Grave Island

by Andrew Smyth

  Dickson was supposed to meet me at Zanzibar Airport but didn’t show. After the attack on me in Wapping, I feared that someone had got to him and I knew that I was now being watched. I had intended to go back to Africa House, but realised that it would be too dangerous; still, I took a taxi to the hotel but when he stopped outside I asked him to pick me up from around the back. To make sure, I told him I’d pay him double and took my bag out and walked through the hotel and out through the kitchens. At first I couldn’t see the taxi but eventually he pulled around the corner and I got in and directed him to the city beach where Dickson had found a boat before. After haggling with one of the ferries, I agreed on a price which I realised was probably twice what it was worth, but at least I was away from the main town and heading for Grave Island.

  As I landed on the island, Ariana saw me and came over. ‘Back again? Still staking out the place opposite? I hope my island is going to feature in a film about it.’

  ‘Not if I can help it. I need to hire a motorboat and thought you could help. The only boats I can see around here are dhows and that wouldn’t be fast enough.’

  Her usual amusement turned to outright laughter, throaty and uninhibited. ‘The design might be many hundreds of years old, but that’s because they go faster and further on the monsoon wind and it’s why you’ll find them everywhere along this coast. They’re fantastic designs and I take one out whenever I can. We use Nazeem’s boat when we want to take parties on trips to the other islands. I’ll give him a call.’ She brought out her cell phone and checked the signal before dialling.

  ‘Yes,’ she said after a rapid conversation. ‘He’s free for the next few days. You’ll like his boat – it’s got a long history of smuggling around the coast but hopefully those days are over – though you never know with Nazeem. I don’t like motorboats, but even if I did, I wouldn’t recommend one if you’re following another boat, it would be too conspicuous. With a dhow it would be one amongst hundreds and no one would notice you.’

  We walked back to the reception area and she pointed across to a dhow that was picking up a line from a mooring buoy. ‘That’s Nazeem, I’ll take you out there.’

  I followed her down to the small jetty on the beach where we got into a flat-bottom dinghy and she started up the outboard and we headed out.

  Once on deck, she introduced me to the skipper who greeted me with an almost toothless smile. His already dark skin had been weathered into a deep teak texture by decades out in the tropical sun, making it impossible to even guess at his age.

  There were three other men lounging around on deck, and a boy, who couldn’t have been much older than twelve – perhaps Nazeem’s son. Perhaps they were all Nazeem’s sons – even grandsons. Ariana started speaking to Nazeem in English but then changed to rapid Swahili and after a while, she turned back to me. ‘That’s all arranged. He pretends he doesn’t speak English but he’s fluent when he wants to be. He’s going to take the boat back to Stone Town and fill up with diesel, then they’ll come back and wait for you here.’

  ‘Diesel?’ I repeated. ‘It has an engine?’

  Ariana laughed – I was starting to warm to her infectious good humour. ‘An auxiliary engine. It won’t push her along as fast as the monsoon wind, but it’s useful in calms or when manoeuvring. It’s rather old, but I think it should be reliable. It works more from habit than anything else, and it also means that you’ve got 12-volt power. And there’s another thing,’ she added, pointing to a post fixed behind the wheelhouse. ‘It’s got a small radar unit. I made him install it before we allowed him to take our visitors. It’s not very powerful, but it lets you see where you’re going. If you’re going to be following a boat at night then you’ll probably find it useful.’

  I went with her back to the reception desk and checked my satellite phone but there were no new messages. I was getting increasingly worried about Dickson and I called London to see if they’d heard anything. They’d gone into full alert in Nairobi and a team was being flown out to look for him. Ranish in Mumbai had reported that a large consignment had been collected from the Bakaar night shift and taken straight to the airport and should arrive in Zanzibar that morning. With the tight programme imposed by the vaccination contract, I should have realised that airfreight was the only way they could meet the timescale. Given how long it had taken me to get here from London, the consignment could already have landed and be on its way to the Ansaar warehouse.

  I debated whether to stay on the island but decided that the dhow would be safer – that way I could see anyone who came near. It had refuelled and was now lying on a mooring off the island. Ariana’s boatman took me out and I could see the Ansaar warehouse from the boat’s stern where a large dhow had been brought up on the shore and people were loading it with small insulated boxes. I didn’t know whether the vaccines were supposed to be refrigerated, but I supposed that if they were fakes, it wouldn’t make much difference.

  But there was still no news of Dickson – they’d traced him on the flight to Zanzibar but after that they’d heard nothing. From what I had seen of him, he was able to look after himself but this wasn’t his home ground and anything could have happened. I was in a fever of impatience but also of anxiety. If they’d got Dickson then they’d certainly be looking for me. I hoped that it wouldn’t occur to them to look for me on Grave Island, let alone out on the dhow.

  Finally, at high tide, I watched as the dhow was pushed out to deeper water off the warehouse which indicated that they were getting ready to head off before the next tide, which made it later that afternoon. I’d brought my satellite phone and tracking computer and set them up in the shade of the dhow’s doghouse, using a transformer to connect to the dhow’s 12-volt batteries. I called Ken Maxwell so that he could monitor our progress back in London.

  The sun was low behind Stone Town when I saw the last package being put on board. I watched as a tall man came out and called across to the boat. It must have been Ansaar himself sending them off and a figure at the prow start to pull up the anchor, and then the old dhow manoeuvred into the channel and hoisted their sail. I nodded to Nazeem, but he was already watching the boat closely. I saw the dim glow as he fired up the radar. There were boats all over the place even as darkness was falling and it was difficult to see the one we were following. I could make out the small light at the boat’s stern and went over to the wheelhouse and pointed to a target on the radar. Nazeem nodded and handed the wheel over to one of his crew with some sharp instructions that didn’t need translating.

  As we sailed further away from Zanzibar Island, the other boats disappeared into the night, leaving the faint light of the dhow ahead of us, but even that was soon extinguished – presumably they thought the risk of collision was negligible away from the land. The sky was overcast and only a few stars were visible and the darkness was impenetrable. As I peered ahead, someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned and saw one of the crew holding out a plate. I followed him forwards to a small cuddy where I was astonished to find a small oven lit by charcoal. The cook showed me what looked like goat’s meat cooking on a skewer which he served me with some rice from a boiling pot. I took it forward and sat down and found it surprisingly good. I ate slowly watching the bow wave cream through the water, scattering sparks of phosphorescence into the air as the boat ploughed through the black sea. There was no sign of a light up ahead but I’d checked the track on the computer and could see the target on the antiquated radar unit. On our current course we were heading further south to the commercial port of Tanga. Although this was in Tanzania rather than Kenya, the border wasn’t that far away to the north.

  I tried to sleep but in spite of the gentle rocking of the boat, my head was swirling with anxiety at whether we might lose them in the darkness. What had started as a chance discovery of mislabelled drugs had turned into a desperate race to prevent what could be a major tragedy. I went back mentally through the steps we’d taken, but couldn’t see where I’d ever had an alterna
tive. This had to be the end of it.

  I came to, suddenly aware that Nazeem was calling to me. I managed to get to my feet as he beckoned me to follow him back to the wheelhouse and the radar. We looked at the screen which was glowing a dull grey. ‘No radar, no course,’ Nazeem said.

  I looked across to my computer which was linked to my satphone but all it could tell me was where we’d been heading before darkness made it lose the picture. ‘Hold this course. They’re not going to change it in the middle of the night unless they think they’re being followed and I don’t see how they could have spotted us amongst all those boats off Zanzibar.’

  ‘No radar, no course,’ Nazeem insisted. ‘We go back.’ With that he turned the wheel and the boat leaned into a curving turn heading back where we came from.

  ‘Let me look at it.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ Nazeem said. ‘Leave it.’

  I ignored him and went to the radar set and fiddled with the connections at the back. It didn’t take me long to see that the scanner unit had been unplugged, leaving the screen display an unhelpful grey. I glanced across at Nazeem who was watching me intently. He turned to one of his crew and spat out a command and I could sense the atmosphere change suddenly.

  I heard the two crew members close up behind me but I tried to ignore them and went back to the computer screen. ‘We can pick them up again when it gets light,’ I said. ‘We don’t need the radar.’ I hoped they wouldn’t see me hit the redial button on the satphone. I turned to face the crewmen behind me. One of them was carrying a club and swinging it menacingly. He stepped towards me but on another sharp command from Nazeem, he stopped. I looked from them to Nazeem, but there were too many of them.

  Nazeem smiled and spat over the side. ‘You want the hard way?’ he sighed. ‘You should have left the radar alone.’

  ‘You unplugged it yourself,’ I said.

  Nazeem shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But we can’t take you back now – I always wanted this to be easy. What’s that?’ he added, as he heard the satphone. One of the crew went over and picked it up. I couldn’t hear if there was anyone on the other end, but Nazeem looked at me and shook his head. ‘You won’t need this,’ he said and unplugged it and threw it overboard. ‘You can dive for it but it’s half a mile deep here. ‘Search him,’ he said and repeated it in Swahili.

  I held up my arms – I had nothing to hide. ‘Why are you doing this? If it’s money, I can pay you whatever you want.’

  ‘With people like you it’s always money. There are more important things you wouldn’t understand.’ Nazeem said something rapidly in Swahili and two of the crewmen grabbed me under the arms. ‘So what shall we do with you? I think it’s better if you simply disappear we’ll let the sharks deal with you.’ He nodded to the men holding me. ‘Kwaheri,’ he said and I was pulled to the side of the boat and thrown in.

  The shock of hitting the water made me gasp and I nearly took a lungful of seawater which would have finished it there.

  When I’d orientated myself, I tried to swim back to the boat to hang on, but I heard them start the engine and watched helplessly as the boat disappeared into the darkness. The sky had now cleared and with just a sliver of a moon the stars were almost bright enough to see the horizon. Almost. The light wind left small waves which glistened with phosphorescence and in any other circumstances it would have been magical. I kicked off my shoes to give me more buoyancy and floated on my back.

  The faint lights of the dhow were gone and there was nothing to see except a small disturbance on the surface a dozen metres away. I watched as a trail of phosphorescence approached and then felt a nudge on my back and then a swirl of water washed over me. I forced myself to stay calm and treaded water as I looked around. My brain told me that I had nothing to fear, that I was only an object of curiosity and not a meal. But my guts told me otherwise and with difficulty I managed to stay quiet. I heard the swish of a tail behind me and turned to see a dorsal fin coming towards me. I moved onto my back and bent my knees.

  When I felt the snout brush against me, I kicked out as hard as I could and there was a threshing of water and the fin disappeared into the blackness. Of course there were probably others, but I reassured myself that it was curiosity, rather than hunger, which made the shark approach. I lay on my back and floated – at least the tropical sea was warm and there was hardly a wind to ruffle the surface.

  The nearest land was half a mile away – vertically down – otherwise we were twenty miles from Tanga and only the slightest possibility of a boat finding me before the sharks attacked again. I realised that not only was I going to be dead very shortly, but that I hadn’t stopped the fake drugs which were on their way to the mainland. I’d failed.

  I must have blacked out because I suddenly awoke and saw that the sun had come up and the reflection low over the water was blinding me. I looked around but there was nothing. I was sure that I’d heard something. I listened intently and then heard it again – it was the distinctive sound of rotor blades – a helicopter. I couldn’t think what they could be doing out here unless they were looking for me.

  I searched the sky but the reflections made it difficult and then suddenly a strobe blinded me as the blades of the helicopter flew across the sun. I couldn’t think how I could attracted their attention until I realised that with the sea so calm they wouldn’t see anything unless I started splashing. Splashing might attract the sharks, but I had no choice and I cupped my hands and scooped them across the surface of the sea making as much disturbance as I could.

  I cried out but realised that nothing could be heard above the noise of the engine. I kept banging the sea but couldn’t make out where the helicopter was headed but there was nothing else around me disturbing the surface. It was then that I heard a sort of klaxon and the sound of the rotors changed. I held up my hand against the sun, but there was no doubt that it was heading for me.

  The downdraft of the rotor blades started to create turbulence in the water, making it difficult to hold my head above the waves but as I coughed out yet more seawater I saw above me a figure being lowered. As he reached me, he held out a sling and indicated that I should put it around me and when he was satisfied that it was secure, he signalled up to the winchman and I was raised up to the helicopter’s cabin.

  I managed to grab the side of the bulkhead and looked inside where Brent Hillman was grinning at me complacently. ‘You can always rely on the US cavalry. Come on in.’ he said and laughed.

  25

  ‘We’ll go straight to Tanga,’ Brent said. That’s where they were heading. ‘Got you some dry clothes. Thought you might need them.’

  I took the clothes and removed my wet ones. ‘What kept you?’

  ‘Is that what you Limeys call gratitude?’ Brent said, handing me a towel. ‘You think I had nothing better to do than fly around the Indian Ocean looking for a minnow in a shark tank?’

  I was starting to recover. ‘Now that you mention it, I can’t think of anything you could have done better. How did you find me?’

  ‘Where else would you be, kid? Your satellite phone call gave me a bit of a clue, although I would probably have worked it out eventually.’

  ‘My satphone?’

  ‘When you called me, I couldn’t hear what was going on but it gave me your position and then it went dead. I’d already flown down to our correspondent’s bureau in Mombasa to see what was going on so I got their boys to take me out. You okay?’

  I was shivering uncontrollably and my teeth were chattering. I rubbed myself hard with the towel to get back some circulation. To vomit some of the seawater, I retched helplessly.

  ‘Over the side, kid. Don’t want to mess up the chopper.’ Brent watched unsympathetically and handed me a plastic bag.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I managed to ask before retching again. ‘Need to get to Tanga.’

  ‘We’re on it. That’s where you were heading when we lost contact. We‘ve got your people waiting – a guy called Juma is
there.’

  I suddenly remembered my missing contact. ‘Have you found Dickson yet?’ I managed to croak.

  ‘You Brits are working on that. They think they might have located him in Zanzibar.’

  I said nothing while I got into the dry clothes and tried to get back some control over my limbs and what was left of my brain cells. The helicopter had its nose down and as far as I could tell was heading west where I could see the ribbon of low-lying land that had to be Tanga.

  ‘Take it easy, kid,’ Brent said in what, for him, passed as sympathy. ‘We’ve got things under control.’

  ‘We’ve got to meet Ansaar’s boat. It must be there by now. It’s got the fakes on board.’

  ‘Easy. We’ll be there soon and you can show us. Just take time to recover.’

  I took the bag and retched some more but I was starting to feel better and I wanted to be ready for whatever we found in Tanga so I didn’t want to show weakness. We were close to the land and I could see the long quay with several ships moored alongside, as well as a couple of dhows.

  As if reading my thoughts, Brent said, ‘Don’t worry, your team was going to meet the dhow when it arrived. Skipper, can you put us down over there?’

  The helicopter swayed as the pilot brought it down and landed gently. I followed Brent onto the quay and recognised Juma walking towards us. ‘Have they found Dickson yet?’ I asked – for some reason I felt responsible for him.

  ‘Yes, a few hours ago. They raided Ansaar’s house on the beach and found him locked up in some kind of cell. There were signs of torture that they’d carried out there but fortunately he was okay. They hadn’t started on him.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’ I remembered my brief stay there. ‘Now, which is the dhow we were following?’

  ‘We worked out it must be this one. We extrapolated from the track it was on, although it turned up several hours after we expected it. And there was a truck at the entrance waiting to get in.’