Predator: A Crossbow Novel

by Wilbur Smith

  “Welcome to the new Africa,” Cross replied. “People in the West still think of starving kids with swollen bellies, holding out begging bowls, but Africans aren’t like that any more. They don’t need our charity, however much some people want to give it to them, just to feel better about themselves. What they need is our business.”

  “Speaking of business . . .” said Paddy.

  “I hadn’t forgotten,” Cross said. “Not for a second.”

  “So, the latest readings I have from the trackers show the Faucon d’Or cruising southeast at about twenty knots, past the Nigerian oilfields. Their next landfall is the island of Malabo, off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. They’ve got a volcanic nature reserve on the southern end of the island: incredible landscape, rainforest, black sand beaches. If I were da Cunha and I wanted to impress an investor who looked like Nastiya that’s where I’d moor up for the night, maybe have breakfast on the beach in the morning.”

  “And if I were Johnny Congo, I wouldn’t wait that long to make my move on one or both of the women,” said Cross. “If we aren’t on the Faucon a lot sooner than breakfast we’ll be too late.”

  “Amen to that,” Paddy sighed.

  “So,” Cross continued, “this is how we play it. And it won’t take long to describe because I’m keeping it simple. First we get to the Glenallen. I want a fast crusing speed. We’ll still be able to catch up without any problem and there’s no need to risk blowing the engines by going flat-out until we absolutely have to. We winch the Interceptor aboard the tug. Hassan gives it the once-over, while we check our kit. Any questions so far?”

  He looked around the white Mercedes minibus that was taking them to the dock. There were a couple of shakes of the head, but no one felt any need to speak.

  “Right. We launch no more than five miles from the Faucon d’Or then keep the Interceptor in the lee of the Glenallen as we close on the target. If anybody’s looking at the radar, I want them to see a single vessel.”

  Now Imbiss said. “They’re still going to see a ship closing on them. What do we say if they ask who we are and what the hell we’re doing?”

  “Simple. We give them the name of the Glenallen, tell them it’s an oilrig support vessel—if they check they’ll find both those statements are true—and say we’ve chartered it to use working the rigs up in the Nigerian oilfields.”

  Imbiss nodded, satisfied by that.

  “Okay,” Cross continued. “We keep the Interceptor hidden behind the Glenallen for as long as possible and try to stay downwind of the Faucon, so that the sound of its engines is blown away from the target. I don’t want them to hear us coming a mile off.

  “Then, when we’re no more than eight hundred meters from the target, we hit the gas and go like stink. Chances are, they won’t have a full-time radar operator, but even if they do, he’s not going to believe his eyes. We’ll be closing on him like a torpedo, not a ship. So he’ll ask someone, and they’ll come and look, and before they’ve decide what the hell to do, it’ll be too late.

  “The lowest part of the Faucon is the stern, so that’s what we aim for. I don’t want to hang about gentlemen. Three of us get over the stern rails while the second group of three keep us covered and suppress any enemy fire, then they come on over the rail, too. Paddy, you come with me and one other man in the first group. Dave, I want you to lead the second group.”

  “At last! Action!” Imbiss exulted.

  “Listen, we want to detain and if necessary terminate Congo and da Cunha. But more than anything else, we have to make sure Nastiya and Zhenia, are safe. We’ll start at the top of the ship, with the outside decks and reception tooms, then move down to the cabins below. This isn’t subtle. It’s not complicated. But it does require everyone to be focused, disciplined and ruthless in the execution of their duties.”

  And we have to get there on time, Cross added to himself. Above all else, we have to get there on time.

  But it was almost four in the afternoon now, and they still weren’t in the water.

  The women had lunch and tried to combine polite conversation with some pretence of doing business as the Faucon d’Or motored southeast, past a steel forest of rigs and platforms.

  “Did you know that the gas and oil from those installations is worth more than one hundred billion dollars a year to the Nigerian economy, in export revenues alone?” da Cunha said. “One day, Cabinda will be that rich.”

  “And so will we,” Nastiya said raising her glass in a toast.

  “To black gold!” da Cunha exclaimed.

  He was a charming, attentive host, as befitted a man of his privileged background. Congo, however, was a sullen, brooding presence. He had gone into his shell and his silent presence loomed over the table like a massive thundercloud on the horizon, coming ever closer, bringing with it a mighty storm.

  In the afternoon, the Voronovas changed into their swimming costumes and sunbathed between dips in the yacht’s outdoor whirpool tub. They chatted to one another and to da Cunha, too, though Congo still barely said a word. Nastiya kept a discreet eye on the suited figures of the bodyguards, counting three of them, though it was possible that more might be below deck, resting before the night shift. She thought about alerting Cross to their presence. No, the risk is too great. If the message is intercepted, we’re dead.

  Soon the afternoon had drifted by and it was time to change for drinks and then supper: a lobster bisque, followed by a supreme de volaille (the chicken meltingly tender within its crisp brown skin) served with rice and miraculously fresh green vegetables, with a perfect crème caramel. The meal was simple, yet cooked to a three-star Michelin standard that raised it to something close to high art. The wines, notoriously difficult to maintain in good condition at sea, especially in the tropics, were as well chosen and delicious as the food. It was a meal to raise the lowest spirits, good enough to allow the sisters to forget, at least while they were seated at the table with the canvas awning pulled back to reveal the infinite majesty of the cloud night sky, that they were in mortal danger.

  Somewhere to the south, aboard the Glenallen, three men were doing their best to restrain their own instinct for violence.

  “For God’s sake, boss, forget the bloody radar signal and just let the Interceptor rip,” Paddy O’Quinn pleaded. “My wife’s aboard that bloody yacht.”

  “And my woman too.”

  “Yes, I know, I’m sorry . . . But Jesus wept! So what if they see us coming. There’s no way they’re carrying anything that can hurt us.”

  “They don’t have to hurt us, do they? They hurt the women. Look I get it. If we go too slowly, anything could happen to them. If we go too soon, anything could happen to them. We have to time this exactly perfectly, or . . . ”

  Cross didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. Every man there was thinking about Nastiya and Zhenia. They knew exactly how the rest of the sentence went.

  Dinner had been concluded. There had been more talk, more drinking, more silence from Congo. Finally Nastiya had said she was going to bed, pleading exhaustion after two nights and days of travel.

  “Of course, I quite understand,” said da Cunha. “We shall be stopping for the night soon, so that you will be able to sleep more peacefully and then, in the morning you will wake and—voilà!—paradise. It is called Malabo. I think you will like it very much.”

  “I’m sure I will,” said Nastiya, for the way da Cunha had enunciated “Malabo” in his French accent did indeed make it sound irresistible. “I think you should go to bed, too, Pola,” she said to Zhenia. “I’m sure there will be work to do in the morning . . . Once we have visted paradise.”

  The two sisters went down to Nastiya’s cabin. As the door closed behind them, Zhenia snuggled into her sister’s arms.

  “I am so glad I found you,” she whispered. “I was so lonely without you.”

  “I am glad also,” Nastiya agreed, “but it’s well after midnight now. We both have to get some sleep. And I’m supp
osed to be your boss, who only cares about your ability to do your job. Time to get back to your cabin.”

  “Oh very well, then.” Zhenia pouted. “But I shall miss you.”

  “Don’t forget to lock your door,” Nastiya added, speaking to her sister’s back. Did she hear me? Should I go after her? she wondered. Oh, stop worrying! She’s a grown woman. She can look after herself.

  What kind of shit was that you made me eat tonight?” snarled Johnny Congo.

  “That,” replied Mateus da Cunha, who was regretting his involvement with Congo more with every second that passed, “was French cuisine, the finest food in the world.”

  “Yeah? French faggot food was what it tasted like to me. Just gimme a plate of home-cooked fried chicken, or nice fat ribs, barbecued Texan-style till the meat falls off the bone. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

  He brooded a little longer, a crystal tumbler filled with neat Scotch clutched, barely visible within a giant fist, the fury inside him now almost tangible. “Gohn’ play me some music,” he growled. “Listen to my man Jay-Z.” He fiddled with his phone, found what he was looking for and linked in to the ship’s sound system. “This is about a brother tellin’ a dumb white cop, ‘You can’t touch me, fool.’”

  A second later the entire room seemed to explode with the ear-splitting volume of “99 Problems. It sounded to Mateus da Cunha like a physical assault on his ears. Congo listened to the rapper chanting over the pounding heavy metal riff then walked across to da Cunha. He had to shout to make himself heard. “I got business to attend to. Touch the music, I’m-a rip your damn face off.”

  Da Cunha stayed in the room. Congo’s behavior was the last thing he needed. In a few days, the first of the apparently spontaneous riots that would start the process of insurrection was due to hit Cabinda City. He should be planning, concentrating, thinking of every eventuality, but couldn’t hear himself think over the music. Then again, no one could hear him shouting at the door Congo had just walked out of, either, screaming how much he hated him.

  The captain of the Faucon d’Or had supervised their mooring off the coast of Malabo. He left one of his men on the bridge, just in case the clients changed their mind and decided to sail off again in the middle of the night. People who could afford to rent this sort of boat never stopped to wonder whether their demands were reasonable or practical. They simply expected them to be obeyed, at once, without question. So there had to be someone ready to do that.

  That issue dealt with, the Captain settled down for the night. He grimaced at the racket coming from the main lounge, but he was well used to late night parties and kept a stock of the very best noise-reducing earplugs for precisely this eventuality. Once they were in, the only thing he could hear was the sound of his own breathing.

  Up on the bridge, the First Officer had checked the radar, established that the only ship in their vicinity was a tug sailing north to Port Harcourt, then settled down to play Call of Duty on his tablet, mixing the clients’ music, which he didn’t mind at all, with the sound of gunfire from his game. He nodded contentedly, thinking the two went pretty well together, all things considered.

  The three bodyguards were down in the crew’s quarters, with the fourth member of their team, whose turn it was to take the nightwatch and who had, as a consequence, been asleep all afternoon. Two of them were Serbians, one Frenchman and a Belgian, all employed by a Paris-based contractor. Their boss was a former mercenary, who’d seen countless African coups come and go and he smelled another one the moment he heard from da Cunha’s people. So he’d not sent any of his best men, ones that he’d miss if they were rotting away in an African jail. Instead, da Cunha got four hard, tough fighting men, all of whom had criminal records and none of whom gave a damn for anyone but themselves.

  Right now they were sharing a bottle of brandy, playing poker and making a desultory attempt to chat up the two French girls who served the meals, fixed drinks at the outdoor bar and generally made client’s voyages as pleasant as possible. In theory, someone was supposed to be topside, as a lookout. But the team leader, Babic, who was one of the Serbs who had been up to the bridge, talked to the First Officer and ascertained that there was only one other ship remotely near and that was sailing north up to Nigeria. So there was no need to worry. The Belgian, Erasmus, was meant to be handling the night watch. Babic would send him topsides in a while, just to check that all was well. In the meantime, he was happy for them all to sit with the booze, the cards and the stewardesses.

  Then Babic heard something. “What’s that sound?” he said.

  Erasmus, who was dealing, stopped flicking cards across the table. He frowned in concentration, “It’s just the shit music from the lounge.”

  Babic shook his head. “No, it’s coming from outside. Check it out.”

  “Can I finish dealing?”

  “No.”

  Erasmus sighed, picked up his handgun, stuck it in the back of his trousers and walked away, his shirt outside his trousers, not bothering to put on his suit jacket.

  He’s out of shape, thought Babic, catching a flash of Erasmus’s bulging gut beneath the loose shirt. Time I did something about that.

  On the Interceptor, Cross and his men were readying themselves to go into battle. He and Paddy were taking Frank Sharman as the third member of their team. He’d earned the right after his exceptional conduct on the rig. Imbiss was leading Carl Schrager and Tommy Jones in what he and Schrager liked to call Team USA, Much to Jones’s disgust. The yacht was a far less dangerous environment than the oil installations at Magna Grande had been, with little risk of a stray bullet sending the whole vessel up in flames. So they were armed with Canadian Colt C8 assault rifles in a Close Quarter Carbine configuration. In recent years the C8 had become the standard individual weapon for U.K. Special Forces, which was all the recommendation that an ex-SAS man like Cross needed. The men were all dressed in a Special Forces style: black jumpsuits and balaclavas, goggles, and black body armor over their chests. They were linked by a short range communications system.

  The rules of engagement were simple. Anyone who was unarmed, female or looked remotely like a non-combatant was off limits. Congo, da Cunha and anyone fighting on their behalf was to be engaged with maximum force and minimum scruple.

  They were now so close to the Faucon d’Or that it seemed to fill the windscreen of the Interceptor’s control room. “Bloody ’ell, she’s lit up like the Blackpool illuminations,” muttered Sharman.

  “Cut the engines,” Cross said. The Interceptor had enough momentum to cover the last hundred meters without the need for power. It seemed as though they’d got this close without being spotted. That was close to a miracle, but he wasn’t going to push his luck any further. From now on they would close on their prey in silence.

  Nastiya had difficulty falling asleep. Even when she succeeded it was fitful and she kept starting awake with her heart racing and dark fantasies lurking at the back of her mind, unable to shake off the unease of feeling defenseless in the stronghold of her enemies. She had no idea when Hector and Paddy would arrive. It might just be a few hours, or it might be days.

  Nastiya dreamed of angry, insistent rhythms, men shouting, a woman screaming, calling to her. She tried to ignore it, but it became more urgent until she shot upright in her bed, fully alert and awake. She listened, expecting that the voice would fade away as the other sounds had done. But it didn’t happen. Instead the voice grew more insistent, until suddenly she recognized it.

  “Zhenia!” she screamed and leaped from the bed. She ran to the door and fumbled with the lock but her fingers were clumsy and numbed with sleep. At last she got the door open and ran out into the passageway in her short nightdress. Zhenia’s cries were louder now and more frantic: jumbled shrieks for help, fighting against the blare of music, interrupted by squeals of agony and appeals for mercy. Nastiya raced down the passageway and reached the door to her sister’s cabin. From within she heard the sound of heavy blows, an
d an instantly recognisable man’s voice.

  “Did you jus’ bite me bitch? Gonna knock your teeth out for that.”

  Congo! Nastiya turned the door handle and tugged at it with all her strength but nothing gave. It was locked from the inside. She backed away until she reached the bulkhead behind her. Then she ran at the door, leading with her right shoulder. The impact was brutal, but the sturdy oak panel was resilient as steel and stopped her dead in her tracks.

  Again she backed away and gathered herself. At that moment the sounds of distress from behind the door rose to a crescendo that pierced Nastiya’s very heart. She clenched her fists at the level of her belly, hunched her shoulders and screamed the three words of power that unlocked the innermost recesses of her strength. Then once again she launched herself at the door. This time she hardly felt the impact, but the woodwork exploded in a cloud of splinters around her as she ran into the cabin and turned to the double bed at its center.

  Johnny Congo reared up from a jumble of bedclothes. He was so tall that his head almost touched the deck above him. His shoulders seemed as wide as the bed itself. His body was stark naked, every inch of it polished as anthracite, fresh cut from the coalface. His belly was heavy and protuberant. From below it his penis reached out as thick as his wrist, pulsing and kicking to the impulse of his blood and his lust.

  He still held Zhenia by one arm. She was struggling weakly and her face was swollen and bruised and splashed with blood where he had beaten her. When he recognized Nastiya he gave a bellow of laughter and threw Zhenia carelessly aside. She struck the bulkhead and slid down it to sit on the cabin floor. Congo drew back his right leg and delivered a full-blooded kick into her lower belly. Her cry of pain was cut short as the air was driven from her body and she doubled over.

  Congo took no further notice of her, but he moved quickly to cut Nastiya off from her escape route to the doorway.

  “Well look who’s here,” he leered, “you been high and mighty all day. Let’s see how you act when I got you on your back, beggin’ at me to stop.”