***
In the apartment in Gibraltar, after bundling the man Heathcote had head-butted out of the room they left just one man on guard outside the doorway to the bedroom. Occasionally he would glance in but seemed more interested in the programme being shown on the television in the corner of the room he was sitting in. Two hours passed and then Anna-Maria started to make noises that had the guard come in and eventually whip the Duck Tape painfully from over her mouth.
“What do you want?” he asked in Portuguese.
“Toilet. Do you understand, we need to visit the toilet!”
The man turned back to the door and said loudly, “They say they need to use the toilet, Christiano.”
“Untie them one at a time, but they do not close the toilet door, especially that red headed bitch,” replied Christiano, pleased to inflict another form of punishment upon the woman that had dared to strike him.
When Anna-Maria was returned to the bedroom and again tied hand and foot, the guard forgetting the Duck Tape gag moved across to Heathcote and untied her feet and led her away. As soon as the two had left the room Anna-Maria wriggled across her bed to the bedside table and, using her teeth, pulled her handbag onto the bed and nuzzling it open, bit onto the corner of the black notebook belonging to her stepfather, Vermeulen, and lifted it out. Now she wriggled to the head of the bed and dropped the notebook onto the pillow then nosed it over the edge to fall to the floor between the bedhead and the wall. She had only just got the handbag back onto the table when the guard and Heathcote returned.
It was then that the guard remembered the Duck tape and fearing reprisal from the one called Christiano hurriedly gagged her again.
***
Midnight had come and gone with no news from VTS regarding small craft approaching the harbour from across the Straits when suddenly the security gates to Cormorant Wharf opened and the Mercedes swept out turning north up Queensway. The vehicle had hardly disappeared before Vaughan and Robson were out of the rear doors of the van.
“You drive, Puncher, and don’t lose them. I’ll phone the Commander.”
Dialling the number, Vaughan was impressed by the immediate pick up. “Yes, Vaughan, any movement?”
“There is, Commander, the car just left here in a hurry and seems to be making for Marina Bay. Can you organise some armed backup?”
“Certainly, I’ve got two RHIB’s waiting to go, packed with marines and I’ve just given the nod to the Gibraltar Police.”
As Vaughan’s telephone conversation was in progress Puncher Robson fulfilled one of his great ambitions in driving at breakneck speed through a city and frequently on the wrong side of the road without fear of having his licence pulled. As anticipated the tail lights of the Mercedes were seen turning into Marina Bay Square and as they turned in and headed towards the corner nearest to the marina walkway they saw the Mercedes abandoned with its doors left open.
“Stay back, Puncher, you’re not armed,” ordered Vaughan as he leapt from the van and ran towards the walkway flicking off the safety catch on his Glock 26 as he went.
He had just reached the waterside when he saw two men rushing two complaining women along the pier to then be hidden behind the hull of the Sunborn Floating Hotel and Casino. All around him were groups of people and Vaughan, desperate to avoid anyone being caught in the crossfire, weaved his way through them and over the bridge to the pier then along it in search of the foursome. He had passed Sunborn’s bow when he saw his quarry in the distance making towards the furthest pontoon arm. Sprinting now, Vaughan threw caution to the wind as he raced in pursuit hoping to get well within range before drawing fire. The four had reached the bridge from the pier to the pontoon when one of the men saw Vaughan coming at them and raised his automatic pistol and squeezed the trigger.
Seeing the movement, Vaughan dropped down flat and rolled to and over the pier edge grabbing hold of one of the mooring bollards to prevent himself completely falling into the water, his feet however, creating a loud splash. Whether the gunman thought he had hit Vaughan he could not tell, but his action was sufficient to bring a halt to the attack. Peering over the edge of the pier decking Vaughan noticed the foursome had moved on and, clambering back onto the pier cautiously, he continued his chase. Reaching the bridgehead he saw one of the men bundling the women onto a fast looking motor cruiser and pushing them below into the boat’s cabin. The boat was out of range for the Glock, but, with a gentle easterly breeze blowing he knew that the sound would travel and he fired three shots, hoping that the threat of his presence would delay the men. The response from the more powerful automatics held by the men peppered the small pier-head building as he lay out of sight on the deck. The faint sound of the motor cruiser’s engine starting had Vaughan making a run down the bridge ramp to the floating pontoon section and the screen of moored boats. Reaching the T junction he continued walking in a low crouch towards the boat the women had been forced onto. There was no sign of anyone ashore and Vaughan supposed that they were busy securing the two women and preparing for sea.
He was approaching the boat on which the women were being held when he sensed, as much as heard, a movement on the foredeck of the vessel alongside of him, above and to his left. Dropping to the decking and rolling in one smooth movement he felt the closeness of bullets as one plucked at his collar and heard the staccato crack, crack, crack of the man’s automatic before he could pull the trigger. The bullet had hit the man squarely in the chest and Vaughan watched as he fell backwards to lay lifeless on the power boat’s deck. “One down and one to go,” thought Vaughan as he rolled again and scrambled to his feet eyeing the last boat on the pontoon. There was no sign of anyone on deck nor apparently on the flying bridge above it. In a crouching run he made it to halfway along the vessel, just short of where the cabin windows started, then holding a guard rail stanchion, rolled under the lower safety wire onto the narrow side deck and cautiously got to his feet. The scrape of a foot told him that someone was up on the flying bridge and he was just about to edge back to a point where he could see the person when the thwack of a bullet hitting the deck inches from his foot had him diving forward and rolling across the foredeck as more bullets chased him. Then the engines roared and the vessel powered away from the pontoon as Vaughan saw a man leap into the water. Thrown about on the waves as the powerboat cleared the protection arm formed by the airport’s runway Vaughan found it difficult to make his way astern and up to the, now deserted, flying bridge. As he climbed up he found himself caught in the beams of two powerful lights from fast vessels intercepting the boat. Groping for the controls Vaughan closed the throttles and the boat rapidly lost way.
“Stand and put your hands on your head,” came the command from the nearest of the two RHIB’s now maintaining a parallel course. “We are going to board your vessel, any resistance will be fired upon.”
Vaughan did as he was told, experiencing the growing feeling that he had been set up. A jolt as the second RHIB came alongside made Vaughan stagger, then a fresh-faced marine’s head appeared, his gun pointing at Vaughan.
“If you reach into my hip pocket you will find my SIS I.D,” said Vaughan.
“Oi, Banner, get up here and check this guy’s hip pocket will yer.”
Another young Marine appeared and cautiously circled Vaughan. “What am I looking for?”
“SIS I.D.”
“Oh.”
Vaughan felt a hand slide into his pocket and remove the wallet containing the badge.
“Hey!” came a shout from below. “This bloke’s got a couple of birds tied up down ’ere.”
“Is that true mate?” asked the Marine called Banner.
“No, I came aboard to try and rescue them but now realise it was a blind while the gang got away with the real hostages.”
“Sorry, I don’t understand you, mate,” said Banner, “Wait till the captain gets on board and tell him.”
It was half an hour before Vaughan got to question Jenny Grant and Amanda Dod
ge about their abduction. They had been returning to Jenny’s parents’ apartment when they were grabbed by a group of four men and gagged. They hadn’t seen anything of the journey to Marina Bay as they had been hooded, then when the hoods were removed they were threatened that they would be killed if they resisted during the walk past the Sunborn Floating Hotel. Obviously they complied hoping that someone would realise their plight. It was when they were crossing the bridge that they realised only two of the men were with them. Scared stiff as to what was happening they tried to resist until they both felt gun barrels pushed into their stomachs. Then after being rushed along the pier the taller of the two men had shot at someone following them. A loud splash and the sight of a deserted pontoon had both girls thinking that soon they would be killed.
***
The one called Fidel and two others in the gang entered the bedroom as scuffling was heard in the room where the television was on.
“Stand up, we are leaving.”
Anna-Maria stood and picked up her holdall and waited for Heathcote to join her by the door. They could see two girls being held by the one called Graciano, both hooded and, from the muffled noises they were making, gagged. Looking on were the three remaining gang members all casually holding machine pistols. With a word from Graciano the two hooded girls were pushed and shoved out of the apartment and towards the lifts by the four men, leaving Fidel and his two henchmen guarding Heathcote and Anna-Maria.
Several minutes passed then they heard the lift return and one of the gang hurried to hold the doors open as Heathcote and Anna-Maria were herded out to be crammed into the lift with the men. At the ground floor they were taken to the marina side of the building and after much pushing and shoving put aboard a sinister looking powerboat. There they waited, sat under guard in the boat’s saloon for almost ten minutes until Fidel’s phone rang and he was told that the decoy had worked and he was to leave immediately.
Once clear of the marina Fidel came below and whipped off the gagging tape over the women’s mouths, then gave an order to the larger of the three men.
“What did he say?” asked Heathcote.
“He just told this one, called Gregorio, to keep an eye on us.”
“Well, at least we are not travelling with the boss boy.”
“No, he would not have enjoyed this, I heard him say that he suffers with sea sickness.”
“Did you hear where they are taking us?”
“Yes, a town on the Algarve coast called Lagos. Graciano said that someone called Leonardo has made arrangements for us there.”
“Is this Leonardo anything to do with your stepfather?”
Anna-Maria shook her head, “No, I have not heard that name mentioned by Jan, but he never talked about business when my mother or I were in earshot. Huh, I used to wonder why, now I know.”
They were quiet for a time then Anna-Maria asked, “Do you know Ian well?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, it seems strange that shortly after I have been delivered to Gibraltar I am captured and now it appears I am to be handed over to someone called Leonardo.”
“You were praising Vaughan for rescuing you yesterday, why do you think he is working for the bad guys?”
“I have been thinking and it seemed so strange now that a sailing boat is sent to rescue me, specially as Cecil thought that your Royal Navy would be sent to such a remote rendezvous. Maybe Ian Vaughan was Jan Vermeulen’s back-up plan if I survived the fishing boat sinking.”
“If he was he would have shot you on the spot. Besides, I personally know that the Commodore pushed both the navy and the Royal Air Force for assistance but thanks to our bloody incompetent Government we no longer rule the waves and don’t have good enough diplomatic relations to secretly have a military aircraft land in either Mauritania or Western Sahara without a load of bally hoo ha.”
Anna-Maria was quiet for a while then said, “If I had stayed aboard Beni Tamek’s boat and given myself up maybe they would all still be alive and you would be safely at home in London and not here with these horrible people.”
“Did they board the fishing boat or just sink it?”
“I, I don’t know, at the time I was so scared and had got a long way from Beni Tamek’s boat by the time it was sunk. It’s still all of a blur,” Anna-Maria closed her eyes, and frowning tried to take her mind back to the night when she had escaped the sinking. “I am sorry, I am still confused and too muddled to be sure. I just wondered, maybe Ian Vaughan was Jan Vermeulen’s back-up plan to get his hands on me and his notebook again.”
“You have Vermeulen’s notebook?”
“Not anymore, I dropped it behind the bed last night when you were being taken to the toilet.”
“What was in the notebook?”
“It was all in some sort of code, so I think maybe it was very important and as I was not likely to get it to Mr Campbell, then maybe Vermeulen would not kill us when we are handed over to him. I just thought that if he thinks the notebook was just lost in Rosso I, I…” Anna-Maria’s voice faded and she just lay on the berth shaking her head in frustration.
“Vaughan has not been with us for very long, but he doesn’t strike me as being someone who would get involved with the likes of your stepfather. We know a lot about Vaughan’s past and I cannot recall anything that would link the two men.”
“What about this Leonardo?”
Heathcote shook her head, “There you have me, but it still doesn’t fit somehow, not with his past and how we identified him as being suitable to work with us.”
“You are right, Penny, please ignore me. Ian knew about the notebook and was looking through it himself as we sailed here. It would have been easy for him to throw me over the side and just bring the book and hand it over to this Leonardo or whoever was the link.”
“I’m pretty confident that Vaughan is on the side of the angels in this, Anna-Maria. For a start why hand you over to me in the first place, why not sail straight into the marina by the apartments and hand you straight to Graciano.”
“Yes, of course I am being stupid, it is just all the killing and now it appears that it was all for nothing.”
At that point Fidel came down from the boat’s flying bridge and ordered Gregorio on deck whilst he took over the watch of the two women.
***
“Whilst your diversion was going on, Mr Vaughan, VTS reported another craft leaving at speed from the marina at Cormorant Quay,” informed Frazer.
Vaughan buried his face in his hands. “Oh what a plank, fancy falling for that. They must have seen me eyeing the Mercedes earlier and guessed we were onto them,” replied Vaughan, annoyed with himself for obviously having given the game away. “In which direction did it go?”
“The radar tracked it as following the Spanish coastline until we lost it behind cliffs. There apparently hasn’t been anything that small crossing the Straits so we think that they are either still in Spanish waters or now moving your people by land.”
“We need to find where they were being held in the Cormorant Quay development, Commander,” said Vaughan. “There is a chance that they have left some clues; in the meantime I must report to London, God knows what the Commodore will make of this cock-up.”
The middle of the night is never a good time to impart the news of failure but though the telephone conversation with Campbell was not a comfortable one, Vaughan sensed that the Commodore understood that he had been outwitted rather than having blundered. “You say that the gang removed the body of the man you thought you had killed.”
“Yes, Sir, so it appears. The police could not find any sign of a body and I am quite sure that when he went down he would stay down.” Replied Vaughan. “I suspect that he may have been well known which would lead the police to the rest of the gang. Even so they took a hell of a risk as the Gibraltar Police were closing in pretty quickly on the scene.”
What Vaughan was unaware of was that the man who had jumped from the powerboat and swum back
to the pontoon had, whilst all attention was on Vaughan, found and lowered the dead man’s body into the water then swam with it over two hundred metres to a pontoon nearer the shore from where the body was collected just before dawn.
“Stay with it until you are satisfied that nothing more can be learnt from the apartment, assuming that they find it. Inspector Lopez is a good copper, I worked with him on a terrorist case three years ago, he’s got a good nose.”
“Right, Sir, then sail back I suppose?”
“Yes, Vaughan, I suppose you better had,” replied the Commodore, thoughtfully. “For the first few days at sea I want you to keep close enough to the shore to be in mobile phone range.”
CHAPTER 6
At his home in Dulwich, Commodore Campbell looked up from his breakfast in surprise. “Sir Andrew, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I thought I better come myself to tell you of the decision that has been made by the Prime Minister and I. It is linked to the crisis exposed by agent Vaughan and the ramifications that are following it within certain areas of the EU and the States; also the current operational problem you have caused by utilising one of our most important office staff on a field operation that, I for one, knew nothing about. The upshot of this is that you and members of your immediate team are to be put on, let’s call it, ‘gardening leave’ and be restricted from any contact with each other, the press and anyone in connection with this business.”
Campbell slowly put down his knife and fork. “That is very convenient, Sir Andrew, I was getting a little concerned with regard to the hedges and there is always a lot of weeding to be done.”
“You’re taking this extraordinarily calmly, do you not appreciate what such a sanction implies?”
“I’m well aware of its significance. I am also aware of the forces behind it.”
“What ‘forces’ are you talking about, man?”
“I will not say anymore at this juncture, Sir Andrew, powder is best kept dry in readiness for battle,” replied Campbell. “Now if you don’t mind, I have some weeding to do.”
In Treacherous Waters Page 14
