by Peter Tonkin
As the fire fighters set up and prepared to hose down the burning wreckage of the Land Rover, Sabet and her men strode past them and closed with the first of the police cars. Except that, thought Richard acutely, because they were in the Red Zone here, the term ‘police’ would probably actually mean Egyptian Army security. He found himself hoping quite fervently that whatever paperwork Ibrahim had sent up with Saiid would serve to further inter-agency cooperation and keep them all out of the Egyptian military prison.
As it turned out, Ibrahim’s documents had an almost magical effect. By the time the Egyptian army fire fighters extinguished the Land Rover, which they managed to do in less than ten minutes, Sabet was back, with the bundle of paperwork tucked under her arm, giving the spreading puddle of fire-fighting foam the widest possible berth as the steadying wind blew it towards the south side of the pier. ‘The Taba command will take over here,’ she announced as she came up to Richard and Robin. ‘I have talked to their commanding officer who knows Major Ibrahim well and is happy to help in any way he can. Private Saqr and the men from Nekhel may stay the night – facilities will be provided – and then take their trucks back to Captain Fawzi in the morning. All five trucks will be impounded in safe storage tonight so that the arms and equipment aboard ours will be secure … And any evidence left aboard the smugglers’ will be untouched.’ Sabet added this almost as an afterthought as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Saiid, Ahmed and Mahmood disappearing into the rear of one of her own soon-to-be impounded trucks. Saiid had passed her gun to Tsibekti, who was now very competently in charge of the prisoners. ‘I and my men from Sharm may please ourselves. We can stay here overnight and then go with the Nekhel men. We can stay and make arrangements to be picked up by someone from Sharm tomorrow. Ourselves and also the smugglers’ trucks, unless Major Ibrahim wants to send a forensics team up to go over them for evidence before they’re moved. In which case, the trucks can stay where they are, under armed guard, until we’re finished with them.’
She took a deep breath, looked around and concluded, ‘Or we can go back to base at once and sort out the smugglers’ trucks later. If you will take us aboard Katerina.’
There was another brief silence, this time underlain by the dying hiss of the cooling wreckage. Sabet added, ‘I assume you will be heading straight back to Sharm …’
‘That’s our plan at the moment,’ said Richard. He stepped back, apparently thoughtlessly, taking Robin with him, for he still had his arm around her waist. Sabet automatically swung round to maintain eye contact. Her back, therefore, was to the truck from which Saiid and his men were unloading some bulky equipment that was impossible to identify in the shadows. But Richard knew well enough what it would be.
‘Then if we may go aboard when you leave …’ continued Sabet, apparently unaware of the byplay behind her.
‘Of course,’ said Richard. ‘And our three guests?’
‘Slightly more problematic,’ Sabet shook her head. ‘But as the men, Aman and Hakim, are under arrest and in my custody as arresting officer, I may take them with me. And, as Major Ibrahim and I are the ones building the case against the smugglers, we may take our witness Tsibekti too. We have two private soldiers from the Sharm command with us as well, of course.’
‘Kareem and his mate.’ Richard nodded.
‘Will there be room for all of us aboard Katerina?’
‘I should think so,’ said Richard. ‘She’s designed to sleep twelve guests.’
And so it was agreed. Sabet, her witness Tsibekti, her men and her prisoners would go aboard Katerina with Richard, Robin, Saiid, Ahmed and Mahmood. They would all head for Sharm tonight, due to arrive there in a few hours’ time. The various contingents split up. The Nekhel men prepared to drive the trucks for which they were responsible into secure accommodation, then go to the Taba command area and mess down. Saiid and the prisoners under Sabet’s jurisdiction went aboard Katerina – easily enough now that Ahmed and Mahmood had reappeared from wherever they had vanished with the bundle they had liberated from the back of Sabet’s truck and were available to hand people off the gangplank and on to the deck. Even people unhappily in handcuffs.
Richard, Robin, Sabet and Tsibekti followed them. Kareem the marksman and his mate brought up the rear. Ahmed and Mahmood then released the gangplank and pulled it aboard as soon as the other crewmen had loosened the mooring ropes. Katerina turned, and under Captain Husan’s direction began to ease back into the south-running sea lanes, heading back down past Pharaoh’s Island and Saladin’s Fortress towards Sharm el-Sheikh. Sabet took her prisoners below and locked them – still in handcuffs – in the most secure of the cabins. Then she and Tsibekti explored the yacht’s facilities until they found showers, towels and the kind of towelling robes that a Muslim woman could wear in the presence of believers and crusaders alike. As this was the plaything of a Russian oligarch to whom outrageous excess was a way of life, each of the six double suites below had en-suite facilities, so once the women were satisfied it was easy enough for the others to start washing off the red sand the shamaal had showered them with so far today.
As they did this, Robin and the still-grimy Richard joined Husan on the bridge. At once, Richard glanced automatically at the location system, noting that Sharm was one hundred and eighty kilometres to the south. At Katerina’s top speed, that was several hours’ hard sailing, he thought, even with the strengthening shamaal behind her. And that fact started the short hairs on the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably. It was well past sunset now, and the next few hours were likely to be just about the darkest of the night. If everything went well, they would be back in Sharm soon after one a.m. tomorrow.
But if Aman’s threat held any water, then they were likely to be chased – at the very least – almost every metre and minute of the way.
These thoughts were sufficient to occupy Richard as he watched Captain Husan carry the Russian billionaire’s bath toy into the southward lanes. Until, in the rapidly deepening darkness, Richard saw the citadel of Saladin’s Fortress illuminated by its security lighting. Full of restless tension, he crossed to the starboard side of the bridge, looking vaguely westwards towards the spectacle. But no sooner had he done so than Saiid appeared at the starboard bridge door. ‘Come, Captain,’ he said quietly. ‘We have something to show you.’
Without a further thought, Richard followed Saiid out on to the exterior companionway that led down to the main deck. Robin remained beside Captain Husan, her eyes busy on the boat’s displays as well as on the movements of her errant husband. With one last glance back, Richard followed Saiid down on to the weather deck. ‘You look,’ whispered Saiid. ‘You see.’
The pair of them crept up the length of the foredeck to the forecastle, such as it was. There, Richard found Ahmed crouching over the traffickers’ Minimi machine gun that Sabet’s men had recovered after the fire fight in the mountains north of the airport and which Saiid had smuggled aboard while Sabet was talking to Richard. It was perfectly set and positioned to give the widest possible arc of fire over the bows. Richard smiled, wondering silently what other armaments they had smuggled aboard from Sabet’s trucks. What undeclared weaponry, indeed, they might have stowed below from earlier, even less legal, voyages. ‘This is excellent,’ he said supportively. ‘Let’s hope we’re the ones chasing the smugglers down to Sharm.’
Saiid shrugged. ‘It makes no matter,’ he said. ‘There was nowhere on the poop deck to mount it. We cannot fire backwards – only forwards. If we are chased, we will just have to hope for the best.’
Richard nodded and smiled, even though Aman’s bitter words still rang in his head.
And, indeed, as Katerina powered past Saladin’s Fort, sailing south into the darkness, so the prow of the smugglers’ dhow swung southwards into her wake. The one-eyed smuggler chief Amir stood on the cramped little rear-mounted bridge, peering through the bridge windows past the two tall masts with their lateen-rigged sails tightly furled. Like the rest of the
big smuggling vessel, the rigging was as deceptively old-fashioned as the wooden hull and the huge wheel of the helm. The dhow had not relied on the ancient sails for many years. It did rely on lookouts, watch-keepers and the captain’s most intimate knowledge of its home waters, however, for its usual, limited smuggling routes around the great mountain desert wedge of the Sinai, made complicated and expensive electronics redundant. Like the man who effectively commanded it, the dhow was partially sighted but enormously powerful. Amir pressed a pair of powerful binoculars to his eyes – though a telescope would have done as well. These were the same binoculars through which he had watched the men pull the priceless Tsibekti and the stupid Eritrean from the water and then usher them aboard the big white billionaire’s plaything that they were now following as he perfected his simple plans to recapture the girl.
With these grim thoughts in his head, Amir called for more speed from the huge diesel motors down below, so that the seemingly half-derelict smuggler could keep up with the fleeing gin palace, and at the very least keep its distinctive running lights well within view of Amir’s binoculars. For the time-being, at least. Because he planned, at the earliest feasible moment, to take control of the vessel and everyone aboard her and bring Tsibekti back into his possession – no matter who got slaughtered in the process. Assuming, in fact, that everyone aboard Katerina who could not be sold would die. It galled him to face the prospect of losing another potential fortune, but he saw no immediate alternative to sinking her after he had boarded her, reclaimed his property and got rid of all the witnesses.
Passing the binoculars to the captain’s mate, he ordered, ‘Keep that boat in clear sight and call me the moment we can catch up to her without being observed.’ Then he went below, walking carefully down the interior companionway that led to the main accommodation area. This big wood-walled space was currently packed with the full range of his merchandise – human, military and narcotic. He glanced coldly over the cowed men and women sitting under the guns of his gang, noted that the troublesome boy who had tried to rescue the girl was still unconscious from the beating he had received in consequence. The boy was only still alive because Amir proposed to kill him personally in front of the girl to show her what disobedience inevitably led to. He caught the eye of Bisrat, sitting beside the unconscious body, and nodded. Bisrat nodded back with a silently conspiratorial smirk, as though he and his chief shared some secret bond. The stupid Eritrean had no idea that he and his brother had outlived their usefulness as well and they would be sharing the unconscious boy’s fate. They too would die screaming, to keep all the others in line. After that infinitesimal pause and silent nod, Amir went on through into the only private area aboard, the little master’s cabin immediately above the lower engine areas. It was a strange little place, whose hardwood walls and decks were constantly vibrating to the pulse of the big motors; the air was constantly filled with their powerful rumble, and with the faint fragrance of wood dust shaken free of the joints and seams all around. Here he had set up his laptop, which, this close to the Sinai coast, had excellent Wi-Fi contact.
While he was being driven down the Taba road, Amir had used his cell phone to conduct an auction, as though he was the people-traffickers’ equivalent of eBay. And now that he had access to his laptop and a good signal, he was in the process of completing it. On one side of his screen was the picture of Tsibekti – without her burqa, most becomingly partially dressed, all flashing eyes, bared teeth and wild hair held between two of his strongest men – with which he had tempted his bidders. On the other side of the screen were the bids. The winning bid was highlighted in red and the sum was fabulous; certainly the greatest he had ever earned in an internet auction without allowing his bidders more intimate access to the bodies on sale. The only problem was that the man who had purchased Tsibekti was famous for his ruthlessness and cruelty. Should Amir fail to deliver the woman, the disappointed bidder would certainly take his head in her place.
Although he would never show it – could never show it – Amir, the chief of all Sinai smugglers, was in a situation that was rapidly making him very nervous indeed. If he recovered Tsibekti, safe, sound and unscathed, he would become rich enough to retire. If he did not, then he was as dead as the three Eritreans.
Richard’s suspicions that they were being followed were confirmed within half an hour. And it only took him that long to become certain because the sea lanes at the northern end of the Gulf of Aquaba were unusually busy that night. Katerina’s main radar display showed a circular pattern on a video screen with Katerina herself at the centre. Dotted all around the circle were the ships and boats of all shapes and sizes moving within or across the rings designed to measure one, five, ten and fifteen sea miles distance from the centre. Most of the bustling crowd of contacts showed as lines of letters and numbers as their electronic identities registered with Katerina’s system. But some were registered simply as anonymous electronic targets because they had no identification systems aboard.
Ships ahead were given highest priority by the computer-controlled collision alarm radar, especially those following a reciprocal course, coming north where Katerina was heading south. But vessels heading southwards ahead of her or astern of her registered as well – particularly if their speed or course made it likely that they would come too close for comfort.
Or rather, the display would have been circular had Katerina been out in the wide waters of the Red Sea proper. Here in the narrow Gulf of Aquaba, the eastern and western sides of the electronic array were truncated by the cliff-edged coastlines of Saudi and the Sinai. Katerina’s electronic layout made everything look dangerously constricted by these cliff-edged, reef-fanged jaws of land which, at this point, were scarcely ten miles apart. To east and west, therefore, only the five-mile circle was alive. As Katerina headed south, so the rear-facing northern display began to lengthen past the five-mile line. Only the southward-facing section of the display stretched to its full extent, showing the state of water traffic almost as far ahead as Dahab. And so all vessels moving north and south were forced into close proximity with her by geography as well as by desire. In the constricted little square to the north of them, the best part of a dozen contacts showed, including big freighters heading to or from Taba, Eilat in Israel or Aqaba in Jordan, their identities bright and clear – their radio officers available for contact if Richard desired it. Smaller boats heading for haven as the night gathered and the wind continued to rise, some with electronic identities, some without. Most, again, happy to make radio contact. But there were others, too. Vessels of varying size, according to the display. Without identities. Stubbornly silent. Of which three seemed to be sailing south in Katerina’s wake.
‘Those are the ones I don’t like the look of,’ said Richard. ‘There might be safety in numbers, though,’ mused Robin. ‘If one of those contacts is the smuggler, the other two are potential witnesses and could be causing him to hold off.’
‘That’s true but, even so, I’d like to know which one of them is our prime suspect. Husan, what speed are we making?’
‘Seven knots.’
‘Can you take her up to twelve?’
‘In a few moments, yes. I just want to get clear of the facilities north of Tala Bay in Jordan. There’s quite a lot of traffic around there, a good deal of it heading in and out, cutting right across our path. And we’ll have to keep an eye out for traffic round Haqi in Saudi just south of it,’ he added in a lower voice, clearly talking to himself. But even as he was speaking, Husan was easing the throttles forward and the big diesel motors below were pushing Katerina’s sleek hull through the busy sea lanes with gathering speed. Richard and Robin pored over the display as the head of the gulf, with Taba, Eilat and Aquaba clustered around it, fell more rapidly astern. So did two of the vessels that had aroused their suspicions. But the third, the largest of the contacts, also began to gather way, keeping pace with them as though the vessels were attached to each other with a tow rope. ‘Right,’ said Rich
ard. ‘Looks like that’s our man. Can I borrow those binoculars?’
Five minutes later, Richard was standing on the poop, the front of his thighs pressed against the aft safety rail as he brought Husan’s identical twin to Saiid’s Zeiss binoculars into focus. Their field of vision swept up over Katerina’s RIB, which was bouncing along on a short line astern. Then there was only a wilderness of white horses catching the light of a low moon, their tops whipping forward down the wind towards him. As he searched the horizon, Richard found time for one or two wry thoughts. First and foremost among them was relief that he hadn’t had the chance to shower and change yet. Because the thick, hot, wet wind that was boiling out of the north seemed to be increasingly laden with sand. He should have brought his keffiyeh, though. There was a tell-tale saltiness on his lips while gritty grains were crunching between his teeth and tickling his nose already.
‘Can you see anything yet?’ asked Robin, who should have known better than to venture on to the sand-blasted deck beside him, and was beginning to regret her decision to do so.
‘Not yet,’ he answered, trying not to open his mouth too wide. But no sooner had he said the words than he realized they weren’t quite true, because there was something out there. An absence of light. A slightly amorphous shape that blocked the gleam of the white horses that blotted out the lower stars. That was, if he looked carefully, given some sort of definition against the receding glow of the three cities at the head of the gulf behind them. He realized he had only managed to see their pursuer because the radar contact had given him a good idea where to look. Once again, the short hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. And not because they were getting full of sand.