Pirate - Duncan Falconer [45]
‘Where are the rest of the missiles?’ Stratton asked in a low voice.
The girl looked at him, surprised, not so much by the content of his question but its timing.
‘If something happens to you, I need to know,’ he said.
‘If I tell you, perhaps you’ll let something happen to me.’
Her answer amused him. She was certainly used to devious company. ‘At least tell me if they’re close to here or miles away in another part of the country.’
‘They’re close. A few kilometres from here.’
‘How can you be so sure they’re still there?’
‘I’m not,’ she said.
That was not what he wanted to hear.
She sighed. Then she said, ‘It was Lotto’s men who hijacked the ship carrying the rockets. He did it for the Muslim fighters. That was a month ago. He is being well paid for his services. I suspect they intend to send many more of the missiles abroad. If that is so then they will still be close by.’
Stratton hoped she was right. ‘The drugs are his payment?’
‘Yes. Al-Shabaab pays him with heroin from Afghanistan.’
‘Do you think this is a new arrangement – between the pirates and the jihadists – drugs for their help?’
‘I don’t know. I think Lotto has been using hijacked ships to move drugs into other countries for several years. If it worked for drugs, it would work for weapons.’
Stratton found it disturbing. The jihadists could use the system to move practically anything they liked right under the noses of Western authorities. And they wouldn’t know a thing about it. Today, portable ground-to-air missiles. Tomorrow, biological weapons, dirty bombs. Even nuclear components and devices.
‘We have to stop those weapons from reaching their destinations,’ he muttered, more to himself. ‘I don’t suppose you know how many ships have already left here with missiles hidden on board?’
‘I only just discovered it today. Like you. It wouldn’t be difficult to find every ship that has been released from here since the weapons arrived.’
‘It will be if no one but us on our side knows about it.’ Stratton took a look at her as another thought came to him. ‘How were you supposed to communicate your findings back to your people?’
She took her time answering. ‘I was not completely truthful with you,’ she said. ‘Like you, we weren’t actually supposed to get captured.’
Stratton frowned at her.
‘We were supposed to make landfall and hide equipment we had on the boat. That included a satellite phone. One of Lotto’s boats saw us before we could get to shore. We dumped it all over the side. They would have taken it anyway and we wanted to look like simple sailors.’
‘What was supposed to happen after you reported you’d found the missiles?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t need to know, so I wasn’t told.’
Stratton thought about the Saudi again. Perhaps Sabarak had something to do with the weapons being moved from Indonesia. ‘Let’s get going,’ he said.
They covered the short distance to the first hut and then walked carefully up the street, hugging the houses. They criss-crossed through the town between the squat hovels until they reached the back of the prison hut. Stratton took a moment to study the window opening. ‘I’ll get my partner and we’ll get out of here,’ he said.
He jumped up and pulled himself into the opening enough to look inside.
He saw the prisoners lying on the floor. He saw Hopper in the darkness.
‘Hopper?’ Stratton said as loud as he dared.
Hopper didn’t move. Stratton climbed through the window as silently as he could and lowered himself to the floor. He crouched beside Hopper and rolled him on to his back. Hopper’s mouth had been taped over and his hands tied even more securely than before. A Somali who was lying on the floor across the room jumped up and shouted and aimed a rifle at Stratton. Another close by leaped to his feet brandishing a long blade.
The door burst open and more guards holding kerosene lights and weapons stomped in. The other prisoners parted before them,