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In just ten minutes the rotating chain had cut up to the main deck. Savich watched spellbound as the deck began to glow from the heat of the teeth cutting the metal, and then the chain emerged in an eruption of torn steel and cut through the freighter’s railings as though they weren’t there. A sophisticated braking system stopped the chain, and the entire mechanism retracted toward the ceiling. The dismembered section of hull had already been secured to a rolling crane that spanned the shed. The crane lifted the hull slice as the forward doors opened and the four small locomotives backed in to accept the load.
“They will lay the piece on its side out in the yard,” Singh explained. “Men with hand cutters will chop it up to send to the steel plant. The only parts we can’t cut with the saw are the ship’s main diesels, but they are easy to remove once we cut our way into the engine room. By hand it takes two weeks to scrap a ship this size. We can do it in two days.”
“Very impressive,” Savich repeated.
Shere Singh led the Russian back toward the elevator. “So what is it Volkmann sent you around the world to tell me?”
“We’ll discuss it in your office.”
Fifteen minutes later they were seated in an office attached to the largest bungalow. Framed pictures of Singh’s eleven children were arranged along one wall dominated by a studio portrait of his wife, a heavyset dowager of a woman with a bovine expression. Savich had declined a beer and drank bottled water instead. Singh drank through a bottle of Filipino San Miguel and was on his second by the time Savich had his briefcase opened.
“The consortium accepted everything Volkmann and I proposed,” Savich said. “It’s time to expand what we already started.”
The Sikh laughed. “Was there any doubt?”
Savich ignored the sarcasm and slid across a file. “These are our projected needs for the next year. Can you fulfill them?”
Singh perched a pair of reading glasses on his large nose and scanned the list, mumbling the salient figures. “An additional thousand immediately, two hundred a month first two months. Four hundred next two. Six hundred after that.” He looked across at the Russian. “Why the increase?”
“Disease. By then we expect typhoid and cholera to run rampant.”
“Ah.”
Their discussion of specifics over the next several hours was Savich’s way of making certain Singh fully understood the plan he and Volkmann had perfected since learning of the German central bank’s intention to sell off their gold reserves. To his credit, or perhaps discredit, the Sikh had an inherent grasp of criminal enterprise and was even able to contribute a few inspired refinements.
Satisfied that everything on this end was handled, Savich said his good-byes two hours before sunset so as to have ample time to chopper back to Jakarta. There was no way he’d fly in the small helicopter after dark. He planned on staying in the city overnight before commencing the next leg of his journey, a roundabout odyssey of a half dozen flights to get him back to Russia. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
Ten minutes after Savich left his office at the Karamita Breakers Yard, Shere Singh was on the phone to his son, Abhay. Because of the nature of his work, the senior Singh trusted only his sons to know the full scope of his business, which is why he had had six of them. His five daughters were merely a financial drain, one of whom hadn’t yet married, meaning he still had her dowry to consider. She was the youngest and marginally his favorite, so he’d have to top the two million dollars he’d given the horse-faced Mamta.
“Father, we haven’t heard from the Kra IV for two days,” Singh’s eldest said after a brief exchange of pleasantries.
“Who is her captain?”
“On this voyage it was Mohamed Hattu.”
Singh was a reprehensible figure of a man, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t shrewd. He kept a tight rein on his enterprises and made it a point to know all his senior people. Hattu was a pirate of the old school who’d preyed on shipping in the Malacca Strait for twenty years before Singh made him an offer. He was audacious and reckless but also dogmatic about procedure. If he hadn’t checked in for two days, something must have happened. And with that thought, Singh wrote off the Kra IV, her captain, and her crew of forty. “There are others eager to take his place,” Shere Singh told his son. “I will look into a replacement. However, alert your contacts to listen for any mention of a thwarted pirate attack. Whoever fought Mohamed Hattu and lived will want to tell the tale.”
“Yes, Father. I’ve thought of that. So far there have been no such reports.”
“On to other business. Anton Savich just left my office. The plan is in motion. I have his list of requirements. It’s about what I anticipated.”
“On your order we’ve already begun to collect.”
“Yes, good. What about your men? Will they do what is necessary when the time is right?”
“Their loyalty is absolute. Savich and his European bankers will never know what hit them once we strike.”
The confidence in his son’s voice sent a proud thrill through Shere Singh. His boy was so much like him. He was sure that had Abhay not been born with wealth, he would have created his own fortune, clawing his way up like Shere had done in his youth.
“Good, my boy, good. They maneuvered themselves into a vulnerable position without even realizing it.”
“No, Father. You maneuvered them. You turned their fear and greed into action, and now it will consume them all.”
“No, Abhay, we don’t want them destroyed. Remember always, you can continue to eat the fruit from a dying tree but not from one that is dead. Savich, Volkmann, and the others will suffer, but we will leave enough so we can feast on them for a long time to come.”
10
“Y ou’RE going to wear a trail into the carpet,” Eddie Seng said from an overstuffed chair in the corner of the hotel room.
