Fair Game (42 page)

Thames House was notoriously cramped and MI6 had much better facilities, including instant access to the nation’s surveillance satellites and direct links to GCHQ. There were desks against three of the walls, each with two telephones, and a bank of twelve LED screens on the main wall, most of which were blank. One showed a computer map of the Arabian Sea with small triangles showing the position of the vessels that could be identified by means of their AIS transmitters. Another was a rolling weather report interspersed with any instances of piracy that had been reported to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organisation and the Maritime Security Centre – Horn of Africa.

Button sat down next to Thatcher. There were two other men in the room sitting in front of terminals, wearing lightweight headsets, and a young woman was monitoring the screens on the wall. ‘I’d like to handle the negotiations, if that’s all right with you,’ said Button. She waved for Yusuf to take one of the empty seats. He removed his jacket, revealing bright red braces, and hung it on the back of the chair before sitting down.

Thatcher grimaced. ‘My bosses said that I should defer to you on all operational matters,’ he said. ‘Actually they said I was to defer to you on pretty much everything. But in this case it might be better if I do the talking.’

Button opened her mouth to argue but Thatcher held up his hand and smiled apologetically. ‘The thing is that Somali men tend not to do much talking to their women. Men rule the roost, and I’m afraid they take the view that women should be seen and not heard. And there’s a good chance that the pirates will be Muslim, in which case dealing with a woman could cause all sorts of additional problems. I’m sorry if that sounds sexist – believe me, I have a wife and three daughters so there isn’t a sexist bone in my body. It’s just the way it is.’

‘I’ve been in situations before where it was considered an advantage for me to be a woman when dealing with Muslims,’ said Button. ‘It puts them on the back foot.’

Thatcher looked across at Yusuf for support. The Somali nodded in agreement. ‘Mr Thatcher is correct,’ he said. ‘The men in Somalia are brought up to believe that a woman should be seen and not heard.’ He raised his hands palms upward. ‘I sometimes wish it was that way in my own home.’ He smiled amiably. ‘I am joking, of course. It would be best if it was a man talking to them. With a man, there would be no doubt in their minds that they were talking with an equal. We Somalis have a saying. Your woman should be in the house or in the grave. It is not one of our better proverbs but it does show the attitude of the men in Somalia.’

Thatcher nodded. ‘It might well put them on the defensive if they’re in an orange jumpsuit in Guantanamo Bay but in this situation they’ll be feeling in control and would see a woman’s involvement as being insulting.’ He smiled. ‘No offence,’ he added.

‘None taken,’ she said. ‘But I should tell you that I’ve already commenced negotiations with the pirates who have taken the yacht.’

‘And how’s that going?’

Button smiled thinly. It hadn’t been going well, but she hadn’t considered that her being a woman was the problem.

‘Look, I’m more than happy for you to listen in, and equally happy to hear your advice,’ said Thatcher. ‘And as I already said, my bosses have made it clear that you’re running the show. I just think that when it comes to negotiating, they’d be more comfortable talking to a man.’

‘I get it,’ said Button. ‘And it’s been explained to you that we want the ransom to include the release of the crew of the yacht that they are also holding?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Thatcher. ‘I plan to open negotiations for the
Athena
and to get an opening figure from them, and then once we start haggling I’ll bring up the yacht crew. Once the negotiation has some sort of momentum we can expand it to encompass the yacht and its crew.’

‘Then we’re definitely on the same page,’ Button said. ‘But what if they start opening the containers?’ she asked. ‘There are Chinese weapons in there and the last thing we want is for them to be bristling with RPGs and ground-to-air missiles.’

‘They’d have to be smart enough to take a look at the manifest, and in my experience they’re not that smart,’ said Thatcher. ‘It’ll be on the bridge somewhere but I doubt that they’ll ask for it.’

‘You’ve dealt with a lot of hijackings?’

‘Actually this is only my second. Our company is pretty sensible about its anti-piracy precautions, especially on our smaller vessels. But I’ve sat in on several negotiations. The shipping companies tend to help each other out when things go wrong.’

‘And tell me, do things generally work out?’

Thatcher nodded. ‘Provided both sides stick to the script, it usually works out just fine,’ he said. ‘They want money, the owners want their ship and crew back. There’s a lot of back and forth but eventually we should reach some middle ground that both sides can be happy with.’

‘You make it sound like a game.’

‘It is, partly. They know the value of these ships and their cargo and that they’re asking for a tiny fraction of what they’re worth. They also know that every day a ship isn’t moving the company loses hundreds of thousands of dollars. We know we’re going to pay, we just want to pay as little as possible. But let’s not forget that we’re talking about ill-educated fishermen with guns who are probably high on khat and for whom life is pretty cheap. If they do think that we’re trying to cheat them they will start killing hostages. It’s up to us to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

‘So what do we do now? Do we wait for them to call?’

‘What we do first is get a pot of coffee going. I take mine strong but with lots of milk and two sugars.’ He looked around the room. ‘Can we get a machine or something in here? I drink a lot of coffee.’

‘I’ll get it arranged,’ she said. ‘Any particular brand of biscuit?’

He chuckled. ‘I detect a note of sarcasm, but if there is even a hint of sincerity in that offer then I would absolutely love some Jaffa Cakes.’

‘Actually, so would I,’ she said. ‘I’ll get some in.’ She looked across at Yusuf. ‘Coffee, Mr Yusuf?’

‘Tea, please.’

Button smiled. ‘A man after my own heart.’ She looked back at Thatcher. ‘Going back to my question, how do they get in touch?’

‘They don’t,’ said Thatcher. ‘There’s a sat-phone on the bridge and another in the administration cabin. We call them.’

Blue looked at the screen that showed the position of the
Athena
, with Somalia to the south and Yemen to the north. ‘Keep on course three-five-zero,’ said Blue. ‘Full speed.’

Dominik was sitting in the right-hand chair, his left hand on the telegraph. ‘You know we’re heading north, don’t you?’

‘Just do as you are told,’ said Blue.

‘But Somalia is to the south.’

Blue jabbed the barrel of the AK-47 against the captain’s neck and tightened his finger on the trigger. ‘Shut up.’

‘OK, no problem,’ said Dominik.

‘You think I don’t know what I’m doing?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Dominik.

‘I know what I’m doing. You keep your mouth shut.’

Dominik nodded and said nothing.

Blue was about to say something else when the sat-phone rang behind them. Blue whirled around and stared at it.

‘It’s the sat-phone,’ said Dominik.

‘I know.’

‘That’ll be the company phoning,’ said Dominik. ‘You should answer it.’

Blue took two steps towards the captain and slammed the butt of his AK-47 against his shoulder. Dominik yelped. Blue lashed out again and this time he caught Dominik under the chin and a tooth broke. Blood trickled down Dominik’s chin and he wiped it away with his hand. ‘You don’t tell me what to do!’ screamed Blue. He glared at the captain and then went over to the sat-phone and picked up the receiver.

‘My name is Chris, who am I talking to?’ said a voice.

‘Who are you? Do you work for the company?’

‘I represent the company,’ said the man. ‘Can you tell me your name?’

‘My name doesn’t matter,’ said Blue. ‘I want ten million dollars.’

‘I understand that, but I need to know who I am talking to so that when I call back I know who to ask for. So what is your name?’

‘Blue. You can call me Blue.’

‘That’s good, Blue. Now, like I said, my name is Chris. No one else will be calling you, just me.’

‘I want ten million dollars. Or I kill the crew.’

‘I understand,’ said the man. ‘But first I need to talk with the captain, Blue. Can you put him on the phone for me, please?’

‘You talk to me,’ said Blue.

‘Yes, I will, of course I will, but first I need to talk with the captain. I have to check with the captain that the crew are OK. Once he has confirmed that the crew are safe you and I can talk. So please put him on.’

Blue held out the phone to the captain. ‘Talk to him,’ he snapped.

The captain took the phone. ‘This is Dominik Kaminski,’ he said, dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief.

‘Dominik, this is Chris Thatcher. I’m acting for the company. Are the crew with you?’

‘They’re locked in the chief engineer’s cabin.’

‘And they’re safe?’

‘So far, yes.’

‘And the pirates have guns?’

‘Yes.’

‘AK-47s?’

‘Yes.’

‘I need to know how many pirates there are on board, Dominik. More than five?’

‘Yes.’

‘More than ten?’

‘No.’

‘Nine?’

‘Yes.’

‘They have turned off the AIS?’

‘Yes.’

Blue grabbed the phone and pulled it away. ‘You spoke to him, now I want my money,’ he said. ‘No money, the crew dies.’

‘Nobody wants anybody to get hurt, Blue,’ said the man. ‘But you have to know that nobody pays ten million dollars for a ship. Nobody.’

‘Ten million dollars or they die!’ shouted Blue, and he switched off the phone. He slammed it down on the table. He walked over to the left-hand chair and sat in it, keeping the barrel of his Kalashnikov pointed at the captain.

Dominik said nothing as he stared out through the window, holding his handkerchief to his bleeding mouth.

Shepherd looked at the luminous dial of his Rolex Submariner. It was just after one o’clock in the morning. He slowly crawled out of the container and on to the metal walkway. He stood up and listened for a full minute before creeping towards the starboard side. He peered cautiously down the deck towards the superstructure. There was enough moonlight to satisfy himself that there was no one on the deck close by, but the rear of the deck was shrouded in darkness. He stood and listened carefully, but there was only the sound of the ship coursing through the waves. He was holding the sat-phone and he slipped it into his pocket, knowing that if he did stumble across a pirate he’d need both his hands. He looked towards the bow and frowned as he saw the North Star, directly in front of the vessel. He scanned the night sky, thinking that he’d made a mistake, but saw the Plough with its handle pointing towards the North Star and realised that he had been right the first time.

He headed along the deck to the bow and knelt down by one of the anchor chains before switching on the sat-phone. The phone searched for a satellite link and as soon as he had one he tapped in Charlotte Button’s number.

‘Thank goodness,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘I figure that most of them will be asleep by now.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Hiding in a container close to the bow. There’s no reason for them to be out here and even if they were they’d have to look hard to find me.’

‘Just be careful, OK? We’ve started negotiations. The pirates want ten million, which is ridiculous, but that’s just the opening shot. We’ll get this sorted as quickly as we can.’

‘And then what?’

‘If we can tie the yacht crew with the
Athena
then we can arrange the money drop in Puntland. Martin and his people can go and get the crew.’

‘And what about the
Athena
?’

‘We’ll send in the Increment. They’re already out on one of the task force’s British vessels.’

‘But what if the pirates on board warn the guys in Somalia?’

‘That won’t happen. We’ll be blocking all communications from the
Athena
once we’ve done a deal with the pirates in Puntland,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Spider, we’ve got all the bases covered. Now listen, they’ve switched off the AIS so we don’t know where you are. I need you to keep the sat-phone on for a while longer so that we can use the GPS to fix your position.’

‘I can do that, but it’s going to drain the battery,’ he said.

‘Understood,’ she said. ‘Leave it on until we’ve got a fix and then we’ll end this call. Then tomorrow switch the phone on at this time. Even if you don’t make a call we’ll be able to see your position.’

‘I think we’re heading north, towards Yemen,’ he said.

‘That wouldn’t make sense,’ said Button.

‘They might just be moving us out of the main shipping lane, but you’d have thought that they would go to Somalia rather than Yemen.’

‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘We’ve just got you. Yes, you’ve moved about thirty miles north of the last position we had on the AIS.’

‘I’ll switch on again this time tomorrow,’ said Shepherd, and he turned off the phone.

Liam was sucking his pen and trying to work out whether to do his history homework first or whether he should try to memorise the twenty French words that he was going to be tested on the next day. His books were spread out on the coffee table and he had the television on but with the sound muted because Katra was in the kitchen and she wouldn’t let him watch television while he was doing his homework. She had promised to cook fish fingers, chips and baked beans for him once she’d finished the ironing.

He decided to memorise the French vocabulary and picked up his exercise book, but even before he’d flicked through to the right page the doorbell rang. Liam jumped up off the sofa. ‘I’ll get it!’ he shouted, and rushed down the hall to the front door. There was a woman on the doorstep, wearing a dark brown coat and holding a clipboard. She flashed him a beaming smile. ‘Hello, is your daddy home?’ she asked. She had red hair with a black clip in it and she reminded Liam of one of the ladies who worked in the canteen. She had a similar accent, too. Irish.