Plantation A Legal Thriller

by J M S Macfarlane

Chapter 102

  By the time they found their car, it was around six o’clock. Brandt decided they would be less conspicuous if the vehicle was moved. They drove a mile down the road and Mzenga parked in an out of the way place behind some trees. When it grew dark after ten o’clock, Brandt told the others to wait in the car and that he was likely to be gone for two hours.

  In the failing light, he made his way back up the road until he reached the breaker’s yard. All was now mostly quiet. There was still some activity on the wrecks and in the distance, on the ships at mooring. One or two campfires were visible. The sound of voices and laughter could be heard, as he moved stealthily past the steel plating littering the foreshore. Whenever he heard voices, he stopped, crouched down and waited.

  Suddenly, someone emerged from a dismembered bulkhead near the beach, carrying a hurricane lantern. Brandt dived behind a large steel girder then slipped quietly along the track to where the two ships were tied up. On one of them, there was no gangplank and no lights on the decks. On the other, he could hear some of the work team who were still on board. They were either drunk or having a party. The gangway was in place and there were a few light bulbs blinking out along the main deck.

  After waiting ten minutes to see who was around, he moved as quietly as he could, up the rickety walkway until he’d reached the deck. Below him, was a drop of about forty feet to the shore.

  The ship was like the Marseillaise, a cargo vessel with three raised sections – fore, mid and aft and with two holds fore and two aft. The steelwork was poorly over-painted, rusty and worn out.

  The noise was now much louder and closer. It was coming from a cabin in the bridge section, mid-way along the main deck. A radio was blaring out wild tunes and a card game seemed to be in progress : the players either erupted or laughed at the end of each hand, according to who won or lost. This encouraged him to keep going as the occupants would be too busy to hear him.

  The lighting along the deck was dim but enough for him to see where he was going. Near the forecastle at the front of the ship, the hatch covers had been left off the holds. From the lights on the deck, he could see only part of the way down inside them. Some large wooden crates had been piled on top of each other. They looked similar to those on the Marseillaise. There was a ladder on the inside wall of the first hold. Slowly, he climbed down to where the crates were stacked.

  One of the lids was loose and could be partially moved. He didn’t need to open it fully as he recognized something familiar. There was the same distinctive smell as in the crates on the Marseillaise which had been full of automatic rifles. Brandt knew this ‘signature’ very well. He’d come across it in the weapons smuggled from Botswana and Namibia. The Soviet bloc used cheap machine oil for lubricating the assembly so that it didn’t jam. Whatever the oil contained, it reeked. And although he couldn’t see inside the crate, it was enough to tell him what he needed to know.

  After replacing the lid, he stopped and listened. No-one was around. His watch showed that it was one in the morning. When he found the ladder, he was in a cold sweat : he feared being caught. Ashby and the adjuster would be wondering what had happened to him. Slowly, he climbed out of the hold. At the top of the ladder, he waited and listened before getting onto the deck. Everything was quiet. The card game had stopped and the radio was switched off. He would need to be careful from this point onward.

  The lights in the cabins were still burning, mid-way along the deck. Somehow, he would have to get past the cabins without waking anyone or being seen. For twenty minutes, he squatted behind some winch gear and listened. Then the cabin lights went out. He waited another ten minutes then slowly got up and crept to the bridge-castle. As he edged beneath the open portholes, he knew that if he got past the doorway where the card game had been played, he could get off the ship and safely away.

  In the stillness of the night, he crept slowly along the deck. When he’d gone no more than ten paces, an arc lamp on one of the derricks flooded the main deck with light. Suddenly, he found himself between one man ahead of him and another behind him. Both of them had rifles. One of them shouted something and fired a shot at him but he quickly dived behind a crane and ran to the opposite side of the ship. He heard them running after him but stepped behind a door in a companionway, only to find himself face to face with the rest of the crew whose guns were pointing straight at him.

  One of the gang shouted something in the local dialect.

  On the main deck outside, more gunfire could be heard. Just as suddenly, guns were being pointed at the labourers through the open portholes and doorways by someone else. When the crew could see there was no escape, they released their captive and threw their rifles on the floor.

  “Mr Brandt ?” enquired one of his rescuers.

  “Yes ?.....Thank you for saving me.....Who are you ?”

  “Didn’t Mr Ashby tell you ?”

  “No.....”

  “Freetown Police. I’m Sergeant Mobutu. And we have some members of our security force with us too. We were lucky to get here just in time, weren’t we ? We’ve known about this place for a while. As soon as we heard a shot fired on the deck, we moved in straightaway.”

  “But how did you know that I.....”

  “That you were looking around the ship ? Mr Ashby told us. Damn good thing we all have four wheel drives, eh ? Otherwise, we’d never have got here in time – roads aren’t too good. Ha ha ha.”