Ivory

2-2

Berentsen swore in his own language.

‘Speed: fifteen knots,’ Kevin said.

‘Keep her steady,’ Alex said to the Australian. He turned his attention to the ship’s radio, changing the frequency. He picked up the handset and pressed the ‘transmit’ switch. ‘Mermaid One, Mermaid One, Mermaid One, this is Shark, over.’

He paused for a few seconds then repeated the call.

‘Shark, this is Mermaid One. Have you in sight now,’ said a female voice, the accent bearing a harsh trace of Belfast.

‘All set?’ Alex asked into the microphone.

‘No problem here. Mermaid Two’s on the other side of the dunes. She says it’s a car park there, but she’s in control.’

Too much information, Alex thought to himself, mindful that their prisoner could hear Danielle’s voice over the loudspeaker. ‘Roger, Mermaid One. See you soon, and let’s stick to the facts, I’ve got company here.’

‘Sorry,’ Danielle Reilly said to him.

‘Don’t be sorry, just be good,’ Alex said, smiling.

‘I’m always good. As you very well know.’

Alex shook his head, returning his mind to the job at hand, which was about to get tricky. He put down the microphone and raised his binoculars. ‘There’s the beach. Dead stop,’ he said to Kevin.

He could see the colours of the Indian Ocean changing closer to shore, indicating the steeply shelving seabed below. Alex and Kevin, a former member of the Australian Navy’s elite clearance diver team, had dived the area and made a detailed survey of water depths at high and low tide along this deserted stretch of coastline.

The South Africans called it the Wild Coast for good reason. The sparsely populated fringes of the beach they had chosen were out of sight of any villages and accessible only by sandy tracks suitable for donkeys and four-wheel drives. They’d discounted a dozen more sites due to the strict criteria they’d imposed on themselves for this operation.

‘This is madness,’ said the ship’s captain.

‘Enough from you.’

Alex walked out onto the port bridge wing. Behind the narrow strip of flat white beach were dunes that surrendered to a rising landscape of rocky outcrops and hills. Through his binoculars he saw the bright orange nylon sun shelter on the beach. Danielle stepped into view from its paltry shade. She had on her blue bikini top and a brightly printed kikoi wrapped around her waist as a skirt. The hem ended halfway up her thighs, showing off her perfect pale legs.

She waved at him.

He transferred his attention to the rocky reef beside him, the top of which was only visible when a wave broke against it and receded. Alex strode back inside and walked through the bridge, past the snarling captain, out onto the starboard wing. He looked over the edge and far below saw the dark outline of the reef, not ten metres from the hull on this side.

As well as finding an ideal beach they needed perfect weather conditions to pull this job off. Someone was smiling down on him because the sun was shining, there wasn’t a breath of wind and the sea was as calm as a lake. There might be ten metres clearance on either side of the ship’s thirty-two metre beam, but even a slight swell or a stiff breeze would have made it impossible to pass safely through the gap in the reef without tugs and slow, careful manoeuvring with the ship’s bow thruster.

Alex walked back inside the bridge, stood next to Kevin and held his breath.

‘We’re through!’ The Australian turned and grinned at him, but Alex wasn’t ready to celebrate just yet.

‘Engine full ahead, hard-a-port,’ Alex said.

‘Aye, Captain. Engine full ahead, hard-a-port.’

‘i***t!’ the Norwegian captain railed. ‘You’re going to beach us, you fool.’

‘I sincerely hope so.’ Alex went back out to the starboard bridge wing.

The Oslo Star had slowly turned, so that its starboard side was almost parallel to the rapidly approaching coastline.

‘Five metres, three metres, two …’ Kevin called from inside reading off the water’s depth under the keel. Captain Berentsen looked down at the deck and shook his head.

The Oslo Star touched bottom. Alex looked down. The ship’s massive screw churned in the water, trying to drive her closer to shore, but because of the angle at which they had beached the Oslo Star the dry sand still looked twenty metres or more away. He pressed the ‘transmit’ switch on his throat microphone. ‘Shark Two, side ramp down, side ramp down.’

‘Yes sir,’ Mitch said, sullen as usual. The American was in the ramp control station at the aft of the ship.

The Oslo Star had two ramps for disgorging her cargo of vehicles; one at the stern and one on the starboard side. Both ramps were designed for use with the ship alongside a quay. The stern ramp was angled, but reached only a little more than thirteen metres from the side of the ship, while the side ramp was twenty-five metres long. Alex knew the ramp could only be lowered twelve degrees from the horizontal. There were no guarantees they had beached the ship close enough to shore to begin unloading.

‘I’m going down to check on the ramp,’ he told Kevin. ‘Take the captain back to the mess with the rest of his crew and relieve our man on guard duty, so he can help shift the vehicles. If anyone tries anything, shoot the captain first. That should put the wind up the rest of them.’

‘Roger,’ Kevin said.

Alex left the bridge and walked to the rear of the accommodation deck, past the prisoners, and got into the lift that stopped at every second deck. Stepping out onto the car deck he saw a growing dazzle of light at the ship’s starboard side. Ahead of him was row upon row of gleaming Hummers, the civilian version of the American military’s workhorse tactical vehicle. These models had their garish yellow, blue and shiny black flanks plastered with sheets of white stick-on vinyl film to protect their panels from scratches.

With Henri guarding the prisoners and Kevin on the bridge, the job of unloading was left to Alex and three others. Mitch would join them once the ramp was fully down. Heinrich, the German, was walking along the rows of trucks releasing the nylon straps that held the Hummers down to the deck.

The hold was filling with exhaust smoke as vehicle engines were revved to life. The ramp was almost down. Alex strode between the vehicles, making for the opening in the side of the ship.

With the captain and crew safely under guard he removed his gasmask, savouring the breeze that cooled the sweat in his unkempt mop of raven hair as he walked down the ramp. It juddered to a halt beneath his feet. He looked up at the control booth, high above.

‘We’re short,’ Mitch said into his earpiece.

‘So I see.’ They were close – the edge of the ramp was about a metre above the water and about four metres from the exposed sand of the beach. Alex undid his assault vest, took off his radio and pulled off his boots. He dived over the edge of the ramp into the water. Surfacing, he looked up at the towering beast above him. Its engine was stopped, but he could feel the vibrations of the ship’s generator in his body. He tried to stand. The water was less than half a metre above his head.

Heinrich had jogged to the end of the ramp. He leaned over the edge and held out his hand, helping Alex back aboard.

Alex picked up his radio and earpiece. ‘Mermaid Two, Mermaid Two. We need you down here. Now!’

‘Awesome,’ cried the high-pitched female voice in his ear.

Alex looked to the pass through two of the sandhills. The clatter of an old diesel engine and a cloud of black smoke told him Sarah was on her way. He pictured her, grinning madly behind the wheel of the old Series IIA Land Rover.

Sarah Hoyland was the daughter of a mechanic and she’d had a love affair with engines and cars all her life. She handled a four-by-four in loose sand better than any of them and there was air under all four wheels as Sarah crested a dune, not even bothering with the pass. They were a wild bunch, all right, but Alex loved every one of them – Sarah and Danielle more than the guys, of course. Even Mitch had his moments.

Danielle, red-haired and freckled, watched from the shelter of her sun tent. The old Land Rover landed with a cloud of sand and wincing creak of leaf springs and ageing shock absorbers. Alex saw Sarah’s dark curls streaming in the breeze. She and Kevin – another self-confessed petrol head – had removed the Land Rover’s hard top and the pair of them had welded to the body the weird-looking array of modifications that might just save the day.

Behind Sarah was a stout roll bar of tubular steel and in front of her face was nothing, as she had folded the Land Rover’s windscreen down across the bonnet. Rising up from the rear of the open pick-up tray were four long lengths of flat steel ramp, strapped together in pairs, which she and Kevin had cut from a wrecked tilt-bed car-carrying trailer. They protruded forward and above her, like twin prongs. The other modification was a home-made snorkel of PVC water pipe which rose from the engine’s air intake, and out the side of the right front fender. Sarah had secured the towering two-metre extension to the right-hand steel ramp.

Sarah hit the flat of the beach and gunned the engine. ‘Yee-hah!’ she screamed as she straightened and aimed for the rear of the ship, which loomed high in front of her, casting a shadow up the beach.

‘She is mad that woman,’ Heinrich said.

Alex nodded to the German, and held his breath.

A bow wave flew up as the Land Rover entered the water. Sarah’s green eyes blazed and she looked up and flashed Alex a broad, wild smile as the vehicle, then her face, disappeared below the surface of the water.

The leading edges of the steel ramps edged closer and closer to the lip of the drawbridge at the side of the ship. ‘Come on, come on. That’s my girl,’ Alex whispered.

‘I thought Danielle was your girl this week?’ Heinrich winked, but Alex ignored the jibe.

Heinrich took a step back as the ramps connected with the ship’s steel with an ear-piercing grate and clang. The Land Rover’s snorkel was still clear of the water and bubbles showed its engine was still running.

Alex jumped in the water again and swam to the shallows. He unfastened a tie-down strap which held the pairs of ramps together. He slid one length free and when he pulled it towards the shoreline and locked it in place with its mate – via a simple peg and hole arrangement – the makeshift ramp nearly reached dry sand. He looked to where the front of the vehicle was, but there was no sign of Sarah.

‘s**t,’ he said. He swam around the submerged Land Rover and dived beneath the water’s surface. The ship’s generator pounded in his ears. He found Sarah immediately. She was slumped over the steering wheel. He wrapped an arm under her breasts and pulled her clear. Once on the surface he swam sidestroke to the beach. Heinrich had stripped off his gear and was in the water as well. He waded to shore.

Together they dragged Sarah onto dry sand. Alex checked and found she had a pulse but wasn’t breathing.

Alex blew two sharp breaths into Sarah’s mouth and seawater erupted from her as she coughed and choked. Alex rolled her onto her side as the convulsing continued. ‘Jesus, you had me worried,’ he said, wiping his mouth.

Sarah tried to sit up and coughed again, but Alex told her to lie down. ‘f**k. That was wild,’ she spluttered. She reached up for him and pulled his head to her and kissed him.

Alex broke free and said to Heinrich, ‘What are you staring at? Let’s get on board and give these Hummers the only taste of beach driving they’re ever going to get.’

They had to sidestep as the first Hummer bounced off the main ramp onto the rickety extensions. The old Land Rover on the seabed took the strain and Alex breathed a little easier as the new four-wheel drive splashed through the shallows and carved twin ruts through the wet sand. Inside the ship, Kufa, a black Zimbabwean former mercenary, was climbing into a vehicle. He waved at Alex, grinning broadly.

Sarah insisted she was fine and followed Alex and Heinrich back onto the ship. Alex pulled on his gear again. He went to the nearest vehicle and ripped off the shipment papers taped to the windscreen and got behind the wheel.

Alex gunned the big engine and drove across the deck to the square of light at the end. He geared down to second as he hit the ramps and felt the truck lurch as he bounced over the swaying, rising bridge. He accelerated up the beach and pulled to a halt next to Danielle’s beach tent. The young Irishwoman sat behind a fold-out camping table, on top of which was a laptop computer and a laser printer powered by a truck battery and an inverter.

‘How’s Sarah?’ she asked. It was, Alex thought, as though she was asking if the other woman was over a headache, rather than recovering from a near-death experience. Why was it that women said they didn’t mind being in an open relationship when they didn’t mean it?

‘She’ll live. Everything OK here?’

‘Give me your engine and chassis numbers.’

Alex ignored the rebuff and read the lengthy numbers from the paperwork he’d taken from the windscreen. Danielle was the antithesis of Sarah. The Irishwoman rarely made a move in life without carefully weighing the pros and cons, then setting herself a detailed plan for the way ahead.

Danielle typed the numbers into her computer and sent the document to the laser printer. The paperwork that emerged was identical to that which Alex had taken from the Hummer, except for the vehicle identification and destination details. Danielle passed the document and some tape to Alex and he fixed it to the windscreen, where the original had been.

He turned back to her. ‘Danielle, I …’

‘Forget it. You’re the one who kept telling us speed was essential. Now get moving. I really was worried about Sarah, and I’m pleased she’s OK. I hope you’ll both be happy together.’

He shook his head and trod angrily on the accelerator. Alex climbed the pass through the dunes and sped along the narrow tracks that led to firmer ground. Jose waved him forward, until he was at the rear of a semitrailer, a double-deck car transporter. The vehicle’s African driver hovered nearby, dragging on a cigarette.

‘Everything OK, brother?’ Jose asked. The Mozambican’s smile showed he was enjoying himself, as ever.

Alex nodded. ‘So far so good.’ He checked his watch.

Jose had stayed aboard the second fishing boat until Alex and the rest of the men had boarded the Oslo Star. Once Alex had seized the ship, Jose had abandoned the trawlers and made for the coast at top speed in an inflatable boat. His job on land was to oversee shipment of the stolen vehicles. The operation on land was as slick as the hijacking at sea. Alex saw a dozen young African men trudging through the sand towards them. His contact in Johannesburg had promised him a small army of drivers to collect individual vehicles, as well as half-a-dozen car transporter trucks. The more the merrier, Alex thought. He was getting paid per vehicle at the end of the day.

‘Keep ’em moving, Jose,’ Alex said. The command was unnecessary as the Mozambican was already in a vehicle, which he drove up onto the car transporter.

Alex climbed down from the truck, turned and ran back down the dunes to the stranded ship to get another vehicle.

The Oslo Star stuck out like a beached white whale. When he reached the shoreline he saw Sarah behind the wheel of the next vehicle to roll off. She pulled to a halt on the beach beside him, short of Danielle’s tent.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked her, leaning in the window.

‘This is the best job yet, Alex. I’d do you now if I could.’

He leaned into the cab and kissed her hard. He felt Danielle’s eyes boring into the back of his head from up the beach. ‘Keep moving.’

‘Aye aye, Captain,’ Sarah licked her lips and drove off.