Hijack

by Chris Ryan

  ‘The RIB has a full store of SBS boarding gear,’ Angel told them. ‘You know what to do with it?’

  The cadets nodded. They’d learned the theory, at least, back in Valley House. None of them mentioned the obvious problem: learning a technique in class was one thing, but doing it in practice was quite another.

  ‘You need to head west,’ Angel said. ‘You can do that? We don’t have time to teach you how to use the on-board GPS.’

  Abby pointed upwards. ‘There’s a compass,’ she said. ‘We can use it to navigate.’

  ‘There’s a handheld VHF radio on the RIB. Keep it with you. If you get into trouble, broadcast a distress signal on emergency channel 16. I can’t promise it’ll do any good, but …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘You should see the trawler’s lights within ten minutes if you’re heading in the right direction,’ Woody said. ‘If possible, approach the trawler from the stern. They might be on high alert, but they’re less likely to see an infiltration from that direction.’

  Angel looked out across the ocean. ‘The invasion is out of your hands now. Leave that to the Navy and the Air Force. You need to concentrate on Max and Lukas. It’s going to be dangerous on that trawler. Do whatever it takes to make them safe.’

  ‘Wish us luck,’ Abby said.

  Angel shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Luck won’t come into it. Make good choices. Stay alert. Look out for each other.’ Along the deck a few crew members were still visible. ‘We’re going to need a distraction before we winch you in,’ she said.

  ‘Leave that to me,’ Woody said. ‘As soon as you see them running, launch the RIB.’ He nodded reassuringly at the cadets. Then, without another word, he jogged through the driving rain, along the deck and out of sight.

  ‘What’s he going to do?’ Abby asked.

  ‘I guess we’re about to find out,’ Angel replied.

  15

  RIB

  Woody ran up the metal staircase that led to the bridge.

  There, the atmosphere was tense. The captain was at his station in the middle of the bridge. His crew were scrutinising on-screen nautical charts and GPS positions. There was a constant background thrum of radio comms. The face of every man on the bridge was creased into intense concentration. None of them even seemed to notice Woody’s arrival, until he was standing right by the captain.

  The captain blinked heavily. ‘I said I wanted you below decks,’ he said.

  ‘Lucky for you I had other ideas,’ Woody replied.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’ve just been on the starboard deck. I saw the conning tower of a submarine. It’s close. Two hundred metres.’

  The captain frowned. ‘What are you talking about? If a sub was that close, we’d know about it.’

  ‘I know what I saw,’ Woody said. ‘I’ve been on enough ships and seen enough submarines. You’re under surveillance. Possibly under attack.’

  A flicker of indecision crossed the captain’s face. But it was just that. A flicker. ‘All hands to starboard deck!’ he shouted across the bridge. ‘Now!’

  He was facing away from Woody as he said it, so he didn’t see the brief smile that crossed Woody’s face.

  On deck, a horn sounded. Five short blasts, but they were loud enough to make Abby’s bones tremble. Then a male voice came over the tannoy. ‘All hands to starboard deck. Repeat, all hands to starboard deck.’

  The crew members’ response was immediate. They ran from their port-side positions and in seconds they were out of sight.

  ‘Get in the RIB!’ Angel instructed. ‘Fast!’

  Abby, Lili and Sami did as they were told, jumping over the inflatable sides of the boat. Angel took up position at the crane’s control panel. As soon as the cadets were aboard, she yanked a lever. The slack ropes connecting the RIB to the winch went taut. There was a jolt. Slowly, the RIB rose into the air. Abby felt her stomach drop. She gripped the side of the RIB even more firmly as they rose above the deck railings and swung out over the ocean. The RIB rocked precariously in the wind, and Abby saw her friends’ faces etched with concentration and fear. The winch started to lower them towards the ocean. Abby looked over at Angel, who was watching them intently. But as the RIB descended she went out of sight. All they could see was the grey hull of the patrol vessel to one side and the wide open expanse of ocean to the other.

  Then, with another jolt, the RIB slapped against the surface of the ocean. Still attached to the winch, it cut through the sea, dragged along by the larger vessel. The cadets scrambled to reach the three anchor points.

  ‘Ready?’ Abby screamed above the deafening noise of the patrol vessel’s engines. ‘In three … two … one … release!’

  She unclipped her carabiner and let it go. The RIB swivelled dramatically on its axis – clearly Sami and Lili had not unclipped at quite the same moment. Then there was another jolt and she saw the halyard swing away ahead of the RIB. They were free.

  But not safe. The patrol ship was moving ahead of them. Its wash was ferocious. The RIB rose awkwardly on a sudden swell before a powerful wave crashed over it. For a moment, Abby thought she’d been knocked overboard, but then she realised she was on her back in the bottom of the RIB. Sami grabbed her hand and pulled her up while Lili started the RIB’s motor. They were clear of the wake now. As Abby looked towards the ship she could just make out Angel, standing at the stern, one arm raised. Abby raised her own arm as Sami took the wheel of the RIB. Moments later they were curling away in a wide circle and heading away from the patrol vessel.

  The RIB bounced and planed over the waves. Sami gripped the steering wheel with both hands, watching the sea but also glancing occasionally at the compass in front of the wheel. Abby and Lili busied themselves with locating the gear they were going to require. A telescopic painter’s pole with a curved grappling hook was clipped to the interior of the RIB. There was a storage compartment around the steering column where they found coils of strong rope and a rope ladder bundled into a neat cylinder. Abby also located the handheld VHF radio. It had a clip on the back which allowed her to attach it to her life jacket. She kept the radio switched off because she had no desire to hear the commands that were doubtless being issued right now over the airways. There were no firearms, but there were three emergency flares, a set of binoculars and a black-handled knife in a sturdy holster.

  ‘There!’ Sami shouted, raising a hand and pointing straight ahead. Abby brushed spray from her eyes and squinted. Through the driving rain she could dimly see some lights on the horizon. They disappeared as the RIB moved from the crest of a wave into a trough, then reappeared, a little clearer this time. The patrol vessel was already out of sight. Anxiety crawled over her skin as she realised how tiny their boat was compared to the vastness of the ocean, and how challenging the task that lay ahead.

  But then she thought of Max and Lukas and her anxiety faded away, replaced by a steely determination. ‘Keep going!’ she shouted. She gripped the side of the boat again and didn’t take her eyes from the target.

  ‘Max! They’re coming back!’

  Max jerked his head up and opened his eyes. Lukas was right. Two indistinct figures were approaching. He saw the two body bags lying on the deck next to them. Then he looked back up. Their two interrogators were standing over them, their expressions cold. Max observed that their handguns were still stowed in their shoulder holsters, which gave him a momentary boost. ‘Please …’ he whispered. ‘We’re just –’

  He was cut short when the red-eyed guy removed a broad-bladed knife from his ops waistcoat. He knelt down in front of Max and stabbed the blade at Max’s face. Max flinched. ‘Please …’ he whispered again.

  His interrogator muttered something Max didn’t understand, then he moved behind Max and Lukas and, with two swift slices, cut the ties that bound their wrists to the post. The relief was immense, but short-lived. The other interrogator grabbed them by the hair and pushed them onto their fronts. Max felt his wrists be
ing seized again. He tried to struggle, but was too weak to be effective. In just a few seconds, his wrists had been retied. His right cheek was pressed against the wet deck. Lukas lay near him. The two interrogators stood at either end of Lukas’s body. They bent down. One took his ankles, the other his shoulders. Lukas started to wriggle and shout, but they were too strong for him. They carried him over to one of the body bags and laid him along it, over the open zip. Lukas’s struggling became more desperate but, with his arms and ankles bound, there was nothing he could do. One of the men forced his boot onto Lukas’s chest, keeping him pinned down. The other knelt down and opened the body bag, pulling it around Lukas’s body and forcing him inside.

  ‘Get off me! Get off me!’ Lukas yelled. His voice became muffled as the man covered his face with one large hand and forced Lukas’s head into the body bag.

  It was difficult for them to zip it up. Lukas writhed and wriggled. But there were two of them and only one of him. There could only be one outcome. The zip buzzed ominously as they closed up the body bag with Lukas inside. Once it was fully shut, the writhing stopped. There was just a gentle rising and falling, as though Lukas was breathing deeply in an attempt to keep calm.

  Then they turned to Max.

  The urge to struggle was almost overwhelming. Somehow, though, Max managed to overcome it. His energy reserves were seriously depleted. He needed to conserve as much strength as possible. He told himself that the men were just being threatening. It was a difficult thought to hold on to as they lifted him into the remaining body bag. The rocks they had used to weigh it down poked uncomfortably against the back of his knees, and the body bag itself smelled unpleasantly damp. Max felt a boot against his ribcage and a hand pressed down on his face. The zip closed over his head and he was instantly overwhelmed by panic. He had to concentrate hard on keeping calm.

  It wasn’t easy.

  The body bag was zipped shut. He heard the man saying, ‘I’m looking forward to killing you.’ The thick plastic lay over his face, and he felt his breath condensing against it. He could hear his heart pounding. It was hard to breathe and he felt his limbs twitching of their own accord. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping against hope that he was not about to feel himself being lifted again.

  Because that could only mean one thing.

  There was no movement. Whether the interrogators were still watching them, or whether they had walked away, Max couldn’t tell.

  Breathe, he told himself.

  Breathe …

  They’re coming. They’ll be here.

  They’ll be here soon …

  Distance to the trawler: three hundred metres.

  It seemed to Abby that Sami was steering the RIB like a pro. Their only experience of motor boats had been on the flat waters of the lake at Valley House, and this treacherous sea could not be more different. Their Syrian friend clearly had a talent. As planned, he approached the trawler from behind. The wake of the vessel was substantial, even from a distance. It became stronger the closer they got.

  ‘Are we sure this is the best plan?’ Lili shouted as the water became more turbulent. ‘It’s going to be difficult to operate once we’re very close.’

  ‘It’s our only option,’ Sami shouted back. ‘We’re least likely to be noticed if we approach from the rear.’

  ‘We need to get the ropes ready,’ Abby called. She crawled to the storage area and examined the coils of rope. There were various lengths – short and very long. She took one of the shorter coils and, gripping it firmly, headed to the bow of the RIB. There was an anchoring point at the very front. She took one end of the rope and tied it through the anchoring point. The wet rope burned her palms, but by the time they were within a hundred metres of the trawler it was firmly attached.

  They could smell the trawler now. A dirty, oily stench. It overwhelmed the tang of the sea salt. The wake was a torrent and the spray stung their eyes. Sami wore an expression of grim determination as he forced the RIB through the turbulent water. Lili had taken the binoculars and was holding them to her eyes, checking that they weren’t being watched from the stern of the trawler. Abby kept her position at the bow, gripping the other end of the rope as they made their final approach.

  They were twenty metres from the trawler now. It towered ominously above them.

  Ten metres. They juddered through the trawler’s wake, the RIB bouncing and jolting. Abby scanned the hull, searching for a fixed point. She located a mooring ring in a roughly central position. She pointed at it and shouted: ‘Head for that!’ She couldn’t even hear her own voice over the noise of the trawler, but Sami followed the line of her finger and manoeuvred the RIB towards the ring. Abby leaned forward from the bow of the boat, one arm outstretched, the other clutching the leading end of the rope. Her fingers struggled for the mooring ring, but it kept slipping out of reach. She leaned out a little further, stretching as far as she could, aware that Lili was by her side, ready to catch her if she leaned too far. She thought of the underwater propellers that were surely just beneath them. They would make short work of a human body … Quickly, she put that thought from her mind and leaned forward just a little more …

  Finally she caught the mooring ring and deftly threaded the rope through it, yanking the leading end up to her chest as she fell back into the RIB. The little boat slammed up against the back of the trawler and Sami fell back from his position at the wheel. He scrambled to his feet and killed the outboard motor while Abby and Lili worked together to hold the rope and tie the free end to the anchoring point at the bow of the RIB. Abby’s palms were bleeding and sore from the rope work but at least they were now firmly attached to the trawler. The RIB was surprisingly stable and the wake was less violent this close to the hull.

  But that was scant comfort. Kneeling in the RIB, the three cadets looked up. The hull of the boat loomed threateningly over them, faintly illuminated by the white glow of a stern light somewhere out of sight.

  Now the three cadets faced their greatest challenge: to climb the hull and board the trawler. They had to hijack this massive vessel and steal back their friends from under the noses of the Argentine special forces.

  Assuming, that was, that their friends were still alive …

  16

  Hijack

  Breathe …

  Breathe …

  The air inside the body bag was thin. Sweat and condensation prickled on Max’s salty, bloody face. His chest was tight and he felt sick. He didn’t know how much time had passed since he had been zipped into the bag.

  Then the zip of the body bag opened. Max sucked in fresh air as rain pelted his face. The red-eyed guy looked down, a snarl on his lips. ‘I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me who you are. If you don’t, we’ll kill you, then throw you overboard. You have ten minutes to think about it.’

  ‘Please …’ Max whispered.

  But the man was already zipping up the body bag. Max was plunged back into darkness.

  He believed the threat. Ten minutes. He shivered with fear, then concentrated again on his breathing.

  Abby snatched the telescopic painter’s pole that was clipped to the side of the RIB. Lili retrieved the rolled-up ladder from the storage area. The ladder had a grappling hook at one end. Abby fitted the painter’s pole to the hook then stood at the bow of the boat. She started to extend the pole, length by length. The ladder unfurled as she did so. The uprights of the ladder were made of thick, sturdy wire. The rungs were also wire, but were covered with metal tubing to give them more strength. Abby did her best to hold the telescopic pole stable as she extended it to five metres – not easy on an unstable RIB being dragged roughly through the ocean by a trawler. Lili helped her hold it as it extended to ten metres, then fifteen. The pole banged against the hull of the ship and the ladder flapped and danced in the wind.

  By the time the pole had reached the deck railings high above, it took all three of them to hold it steady. They had to move to the back of the RIB to see what they were
doing, and that small manoeuvre was also a challenge. Abby’s muscles burned as they tried to fit the grappling hook over the lower railings. It took a long, frustrating minute before they eventually managed it. Lili grabbed one of the lower rungs of the ladder and tugged hard to check it was securely attached, then she led it to the bow of the RIB, looked over her shoulders, nodded at Abby and Sami, and began to climb.

  Abby could barely watch. The motion of the trawler and the buffeting of the wind meant that the ladder rocked and swung. One moment Lili would be suspended in mid-air, the next her body would be slammed against the ship’s hull. She climbed slowly and carefully, only allowing herself to climb a rung when the ladder was relatively still and secure. At no point did she look down. Abby found herself holding her breath as her friend rose higher and higher and, eventually, disappeared over the ship’s railings.

  Abby turned to Sami and mouthed, over the noise: ‘You go next!’

  Sami appeared reluctant to let Abby remain alone on the RIB, but she had already started to check the longer coils of rope. They were heavy and bulky. She removed all three and uncoiled them a little. Knot work was second nature to her, thanks to the Watchers’ insistence back at Valley House that they practise it blindfolded and for hours at a time. At the time, it had seemed like overkill. Now she was grateful. She decided to use a square knot to securely join the lengths of rope into one super-long length – one hundred and fifty metres long, she estimated – as Sami edged past her and held the ladder. He was lithe and strong and climbed faster than Lili had, perhaps encouraged by having seen her go first. He was over the railings in under a minute.

  Which left Abby, alone in the RIB. She had one job to do before climbing the ladder.

  Right now, anyone looking over the deck railings would see the ladder and the RIB, and they would know that the trawler had been boarded. They could deal with the ladder once Abby was aboard. The RIB was more problematic. That was where this length of rope would come in. At night, and in these weather conditions, if the RIB trailed the ship by more than a hundred metres it would be invisible to a casual observer on deck. A good plan in theory, but in practice …