Pescador's Wake (18 page)

There is a strange cloud in the sky tonight, a shiny blue magical form. I've read about clouds like this—noctilucent clouds, they're called—visible at the Poles, high in the atmosphere after dark. The blue clouds are thought to be one of the first manifestations of climate change. But I fear there are other, more imminent, changes in the air.

As Carlos stands to stretch his legs, he catches a glimpse of the radar. The
Australis
has backed off again but another boat has appeared on the screen about twelve nautical miles away. The new arrival is ahead of them on the port side. Carlos notices that Dmitri has spotted it, too. ‘You'd better hope it's just another longliner heading south,' he tells the Russian.

Dmitri looks out to sea before fixing his stare on the bloodstained carpet. He throws Manuel a towel that was stuffed under the instrument table. ‘Clean it up,' he orders. ‘I do not mind if it leaves a stain. It will serve as a useful reminder. But I do not want it to start to smell.'

Manuel catches the towel and lowers himself onto all fours to clean up his friend's blood. Carlos imagines Roberto's body – stiff in death—being buffeted by the seas. The blood would be cooling rapidly, and congealing like the blood on the rag in Manuel's hand. As if reading Carlos's mind, the Spaniard gags but manages not to vomit.

‘And when you have finished there, wipe up José's mess in the corner,' Dmitri barks.

A voice crackling over the radio fills the wheelhouse.
‘
Pescador, Pescador, Pescador.
This is the South African naval vessel
Bremner, Bremner.
Do you read us? Over.'

Dmitri moves his eyes to the horizon. The boat is faintly visible. ‘
Ahueyet!
' he curses, striking the instrument table with his fists. ‘It seems we have more than the Australians for company.
Poshel k chertu!
' He swears again as the South African naval vessel repeats its radio call. There is a delay as the
Bremner
waits for a response. Dmitri makes no attempt to enable the radio.

The voice continues. ‘The Australian government has asked us to apprehend your vessel on their behalf. We have agreed to do so. We ask you to assist us when we board. Please follow our instructions. Our men are armed. Over and out.'

‘Manuel, lift up the flooring over there,' Dmitri instructs, pointing to a place where a carpet tile is lifting at the edges, ‘and take out the weapons. You too, Carlos. But do not get any bright ideas. They are not loaded.'

Carlos shakes his head in disbelief. So the weapons had been there all along. He wonders which crew Dmitri will decide to arm. It's an insane plan, to take on the South African navy.

‘Are you still of the opinion that it is better not to help me?' Dmitri asks Carlos, the panic in his voice barely concealed.

‘I will never help you,' Carlos answers, watching as Manuel reveals the stash of automatic weapons. They are stacked, one
on top of the other, in piles of ten. God knows how many more are secreted elsewhere around the ship.

‘Fine. Your choice.' Dmitri says coldly. ‘Manuel, bind Carlos's hands and feet. Use those.' He points to the ropes securing the guns. ‘If you are not going to help me, you are not going to get in my way either.'

Manuel does as he is ordered. Even at such close range, the Spaniard fails to make eye contact with the man who, only a day ago, was the ship's trusted master.

There's a knock at the door, and El Animal, the Peruvians' leader, enters. He is large but moves smoothly, as though hunting. Carlos can see where he got his name. The Peruvian scans the wheelhouse stopping when he sees the bloodstain on the floor.

‘An unfortunate incident,' Dmitri answers El Animal's querulous glare. ‘We have lost one of the older Spaniards. But that is behind us now. We have a new problem on our hands. But I will tell you about that in a moment. How did you get on? Are you with us?'

‘
Si
.' El Animal looks up from the bloodstained floor. ‘You have our support.'

‘Good.' Dmitri eyes Carlos. ‘I knew these men were not stupid.' Then, to the Peruvian: ‘We have company.' He points at the radar, and then to the horizon. ‘The South African navy, no less.'

El Animal raises his eyebrows.

Dmitri throws the new recruit one of the guns that Manuel has laid out. ‘Be careful. It is loaded,' he lies, before turning to speak to José. ‘Go and clean yourself up. And get me some coffee. Make it strong. Manuel, you go too and bring back only those men willing to defend our boat.'

Manuel nods and leaves the wheelhouse. José stands to follow him. As he does, Carlos notices a wet patch on the floor and the smell of urine.

El Animal takes up his weapon and inspects it. Dmitri again turns his back to him and Carlos realises he is testing the Peruvian; there is no way he would give him such a perfect opportunity to use the gun. In the reflective glass of the wheelhouse, Carlos meets the uncertain eyes of El Animal and shakes his head with the minimum of movement. The gun stays at El Animal's side. Dmitri waits a few moments longer, to be sure, before showing the Peruvian the stash of bullets in the floor. ‘You will need those too when the time comes,' he winks. ‘Sorry, but I had to be sure you would still be loyal when I was looking the other way.'

Dmitri studies the radar and Carlos does a quick mental calculation. In this good weather and the more manageable seas, the South African vessel will be upon them within half an hour.

‘It's game over, Dmitri,' Carlos taunts.

‘Shut up, unless you want to join your Spanish friend and your first mate in the sea,' Dmitri spits back.

Carlos thinks of Julia and imagines her glaring at him, warning him to be quiet. He stifles the verbal attack on his lips, swallowing it down. There's a bitter taste in his mouth – the bile of his anger and his anxiety about how this all might end. Julia, he knows, would pray, but for what? To be saved from Dmitri only to be delivered to the Australians and jail? Or, simply, to survive, so that one day he will be returned to his family? With Eduardo gone and Dmitri having shown the ruthlessness he is capable of, nothing else matters.

José arrives at the door in clean trousers and bearing a steaming coffee, which he hands to Dmitri. ‘Now,' Dmitri tells him, ‘start loading the guns. You too, El Animal.'

The Peruvians do as instructed, first propping their own guns against the green vinyl chair that has been José's fearful post since Dmitri took command a day ago. Dmitri pushes the boat at full speed towards Mauritius, studying the chart and the approaching naval vessel with nervous darting eyes. In different circumstances Carlos would be amused by the Russian, reminiscent as he is of a chihuahua bracing itself to outrun, or, if need be, confront, a rottweiler.

Carlos observes the Peruvians, the tiredness in José's face, his mental slowness as he loads the bullets clumsily. José doesn't notice Manuel coming around behind him like the walking dead. Carlos watches Manuel stalk his prey and is aware of his own body alive with adrenaline. Surely Manuel won't kill the idiot. It's all happening too fast.

Manuel picks up José's gun and strikes him hard over the back of the head with the butt. In the same arc of movement, he points the gun at Dmitri who had turned his head at the sound of the blow to José's skull. Manuel fires, square at the Russian's back to the left of his spine. Dmitri gasps and falls against the instrument table, his eyes meeting Manuel's as he registers that it is the Spaniard who discharged the gun. He lands heavily on the floor and Carlos is struck by how closely he resembles a dying fish, quivering and eyes glazed. Within a few long moments, his hissing ceases. Manuel steps over him to take the helm. He drops the boat speed as a sign to the South Africans of surrender, before untying Carlos.

‘I wondered how long you were going to take, you old dog.' Carlos shakes his head at Manuel. ‘You could get an Academy Award for that performance. You too, El Animal.'

More of the crew, having heard the shot, are now flowing up the stairs towards the wheelhouse and crowding inside, congratulating Manuel and El Animal with slaps on their backs. ‘And now,
Capitán
?' Manuel asks. ‘What fate awaits us?'

Carlos observes the naval boat gaining on them from the horizon. After nearly three weeks of seeing only water, ice, sky and, periodically, the Australian patrol vessel, the massive warship resembles something from another planet. He looks through the rear windows of the wheelhouse but can't make out the Australian patrol. It can't be far away. The sky, too, is closing in. It's getting darker with the approach of night, and
rain clouds are gathering around them like heavy wet blankets. It's as though the hands of God are descending, setting boundaries, reining them in.

‘We've reached the end of our journey,' Carlos says, rubbing hard at his forehead with blunt fingertips. ‘Not quite the one I'd imagined, I have to confess. But it's the risk we take fishing down here. At least we've survived to tell the story. One of Migiliaro's other boats hasn't been so lucky.' Carlos looks at Roberto's son and thinks of Eduardo at the same time. ‘Not that we have been without loss.' There is an extended lull in the wheelhouse. A silence born out of respect and exhaustion.

‘The South Africans have radioed their intention to board.' Carlos links his fingers together on top of his head, resigning himself to this unimagined destiny. ‘I'm sure you agree, there's no point resisting arrest.' The men shift on their feet uncomfortably. ‘I want you to know that I take full responsibility for the decision to fish in Australian waters. Of course, I was under instructions from the owner but he'll have covered his tracks.'

‘
Bastardo
,' Manuel curses.

‘You might remember seeing an Australian boat fishing near us off Heard Island,' Carlos says. ‘I suspect they're the ones who reported us. Maybe they even filmed us fishing.'

‘Just a moment,' Manuel interrupts, stepping forward. ‘We brought the line in off the starboard deck and they were off to
port. I remember it well. If they did film us, they wouldn't have been at the right angle to see us fishing. It's not illegal to be passing through their goddamn waters. It's ridiculous, anyway, that they can lay claim to all the ocean around Heard and McDonald Islands. A little country like Australia. What right do they have?' He scratches his chest. ‘Maybe we should just say that we caught the fish further south and were just sheltering at Heard to fix engine trouble. Dmitri said something about the lube-oil purifier malfunctioning. We could blame that.'

‘Our engine was running when we were spotted,' Carlos says, dismissing Manuel's fabrication. ‘They would have tracked our course on radar, and it would have been obvious we were moving along a longline. And if there had been a problem with the oil purifier, the engine would have been off.' Carlos surveys his crew, trying to discern their mood. ‘Anyway, it's not your problem. It'll be me who'll face the charges and we—'

‘With Eduardo gone, I'm next in line,' Manuel interjects again. ‘Do you really believe one scalp will be enough?'

‘We don't have a choice. We surrender, simple as that. But as soon as it's dark, give these a swim.' Carlos kicks the guns, at the same time wondering how much worse his sentence would be if he was also found guilty of trafficking weapons. It's often assumed that fishing vessels will carry one rifle to kill any seals found taking fish from the lines, but Eduardo and he had never even agreed to that, let alone the scores of
guns their engineer was responsible for bringing on board. He frowns down at Dmitri's bloodstained body and then at the piles of fire-arms. ‘And, for the record, I didn't know about those. Neither did your first mate. I won't have Eduardo blamed for that. As far as I'm concerned, the guns—bar one – didn't exist. But that's the only lie I'm prepared to tell. We will claim that Dmitri brought a single weapon on to the boat to achieve his mutiny—the same gun that was turned against him in self-defence. We'll tell them we threw it overboard. As for him,' Carlos's gaze again skims over the dead Russian, ‘put him in a freezer.'

‘What do we tell them about Roberto?' Manuel asks.

‘The truth: Dmitri ordered José to shoot him and dispose of his body. Are there any more questions,
mis amigos
?'

José groans as he regains consciousness. He opens one eye fractionally, and takes in the room, chameleon-like. His eye widens when he sees Carlos out of his ropes, and Dmitri lifeless on the floor. Relief passes over his face, before he collapses again into a kind of sleep. A few of the men shake their heads in apparent disgust.

‘Forget José, too, is my advice,' Carlos says. ‘For now, anyway. When we are on shore, the authorities can deal with him. He'll pay for what he has done, but let's not have anyone else's blood on our hands.'

Carlos focuses his attention momentarily on Roberto's son. ‘I know it will be hard for you to have the man who killed
your father still with us on this boat, but your family will need you when you get home. Don't give anyone a reason to lock you away as well.'

Roberto's son stares at the floor in reluctant agreement.

‘When the South Africans board, you'll assemble along the decks,' Carlos instructs, watching the sea-hardened faces of the crewmen who are crammed into the wheelhouse like sardines. ‘They'll be armed, but shouldn't bother us if we offer ourselves peacefully. I expect they'll escort us back to port, probably to Australia. But the worst is over. With any luck you'll be flown back to your homes fairly swiftly.'

The men seem to relax in unison. Carlos feels the weight of their trust and marvels that they followed him to the ends of the earth, without argument, when there was little in it for them. If they had refused to flee south, he would have had no choice but to surrender to the Australian patrol, then and there. The crew would have been flown home, their only sacrifice the loss of their meagre wages from Migiliaro.

The staccato voice on the radio breaks in: ‘
Pescador, Pescador, Pescador,
this is the South African naval vessel
Bremner, Bremner.
Do you copy? Over.'