‘It’s OK,’ Stratton said. ‘It’s me. You’re OK.’
She regained her breath enough to look at him through feverishly blinking eyes.
But it wasn’t over. The back of the bulker was fast moving away. He thought he could see people on the stern and he waved in the hope that they gave a damn about who he and the girl were. As the carrier steamed away, Stratton continued to wave his arms at them.
The security guards had been stunned when the torpedo turned into a person, and then two.
‘Bleedin’ ’ell!’ one of them exclaimed. The comment seemed to satisfy the moment for them all.
‘Who the hell are they?’ another said.
‘They don’t look black,’ another offered. ‘Maybe they ain’t pirates.’
‘Man overboard!’ Bob shouted into his radio, keeping an eye on the pirate vessel. It had turned away and was still going full speed, its two speedboats alongside it. He knew it had been plastered by rounds and wasn’t surprised to see it withdraw.
One of the guards grabbed a life ring from a rail and tossed it as hard as he could off the back of the boat.
‘Launch a lifeboat,’ Bob shouted and a couple of his men hurried away. ‘Captain, this is Bob. You can slow the ship and cancel evasive manoeuvring. The pirates have had enough. We’ve got a couple of people in the water we need to pick up.’
‘Roger. Understood,’ the captain replied.
Bob and the remaining guards stared at the two people in the water who by then had become tiny specks.
‘I wonder who the bloody ’ell they are,’ one of them said.
It was what they were all thinking.
15
A steel, pyramid-shaped baggage cage, on the end of a heavy, twisted cable, rose up the side of the bulker as it cruised along at slow speed. The sun shone high in the sky, giving the ocean a deep and inviting look. A gentle breeze rounded off the tops of the waves that lapped against the huge orange-painted side of the vessel. Stratton and the girl stood on a narrow rim around the bottom of the basket hanging on to its rope surrounds as it ascended. The lifeboat that had rescued them rode the swell below, its two crewmen attaching the shackles to its ends before it would also be winched aboard.
The Chinese girl still felt in a daze. Once again she had been reprieved, having left her life in the hands of the ocean and been prepared to accept the inevitable. She experienced the same clarity of thought as she had after deciding against suicide before dawn that day. But this time it wouldn’t be a temporary reprieve. She was free of that living nightmare. The ship was large and powerful. It had electricity, engines, food and warmth. Civilised people operated it and had aimed it towards a civilised port that would connect her with her home. She could hardly believe it.
But the euphoria didn’t last long and even before she stepped on board, it had been replaced by a stark reality. Returning to her normal life also meant seeing through her responsibilities to the end. Because the only way she could have shirked her duties would have been to have died. While she had been faced with that possibility, she had forgotten them. So her reprieve was temporary after all. She had work to continue. She could never return to China if she failed to complete her task. Impossible. Before getting to Somalia she had considered running away to live somewhere else in the world. But those she worked for would not forgive that. They would find her, one day, eventually. She would then pay a terrible price. But worse still, if she did manage to escape, those she held dear to her heart would suffer in her place. Her family, back in China, would suffer the consequences.
She would rather die than let that happen.
The basket was winched aboard and lowered to the deck. Most of the twenty-five-man crew, a mixture of Western officers and Filipino hands, watched from some part of the bulker. The captain and bridge crew stood on the bridge wings. On the deck, waiting for the basket to descend, stood Bob and the rest of his boys, except the pair who had picked up Stratton and the girl. When they had radioed ahead that the two people were an English Caucasian man and a Chinese woman, the word had spread and everyone wanted to see for themselves.
Stratton and the girl stepped off the side of the basket as it hovered inches from the steel deck. They could practically hear the whispered questions about who they were and what they had been doing in the middle of the Gulf of Aden.
Among the crew there had been the usual round of the more obvious suppositions and explanations: they had fallen overboard; they had been in a small boat that had sunk; they had been in a plane crash. But no one could work out how they’d managed to be speeding through the water having somehow attached themselves to the cargo ship while being pursued by murderous Somalis. At this point the conspiracy theorists among the crew, and there were always several, had a field day. One suggested they were submariners who had ejected from their vessel. Yet the fact that one of them was a girl served to enhance the most popular theory: they were spies of some kind and more probably assassins. The lack of any vaguely intelligent explanation as to what they could have been spying on or who they intended to assassinate did not deter this theory. Even those who declared the whole idea preposterous couldn’t help being lured to it in the absence of anything else.
‘Thanks very much,’ Stratton said with a smile. He held out his hand. ‘John Stratton.’
‘Bob Haldon.’ A firm handshake. ‘Pleasure to meet you.’
There was an awkward pause. They both stood for a couple of seconds. Stratton knew what he needed from the man but he waited. There were some rather obvious bureaucratic requirements.
On seeing Stratton face to face Bob had lost some of his confidence in regard to the questions he wanted to ask. He would have had no problem asking anything of a stranger under normal circumstances. Bob could be very direct. The same would have applied if Stratton had been an ordinary bloke, despite his anything but ordinary arrival. But there was something very unordinary about the man standing in front of him, soaking wet and looking at him with bright-green, intelligent eyes. Bob had never had anything to do with special forces, but he knew one when he saw him, or at least thought he did. This bloke, with his long hair, had the bearing and stature of someone who dealt with extreme adventures of a military nature. Bob felt certain of it. And although he had sneered at the stories going around about the couple, he couldn’t think of any other explanation for such an outrageous arrival.
Bob had had time to think about and time to prepare a few questions. But after a glance at the girl, he realised something. ‘I expect you could both do with a drink and something to eat perhaps,’ he said.
‘A wet would be fantastic,’ Stratton said.
Bob gave his men a glance, like he had discovered something. ‘This way,’ he said, indicating one of his men to lead off.
The girl discarded her sweater and buoyancy aids. The security guys almost tripped over themselves to help her, fumbling with the oversized kit as she removed it. She smiled politely, which only caused an even greater quality of fumbling.
Stratton walked behind the leading guard towards the superstructure. Bob followed a few steps back, leaning close to one of the other security guards.
‘I’ve sussed him,’ Bob said. ‘He said he’d like a wet. That’s a naval term.’
‘He’s a sailor?’ the guard said. ‘You think he fell off one of the navy patrol ships.’
‘No, you twat. Does he look like a bloody sailor? He’s a boot-neck. A Marine. We say “wet” for a brew as well as the matelots.’
The line trooped into the superstructure and straight into the galley. But Bob paused outside and out of earshot of Stratton and the girl.
‘So what’s a Marine doin’ out ’ere in the middle of nowhere then?’ he asked, a rhetorical question. ‘Think a little outside of the box. He’s obviously no ordinary soldier, is he?’
‘You reckon he’s a super soldier, do yer?’
‘What else?’
‘Not SAS?’
‘Exactly,’ Bob said, looking at
him. ‘He’s Special Air Service.’
‘Bugger me,’ the lad said.
‘Keep it down,’ Bob urged. ‘They get very funny about it if they think you know. Just act normal.’
Bob straightened himself up and walked into the galley where Stratton and the girl sat sipping cups of piping hot sweet tea.
‘How is it, then?’ Bob asked.
‘Nectar,’ Stratton replied.
The girl nodded, then bit down on a biscuit.
‘You must be starved,’ Bob said. ‘’Ere, George, pop into the kitchen and see what there is to eat. We’re in between meals,’ he added by way of an explanation to the strangers.
‘You’re very kind,’ Stratton said. ‘Thank you for everything.’
A man stepped into the doorway. He looked very much an authority figure. Bob straightened on seeing him.
‘Sir,’ Bob said to the man. ‘This is the captain,’ he announced to Stratton.
Stratton got to his feet and offered his hand to the portly, white-haired and -bearded older man. ‘John Stratton, sir,’ he said.
The captain shook hands with a smile, his whiskers stained brown from tobacco smoke. ‘Welcome aboard. I trust you’re being well looked after.’
‘We’re doing fine.’
‘Well,’ the captain started, broaching unfamiliar territory. ‘When you’ve settled in, perhaps you can pop up to the bridge. Obviously we have some paperwork to do.’
‘I’d like to crack on with that right away, if I may. I need to make contact with the UK immediately. I’m a member of Her Britannic Majesty’s military.’
Bob gave the others another look.
‘Right,’ the captain said. He looked glad that some light had been shed on the mystery, if only a little. ‘Let’s get you upstairs and on the blower.’
Stratton glanced at the girl. ‘This is a colleague. She works for the Chinese government. I expect she’ll be needing the same.’
The girl gave a nod but she looked discomfited.
The captain could do nothing more than shrug politely, clearly in new territory. ‘Whatever you need. Glad to be of service. I’ll be on the bridge.’
He headed back into the corridor and Stratton walked out carrying his cup of tea between the crew that had amassed in the narrow passage and now parted like the Red Sea.
‘Told you,’ Bob said to his men.
The captain led the way up the steep, narrow staircase, past two landings before arriving at the door to the bridge deck. A small radio shack was on the left before another door that led into the bridge. A Filipino crewman in a smart white shirt and trousers stood on watch and he smiled broadly and nodded a greeting to Stratton.
The captain went over to the radio satellite equipment. ‘Just punch in your number,’ he said, stepping out of the way.
Stratton took the phone and inspected the equipment to familiarise himself with it.
‘I expect you want some privacy?’ the captain asked.
‘A few minutes, if that’s OK.’
‘Not a problem,’ the captain said. ‘Jamail will have to stay on watch but he doesn’t speak much English.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘I’ll be in my room directly below. Give me a shout when you’re done. I have to make a report and explain what’s been happening my end.’
‘Thanks,’ Stratton said as the old man walked out and closed the door behind him.
Jamail went to the wheel and concentrated ahead.
Stratton keyed in the number, going over what he needed to say. He wanted to be succinct but also cover everything. He thought about Hopper and how he was going to explain the man’s death. He couldn’t get into much detail over the phone but he had to give the broad strokes of what happened.
After several seconds he heard a gentle pulsing sound and shortly after someone picked up the other end.
‘Hello,’ a woman’s voice said.
‘SB Ops please.’
‘This is not a secure line, sir,’ the woman said, robotically.
‘I know.’
‘One moment.’
The phone crackled a little and a few seconds later a man answered. ‘SB Ops.’
‘Is that you, Mike?’
‘Bloody hell. Stratton?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t say I’d given up hope just yet, mate, knowing your knack for always turning up, but I was starting to get a little concerned.’
‘I should’ve left it a bit longer. I like the idea of you being concerned about me.’
‘Well, there are some here who had given up. We thought the slopes had got you. Where the hell are you?’
‘On board a cargo ship.’ Stratton looked at the chart desk behind the ship’s wheel. ‘The Orion. She’s in the Gulf of Aden, heading west along the transit corridor. I’ve been on holiday in Somalia. We were invited over by a bunch of pirates. Great bunch of lads. Not to mention their jihadi mates.’
‘Jesus. How’d you manage to end up there?’
‘Trying to put some space between ourselves and the Slope Secret Service. They were after the same thing.’
‘Yeah, we got that much from Prabhu.’
‘The Gurkhas OK?’
‘Yes. When they left you, they made it into Oman without a fuss. They weren’t sure whether you’d taken a boat or not. I take it Hopper’s with you?’
For a second Stratton couldn’t answer. He hesitated. Then said, ‘He didn’t make it.’
The line went silent for a moment. Stratton had the impression others were near the phone listening in.
‘That’s not good,’ said Mike. ‘I’ve just got off the phone with his missus assuring her you’d both soon show up. How’d it happen?’
‘Long story. Not the time right now. Basically, we ran into Al-Shabaab. The important news right now is Shabaab have what we came looking for. Dozens of them. And they’re going international. Soon as you can get me on to a navy ship, I’ll get you the details. But we have to move fast on this end. It’s a big campaign. There could be dozens of the things all over the world already, or heading that way. The guy we came to interview in Yemen, he’s one of the main players.’
‘Right,’ said Mike, his mind a whir. ‘Let me pass all that on to Ops and I’ll get back to you. The priority is getting you on to one of our boats.’
‘Roger that.’
‘It’s good to have you back, Stratton. This might sound odd, but, well, if anything ever happened to you, I’d start to think we might actually be losing.’
‘You’re not coming out of the closet, are you, Mike? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but—’
‘Bollocks. Talk to you later.’
The line went dead. Stratton realised he was smiling and immediately wiped it away. He had no right to enjoy himself whatsoever.
He looked at the chart table to study the ship’s track neatly inside the GOA transit corridor and heading north into the Red Sea towards Suez.
He suddenly felt exhausted. The thought of lying down was alluring. But that dogged soldier in him resisted, for no particular reason. It felt like he was in the middle of some kind of desperate battle and he didn’t want to take the chance of going unconscious. But he decided to loosen up a little and grab some sleep while he had the time. While things stayed quiet because they could kick off again as soon as the nearest naval ship arrived. And it wouldn’t be that far away. The Navy would know where the Orion was now. They knew where every vessel in the corridor was. The Orion’s captain would have registered with the UK Maritime Trade Operations office before arriving in the Gulf and again the moment he had made contact with the pirates.
Stratton went to the bridge door and opened it. The girl stood outside the communications shack looking up at him.
‘Can I use the phone?’ she said.
‘Sure,’ he said, stepping aside.
‘All OK?’ she asked as she walked in.
Stratton thought she looked more exhausted than he had seen her look bef
ore. ‘Yes. I’m going to get my head down.’
‘You deserve it,’ she said.
‘You need a hand with that?’ He gestured at the radio equipment.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, picking up the handset.
‘Catch you later.’
‘Hey.’
Stratton paused in the doorway to look back at her.
‘Thanks. For everything. You’re an unusual man … that’s as in great.’
‘Needs must, that’s all.’
‘And all the rest,’ she said.
Stratton closed the door and headed down the stairs.
When he got to the bottom, he found two of the private security lads hanging around in the corridor outside the galley.
‘Anything I can do for you, sir?’ one of them asked.
‘You could steer me towards a bunk, if that’s OK. Anything will do.’
‘No probs,’ the young man said. ‘Name’s Andy.’
‘Good to meet you.’
‘This is Spike.’
Stratton nodded a hello.
‘Follow me,’ Andy said.
He briskly led the way back up the stairs to the first floor and along a short corridor. He opened a door and stepped back to allow Stratton entry. The small space looked homely. The bed had been freshly made and a man’s personal effects, including several pictures of the same woman in sexy clothing, adorned a mirror and built-in dresser.
‘You sure this is OK?’ Stratton asked.
‘He volunteered it, sir. No probs.’
Stratton nodded as his eyes fell on the clean white sheets of the narrow cot. It was calling to him.
‘Shower and heads are in there,’ the security lad said, pointing to a slender door in the corner. ‘’Elp yourself to anything – shampoo, the lot. He’ll have some spare clean overalls in that cupboard you can use.’
‘That’s very kind. Thank him for me please.’
‘I will. You have a good kip, sir. You need anything else, just ask for Andy and I’ll sort you out.’
Andy closed the door, a smirk on his face, Spike at the top of the steps looking at him. ‘Does the first officer know you’ve put ’im in ’is room?’
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