by Tony Park
‘I thought Danielle was your girl this week?’ Heinrich winked, but Alex ignored the jibe.
Heinrich took a step back as the ramps connected with the ship’s steel with an ear-piercing grate and clang. The Land Rover’s snorkel was still clear of the water and bubbles showed its engine was still running.
Alex jumped in the water again and swam to the shallows. He unfastened a tie-down strap which held the pairs of ramps together. He slid one length free and when he pulled it towards the shoreline and locked it in place with its mate – via a simple peg and hole arrangement – the makeshift ramp nearly reached dry sand. He looked to where the front of the vehicle was, but there was no sign of Sarah.
‘Shit,’ he said. He swam around the submerged Land Rover and dived beneath the water’s surface. The ship’s generator pounded in his ears. He found Sarah immediately. She was slumped over the steering wheel. He wrapped an arm under her breasts and pulled her clear. Once on the surface he swam sidestroke to the beach. Heinrich had stripped off his gear and was in the water as well. He waded to shore.
Together they dragged Sarah onto dry sand. Alex checked and found she had a pulse but wasn’t breathing.
Alex blew two sharp breaths into Sarah’s mouth and seawater erupted from her as she coughed and choked. Alex rolled her onto her side as the convulsing continued. ‘Jesus, you had me worried,’ he said, wiping his mouth.
Sarah tried to sit up and coughed again, but Alex told her to lie down. ‘Fuck. That was wild,’ she spluttered. She reached up for him and pulled his head to her and kissed him.
Alex broke free and said to Heinrich, ‘What are you staring at? Let’s get on board and give these Hummers the only taste of beach driving they’re ever going to get.’
They had to sidestep as the first Hummer bounced off the main ramp onto the rickety extensions. The old Land Rover on the seabed took the strain and Alex breathed a little easier as the new four-wheel drive splashed through the shallows and carved twin ruts through the wet sand. Inside the ship, Kufa, a black Zimbabwean former mercenary, was climbing into a vehicle. He waved at Alex, grinning broadly.
Sarah insisted she was fine and followed Alex and Heinrich back onto the ship. Alex pulled on his gear again. He went to the nearest vehicle and ripped off the shipment papers taped to the windscreen and got behind the wheel.
Alex gunned the big engine and drove across the deck to the square of light at the end. He geared down to second as he hit the ramps and felt the truck lurch as he bounced over the swaying, rising bridge. He accelerated up the beach and pulled to a halt next to Danielle’s beach tent. The young Irishwoman sat behind a fold-out camping table, on top of which was a laptop computer and a laser printer powered by a truck battery and an inverter.
‘How’s Sarah?’ she asked. It was, Alex thought, as though she was asking if the other woman was over a headache, rather than recovering from a near-death experience. Why was it that women said they didn’t mind being in an open relationship when they didn’t mean it?
‘She’ll live. Everything OK here?’
‘Give me your engine and chassis numbers.’
Alex ignored the rebuff and read the lengthy numbers from the paperwork he’d taken from the windscreen. Danielle was the antithesis of Sarah. The Irishwoman rarely made a move in life without carefully weighing the pros and cons, then setting herself a detailed plan for the way ahead.
Danielle typed the numbers into her computer and sent the document to the laser printer. The paperwork that emerged was identical to that which Alex had taken from the Hummer, except for the vehicle identification and destination details. Danielle passed the document and some tape to Alex and he fixed it to the windscreen, where the original had been.
He turned back to her. ‘Danielle, I . . .’
‘Forget it. You’re the one who kept telling us speed was essential. Now get moving. I really was worried about Sarah, and I’m pleased she’s OK. I hope you’ll both be happy together.’
He shook his head and trod angrily on the accelerator. Alex climbed the pass through the dunes and sped along the narrow tracks that led to firmer ground. Jose waved him forward, until he was at the rear of a semitrailer, a double-deck car transporter. The vehicle’s African driver hovered nearby, dragging on a cigarette.
‘Everything OK, brother?’ Jose asked. The Mozambican’s smile showed he was enjoying himself, as ever.
Alex nodded. ‘So far so good.’ He checked his watch.
Jose had stayed aboard the second fishing boat until Alex and the rest of the men had boarded the Oslo Star. Once Alex had seized the ship, Jose had abandoned the trawlers and made for the coast at top speed in an inflatable boat. His job on land was to oversee shipment of the stolen vehicles. The operation on land was as slick as the hijacking at sea. Alex saw a dozen young African men trudging through the sand towards them. His contact in Johannesburg had promised him a small army of drivers to collect individual vehicles, as well as half-a-dozen car transporter trucks. The more the merrier, Alex thought. He was getting paid per vehicle at the end of the day.
‘Keep ’em moving, Jose,’ Alex said. The command was unnecessary as the Mozambican was already in a vehicle, which he drove up onto the car transporter.
Alex climbed down from the truck, turned and ran back down the dunes to the stranded ship to get another vehicle.
The Oslo Star stuck out like a beached white whale. When he reached the shoreline he saw Sarah behind the wheel of the next vehicle to roll off. She pulled to a halt on the beach beside him, short of Danielle’s tent.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked her, leaning in the window.
‘This is the best job yet, Alex. I’d do you now if I could.’
He leaned into the cab and kissed her hard. He felt Danielle’s eyes boring into the back of his head from up the beach. ‘Keep moving.’
‘Aye aye, Captain,’ Sarah licked her lips and drove off.
3
George Penfold sipped freshly squeezed orange juice as he checked his emails.
London was waking outside in the half-light of dawn. An habitual early riser, Penfold was in his top-floor office, dressed for work, by 6.05 am. Other executives might travel by Rover or Rolls, but George ran through the city streets every day, regardless of the weather. His security people had told him he was at risk, but risk-taking was what had grown his father’s cross-Channel shipping business into an international merchant fleet that was one of the maritime world’s top ten.
The fourteenth message – how he hated emails – was the International Maritime Bureau’s weekly piracy report, prepared by the IMB’s Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The IMB, a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, to which Penfold Shipping belonged, kept tabs on all types of maritime crime and malpractice around the world. The busy Strait of Malacca, between Singapore and Malaysia, had traditionally been the number-one hot spot for modern piracy, hence the location of the reporting centre in the South-East Asian country.
Piracy hadn’t been a serious problem for Penfold Shipping. Much of the company’s trade had traditionally been transatlantic, though the expansion into the Far and Middle East had increased the risk of attack. Only one Penfold ship had been targeted so far, and that had been by a fairly amateurish bunch who had boarded a tanker docked in Monrovia, Liberia, for running repairs. The men, armed with machetes, had robbed the crew of their valuables and taken some navigational gear from the bridge. Thankfully, none of Penfold’s people had been injured.
He read this week’s report, however, with renewed interest, given his plans for expansion into African waters.
The Somali coast had been Africa’s worst locale for pirate attacks in recent years, but the increased presence of US and other western warships in the region following a spate of daring, high-profile attacks had forced the pirates to sail further and further from their home waters. The problem of piracy was spreading like cancer, southwards down Africa’s less patrolled east coast, as far
down as the waters off Mozambique and South Africa. It would be an issue he would have to confront if the purchase of De Witt Shipping was successful as the line plied all of Africa’s coastal waters, as well as shipping goods to and from Asia, Europe and the Americas.
George scrolled through the list of recent incidents of piracy, stopping at one which had occurred off South Africa’s so-called Wild Coast. It read:
An estimated seven men dressed in military-style uniforms and gasmasks, all armed with automatic weapons, boarded the car and truck carrier MV Oslo Star. The pirates beached the ship on an isolated stretch of coast and offloaded fifty-two new Hummer H3 four-wheel drive vehicles. One member of the ship’s crew was stabbed during the attack. All crew were locked in the officers’ mess until the theft was complete. They then had hoods placed over their heads and their hands tied before being driven to an isolated spot ten kilometres inland, where they were abandoned with a supply of food and water.
He rocked back in his swivel chair then opened the internet browser on his computer. He typed ‘pirates’ and ‘Oslo Star’ into the search engine. More than a dozen news stories popped up about the daring heist.
George clicked back on the emailed piracy report. The next item referred to a foiled raid by MEND rebels in the Niger Delta. It was believed a heavily armed gang of locals was planning to kill or kidnap foreign oil workers at a village. ‘Security consultants’ had intercepted and ambushed the gang before it could mount its attack. Some more googling came up with an online article based on an Amnesty International media release.
INVESTIGATION LAUNCHED INTO KILLING OF NIGERIAN NATIONALS BY ‘PETRO-MERCENARIES’ screamed one headline. George snorted with disgust at the sensationalism.
Returning to the analysts’ report on seaborne crime, George noted a summary which highlighted a number of recent incidents off the coasts of Mozambique and Tanzania, to the north. These included the hijacking of a twelve-metre luxury San Lorenzo motor cruiser, theft of several tonnes of building materials from a coastal tramp steamer and the loss of the contents of three shipping containers from a Liberian-registered cargo freighter. In the case of the latter the pirates had made off with alcohol, television sets, DVD players and furniture. The analyst noted that these recent attacks were proof of earlier predictions that piracy would move south down Africa’s eastern coast. The common thread that bound all the attacks was the reported level of organisation of the attackers, their dress and their use of automatic weapons.
George pressed the intercom button on his phone.
‘Good morning, Mister Penfold.’
‘Gillian, please contact Harvey and ask him to pop in and see me. Soonest.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, and Gillian . . .’
‘Sir?’
‘Get me an update on where the Penfold Son is right now, please.’
Harvey Reynolds was Penfold’s company security officer. He regularly briefed George on developments and trends in crime on the high seas. They had discussed increased security measures but had so far limited this to more sophisticated electronic tracking devices for the company’s fleet.
Gillian knocked and entered. She placed a tray with a cup of freshly brewed coffee and a bowl of muesli on his desk. ‘Sir, the Penfold Son’s expected to berth in Mombasa in about twelve hours.’
‘Thanks Gillian. Get in touch with the master and have him fetch Jane for me. Tell him I need to discuss some confidential legal matters with her, so I’d like her to call me back from her cabin on the satellite phone.’
‘Yes, sir.’
After a few minutes the phone rang.
‘Hiya. It’s Jane. Anything the matter?’
‘No, no. Everything’s fine. How are you enjoying the voyage?’
‘It’s been good, actually. I’ve gotten so much work done, and it’s been nice to have time alone to . . . well, to think. If you know what I mean.’
‘Yes, I do. Same here. In fact, everything’s the same here, on the home front.’
‘It’s nice to hear your voice. Why the early call?’
‘Bit of the same, really. I don’t want to seem like a stalker, but I wanted to hear your voice too.’
She laughed. He smiled.
‘Are you alone right now?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’m in my cabin. The captain told me this was going to be very important, private business.’
‘It is. What are you wearing?’
‘George! You scoundrel.’
Heinrich sprayed vodka from his mouth and held a lighter to it, sending a shower of fire over the gyrating bodies dancing on the sand. Girls squealed. Novak roared above the wail of the rock music: ‘Here’s to us!’
Glasses, bottles, and cans were raised. Alex felt rum wash down over his wrist. ‘And those like us!’
‘Damn few of ’em.’ Mitch concluded the toast. ‘Man, that job was a fucking buzz,’ he yelled in Alex’s ear.
Sarah was beside him and as Alex asked Mitch to repeat himself – they were standing next to the speakers – she slipped a hand into the pocket of his shorts and felt for him. Alex tried to concentrate on Mitch’s words, but his head was fuzzy. Rum did that to him.
‘I said it was a fucking buzz. The car carrier. Major league now, huh? No more coastal rust buckets. How about a goddamned cruise ship next time?’
Alex shook his head. ‘It’s not an everyday thing, Mitch. It takes planning – you know that. I wouldn’t take on a liner in any case. Too much risk of innocent people getting hurt.’
‘Oh man, don’t be such a fag.’
Alex laughed off the insult. Mitch was drunk – even more so than he – and Sarah’s hand had found just the right spot. ‘Let’s dance some more,’ he said to her.
‘Don’t tell me Mitch is right?’
He pinched her bum then held her close as they swayed, barefoot in the sand, to the rhythm. Flaming torches bathed them in flickering orange as they danced. Alex caught a glimpse of Danielle in the shadows and felt bad for a moment. Fuck it, he said to himself as Sarah’s mouth found his. He laid a hand on her arse and she ground against him, harder, and hooked a smooth, shapely leg around him.
It was after two in the morning, but the music still thundered down the beach and the pirates and their women kept dancing and drinking.
Lisa, Novak’s wife, had even flown to Vilanculos from Johannesburg and they’d picked her up by boat from the mainland that afternoon. His two children didn’t know what their father really did for a living – as far as they knew he was a diving instructor, though in truth the ex-soldier’s business had gone belly-up months before.
Heinrich’s Mozambican girlfriend dispensed tequila slammers from a tray while her children and half-a-dozen others from the village chased each other between the dancers and drinkers. Henri, the former Foreign Legionnaire, danced with his half-Mozambican half-Portuguese boyfriend.
‘Take me to bed,’ Sarah said in his ear.
‘Why, are you tired?’
‘No.’
Danielle pushed her way between Kevin, who was dancing with one of the three coffee-coloured prostitutes Mitch had brought over from the mainland that afternoon, and Mark and Lisa Novak. ‘If you’re not too busy, I need to talk to you.’
Alex looked at Sarah, who shrugged and said, ‘No worries. I need to find a palm tree. He’s all yours, Danni – for now at least.’
Danielle frowned and led Alex by the arm to the beach bar. While the hotel’s bar and restaurant were being renovated – one of the many jobs that had fallen behind schedule – the ramshackle thatch and driftwood structure was the centrepiece of social life on the island. A huge stuffed marlin, a moth-eaten relic from the seventies, had pride of place amongst the bric-a-brac which included a rusted German helmet Novak had salvaged from the wreck of a U-boat, a silver-plated AK-47 Mitch had looted from one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces, Henri’s Foreign Legion kepi cap, and the Taliban flag Alex had captured in Afghanistan the day he lost his fingers.
&nb
sp; The music was a few decibels less deafening by the bar. Alex ordered another rum and Coke from Jose, and a gin and tonic for Danielle.
‘No thanks, Jose,’ she countermanded him. ‘I’m leaving, Alex.’
He nodded.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
Mitch bumped into him as he leaned over the bar and grabbed two frosted bottles of Laurentina beer. Alex elbowed him back into the crowd. ‘You said a couple of weeks ago you were thinking about it. About the time you said you wanted us to take a break, remember?’
‘You don’t care that I’m going, do you, Alex?’
He shrugged. ‘They were your rules, Danni. You were the one who said you wanted to live a little, to be wild and free. No more chartered accountant from boring Belfast. Don’t tell me you’re actually just a good Catholic girl after all? If so, you might need to say a few dozen Hail Marys after taking part in our grandest theft, auto.’
‘Don’t mock me, Alex.’
He held up two hands, palms out, the first and second fingers missing from his left hand.
‘Wipe that bloody smile off your face, Alex. Sure, I’m trying to be serious here for five minutes. I need to get on with my life. I need to grow up, and I’d like you to be there with me when I do.’
He ran a hand through his thick black hair and looked out at the dark waters and the long strip of reflected moonlight. Then he turned and stared across the beach, to the looming white concrete shell of what had once been the finest resort hotel in Portuguese Mozambique.
‘That bloody monstrosity.’ Danni had a way of reading his mind.
‘It’s all I’ve got, Danni. It’s my life, my future.’ He walked barefoot across the sand to the pile of timber that sat in front of the half-finished foyer. He stared up at the building in which he’d been born.
She shook her head and walked after him. ‘This is your problem. This gutted pile of concrete means more to you than any woman, any human being could.’
He shrugged. His mother and father had owned this hotel. It was a part of his family, his childhood and, yes, he would rather lose a beautiful woman than give it up again. ‘You’re probably right. Though you could stay here and change my mind.’
