Hopper understood Stratton’s thought process. It was debatable but he saw the value in keeping the other prisoners quiet. He looked at the prone forms around him. He doubted any of them would make a peep if he and Stratton left together. But it could still work Stratton’s way. And he was the ops leader. ‘Have you got your hands free yet?’
‘Almost.’ Stratton had been working on the clumsy series of knots since darkness had fallen. He had untied most of them.
A whispered conversation started directly across from them. It was the girl talking with her friend. The guy had been lying there when everyone returned from the beach. He’d been conscious but looked like he was in a lot of pain. She had fed him his meals and made him comfortable as best she could but there was little else she could do for him without medical attention.
Stratton hadn’t decided exactly when he was going to get out of the hut but a fundamental prerequisite was that everyone else in the room be asleep. He’d accepted that might not be easy, especially when they had little else to do during the day but sleep. But that was a chance he was going to have to take and why Hopper should remain.
Stratton attacked the final knot with his teeth and quietly unravel led the nylon line from around his wrists. It was a relief to get it off. He bit off a couple of lengths and threaded them through the empty eyelets in his boots and tied them up. He was good to go but he remained quietly where he was for another hour. The Chinese couple had finally stopped talking and seemed to have drifted off to sleep. Everyone else was equally quiet.
As he decided it was time to leave, there was movement in front of him. He thought it was someone turning over. But they slowly got to their feet. The figure went to the door and paused like they were listening. Stratton raised his head just barely enough to take a look. In the moonlight he could tell it was the Chinese girl. She took a hold of the door knob and pulled on it gently. The door was firmly bolted.
She stepped back through the middle of the room between everyone’s feet, moving quietly and carefully, and went to the wall below the opening. She reached up but her fingers were a few inches short of the sill.
She looked behind her, around the room, checking to see no one was watching her. Stratton closed his eyes. She turned back to the wall and jumped for the sill. Her fingers hooked on to the edge and she fought to pull herself up. She was strong and determined and, trying to be as quiet as possible, managed to throw a hand through the opening to the other side. Slowly she pulled herself up. She was small enough to manoeuvre her legs through the opening while sitting on the sill. A second later she was gone.
Stratton listened hard for any sounds. He heard nothing. Not the girl landing, not any commotion. Which suggested no guard at the back. He doubted the Somalis had much of a guard routine going. She had clearly been as confident about that as he was.
He looked around the hut. No one had moved. If anyone was aware of her departure, they had, like Stratton, remained still and made no sign of it.
He sympathised with her completely. She’d made the right choice. If she stayed in that hut, there was little doubt about what would happen to her and probably by more than one of the bastards. It might not be any easier on the outside. But it was well worth the try. She would probably head for the water and find a boat. As a yachtswoman she had a good chance of making it once she got herself out to sea. He couldn’t really see another option for her. Anyone who could sail around the world should be able to navigate the Gulf of Aden in a fishing boat. All she had to do was get as far away from the Somali coast as she could and wave down the first vessel that came by. Preferably a navy boat.
Stratton looked at her friend lying against the wall. His eyes were closed but his sharp breathing suggested he was in a lot of pain. It must have been tough leaving him behind. But the man would never make it in his condition. And she couldn’t afford to wait. Stratton put her out of his thoughts. He had enough of his own problems. He waited a few minutes longer then he sat up and gently squeezed Hopper’s arm.
‘Have fun,’ Hopper whispered.
Stratton thought he detected a slight edge to Hopper’s voice but he ignored it. He eased to his feet, went to the wall below the opening, reached up, grabbed the sill and gently pulled himself up to get a look outside. The hut backed on to another, the gap wide enough to drive a car along. An orange light shone in the window of a house further down. The smell of kerosene was even stronger. He heard a vehicle rattle along somewhere, saw its headlights flickering between the buildings.
He reached up for a roof rafter and manoeuvred his legs through the opening. He twisted on to his front and slid outside, grabbing the sill and lowering his feet to the ground. He crouched to scan between the buildings. All he could see was junk and rubbish. As he was about to move off a nearby sound froze him. The scuff of a boot on hard ground. Coming from the gap around the corner of the prison hut.
Stratton went to ground and lay flat. In daylight he would have been exposed but in the shadows among rubbish and rubble, he could probably get away with being stepped on before anyone noticed him.
A figure appeared from the gap and paused. Stratton wondered if it was the girl returning for some reason. Whoever it was didn’t wait for long and followed the back of the prison hut to the window. And another figure left the narrow gap to join the first. The two moved stealthily. Like they didn’t want anyone to see or hear them. Both were too big to be the girl. When they turned to look up the street, Stratton knew immediately who they were.
They were the two who had fought over the girl on the beach. The two Hopper and he had flattened. It looked like they were going to climb into the hut. They wanted to avoid the front. They were either coming for him and Hopper or the girl. Perhaps all three. Once inside they would discover the girl was missing and Stratton too. Hopper would take them on but that might end badly for him, especially if he hadn’t untied his hands.
One of the men reached for the sill and took his weight on his arms while his colleague crouched to give him a boost. Neither of them looked behind them. Neither saw Stratton pick up a chunk of concrete and ease himself to his feet. The one that had grabbed for the opening pulled himself up into it, the other still holding his legs.
Stratton moved at them. The man on the ground heard him coming but had little time to react. As he let go of the other Somali’s legs and reached for the knife in the waistband of his trousers, Stratton brought the rock down hard on to his head. Enough to knock the man senseless. Stratton followed it with a knee into his side and, as the Somali rolled on to the ground, hit him again with the concrete, smashing his jaw.
Stratton straightened and grabbed the climber’s foot as the Somali tried to scramble through the window. At the same time he reached down to the prone Somali’s belt and pulled out the knife. It was fully in his hand as the guard dropped out of the opening on to his feet. As he landed, Stratton shoved the long blade all the way into him just below his lowest rib. The man jerked in a spasm and opened his mouth to yell but Stratton’s free hand quickly clamped over it. The only sound that came from between his fingers was a muted squeal. As the Somali looked into Stratton’s eyes, he recognised the Englishman. The life went out of his eyes and legs at the same time. Stratton lowered him to the ground beside his partner.
Stratton looked up at the hut window to see Hopper’s face in the gap.
‘Stratton!’ he whispered.
‘I’m OK.’
Hopper pulled himself out a little more to take the weight off his unbound hands. He saw the knife in Stratton’s hand and the bodies at his feet. ‘You need a hand with them?’
‘I’ll drag them out of the way. Hopefully they won’t be missed until morning. We’ll stick with the plan. Ensure no one in there makes a fuss. I’ll get back to you soon as I can and then we’ll get out of here.’
‘And if you don’t get back by first light?’
‘Don’t wait till then. But I’ll be back sooner than that.’
Hopper disappear
ed back into the hut.
Stratton decided to keep the knife. He wiped it on the dead Somali’s shirt, then removed the man’s leather belt and quickly threaded it through the loops of his own trousers and tucked the blade into it. Grabbing a hold of the legs of one of the men, he dragged him into a narrow alleyway and went back for the other.
After piling enough trash on to the bodies to hide them from sight, while it remained dark at least, he set off in the direction of the beach. Stratton made his way across the town, using the darkest, least obstructed alleyways between dwellings, pausing often to listen. He couldn’t afford to bump into anyone. He was the wrong colour to fool any local.
When he reached the last house at the corner of the town, he knelt to take in the ground ahead. The ships were well lit, the sound of their generators drifting on the night air. Laughter came from beyond some piled-up crates further down on the beach. He could see a glow on either side suggesting a fire. That all worked in his favour. It would be difficult for anyone to see into darkness from within a well-lit area.
Stratton headed away from the town, keeping to the higher ground, level with the beachfront houses. He followed a line parallel to the beach, keeping low to avoid being silhouetted. When he was well past the crates with the fire behind it, he headed across the beach towards another stack of boxes. He was exposed to the lights from the ships but knew he was pretty invisible.
When he reached the shadows of the crates he took his time checking the open ground between him and the water. He had twenty good paces of sand to cross. He edged to the end of the pile of boxes until he could see the light from the fire. A couple of guards stood between it and the water.
As he put his head further around the box to look for the rest of the guards, he saw a figure walking directly towards him and jerked his head back, moving into the darkest hole he could find.
The guard came around the corner, his rifle over his shoulder and mumbling to himself. He removed the rifle, leaned it against a crate and unbuckled his trouser belt. The Somali was barely a metre from Stratton, but he had walked into the darkness from the fire and had lost his night vision.
He dropped his trousers and squatted. As he did so he looked down and he saw what was there. A boot. He followed it up to a trouser leg. Then to a torso, up to Stratton’s cold hard face looking down on him.
Before the man could react, Stratton swiftly gripped his shirt collar in both hands either side of the Somali’s neck and twisted his wrists so that his knuckles dug deep into the man’s throat. The effect was immediate and twofold. First, he closed the man’s windpipe so that he couldn’t make a sound. Second, he shut off the blood supply between the man’s heart and brain. In about five seconds the Somali’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, his hands hung limply by his side and his tongue hung out of his mouth.
Stratton lowered the dead man on to the sand and wondered what to do with him. If he left him where he was, he would be found by the next man who needed to relieve himself. Stratton dragged him away from the crates and up the beach for a distance before releasing him and making his way back.
The bodies were mounting. Hopper and he certainly needed to get out of there before the daylight exposed them.
Stratton decided not to take the Somali’s rifle. It would only get in the way and he needed stealth rather than firepower. He placed the weapon on top of one of the crates out of view and set his sights again on the largest vessel. Keeping close to the edge of the crates, he looked towards the fire again. The guards were huddled around it. Almost a dozen of them. He doubted they would miss their colleague. They would believe he had gone off for a kip long before they suspected anything bad had happened to him.
Once Stratton made it into the water, the next problem would be getting on board the ship.
An examination of the target presented him with two choices. The most obvious was the gangway. But although the bottom of it was in darkness, the top was exposed to the bright lights on the deck, the superstructure and the bridge wings. And he couldn’t rule out the possibility that someone would be sitting on deck watching the top of the gangway.
The other option he had was to climb one of the anchor chains. He had scaled them many times before in his career and knew the technique required. He could not see any rat cones attached. Those were a bitch to climb around. He looked at the aft anchor. That would be the easiest option because of the low freeboard. But if he went up that way, he’d have to walk the length of the main deck to get to front of the boat where he’d watched them take the crate. He decided to avoid that exposed walk past the superstructure and climb the longer forward anchor.
Stratton looked over at the guards around the fire. Nothing had changed. He left the cover of the crates and walked briskly across the soft sand. He ran the last few metres and dived into the waves that were collapsing on the shore. He kept beneath the surface for as long as he could and when he came up he looked back to the fire for any signs that he had been seen.
The guards still hadn’t moved and so he turned towards the front of the ship and swam. When he reached the huge metal links, he quickly pulled himself out of the water. He manoeuvred so that the chain angled beneath him and he climbed like a monkey on a branch using all four limbs and three points of contact at any one time. At first it was easy because the chain took much of his weight. But as the angle grew steeper, he had to climb the chain more like a ladder.
He took it one easy step at a time, keeping a watch above and on the shore, aware that from the beach he would be silhouetted against the night sky.
The last few metres were near vertical and required a greater effort as he eased himself up. The huge links passed through a large eye in the side of the ship that was big enough for him to climb through. He eased himself on to the deck and crouched in his wet clothes behind the anchor winch housing. No one could see him there and he took a moment to get his breath back and take stock.
The ship seemed fairly new, that or it was well cared for. The paint job was good and there appeared to be little rust. The superstructure was lit up like a hotel. It housed the accommodation, control room, galley and sick bay, with the bridge and radio shack on the top. The auxiliary generators that provided all of the Oasis’s energy needs maintained a constant hum.
The deck was greasy beneath his hands and feet. That was usually the case around the chains and cables. He studied the superstructure. Anyone on board would most likely be in it. He saw a shadow move across a porthole beneath the bridge. No other sign of life. He scanned the decks, like the rest of the ship exposed by lighting.
Keeping low, he moved across the deck between the winch machinery looking for any sign of the crate. But he found nothing. The most obvious location to store anything that big at the front of the ship would be the bosun’s locker, a deep storage space that went from the main deck level all the way down to the bottom of the boat.
He looked at a large square hatch that was open. It had to be the locker. There was a light on inside. Which suggested that someone might be down there. The bosun’s locker wasn’t usually a place anyone hung around unless they were working in it.
He crept to the hatch and leaned over the opening to look down. Lights illuminated the locker all the way down, a good fifteen metres. The entire inside had been painted white. Metal stairs zigzagged part of the way down to ladders that continued to the bottom.
An oxyacetylene gas bottle stood upright just inside the hatch. He listened hard but he heard nothing. The hatch was the only way in or out. He took a quick look around and then he stepped into the hatch and down the handful of steps to the first landing and the gas bottle. A rope had been fixed to a strong point near the hatch and dangled all the way to the bottom.
The forward part of the bosun’s locker was the sharp-angled inside of the bows that cut through the water. The welded steel plates had been reinforced by a series of ribs and bracings. These were used as storage shelves and were stacked with ropes, chains and rat cones.
A portable electric lamp had been clipped to a brace and aimed at an angle. The hull below the waterline was reinforced by box sections of welded plates. The light was pointed at a particular section, which had been cut open using a torch. The white paint along the cut had bubbled or burned away. An acetylene bottle lay nearby, the piece of metal that had been cut away beside it.
Stratton walked over to look at the opening. The long wooden crate lay inside the space. They had most likely lowered it down on the end of the rope. There was a tin of white paint on the floor with a paintbrush and cloth on top.
He reached inside the hollow hull and searched for the clips that secured the lid of the crate. He found three along its length, unfastened them and gripped the edge. The lid was a tight fit but after a couple of tugs it gave way. Stratton pulled the lid fully open to expose the contents.
He saw a layer of tough, black sponge moulding that ran the length of the box. He peeled it back to reveal a dark-green, metal and plastic weapons system. He knew exactly what it was – a Chinese hand-held HN series ground-to-air missile. He had fired the original Soviet version, which the Chinese had later copied. It was an effective and lethal man-portable missile system designed to shoot down any size aircraft between eight hundred metres and four and a half kilometres above the ground.
As soon as he saw it, several things fell into place that he had a very bad feeling about. The Somalis, or more to the point the jihadists who had delivered the missile, were smuggling the weapons out of the country. They must have muscled in on the hijacking business to use the ships to distribute their ordnance and to send anti-aircraft missiles around the world. When the ship was released by the pirates, it would eventually arrive in a port. All the terrorists had to do was wait until the ship had cleared the usual formalities and inspections and then get on board at their leisure and cut the weapons out. If they got a bulker to the US or the European mainland undiscovered, they could transport the weapons anywhere on those continents.
Pirate Page 9
