at their leisure and cut the weapons out. If they got a bulker to the US or the European mainland undiscovered, they could transport the weapons anywhere on those continents.
Stratton wondered how far along the jihadists were, how many ships they’d infiltrated, how many weapons had already been shifted. He saw a holdall tucked further down inside the hollow section and he reached in and pulled it out. He placed it on top of the crate and unfastened its buckles.
The bag contained half a dozen plastic bags filled with a dense white block. It had to be heroin and no doubt originated in Afghanistan. Weapons and drugs. A classic combination for smugglers. The same routes and techniques were used for both.
Stratton looked deeper into the hollow. There were several more holdalls in there. The street value was probably many millions of dollars. It gave the Somali pirate hijacking problem a new meaning. Governments saw it as a grave nuisance to commercial shipping but it was much more than that. He wondered which organisation was driving it, the pirates or the Islamists. Not that it mattered. Then he heard a dull sound from above. He wasn’t in direct line of sight of the hatch and quickly put the bag back in the hollow, closed the lid of the weapons box and stepped away into the shadows of the cross-bracing.
Another noise from above, two noises. They sounded like the rasp of a boot on a metal plate. He tried to look up through the metal and bracing from his position. He could see a section of one of the ladders. There was movement on it. Someone coming down. They were moving carefully.
He felt exposed where he was and looked about him. A long, tapered bracing ran down from the main deck across from him. Behind it was complete darkness. He crossed the space and tucked himself behind the bracing. He needed to secure himself, secure his discovery. Get to where he could communicate with his people. His hand slipped to the hilt of the knife at his waist.
The figure stepped off the ladder and stood stock still, like they were looking around. For a second Stratton felt like they knew he was there. He tightened as he wondered if they were aiming a gun at him, waiting for him to move. He eased the knife from his belt.
The footsteps came again. The figure had moved closer. To the box. Stratton heard the crate open.
Suddenly, a loud clang came from high above, at the entrance to the locker, and reverberated around the chamber. What happened next was even more startling for Stratton. Whoever had been inspecting the cache shut the lid and hurried towards him.
He gripped the knife, tensed his body, ready to plunge it into the figure. A hand grabbed the side of the bracing and the figure turned around the edge. Stratton clutched the figure’s throat, about to drive the blade fully into the small, slender body when he stopped himself. Just. He was looking at a pair of wide, frightened eyes.
It was the girl.
Another loud clang from above, this time accompanied by voices. Stratton pulled her in beside him, his hand still firmly around her throat, the tip of the knife against her heart. She grabbed at his hand as she began to choke, so Stratton eased his grip a little, ready to kill her if she raised the alarm. But at the same time he was confused by her appearance. ‘One sound and you’ll die instantly,’ he assured her.
She fought to breathe, silently recovering from his choke hold.
The clanging grew louder. Someone, more than one, was coming down the ladder. Judging by the voices, there were two, perhaps three of them, and they were moving something heavy and made of metal and clearly unaware of anything else.
The girl stared into his eyes, blinking hard to fight back the tears caused by the choke hold. She shook her head, which was all she could think of doing to communicate to him that she would do nothing.
Stratton eased his head around the bracing to get a look at what was going on.
A Somali stood halfway down the last ladder before the bottom looking up. Stratton followed his gaze to see a gas cylinder being lowered on the end of the rope.
He looked back at the girl, his face inches from hers. ‘What are you doing here?’ he whispered.
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she said. She was acting tough but her eyes and her breath revealed her true feelings.
Stratton’s hand came back to her throat. ‘I’ll ask you one last time.’
A loud clang like the toll of a bell filled the space as the gas bottle banged against the ladder.
‘The ransom drop was for this ship,’ she said. ‘They will release it soon. I came to hide on board.’
It sounded plausible enough, except for one important thing. Stratton took another careful look around the bracing. The Somali stood on the hull reaching up for the gas bottle above him. He guided it to the floor and shouted something as he untied it.
Stratton moved back and pulled the girl in closer to ensure she wasn’t seen. The Somali untied the line, took the end over to the other bottle beside the weapons crate and secured it to the valve head. He gave a shout and the line went taut. As the bottle was lifted off the floor, the Somali guided it over to the ladder. He gave another shout and the bottle began to rise up. Grunting, heaving sounds came from above. The man climbed the ladder beside the bottle, guiding it as he went.
Stratton gave the girl his full attention once again. ‘That was very resourceful of you. Now tell me the real story,’ he said, his voice low and menacing.
‘Why else would I be here?’
‘You went straight to the crate.’
‘I was curious. I thought it might have food in it.’
‘Is that why you looked in the bag too?’
‘Yes.’
‘So tell me what you found.’
She swallowed, unsure of herself.
‘Tell me what you found in the crate,’ he repeated.
‘I don’t know,’ she stammered.
‘And what do you think I’m doing here, without my partner?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said again.
‘If you don’t start telling me what you do know, your life will end here, and very shortly.’
She searched his eyes, looking for the sincerity, and she found it.
‘By now you’ve decided that my story about getting captured was as much a load of rubbish as yours,’ he said.
She blinked at him, smelling a trap but unsure where it was. ‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘Then credit me with the same intelligence. You knew, or at least suspected, what was in that crate before you opened it.’
Her eyes began to betray her but she refused to acknowledge him.
‘I’m inclined to think you’re not one of the bad guys,’ he said. ‘Mainly because you’re their prisoner. But if you don’t thoroughly convince me, I’ll have no choice but to kill you. And I don’t have a lot of time.’
He said it as much to convince himself as her. His gut feeling told him that she wasn’t a threat. But he couldn’t afford to risk everything on that feeling alone, not in this case. It was a risk he didn’t have to take. And he wasn’t going to.
She knew her time was running out. She could see it in his pale green eyes. She had one last card to play.
Stratton planted his feet like he was about to shove the knife inside her chest.
‘I’m Chinese Secret Service,’ she said quickly.
There were few circumstances where such an explanation would have been enough to save her, even if it was the truth. But there were some very clear links in all that was happening. It neatly combined with his other strings of thought. The Brits and the Chinese might be on parallel paths. The Chinese agent had tried to nab Sabarak in Yemen because the Saudi had somehow acquired a supply of Chinese missiles. If so, could it be these same missiles? There were pieces of the puzzle missing but Stratton felt sure they were not far away. Perhaps he had one of them in his hands at that moment.
‘What are you doing here?’ Stratton asked, his voice less threatening.
‘Is this going to be all one-sided?’ she retorted.
‘Don’t push your luck, sweetheart. I’m far from convinced. Tell me more.’
She looked at the floor, waited a few moments, then looked up again, like she had accepted she had
