We made our way between the outer lights, and Jannie turned the boat to follow the coast. I discovered that our life jackets had straps with carabiner attachments, and clipped them onto hooks on the wooden railing.
“Feeling worse,” said Fat-Boy, and this time I didn’t give him any advice because I was feeling queasy myself.
Chandler called when we were fifteen minutes out of harbour. I pressed the phone to my ear but couldn’t hear a thing, so I went below deck.
“I said TROUBLE,” shouted Chandler, when eventually I could hear him.
“What kind of trouble?”
“A motorboat followed you out.”
“Breytenbach’s men?”
“The other crowd – looked like AK-47s and camo outfits.”
“They’d be lucky to find us out here,” I said. “It’s rough.”
“They’ll have radar. Keep an eye out.”
I made my way back on deck. Fat-Boy had his eyes closed and looked as if he was trying to do a mind over matter exercise. I said nothing about Chandler’s call, but I think he guessed the content of it.
Jannie turned the lights off when we were twenty minutes out of harbour, which was what he had agreed to do. Fat-Boy and I moved to the starboard side of the boat because that way the wind came mostly from behind us, although the weather had deteriorated so much that it seemed to come from all sides. From here we occasionally glimpsed lights on shore, but they offered little in the way of comfort, particularly when the thin line of lights lurched into precarious angles.
Fat-Boy managed not to vomit until we were about an hour out of harbour, at which point he leaned over the edge without ceremony and threw up with a great heave of his shoulders. The wind caught his vomit and threw it back at us, spraying me liberally with it.
“Feel better,” said Fat-Boy, and I tried to look enthusiastic about that, but as I had turned my face away from the spray of his vomit something had caught my eye. It was a gap in the string of lights on shore. A hard-edged black hole. There was something between us and those lights. I searched the water carefully, but I could see nothing besides the thrashing waves and veil of rain. Then suddenly I saw it again. The clear silhouette of a boat.
“We’ve got a problem,” I shouted and pulled Fat-Boy down to crouch beside me, with only our heads above the rail. The silhouette disappeared then reappeared as our boats moved up and down in the heavy swell, but the outline was unmistakably that of a sleek motor boat, the sort of pleasure cruiser the wealthy load up with alcohol and girls in bikinis in the hot days of summer. It had a raised bridge area, and above that I could make out the occasional profile of two men. One of them was pointing in our direction, and looked as if he might be calling out orders. We had the benefit of the lights on shore behind them to provide the silhouette – it would be difficult for them to keep us in sight without lights behind us, and no lights on our boat.
We watched the intermittent progress of the boat for a full minute. They were slowly gaining on us, and I guessed we had about ten minutes before they would be alongside. It didn’t look as if they were planning on having a conversation; the two dark profiles above the bridge of their boat both had something slung over their shoulders, something that looked very much like the barrel of an automatic weapon.
I told Fat-Boy to keep an eye on them, unclipped myself and lurched unsteadily to the bridge. Jannie turned to me with surprise as I pulled the door open.
“We’ve got company,” I shouted over the sound of the engine, the wind and rain.
Jannie instinctively reached for the throttle, but I shook my head.
“Keep our speed up. Do you have a gun?”
Jannie nodded and reached into a compartment under the engine gauges and pulled out an old Makarov pistol which had probably made its way down the continent from Moscow during the apartheid years.
“Don’t shoot it,” I warned him. “They’re approaching on our starboard side, and they’ve got bigger guns than us, you understand? Do nothing unless to defend yourself. If you shoot, they’ll shoot back. Let me do the shooting.”
I drew out my Glock and showed it to him. He nodded, as if he understood.
“That Koeberg ahead?”
It had occurred to me that the lights we had seen on shore were the town of Van Riebeekstrand, beyond which there was a stretch of empty scrub leading up to the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station.
“Koeberg,” confirmed Jannie.
“Get close as you can to the beach, try to get into their waters.”
Jannie shook his head. “No can do. They’ll send out security.”
“That’s what we need,” I said. “Set the course, then jam the wheel and join us in the stern.”
“I’m the captain,” he protested. “I stay here.”
“They’ll attack the wheelhouse – safer outside.”
He shook his head again and brandished the Makarov.
“Safer here,” he said.
There was no time to argue about it. I went back out into the foul weather and made my way down the edge of the boat to Fat-Boy, who was still crouched in the same position, his eyes fixed on the dark shape of the approaching motor boat.
I unclipped Fat-Boy’s carabiner and helped him to the stern of the boat, where I clipped us both onto the mount of the loading arm, and then lay flat beneath the arm, gaining a little cover from the low stacks of concrete blocks which were arranged like a miniature city around it. Jannie adjusted our course, and we drew nearer to the shore, watching as the motorboat slowly gained on us. The two men on the raised bridge of the boat shifted restlessly as they drew nearer, watching for any signs that we had noticed them. Jannie turned his head a few times. But I doubt they could see that, and he did the right thing by keeping our speed and bearing constant. If they thought they had lost the element of surprise and it turned into a chase or a shootout, we wouldn’t have a chance against their faster boat and bigger weapons. Our only chance was to attract the attention of the power station security; I reasoned we could claim any number of mechanical or navigational failures and take refuge within the no-go area around the power station. Our concrete blocks would not attract much attention.
But our pursuers were not about to let us reach the safety of the power station. With a surge of speed, the boat accelerated towards us and drew alongside as the rain intensified. There was a minute in which they disappeared from view as their lower profile craft was hidden. Then a coil of rope leapt out of the sky and a heavy grappling hook struck the wooden deck of our boat and skittered across it before jumping overboard again. Another minute of waiting before the hook leapt out at us again, and this time it caught on the steps leading up to the bridge where I could make out the profile of Jannie holding his old Russian pistol before him. I cursed myself for leaving him in there, and not insisting that we tie up the wheel and let the boat continue on its course.
The two men came over the ledge, somersaulting head first, their AK-47s held between locked elbows as they’d been trained to do. I had less than a second to take aim and fire at the one closest to us. His body twisted with the blow of the bullet. I fired again. He crumpled to the deck, and his weapon bounced away from him. The wind had muffled the sound of the shots, so his partner probably didn’t know he’d been hit and kept rolling across the deck until he struck the base of the wheelhouse. He disappeared from my view just as I was taking aim, but I kept my gun on the spot I had last seen him, waiting for him to sit up. There was a pause, and then came the shout of a man’s voice. A silence, and then a repeat of the shout. I guessed he was calling to his colleague who was lying slumped against the railing they had jumped over. The shout came again, a thin noise under the barrage of wind and rain. Again, there was no answer.
That is when Jannie made his mistake. The sounds of the Makarov shots seemed distant because of the strength of the wind, but I could see his hand poking through the broken perspex window at the back of the bridge and it was jerking with the recoil of the shots. I couldn�
��t see for a moment what he was firing at, but then realised the head of a third person had appeared over the ledge, probably in response to the shouting. The head ducked down again as Jannie’s shots went wide, and a moment later the bridge exploded in a shower of splinters. The man taking shelter beneath it had opened fire and was showering the rickety structure with bullets. I still couldn’t see him and watched helplessly as the bridge tore apart, bits of wood and perspex flying off into the storm.
Our boat lurched to the side as whatever Jannie had wedged into the wheel to hold us on course was ripped away. We started heading directly towards the deserted stretch of sandy beach that was a part of the secure zone around the power station. The third man chose that moment to leap over the edge and onto our boat. I was ready for him and fired three shots, one of which missed its mark, but the other two struck home and he collapsed onto the deck. The man who had destroyed the bridge called out again, a desperate cry as he sought the support of his comrades. There was no reply from the slumped figures on the deck. The boat heaved suddenly to the other side as we took a swell broadside, and the two unconscious or dead men slid across the deck. The grappling hook that was holding the motor boat against our side lost its hold on the broken structure of what had been the wheelhouse, and it too slipped across the deck, snagging on one man’s legs, and dragging him towards us.
I had only a few seconds to make a decision. I judged the odds to be severely stacked against us. Two other men had appeared on the bridge of the motorboat; the man who had destroyed the wheelhouse was still under cover, whereas we were exposed at the stern with very little cover, had only my Glock with four bullets in the magazine, and nowhere to go. The grappling hook ripped free of the man’s leg and disappeared over the side. But already another hook was snagging the remnants of the wheelhouse. I made the decision.
“We jump,” I said to Fat-Boy, whose eyes stretched wide and his mouth opened to protest, but there was no time.
I released our carabiners from the loading arm and linked them together. The boat lurched again, as if it was trying to shake us free. We were getting close to shore and had probably caught on a sandbank. We took three steps, my hands pushing at Fat-Boy’s heavy back, and jumped. I looked back and glimpsed a man taking aim with his AK-47, and the shuddering of his hands as he fired, then we were in the icy water, my breath was punched out of me and I swallowed mouthfuls of it before I gained the surface, only to be struck down again by a wave which punched the side of my head. I came up and gasped for breath, but drew in nothing but water as I was pulled under again, kicked and struggled to get back to the surface, then realised the reason I wasn’t moving was the tugging weight on the end of the strap attached to my life jacket, the panicked tugs of Fat-Boy flailing about below me.
My lungs were bursting for air to the extent that conscious thought was being driven from my mind, but I grabbed hold of the strap and pulled myself down to where Fat-Boy was struggling. His arm struck me as he thrashed about. I caught it, found his neck, wrapped my elbow around it, and held him tight. There was nothing but black water everywhere; I knew from training that you let science take over and allow the buoyancy of your body to show the way. Not a simple thing to do when every muscle is screaming to get air into your lungs, but I kept still for a moment, squeezing too hard on Fat-Boy’s neck to keep him still too. An agonising moment, and then a sense of orientation returned, and I kicked with my feet. Then our heads were above water – I gasped a mouthful of the salty water and air, and heard Fat-Boy spluttering – then we were under again. I kicked and gained the surface. Took a mouthful of air, then another of water, then coughed and my lungs burned as if I’d breathed in hot coals. Fat-Boy was going into spasm. I could feel the way his heavy bulk contracted beneath my arm. It would have been better for both of us if he lost consciousness, but we kept our heads above water for long enough to get some air into his lungs and the spasms subsided.
I twisted around in the water, completely disoriented. The swell appeared huge. Wind caught the tops and spewed jets of foam into the air. I turned about, hoping to see something that would orientate me. Then a heaving swell lifted us and from the crest I glimpsed the lights of Koeberg. We dropped as the swell moved past, but I had a bearing, and I kicked and dragged Fat-Boy in the direction of the shore.
It took twenty minutes of hard effort, then the swell started catching on the rising sea floor and we were tossed and tumbled the last fifty metres until eventually the two of us crawled up onto the sandy beach like an eight-legged monster climbing out of the sea.
Seventeen
“He tried to kill me,” said Fat-Boy for the third time. “Angel – he strangled me in the water.”
Chandler said nothing but shovelled some egg into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, his eyes on the plate before him. He had not taken the news that we had abandoned the barge with our gold on it very well. His usual optimistic determination had collapsed into a sullen silence, and the burden of his disappointment weighed heavily on us all.
“This was when you swam ashore?” asked Chandler.
“Yes Colonel. He strangled me.”
“The sea was rough,” I pointed out. “And Fat-Boy is not an experienced swimmer.”
Fat-Boy’s breathing had been coming in shallow gasps by the time we reached the beach, so I removed the life jacket, unbuttoned his overalls, and ripped his T-shirt from him, then waited while he vomited and recovered his breath. We found Koeberg Nuclear Power Station on high alert when we came to a watchtower at the northern end of the beach. The boats had skirted the restricted zone and the motorboat captain claimed, in radio messages, that they had salvaged a stricken boat that had drifted off course, but power station security was keeping a close watch nonetheless. We confirmed the falsehood of the stricken boat, claiming to have fallen overboard, and the power station medical officer gave us a clean bill of health. He allowed me to use the telephone in his office to call Chandler, who was just finishing the job of replacing the concrete weights we had left on the quay. Our golden barge and the motorboat with Dark Bizness militia had long since disappeared. Now we were at our secluded table on the edge of the Twelve Apostles’ terrace, freshly clothed and facing up to our failure.
“You had your Glock,” said Chandler, and he looked up at me.
“They had AK-47s. We were sitting ducks.”
Chandler nodded, and his grey eyes studied me. “I want to believe you did the right thing, Corporal,” he said eventually. “Better alive without the gold than dead on that boat with it, is what I want to think.”
“He tried to kill me,” said Fat Boy again.
“Perhaps he did,” said Chandler, his eyes still on me. “Better luck next time, Corporal.”
I caught a glimmer of a smile. Then he brought his hands together with a loud clap that made Robyn jump. “Not all is lost,” he announced. “We will turn this to our advantage.”
“How we gonna do that?” asked Fat-Boy suspiciously.
“We’ll improvise,” said Chandler. “Isn’t that what we’re best at, Robyn?”
“We’ve certainly had a lot of experience at improvising,” said Robyn coldly.
“What’s that tone?” said Chandler. “You need to be with us on this, not being sarcastic and sitting on the sidelines being sulky – spit it out.”
“It’s nothing,” said Robyn. “I am with you, don’t worry.”
“I do worry though,” said Chandler. “I know you well enough to worry when I hear that tone in your voice. Tell us what’s on your mind.”
Robyn sighed and studied her uneaten breakfast.
“It’s cursed,” she said.
Chandler and Fat-Boy looked at her as if expecting something more.
“Cursed?” said Fat-Boy. “What the fuck you mean?”
“It brings bad luck,” she said. “Every effort of ours to get that gold has met with disaster.”
“I see,” said Chandler, and he tilted his head to better consider this suggestion. “
And because it’s cursed, you propose allowing the Dark Bizness crooks to sail into the sunset with it?”
Robyn said nothing.
“Like fuck they do that,” said Fat-Boy. “You and me go get it, Colonel. If the lovebirds are too scared.”
Chandler’s eyes turned to me.
“We’re not too scared to do anything,” I said.
“How many times must we fail?” Robyn blurted angrily, her eyes on me. “How long do we keep fooling ourselves? Until one of us doesn’t make it back?” There was a breathless pause, then she said, “I want nothing more to do with it.”
Chandler raised a hand as if to give himself a moment to understand what she had just said.
“Are you saying you want out?” he asked.
“Yes, I want out, Colonel. You have always said the door was open. Now I’m walking out of it.”
“Why don’t you take some time to think about it?”
Robyn shook her head. “I’ve had time. I’ve made my decision.”
Chandler stared at her, and for a full minute none of us spoke. Then he sighed heavily, pushed his chair back and stood up.
“All of us, or none of us,” he announced. “That’s how it has always been. It’s over.”
“Like fuck it’s over,” said Fat-Boy. “We’ll find that ship and get our gold back. We can do it, Colonel, we can still do it.”
“No hard feelings, Fat-Boy,” said Chandler. “It is all of us or none of us, that’s how it needs to be. It’s time to end this.”
“The fuck?” said Fat-Boy. He turned to Robyn and said again, “The fuck?”
Chandler picked up his card-key from the table.
“There will be other opportunities,” he said. “We’ll work together again. And it will be all of us, or none of us.”
And he walked away from the table, crossed the stone-paved terrace and passed through the French doors into the hotel.
Fat-Boy repeated his last words on the subject a few more times. Then Robyn stood up and – without saying another word to either of us – followed Chandler into the hotel.
Vengeful: A Conspiracy Crime Thriller (The Gabriel Series Book 3) Page 14