Chimera-44 Read Free Page A

situation—to not simply push
himself from the wreckage and sink to join Haddam, the monkey, and
the Russians and Indonesians below him on the seafloor. He felt his
pockets for anything that would identify his body if found, but
they were empty. The only thing that brought him solace was the
thought of the tribal Mentawai tattoo on his arm would enable
whoever recovered his body to help identify it. He shook violently
and his guts felt like jelly. Was this to be his last night on
earth? Allah could be so vengeful sometimes, but it is His
will.
    In the ocean ahead of him, he saw a
light is the distance. As the waves lifted and then lowered between
him and the light, it would appear and then vanish in turn. Each
time it appeared, it seemed closer, larger.
    “ Help!” he yelled hoarsely
and waved his arms in the dark. “Help!”
    He strained his ears as his
head ached. Near uncontrollable shaking had consumed his body in
the warm water that enveloped him. From the light came the sound of
a deep old diesel engine throbbing. He knew the engine well. It was
from the Ikan Hiu, their mother ship and home. They were coming to check the
wreckage.
    Allah had not forsaken him. He could
be merciful sometimes as well.
     
    ««—»»
     
    Lieutenant Lachlan Wilson
knew the smell of death, and the derelict vessel had it. He
carefully poked around the corner of the bulkhead as he led an
Australian Navy seaman from the patrol boat HMAS Larrakia around the ghost ship.
In his first year with the Larrakia he had gone aboard a Liberian-flagged freighter
and found a CEU container filled with illegal Chinese immigrants
bound for Darwin. The tragic part of the story was that the
immigrants were sealed inside the metal container in 100+-degree
heat for two weeks. When he and his crew opened it for inspection,
it had the same smell as the boat he was on now.
    “ It’s a phantom ship,
Lieutenant,” said the sailor behind him as he clutched his Steyr
AUG rifle.
    Wilson agreed with a nod as
he pointed his Browning Hi-Power 9mm in front of him, at the ready
for anything. The derelict ship had been spotted drifting a hundred
miles offshore by a passing patrol plane last week and the Larrakia had been
dispatched to check it out. It was a
Javanese two-masted pinisiq, a ship unique to Southeast Asian
waters. Built on a design mix of Chinese junks, Indian dhows, and
Dutch schooners, the pinisiq was the most common locally built
vessel that plied the thousands of islands of the world’s largest
archipelago. Its description and dimensions match a pinisiq named
the Ikan Hiu missing out of Belwan for the past two years.
    Intelligence had passed along that the
Indonesian Navy suspected the ship to be implicated in a number of
pirate attacks in the Straits of Malacca. Odds are the pirates
hijacked it, deep-sixed the original crew, repainted it, and had
used it since then. Either way, the away team from the patrol boat
was on high alert as they inspected it.
    Wilson opened the hatch leading into
the ship’s wheelhouse and gagged at the stench. Inside the small
structure, billows of flies coated the windows and walls, crowding
for space on any surface. The grime-streaked deck of the
compartment held four figures that had once, before the decay had
set in, been human. One was bloated and swollen like a child’s
balloon. Another had what looked to be a shotgun blast to the face.
Still another, who was face down on the deck had what appeared to
be the plastic handle of a screwdriver extending out from the back
of his head.
    Wilson pressed the button
on his radio mic to call the Larrakia , “ Larrakia , Away Team. Be advised we
have found four bodies here. You may want to call Darwin and let
them know to advise AFP that we have possible homicides here.” The
Australian Federal Police would want to come in and take over the
ship. The Navy’s job was defense, not criminal
investigation.
    “ Will do, Away Team, be
safe over there.”
    Wilson moved to the hatch