Those in Peril

by Wilbur Smith

  When the Goose docked at the gas terminal a succession of visitors came aboard. All the other Middle Eastern news media sent journalists to cover the event. When they had gone, the Emir and his entourage, including most of his ministers, arrived to attend the royal banquet that Hazel had ordered in his honour.

  A large Bedouin tent was erected on the cargo deck of the Golden Goose and the deck itself was spread with colourful Turkish carpets. The Emir, his three gorgeously bejewelled wives and all the other guests were seated on silk cushions, and the most famed chef in Arabia with fifty assistants prepared the banquet. A string band played traditional music in the background. The foreign minister was one of the Emir’s younger brothers. He was a graduate of Oxford University, and made a speech in beautifully modulated English extolling the virtues of the Bannock Oil Corporation and the role the company had played in the development of the Emirate’s resources.

  Then Hazel addressed the distinguished guests. She gave some information on the Golden Goose and her cargo capacity. She spoke of the cost and planning that had gone into the building and launching of the ship and what this would mean for Abu Zara. She explained that the ship was much too large to negotiate the Suez Canal and for her maiden voyage she would sail down the east coast of the African continent and round the Cape of Good Hope. Then she would head northwards up the Atlantic Ocean to the port of Brest in France to discharge her gas. Hazel told the assembly that she anticipated that the voyage would begin in fifteen days’ time. She went on to say that for Bannock Oil this was such an important event that she and her husband Mr Hector Cross would sail on the ship as far as Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa.

  The cameramen at the rear of the tent discreetly filmed the entire ceremony. In the situation room in the bowels of the ship Paddy and Nastiya followed the proceedings on the CCTV screens, and Nastiya mimicked to near-perfection every movement, every gesture that Hazel made.

  Five evenings later Hector and Hazel sat together with Nastiya and Paddy in the situation room and watched as Al Jazeera TV broadcast a seven-minute programme which covered all the main elements of the Golden Goose’s voyage. The images of this enormous ship at sea were compelling, and the excerpts from Hazel’s speech contained all the most vital elements: the enormous value of the ship and its cargo, its proposed route around Africa, its estimated date of departure and the fact that both Hazel Bannock and her husband would be on board for the first leg of the voyage as far as the Cape. At the end of the programme Hector looked across the situation room at Paddy.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘I think Mrs Cross should go into film,’ the Irishman replied. ‘She could put Nicole Kidman out of work, so she could.’

  ‘Thank you, Paddy,’ Hazel said, smiling. ‘From such a judge of womankind that is high praise indeed. So you think Adam will fall for it?’

  ‘Head over heels and arse over tip, no doubt about it.’

  ‘Vot means “arse over tip”?’ Nastiya asked.

  ‘Exactly the same thing as head over heels,’ Hector explained, and Nastiya looked at Paddy pityingly.

  ‘So vhy so many vords you must alvays be using?’

  Hazel smiled at this demonstration of the authority that Nastiya was already wielding in their relationship.

  Now fully laden with her cargo of gas and riding low in the water, the Goose went back through the Strait of Hormuz ostensibly to begin the outward leg of her voyage to France. As soon as they were out of sight of the shore the Sikorski began ferrying Paddy’s men out from the desert camp and landing them on the cargo deck. As they arrived on board they were issued with their arms and equipment. Each man carried a Beretta 9mm automatic pistol and a Beretta SC 70/90 assault rifle. They were issued with body armour and each of them carried a compact shortwave Falcon hand-held battle radio. Those amongst them who had sailed in the ship from Taipei began an intensive indoctrination of the newcomers, who very quickly learned the layout of the covert tunnels and how to use them to reach any point aboard the Goose swiftly, quietly and unseen. They practised embarking in the AAVs and disembarking from them. The ship hove-to and the AAVs were once again deployed overboard but this time with a full complement of troops on board, then they were recovered and stowed below decks.

  The men were already in top physical condition and Paddy kept them that way by using the expansive cargo deck as a training field. Every man ran twenty circuits of the deck twice a day, with Hector and Paddy close behind them chivying them on. Paddy divided them into teams of ten men who competed with each other in shooting competitions and boisterous games of touch rugby. Paddy held a daily relay race from the bottom tier of the cargo hold to the bridge and back, using the ladders in the steel tunnels. He timed them with a stopwatch, and Hazel put up a prize of a thousand dollars each day for the fastest team. She and Nastiya made up a ladies’ team and they registered the best individual times on three consecutive days, to the deep chagrin of the men.

  The Golden Goose was still six hundred nautical miles east of the Great Horn of Africa when her sirens sounded ‘general quarters’ in the middle of a keenly contested touch rugby match. There was a rush to clear the deck. Hector and Hazel reached the bridge within minutes.

  ‘What is it?’ Hector demanded of Captain Stamford.

  ‘We have a radar contact at forty-two miles, bearing twenty-seven degrees. Looks like a slow-flying aircraft, almost certainly a light helicopter. It’s heading this way.’

  ‘It probably has already picked us up on its own radar,’ Hector said. ‘We make a large enough target. He couldn’t miss us. Hold your course and speed, please, Cyril.’ Then he turned to Hazel. ‘If this is who we think it is, it might be a good idea for the two of us to show ourselves on the deck.’

  ‘Shouldn’t our doubles do that?’

  ‘No, it’s just possible Uthmann Waddah might be aboard the helicopter. He would spot the difference right away. Come on!’ They hurried down to the deserted main deck and ran its full length to reach the bows. There they leaned against the rail and watched the distant speck materialize over the western horizon. The speck grew larger until it resolved itself into a Bell Ranger helicopter. They stared up at it. Hector was standing behind Hazel and he slipped his arms around her waist, and laughed and squeezed her, as she began to hum the theme from the movie Titanic, ‘My Heart Will Go On’. They imitated the famous pose of DiCaprio and Winslet standing at the doomed liner’s bowsprit in the film.

  Hector had ordered a small section of the Goose’s hull amidships to be painted with red lead primer, and rope ladders and a workmen’s cradle to be left dangling over the ship’s side just above the water level as though the painting of the hull was a work in progress. The dangling equipment was an open invitation to a boarding party. This would certainly be noted by the pilot of the helicopter and reported to Kamal.

  The helicopter circled the tanker once at low level. The pilot was the only occupant. He wore dark goggles and the lower part of his face was covered by a keffiyeh. Hazel waved up at him. He gave no acknowledgement but turned the machine back the way it had come and was soon lost to view. Paddy and Dave Imbiss were waiting for them on the bridge.

  ‘All right. There is very little doubt that this is them, and that their main force is not far off,’ Hector told them. ‘The round-trip range of that helicopter is under a hundred and fifty miles. In less than an hour and a half from now it will be landing on the deck of the pirates’ mother ship.’ He was switching into battle-ready mode, his mind razor-sharp. ‘From now on the main deck is off-limits to all personnel. Everyone must return to their quarters in the covert area and remain there until the enemy makes the next move. All the hidden hatches must be closed and checked. “Silent Ship” must be maintained at all times. Hazel and I will move out of the owner’s suite and into the small cabin on the AAV deck. Nastiya and Vincent will take our places in the suite.’

  ‘But, I sincerely hope, not to follow your behavioural patterns when they are ensc
onced there,’ Paddy said sourly.

  ‘You can keep an eye and an ear on them with the CCTV camera in the bedroom,’ Hector suggested, and Paddy nodded thoughtfully. Although Paddy was too much of a gentleman to spy on the woman he loved, it was just by chance that a short time later, while he happened to be checking the correct function of the camera in the owner’s suite, he witnessed an episode between Nastiya and Vincent Woodward as they settled in. With a deadly tone of voice Nastiya was making her position clear to Vincent.

  ‘If you think you can treat me like a real vife, Wincent Voodvard, I vill tell Mr O’Quinn and he vill kill you, but first I vill remove by force those round things that hang between your legs and I will push them up your nose holes.’

  Paddy was greatly heartened to overhear this moving expression of her feelings towards him.

  Adam’s uncle, Kamal Tippoo Tip, stood in the wheelhouse of the 110-foot captured Taiwanese trawler and watched his helicopter skimming the tops of the swells as it raced back from its reconnaissance. He turned the trawler’s bows into the light breeze to facilitate the landing. The mast and most of the superstructure had been removed from the trawler not only to assist the operation of the helicopter, but also to offer a lesser target for the radar of other shipping. Forward of the wheelhouse a wooden landing platform had been laid on top of the deck. The choice of material was also to reduce radar echoes. Now the Bell Ranger hovered above this and then delicately lowered itself until it settled with a barely perceptible jolt onto the platform. The crew ran out with mooring lines to secure the machine.

  Kamal nodded his approval. The pilot was an Iranian who had been trained by the airforce of that country and was an enthusiastic recruit in the Islamic jihad against the infidel. As soon as his aircraft was secured he shut down the engine and jumped down to the trawler’s deck. He hurried back to the wheelhouse, pushing up his goggles and unwinding the scarf that covered his lower face.

  ‘Praise and gratitude to Allah and his exalted Prophet,’ he greeted Kamal.

  ‘To them be all praise and devotion,’ Kamal agreed. ‘What news, Mustapha, my brother?’

  ‘The infidel is delivered into your hands. The ship is only one hundred and fifteen miles ahead of us, and closing with us at a speed of well over twenty knots.’

  ‘You are certain it is the ship we are hunting for?’

  ‘There can be no other on all the oceans like her. She is bigger than a mountain and her name is on the bows and the stern. She is the Golden Goose. Praise be to Allah, his Prophet and all his saints.’

  ‘All praise and devotion to Allah! Tell me all you have seen.’

  ‘On her bridge three men were visible, but on her foredeck there were a man and a woman. The woman has yellow hair, and was not old. Her hair and her face were uncovered.’

  ‘Praise Allah! It is the Bannock whore! What of the man?’

  ‘He is tall and with dark hair. He was openly caressing the woman in the most obscene and shameless fashion.’

  ‘It is the assassin Hector Cross! This time he will not escape our righteous wrath.’ Mustapha went on to describe details of the ship’s structure and possible weak points, not forgetting the workmen’s cradle hanging conveniently over the side.

  ‘I must inform the Sheikh at once of our great good fortune,’ said Kamal, turning to the electronic array at the back of the wheelhouse and switching on the satellite telephone. There was a delay as his call was passed upwards but at last he heard the voice of his nephew.

  ‘Who is this I speak to?’

  ‘It is Kamal. Greetings and the blessing of Allah upon you, mighty Sheikh!’

  ‘And on you also blessings, revered Uncle,’ Adam answered.

  ‘We have found that which you seek, my beloved Sheikh. It is delivered into your hands along with the man who murdered both your father and mine.’

  ‘How do you know for certain that the pig Cross is on board the ship?’ Adam demanded insistently.

  ‘Mustapha saw him on the deck, with his whore, Allah be praised.’

  ‘All praise to God and his Prophet. But there is no mistake? It is the Bannock woman? Are you certain?’

  ‘It is certain, my Sheikh. Her head was uncovered. Her hair was yellow. It is her! The ship is fully laden and low in the water. Her cargo is worth almost as much as the vessel itself. The stupid infidel sailors have left rope ladders hanging over her side. It will be very easy to take her, my esteemed and beloved nephew and Sheikh.’

  ‘If you do so you will make us both very rich, my uncle. When will you reach the prize?’

  ‘She is on an interception course, sailing directly towards us at twenty knots. If Allah is kind we will be alongside her in less than five hours. By dawn tomorrow the ship and all its contents will be in your hands. The blood debt can at last be settled in full. As you do also, I mourn the murder of my father and your grandfather.’

  ‘May Allah and Muhammad his Prophet bless our enterprise, revered uncle. Make certain that the infidel dog Cross and his whore are brought to me alive. I wish to talk with them before they die.’

  The only sounds in the situation room in the covert section of the Golden Goose were the soft rush of the sea along her hull, the thumping and wheezing of the gas pumps in the adjoining holds and the low hum of the electronic equipment. Hector, Paddy and David Imbiss were seated at the long table facing the computer screens. Tariq had pushed his chair back and crossed his arms over his chest. They spoke seldom and when they did it was in whispers. Hazel was curled up on the narrow padded bench at the rear of the cabin with a blanket around her shoulders. She was sleeping quietly. Most of the lighting came from the glow of the multiple CCTV screens. The clock on the wall above them showed ten minutes before midnight. Infrared sensors in each of the hidden cameras detected any live movement around the ship. When they did they automatically switched the camera on and gave it precedence on the screens. At the moment one screen showed the bridge and Cyril Stamford pacing up and down the deck, staring out into the darkness over the bows. The screen beside it showed two of his crew sitting in the mess, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Another screen abruptly switched over to the camera in the bedroom of the owner’s suite. The suite was in darkness, but the camera was in infrared mode. The images on the screen were in monochrome. Nastiya Voronova threw back the bedclothes and stood up. She wore a dark one-piece jump suit. As she crossed the deck to the door of the bathroom there was a glimpse of Vincent in the background. He was sleeping alone on the sofa against the far bulkhead.

  ‘No cause for anxiety there, Paddy,’ Hector murmured. Nastiya entered the bathroom and closed the door. The camera in that particular bathroom had been deactivated on Hazel’s orders. It was like watching one of those reality TV programmes such as Big Brother, Hector thought, and every bit as boring. Paddy closed his eyes and put his head down on his folded arms on the table top in front of him. Hector stood up and stretched. He went to pour himself a mug of black coffee from the thermos flask and returned to his chair.

  ‘Not much longer to wait. I can almost smell them,’ he said softly to Paddy, who opened his eyes and nodded, then lowered his head again. Hector looked back at Hazel, and almost as though she could feel his eyes upon her she opened hers and smiled at him. Then she changed her position and adjusted the pillow under her head. In the owner’s suite the door of the bathroom opened and Nastiya returned to the emperor-size bed. She pulled the cover over her head and disappeared from view.

  ‘Does she always sleep like a mole in a hole?’ Hector asked.

  ‘Mind your own bloody business, Cross,’ Paddy replied in mock indignation. Hector grinned and watched the red second-hand of the clock click relentlessly around the dial. It was now fifteen after midnight. Then suddenly one of the darkened screens at the end of the array lit up. It showed an infrared image of the tanker’s main cargo deck. Hector straightened up in his chair, and his expression changed, his eyes narrowed and his lips compressed into a hard line. This camera, which
was sited on the top of the stern tower, had detected live movement, but the image of the foredeck was dark, monochromatic and distant.

  ‘Dave!’ Hector said curtly. ‘Pull focus on Number Four camera. There is movement there at the port deck rail.’ Dave Imbiss blinked the sleep from his eyes, and tapped a message into the keyboard of the camera controls. He zoomed in on the deck below. Now they could make out the gantry from which the rope ladders and the workmen’s cradle were suspended. Abruptly a man stepped out from behind the cable winch where he had been concealed. He was dressed all over in black and his features were hidden by a scarf wound around his face. He turned his head and looked behind him. He must have given a command or made a signal because immediately a string of similarly dressed figures swarmed up over the rail and raced down the deck towards the stern tower. Every one of them carried a weapon.

  ‘The Beast has arrived,’ Hector said softly. Paddy, Tariq and Hazel sprang up and crowded forward to the desk, from where they stared up at the screen in silence. Hector pressed the ‘Send’ button on his Falcon hand-held battle radio.

  ‘Bridge! Cross!’ he said into the microphone, and on one of the other TV screens Cyril Stamford stood up from his command chair and reached for his own set.

  ‘Cross! This is Stamford.’

  ‘They are on board,’ said Hector, still staring up at the screen. ‘Fifteen of them already, but more are coming up the ladder every second. I am losing count. Make no response. They must believe that they have achieved total surprise.’ The order was redundant; Stamford and his crew had rehearsed this drill many times.

  ‘Roger,’ he said. ‘Minimum retaliation and quick submission.’

  ‘That’s the medicine, Cyril,’ Hector agreed and changed frequency on the radio. On another screen they saw Nastiya sit up from under the bedclothes and reach for her radio set.

  ‘Voronova.’