized they hadn’t been away for long enough.

She hurried through the traffic and came to meet them. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

‘Left our run too late.’ Coburn kept walking. ‘Looks like he pulled out days ago.’

‘So we haven’t found out anything.’

‘No.’ He opened the car door for her.

Before she got in she had something to say. ‘I know you think it’s a bad idea’ – she hesitated for a second – ‘but why not let me talk to my godfather? If we don’t get some outside help soon we’re never going to get anywhere, are we?’

He wasn’t ready to commit himself, needing to rearrange his thoughts and hoping that the drive across town would give him a chance to figure out what his next step ought to be.

In spite of the setback, the feeling that he could solve the puzzle by himself hadn’t gone away. The answer was no clearer than it had been on the morning after the attack on the village when he’d first become aware of it, but it was still there nagging at him, and strong enough to make him wonder what he had to do to get a better hold on it.

He’d been wrong to imagine that the drive would provide him with an opportunity to think of a solution. It didn’t, compromised initially by Heather reaching out to place her hand on his for some reason, and later on as they neared the city centre, by Hari offering advice on short cuts and routes that in the end seemed to make little difference to how long the journey took.

As a result, it was late afternoon when Lin finally dropped them off, and well past five o’clock by the time they’d thanked him for his help and come up to Coburn’s apartment to reconsider their position.

Since then Heather had been sitting slumped in a chair with her eyes
closed, and Hari had started pacing again, sucking on an unlit cigarette while he waited for Coburn to check his messages.

In the fax machine, the fresh roll of paper was unused, but Armstrong had sent two emails, one dated yesterday, the other the day before.

‘You have news?’ Hari asked.

‘Captain Celestino still hasn’t lodged a report about the
Pishan
being boarded, so Armstrong says I can draw my own conclusions from that.’

‘He says nothing else?’

‘Only that he’s asked the Americans to run a check on O’Halloran, but he hasn’t heard anything back and doesn’t think he will.’

‘I see.’ Hari frowned. ‘Then once again our luck is not so good.’

Heather levered herself out of her chair. ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she said.

‘There isn’t any milk.’ Coburn remembered throwing it out before he left. ‘There’s beer in the fridge, though.’

She went to get it, but had taken only a few steps before she stopped to inspect the sole of her shoe. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve just trodden on someone’s contact lens.’

Coburn was barely quick enough. He launched himself at her, spinning her away from the fridge and slamming her back hard against the kitchen wall.

She regained her balance and turned on him half angry and half scared. ‘You hurt me,’ she said. ‘What was that for? What did I do?’

‘Don’t move.’ He knelt down and removed her shoe. ‘Stay right where you are.’

The glass she’d trodden on had splintered into fragments, some of which were embedded in the sole. But none of them were the right shape to have come from a contact lens.

‘Jesus Christ.’ He remained on his knees, staring at the pieces of glass.

‘What is it?’ Hari was bemused.

‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’ Coburn had broken out in a sweat, endeavouring to recall lessons he’d spent the last two years trying to forget.

To make sure of things he carried out a search of the whole apartment,
examining light fittings, checking for pressure pads under the carpet and removing the lid of the toilet cistern before he felt confident enough to return to the kitchen and switch off the power to the fridge.