Snakehead

to the hum of the engines and feeling the pitch of the ship as they drew ever closer to Australia. At least that was one consolation. Every second that he remained undiscovered brought him a little closer to safety.
    But how was he to get off the Liberian Star? One exit—guarded. The decks watched. Alex didn’t like the idea of diving overboard and swimming…even assuming he could manage it without being crushed or drowned. And there would be a dozen or more men waiting to take a potshot at him. Well, he would just have to worry about that when the time came.
    The ship plowed on through the darkness. The minutes dragged slowly past. At last a glimmer of light crept across the floor, pushing away the shadows of the night.
    Yu woke up, washed, dressed, and took his breakfast in the stateroom. That was the worst part for Alex. He had barely moved for ten hours, and all his bones were aching. Still Yu refused to leave. He was working at his desk. Alex heard the rustle of pages turning and, briefly, the rattle of computer keys. And then the steward brought a mid-morning snack, and a short while later De Wynter arrived with the news of his failure.
    So Major Yu knew who he was—and had known from the start! Alex tucked that information away, hoping he would be able to make sense of it later. For now, all that mattered was that his plan had worked and the long hours of discomfort had been worth it. They were docking at Darwin. Surely any minute now, Yu would go out on deck to see dry land.
    But it was another two hours before he left. Alex waited until he was quite sure that he was alone, then rolled out from underneath the bed. He glanced into the stateroom. Yu had gone, but he had left some of the cookies, and Alex wolfed them down. Yu might notice—but Alex was too hungry to care. At the same time, he tried to ease some feeling back into his muscles. He had to prepare himself. He knew that he had just one chance to get away. They would set off to sea again in just a few hours’ time, and if he was still on board, he would be finished.
    He went over to the window. The Liberian Star had already berthed at the section of the port of Darwin known as the East Arm Wharf. To his dismay, Alex realized that they were still a very long way from land. The East Arm was an artificial cement causeway stretching far out into the ocean, with the usual array of gantries, cranes, and spreaders waiting to receive the ships. It was a world apart from the docks at Jakarta. Quite apart from the blinding Australian sun, everything seemed very clean and ordered. There were two long rows of parked cars and beyond them, a neat, modern warehouse and some gas tanks—all of them painted white.
    A van drove past, heading up the dock. Two men walked past in fluorescent jackets and hard hats. Even assuming Alex could get off the ship, he still wouldn’t be safe. It was at least a mile to the mainland, and presumably there would be security barriers at the far end. At least Yu wouldn’t dare gun him down in plain sight. That was one consolation. But however Alex looked at it, this wasn’t going to be as easy as he had hoped.
    Even so, he couldn’t wait any longer.
    Alex crept over to the door and opened it an inch at a time. The corridor was empty, lit by the same hard light that made it impossible to tell if it was night or day. He had already worked out a strategy based on what he had overheard in the cabin. Everyone was waiting for him to break out. That meant their attention would be fixed on the main gangplank and the decks. So the rest of the ship was his. Right now he needed a diversion. He set out to create one.
    He hurried past the elevator and found a staircase leading down. He could hear a deep throbbing coming from below and guessed that he was heading the right way—to the engine room. He came upon it quite suddenly, a strangely old-fashioned tangle of brass valves and silver pipes and pistons, all connected to one another in a steel framework like an exhibition in an industrial museum. The air was hot down here. There was no natural light. The machinery seemed to stretch on for a mile, and Alex could imagine that a ship the size of the Liberian Star would need every inch of it.
    The control room was raised slightly above the engines, separated from them by three thick glass observation windows and reached by a short flight of metal stairs. Alex crept up on his hands and feet and found himself looking at a much more modern room