‘OK, I’ll be more careful in future,’ Emily cut in. She offered Ling an appeasing smile. ‘But I really can’t imagine anyone would be interested in our holiday snaps.’
The first stars pinpricked the sky as the horizon purpled with the coming of night. In the deepening twilight, the cluster of pirate skiffs powered over the waves, their outboards purring steadily. Spearhead crouched in the bow of the lead boat, his eyes adjusting to the growing darkness. His body had long since become accustomed to the constant to and fro of the ocean’s swell and he simply conserved his energy for the forthcoming attack.
As promised, Mr WiFi had forwarded the updated coordinates – the Orchid was now en route to Praslin Island. Spearhead honestly believed that this would be the easiest hijacking in all his four short years as a pirate. If the bounty was as large as Oracle had hinted at, then he could retire for the rest of his life, bathed in riches and beautiful women. But, despite the lure of such a lifestyle, he knew in his heart of hearts that he could never give up the pirate life. The urgent thrill of the chase was like a drug to him, almost as addictive as the power he wielded over a hijacked ship and its pathetic crew.
‘Hey!’ called Big Mouth from an adjacent skiff.
Spearhead directed his gaze south-east to where Big Mouth was indicating. On the distant horizon, like a gleaming jewel, was the outline of a white luxury yacht. Spearhead considered the vessel for a few moments then signalled to the other skiffs, moving his hand in a serpent-like fashion and pointing to the target. Then he signed to Big Mouth’s boat to circle round and approach from the opposite direction.
They were still over three miles away so, at this stage of the attack, stealth was the preferred strategy. With his boat leading the way, the skiffs zigzagged across the waves, gradually closing in on their target from the stern to avoid the yacht’s radar.
The darkness of night descended and only the silvery gleam of a half-moon lit their approach. But the yacht’s owners were considerate enough to leave on their navigation lights. Like moths to a lamp, the pirates converged on the unsuspecting vessel.
As the skiffs came within ambush distance, the buzz of adrenalin rushed through Spearhead’s veins. The other pirates in his boat had fallen silent, equally edgy yet exhilarated at the imminent attack.
At less than a quarter of a mile out someone on the yacht’s deck spotted Big Mouth’s boat. There was a cry of alarm and a searchlight was pointed in its direction. The VHF radio in Spearhead’s skiff burst into life as the captain of the yacht demanded that the approaching boat identify itself. Big Mouth responded with a hail of gunfire across the yacht’s bow.
But that was all good. Big Mouth was the distraction.
As the yacht’s engines burst into life and tried to make an escape, Spearhead shouted to his pilot, ‘GO! GO! GO!’
The mighty outboards roared and the skiff’s bow rose high in the air as it ploughed through the waves. The other skiffs joined in the pursuit, swarming towards the defenceless yacht. In under a minute, the target vessel was surrounded on all sides.
However, the yacht’s crew wasn’t going to surrender without a fight. A flare was shot across the bow of one of the skiffs and the yacht began to fishtail erratically, in an attempt to ram any approaching pirates and make boarding impossible.
Despite the danger, Spearhead’s pilot brought their skiff alongside the yacht’s stern, bumping hard against the hull. Spearhead flung a grappling hook over the rail. It held fast, but the yacht suddenly veered away and the gap between the boats became treacherously wide. This was how Spearhead had earned his nickname: fearless, ruthless and admittedly a little crazy, he spearheaded every assault. He was the one who took the major risk of boarding first. And the rewards were greater for it.
With his AK47 slung across his back and his hands gripping the rope, Spearhead leapt for the yacht’s stern. He didn’t make it and his bare feet trailed in the water as he was dragged along by the speeding yacht. He tried to gain purchase on the hull, but the fibreglass was slick and icy smooth. Sea spray blinded him and his body was battered against the hull as the yacht suddenly changed direction. Gritting his teeth, Spearhead clung on like a limpet. Then, with a Herculean effort, he hauled himself up, hand over hand, to the lower-deck level.
Vaulting the safety rail, he unslung his AK47 and prepared to take the yacht by force. A man carrying a flare suddenly appeared from behind a bulkhead. Shocked by the pirate’s unexpected appearance on deck, he went to raise his hands. Spearhead slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s jaw. The sailor dropped to the ground, no longer capable of being a threat.
With the single-mindedness of a leopard stalking its prey, Spearhead prowled the main deck, searching the unfamiliar ship for the way to the bridge.
Another sailor emerged and Spearhead levelled his AK47 at him.
‘Bridge?’ he demanded.
The man cowered back into his cabin, pointing to a set of steps. Spearhead swiftly bounded up them and kicked open a wooden door. On the other side, the captain was shouting into the radio. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! This is motor yacht Sunriser–’
‘STOP!’ snarled Spearhead, planting the barrel of his AK47 against the captain’s temple.
His eyes wide with panic, the captain let the receiver drop to the floor. ‘Please … don’t kill me.’
Spearhead’s maniacal grin flashed in the darkness. ‘I won’t. As long as you do exactly as I say.’
‘Sure you don’t want to join us?’ asked Emily.
Chloe wrinkled her nose at her sister. ‘Why would I want to walk around a hot wet forest?’
Emily shrugged. ‘For something different to do. Vallée de Mai is a World Heritage Site.’
‘No, thanks. I’m perfectly fine.’ Sipping from a freshly opened coconut, Chloe settled back on the sunlounger beside the palm-thatched bar on Anse Volbert. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly.
The exquisite beach, an unbroken line of silky white sand fringed by lush green takamaka trees, stretched the entire length of the bay. At anchor in its crystal-clear waters, the Orchid held court over the other luxury sailing yachts and catamarans moored off Praslin Island. Brad had just returned the tender to the yacht, having dropped off Mr Sterling and his fiancée at an exclusive golf and spa resort on the island’s north-western tip. This meant the girls had the whole day to themselves – but Emily was impatient for a change of scene.
‘Don’t get lost,’ said Ling, waving Connor off and grinning as she too made herself comfortable on a sunlounger.
Taking a little yellow taxi, Connor and Emily were delivered five minutes later outside the entrance to Vallée de Mai. A small group of tourists were filing past a rustic wooden ticket office that marked the start of the forest trail. Connor paid the entrance fee and he and Emily took the sand-beaten path into the eco-reserve. A tangle of green fronds enveloped them and they were soon immersed in an Eden-like setting.
‘Vallée de Mai is the only place on earth where you can see the rare coco-de-mer palms,’ explained Emily, reading from the pamphlet she’d been given. ‘The palms produce the largest seed in the plant kingdom.’
‘No kidding,’ said Connor. ‘Look at the size of them!’
On a wooden bench beside the trail, three massive heart-shaped nuts had been laid out. Emily tried to pick one up and almost toppled over with the weight. Laughing, Connor tried to lift it. As big as his upper torso and heavier than a medicine ball, even he struggled with the enormous seed.
‘Supposedly they have aphrodisiac properties,’ said Emily, referring to the pamphlet.
‘Aphro-what?’
‘You know …’ said Emily, a slight flush to her cheeks, ‘romantic effects.’
‘Really?’ said Connor, quickly putting down the two-lobed nut.
Emily laughed and said, ‘Only when eaten.’
Connor stared at the massive seed. ‘What? All of it?’
They exchanged amused glances, then sniggered to one another. As a middle-
aged couple strolled up behind them, they stifled their laughs and continued down the path. Trekking deeper into the emerald-tinged undergrowth, the atmosphere became almost eerie, the dappled sunlight occasionally disappearing altogether beneath the monstrous corrugated leaves of the coco-de-mer trees. Like giant umbrellas, the fan palms soared thirty metres up to a shadowy canopy where unseen creatures flitted from branch to branch.
‘This place is like a real-life Jurassic Park,’ breathed Connor, gazing round at the primeval forest.
The call of bulbul birds and the whistling of black parrots sounded among the trees. The air was heavy with the odour of decaying vegetation and the sweet scent of flowering orchids. At any moment, Connor expected a pack of Velociraptors to burst from the undergrowth and surround them.
As they wound their way along the path, Emily turned to him, her eyes downcast. ‘You know … I’ve not met anyone quite like you before,’ she admitted.
Connor glanced sideways at her, wondering where this conversation was going.
‘I mean,’ she quickly added, ‘who could understand my experience.’
Connor smiled gently. ‘Well, I’ve only got a notion of what you went through. I was a hostage for a few days. You were held for months.’
‘Yeah, and it felt like years,’ she said, running her fingers through the fronds of a fern. ‘But it never had to be that way.’
‘What do you mean?’
Emily looked up at the canopy where a bright green frog clung motionless to a palm leaf. ‘My father wouldn’t pay the ransom. He abandoned me.’
Connor tried to hide the shock on his face. ‘I’m sure he … he was advised to get proof of life before paying anything,’ he said, fumbling for a logical reason.
Emily shook her head gravely. ‘My father has always been a ruthless businessman. That’s why he’s so successful. The kidnappers were originally asking for five million dollars. At first he plain refused. Then he bargained them down. And down.’
No wonder Mr Sterling’s so rich, thought Connor, if he can play hardball with his daughter’s life at stake.
‘But isn’t that just part of the normal negotiation process?’
‘I suppose so, but he reduced them to five hundred thousand dollars in the end.’ Emily looked Connor in the face, her eyes shining with tears. ‘He makes more than that in a week! Just goes to show how much my father values me.’
Connor shifted awkwardly on the balls of his feet, uncertain what to say to that. He watched as another party of tourists made its way through the forest towards them. ‘Look, I’m not really in a position to judge. But your father has hired me and Ling to protect you and your sister. Surely that proves he cares for you.’
Emily’s gaze returned to the tree frog, which still hadn’t moved. ‘For my sister, at least,’ she mumbled, then walked on.
Connor remained by her side as she continued to talk. ‘Me and Chloe may look the same. But in truth we’re yin and yang. I’ve no interest in business, media or socializing. That’s why Chloe’s always been the favourite. My father expects her to succeed him in managing his empire.’
‘But your sister doesn’t seem too happy with him at the moment.’
‘That’s because of Amanda,’ said Emily, her tone hardening. ‘We’re supposed to be on holiday as a family, yet we’ve barely seen our father.’
Out of nowhere the hairs on Connor’s neck rose. He had the distinct feeling of being watched. His alert level went up a notch from Code Yellow to Code Orange. While pretending to admire the forest, he swept his gaze over the faces of the tourists behind.
‘I suppose it’s understandable, in a way,’ Connor said, spotting a black man in wrap-around shades and a blue baseball cap. The tourist was studying his pamphlet and purposefully not looking in their direction. ‘They seem very much in love.’
‘That’s the problem. And it’s not helped by the fact that Amanda is –’ Emily appeared to struggle for the right word – ‘so self-centred. She only shows interest in us when our father’s around. It seems like an act. Chloe’s feeling pushed out by our father and she’s really not used to that.’
Sliding his mobile phone from his pocket, Connor accessed the mugshot of the criminal Doug Carter on his screen. He tried to match the faces, but it was difficult since the tourist’s features were mostly hidden by his cap and shades. Still, Connor’s sixth sense was twitching.
‘I can see how Amanda’s presence could cause problems,’ Connor replied, his attention now half on the man behind them. ‘Tell you what, shall we go back to the beach? I spotted a cool-looking ice-cream hut. They’ve mango and coconut flavours.’
‘Do they have coco-de-mer flavour too?’
Connor glanced at Emily, surprised, then realized she was attempting a joke. ‘Well, let’s find out,’ he smiled.
Following the circular trail round to the entrance, Connor subtly checked behind them. The suspect man had broken away from the rest of the tourists and was keeping pace with them. Connor went to Code Red. High alert. Exiting the nature reserve as fast as he could, Connor hurried Emily over to the waiting taxi.
‘You must be desperate for an ice cream,’ she said, laughing as he opened the door for her and clambered in after. Connor was now glad he’d been wise enough to pay the driver extra to wait for them. As the taxi pulled away, he glanced through the back windscreen. The man with wrap-around shades had disappeared.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Emily.
‘Yeah, just thought I saw someone I knew,’ Connor replied, allowing his alert level to return to Code Yellow, ‘but I was wrong.’
When they returned to the beach, Chloe and Ling were surrounded by a group of lads. Ling stood chatting with one of them, keeping a cautious eye on the scene. Chloe was reclined fully back, teasing a lock of hair with a finger, while laughing with two boys perched on the end of her sunlounger. She looked over and waved excitedly as Connor and Emily approached.
‘We’ve been invited to a beach party!’
‘How convinced are you it was him?’ asked Ling, digging her toes into the soft warm sand.
She and Connor sat a little distance from the bonfire, the wood crackling and sending sparks like fireflies into the night sky. Bathed in the flickering glow of the flames, they kept a careful watch on Chloe and Emily dancing and chatting with the other guests at the beach party. Initially Mr Sterling hadn’t been at all comfortable with the idea of his daughters attending. But Amanda had convinced him otherwise – either in an attempt to win favour with the girls or, as the sisters thought more likely, so she could have extra time alone with her future husband.
Connor shrugged in response to Ling’s question. ‘Fifty per cent. It was more a gut feeling.’
‘You know how unlikely this is,’ she said, sipping from a can of Diet Coke she’d got from the bar. ‘I mean, we’re thousands of miles away from Sydney, virtually on the other side of the world.’
‘I realize that,’ Connor replied, beginning to doubt his own eyes. ‘I just wish you’d been there to ID him.’
Ling held up her hands. ‘Hey, I was busy fending off the boys swarming round Chloe.’
‘You weren’t doing too badly yourself,’ Connor remarked, nudging her with his elbow.
Ling narrowed her eyes at him. ‘He was talking to me. I was still in Code Yellow. Anyway, have you reported your sighting to Brad or the captain yet?’
‘No,’ Connor admitted. ‘You remember what Bugsy taught us: Once is happenstance, twice is circumstance. Three times means enemy action. Unless I see that man again, the sighting means nothing.’
Ling pursed her lips. ‘Well, Chloe seems to be getting into the full swing of the party.’
Over the bar’s speakers Bob Marley’s ‘Could You Be Loved?’ pulsed its summery lilting beat. Chloe was gyrating her hips and dancing with a lad in Bermuda shorts. Although not wanting to intrude on her fun, Connor realized they’d have to keep a close eye on her. They couldn’t have their Principal disappearing w
ith some boy along the beach. Meanwhile, Emily sat by the fire, chatting with two girls and a red-haired boy who was showing a clear interest in her. But Connor didn’t judge him a threat. He was half his size and, by the looks of it, was getting nowhere with Emily.
As Connor surveyed the party, a tall lad with curly sun-bleached hair swaggered over to them.
‘Hey!’ he drawled.
‘Hi, Dave,’ Ling replied, offering a friendly yet reserved smile. Connor recognized him as the boy who’d been speaking with her earlier that afternoon.
‘What you doing over here? The party’s happening over there.’ Dave wafted his arm in the general direction of the music.
‘There’s a better view from here,’ replied Ling.
‘Really?’ Dave turned his head and looked for himself.
Ling rolled her eyes at Connor, the lad having no idea what she actually meant by this. From their position outside the party, the two of them occupied the best surveillance point. They could see the beach, the bonfire and the bar. Their two Principals were always under their watchful guard yet had the freedom to enjoy themselves without Connor or Ling constantly at their side. And by not being too close to the fire they kept some of their night vision, meaning people didn’t suddenly materialize out of the darkness.
‘Seems good to me wherever you look,’ said Dave, gazing directly at Ling. ‘Especially this way.’
He flumped down in the sand beside her and offered her an open-topped coconut with a straw sticking out.
‘No thanks,’ said Ling. Even from where Connor was sitting, he caught the sharp whiff of rum. Mr Sterling had made it absolutely clear that, as one of the ground rules for attending the party, alcohol was forbidden. He’d given the two of them specific instructions to ensure his daughters steered clear of it, holding them fully responsible if the girls returned in anything but a sober state.
‘Too young to drink?’ said Dave, taking a slurp and laughing. ‘Me too!’ He jutted his chin towards Connor. ‘He your boyfriend?’
Ling glanced at Connor and smirked. ‘No, I have taste.’
Bodyguard: Ransom (Book 2) Page 13
