Coming up from the south, astonishingly fast, was another vessel. It was just as big as the Admiralty ship, but it travelled under a kind of sail that was quite unlike anything Will had ever seen before. Ignoring the Sunfish, it was making directly for the Raptor.
An announcement boomed across the water. ‘Attention unauthorised warship. You are in Sundian waters. Stand down immediately or face the consequences.’
‘I don’t reckon they’re going anywhere,’ Will chortled.
He set sail for the south. They watched the Sundian ship sail past them, heading north. A Sundian coastguard officer in a dazzling white uniform looked at them through binoculars, then a voice came through a loudhailer: ‘All right down there?’
Will gave them a cheery wave while Annalie took down the distress signal.
‘I hope they don’t notice we’re not Sundian,’ Annalie said.
‘They’ve got bigger fish to fry,’ Will said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Will kept sailing south while the others watched the action from the stern.
‘The Admiralty boat isn’t going anywhere,’ Essie reported. ‘The two ships are right alongside each other now. The Sundians have small boats in the water…I think they’re boarding the Admiralty ship…I’m losing them over the horizon now.’
‘Let’s hope the Sundians sink them,’ Will said venomously.
‘Not Cherry,’ Annalie said.
‘Or the rest of the crew,’ Essie said.
‘Okay, just Beckett then.’
‘Do you reckon the Sundians can take them?’ Pod asked.
The two ships had now vanished almost entirely over the horizon.
‘’Course,’ Will said. ‘Now that we’ve softened them up.’
The last leg
They did not see either of the two ships again. But even now, their troubles were not over.
Their course took them into the South Outer Ocean, which was known for the ferocity of its storms. A week into their journey, they were caught in a huge, horrible storm that battered and tossed the Sunfish for a day and a half. They battened down and prepared to ride it out, but they hadn’t reckoned on the damage done by the Raptor’s grappling hook. It had ripped away a section of the Sunfish’s railing and a small portion of the deck too; Will had patched the hole in the deck, but the repair wasn’t strong enough to keep out a storm. Waves pounded the boat, surging repeatedly over the deck until the patch washed away, and then they kept beating at the hole, sending water pouring in below decks, eating away at the structural integrity of the boat. They did what they could: they manned the pumps and they rode out the storm; but when it finally passed, they found that an even bigger section of the deck had broken away and the stormwater had worked its way into the freshwater storage tanks in the hull.
Will built a solar still and they rigged up a device for catching rainwater. The Sunfish sailed on. But the water kept coming in. There were leaks they couldn’t find or plug. They had all the pumps going all the time, but the water would not stop. Slowly but surely, the Sunfish was coming apart at the seams.
They had also had no opportunity to take on extra supplies in Sundia, so their food was beginning to run low. Will, Annalie and Essie tried to work out how many days it would take to get back, and how they could parcel the food out to make it last. Will spoke optimistically of catching some fish along the way, but he knew perfectly well they had little chance of catching anything in this vast, empty, desert ocean.
Worse still, Spinner’s condition did not seem to be improving. They kept his wound clean and dressed and dosed him with antibiotics, but he seemed to get a little weaker every day. He needed proper medical care.
‘But if we try and take him to a hospital in Dux, we’ll get caught for sure,’ Annalie worried.
‘We can take him to the clinic at home,’ Will said. ‘They’ll look after him there, no questions asked.’
Will and Annalie had grown up in a sprawling slum where there were no government services, and unofficial clinics were the only places that the slum residents, many of them undocumented or illegal, could get medical care.
‘Didn’t Spinner say they were still watching your house?’ Essie asked.
‘Yes,’ Will said, scowling.
‘There are probably other places like that somewhere else,’ Annalie said. ‘Maybe in Southport.’
‘Yes, but you need to know where to go,’ Will said, ‘and we wouldn’t have a clue. Go to the wrong place and it’s all over.’
The problem seemed unsolvable, but if they couldn’t solve it, Spinner could die.
Then one morning, Spinner did not wake up. He lay in his bed unconscious, unable to be roused. Graham sat at his shoulder, nuzzling him with his beak repeatedly.
‘Wake up, Spinner,’ he urged. ‘Wake up!’
But nothing could wake him.
‘What do you think it means?’ Annalie asked Essie fearfully.
‘I don’t know,’ Essie said. ‘I’m not a doctor.’
But they both knew it wasn’t good.
‘Is there any way we can go any faster?’ Annalie asked Will.
‘You know there isn’t,’ he said crossly.
They were still a week away from Dux, and that was an optimistic assessment.
Will stood for a moment gazing down at Spinner, his face creasing. ‘I’ll see if I can do something with the engine,’ he said.
He stomped off onto the deck, and alternated between tinkering with the boat’s engine and minutely adjusting the sails so he was certain they were getting maximum velocity from the wind.
Annalie and Essie stayed at Spinner’s bedside.
‘We sailed so far,’ Annalie said. ‘We went through so much. It can’t end like this. It just can’t.’ She began to cry.
Essie put her arm around her. ‘He’s going to be okay,’ she said. ‘He’ll pull through. We all will. Something will happen. Something always does.’
But this time she couldn’t help feeling, Maybe, this time, something won’t happen.
Pod was keeping an eye on the pumps; one of them had run out of battery and the water was visibly rising. Blossom appeared, and wordlessly began bailing with a bucket while Pod fitted the new battery and got the pump going again. Soon the pump was whirring again, but Blossom kept bailing until the water was gone.
‘I’m sorry about all this,’ Pod said quietly.
‘Which part?’
‘I promised I’d keep you safe.’
Blossom looked at him, her bright eyes narrowing. ‘What? Do you think we’re not going to make it back to land?’
Pod hesitated for just a moment.
Blossom, seeing it, said, ‘Don’t be such a baby. We’re not giving up and we’re getting back to land. And then you’re going to take me to Violeta, remember?’
‘Right,’ Pod said. In spite of himself, her defiant attitude made him feel better.
Essie went up on deck. For the millionth time since they left Sundia, she pulled out her shell to look for a signal. For the millionth time she didn’t find any.
She thought back to the last conversation she’d had with her father. I wonder if I told him I loved him? She must have, but she couldn’t remember, and the fact that she couldn’t remember tormented her. And she hadn’t sent a message to her mother in months. She’d been angry at her—was still angry at her—but now, at what felt like the last, she wished that she had.
She flicked open her shell and tried to compose a message, but words failed her. She typed and deleted and typed and deleted.
And then she heard a horn blow.
She looked up from her shell.
It was a boat.
It was large and sleek and swift, a private vessel, not a military boat. And it looked like it was coming straight towards them.
Will was suddenly there beside her. He shot a signal flare into the air; it soared up, vivid red. The boat gave two more toots on its horn as acknowledgement.
‘They’ve seen us!’ Will sai
d. ‘They’re coming!’
The others were all running up from below. ‘Who are they?’ asked Annalie. ‘Admiralty?’
‘Pirates?’ asked Pod.
‘I don’t think they’re pirates,’ Will said. ‘I don’t know who they are, or what they’re doing out here in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Who cares?’ Essie said. ‘So long as they can help us.’
The boat was upon them in no time. It came alongside the Sunfish, and then a man came out on the deck, tall and lean, looking down at them with a smile. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ he said.
‘Daddy!’ Essie screamed.
Rescued
Everest Wan had been searching for Essie from the minute he was released from jail. After she called him from Gantua, he’d got his tech experts to discover her whereabouts by tracing her shell, but by the time his agents reached the little port, she was gone. She’d surfaced again in Sundia; after that, a mix of top-level information and good guesswork had led him to the South Outer Ocean, and the Sunfish.
Everest took the whole crew aboard and transported them with all speed back to Dux. Spinner was put into the care of the best private doctors, just in the nick of time. If he’d gone another day or two without medical attention, he would certainly have died, but Annalie and Will were relieved to be told he would make a full recovery. The Sunfish too was rescued, taken under tow, and put into dry dock for repairs.
When Spinner recovered consciousness, he looked around him at the luxury of his private suite and knew at once he must be in Dux. ‘Where am I?’ he asked, panicking. ‘What have you done?’
‘It’s okay,’ Annalie said soothingly. ‘You’re safe. We’re all safe.’
‘But—the Admiralty—’
‘There’s something you need to see,’ Will said.
Annalie passed him her shell and let him read.
Admiralty ‘attacks’ Sundia, sparks international crisis
An Admiralty warship was discovered in Sundian territorial waters yesterday in what the Sundians are calling an act of war.
The Admiralty warship Raptor was discovered off the remote west coast of Sundia by the Sundian coast guard, breaching Sundia’s strict no-travel policy.
The official Sundian news agency reports that there was an exchange of fire between the Raptor and the Sundian vessel before the Raptor stood down and agreed to be boarded. The crew of the Raptor have been arrested, and the vessel impounded.
The Sundians are calling the presence of the Raptor an ‘invasion’ and ‘an act of war’. Prominent Sundian government figures have called for the crew to be charged with spying and acts of war, which carry penalties of life imprisonment and even death.
While there is no official explanation yet about what the Raptor was doing in Sundia, the Admiralty have issued this statement: ‘The Admiralty respects the laws of Sundia and their right to defend their borders. We hope to resolve this unfortunate incident quickly and satisfactorily.’
Unofficial sources say the Raptor may have been carrying out covert operations in Sundia. If true, this could make it very difficult for the Admiralty to get their crew back, as well as severely embarrassing the Admiralty on the international stage.
‘Rogue agent’ responsible for Raptor Incident
In sensational new evidence today, the Admiralty has revealed that the Raptor was ordered into Sundian waters by a rogue agent, Commander Avery Beckett.
‘Commander Beckett has been a leading agent in the fight against international piracy for many years,’ the Admiralty said in a statement released today. ‘His team, which was stationed aboard the Raptor, was conducting a special investigation, which remains classified. Unfortunately, it appears Commander Beckett chose to ignore the very clear directives for action set down by the Admiralty and pursued his investigation in unauthorised and unacceptable ways. Commander Beckett overrode the orders of the Raptor’s commanding officer, Captain Grey, to avoid crossing into Sundian waters. It was Commander Beckett who forced the crew of the Raptor to violate Sundia’s borders, and who also subsequently fired on the Sundian coastguard in an effort to escape capture. Captain Grey was then able to regain control of the ship and begin negotiations with the Sundian authorities.’
Jail for rogue agent
Rogue agent Commander Avery Beckett is to remain in a Sundian jail, along with four of his key officers, but the rest of the crew of the Raptor are coming home, in a deal announced this morning.
The Sundian People’s Court have found Commander Beckett guilty of a range of offences and sentenced him to 20 years jail.
The court accepted that the remaining crew were acting under duress when they entered Sundian waters, and have ordered the release of the crew and the Raptor. They will be embarking on the return journey to Dux ‘within the week’.
Will gave Spinner an evil grin. ‘The Admiralty threw Beckett to the wolves,’ he said.
‘Twenty years in a Sundian jail,’ Spinner said. ‘That’s rough.’
‘He would have done worse to you,’ Will said.
‘Don’t you see what this means?’ Annalie said excitedly. ‘We’re free!’
‘The Admiralty doesn’t like to leave loose ends,’ Spinner said. ‘In their eyes, I’m still a traitor.’
Annalie and Will exchanged a look. ‘Actually, Essie and her dad have been working on that.’
While Everest’s people had been trying to find Essie, his energetic team of lawyers had been hard at work looking for ways to extricate his daughter and her friends from their complicated situation. Their investigations into Beckett had turned up a rich seam of potential bad news stories. Then came the Raptor Incident. Suddenly, the lawyers had everything they needed.
Hearing that Spinner had finally regained consciousness, Everest Wan soon arrived to share the good news with all of them: Spinner, Will and Annalie, Essie, Pod, Blossom and Graham.
‘You children are no longer kidnappers,’ he said. ‘We’ve spoken to the police. There were never any charges laid against Will and Annalie. The whole thing was just a fake story that Beckett’s people planted in the newsfeeds.’
‘But the story’s still out there,’ Annalie said. ‘Any time someone looks up our names, it comes up.’
‘We’ve done something about that,’ Everest said. He gave Essie his shell and she began to read aloud.
‘Kidnap’ girl found alive and well
Alleged kidnap victim Essie Wan has returned to her family today safe and well. She has revealed that the kidnap story was a hoax planted by notorious ‘rogue agent’ Commander Avery Beckett, now serving a 20-year sentence in a Sundian jail.
The sensational story claimed that Miss Wan had been kidnapped from elite Admiralty school Triumph College by her schoolmate, Annalie Wallace, and her brother, Will Wallace, and held prisoner aboard the Wallace family yacht, the Sunfish.
The truth, Miss Wan has revealed, is far stranger. Essie Wan was forced to flee Triumph College after Annalie Wallace, Miss Wan’s best friend, was targeted by Commander Beckett. He incorrectly believed Miss Wallace had information he wanted, and he threatened to harm her and her friends and family if she would not give it to him, even after she made it clear she did not have the information he sought. Believing their lives were in danger, Miss Wallace and Miss Wan fled to join Miss Wallace’s brother, and the three of them escaped aboard their family’s boat, the Sunfish. The Wallace children’s father was away on business and uncontactable at this time.
Commander Beckett pursued the children around the world in an extraordinary campaign of threats and harassment which did not end until his surprise arrest by the Sundian government.
The kidnapping story was planted by Commander Beckett in an unsuccessful attempt to draw the children out of hiding.
‘I was never kidnapped,’ Essie Wan confirmed. ‘Annalie and Will are my best friends in the whole world. You wouldn’t believe all the brave, heroic things they’ve done to keep us all safe while we were trying to get away fr
om that monster, Beckett. And now that the nightmare’s over we just want to go back to living our normal lives.’
Annalie, Essie and Will cheered and high-fived each other.
‘You’re so brave and heroic,’ Will chortled.
‘No, you are,’ Annalie said.
‘No, you are,’ Essie said, giggling.
‘We’ve done some search optimisation to make sure that this story is always the first one that comes up,’ Everest said. ‘So from now on, the links won’t think that you’re kidnappers. Or a kidnap victim.’
‘That fixes our problem,’ Essie said. ‘But what about Spinner?’
‘We talked to the Admiralty,’ Everest said, ‘and they can’t see the point of pursuing Beckett’s personal vendettas any longer.’
Spinner looked surprised. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘They’re never going to let something like this go.’
‘We put it to them that since some of the research has been recovered, and the rest has been irretrievably destroyed, the object of the investigation has been satisfied and the case can be closed.’
‘Beckett wanted to charge us all with treason,’ Spinner said. ‘You can’t just make that go away.’
‘You can if you properly motivate them,’ Everest Wan said with a smile. ‘Once we put it to the Admiralty that there were further embarrassing revelations which could be made public, about the Sundian affair and other events, they could see that it was in everyone’s interest to let the whole thing go.’
Annalie let out a gasp of delight, but Spinner was still resisting.
‘How do I know they mean it?’
‘We have a signed letter from the Director of Special Projects guaranteeing it.’ Everest handed the letter to Spinner. ‘It’s top secret and confidential, of course, and there’s a waiver you’ll have to sign. Plus, if you ever mention this agreement publicly or discuss it in any forum, they’ll deny all knowledge and the agreement will be void.’
Spinner began to read it, then looked up, rather dazed. ‘What about the others?’ he asked. ‘Vesh, Sola? Dan and Sujana?’
‘It applies to all of you,’ Everest said.
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