Fair Game (33 page)

Shepherd did as the captain suggested. From the outside deck he could look down on the side of the ship and see that the stack on the outside did indeed contain one container fewer than the one next to it. There were six in the stack while there were seven in the middle.

Down below on the dockside there was a line of trucks waiting to have their containers picked up by the cranes.

‘Happy now?’ asked Dominik as Shepherd went back inside. ‘I can see how important numbers are to you.’

‘It was just confusing me,’ said Shepherd. He went to the window and looked again over the stacks of containers. He understood now what the captain meant. The fact that the stacks sloped towards the bow meant that several of the rows were hidden from the bridge.

‘Even with the slope we still have a huge blind spot in front of us,’ said Dominik. ‘When we’re at sea we can’t see the five hundred metres directly in front of the ship.’

Shepherd got out of his chair. The bridge was actually an L shape, with the bottom leg of the L on the starboard side pointing to the stern. The leg offered a view of the rear of the ship, and it was a rest area with a sofa, a sink and tea- and coffee-making facilities.

Shepherd looked out of the rear window where a fourth crane was loading containers. There were another five rows of forty-foot containers stretching to the stern.

Shepherd joined Dominik at the controls. The captain was blowing smoke at the window as he watched a container zip across the ship, suspended from one of the massive overhead cranes. The containers arrived on the back of trucks at the dockside, the crane lifted them up on to the ship and lowered them into place, where stevedores made sure that they were fixed securely in place. The workers were so skilled they made the job look as easy as a child assembling a fort from wooden blocks, but Shepherd knew that any error of judgement would be catastrophic, especially for the stevedores on the deck.

‘How many containers do we have on board?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Just over five thousand, including three hundred and twenty reefers.’

‘Reefers?’

Dominik frowned. ‘You don’t know what a reefer is? A refrigerated container. The white ones are reefers.’ He shook his head. ‘You guys in head office have no idea about shipping, do you?’

‘I told you, I’m a consultant,’ said Shepherd. ‘And I’m more concerned about personnel.’

‘Well, I’m more concerned about cargo,’ said Dominik, ‘which is what pays your fees and my wages.’

Two Malaysian pilots came on board at 4.30, escorted by the second officer. They were both dark skinned and had matching thick moustaches and were wearing white shirts and black trousers and carrying identical briefcases. The pilots shook hands with the captain and then went outside with him on to the starboard wing of the bridge. The captain stood at the controls, a transceiver in his hand. Shepherd went out to watch them. The loading had finished and the gantries of the cranes were now upright, as if saluting the soon-to-be-departing vessel.

On the bridge wing was a magnetic compass in a chest-high grey housing on a wooden circular plinth, and a large pale green metal box that looked as if it might have been a barbecue, but when the captain pushed back the retractable cover Shepherd saw a duplicate set of controls, including a small steering wheel and a throttle lever.

On the deck at the side of the compass was a black mat about six feet square on which had been painted a two-foot-high letter P in a yellow circle. Dominik saw Shepherd looking at it. ‘You’re wondering what that is, Company Man?’ said the captain.

‘It looks like a miniature helicopter landing pad,’ said Shepherd. ‘But they have an H and not a P.’

Dominik laughed. ‘It’s for when the pilots land by helicopter,’ he said. ‘Usually they arrive by boat but at some ports they fly them in.’ He pointed at the mat. ‘They winch them down and that’s where they land. Hopefully.’

Three tugs had appeared, two at the stern and one at the bow. Far below on the dockside, Shepherd could see five men in overalls and hard hats gathering around the bollard at the front of the ship. One of the pilots said something to Dominik, who spoke into his transceiver, and a few seconds later two of the men down below pulled the rope loop off the bollard and it began to snake back into the bow of the ship. Shepherd smiled at the realisation that a ship the size of the
Athena
worth a hundred and fifty million dollars still had to be let loose by a couple of seamen pulling on a rope. And as was the case in almost every workplace the world over there were two men doing the actual work and three men supervising them.

The seamen slowly walked the length of the ship and after the pilot gave new instructions to Dominik, which were relayed over the transceiver, the men released the two ropes that were tethering the stern. The two ropes slowly withdrew into the ship.

The tugs began to ease the giant ship away from the dock, and then start to gradually turn it clockwise. Shepherd was amazed that the tugs, tiny in comparison with the 130,000-tonne container ship, could move it so easily and with such grace. Once they had moved fifty feet or so from the dock, the pilots asked Dominik to turn on the bow thruster, which increased the rate of turn. The ship smoothly turned through a hundred and eighty degrees as it backed away from the dock, and within fifteen minutes the bow was pointing towards the port entrance. The pilot asked for the main engine to be at slow ahead and again Dominik operated the engine at his console. Once the ship was moving towards the port entrance, the two pilots and Dominik walked quickly back to the main bridge.

The chief officer was watching the radar screens. There were three, the one on the right giving a view of one nautical mile, the middle one three nautical miles and the one on the left six nautical miles.

Dominik took a quick look at the screens as the main pilot sat in the left-hand chair. The second officer was now standing at the ship’s controls.

The pilot gave a heading and Dominik relayed it to the second officer, who repeated it as he turned the ship’s wheel.

‘How does this work?’ Shepherd asked Hainrich. ‘Who’s in charge of the ship right now?’

‘The master is in charge, but he has to take the advice of the pilot,’ said Hainrich. ‘That’s how it works in most ports. The pilots know these waters, but the responsibility still falls on the master.’

The pilots helped Dominik guide the massive ship out of the port, westwards towards the Malacca Strait, then they shook hands with Dominik and left the bridge, accompanied by the second officer. Dominik sat down on the right-hand chair and studied the radar screens.

‘This might seem a stupid question,’ Shepherd asked Hainrich. ‘But how do they get back to land?’

Hainrich looked at him curiously. ‘You really don’t know anything about shipping, do you?’

‘I’m human resources,’ said Shepherd. ‘This is my first time on a ship like this.’

Hainrich shook his head sorrowfully. ‘That’s what the world is coming to,’ he said. ‘Our futures are being decided by people who have no idea what they’re doing.’ He sighed. ‘They leave by one of the pilot hatches. There are two, one port, one starboard, about two metres above the waterline. They go to the hatch and the pilot boat comes alongside.’ He waved at the starboard wing of the bridge. ‘You can see it for yourself, out there.’ Hainrich reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. ‘Here’s the key you wanted, for the outside hatches.’ He held it out, but as Shepherd reached for it he pulled it away and held it just out of reach. ‘This key you must not lose,’ he said. ‘If it is lost it’s a major breach of security and you’ll be thrown in the brig.’

Shepherd grinned. ‘Hainrich, I’ve been all over this vessel, there is no brig.’

‘You lose this key and I will personally build one,’ said Hainrich, finally giving him the key.

Shepherd went out on to the wing and peered over. Far below he could see the pilot vessel running alongside the
Athena
. A man in a dark blue uniform was standing on the deck of the pilot ship, holding on to the railing with one hand. Two metal doors in the hull were open and as Shepherd watched the two pilots took it in turns to step across on to the pilot boat, where they were helped on to the deck by the uniformed seaman. Once they had gone inside the boat peeled away and headed back to the harbour.

Shepherd let himself back into the bridge, shutting the door and closing the two chrome levers, and went over to stand behind Dominik. There were only three other vessels on the central radar screen, showing as small white triangles.

As Shepherd watched, Dominik moved a cursor on to the closest of the triangles and clicked on it. On the right of the screen the details of the ship flashed up. It was an oil tanker en route to Singapore. ‘That’s the AIS, right?’ asked Shepherd.

Dominik grunted. ‘Most of the bigger ships have it,’ he said. ‘It gives us the call sign and any other details that the master decides to put in.’

‘But they can switch it off, right?’

‘They can do, but once they switch it off they can’t see anyone else’s AIS.’

‘But if you do switch it off, you disappear, right?’

Dominik laughed. ‘No, you still show up on radar. But no one will be able to see your details.’

‘And smaller boats don’t have AIS?’

‘It’s not required and it’s expensive, so small yachts and fishing boats tend not to have it,’ said Dominik. ‘It’s a big help for navigation and useful if we need to talk to another ship. If it’s got AIS we can get their call sign rather than just sending out a general hail.’

‘What about pirates?’ said Shepherd. ‘Can’t they use it to track ships?’

‘Pirates?’ repeated Dominik. ‘I’ve never heard of pirates using AIS.’

‘But if they wanted to, couldn’t they use it to target a particular ship?’

Dominik frowned. ‘I suppose they could.’

‘But it’d be easy, right? Say they wanted the
Athena
. All they would have to do is to use the AIS and they’d see where you were and where you were heading.’

Dominik threw back his head and laughed. ‘You’ve got a funny idea about the way the pirates work, Company Man,’ he said. ‘They’re not high-tech villains, they’re simply bloody fishermen in skiffs. They don’t have GPS, never mind AIS.’ He laughed again. ‘Don’t worry, Company Man, no one is going to mess with us. Least of all some scrawny fishermen.’

Shepherd left the captain on the bridge and went down to his cabin, where he showered and changed into clean clothes before going down to the mess room at six o’clock. The chief officer was already there, halfway through a bowl of fish soup. Sitting opposite Hainrich was a middle-aged man with curly black hair and a square chin with a dimple in the centre. He stood up and formally shook hands with Shepherd. ‘Feliks Dudek,’ he said. ‘I’m the electrician.’ He had a strong grip and his biceps bulged as if he spent a lot of time working out.

Jimmy appeared from the galley with a bowl of soup for Shepherd, and just as he raised his spoon the captain appeared and took his seat.

The three Poles shared a bottle of red wine and began talking in their own language. They made no attempt to include Shepherd in their conversation. Shepherd wasn’t offended; he realised that he was the outsider and the fact that he was supposedly there to report on them added to their suspicions. He kept his head down and ate in silence.

Hainrich finished his soup and turned around in his seat. ‘Jimmy!’

The messman appeared at the galley door. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘My salad,’ said Hainrich, and the messman nodded and disappeared. Hainrich twisted back in his seat and a few seconds later Jimmy reappeared with a large glass bowl filled with lettuce, chopped green pepper and cucumber, and what looked like the contents of a can of tuna.

Hainrich saw Shepherd looking at the bowl and he pulled a face. ‘I used to be a hundred and five kilos,’ he said. ‘Then the company brought in a new rule that says we have to weigh less than ninety kilos. More than ninety kilos and you can’t sail. Also you have to meet their body mass index targets. I scraped the last medical but they only signed me off for six months. They said if I don’t lose more weight then I lose my job.’ He nodded at the bowl of salad. ‘Now I eat like a rabbit.’

‘You had steak for lunch,’ said Shepherd.

‘Protein,’ said Hainrich. ‘A man has to have some protein.’

‘And you use the gym?’

Hainrich made a barking sound that was half contempt, half amusement. ‘Have you seen our gym? The company doesn’t want to waste money on equipment so we have a treadmill and an exercise bike and a punchbag and that’s it.’ He jabbed his fork into the bowl and shoved salad into his mouth.

Jimmy took Shepherd’s soup bowl away and took it to the galley, returning almost immediately with a pork chop that glistened in fat, greasy carrots and French fries.

‘You play ping-pong?’ asked Hainrich.

‘Ping-pong?’ repeated Shepherd.

Hainrich made a sweeping motion with his hand. ‘Table tennis,’ he said.

‘I haven’t played since I was a kid.’

‘The chief likes ping-pong but he can never find anyone to play him,’ said Dominik. ‘We’re too busy and the crew prefer their beer and karaoke when they’re off duty.’

‘I’ll give you a game sometime,’ Shepherd said to Hainrich.

‘Be careful,’ said Dominik. ‘He doesn’t like to lose.’

‘Who does?’ said Shepherd.

Just before he went to bed, Shepherd called Charlotte Button on the sat-phone. ‘All aboard,’ he said. ‘We’ve just left Port Klang. We’ll be in pirate waters in four or five days.’

‘How is it?’

‘There are rumblings of mutiny among the officers but all’s good.’

‘Gin and tonic on the poop deck, is it?’

‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ said Shepherd. ‘They’re not happy about having a company man on board, they think I’m there to sack them.’

‘Well, I just hope they don’t make you walk the plank.’

‘Don’t even joke about it,’ said Shepherd. ‘If anything were to happen at sea, nobody would ever know. It’d be the captain who’d handle any investigation and I don’t think he’d be shedding any tears if I fell overboard.’