The Watchman (34 page)

He grunted and shoved me away. ‘Do it with my eyes closed, pal. Just watch. Don't reckon I'll be able to push, though.'

He was looking down as he said this, and my gut went cold. I hadn't noticed that the hull of the nearest boat was further up the sand than it had been earlier. It meant we'd have to move it by muscle-power alone.

Tober wasn't waiting; he clambered into the other boat which wasn't as far aground, and I heard him humming slightly as he traced the engine casing with his fingers, patting it like you would a pet dog and mumbling in approval.

‘S'right to go, baby,' he said, and waved at me. ‘C'mon, Portman, y'fuckin' Yank landlubber. Time to go sailing.'

I placed the backpack and rifles on board, then put my shoulder behind the boat and heaved. Nothing happened. It was firmly grounded.

‘Shit.' Tober swore and almost fell out of the boat. He crouched down alongside me and put his shoulder against the stern, alongside the twin engines. ‘Nice,' he muttered dreamily, patting the nearest casing, and I realized he was on automatic pilot, his mind taking over as a fever gradually took hold of him. ‘Go like shit off a shovel, these things.'

‘Push,' I said, ‘or we're going nowhere.'

Then we heard a shout from near the top of the beach, followed by a shot being fired.

We had outstayed our welcome; it was time to run.

W
hatever energy Tober had left inside him resurfaced just in time. Or maybe it was the shot and pure survival instinct. With a grunt he leaned hard against the boat and I felt it shift smoothly into the water. It probably had something to do with him being out of the boat, or his feel for the weight and balance. Who knows?

I threw my weight at it, digging in my heels as hard as I could. The boat was afloat. Tober gave a wild laugh and scrambled aboard, and did something to the twin engines, dropping them into position. Moments later, as I jumped in, they started up with a deafening roar and the boat seemed to leap forward like a startled gazelle, throwing me off my feet.

I rolled across the bottom to where I'd dumped the rifles and came up facing the beach, AK in hand. And swore.

In the rush to get moving I'd forgotten to disable the other craft.

I fired several shots at the twin engine casings and a few more into the hull at water level, hoping I could do enough damage to make it unseaworthy. No float, no boat. I gave it another burst just to be sure, but by then we were bouncing through the waves and too far off to be certain of hitting anything.

Several figures were now visible racing across the sand, weapons glinting in the moonlight. A couple of the men started shooting, but mostly into the air. Then one of them must have wised up because there was a shouted order and they stopped running and brought their guns to bear. The muzzle flares came first, then the sound of the shots reached us over the noise of the twin engines. One or two rounds came close, but by then we were two hundred metres offshore and moving fast out to sea, bouncing smoothly over the gentle inshore swell.

A few minutes later, when the coastline had faded into the gloom, with only the white line of froth on the sand to mark its position, Tober turned south, cutting across the waves, which were now small to medium and not so smooth. Instinct and guts were driving him on, and I hoped he could stick at it for a while longer. I could handle the boat if I had to, but nothing makes up for the feel and experience of a seasoned boatman at the helm.

I took out the phone and called Vale. This might be the last chance I got.

‘We're offshore and clear, heading south,' I told him, shouting over the engine noise. ‘The rest is up to you.'

His voice was faint, but I was just able to pick out the words. ‘Got that. Call me when you make land.' He cut the connection.

We had been running for about twenty minutes, with no visible signs of pursuit, when I noticed the bow beginning to drift. First to port, then starboard. And the shift was getting wider each time. I looked at Tober. He was slumped against the side of the boat, one arm hugging the woodwork, the other just about holding on to the tiller.

I scrambled across and helped him into the bottom of the boat where he'd be more comfortable. I couldn't do anything to help him right now, so I grabbed the tiller and corrected our course. If I could keep this thing going in the right direction and ahead of any pursuit, we might be able to stay out of trouble.

An hour later I stopped the boat to refuel. I had no idea of the range of these things, but leaving it too long and finding we were running out of fuel while being chased was a no-brainer. Although stationary in the water, we were being thrown around uncomfortably with the choppy action of the sea, and it made getting the fuel container into position and filling the tanks hard work, without keeping an eye out for pursuit. Eventually, though, liberally soaked with splashed fuel, I replaced the caps and stowed the fuel container away, and we set off again.

At one point Tober seemed to rally. He lifted his hand and gave me a thumbs up sign, before falling asleep again. Whatever was keeping him going with two holes in him you simply couldn't bottle, and I hoped if I was ever in the same position, I'd be able to do the same. I wanted to check on his condition, but didn't dare stop again for fear of being caught.

After another ninety minutes, with the first signs of light stretching across the horizon to the east, and shivering almost uncontrollably in the pre-dawn cold, I turned to check the coast, trying to figure out where we were from the map in my head. I guessed we might be somewhere near the island of Lamu, although I couldn't separate it from the mainland, which was roughly two clicks to our right. If I was correct, it meant we were roughly halfway to Malindi and well inside Kenyan territory.

A pity nobody bothered to tell the pirates.

As I glanced back towards Kamboni, I saw a flicker of movement. It was there, then gone, merging against the sea. I slowed and blinked to clear my eyes, studying the area and looking slightly off to one side, wondering if tiredness was taking its toll. But no, there it was again, barely visible, a flash of something low on the water. A submarine? Way too close to shore.

Then the swell of the sea shifted and the picture became clear. Three dots were heading out from the shoreline towards us. They were too indistinct to make out any detail but I knew what they were.

Pirate skiffs. Musa had called up replacements.

I increased speed, nearly losing control as the engines bit into the water and the boat sat back, the nose lifting like a startled racehorse. Too much. I throttled back, my heart pounding with the rush of adrenaline, increasing the speed slowly until I felt the boat settle into a smoother rhythm.

When I next checked the position of the following boats, one was in the lead and kicking up a spray of white foam from powerful twin engines, with the other two not far enough behind. They were still a way off, running parallel to the coast but gradually moving out towards us, and I knew instinctively what they were doing: they were going to nudge us gradually out to sea and away from land, like cattle dogs controlling the herd. Then they would be able to finish us off at their leisure.

Musa must have been feeling royally pissed at us with all this attention, and I guessed he wasn't going to let this go, not now.

I increased speed. It had an immediate effect. The nose lifted, but sheets of cold spray began coming inboard and stinging my face, and the impact of the hull on the water was instantly heavier, threatening to shake the planks apart. I had no idea what speed we were doing, but sensed that it would take just one wrong move of my arm on the tiller and the boat would turn and we'd become momentarily airborne before going terminal.

End of game.

Another twenty minutes later and the lead boat was quickly gaining ground. It was coming up on a course further out to sea, while the others were holding station closer inshore. I recognized the tactics: the slower boats were ready to intercept us if we tried to make a break for land. It was another reminder that these men were old hands at this game. They had played it with much bigger vessels with huge engines and much further out at sea. They could dog us like this for as long as it took.

Running us down was just a matter of time.

I looked at Tober. He was still out of it. If he was as cold as me, it was probably a good thing to keep his body temperature down. Whatever I did now was going to have to be right. With no second chances, I had to carry on running, since staying to fight could only end one way. The men coming after us were also accustomed to spending long periods on the water and using weapons in an uneven and constantly shifting environment. All they had to do once they caught up was circle us like sharks and wait for an opening.

To add to our problems, the sea began to change temperament the further south we travelled. I didn't know if it was due to different currents or the shape of the ocean floor beneath us, but I could feel the tug and power of the water starting to take a greater hold on the boat, snatching at the nose and threatening to tip us over. I was forced to decrease speed to retain control as it threatened to swing away from me, and the boat began to bounce and dip, dropping with a crash into the troughs and ploughing through the waves head-on, showering us both with gallons of cold, salty water.

I looked back. The boats were edging closer, the lead one alarmingly so, but still holding station slightly out from our position. With the increased light I could just make out figures standing almost casually upright, rifles held over the shoulders as if they were out on a day cruise. By now they would have entered the same area of rough water as us, but it wasn't slowing them down one bit.

I estimated we had maybe another thirty minutes of this before they got close enough to start shooting.

It wasn't going to be enough.

Moments later, something made me turn and look back again. I didn't want to see how close the skiffs were; they were coming up faster than we could move away. But something had tugged at my senses; something different. A sound, maybe? An instinct?

The boats hadn't changed their position much, so I checked the sea behind them. Nothing but the same expanse of open water, grey in the thin light and seemingly flat. A sheet of nothingness. I looked up at the sky, but that, too, was empty.

Then I saw a flicker of movement in the distance, back where we had come from. The flicker turned into something dark, and I realized I was looking at a column of smoke, lifting gently away from the land and rolling into the air like a sinister mushroom. A split second later I thought I heard a faint pulse of sound, but it might have been my imagination.

I smiled, feeling the crack of salt on my face. Columns of smoke didn't just occur in the middle of nowhere for no reason. Smoke needs fire and fire needs something to feed on.

Vale. He'd kept his word.

T
he senses become overworked in times of stress, leading to confusion and misunderstandings when normally the brain would be able to filter each piece of information received and sort it into a logical sequence. Tiredness plays its part, too.

Spurred on by the realization that Musa's position had been hit by a drone strike, I concentrated on the course ahead. Being stopped now would be too cruel. It couldn't happen.

But the euphoria didn't last long.

It seemed like only moments later that I heard the heavy beat of approaching engines bearing down on us, and realized we had run out of time.

I ignored the itch between my shoulder blades, imagining the guns of the pirates coming to bear on my back, but didn't look round. Instead I moved the tiller as much as I dared to get a snake-dance going and put them off their aim. It would undoubtedly use more fuel, but it was the only way I had left to fight back unless I elected to stop and use the AKs.

As a last resort I made sure the Vektor was ready.

Time seemed to drift as we pounded through the swell, and I kept my gaze firmly fixed on an out-jutting piece of land in the distance. I had no idea where it was; it was probably just a deserted piece of rock and scrub miles from anywhere. But it represented a haven of sorts if we could reach it, and easier to hold off an attack for a while. I heard an occasional shot coming from behind us, but nothing came close. They were trying to intimidate and show how near they were.

Then something about the engine noise demanded attention. It had changed in volume and depth. Exhaustion made me slow to respond, and I made do with thinking that the pirates had tired of the game and had put on a burst of power to finally run us down.

Seconds later there was a blast of sound and a dark shape swooped by overhead. The familiar thudding noise of helicopter rotors was beating down on us and ripping off the tops of the waves, and I felt the battering of the down-force across my shoulders and tugging at my shirt.

I looked up and saw a grey Lynx helicopter curving round on an intercept course to meet the oncoming boats. A figure in dull green was crouched in the doorway, giving me the nod, the early sun flashing off his visor. I could see other faces crowding behind him, peering out. Helmeted marines at a guess, ready to do their thing.

I nearly lost the tiller at that point, and remembered in time to hold on tight.

I checked the position of the Somali boats. The two slower craft had already peeled away and were heading north, unwilling to take on the helicopter's superior firepower. But the lead boat was on course and coming up fast, the men on board crouching down. As I watched, three of them aimed their rifles at the Lynx, one letting off three rapid shots. The sounds were lost in the rotor noise, but the puffs of smoke from his barrel made it look like tackling an elephant with a pea-shooter.

The Lynx didn't waver and the figure in the doorway stayed where he was, supremely confident. He shook his head, then gestured deliberately with a gloved hand at the missile pods slung beneath the aircraft. To emphasise the point, the pilot swung the nose round to focus menacingly on the pirates and show them what was about to come winging their way if they didn't back off.