Page 36 of Nobody's Hero
Nothing happened.
‘You can’t pull the trigger because your flexor tendons have been severed, Stan,’ Koenig said. ‘You’ll need complicated surgery if you ever want to bend your fingers again.’
Koenig put one hand on Steeleye’s forearm, the other on the Glock 46. He said, ‘This is going to nip a bit, I’m afraid.’
He put his finger on the Glock’s muzzle and started to push. Steeleye gritted his teeth and hissed. The Glock and Steeleye’s trigger finger had formed a simple machine. The Glock was a wheel, the trigger guard was the hub, Steeleye’s trigger finger was the axle. When Koenig pushed the end of the muzzle, it rotated. As if he were changing the time on an old clock. He pushed until the muzzle had moved 180 degrees. It was now pointing at Steeleye’s sternum. Underneath the tenth rib but above the stomach. Lots of important stuff in that part of the torso. The liver. The pancreas. The coeliac artery.
‘Who supplied you with this, Stan?’ Koenig said.
‘I told you, we move the guns around here.’
‘You’re bottom-feeders, Stan. The people who import Glock 46s don’t go near people like you. They sell in bulk and they sell to people who know how to keep a low profile.’ Koenig looked around Big City Nights. ‘This is not keeping a low profile, Stan. Ergo, you don’t supply weapons like these. You’re the end user. The customer. Nothing more.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Let me explain what’s about to happen. The human body responds to trauma with an inflammatory response. The injured area goes red, and it gets hot, and it hurts. This is caused by increased blood flow. As you can see, this is already happening. Your wrist is red. We’ve already established that it hurts like a bitch. It’s how the body protects itself from further injuries. It’s a warning not to use the injured area. The same way a flashing red sign on your dashboard tells you to get your car fixed up. Maybe put some oil in the engine. Or some gas in the tank.’
Steeleye said nothing.
‘Now, I imagine a big old bruiser like you has taken a punch or two,’ Koenig continued. ‘Which means you know exactly what happens next.’
Steeleye grunted, ‘Swells.’
‘That’s right, doc,’ Koenig said. ‘The injured area begins to swell. This is because the body sends white blood cells and proteins to the tissue damage.’
Koenig took a break. He picked up the can of beer the barman had passed him. It was a brand he didn’t recognise. It had Germanic-style lettering on the side but had way too many chemicals in it to be German. Germany had a purity law. Only four ingredients were permitted in German beer: barley, hops, yeast and water. He popped the tab anyway. Took a sip. He grimaced and put the can down on the bar. It was like he’d put toilet cleaner in his mouth.
‘The other thing that’s no doubt dawning on you is that the Glock 46 doesn’t have a safety catch. It has a small tab on the trigger that must be pressed before the trigger can be pulled. It’s part of the Glock’s Safe Action System.’
Koenig leaned over and examined Steeleye’s injury. The swelling had already spread to his hand.
‘You ever been in a hospital when someone has broken their wrist, Stan? The first thing they do in the emergency room is cut off the rings on the patient’s fingers. Wedding bands, engagement rings. Doesn’t matter, they’re coming off. It’s such a common occurrence they have a specific tool for it. Unsurprisingly, it’s called a ring cutter. Looks a bit like a tin opener. If they don’t remove the ring, it acts like a torniquet. The finger swells until the ring stops it. The ring would be like a butcher’s knot in a link of sausages. You see, there are no weak points on a ring. External force is distributed equally across the entire surface. When it comes to a swelling finger and the strength of a ring, the ring wins every time. If you don’t get the ring off, the finger bursts like an overcooked hotdog. I’ve seen it happen, and it isn’t pretty.’
Koenig paused a beat. Let what he’d said sink in.
‘Now, I don’t want to be the wasp at the picnic, but the trigger guard is kinda like a ring,’ he said. ‘And your finger is swelling rapidly. The trigger pull on a Glock is five pounds. When the pressure caused by your swelling finger gets to five pounds and one ounce, the trigger will be pressed and the Glock will discharge. This is not open to interpretation. The Glockisgoing to fire.’
Steeleye looked at his swelling finger. He looked at Koenig.
‘What do you want to know?’ he said.
Chapter 35
The Arctic Bridge is the polar shipping route that links the Russian port of Murmansk to the Port of Churchill on Hudson Bay. It’s 3,600 nautical miles long and, when it’s ice-free, acts as the geostrategic bridge between northern Russia and the Canadian heartland. It’s not a route for the fainthearted. It’s only open for four months of the year. Even then, the extreme Arctic weather and the unpredictable, ship-crushing ice floes make each journey a test of nerves and skill. Only the Cape Horn shipping lane, where the Atlantic meets the Pacific, is considered more dangerous.
The Danish-registered Merchant VesselSwan Hunterhad been delivering grain from the Canadian Prairies to Europe, and fertilisers from Russia to North America, for ten incident-free years. MVSwan Hunterwas a Handymax bulk carrier. She had five holds and four cranes. She was 190 metres long and had a maximum deadweight of fifty thousand tons. The holds were huge, cavernous. Floating grain silos, deeper than the Hollywood sign is tall.
But for the last two yearsSwan Hunterhad been dry-docked in Murmansk. Officially, it was for a much-needed refit. The peeling and blistering paint had been blasted off and a new coat applied. Navigation and communication systems were upgraded. Crew quarters had been refreshed. The galley got new ovens and freezers. A modern cargo-management system was installed.
The cost ran into millions, the lost revenue even more. But the ship’s owner had been asked to do this by the kind of people who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Say no to these people and you might fall out of your hotel window.
And then, like nothing unusual had happened, MVSwan Hunterhad resumed her route along the Arctic Bridge.
But something unusualhadhappened. The updated navigation and cargo-management systems, the 4K television for the crew, the new equipment in the galley, were smoke and mirrors. Deception. A way to explainSwan Hunter’s two-year absence.
Therealreason for the refit was so that hold number five could be fitted with a false bottom. A twelve-inch lip had been welded to the inside of the hold, two metres from the hatch. The false bottom sat on the lip like the top tray in a jewellery box. It resembled a giant drip tray and was filled with the same bulk cargo as holds one through four. The rest of hold five was a smuggler’s dream. Two hundred cubic metres of stale air. Bigger than three large shipping containers.
Three people on MVSwan Hunterknew about the false bottom. The captain and the first mate – who would both be involved in offloading the cargo mid-sea – and an Australian called Simon Jenkins. Jenkins wasn’t crew. He wouldn’t appear on any manifest. He was a smuggler. His job was to transport the cargo to its next destination.