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J. T. Brannan

Whatever the Cost

For Justyna, Jakub and Mia

EPIGRAPH

‘I kill only when they attack me.’

— Achilles

PROLOGUE

1

The sun seared an orange fireball across the darkening crimson sky, hovering close to the horizon as it spread the last of its rays across the Strait of Malacca.

Captain Yang Yaobang leaned forward to peer out of the bridge’s wrap-around windows, watching the sun dropping low ahead of his ship, the Fu Yu Shan. He had to stare past the three gigantic cranes which were lined up across the bow, but he could still make out the huge orange disk, and the wonderful effect it had on the sky. Sunsets, he reflected, were truly glorious in this exotic area, and he doubted that he would ever tire of them.

Unable to remain in the enclosed bridge while nature was performing its dance across the skies, he left his Officer of the Watch in charge, and stepped outside.

Even at this hour, the heat hit him hard after the air-conditioned comfort of the bridge, but the sensation was pleasant, a faint breeze cooling the heat on his skin.

He breathed in the air, filling his lungs with the scents hanging on the sea breeze. Even over the diesel fumes of the vessel’s huge engines, Yang swore that he could smell sweet jasmine and delicate orchid, competing with the stench of fish and rice, spices and cigarette smoke.

He looked to the shores on either side of him, the Strait so narrow that both sides could be seen, and observed what looked like a fishing village to starboard. He put his binoculars to his eyes and looked again, this time making out the details.

Yes. A small village, boats tied up at a rickety wooden jetty, dilapidated houses crowding the shoreline, children bathing in the warm waters before dinner, women washing clothes while old men sat in wicker chairs and chatted about who knew what.

Perhaps they were chatting about the future, Yang thought, as up ahead he could already see the urban conurbation of Si Rusa and Kampung Siginting, their commercial ports and luxury beach resorts linking up with others up and down the southern Malaysian coastline, threatening to eat up villages like this in their relentless path.

Yang sighed as he stared at the village, wondering what it was called. He would probably never know. That was progress, he supposed.

He had come from a fishing village just like this one, a quiet village which had eventually been caught up in the vast sprawl of Shanghai. He shook his head sadly, putting the binoculars down.

Yes. That was progress.

Still, this little piece of Southeast Asia still managed to retain some of its exotic charm, the whole of the Indonesian archipelago still somewhere that one could get lost in, a vast area of thousands upon thousands of islands and islets, vast stretches of mysterious and unexplored coastline.

But the Strait of Malacca wasn’t just beautiful and exotic; it was also inordinately dangerous, and he had to remind himself that he was approaching the most treacherous part of his voyage.

The Fu Yu Shan was a huge container vessel sailing out of Guangzhou, China. She had left the port of Tianjin a week ago, ready for a two week voyage through the South China Sea, across the Bay of Bengal, round the southern tip of India and up the coast to the port of Karachi in Pakistan. The vessel was a key contributor to Asian and Middle Eastern trade, its thirteen and a half thousand tons carrying seven thousand more tons of cargo to the ports of the Arabian Sea. There was a growing consumer market in the Middle East which China was more than willing to exploit, and over sixty thousand vessels ploughed through the Malacca Strait every year, many of them carrying Chinese consumer goods to India, Pakistan, and further up through the Gulf of Oman. Oil came back to Asia from the Gulf nations in the same way, and it was said that a quarter of the world’s traded goods passed through this area. Yang knew this to be true; perhaps even an understatement.

The Fu Yu Shan’s first stop had been the port of Dalian, right on the north eastern tip of the Chinese coast, where she had taken on extra cargo, as well as two extra crew members. Yang frowned as he thought of these men, replacements for two of his regular crew who had become inexplicably ill just before the Fu Yu Shan was due to set sail.

Their papers said they were Chinese, and they appeared to know what they were doing, but Yang had his doubts about them. They were incredibly taciturn and grim-faced; not characteristics entirely unknown among sailors, but strange nevertheless. And the way they had been ready and waiting, at a loose end and looking for work just when Yang was in need of two extra men was perhaps just a little too convenient.

But, Yang had decided, one should never look a gift horse in the mouth; a delightful phrase that he had picked up from Tommy Yu, one of the three Chinese-American sailors he had working aboard the Fu Yu Shan. He had therefore taken the two extra men on at Dalian, despite his misgivings.

But now they were entering the pirate-infested waters of the Malacca Strait, his doubts began to resurface.

The Strait was so well travelled by marine traffic because it offered direct passage between the South China Sea and the Bay of Bengal without having to round the Indonesian island of Sumatra and cross the deeper waters of the Indian Ocean. But the result was a choke point, a narrow stretch of busy water in which it was very difficult to escape being boarded if attacked. And the thousands of islets, along with the multitude of rivers which snaked away inland, provided innumerable hiding places for the pirate gangs.

Piracy in the Strait stretched back to the fourteenth century, reaching its heyday in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the arrival of European colonizers and their wealthy trade vessels.

Things weren’t as bad anymore, Yang reflected, and yet piracy had never really been stamped out — there were still hundreds of attacks every year, from amateurish attempts by opportunistic criminals, to more sophisticated attacks by professional gangs and terrorist groups. The governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore had all committed forces to patrolling the Strait, although the Indian Navy also had to help out due to the ineffectualness of Indonesia’s maritime forces.

But Yang hadn’t got to his position by relying on others, and he made sure that the Fu Yu Shan was properly equipped to deal with a boarding, should pirates ever decide to attack her. There were no sound guns or any of the other specialist, high-end — and therefore prohibitively expensive, for his shipping line at least — equipment that some vessels had, but Yang believed in the basics. He therefore had barbed wire and electric fences, as well as several water cannon and — most importantly — several trained men with Chinese QBZ-03 assault rifles and FHJ-84 62mm rocket launchers, as used by the PLA’s special operations units.

Yang surveyed the calm waters of the Strait once more, breathing in the sweet air as the sun finally slipped away beyond the horizon, leaving the world a suddenly darker place.

Yang sighed. The beauty was gone now.

All that remained was the danger.

2

‘So what’ve you got?’ asked James Dorrell, Director of Central Intelligence.

Samuel Trenter coughed and adjusted his tie before he replied. You didn’t just answer the director with the first thing that came into your head, especially if you wanted to keep your job.

Trenter also knew that Dorrell had plenty of other things on his plate. The Russian Federation, one of the signatories of the tripartite Mutual Defense Treaty, had just ousted its previous president, Vasilev Danko, and installed the much more expansionist and imperialist-minded Mikhail Emelienenko in his place. His opinion on the treaty was widely reported to be less than positive, and US intelligence was working overtime to draw up a reliable profile on the man and his possible intentions.