Ivory (12 page)

She knew she should run, but something kept her riveted to the spot, trying to take in what was going on. Perhaps it was some kind of counter terrorist drill that she'd been kept in the dark about, a bizarre notion of George's designed to impress her. Then a man in the back of the helicopter lifted his machine-gun, pointed it at her and pulled the trigger.

Jane dropped to the floor as bullets thudded into the panes above her. She screamed.

‘It's too thick.' MacGregor crawled across the deck and reached up for the GMDSS keyboard. He hit F8 for setup, selected ‘Piracy or Armed Attack', then punched the ‘transmit' key.

‘Iain, we've got to –'

‘Quiet, lassie,' he said to her, his voice oddly calm and soothing, given the circumstances. The whine of the helicopter's engines was vibrating the bullet-scarred portholes above them. ‘I want you to do something for me, Jane.'

‘What?' All she wanted to do right now was run.

MacGregor crawled to a line of cabinets beneath a benchtop that ran along most of the rear wall of the bridge. Jane knew there was a small fridge behind one of the laminated doors, as she'd seen the mate take milk for the captain's tea from there. MacGregor went to the next door along from the refrigerator and opened it, still kneeling. He punched the combination into an electronic safe. The door swung open and he reached in and pulled out a padded envelope encased in a clear plastic waterproof wrapping, and Jane's passport.

‘You're young George's girl, aren't you?'

Despite the commotion outside she was mildly offended and somewhat surprised by the captain's question. ‘His girlfriend,' he said, in case she hadn't understood.

‘I . . .'

He seemed to lose patience with her then and crawled to where she had left her thermos flask, near the helm. He unscrewed the lid, spilling half of the remaining coffee onto the bridge's carpet in the process. He scrunched the envelope and thrust it into the wide mouth of the container, spilling even more liquid, then screwed it shut again. ‘This belongs to young George. Guard it with your life. It's what these buggers have come for. I'm afraid we've been double crossed.'

‘What are you talking about?'

The captain ignored her for the moment, snatching up the small day pack Jane had brought with her and zipping the flask and her passport inside it. ‘Put this on, head out the back to the stern and find a lifeboat. You remember how to release the boat, from the drills?'

She nodded. Somewhere outside someone was shooting again. MacGregor reached up and opened the door.

‘Good girl,' he said. ‘If they capture the ship, you'll be better off adrift in the lifeboat. There're rations and water on board. Run!' he ordered her.

Jane slipped on the day pack, stood and stumbled out the hatch and down the narrow corridor past the captain's cabin and the ship's office. As she reached the top of the stairs, which led to the rear deck below, her way was blocked by Van Zyl. He carried a rifle in addition to the pistol strapped around his waist. ‘Where's MacGregor?'

‘On the bridge,' she said. ‘What's happening?'

‘That's what I'm going to bloody well find out. Where are you going?'

‘Lifeboat. Captain said it was best.'

Van Zyl nodded. ‘Don't let these bastards take you alive. Here, take this.' He drew the pistol from the holster slung low on his right thigh. He cocked it and handed it to her.

‘Oh, fuck,' she said. ‘I want to be bored again.'

He smiled and clapped her on the arm. ‘If they're Somalis you'll die of AIDS once they've finished with you – if they don't kill you themselves.'

Jane took the stairs three at a time.

 

Piet van Zyl had wanted to scare the girl, to get her out of his way. It was clear he'd succeeded, though there was no way these men were like the pirates who worked the coasts of Africa and Asia. They were men like him – professionals.

He could see the rear door that led to the bridge was swinging closed. He hit it with his booted foot and heard someone reel backwards in shock and pain.

MacGregor sat sprawled on the carpet, holding a revolver, which he pointed at Van Zyl.

‘Put that down,' the South African said. The captain lowered the weapon. ‘What do they want, MacGregor?'

‘How the hell should I know? There's a whole ship full of stuff for them to choose from.'

Van Zyl took a pace closer to the captain and held out a hand, as though offering to raise the older man to his feet. As MacGregor
reached out, Van Zyl grabbed his hand, then snatched the pistol from his other hand. Before the Scotsman could protest Van Zyl raised his knee and caught him under the chin. The captain's head snapped back and hit the deck.

‘I said, what do they want?' Van Zyl knelt on MacGregor's chest and thrust the captain's pistol hard into the soft skin under his jaw. He pulled back the hammer. ‘Tell me what's going on, quickly. You've got a revolver, even though you're not supposed to be carrying one; and Penfold organised for us to come on board with weapons and ammo. What was he expecting?'

‘You don't know, do you?' MacGregor gasped, fighting for breath.

‘I wouldn't be bloody well asking you if I did.'

‘I thought George Penfold hired you as extra security. Fat lot of good it's done if he did.'

A voice hissed in the radio earpiece in Van Zyl's ear.

‘That was one of my men,' he told the captain. ‘There are at least six of them on board now.' They both paused as gunshots clanged off the metal plating outside in quick succession. The helicopter peeled away over the bow, chased by bursts of automatic gunfire from Van Zyl's men. It skimmed low over the Indian Ocean. Van Zyl looked around the bridge and noticed the open safe. ‘What was in there?'

MacGregor shook his head. ‘Bugger off. If George hasn't told you then he doesn't want you to know.'

Van Zyl thought of the encounter with the Chinese freighter in the night, and then of the girl running towards him. She was wearing a day pack. What could she have that was so valuable she couldn't leave without it during a full-scale assault by pirates? Van Zyl jabbed the barrel harder into MacGregor's skin and the captain gave a yelp.

‘What was in the safe?' Van Zyl pushed the barrel of the pistol harder into the captain's neck.

MacGregor hesitated, then said, ‘I don't know.'

‘What did you do with it?'

‘Fuck off,' MacGregor spat.

There was the sound of footsteps coming from the hallway and
several bursts of gunfire. Van Zyl looked to the hatch and the speed and force of the older man's punch took the South African by surprise. MacGregor jabbed two knuckles into Van Zyl's windpipe and knocked his gun hand away. Van Zyl emitted a strangled cry as the captain delivered a Glasgow kiss, his forehead painfully squashing Van Zyl's nose.

Tyrone Washington burst into the bridge, his M4 carbine raised and ready. The former Force Recon Marine saw his commander on his knees with blood on his face and the other man raising a pistol. He fired twice and both bullets found their mark – one in MacGregor's right lung, the other in his heart.

 

Alex tried to shake the image of the girl from his mind, but he saw her again, wide-eyed, falling to the deck as he sprayed the armoured glass windows of the bridge with the MP5. He was sure the nine-millimetre rounds from the machine pistol wouldn't penetrate and he'd deliberately fired high, but he still wasn't sure he hadn't killed her.

‘
Two more amidships
,' Novak said into his radio, the report punctuated with two shots in quick succession – a double tap. The South African was conserving ammunition.

‘All call signs, Alpha Fire Team's taking the bridge,' Alex said into his radio. ‘Henri, Heinrich, with me,' he said to the men pressed against the bulkhead next to him. ‘Bravo Team give covering fire. Standby, standby . . . go!'

Alex charged up the stairs to the locked bridge door and slapped the charge against the lock and armed the detonator.

The door blew inwards and Alex ran to the opening again and lobbed in a smoke grenade. As he entered he saw a green orb rolling along the carpeted deck towards him. ‘Grenade! Back!'

He turned and dived, landing hard on Henri, who toppled back into Heinrich, who had been ascending the stairs close behind him. The three men hit the unforgiving metal deck hard as the hand grenade exploded above them.

‘Holy fuck,' Alex said, extricating himself from the pile of bodies. ‘You two OK?'

Henri and Heinrich nodded. Alex had slung the MP5 and now held his Steyr out in front of him. ‘We're going to the stern. This is war, boys.' It was now clear to him they were up against a professional, well-armed security force. Not only was Bravo Team taking accurate fire from automatic weapons, but the bastards even had explosives. He guessed the added muscle was on board because of the diamond pick-up. Rather than considering abandoning the ship, the prospect of a fight made him want the stones even more.

Alex and his team were edging down the starboard side of the
Penfold Son
, one deck below the bridge. Novak, Mitch and Kufa were on the port side, also working their way slowly towards the rear of the ship. Kevin, the most qualified seaman among them, was on the
Peng Cheng
. With the crew locked in the officers' mess, he was piloting the ship single-handedly to the Ilha dos Sonhos. Alex regretted being one man down.

The helicopter had started taking fire as the last man's feet touched the
Penfold Son
's deck. Alex and his men had found half a dozen AK-47s and a pistol on board the
Peng Cheng
and, since the
Penfold Son
was involved in some sort of smuggling operation, Alex had thought it possible that the bigger ship might also be carrying an illegal weapon or two. What the pirates hadn't expected, however, was the presence of a small, well-equipped army.

Alex poked his head around a corner and then ducked back when he saw a man dressed in black T-shirt and trousers raise an M4 assault rifle. Rounds ricocheted off steel and zipped out over the ocean. Alex pulled the pin on his second-last stun grenade and tossed it. The effect would be diminished in an open space, but all he wanted was to make the man duck. As he heard the bang and saw the visible shock wave roll in front of him, Alex dived to the deck and crawled forward. He looked up and saw the man was on his knees, one hand covering his eyes, temporarily blinded by the searing light. Alex aimed and squeezed the trigger twice. The man had been trying to kill him a few seconds earlier.
He felt no remorse as he saw the first of his shots punch the man in the chest and knock him backwards over the railing, into the sea somewhere far below. ‘Move!'

Heinrich and Henri were close behind him as he rounded the superstructure. ‘Splash one,' Alex said into his radio.

‘That only leaves about another four or five guys with guns,' Mitch replied. ‘There's two forward of us, so we can't go thataway.'

‘RV with us at the stern,' Alex said. ‘Watch you don't shoot us, though.' Alex guessed the ship's crew must have locked themselves away somewhere safe once the shooting started.

‘Did you get to the bridge?' Mitch asked.

‘Negative. They had it booby-trapped. That was the grenade going off. They must have the stones with them.'

‘This is turning to shit.'

Much as it pained him, Alex knew Mitch was right.

‘Alex, above!'

Alex turned at the sound of Henri's warning and looked up to see the flash of a muzzle and an arcing rain of spent brass cartridges. A black man was firing down on them with his assault rifle. Henri was returning fire, but as Alex lifted his rifle to join in the fusillade he saw the orb sailing down towards them.

‘Grenade!' Heinrich shouted as he pushed Alex forward. The German then shoved Henri out of the path of the device. The man above them had ducked back into cover. Heinrich lashed out with his boot, trying to kick the grenade to the far end of the deck. He made contact, but the mental canister was spinning too much to move far enough away from them. Heinrich turned and ran after Alex and Henri. The grenade's explosive force threw the big German into Henri, who in turn landed hard against Alex. For the second time the three of them lay in disarray. Not all of them made it to their feet.

‘Heinrich,' Alex said, leaning his masked face close to the German's. He rolled the other man's body over and saw dozens of smoking holes on the backs of his legs and arms. Fortunately he'd been wearing his body armour vest, like the rest of them. ‘Give me a hand,' Alex said to
Henri. They each hooked a hand under Heinrich's armpits and dragged their barely conscious comrade between them.

‘
They're pushing us back,' Mitch said into Alex's earpiece. ‘We're coming your way, ready or not.'

‘Lifeboat at the stern,' Alex said, seeing the bright orange craft ahead of them. The hatch in the boat's stern was already open. Alex looked to his right and saw Mitch, Kufa and Novak running towards them, their boots thumping the deck.

The fully enclosed freefall lifeboat could seat forty people – more than the entire crew of the
Penfold Son
and any passengers. Rather than hanging from davits it sat in a cradle of white tubular steel that protruded out over the stern of the ship and pointed down at an angle towards the sea.

‘Need a hand?' Mitch asked as he reached Alex and Henri, who were still dragging Heinrich between them.

‘No.'

Mitch nodded and started heading for the lifeboat.

‘Wait!' Alex shouted. The hatch shouldn't have been opened. ‘Mitch, check the . . .'

The blonde-haired woman Alex had seen on the bridge stood in the open hatch and raised a pistol. The weapon seemed too big for her small hands. She squeezed the trigger and Mitch toppled back onto the deck. Alex let go of Heinrich, unclipped his last flash-bang, pulled the pin and tossed it straight at the woman. He charged forwards, rifle at the ready, as she ducked to avoid the missile thrown at her.