Those in Peril (Unlocked) (5 page)

He pressed the ‘Power’ button and the small red light glowed immediately, emitting an almost inaudible electronic tone. The transponder was transmitting. Rogier grunted with satisfaction and pressed the mute button. The tone was silenced but the red light continued pulsing softly. Only a receiver that was tuned to the precise wavelength of the transponder and that was correctly encoded would be able to read the transmissions. The squawk code was 1351. This was the Islamic equivalent of 1933 in the Gregorian calendar, the year of his grandfather’s birth. Rogier switched off the torch and slipped out of the locker, shutting the door quietly behind him. He went down to his cabin.

O
ne hundred and eight nautical miles north of Madagascar and five hundred and sixteen miles east of the port of Dar es Salaam on the African mainland lay a tiny scattering of uninhabited coral atolls. In the lee of one of these a 170-foot lateen-rigged Arab dhow lay at anchor in six fathoms of water with her grubby canvas sail furled around the long boom. She had been lying there for eleven days, indistinguishable from any other coastal Arab trader or fishing boat. Her hull had not been painted for many years, and it was zebra-striped by the human faeces which the crew had voided as they hung their buttocks over the ship’s rail. The only oddity that might have caught the attention of a casual observer was the three much smaller craft that were moored to the side of the dhow. Twenty-eight feet long, their low hulls, with sharply streamlined prows, were of modern fibreglass construction, and painted a nondescript matt colour which would merge into the watery wastes of the open ocean. On the stern of each boat were bolted two massive outboard motors. The engine maker’s original flamboyant paintwork was covered by a blotchy coating of the same colour as the hulls. However, they were finely tuned and capable of pushing the light craft at speeds of over forty knots, even when fully laden.

The long boats were empty at the moment. The crews were all assembled on the deck of the big dhow, where they had just completed the evening prayers. They were moving about the deck, embracing each other and repeating the traditional invocation,

‘May Allah hear our prayers.’

Above the hubbub of their voices the radio operator’s trained ear picked up the soft electronic beeping coming from the deck house forward of the single mast. He broke away from the group and hurried to attend to his equipment. As soon as he entered the deck house he saw the red light blinking on the front panel of the radio receiver and his heart beat faster.

‘In the name of Allah the All Merciful, may his glorious name be exalted for ever!’ He squatted cross-legged on the deck before the radio set. Ever since they had reached the atoll and dropped the lump of coral which served the dhow as anchor the radio had been tuned to the correct frequency. In Morse he tapped out the squawk code: 1351. Immediately the transponder in the locker on the aft deck of the
Amorous Dolphin
changed from broadcast to passive mode, waiting to respond to interrogation. The radio operator sprang to his feet and rushed to the doorway. He shrieked excitedly,

‘Master! Come swiftly!’ The dhow’s captain came over with long strides. The deck was lit with kerosene lanterns hanging from the boom of the mast. In their light the captain was a tall lean figure dressed in a checked red and white shumag head cloth and a long white dishdashah robe. His full beard was still dark although he was past fifty years of age. He ducked into the radio shack and replied to the operator expectantly,

‘Yes?’

‘By the grace of Allah and his Prophet may they be praised eternally.’ The operator affirmed the contact and moved aside in the cramped shack to allow the captain a clear view of the radio and the steady red light glowing on the front panel. Wordlessly the captain squatted in front of the equipment and began to interrogate the transponder. First he asked it for its present position and speed over the ground. It replied at once. The captain repeated these details of longitude and latitude to the operator and he scribbled them on his pad. They knew these were accurate to within a few metres.

Despite the dhow’s biblical rigging and archaic appearance the satellite navigation with which it was equipped was the most modern commercially available. When the captain had ascertained from the transponder the
Dolphin
’s heading and speed, he spread the chart of the Indian Ocean on the deck and pored over it. The dhow’s present position was marked with a discreet red cross. He determined the position of the infidel yacht and marked that on the chart also. Then he began a calculation of the course and time for interception. He did not want to waste time and fuel by reaching the point too far ahead of the yacht, but more important he must not let the other vessel get ahead of him. While towing the long boats the dhow had a top speed of only fourteen knots and in a stern chase would be left floundering far behind. Once the captain was satisfied with his calculations he went out onto the open deck.

Thirty-nine men were crowded there, squatting silently and expectantly. The modern automatic weapons they all carried seemed incongruous in this setting. There were eleven men to crew each of the long boats and the others were the crew of the dhow itself. The captain moved with stately tread to his place at the tiller, from where he addressed them.

‘The gazelle is in the jaws of the cheetah.’ His first words brought forth a fierce hum of comment from the men. The captain raised a hand and they were immediately silent, concentrating all their attention upon him.

‘The infidel is still far to the south-east but moving swiftly towards us. Tomorrow morning before it is light we will weigh anchor. It will take seven hours of sailing for us to reach the ambush position. I expect the infidel ship to pass us tomorrow afternoon two hours before sunset at a range of two miles to the east; too great a distance to make out more than our sail. She will take us for a harmless island trader . . .’ Speaking slowly but emphatically he went over the attack plan once again. These were simple men, most of them illiterate and not overly intelligent, but when they smelt blood in the water they were as fearsome as barracuda. When he had finished he reminded them, ‘We will sail before first light tomorrow morning and may Allah and his Prophet smile upon our enterprise.’

W
hen she saw the door handle of her stateroom turn stealthily Cayla was ready for it. She had been waiting for him nearly an hour and her anticipation was feverish. She had rehearsed every biting and insulting word in her mind, and then the manner in which she would force him to submit to her in cringing apology. Now she leapt from the bed and raced silently to the door on bare feet. She placed her lips close to the panel and spoke just loudly enough for her voice to carry to him on the far side,

‘Go away! I never want to see you again. I hate you. Do you hear me, I hate you.’ She waited for his reply, but there was silence for half a minute, which seemed to her much longer. She wanted to call out again, just to make certain that he was still there. Then he spoke and his voice was level and cold.

‘Yes, I hear you. I am leaving immediately as you request.’ She heard his footsteps retreat along the passageway. This was not going as she had envisaged it. He was supposed to beg her forgiveness. Quickly she shot back the bolt and jerked the door open.

‘How dare you insult and defy me. Come back here at once. I want you to know how much I hate you!’ He turned back to face her and he smiled, that smile of his that thrilled and infuriated her. She stamped her foot, and she could hardly believe that she had made such a childish gesture.

‘Come back here immediately. Don’t stand there with that stupid grin on your face. Come here.’

He shrugged and sauntered back to where she was holding the door half-open. She gathered the most scathing insults she could think of, but before she could deliver one of them he had reached the door. He was still smiling, but his next action took her completely by surprise. He put his shoulder to the door and forced it fully open. She recoiled in astonishment.

‘You bastard!’ she said shakily. ‘How dare you, you uncouth peasant!’ He closed the door behind him and shot the deadlock. Then he advanced on her unhurriedly and she was forced to retreat.

‘Get away from me. Don’t you dare touch me.
Vous êtes une merde noire.’
She sprang at him with a clenched fist and launched a savage round-arm blow at his head. He caught her wrist and slowly forced her to her knees in front of him.

‘You can’t do this to me! I will tell my mother.’

‘So, now Cayla is not a big fierce girl any more. She is a spoilt little baby crying for her mummy.’

‘Don’t you talk to me like that. I’ll kill you . . .’ She broke off in astonishment as she realized that he was unzipping his trouser fly and bringing out his penis only inches from her face. Blaise was already in full erection. She realized that her violence had aroused him.

‘You can’t do this to me,’ she whispered. ‘You’re hurting me.’ He had twisted up her arm painfully but he was still smiling. Despite the pain she was suddenly as aroused as he was. She could feel her vaginal lubricant seeping through her silk panties. His penis was touching her lips.

‘Open your mouth!’ he ordered her. Slowly she parted her lips and he forced the head deep inside. Now she abandoned any show of reluctance and her head nodded in rhythm to his thrusts. Suddenly she froze with horror, and then jerked her head back coughing and spitting.

‘You bastard!’ she sobbed with disgust. ‘You pissed in my mouth.
Vous êtes un cochon dégoûtant!’
He let go of her wrist, but immediately grabbed a handful of her blonde hair and twisted her face up towards his.

‘Never, never call me a pig again,’ he said with deadly calm. ‘And this is just to remind you.’ Open-handed he struck her across the face, knocking her head to one side. She looked up at him with astonishment and awe, tears of pain from her stinging cheek flooding her eyes, but she could not speak from the shock rather than the pain.

‘Now, open your mouth again,’ he ordered, but she mumbled an incoherent refusal, and tried to turn her head away. He tightened his grip on the handful of her hair, until it felt to her as if he was going to rip it off her scalp. She lifted her face towards him, her cheek glowing pinkly where the blow had landed.

‘Please, Rogier, don’t hurt me again. I did not mean what I said. I love you so much. You will never know how much. Forgive me, please.’

‘Prove it to me,’ he said. ‘Open your mouth again.’ She had never felt so overpowered and helpless. It was as though she knelt not at the feet of a human being, but of a god. She longed for him to possess her completely, to subjugate her, to violate and demean her. Slowly she opened her mouth as he had ordered her and he thrust so hard into her that the hinges of her jaws ached. As the pungent warm flood spurted into her mouth again it swamped her senses. She knew then that she belonged to him, to him alone and to no other, not even to herself.

Two hours later he left her lying exhausted on the rumpled sheets. Her lips were swollen and inflamed with his rough kisses and the stubble of his new beard, her mascara had run leaving her eyes like those of a tragic clown, her alabaster skin was deathly pale except for the one vivid pink cheek where he had slapped her. Her hair was tousled and darkened with her sweat. She struggled up on one elbow as she heard him at the door. But she could not find the words to plead with him to stay with her. Then it was too late and he had gone. Broken and ravaged, she was too tired to weep. She lowered her head to the pillow and within minutes she was asleep.