Pirate - Duncan Falconer [49]
But on this occasion he’d been wrong. He had left his friend exposed to a great danger. The Saudi. Who had disappeared, which had been a clear warning. Hopper had known it. He said as much to Stratton. He ignored it. Hopper was probably thinking something like that right now. As well as wondering how long he had left to live.
The girl screamed again but she sounded weaker. The fight was going out of her. Stratton looked at the bonds around his hands. He tested them again. He couldn’t stay where he was. That was impossible. He had to get going. But the bindings had been carefully tied this time. He needed an edge to rub them against. That would take a long time. He stood, walked to the wall under the window. His arms in the air, he stood on his toes and tried to scrape the bindings along the edge of the sill.
A prisoner across the room got to his feet and stepped quietly over to Stratton.
Stratton stopped to look at the man. It was the Dutchman who had made a stand on the beach when the girl was being attacked.
‘My name is Vorg,’ he said. ‘I was in the Dutch Marines. Many years ago of course. I am very concerned about your friend. He will not survive long with those fellows who have taken him. You should be concerned about yourself too.’ Stratton wanted to thank him for stating the bloody obvious. He also wanted to tell him to go away and mind his own damned business.
‘The ransom drop today was for my ship,’ Vorg went on. ‘The Oasis. The biggest one. We should be going soon. In a few days perhaps. It’s the only code these bastards have. They don’t want to discourage the owners of all the other ships from paying. I’m telling you this because I think you should try to escape again. All you have to do is get on board my boat.’
It was a good idea. But getting just himself home was not a solution Stratton was open to at that moment. He had to get Hopper. The cold-hearted bastards among the Brit Secret Service would fully support Stratton getting himself out of Somalia and leaving Hopper to his fate. That was part and parcel of the job, they would say. But Stratton could not agree. Especially when it was his fault that Hopper had been left behind.
The Dutchman produced a strange-looking blade several inches long. ‘I made it out of a small sheet of metal I found on the floor when I got in here,’ he said. ‘I rolled it over and over, the same way they make Samurai swords. I sharpened the edge on a stone in the floor. It’s taken me three months. I hide it in my corner. I didn’t know what I was going to use it for. I think you might have a use for it.’
Stratton looked into the older man’s eyes and saw the sincerity in them. He turned to his side. The Dutchman sawed between his wrists. A moment later his hands parted. He removed the rest of the line from his wrists and rubbed the life back into them. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘No need,’ said the Dutchman. ‘I’m sure what you’re doing is very important and of benefit to all of us.’
Stratton glanced between the door and the window. Which one? he wondered. Neither would be easy. But he didn’t have to mask his tracks this time. One way or another, he wasn’t coming back. He gauged first light to be a couple of hours away.
The Dutchman watched as Stratton walked to the door.
Stratton moved his eyes from crack to crack in the door, the kerosene lamps outside allowing him something of a view. He could see a Somali squatting on a doorstep opposite. The man appeared to be asleep. If there was another nearby, he couldn’t see him. But he might also be asleep.
Stratton looked at the Dutchman and beckoned him over. ‘Your knife,’ he said.
The man hesitated, clearly thinking about his knife being used on another human being. It was a bad thought to a man like him,