Those in Peril (Unlocked) (18 page)

‘I would pay them if I could,’ Hazel whispered.

‘You don’t have the amount they are asking. Ten billion dollars,’ Hector said, and it was a statement rather than a question. She shook her head, and released her grip on his hand.

‘Bannock Oil does not belong to me. It belongs to the shareholders. Seventy-three per cent of the issued share capital is owned by Henry’s trust. I have the power of attorney to vote those shares, but I certainly cannot dispose of them. I have only about two and a half per cent of the total paid-up share capital of the company registered in my own name. If I sold those shares and all the other assets I have, I might be able to scrape together five billion or perhaps five and a half. Perhaps I could negotiate with them.’

‘Don’t even think of it!’ Hector said. ‘If you had twenty billion it would still not be enough. They want something else from you.’

‘What else can we do?’

‘We have got to stall them, until Uthmann and Tariq get back. Tell them you are raising the money, but that it will take time. Tell them anything. Meet their lies with our own.’

‘Then what?’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘At this stage there is only one thing I know with any certainty.’ Hazel turned to look at him for the first time since the video had started playing. It was as though she had never seen him before. His face seemed sculpted from a pale adamantine marble. It had been purged of any trace of human emotion, except hatred. His eyes burned green. This face was the mask of Nemesis.

‘What are you certain of?’

‘That I am going in to get that child out of there, and I will kill anybody who tries to stop me.’ She felt a strange emotion rising in her like an incoming spring tide. Here was a man, the first real man she had known since Henry Bannock had been taken from her. This is the one I have waited for. I want him, she thought, I need him. Cayla and I both need him. Oh God, how we need him.

‘W
e have received a ransom demand, at last,’ Hector told the men that he had assembled in the communications room. They watched his face intently.

‘How much?’ Paddy O’Quinn asked quietly.

‘It doesn’t matter how much,’ Hector replied. ‘We can’t pay it. We won’t pay it.’

Paddy nodded. ‘You’d be bloody mad to do so. But what are you going to do?’

‘Hot extraction,’ Hector said. ‘We are going in to pull the girl out.’

‘Do you know where they are holding her?’ They all leaned forward eagerly as hounds given a whiff of the scent.

‘No!’ They sat back in their seats, and made no effort to hide their disappointment. Paddy spoke for all of them.

‘Then it seems to me that we have a small problem.’

‘Tariq and Uthmann will be back soon. They will have found out where they are holding her.’

‘Are you sure of that?’ Paddy asked.

‘Have they ever failed yet?’

No one replied for a few moments, then Paddy remarked, ‘Always a first time.’

‘Listen, you dismal Johnnie, I’ll give you odds of ten to one, if you put a hundred pounds on it. Put up or shut up.’

‘Where am I going to find that sort of money with what you pay me?’

‘Right! When Tariq and Uthmann do get back we must be ready to go immediately. Wherever we are going, there is only one way in. We jump at night from high altitude.’ There were nods of assent. ‘Not too many of us, a stick of ten men. All our Arabic speakers who can pass for locals.’

‘Instead of parachuting in, why can’t you use the company helicopter?’ Hazel asked.

‘They would hear us coming. Then a night landing, even in a chopper? No thanks.’ Hector turned her down brusquely, but she showed no resentment.

‘Okay, you can use my jet.’

‘I have never jumped from a Gulfstream before.’ Hector glanced around the room. ‘Anyone here done it?’ They shook their heads, and Hector looked back at Hazel. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea. There is the problem of the pressurized hull, and the location of the hatch forward of the wing. The wing could slice your head off as you jump. Then the speed of the plane . . . No, I think we will have to go for something not quite so exotic.’

‘How about Bernie Vosloo?’ Paddy suggested.

‘Just what I was thinking.’ Hector nodded and turned to Hazel. ‘Bernie is an ex-South African Airforce pilot. He and his wife operate an ancient C-130 Hercules transport, hauling heavy loads around Africa and the Middle East. They aren’t too fussy about the nature of the cargo and they know how to keep their mouths tight shut. I have used them a number of times in the past. Their Hercules has a partly pressurized hull, and they can get up to 21,000 feet if they give it a kick in the arse. At that altitude, to a listener on the ground they will not be making much more noise than a cat pissing on a sheet of velvet.’ Hazel had never heard the expression before and she kept an elaborately straight face as she tried to suppress a smile, but her eyes twinkled blue as fairy lights. Bloody marvellous eyes, Hector thought, but distracting. He looked away from her to the men.

‘However, we don’t want to jump from 20,000 feet, so Bernie will throttle well back to keep the noise level low and he will descend to 10,000. At which level he can depressurize the cabin and we can bail out. As always we keep close contact during the drop, so that we hit the ground in a formation and we will be fully wired to deal with an unfriendly reception committee.’

‘After that what happens?’ Dave Imbiss asked.

‘Don’t worry about it, David old son. You won’t be there, you and your baby-pink face,’ Hector told him and then went on, ‘That’s the easy part. The difficult part will be the return journey. As usual there are three possible ways out: land, sea and air. The first-class return ticket would be by company helicopter.’ He nodded at Hans Lategan who was sitting in the back row. ‘We will have Hans in his chopper standing by on the border of the nearest civilized state, ready to pick up our call sign and come in to fetch us. That should do it – ’ he paused – ‘but we are all aware of what can happen to the best laid plans of mice and men, so we will cover the other two exit routes. I’m pretty certain that they are holding Miss Bannock in either Puntland or Yemen. These lads are pirates so they will probably never be too far from the coast.’ Hector pulled up the map projection on the wall screen and moved the marker over the area to demonstrate his point. ‘Whatever happens we will have Ronnie Wells waiting offshore in his MTB.’ He looked at Ronnie in the back row, sitting next to Hans. ‘What’s your range in that old tub of yours?’

‘With my new auxiliary deck tanks, it is well over a thousand nautical miles,’ Ronnie replied, ‘And I’ll thank you for remembering that she is no
old tub
. She can touch forty knots if I open her up.’

‘I apologize for the unfortunate choice of words, Ronnie,’ said Hector with a smile. ‘So Ronnie will be waiting to give any of you who make it to the beach a free pleasure cruise of the Red Sea on your way home.’

‘And if neither Hans nor Ronnie is able to keep the appointment, what happens then?’ Paddy asked.

‘Ah! That’s where you come in, Paddy. You will be waiting on the nearest land border with a column of trucks. If the target turns out to be in Yemen you will be on the border of either Saudi or Oman. If the target turns out to be Puntland then you will be waiting in Ethiopia to come in and fetch us. Bernie Vosloo and his good wife can fly you and your trucks into position once we know where we are heading. By the way, you’d better make damned sure you have the doctor with you. Somebody is sure to be hurt if we are forced to take the Ethiopian route.’ Hector looked around the circle of their faces. ‘So all of you have some work to do. I want to be ready to go within twenty-four hours of acquiring our target, and that could be any day now. Let’s move arse!’ As soon as the others had left the room, Hector called Bernie Vosloo on the satellite phone. Hazel was listening in on the extension.

‘Bernie, it’s Hector Cross. Whereabouts are you and your lovely missus?’

‘Hi, Heck. I am in Nairobi, but not for much longer. Are you still alive? Those darkies are really poor shots, aren’t they?’

‘Their aim is just fine, but I have learned to dodge. Listen, Bernie, I have a job for you.’

Bernie chuckled. ‘So has everybody else in Africa, Heck. Nella and I are flying our cute little bums off day and night. Tomorrow we light out for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that ironically named little cesspit of a country.’

‘Come to Abu Zara. The weather and the beer are great here.’

‘Sorry, Heck. I have a contract to fulfil. A big client. I cannot let him down.’

‘How much is the contract worth?’

‘Fifty thousand.’ Hector covered the mouthpiece with his hand and looked across at Hazel.

‘How far can I go?’ he whispered.

‘Who is that you are talking to?’ Bernie demanded sharply.

‘The lovely lady I work for. Hold on, Bernie.’

‘As much as it takes to get him,’ Hazel whispered back, and she scrawled on the pad in front of her ‘$1,000,000?’ and turned it towards him so he could see.

‘That’s crazy!’ Hector shook his head, and said into the receiver, ‘We will go to quarter of a million.’

Bernie went very quiet for a while then he said, ‘I would really love to help you. Sorry, Heck. But it’s my reputation on the line.’

‘Is Nella there?’ Hector asked.

‘Yes, but—’

‘But nothing! Put her on.’ Nella came on the line with her thick Afrikaans accent.

‘Ja, Hector Cross. What’s your latest bullshit story, man?’

‘I just called to say I love you.’

‘Kiss my butt, Cross!’

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Nella. But you have to divorce that stupid husband of yours first. You know what he has just done? He turned down my offer for half a million, for ten days’ work.’

‘How much?’ Nella asked thoughtfully.

‘Half a million.’

‘Dollars? Not African Monopoly money?’

‘Dollars,’ he confirmed, ‘lovely US greenbacks.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Sidi el Razig in Abu Zara.’

‘We’ll be there the day after tomorrow for breakfast. And I love you back, Hector Cross.’

H
ector and Hazel and four of the Cross Bow operatives were waiting on the airstrip as the monstrous four-engine transport aircraft circled and then banked steeply onto its approach run.

‘Nella is at the controls,’ Hector said with certainty.

‘How do you know?’ Hazel demanded.

‘Bernie flies like an old maid. Nella is the original rodeo cowgirl from Germiston, the city they would have to put the tube in if they wanted to give the world an enema.’

‘Don’t be rude. My paternal grandfather was born in Germiston.’

‘I bet that in every other respect he was a splendid fellow.’

The C-130 Hercules touched down, trundled down the airstrip and swung off to park close to where they were standing, its four huge contra-rotating propellers sending a stinging cloud of sand over them. Nella cut the engines and dropped the roll-on-roll-off ramp at the rear of the fuselage. She and Bernie came down the ramp. Nella was a brawny blonde with a baby-doll face. She was dressed in camouflage overalls. The sleeves were cut off and showed a tattoo of a flying angel on her beefy right arm. She towered over her husband.