Those in Peril (Unlocked) (6 page)

R
ogier went up on deck after evening prayers and leaned on the rail as was his established habit. Once he was sure that he was unobserved he slipped into the locker and one glance at the transponder in its hiding place assured him that it had been interrogated by another station. A second bulb had lit up above the first. He typed in the squawk code and the tiny screen came alive. It gave him the date and time of the last contact. This had taken place only a few hours previously. He felt a lift of excitement. Everything was going exactly as it had been planned many months before. There had been so much that could have gone wrong, and had almost done so.

Originally his grandfather’s plan had been to make the Bannock woman herself the target. But it soon became apparent that this was not feasible. Even the most elementary research had made it clear that the woman was much too worldly-wise and canny to be lured into such an obvious honey trap. Although it seemed she had dallied once or twice since her husband’s death, it had always been on her own terms with mature and powerful men of similar status to her own. She would certainly be proof against Rogier’s more obvious and boyish charms and wiles. However, her daughter was an innocent lamb; alone in Paris and eager to experience life and all its excitements. Rogier’s grandfather had sent him to Paris, and the meeting with and ensnarement of the girl had been pathetically simple.

All that was required now was for the mother to make her annual Christmas visit to the Seychelles on board her yacht and of course take her daughter with her, but this seemed to be beyond reasonable doubt. The unexpected twist had been when the mother had left the yacht in Cape Town, leaving her daughter on board to sail to the island accompanied only by the crew, of which Rogier was now a member. His grandfather had been pleased with this unexpected turn of events. Rogier had telephoned him from a dockside call box at the Cape Town waterfront and the old man had chuckled when he heard the news.

‘Allah has been magnanimous, exalted be his name. I could not have arranged it better myself. The girl will be more vulnerable and malleable without her mother to protect her, and once she is in our power the mother will be helpless to resist us. Take the cub and the lioness must follow.’

Rogier was about to leave the locker when the transponder beeped softly. The tiny green screen had come alive and Rogier scanned the Arabic text message on it. It was from his uncle Kamal, his grandfather’s youngest son, who was the commodore of the fleet of pirate craft with which Tippoo Tip ravaged the Indian Ocean shipping. For this important operation Kamal had personally taken command of the dhow. He was giving Rogier the estimated time the following day when he expected that his vessel would be within visual range of the
Dolphin
.

A
t precisely 0530 hours the doors to the executive suite opened and Hazel Bannock stepped into the dark courtyard. She wore a black leotard which seemed moulded to her long athletic torso and legs. Over it she wore a pair of wide-legged silk shorts that were meant to modestly conceal the shape of her buttocks. They had the opposite effect of enhancing their perfection. On her feet was a pair of white running shoes. The famous golden hair was gathered back severely by a black band behind her head.

‘Good morning, Major. Are you happy to run in your full warlike paraphernalia?’ Her tone was mildly mocking. He wore combat boots and a webbing belt over his camouflage fatigues. There was a pistol in a holster on his hip.

‘I do everything in this gear, Ma’am.’ Though his expression was deadpan they were both aware of the double entendre. And she frowned with quick annoyance at the liberty.

‘Then let’s run,’ she said curtly. ‘Lead the way, Major.’ They left the compound, and he took her up the path that climbed to the highest point of the ridge. He set a moderate pace for the first mile until he could judge her capability. He could hear her close behind him on the path and when they crested the slope she spoke in an easy tone with no hint of exertion.

‘When you have finished admiring the view, Major, we might try at least a jog trot.’ Hector grinned. The sun was still just below the horizon but its spreading rays were perfectly traced across the heavens by the fine dust of the Khamseen. The sky was ablaze with a flaming glory.

‘You must admit, Ma’am, that it’s worth more than a passing glance,’ he said, but she did not reply and he lengthened his stride. They traversed the ridge, and finally he reckoned they were five miles out from the compound. The sun was up now and the heat was mounting swiftly. Far below them the oil rigs emerged from the dense shadow cast by the ridge, and he could make out the shining silver pipeline running across the dreary desert wastes down towards the coast.

‘There is a narrow path down the ridge just ahead. The footing is treacherous, but if we take it we can meet the patrol road along the pipeline for the home run, Mrs Bannock. It would be another five miles from there to the compound. Do you want me to take that route?’

‘Go ahead, Major.’ When they reached the patrol road she moved up easily and took over the lead. She ran lightly, gracefully, but very fast. He had to stretch out to just below his own top speed to hold her. Now he could see that at last she was perspiring through her leotard in a darker line down her spine, and the golden hair at the nape of her neck was damp. Under the baggy silk shorts he could make out the shape of her buttocks bouncing with each stride. He stared at them.

Tennis balls?
he asked himself, and felt a sharp stab of lust in his groin.
Son of a gun, she can give me a hard-on even at this speed. Not half bad!
he thought, and grunted with suppressed laughter.

‘Share the joke, Major,’ she invited him, still speaking in conversational levels, showing no signs of tiring.

Bloody woman
, he thought,
she is just too bloody good to be true. I wonder what her weakness is.

‘Schoolboy humour. You would not find it entertaining, Ma’am.’

‘Come up alongside, Major. We can talk.’ He moved up and ran at her shoulder, but she was quiet, forcing him to speak first.

‘With all due respect, Ma’am, I am no longer a Major. I would much prefer it if you simply called me Cross.’

‘With the utmost respect, Cross,’ she replied, ‘I am not the Queen of England. You can drop the ma’am business.’

‘Certainly, Mrs Bannock.’

‘I am fully aware why you eschew the military rank, Cross. It reminds you of the reason why you were thrown out of your regiment. You shot three helpless prisoners of war, did you not?’

‘If I may correct you, I was not thrown out of the regiment. I was found not guilty by the court martial. Subsequently I requested and was granted an honourable discharge.’

‘But your prisoners were still very dead after you had finished with them, were they not?’

‘They had just blown up six of my comrades with a roadside bomb. Though they had their hands in the air at the time of their departure from this mortal coil they were still active hostiles. When one of them reached for what I thought was a suicide belt under his robe I had no time to be selective. I had a squad of my men within range of any blast. We were all in peril. I had no option but to cull all three of them.’

‘When the corpses were examined none of them were found to be wearing a belt. That was the evidence at your court martial. Was it incorrect?’

‘I was not afforded the luxury of making a prior body search of the prisoners. I had about one hundredth of a second to make the decision.’

‘Cull is a euphemism that usually applies to the killing of animals.’ She changed tack.

‘In the military it has another usage.’

‘Culling niggers?’ she suggested. ‘Slotting rag-heads?’

‘The choice of words is yours, Mrs Bannock, not mine.’ They ran on in silence for another ten minutes. Then she said,

‘Since entering the service of Bannock Oil there have been a number of further fatal incidents in which you were involved.’

‘Three to be exact, Mrs Bannock.’

‘During these three incidents another two dozen men were killed by you and your men. All the victims were Arabs?’

‘Nineteen of them to be exact, Mrs Bannock.’

‘I was close enough,’ she said.

‘Before we continue may I point out, Mrs Bannock, that those nineteen insurgents were all intent on blowing the hell out of Bannock Oil installations.’

‘It did not occur to you to arrest them and hold them for questioning to make certain they were truly terrorists?’ she asked.

‘The idea did cross my mind, Mrs Bannock, but at the time they were all shooting at me and they did not seem amenable to polite conversation,’ Hector said and this time he let a small sneer twist his lips. He had learned enough about her to know that would infuriate her. She ran on in silence for a while as she regrouped her attack. Then she went on,

‘Tell me truly, Cross. How do you feel about people of a darker complexion than your own lily white?’

‘Truly, Mrs Bannock, I don’t give a good stuff. I am as strongly antagonistic to bad-arsed lily-whites as I am to bad-arsed coal blacks. But I hold for both good lily-whites and good blacks alike a deep and abiding affection.’

‘Please moderate your language, Cross.’

‘Okay, Mrs Bannock, just as soon as you cut out the clever innuendo.’

‘Very well, Cross. I will come straight out with it. I think you are a blood-thirsty racist, and I don’t particularly like you for it.’

‘Mr Bannock did not think the same thing about me when he signed my contract with Bannock Oil.’

‘I know my husband had a higher regard for you and your abilities than I do, but then my husband also voted for the Bushes, father and son. Henry Bannock was almost but not entirely perfect.’

‘Of course, you voted for Mr Clinton and Mr Gore?’

She ignored the question, and went on, ‘I note your subtle reference to your contract with Bannock Oil, Cross. I have read that document through, every word of it.’

‘Then you know it will be an expensive one to break.’

‘At this stage no one is talking about breaking any contracts, especially one that was authorized by my husband. But I will have my eye on you. Please try not to cull too many more niggers on my time.’ At the completion of their run she turned away from him with a curt ‘Thank you, Cross,’ and started into the building, glancing at her wristwatch.

‘Mrs Bannock!’ He made her pause and look back. ‘Like me or loathe me, if you ever need me you will need me badly, and I will be here, if for no other reason than that your husband was one of the good guys. They didn’t come any better than Henry Bannock.’

‘Let’s hope I never need your services that badly.’ She dismissed him. In twenty minutes she had a final meeting with Simpson before she helicoptered back to the oil terminal at Sidi el Razig. The jet was waiting for her on the runway there to take her down to Mahe Island in the Seychelles to be with her beloved family. She showered quickly and used a moisturizing sun cream, but no makeup. She went through to her communications room. There was a string of emails from Agatha, but she did not have time to deal with those now. She would run through them once she was on the jet. She started for the door on her way to the meeting with Simpson. At that moment she heard her BlackBerry buzz in the outside pocket of her crocodile skin handbag that stood on her bedside table. She turned back. Very few people had that number. She took the mobile phone from the pocket of her handbag and switched it on. The legend on the screen read, ‘You have 2 missed calls and 1 message. Do you wish to view your messages?’ She pressed ‘Show’.

‘I wonder what my little monkey wants now,’ she said to herself fondly and the text appeared. It was chillingly short and simple:

It broke off as if Cayla had been interrupted in mid-sentence. Hazel felt a dark shutter flicker over her vision. She swayed on her feet. Then her vision cleared and she stared at the message blankly, deliberately refusing to face up to the enormity of it. Then it dawned upon her and she felt an ice-cold hand clutch her heart and start squeezing the life out of her. With shaking hands and short asthmatic breaths she punched the reply button on her BlackBerry and listened to the endless ringing tone at Cayla’s end of the line. It was interrupted at last by an impersonal voice: