The Drift (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 1) (16 page)

T
he
tourist haven of Tenerife proved to be every sailor’s dream destination. Hans,
Jessica and Penny enjoyed long sunny days, walks on palm-fringed beaches, local
tours and delicious food, all the time looking forward to Marcel’s arrival.

“How do you fancy diving on a reef, shipmate?”

“Hmm!” Jessica gave Penny her excited
I’ll do anything
you do
look.

“Do you know much about reefs? Have you dived on one before?”

“I haven’t dived on one before, but I’ve seen pictures in my
books. It’s rocks and flowers and red and yellow fish and blue sea.”

“Good girl! And do you know what those flowers are called?”

Jessica shook her head.

“They’re corals, made by lots of little animals, known as
polyps, that eat seaweed and other little animals. They spit out the bits they
don’t like, which build up over the years to create the pretty rocks.”

While Penny and Jessica pulled the dive gear from under the
bunks and kitted up, Hans sailed
Future
a few miles up the coast to a
reef known locally as Rainbow Mountain, giving a clue as to the myriad of colors
awaiting the girls. One of the dive centers in Santa Cruz recommended the site
in view of its shallow depth and good visibility.

A number of buoys bobbed in the turquoise water, the island’s
conservation society urging boats to make use of them rather than drop anchor
and damage the fragile coral below. Penny conducted a dive brief, and she and
Jessica went through their checks. Hans would remain on board as surface cover.

“Out of air signal, honey?”

Although a qualified scuba instructor, Penny understood the
importance of agreeing buddy-to-buddy communications, which varied between
dive-training organizations, as well as countries and individuals.

Jessica chopped a hand against her throat.

“Air pressure?”

She tapped two fingers against her forearm.

“Watch me.”

The little girl pointed index fingers at her eyes.

When Penny was satisfied, she said, “Watch this!” and did a
spectacular forward roll off the yacht’s stern.

Hans chuckled.

Jessica clamped her mask and regulator in place with one
hand and her weight belt’s quick release buckle and instrument console with the
other and leapt after Penny. They regrouped for a final check and then sunk
below the surface of the warm water.

Immediately apparent was the reason why locals called the
reef Rainbow Mountain. As opposed to the coarse black volcanic sand the island was
noted for, the sand here was fine, almost white, making the vivid pigment of the
coral stand out all the more. Fan, staghorn, table, star, lettuce and other similes
used to describe the calcium carbonate built up over millenniums were instantly
ascribable. It was easy to see why biologists refer to coral reefs as the rainforests
of the sea, each organism playing a unique role in perpetuating the delicate
ecosystem and balancing the planet’s biosphere.

Elkhorn coral lined the outer edges of the reef, protecting
it from the Atlantic’s crashing waves. Brain corals acted as cleaning stations
for gobies and other small fish. Coralline algae strengthened the reef’s structure
with limestone deposits, and so Mother Nature ran her course.

Not surprisingly, the reef spawned an abundance of marine
life. Brightly colored fish – porgies, damsels, jacks – hovered in schools in
the current. Puffers, wrasse and basslets zipped between crags. Moray eels,
crabs and octopi hid in dark crevices. A stingray glided toward them. Bigger
than Jessica, the attention-seeking fish allowed the girls to tickle its soft
white underbelly.

Finning along with the little girl, Penny felt utterly
contented. The previous year she had skippered for a group of Scandinavian
scientists on an expedition to Antarctica, sailing from Ushuaia in Tierra del
Fuego – the Land of Fire, on the southernmost tip of Argentina – for a
seven-day crossing of the treacherous Drake Passage. They encountered icebergs
the size of small countries and waded through vast colonies of adelie penguins in
the South Shetland Islands before venturing into the Antarctic Circle to dive
in the continent’s pristine waters, snorkeling with leopard seals and watching
orcas hunting in pods. Exploring the rugged white wilderness had been the experience
of a lifetime, something Penny never dreamed to surpass, but being here now floating
hand in hand with her friend through the coral idyll easily beat it.

A large shadow on the sand interrupted Penny’s thoughts. She
looked up expecting to see another stingray, her delight turning to horror as a
seven-foot-long bull shark cruised just feet above them. Ordinarily, Penny
would not have been overly concerned, despite the shark’s reputation for attacking
humans, but with its pectoral fins pointing downwards as it cut an abrupt
zigzag pattern through the water, she could tell the animal was in hunting
mode.

Ascending was out of the question. Their silhouette might
prove too tempting for the predator. Instead, Penny placed an open hand on her head
in the shark signal, followed by thumbs-down for “descend.” She didn’t want to
alarm Jessica, but it was important her buddy knew what was happening to
prevent panic.

Penny made a finning sign with her index fingers and pointed
to the entrance of a small cave at the base of the reef. Amazed at how calmly
Jessica carried out her instruction, she followed behind, relieved to find it
large enough for both of them.

After checking Jessica was okay, Penny turned to face the
danger, pulling her knife from its sheath. She knew not even the sharpest blade
would penetrate the skin of this prehistoric killing machine, though a
well-placed jab might serve as a deterrent. She prayed the bull shark would
lose interest, but instead the angry fish swam in ever-tighter circles, getting
closer each time before veering off at the last moment. It would not be long
before the beast took a test bite of her with its fearsome jaws or their air
ran out. Penny would not risk either scenario.

As the bull shark commenced another circuit, Penny put a
plan into action, signaling for Jessica to take her emergency regulator. Jessica
complied without hesitation, swapping to the yellow octopus spare, as she had
done with her father hundreds of times before.

Penny unbuckled Jessica’s buoyancy vest and cylinder and laid
them on the seabed, then inflated the bright-orange marker with a blast of air
from her mouthpiece. It shot to the surface, pulling line from the hand reel. Hans
would spot the sausage-shaped buoy and close in to pick them up, and by clipping
the reel to Jessica’s equipment Penny could retrieve it later.

The bull shark became increasingly agitated, bashing its
ugly snout into the cave entrance and smashing off chunks of coral. Rotting
fish flesh streamed from rows of savage teeth like morbid souvenirs. Penny eyed
the gruesome pennants and shuddered.

For the briefest of moments Penny’s mind fixated on the enormous
danger they were in. Her adrenaline waned, weakening her resolve.
People don’t
survive shark attacks – not without serious injury!

Her breathing was out of control, wasting precious air, and she
suddenly felt nauseous.

Remember Jessica! What would Hans do in this situation?

As if Neptune had prodded her with his trident, Penny snapped
back into action, closing the valve on Jessica’s cylinder and purging the
system of air so she could unscrew the hoses. Then balancing the tank on her
knee, she waited for the shark to return.

Seconds ticked by . . .

With a rapid tail-finning motion, the shark attacked, its
mouth opened wide, exposing soft pink throat tissue. Penny cranked the valve
and sent a jet of high-pressure air shooting into the beast’s cold black eyes. The
shark jolted and peeled away.

It was now or never . . .

Hearing
Future
’s motor overhead, Penny placed the
equipment on the sand with the cylinder’s valve fully open. She grabbed Jessica
around the waist and pushed off with her feet, using the frenetic screen of bubbles
as both cover and deterrent. She held a finger down on her buoyancy vest’s
air-inlet button until the overfill valves vibrated.

They rocketed upwards.

Catching sight of the marker and the constant stream of
bubbles, Hans knew something was wrong. He positioned
Future
a few feet
away, donned a mask and fins and was about to dive overboard when the girls burst
to the surface. He wrenched his daughter from the sea with one hand, dragging
Penny unceremoniously up the ladder with the other. They collapsed in a heap in
the cockpit.

“No safety stop then?” Hans raised an eyebrow.

“Thought we’d give it a miss, honey. We had company,” Penny
panted.

“A big shark, Papa! He tried to eat Penny!”

“Well, it’s a good thing he didn’t. She’s cooking supper.”

F
ollowing
their close encounter with the barrel of Naseem’s shotgun, the boys hadn’t
ventured out of the hut at night except to visit the latrine. Ahmed figured
they had loosened the outhouse’s boards enough, that a sharp tug would see them
swiftly inside and securing at least thirty kilos of hashish between them. They
spent the dark hours improving their English and poring over the diagrams in
the Swedish sailing guide.

The next trip to Tangier began as usual, Al Mohzerer
ordering Ahmed and Mohamed to load the pickup with blocks of Golden Monkey,
ready for delivery to his customers in the city. The boys stacked the regular
amount in a neat pile in the corner of the flatbed and were in the process of
pulling over the tarpaulin when the Grower interrupted them. “No.
More!

“How much more,
sayyid
?” Ahmed asked.

“All of it.”

The boys’ spirits sunk.

There must have been a thousand half-kilo blocks in the
outbuilding – four months’ worth of production – delaying the boys’ escape
indefinitely. Hiding their shock, they continued the task in silence, but at
the first opportunity Ahmed hissed, “We’re ruined!”

“No, we still have our savings.”

Stashed under the floorboards in the hut was over a thousand
dollars in euros, converted from dirhams in preparation for the trip.

“It’s not enough!” Hard as he was, Ahmed looked on the verge
of tears.

“Hey!” Mohamed took Ahmed’s hand and squeezed it. “What
would the wolf do?”

“He would improvise,” Ahmed replied reluctantly.

“And?”

“He would adapt . . . and overcome.”

“See? I have taught you well, friend!” Mohamed grinned.

Ahmed couldn’t help but smile.

Footsteps approached, catching them off guard. Their hands
dropped.

“What do you talk about?” Al Mohzerer demanded, his scar
turning the question into a sneer.

“We say we must work extra hard to replace the product,
sayyid
.”

He grunted and nodded to the door of the truck.

O
n
the fifth day in port, Hans was lounging in the cockpit inventing pictures for
Jessica to draw with her Etch a Sketch when Penny returned from the marina’s clubhouse
visibly shaken, tears pouring down her face.

“Jessie, could you take Bear inside and play awhile?”

“Okay, Papa.”

Hans stepped ashore and ran toward their companion. Penny
stumbled along the pontoon as if drunk, until her legs gave way. Hans crouched beside
her as she sobbed uncontrollably.

“Baby, what’s up?”

“It’s all over the Internet, Hans.”

“What is, honey? Come on, you can tell me.”

“
Sietske
. The crew of the
Jenny H
found her
drifting ten miles off Las Palmas and pulled alongside to see if Marcel needed
help.”

“Did he?”

“He wasn’t there, Hans. Just some rough-looking locals
crashed out drunk. And they had guns . . .
uh-huht-huh.
”

Over the next few days, Hans and Penny attempted to make
sense of what happened, the yachting community alive with gossip and all-round
disbelief. Hans learned from the harbormaster, whose thirty years on the job saw
him a man in the know, that the Canadian couple found
Sietske
with her sails
flapping and dark-red blood splattering the cockpit. He believed pirates had murdered
Marcel and thrown his body overboard.

Piracy was a constant topic in the media due to a spate of
container ship hijackings off the coast of Somalia. Prior to the trip, while
researching on the web, Hans learned these attacks had been going on for years
and yachts were easy targets. The harbormaster’s grave nod confirmed this.

Penny recovered from her initial shock but remained
noticeably nervous – obviously worried they might experience a similar fate.
Hans did his best to assure her he would not let that happen. While in the UK he’d
considered buying a firearm on the secondhand market to stow aboard
Future
for such an occurrence. But knowing the trouble it would create if a customs search
uncovered the weapon upon their arrival in a foreign port – namely, him being
arrested and Jessica placed in the care of social services – he’d decided on a
less overt arrangement.

That evening, as Jessica slept in her bunk, Hans and Penny mixed
up mojitos and lit candles next to a postcard-sized picture drawn in pastel
chalks. It was of the three of them together with Marcel, sitting in
Sietske
’s
cockpit in Brest, arms around each other, all smiling and raising cocktails and
set against a beautiful sunset. Hans had found it taped to the helm when they
departed Spain. In the corner of the drawing, high in the sky, was a little
stick man with what looked to be a spliff stuck between his lips and a speech
bubble that read, “Ahhhhhhhh!” On the back of the card, scrawled in spidery handwriting,
were the words “Don’t forget to pull your reserve! Big love, Marcel. X.”

Downloaded to Hans’ laptop, “How Fast Can You Live?” by the Stoner
Brothers played quietly the background.

. . . around the edge

A long way to get here

You won’t see me cryin’

Just see me disappear

Without you

There is no way ahead

Without you-ooh-ooh-ooh . . .

Setting a solitary flower adrift on the water, they cried some
more.