by Oliver Tidy
The captain looked from one to the other of them. ‘Who are you?’ he said, to Niki.
Acer said, ‘She’s a friend. Without her and her brother’s help we wouldn’t have got this far.’
There was a knock at the door. The captain called, ‘Come.’
An officer stuck his head through and said, ‘We have visitors, sir.’
‘Are they on board, yet?’
‘Waiting for permission. They’re being courteous.’
‘I’m coming. Stall them a minute would you, Bill?’
‘Sir.’
When the door was shut the captain said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Acer. Acer Sansom.’
The captain stood, offered his hand and said, ‘Welcome aboard, Acer. Can I suggest you go back to your cabin and stay there until you hear otherwise?’
Acer stood, took the firm grip and returned it. ‘Thank you.’
The captain then shook hands with Niki.
As Acer and Niki crossed to the door, the captain said, ‘Maybe you’d like to join me for a drink later?’
‘Are you sure there’ll be a later?’ said Acer.
The captain smiled for the first time. ‘I think so.’
***
39
Acer and Niki retraced their steps to their level. They both went in with Dominique and Zoe. Acer explained the situation and then there was little else for them to do other than wait and hope the captain’s confidence was not misplaced.
‘Are we sure they’re looking for us?’ said Dominique.
He shook his head. ‘No, but I got that strong impression. I doubt he’d have asked to see us otherwise.’
This made some sense and thickened the pall of anxiety that hung over them.
‘But how could anyone know we would be on this boat? On any boat?’ said Dominique.
He looked at Niki, in case she had a reply for that. She stared back at him and it was clear that she either had no idea or she was just waiting for another derogatory comment about ‘her people’ to pounce on.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘Who else apart from your contact at the hotel knows where we are?’
‘Very few. Everyone I have spoken to is loyal to my brother and our cause. None of them would have betrayed us.’
‘So how else would the authorities know to come looking for us here?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Niki. ‘I didn’t know we were coming here until this afternoon.’
It was a matter of the gravest concern for them. Someone knew their every move. Someone was providing information on them. He had a thought. ‘Could we be being tracked in some way?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Niki.
‘Your phone. Could we be being tracked through that?’
Niki removed it from her backpack and showed it to him. ‘It’s turned off.’
‘Maybe when it’s turned on. I don’t know how these things work, but could they locate us if they knew the number and that it was yours?’
‘Where would they have got that information from?’
The same answer occurred to each of them almost simultaneously it seemed – Hassan, or Hassan’s phone. And the implications of the idea touched the features of each of them.
Niki stood and said, ‘I’m going to my room.’
When she was gone, Dominique said, ‘I feel for her, but if her phone could be the thing that’s leading them to us, she needs to consider doing something about it.’
He let out a long breath. ‘Maybe there’s a range on tracking technology. Maybe when we’re well away from here it won’t be a problem.’
The wait for news was long and frustrating. The worst-case scenario also made it something agonizing for those the wrong side of the local law.
The knock at the door, when it came, made both Acer and Dominique start. Acer opened it to find the same officer who had called on his captain earlier standing in the corridor.
With an easy smile, he said, ‘Captain’s compliments. He’d like to see you in his cabin.’
Acer trailed the man back to the captain’s private space. The door was tapped and once again the captain was there to welcome Acer into his room. Acer was greatly relieved to see he was alone.
‘They’ve gone.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Local officials. Just asking questions.’
‘But looking for us?’
‘They were asking about late passenger bookings. I don’t think they wanted one. I was able to show them that our passengers have been with us for weeks. You’ve been fortunate. The suite you’re in was occupied by a British couple. They had to leave us in South East Asia when one of them became ill and needed hospital treatment.’
‘They believed you, then?’
‘Can’t say. But they obviously didn’t want to make a scene here.’
‘I, we, appreciate your help, captain. If I could get through to my contact in the service I could provide you with the evidence you need to be sure your faith is not misplaced.’
‘But you can’t?’
Acer huffed. ‘I lost the contact details. I know,’ he said, with something approaching a look of embarrassment in response to the captain’s expression, ‘in the films they all memorise that kind of information. I never thought I’d need to and I lost my bag.’ A thought occurred to Acer. ‘Perhaps I could use your communications to make a contact. I’m assuming you’re happy, or at least willing, to have us on board still?’
‘Yes. I appreciate that you didn’t lie to me about why you’re here. Until we’re under way, I suggest that you all keep well out of sight. No need to push our luck. We’ll see how we can help with your communications issues when we’re well on our way.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I also suggest we have a different version of events regarding your arrival and who you are for the other passengers and crew, although I’ll need to share what you’ve told me with my closest officers.’
Acer agreed because he had no choice, although he would have liked to have kept the real reason for them being there between himself and the captain. They discussed a cover story and when both were happy Acer thanked him again, shook hands on it and returned to the others to relate their good fortune at having fallen in with a sympathetic ship’s captain.
***
40
Eating with the other passengers was not something they could hope to avoid indefinitely. Better, they agreed, to get it over with and roll out their story. There were no officers present for the meal, all of them being required to be at their stations for their impending departure, once the green light was given by the port authorities.
The story they’d settled on was that the ‘family’, with their ‘nanny’, had a few days on its hands ahead of a move to Corfu from Dubai. They had decided on a whim to take a slow boat to their new place of residence instead of a fast plane. They claimed they needed a few restful days ahead of what promised to be a hectic few months. It seemed to satisfy everyone.
Apart from the four of them there were three others travelling as fee-paying passengers. All were British, single men travelling alone: Gordon, David and Peter. They’d all been with the ship for some weeks and would be with it for many more as it continued to make its way around half the world. It was clear that they’d already formed the friendships fellow travellers often did. They seemed an honest, decent trio.
Over the evening meal they inevitably discussed what had brought them all to be there. It became obvious that each of the three single men had similar reasons for making their trips: they were all out to see the world the old fashioned way because they had the time, the money and the inclination to do so. And none of them liked the idea of the big cruise liners, favouring the quieter, more interesting, ‘more real’ environment of a working ship not destined to stop only at touristy ports.
The ship left its moorings and headed out into the channel just as the sun was setting and a couple of hours later than scheduled. The word passed a
long was that a collision of craft in the Straits of Hormuz had delayed their departure as every other transport ahead of them in the timetable had their sailing times shunted back. Each minute that ticked by had increased the new passengers’ concerns that the delay might be something to do with their presence on board. The relief when the engines finally thudded into life and their mooring lines were released was physically obvious.
Feeling safe under the cloaking of dusk, Acer was on deck standing on the forward-most designated deck, a spot he felt he might see a lot of in the coming days. All around them the sea was teeming with the lights of dozens of craft of all shapes, sizes and ages: tankers, other cargo vessels, car and passenger ferries, dhows and the tiny fishing boats.
Looking across the water to the shore, the setting sun made a dramatic silhouette of the Dubai skyline. The fingers of glass and metal that had glinted and winked and beckoned encouragingly to welcome them into the city that same morning had assumed a more sinister form with their backlighting. When the sun had finally dropped out of sight, Acer, with nothing left to gaze at but the twinkling lights of the ships and the shore, went to bed.
***
41
On their first full day at sea Captain Wallace asked that Acer join him in his cabin for that drink. He’d been keen to know more of the details of Acer’s long story cut short. Because of what the man had done for them, what he had risked, Acer felt obliged to retell it in its entirety, despite his lack of enthusiasm for reliving a narrative he’d already told more times than he cared to remember.
Previous retellings, naturally, dragged his spirit down as he was forced to recollect horrific personal events. But this time there was at least a shard of hope that his daughter might still be alive.
Wallace proved to be an attentive, reverent audience and when the telling and the bottle were at an end he had assumed a visible level of respect and liking for the man at the centre of it all. Acer’s only request was that Wallace keep the details of the story to himself.
Unsurprisingly, Niki did not prove to be a great socialiser. She spent the majority of her time either alone in her cabin or alone on deck in a place she made her own. Both Acer and Dominique were happy to respect the distance and the aura she created for herself. They understood that with the interval of relaxed and untroubled travel Niki would have time and opportunity to give free rein to her anxiety regarding her brother’s situation. Acer noticed both of the younger men, Gordon and David, make separate attempts to engage Niki in conversation and both had received short shrift for their efforts. It had amused him but did not surprise him that the only single woman on the boat, and not an unattractive one, would soon have the single men buzzing around her like the proverbial bees round the honey-pot.
On the second day out of Dubai, Captain Wallace had gathered all the passengers in the shared area that served as both dining room and lounge to talk with them about the threat of piracy in the Gulf of Aden, the sea they would be entering in the next twenty-four hours.
His talk was thorough, informed and informative, and just a little unsettling because he was honest with them. He took seriously his responsibility for the briefing about the threat and discussion of precautions, which to Acer, at least, reflected the reality of the menace.
Seas can be big places, he told them, stating a necessary obvious, and it was unrealistic to expect every square mile of the one they were in to be constantly monitored. On top of that, just because a ship was identified as friendly one day, didn’t necessarily mean it would be friendly the next. The pirates were not without a certain guile and inventiveness. Those that were devoid of ideas simply didn’t survive.
Merchant shipping, he said, did not have the luxury of protection from pirates by NATO coalition naval escorts. However, based on NATO recommendations, a transit corridor for craft heading either to or from the Red Sea – the waterway that awaited them after the Gulf of Aden – had been established. There was no formal convoy system in operation, he told them, although groupings of craft based on estimated speeds of individual vessels were encouraged and organised. That way the warships in the area had a better chance of monitoring vessels because they would know where they should be at any given time. Then he gave them the bad news.
‘Owing to our delay in leaving Dubai we’re not going to make our rendezvous with the ships with which we had hoped to traverse ‘Pirate Alley.’
‘Will we be going through on our own, then?’ said David.
‘We might be able to hook up with a couple of other stragglers or a later group, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of shipping in our time frame. We’re working on that. Like I said, it’s all about cruising speed.’
‘How long is the Gulf of Aden?’ said Acer.
‘A little over four hundred nautical miles.’
‘And how long do you estimate it will take us to get through?’ said David.
‘If we can maintain a steady fifteen knots, about thirty hours, give or take. There will always be factors that impact on this – weather and the like,’ he said, and he was almost smiling. ‘Look, folks, pirate attacks are pretty rare in these waters these days. The naval presence, the countermeasures, the work on land has all had an impact. I don’t want anyone to worry unduly. But we’ll be taking precautions. While we’re going through I’d like all of the passengers to stay inside. No wandering about on deck without permission, please. Just in case.’
‘What do you think is the solution to the problem of piracy, Captain?’ said Gordon, who had shown himself in the few discussions Acer had engaged him in, to be something of an amateur philosopher.
‘I don’t know what the answer is,’ said Wallace. ‘The issues surrounding piracy in these waters are more complex than first meets the eye. There’s a lot of poverty on the land. These waters where they’ve traditionally fished for a living have become polluted and fished out by larger commercial concerns. The locals’ livelihoods have been decimated. Add to this the economic and political issues on land and you have a lot of very poor and very desperate people eking out an existence on the shores that surround this stretch of water.’
‘You sound like you almost approve of their buccaneering,’ said Gordon, with a hint of a smile.
‘I confess to a certain grudging admiration for a man who will risk it all to feed his family. But don’t think that I’ll tolerate any of their dirty feet on my decks.’
David said, ‘If that’s all it were. Isn’t it true that piracy in these waters has become a branch of organised crime in recent years? A criminal activity from which people make a great deal of money?’
Wallace had to agree. ‘It’s like everything else in this world. In the poorest places, where there’s good, quick money to be made for a bit of risk and adventure and intimidation there won’t be a shortage of men to try their luck, or backers to fund it and then their lavish lifestyles with the proceeds.’
When the meeting broke up, Acer approached Captain Wallace and said, ‘I’m surprised you don’t have regular security teams on board.’
‘Oh, we did. Last four years we always came this way with at least two guys on board, ex-something-or-other, but because we never had any trouble and the threat has all but disappeared the company don’t see the need for the added expense.’
‘But you have weapons? Just in case.’
Wallace had a gleam in his eye when he said, ‘We’re not supposed to. It’s against company policy. But like I said, no one’s coming aboard my ship without permission or a fight.’
Dominique spent most of her time exclusively with Zoe, either in their cabin or on a sheltered and shady spot on deck that the captain had customised for them with an awning and comfortable seats, after Acer had revealed the full extent of their ordeal. There was little in the way of children’s entertainment on board – no picture books, no toys, no colouring pencils – but there were a few games, some jigsaws, and paper and ordinary pencils were found. Zoe was still not speaking but she seemed to have lost somet
hing of her aura of edgy, wary fearfulness. For the most part her manner had settled down into something attentive and interested. She had not been moved to smile at anyone and her appetite was still bird-like but the sea air and the sun were bringing some colour back into her hollow cheeks.
Acer found the other passengers and the crew he encountered to be pleasant enough company and they seemed pleased to have a new face around with a few stories to tell. He was glad, too, for the opportunity for socialising with men-of-the-world over good food and drinks in a relaxed atmosphere – something he hadn’t been able to do since before the incident involving The Rendezvous in the Pacific well over a year before.
***
42
As they came into the Gulf of Aden Acer was on the bridge where he’d become a regular and interested visitor. He spent a while keeping out of the way and listening to the chatter of radio traffic. There was an obvious increase in security on board – more people on the bridge than the last couple of times he’d been there, more pairs of binoculars too. These were trained on the ocean, scanning the water near and far for the telltale signs of a fast skiff heading in their direction. Although there was nothing out of the ordinary to report, a palpable sense of tense expectation pervaded. A small pod of whales surfacing a short distance away, their perfectly streamlined bodies arching effortlessly out of and then back into the sparkling water, brought a welcome distraction. After a few minutes of watching in the crowded and increasingly stuffy space he wished them a quiet watch and went back to his paperback novel.
***
43
A little after dusk, Acer answered a tap at the door. One of the crew passed on a message from the captain inviting Acer to the bridge.
Wallace acknowledged Acer’s arrival with a nod. He was standing at the port window where something had taken the interest of all those with binoculars.
