by Nick Lake
INITIAL SITUATION
Nine Somalis and six passengers aboard the yacht Daisy May.
Royal Naval vessel HMS Endeavour at anchor 150 metres away.
All communication to take place on VHF channel 16.
GO PLAN
SUBMITTED BY JERRY CHRISTOPHER, NEGOTIATOR FOR GOLDBLATT BANK, ABOARD HMS ENDEAVOUR. RATIFIED BY ALL PARTIES.
1) At 6 a.m. HMS Endeavour will give the GO signal on VHF channel 16.
2) All passengers will report to the rear deck. For purposes of clarity, that is Mr James Fields, Mrs Sarah Fields, Miss Amy Fields, Mr Damian Lacey, Mr Tony Purdue and Mr Felipe Santos. HMS Endeavour will confirm the presence of all passengers.
3) Helicopter will leave HMS Endeavour and fly to a point 200 metres to the east of the Daisy May. Helicopter will be weapons cold.
4) Three Somalis will leave the Daisy May aboard a dinghy, carrying a portable VHF unit tuned to channel 16. They will navigate to a point below the helicopter.
5) The helicopter will drop bags containing two million US dollars in cash. Somalis to recover the bags from the water and count to verify the full amount is present. They will then confirm by VHF to the Daisy May that they are in possession of half the ransom.
6) All Somalis will disembark the Daisy May, leaving the passengers aboard, and get into their own remaining dinghies and wooden boats.
7) The helicopter will then drop the remaining two million US dollars. The Somalis below the helicopter will confirm receipt of the full amount of the ransom, and instigate retreat from the theatre of operation.
8) All Somalis will repair to the coast in their vessels, to be verified by HMS Endeavour by helicopter.
9) End of exchange.
At the bottom of the list was a warning:
Note: it is absolutely imperative that this plan is followed to the letter by all passengers and hostage-takers. Any deviation could result in danger of death to either side. During the entire exchange, the six named passengers MUST remain on the rear deck of the Daisy May.
Jesus, I thought. These guys weren’t messing around. I wondered if people back home knew about this, if we were on the news, if Esme and Carrie were watching. When the helicopter flew overhead, I’d assumed it was the military casing us out, but what if they were taking pictures, too? There was something surreal about the idea of people back in London, or New York, following this whole thing on the TV.
Interesting, too, I thought, how they talked in the plan about Somalis. Not pirates. Maybe because they didn’t want to cause offence in an already tense situation. Maybe they knew all about the coast guard stuff that Farouz had told me. Or maybe they just wanted to make it sound more like a war.
Just then, there was a bang as the door flew open. Ahmed came storming in, Mohammed behind him, grinning. Farouz followed.
— Deal is off, said Ahmed.
— What? said Tony. But we agreed that –
Ahmed raised his gun, and Tony shut up. The pirates’ leader turned to Dad.
— You own boat, he said.
— I don’t know what –
BOOM. Ahmed fired, and my ears rang. A puff of plaster dust burst from the wall. I have to stop being around when guns go off, I thought.
— Farouz read emails, said Ahmed. He inclined his head to Farouz.
— It’s true, Farouz said, his head lowered, not meeting my eyes. I was checking the go plan, he said. I saw some other messages and realised that Hostage One was not just a passenger. This is his yacht.
I stared at him in disbelief. Traitor, I thought. Meet my eyes, traitor. Look me in the bloody eyes.
I couldn’t believe he had done this to us, had sold us out like this. And for what? A bigger share?
— Oh my god, Mr Fields, said Felipe. You did not tell you owned the yacht? Why didn’t you tell them that?
— Be quiet, Felipe, said Tony.
— Sorry, sir, said Felipe, looking at Dad. Then he turned to Tony. But I don’t understand. Why did Mr Fields not say?
— Because otherwise Mr Fields would end up paying out a fortune, obviously! shouted Tony.
— Why the fuck I care about that? Felipe asked, his anger suddenly driving out his grammar and his politeness. I want my family! I want home!
— So does Mr Fields! shouted Tony.
— Yes! But he pay for me to work. Is because of him I’m here. He should pay for me to be free, too!
My head was going back and forth, following this argument like someone at a tennis match. Actually, I couldn’t fault Felipe’s logic.
— Shut up! said Damian. None of this is helping.
— Yes, shut up, said Ahmed. Deal is now ten million dollars. There is no negotiate.
Well done, Farouz, I thought. You’ve more than doubled your share.
Tony turned to Ahmed.
— You can’t do this. We had a deal. The navy are right there. They will come for us and they will save us –
Ahmed lifted his gun again.
— They lion, we squirrel, he said.
Tony looked confused, but I knew what he was saying. I knew exactly what he was saying because Farouz had told me the story.
Farouz. Before, the name had seemed like a sigh in the mouth; now it was a cold wind inside me. I could say, I felt betrayed, but those are just words, and words alone can’t express how I felt. It was like I was one of those Lego people made of three parts, and someone had come along and taken out the middle bit, had taken out my body, so I was just legs and a head and, in between, this whirling nothing of wind and air.
I knew, now, where Farouz’s loyalty lay. And it didn’t lie with me. When I looked at him and his glance caught mine before sliding away, I thought that I might faint.
There was a triumphant expression on Mohammed’s malicious face.
— The navy can fuck, he said eloquently.
Tony seemed to understand that.
You don’t know Farouz’s voice.
And there is no way I could describe it to you, its tone, its timbre.
But this is how I hear it, when I close my eyes at night.
This is how he tells me stories.
Once, there was a lion that had gone mad. It lived among the trees by the watering hole, so none of the other animals could drink. If they went near, the lion killed them, and many of his kills he wouldn’t even eat, as if he were a hyena or a fox instead of the king of the beasts. The other animals didn’t know what to do: the lion was powerful, so strong that no one could stand against him.
Then one day the camel, who had not drunk for five years, because camels rarely need water, became too thirsty to bear. She went carefully down to the water, but the lion heard this, and fell on her and devoured her.
The other beasts were shocked. They loved Camel, and couldn’t believe she was gone. They asked who would rid the land of the mad lion.
— I will, said the squirrel.
The other beasts laughed, the hyena loudest of all.
— Don’t be ridiculous, said the fox.
— You are puny, said the hippo. You are small. You will be killed.
— I am small, said the squirrel. So I will win. What will you give me if I do?
The turtle giggled.
— If you win, we will make you king of the beasts, she said.
— Very well, said the squirrel.
He went away from the other beasts, feeling very angry, but he knew what to do. He went to his hut and took out a ball of grease, which he put on a rock to soften in the sun. Then, when it was warm enough, he took the grease and rubbed it all over himself, all over his fur.
Finally, he began to walk to the watering hole. He didn’t try to hide or to climb the trees. He just strolled towards the water, out in the open.
The lion saw the squirrel coming and his mad eyes rolled. He leaped at the little creature, roaring, and squashed it to death.
Or so he thought. For the lion didn’t see or feel that the greasy squirrel had slipped out from under his paw
and rolled away. As the lion roared again in triumph, the squirrel leaped up and into his mouth. Then he scurried down the lion’s throat and into the mad king’s belly.
Meanwhile, the rest of the beasts had arrived, having heard the ruckus, and stood at a safe distance.
— Oh dear, said the hyena, seeing the lion roaring his victory. The squirrel is dead.
— What a surprise, said the turtle.
But even as they spoke, the squirrel was running around inside the lion, biting, scratching.
As the beasts watched, the lion’s eyes began to roll even more than usual. Then they froze, the whites showing, and the lion toppled down on to the grass. The squirrel emerged from the lion’s mouth, hopped on to its head and did a little dance, all covered in blood.
— All hail the king, he said, before licking himself clean.
*
After the deal was called off, Tony and Dad spent a lot of time in the dining room with Ahmed and Nyesh, trying to restart negotiations. That meant I found it difficult to avoid the stepmother, which made for a whole festival of fun, I can tell you.
She came up to me when it was our shower time in the morning.
— Amy, she said. She’d lowered her voice into that I’m-going-to-tell-you-a-secret tone.
— What? I said, and I was annoyed to hear that I’d done it, too, just because she had, my voice in the corridor like a stage whisper. It’s like a spell – if you whisper to someone they have to whisper back.
— I’ve got my period. She pointed down, like I couldn’t understand words or something.
I stared at her for a moment.
— Oh, I said. Right.
She touched my arm.
— I can’t talk to your dad about it, she said.
I could see what she was doing, see the bond she was trying to create, and all it did was make me cringe.
— I suppose not, I said, though I didn’t really think so – I mean, aren’t you supposed to be able to talk to your husband about anything?
— The thing is, she went on, I don’t have any stuff.
— You didn’t bring anything?
— Of course I brought some, she said a bit testily. I don’t know what happened, though. The pirates must have taken it.
— Really?
— Yes, god knows why.
I looked at her. I didn’t know if she was making it up to give us something to talk about, something girly, but it wasn’t like I could say no.
— Don’t worry, I said. I have some tampons in my cabin.
On the way, Ahmed stopped us. We were allowed in our cabins in the day, but the pirates always got suspicious if they saw two of us in there together, like we might be plotting something.
— We need . . . woman supplies, I said to him. I pointed to my cabin.
His face spoke embarrassment and understanding. He waved us onwards with his gun.
In the cabin, the stepmother put them in her pocket.
— Thanks, Amy, she said. You’re a lifesaver. Now if you can just get me some herbal tea, a romcom and some aspirin . . .
— There are painkillers in the medicine cabinet, I said, pretending like she wasn’t trying to do some creepy rapport thing. I’m sure Ahmed will let you have some.
I left her, and as soon as I left her, she left my thoughts.
There wasn’t much spare room in my thoughts; there was too much of someone else in there.
What I thought about: Farouz. Only Farouz. I hated him, and at the same time I couldn’t get him out of my head, couldn’t get my thoughts to stop turning to him, like he was the North Star and my mind was a compass. It’s like being ill, I realised then, having a crush on someone, being in love with someone, whatever. It changes the shapes and colours of absolutely everything; makes the world feel different, swollen.
I did speak to him a couple of times over those three days while the new deal was being done. I had to. I mean, it’s not like we could totally blank each other on that little yacht. People would have noticed. And when I did speak to him, or when I saw him, it seemed like he was as angry as me, because he would suddenly blow up, not at me directly, but at nothing in particular.
— They’ve used all the fucking sugar! he would say, as I was passing in the corridor. Animals.
Or:
— That bloody bastard Mohammed!
— I hate this yacht, he said, kicking the pump for the shower as I walked past on the way to the toilet.
I think this was his way of telling me he wasn’t happy about the situation, either. Like his feelings were at all comparable. I mean, what he’d done, the way he’d revealed us – informing Ahmed how Dad and Tony had lied – could have got us killed. He had put us in real danger – even more than before, that is – and he was going around acting like it was some kind of an argument of entitlement instead of him being selfish. He kind of smouldered constantly, and at the same time seemed to take up less room. He withdrew into himself, made himself smaller, harder and somehow more flammable, too, like trees get compacted by rock and time into coal.
Meanwhile, Damian was stalking the corridors, beaming, as if he was some kind of see-saw person with Farouz, and because one of them was bad-tempered, it made the other one tip up into happiness. I knew what it was: he could see what was happening with me and Farouz, and he liked it, because he hated the idea of a connection between us.
I thought, is he protecting me, like a dutiful captain, or does he just fancy me? Maybe it was a bit of both.
That second morning, when Farouz kicked the shower, Tony and Dad came into the cinema room, all excited because they had swiped a portable VHF that one of the pirates had left lying around. They said they’d managed to raise the navy on it, and had agreed a private channel. Tony admitted he wasn’t sure what good it would do, though – there was still no way the navy would take the risk of an attack, not with us on board. But it was comforting to think that there was a potential link with the outside world, a link the pirates didn’t know about. The navy had given them news from Tony and Damian and Felipe’s families: they were well; they were thinking of them.
Esme and Carrie had set up a Facebook tribute page for me, apparently, which had, like, a hundred thousand fans. I thought that was a bit morbid – I mean, that’s what people do for their dead friends.
I spent the day with Felipe on the deck. At first, I came out and he tried to look away, to not catch my eye. I got it, I really did. His life was at stake, but it was Dad’s money that would get us all freed if things went well. It meant that Felipe wasn’t in control, yet shouldn’t he have a say in things?
I walked over to him, so that he had to look up at me.
— Dad and Tony, they don’t mean to be dicks, I said.
Felipe did a surprised laugh.
— I didn’t say they were, he said.
— No. But you were angry, and you had every right to be. They should tell you what’s going on.
— Yes, he said thoughtfully. But not just them. Damian, also. Everyone. You.
— Me? I said, shocked.
— You went to the negotiation table. I was not there. You did not say anything.
I started to open my mouth, then closed it again.
— Sorry, I said.
— It’s OK, he replied. It’s just circumstances. Too close. Too small. People start to lose their shit.
Now it was my turn to do a surprised laugh. After that, the tension was broken, and Felipe motioned for me to sit down next to him.
It was nice – I hadn’t spoken to him much before, but he turned out to be a lovely guy. He had a wife back home in London, and a baby. Nine months old. He showed me pictures from his wallet. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t known.
— She’s beautiful, I said, meaning his wife, meaning the baby, too. She had curly hair, these enormous black eyes and a wide smile, revealing two teeth at the bottom.
— Yes, he said. We were trying for many years. She is our blessing. When she was born . . . I used to th
ink it was stupid when people said, I would die for you. Now I understand. When they put her in my arms, I felt I could levitate if I wanted to, or step in front of a bus for her, no problem.
When he touched the picture of his baby, I felt something constrict around my throat. I couldn’t explain it – it was just his finger on a photo, but there was something about it. I felt the love in it, and I heard it in his voice when he told me that she’d just started crawling, but could only do it backward. How, when he used to Skype his wife at 6 p.m. when the internet came on, the baby, Melissa, would smile when she heard his voice. Of course, he hadn’t been able to do that since the pirates took over.
— I am not afraid to die, said Felipe. But I am afraid to leave her without a father. I should be there to protect her. His voice cracked, and horror rushed out of the crack and into me.
My dad loved me like that once, I thought. My dad showed my photo to people and spoke with pride about my crawling.
— Sorry, said Felipe. Other people’s babies are boring. He put away the photo.
— No, they’re not, I said.
I asked him lots of questions about Melissa, and he answered, and as he did so he smiled properly for the first time since we’d been taken hostage, talking about her.
— She knows so many words, he said, so many already. It is like a miracle. Not to say them – she can only say Dada. But when I read with her, I hold the book, and she turns the pages. And when I say, where is the ball, she points, she finds the ball. Where is the sun, where is the cat, the same. She is clever, not like me. She will go far in life.
He turned away from me for a moment, did something with his hands, with his eyes.
— I – I started to say, but then I closed my mouth and just put my hand on his shoulder.
He turned to me and smiled, and, for just a second, I understood a bit of what Dad must have felt when I said I was going to work in a bar. I wanted to think that he would be embarrassed if I did that. But what if he really did just want me to do what would make me happy? For a moment, I felt like there was a violin in my hands, felt the weight and smoothness of it, and the waves lapping against the hull were suddenly in counterpoint, were suddenly playing Bach.
