Predator

by Wilbur Smith

  That got a quiet laugh from the audience and a smile from the woman herself. Cross, however, looked thoughtful. “That’s a good point. What’s your reply, Nastiya?”

  “Yes, of course I was on the expedition to Kazundu. But I was with Paddy, my husband, leading the attack on the airport. We never went near the castle where your team captured Congo.”

  “What about the return flight?” Cross insisted. “Are you sure he never had sight of you then?”

  “Certain,” Nastiya assured him. “You had Congo shot full of drugs, knocked out cold and wrapped up in a cargo net in the rear cargo cabin for the whole return flight. I was in the front passenger cabin. Congo never got so much as a peep at me.”

  Cross glanced across at Paddy O’Quinn. “That’s how I remember it too. What do you reckon, Paddy? Has Congo ever seen your wife?”

  “My wife is always right, Heck. You know that. And I’d kill the man who calls her a liar . . . if Nastiya hadn’t got to him first.”

  There were a few guffaws from those who had reason to remember Nastiya’s mercurial temper.

  “OK, so we’re all agreed that Nastiya is clean.” Cross accepted the evidence. “Johnny Congo has never laid eyes on her and Mateus da Cunha is enchanted by her beauty and brains just like any other natural-born man. So far as da Cunha’s concerned her name is Maria Denisova and she has even found four genuine oligarchs to invest in his plot to cut Cabinda out of Angola and turn it into his personal fiefdom.”

  “I am sorry to have to correct you, Hector,” Nastiya cut in. “It is my father who has found the four oligarchs for da Cunha. And I must be losing my looks. When da Cunha laid eyes on Zhenia for the first time he made it very obvious that he had switched his romantic interest from me to her.”

  Nastiya looked wryly at Zhenia, who sat in the seat beside her, grinning at her triumph over her big sister.

  “When did he ever see her?” Cross demanded, making no effort to hide his personal interest in the subject. “Is there something going on here that I should know about?”

  “Nastiya is teasing you, Hector,” Zhenia hastened to reassure him. “When she Skypes da Cunha I sit beside her and keep quiet, but I pretend to take notes just like a good secretary. Nastiya has even chosen a new name for me. I am called Polina Salko. This makes me sound like a polony sausage I think.”

  “No one could ever confuse you with a sausage,” Cross assured her, trying to keep from smiling as his audience burst out with wolf whistles and ribald comments. He waited for them to quieten again before he continued, “So, the reason I’ve summoned you all today is that last night we got a lucky break. Da Cunha informed Nastiya that he’s chartered an ocean-going yacht which he intends to use as a mobile base during his struggle to seize control of Cabinda.”

  Cross allowed himself a momentary half-smile of satisfaction as he added, “Apparently he made a point of boasting about the shell companies he had used to carry out the deal, so that no one would ever know he was the actual customer.”

  There was a murmur of excitement from his audience but Cross ignored it and went on speaking quietly. “Up until now Johnny Congo had disappeared completely from our radar. We’re almost certain that he led the attack on the FPSO Bannock A, but we have no idea where he has holed up subsequently. However, I think it’s reasonable to assume that both Congo and da Cunha are going to be aboard this yacht and that they’ll use it as a bolt hole if their operations in Cabinda backfire upon them. In the meantime, however, da Cunha has invited both Miss Denisova and her secretary . . . ”

  “Señorita Sausage!” a wag piped up from the back row.

  Cross glared at him, trying, not entirely successfully to suppress a smile.

  “. . . has invited both women to accompany him on his expedition. We don’t know where or when he is planning to pick Nastiya and Zhenia up. All we know is that it will be within the next two weeks or so, but it won’t be in Cabinda. My guess is that he’ll be travelling around the world seeking financial, diplomatic and even military support for what he will present as a noble struggle for Cabinda’s freedom.”

  Cross fell silent for a moment to let the tension build up, then resumed: “This could be our main chance, and possibly our only chance to catch both da Cunha and Congo in the same deadfall. So we need to start planning now. Dave . . . ?”

  Dave Imbiss came up beside Cross and launched straight into his presentation. “Da Cunha told Nastiya that the yacht is a brand new seventy-meter Lürssen called Faucon d’Or, or Golden Falcon, for those of you who don’t parler français. I’ve managed to get hold of a copy of the blueprints of the Faucon d’Or’s sister ship. Both vessels were built by the workshops at Lürssen’s headquarters in Bremen-Vegesack. So listen up, people. Here’s what you need to know . . . ”

  Imbiss spoke for almost thirty minutes, and he passed around photographs and blueprints of a magnificent modern motor yacht. He ended by recapping the most valuable information he had regarding the ship’s specifications. “So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen: seventy meters of luxury with accommodation for ten passengers in five staterooms. Her cruising speed is around twenty-two knots but she has a top speed of forty knots. There is not much afloat that is capable of running her down in a stern chase, I am afraid.”

  Cross wrapped up the meeting with a few final words. “That’s all for now. We all have to be patient and wait until Mateus da Cunha gives Nastiya the rendezvous details for their next meeting. We have no way of anticipating where or when that will be; or if Johnny Congo will be aboard the Faucon d’Or. But Dave will work on building up the contents of his box of tricks, and Paddy and I will try to formulate some sort of plan to ambush the Faucon d’Or once we have an inkling of its whereabouts.” He looked at the row of faces that confronted him and he shrugged. “OK, so as a plan of action it sucks like a newborn baby. But you know what they say—things can only get better. We’ll meet again tomorrow to brainstorm the situation; ten a.m. on the rooftop terrace. I’ll provide a good barbeque and a couple of cases of beer. I expect you lot to provide the good ideas.”

  By noon the following day they had downed a few dozen cans of beer and eaten several pounds of steak and chops off the coals. Catherine Cayla had stripped off her bathing suit and with shrieks of laughter soaked everybody who came within range of her miniature portable swimming pool. But she was the only one present who was patently enjoying herself.

  “We simply can’t cover all four oceans and the seven seas with a single boat,” Cross continued lugubriously.

  “Bot!” Catherine sang out, repeating his last word. Cross ignored her and went on:

  “To do the job we’d need several hundred boats.”

  “Bots!” Catherine increased her volume to get his attention.

  “For a pipsqueak your size you have a voice like a foghorn.” Cross told her with paternal pride. “I definitely need another beer.” He set off toward the self-service bar under the umbrella at the far end of the terrace.

  Immediately Catherine emitted a banshee wail of “Daddy going!” and she launched herself out of the inflatable swimming pool and fastened herself on to Cross’s right leg like a limpet.

  Cross stooped, picked her up and tossed her high in the air. He caught her again as she dropped. “Sorry, baby!” he told her. “Daddy is not going. Daddy is staying with you.”

  “Daddy staying!” she rejoiced, and hugged him around the neck. Cross found himself another beer and the two of them came back and dropped into the canvas chair beside Dave Imbiss.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I interrupt your father-daughter bonding session, Heck,” Dave asked. “We need to figure out a way of tracking Nastiya and Zhenia when they go aboard the Faucon.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Well, a smartphone is about as good a GPS tracking device as you can get these days. Nastiya’s already got a Maria Denisova phone, loaded with contacts, photos, notes and apps that support the legend for her cover. If we give Zhenia somethin
g similar then as long as they’re near the phones, we can just track them on Find My Phone and we’ll know where they are.”

  Cross considered the suggestion for a moment, then replied, “Only as long as da Cunha doesn’t take the phones, remove the batteries and prevent then sending a signal.”

  “Well, an iPhone is a sealed unit, so he can’t take the batteries. And I don’t think he can take the phones, either, not as long as the Voronovas’ cover holds. I mean, so far as da Cunha’s concerned, Maria Denisova’s the link to his biggest investors, so he’s not going to insult her by taking her phone. These days if you take someone’s phone, that’s like taking one of their limbs.”

  “Okay, point taken. But da Cunha can ask her politely to disable Find My Phone and then what do we do?”

  “Have another app in there that does the same thing, disguised as a shopppng app, or a game or whatever. So he thinks he’s solved the problem, but he hasn’t.”

  “How is she going to get a signal in the middle of the ocean?”

  “Not an issue. The kind of people who charter yachts like the Faucon’s demand total connectivity, anywhere on earth. It’ll have satellite comms, phone signals, Wi-Fi, you name it.”

  Cross nodded, accepting the argument and was about to say as much when he was interrupted by the high-pitched squeal of an attention-seeking toddler.

  “Bot!” Catherine declared, attempting to stuff a chubby little hand in her father’s mouth to silence him, so that she could be the center of the conversation once again.

  Cross ducked his daughter’s fist and went on airing his thoughts. “So where are da Cunha and Congo going to be? Logically, they’ve got to be somewhere in easy reach of Cabinda, which means the Atlantic, off the coast of West Africa. But that still leaves a helluva large patch of water. Even if we know the Faucon d’Or’s location, we’ve still got to get on board and the speed that yacht can cruise at, we’ll have a hell of a hard time catching up.”

  Catherine seized a handful of her father’s hair and twisted his head around until he was facing out toward the Arabian Gulf. “Bot!” she squeaked. “There bot!”

  For the first time Cross looked in the direction that his head had been pointed for him. “Good God!” he said in tones of wonderment, looking at the fastest, meanest, blackest, sharpest-looking craft he’d ever seen in his life racing across the dazzling expanse of water. “You know, she is right. There is a boat out there. What a clever girl!” He looked back at Dave. “Do you have any idea what that is . . . and where we could get one??”

  “Whoa!” Dave gasped, oblivious to Cross’s question. “You don’t see one of those babies too often.”

  Cross looked at his deputy quizzically. “And . . . ?”

  “That’s an Interceptor. Made by an outfit from Southampton. The concept was a forty-eight-foot powerboat with teeth, something that could chase down any pirate or drug smuggler on the water, or land a dozen Special Forces troops so fast it would be in and out before the enemy even knew it was there. They claimed that thing could do 100 miles-an-hour, even gave one to the Top Gear guys to play with. Without the guns, obviously.”

  “Thank God for that. But speaking of guns . . . what does it have?”

  “In full military spec? Oh, man . . .” Imbiss grinned contentedly. “Up at the bow you’re talking about a Browning M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun, mounted on a retractable Kongsberg Sea Protector weapons platform and firing control system, complete with smoke-grenade launchers. Aft of the cockpit, say hello to a Thales Lightweight Multi-Role Missile launcher, that’s got surface-to-air and surface-to-surface capability, so it can take out aircraft and ships.”

  “Handy,” said Cross. “Where can we get one?”

  “Well, normally I’d say we can’t because the makers went out of business.”

  “Really? From what you say it sounds like a fantastic bit of kit.”

  “I don’t know, maybe the Interceptor was just too fantastic for its own good. You know what bean-counters are like, Heck. They don’t trust anything that looks like that much fun. But a few of ’em were built, just as unarmed speedboats and they come up for sale from time to time. And seeing as how that one’s got the royal crest of Abu Zara flying from the stern . . .”

  “By God, so it has,” Cross said, screwing up his eyes against the glare.

  “. . . I think I know who got his hands on one of them.”

  “No, don’t tell me. Let me guess!”

  “Right first time.” Dave laughed as the boat slowed, made a nimble, ninety-degree turn to port and headed toward the shoreline, coming straight toward them. “That’s one of His Royal Highness Emir Abdul’s latest toys.”

  “I’d love to see it running at its top speed.” Cross went to the railing of the terrace, still carrying Catherine, and he looked down at the outlandish craft as it loafed along just offshore. Suddenly one of the panels of black armored glass which enclosed the bridge slid open and a helmeted head appeared in the opening. The helmet was removed to reveal a familiar face, accompanied by a cavalier wave.

  “His Royal Highness is at the controls. Perfect!” Cross grinned. He returned the cavalier royal wave and then handed Catherine to Nastiya in order to free his hands. He waved his iPhone above his head and pantomined receiving a call from HRH.

  Even though he had a special relationship with the Prince Cross was not privy to his personal number. The Prince understood his message immediately. He ducked back into the cabin and emerged again holding his phone to his ear. After a short pause Cross’s phone rang.

  “Good afternoon, Major Cross.” The Prince spoke into his ear.

  “She’s a beauty, Your Royal Highness! Would you let me see you give her the full gun?”

  “Of course, Major. It will be nothing but a pleasure.” The Emir waved again. His head disappeared and the armored glass panel slid closed behind him.

  Suddenly the air was filled with a high-pitched whine like a Boeing jet engine starting up. Then the sound rose swiftly to a pitch that threatened to pierce Cross’s skull and bore into his teeth. The bows of the sleek ship rose out of the water for half its length. Then she stood on her tail and started to run. Cross thought she’d been moving fast the first time he saw her. Now he realized that had been a mere amble compared to the speed she could reach when she really tried. The wake was hurled high into the air like a shower of glittering white salt, shot through with rainbow colors. Seemingly within seconds the long elegant black hull was a distant speck on the horizon.

  “I don’t believe it!” Cross shook his head and Catherine shook hers every bit as vehemently as her father had done.

  “Naughty!” she scolded Prince Abdul. “Naughty man!”

  With a determined expression Cross turned back to Dave Imbiss. “You’ll never guess what I am thinking,” he challenged him.

  “It’s written all over your face in capital letters, boss.”

  “His Royal Highness owes me one.”

  “More than one,” Imbiss nodded, “the number of times you’ve saved his precious oilfields from rebels and terrorists over the years.”

  “I’ll take Nastiya and Zhenia with me when I go to call upon him. You know what Abdul’s like. He can seldom deny anything to a pretty girl, let alone two pretty girls.”

  Cross, O’Quinn and Imbiss were in full dress uniform with decorations. The two Voronova sisters wore long skirts and veils to cover their hair, so as not to give offense to His Royal Highness, but still made these traditional Islamic outfits seem sensual and exotic. They arrived at the palace in a pair of Land Cruisers, to be met at the main gates by a squadron of the Emir’s camel corps, much to Zhenia’s delight. The only time she’d ever seen camels at close range before had been at the Moscow circus.

  The visitors were escorted up through the lush green gardens to where His Royal Highness waited to receive them at the main doors of the palace. This personal greeting was an exceptional honor, normally granted only to fellow royals, but the two of them were
old companions. A few years previously Cross had hosted him on a lavish hunting safari to East Africa which turned out to be an unqualified success. Prince Abdul was an avid shikari and, having paid a fortune in permits as if he were tipping a waiter, he bagged a mighty bull elephant whose tusks tipped the scales at a little over 200 pounds the pair. Even more importantly the prince harbored wonderful memories of Cross’s deceased wife Hazel Bannock. As head of the Bannock Oil Company, she had made the fateful decision to reopen the Abu Zara oilfield when every man in the oil industry thought it had run dry. She proved them all wrong, and earned vast fortunes both for Bannock Oil and Prince Abdul.

  He and Cross embraced and bussed each other on both cheeks. Then HRH did the same to the ladies, but he lingered longer and more attentively in the process. Finally he shook hands with Paddy and Dave before he took Cross’s arm and escorted him through to one of the splendid pavilions in the inner gardens. The others trailed along behind them. In the pavilion they were ushered to embossed leather armchairs arranged in a circle, and as soon as they were seated a file of white-clad footmen served them with sweetmeats and iced fruit juices.

  They conversed in Arabic, which Cross spoke fluently, another reason why HRH held him in such high regard. The others tried to look intelligent and from time to time nodded and smiled as though they also understood what was being said.

  The two men chatted for almost an hour before Cross felt that he had approached the real object of his visit sufficiently obliquely not to make himself seem callow and give his host reason to be offended. Even then, he made his speech courtly, almost flowery to disguise any suggestion that this was a mere business meeting.

  “I must tell you, Prince Abdul, that I was amazed and envious of the racing machine in which I saw you yesterday. I hesitate to call it a speedboat for that would give entirely the wrong description of such an extraordinary craft.”

  HRH’s eyes twinkled but he kept his expression nonchalant as he waved his hand dismissively. “I imagine you are speaking of the Interceptor? It is kind of you to remark on such a trivial acquisition, hardly worth mentioning, of course. But I thought it might be an amusing toy for my elder sons to play with when they return from Oxford University at the end of term. I had to buy four of them so as to prevent the boys squabbling over them.”