Those In Peril Part 13

'There are a few small local fishing boats dotted about insh.o.r.e of you, but they all seem to be at anchor. Then I can make out a large container ship on the horizon several miles beyond you. Nothing unusual.'

'Okay, Heck. I will be coming in at full throttle. Be ready for a quick pick-up. We don't want to muck about on the beach.'

'One other thing that you should be warned about, Ronnie. We have had a traitor in our midst. Uthmann Waddah is an enemy agent. He knew about our rendezvous here. At the first sign of trouble you must abort and make a run for it.'

'Uthmann Waddah! It's a hard game, Heck. I know how you feel about him.'

'What I felt about him, Ronnie - past tense. I will kill him next time we meet. I tried once already, but next time I will make no mistake.'

'Roger that! See you on the beach.'

As soon as he had received the warning from Uthmann Waddah that Hector Cross might attempt to escape by sea, Kamal Tippoo Tip had taken all his attack boats out of the harbour at Gandanga and run northwards to station them in a line along the stretch of coast nearest to the Oasis of the Miracle and the fortress. This is where he could reasonably expect the infidel to attempt his escape from Puntland. The boats were anch.o.r.ed a mile offsh.o.r.e and every boat was in sight of the others on each side of it, so that they formed a chain of observation almost fifty miles long. Kamal had placed himself in the centre of the chain, and it was he who spotted the ephemeral yellow smoke trail against the eastern sky. Before the smoke had blown away he was on his shortwave radio calling his entire fleet of twenty-three attack boats to a.s.semble on him.

In the sandy cove three nautical miles further offsh.o.r.e than Kamal's ambush, Ronnie ordered his crew to stand by to weigh the anchor at which they had been riding for the past seventy-two hours. He went forward to remove the tarpaulin cover from the twin 50 calibre Browning heavy machine guns mounted in the bows. He loaded both weapons and traversed them port and starboard to make certain the mountings were clear. Then he hurried back to the c.o.c.kpit of the MTB and started the engines. They kicked in smoothly and he ran them up to 3,000 revs, then throttled back to idle and let the needle of the engine temperature gauge climb into the green arc. He gave a hand signal to the foredeck crew and the anchor winch whined, the chain clattered into the anchor well and the anchor itself came aboard, and was lashed down securely by the crew. Marcus, the bosun, gave a thumbs up and Ronnie engaged the reverse gear and manoeuvred the boat until it was bows-on to the entrance of the cove. Then he opened up both engines and they roared out into the open sea, and swung onto the heading for the distant beach. In the binoculars Hector picked up the gleaming wake of the Rolls-Royce motors heading directly towards him.

'Here comes Ronnie!' he told Hazel as soon as he was certain.

'Second time lucky,' she said, and he nodded.

'It's a racing certainty,' he agreed, but the words of the old saw rang a caution in his head. 'The first the worst, the second the same, the third the best of all the game.' He put the saying out of his mind, and called to Tariq to get everybody into the Mercedes. They ran to obey him and Hector climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. He took one last look out to sea to make sure that everything was developing smoothly, and what he saw struck ice into his soul. Hazel saw his expression change.

'What is it, Hector?' she asked in alarm.

'We tempted fate, and fate was listening,' he said softly so as not to alarm Cayla. With his chin he pointed out to sea. She saw it at once.

'Holy mother of G.o.d!' she whispered and grabbed his hand for comfort. What they had taken to be small fishing boats were nothing of the kind. The surface of the sea, which minutes before had been troubled only by a light onsh.o.r.e breeze, was now boiling like a pot of soup. The silver wakes of numerous fast-moving small craft were lacing the surface, criss-crossing each other from every direction, like the spokes of a great wheel converging on a point in their centre. Moving less swiftly but kicking up a greater propeller wash than all the rest, Ronnie Wells's MTB was the central point of all this violent activity. Hector switched off the engine of the Mercedes and grabbed the satphone. On the MTB the phone rang once and Ronnie Wells s.n.a.t.c.hed it up.

'Hector?' he demanded.

'Ronnie! Abort! Abort!' Hector shouted at him. 'There are pirate boats coming at you from every direction. It's an ambush. Of course, Uthmann set you up. Get out of there. Do you hear me?'

'Roger! Stand by for my famous vanishing act.'

'Leave the sat connection open,' Hector ordered. Ronnie dropped the telephone receiver onto the chart table beside him without breaking the contact. Now Hector was able to hear everything that was happening on board the MTB.

'Hold on!' Ronnie shouted to his crew and put the wheel hard over. The big boat whipped viciously around in a 180-degree turn. One of his men was unprepared and he was hurled off-balance headfirst into the coaming of the hatchway. His skull cracked loudly and he went down as though from a head shot with a .44 Magnum revolver.

Ronnie ignored him and shouted to his bosun, 'Marcus, get forward and man the Brownings. As soon as we have a target I will turn you on to it. Shoot any other boat you see. They will all be bandits!'

Ronnie was staring back over their wake. He could see nothing, but he knew they were there, so low in the water that they were not visible in the swells unless they were closer than a few hundred yards. From the locker under the chart table he took out an Uzi submachine gun, and checked the magazine before he laid it on the seat at the level of his knees, then from the same locker he brought out four M.67 phosphorus grenades and placed them beside the Uzi SMG.

He glanced back over the stern and saw the head and shoulders of a man pop out above the swells. He could not see the hull of the boat under him, but knew it was the driver of the first attack boat standing at the controls while the rest of his crew crouched in the bilges. They were closing the gap between the two craft surprisingly swiftly. Ronnie picked up the satphone.

'I am not going to be able to run away from this one, Hector. They have got the legs on me,' he said. 'I have to turn back and fight. They won't be expecting that.'

'That's what you were built for, you old sea dog,' Hector answered lightly although his heart was a stone in his chest. 'Give them h.e.l.l, Ron!'

'Sorry you couldn't be here to join the fun.' Ronnie dropped the phone again and Hector heard him shout to Marcus behind the twin heavy machine guns. 'Ready about!'

Marcus acknowledged with a pump of his right fist and Ronnie put the wheel hard over. The MTB spun on its axis and went roaring back under full power. The two boats rushed together at a combined speed of almost one hundred miles an hour. The Arab boat was taken completely by surprise. Before its crew could emerge from hiding under the gunwale the tracer fire from the MTB's heavy machine guns was chewing the hull into splinters and wood chips. Almost immediately the boat went out of control and nosedived into the next wave.

'That was so lovely to watch!' Ronnie laughed, but three more attack boats appeared from behind the swells and the crews were all blazing away at the MTB with their a.s.sault rifles as they closed the range. Most of their fire was screeching overhead or ploughing into the waves ahead of the hull. But some of it was tearing into the MTB. Ronnie's windshield shattered and flying gla.s.s cut his forehead and the blood ran into his eyes, but he turned to take on the closest boat bow to bow. Relying on his superior size he went to ram it, but the attack boat sheered away and they roared past each other with only a narrow strip of water separating them. As they pa.s.sed Ronnie tossed a phosphorus grenade into the attack boat and ducked as it exploded in a blinding white sheet of flame. Two of the Arab crew were blown clean overboard and the man at the helm simply disappeared in the flash and the smoke.

Ronnie was consumed with battle madness, that sense of euphoria that could not be induced by any drug. He turned after the next boat and rammed it full on. The collision wrecked the MTB's bows, but he trampled the attack boat under him and spilled its crew into the sea where they floundered and drowned.

Now there were attack boats converging on him from every direction. The Arab crews were screeching, 'Allahu Akbar!, and sweeping the MTB with close-range automatic fire. Marcus was killed outright by a burst from an AK and he collapsed over his guns, the twin barrels spiralling aimlessly and tracer sh.e.l.ls spraying into the sky. Another boat hurtled alongside, and a robed and bearded Arab hurled a grappling iron onto the MTB's deck and the hooks bit into the wooden gunwale. Within minutes others had followed his example, and Ronnie was dragging a mini-flotilla behind his own. He looked around him and found that he was the only one of his crew still alive, the bodies of his men lying in abandoned att.i.tudes in puddles of their own blood. Miraculously in the storm of gunfire Ronnie stood untouched. When he looked back over the stern he saw that a gang of Arabs were using the grappling lines to pull their attack boats up to the stern of the MTB, and they were bracing themselves to scramble onto his afterdeck. He emptied the magazine of the Uzi into them, knocking down two. When the magazine was empty he dropped the weapon, and locking the wheel hard astarboard he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a grenade in each hand. He pulled the pins from the grenades with his teeth as he started back to hurl them into the trailing attack boats. But he had taken only two paces before a bullet from an AK hit him low in the abdomen. It sliced through his guts and exited from his spine, shattering two of his lower vertebrae. His legs collapsed under him, and he sprawled on the deck. His legs were paralysed, but he used his elbows to drag his maimed body as far as the auxiliary fuel tank and he curled up against it, still clutching the grenades against his chest. He felt the thumps as the hulls of half a dozen attack boats struck the sides of the MTB, and then the slap of many bare feet on the decking as the pirate horde came pouring on board, screeching and ululating triumphantly, jostling and shoving each other to be the first to take possession of the prize. One of them spotted Ronnie curled up against the fuel tank. He ran to him, stood over him and pulled his head back to slash his throat with a curved Arabian dagger. It was a clumsy stroke and it missed the jugular but sliced open the windpipe. Before he could hack at his throat again Ronnie rolled over and held up the two grenades.

The rest of the pirates were crowding forward, laughing and shouting, but when they saw the grenades they drew back in consternation. Ronnie felt no pain, just a great surge of adrenalin that lifted him like a magic carpet. Vaguely he understood that this was what he had wanted all along: to die with a weapon in his hands and an enemy confronting him, and not in the infirmary of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. He laughed at them and the air puffed from his severed windpipe in a fine pink mist. He wanted to shout some witticism about beating them to paradise and expropriating every one of their seventy virgins, but his vocal cords were severed and he could not enunciate the words. He opened his hands and let the handles fly from the grenades.

The rabble of pirates broke and ran, howling with terror, but none of them reached the boats alongside before the explosion consumed them in flame. Ronnie was still laughing as he was caught up in the double explosion, and a moment later the fuel tank against which he had been propping himself exploded and a pillar of flame and black smoke shot high into the sky.

Hector was watching through his binoculars and he felt the shock wave of the explosion ruffle his hair, and saw the tower of smoke and the brilliance of burning phosphorus, brighter than the sunlight on the waves. Simultaneously the satphone in his cargo pocket went dead. He went on staring through the lens for a few minutes longer while he gathered himself. Then he felt Hazel's hand on his arm.

'I am so sorry, my darling.' It was the first time she had used that term of endearment. He lowered the binoculars and turned to her.

'Thank you for your understanding. But it's what Ronnie would have wanted. This very moment he is probably jeering at the fates.' He gave his head a little shake, putting his sorrow aside for the moment, and shouted to Tariq, 'Get everybody mounted up again.' Then he turned back to Hazel. 'That smoke rocket was my mistake. Now they can be sure we are here, and that Ronnie was signalling us. We have to move out quickly.'

With the Mercedes loaded Hector turned onto the coastal road and drove fast along it in the opposite direction to the pirate lair at Gandanga Bay. They covered almost fifteen miles before Hector spotted the dust of a strange vehicle approaching from the north. Quickly he pulled off the road and parked behind a clump of windswept thornbushes. He ordered all of them to dismount and sit behind the truck which was camouflaged by its thick coating of dust and dried quicksand. He crouched down behind the trunk of one of the th.o.r.n.y trees and watched another pa.s.senger bus grinding southwards, effectively wiping out their own tracks with its wide double tyres. As soon as it was out of sight he and Tariq each cut themselves a tree branch from one of the trees and went back to the verge of the road where they had left it. They came back to the parked truck, walking backwards and carefully sweeping all the signs of their pa.s.sing from the hard baked surface, and straightening the strands of coa.r.s.e brown gra.s.s that had been flattened by the wheels of their truck.

Satisfied at last that they had done all they could to throw off any pursuit by the pirates who were bound to come looking for them along the road, he ordered everybody to take their allotted seat in the vehicle and then headed back into the wilderness the way they had come, in the direction of the Oasis of the Miracle and the Ethiopian border. When darkness fell and it was not safe to continue onwards for fear of hitting a rock or crashing into one of the wadis, Hector parked the Mercedes. They brewed coffee on a small carefully screened fire of brushwood and drank it black and unsweetened to wash down the dry army survival rations. Every one of them was exhausted, so Hector took the first turn of guard duty. All the others threw themselves down on the hard earth and slept almost immediately. Even Hazel who was one of the toughest and most determined of them all had at last succ.u.mbed. She lay with Cayla cuddled in her arms, both of them still and silent as statues. When the night air turned cooler Hector spread his jacket over them; neither of them so much as twitched.

He let them all sleep for an hour after the moon rose. When at last he roused them and chivvied them back into the truck, he handed over the driving to Tariq and let the rocking and swaying of the Mercedes over the rough terrain lull him to sleep. He slept sitting upright in the high hunting seat with the loaded rifle across his lap held by the strap, ready for an instant response to any threat. He was awakened by a change in the truck's motion. Suddenly it was much smoother and the engine note changed as Tariq engaged a higher gear. Hector opened his eyes and saw that they were moving faster on a roughly demarcated but beaten track. He glanced at the stars to orient himself. Orion was hunting the western sky with Sirius, his dog, running ahead of him. The moon was high. They were still heading west without headlights showing, relying on the moon and the glow of the Milky Way to light their route. He checked his wrist.w.a.tch; he had been asleep for almost three hours. They must be getting close to the more fertile and populous areas of land along the main highway. He leaned forward and touched Tariq on the shoulder.

'Peepee pause,' he announced. Tariq braked and they all climbed down. The women went to the rear of the truck and the men to the front. Standing shoulder to shoulder with him, Hector spoke quietly to Tariq.

'We have to dump this vehicle. Every man, woman and child in Puntland will be looking for it. We will requisition another. Then we must find the right clothing to be able to blend in to the local populace. You and Daliyah are the only ones suitably dressed.' While they were talking Hazel and Cayla came from behind the truck to join them. They listened for a while to the Arabic conversation, until at last Hazel lost patience.

'What's this all about?'

'We need other transport. Tariq and I are plotting to hijack another truck and then find suitable disguises for you and Cayla in particular.'

'Hijack?' Hazel asked. 'That means killing more innocent bystanders?'

'If that's what it takes,' Hector agreed.

'Not really humane or discreet. Why don't you send Tariq and Daliyah into the nearest town to buy a truck and the right gear?'

'Good idea.' Hector smiled in the moonlight. 'Just hold on a minute while I rob a bank.'

'You can be rather obtuse at times, Hector Cross.'

'Last one who called me that was my mathematics teacher at high school.'

'He must have been very perceptive. Come with me.' She led him around the back of the truck and once they were un.o.bserved she began to unb.u.t.ton her shirt.

'Mrs Bannock, at any other time this would be a splendid idea.' Unperturbed Hazel untucked the tails of her shirt from her breeches and he stared at the money belt that was strapped around her waist, lying snugly against her flat belly. She ripped open the Velcro fastener and handed him the belt. He shone the flashlight into it, then took out one of the wads of green US banknotes and riffled through it.

'How much have you got here?' he asked in awed tones.

'About thirty thousand. Sometimes it comes in quite useful.'

'Hazel Bannock, you are a b.l.o.o.d.y marvel!'

'Oh, at last you've noticed. Perhaps you are not quite as obtuse as I suspected,' she said and he grabbed her and kissed her. 'And getting smarter all the time.' Her voice was husky. 'To be continued later, right?'

'Couldn't be righter,' he agreed.

They drove on, still without switching on the headlights, more cautiously as the daylight strengthened. At last they were running through cultivated fields of dried maize stalks and once they pa.s.sed a few darkened hovels beside the track. There was no sign of life except the smoke from a cooking fire drifting from a hole in the roof of one of the huts. Shortly after that they crested a rise and saw in the distance ahead of them the lights of a large settlement. Some of the lights appeared to be powered by electricity rather than wood or kerosene which was a sign of at least rudimentary civilization. They stopped and Hector shaded his torch as he examined the map.

'There was only one town that this could possibly be.' He pointed it out to Tariq on the map. 'Lascanood. Ask Daliyah if she knows it.'

'I know it. I have been here before with my father. Some of his relatives live here,' Daliyah confirmed. 'It's the biggest town in Nugaal province.'

'How far is it from Ethiopia?' Hector asked, and she looked embarra.s.sed. She was a simple country girl and the question was beyond her.

'All right. How far is it from your home - could you walk there in a day?'

'In two days, not one.' She said it with certainty. She had obviously made the journey.

'Do you know if there is a road from this town to Ethiopia?'

'I have heard people say there is a road, but n.o.body uses it now, not since the troubles with that country.'

'Thank you, Daliyah.' He turned to Hazel. 'She knows the town and she says that there is a road from there to the border although I don't see it marked on this map. Apparently it has fallen into disuse, which suits us just fine.'

'So what do we do now?' Hazel asked.

'We find a place to hide out during the day, and I will send Tariq and Daliyah into the town to buy a bus or lorry and the other things we need.' Hector turned back to Daliyah. 'Do you know if there is a wadi or some other place close by where we can hide this truck while you and Tariq go into the town?' She thought for a moment and then nodded.

'I know a place,' she agreed. She sat beside Tariq, obviously bursting with pride at having been selected by Hector as a guide, and she pointed out the way with an authoritative air. Just before sunrise they turned off the track and drove a short way to a clump of scraggly acacia thornbush. In the centre of it was a water-hole, a shallow depression which was now dry; the baked mud in the bottom of it cracked into rectangular tiles curling up at the edges. The thornbush screened them on all sides.

'This is where my father and I used to camp,' said Daliyah, pointing out the black ashes of a cooking fire on the edge of the clearing. They all disembarked, Tariq drove the truck under the trees and they cut branches to cover it, concealing it from casual observation. Hazel called Hector aside, while Tariq and Daliyah were preparing to walk into the town.

'Should I give the money to Tariq to buy what we need?'

'Give him a hundred dollars. That'll be enough for the local-style clothing and food. I'm sick of dry rations.'

'What about transport for us to reach the border?' Hazel asked. 'He will need a few thousand, won't he?'

'No. That's too much temptation.'

'Don't you trust him?'

'After the little trick that Uthmann pulled on me, I trust n.o.body. Tariq can find transport and even haggle a price with the seller, but I will pay over the cash.' Hector went back to Tariq and gave him the hundred dollars in bills of small denominations. Then Tariq and Daliyah set off in the direction of the town. Daliyah trailed twenty paces behind him, as a good Islamic wife was bound to do. Once they were out of sight the rest of the party settled down to wait under the spa.r.s.e cover of the thorn trees. Hector set up the satphone and after two or three attempts at last made contact with Paddy O'Quinn.

'Ronnie didn't make it,' he told Paddy. 'They were waiting for him. He put up a good fight, but in the end he bought the farm.'

'I would like to get my hands on that swine Uthmann Waddah,' Paddy growled. This was no time for sentiment or mourning.

'Join the queue,' Hector agreed.

'Where are you now, Heck?'

'Coming your way. We're making progress, Paddy,' he told him. 'We're hiding out near a town called Lascanood. Do you have it on your map?' There was a short pause while Paddy checked.

'Okay. I have it. Looks as though it's about seventy or eighty miles beyond the border.'

'Can you see a marked road that would get you from where you are to our vicinity?' Hector asked.

'Hold on a jiffy. Okay, there is a track indicated by a dotted red line, which is not a good sign. It usually means that the existence of the road is the subject of conjecture rather than hard fact. According to this, it joins the main highway about ten or fifteen miles north of Lascanood.'

'Paddy, start moving in our direction p.r.o.nto. Do not, I repeat do not call me back. I might be surrounded by the bad boys. I will call you again once we are in the clear this end.'

'Roger that,' Paddy agreed, and they broke the connection.

It was two hours before noon when Tariq and Daliyah returned from the town. Once again Daliyah was following him at a discreet distance, balancing an enormous bundle on her head. In the grove of thorns Tariq helped her to lower it to the ground, and they all crowded around to see what Daliyah had brought back with her.

Firstly and most importantly she had a large bunch of maize cobs and three scrawny chicken carca.s.ses. These went onto the coals immediately. While they grilled, the men removed their Cross Bow uniforms and equipment and from the bundle they selected and donned the typical jihadist dress of baggy pants and black waistcoat over a grubby and wrinkled white shirt. Then they bound loose black turbans around their heads; even on Hector the change was immediate and convincing. He took Tariq aside and questioned him about what he had discovered in the village.

'It is Friday so there are very many people in the town to attend mosque and to watch the public punishment,' Tariq told him.

'Of course. I had forgotten what day it is. But that's not a bad thing. We will be far less noticeable in a large crowd.'

'I overheard a group of men discussing the death of the Sheikh and the fighting in the desert. The new Sheikh is Adam Tippoo Tip and he has placed a bounty of five thousand dollars on our heads.' Hector grunted. That was an enormous sum of money in this part of the world and he realized that there would be thousands of eyes looking out for them, hoping to earn it.

While they were talking, Daliyah took Hazel and Cayla behind the truck and showed them how to wear the black full-length abaya and burqa that covered them from head to foot. The wearer was completely veiled and she looked out upon the world through a mesh screen. Daliyah made Hazel and Cayla shed their unmistakably western footwear. Both of them slipped on the leather sandals which she had brought for them. The men were still squatting in a circle engrossed in deep discussion, so once they were fully dressed Daliyah showed them how to paint their hands and feet with red henna. This was in accordance with local custom and it would cover their pale skin. In the circle of men Hector asked Tariq if he had been able to find other transport.

'Yes, I have found a man who will sell us a bus which will seat forty pa.s.sengers. He says it is in good running condition, but he wants five hundred dollars for it.'

'That's promising. If he had asked fifty dollars I would worry somewhat. Did he let you see it?' Tariq shook his head.

'Daliyah knows him and she thinks he is honest. He says his son will bring the bus to town this afternoon. He also has as many AK-47s as we want to buy and much ammo. He is asking fifty dollars each for them. I told him we needed six.' Tariq grinned. 'I think he will take three hundred dollars for the bus, and another two hundred for the guns and five hundred rounds of ammo. They are probably not Russian anyway, but locally made.'

'And the barrels skilfully crafted to burst with the first shot and blow the proud new owner's head off,' Hector said with a grunt. 'But we can't walk around toting state-of-the-art Beretta SC 70/90s, like these.' He tapped the b.u.t.t of the rifle that lay across his lap. 'We will have to bury them as a fallback and abandon them and the Mercedes when we go.'

While the men were talking Daliyah gave the two women a crash course in correct female behaviour when in the presence of strangers, and Hector summed it up for them when he inspected Hazel and Cayla before they set off for the village.

'Walk at least ten paces behind your male escort. Keep your face covered and your eyes downcast. Don't speak. Pretend that you just don't exist.' He grinned at Cayla. 'The same way that you always behave, Miss Bannock.' She lifted the hood of her burqa and stuck her tongue out at him. Hazel marvelled at the relationship the two of them had established in such a short time. It was so obvious that Cayla was already looking on him as a father figure, and at the same time there was a real but easy friendship growing up between them.

I'll be d.a.m.ned if he is not going to be able to manage her as n.o.body else has ever been able to do before, she mused. This man is a creature of many skills and virtues. This man is a creature of many skills and virtues. She watched them both fondly, until Hector turned his attention to her. She watched them both fondly, until Hector turned his attention to her.

'Hazel, not many ladies in this neck of the woods wear gold Patek Philippe watches. Hide it please.'

'You're wearing a Rolex Submariner,' she challenged him.