Beirut - An Explosive Thriller (13 page)

‘
Where is
that?’

‘
Nowhere.
Come. You need to eat now.’

She licked
the salt from her lips, feeling as if she had woken from a coma.
They went back inside, down the passageway and Elli realised she
was going back to her cabin. She turned, pleading, but he pushed
her in and slammed the door shut.

Breakfast was
laid out on a tray by the bed and the smell of coffee filled the
room. She lifted the plastic cover, bacon and scrambled eggs. She
took in the sachets of tomato ketchup, butter and jam. There was
toast.

Elli
ate.

Joel
Gonsalves surveyed the glittering sea, the Spanish sun warming the
cruiser’s decks. His Rolex Mariner told him they were on course to
make the port of La Coruna in twenty minutes. He flicked a
cigarette from the soft pack and lit it, his dark eyes flashing
gold for a second as he dipped his head to the lighter. Watching
the girl walk around the deck, Gonsalves stiffened, his eyes
tracing the curve of her legs as Boutros herded her back inside. He
adjusted himself with a grunt. He would have to find himself some
entertainment soon or go mad. A sculpted, slim-waisted man,
Gonsalves’ Latin looks and high-roller lifestyle came together with
an insatiable urge for conquest. Some men climbed mountains, some
hunted game. Gonsalves’ sport of choice was the pursuit of
beautiful women.

He licked his
lips. They wouldn’t be in La Coruna long enough for him to chase
tail – he was going to have to wait until Valetta, maybe even
longer. Checking the mobile confirmed they were close enough to
land to pick up the network. He made the call.

‘
Meier.’

‘
We’re coming
into Coruna. No problems so far.’ Gonsalves crossed himself. ‘I’ve
unhooked the Inmarsat like you said.’

‘
Good. We
have to assume it’s compromised, so continue using the mobile. Buy
another line in La Coruna as well so we have a backup. Cash,
obviously. I will send you an alternative number for me, in the
format we discussed. When do you expect to reach
Valetta?’

‘
Four days at
our current rate of going. Forecast’s good.’

‘
Excellent.
The girl?’

‘
She’s awake
now. Boutros took her for a walk up on deck.’

‘
It will be
better if she stays sedated. Our plans have changed, Gonsalves. She
needs to go to sleep again.’

Gonsalves
glanced around him, although the sea protected him from
eavesdroppers and onlookers, its green-blue expanse stretched to
the horizon. This sedation business made him nervous. He was no
doctor and had been scared Boutros got the dosage wrong the first
time around. The girl had gone down deeper and longer than he
thought possible. He fidgeted nervously with the cigarette
packet.

‘
How long
for?’

‘
Forever,
Gonsalves. Before you get to Tangier and the Straits. Do you
understand me?’

Gonsalves’
fingers reached blindly behind him to find the edge of the swivel
chair. He sat. ‘That’s a big ask, boss.’

‘
It’s worth
an extra hundred thousand if it’s done neatly.’

Gonsalves
halted, his cigarette halfway to his lips. His hesitant voice
seemed to come to him from far away, from the fog they had left
behind in Hamburg.

‘
Okay. Deal.
It’s done.’

Gonsalves
took a deep drag and flicked the butt out to sea. His looks, free
way with money and Midwestern accent spoke of a successful American
adventurer. Only the small scar above his right eye talked of the
child living rough in Lisbon. The boy who never missed an
opportunity to make money, not even a couple of coins for carrying
backbreaking loads off the ships and onto the quayside. Not even to
turn over an old American tourist who had shown off a wallet too
fat to miss in a bar near the docks. It wasn’t his fault the old
fool had a weak heart, after all.

Gonsalves cut
the line and gazed unhappily at the blue line thickening on the
horizon. After a few minutes’ listening to the thrum of the engines
and feeling the regular roll and splash of the big boat’s motion,
light dawned on Joel Gonsalves’ face and he grinned, clapping his
hands together delightedly. Elli Hoffmann was attractive, female
and on his boat. As far as the world was concerned, she was missing
and even Meier would think she was dead. Fate had delivered a
pretty plaything into Gonsalves’ capable hands.

He felt
himself stiffen again. After Coruna, he promised
himself.

Night was
falling. Gonsalves concentrated on steering out of La Coruna past
the Hercules Tower. They had been as fast as possible refuelling
the boat at the little Spanish port and Gonsalves had ensured the
harbour master was rewarded for his help in speeding their
progress. One curse of the
Arabian
Princess’
refit was the cargo space below
the pool reduced the fuel tanks, cutting her range. He grinned. But
Christ, she was fast.

Gonsalves
gazed incuriously at the Hercules Tower as they passed. Floodlights
picked out the magnificent sandy stone monument against the
aubergine dusk, shadows filling the cracks and crevices between the
buildings packed along the shoreline. The spice of the hot land
mingled with the brine of the sea. Lights from another boat danced
on the water behind, a constant presence slowly gaining on the big
yacht. Gonsalves kept his speed steady as he felt the pricking of
sweat. The lights grew larger, resolving into a grey, functional
vessel. He slowed the engines as the coast guard boat came into
clear view and punched the intercom panel.

‘
We’ve got company. Business as usual, repeat business as
usual.’ He punched another button. ‘Boutros, give the girl a jab
and leave her cabin door unlocked for now. Use the Fentanyl, half
the dose this time,
kapisch
?’

Gonsalves lit
a cigarette and waited for the fast boat to draw level, watching
his crew throw the pilot ladder over. Two men in plain clothes
boarded, followed by a couple of gun-toting uniforms. He stubbed
out his cigarette and danced down the spiral staircase to meet them
on the main deck.

‘
Welcome on
board, gentlemen. We filed our papers at Coruna. Is there a
problem?’

The larger
and older of the two spoke, puffing from the climb. ‘Benemérita.
I’m Garcia, this is Galván. Just routine. You were very fast out of
Coruna, no?’

‘
She’s a fast
boat,’ said Gonsalves. He led them into the bar deck and watched
with pleasure as both men took in the eight leather high chairs at
the curved, black glass bar, the big leather sofa, the armchairs
and walnut-topped tables, the glittering mirrors and the huge video
screen.

Gonsalves
called out, ‘Pedro, you lazy son of a bitch, where are you?’
Getting no answer, he took up station behind the bar, signalling to
the two men to sit.

‘
Beer?’ Both
men nodded, still darting glances around them. Gonsalves spoke in
Spanish, his American accent masking the Portuguese guttersnipe. He
cracked the tops off three frosted bottles, sliding two over the
bar. ‘What do you want to know? Owner’s a billionaire, German guy.
Industrialist. I’m taking us to Monte Carlo where he’ll fly in with
his mistress. She’s Italian. They’ll pick up a bunch of friends and
party across to Nice and then party right on back again. If I’m
lucky, next year it’ll be St. Lucia.’

Garcia
finished unbuttoning his coat and swigged his beer. ‘It’s a nice
boat, all right. A Luxe Marine 500, right?’

‘
That’s it,’
said Gonsalves. ‘She’s upgraded. We’ve the twin MTU engines, almost
five thousand horsepower in total. This baby can easily cruise at
twenty knots. The boss wanted the very best money can buy and this
is it. You know what? When he got it, it wasn’t good enough and he
had to have it made even better.’

Gonsalves lit
a cigarette and offered the pack, but the two men declined. ‘So
what are you guys looking for?’

Garcia
reached into his jacket and pulled out a notebook, flicking through
the lined pages. Gonsalves’ instant thought was a flash of
contempt:
plod
.

‘
Nothing.
This is purely routine, like I said. Where did you come
from?’

Gonsalves
tapped his cigarette, held one arm crooked in the other, the
cigarette held aloft. ‘They should have told you back in Coruna,
saved your time – they went through the paperwork with me there. We
embarked Hamburg.’

Galván was
sharper and leaner than his colleague, with a spiv’s moustache and
darting, hamster-like eyes. He licked his lips. ‘Hamburg? When did
you leave there?’

‘
Six days
ago. We’ve been in no hurry. We’ve been checking in and out like
good boys. Like I said, your people at Coruna went through the
paperwork with me.’

Galván licked
his lips again. ‘Funny time to leave Hamburg for Monte Carlo,
April, isn’t it? Not really the start of the season.’

Gonsalves
chuckled easily. ‘Like I said, she’s had a refit. Job ran over.
Can’t say the boss was happy about it. Glad it wasn’t my ass on the
line. He wanted it ready for the summer season. At least he’s got
his new toy for spring. But he was real pissed at the boatyard
guys. I’m being very careful not to remind him about the overrun
fiasco, you know?’

Gonsalves
laughed and Galván joined him, raising his bottle to clink against
Gonsalves’, a commoner’s conspiracy against The Man. Garcia took
laborious notes, his balding head still beaded with sweat from the
exertion of climbing the pilot ladder, his tongue poking out from
between his moist lips.

Galván
slipped off his bar stool and wandered aft to stand by the
eight-seat round table. ‘This the dining table?’

Gonsalves
snorted. ‘Dining? That’s just a casual table. The dining saloon’s
upstairs. Look, why don’t I show you boys around her? We’re in no
hurry anyways.’

‘
Sure,’
drawled Garcia. ‘That’d be interesting.’

They waited
on the deck as the coast guard vessel drew alongside again,
Gonsalves smoking and holding his beer. ‘So you see, she’s pretty
well kitted out.’

‘
And what’s
this, here?’ said Galván, gesturing at the covered-over pool with
his angular chin.

Gonsalves
chuckled. ‘That’s the swimming pool. We’ve fitted the winter cover,
the boss won’t be using it, so it doubles as a dance floor. Want to
take a peek in there too?’

Garcia’s
mouth was open when Galván spoke. ‘No, thank you, Captain. We’ve
enjoyed having a look around, but we’re not conducting an formal
inspection. You have been very kind.’

‘
A
pleasure.’

They shook
hands and the two men descended the pilot ladder, Garcia first.
Gonsalves’ smile was hurting his cheeks as Garcia paused at the top
of the ladder and stared across at him for what felt like a
lifetime. Garcia nodded, then his pig’s head disappeared. Waving
them off, Gonsalves ached for another drink, the tension leaving
him in a rush of exultation. He returned to the bar and poured
himself a large single malt. The sick feeling in his stomach
dissipated as the spirit burned through him. He poured another,
appreciating the sherry cask nose of the fine Macallan that he’d
blindly pulled from the selection of bottles lining the
bar.

Gonsalves
felt good. Very good. He wandered back to the aft deck and watched
the lights of the coast guard vessel twinkle their merry way back
to La Coruna, past the ancient lighthouse floodlit from the ground.
He looked forward to spending some quality time alone with Elli
Hoffmann in her cabin once she woke up.

It wasn’t
until past ten the next morning Benemérita captain Alonso Garcia
opened the urgent email to all stations. He had stopped off at the
little bakery with the blue shuttered windows on the way in and was
still wiping sugar crumbs from his chin as he bustled into the
office. The email made him physically stagger. With an awful
feeling in his stomach, he checked his mobile, which he had set to
silent the afternoon before as he had settled for a nap before the
evening shift.

Six missed
calls. Four in the early evening. Two later at night, from Madrid.
He re-read the email.
Cristo
. They’d sack him. He was too
old to retrain. He had a wife. Children.

He hadn’t
logged the uneventful and routine boarding of the big yacht. He
checked that Galván hadn’t come in early and done so himself. He
hadn’t.

Alonso Garcia
made a decision. He scrolled through the movement log and located
the entry from yesterday afternoon and the boat’s evening
departure. His finger hesitated over the ‘del’ key. He was
sweating. A second later, he picked up his mobile to call Galván
and let him know they had never seen a yacht called the
Arabian Princess
.

TWELVE

Gerald Lynch
waited in the reception area in the upper reaches of the European
Commission’s Berlaymont building in Brussels, lulled by the quiet
hum of office activity. His eyes started to close. A pretty blonde
wearing a black skirt and green blouse arrived.