Those in Peril (Unlocked) (49 page)

However, at this late juncture Hazel suddenly became squeamish about sending Nastiya into the jaws of hell in her place. The Russian girl had become her friend. She expressed her misgivings to Paddy.

‘I truly have the utmost pity for any Arab who tries to lower Nastiya’s knickers without her full agreement and cooperation,’ said Paddy with a smile. This was not enough for Hazel and she insisted on a frank discussion and disclosure with Nastiya. They all met in the sitting room of the owner’s suite. Hazel gave a long disquisition on the hazards that Nastiya would encounter if she allowed herself to be captured. She expressed the affection and respect she had developed for Nastiya, and offered her the chance to withdraw from the assignment. Nastiya sat silent, beautiful and inscrutable throughout the whole recital, watching Hazel intently.

When Hazel had finished she asked, ‘So, hundred thousand dollars you are not going to pay me?’

‘No, no,’ Hazel replied, ‘that is not fair to you, Nastiya. In view of the fact that you are going to risk your life for me I think I should pay you at least double that amount.’

Nastiya almost smiled. ‘We all know that these people will not try to kill me whatever I do to them, as long as they believe I am really you,
Da
or
Nyet
?’

‘We don’t think they would kill you. They want the ransom. But they might try to hurt you. They might try to force you, to rape you.’

‘Vell, they vill be werry velcome to try,’ said Anastasia Voronova, which put an end to any further discussion on the subject.

Three days later the
Golden Goose
entered the Gulf of Oman and headed up towards the Strait of Hormuz and the entrance to the Persian Gulf. As soon as they were within easy range of land the Bannock Oil Corporation helicopter flew out to meet them. This was a large twenty-six-seater Sikorski, a replacement for the old Russian MIL-26 that had been lost in Puntland. It ferried Paddy’s men ashore, and landed them at the training camp in a remote part of the Abu Zara desert where the rest of the troops were in intensive preparation for the Puntland expedition. Relieved of her supernumeraries the
Golden Goose
sailed on towards the natural gas terminal to take on her cargo.

T
he director of publicity for the Bannock Oil Corporation invited Al Jazeera Television to send a film crew to the new natural gas terminal in the Gulf offshore from the Emirate of Abu Zara to record the maiden voyage of the
Golden Goose
. They accepted with alacrity, and Bert Simpson placed the Sikorski at their disposal. It picked up the Al Jazeera camera crew when they arrived in Sidi el Razig and flew them down to intercept the
Golden Goose
as she passed through the Strait of Hormuz. As the TV crew circled the ship she was a truly impressive sight. Her gas tanks were empty, so she stood to her full height out of the water, a towering mountain of steel. The camera crew were delighted with the footage they obtained.

When the
Goose
docked at the gas terminal a succession of visitors came aboard. All the other Middle Eastern news media sent journalists to cover the event. When they had gone, the Emir and his entourage, including most of his ministers, arrived to attend the royal banquet that Hazel had ordered in his honour.

A large Bedouin tent was erected on the cargo deck of the
Golden Goose
and the deck itself was spread with colourful Turkish carpets. The Emir, his three gorgeously bejewelled wives and all the other guests were seated on silk cushions, and the most famed chef in Arabia with fifty assistants prepared the banquet. A string band played traditional music in the background. The foreign minister was one of the Emir’s younger brothers. He was a graduate of Oxford University, and made a speech in beautifully modulated English extolling the virtues of the Bannock Oil Corporation and the role the company had played in the development of the Emirate’s resources.

Then Hazel addressed the distinguished guests. She gave some information on the
Golden Goose
and her cargo capacity. She spoke of the cost and planning that had gone into the building and launching of the ship and what this would mean for Abu Zara. She explained that the ship was much too large to negotiate the Suez Canal and for her maiden voyage she would sail down the east coast of the African continent and round the Cape of Good Hope. Then she would head northwards up the Atlantic Ocean to the port of Brest in France to discharge her gas. Hazel told the assembly that she anticipated that the voyage would begin in fifteen days’ time. She went on to say that for Bannock Oil this was such an important event that she and her husband Mr Hector Cross would sail on the ship as far as Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa.

The cameramen at the rear of the tent discreetly filmed the entire ceremony. In the situation room in the bowels of the ship Paddy and Nastiya followed the proceedings on the CCTV screens, and Nastiya mimicked to near-perfection every movement, every gesture that Hazel made.

Five evenings later Hector and Hazel sat together with Nastiya and Paddy in the situation room and watched as Al Jazeera TV broadcast a seven-minute programme which covered all the main elements of the
Golden Goose
’s voyage. The images of this enormous ship at sea were compelling, and the excerpts from Hazel’s speech contained all the most vital elements: the enormous value of the ship and its cargo, its proposed route around Africa, its estimated date of departure and the fact that both Hazel Bannock and her husband would be on board for the first leg of the voyage as far as the Cape. At the end of the programme Hector looked across the situation room at Paddy.

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I think Mrs Cross should go into film,’ the Irishman replied. ‘She could put Nicole Kidman out of work, so she could.’

‘Thank you, Paddy,’ Hazel said, smiling. ‘From such a judge of womankind that is high praise indeed. So you think Adam will fall for it?’

‘Head over heels and arse over tip, no doubt about it.’

‘Vot means “arse over tip”?’ Nastiya asked.

‘Exactly the same thing as head over heels,’ Hector explained, and Nastiya looked at Paddy pityingly.

‘So vhy so many vords you must alvays be using?’

Hazel smiled at this demonstration of the authority that Nastiya was already wielding in their relationship.

N
ow fully laden with her cargo of gas and riding low in the water, the
Goose
went back through the Strait of Hormuz ostensibly to begin the outward leg of her voyage to France. As soon as they were out of sight of the shore the Sikorski began ferrying Paddy’s men out from the desert camp and landing them on the cargo deck. As they arrived on board they were issued with their arms and equipment. Each man carried a Beretta 9mm automatic pistol and a Beretta SC 70/90 assault rifle. They were issued with body armour and each of them carried a compact shortwave Falcon hand-held battle radio. Those amongst them who had sailed in the ship from Taipei began an intensive indoctrination of the newcomers, who very quickly learned the layout of the covert tunnels and how to use them to reach any point aboard the
Goose
swiftly, quietly and unseen. They practised embarking in the AAVs and disembarking from them. The ship hove-to and the AAVs were once again deployed overboard but this time with a full complement of troops on board, then they were recovered and stowed below decks.

The men were already in top physical condition and Paddy kept them that way by using the expansive cargo deck as a training field. Every man ran twenty circuits of the deck twice a day, with Hector and Paddy close behind them chivying them on. Paddy divided them into teams of ten men who competed with each other in shooting competitions and boisterous games of touch rugby. Paddy held a daily relay race from the bottom tier of the cargo hold to the bridge and back, using the ladders in the steel tunnels. He timed them with a stopwatch, and Hazel put up a prize of a thousand dollars each day for the fastest team. She and Nastiya made up a ladies’ team and they registered the best individual times on three consecutive days, to the deep chagrin of the men.

The
Golden Goose
was still six hundred nautical miles east of the Great Horn of Africa when her sirens sounded ‘general quarters’ in the middle of a keenly contested touch rugby match. There was a rush to clear the deck. Hector and Hazel reached the bridge within minutes.

‘What is it?’ Hector demanded of Captain Stamford.

‘We have a radar contact at forty-two miles, bearing twenty-seven degrees. Looks like a slow-flying aircraft, almost certainly a light helicopter. It’s heading this way.’

‘It probably has already picked us up on its own radar,’ Hector said. ‘We make a large enough target. He couldn’t miss us. Hold your course and speed, please, Cyril.’ Then he turned to Hazel. ‘If this is who we think it is, it might be a good idea for the two of us to show ourselves on the deck.’

‘Shouldn’t our doubles do that?’

‘No, it’s just possible Uthmann Waddah might be aboard the helicopter. He would spot the difference right away. Come on!’ They hurried down to the deserted main deck and ran its full length to reach the bows. There they leaned against the rail and watched the distant speck materialize over the western horizon. The speck grew larger until it resolved itself into a Bell Ranger helicopter. They stared up at it. Hector was standing behind Hazel and he slipped his arms around her waist, and laughed and squeezed her, as she began to hum the theme from the movie
Titanic
, ‘My Heart Will Go On’. They imitated the famous pose of DiCaprio and Winslet standing at the doomed liner’s bowsprit in the film.

Hector had ordered a small section of the
Goose
’s hull amidships to be painted with red lead primer, and rope ladders and a workmen’s cradle to be left dangling over the ship’s side just above the water level as though the painting of the hull was a work in progress. The dangling equipment was an open invitation to a boarding party. This would certainly be noted by the pilot of the helicopter and reported to Kamal.

The helicopter circled the tanker once at low level. The pilot was the only occupant. He wore dark goggles and the lower part of his face was covered by a keffiyeh. Hazel waved up at him. He gave no acknowledgement but turned the machine back the way it had come and was soon lost to view. Paddy and Dave Imbiss were waiting for them on the bridge.

‘All right. There is very little doubt that this is them, and that their main force is not far off,’ Hector told them. ‘The round-trip range of that helicopter is under a hundred and fifty miles. In less than an hour and a half from now it will be landing on the deck of the pirates’ mother ship.’ He was switching into battle-ready mode, his mind razor-sharp. ‘From now on the main deck is off-limits to all personnel. Everyone must return to their quarters in the covert area and remain there until the enemy makes the next move. All the hidden hatches must be closed and checked. “Silent Ship” must be maintained at all times. Hazel and I will move out of the owner’s suite and into the small cabin on the AAV deck. Nastiya and Vincent will take our places in the suite.’

‘But, I sincerely hope, not to follow your behavioural patterns when they are ensconced there,’ Paddy said sourly.

‘You can keep an eye and an ear on them with the CCTV camera in the bedroom,’ Hector suggested, and Paddy nodded thoughtfully. Although Paddy was too much of a gentleman to spy on the woman he loved, it was just by chance that a short time later, while he happened to be checking the correct function of the camera in the owner’s suite, he witnessed an episode between Nastiya and Vincent Woodward as they settled in. With a deadly tone of voice Nastiya was making her position clear to Vincent.