Stratton had prepared the wires behind the ignition lock on the coxswain’s consul. ‘We’ll need water,’ he said to Hopper. ‘Hand those down to me,’ he said to the Saudi, who obeyed tiredly.
Beams of light suddenly flashed across the top of the mole. A second later they could hear the low rumble of vehicle engines and tyres on gravel.
‘I suspect our Chinese friends have discovered the ruse,’ said Stratton. ‘Hurry up, Hopper.’
Stratton connected two wires then struck them with a third and they sparked and the starter motor turned over. They were spared the drama of having to wait for the engines to gun to life. The sound was loud and immediate and the two-stroke engines gave off a lot of smoke. Stratton released the stern line.
Hopper pushed Sabarak down into the semi-inflatable and jumped down himself, carrying a couple of bottles of water. ‘I hope the tap water’s potable,’ he said as he untied the bow line.
Stratton straddled the jockey seat and reversed the long and powerful craft away from the jetty. As he did so, a 4?4 slewed up to the harbour gates, followed by another, their headlights shining through the barred entrance. A figure got out of the first vehicle and pulled the gates open. The two 4?4s swept into the harbour and came to a squealing stop. Doors opened. Men got out and started running along the walkway.
Stratton played the throttles. The powerful engines roared and Hopper and the Saudi held on as the nose of the boat came tightly around towards the harbour entrance. The Chinamen had guns in their hands. Stratton heard the loud cracks of the weapons over the revving engines. As he lined up the nose of the boat with the mouth of the harbour he gave the engines full throttle. The boat lurched up on to its plane, the nose dropped and it tore out of the relatively smooth waters of the harbour and went partially airborne as it hit the choppy waters of the Gulf of Aden proper. The gunmen, who had run out of bullets, reloaded but by the time they came up on aim they had nothing more to shoot at.
The sea was heavy and Stratton eased the power back enough to get the boat into its rhythm, rolling over the waves.
‘They might try and follow us,’ Hopper shouted, looking back at the harbour entrance.
‘Good luck to them in this. By the time we get into that lot, they’ll need more than radar to find us.’
Hopper looked ahead and saw where they were heading: due south, straight out to sea, right into a massive bank of low, thick cloud. All sign of the land behind them disappeared as they hit the dark shroud that reached down from the skies to the sea. They couldn’t see a single light, not even a shadow.
Using the compass on his watch, Stratton brought the tip of the boat around to the north-east, and set the speed at what he estimated was a steady twenty knots. With three hundred miles to go that would take around fifteen hours, if there was no tide of course. In the windless haze he had little chance of working out its direction or speed. Only daylight and the lifting haze would reveal that.
Stratton pulled his jacket together against the chilly air. Hopper sat in the bows looking unperturbed. He was a tough bird. But Sabarak was already feeling the damp cold through his thin jacket. He sat between them. He had lost the shemagh he had been wearing and his short, black curly hair framed a thin face, light-brown skin, dark eyes and thick eyebrows that came together above a large, narrow nose. His mouth was accentuated by a thin, manicured line of a beard that gave him a permanent grimace. It was either that or he hated the two Englishmen so much he couldn’t hide it from his face.
As the hours passed the waters became even calmer and the boat motored along with only the occasional dip and bump. After a while the Saudi rolled himself into a ball on the deck and closed his eyes. Hopper hardly moved other than to offer Stratton and Sabarak a drink.
‘Tastes pretty good,’ Hopper said. ‘A hint of chlorine but that’s only encouraging. If we’re not shitting through the eye of a needle by morning, we should be fine.’
Sabarak looked like he wasn’t very well but Stratton suspected he was tougher than he appeared. The Saudi was trying to condition them. Stratton fully expected the man to act ill by the time they arrived in Oman. It might delay his interrogation by a little, but not much. It would be easy enough to determine the Saudi’s true strength and condition.
Hopper raised his head like he had heard something. He turned to look ahead into the darkness. Stratton noticed the sudden interest and watched him. Hopper signalled Stratton to cut the engines. Silence fell over them like a heavy shroud. The swell gently lapping against the inflated rubber sides of the boat became the only sound. Sabarak sat up, alert.
‘I thought I saw something,’ Hopper said in a low voice. ‘It was white. Another boat maybe.’
They all remained quiet, looking ahead and to the sides.
A noise came to them through the mist, like something heavy rolling across a deck. Then a creak. Then a man’s voice. Hard to tell how far away it was. It sounded foreign, to Hopper and Stratton at least. But possibly not to Sabarak, who got to his feet as if in expectation. Another voice shouted a response from a different direction.
‘Fishermen?’ Hopper suggested.
‘Maybe,’ Sabarak said. ‘But not Yemenis. They are not speaking Arabic.’
The voice came again. It sounded closer.
‘The winds of fortune,’ Sabarak muttered. ‘How they change.’
Stratton had a feeling he knew what Sabarak meant and made ready to start the motors, when a big black shape appeared on their port side. It was the painted wooden hull of a boat. About a metre and a half out of the water. Stratton started one of the engines, gave it some power and turned the wheel to bring the boat hard about.
‘Ahead!’ Hopper warned.
Another vessel appeared, blocking their way. It glided out of the mist, a figure standing in the prow with a stubby brown and black rifle in his hands.
Stratton slammed the outboard into reverse and swung the boat around. As he pushed the gears into forward drive another craft arrived to block his way. Boats appeared from every direction, surrounding them. Stratton had little choice but to keep the engine in neutral.
The boats closed in, with men standing in all of them. They were all slender, dressed in grubby clothes, their dark brown skin smooth, their hair tight short curls. The kind of features hard to miss. Somalis, several carrying AK-47s, one holding an RPG on his shoulder. It didn’t need a genius to figure out that fishing was probably a low priority for these men.
One of the Somalis shouted something as he aimed his weapon at Stratton.
Stratton put his hands up to show he was unarmed. Hopper did the same.
‘He wants you to turn off the engine,’ Sabarak said.
Stratton reached down and cut the motors. It all went quiet again but for the lapping water and the boats gently bumping against each other.
A steel tug-like boat came out of the mist and nudged its way through the crowd of smaller craft. It was about twenty-five metres long, Stratton estimated, and covered in rust. It had Somalis lining its sides to look down on their unexpected catch. It was the mother craft to the rest of the pirate flotilla.
3
A Somali in a weapon harness scooped a hand over his shoulder at Stratton, Hopper and Sabarak and said something guttural-sounding. He pointed at the hooked ladder beneath his feet over the side of the tug. Stratton hesitated, as did Hopper. They had a few problems they needed to take care of, namely their equipment. Most importantly the guns. Stratton also had a spare knock-out gas canister. He could see no point in going on the offensive with the pirates. They had him seriously outnumbered and outgunned.
He and Hopper exchanged glances as Sabarak climbed up to the pirate boat. Hopper stepped on to the edge of their rubber boat and suddenly made a show of losing his balance. Stratton grabbed hold of him in an effort to save him and both men toppled into the water. Much to the amusement of the Somalis.
While both men struggled to get hold of the side of the inflatable, they dumped their holsters and guns, spare magazines and communications devices. No point in keeping any of it. They would be searched and all items of interest would be taken.
The two operatives finally managed to haul themselves back into the boat with help from a couple of the
