Admonition

© Copyright 2012 Russel T. Shelley.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, or not.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-0626-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-0627-3 (e)

Trafford rev. 02/29/2012

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Contents

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY ONE

TWENTY TWO

TWENTY THREE

TWENTY FOUR

TWENTY FIVE

TWENTY SIX

TWENTY SEVEN

TWENTY EIGHT

TWENTY NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY ONE

THIRTY TWO

THIRTY THREE

THIRTY FOUR

THIRTY FIVE

THIRTY SIX

THIRTY SEVEN

THIRTY EIGHT

THIRTY NINE

FORTY

FORTY ONE

FORTY TWO

FORTY THREE

FORTY FOUR

For Emmy

The oceans of the world are whence we came and to where we must return. If we can.—anon.

admonition: a warning or expression of disapproval

Before he was assassinated, Robert Kennedy admonished us to tame the savagery of man and make gentle the life of the world.

ONE

February 3rd—approximate position 48o S, 125o W.

The sea was heaving. Under a low lumpy sky the colour of unclean pewter, the Southern Ocean was in a surly mood—grey, massive and chillingly cold. The fact that it was only a couple of weeks past midsummer cut no ice. A steady 25-knot wind had been blowing for hours from the southwest, straight from the Antarctic ice fields, the swells looming up into burly masses of white-topped menace. The water was very deep so there were no vicious steepling breakers, but the swells were large and the tops often fell over themselves, racing down the long slope to the trough at the bottom. It wasn’t a gale and it wasn’t too dangerous, but it wasn’t nice either. This far south you didn’t venture upon the ocean unless you had business there, and if you did you gave it some thought.

Ten metres in length, the bright yellow Zodiac semi-inflatable was large, seaworthy and well handled by her skipper, but although thermal-clad and securely harnessed under their life-jackets, the half dozen crew members felt dwarfed by the seas, the whale-catcher and the huge, 11,000 tonne Japanese factory ship, Kishin Maru. The Zodiak was a RIB, a rigid inflatable boat, with flexible air-filled sides and a metal hull. It was lightning-fast and could plane even in very rough water. Trouble was, this was very rough water.

The young Sea Shepherd activists were all experienced mariners, most of whom had been involved in many protests, but the violent movement of the Zodiac, a heavy metal clamour from the wind, waves, motor noise and yells from the crew, and the mind-numbing cold, frightened everyone. They were all there on business, but it was the kind that attracted high insurance premiums, if you could find a willing insurer.

They had certainly put themselves in harm’s way, the Zodiac skipper, Peter Reichmann, thought as he tried to keep his craft moving fast enough to avoid being rammed by the whale-catcher, which was driving at them, shepherding them away from the carcass of the whale it had freshly killed. Although now unmanned, the vicious-looking weapon on the point of her bow was aimed straight at them, as if the vessel itself was eager to kebab the RIB with the massive harpoon. They’d had a couple of very close looks at that gun, and Reichmann had seen the large flukes, speckled with what looked like rust, on the head of the harpoon sticking obscenely out of its mouth. It was all enough to prevent a close look at the dead whale, but the crew in the Zodiac was sure it was bigger than a minke, the only type supposed to be caught by the Japanese and Norwegian whaling companies operating in the area.

Reichmann increased the throttles of the twin Mercury 250s and swept the Zodiac around the catcher like an Olympic bobsled hurtling sideways around an ice wall, and headed for the whale carcass. But he had come too close to the weathered black, rust-streaked side of the Kishin Maru. Suddenly Helen Galanos, who had been trying to film the carcass with a video camera, was caught full on by a powerful jet of ice-cold seawater from a water cannon on the factory ship. She couldn’t even scream. Winded, gasping, shocked by the freezing water and unable to see, she lost her grip on the camera. It catapulted into the surging water and disappeared. The crewman on the cannon shouted in triumph, waving excitedly to the officer on the bridge wing. She’d just made his day. These cursed activists could be a real nuisance. They had been waiting to pull the whale up the ramp, but had been commanded by the captain to stop until the protest boat could be neutralized. They all knew the big whale at the stern wasn’t a minke, but didn’t want to be compelled to let it go. Now they didn’t have to.

Within minutes a line had been attached to the tail of the carcass, and it was slowly pulled up the ramp at the stern of the Kishin Maru. As it broke free from the surging swells, the onlookers in the Zodiac could only stare in fury and frustration.

It’s a sperm whale! shouted Peter angrily.

A large female! cried Helen.

Those bastards. They’re not just taking minkes. They think they’re above the law.

Reichmann beat his hands on the wheel in frustration, knowing they were unable to film the graphic sight. They all carried mobiles as a matter of course, often needing them for some back-up filming if the main camera malfunctioned, but in this case the violent movements of the RIB would have made using a mobile very difficult. The fact that multiple layers of mittens would need to be dragged off stiffened hands, leaving fingers exposed to the numbing wet and wind chill, made it impossible.

In an agony of frustration, they watched the sperm whale being dragged up the ramp, blood pouring down into the sea from the wounds in its head and body. The red run-off streamed into the water at the stern of the mother ship, turning the sea pink. Reichmann was hardened enough to understand the value in publicity of such images, and honest enough to admit to himself that it was worth more than one large sperm whale’s life. But not this one. This one died for nothing but the pleasure and profit of Japan. He knew also that within a short time there would be no evidence left of the whale’s species identity, for it would very quickly be flensed into pieces of meat and blubber. All remains of the carcass, almost eighty percent of the body, would be dumped back down the ramp and into the sea, and another whale would soon take its place.

Bruised, fuming, helpless and wretchedly cold, sea water sluicing around their legs, the Sea Shepherd protesters turned back toward their mother ship, the Steve Irwin, now many miles astern. Bitterly disappointed that they had been unable to capture hard evidence showing the Japanese were clearly and intentionally ignoring the International Whaling Commission requirements, knowing the companies would simply deny the allegations and the world would turn to another channel, they began slowly motoring east. The six young men and women in the RIB ranged in age from twenty-two to thirty-eight, and all were imbued with the fires of conviction and commitment. To a person they embraced marine conservation with the passion required to place themselves between a whale and the killing harpoon, but such an action wasn’t often possible. Nor was it totally desirable, although they all would have done it. It was true that some of the older and more experienced members had begun to question their passion and commitment. An unpleasant reality had intruded into their discussions around the big table, a reality that was as old as the culture of protest. Were they being effective? Was what they did making a blind bloody bit of difference? Or were the illegal fishing companies carrying on their business with successful, insulting indifference, impervious to the nuisance value of the protesters’ efforts?

They had cleared the stern of the Kishin Maru by a few hundred metres when they all felt a heavy thump through the hard sole of the RIB. There was a grinding, clanking noise under the counter of the huge factory ship, and a gout of pink water erupted into the air like the blow from a mortally wounded whale. Only bigger.

Shit! screeched the young American marine biologist, Jordan Becker, look at that!

Watching intently, not sure yet just what had occurred, the crew in the Zodiac saw the big Japanese whaler begin to slow and turn to port. A large group of officers and seamen gathered at the stern rail, shouting and gesticulating at a great patch of foaming, turbulent, still-pink water.

I think she’s stopping, said Helen, wiping wet strands of black hair from her snub-nosed, elfin face.

Those little fuckers don’t look too pleased. Wonder what happened?

Not many floating containers this far south.

But Reichmann had seen that kind of turbulence in the water before. That wasn’t a container, it was an underwater explosion, he said slowly, but what the hell was it that blew up?

Who cares, Peter? The main thing is that the ship seems to be damaged and they will have to cease operations. Helen was excited, her mood swinging rapidly from the flat, angry tears of despair to a grinning pleasure at the possibility that something serious had happened to the Japanese ship. The others in the RIB were by now reflecting Helen’s excitement. From down to up in one big red waterspout. Perhaps they would have good news for the campaign controllers on the base ship after all.

‘Who cares?’ thought Reichmann. ‘I bet those Japanese are going to care. Serious damage means a long trip home and costly repairs, as well as lost revenue from the whales they won’t be catching. I think we may have just seen the start of a new player in the game. And I don’t think the whalers are going to like it.’

TWO

February 16th—approximate position 45o S, 100o E.

Dominic Falduzzi was scared shitless. The Sicilian-born captain of the Belize-registered pirate fishing vessel Salvona was sitting in his bridge chair staring darkly at the stern of the ocean-going tug Stirling, watching the slow swinging of the long towline connecting the bow of his vessel to the tug. Its lower catenary regularly dipped into the ocean midway between the two vessels, slicing the tops of the swells like a giant cheese cutter. Falduzzi was short, square and aggressive, with deeply lined and weathered features under a thick mat of graying, oily curls, a man of turbulent emotions and unpredictable behaviour. A very experienced seaman and fisherman, he had worked for some years for the Spanish fishing company that owned the Salvona, and he loved his vessel more deeply than he had ever loved a woman. He’d had two wives who had given him three fine sons, but no woman he had ever known could breathe such life into a man, could fill his lungs with clean sea air, or excite him as much as winching in a longline full of fish.

But there was no excitement at that thought now. It only caused his bowels to curdle. He tossed off the last of his sambuca with a chunky, very hairy fist and yelled at his steward for a refill, trying again to figure out what had conspired to put him once more in the clutches of the rapacious Australian authorities. Some years before, he had been discovered by an Australian naval vessel well inside the Economic Exclusion Zone of Kerguelen Island, in the deep south of the Indian Ocean, with 190 tonnes of Patagonian toothfish. His vessel had been arrested and an Australian court had fined him and the ship’s Spanish owners over a million dollars. They were indifferent to the exclusion zones, having instructed Falduzzi to catch fish wherever he could find them, but they had not been pleased. He would have lost his job, or worse, but he was too good at finding and catching the fish, and they would have had to replace him with someone less experienced. And less profitable.

Gone were the days when just anyone could bring in full tanks of fish each time they went to sea. For many years the cod fishers of the Northern Hemisphere—Americans, Canadians, Scandinavians, British, Dutch, Spanish, Italians—were able to catch the delectable North Sea cod at will. And they did. By the millions of tons. It was piscatorial rape on a global scale, and it couldn’t last. In the eighties more than half of the remaining cod population in the North Atlantic and the North Sea was being taken every year. It became clear what had to happen. As the stocks of cod dwindled, and as the European Union reduced quotas, attention naturally swung to the virginal Southern Hemisphere. Falduzzi swung with it. Initially he trawled for prawns, the southern oceans giving up huge quantities of banana, Endeavour and tiger prawns, all big and succulent. But he got word from a cousin working out of Argentina that the new money was to be made catching Patagonian toothfish, and swung again. He developed a technique of fishing sea-mounts that filled his tanks quicker than any other skippers were able, and began to prove very valuable to his Spanish masters. He was feeling on top of the game, indispensable, until his capture at Kerguelen Island. The loss of a million dollars and his vessel was, he knew, a kick in the ass from God for getting cocky. After docking at the Western Australian port of Fremantle, he spent all of the following week in church apologizing, swearing he would remain humble from now on, if God would permit him to continue catching record toothfish numbers. God must have agreed. For the next three years he had kept his head down and harvested thousands of tonnes of the fish without any bother from authorities or activists.

But what had just happened was catastrophic. Four days ago he had been minding his own business, happily reeling in a good catch of toothfish from near Heard Island in the same general area of the Southern Ocean, when his navigator had come to the bridge to tell him that the radio buoys on his number one longline were moving. Cursing the man for a fool, for how could they be moving, he had gone into the navigation room to check. Not only did they appear to be moving, but they were drawing closer together!

The number one longline was a 30-kilometre main line with many branch lines containing 20,000 baited hooks and a heavy mooring cable at each end weighted with anchors. It was all supported by a cluster of floating buoys with radio transmitters constantly broadcasting GPS positions. It was a very expensive piece of gear.

As soon as his number two line had been retrieved, and its catch of toothfish cleaned and packed in the huge freezers, Falduzzi had set a course for the position of the closest end of the main line, increasing the speed of the Salvona to full ahead. Although the southern autumn was approaching, the day had been calm and bright, the wind light and the seas moderate and sparkling. It was the kind of day not often enjoyed in the high southern latitudes. Dominic was not enjoying it either. The cluster of brightly coloured buoys had soon been in sight.

Hook on to the floats and start retrieving, Falduzzi had ordered his mate, a wiry old Spaniard named Carlos. Carlos had spent most of his life at sea in one fishing boat or another and was capable, calm and reliable. He had begun the long wind on the massive winch drum, that would normally take a day to retrieve the full line, but it had stopped almost immediately. The buoys had come in attached only to about 30 metres of cable, and Carlos had attempted to explain to Falduzzi over the deck phone that the end of the cable seemed to have been cut. The captain, short-tempered at the best of times, had turned red and screamed at Carlos to stop being an idiot. He raced out of the wheelhouse and down to the working deck to see for himself.

The end of the cable had been neatly severed as if by a guillotine.

Falduzzi was now white with rage, but there was also uncertainty in his dark brown eyes… who or what could have done such a thing?

He had ordered the ship to steam full ahead to the position of the other end, shown by its GPS readings as being 25 kilometres due south. That’s five kilometres short, he muttered.

After an hour’s dash the other buoys were sighted and Carlos and his crew went to work. They secured the floats and commenced to winch in the line, but again the drum stopped short. The floats had only 20 metres of cable attached, and that end too had been cut.

Falduzzi’s fury was so great that he would have had not a second thought in murdering those responsible for cutting his line, and feeding them to the fish he was trying to catch. But shoving his rage to one side now was the thrill of genuine fear, for he would certainly be held responsible by his masters for the loss of the line, and they were not known for their generous severance payouts. He had told Carlos to steam north to another sea mount and set the number two line, then had walked slowly up to the bridge and collapsed into his chair. The cook, who doubled as a steward, had nervously placed another sambuca by his side and scurried out. Falduzzi enclosed the glass in his large hand, scarred from years of handling lines and hooks, where it peeped out through a forest of black hair, and drank deeply of the fiery liquid. He stared out the window, seeing nothing but approaching darkness.

Suddenly, there had been a loud bang from astern accompanied by a jolting shudder through the vessel, and she lost way, turning slowly to port. Falduzzi had thrown his glass away and again raced down to the stern deck, screaming for Carlos and the crew. Some of the men were staring into the water at the stern, yelling and waving. Falduzzi shoved his way to the stern rail and stared through the encroaching dusk at the large patch of foaming and boiling water in astonishment.

‘What the fuck?’ he looked at Carlos, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

Carlos shrugged. Many years ago I used to catch fish in rivers with small plugs of gelignite, he said, nodding his wizened old head and pointing towards the disturbed water with a hand missing one and a half fingers. The explosions were not large, but the water afterward looked very much like that, only smaller. He gestured at the turbulence in the ocean. Do you know, I think we too may have just been caught.

How? Who by? Falduzzi was beside himself.

Carlos shook his head. This I don’t know, Dominic, but I do think we will need some help.

Neither of the Salvona’s twin screws would answer the engine controls, and the rudder had seemed to be jammed about fifteen degrees to port, but there seemed only minimal leaking from the stern tubes around the propeller shafts. Falduzzi had sent a message to the authorities in Western Australia, and a tow had been organized. He had been in such turmoil that he had not thought of jettisoning his catch, so when the Australian naval frigate had arrived, a team of inspectors had boarded the Salvona and discovered his catch of toothfish. This time he had over 240 tonnes in the tanks, again well within the territorial exclusion zone around Heard Island. Once again he was placed under arrest, and three armed guards were stationed aboard.

So now, crabbing to port under tow and heading slowly for Fremantle again, where the Salvona would almost certainly be confiscated, Falduzzi sat in his wheelhouse, brooding. His thoughts chased themselves around his head like dervishes, all focussing on who or what had attacked him. His first thought, of course, was that it had been a raid by some of those God-damned Sea Shepherd activists, but he had quickly cast the thought aside. There had been no sign of any boating movement anywhere near their positions, and anyway nowadays they all seemed very reluctant to do anything which could be considered illegal.

His emotions built into such a demanding mixture of fury, perplexity and fear that for the first time in over twenty years he felt physically ill on a ship. Under a solid shot of adrenalin, his heart belted his ribs with a wrenching rhythm, and he wondered if he would survive this unbelievable set of catastrophes, let alone keep his job. He began to think seriously of ways to disappear in Fremantle, for there was a large Italian community there, and he knew people.

What the fuck was it? he fumed. What the fuck happened?

THREE

March 22nd—approximate position 50o S, 11o W.

The weather was foul, and the Norwegian whalers were rolling their guts out. A gale was blowing at forty knots from the south, the swells were huge and the waves were continuously breaking. The sea was more white than grey and the wind was wet and howling. The 9,000-tonne factory ship Helga Lindberg had been eased into a turn downwind, beginning to run slowly due north into the South Atlantic Ocean, which was why she was rolling. Her master, Captain Styg Halvorsen, had ordered the two catcher boats to keep station on her stern quarters as they slowly steamed north, waiting for the equinoctial gale to ease. It wasn’t that they couldn’t operate in rough conditions. It was simply that chasing whales meant steaming in all directions, and if one happened to be straight into the wind and seas, the gunner’s aim could be easily thrown off by a wave crashing over him or blinding him with a sheet of nearly-solid spray at just the wrong moment. In wild weather the gunner was harnessed in, of course, but it was neither economic sense nor very pleasant.

Halvorsen cut a striking figure. Tall, strongly built and with a shock of thick fair hair slightly graying, at forty-three he closely resembled the physical makeup of the Norsemen of old. Born of Norwegian parents in Reykjavik, Iceland, he was a modern Scandinavian and technologically current, but there were many hours on the bridge when all he had to do was keep the vessel operating under automatic pilot. Then he would be transformed. He had read Njal’s Saga many times, and his thoughts easily slipped back a millennium to the time of the Althing, the annual big occasion in ancient Iceland held in the open air at Thingvellir. Halvorsen donned the old traditions as comfortably as he would have worn the skins and armour of the time, reeking with the powerful, familiar smells that provided the environmental reality, and the courage, with which to face another man in a fight for life itself. He had spent many absorbing hours in the museum there, inhaling the brutal menace emanating from the spears, swords and axes of the day, which bespoke of strength, violence and ghastly injuries. But there was a pure truth in such combat. The stronger man, with good luck on his shoulder, was always fated to triumph. It should still be so, he would growl, things are too easy nowadays for the young.

Now, however, dressed for working in the extreme cold of the far south, he wore heavy dark blue trousers tucked into sea boots, a thick roll-necked sweater, windcheater and peaked cap. Faint lines of annoyance wrinkled around his pale blue eyes, for the conditions were poor enough to prevent his catcher boats from hunting the minke whales now found in abundance in the Southern Ocean. The Norwegian government had never recognised the International Whaling Commission’s treaties, and persisted in conducting whaling operations against minke whales at will. They always avowed that they did not take any other species, but organizations concerned with marine conservation knew differently.

Halvorsen was in the business of whaling and considered his job to be to catch as many whales as he could in the length of the voyage currently under way. The politicians and diplomats could argue oceanic conservation issues in international forums all they wished—it made no difference to him or his company directors. Whale meat was still being exported to Japan for very high prices, and his nation had always been of the sea.

Ducking into the chartroom, Halvorsen stood by the main chart table, where the navigator, Viktor Thyssen, was marking the latest position.

Hi Viktor, he said, we going to hit anything soon?

The young navigation officer smiled. Not for a while, Styg. We’ve got over six hundred nautical miles to Gough Island.

Well, call me when we… Halvorsen began. Suddenly a hollow thump echoed from near the stern of the vessel and the two men felt a mild shock through the deck. Then there was a second bang, louder and more violent, and the large vessel gave a slight lurch forward. They looked at each other in confusion for a few seconds, when the ship’s engines slowed to an idle. The captain ran back to the bridge and grabbed the engine-room phone.

What’s up chief? he barked.

The chief engineer, Welshman Brian Edwards, was immediately on the line.

Straight after that thump we lost steerage and power to the starboard screw. I shut down both engines as a precaution. What in bloody hell happened, skipper?

Don’t know yet chief, but you did well. See if we’ve still got a port screw—increase port engine to slow ahead. And find out if we’re leaking.

A few minutes later it became evident that the Helga still had a working port screw, but her starboard screw and rudder were either jammed or missing.

The mate, Tomas Bjornson, rushed onto the bridge. Jesus Styg, did we hit something?

Couldn’t have, Tomas, Halvorsen said thoughtfully, "or we’d have felt it on the bow first. And there isn’t a fishing cable in the sea big enough to damage our propellers or rudder. No, I think something hit us."

At that moment the deck phone rang. Halvorsen listened intently, his brow furrowing deeply, said, OK, thanks Charlie, and turned to Bjornson.

Come down to the stern rail, Tomas. Apparently there’s some kind of disturbance in the water.

Two minutes later the two men, with half a dozen deck crew, were staring over the aft rail at a large patch of churning white water a few hundred metres behind the vessel’s stern. It had flattened the swells and wind-driven waves into an unnatural pancake-like smoothness over a hundred metres in diameter. The leading seaman on the working deck was a hard-bitten Scotsman called Charlie Bright; he too was staring at the unnatural shape in the middle of the heavy seas, scratching his head with a puzzled expression on his weathered face. He glanced up at Halvorsen.

As soon as I heard the noise, I looked at the stern and saw a column of water shoot up above the counter. I’ve seen plenty of old wartime movies, skipper, and bugger me if it didn’t look just like a depth charge going off!

Halvorsen’s mobile shrilled, and Edwards’ voice spoke urgently. Yes skipper, we are leaking! There must be a good-sized hole in the stern somewhere, because there’s a fair bit of water coming in. I’ve had to close the watertight doors to that section, because it was too much for the pumps.

Good work chief, Halvorsen acknowledged, and walked thoughtfully back to the bridge to begin organising the two catcher boats to provide steering lines to control the direction of the Helga’s forward movement. In the heavy conditions it took two hours of rigging, but finally the factory ship began the long journey home under one screw, with steering assistance provided by the catcher boats. Her stern tubes were leaking too, but the pumps were able to cope with the inflow. The directors would probably divert the ship to Singapore for repairs.

The big Norwegian skipper leaned back in his bridge chair, hands clasped tightly behind his head, angry, puzzled, trying to understand what had happened to his ship. He wanted nothing more than to be faced with whoever was responsible for damaging his vessel. His large hands opened and closed unconsciously. He would personally explain to them what they had done wrong, and then he would break some bones. But he kept thinking of the words of his leading seaman.

"Yes, by god, I think we were attacked! But what the hell by?"

FOUR

December 17th, some years earlier.

Jesus, David, you can’t be serious! Arthur Pope’s face reflected the incredulity he felt following the words just spoken to him by his CEO and friend, David Roberts. Roberts, Chief Executive Officer and founder of the high-flying Internet company XTRO.com, had just delivered what amounted to a bombshell to his General Manager in his office on the 54th floor of Sydney’s MLC Centre. The view of the beautiful harbour city from this level was arresting, as were the artworks and sculptures on the walls and in lighted alcoves in the tastefully furnished room, but Pope could stare only at Roberts.

’Fraid so, Art. I’m selling all my stock. I should have done it a month ago. All the players in the States are cashing out, and I’m not going to let any more grass grow. Cuban sold Yahoo, did you hear?

Yeah, for $90. It’s double that now.

Roberts was grinning. ‘True, Art, but he still turned $5 billion of paper