She found it and looked instantly uplifted and just as quickly her elation was tempered by the threat of the looming bad news. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s a ship we’re chasing. Look behind us and you’ll see one that’s chasing us.’
She turned to see the distant light, her heart sinking. ‘You sure it’s them?’
‘Well, I’m generally the optimistic type but I can’t see how it could possibly be anyone else,’ he said, inspecting a knife he had found.
Fear crept over the girl as she stared at the light. She looked towards the light in front and back at the one in pursuit trying to compare their distance. It was a pointless comparison. One could be larger or brighter than the other, which would completely distort any estimation.
‘Who do you think’s going to win the race?’ she asked. ‘Us or them?’
Stratton came back to the stern and looked at the light behind them. ‘That depends on the direction of the ship we’re chasing, how far away it is and how fast it’s going. And even then, what kind of boat it is. If it’s a regular cargo carrier, Lotto will probably want to hijack it anyway.’
‘And that’s our only option? Get to that boat or get caught by Lotto while trying?’
‘There are always other options. The trick is trying to find them in time.’
She looked at him. He had that same cold expression he usually seemed to have when there was little hope. He had no fear in his eyes, no panic. Just calculation. She could not even begin to imagine what other options they had. All she could think was how she was going to kill herself to prevent Lotto from getting his hands on her. Maybe that was the option Stratton meant.
Stratton walked back around the boat, looking at various pieces of equipment, inside boxes and on the deck. If he couldn’t possibly imagine a potential use for it, it went over the side.
‘What are you looking for?’ she asked.
‘Inspiration’ was his business-like answer.
Stratton paused once more to gauge the sizes of both distant lights and compare the relative gains and losses being made. The front light continued to move to the port side of their track, which meant it was heading west. Which wasn’t of any help to them.
Half an hour later another tight collection of lights appeared on their starboard side and Stratton took a moment to study them. The first light had grown very little since they first saw it but the pirate light had more than doubled in size. The new group of lights seemed to represent a much bigger vessel, that or it was much closer.
He elected to change direction and go for the new ship. After adjusting to the new track, he topped up the working fuel tanks and began to put the things he had selected into two piles.
The girl could hardly take her eyes off the following vessel, partly in the hope that it wasn’t the pirates, but mostly in fear that it was. Her nerves had begun to fray but she dealt with it. Coming to terms with everything helped her.
‘I’ve decided how I want to die,’ she said.
‘Oh?’ he answered matter-of-factly as he inspected a fishing reel harness.
‘The best way is to drown.’
‘Without a doubt,’ he said. ‘A friend of mine drowned once. He said it was the strangest experience. He was on a decompression stop after a deep dive off a barge somewhere in Africa. You know, hang around for ten or fifteen minutes at thirty feet to prevent the bends. One of the boat workers accidentally knocked a shackle off the edge of the barge. He was wearing a full-face mask and looking up at the time although he couldn’t really see anything. The shackle smashed his face mask. He started to climb as quickly as he could but he just couldn’t make it in time. He held his breath for as long as he could but the urge to take a breath, even when you know it’s going to be water, is too strong. And so he did. He breathed in the sea. He said he felt the panic grip him and he fought like hell. But it didn’t last very long at all. The stress and the gasping soon went away to be replaced by euphoria. He said it was ever so peaceful. There was even something pleasant about it. That lasted a few seconds and the lights went out. The next thing he remembered was lying on the deck of the barge coughing his guts up while someone heaved down on his ribcage. So, absolutely. Go for it. Has to be better than shoving one of these into your throat,’ he added, raising the knife in his hand.
‘Is that how you will go?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t gotten that far yet,’ he said, picking up a marlin fishing reel and inspecting the thick line. ‘Do you know what the breaking strain of this is?’
She looked at the line in his hand, thinking it to be a strange question to ask when she was talking about their suicides. ‘Around two thousand pounds,’ she decided.
‘That’s right. You do a bit of sea fishing then?’
‘My father. I was brought up in a small fishing village in northern China. Deep sea fishing was his favourite thing to do.’
‘That the Yellow Sea?’
‘Yes. Have you been there?’
‘No.’
‘He used to take me with him. When I was about twelve I caught a shark more than twice my size.’ She smiled at the memory.
‘So why are you thinking of killing yourself?’
The question snapped her out of her reverie. Her smile vanished.
‘Don’t you want to see him again?’ he asked.
She avoided his eyes. ‘I cannot see him again. He did not approve of my job.’
‘You can’t see him because you joined the Secret Service?’
‘It’s a little more complicated than that. He has very strong reasons for disliking what I do. I don’t blame him.’
She seemed to want to tell Stratton something but she was unable to get it out. Stratton chose not to dig. It sounded personal and he had a lot on his own mind anyway.
She watched him pick up another fishing reel harness and check the buckles to ensure they worked. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I have a plan. Not a brilliant one. Very cheeky. With little chance of success. But it’s keeping me occupied.’
She wondered if he was losing it. She could see nothing they could do to prevent the pirates from catching them. Other than suicide.
She looked to their rear again. The dark mass below the light had taken on the form of a boat. She could make out the silhouette of the superstructure on top of a bulky, broad hull.
‘It won’t be long before they’ll be in firing range,’ she said.
Stratton took a moment to check for himself. ‘Yep … You haven’t looked ahead for a while, have you?’
She turned her back to the pirate vessel to see dozens of lights to their front and sides in all shapes and configurations. Each cluster represented a ship of some kind but they were all still so very far away.
‘We won’t reach any of them before the pirates catch us,’ she said.
‘I know. But we must be close to the corridor.’
She felt the optimism in his voice but still couldn’t see why.
He put down the reel and studied the array of equipment he had laid out on the deck. ‘They’ll catch this boat soon enough, but there’s no reason for us to be on it.’
Wherever his mind was, she was nowhere near it. She looked at the collection of life jackets, their use obvious enough. But the rest of the junk made no sense to her. ‘We jump into the sea and let the pirates chase after the empty boat,’ she said. It was all she could think of.
‘That would give us a lot longer to live.’
‘Then we hope one of those boats finds us.’
‘Dawn will be up soon. Now we’re talking hours of survival time.’
‘How many days did you say we could live without water? Three?’
‘Go on. Admit it. You think I’m brilliant.’
She figured it was an option, although nothing more than a delay of the inevitable, another desperate attempt to cling on to life.
