by Wilbur Smith
With the pirate’s back turned, Pete lunged after him. He caught a shoulder with one hand and locked his other forearm across Barrel-man’s neck, spun, and held him as a human shield.
The ex-soldier was much the bigger of the two men, his sunburnt shoulder twice the size of the pirate’s, but amazingly Barrel-man, all sinew and muscle, wriggled out of Pete’s neck lock with apparent ease.
As well as being stronger, he was nimbler. Before either of the gunmen on the boat had bothered to train their weapons on the pair, Barrel-man, having slipped Pete’s grip, had somehow grabbed him by the throat and marched him to the side of the boat. He had Pete unbalanced there. The dive master was on one leg, his hip against the fibreglass.
I was too slow. By the time I realised what was happening – that Barrel-man was actually pushing Pete overboard – I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Pete slip-fell into the water with the same harmless splash we all did at the start of a dive. And immediately the speedboat, tugged gently by the cruiser, swung away from him, opening up a few feet of water, ten, fifteen, twenty. Though Pete kicked after us, he couldn’t close the gap.
Amelia was shouting at Mo, something about throwing out a rope. Perhaps Mo knew better than to respond. I couldn’t stop myself though. There was no rope within easy reach but I knew about the life jackets stowed beneath the bench seat the three of us were sitting on, and before anyone could object I flung one out over the stern. Pete, still making after us, gathered it in.
The man in the wheelhouse had come out next to the gunmen again, and as before he seemed to be angry, this time at the guy who’d raised his rifle to his shoulder and was pointing it at Pete. It was obvious that the gunman wanted to pull the trigger. I couldn’t tell if the captain was urging him to get it over with or to lower his gun.
‘Mo, please,’ I begged. ‘Tell them not to do it. Let us throw out a rope and pull Pete in.’
Mo looked the other way. It was as if he could no longer understand me. For an awful moment I thought: he knows what’s coming next.
12.
The gunman on the cruiser, assault rifle pulled into his shoulder, cheek pressed tight to the stock, had one eye shut and the other unblinkingly open, staring straight over the sight at Pete in the water. He definitely wanted to pull the trigger.
Barrel-man wanted the same thing: he was shouting from the speedboat to do it. But the captain from the wheelhouse, the older guy who’d been piloting the cruiser, had one hand raised steadily aloft now. Was he about to give the order? Mercifully, no: he was holding the man back, his raised hand a stop sign, saying, don’t waste bullets.
All the while the boats were drifting further away from Pete. He’d got his right arm through the life jacket. As I watched, he worked his left hand through the other loop and, kicking onto his back, fastened the vest across his chest.
He was no longer trying to reach us. We were already more than the length of a swimming pool away from him. The red of the jacket merged into the darker red of Pete’s face as we moved still further away.
Barrel-man, angry at having been rushed by Pete, seemed to want more in the way of revenge. He stalked over to me. I braced myself. But he didn’t hit me as he had hit the boy, Mo. Instead he dropped to his haunches, yanked a handful of life jackets from the compartment under the bench seat and threw them at us. He shouted at us then but of course I couldn’t understand him.
‘Mo?’ said Xander.
‘He says to put them on,’ Mo, still on the gunwale, said, adding, ‘but I wouldn’t if I were you.’
Barrel-man shouted at us again, homing in on me. The whites of his eyes had a yellowish tinge and the anger pulsed from him. He picked up one of the life jackets and swung it at my face. I ducked and raised an arm to protect myself and somehow ended up holding on to the thing.
From the cruiser I could hear the captain, still arguing with his men. It seemed Barrel-man thought I should be punished for throwing Pete a life jacket identical to the one I was now holding, and although I couldn’t understand him precisely it was obvious enough what he thought my punishment should be.
If I did as he wanted, and jumped overboard wearing the life jacket, I’d at least be in – or rather out of – the same boat as Pete. Didn’t I deserve as much? I’m ashamed to say I just stood there, my face a mask of I-don’t-know-what-to-do.
Beside me, Xander bent slowly to pick up a life jacket. Amelia did the same. None of us put them on; we just stood there before Barrel-man holding the life jackets to our chests, as if they might offer us some sort of protection from him.
Barrel-man had backed off an inch or two. Up on the cabin cruiser’s rail the captain was talking more softly, and both gunmen had lowered their weapons. Meanwhile Pete was a dot in the distance, rising and falling with the gentle swell. A seabird flapped lazily between us and him, underlining the ever-widening gap.
Pete had made the mistake of challenging one of the pirates and they were teaching us all a lesson. That’s what this had to be, this gentle chugging towards the horizon: a scare tactic, all for show. Any moment now we would circle back to pick him up, wouldn’t we? I looked to Mo again and said, ‘We’re going back for him, right?’ but he didn’t even turn my way.
The captain tossed something down to Barrel-man. It was a roll of gaffer tape. He caught it one-handed and came for me first, ripped the life jacket from me and threw it into the hold, then pushed me back down onto the bench and wrapped a length of tape around my ankles very tightly indeed.
There was no point resisting. I let him guide my hands behind my back and sat still while he bound my wrists together in the same way. He muttered to himself as he did this, and leaning across me I caught the smell of him, not the tang of sweat I’d been expecting but a weird mixture of diesel and soap.
When he was satisfied that I was safely trussed up he set to shackling Xander and Amelia in the same way. Xander followed my lead and made no fuss, but Amelia couldn’t hold back. As he yanked the tape tight around her wrists she said, ‘Ow! It doesn’t need to be that tight to be effective!’
By now the boy, Mo, had moved to the speedboat’s prow, and following instructions from the captain he hauled on the rope connecting the two boats until we were close enough for the captain to climb down over the side of the cruiser onto Thunderbolt’s long white hood. As well as his backwards baseball cap he was wearing a mismatched military-style outfit, a shirt with epaulettes on the shoulders and khaki trousers full of cargo pockets. Also, bright white Adidas trainers.
Unlike Barrel-man and the boy, who flitted about the speedboat with gymnastic ease, the captain moved stiffly, as if he had a bad back or was carrying some other injury. He inspected his prize with interest, tapping the fuel gauge and running a hand over the immaculate white armrest of Pete’s seat, looking over everything methodically.
‘Good,’ he said with a smile. ‘Good, yes? Good!’
13.
Within minutes Pete was out of sight. We were sailing away from him. At no great rate, just bubbling along, but making headway all the same. The slim line of the island soon dropped below the horizon behind us. Treasure-hunting: could anything, given what had just happened, seem more purposeless?
I tried to make myself believe Pete would be able to swim back to the island, but deep down I knew the reality of the currents sweeping through the Zanzibar archipelago; Pete had warned us about them himself. Why hadn’t I thought to throw him a pair of fins as well as the life jacket?
I couldn’t stop thinking of what Pete must be going through out there, alone at sea. Having just spent so many hours swimming in it I knew all too well that sensation of bobbing among the waves after surfacing from a dive.
With his eyes just an inch or two above the shifting lid of the sea his sense of his own insignificance would be amplified horribly. Practically speaking, being so low in the water would make it harder for Pete to catch sight of land than it was for me now, just a few feet above the surface, on the boat.
T
hough I was safe here with my friends the thought of Pete out there left me so desperate that for a long while panic overshadowed the tingling in my arms and growing numbness in the fingers of my left hand. Safe?! What was I thinking? We’d been overrun by pirates.
Amelia’s description, back in the hotel, of the terrible conflict fought by child soldiers in Somalia rang in my ears now. These guys were desperate and ruthless. We weren’t ‘safe’ at all! I was surprised to find myself straining against the gaffer tape, more so when Mo arrived at my side to check the binding.
‘Let him go,’ he murmured. ‘You can do nothing to help.’
‘What did you say?’ I said, though I knew full well, and hated him for it.
‘Does this hurt?’ he asked, taking hold of the makeshift handcuffs, pinching the tape, twisting it.
I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of admitting that it did, but I couldn’t help flinching.
‘Here, let me,’ he said, and having found the end of the tape he unpicked it and unwound it before wrapping my wrists together again more loosely.
Barrel-man saw what Mo was doing and flitted across the deck to inspect his work, the tone of whatever he was saying a clear threat: make sure that it’s still tight enough to do the job!
Mo reassured him evenly. To me he whispered, as if we were having a normal conversation, ‘What’s it called again, the flow of blood?’
‘Circulation,’ said Amelia. ‘You can restore mine too if you like.’
Mo obliged, re-taping Amelia’s wrists. ‘This is just a caution, until they feel they can trust you.’
‘Precaution,’ said Amelia. ‘And who is this “they”?’
‘OK, “we” if you want. But they did the same to me.’
‘They stole your boat too?’ said Xander. He clearly wanted to keep the chat going. I didn’t; I wanted the kid to go away. But I knew Xander was probably right to keep him talking.
Mo laughed softly. ‘No. They didn’t find me on a boat like this.’
Xander shifted so that he didn’t have to address Mo over his shoulder. ‘Where did they find you then?’
‘At home.’
‘Home?’
‘What was left of it.’
‘Where was that, then?’
Mo shrugged. ‘You won’t have heard of the place.’
‘Try me,’ Amelia said.
‘A small village near Rassini.’
I could tell she desperately wanted to claim she’d heard of this Rassini place, but Amelia doesn’t lie. The best she could do was say nothing.
‘In Lower Juba.’
Still no joy.
‘Somalia, very far –’
‘South,’ Amelia said quickly.
‘Yes,’ said Mo, looking at her askance.
‘Near the border with Kenya,’ she said. ‘Historically the region either side of that border has been contested. Typical post-colonial bodge job. The line between the two countries was drawn by the British when they handed back control of their territories in the region.’
‘They?’ said Mo.
Amelia gave him almost exactly the same sideways glance he’d given her. I didn’t expect you to clock that, it said.
‘OK, we,’ she conceded. ‘If you don’t mind my saying, you don’t sound entirely Somali.’
Aping her accent with uncanny precision, Mo said, ‘If you don’t mind my saying, you do sound entirely British.’
‘That’s because I am,’ said Amelia matter-of-factly.
Having finished adjusting our bindings, Mo was now squatting beside us. Again I caught sight of the fissures across the pale soles of his feet. This whole getting-to-know-you thing, fascinating though it was, did not stop me wanting to pick him up and throw him overboard. At least Pete stood a chance of swimming back to the island; there was no way this Mo fellow could have managed it. He deserved to sink. And yet obviously he wasn’t calling the shots. Neither was the guy who deserved to drown most of all, Barrel-man. He’d actually tipped poor Pete out. And now he was sitting up front in Pete’s seat, as if he owned the speedboat himself, all sinew and muscle etched by the low sun.
When I got my chance I’d make him pay for what he’d done to my friend. But the real culprit, the mastermind behind this act of piracy, was the older guy with the stupid white trainers and mismatched uniform. He was in charge. He’d already climbed back up to the wheelhouse of the bigger boat. It was towing us more purposefully now, at a greater distance, somebody aboard it having once again lengthened the rope that connected us.
The sun was dropping toward the horizon off to our left, meaning we were making our way north. My geography’s nothing like as good as Amelia’s, but I understood enough to know the mainland coast lay that way. A slice of Tanzania, then the strip of Kenyan coastline, with the great length of Somalia above it. Where were these guys taking us? What did they want with a supercharged speedboat and three random kids?
14.
If you want to know the answer to a question it’s often a good tactic to ask it. Though I didn’t want to talk to him, Mo was still sitting at the back of the boat with us, not guarding us as such – we were still tied up, so there was no real need – but keeping an eye on us while pretending to hang out.
Xander and Amelia might be content to exchange pleasantries with him, but I wanted to know what was going on. So I cut across Xander, who was explaining how he was half Nigerian, and said, ‘What’s the point of this?’
‘This?’ said Mo.
‘Stealing the boat, kidnapping us, murdering our friend.’
‘Nobody murdered anybody,’ said Mo quietly.
‘As good as,’ I spat.
‘I tried to warn you. These are ruthless men.’
‘I can see that. But what do they want?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? They want this boat.’
‘What for?’
‘It’s a valuable boat. Also useful. It’s very fast.’
‘Useful for what?’
If I’d been able to move I’d have wiped the look Mo gave me in response to that question clean off his face. It was a look that said, Can you work nothing out for yourself? As if explaining the rules of tag to a pre-schooler, he said, ‘These men are pirates. They make their living by taking valuable things from other people at sea. To do that they have many strategies. Tricking boats to come close is one tactic. That worked with you guys. But mostly it doesn’t. So usually they rely on speed. For that they need fast boats. Their last skiff sank three weeks ago in a storm. They need another. With her –’ he pointed at the battered cruiser – ‘they can go far, but not fast. With this boat,’ he tapped Thunderbolt’s fibreglass hull, ‘With this boat they can hunt at speed.’
A bank of cloud lay on the horizon behind Mo. As he gave this explanation the sun edged below the cloud and its soft white underbelly was serrated with copper and gold. It looked artificial, perfect as a painting. Mo was briefly silhouetted. If the painter had been responsible for him too, the boy would have been the saint in the scene.
‘But what about us?’ asked Xander quietly.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mo replied. ‘It will be OK.’
‘That’s not an answer,’ said Amelia bluntly.
Mo nodded. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But it’s supposed to be better than one.’
‘How?’
‘It’s called reassurance.’
Amelia gave him her that-doesn’t-compute look. He seemed to understand it, respect it almost. Logic would reassure Amelia, nothing less. ‘You are not in danger,’ he went on. ‘Not if you do what they say. You are valuable, like the boat. More so, in fact. They will want to trade you in, not waste you. You don’t even need to do anything! You have value just by being you. Unlike …’
‘Unlike what?’ said Amelia.
I was ahead of her for once. It wasn’t a ‘what’ Mo was getting at, but a ‘who’. I think he’d stopped short of saying it because he knew it would sound a bit self-pitying. Obviously the ‘who’ was him. And yes
, I was right. Though he was trying to head off the poor-little-me stuff by sounding cheerful now, it didn’t work. With a smile he said, ‘Unlike me.’
He was pathetic. I hated him for it. But Amelia just wanted to know the specifics. Ignoring – or not even noticing, perhaps – that he’d regretted making the comparison and tried not to follow through with it, she asked, ‘What’s so worthless about you?’
‘I didn’t say I was worthless.’
‘Non-valuable then.’
‘I said I wasn’t worth a lot to them just by being me.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t have anybody who’d pay a lot of money to get me back. They’re betting you do.’
There and then I made a decision. Whatever happened, I’d do my best to make sure these guys didn’t get a reward by demanding a ransom for our release. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I’d find a way. I’d spite them. Given what had happened to Mum in the DRC, with Langdon paying himself a fake ransom not to free Mum and Dad, I’d been put off the idea of paying kidnappers for good. It hadn’t worked then and it wouldn’t work now because I wasn’t about to let it.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ I said.
Mo didn’t bother replying to me. He could probably sense Amelia wasn’t done with him yet.
‘How did you make yourself non-worthless then?’ she asked.
‘I had to work at it.’
‘How?’
‘By becoming useful.’
‘Any idiot can tie a knot in a rope or wrap someone’s hands in gaffer tape,’ I said.
Mo nodded and said, ‘I meant learning English, but you’d be surprised; some people find knots tricky.’
Xander’s always quick to sniff out bullshit, even if he hides his incredulity behind good humour. Smiling now, he said, ‘You learned English to help a pirate gang. That’s likely. What did they do, enrol you in a language school, pay for lessons?’
Mo smiled back at him. ‘No. But they let me go online every now and then, and also watch foreign movies. Fast and Furious. Jason Bourne. That sort of thing.’