In Treacherous Waters

by Richard V Frankland

  Getting out of the car he opened the boot and lifted the floor, reaching down into the spare wheel space, he removed the night camouflage suit and night vision goggles hidden there. Looking around to make sure he was not being watched he took off his jacket and slipped into the suit. He picked up the goggles then got back into the car and drove off, heading for a track near to the property where he could hide the car. It took three passes before he settled on the best trackway, one which lay approximately half way between the last property in the village and Reshetnikov’s hideout. Cutting small branches from surrounding trees, Staunton camouflaged the car as best he could then made his way through the woodland, south of the property. There was no moonlight to help and twice he stumbled noisily as he sought a way through the woodland towards the glow of the house lights in the distance. After some two hundred metres he came to the edge of the trees and was faced with an area of low scrub beyond which was a high wall. Carefully, he studied the wall noting the cameras and security lighting positions that gave a clear message regarding the paranoid state of the occupant. Breaking cover with the risk of being illuminated and identified on camera did not appeal, so Staunton chose the second option of climbing a tree to see over the wall.

  Keeping to the wood, he picked his way through the trees until he judged that he was opposite the main sources of illumination from the property, and finding a tall tree some way back from the edge of the woodland climbed up high into the branches. Peering through the light foliage he could see a formal garden on the other side of the wall and beyond it a narrow terrace which ran along that side of an elegantly designed bungalow. The light source was from a room in which sat the woman he knew as Sonia, watching television. She appeared to be on her own, and seeing no other room illuminated, Staunton settled himself in for a long wait. It was more than an hour before the man he was searching for, Reshetnikov, made an appearance, shuffling across the room to turn off the television and wake Sonia. Staunton, with a self-satisfied sneer on his face, climbed down to the ground and made his way back to the car.

  Two hours later in his hotel room and wearing latex gloves, Staunton was cutting out words from a newspaper to form a message to Colonel Castelo-Lopez, informing him of the whereabouts of the Russian he was seeking. Addressing an envelope, writing with his left hand, he put the message inside and sealed it, planning to leave the hotel very early in the morning to deliver it.

  ***

  By eight o’clock on the morning of his second day at sea, Vaughan had sight of the highest point on Selvagem Grande, now only some twelve miles away and a little to starboard of the bow. Checking the chart and estimating the effect of the current in the area he decided to wait until he got closer before making any course corrections. During the night he had been passed by the Aida Sol cruise ship making her way from Madeira to the Canaries and a little later the P&O ship Azura passed in the opposite direction; apart from that the ocean was empty of shipping, and after the bustle ashore, a rather lonely place. Earlier in the morning he had come across a pod of dolphins and seeing them race along the side of the yacht he left the cockpit and, clipping his life line onto the jackstay, went forward to watch as they played a game of chicken criss-crossing through the water, narrowly missing the bow as if inviting the yacht to join in the game. One in particular had swum alongside with its head out of the water looking at Vaughan and making a clicking noise which he answered by clapping his hands. The game went on for maybe a quarter of an hour before the pod left as suddenly as they had arrived, leaving Vaughan alone again but enriched by their brief visit. Returning to the cockpit he unclipped the lifeline and went below to mark up the chart and take his rest.

  It was now time to plan for his arrival, and looking at the notes he had made concerning the anchorage he saw that holding was not good. The seabed was rather rocky according to a fellow sailor he had been talking to at the yard, his advice had been to find a large rock ashore and tie a chain loop to it on the end of a long warp, so based on that advice Vaughan readied the long kedge anchor chain and warp. His idea was to enter the bay beneath the wardens’ house and anchor by the bow then take the chain and warp ashore in the dinghy and search for a suitable rock around which to secure the chain, then row back laying out the warp as he went. Once back on board he could then take up the slack in the shore line to take the load. By setting the small storm sail on the backstay he could hold the yacht away from the rocky shore using the northerly breeze.

  An hour later Vaughan noted that the current in the area had dragged the yacht west and with the outlying islet of Palheiro da Terra now bearing one six zero degrees he started the engine and disconnected the auto helm. Helming manually, his fingers feeling the minor trembling of the yacht’s rudder from the propeller wash, Vaughan stood up onto the port hand cockpit bench, and holding onto a backstay to keep his balance, concentrated on the sea ahead, looking for shoals. The depth sounder, now in range, showed the seabed to be very uneven the nearer he got to the islet.

  His aim was to set the yacht on a course to pass between the islet Palheiro da Terra and the much smaller Palheiro do Mar that he could just see off to starboard of his course. Now, he brought the yacht on a heading of one eight zero degrees which would take it parallel to Selvagem Grande clear of obstacles further down the channel. Though not as high as Grande Deserta the cliffs were equally forbidding and Vaughan marvelled at the seamanship of those who years ago had landed on these hostile shores.

  All around him hundreds of petrels and shearwaters were skimming just above the waves in their search for food, confirming the islands’ attraction to ornithologists.

  Approaching the south-west tip of Selvagem Grande he heaved the dinghy from the stern locker ready to take it forward onto the foredeck where there was room to inflate it, and with the south-westerly point of the island abeam he rounded the yacht up into the wind, rolled in the headsails and dropped the mainsail, then hurried forward to inflate and launch the dinghy, securing it astern before cautiously motoring in, searching for the Portuguese Navy’s mooring buoy. As he closed on it the bay opened up and he could clearly see the wardens’ house at the head of the slipway. Leaving the buoy well to starboard he entered the shelter of the bay and taking the engine out of gear he allowed “La Mouette sur le Vent” to drift inshore along the line of the slipway, coming to a standstill in some five metres of water where he let go the main anchor and allowed the offshore breeze to gently push the yacht backwards until thirty metres of anchor chain were laid. Putting the engine astern the yacht dragged the anchor a short distance before it bit and Vaughan felt that it would hold sufficiently until he had rigged the long warp shore line. Taking the line ashore in the dinghy and returning to set the small storm sail on the backstay went according to plan and leaving the yacht again Vaughan rowed back to the shore to pay a call on the wardens and discuss pilotage and navigation marks. The exercise was mainly to justify his presence on the island although it might prove useful should there be any problem during the rendezvous. The trip ashore went well and Vaughan found that his visit coincided with a sighting of a pair of Zino’s Petrels, a rare bird thought to have been extinct demonstrating the importance of the wardens’ presence on the islands protecting these rare and vulnerable species. The wardens gave him several hours of their time discussing the islands, their shores, and the work they do to protect this valuable nature reserve. Armed with a mass of notes concerning the islands’ safe passages he returned to his yacht as the sun was setting to spend the evening writing up the information.

  ***

  In Madeira, after delivering the newsprint tip-off, Staunton had taken a leisurely walk along Funchal’s redeveloped seafront; until Reshetnikov had been arrested there was not much he could do. He had reached the new lagoon when his mobile chirped and Alice Morgan’s message appeared on the screen. Arriving at work earlier than she would have normally enabled her to search the communications records for the call sign “Yachtsman” which gave her access to Vaughan’s
traffic and the coded message sent without being noticed, then, talking to the clerk that sent the message she saw on the man’s note pad the word “Daring”. For Staunton it was difficult to decode the message but with knowledge of the rendezvous co-ordinates and the Western Saharan boat identification number, he had even more negotiating clout with Vermeulen, who was only too happy to accept Staunton’s deal on the Kazakov weaponry in exchange. The only inaccurate part of Alice Morgan’s information was her assumption that the word “Daring” written in the margin of the notepad she saw open on the desk, referred to HMS Daring, one of the Royal Navy’s latest destroyers. Staunton, in passing on that snippet of information, unwittingly ensured that the attack would be carried out immediately the fishing boat was found; with the threat of a naval destroyer laying in wait, the quicker the fishing boat was found, dealt with, and Vermeulen’s departure from the area achieved, the better.

  ***

  Earlier that morning Vaughan had launched the dinghy over the side of the yacht once more, securing it amidships. The reflected swell in the bay made fitting the outboard motor a tricky operation, but after a struggle he was ready to take the dinghy on a complete circumnavigation of Selvagem Grande to check his notes on navigation hazards and mark up the chart. Returning around mid-afternoon he went ashore again for a final discussion with the wardens, learning more about the islands and their interesting history that included claims of buried pirate treasure.

  Returning aboard “La Mouette sur le Vent” Vaughan went below for a few hours rest in preparation for a long night. The alarm woke him at midnight and he moved swiftly, making coffee and sandwiches before preparing for departure. With the yacht’s engine ticking over, storm jib stowed and coffee cooling, Vaughan was over the side and into the dinghy to go ashore to recover the kedge chain and warp. Speed was essential now as the breeze had strengthened threatening to cause her bow anchor to drag once the shore line was released. Scrambling up the rocky shore he took the loop off the large rock and dumped it into the dinghy. Once in the dinghy himself he hauled on the warp to pull himself back to the yacht where he hurriedly heaved the warp and chain onto the side deck, ensuring that all was clearly inside the guardrails. Boarding the yacht he went forward and hauling in the main anchor, stowed it and, returning to the cockpit, conned the yacht back out to sea. Clear of the Navy’s buoy, he let the yacht drift again while he stowed everything away properly.

  Throughout his life Vaughan had been both blessed and cursed by a feeling in the pit of his stomach that, invariably was a portent of unpleasant things about to happen; that feeling was as strong now as it had been when he had entered Amelia’s apartment on the afternoon of Esteves’ exposure and death. It was now the reason why Vaughan decided not to show navigation lights on that dark moonless night, a decision that was probably about to save his life.

  ***

  Almost exactly two days earlier Cecil Boyd had gently woken Anna-Maria, “It’s time to go, my dear.”

  “Go where?” she asked, bleary eyed, having been woken from a deep sleep.

  “Down to the port; London has arranged your escape from this godforsaken country. I am to accompany you, I suspect to avoid you receiving too much attention from the boat’s crew.”

  The news that he was to accompany her brought both relief and pleasure.

  “Are you coming with me all the way back to London?”

  “Oh, I wish, but duty calls here I’m afraid. ‘Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Anna-Maria, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings’.”

  Anna-Maria smiled, she had taken a liking to the gay Cecil Boyd. The man was extremely well read and would use quotes from Cicero and Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw, tossing them into conversation like well-judged largess to an appreciative crowd.

  About an hour later Anna-Maria emerged from her room dressed in the Sahrawi style, covered from head to foot in a densely patterned bright blue cloth with only her dark brown eyes visible.

  “How do I look?”

  “You could pass for a wealthier local in the marketplace with ease.”

  “Thank you for going out and purchasing all this.”

  Boyd waved away her gratitude with a tut and upward flip of his hands, “We shouldn’t be stopped on the way to the port but if we are leave the talking to me, women’s voices are not welcomed by officialdom here.”

  The “hurried breakfast” was a very tasty omelette. “I’ve thrown a few items of food together for the voyage, God knows what there would be to eat otherwise,” said Cecil, pointing towards a sizeable hamper in the kitchen.

  It was still dark when they reached Port El Aaiun, the phosphate exporting terminal and fishing port just south of the Moroccan border. The journey had thankfully been uneventful and their Sahrawi driver, a man of few words. Finding Beni Tamek’s fishing boat proved rather difficult amongst the huge fleet in port at the time. Eventually, after numerous enquiries they were directed to the very end of the jetty where they found a slightly smarter looking craft than the floating wrecks that appeared to make up the rest of the fleet.

  Getting out of the car Anna-Maria gagged at the pervading smell of rotting fish and quickly held her lightly perfumed handkerchief over her nose and mouth in a vain attempt to filter out the odour.

  “The smell will not be so obvious once we get to sea, my dear,” said Cecil as he guided her to the narrow boarding plank.

  Western Sahara’s fishing fleet was very much the poor relation amongst the nations along that part of the African coast and did not have access to the Spanish waters surrounding the Canary Islands or those legitimately claimed by Morocco. This meant that their voyage would have to avoid known fishing areas and stay out of sight of land until it reached the rendezvous point. Right of passage, however, could not be challenged and the absence of fishing nets and dismantling of trawl beams made it visibly obvious that Beni Tamek’s boat was not engaged in any illegal fishing activity, but was under private charter of some sort. In the tiny crew quarters below it was apparent that great efforts had been made to clean the area and remove the crew’s normal possessions, leaving the two bunks available for their passengers.

  Beni Tamek was lean in stature with a wizened face and deeply tanned skin; he was much older than his crew – El Ghalia, and the boy, Salem. All of them spoke a form of Spanish that Anna-Maria struggled to understand, but which Cecil Boyd was obviously accustomed to. The introductions were brief and the boat got underway only minutes after their arrival on board.

  “Time and tide wait for no man. Beni Tamek wants to be well clear of the coast before it gets light,” said Cecil, looking into the tiny galley with its small paraffin stove secured to the bulkhead by a piece of wire. “Just as I thought, at sea these men live like animals, and probably not much better ashore.”

  As the sun rose, spreading its light across the vast ocean, Anna-Maria and Cecil were invited up into the wheelhouse where Beni Tamek proceeded to deliver a strong complaint about EU and US concessions to Spain and Morocco regarding fishing in Western Saharan waters. Despite words to the contrary, Moroccan fishing vessels still plundered the seas of all fish stocks, leaving the fishermen of Western Sahara with little to catch. Then he launched into a tirade about oil resources and the apparently inevitable theft of such priceless commodities by Britain and America without any advantage to his nation. The complaining fisherman went on for almost half an hour before Cecil Boyd was able to point out that Western Sahara was not recognised as being an autonomous nation, and its neighbours, fearing its government would fall to Jihadi extremism, seriously complicated the situation with regard to the country’s status in the world. At that point, Anna-Maria decided that the deck would be a better environment, and leaving the wheelhouse found a shady spot on the port side of the vessel where she could sit looking out over the waist high bulwark at the ocean. The motion of the boat as it rode gently along at just under ten knots soon lulled her to sleep to be woken by E
l Ghalia sometime later signalling food was prepared.

  Under Cecil’s supervision, Salem had been tasked with cleaning the galley and when the work had been completed Cecil began preparing a meal. The lunch, comprising a vegetable soup and herb pancakes brought lavish praise from both master and crew.

  Cecil had added to Salem’s duties with an order for him to clean the boat’s ancient sea toilet, summoning the boy back twice to do a more thorough job; the result was that for the rest of the day Salem refused to speak to anyone and spent his time sulking on deck.

  By nightfall they were sailing along, unlit, halfway between Morocco and the island of Lanzarote. Apart from two container vessels and a phosphates carrier from El Aaiun, they had not seen another craft, something that cheered Beni Tamek considerably.

  The night passed without incident but the following morning they found that they were being shadowed by a Spanish trawler. No attempt was made to communicate and after two hours the trawler altered course southward, away from them.

  ***

  On receiving Staunton’s information Vermeulen knew he had to act immediately, and now, potentially, with the knowledge of his stepdaughter’s whereabouts, hurried in search of Maurice, his host and new found friend. The Frenchman, one of Staunton’s more trustworthy informants regarding the recreational lives of French and Spanish political elite, was in his study receiving the previous night’s drug money from one of his young pushers.

  “Maurice, I’d like to charter your boat for a couple of days.”

  The Frenchman waved the boy away and turned his attention to his guest. “Where would you like to go?”

  “Leonardo has discovered the location of that little bitch of a stepdaughter I am looking for. He tells me the UK’s SIS has arranged a rendezvous near to the Selvagen Islands.”