Captain McKendrick would have been happier at sea, but loading and the replacement of the deck covers was achieved at sundown, and the pilot would come aboard only in the morning to guide the freighter back to the open sea. It meant another night in the hothouse, so McKendrick sighed, and again found refuge in the air-conditioning belowdecks.
The local agent came bustling aboard with the pilot at six in the morning, and the last paperwork was signed. Then the Countess eased away into the South China Sea.
Like the Java Star before her, she turned northeast to round the tip of Borneo, then south through the Sulu Archipelago for Java, where the skipper believed six sea containers full of Eastern silks awaited him at Surabaya. He was not to know that there were not, nor ever had been, any silks at Surabaya.
The CRUISER deposited its cargo of three at a ramshackle jetty halfway up the creek. Mr. Lampong led the way to a long house on stilts above the water, which served as a sleeping area and mess hall for the men who would depart on the mission that Martin knew as Stingray and Lampong as al-Isra. Others in the long house would be staying behind. It was their labors that had prepared the hijacked Java Star for sea.
These were a mix of Indonesians from Jemaat Islamiyah, the group who had planted the Bali bombs and others up the island chain, and Filipinos from Abu Sayyaf. The languages varied from local Tagalog to Javanese dialect, with an occasional muttered aside in Arabic from those farther west. One by one, Martin was able to identify the crew and the special task of each of them. The engineer, navigator and radio operator were all Indonesians. Suleiman revealed that his expertise was photography. Whatever was going to happen, his job-before dying a martyr -would be to photograph the climax on a digital radio camera and transmit, via a laptop computer and sat phone, the entire data stream for transmission on the Al Jazeera TV network.
There was a teenager who looked Pakistani, yet Lampong addressed him in English. When he replied, the boy revealed he could only have been British born and raised but of Pakistani parentage. His accent was broad English North Country:
Martin put it as coming from the Leeds/Bradford area. Martin could not work out what he was for, except possibly a cook.
That left three: Martin himself clearly granted his presence as the personal gift of Osama bin Laden; a genuine chemical engineer and presumably explosives expert; and the mission commander. But he was not present. They would all meet him later.
In the midmorning, the local commander, Lampong, took a call on his satellite phone. It was brief and guarded, but enough. The Countess of Richmond had left Kota Kinabalu and was at sea. She should be coming between Tawitawi and Jolo islands round sundown. The speedboat crews that would intercept her still had four hours before they needed to leave. Suleiman and Martin had changed from their Western suits into trousers, local flowered shirts and sandals, which were provided. They were allowed down the steps into the shallow water of the creek to wash before prayers and a dinner of rice and fish. All Martin could do was watch, understanding very little, and wait.
The two divers were lucky. Most of their fellow passengers were from Malaysia, and were diverted to the non-UK passport channel, leaving the few British easy access at immigration control. Being among the first down to the luggage carousel, they could grab their valises and head for the nothing-to-declare customs hall.
It might have been the shaven skulls, the stubble on the chins or the brawny arms emerging from short-sleeved flowered shirts on a bitter British March morning, but one of the customs officers beckoned them to the examination bench. “May I see your passports, please?”
It was a formality. They were in order.
“And where have you just arrived from?”
“ Malaysia.”
“Purpose of visit?”
One of the young men pointed at his dive bag. His expression indicated it was a pretty daft question, given that the bags bore the logo of a famous scuba equipment company. It is, however, a mistake to mock a customs officer. His face remained impassive, but he had in a long career intercepted quantities of exotic smoking or injecting material coming in from the Far East. He gestured to one of the dive bags.
There was nothing inside but the usual scuba gear. As he was zipping the bag back up. he ran his fingers into the side pockets. From one, he withdrew a folded card, looked at it and read it. “Where did you get this, sir?” The diver was genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.” A few yards away, another customs man caught the rising tension, indicated by the exemplary courtesy, and moved closer.
“Would you remain here, please?” said the first officer, and walked through a door behind him. Those ample mirrors in customs halls are not for the vain to rearrange their makeup. They have oneway vision, and behind them are the duty shift of internal security-in the case of Britain, MI5. Within minutes, both divers, with their luggage, were in separate interview rooms. The customs men went through the luggage, fin by fin, mask by mask and shirt by shirt. There was nothing illegal.
The man in plain clothes studied the now-unfolded card.
“It must have been put there by someone, but not by me,” protested the diver. By now, it was nine-thirty. Steve Hill was at his desk in Vauxhall Cross when his private and very unlisted phone rang.
“To whom am I speaking?” asked a voice. Hill bristled. “Perhaps I should ask the same question. I think you may have a wrong number,” he replied.
The M15 officer had read the text of the message stuffed into the diver’s bag.
He tended to believe the man’s explanation. In which case… “I am speaking from Heathrow, Terminal 3. The internal security office. We have intercepted a passenger from the Far East. Stuffed into his dive bag was a short handwritten message. Does ‘Crowbar’ mean anything to you?” To Steve Hill, it was like a punch in the stomach. This was no wrong number; this was no crossed line. He identified himself by service and rank, asked that both men be detained and that he was on his way. Within five minutes, his car swept out of the underground garage, crossed Vauxhall Bridge and turned down Cromwell Road to Heathrow.
It was bad luck on the divers to have lost their whole morning, but after an hour’s interrogation Steve Hill was sure they were just innocent dupes. He secured for them a full with-trimmings breakfast from the staff canteen, and asked them to rack their brains for a clue as to who had stuffed the folded note in the side pocket.
They went over everyone they had met since packing the bags. Finally one said, “Mark, do you remember that Arab-looking fella who helped you unload at the airport?”
“What Arab-looking fellow?” asked Hill.
They described the man as best they could. Black hair, black beard. Neatly trimmed. Dark eyes, olive skin. About forty-five, fit-looking. Dark suit. Hill had had the descriptions from the barber and the sailor of Ras al-Khaimah. It was Crowbar. He thanked them sincerely, and asked that they be given a chauffeured ride back to their Essex home.
When he called Gordon Phillips at Edzell and Marek Gumienny over breakfast in Washington, he could reveal the scrawl in his hand. It said simply: “If you love your country, get home and ring XXX XXXXXX. Just tell them Crowbar says it will be some kind of ship.”
“Pull out all the stops,” he told Edzell. “Just scour the world for a missing ship.”
As with Captain Herrmann of the Java Star, Liam McKendrick had chosen to bring his vessel round the various headlands himself and hand over after clearing the strait between the islands of Tawi-tawi and Jolo. Ahead was the great expanse of the Celebes Sea, and the course directly south for Makassar Strait. He had a crew of six: five Indians from Kerala, all Christians, loyal and efficient: and his first officer, a Gibraltarian. He had handed over the helm and gone below when the speedboats swept up from astern. As with the Java Star, the crew had no chance. Ten dacoits were over the rails in seconds and running for the bridge. Mr. Lam-pong, in charge of the hijack, came at a more leisurely pace.