‘Because the village is here.’ Coburn placed his finger on a laminated chart that was mounted on the wheelhouse wall. ‘It’s best for us to keep out of Indonesian waters for as long as we can. This way we don’t have to cross the Strait until we’re more or less level with the island.’
‘This one?’ She pushed his finger aside. ‘Bengkalis island?’
‘Yep. Once we’re round the top of it we’ll be in the estuary of the Panjang river. The village is on the left where that dot is.’
‘Where all these funny little signs are?’
‘They’re marsh symbols,’ Coburn said. ‘The whole east coast of Sumatra is one big peat swamp. That’s why it’s good pirate country. You can’t reach the marshes by land, hardly anyone lives there, and if you’re in the business of raiding ships, every year you’ve got something like fifty thousand of them passing through the Strait right on your doorstep. Nearly half of all the pirate attacks in the world happen right here in the Strait of Malacca.’
‘How many is that?’
‘Seventy-nine last year. It depends a bit on the weather, but this year isn’t shaping up to be much better.’ Because Coburn had been trying not to look at the flecks in her eyes, he was glad when Hari asked him to take the wheel.
‘Time for lunch, I think.’ The Frenchman produced a cool-box from behind the binnacle. ‘At my hotel this morning I ask them to prepare sandwiches and coffee for us.’ He handed Heather a packet. ‘It is not so much, but for today it is the best I can do.’
For the next three hours, the best Coburn could do was to keep the Selina on some kind of reasonably direct course, navigating his way around what seemed to be an unending succession of slow-moving freighters and tankers until they cleared the tip of Bengkalis where Hari once again took over the helm.
From there on, in spite of the tide being in their favour, in places the estuary was so shallow that, even with Hari’s local knowledge, it took them another twenty minutes to reach the flotilla of boats that were anchored along the river-bank and tied up at the village jetty.
For most of their journey down the estuary, Heather had been content to listen to Hari’s travelogue, occasionally wanting to know the names of birds and animals they saw, but in the main keeping her thoughts to herself.
But no sooner had she disembarked and accompanied Coburn to the hut that had been reserved for them than she’d started asking him question after question.
‘Hey.’ He put up his hand. ‘Slow down. If you hang on a second I’ll give you a guided tour.’
‘Is it all right for me to leave my bag here?’
‘This isn’t Fauzdarhat. You could leave hundred-dollar bills lying around, and they’d still be here when you got back. Where do you want to go first?’
‘I don’t mind.’ She glanced around the hut. ‘I didn’t expect anything like this. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘What?’
‘Bug screens, sliding windows, mosquito nets, curtains, polished wooden floors, nice furniture. Are all the huts the same?’
‘Most of them are a bit bigger than this one. Half the guys Hari has working for him have brought their families here. Come on, there’s a place you need to see where you’ll feel right at home.’
Outside the hut they were met by a group of neatly dressed children who had seen Heather arrive. There were ten or eleven of them; mostly girls who were as fascinated by the colour of her hair as she was by their clear bright eyes, their sparkling teeth and by the earphones and iPods several of them had dangling round their necks.
She stooped to allow a little girl to reach out and shyly touch her ponytail. ‘I can’t believe this,’ she said. ‘Freshly scrubbed children in clean clothes — and with iPods?’
‘Shows what a good social welfare programme can do. There’s nothing third world about this place. No one goes hungry, and anybody who needs medical attention gets taken straight to Singapore. Hari doesn’t mess around.’
Followed by the gaggle of children, Coburn set off along one of the pathways that led to the twenty foot-high pile of timber standing on the village’s southern boundary.
The village itself occupied nearly fifteen acres of cleared and reclaimed swamp. Triangular in shape, and flanked on two sides by marshland and on the other by the green water of the estuary, the clearing was drained by a network of deep ditches and, at some time in the past, the ground had been stabilized and reinforced by layers of hitech geotextiles. The result was a flat, vegetation-free plateau of dry peat on which the huts and pathways had been built.
But the heart of the village and its acknowledged social centre was nowhere near the centre of the clearing. Instead it lay close to the marsh behind a crude façade of piled up timber and lichen-covered concrete slabs.
Coburn was about to spring his surprise on her when they disturbed a yellow-throated marten that had been sunning itself on one of the logs. It scrambled up the heap, drawing Heather’s attention to the satellite disk and the forest of radio aerials he’d been hoping she wouldn’t see.
‘Go round to the side,’ he said. ‘That’s where the entrance is.’
Since his last visit, both of the shipping containers had been repainted and a small wooden veranda had been added to one of them.
He went and opened the door for her. ‘These are a bit more upmarket than yours at the beach,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’
The first of the containers was completely lined, air-conditioned and provided with electric lighting. At the far end, in addition to a pool table, a coffee machine and a well-stocked bar, rows of wooden benches surrounded a flat screen plasma television to form the equivalent of a home theatre, while shelving along the walls was crammed with books, DVDs and a selection of children’s toys.
‘Oh, my goodness.’ She was amazed. ‘Where does the power come from?’
‘A petrol-driven generator. It’s in a shed at the edge of the marsh. That’s why you can’t hear it running.’
She walked over to the bar. ‘And all this is paid for by robbing ships, is it?’
‘It’s a business.’ He’d been half-expecting her disapproval. ‘If you want to start moralizing, have a look at Iraq, or at what some of the big multi-nationals are doing. Modern-day piracy isn’t the best thing that’s going on in the world, but it sure as hell isn’t the worst.’
‘I know that.’ She turned and beckoned to the children who had remained outside. ‘Why won’t they come in?’
‘They know they’re not allowed — not unless they have one of their mothers with them.’ He pointed to a connecting door. ‘Take a look through there and you’ll see why.’
The second container too was air-conditioned, but the purpose of this one was exclusively utilitarian. Fitted out with refrigerators and freezers, it was part warehouse and part cool store, but the majority of the space was taken up by racks of telemetry electronics and by the armoury.
Radio and radar equipment was stacked alongside mines and their powerful attachment magnets, M16 rifles, grenade launchers, radioactivated detonators, grappling hooks and crates of ammunition. On the walls, hanging between the boarding ladders were rows of wetsuits, and on the floor stood numerous boxes of spares and the halogen lights.
‘Nerve centre,’ Coburn said. ‘Hari uses spotters up and down the coast, and he’s in radio contact with local fishermen, but this is where he’ll get the best information on the Pishan.’
‘Is that the name of the freighter you’re supposed to be raiding?’
‘Yep.’ Coburn nodded. ‘It left Karachi on June 9th and it’s due to call in at Singapore on July 7th before it goes on to Wonsan in North Korea.’
‘You know this isn’t my fault, don’t you?’ she said. ‘You want me to think it is, but it isn’t.’