Spider Shepherd 11 - White Lies (3 page)

‘Right, get them on to the boats, now,’ said Coatsworth. He waved goodbye to the Frenchman, who climbed into the van and drove off.

There was a gap in the sea wall leading to a flight of stone steps. At the bottom of the steps was a wooden jetty where two high-performance rigid inflatable boats were bobbing in the swell. Rainey and Mercier ushered the men, women and children down the stone stairs to the waiting ribs. Each was about twenty feet long with a solid hull surrounded by a flexible inflatable collar that allowed the vessel to stay afloat even if swamped in rough seas. Each had a single massive Yamaha engine at the stern. There were few faster boats around, and these were certainly faster than anything owned by the UK’s Border Force or HM Revenue and Customs. The boats were also virtually invisible to radar, making them the perfect smuggler’s boat. Each had dual controls at the bow and a double bench seat in the centre with spaces for eight people and nylon seat belts to keep them securely in place.

Mercier and Rainey dumped their bags in the bow and helped the refugees into the boats.

‘You didn’t say anything about guns,’ Bell muttered to Coatsworth.

‘What, you think I’m gonna be wandering around in the dark with thirty grand in my bag without some way of protecting myself?’ sneered Coatsworth. He pointed down at the Somalians who were fastening their seat belts. ‘For all we know they could be bloody pirates. You think I’m going out to sea with people I don’t know without a gun?’ He gestured at the group, who were giving him anxious looks and muttering among themselves. ‘Look, mate, the meek don’t inherit the earth and they sure as hell don’t get out of shitholes like Iraq and Afghanistan or those African countries where they chop off each other’s arms. Anyone who has made it this far has had to lie, cheat, steal and probably done a lot worse. Thieves, warlords and murderers, the odd torturer or two, they’re the ones who get this far.’

‘She’s a teacher, the wife of that guy you sent packing,’ said Bell.

‘Yeah, well, she’s the exception,’ said Coatsworth. ‘And how do we know she’s telling the truth? For all we know her husband could have been Saddam Hussein’s torturer-in-chief. Do you think teachers and farmers and bus drivers can get the money to escape from Iraq and get here? Do you think nice smiley people with a song in their hearts claw their way out?’ He shook his head. ‘No, mate. The bastards are the ones who make it out and they do it by climbing over everybody else. They do what it takes to survive.’

‘You can’t blame them for that,’ said Bell.

‘No, you can’t. But the sort of ruthlessness that got them this far is the sort of ruthlessness that could lead to them knifing me when we’re out at sea and throwing me overboard so that they get my money and my boat. That’s why we search them before we put them on board and why I carry a big gun. Got it?’

‘Got it,’ said Bell.

‘It’s for protection.’

Bell held up his hands. ‘I hear you, Ally. It’s not a problem.’

‘Good man. Now let’s get this cargo delivered.’

‘When are you going to tell me where we’re going?’ said Bell.

‘I’ve given the GPS coordinates to Frankie,’ said Coatsworth. ‘Don’t take it personal, mate. I’m the only one who knows the drop-off point.’

‘Keeping your cards close to your chest? I can understand that.’

Coatsworth slapped him on the back. ‘I’ve been doing this for a while and never come close to being caught,’ he said. ‘I want to keep it that way. Look, you’ll see it on the GPS anyway. We’re heading north, up to the Suffolk coast. Near a place called Southwold. It’s a quiet beach. I’ve used it before.’

‘That’s a long trip,’ said Bell. ‘Close to a hundred miles.’

‘A couple of hours,’ said Coatsworth. ‘The water’s quieter up there and there’s almost no Border Force activity. Not that it matters that much, our boats can outrun anything the government has. The only thing that can keep up with us is a helicopter and there’s almost zero chance of us coming across one.’ He slapped Bell on the back again and led him down the stairs. A thick chain had been fixed to the sea wall to give them something to hold on to as they made their way down.

Coatsworth climbed into the rib with Mercier. All the passengers were on board and Mercier was checking that they had all fastened their seat belts. Their luggage was lying on the floor, close to their feet.

Bell carefully climbed into his rib. It was a few feet longer than Coatsworth’s and the seats were laid out slightly differently in four rows of two. His passengers were already strapped in. The Iraqi woman was sitting in the front row with her son on her lap. Her daughter was in the seat next to her.

Bell walked over to her and held on to the back of her seat for balance. ‘Your boy needs to be in a seat,’ he said.

She shook her head fiercely. ‘He is too small. He will fall out.’

Bell looked at the boy and realised she had a point. He turned to Rainey. ‘Frankie, there’s a cupboard under your wheel with some life jackets in it. There’s a kid’s one there.’

Rainey bent down, pulled open a hatch, then straightened up with an orange life jacket in his hand. He tossed it to Bell and Bell handed it to the woman. ‘Put that on your boy, just in case.’

He went up to the bow and knelt down to reach into the storage bay. He pulled out another seven life jackets.

‘Ally never bothers,’ said Rainey.

‘Yeah, well, I’m the skipper of this boat and I’m bothering,’ said Bell.

He went back down the rib, distributing the life jackets. When all his passengers were wearing them, he undid the ropes that kept the rib tethered to the jetty, sat down in the left-hand seat and started the engine. Rainey slid on to the right-hand seat. ‘Frankie, you’re not carrying a gun, are you?’ asked Bell.

Ahead of them, Coatsworth started his engine. Rainey frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Why? Because I want to know if you’re sitting there with a loaded gun in your pocket, that’s why.’

Rainey grinned. ‘Yeah, the look on your face when Ally pulled out that gun. I thought you were going to piss yourself.’

‘Nobody told me there’d be guns,’ said Bell. Coatsworth turned and gave Bell a thumbs-up. Bell grinned and returned the gesture.

‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,’ said Rainey.

‘People with guns kill people without guns, that’s generally how it works,’ said Bell. ‘Now do you have one or not?’

Rainey shook his head, then reached behind his back and pulled out a large hunting knife with a black handle. ‘No gun, but I’ve got this little beauty if we have any problems.’

‘Bloody hell, Frankie. Be careful you don’t cut yourself with that.’ Rainey grinned and put the knife away.

Coatsworth gunned his engine and his rib moved away from the jetty. Bell looked over his shoulder and checked that all his passengers were strapped in. He noticed that the young Iraqi boy’s belt was loose so he waved at the mother and mimed for her to tighten it. She did as she was told, then put up the hood of the boy’s anorak. Bell nudged the throttle forward and steered the rib to starboard to move away from the jetty. There was a quarter-moon and the sky was virtually cloudless so visibility was good even at that late hour. Bell pulled a pair of protective goggles from his pocket and put them on. At the speed the rib would be travelling, even a small insect could potentially blind him. Rainey entered the GPS coordinates into the onboard computer. After a few seconds a dotted line appeared on the display, connecting their current position to their destination on the Suffolk coast. Rainey pulled on his own goggles and flashed Bell a thumbs-up. ‘Chocks away!’ he shouted. ‘And don’t spare the horses!’

Sea spray splattered across his goggles and Bell used his sleeve to wipe them clean. There was some traffic around – the English Channel was the busiest waterway in the world – but not enough to cause them any problems. There were freighters and container ships and a few miles away was a massive cross-Channel ferry heading towards the French coast. Bell was on his feet, leaning against the white plastic bucket seat behind him. He held the wheel with his right hand and gripped the throttle lever with his left. They were doing just under fifteen knots and the throttle wasn’t even at the halfway point. The rib’s single outboard engine, the biggest on the market, cost upwards of fifteen thousand pounds and was capable of generating three hundred horsepower. At close to its top speed of sixty knots the engine burned through eleven gallons an hour and the fifty-five gallons in the tank were more than enough to get them across the Channel and back.

Rainey was standing to Bell’s right. He had a matching set of controls but he kept his hands away from them and held on to a grab rail for balance. Both men scanned the waves ahead of them, not just for other boats but for anything floating in the water that could rupture the hull or smash the propeller.

Coatsworth and Mercier were off on his port side, about a hundred yards away and slightly ahead of them. Mercier waved. Bell didn’t want to take his hands off the controls so he shouted over at Rainey to wave back. Coatsworth pushed the throttle forward and the rib began to pull away. Bell took a look over his shoulder to check that his passengers were OK. They were huddled together in the middle of the boat, hanging on to the guide ropes. ‘Hold on tight!’ he shouted. The Iraqi woman hugged her son and whispered something into his ear.

Bell turned back to look ahead of the rib. The boat was smashing into the crests of the waves as it powered through the water. He had to grip the wheel tightly and his hand was vibrating on the throttle.

Coatsworth had already got close to full speed and his rib was planing over the tops of the waves, cutting across them like a knife. The rib was designed to lift above the waves once it reached fifteen or sixteen knots. There was a tilt lever on the steering wheel that changed the angle of the propeller relative to the hull and Bell adjusted it before pushing on the throttle. The massive engine roared behind him and the boat leapt forward. The moment it passed sixteen knots the juddering stopped and the boat planed across the top of the waves. Bell continued to move the throttle forward – twenty knots, thirty knots, forty knots. The night vision glasses protected his eyes from the slipstream but the wind was bitterly cold against his exposed skin.

Coatsworth’s rib was several hundred yards ahead of him already and by the look of it had reached full speed. He wasn’t worried about losing sight of the other rib as the GPS display was guaranteed to keep him on course. All he had to do was follow the dotted line on the display and it would take him straight to their destination on the Suffolk coast.

Bell pushed the throttle as far as it would go and the vessel’s speed steadily increased. Fifty knots. Fifty-five. Sixty. Rainey shouted something but his words were lost in the slipstream. He shouted again and then pointed ahead. Bell saw what he was pointing at, a clump of something, rubbish or vegetation, about eighty yards ahead of them. The rib would probably cut through whatever it was but Bell didn’t want to risk damaging the hull or the propeller so he steered the boat hard to port and missed whatever it was by yards before straightening up again.

The throttle was in the full-on position and Bell placed both hands on the wheel. It kicked and bucked as if it had a life of its own.

After almost two hours skimming the tops of the waves, Bell finally saw the coastline ahead of them. Rainey was handling the steering. They had taken it in turns; the wheel bucked and kicked constantly and steering was so tiring they rarely managed fifteen minutes before having to hand over control.

‘Can you see the other boat?’ shouted Bell above the roar of the outboard engine.

Rainey shook his head.

Bell wiped his goggles with his sleeve and looked at the GPS screen. They were bang on the dotted line that led to their landing point. He looked up again and scanned the sea ahead of them but there was no sign of Coatsworth’s boat. He took a quick look over his shoulder. The passengers were all shivering. The Iraqi woman was clutching her son to her chest. Tears were streaming down her face but Bell couldn’t tell whether they were the result of the cold wind or whether she was crying.

‘I see him!’ shouted Rainey, pointing off to the starboard side. Spray splashed across Bell’s goggles and he pushed them up on to the top of his head and squinted into the wind. With no navigation lights, Coatsworth’s rib was just a black smudge in the water and it took Bell several seconds to see it.

‘He’s stopped,’ said Rainey.

‘Cut the engine,’ said Bell. He took out his mobile phone as Rainey brought the throttle back to neutral. The rib slowed and began to toss and turn in the waves. They were close enough to land to get a signal and he called Coatsworth. ‘Where are you, I can’t see you?’ growled Coatsworth as soon as he answered.

‘About four hundred yards on your port side, behind you,’ said Bell. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘I don’t see any lights on shore, I’m going to call my guy. You stay put.’

Coatsworth ended the call. Rainey looked across at Bell. ‘What’s happening?’

‘He’s waiting for the guy on shore.’

‘Can you take over the driving, I’m knackered,’ said Rainey.

‘No problem.’ Bell’s phone vibrated in his hand. He’d received a text message from Coatsworth. ‘TALLY HO!’

‘We’re on,’ said Bell, pushing the throttle forward. He took the rib up to ten knots. Coatsworth was already moving towards the shore.

A light flashed on the beach. Three short flashes. ‘That’s them!’ shouted Rainey.

‘Do you think?’ said Bell.

The shore was close now, a couple of hundred yards at most. The rib was perfect for smuggling operations, it could go into shallow water where most other boats would run aground. But where it really proved its worth was when it came to landing on beaches. The propeller could be lifted out of the water and the boat could run right up on to the beach. It didn’t need a harbour or a dock, any flat stretch of sand or pebbles would do. And once the boat had been unloaded it was a simple matter to push it back into the water and head off again.

Rainey moved to the stern, ready to lift the outboard. On Coatsworth’s rib, Mercier was doing the same. The light flashed again, about halfway up the beach.