It was all so bizarre. It felt extremely tenuous and alien. The waves set up a jolting rhythm. Her teeth rattled in her mouth with every bump.
She wondered how long she could last. The water was coursing through her clothes. She felt OK, as if she could ride like that for a long time. Stratton’s insane plan was working, the first part of it at least. A hint of elation rippled through her. She suddenly saw a chance they could be rescued. She couldn’t see what was dragging her, but she knew it had to be some kind of ship. That meant she was in touch with civilisation, be it remotely. All it took to be saved was someone from the ship to see them. It was a small chance, but suddenly a real one.
Stratton had managed to twist around on to his back so that the gushing water didn’t drown him. Which was a far more comfortable way of being towed at speed. The swell bumped against his back and it was like being dragged across a corrugated roof. He had no idea how fast he was going. It felt like he could have water-skied at that speed.
Stratton leaned his head up to look for Lotto’s boat. He could just about see it coming on after him, as he expected it would, the gap between them several hundred metres. He studied the picture, wondering if the pirate boat might be gaining. It was difficult to tell.
He made an effort to look ahead for the bulker but he couldn’t. As he tried to manoeuvre himself to one side, he almost flipped on to his front again. He decided to leave it alone, for the time being at least.
The bumping suddenly increased markedly and he felt himself passing over a set of larger waves. Had to be the bulker’s bow waves. He spread out his arms and legs to make himself a more stable platform. He was drawing in behind the carrier. When he was over the waves, the ride became a lot smoother. He wondered how far he was from the vessel and where the girl might be. He had been five or six hundred metres from the cargo ship when he was on his front. That meant she had to be a good fifteen hundred metres behind him. Well behind the pirates.
He craned up to see the pirate ship cutting across the bow waves and falling into the bulker’s track.
A young British private security guard on the stern of the cargo ship was observing the pirate vessel through a pair of binoculars.
As he watched it cross the bow waves, he raised a radio to his mouth. ‘Bob. That dodgy boat I reported earlier. It’s even more dodgy now. It’s moved in right behind us.’
‘Roger that,’ came the reply over the radio. ‘Sound the alarm. All security hands to the stern. Don’t forget your bloody weapons. You got that, Captain?’
‘Yes, Bob,’ came the captain’s voice over the radio.
The bulker’s alarms began to sound and crewmen working on deck dropped what they were doing, hurried into the ship’s superstructure by the nearest door and bolted it shut. A security guard hurried through the carrier ensuring it was battened down.
‘Full speed, Captain,’ Bob shouted over the radio. ‘Commence evasive action.’
As the stern guard continued to observe the vessel following it, two more security guards stepped from the bulker’s superstructure carrying AK-47 assault rifles. They jogged along the decks and down steps, converging on to the poop deck to join their mate on the rear rail beyond a massive pair of anchor winches. After a couple of minutes the other security guard stepped down to the group. Another joined them. They now made five. The entire bulker vibrated as the engines reached maximum revolutions. A claxon joined in the general cacophony of bells and whistles.
The water directly below the poop deck churned up through the massive submerged propellers to create an even larger wake The carrier began to lean over a little as it started a hard turn.
An overweight, older-looking security guard marched out of the superstructure and across the deck to join the others looking over the rail. By his bearing and confidence, he was clearly the senior man.
‘What we got here then?’ Bob, the head of the security detachment, asked gruffly, grabbing the binoculars hanging around his subordinate’s neck to take a look for himself.
‘You reckon they’re pirates?’ one of the men asked, anxious. Apart from Bob, young guys made up the team, all of whom had military experience of a kind. Two were territorial soldiers who had missed out on any long-term drafts abroad and seen no action at all. One was a former fusilier who had done a basic three years with a short draft to Iraq but seen no action. The other two were ex-Royal Marine drivers and had done a couple of stints in Afghanistan with a little action but nothing to write home about. All had joined the maritime security circuit for two reasons only and they were the pay and a chance to travel. The men had all worked the maritime circuit for a few years but none had seen a pirate before.
‘Where’s all the other smaller boats they’re supposed to use?’ asked the bigger of the two ex-Marines.
‘There’s no usual when it comes to these fellas,’ Bob said.
The other Marine nudged his mate and gave him a look like he doubted Bob knew that much about it. ‘So just ’ow many pirates ’ave you actually seen, Bob?’ he said.
Bob appeared reluctant to answer. ‘These would be my first, laddy, like all of you lot,’ he said. ‘But unlike you lot, I’ve done over fifty of these runs and I’ve read all there is to know about the buggers and talked to loads of blokes who’ve run into them. And I can tell you they are somethin’ to have respect for. They’ll ’ave a go, I assure you. If they decide to go for this boat, then they’ll go for it. If we make it difficult for ’em, they’ll ’ave no worries about killin’ any of us. We may ’ave to put a few of ’em away before they back off. That might mean they may put a few of us away too.’
For a few seconds none of them said anything. Like they had all realised something important. Like it was one thing to talk about pirates and the threat they posed, but something totally different to see them in person and know they were targeting you.
‘Shall we get the ’oses ready?’ one of the men asked.
‘Yeah. Let’s drown the bastards in their boat,’ said the big Marine.
‘We’re not usin’ ’oses when we’ve got guns,’ Bob said calmly. ‘You might want to take the more humane way right now. But if you end up an ’ostage of those wankers, you’ll wish you’d shot a few of ’em first chance you ’ad … Everyone got their weapons loaded?’
The men moved as one, inspired by Bob’s words. The rifles they used were not new but they had kept them well cleaned and oiled. The five men pulled back the gleaming working parts, loaded shiny magazines, released the breach blocks to fly forward on powerful springs and pick up bullets and slam them home into breaches. All five then put the ends of the barrels over the rail and aimed in the general direction of the pirate vessel.
‘Somefin’ in the water,’ the guard with the binoculars said. ‘About ’alfway between us and them.’
Bob grabbed the binoculars again, the strap yanking at the young guard’s neck, and looked along the bulker’s track until he found what the man was talking about. All he could see was something being dragged through the water.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Bob said. ‘Let’s worry about the job in ’and, shall we. If they’ve got RPGs, then they’ll probably want to engage ’em around one-fifty metres. So as soon as those bastards come within two ’undred metres, we’ll give ’em a volley to think about.’
‘What if they keep comin’?’ the big Marine asked.
‘The closer they get, the easier they’ll be to shoot,’ Bob replied.
‘Bob? Captain here.’ The voice boomed over all of the men’s radios.
‘Bob, send,’ the old team leader said into his radio.
‘They’ve got about two knots on us and are gaining.’
‘Roger that,’ Bob replied. ‘Just keep up the zig-zagging. We’ll take care of the rest,’ he added, before releasing his radio to dangle from a strap around his neck. ‘I didn’t take on this job to spend next Christmas as an ’ostage of those tossers. They close in another ’undred metres and we go to war. Is that understood?’
The men focused hard on the pirate vessel. Bob had said enough. They did not intend to be captured either. A war it was going to be then.
‘Come on you bastards!’ one of them shouted.
Stratton leaned up to look at Lotto’s boat. He could tell the pirates were gaining on him. He could see men running along its sides. Preparing to lower a couple of speedboats into the water. He would be impressed if they could do it at speed.
They could. A boat dropped into the water off the starboard side, held there on a line by crewmen. A couple of men jumped down into it and the crewmen let the line go and the boat dropped behind as the men went to fire up the engines. More crew lowered the other boat into the water on the port side and it bobbed around as a second team jumped into it.
Stratton felt for the pouch attached to the front of his harness. Touched the knife that was still inside. He took it out and held tightly on to it, not sure what he was going to do when they came alongside him.
Then the tension suddenly went from Stratton’s line like it had snapped and he slowed to a stop, no longer being towed by the bulker.
Stratton couldn’t believe what was happening. He’d held on to the possibility that the pirates would eventually give up and pull off. That one of the ship’s crew might spot him and initiate his rescue. But suddenly that was all over. The end of the road had arrived. The end that he had fought to avoid the past few days had arrived. The line had probably been stretched to its limit and the rough end of the vessel had worn through it. Whatever the reason, it was over. Lotto was going to win.
Stratton bobbed in the water and watched the pirate boat close in. He expected a bullet to the head. At least it would be quick. Arguably better than hypothermia or drowning and certainly better than thirsting to death.
Lotto had been at the front of his boat all of the time watching Stratton, willing the engine to get them closer, waiting for the opportunity that he knew would come to shoot the damned English. The sight of Stratton coming to a sudden stop, he truly considered a gift from on high. He gripped the rifle in his hands and brought it up into his shoulder. Held it there aimed square on to Stratton’s chest. He hoped the first round wouldn’t kill him so that Lotto could get two or three into the man before he died. But then he considered the wisdom of killing Stratton outright at all. Maybe better to let him die slowly in the ocean of undrinkable water. He quickly discarded the thought. He wanted the satisfaction of killing the man with his own hands.
Stratton stared into the end of the barrel coming right at him. He wanted to duck beneath the water but to do that he would have to get the life jackets off. No time. He couldn’t keep ducking and diving for very long anyhow. Didn’t want to add to the Somali’s amusement, Stratton popping up all over the place for a second or two until the bastard finally shot him.
Lotto knew there was nothing else that Stratton could do. He would wait until he had a complete sight picture. Then he would pull the trigger and send a piece of brass-coated lead right through the irritating Englishman. And after that entertainment ended, he would pursue the cargo ship and capture it. It was going to be a good day after all.
But the fishing line hadn’t snapped. It had simply worked its way down from the leading edge of the bow, popped off it, and slid along the keel as it passed over.
The sucking action of the propeller wouldn’t allow the line to sink away. It pulled it into a vortex, towards the spinning blades along with the surrounding water. The twisted line wrapped around the turning shaft and swiftly gathered in the slack.
Stratton was staring at Lotto. The leader had a clear picture of him in the rifle sight. A plate-sized target any half-decent rifleman could hit from where he was, leaning over the front of the boat as it cut through the water towards the operative. Then the reel fastened to Stratton’s chest whipped him around and he took off like a bungee jumper bouncing up from the bottom of his fall.
Just like before. Only this time much faster. The g-force wrenched at Stratton’s neck and his limbs pulled against their sockets as he skimmed over the water like a jet ski.
As before, Lotto could not believe his eyes. He was filled with anger and extreme violence and acted on instinct, firing wildly at Stratton, emptying the carbine’s thirty-round magazine in a desperate attempt to finish him off. ‘Get that man!’ he yelled, ripping away the empty magazine and throwing it down. ‘Give me bullets!’ he shouted. ‘Kill him!’
‘Boss!’ one of his men shouted from where he stood on the port side, pointing at the water beyond the stern of their own vessel.
Other pirates looked in the same direction, awestruck by what they saw. Lotto looked and was equally stunned. He watched the girl come shooting across the water towards them. She sped along the length of the boat, looking terrified, her legs and arms splayed like a spider.
As she looked at him, Lotto realised it was the Chinese girl. ‘Don’t just stand there staring,’ he screamed. ‘Shoot them!’
Every Somali with a gun ran to the front of the vessel and let rip.
On the bulker, the security guards had been watching the pirate boat close in. When Lotto opened fire, they assumed the bullets had been aimed at them.
‘Right,’ Bob exclaimed. ‘They want a battle. We’ll give ’em one. Section,’ he shouted, reliving his days in the Royal Marines as a troop commander. Bob had never seen action although he had spent almost twenty years in the mob. He’d done a lot of training, numerous section attacks across Dartmoor in his early days and then much later in the Omani desert in preparation for the first Gulf War. Sadly nothing ever came of it for him and the action had ended by the time he arrived in Iraq. Before that he’d completed a couple of stints in Northern Ireland but it had all gone quiet by the time he arrived, apart from the occasional roadside bomb that he only ever saw the aftermath of. A year after he left the Corp to become a civilian, the Twin Towers in New York were brought down and the lads went into Afghanistan along with the Yanks. He had remained philosophical about it, telling his mates down the pub that life was like that in the military. Some people saw loads of action while others saw none. The luck of the draw. He hadn’t been overly bothered about it on the surface. But deep down he always wished he’d seen at least one bit of real contact. His wife of twenty-five years was glad that he had left the Marines safe and sound but for his sake she wished he’d fired his gun in anger at least once, as long as he hadn’t hit anyone.
Truth was, Bob regretted that he had devoted the best part of his life to the military and had never had a single opportunity to ply the trade he had dedicated himself to for so many years.
Things were about to change in that regard.
When the Somalis opened up on Lotto’s orders, a couple of rounds zinged off the metal surfaces near the men. Bob felt a bullet ricochet somewhere around his feet. He didn’t flinch, calling, ‘Enemy front, rapid fire!’
The team let rip in unison, Bob blinking at the shock of the weapons clattering right beside him. He held his grimace as he stared back at the enemy. For a brief second he was in soldier’s heaven. He was in command. The enemy coming at them. His men engaging them. It was a moment to live for.
The private security detachment fired directly into the pirate vessel, the weapons in the hands of men who knew how to use them.
Rounds peppered the pirate boat and hit several pirates before they could take cover. One fell overboard and disappeared beneath the water.
Lotto dropped to his belly on the deck behind the metal sides as bullets flew around him. Windows in the bridge shattered, the wheelman taking a round in the chest and dropping out of sight.
Bob wanted more than to simply stand and give orders. ‘Give me that,’ he said to the man nearest to him who was about to reload his rifle. Bob removed the empty magazine, took a full one from the man’s pouch, loaded it on to the weapon, cocked it, aimed and loosed off a staccato burst of fire. He had never been quite so content as at that moment in his life firing at the enemy. Never again would
he meet the question ‘So, you see any action in your time then?’ with a shrug before admitting that he hadn’t. Now he could do the same as so many other old soldiers who had tasted battle when asked the same question. ‘A little,’ he would say, and then nothing else, knowing it wasn’t a lie and letting the imagination of whomever had asked to run away with them.
‘They’ve fired a bloody torpedo at us!’ shouted one of the men.
Bob stopped firing to look down on to the water. Sure enough, something large was hurtling along towards the back of the boat.
Stratton ripped through the bulker’s wake completely unaware of the firefight raging above. He couldn’t hear it. He could hardly hear anything at all because his head was thrashing in and out of the speeding water. He had other more pressing issues to attend to. He had avoided being executed by Lotto one more time but instead he had sent himself hurtling towards the prop. He realised the line had gone around the prop and that he had barely seconds to do something to stop himself from going through the blades.
As he buffeted along he had kept a firm hold of the knife. He fought to look ahead and caught sight of the stern. The seconds were running down. The truest indication of how close he was to the propeller came when all daylight disappeared and he got dragged under the water.
He grabbed for the line and drew the edge of the blade across it.
In an instant the prop thrust him upwards and he burst to the surface, launched up into the wake. He spun in the wash, gasping for air, with something running across his body. It was the line, cutting into his life jacket, with the girl on the end of it hurtling towards him. The second before she collided with him he yanked the blade across it and she rolled to a stop face down, her arms and legs thrashing in desperation.
Stratton grabbed hold of her and yanked her over. She choked and spluttered as she fought to catch her breath, instinctively clutching at him as if she might go under again.
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