Chapter 52
The screams were drowned out by the crash of the waves as Nazim led the way down from the bridge, followed by Abbud and Zahran with the two spared crewmen stumbling along at gunpoint. Outside in the murky first light of dawn, the wind was lashing the ship with rain and salt spray. They descended the clattering metal gangways to the deck, feeling the heave and roll of the vessel beneath their feet. Mountains of containers were stacked up to form neat aisles along the length of the deck, like walking through a gorge.
Zahran led the way to where their two containers were kept. Every day of the voyage he had been making secret visits to them, making sure they were securely lashed in place, checking every inch and marvelling at the power of what was inside. He knew only that it was some kind of weapon that could bring the kuffar harbi to their knees and bring glory on the world.
Nazim had to shout to be heard above the roar of wind and sea. ‘Let’s get to work.’
The two surviving seamen were pressed into action. By the time the rest of the terrorists joined their leader on deck, the containers had been opened and their precious contents brought out. The ship’s massive Hyster forklift truck could handle loads of up to thirty tons and had no problem ferrying the wooden crates across the deck. Nazim pointed out where he wanted them set down, side by side near the stern railing above where their stolen boat was moored like a limpet to the container ship’s hull. A powerful floodlamp lit up the deck. Shaykh, Zahran, Abbud and Jamshid prised the crates open with crowbars and pulled their sides apart to reveal what was inside.
The pair of huge Lamassu were a weird, surreal sight on the deck of a modern container ship. Very few of Nazim’s men had had any clear idea of what to expect, and were gaping at the statues in amazement.
‘Fetch the hammers,’ Nazim commanded. ‘Smash them open.’
The men obeyed enthusiastically, a gang of them standing beneath each monster statue and swinging away with gusto. For Nazim, watching, the moment was a nostalgic reminder of the glorious days of the ISIL conquest of Syria. The first few pounding blows did little more than crack the thick plaster. Then the cracks began to widen, and fragments began to rain down, exposing the internal wooden frames. More chunks of plaster fell away and the first dull glint of the aluminium drums inside became visible. A few more blows, and the two hundred drums began to spill out of the shattered bellies of the Lamassu. As each one thumped to the deck it had to be quickly propped up on end to prevent it from rolling dangerously around. Jamshid was bowled off his feet by one that crashed into his shins. Another almost burst through the railing.
7.08 a.m. Nazim was acutely conscious of the time going by. He had no idea how these things worked, but it was likely that the French coastguard would be alerted if a ship in their waters fell out of radio contact for any length of time. Every minute counted.
Then it was time for the next phase, transferring the nine tons of drums onto the small boat. This was the hard part. Nazim turned to the crewman who’d claimed to know how to use the crane, and said, ‘Your turn. Get moving.’
The guy had gone bluish-white with fear. ‘I … I … can’t …’
‘You told me you could operate it. That’s why you’re alive.’
The guy fell to his knees, cringing on the deck like a supplicant at Nazim’s feet. ‘Please! I have a wife and child.’
‘Then they’re better off without a liar for a husband and a father,’ Nazim said, and he drew his pistol and shot the guy in the back of the head. The crack of the shot was snatched away by the wind. At the sight of his shipmate’s bloody execution, the crewman who’d been pressed into operating the forklift truck let out a wild yell and tried to make a break for it. Nazim took aim at the fleeing man and shot him in the back. He pitched face-first to the deck and lay still.
‘What do we do now?’ Jamshid said anxiously, looking at the two hundred drums. Their boat seemed very small and distant, a cockleshell at the foot of a cliff. ‘Lower them down the side one at a time on the end of a rope?’
‘We don’t have time for that,’ snapped Nazim.
‘I think I can work the crane,’ Zahran volunteered. ‘I’m smarter than any of those kuffar morons.’
‘Then hurry, and don’t mess this up,’ Nazim warned him.
And Zahran went running off to the crane, to clamber up the tall ladder to the operator’s cab and start figuring out what all the levers and switches did. The rest of the men got to work rigging up a makeshift lifting sling using a large, heavy canvas sheet attached by chain hooks. Using the sling, fifteen or twenty drums at a time could be lowered down to the boat, where a team of men would unload them and stow them safely in the hold.
Or that was the idea, at any rate.
Zahran’s crane operating apprenticeship didn’t start well. The whole thing was swaying so badly that the first trial batch of only three drums fell out of the sling halfway down the side, narrowly avoided smashing straight through the bottom of their boat, and fell into the sea. Nazim ran a hand down his face and tried to control his frustration.
They all watched as the empty sling came back up, swinging like a pendulum with the ship’s motion. For Zahran’s second attempt, they risked ten drums. Nearly a thousand pounds of product, enough to wipe out one hundred and ninety-eight million people, soon to be headed for the bottom of the sea if he let them fall. Zahran must have been sweating up there inside the crane. Nazim ordered Shaykh and two of his other more dispensable men to clamber into the sling along with the ten drums. If they died, they’d at least die for Allah.
But after his initial failure Zahran now seemed to be getting the knack. A few tense minutes later, all ten drums were successfully aboard the boat. Nazim sent Abbud, Dariush and another man called Mahmud down with the next batch to help with the loading. It took another twenty-eight minutes to complete the transfer of the remaining 187, every second of which strained Nazim’s patience to the maximum while the six men on the boat laboured like maniacs to stow the cargo securely aboard.
At last, the job was finished. Zahran returned from the crane, penitent for having lost three of their precious drums. Nazim was willing to forgive him. ‘With what we have, brother, our enemies are doomed to total defeat and humiliation. You will be rewarded for your part in this great conquest.’
The glow of dawn was beginning to infiltrate the murky darkness in the east. Nazim faced south in the direction of land and carefully scanned the horizon and the sky in search of approaching coastguard boats or helicopters. He saw nothing, though his instinct told him they’d be here soon. He was prepared to do battle with them if necessary, but he much preferred to avoid them altogether.
At 7.42 a.m., less than an hour since their arrival, Nazim and the remaining terrorists on deck scrambled down the ladder to the boat, which was sitting somewhat lower in the water with nine tons of cargo aboard. The engines roared into life, the ropes were cut and the cruiser sped away from the drifting hull of the cargo vessel, now just a ghost ship. Keeping the boat’s lights turned off he set a wide, sweeping course back towards land. By the grace of Allah, they would not be spotted.
The Normandy coast wasn’t far away. And there, the ultimate victory awaited him.
Chapter 53
By 7.42 a.m., Ben, Roth and the Segals had already long since left the hotel. It had been Ben’s decision to check Margot into a cheap guest house across town, where Nazim’s people couldn’t find her while the three men headed for the port to meet the ship. Once she was safely ensconced in her room and her husband had said his reluctant goodbyes, they jumped back into the Alpina and hustled over to the docks with a few minutes to spare before the ship was expected to come in.
Even before they got there, it was becoming clear that something was wrong. Police sirens were wailing all over Le Havre and they were overtaken by several Gendarmerie cars that were obviously in a great hurry, heading in the same direction as them. Roth said, ‘Hello. Wonder what’s up?’
Ben didn’t like i
t. ‘Something tells me we’ll find out soon enough.’
And they did. The Port of Le Havre was teeming with police. Sirens were whooping and screeching and flashing lights everywhere illuminated the greyness of the dawn with swirling reds and blues. ‘What do you suppose has happened?’ Segal asked anxiously from the back seat.
Ben parked the Alpina a discreet distance away from the action, killed the engine and said, ‘Wait here.’ He stepped out into the drizzling rain and walked from the car, mingling with the crowds of dock workers and police. The port was a fairly frenetic place at any time, but now there was an electric tingle in the air that told him something serious had happened.
As a docker in orange overalls and a hard hat came past, Ben stopped him and asked in French, ‘Excuse me, but do you know what’s going on?’ The guy was about sixty. He gave Ben a bemused look as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself, and replied, ‘A ship was attacked offshore earlier this morning. We’ve only just heard. The coastguard patrol found it dead in the water about twenty minutes ago. They say it was pirates.’
‘What?’
The guy nodded in amazement. ‘Word is that they murdered the captain, the crew, every poor bastard on board. Cut their heads off. That’s the rumour, anyhow. It’s crazy. I never heard of such a thing happening here. This is France, not Africa.’
Ben thanked him and let him go on his way, then ran back to the car to relay the news to Roth and Segal.
‘It’s got to be our ship,’ Roth said. ‘What are the odds, right? No way it can’t be. This is not good, guys. Not good at all.’
Ben’s whole strategy felt as though it was unravelling at an alarming rate. ‘If it’s Nazim, it almost certainly means that he’s found out that Margot’s free. Which tells him that he’s lost his hold over you, Julien. He’ll have a pretty good idea who’s responsible, and he knows we’re a step ahead of him.’
‘Or were,’ Roth said. ‘He’s just pulled a killer move on us.’
‘He’s resourceful,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll give him that. Damn it.’ He shook his head.
‘Yeah, well, looks like we’re wasting our time here, boys. The sons of bitches could be anywhere by now.’
‘Perhaps there’s still a chance,’ Segal suggested. ‘What if we were to revert back to the idea we talked about earlier? Instead of intercepting the cargo here in Le Havre, we can return to Paris and surprise them tonight as they deliver it to their secret processing plant.’
‘Forget it,’ Ben said grimly. ‘If Nazim even suspects that his plans are blown, he won’t touch those tunnels again with a pole a mile long. He probably already had an alternative location lined up as a contingency plan. And that leaves us back at square one, because we have no idea where to start looking for him now. None.’
‘In short, folks, we are royally screwed,’ said Roth, master of the understatement.
‘Not just us,’ Ben said. ‘If Nazim’s fentanyl hits the streets.’
Defeat. It was a hard word to say. An even harder reality to admit to. But right now there was no way past it.
Ben sank into his seat and watched the raindrops gather and trickle down the windscreen glass like tears. In moments like this, there wasn’t much else to do but pull out your cigarettes and lighter. He bathed the tip of a Gauloise in comforting orange flame and drew in the smoke. The three of them sat gazing in the direction of the port, watching the big ships and smaller boats in the distance. Maybe if they sat staring at it long enough, their ship would come in and everything would be okay.
Or maybe not.
It was 8.25 a.m. Police response vehicles were still rolling up and armed officers running everywhere like ants. What exactly they hoped to achieve with all this frenzied activity, Ben couldn’t say. Perhaps they were on the lookout for men in frock coats and eye patches, with cutlasses and flintlock pistols stuck through their belts, while the real pirates were far away laughing.
‘Look on the bright side,’ Roth said. ‘Somewhere down there among all the chaos are a couple of truck drivers who’ll never know how close they came to getting iced.’
‘What are we going to do?’ Segal said helplessly as the reality of the situation began to bite. ‘And what am I going to do? If Nazim thinks I’ve betrayed him, he’ll kill me.’
‘And your wife, too,’ Roth supplied helpfully. ‘Cost of doing commerce with terrorists, my friend. They don’t make for the most trustworthy or sympathetic of business partners.’
‘But that means I can never go home again! They know where I live!’
‘You have the option of disappearing voluntarily,’ Ben said. ‘It’s preferable to being whisked away in the middle of the night and ending up in a hole in the forest.’
‘And what about my business? I spent years building it and now it’ll be totally finished!’ Segal glared at Ben. ‘You told me you would put an end to this. You promised it would all be over. “Trust me. We’re not going to let that happen.” Your very words. Why did I listen to you? I was better off before!’
Ben said nothing. Maybe Segal would have preferred for his wife to remain a hostage, too.
‘Think I’ll stretch my legs and get some air,’ Roth announced with a sigh, clapping his palms on his thighs and unlatching the passenger door. He got out of the car, turned up his jacket collar against the drizzle, and Ben watched him walk off in the direction of the docks. Before he vanished from sight behind some wharf buildings, he took out a phone and appeared to be dialling a number.
It wasn’t the first time Roth had decided to go for a spontaneous little stroll. And not for the first time, Ben wondered what the hell the American was up to.
Segal was still prattling on in Ben’s ear. ‘Are you listening? I’m talking to you and I demand an answer.’
Ben ignored him, leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes, considering his options. He was good at improvising. But it wasn’t so easy to improvise when you had nothing whatsoever to go on. He took another long puff of the Gauloise and blew out more smoke. Behind him, Segal started to make that truly irritating theatrical kind of spluttering, as though he was suffocating on sarin gas.
Eyes still shut, Ben told him, ‘If you don’t like it, then get out of the damn car.’
‘It’s raining. You want me to get soaked?’
‘I wouldn’t be doing this, if I were you.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Annoying the hell out of me. Under the circumstances, not advisable. Unless you want to be chewing on your own teeth sometime in the near future.’
Segal huffed, then rocked forward the empty passenger seat and clambered out of the car. ‘I’m going back to the guest house to be with Margot.’
‘Suit yourself.’
Ben went on smoking. A couple of minutes later, he heard the passenger door again and opened his eyes. Roth was back from his walk, hair slicked with rain. He asked, ‘What’s up with Segal? I just saw him slinking off with a face like a grizzly shitting a pine cone.’
‘Never mind him,’ Ben said irritably. ‘Did you have a pleasant little stroll?’
‘Inspiring,’ Roth said as he bundled into the car. ‘You might even say educational. Time to haul ass, buddy.’
‘Where to? Back to your island?’
‘Nope, not just yet. I was thinking of a scenic little Normandy seaside spot called Plage de Vaucottes. It’s about forty klicks up the coast from here.’
‘Don’t tell me. It was right after Paris on your visiting France bucket list.’
‘Wrong again. I never heard of the place in my life before. But it so happens that what you Brits might call a bit of a flap happened there within the last few minutes, and is still ongoing. One that the cops don’t even know about yet. But they will pretty soon, so I’d suggest we get moving.’
Ben stared at him. ‘What kind of a flap?’
Roth answered, ‘One that involves a buncha badass dudes doing badass shit, and more gunfire than the locals have known since June 1944.’
Chapter 54
Nazim’s sharp ears had picked up the faraway thump of the helicopter not long after their departure from the dead cargo ship. Guessing it was a coastguard patrol aircraft coming out to investigate the loss of radio contact, he’d pressed on fast into the night to avoid being spotted. His course had taken him in a wide parabolic arc that made landfall some way up the coast. The north-easterly sloping shape of the coastline meant that he’d been closer to land than the ship had been to the port. By 8.02 a.m., just twenty minutes since making their escape, they were already approaching the shore.
Which was when the first real problem presented itself, because there seemed to be nowhere for them to land. Nazim closed the throttle and tacked along the coastline, peering impatiently through the curtain of mist and rain but seeing only sheer, craggy cliffs. After a couple of minutes he spotted a cove with a stretch of open beach. There was no kind of harbour or pier, nothing to moor up to, but Nazim didn’t give a damn. He whacked the throttle wide open and steered right for the cove. He braced himself for impact. Three … two … one … Now.
The boat grounded itself with a thumping, rending, grinding crash that shuddered the vessel from stem to stern and jolted two of his unwary men off their feet. Their momentum carried them right up out of the water and onto the beach, the deep-draught aluminium hull ploughing a V-shaped furrow through the loose rock and shingle. The propellers bit down hard against solid ground and buckled, stalling the engines. The boat slithered to a halt at a diagonal angle to the beach. It wouldn’t be taking to sea again in a hurry, but so what? They were on land, and ready to move to the next phase.
The terrorists clambered out onto the sloping deck and jumped down to the ground, clutching their weapons. There were a lot of grins and high-fives. Only the more intelligent members of Nazim’s gang, like Abbud and Zahran, seemed to be aware of the new problem that now faced them. Namely, the fact that they were fifteen heavily armed men in possession of nine tons of illicit drugs, stranded in the middle of nowhere miles from their vehicles, and even further from their destination. Abbud frowned and asked, ‘So how do we plan on getting out of here?’
House of War Page 27
