Mekong Dawn
Ky smashed the window with the barrel of his rifle and the captain’s hand poised, inches from the microphone.
‘What are you doing on my vessel?’ The captain spoke Vietnamese. His hand resumed moving towards the mike.
Ky yelled, ‘Khong! No!’
The hand continued and he squeezed the trigger. The weapon rattled briefly and the captain’s body shuddered as a burst of automatic fire slammed into him at close range, tearing through him and spattering blood over the control console. The lifeless form slumped to the deck. Ky flung the door wide and stepped through a cloud of his own cordite smoke and into the wheelhouse.
There were several radios of various types lined up in the overhead console. Ky lifted his weapon and fired again, raking the radios with bullets. Pieces of wood and metal and electronic components flew in all directions. He released the trigger and one of the radios popped and fizzed and emitted a few sparks before settling into smoky silence.
Through the front windscreen he could see several men on the workspace in the bow of the Mekong Dawn. They had been attending to the large anchor chain, about to raise the anchor so that the Mekong Dawn could get under way. Now they all stood staring at the wheelhouse. Ky smashed open one of the large windows and covered the men with his weapon.
‘Continue with your task. Raise the anchor. We are getting underway.’ He turned to the man beside him. ‘Keep them covered. I will get the Colonel and our pilot.’
He stepped back onto the companionway and made his way aft to the boarding steps. Each cabin door he passed was wide open. Some had their frames splintered where his men had kicked them in. The cabins were empty. He heard more doors splintering on the far side of the vessel as the team assigned to that side continued with their task. Every few moments a woman’s scream filled the air.
They would have control of the vessel very shortly.
He found Malko and Van in the breezeway, directing little groups of frightened passengers into the dining saloon where they were covered by four armed men.
‘It is done, Colonel. The boat is ours.’
Malko placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘The radios?’
‘Destroyed. The captain is dead.’
‘No matter. We have our own river master.’ He turned to Van. ‘You have the vessel. Get us underway and into the channel as soon as possible.’
Van swept past Ky and Malko as he made his way to the wheelhouse. Malko watched him go then turned back to Ky. ‘Come. There are a few passengers on the sundeck. Let us go and deal with them.’
***
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Fred looked concerned at the sound of shooting.
‘Armed men just boarded our boat,’ Scott told him.
‘What?’ Nancy clutched at Scott’s arm. Collette threw a hand to her mouth.
‘About twelve of them. Maybe more. The steward is running to tell the captain.’
‘My God!’ Fred moved towards the rail but Scott stopped him with a hand on his arm.
‘I wouldn’t. There are men in a boat at the boarding steps armed with assault rifless.’
Fred nodded. More shouting and screaming came from the lower decks. Every few moments a loud crash shuddered the deck and Scott guessed the boarders were kicking open locked cabin doors.
Fred looked at the frightened faces of Collette and Nancy. ‘We need to do something.’
‘Whatever we do, we need to do it quick. They’ll be up here any moment now.’ Scott said, glancing at the companionway. It remained empty – for the moment. Think, Scotty, think. There has to be something you can do. He looked at the life rafts lined up along the sundeck, three on each side. The life rafts were contained in white fibreglass capsules about the size of a forty-four gallon drum. When needed, the capsule could be opened and the life raft inflated.
Fred noticed the direction of Scott’s eyes. ‘Take too long to inflate, Scott. They have a high-pressure nitrogen charge, but would still take a minute or so. Besides, the charge makes the devil’s own noise. Those men will be on us before we have it even half-ready to go. They aren’t powered or anything, just a couple of little plastic paddles to move them about. We’d be sitting ducks on the open water.’
‘What then?’ Scott grabbed a fistful of his own hair as he sought an answer.
Escape or hide? Escape and hide?
The shoreline was about a kilometre away. Only faint streamers of mist still clung to the water. The jungle had lost its black and white pre-dawn tones, taking on the familiar emerald hue. Scott knew both he and Nancy could swim it easily. But they would still be exposed on the water. Easy targets for men with rifles.
***
Jenkins stood in some sort of machinery space. Though not as brightly lit as the engine room, this compartment had several caged bulbs fixed overhead. There were lots of pipes running around the walls and ceiling and several large tanks with units attached that looked like pumps.
Must be the water treatment and storage compartment.
A narrow, grated walkway ran back between the tanks. Below the grates dirty, oil-slicked water sloshed gently in the bilges. Jenkins moved along the walkway to the forward end of the compartment. There were more pumps and pipes winding in every direction. He had hoped that another hatch might lead deeper into the ship, but the front bulkhead was a dead end. If he was going to hide aboard the Mekong Dawn, this was the place. He had no time to backtrack and find somewhere else.
Glancing around the tight confines of the compartment, there were many little nooks behind pipes and pieces of machinery. Then his gaze settled at his feet. The lights in the compartment reflected off bilge water in a rainbow-like sheen. He dropped to his knees and lifted one of the half-metre sections of grating out of the walkway. Then he took the laptop bag and pushed it through the opening and underwater as far it would go, until he felt it hit against the bottom of the hull. Dirty, oily water sloshed about his biceps, wetting his shirtsleeves. He held the laptop bag underwater until the escaping bubbles stopped and took his hand away. The bag didn’t float to the surface so he quickly replaced the grate and stood up.
A red metal toolbox sat on the floor just inside the door. Jenkins opened it, rummaging around until he found a long screwdriver. He moved to the forward end of the compartment and stopped under the last wire-caged light bulb then used the screwdriver to poke through the wire and smash the bulb. The end of the compartment plunged into darkness.
Then he backed into a space between the pipes and waited.
***
‘Scotty, I’ve got my phone.’
‘What?’ Scott looked at his wife.
‘I’ve got my phone.’
‘Of course!’ As an on-call theatre nurse, part of an organ transplant team, Nancy always tried to remain contactable. If she wasn’t carrying a pager, she had her mobile phone tucked away somewhere. Sometimes Scott was annoyed by the phone going off at the most inopportune times, in the most inconvenient places, summoning Nancy away. Then he reminded himself that she was going to help save a life and forgave her the 2.00 am calls and the interrupted restaurant meals.
Nancy thrust a hand into the pocket of her cotton slacks, pulled out the compact flip-phone and handed it to Scott. ‘It’s set for international roam.’
He snatched the phone and folded it open. The little screen glowed into life and showed half battery power.
Good girl!
Then his spirits plummeted as he realised the reception icon showed no bars. The phone wasn’t receiving a signal from a tower. He ran from under the awning, climbed onto one of the life raft capsules and held the phone as high as he could. The reception icon remained blank. Scott pivoted on the balls of his feet and held the phone higher, lower, searching out a sweet spot where he might get a glimmer of reception. He was about to give up and try climbing onto the bar when a small line illuminated next to the little antenna icon. Scott pulled the phone towards him and began to dial a number. The phone was pre-programmed with severa
l numbers they might need while travelling, but he dialled the travel insurance emergency number he had memorised before leaving Australia. It wasn’t the best number to call when armed men were storming aboard their boat, but the number would be monitored twenty-four hours a day and he knew it would be answered. Once he got the call out, the person at the other end could decide who best to pass the message on to.
The reception bar disappeared as Scott dialled. He swore under his breath. Then the bar reappeared and he continued dialling. Raised voices came from the companionway. Angry voices. The barrel of a rifle appeared at the top of the stairs.
Scott jumped from the life raft capsule, folding the phone shut as he landed. The rifle barrel reached the top of the stairs and he could see the top of a dark head about to emerge behind it. Realising whoever was boarding the Mekong Dawn might not take too kindly to foreigners with mobile phones, he quickly searched for a place to hide the device. The first thought that leapt into his head was to toss the phone over the side, but that would deprive them of the only means they had to get a message out. He quickly thrust the idea aside and looked desperately about. Twelve potted palms lined each side of the sundeck. The pots were about a metre high with three metre palms growing out of them. A layer of bark mulch covered the soil in the pots.
Quickly, Scott thrust his hand into the nearest pot and buried the phone beneath a layer of mulch. He glanced at the companionway. The gunman was almost at the top of the stairs, another man close behind him. Scott smoothed the mulch as best he could and slipped his arm around Nancy.
The first man was powerfully built. Short-cropped dark hair topped a face that might be considered handsome, but the good-looking features were heavily overshadowed by the look of hatred in the man’s eyes. He reached the top of the stairs and quickly stepped aside to allow the man behind him onto the sundeck.
Scott recognised the large man from the boat at the boarding steps. He had a shaved head and towered over his companion, easily the largest Asian man Scott had ever seen. He wasn’t fat. There was nothing in his size or in the cat-like way he moved to suggest anything but lean, deadly efficiency. He reached the top of the stairs and poised. His eyes took in the deck and the ten frightened tourists at the far rail with one sweep. The smile that slipped onto his face contorted into a lopsided grimace by a ragged scar on his cheek and exposed a set of tobacco-stained teeth.
‘Search them. Make sure they carry no phones or other means of outside communication.’ The man spoke English and Scott realised the words were for the benefit of the tourists as much as for the gunmen.
The man stepped closer to the scared little throng and spoke again, quietly and calmly. ‘If you have any phones on you I urge you to surrender them to my men. No one will be harmed if you follow instructions.’
A man in his late fifties and with a thick crop of silver hair came forward from among the passengers. ‘What do you want with us? My wife and I are British subjects. You have no right to detain us like this.’
Scarface looked the man up and down. ‘I want several things from you. The most pressing of which is to follow directions without question.’ He gestured to the short man beside him who ran forward and shoved the Englishman back into the group.
Four more armed men ran up the stairs and pushed the tourists into a line. Scott and Nancy stood beside Fred and Collette. Once they were lined up, two of the men went down the line, frisking each of the passengers. As his pockets were patted down and his clothing searched, Scott felt glad he had hidden the phone in the pot. But he doubted he would ever get a chance to use it.
Three passengers had phones on them that they readily handed to the searchers. When the search was complete the phones were thrown over the side.
Scarface watched the phones until they hit the water. ‘Now, if you would all be kind enough to make your way down to the dining saloon, we will tell you what is to be done with you.’
The armed men shoved the passengers towards the stairs. Scott followed Nancy across the deck and onto the companionway. ‘Try not to make eye contact with them,’ he whispered, desperately trying to remember everything he had ever read or heard about terrorists and hostage situations. ‘Just do whatever they say, Nance.’ Ahead of him, Nancy’s head gave a slight nod.
***
Jenkins heard the main diesels kick into life. The engines ran up for a minute or two. Then the motion of the vessel changed.
The Mekong Dawn was underway.
He felt a little elation at this knowledge. Whoever had come aboard, they were now allowing the ship to continue on its journey. Perhaps they had examined the passports or the passenger manifest and, not finding Liam Jenkins listed, had disembarked?
He brought his watch close to his face and used his other hand to find the button that illuminated the dial.
7:08 am.
He decided to give it half an hour then retrieve the laptop and make his way back to his cabin.
Nothing to worry about.
***
On the main deck the dining saloon was full of passengers under armed guard. The room contained ten tables, each with a place setting for six people. This was where the passengers ate their meals and, apart from the saloon bar up forward, was the only room capable of holding all the passengers at once. As he and Nancy filed into the room, followed closely by Fred and Collette, Scott noticed that the passengers had been gathered about the central tables, leaving a clear space at each end of the room in which stood men holding assault rifles. The cruise was only three-quarters filled and the forty passengers fitted easily into the middle space. Some women were crying, sobbing fitfully. Here and there a husband tried to comfort a distraught wife or stared in fear at the armed men. Most of the passengers were dressed, but several had only had time to snatch up a cruise company dressing gown and shrug it on before being herded from their cabins.
Nancy slipped into a chair at a vacant table and Scott sat beside her. Fred and Collette took the seats opposite and two more passengers, the Englishman and his wife, filled the remaining seats as the rest of the passengers from the sundeck were ushered to another table.
Scarface stepped into the saloon through the double glass doors that opened onto the breezeway. He stopped about two paces into the room and rested his hands on his hips. He didn’t carry a rifle, but Scott noted the pistol holstered on the man’s belt.
The low murmur of voices in the dining saloon drifted into silence. Scarface waited patiently until the only sound in the room was a few soft sobs and the hiss of frightened breathing.
‘I am Colonel Malko.’ Scarface looked about the room, his eyes picking out several passengers at random. His gaze settled on Scott and he found himself squirming under that hateful stare. Despite the mellowed tones of Malko’s voice, Scott could sense the capacity for horrible violence not too far behind those eyes. ‘I am an officer of the Cambodian Liberation Army.’
Several voices came as one from the assembled passengers.
‘What do you want with us, Colonel?’
‘We have no money. You can have all of our traveller’s cheques.’
‘We demand that you set us free. We have no part in Cambodian internal politics.’
Malko held up his hand and the voices fell into silence. ‘You don’t seem to understand your predicament. I did not take this vessel to rob you.’ He unclipped the holster and drew the pistol, a medium-sized automatic. ‘You will not be making any demands of me. You are all hostages of the CLA and will remain so until a ransom is received for every single one of you. You will all help finance the cause that will free Cambodia from the shackles of oppression and return her to greatness.’
Beside Malko the short, well-built man slapped the butt of his rifle. Scott recognised the wicked gleam of the zealot, the political fanatic who would do anything, commit any atrocity in the name of his so-called cause.
Malko turned to the crewmembers gathered beside the passengers. ‘Who is the purser?’
A man push
ed his way to the front of the anxious crewmembers. Scott recognised Tamko, the man who had welcomed them all aboard yesterday and given the safety briefing. Tamko lowered his eyes to the deck as he addressed Malko.
‘I am the purser. My name is Tamko.’
‘You have the passengers’ passports locked in your safe?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You have a copy of the passenger manifest?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Lieutenant Ky will accompany you while you fetch them for me.’ Malko gestured at the well-built man beside him.
The man called Ky stepped forward, grasped Tamko by the shirtsleeve and pulled him towards the door. Malko turned back to the passengers.
‘I am afraid you will all need to remain in the dining saloon. We will keep the generator running and the airconditioner turned on for your comfort. No one will be permitted to leave this room. Anyone caught trying to escape will be shot. Do you all understand?’ A murmur of assent went up from the assembled passengers and Malko nodded. ‘My men will do whatever is necessary to prevent you from leaving our little gathering. Your being alive is important to our needs, but that will not prevent anyone who tries to be a hero from being killed. You will remain here in this room for the duration of negotiations. Behave, and you will be released unharmed when those negotiations are concluded.’
Tamko returned to the dining saloon, hurried along by the scowling Ky. He carried a clipboard and two stacks of thin, small booklets held together by elastic bands that Scott recognised as passports. All passengers aboard the Mekong Dawn had surrendered their passports to the purser when they boarded so that customs and immigration formalities could be streamlined when the ship crossed the border into Vietnam. He handed the passports and clipboard to Malko and moved to stand with the other crewmembers.
Malko tossed the passports to one of his men and examined the clipboard. Scott could see his lips moving slightly and realised he was counting the names on the manifest. Then Malko looked up and counted the heads sitting at the tables. When he had finished he looked perplexed for a moment and did the count again. This time, when he finished, he turned to Ky and spoke a stream of rapid Khmer. Ky slapped the shoulder of the man beside him and they both hurried from the room.