***
It had been a crazy night for Peter Hartman. Since taking the call from Malko and rousing the ambassador, the embassy had gone into overdrive. People had been brought back in to help run the emergency. Since midnight, the place had filled with ringing phones, shouted instructions and brief moments of quiet as the ambassador briefed the prime minister and others in Australia on what was happening and what was being done.
Australia had offered whatever assistance the Cambodian government required of it, but no requests had been received as yet. And, Peter wondered, what could they offer anyway? Australia possessed very few assets in the region. It would take time to organise any sort of response, especially one of a military nature. He had read the intelligence dossier on Malko and knew that time was one thing the passengers of the Mekong Dawn did not have.
‘Why don’t you go and get your head down for a few hours, Pete?’
He looked up to see his immediate supervisor, Gerry Caldwell standing over him. Like the others, she had been on the go since midnight and had bags forming under her eyes.
‘You’ve been on duty for sixteen hours already. If you drop from exhaustion you won’t be any use to anyone.’
Peter nodded and placed the file on the desk, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade printout of all known Australians on the Mekong Dawn.
‘Maybe just a couple of hours.’
There wasn’t much point in him being there, anyway. In eight hours they hadn’t come one step closer to any sort of resolution. The prime minister, as expected, had refused to pay the ransom, as had the leaders of the United States and Great Britain. No country was prepared to make its citizens the targets of terrorists looking to make easy money.
‘You can use the guest room on the second floor.’
Peter pushed his chair out from the desk and was about to stand up when the phone in front of him rang.
‘I’ll just get this.’ He lifted the handset. ‘Australian Embassy?’
A few whirs and clicks sounded over the line. The voice on the other end was faint and distant.
‘My name is Scott Morris. My wife and I are passengers on the Mekong Dawn. The vessel has been seized by terrorists.’
Peter waved his hand for silence. The voice was barely audible.
Gerry saw the gesture. ‘Shush, people!’ The room fell into an uneasy silence.
‘You are on the Mekong Dawn now?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is the condition of the passengers, Mr Morris?’
‘Three passengers are dead. The captain and senior officers are dead. They have all the survivors together in the saloon.’
Peter looked down as Gerry scribbled on a piece of paper.
GET LOCATION?
‘Do you know where you are Mr Morris?’
‘They have the vessel near a mountain. After leaving Tonle Sap, they steamed—’
The line went dead.
‘Mr Morris? Hello, Mr Morris, can you hear me?’ Peter looked over at Gerry. ‘He’s gone. The call just dropped out.’ He examined the LCD display on the handset. ‘The phone has captured the number. He was calling from a mobile. Should I call him back?’
Gerry shook her head. ‘No. The terrorists may not know he has a phone. We don’t want to alert them to the fact and get Mr Morris killed.’ She picked up the DFAT file and thumbed through it then lifted out a page. ‘Scott Morris. Thirty-six years old. Pilot. Travelling with his wife.’ She searched out the ambassador and saw him across the room.
‘Sorry, Pete, that lie down is going to have to wait. Write down everything that was said, word for word as best you can remember it. We need to get whatever information we have to the Cambodian authorities.’
***
Scott looked at the blank screen on the phone. The battery had died in the middle of his call. Had he got enough information out? Had the guy on the other end heard him say the direction before the battery quit?
You idiot, Scotty. Why didn’t you give them the location up front?
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and stepped out from behind the curtain to find every face at the table looking up at him with hopeful expressions.
‘I got the Embassy. They know about us.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the phone had gone flat before he finished telling where they were.
‘What do we do now?’ Collette asked.
‘We wait.’ Scott was unable to meet her eyes. ‘We stay alive and we wait.’
Chapter Eighteen
Todd came awake as something burned into his leg. He opened his eyes to a perfect blue sky that seemed so out of place after the verdant canopy of the swamp. Only the sky wasn’t so perfect. A line bisected it from horizon to horizon. He shifted his head and discovered it wasn’t the sky at all, but a blue tarpaulin stretched over a ridgepole. He could smell something, too. Something familiar. It took a few moments before he realised the biting stench of petrol filled his nostrils.
Voices murmured in a language he didn’t understand. He lifted his head. A man dabbed at his legs with a rag. At each touch leeches shrivelled and dropped away. A young girl picked up the blood-filled leeches and flung them into the distance. She saw Todd looking at her and smiled.
The angelic face he had seen before passing out.
The girl said something to the man but he just grunted and continued his work with the rag.
‘You speak English?’ The girl had a hopeful look on her face.
‘Yes.’ Todd’s voice was barely a croak. ‘Where am I?’
‘I found you in the swamps. My father loaded you into our boat and brought you to our camp. You have many leeches on you. The petrol is removing them.’
‘I was swimming in the swamps for a day, trying to find a village or something.’
The girl inclined her head. ‘There are no villages near here. The nearest one is many hours by boat. Where did you come from?’
Todd raised himself on an elbow. The man said something and pushed him back down.
‘You mustn’t move. You will burst the leeches on your skin. They must be removed in one piece. My father wishes to know where you came from?’
Todd lay back and let the man work. ‘I was on a tourist boat. The Mekong Dawn. Men hijacked the boat. We tried to escape but I was the only one who made it. My God, they killed Morgs and Wilkie. Shot them while they were swimming for the trees.’ He bit his bottom lip to stop it from trembling.
The girl translated the story to her father then they discussed something in Khmer.
‘We saw men with guns in a powerful boat two nights ago. They were heading for Tonle Sap.’
‘Sounds like the guys. Can you and your father take me to a village – to the police?’
Once again the girl translated for her father. The man shook his head as he rattled out his response.
‘My father says we must collect firewood before we return to the village. If we take you back now, we will not have enough money for petrol to come back here.’
‘Firewood? But… When will you be going back?’
The girl shrugged. ‘Tomorrow, maybe the next day.’
‘I have money. I will pay you for the petrol to take me to the village. I’ll buy you all the petrol you want.’
The girl ran her gaze up and down Todd’s sorry form. All he wore was a pair of board shorts and a yellow T-shirt.
‘I don’t think you have money with you now.’
‘I can get money. My wallet is still in my cabin on the boat. Once the police arrest the hijackers I’ll use my credit card to buy you a whole drum of petrol. It’s an emergency. People have already died for God’s sake.’
The girl spoke with her father then turned back to Todd. ‘Tomorrow. Today we collect firewood.’
Todd wanted to argue further, but realised it would be futile. These two locals wouldn’t budge from their position. At least he had stumbled into friendly hands. They were helping him. Tomorrow would have to be soon enough. He only hoped the
people on the boat could hold out that long.
***
The Russian helicopters used by the Cambodian Army and Air Force were unreliable at best – death traps at worst. Lack of funds for maintenance meant crashes were frequent and made flying in one a gamble, so it was with some relief that Ang looked on the machine in front of him.
A motif on the fuselage door proclaimed it to be a Bell Jetranger. He had seen the type before in movies and on TV, and this one appeared to be in pristine condition, all gleaming Perspex and white paint. The registration on the tail-boom was Japanese, as was the pilot who turned from the machine to shake hands with Ang, and two other policemen named Chee and Prak, whom Ang had selected to accompany him on the search. Klim and the rest of the strike team were making their way into the area by boat.
‘You have the flight details?’
Tahki offered a polite bow and patted a large map pocket on the thigh of his powder-blue flight suit.
‘Phnom Penh direct to Kampong Chhnang, refuel and head to the search area under your direction.’
‘Excellent. When can we be airborne?’
‘I’ve just finished my walk-around. We can leave now.’
Tahki fussed about for a few more minutes, making sure the three policemen were secured in their seats. As the rotors whirred into life, Ang checked his watch. 8:05 am. The flight to Kampong Chhnang would take an hour. Maybe another hour to refuel and reach the search area. That gave them about eight hours of daylight to work with depending on the duration of the helicopter and transit times to refuel.
They took off and flew over Phnom Penh, circling onto a westerly heading. The Mekong River glittered brilliantly in the morning sun. The confluence of the river, where it branched towards Tonle Sap, was over three miles wide, a freshwater ocean crowded with rice barges and an assortment of commercial vessels bringing goods up from the delta in Vietnam.
From his position in the front left seat, Ang watched the suburbs slide away beneath them, replaced by jungle interspersed with the occasional road and kampong. On any other occasion he might have enjoyed the flight and the view, but his eyes couldn’t help but lift to the hazy horizon where he knew Malko lurked. At the same time his right hand drifted to the flap on his pistol holster.
The airport in Kampong Chhnang was little more than a narrow strip of bitumen with a few rusty old hangars and a concrete terminal building. A police car was parked near a small refuelling truck. Ang pointed it out to the pilot and Tahki manoeuvred the helicopter close to the truck, landed and shut down.
They alighted from the helicopter and the pilot went to organise the refuelling. A man wearing a police uniform wandered over to Ang.
‘Major Sinh?’
Ang looked up from his mobile phone. There were several missed calls registered. He recognised one number as belonging to his boss.
‘Yes?’
‘I am Captain Turan. We spoke on the phone yesterday.’
Ang closed his phone and slipped it into his pocket. ‘I remember, Captain. Thankyou for organising the fuel.’
Turan shrugged. ‘It was nothing. We have the fuel and the truck here – doing nothing most of the time.’ He gestured at the Jetranger. ‘This arms cache of yours must be quite important for the division to outlay for such a fine machine?’
Ang raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘You haven’t been briefed?’
‘No. What’s going on?’
‘Terrorists have seized a tourist boat. They are holding the passengers to ransom.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘And it happened in my district?’ Turan’s voice held a hint of anger.
‘The boat was last seen on Tonle Sap. There has been no sighting of it since.’ Ang could understand the man’s consternation at being left out of the loop. As the district commander he should have been informed.
‘So the purpose of your flight is to search for the vessel. Do you have a rough location?’
‘Very rough. We only know it is somewhere in the vicinity of Boeng Tonle Chhma.’
‘That is a huge area for one helicopter to search.’
‘If we send the air force into the area it may spook Malko into doing something desperate.’
‘Ah, Malko.’ Turan offered a wry grin. ‘This is something of his calibre.’
‘Yes, he—’ His phone started ringing. ‘Excuse me.’ He turned away from Turan and answered his phone. The caller ID told him it was his boss in Phnom Penh.
‘Sinh? Thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.’
‘What is it, sir?’
‘One of the tourists got a message off the boat. He rang the Australian Embassy here in Phnom Penh. A man by the name of Morris.’
Ang looked at the helicopter. A black hose ran from the fuel truck to the fuselage. ‘Did he give us anything I can use?’
‘Not too much, I’m afraid. The call was cut off, but he managed to say that Malko has the boat moored by a mountain.’
‘A mountain?’
‘That’s what he said. I’ve had a look at some maps of the area. There are nine mountains sticking out of those swamps, and they’re spread over nine hundred square kilometres.’
‘Still a hell of a lot of area, sir. But at least the haystack just got a little smaller. We’re refuelling now and should be over the area in forty minutes.’
‘There is one more thing.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Morris told us that Malko has already killed three passengers, and the captain and senior officers of the Mekong Dawn.’
Ang ended the call and found Turan standing close beside him.
‘Good news?’
‘One of the passengers got a message off the boat. The mountains out in the swamps? Do you know which ones could be reached by a boat the size of the Mekong Dawn?’
Turan tilted his head slightly and thought about the question. ‘I used to conduct water patrols in that area before I was promoted. Depending on the draft of the vessel, there are several in the south-west that might be accessible.’
Ang led him back towards the helicopter and asked the pilot for his map. ‘Show me on here.’
Turan took the map, opened it out on the side of the helicopter then took a pen from his pocket.
‘This one here.’ He circled a spot height to the south of Tonle Sap. ‘These two here and here.’ He placed two more circles further west, both on the south side of the lake.
Ang looked at the marks and frowned. The locations Turan had indicated were as far as possible from the area on the hand-drawn map in the notebook. ‘You are sure?’ He stabbed a finger to the north-east. ‘Nothing in this area?’
Turan shook his head. ‘Nothing that can be reached by a vessel that size.’
Ang took the map and folded it carefully. It was possible the marks in the notebook were just an accident – or related to something on another page before the hand-drawn map and transferred through. He thanked Turan and went to brief the pilot on the new search area.
***
The helicopter took off and Turan watched it turn into the west. He walked to the police car and drove around the terminal building to a hangar near the far end of the concrete apron and parked beside a huge set of doors. One of the doors had a smaller access door built into it that Turan used to enter the hangar. The floor was littered with pieces of aircraft, wings and tails, sections of fuselage with wires and pipes hanging out of them like the entrails of a butchered beast. Near the back of the hangar was a small office. Malko sat at a dusty desk smoking a cigarette.
‘They are looking for the boat?’
Turan nodded. ‘I sent them out to the south-west, but it won’t be long before they expand their search. They know the Mekong Dawn is moored near a mountain.’
Malko flung his head back, his eyes wide. ‘How do they know this?’
‘One of the passengers got a message out.’
The scar on Malko’s cheek turned vivid wh
ite and dark shadows passed across his eyes. ‘A telephone?’
‘I assume so.’
Malko snatched up the mobile telephone on the desk. His finger stabbed at the keypad and he waited for a connection.
‘Ky? We have a problem.’
Chapter Nineteen
With the crew given a little extra freedom of movement, Tamko, the purser, seized the opportunity to send his charges back to work. The catering staff were in the galley, and Scott could smell lunch being prepared on propane stoves. The other staff had been charged with cleaning the dining saloon and emptying the toilet buckets. Hijackers or not, the smiling little Tamko was going to cater to his passengers as best he could.
Nancy observed the guards relaxed attitude from the card table. ‘They seem to be settling into a routine,’ she remarked. ‘Maybe we should ask for access to the bathroom in a nearby cabin instead of those stinking buckets.’
Scott nodded. ‘Worth a try I guess.’
Fred shook his head. ‘The heads won’t flush without power for the water pumps. They’d become a stinking mess in no time. The buckets are far easier to empty.’
Nancy screwed up her nose. ‘I see your point. At least we’ve got coffee and they’re feeding us.’
‘And themselves.’ Collette used her thumb to point at the breezeway where four guards had their weapons slung and were spooning food into their mouths. ‘They’ve been filling up on noodles and such from the galley.’
Scott had seen it, too. The guards were relaxing into a routine. But even so, he saw no opportunity for escape. They always had their weapons with them and there were always at least two men in the breezeway and these were changed regularly to keep them fresh and alert. He had no idea where the hijackers spent their down time; probably in the lounge saloon up forward or sleeping on the passengers’ bunks.
Ky came into view in the breezeway. He had a mobile telephone pressed to his ear and his free arm waved in agitation as he spoke rapid Khmer to whoever was on the other end. Scott didn’t understand a word of it, but it was obvious something had angered the man. He stopped in the doorway facing into the saloon, his feet apart and his eyes flicking from face to face. He finished the call, folded the phone closed and slipped it into his fatigues pocket.