The Dead Sea

by Andrew Jackson

  Gaining access to the Consulate at such an ungodly hour had caused them some concern in the beginning, but it turned out that the combination of Andrei's credentials along with Heather's wild-eyed and just-out-of-bed look had won over the pleasant and elderly woman that claimed the role of consul.

  They weren't long behind the high wrought iron fencing which lined the street and then the huge thick oak doors of the entrance before Heather was feeling secure again, sipping on earl grey tea and exchanging pleasantries with the consul.

  "Oh, that's a very interesting story young lady, but really there is very little I can do for your friend. I can use my position to summon a certain amount of help but if you say that the police are also after him ...and he is wanted by Interpol for murder...well that is very unusual indeed. Of course you are welcome to remain here until we can sort it out, but your friend...well he is a very different matter. I couldn't possibly help you with that or I could be committing offences myself."

  "Of course...it's just..."

  The old woman got up and patted Heather's shoulder with a thin, wrinkled hand.

  "Let's have some more tea, and then I will fetch you breakfast. You must be famished after such an adventure."

  She tottered away leaving Heather and Andrei alone in a large spacious reception room furnished with dated furniture and the largest fireplace Heather had ever seen.

  Ancient paintings hung on the walls depicting historical British figures from yesteryear. They were covered with a thin coating of dust and seemed somewhat neglected, but Heather surmised they were still probably worth a small fortune no matter what condition they were in. She dreamed of what she might do with the money, if she could just take one of the paintings away with her.

  Andrei had spent the whole time talking on his phone and once he ended his current call, Heather left her examination of the paintings to find out what he knew.

  "Well? What now?"

  "I managed to get through to Inspector Portillo. She is denying interfering with our security detail. She's blaming crossed wires somewhere. She wants to know our current location but I have refused to tell her. I don't trust her one bit. Crossed wires? You will be safe here for now. I have also been in contact with the coastguard and the commander of a British Navy contingent operating out of Belize. They are both very keen to assist in the capture of La Mujer Codiciosa. The patrol ship HMS Mersey is currently on manoeuvres in international waters not far from here and she has been redirected to the Pedra da Risca do Meio in search of her. They will contact me if they have any luck. For now I think we should just keep our heads down."

  "And what about Dan?"

  Andrei shifted uncomfortably at the question. He turned his back to her and made a show of staring at the paintings before answering. Heather knew the news wouldn't be good.

  "I quizzed Portillo about him. She says she has not found him but she did receive an anonymous report concerning the abduction of a man in a seedy bar in the east of the city."

  "An abduction? But that could be anybody."

  "The man in question was a foreigner, who wore a black patch over his left eye."

  Heather felt weak. She sat down on the edge of a chair, fearing her legs might give way. All her fears and worries had been realised.

  "What will we do?"

  "Nothing. What can we do? He's gone, Heather. Portillo is convinced it was him, but has no other information to go on and...even if she did I doubt she would be committing too much time to finding him. I'm sorry."

  "Oh my God, I can't believe it. What will happen to him?"

  As soon as the words had left her mouth, Heather knew the answer. It was obvious. Andrei avoided the question.

  "I know what we must do. We must press on. Find the pirate ship and destroy Antonio Correia's operation if we can."

  He sat down next to Heather and looked her in the eye.

  "OK?"

  She was numbed and shocked. Images of Dan were running through her mind. Where was he now? Was he dead or alive? She knew one thing - he was alone and it was all her fault.

  Tears began to well in her eyes as she nodded her head to Andrei, who stood up and paced over to the far side of the room to make more calls on his phone. Heather gave in to her emotions and cried as hard and as long as she ever had.

  # # #

  The journey from the crate to his current location had been short and brutal. In only a matter of a few pathetic hops, he'd been beaten and battered by his captors for struggling against them, culminating in a second vicious strike to his head by something solid that sent him sprawling to the deck where he was then dragged unceremoniously by the scruff of his neck into the bowels of the ship.

  He was shoved down tight, steep metal stairways until he'd lost count of the twists and turns they'd taken. In that time he was only able to deduce that he was on a fishing ship, big and old, and that she was docked in Fortaleza Harbour - a glimpse of which he'd snatched as he tumbled to the deck with the first of the beatings.

  The ship swayed gently and Dan rolled with it, resting his head back onto the cold, hard metal of the hull. He'd tired himself, twisting his body this way and that, searching for a comfortable position to rest in, but the bonds on his wrists and ankles were so tight that anything remotely resembling comfort was impossible to find.

  He guessed that he was now imprisoned in a small storage room without windows and only one thick metal door, behind which a weak fluorescent light outlined its edges. For a while, he crawled around in the darkness searching for a way out. When he found nothing, he switched to searching for a sharp edge to rub at the cable ties that bound him. That too proved to be fruitless and so Dan eventually gave up, for now, and instead decided to conserve his energy for the first opportunity of escape, however it might present itself. He could overpower a guard, make a run for it or hide somewhere else on the ship until help arrived.

  Help? Who was he kidding? No-one was coming to rescue him. No-one was searching for him. No-one cared one bit about Daniel Harpur. Not least the woman to whom he had devoted his own pathetic and now, it seemed, short life.

  After a while, Dan could feel the hull vibrate as the ships engines spluttered into life. Muted voices above him barked out curses and commands and the ship slowly began to move. Where were they taking him? Why had he not already been killed?

  The darkness was briefly interrupted when the door swung open and a huge figure, bound and gagged in a similar fashion to Dan, was shoved through the gap. Two men followed, kicking and pushing the figure until he was beaten into a foetal position and lay still on the deck next to Dan.

  One of his attackers bent over and ripped the gag from Dan's mouth, his comrade doing the same for their victim.

  "We're heading out to sea now. No-one will hear your screams. You may as well talk until we get there. It's the last chance you'll ever get at a conversation! Ha!"

  The two of them laughed like it was the funniest joke ever told and then turned to leave Dan and his new cell mate alone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sitting in the darkness awaiting their fate the two men could do nothing but talk.

  As the door slammed shut and the voices of the two attackers drifted away, it was Dan who decided to break the ice. Unaware that he was in company, his cell mate grunted and groaned as he strained to sit himself up. Then, for a while, he cursed continually under his breath.

  Dan signified his presence with a well-placed cough. The noise creating an eerie silence in which his new company shuffled away to the far side of the room, no doubt trying to distance himself from another heavy beating. But with nothing left to lose, Dan initiated the conversation.

  "Do you speak English?"

  Dan's question was greeted with silence.

  "I'm not going to hurt you. I am imprisoned here also, tied at the hands and feet just like you are. Do you know where we are going? Do you know anything at all?"

  More silence followed and Dan assumed the man was trying to decide i
f this was a trap or trick of some sort, or maybe he didn't speak English at all.

  His question was answered though, with a series of new questions that Dan was happy to answer.

  "I wondered why those pricks reverted to English when they left me here. Firstly, who are you?"

  "Dan Harpur. I think I might have upset someone in Fortaleza and I'm guessing that's why I'm here."

  "Umm...Are you the man who killed those Tercerio Commando scum? The talk of the city, with a patch over one eye?"

  "I can't deny the part about the eye patch, that's for sure. Who are you and what have you done?"

  "I have done nothing compared to you. I have simply displeased Antonio Correia, the leader of the scum you killed. My name is Lucas Machado. I was the captain of this ship until a few hours ago. We met once, at the fish market. You were with the whale woman."

  "Ahh, yes, I remember. You were the one who helped us. But you are also the reason why we were there. The ship you captain is fishing illegally in protected waters."

  "I regret that now."

  "You say you have displeased someone? I wish that was all I had done. What will happen to us?"

  "I don't know. But we are heading out to sea now. I expect we will be killed in some way that pleases him and then dumped over the side."

  Machado seemed resigned to a very grisly end, one which Dan was not yet prepared to meet. As Machado continued, Dan renewed his efforts to find somewhere sharp to cut his bonds.

  "Antonio Correia is an evil man. He will have a bloody finale in store for us. You can be sure of that."

  "Why would he go to all this bother? Why not just kill us and be done with it?"

  "Because he loves the spectacle. The infamy. The fact that every sailor on board this ship will witness what happens if you defy the Tercerio Commandos and then carry the news back to their families, who will further spread the tale. It's good for business."

  Machado must have heard Dan's scrapings at the thick plastic ties and his voice grew more sombre.

  "There is nowhere to escape to Dan Harpur. This ship is full of Correia's men, who guard every exit. I have seen them. And even if you get past them, we will be miles out to sea very soon. You will never make it."

  Machado's warning fell on deaf ears as Dan increased his efforts.

  # # #

  Heather immersed herself in her work. She made calls to her old boss, Peter Blackthorn, in the Wildlife Investigation Agency. She made calls to the South Atlantic Sea Life Cooperative and she made calls to just about every person that she knew in the Fortaleza area who could possibly help. She even put a very awkward and tense call in to Isaac Garcia, who only just managed to hold his anger long enough to explain to her through gritted teeth that he wanted nothing more to do with whales, fishing, Fortaleza or her. Anything she could do to help in the search for the pirate ship La Mujer Codiciosa was worth a try. Anything she could do to keep her mind from wandering back to Dan Harpur was worth every effort.

  Andrei too had been busy on his phone and the constant consumption of tea and biscuits, supplied by the elderly consul, had kept her spirits high enough to prevent her from cracking under the immense burden of guilt that she'd placed upon herself. She'd convinced herself that the only thing that would placate her, for now, was the capture of that ship and the arrest of all those on board her. At least that result might salvage something from the total mess she'd created and for which so many others had suffered.

  It was almost midday when her phone rang and she took a call from a local fisherman she had met in her first few weeks of arriving in Fortaleza. He was one of only a few people who would speak openly and freely about the pirate ships and their activities.

  "La Mujer Codiciosa fished all night in the reserve waters. She docked at the harbour early this morning to unload and then left immediately. She was last seen heading north."

  Heather had barely time to thank him before she was up from her seat and out into the garden, where Andrei was resting on the grass beneath the shade of a large tree.

  "Andrei! It was seen this morning leaving the harbour and heading in a northerly direction. I can't believe it has been here under our noses all this time!"

  Andrei sat up with a frown on his face.

  "I alerted all the local authorities to her presence before I even arrived, days ago! I should have been notified. Are you sure it is her?"

  "I'm sure. My contact is a local fisherman. He knows the ships in this area and he has described her to me in detail. I'm sure."

  Andrei got up from where he lay, brushed himself down and paced back into the building. He picked up his phone from the table and dialled a number he had scribbled on his notepad. Then he walked over to an old framed map, which had been mounted and hung on the wall next to a portrait of HMS Victory in action at the Battle of Trafalgar.

  He traced a finger north along the map, from the port of Fortaleza out into the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. He squinted down at the scale, just visible in the corner of the map, then checked his watch for the time. Heather watched as he made the rough calculation in his head and tapped a point on the map where he thought the ship might be.

  "Hello, Captain Ross? This is Andrei Sousa from Interpol. I have a rough location and direction of travel for our target ship."

  The consul chose that moment to walk in with yet another tray full of tea and biscuits and Heather intercepted her with a smile as Andrei finished his conversation. He reluctantly accepted a cup the consul poured for him before speaking but was barely able to disguise the excitement in his voice.

  "I must thank you for your hospitality, Consul. It has been a great help. Tell me, is there anywhere close by where a helicopter might land?"

  # # #

  The engines stopped, and soon after, the door swung open. Dan was ready and waiting.

  At first, Lucas refused to help and had not bothered to try and break his own ties, but when Dan eventually cut through them and told Lucas that he would rather die fighting than give in and allow Antonio Correia the pleasure of killing him in whatever sick and depraved way he had planned, the big man had thankfully changed his mind and agreed to help.

  The two men that had dumped Lucas a few hours before stepped into the dark room, talking and laughing in the same way as when they had left. They stopped jabbering when only Lucas was stood in the centre of the room before them, and that was when Dan chose to make his move.

  He leapt out from behind the door and grabbed the nearest of the two by the shoulders, pulling him close as he drove his knee into the side of the man's leg with all the force he could muster. The muscles in the leg gave way immediately and he dropped to the floor with a pained grunt.

  Lucas Machado, who had initially been standing in mock submission with his arms and legs still bound tightly together, launched himself at the second of the pair, using all his immense bulk and strength to throw his shoulder into the man's midriff and send them both barrelling backwards to collide with the solid metal wall on the opposite side where he smashed his head and then slumped into a heap.

  Dan quickly clambered on top of his opponent and grabbed the hair at the back of his head. He used it for purchase to slam the man's face into the floor.

  Behind him, Dan could hear the deafening roar of Lucas and, from the corner of his eye, caught a glimpse of him hopping towards the door with his feet still bound together. It was a funny looking image but Dan knew something was badly wrong. The plan was to free Lucas first.

  With his opponent unconscious and half his face turned to mush, Dan stood up and turned for the door. At the same time, a deafening shot rang out. He watched Lucas tumble to the floor, falling half in and half out of the small doorway. Blood sprayed across Dan's legs.

  At the far side of the door and standing over Lucas, illuminated by the pale light, stood two more men. One held a revolver pointed directly at Dan with smoke drifting lazily from its muzzle. The other stood clapping his hands and laughing like a madman.

 
; "Bravo! Bravo! This is going to be a very interesting contest indeed!"

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  With one final gruesome kick to the head, Lucas sent the blood of his opponent spraying across the deck. The unrecognisable pulp that had once been the face of La Mujer Codiciosa's cook sagged to one side leaving nothing but cold dead eyes to stare out at the jeering spectators. Money changed hands between the Brazilian mobsters and minor scuffles of their own broke out, as they squabbled over the result of the fight.

  Lucas returned to his designated corner and waited nervously for a decision, as two men dragged the body to the edge of the ship, where they dumped it unceremoniously over the side. Their leader, who Dan now knew to be Antonio Correia, stood up and applauded, clearly impressed with the display. A stunning looking woman, wearing nothing but a small, red, tight-fitting bikini clung to Correia's neck. She eyed Dan with undisguised lust, licking her lips and gyrating her body while at the same time running her hands through Correia's hair and whispering into his ear.

  "Bravo, bravo! You fight well, Lucas Machado!"

  The first contest, of three so far, had initially started out slow and hesitant. Neither man sure of the lengths they were required to go to. They threw weak and inaccurate punches and circled warily, playing for time. But when it became apparent that Correia expected nothing less than a fight to the death, by throwing a knife into the centre of the circle between the two men, the tempo increased.

  None of them stood a chance against Lucas. In the third and final bout, he had been on the receiving end of a series of ever desperate and brutal strikes aimed at his injured leg. Each of his former shipmates, also on the wrong end of Correia's wrath for some reason or other, had been concentrating their futile efforts at their captain's recent injuries; in particular the bloodied rag that loosely covered the gunshot wound to his leg. And as a result, Lucas winced when he applied any kind of pressure to it, and in between fights had rubbed and rested it in obvious pain. The injury hadn't had the effect the three men had hoped for however, and Lucas dispatched them all with a cold, ruthless efficiency. Beating them into submission with his hands, before finishing them off with the knife.