by Tony Park
‘Have you heard about Captain MacGregor?’ he asked her.
‘Yes. It’s a tragedy.’
‘One of the security men on board was also wounded, in the arm. He fell overboard, but he’ll live. Jane,’ George continued, ‘did Captain MacGregor give you anything . . . a package of some sort, before he was killed?’
And there it was. As blunt as that. Jane felt as if someone had injected ice water into her spinal column. Her heart beat faster and harder and the hair rose on her arms. Alex looked at her, and she bit her lower lip while she tried to think of what to say.
‘What do you mean by a package, George? Papers?’
She glanced back at the pirate behind the joystick that served as the helm on the luxury motor cruiser and saw him give a slight ‘I told you so’ nod of his head. Curse his smugness, she thought. She didn’t need that now.
‘Not papers. Perhaps a small packet containing something.’
‘Packet of what?’
‘I can’t talk now, Jane. I’m flying tonight and I’ll be there to meet you, whenever you arrive. I’m pleased you’re unharmed. Are you all right for money?’
Pleased? That was the best he could come up with? ‘Will you be able to call me back when you’re not so busy?’
‘I’ve a lot to get done before the flight. Can you give me a number and I’ll call you when I get to Johannesburg?’
Jane put her hand over the mouthpiece and asked Alex for the number.
‘You’ll understand, I’m sure, if I don’t give that to you.’
She nodded and told George she was using a borrowed phone and the man who owned it wouldn’t be with her after tomorrow. She agreed to try and call George back at his hotel the next day.
‘Thanks. Goodbye, Jane. I’m pleased you’re well.’
Suddenly, she felt very alone.
The lighter, a flat-bottomed barge with a shallow draft, was waiting at anchor offshore, when he rounded the point.
Alex took the nine-millimetre from his waistband, cocked it and replaced it under the loose tail of his white cotton shirt. He shrugged at Jane’s wide eyes. ‘A precaution,’ he told her.
He eased the throttle to neutral and coasted alongside the smaller vessel. Alfredo threw a line to him and he caught it. The two of them drew the Fair Lady alongside, so that she nestled against fenders made of old car tyres, and tied up. The wiry African, dressed in jeans and the shiny red shirt of an English Premier League football club, jumped aboard.
‘Ola, Alexandre, como estas? Todo bem?’ the man said, extending his hand to Alex.
‘Estou bem, Alfredo, et tu?’ The African nodded that he was well. Alex turned to Jane and introduced her.
‘Charmed. It is my pleasure to meet you,’ Alfredo said.
Alex knew Alfredo had an eye for the ladies, and more than one female backpacker had ended up staying part of her holiday at his well-appointed beachside villa south of Vilanculos. ‘Jane’s travelling with me to South Africa,’ he explained in a proprietary tone.
Alfredo nodded that he had received and understood the implicit message. ‘I have a truck standing by on the beach for your . . . cargo, Alexandre.’
‘Obrigado,’ Alex said.
Alex told Jane he needed a few minutes in private with Alfredo. ‘Of course. How soon before we get to Vilanculos?’
‘About two hours, so you’ve time for a shower before we dock.’
‘Right. I’ll go downstairs then.’
Alex continued to speak Portuguese to Alfredo, in case Jane was still in earshot. He pulled a roll of US dollars from his trousers and counted out two thousand in hundreds. Capitao Alfredo Pereirra was the best police officer money could buy on the Mozambican coast. While Alex trusted Alfredo, he was always armed whenever cash changed hands.
Alfredo called orders in Xitswa to two men who had accompanied him on the lighter and one climbed aboard. He had no trouble starting up the small crane on the Fair Lady’s stern which had been designed to raise and lower a jet ski. It was now hefting the caged, grunting leopard, which Alfredo’s labourers steadied with tentative fingertips as it moved over the side and onto the lighter.
‘The news is bad for you, Alexandre,’ Alfredo said, lighting a cigarette. ‘Why did you have to kill the captain of the Penfold Son? I won’t be able to protect you from a murder charge if the British government brings pressure to bear on mine.’
Alex didn’t bother denying knowledge of the attempted hijack. ‘I didn’t kill him, Alfredo. There were armed men on board. I think they were there to safeguard a smuggling deal.’
The policeman’s eyebrows lifted in interest. ‘More wildlife? Ivory? Rhino horn?’
Alex shook his head. ‘Maybe diamonds.’
Alfredo gave a low whistle. ‘Is the woman involved?’
‘You ask too many questions, my friend.’
‘It’s not me you should be worried about, Alexandre, but I won’t go to prison for you, my friend.’
‘I know.’ Alex walked out of the airconditioned bridge and the force of the African sun assailed him as he oversaw the transfer of the last of the crates and bags onto the lighter. ‘I’ll see you in Vilanculos at three, Alfredo.’
‘Be careful, Alex.’
Once they had untied from the lighter, Alex opened the throttle. He couldn’t risk unloading his mammalian and reptilian cargo in the port at Vilanculos in case a policeman or customs official less corrupt than Alfredo took notice. It was a measure of the relationship he had formed with Alfredo that the policeman was not in the least surprised or perturbed about organising at short notice a four-tonne truck to transport a wriggling, snarling menagerie of captive animals. He’d also been frank in his advice, and Alex appreciated his concern.
If Jane wouldn’t tell him where she had hidden the diamonds, then he would have to follow her to them. He wasn’t assuming she would fall for his charms and give up the location, but Alex was becoming more certain her employer, George Penfold, was involved in the diamond deal. She’d been unable to hide her excitement when the man had come through on the line, and Alex sensed there was more to their relationship than the purely professional. He’d also seen the way her face had dropped when he had heard Penfold, his voice faint but still understandable, ask Jane if Captain MacGregor had given her anything. ‘Would you like a glass of Moët?’
She looked at him wide-eyed. ‘You’re joking.’
‘I never joke about champagne.’ He handed control of the boat to her. She was hesitant, but he showed her how to use the joystick control and keep the cruiser on the track set by the GPS. With Jane at the helm he went to the refrigerator and filled a silver bucket with cubes from the ice maker. He aimed the bottle aft and the cork flew out over the stern into the Indian Ocean. Alex poured the wine into crystal flutes and she laughed. When she smiled she was even more beautiful.
‘That’s delicious. Why am I accepting a drink from a pirate who kidnapped me?’
He raised a glass to hers, took back control of the boat and said, ‘Fate?’ They clinked and drank. ‘Besides, I didn’t kidnap you – you fell into my arms.’
Jane blushed and looked out to sea as she drank. ‘I was pleased you didn’t kill that security man on board the Penfold Son,’ Jane said. She had already relayed the news that the man was hurt but still alive.
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Do you believe me that I didn’t kill Captain MacGregor?’
She took a sip of champagne. ‘Yes. I don’t know why, but I do believe you.’
‘Then you agree that . . .’
‘It could have been a ricochet from all that gunfire for all I know, but . . .’
‘It may have been one of those men on board. Do you think your boss knew about the diamond smuggling and that was the reason for the extra muscle?’
‘Alex, I really don’t want to talk to you about who may or may not have been involved in what. To tell you the truth, I’d like to wake up in my bed in London and find out this whole thing was a bad dream.’
> The thought crossed Alex’s mind that he would like to wake up in that same bed one day. ‘Be careful, Jane.’ It was the advice Alfredo had given him, and it was good.
‘There is something floating out there. A raft, I think,’ the woman said.
He had been studying the chart and dreaming of barbecued lobster in a beachside restaurant in Vilanculos. Their home in Frankfurt was a distant memory, as was the chain of four hardware stores he had owned for thirty years. He was living for the present now, not a care in the world that a stiff breeze and a cold beer wouldn’t cure.
The boat was the love of his life – well, his second love. His first was his second wife. At thirty-five she was twenty years younger than he. She kept him young, when she wasn’t trying to kill him in the cabin below. She looked wonderful in the g-string bikini and it was a shame to see her wrap the brightly printed kikoi she’d bought in Mombasa around her pert little arse.
He sighed and picked up the heavy rubberised marine binoculars. ‘Where?’
‘Starboard, two o’clock. Maybe a thousand metres.’
She had good eyes, as well. He focused and saw the inflatable life raft.
‘We should check it out,’ she called back to him, brushing a strand of sun-bleached hair from her forehead.
He’d read the magazine and internet articles about piracy. They took precautions, such as waiting to tag along with other boats when they’d sailed down the notorious Somali coast, at the recommended safe distance of two hundred kilometres from land. He carried a weapon, also. Some of the experts advised against carrying a firearm, in case it was turned on the owner. However, he was an expert shot, and had hunted boar and deer at home, and all of Africa’s big five in Zimbabwe and Tanzania in years gone by.
He unlocked the cabinet beneath the helm and deftly assembled the two pieces of the double-barrelled shotgun. He slipped the two fat cartridges home and snapped the weapon closed.
‘Is that really necessary?’ she asked.
For some reason his wife hated the shotgun.
‘Yes. Take the helm, darling.’
They were still in sight of the Mozambican coast, motoring slowly south in the still conditions. He hauled in the rubber dinghy, climbed over the back railing and slipped in. The fifteen horsepower outboard started first pull. ‘Cut the motor when I get close to the raft, Gretchen.’
‘You’ve got me worried, taking that thing with you.’ She pointed with distaste to the weapon, which cost as much as one of her diamond bracelets.
‘I’ll be fine. But keep watch. You know the emergency channel, yes?’
She nodded.
He let go the tender rope and gunned the outboard. The weight of the shotgun was reassuring across his suntanned knees. There was no sign of movement on board the raft and he wondered if it had been lost overboard in a storm. ‘Hello,’ he called in English.
He cut the throttle and coasted up to the raft, the inflatable sides bumping softly against each other. ‘Hello,’ he said again.
He stood awkwardly as he held the weapon in one hand and grabbed hold of the bright orange craft with the other, so he could peer inside under the nylon covering. There was a man inside, lying on his back. He wore dark sunglasses, red board shorts and a garishly printed Hawaiian shirt. ‘Are you all right?’
He licked his lips and looked back at his own beloved yacht and wife. He waved to her, trying to signal her to come closer. They had walkie-talkies and he wished he’d thought to bring one. Stupid, really. The man seemed unconscious. He hastily tied the tender rope to the raft and stepped on board.
He and his wife had both attended first-aid classes as preparation for their round-the-world trip. ABC – airways, breathing and circulation – he said to himself as he knelt beside the man. When he touched the man’s neck the skin was warm and the pulse was beating fast.
Behind the sunglasses the eyes snapped open.
On board the yacht, Gretchen Mueller waited eighteen minutes before pushing the button to start the engine. She yelled across the water, but again there was no reply.
She put the throttle in neutral and allowed the hull to brush against the orange raft, on the far side of their own tender.
‘Wolfgang?’
Engaging reverse, she stopped the yacht’s drift. ‘Wolfgang?’
She peered down at the raft but its cover was all but closed. About thirty centimetres of zipper was unfastened, with a short length of rope protruding. Gretchen leaned over the side and grabbed the rope.
The hand darted out. It was red and sticky and it locked around her wrist with a grip that threatened to break her bones.
She screamed.
11
Alex moored the Fair Lady at the wharf at Vilanculos and Jane grabbed the day pack that mostly contained other women’s clothes. She had showered in the spotless chrome and tile bathroom below decks in the luxurious San Lorenzo cruiser and changed into a khaki skirt and a lemon-yellow v-neck top. There had even been a hair dryer on board.
She rejoined him on the bridge and he led her down the gangway. His only luggage was a green canvas military kitbag.
Jane thought about running off and finding a bus to take her away, but she had never been a backpacker and didn’t have a clue where she might find transport in Vilanculos. She was a good driver, but she was unsure about the wisdom of hiring a car and driving more than a thousand kilometres on her own, on what Alex had described as ‘adequate’ roads.
Jane had always played it safe. She hadn’t taken drugs as a teenager – her rebelliousness had been limited to lying to her parents about sleeping over with a friend and going out to a nightclub at the age of seventeen with a bunch of girlfriends who had gotten her horribly drunk on martinis. She’d been unable to stomach gin ever since. It was ironic that the safest thing for her to do now was to accept a lift from a pirate.
At college she knew she’d had a reputation as something of a prude. It didn’t worry her – not then, at least – but as she’d entered her thirties she’d become restless.
There were no outward signs of it, of course. She had a good job, with a good company, a good car – a Volvo – and a mortgage. The only thing Jane Humphries had done that was completely and utterly out of order was to sleep with her married boss. And if she was honest with herself, she had loved it – the actual act of sleeping with him; the act of being bad. It didn’t stop her from feeling guilty afterwards, though.
It also shocked her, and she was still coming to terms with the feelings that had motivated her to keep seeing George.
The fact that he had asked her if MacGregor had given her anything had bothered her. Afterwards she’d felt numb, betrayed. George was clearly involved in whatever smuggling operation had led MacGregor to rendezvous with the Peng Cheng, and he had shown plainly that he cared more for his missing property than for her.
Setting foot for the first time in her life on mainland Africa, she took a moment to take it all in.
Vilanculos was not, at first sight, a particularly pretty town, though she could see its potential. More precisely, she could see evidence of its past glory as a tourist playground. The wharf was a crumbling finger of concrete sticking out in a wide palm-fringed bay dotted with a mix of dhows and a few rusting barges. The tide was going out and she could see sand flats appearing near the shore.
The most imposing structure in the town was right on the wharf – the gutted Dona Ana Hotel – which they walked past after leaving Alex’s cruiser. A gaggle of a dozen teenage boys tailed them, offering paintings, shells and small drums for sale. Alex politely turned them down in Portuguese.
Electric drills whined from inside the hotel’s angular Art Deco concrete walls and African workers pushed barrows laden with bags of cement inside to feed a churning mixer. Other tradesmen rolled pink pastel paint onto rendered walls and sanded timber window frames.
‘Looks like you might have some competition,’ Jane said. ‘And their renovations are moving faster than yours.’
&nb
sp; Alex shrugged. ‘This was one of the grandest hotels on the coast. It was named after the wife of Senhor Joaquim Alves. He was a Portuguese tycoon who brought tourism to the Bazaruto Archipelago. He owned an airline, shipping companies and several hotels and resorts. My maternal grandfather was one of his business partners. This place was paradise in its day.’
‘I like your island better.’
‘Me too.’
Alex greeted a smiling African man and the two spoke in a mix of Portuguese and Xitswa for a few minutes while Jane waited patiently. The man handed Alex a set of car keys and Alex showed her to a new Toyota Land Cruiser parked on the side of a sandy road at the end of the wharf. ‘Before you ask: no, it’s not stolen,’ Alex said as he opened her door for her.
‘Purchased with ill-gotten gains though?’
‘No comment,’ Alex said. ‘It’s a long drive to where we’re going – not in distance but in time, because of the condition of the roads,’ he continued, checking his watch. ‘We should stay here in Vilanculos for the night and get going early tomorrow.’
‘Will your animals be all right?’
‘Alfredo’s providing food and water for them. He’s keeping them in a warehouse near the port overnight.’
‘What if the police find him driving around with a truck full of endangered creepy-crawlies?’
Alex laughed. ‘He is the police.’
Piet van Zyl had found Lisa Novak’s address on the internet phone directory. He drove past the high white security wall and noted the curls of shining razor wire interspersed with the straight strands of the electric fence. As he slowed he heard the barking of dogs.
The double-cab bakkie he drove carried the logo of Eskom, the South African electricity company, on the side. Van Zyl and his three men all wore the blue overalls of the company. The signage on the vehicle had been forged by a former army colleague who had taken up signwriting as his legitimate career after leaving the service, and the rebirthing of stolen cars as his main source of income.
‘This place is like Fort Knox,’ said the American, Tyrone.
