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  Hopper whispered in Stratton’s ear again. ‘You know we have to kill that one, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘And the sooner the better, I think,’ said Stratton.

  Sabarak opened his eyes. It was like he knew what they had been thinking.

  Sabarak wasn’t a fool. The Saudi was well aware of the threat he was to the two operatives. He couldn’t sleep because of it. But it was too soon to make his move. He still couldn’t fathom the group. They weren’t a devout bunch of Muslims, that much was for sure. He hadn’t seen any of them pray nor heard a call to prayer. So they didn’t take their faith seriously and neither did they care that he was a Muslim.

  Telling them he provided weapons to Al-Shabaab might simply add a zero or two to his value as a hostage. And then what? They could sell him back to his family, to Al-Shabaab or barter him to the Somali authorities. Or try and sell him to the Western killers. But the way the Englishmen looked at him told him something: if he didn’t move soon, he would be dead. Of that he was sure. It was a difficult situation.

  An engine gunned outside. It sounded big, like a large truck, and it was labouring. They could all hear the gears crunching. Whoever was driving it gunned the engine again. Then it stopped as if it had died.

  Stratton went back to his thoughts. After about half an hour the door burst open and an old Somali walked in, a long knife in his belt beside a holstered revolver. He had on cleaner clothes than the others as if he were prouder of his appearance. He looked at the prisoners like they were livestock.

  He planted his feet and put a hand on the gun’s grip. ‘Get up,’ he shouted. ‘Rouse!’ He kicked the nearest hostage’s foot. ‘Get to your feet, you lazy sailors.’ They obeyed swiftly. Stratton and Hopper eased up off the floor.

  ‘Out the door! Go!’ said the Somali.

  The group filed outside into the sunlight. The Somali pointed them forward and they trudged up the street, turned the corner into the main street, back in the direction of the beach. As they walked four Somali guards, assault rifles slung over their shoulders, stepped up to follow. The heat and humidity had intensified while Stratton had been inside the hut. He felt his clothes sticking to his back. He wiped the sweat from his brow.

  Up ahead, he saw a large flatbed truck resting at an awkward angle, squatting to one side like a wounded buffalo. When they got to it he could see its rear axle had collapsed. On the truck’s bed were dozens of green-painted wooden boxes, all the same size, about a metre and a half long. It was pretty obvious to Stratton and Hopper the possible contents of the boxes. For those who could read Russian, the black stencilling described what each of them contained. And for those who couldn’t, one of them had spilled on to the road and had broken open to reveal its contents: several PKM machine guns heavily greased and wrapped in brown wax paper.

  The old Somali climbed up on to the bed and shoved one of the crates to the edge. He shouted at the nearest prisoners, pointed at the box, making them pick it up. Two stepped forward, dragged the heavy box off the truck, their hands still tied, and stood off awaiting instructions.

  The Somali guards stepped into the shade of the nearest house and started smoking and talking.

  The old Somali directed the first two bearers to wait to one side and ordered the next two men forward. And so it went, until Stratton and Hopper stepped up to pull a box off the back of the collapsed truck and stood with it at the end of the line. The box weighed about fifty or sixty kilos, Stratton guessed. The old Somali walked to the front of the line and waved for the group to follow him. The guards got to their feet and followed at the back.

  The chain gang made its slow way along the hard-packed sand in the direction of the cargo ships. They got about two hundred metres before one of the Korean-looking sailors dropped the end of his crate into the sand. His buddy put down his own end of the box, and they both rubbed their fingers. The guards suddenly came to life, running right up to the two men and whaling on them to pick up the crate. Screaming in the Koreans’ faces. The two Koreans looked tired, like they had no energy. Stratton wondered how long they’d been hijacked. The first Korean, overweight, listless-looking, stepped back from the Somalis. He should have stepped to the box because the Somali took it as a show of weakness and punched the butt of his rifle into the man’s guts. The Korean went down to his knees in pain. The other Korean stepped away in fear, his arms up to protect himself. Another guard forearmed the stock of his AK-47 into the Korean’s face and he went down.

  The Somalis kept on shouting until the two Koreans, one bloodied across the face, got up and picked up the crate and started walking.

  It was hard going in the heat, especially when they hit the soft sand.

  There was already a large collection of crates and boxes of all sizes laid out on the sand in front of the vessels. Many had been ripped open to expose their contents. Scattered around were brand-new pieces of machinery spare parts, miles of plastic piping, tins of paint and sprays and all kinds of building material. It looked like the crates had been ransacked then discarded because they had no value to the Somalis.

  Stratton studied the ships now that they were closer. The largest and nearest was called the Oasis. The merchantman had a Liberian flag hanging over the stern and a Dutch one above the bridge. It was over a hundred metres long and thirty wide. Easily forty-five thousand tonnes. The middle one, a black and white carrier with two jumbo booms, had a Greek name he couldn’t read and the ship in front of that was a low flat carrier with vertical East Asian writing down one side. Furthest from him was the bulker the pirates had just hijacked.

  The Oasis looked in fairly good condition but the others looked like they had either been abandoned months ago or the masters and crew had cared little for them. All showed signs of engine activity. Waste water came from exhaust holes close to the water line and the funnels leaked whiffs of smoke. Stratton guessed the Somalis put a skeleton crew on them to keep the engines turning over and the bilge pumps running or the things would sink. That would be the end of their value.

  He could see men on all of the decks. On the new bulker, men were using ropes to lower boxes over the side into fishing boats. One was bringing its load towards the beach.

  The old Somali guard indicated where he wanted the prisoners to stack the boxes. After the first pair had put down their load on to the sand, he ordered them back to the truck for another. He did the same with the others.

  On the Oasis, several Somalis stood on the bridge wings and main deck looking over the rails. They weren’t loading or unloading, they were just standing there like they were waiting for something. A couple were watching the sky through binoculars. Stratton looked at the other guards on the beach. Several of them were searching the skies. He sensed a definite atmosphere of expectancy but no fear, no concern.

  They were clearly waiting for something to happen.

  5

  It took four journeys to unload the truck and ferry the crates to the beach, by which time Stratton and Hopper were tired.

  The old Somali gestured to them to sit among the rest of the hostages who had slumped down on the sand beside the pile of crates that offered some shade. A Somali arrived with a bucket of water and a cup. On seeing the girl he seemed to have a second’s indecision. He didn’t put the bucket down, he went to the girl and offered the cup to her. She stared at him as he leaned close and said something to her. She remained grim-faced and didn’t acknowledge him or take the water. He said something again. She didn’t move. He pointed towards a separate stack of boxes.

  One of the other guards stepped over and started talking to the water bearer. He stood listening, then he cut right across the guard. Obviously didn’t agree with him. The two of them stood face to face, both talking fast, neither listening. Then the second guy started prodding the other with a finger.

  The water bearer dropped the bucket and, still talking, grabbed hold of the girl’s hair like she was his property. She yelped, grabbing his hand, but he ignored her. She got up an
d kicked him from behind hard between the legs. As she did, a Chinese-looking prisoner, who appeared to Stratton to be her companion, jumped up and hurled himself at the guard. But the other Somali swung the stock of his rifle around on its harness and slammed it into the man’s back. The blow was severe and immediately took the fight out of him and he dropped to the sand grimacing.

  The Chinese girl fought even harder. But the Somali still had her by the hair and began to punch her brutally about the head with his free hand. Which brought another of the hostages to his feet: a tall white European who looked about fifty. He was shouting angrily at the guard in what sounded like Dutch, and he grabbed at the flailing arm of the Somali, holding it with superior strength.

  A couple more guards stepped over when they saw the Dutchman intervene. The second guard, who had floored the Chinaman, set his eyes on the Dutchman, gripping his assault rifle like it was a club.

  Hopper and Stratton couldn’t keep their heads down any longer. They’d been maintaining a low profile because it was advisable in hostage situations like this. A fundamental wisdom imparted to students on hostage survival training courses: never stand out in any way or take on a leadership role. If you do, you run the risk of being singled out if the group needs to be punished.

  But neither man was able to sit back and see the situation escalate after watching two other men take on the wrath of the guards. Hopper was first to his feet. As a young marine, before he joined the SBS and before he got married to Helen, he’d been a brawler. He didn’t start them, being a polite and level-headed man, but he could finish them. If story-time among the lads ever got around to well-known brawls, the time Hopper took on four skinheads outside an Indian restaurant in Poole often came up. Hopper had simply been enjoying a take-away when one of the pinheads knocked his meal out of his hands. Hopper hit him so hard he broke his jaw. And then he took apart the other three. Then he lined them up in the recovery position in case they vomited and he called the police. Hopper even waited for the officers to arrive. He was the one charged with grievous bodily harm. But the restaurateur, who knew him, gave evidence in his defence and got the charge withdrawn.

  With his hands tied, Hopper ran at the Somali about to butt the Dutchman and double-fisted him in his side with such force the man dropped his rifle and went down. Stratton focused on the Somali who was holding the girl’s hair and who the Dutchman was trying to control. He dealt him a savage blow across the jaw. The man dropped to the sand and remained there in a daze.

  One of the other guards brought his rifle up on aim as all the other hostages got to their feet. They were unsure and feared the consequences of running or staying. Then the guttural command of the older Somali stopped the guards and the old fighter stepped in between the converging groups. He screamed at the guard who looked about to fire his rifle into the Dutchman. The guard lowered the end of his weapon. The old Somali shouted at the other guards while indicating the girl. He appeared to be arguing in her favour. He clearly possessed some level of rank or respect.

  The old man had achieved a pause. He had controlled his men, for the moment at least, and so it was time to direct his malice at the hostages. He looked at Stratton and Hopper. Directed his rhetoric at them because they were the most aggressive. He shouted and waved for them to step back.

  ‘Move back,’ Stratton said to the others. Beside him, the girl was still seething and stood her ground. He took hold of her arm. ‘Easy. Just let it go,’ he said as he guided her back.

  Hopper moved to help the prone Chinese man to his feet but the old Somali walked swiftly over like he was going to strike him. Hopper stepped back to avoid any blow.

  The Somali inspected the Chinese man without kneeling down or touching him. He shouted a command at a couple of the guards. They hauled the man up by his arms, pulled him to his feet and tried to get him to stand up on his own. But the man could not, he had something seriously wrong with his side, perhaps more than just a few broken ribs, Stratton guessed. The Somalis showed no interest in the man’s condition and manhandled him away.

  The remaining guards looked like they could care less about what had happened. All but two of them stepped off back to their spot in the shade. The one that Stratton had struck got to his feet in easy stages, feeling his bruised jaw. He sought out and found Stratton, looked at him like he was fixing the image in his head. The other downed Somali stepped beside him, looking at Hopper. He removed a long, crudely made blade from his belt and held it in a tight fist. He spat out some words to the other pirate.

  The old Somali was still vigilant for trouble and did not miss it. He barked a command. The two guards showed no servility but decided to walk back to the shade. Stratton and Hopper glanced at each other, aware they had not made life any easier for themselves. Stratton wondered how much control the leadership had over its men.

  The girl had watched her friend be taken away and stepped back into the shade provided by the stack of crates. She sat down, leaned back tired against them and stared into the sky like it could give her the answer to her problems.

  Hopper and Stratton sat down in the sand near her.

  After a glance at them and after some hesitation, she said, ‘Thanks.’ Then she looked away.

  Stratton felt bad for her. This wasn’t a good place for her. He knew how common rape was in hostage circumstances. In a place like Somalia it would be practically inevitable. And the most apparently devout jailers would be among the worst offenders. In Iraq and Afghanistan he had seen the results of the rape of prisoners, male and female. On top of everything else a hostage had to contend with – the psychological stress of pitiful confinement, the fear of torture every day, the pain of the beatings, the threat of death at any time – a girl had to live with the great possibility that her jailers would come for her like animals. And once they began, they usually did it again and again. Until death or release. If a girl survived, she had to cope with everything that came after, the physical and emotional scars, the possibility of disease, even death. And then there was the potential pregnancy and all that entailed.

  ‘Where’re you from?’ Stratton asked. He didn’t know why he was attempting to ease her anguish because there was nothing he could do for her. But she was sitting there beside him and he felt a kind of obligation to try and ease her suffering.

  She took her time replying, like she was deciding whether or not she wanted to talk to him. ‘China,’ she said eventually.

  Stratton couldn’t help thinking how he had not talked to a single Chinese person in years and he’d met two in the same number of days. ‘What ship you off?’

  Once again she took a long time to answer. ‘No ship.’

  Stratton found the answer curious and wondered if she understood English that well. But something about the way she listened to him and responded suggested she knew the language well enough. ‘How’d you end up here, then?’ he said.

  ‘A yacht,’ she said. It was as though she felt guilty about it.

  ‘You were sailing? Out there?’

  She nodded.

  It sounded like a pretty dumb thing to do. ‘A regular sailing yacht, with a sail?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. With a sail.’

  Stratton could only wonder why.

  She looked towards the water and the carriers in front of them. ‘I don’t know where it is now,’ she said. ‘My friend and I were sailing around the world.’

  ‘I guess it was just as risky going around the Cape?’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘Statistically we should have been OK. Something like seventy boats a day pass through the Gulf of Aden. Only a couple a week are attacked. Maybe one or two a month get hijacked. We were almost in the international transit corridor when they saw us. We were unlucky.’

  Stratton sympathised. The international corridor ran east–west across the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia. It was a protected route patrolled by various foreign navies and regarded as the safest way to transit past Somalia. It obviously didn’t guarante
e complete safety from hijacking but it increased the chances of a navy vessel responding to a distress signal. Many pirate vessels actually hunted the corridor, knowing that it improved the chances of them finding a commercial vessel somewhere along it. The risk of running into a navy boat was all part of doing business.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Stratton asked.

  ‘It must be two weeks now.’

  ‘You speak good English.’

  ‘I learned in China. I spent six months in London. That was a year ago.’

  She seemed intelligent and despite being petite, tough. She’d carried the boxes without complaint and wasn’t afraid to lay into the Somali guards. ‘Do you know what’s happening with your negotiations?’ he asked.

  She glanced at him for the first time like she was finally interested enough to want to see what he looked like. ‘They have told me nothing.’ She looked away again. ‘I don’t even think anyone knows I’m here.’

  ‘These guys would’ve tried to make contact with someone. They’re running a business.’

  She looked at him again. ‘You are English.’ It was more of a statement than a question.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What ship are you off?’

  Stratton hadn’t prepared for the question, not in any great depth at least. The obvious story was that they worked for the local oil company that ran the terminal in Riyan, the company whose secur ity ran the semi-rigid they stole. They could sing that song all day, until Sabarak decided to tell his story. Once he found the right people to talk to he would sound a lot more convincing than Stratton and Hopper. Stratton had expected the pirates to ask. But then what did they care? As far as they were concerned they’d netted three more potential pay cheques. What else did they need to know? He looked for Sabarak. The Saudi was squatting alone on the edge of the group and looking out to sea.

  ‘They picked us up off the coast of Yemen,’ Stratton said. ‘We were doing a spot of sightseeing.’