Hijack

by Chris Ryan

  There was nobody in sight. The area around the boulders was deserted. So was the top of the ridge. The armed frogmen had disappeared.

  The remaining cadets sat up. They looked grim. Hardly surprising, Max thought.

  ‘What now?’ Abby asked.

  Max pointed along the ditch towards the cliff edge. ‘I’m going to check the cove,’ he said, ‘see what’s happening down there. The rest of you stay here. Keep watch. Let me know if you see anyone.’

  If the other cadets objected to Max issuing instructions, they didn’t show it. He presumed they were just as shaken as he was by the brutal death of the farmer. He felt sick again as he crawled along the wet ditch. Would he be able to see the farmer’s body from here? What would it look like, after falling from such a height?

  The ditch fell away sharply when it reached the cliff edge. A small waterfall trickled down the cliff. Max felt a moment of vertigo as he lay on his front, his head millimetres from the edge. It was a very long way down. He took his NV binoculars and scanned the cove.

  There was movement down there. It took a moment of focusing to realise what was going on. The frogmen were back on the beach. Max counted thirteen men, and remembered that he had seen thirteen frogmen arriving. From the way a couple of them were waving their arms, they were panicking. Two men ran towards the cliff. They were out of sight for a minute. When they came into view again, they were carrying something.

  Max knew what their burden must be. Half of him wanted to avoid looking at it. But he knew he had to.

  The farmer’s body was whole, at least, and not yet stiff. It slumped in the middle as two frogmen carried it at either end.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Max whispered to himself.

  It soon became clear.

  The frogmen carrying the corpse were the first to enter the ocean. They wore their rebreathers and masks. Max watched them wade in and disappear. He wondered if one of them was the guy with red eyes. Then they disappeared entirely, pulling the corpse under the water with them.

  The remaining frogmen followed, six in a line, then five. Within minutes, they had submerged into the South Atlantic, leaving no evidence of their presence on the beach. Max scanned out to sea, searching for any kind of vessel. He saw none. The frogmen had simply disappeared.

  He lowered his binoculars and crawled back to the others.

  ‘Well?’ Abby said.

  ‘They’ve gone. They’ve taken the farmer’s body with them.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I don’t know. They just … disappeared.’

  ‘People don’t just disappear, Max.’

  ‘Well, these ones did.’

  The rain was heavier than ever. There was a roll of thunder in the distance and, far out to sea, a split of lightning.

  ‘We should get back to the guest house,’ Max said, and the others agreed.

  The ocean was cold and the current was strong. But the frogmen had trained in these waters, and they knew what they were doing.

  The dead body was a cumbersome cargo. It wanted to float and the two frogmen holding it had to use their weight to keep it submerged. One of them was called Alonzo, but everybody called him Rojo because of the colour of his eyes. He had thrown the man from the clifftop. It had felt good, but now it was his duty to clear up after himself.

  He had a bright torch clipped to his diving rig. At first it wasn’t much help. It illuminated the murky ocean around him, but all he could see was the dead man’s face, his skin pale, his eyes open, his hair waving like tentacles in the water.

  They didn’t have far to travel. Their underwater transport was close to shore, and it was waiting for them.

  The team’s minisub was an impressive piece of kit. Even when you’d used it as often as these men had, it was hard not to be awed by its capability. It was a small, sixteen-man submarine, very similar to the vessels used by the American Navy SEALs. The Argentine Navy had kept it a secret that they possessed a fleet of these underwater vehicles.

  Perhaps it would not be a secret for long.

  This particular minisub was free-flooding. This meant that the interior of the submarine was full of water. Its occupants were required to use either rebreathers, standard scuba gear or on-board oxygen masks to breathe while they were inside it. A grey, bullet-shaped vessel, it opened at the centre to allow the team to enter. Two frogmen were already inside, controlling the vessel. Rojo and his companion manoeuvred the dead body into the sub, strapped themselves and their gear in, and waited for the rest of their team.

  They arrived minutes later, the light from their torches announcing their approach. Swiftly, they took their positions in the minisub. The minisub closed up silently, a hard shell encasing the frogmen and their cargo in its belly. Then it started to vibrate, which told Rojo that they were moving.

  It was dimly lit inside the sub, and there was a strange quality to sounds: they were muffled and deadened. Rojo stayed very still, preserving his energy in the cold water. It was impossible to tell in which direction they were travelling, or how fast. And it was difficult to track the passing of time. Sometimes a minute felt like an hour down here, or an hour like a minute. He closed his eyes and thought back over the evening’s events. Landing in the cove. Climbing to the top of the cliff and putting in surveillance while his unit mates went about their work elsewhere. Hurling the man from the top of the cliff to avoid firing a noisy weapon. And then he remembered searching the clifftop, checking that there was nobody else in the vicinity. A sixth sense had nagged at him, telling him that there was somebody else up here. But so far as he could see, the clifftop had been deserted.

  Why, then, could he not shake the feeling that someone else had been watching?

  Rojo put the thought from his mind. The minisub had stopped vibrating. That meant they were at their destination. The sub opened up from the centre. Rojo and his companion took hold of the corpse and floated out of the minisub up to the surface of the ocean.

  Three rigid inflatable boats – RIBs, as they were known – were waiting for them here, bouncing up and down on the ocean swell. The weather was foul: heavy rain and thunder overhead. But Rojo and his guys were experienced. They’d trained and operated in worse sea conditions than this before. Rojo and his partner were able to move themselves and the corpse to the nearest RIB. A couple of guys in the boat helped them manhandle the body into it, then the rest of the team climbed into the boats. Once they were all accounted for, the RIBs escorted them to a large fishing vessel that was nearby.

  It was a sturdy trawler, weather-beaten but stubbornly stable in the stormy ocean. Nobody would have imagined that it played host to a team of Argentine special forces. And that was the point. Rojo’s RIB drew up along the starboard side. Two men on the trawler lowered a harness, which Rojo fitted to the corpse before giving the men above a thumbs-up. They hauled the farmer’s body up the side of the trawler. It swung in the wind and bounced heavily against the side of the boat, but within thirty seconds it was aboard.

  Next, Rojo and his team were hauled up onto the trawler. The decks were wet with spray and men shouted instructions across the bow at the top of their voices, so they could be heard over the wind. A crew member divested Rojo of his rebreather. Rojo noticed the man stare at his red eyes. He glared horribly at him, and the man hurried away. Then Rojo looked around for the body. It was lying ten metres away on the deck, face-down, discarded like a piece of rubbish. The ship listed suddenly and the body slid further along the deck. Rojo ran over to it, bent down and turned it face upwards. The corpse was already white and bloated. Even Rojo, who had killed his share of men, was revolted. The sooner they got rid of it, the better.

  It was not simply a matter of throwing the body out to sea though. If they did that, the tide could wash it up on one of the beaches of the Falkland Islands. Much better for it to disappear without trace. For that, they needed to use a body bag and some weights. As Rojo stood up, he saw his mate bringing exactly that.

  The body ba
g was made of thick plastic with a sturdy zip along the top. The weights – several kilos of rocks – were already inside the bag. Rojo’s mate laid it on the ground and removed the rocks. Then they each took one end of the corpse and lifted it onto the bag. The limbs had begun to stiffen. They each took one end of the corpse and stuffed it into the body bag. Rojo’s hands were cold, which made the job more difficult, but eventually the corpse was inside. They crammed the rocks back into the bag then tried to zip it up. Rojo remembered going on holiday with his mum and dad as a boy, and how difficult it was to close the zip on their over-full suitcase. The body bag was like that. When the zip was finally closed, Rojo and his mate lifted the bag, each taking one end, and hauled it to the deck railing. It was heavy – the body was a lot more difficult to move out of the water – but with an effort they managed to lift it up over the railings and throw it overboard.

  Rojo watched the body bag hit the water then sink. Out of sight forever.

  He scowled. It had been a long, difficult night. He was freezing. He headed below decks to find something to eat.

  7

  War and Peace

  Max woke the next morning to the raucous sound of seabirds.

  At first, his mind numbed by sleepiness, he thought he’d dreamed it all. The trek across the island to the cove. The frogmen. The murder. He fully expected, when he opened his eyes, to find himself in the dormitory at Valley House. But as he came to, he realised that the window was not where he expected it to be, that it was lighter in the room than usual, and that there was an unfamiliar mound next to his bed. Forcing his eyes open a little wider, he saw that it was his foul-weather gear from last night, piled in a heap where he’d left it in his eagerness to put his head on his pillow. That in turn made him imagine Hector’s voice, barking a reprimand for not tidying his gear when he’d finished with it. Slightly guiltily, Max forced himself to get up. He sat, bleary-eyed, on the edge of his bed.

  The clock on his bedside table told him it was three minutes to seven. It had been almost four o’clock by the time they’d sneaked back into the guest house and crawled into bed. Three hours of sleep after a night like that was nowhere near enough. Max gave serious consideration to the idea of going back to bed. Two things stopped him: the knowledge that if they were to keep their cover, they had a daytime schedule to adhere to; and the smell of bacon. Max found himself wondering, as he pulled on some clothes, if he could detect sausage too. He decided he could. His stomach urged him to get a move on.

  Two minutes later, he was in the dining room. Lukas, Lili, Abby and Sami were already there, plates of cooked breakfast in front of them. Abby was shovelling hers in as if worried somebody might steal the food from in front of her. The others were eating more sedately. All of them, however, had dark rings under their eyes and a haunted expression.

  ‘We need to …’ Max started to say, but he was cut off mid-sentence by the arrival of Arlene, the woman who ran the guest house. She was carrying a plate of sausage, bacon, egg and tomato, which she placed on the table.

  ‘We wondered if we’d ever be seeing you, dearie,’ she said.

  ‘Right,’ Max said, putting his hand through his ruffled hair. ‘Overslept, I guess.’ He sat down at the table and picked up his knife and fork.

  ‘I can’t help wondering what you were up to last night,’ Arlene said.

  The cadets studiously concentrated on their breakfasts. For a moment, the only sound was that of cutlery against china.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Max asked carefully.

  ‘Well, you look like you’ve hardly slept. Midnight feasts, was it?’ Arlene chuckled to herself and pottered out of the room.

  ‘Wish it was midnight feasts,’ Abby muttered, before cramming another forkful of bacon into her mouth. Max fell hungrily on his breakfast. He didn’t say a word until his plate was clean. ‘We should get in touch with the Watchers,’ he said quietly, one eye on the door. ‘They need to know what we saw last night.’

  ‘And we should be more careful,’ Lukas added. ‘Those frogmen could easily have seen us. We’d have gone the same way as the farmer.’

  The others nodded grimly.

  ‘I’ll make the call,’ Max said. ‘Let’s meet outside in twenty minutes.’ He frowned. ‘Hector’s going to freak out that we didn’t get any photographs.’

  Back up in his bedroom, Max locked the door from the inside and retrieved the encrypted satellite phone from the suitcase under his bed. He dialled the number that he had committed to memory. The call was answered immediately. Hector’s voice sounded distant. As usual, he dispensed with pleasantries.

  – I told you only to get in touch if you had something to report.

  ‘Which is why I’m calling,’ Max replied, and he proceeded to explain exactly what they’d seen.

  Hector listened in silence. Only when Max was finished did he ask any questions.

  – Did you get photographs?

  Max hesitated. ‘Negative,’ he said. ‘We were going to, but then the farmer turned up and … I’m sorry. We messed up. It won’t happen again.’ Max knew there was no point being anything other than straightforward with Hector. If you make a mistake on ops, he had often said, own it. That’s the only way you earn the respect of your colleagues.

  And Hector was true to his word. There was a small pause, then he carried on as if Max hadn’t even mentioned the mess-up.

  – You sure you didn’t see any vessels out at sea, either dropping off the frogmen or picking them up?

  ‘Nothing,’ Max said. ‘Could there be, I don’t know, submarines operating in these waters?’

  – It’s possible. But they’d need some advanced technology to get that close to the shore. There’s a type of vessel called a minisub. We didn’t think that the Argentine military had any, but we’ve been wrong about stuff like that before …

  ‘They killed someone, Hector,’ Max said. His voice shook as he said it, and he realised how traumatised he’d been by the sight. It was not the first time he’d seen somebody die, but it was certainly the most pointless death he’d ever witnessed.

  – They’ll kill a lot more if we don’t stop them. I’m going to recommend to the Ministry of Defence that we put the Falklands on a war footing. But that will take time to filter up to the Prime Minister, and we have to watch our step. If the mole at RAF Mount Pleasant gets wind of this, it could spark an immediate attack.

  ‘What should we do?’

  – Keep up your surveillance. Right now, any pieces of information you can gather could mean the difference between war and peace. And Max?

  ‘Yeah?’

  You have cameras. Use them.

  Before Max could say anything else, Hector had hung up.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, holding the sat phone. It seemed absurd to him that a teenager sitting in a chintzy guest-house bedroom, thousands of miles from home, could be in such a responsible position. But that was his life now. Deep down, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  He put on warm layers of clothing and met the cadets outside. Quickly, he relayed to them his conversation with Hector.

  ‘War and peace, hey?’ Abby said. ‘No pressure then.’ But she didn’t have the usual light-hearted catch in her voice. It was difficult to see a man killed one night and be all jokey the next morning.

  Today’s activity was birdwatching. They were due to meet a local expert down by the harbour at nine o’clock. They knew that his name was Peter, but they hadn’t yet met him. As soon as they approached the harbour, however, it was easy to identify him.

  Peter was a man in his sixties, with thinning hair and a narrow, hawkish face. He stood by the concrete pier where two fishing boats and a thirty-two-foot yacht were moored. He was dressed for the outdoors in a heavy coat. Over one shoulder he carried several pairs of binoculars and over the other a rucksack. He held up some walkers’ maps in protective plastic coverings. He nodded to the cadets as they approached, and held up a hand to attract their attention. ‘Greeting
s!’ he called to them. ‘Are you my young guests?’

  ‘Greetings?’ Abby muttered. ‘Who says “greetings” these days?’ But the cadets smiled and waved. When they reached Peter, they all shook hands.

  ‘We’ve picked a splendid day for it,’ Peter said. He raised one hand to the sky, which was clear blue with only a few drifting clouds. ‘Stiff old breeze, but last night’s storm has passed. I predict a successful excursion. Shall we go? My car is ten minutes’ walk away.’ He set off at a brisk pace along the harbour. ‘We can expect cormorants and oystercatchers, and I know an excellent spot for king penguins. If we’re lucky, we might see a turkey vulture, but don’t hold me to that, chaps.’ He grinned at them. ‘And chapesses. You’ve seen this, of course?’

  They had stopped by a stone obelisk, with a bronze statue atop it. Behind the obelisk was a large house with a green roof flying a union flag. Written on the obelisk were the words:

  In memory of those who liberated us

  14 June 1982

  ‘The war memorial,’ Peter said. ‘That’s Government House behind it, where the governor lives. And if you read these plaques surrounding the memorial, you’ll see the names of the two hundred and fifty-five British soldiers who lost their lives during the war.’ He nodded respectfully at the memorial, like a priest bowing at an altar, while the cadets stood silently around him. ‘We live in hope,’ he said quietly, ‘that nobody else will ever have to lose their lives in a dispute over our islands.’

  The cadets glanced at each other, but said nothing.

  Peter’s vehicle was an old Land Rover with rickety suspension. He drove it sedately out of Stanley, along the road the cadets had followed the previous night. Where the cadets had gone cross-country, however, Peter continued along a narrow road that headed inland to the west. The land on either side was flat and grassy. There was no sign of human habitation. After driving for ten minutes, Peter pulled over by the side of the road and killed the engine. ‘A word of warning, chaps and chapesses,’ he said, turning in his seat so he could see them all. ‘There are certain parts of the island, especially in this area, where we can’t set foot. During the war, anti-personnel mines were planted all across the island. Most of them have been located, decommissioned and removed. But areas remain where it is too difficult to find or approach the mines. These areas have been cordoned off with wire fencing, and there are minefield warning signs, so naturally nobody goes there any more.’