by Andy McNab
Lynn read on. Its vital statistics were awesome: length overall – 28.77 metres; fuel – diesel; propulsion – direct gear drive through triple Arneson surface drives, or submerged twin-props in semi-tunnels. I wasn't sure what it all meant, but I was impressed.
Next came the important bit. It had a fuel capacity of 8500 litres or 1870 gallons. If we hammered it at roughly thirty knots – forty mph – Lynn calculated that we'd be able to go around 350–400 miles on a full tank. As Libya was 700 miles away, we were looking at one refuelling stop, possibly two; and a total journey time of around twenty hours.
Lynn stopped reading from the laptop and came and sat back down in his chair. 'Why don't we take something a little bigger – something with more range? That way we won't have to refuel.'
I shook my head. I was still eyes-on the boat. Fatman and his oriental eye-candy remained below. They'd been down there for an hour.
'The bigger the boat, the more people on board. Fewer people makes it easier to lift. By the way, can you drive one of these things?'
'Of course.' He sounded indignant. I guessed piloting a Predator was like falling off a log if you happened to be a member of some posh yacht club on the north Norfolk coast. He frowned again.
When he spoke, he kept his eyes on the sea. 'How are we going to refuel if the police – actually, more likely the Coast Guard – know that the boat's been stolen? That thing—' he waved an arm in the direction of the Predator – 'is two to three million pounds' worth of vessel, brimming with every bit of kit imaginable – radar, GPS, the whole lot. A Sunseeker is a floating computer. It's probably got a tracker device on it, too. They'll be onto us in hours – maybe minutes. Then what?'
I thought he'd finished, but he was only just warming up.
'Just how do you intend to get to Tripoli? I know the Colonel's back in the fold, but they don't just throw their doors open to foreigners, you know. I know the Libyans. This is a society that's been shut off for decades. Even if we evade the Italian authorities, we'll have the Libyan navy to contend with. After the Americans bombed Tripoli in '86, Gaddafi spent serious money beefing up their defences.'
'I said lifted, not stolen. Anyone on board comes with us. We've just got to make sure everything appears completely normal, because they – the owners, whoever they are – are coming with us. Nobody's going to report the boat stolen if it isn't stolen, and that way we can get them to refuel. As for the Libyan navy, fuck 'em. The Colonel has got plenty on his plate already – a people-trafficking problem, for starters. My guess is the Libyan navy will be looking out, not in.'
I wasn't an expert, but I remembered seeing something on the news a few years back – seventy migrants dying on one ship when they'd tried to reach Europe illegally from Libya. They'd died of hunger and thirst after the boat broke down and drifted for ten days before being spotted by an Italian steamer. The poor bastards had come from all over Africa – Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, you name it – and Libyan middlemen had promised them safe passage to a new life in Europe.
Of course, there had been a catch – in this case, a shit boat that had broken down almost as soon as it had left Libyan waters. The Europeans had finally demanded action and Gaddafi, by now intent on greasing his way back into the international fold, promised to tighten things up. We'd be doing what the authorities least expected – going against the human tide. Besides, we were in a big sleek boat that meant cash coming into the country.
Lynn drew breath to speak, but I cut him short. 'Listen, it's not a drama. I don't know yet what we're going to do with Candy Girl and Fatman. Unless, of course, you want to kill them . . .'
'Christ, no.'
'Then let me worry about them. If the nav systems give our position away, let's turn 'em all off. We'll buy a bog-standard GPS down the marina and do our own navigation – or get to work with a compass, if necessary. Can you do that?'
'Of course.'
'OK, now we're talking. I'll take first stag. We'll do one hour on, one hour off. We maintain eyes-on that Predator the whole day, to make sure it's just those two. If there's anybody else on board, I need to know. If they leave during the day, tough – it's back to square one.'
I glanced at him to see if he'd got the message. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on his bare head.
He got to his feet. A look of resignation passed across his face. 'What are we going to do with the Predator when we get to Libya?'
I raised the binos. The curtains were still drawn. I could feel Lynn's gaze on the back of my neck. 'I may not know how to drive one of those things, but trust me, I know how to sink them.'
64
It looked as if the sun had brought all the beautiful people of Europe out to play, bang in front of Lynn's apartment. It was not yet dark, but the restaurants and bars around the marina were already starting to fill up. We had passed the day stagging, on and off – never a drama for me, but Lynn's boredom threshold was clearly a lot lower than mine. When he wasn't watching the boat, he slept, until I told him to go out and check what time the marina's fuel station closed and, while he was about it, to buy what we needed for a twenty-hour boat trip – food, drink and a cheap GPS.
Lynn still puzzled me. He'd told me he'd spent years setting up the apartment, exactly for this kind of contingency – but I was sure he wasn't telling me the whole story. I knew he was getting a bit of a rush as we stayed one step ahead of the bad guys, but he still wore his defeated look the rest of the time. There was a wedding photograph on the dressing table in front of the balcony window, and yet he hadn't even mentioned Mrs Lynn in passing since we'd left the mushroom farm.
I was beginning to understand why Fatman had dropped anchor where he had. He and Candy Girl had stayed below deck the entire day. The good news was that nothing else had stirred on the Predator. According to the blurb, the 'Master Stateroom' boasted a double berth, a nineteen-inch flatscreen TV, CD/DVD/Radio surround-sound speaker system, air conditioning and a hand-held fire extinguisher. It looked as though the last two were going to come in very useful.
At five o'clock, Lynn came and sat down next to me. I handed him the binos and he passed me the laptop. 'It's not going to be a piece of cake, is it?'
He'd downloaded an article entitled 'Middle-Power Approaches to Maritime Security – Italy'. It told us that the Italians had a coast guard, a customs service, a maritime extension of the carabinieri and a navy, all charged with policing their national waters. The Guardia Costiera alone had 10,000 personnel and almost 400 ships stationed at 118 bases – most of which looked as big, sleek and impressive as the ocean-going Ferraris I'd clocked on millionaires' row in the marina, except with pop-guns on-deck. The coast guard, the customs service and the navy also operated a variety of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft equipped with radar and electro-optical sensors that could cut through the night.
Had we bitten off more than we could chew?
I didn't have time to think about it. Something was happening aboard the Predator.
Lynn handed me the binoculars.
They were standing on the back deck. She was wearing a dress that didn't leave much to the imagination. He was doing his best to keep up, with white jeans and a powder-yellow sweater draped over his shoulders. His stomach strained against a white Polo shirt.
He pressed a button and a thing like a car boot swung open – the Predator's 'hydraulic opening stern garage'. Inside was a smart-looking tender with a powerful outboard. With another press of a button, a winch lifted the tender a few feet into the air. Fatman gave it a quick once-over then swung it out and lowered it into the water. He was so smooth he didn't even get his shoes wet.
I'd seen enough. I handed Lynn the binos and told him to keep watching. I headed for the stairs.
65
The seafront was brimming with people doing what Italians do best: strolling, chatting, flirting and posing. The air was heavy with the smell of perfume and reverberated with the clip-clop of heels on the cobbles. A moped shot past and backfire
d, causing a ripple of outrage amongst the promenaders.
Viewed from the back, almost every couple were dead-ringers for my targets. I dodged a taxi and weaved my way past shop windows filled with merchandise and designer labels. The town stretched away from the harbour up into the hills. Above me, lights twinkled.
Across the marina, the tender had already come alongside. Fatman was onto the quay quicker than I'd have given him credit for – something I'd need to remember later.
After tying up the dinghy, he did the gentlemanly thing and helped Candy Girl ashore. I got my first really good look at them in the lights along the seafront. She was Eurasian rather than Chinese, and absolutely stunning. He was over-fed and greased up, and twenty to thirty years her senior. They didn't get a second look as they made their way towards the centre of town.
I tucked in around twenty metres behind them. The bells rang twice as they passed the church; it was six thirty. The girl was doing her best to slip her arm around Fatman's waist, but she wasn't finding it easy. They crossed the main square and headed down an alley. As I rounded the corner, I saw them duck into a doorway. I followed them inside, down some stairs and into a basement with bare rock walls. With its low lighting, little round tables and wine bottles stacked to the roof, it was the chicest cave I'd ever been in – including some pretty well-appointed Al-Qaeda hangouts in Afghanistan.
Fatman caught the waiter's eye and they were led to a table not far from the bar, still holding hands. I grabbed a stool, picked up a menu and pretended to check out the wine-list. The other tables were all heaving with glitterati picking away at bread, olives and cheese, sipping at their wine and not paying me the least attention. Candy Girl started to speak with a high, nasal American twang. She was still holding Fatman's hand, but looked around the room, checking out the other diners, maybe hoping to spot an even richer target, while he stuck his nose into the menu. Her gaze swept my way and for a brief moment our eyes met.
The spell was broken when, like a dickhead, Fatman clicked his fingers for some waiter-attention. When he opened his mouth, he confirmed what I'd already suspected: he was a Brit.
66
'Pack up, we're moving.'
Lynn sprang to his feet as if a firework had gone off under his arse. The thought crossed my mind that he'd been sleeping while on stag, but that wasn't Lynn's style. He wasn't a skiver; he did his bit. Which made me think it was more likely he'd slipped into one of his daydreams – so deeply he never even heard me come back into the flat. Fuck knew where he went when he drifted off, but my guess was that it involved Hannibal, the Romans and, somewhere in amongst it all, his wife.
'What do you mean, pack up?'
'What does it sound like? Fatman is stuffing his face. He's hoovering it up. We don't have long. When he leaves the bar, I want us to be ready. So pack, go to confession and stand by.'
I told him what I knew: that the girl sounded American, possibly Canadian, and Fatman was a Brit. Then I asked if there had been any movement on the boat – some sign that there might be somebody else on board. Lynn grunted. Negative.
He was standing with his back to the window, eying me suspiciously as I fished under the bed for my day sack. 'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to swim aboard.' I twisted my head to talk to him. 'Kitchen knives?'
He pointed to a drawer on the far side of the stove.
My fingers brushed the edge of the day sack; I grabbed hold of it and pulled. It slid out from under the bed.
'Pack everything – and I mean everything – you're going to need: clothes, cash, passport – even though it's compromised. Bung it all in a plastic bag. Tie it up. Make it waterproof. And you can do the same for mine.' I chucked my day sack at him.
I picked myself up, ran into the kitchen and opened the drawer. I soon found what I was looking for: a couple of cooking knives – the two biggest ones – and shoved them down the back of my jeans.
'Do people carry weapons on those things – to ward off pirates, that kind of shit?'
'Depends.'
'On what?' I really didn't have time for Twenty Questions.
'He didn't look like the kind of chap who'd carry a gun.'
I wasn't so sure. In my experience, blokes like Fatman loved guns. Guns were almost as good as Viagra – they made them feel big and important. 'Tell me one more time, because this is the last time I'm going to hear it: can you drive that boat?'
Lynn finally hauled himself into action. He walked past me, heading for his bedroom. 'Yes, I can drive a Sunseeker. And yes, Nick, if it isn't full of fuel, I can take care of that too. How will I know when you've got control of the situation?'
'I'll signal you by torch, possibly flash some headlights – or whatever it is that boats have. Don't worry, when you see it, you'll know.' All he had to do then was lock up the apartment, make his way down to the shoreline and steer his little dinghy out to the Predator.
He disappeared into his room and I took my seat by the window. Ten minutes later, he reappeared and sat down again. We lapsed into silence.
After forty-five minutes, I clocked our unlikely couple as they made their way back along the dock towards the tender. Fatman was all over the girl like a wet dress.
Time to go. No ceremony. I simply told Lynn I'd see him on the Sunseeker.
Down by the harbour people were still strolling, talking, staring. I walked across the road, hopped over the wall and hit the shingle. I glanced back. Nobody seemed to have paid me any attention.
Moving between the boats, I approached the water's edge. The sea was calm. The hubbub from the cafés and bars drowned out the sound of the waves lapping against the shingle. I fixed the position of the Sunseeker, checked the knives were secure in my pocket and stepped into the ice-cold water.
67
The Predator had a platform at the back that was almost level with the water's surface. I pulled myself aboard and listened. All the lights on the upper deck were off. The interior, visible behind two thick glass double-doors, was bathed in a soft glow filtering up from a stairwell to the left of the driver's station. I heard the hum of an electric motor from somewhere below – some pump or other doing its thing. I caught what sounded like a cross between a groan and grunt from the middle of the boat, followed by a high-pitched moan. It sounded like I'd walked onto the set of a bad porn film.
I picked myself up and walked slowly towards the doors. It had taken me fifteen minutes to reach the Predator – in a steady breaststroke, to avoid being heard or seen from the shore, or by anyone who happened to be on the decks of the gin palaces I had to swim past.
Lynn told me that almost all the boat owners he'd ever known kept their keys somewhere on the outside of the vessel. He kept his in one of three small lockers on the rear deck of his yacht. Many didn't bother with locks at all; some even left their keys in the ignition.
With a nice puddle gathering around my feet, I grabbed the doors and pulled.
They slid apart and I was greeted by the smell of leather and polished wood. The boat equivalent of that new car smell.
I stepped into the warmth and stood stock still, taking in my surroundings.
To my left were two large leather armchairs and a drinks cabinet; to my right, an L-shaped leather bench seat and a table.
I moved forward. The thick carpet cushioned my footsteps and absorbed the water that still dripped off me. I reached the top of the stairs and pulled out the bigger of the two knives.
I stepped down and passed through a galley. The sound of grunting and moaning grew louder. It was coming from directly ahead of me – the Master Stateroom. There wasn't any point stopping to listen; I was deafened as it was. I opened the door.
A moment before Candy Girl rolled off the bed, I saw everything – far more than I wanted to, in fact. Fatman was lying on his back, groping away, but she, of course, had been doing all the work. Nobody had bothered to turn out the lights, so in the full glare of the spots, there really wasn't anywhere to hide. A tattooed
phoenix reared up from between her cheeks to the small of her back as she rolled into a ball between the bed and the cupboard, gaping like a fish.
