Pirate - Duncan Falconer [127]
Lotto sat back and took a breath, like he had an amount of respect for Stratton’s ability to outmanoeuvre him. Like he had first-hand experience and didn’t doubt for a second that if he chose the wrong moment to reach for the weapon, he would never live to touch it. ‘Well, well, Mr Stratton,’ he said in his deep voice, sounding confident. ‘You are always full of surprises.’
‘No more than you,’ Stratton said, his comment aimed at the girl whose expression was coated in guilt. ‘So who do you work for?’
It took several seconds for her expression to change. As though she could no longer see the point in playing games. She looked at Stratton, his pistol, his fatigues and they seemed to signal an end to something. She said, ‘The Triads.’ She looked matter-of-fact about it.
Stratton smiled inwardly. He was not expecting that answer. ‘Would that explain the drugs?’
She nodded. ‘Jimlen and I never sailed to Somalia. We got dropped off by a Chinese cargo ship. I was making the delivery.’
‘What delivery?
‘The quarterly supply.’
‘We’ve been in business a long time,’ Lotto cut in.
‘A long time? You two?’ Stratton said. The girl didn’t look old enough.
‘Not her,’ Lotto said. ‘This was her first trip. The Chinese have been dealing through Somalia since before you were born.’
Stratton knew the Triads were international organisations but he knew nothing about a Somali drug connection. He thought again how drugs and arms smugglers used similar routes and techniques. And since nearly every terrorist organisation smuggled weapons, it didn’t take a genius to work out that providing their smuggling services to drug dealers could be a very lucrative source of funding.
‘What came first?’ Stratton asked, curious about the set-up.
‘Hijacking is not new to Somalia,’ Lotto said. ‘We’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. A couple of decades ago the Triads saw an opportunity and came to my predecessor with a business plan. In the early days we did not hijack many ships a year, only enough to transport the smaller amounts of drugs. I was a fisherman then, working for my father. When I was old enough, I joined the pirates and I watched the demand for drugs increase. That meant the need to hijack more ships. I knew that, even then. But my boss didn’t see it. He was afraid to increase the hijackings. I decided to set up my own business. That old weakling said I would bring down the wrath of the international countries on all of us. So I took over all of the piracy on this coastline. You want to know something? We always made more money from the drugs. The hijacking has always been a sideline.’
Stratton found it an interesting history lesson. ‘When did the jihadists get involved?’
‘They first showed up five or six years ago. They wanted to get involved in the drug smuggling to fund their jihad and offered me product from Afghanistan. So we began to do business. I could make you a very rich man, Mr Stratton,’ Lotto said. He took a deep pull of his drink. ‘I have bank accounts all over the world. I could set one up for you by tomorrow morning. How much do your people pay you?’ He smiled. ‘How does five million dollars sound to you?’
Stratton eyed the man with contempt. ‘When did you begin smuggling weapons for terrorists?’
‘There’s no money in that. I do it to keep them happy.’
‘Was it your idea, combining their weapons with the drugs?’ Stratton asked.
Lotto grinned. ‘Of course. It is just politics, my friend.’
Stratton looked at the girl again. ‘So how did you end up in his jailhouse along with the rest of us?’
‘The Triads didn’t like Lotto using the same system he used to move the drugs to smuggle weapons. They sent me to tell him not to do it any more.’
‘I don’t like being told what to do by anyone,’ Lotto grumbled. ‘So I punished her.’
‘Why did you go aboard the cargo ship?’ he said to the girl.
‘I heard about the hand-held missiles when I got here. I knew it would lead to problems. Your kind of problem. I got a message to my people to confirm Lotto was putting the missiles on the ships