Pirate - Duncan Falconer [41]
Stratton wondered how far along the jihadists were, how many ships they’d infiltrated, how many weapons had already been shifted. He saw a holdall tucked further down inside the hollow section and he reached in and pulled it out. He placed it on top of the crate and unfastened its buckles.
The bag contained half a dozen plastic bags filled with a dense white block. It had to be heroin and no doubt originated in Afghanistan. Weapons and drugs. A classic combination for smugglers. The same routes and techniques were used for both.
Stratton looked deeper into the hollow. There were several more holdalls in there. The street value was probably many millions of dollars. It gave the Somali pirate hijacking problem a new meaning. Governments saw it as a grave nuisance to commercial shipping but it was much more than that. He wondered which organisation was driving it, the pirates or the Islamists. Not that it mattered. Then he heard a dull sound from above. He wasn’t in direct line of sight of the hatch and quickly put the bag back in the hollow, closed the lid of the weapons box and stepped away into the shadows of the cross-bracing.
Another noise from above, two noises. They sounded like the rasp of a boot on a metal plate. He tried to look up through the metal and bracing from his position. He could see a section of one of the ladders. There was movement on it. Someone coming down. They were moving carefully.
He felt exposed where he was and looked about him. A long, tapered bracing ran down from the main deck across from him. Behind it was complete darkness. He crossed the space and tucked himself behind the bracing. He needed to secure himself, secure his discovery. Get to where he could communicate with his people. His hand slipped to the hilt of the knife at his waist.
The figure stepped off the ladder and stood stock still, like they were looking around. For a second Stratton felt like they knew he was there. He tightened as he wondered if they were aiming a gun at him, waiting for him to move. He eased the knife from his belt.
The footsteps came again. The figure had moved closer. To the box. Stratton heard the crate open.
Suddenly, a loud clang came from high above, at the entrance to the locker, and reverberated around the chamber. What happened next was even more startling for Stratton. Whoever had been inspecting the cache shut the lid and hurried towards him.
He gripped the knife, tensed his body, ready to plunge it into the figure. A hand grabbed the side of the bracing and the figure turned around the edge. Stratton clutched the figure’s throat, about to drive the blade fully into the small, slender body when he stopped himself. Just. He was looking at a pair of wide, frightened eyes.
It was the girl.
Another loud clang from above, this time accompanied by voices. Stratton pulled her in beside him, his hand still firmly around her throat, the tip of the knife against her heart. She grabbed at his hand as she began to choke, so Stratton eased his grip a little, ready to kill her if she raised the alarm. But at the same time he was confused by her appearance. ‘One sound and you’ll die instantly,’ he assured her.
She fought to breathe, silently recovering from his choke hold.
The clanging grew louder. Someone, more than one, was coming down the ladder. Judging by the voices, there were two, perhaps three of them, and they were moving something heavy and made of metal and clearly unaware of anything else.
The girl stared into his eyes, blinking hard to fight back the tears caused by the choke hold. She shook her head, which was all she could think of doing to communicate to him that she would do nothing.
Stratton eased