by Justin Scott
Hardin gathered that now the dhow men lived a somewhat renegade life where a portion of their trade had to be smuggled past greedy customs officials in order to make a profit, and government administrators were their worst enemies. The captain scowled darkly and compared them to the crocodiles that infested the rivers of East Africa.
“Bite, bite,” he said, pantomiming their jaws, and grinning broadly at Hardin when his son laughed.
The fog began to thin and the propellers of the model airplane on the jackstaff, which had been freewheeling in the breeze of forward motion, stopped when the wind blew from astern. The captain wet his finger, looked at the hazy sky, and rose with apologies. He shouted orders, and watched his men gather around the heavy hemp rope which was attached to the long yard.
“Kaus,” he said to Hardin, pointing to the southeast, naming the wind. “Inshallah.” God willing. He opened his hands to Hardin, offering the choice of a continued tow. Hardin shook his head.
“Kaus,” he repeated. The Swan’s sail was fluttering. He presented the wooden box to the captain. The Arab opened it and reverently lifted the black and mirrored sextant from its velvet cradle. His eyes feasted upon it. He tried a fix on the sun, which was a softening white ball in the hazy sky, but the horizon was still too indistinct.
“Moni,” he apologized.
Hardin knew from the Sailing Directions that Moni meant the dust clouds that obscured the sky almost every summer day. They blew sand from the desert, cut visibility to a half mile or less, and lowered the ceiling to a few hundred feet. He was gambling that they would continue into September.
The captain carefully replaced the sextant in its box and laid it on a ledge in the wheelhouse. Hands off was the obvious message he snarled in Arabic to the helmsman and the sailors who were watching. Then he dived into his hold and reappeared with a prayer rug, which he pressed into Hardin’s hands. Hardin examined it in the pale sunlight. It was hardly a fair exchange. He felt like a thief. Then the captain ordered the Swan pulled alongside. He took Hardin’s hand in his and stood by until he was safely aboard.
Hardin heaved the hemp line back to the dhow. The Arabs’ diesel stopped chugging. Silence gathered around the two boats like another mist.
The sailors put their weight to the thick halyard, several climbing halfway up the mast as they hoisted the massive yard to the wind. Slowly, jerkily, the white lateen sail carved a higher and higher slice from the pearly sky. The patched canvas filled, straining ahead of the mast, bending the thick yard.
The Swan and the dhow sailed side by side on the quickening breeze until Muscat appeared beyond a sudden opening in the rocky cliffs. Then they veered apart as the Arabs made for the city and Hardin continued up the coast, pointing the distant Strait of Hormuz.
It occurred to him that he didn’t know the vessel’s name. He thought of Carolyn. Right now they would be talking about the Arab sailors. He had noticed that their engine was a Cummins and that their giant yard was made of three separate timbers. She would know who the old man with the white hair was, and whether the captain liked the Rolling Stones or just put up with his son’s taste.
He manned the cockpit bilge pump and pounded away on it until he was gasping painfully in the humid heat, still trying to remember her face.
22
“This Nigeria!”
Ajaratu Akanke spread her hands over her desk in mock exasperation, sympathizing with Miles Donner for the delays he had suffered at the hands of the Lagos airport immigration officers.
“The British left seventeen years ago and the civil servants who took their posts still think that a clipped accent and a clean white shirt are badges of competence.” She smiled. “Tell my father if you want revenge and he’ll post the man to the swamps of Warri. He still talks about the way you rescued his daughter—when he isn’t raging about my escapade.”
Donner chuckled. “He did seem to have a temper. How’ve you been? Are you happy to be home?”
“Certainly. There’s such excitement here. I imagine you felt such a spirit in Israel when your country was born.”
“I was in England. I missed the fun.” He assessed her with quick eyes. “Your arm is healed?”
“Perfectly.”
“And you’ve got the best clinic I’ve seen in Africa.”
“It should be,” she said with a smile. “It’s in Lagos’s wealthiest quarter.”
“I think your father wants you within easy reach.”
Ajaratu fell silent. She glanced at her appointment calendar. It was a heavier-than-usual day, but still nowhere near as trying as a single hour of intern duty in London. Finally, with a tentative smile, she asked the question that hung between them.
“How is he?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” said the Israeli. “I gave him your letters. I thought he might have written back.”
“I’ve heard nothing.”
“The last I know he sailed from Durban.”
“Did you radio?”
“I broadcast every night at eight, Greenwich Mean Time, as agreed. I think he may have acknowledged a week ago when I radioed LEVIATHAN’s departure and Persian Gulf ETA. I’m not sure. His signal, if it was his, was very weak. As if his batteries were down or heavy weather was attenuating his signal. It’s just possible he was in the monsoon.”
Ajaratu said, “I’ve been hoping for a telephone call that he’s come to his senses.”
“Do you think that likely?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Do you think he’s unbalanced, Dr. Akanke?”
“No.”
“What do you think he’s going to do?”
“I’m afraid he is going to sink LEVIATHAN or die trying.”
“Have you any idea where he might attack?”
Ajaratu looked out her window at the white office towers of downtown Lagos.
“I have no idea,” she said. “Why do you ask? ”
Donner replied, “If something has happened to him I want to know where to look.”
“Something like what?”
“Shipwreck. Grounding. Native attack—forgive the expression.” He said the last with a teasing smile designed, she thought, to put her at ease. “You know what I mean. I think he may need help.”
“Or he may want to be left alone.”
“Perhaps,” Donner said casually. “Of course, we’ll know the answer to that very soon.”
“How?”
“LEVIATHAN sailed from Capetown last week. She is slated to arrive at the Gulf in four days. If, a week from now, when she has loaded and left, she hasn’t been attacked by Hardin, we can assume he either needs help or is lost at sea. Unless he’s planning to hit her full, in which case—”
“He wouldn’t do that,” she said firmly. “He would never sink the ship when it carried oil.”
“How exactly does he plan to sink LEVIATHAN? From what angle would he shoot?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. Besides, if he is lost, what does it matter?”
“Only that the precise manner in which he meant to sink the ship might indicate the place he intended to do it, and that would give me a clue as to where to find him. If he needs help.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“I’m afraid his lack of radio contact means he does.”
“But you said that is because he has weak batteries.”
“Weak batteries indicates no fuel to run his engine to recharge them. And no fuel indicates he was becalmed and had to run his engine. He might still be becalmed.”
“That would be wonderful,” said Ajaratu. “LEVIATHAN would avoid him and when the wind came he would sail into port and, I hope, contact you or me. Frankly, I hope it’s me. I want another chance to talk him out of it.”
“Do you really?” said Donner.
“Of course. It’s madness.”
Donner toyed with the edge of her desk. Abruptly he met her eye. “I’ve been less than candid, Dr. Akanke.”
“In wh
at way?”
“It’s my intention to stop him from attacking LEVIATHAN.”
She asked why.
Donner looked away. His voice was subdued, as if he were embarrassed. “I have new orders,” he said, obviously resenting them. “I am not to allow Hardin to sink that ship.”
“You have orders to stop him?”
“Yes.”
Ajaratu again turned her gaze to the window. Her fingers caressed the gold cross at her throat. “Perhaps I can help,” she said.
“How?” asked Donner.
“You said that you radioed LEVIATHAN’s departure time.”
“Yes.”
“Peter will call to confirm the ETA.”
“Perhaps.”
“He will,” said Ajaratu. “He’s not the kind of man to ignore anything that will help him get what he wants. When he radios for the ETA tell him that LEVIATHAN has been delayed, and let me speak to him. I’ll try to persuade him to drop it.”
“Do you think you could?”
“I know I’ll have a better chance with him than you would. We know each other very well.”
“Maybe it would help,” Donner said doubtfully.
“It would be best,” said Ajaratu. “I’m sure . . . Tell me something, though. What will you do if he doesn’t call?”
Donner nodded as if he had given considerable attention to that possibility. He replied, smoothly, “If that happens, I’ll ask my people to enlist the aid of local authorities around the Mozambique Channel, Ra’s al Hadd, and the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Why there?”
“The sea-lanes are narrow in each of those places, which makes them likely spots for him to launch his attack.”
“And the local authorities in Mozambique and Arabia would stop him on your say?”
“Yes.”
“Why would they do that?”
“We have good friends in Africa. How do you suppose I got you out of Capetown?”
“But Arabia?”
Donner smiled. “Neither we nor the Arab states can afford to be unremittingly bellicose. It is occasionally in both our interests to cooperate.”
“Would they hurt him?”
Donner smiled easily and looked her straight in the eye. “No. I will make it abundantly clear that he is to be observed from a safe distance until I get there. Or should I say, we get there? You do intend to come with me?”
“Of course.” She looked at her watch. “Excuse me, I must clear my schedule. I’ll be right back.” She hurried out the door, smoothing her white skirt around her hips. She made a telephone call at her receptionist’s desk. Then she returned to Donner.
Moments later, there was a knock at the door. Ajaratu went to it, opened it, spoke briefly, and shut it. Her hand on the knob, she spoke softly to Donner.
“The police have come for you.”
Donner half rose in his seat. “Why?”
“I’ve told them that you are a psychotic and that you have threatened the lives of several prominent leaders including my father. You’ll be taken to a hospital for observation. I’ve asked the police to be gentle so long as you behave. I’ll see that you’re treated well.”
“Kind of you,” said Donner, sitting back down. A small smile played on his lips while his eyes darted from the door to the windows and back to the door. “How long am I to be . . . observed?”
“I’ll arrange your release after Hardin sinks LEVIATHAN.”
“I thought you wanted to stop him.”
“Not at the price of his life,” said Ajaratu. “You’d stop him at any price and he’s too determined to let himself be taken gently—I just want to keep him alive. That’s the only reason I helped attack LEVIATHAN, and it is why I am stopping you now.” She smiled sadly. “I love him.”
“I have no desire to hurt him,” Donner protested.
“But you would,” said Ajaratu. She opened the door and two burly men in khaki uniforms came into the room and fanned out with their hands hovering over unbuttoned holster flaps. Donner carefully raised his hands, his eyes flickering from one policeman to the other.
They frisked him roughly, found nothing, gripped his arms, and started to march him out the door. Ajaratu was struck by how small and ordinary he looked between them. “Boys,” she said, in the manner in which Nigerians of position addressed men who worked for them, “he’s sick. Don’t hurt him.” Then she handed each a five-naira note to buy his wife a present. Grinning broadly, they walked Donner out of the room.
Ajaratu stared at the door, musing over what she had done. She would have her hands full freeing Donner in two weeks and getting him out of the country without her father finding out about it. She might have gone too far. But if she had let Donner leave, she would have been cosigning Hardin’s death warrant.
23
Piloting with binoculars, compass, charts, and the Sailing Directions, Hardin sailed close beside the steep and barren island-studded Musandum Peninsula to avoid the oil tankers. High empty inbound ships plowed ponderously north to the narrow Strait of Hormuz. Outbound, steaming south, they glided deep in the water, brimming with crude.
When he reached the Strait, he abandoned the safety of the coast and sprinted six miles across the traffic lanes toward the islands of Great and Little Quoin, the rocky sentinels at the entrance. It was a nerve-wracking maneuver made worse by the killing heat and the dust haze which cut visibility to less than a mile.
He sailed blind, navigating by compass, guessing the speed of the powerful tide, and dodging the oil tankers that moved in and out of the Strait as relentlessly as the cogs of a machine.
A helicopter droned through the murk. He waited, his scalp prickling. Iran had a naval base at Bandar ‘Abbs, forty miles north, and regarded the Strait of Hormuz as its charge. For that reason he had already removed his radar reflector. The helicopter dipped below the ceiling for an instant, then vanished.
The haze lifted slightly and he saw an island with a tall light tower on its southern end. Little Quoin. The bulk of Great Quoin loomed to the south. Little Quoin was a mile and a half west. The tide had pushed him farther east than he had imagined. He took a bearing a second before another dust cloud slammed across the water, and steered for the island through a frothy chop.
Little Quoin rose vertically out of the water. Sailing past its east and southeast walls, Hardin searched for the landing shown on his chart. It was a low finger poking the water. He approached slowly, not knowing whether the navigational aids on the island were attended. The finger turned out to be a low, stone wharf.
The wharf was the only sign of man on the narrow shelf of land to which it was attached. The Sailing Directions promised six feet of water alongside. Hardin dropped his sails, started his engine, brought up an anchor, and turned the Swan until she was standing thirty yards off the pier, bow out. Then he set the anchor, ran reverse propeller for a moment, and played out the line as she drifted in. When her stern was four feet from the end of the wharf, he snubbed the anchor line. Then, carrying a stern line, he jumped from the cockpit to the wharf and tied it around an old brass cleat. The hot stones seared his knees. They were the first land he had touched in six weeks.
The Nigerian police manacled Donner to a ring on the floor in back of the Land Rover. One sat with him while the other drove through the glittering center city away from Ajaratu’s clinic toward the outskirts of Lagos. They passed from a European ambiance of new glass-and-steel towers intermingled with older colonial structures to an American-inspired superhighway that slashed through a burgeoning industrial park.
Donner felt like a fool. The silly bitch had foxed him. He briefly analyzed his mistake and decided that he must have sounded too anxious. No. It was forgetting that she had been on the boat with him through all that first voyage. All that rigmarole about the radio must have rung untrue.
What to do? A sick man couldn’t very well ask the police to take him to his friend General Akanke. A madman couldn’t ask his jailers for anything. She’d reall
y put it to him.
The highway ended abruptly at a construction detour, and moments after gliding at seventy miles per hour the Land Rover was bouncing through a shantytown between tin-roofed packing crates, gin dens, and open markets. The dirt roads were fouled with garbage and muddied here and there by water gushing from broken water mains. Ragged indigents squatted beside the road and slept in the alleys. Children played in the mud puddles, and soldiers, red-eyed from drink, slouched at the larger intersections.
The police drove as fast as the rutted roads would allow, regained another modern highway, and shortly pulled up at the emergency entrance of a modern hospital. They took Donner’s money, but left him his wallet. Then they hustled him in, supervised his manacling to a chair, and left.
Hours later he was taken to a psychiatrist, a young Nigerian who spoke Oxford English and hung his university degree beside a framed map of London. He read the brief hospital report to Donner, which stated that he had made threatening statements against political leaders, and asked Donner if he understood the gravity of such charges. Donner, still manacled, said he did. Then he asked if he could telephone his family in London.
The Nigerian scanned the rest of the report. “That won’t be necessary. Dr. Akanke has instructed the British Embassy to notify your family.”
“Thoughtful of her,” said Donner. “Nonetheless, I would prefer to call them myself.”
“No need,” said the psychiatrist, closing the issue. “Tell me a little bit about yourself, Mr. Donner.”
They conversed casually for several minutes, during which Donner mentioned the names of a couple of prominent St. Bart’s psychiatrists. The young man had read their books and was impressed. “You must be a wealthy man to afford their treatment.”
“They’re just friends,” said Donner. “Now, sir. Could we accept, for a moment, the hypothetical point that I am not a psychotic. Hypothetically. Can we do that?”
