He had been delighted by what he had found; an arms cache far more impressive than the one underneath Boom’s garden shack. And it wasn’t just weapons; there was military-grade equipment of every type, and Cole realized that Khat had probably only been one of a handful of dealers who supplied Wong’s business.
He had quickly decided what he needed, packed it all up in a huge military rucksack and a couple of canvas kit bags, and headed for the local ferry port where he’d boarded the last boat of the day across the narrow strait which separated Java from Sumatra.
Arriving in Bandar Lampung later that same evening, and with nobody showing any sign of interest in the contents of his heavy bags, Cole had rented a 4x4 and immediately set off on the long journey north to Dumai.
Cole had driven the eight hundred miles to Dumai in one go, stopping only for food and gas, and arrived in the city within twenty hours of getting to the Sumatran mainland. Exhausted, he had rented a cheap motel room to get some much needed rest. Despite his desire to get on with the operation, he nevertheless made sure he slept long enough to fully recharge his batteries, not knowing when his next chance to rest might be; and being alert would be an absolute necessity over the hours and days ahead.
The long journey through the contrasting jungles, rice paddies and sudden urban sprawl of Sumatra had given him time to reflect on who he was; what he was.
He was a weapon, and that was all; a weapon as finely honed as any before him.
He had already killed — how many since leaving Thailand? He had tried to count, but hadn’t managed to get past Cambodia. Who knew how many had died during the chase through that dark jungle, the battle at the temple?
And did it even matter anymore how many there had been? How many more there would be to come?
Because Cole knew that there would be more; had always known, ever since his first kill in Iran as a young twenty-year old SEAL sailor just out of training. He had felt it then, and he felt it now; it wasn’t a compunction to kill, just an acceptance of its inevitability.
Would a Michelin-starred chef ever stop cooking? Would a world champion boxer ever completely get over the urge to hit the bag, just a little?
Mark Cole; it wasn’t even his real name.
He had tried family life, and had even loved it, loved those whose lives he had been blessed with.
But somewhere — somewhere deep down — he had known it would not last. Could not last. That sort of life was simply not a long-term option for a man like him, and as he piloted the heavy 4x4 along the broken, unpaved roads of Sumatra’s rural heartlands, eyes bleary with exhaustion, the realization had hit him like a slap to the face.
Had he willingly endangered his own family? Had he wanted them to die, so that he could get back to the life he knew and — yes, he could admit it now — loved?
He simply didn’t know; all he did know was that Sarah, Ben and Amy were not the only family he had lost.
When he had agreed to leave the life of Mark Kowalski behind, in order to become Mark Cole, a deep-cover contract laborer for Charles Hansard and the American government, he had accepted that he would have to leave his family behind, all believing that he had been Killed In Action on a mission to Pakistan.
His mother, his father, his two brothers, his sister; grandparents and cousins, nieces and nephews; he had left them all behind in the frozen trailer parks of Hamtramck, Michigan.
What would they think if they knew?
And so the hours had passed, one after the other, on the long journey to Dumai; until Cole had fallen into bed with one final thought.
If he was a killer, he would use his skills — his nature — for a just cause, to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.
He was a guard dog, and he fell asleep to the sounds of howling.
Upon waking, Cole had then driven further north to a more remote location on the coast, and had used his stolen SCUBA gear to swim to an adjacent island just one mile to the west of the suspected pirate’s lair. He had laid up there and scoured the opposite coastline with his high-powered binoculars for signs of a river or other ingress into the island.
He had spotted what he thought might be a channel, although it was hard to tell at that distance even with the binoculars; and had then bypassed the island at a safe distance and swam across to the larger island of Pulau Rupat, where he had repeated the procedure for the islet’s eastern coast. On that side he had spotted no sign of a water-based entrance inland, the coast overgrown with vegetation.
Cole wasn’t able to observe the northern and southern coasts, but they were so narrow that there wasn’t much that he would have missed; and he therefore decided that his best course of action would be a covert infiltration of the small island via the channel he’d identified on the west coast.
The miles of swimming weren’t a problem to Cole — his years in the Navy SEALs had prepared him in exquisitely demanding fashion for tasks exactly like this, and with fins on, the job was even easier. What was a problem now, as he made his way down the riverine channel which cut a swath through the dense jungle, was being seen.
He’d chosen to carry out the recon mission at night-time. He’d been confident enough to observe the islet from more remote locations during the day, but when it came time to access the little island itself, Cole knew it had to be under the cover of darkness.
But he still worried about the pirate gang’s own night-vision devices; if they sourced their equipment from Wong, then it stood to reason that they would probably have the same gear as him. Possibly radar too, although Cole knew it was unlikely that they would have anything sophisticated enough to pinpoint a single human body.
He didn’t want to swim on the surface of the river — which was, he’d already noted, just about big enough for a vessel the size of the Fu Yu Shan to float down — due to the threat of being seen by alert sentries; and so he was forced to swim a certain distance underwater and then emerge at regular intervals to observe the riverbanks around him. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do.
Treading the warm water beneath him, Cole scanned the northern bank first, before something caught his attention and drew his gaze southwards. It was at the extent of the goggle’s perception, but Cole was sure he’d seen movement further down the river, on the south bank.
Knowing he would have to get closer, Cole reentered the water and kicked steadily upstream.
Two minutes later he raised his head again, looking south.
Yes.
There was something here, and Cole looked across the river and tried to discern the green and black images fed to him through the night-vision goggles.
There was a dark shape, and Cole soon identified it as a cave which cut into the side of the jungle, a tributary from the main river feeding into it.
Swimming in closer, Cole could soon make out what appeared to be a dock hidden inside the cave, armed men standing guard along a wooden jetty. They seemed alert, switched on; none of them smoked or did anything else to compromise night discipline, but Cole was relieved to see that they weren’t using night-vision devices. Perhaps they were confident that the hideout would never be found, or else never considered the fact that a lone swimmer could prove a danger. Security would probably only be really boosted when radar, or lookouts posted further out, at the entrances to the main channel between the mainland and Pulau Rupat, alerted them to the presence of a suspicious boat in their waters.