by Tony Park
9
‘Where’s the broad?’ Mitch was picking his fingernails with the tip of his K-Bar as he walked into the half-renovated room that passed for the resort’s office.
Alex swivelled in his chair and rocked back. He placed his hands behind his head and yawned. He was tired after last night’s party, but he also wanted to show Mitch he was relaxed about Jane’s presence and her movements on the island.
‘She took one of the sea kayaks out. I told her to stay on the leeward side of the island, as the water’s rough on the other side. Jose’s watching for her return.’
The airconditioner hummed above him and dripped water onto the bare concrete floor. Mitch nodded, satisfied at Alex’s ruse to keep Jane away from the other side of the island, where there was actually a sheltered harbour and jetty where the captured Peng Cheng was currently tied up. With Jane off the island, temporarily at least, he’d ordered the generator back into action so he could catch up with some paperwork, and Heinrich, Henri and Kevin could get some more work done on the first floor rooms.
‘What if she hears the noise of the generator?’ Mitch asked.
It was a valid question, as sound travelled far over water. ‘I’ll tell her we got it fixed, but it broke down again. If she wants to call her boss I’ll give her the satellite phone with the dud battery – she’ll be lucky to get a minute’s use out of it.’ They had several phones on the island, but one always had problems. ‘It’ll make her feel better, and won’t change anything.’
Jane had agreed over post-dinner liqueurs and coffee to his suggestion that he drive her to Johannesburg, via Zimbabwe. If he hadn’t found out what she’d taken from the Penfold Son’s bridge and where it was by the time they left the island, he would have several days on the road with her to get her to open up to him.
‘I think she recognises me from the ship,’ Mitch said, picking up a printout of a website news story from Alex’s desk. ‘She looks at me funny. Hey, what’s this?’
Alex was more concerned about the news item that Mitch was reading than he was about Jane. The article, from a South African news agency, described how the Penfold Son had limped into Durban harbour suffering grenade and bullet damage, and reported the death of Captain Iain MacGregor, who had been shot on the ship’s bridge. There was nothing in the bulletin about the death of a security guard, which was of some relief to Alex. Perhaps the man had survived the gunfire and fall.
‘We didn’t get anywhere near the bridge,’ Mitch said. ‘There’s no way we killed the captain.’
‘I know. But this is a problem for us.’
‘No shit.’ Mitch put the paper down and toyed with his knife, switching it from hand to hand.
Alex kept an eye on the blade. ‘If I can find that million-pound package I’m closing the operation down.’
‘We’ve had this conversation before, Alex. You do what you want, but it closes when we all say it does.’
Alex sat up straight. ‘If you keep it going, it won’t be from my island.’
Mitch grasped the hilt of the K-Bar and drove its point down into the desktop. ‘Listen here, Lord Jim, this ain’t your fucking island, no matter what you and Jose say. These niggers will take your precious hotel and your goddamned pile of sand as soon as they see you’re making a buck. It happened here before, it happened in Zimbabwe and it’s happening in South Africa, where they’re forcing the whites to sell the good farms.’
‘I’ll take that risk, but once we’re cashed up, the Ilha dos Sonhos goes strictly legit.’
Mitch pulled the knife free of the scarred wooden desk and walked out into the morning sunlight. He slammed the door on Alex.
Alex exhaled and ran a hand through his wavy hair, which was damp with sweat despite the struggling airconditioner. He checked his watch. Sitting in front of a computer worked for Danielle, but not for him. No amount of staring at the spreadsheets would conjure more money. He was restless and wanted to ensure all was ready on the Fair Lady for his trip to the mainland the next day. He grabbed the Land Rover’s keys and went outside.
As he crested the summit in the centre of the island – he hadn’t taken the coast road in case Jane saw him from the water and decided to try to intercept him – he looked down on the Peng Cheng and the Fair Lady.
Four local fishermen from the village, who doubled as cheap stevedores when there was stolen cargo to be loaded or unloaded, were operating the Peng Cheng’s deck-mounted crane to raise the crated leopard out of the freighter’s fetid hull. The three men charged with keeping the swinging crate steady were clearly not keen on the job.
Alex drove down the hill and onto the wooden deck of the jetty and killed the Land Rover’s engine. He heard grunting and snarling from inside the crate. ‘Hey, careful with her, guys. Take it easy.’
He climbed aboard the Peng Cheng via the gangway. ‘Quiet, my girl,’ he whispered to the caged cat. ‘Not long now.’
He addressed the leader of the gang of workers, Luis, in Xitswa, asking what progress had been made on the transfer of the contraband wildlife and animal products to the Fair Lady.
‘The snakes are aboard, Captain, all twenty-eight of them,’ Luis said, shuddering, ‘as are the birds, the monkeys, the pangolins and the lizards. All of the tusks and the rhino horns are also on your boat, Captain.’
Two of the fishermen were on the Fair Lady and, under Alex’s direction, they positioned the leopard’s cage carefully on the deck.
With the cat safely stowed on board, and a tarpaulin erected over the cage to give it some shade, Alex went back inside the Fair Lady. He started her engines and let them idle in neutral.
He walked downstairs to the office and switched on his laptop, which, like the boat’s satellite system, was now running off the engines. The airconditioning was also humming.
He logged onto the internet via satellite and opened the Yahoo account Heinrich had set up. There was one message in it from ‘afriendofthepongli’. Alex smiled and opened it.
Captain Wu had been allowed one telephone call to his master, on the condition that he spoke in English. Alex had listened in as Wu explained he and his men were being held captive but were unharmed. To the best of his knowledge the Peng Cheng and everything aboard it were safe. ‘These gwai-lo are professional,’ Wu had said. Alex had snatched the satellite phone out of the captain’s hand and Mitch had punched the seaman in the kidneys for his use of the Chinese term for a white barbarian. Alex had ordered the captain returned to his makeshift cell in the basement, and warned Mitch against harming him further. The damage was already done.
Your demand of ransom is ridiculous. The Peng Cheng and her crew are not worth half of what you ask. Her cargo, however, belongs to me and I expect it to be returned. Instead of haggling for what is in the hold, I have a proposition for you. If you are the white pirate I think you are, then I have a business proposal for you. It will be worth your time, and far more money than you have demanded for Captain Wu and my vessel. Meet me at Emperors Palace Hotel near the airport in Johannesburg.
The message had given a date next week. Good timing, Alex thought.
*
Jane rowed every weekend on the Thames regardless of the weather. It was her favourite form of exercise. It was good to be getting a workout again, after the weeks cooped up on board the Penfold Son, with only the endless metal stairs to tread.
She looked over her shoulder as she rounded the northern tip of the island. There was no one on the water behind her, though a couple of times she had spotted the glint of light reflected on binoculars from the beach front bar. She imagined Alex had asked Jose to keep an eye on her. No doubt he would say it was for her safety.
The conditions on the windward side, she soon found, were no different to the lee of the Ilha dos Sonhos. Although she was sure these could be dangerous waters at the wrong time of year, she was also certain she was being warned off visiting this part of the island for other reasons.
She paddled hard, fully expecting a boat to c
ome looking for her at any minute. She hugged the coastline, which was rocky along this stretch, and orientated herself by looking up to the crest where Alex had stopped the open-topped Land Rover. From this angle she saw that the clearing was on a slope and that Alex had shown her the coast where she was now. Hidden from her view was the remainder of the windward side, further to the south. That was where she wanted to go.
With no headwind to impede her or tailwind to assist her it was all down to her own efforts. She was perspiring, though her breathing was deep and measured as she ate up the metres. Adrenaline fed her efforts and she was soon rounding a promontory at the foot of the peak. She slowed and allowed the sea kayak to coast closer to the shore. She spied a pebbly beach and aimed for it, beaching the craft with a few hard strokes.
Jane slipped on her sandals, dragged the kayak further up the beach and continued her journey southwards on foot, clambering over sun-warmed boulders. Soon she had rounded the point completely and she ducked into the shadows of a massive rock when she saw what Alex had been hiding from her view on his little tour.
It was a harbour – part natural and part augmented by geometric chunks of concrete to form a breakwater. It was big enough to accommodate a small freighter and that was exactly what was parked there, next to a wooden jetty. Tied alongside the rust-stained ship was a sleek, modern motor cruiser.
The outline of the cargo ship was instantly familiar and when she gingerly made her way a hundred metres closer, to a position giving her a different perspective, she could read the name. Peng Cheng. It was the ship that Captain MacGregor had stopped supposedly to assist.
She’d wondered if the encounter between the vessels was related in some way to MacGregor’s possession of George’s mysterious package and the pirate attack. Here was the ship, tied up in Alex Tremain’s private harbour, transferring cargo by crane to another vessel.
There was no doubt in her mind at all now that Alex was the leader of the gang that had stormed the Penfold Son. The realisation made her shiver and all of a sudden she felt very frightened and very alone. No matter how kindly and handsome Alex might appear, he was a pirate.
What should she do? The safest thing, of course, would be to quickly return to the other side of the island and go on as though nothing had happened. When – if – Alex made good on his promise to ship her to the mainland, she would slip away from him at the first opportunity. It didn’t matter how she got to Johannesburg.
It worried her that George might be involved in something illegal – smuggling perhaps – but there was no doubt in her mind that once Alex realised she didn’t have what he was looking for she would cease to be of use to him. She thought about Mitch, with those piercing green eyes. Her spine tingled with fear. When Alex eventually found a way to ask her if she had MacGregor’s package, and she said no, would the urbane ex-officer hand her over to his henchman?
She’d already been gone far too long, so she turned to retrace her steps.
‘Hello, gorgeous. Found what you were looking for?’ Mitch held the ugly black submachine gun pointed at her one handed, and raised the index finger of his left hand to his lips. ‘Hush now. I could tell you that everything’s fine, but that would be a lie.’
*
It was cool in the basement and Jane gasped when the bucket of sea-water was thrown over her.
She could no longer feel her fingers, such was the tightness of the cold steel of the handcuffs, and the sharp pain in her wrists had been overtaken by the ache in her armpits.
Mitch, with Henri as backup, had cuffed her and forced her onto the back of Henri’s waiting quad bike. Her manacled hands had been tied to the pillion rack to stop her making a run for it. Though there was nowhere to run on this tiny island of nightmares.
Back at the resort she’d been shoved in the back by the American, down the stairs. She had fallen twice and her shins were bloody and raw and her chin was cut and grazed. With her hands behind her back, she’d had no way of breaking the falls.
She wanted to cry but bit her lip to stifle the tears as Henri removed the cuffs, then replaced them, running the chain through a loop of rope hanging from a ring bolt cemented into the rough concrete wall. In a gated and barred alcove a few metres away from her she heard raised voices calling in Chinese. She’d glimpsed the shadows of human forms beyond the candles as they’d hustled her into the dank cellar.
‘Shut your fucking gook babble,’ Mitch yelled. He walked over to her, close enough for her to smell his halitosis. He lowered his voice to a near whisper. ‘Scared, baby doll? You ought to be.’
‘It is ready,’ Henri said. ‘We must be quick, Mitchell.’
‘Don’t be such a fucking sissy. Oops, I forgot. You are.’ Mitch laughed.
Jane saw the momentary flash of hatred in the Frenchman’s eye at Mitch’s taunt, but when she glanced over at Henri she saw little compassion there for her. He shook his head, as if there was nothing he could do to alter things now.
‘Ever seen these?’ He held up two alligator clips attached to the ends of the insulated wires Henri had just passed him. ‘Kind of thing you can buy in any electrical store. But that, over there, is military issue.’ He nodded back to where Henri now sat on a folding chair, beside a metal camping table, on which was a chunky green plastic telephone and cradle. ‘It’s called a field telephone. Not much used in these days of digital and satellite comms, but it’s never really gone out of fashion. Know why?’
Despite telling herself she would show no sign of weakness to this man, nor comply with him in any way, she shook her head.
‘I’ll show you. Crank it.’ On his command, Henri grabbed a small handle at the rear of the base of the telephone and wound it furiously. Holding the plastic insulation, Mitch touched the two metal clips together, a few centimetres from her eyes. They crackled and sparked, dazzling her eyes with an electrical arc.
She gasped.
‘And the seawater?’ Mitch said. ‘In case you’re wondering, that’s to enhance the conductivity when I attach the clips.’ He smiled and moved one clip to her cheek. She recoiled, expecting to be shocked, but then realised both needed to be in contact with her to complete the circuit. Mitch trailed the serrated snout of the clip down her neck and over the fabric of her wet T-shirt. Despite her fear her nipple was protruding. ‘Cold in here, ain’t it?’
‘I don’t know what this is all about. Please . . . I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ she managed.
He discarded the clip and slapped her, open-palmed, across the face, with enough force to turn her head and smack the opposite cheek against the concrete. ‘Shut the fuck up, bitch. I haven’t even asked you a fucking question yet. You’ll talk to me when I’m good and ready for you to say something.’
Jane shook her head from the force of the blow and gingerly felt her lip with the tip of her tongue. She tasted blood, and spat.
‘That won’t be the last of it. You’re going to bleed.’ Mitch reached for his belt and unclipped a wicked-looking knife, short but broad-bladed, with a t-shaped grip that he held in his palm, the sharp end protruding between two fingers. ‘Don’t move, baby.’ He raised the point to the bottom of the V of her T-shirt and drew the blade back to him, so the material stretched. The blade started to slice and the shirt peeled apart.
Jane was too scared to move in case the knife connected with her skin. ‘What do you want?’
‘Don’t scream, baby. You’ll wake the neighbours.’ Mitch laughed. ‘Let’s not spoil the game. What I want you to do is to think, real hard, what it is I might want to know from you.’
He took a step closer to her and she felt the point of the blade touch her throat. Her shirt was split open, revealing her bikini top. She didn’t dare look down, and the pressure from the tip of the knife forced her to look straight ahead as he reached around her and unfastened the clasp.
The delicacy of his touch, the feigned tenderness, made his actions all the more terrifying. He moved the knife and cut the shoulder straps so that t
he bikini top fell to the ground. Her chest heaved and she closed her eyes, tight. A tear squeezed from her closed lids. This couldn’t be happening to her.
Mitch grabbed her face in one hand, squeezing her cheeks tight. ‘Keep your eyes open, darlin’,’ he whispered. ‘Ain’t no fun, otherwise.’
‘Hurry,’ Henri said from the gloom.
‘Shut the fuck up. Now, Jane, do you have anything you want to say to me? Look down, baby.’
He had sheathed the knife and picked up the discarded alligator clips from the wet concrete floor, where they had been sizzling and snapping away in a puddle. Mitch held one of the clips open in his right hand, its wicked serrated teeth now poised on either side of her left nipple.
‘Anything at all?’
She screamed in agony at its touch and couldn’t imagine how much more something could hurt. He hadn’t even started with the electricity.
‘Hush, breathe deep. The first shock will pass as the blood stops flowing to your nipple, baby,’ he said, his lips almost brushing her ear. ‘In the navy they taught us to focus on something – a spot on the wall maybe – and just say nothing but our name, rank, date of birth. Why don’t you try that? Come on, name . . .’
Tears rolled down her cheeks and her body started to heave with her sobs. ‘Mitch, please . . . I’ll . . . tell . . .’
‘Shush.’ He held the other clip up to her eyes and she writhed against the restraints, trying to move out of his reach. He grabbed her hair and pulled hard, yanking her back to the position he wanted her. The sudden sharp pain overtook the throb in her breast. ‘I’ll let you in on a secret, Jane. I don’t appreciate it when someone shoots me. I don’t want you to tell me anything until I’ve hurt you some more – it’s my version of payback.’
Henri moved into her sight out of the darkness. ‘Mitchell, don’t be stupid. She was about to tell you, you stupid cochon! Let her speak before Alex –’
‘– arrives?’
The two men looked back, into the shadows, from where Alex emerged, the nine-millimetre pistol looking like a natural extension of his right hand. ‘Get that thing off her body, Mitch.’
