by Greg Barron
1125
The man in the balaclava slams down the phone, and walks up to one of the mini-dome cameras that monitor the main cabin area. Pushing his face close he tears the woollen covering from his head.
His skin is white, freckled, his head topped with thinning, reddish hair. His face is cratered from the long-ago ravages of acne. His neck and arms are smudged with ingrained dirt, his teeth brown, one front molar missing.
Eyes six inches from the dome camera, he shouts, ‘I know you can see me in this camera. You know who I am, don’t you? So now it’s time to show you how serious I am.’
He walks aft, through the door to the cockpit, where he kneels, raises a deck hatch and selects a length of rope. He tests it between his hands, muscles of his forearms flexing as he returns.
He lunges for Tasman, snatches him from Victoria’s grip, lifts him over the table. He growls to the man with the sharpened teeth and the necklace of ears, who unclips the cabin ceiling hatch, then bangs it open with the heel of his hand.
Victoria tries to get up, tries to go to her son, but another man restrains her, one sweaty forearm in the crook of her neck. Another holds his rifle barrel to Peter’s chest.
The white man ties the end of the rope to Tasman’s ankles, then passes the other end through the hatch. Someone up above, on the upper deck, starts to pull, until Tasman rises feet first, hanging upside down, his bare toes almost touching the hole in the ceiling, his head swinging above the floor.
Tasman’s arms churn like fan blades in an attempt to reach the floor, a mournful groan escaping his lips with each cycle.
‘No,’ Victoria screams, ‘you’ll kill him. God, he’s only four.’
The white man returns to the camera. He too appears flushed, as if the violent act has excited him. ‘Now, you fuckers,’ he hisses at the camera, ‘get the money.’
‘Do something, Peter, for Christ’s sake,’ Victoria pleads.
Peter’s Adam’s apple rises and falls. ‘I have almost three hundred thousand pounds, cash, invested with a London bank. I can have it transferred to your account anywhere in the world. Today. You get it, you power away in your boats. No risk. That’s half a million dollars, and I can do it on my laptop.’
The hard-boiled face screws up and he spits, still looking at the camera. ‘Fuck your three hundred thousand pounds. Five million. Cash. Unmarked bills with no tricks. Air dropped here in a waterproof package.’
‘That’s not possible.’
‘I’m tired of hearing that. You want to see how serious I am?’
The white man moves across the cabin and kneels beside the hanging child, places the gun barrel against his skull. ‘I’m going to count to ten. One …’
‘Don’t.’ Peter moans. ‘Please. I can’t do it, and you know the British government won’t pay … they never do.’
‘Five, six, seven, eight.’ He stops, checks the load, then bores the barrel into Tasman’s eye. ‘Nine …’
Victoria shrieks, ‘God, please, no!’
On the count of ten, the white man lifts the gun away from the child’s head, then grinning like a dervish, fires once into the mini-dome camera.
Splintered plastic spatters across the room. The sound of the discharge drives into her ear canals, overwhelming the stereocilia deep inside, snapping the tips, and causing ringing in the ears.
Her tormentor’s screaming voice cuts through. ‘This time they’ll pay.’
On the screen across the room, the Manchester City striker scores from a penalty.
1140
Like all satellite calls, the dial tone is distant, and when Marjory Parker hears him pick up she notices the delay as their voices are bounced off the Iridium satellite network in low Earth orbit some five hundred miles above.
In her opinion, showing his face was a mistake. Facial recognition software, and the computers that drive them are now so fast that she already has an ID sheet on the desk in front of her. The man’s Afrikaner heritage, hinted at in the voice analysis, is now confirmed. The snippets of dialect are a smokescreen.
‘That,’ she says to him, ‘was not what I would call a demonstration of good faith.’
‘The boy stays swinging until we get the money, hey. It’s not rocket science. I let you see my face. Now you know who I am.’
‘Your name is Drake, isn’t it?’
‘Drake is one of my names. There are others. Names mean nothing.’
‘You know how these things work. You must be aware that your demands are impossible in the time frame you’ve specified.’
‘Don’t bullshit me. The Bank of England has reciprocal banking arrangements with dozens of banks that are a three-hour flight from this location. Five million in used US bills is loose change to the financial machinery of the banking overlords. How many Royal Navy ships are in the South Atlantic with air assets on board? At least three or four. You could do this in five hours. I’m giving you eight.’
The phone clicks, the call terminated.
1300
The planning team is assigned a vacant instruction room, in the operational area forward of the flight deck. Here, under ordinary circumstances, enlisted men and women take seamanship or gunnery lessons and sit examinations. The Intelligence Officer is present as official liaison, along with a couple of Navy advisers. Also present are the three men and two women of 2CG.
PJ, with his long experience in the Special Boat Service is Marika’s 2IC, but Jay, Kutay and Kisira are all actively involved in decision making and planning. Jay is EOD bomb disposal-trained, and Kutay is deadly with a Barrett M82A1 fifty cal sniper rifle. Kisira is the unit medic and, pound for pound, perhaps the most highly skilled of them at unarmed combat.
Five Royal Marines have been recruited to make up the numbers—volunteers selected as the best of the best from the two-hundred-and-fifty-strong contingent on board. All five are skilled divers and wear the coveted crossed rifle ‘marksman’ badge on their lower sleeve.
The whiteboard displays an outline of the islet of Tinhosa Grande. Beside it an electronic screen shows plans for the catamaran, emailed through from the Polish manufacturer. The cameras on board have been destroyed by the hostage-takers, but there are historical stills that will be used to help in the planning.
Marika is aware that if a Special Boat Service troop was close enough and with time to deploy they would almost certainly have been inserted via submarine, using swimmer delivery vehicles to reach the yacht. There is no time for this option. Ransom demands have specified a time frame of eight hours before the deaths of all aboard.
This is the new way of the terrorist and pirate alike. Speed. Allowing no time for Special Forces troops to deploy or train, make mock-ups, do all the preparation that makes them so effective. Eight hours. To air-drop cash after a complicated transfer from an African bank.
These issues weigh on Marika’s mind as she faces the group. ‘The problem will be getting aboard without detection—any sniff of a raid and they’ll start shooting hostages. We’ve all heard of the French snatch operation on a yacht off Somalia some years back. They rescued three adults and a three-year-old, but killed the yacht’s owner in a shoot out with hostiles. No one wants that kind of result.’
One of the marines holds his hand up. ‘This is a catamaran, right?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘I’ve done a bit of sailing. A big sailing cat is hard to overturn, but once you do, they’re hard to get right way up again.’
Marika stares back at him, wondering what the point is. ‘I don’t think flipping it is going to be the answer …’
‘No, but it’s a design consideration—it gives us an entry point. Can I show you?’
Marika steps out of the way as the marine walks up to the display.
1315
Two men in suits appear at Koffman’s restaurant, tucked away in the Berkeley Hotel, London. They politely ask the maitre’d if he would inform the prime minister that he is required in the foyer.
When the PM appears, still dabbing food from his lips, he recognises Tom Mossel, director of the DRFS directorate of the SIS, and Harry Gardner, the Home Undersecretary.
‘What’s up? I was just onto the pig’s trotter—damn good pig’s trotter here.’
Tom Mossel takes a print from an envelope. It shows a small boy with rope looped around his ankles. ‘This is a still taken from Clover’s video feed before they destroyed all the cameras.’
The PM stares at it, eyebrows knitting together. ‘Is that photo upside down?’
Mossel looks unamused. ‘No.’
‘Then the boy is upside down.’
‘Correct. Medical advice is that the change in blood pressure will kill him. Any time now he might start to suffer strokes. We have assets moving in, but they might be too slow—they can’t do anything until after dark. I think we need to indicate that we’re intending to pay the ransom and try to pressure them to let the kid down.’
‘We don’t pay ransoms …’
‘Sir, this is a four-year-old child. A British four-year-old child. The time frame gives us no time for chest beating.’
‘Is it even possible? To get five million dollars there in that time frame?’
‘Of course it is. And I think we have to at least look as if we’re going to pay. Apparently the hostage-takers have satellite TV, they’re watching news updates. Let’s go public—get the money together and use the media to show every step of our compliance. Meanwhile … our guys are moving in.’
‘OK, we string them along. Let’s convene in the CONTEST room in—’ the PM rotates his wrist to look at his Rolex — ‘one hour, and we’ll sort this out. Our assets on site, can they handle this?’
Tom Mossel nods. ‘Not the first choice, but they’re in the area. They won’t let us down, sir.’ He coughs. ‘Sir, I hate to say it but, there are, er, other complications.’
‘Like what?’
Mossel lowers his voice and talks softly.
1320
The change in official policy comes as no surprise to Marjory. The capitulation will make her job easier. If all goes well this will be over in time for her sister’s birthday celebration at 7 p.m. After all, she ordered the cake—from that gorgeous little bakery in Notting Hill, and Steve is driving down from Birmingham …
She makes the call.
Drake answers the phone. ‘Are you going to tell me that the money’s organised?’
‘Kind of. I want to let you know that the British Government has decided, in this case, to assist with meeting your demands.’
There is a pause. Marjory knows he’ll be happy to hear this. Psychopaths love it when cruelty and violence works. It validates their outlook. She doesn’t prod, just lets it sink in.
‘Tell me when you have it,’ he says finally. ‘There’s nothing else to talk about.’
‘There is, actually. We have an aircraft on the way to Lagos, Nigeria, ready to collect the money, arranged through a local branch of Barclays Bank. But that money is going nowhere until we have your assurance that the child has been taken down and is being well cared for.’
‘Well fuck you. That’s your plan. Here’s mine. In one hour, if I haven’t heard that you’ve got the money on the way, I’ll cut both ears off all three of them, lay them on this desk and send you a photo. You got that, hey?’
He breaks the connection.
1415
The leader of the hijackers underscores the threat by taking a vicious looking knife from a sheath and laying it on the dinette table. The blade is straight-edged on one side, serrated on the other. The dull black rubber of its handle appears to absorb the light of its surroundings.
‘You heard my name,’ he hisses softly. ‘Now you know who I am.’
Peter nods. ‘Drake. Please don’t do this to us.’
The South African crosses his muscled forearms, thick with ginger hair, on the table. ‘It won’t be me who takes your ears.’ He jabs a thumb at the nearest of his comrades. ‘He does it.’
Peter turns and looks into the sorcerer’s eyes of the man with that ghastly necklace. A corpse-like smell follows him like a mist. He has never mixed with people like this. He has seen angry faces staring at him through the taxi window as he speeds through Wandsworth or Lambeth, but he has never been this close to raw, naked hatred.
‘That is Kossi. He collects ears. He believes that they have the power of a charm. He’ll cut yours off without blinking. You’d better hope that Her Majesty’s fucking government come good on this.’ He points at Victoria. ‘That trophy wife of yours won’t look so damn good without hers, hey.’
Peter wants to be sick. Tasman has moved little in the last hour. His face is beetroot red, and his eyes are partially open. Every now and then they flutter. His breathing is noisy, as if he were suffering from a heavy cold.
All his life Peter has been a doer—a mover and shaker. He makes calls, gives instructions and things happen. Now he is powerless. His son is dying, and he can do nothing about it but wait. Victoria alternates between weeping and staring vacantly. He can’t meet her eye, knowing that this is his fault. That somehow he should have protected them from this.
The telephone rings again. Drake picks it up, talks for a moment, then breaks the connection. The room is silent, all eyes watching as he picks up the remote control and switches channels. Sky News is showing stacked US notes being stretch-wrapped in plastic, then a C130 aircraft on the tarmac at Lagos Airport.
‘Your ears are safe, for the moment,’ Drake says.
Victoria’s eyes fix on him. ‘Please, I beg you, cut my boy down. Let me hold him.’
Drake stares back. Points at the men with guns. ‘See these people. They have grown up without food to eat, or functional government. They know death better than you know love. Don’t blame me, blame the colonial powers of the West, who have raped this continent over and over, and are now doing it again for the oil.’
‘You are cruel … a monster. How could you do that to a child? He’s done nothing to anyone.’ Victoria’s eyes are swollen, ringed with red. Her tears have run down the sides of her face, plastering strands of hair to her skin.
‘No,’ Drake thumps his own chest hard with a balled fist. ‘I’m taking fat from the one percent who have stolen the wealth of the world and am giving it back to the majority. Their destiny is equality. I am only an instrument.’
Before anyone can stop her, Victoria slides off the seat to her knees, bawling, raising her head, eyes closed. Her voice is filled with the unbreakable love of a mother for her offspring. Something so deep that it is stronger than terror. More powerful than death.
‘Please, just let him go …’
Drake’s voice cracks like a whip. ‘Get her back in the chair. Now. When that plane is in the air, I will let you have him. But not until then.’
1600
While the ship steams south, Marika and the attack crew are hard at work in the vast aft loading dock. This is the secret of Albion’s amazing utility as a weapon of war—a cavernous ramp door, opening into a floodable chamber. From here she can launch her complement of four LCU Mk10 landing craft, each of which can carry over a hundred riflemen, or even a Challenger Mk II tank.
Marika watches every step of the preparations. The attack boats they will be using are Arctic 22 RIBS, identical to those used by the SBS. Fifteen personnel will crowd into three vessels. The inflated sponsons are dark and non-reflective, powered by black multi-fuel Evinrude engines, based on commercial E-Tec technology, that will run on kerosene, JP-8 and JP-4, as well as ULP.
Marika’s sid unit—the smartphone like communications device—vibrates to indicate a voice transmission. She takes the call and steps back, away from the sounds of hydraulics and voices. The director, Tom Mossel’s face stares back at her from the caller ID.
‘Sir, we’re just preparing the boats …’
‘Are you alone?’
‘No, but give me a moment and I will be.’ She walks away from the others until she’s le
aning against one of the iron bulkheads. ‘OK, go ahead.’
‘I’ll make this quick, and for you and your 2IC’s ears only. Drake, the man behind this hijack is, or was, one of ours.’
‘What?’
‘The SIS ran him as a double agent, during the early years of ANC power in South Africa—recruited him direct from SASS, the South African Secret Service. He was always a loose cannon—anti-establishment—but also one hell of an effective agent.
‘Back in 1998 he was on assignment for SASS, trying to crack a diamond smuggling ring out of the Kimberley fields. Shadowing a group with a couple of million worth of diamonds the temptation was too much for him. He shot three men and high-tailed it for the airport.’
‘Loose cannon might be putting it mildly,’ Marika comments.
‘Just so. His colleagues caught up with him at Johannesburg airport, with a boarding pass to Amsterdam in his hand. He spilled the beans that he’d been working for us. SASS had him for three years, and believe me, they know how to break a man.
‘They finally released him into a halfway house in Cape Town. Two days later he stole a gun from a safe and shot his minders, before disappearing. Next he surfaced in Zimbabwe, with a group called the Dogs of Retribution. Their main targets were the big cattle ranches. In one attack they killed not only the white farmers and their children, but the African staff as well. For a while we think Drake was working as a military adviser in the Central African Republic, but then nine weeks ago he killed three Portuguese mining engineers, their wives and children at the Alto Cuilo diamond mine in Angola.’
‘I remember hearing about the mine attack. Any religious or political affiliation?’
‘None. He’s a destroyer. Surrounds himself with the worst kinds of killers. We’ve had several attempts at taking him out – there is a kill on sight order.’
‘How does this affect the situation?’
‘No ransom money will ever be delivered, though even the PM thinks it will. This is our one shot to end this. Drake cannot survive this operation.’
