Scott Mariani 2-book Collection: Star of Africa, The Devil’s Kingdom

‘What?’ Ben asked, with no idea what it could be. A surprise tax audit? A mass cancellation? The bank calling in a loan?

‘You’d better fucking see this, Ben,’ Jeff said.

Ben jumped up and moved around the desk to look at the screen. When he saw the email, he froze, blinked twice, then read it again.

He would read it many more times over the coming hours.

It was unbelievable. But it was for real.

The email had landed at precisely thirty-nine minutes past two, local time. It had no subject header and was typed in capitals, a breathless one-line rush with no breaks, no punctuation, very clearly dashed off in a tearing hurry. All it said was:

JEFF SOS SHIP HIJACKED BY ARMED PIRATES CREW KILLED NEED HELP FAST NO RADIO MAINTAINING POSITION 3.530797, 54.381358 DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE PLS HURRY JUDE

For a long moment, Ben and Jeff were stunned into silence.

Then the reaction hit. Pacing. Fretting. Wanting to yell and punch the walls. Ben’s anguish. Jeff’s horror. Ben’s short-lived flare of anger towards his friend for getting Jude onto the ship in the first place. Jeff’s remorse and readiness to take the blame, no excuses, no denials.

But there was no time for emotions here. Both men had learned a long time ago that emotions were the deadliest enemy at a time like this. Only the cold, calm, rational actions they took in the next few minutes would decide the outcome of the situation. Ben quashed his rising panic and took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Jeff. It’s not your fault.’

‘No hard feelings,’ Jeff said, putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder and looking him in the eye with as much reassurance as he could muster. ‘I’d have felt the same. Fuck, a lot worse.’

‘All right,’ Ben said, fighting to stay calm. ‘Let’s take stock of this. What do we know? One, we know it’s not a hoax. Jude wouldn’t kid around. Two, we know that at least some of the crew are still alive. Or were, a few minutes ago when this message was sent.’

‘Jesus Christ, don’t say that,’ Jeff muttered. ‘Don’t even think it.’

But Jeff was thinking the exact same thing, as Ben knew perfectly well. Anything could happen in a few minutes, with heavily tooled-up Somali pirates running amok on board and the crew resisting. Jude could be dead already. He could have been dead even before they’d read the email.

No. He’s alive. Ben gritted his teeth and willed himself to hold that thought. Believe it, absolutely and without question.

Ben threw himself into a desk chair, yanked the computer towards him, snatched a sheet of notepaper from the desk and dashed off the position coordinates from Jude’s email. He plunged into a web search for Google Maps. Within seconds, he was feverishly tapping in the numbers. Moments later, he’d pinpointed the ship’s position. A little red pointer, like an inverted drop of blood, marked the spot in the middle of the ocean where his son was, or had been. He was out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, just over one hundred and fifty miles east of the Somali coast.

‘Two hours ahead of us, EAT, Eastern Africa Time,’ Jeff said, peering over his shoulder. He glanced at his watch. ‘16.39 hours over there.’

Ben rattled more keys. Next he brought up the Commercial Crime Services section of the International Chamber of Commerce website. It was the home of the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre where all current and ongoing incidents were monitored and displayed around the clock. The website offered a single point of contact for shipmasters and shipping line owners all over the world to report piracy incidents. Its twenty-four-hour phone and email hotline was run from the central company base in Kuala Lumpur, from where the relevant maritime law enforcement authorities anywhere in the world could be alerted to a developing incident.

Ben clicked on the tab that said LIVE PIRACY MAP. A satellite image of the world appeared onscreen. It was dotted with a profusion of pointer arrows colour-coded by status, in increasing order of seriousness: Suspicious Vessel, Attempted Attack, Fired Upon, Boarded, Hijacked. The multicoloured arrows were mainly clustered around the east and west coasts of Africa, as well as a great many in the South China Sea, Malaysia and Borneo. A stunning number of the arrows were orange, designating ‘Boarded’. It was incredible to think that at this very moment, so many ships’ crews were facing the imminent danger of being overrun by armed bandits.

But in the location Jude had given, there was nothing but blank blue ocean. No markers anywhere close. If the incident map could be trusted – and Ben knew it could – there were two current piracy attacks taking place along the east coast of Africa. One was happening off Tanzania near Zanzibar, a thousand miles to the south of Jude’s coordinates. The other stricken vessel was in the five-hundred-mile stretch of waters between Mozambique and Madagascar, a further thousand miles south again. Neither of them could possibly be the Svalgaard Andromeda.

The distances were impossible. Having set out from Salalah in Oman, it was extremely unlikely that the vessel could have reached Zanzibar by now, let alone the coast of Mozambique.

The obvious question came into Ben’s mind. Could Jude have got the coordinates wrong?

Ben couldn’t believe that. Firstly, Jude was a quick and precise thinker, with a superb memory for facts and numbers. He knew better than to make such a huge error. Besides which, the coordinates were too specific not to have come from the ship’s own navigation computer. Ben was certain that, however Jude had been able to see them, he’d have noted them down correctly to the last number.

Which left two further possibilities. One, that the incident was in the process of being recorded by the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre. Or two, that they didn’t yet know it was happening.

‘Why wouldn’t the crew have called it in before it kicked off?’ Ben said. ‘You can’t miss an incoming pirate attack on radar. They must have known what was about to happen.’

Jeff just shook his head. ‘Unless it all went down too fast. Surprise attack? In open sea, I agree, it seems unlikely. But however it happened, the pirates must’ve gained control quick enough to prevent them from getting out a distress call in time, and cut off their radio access. Sounds like a seriously well-planned op.’

The scenario made sense to Ben. But Jude had somehow been able to get an email through. ‘Why send the message here, to you?’ he wondered aloud. ‘Why not contact the authorities? The ship’s officers would have known who to go to in this situation.’

It only took Ben another moment to realise what that had to mean. He glanced at Jeff, whose expression told him his friend was thinking the same thing he was.

‘That’s because there are no ship’s officers,’ Jeff said grimly. ‘They’re toast, and all that’s left are the ordinary deckhands. Those blokes wouldn’t have the first idea who to call in an emergency. They’re on their own out there.’

Ben brought Jude’s email back up onscreen, staring at it as though he could will the words to squeeze out more information. ‘“Maintaining position”,’ he read out, tapping the screen with a finger. ‘What’s that about?’

‘What else?’ Jeff said. ‘They’re not moving, that’s all it means.’

‘But why would he tell us? I know him. He’s a planner. He wouldn’t waste words on the obvious. He’s thinking two steps ahead here.’ Ben chewed his lip and struggled to think what it could be. An idea flashed into his mind. ‘Where would the crew hide when the ship was taken?’

‘Below decks,’ Jeff said. ‘For sure. That’s where I’d go.’

‘Me too. I’d head straight for the engine room. Chances are the guys already down there wouldn’t even know it was happening at first, until the others ran down and told them. They’d bunch together. Strength in numbers.’

Jeff nodded, seeing where Ben was going with this. ‘And the engine room has the strongest hatches to keep out water in an emergency. They could lock themselves down tighter than a fish’s arse in there, and they’d have independent control over the engines and power. They could shut everything down and hold her steady, and there’s bugger all the pirates could do about it from up top.’

‘Which would mean we’re looking at a sitting target,’ Ben said. ‘And assuming that Jude got these position coordinates just before, or just after, it all started going down, we know where to find it.’

‘Give or take,’ Jeff said, raising an eyebrow. ‘It’s the ocean. Things tend to drift around on it.’

Ben said nothing. He turned his attention back on the computer screen. His heart was thudding. He sat frozen in indecision for a moment, then grabbed the desk phone and started punching out the number. Then he stopped.

His whole career between leaving the SAS and starting up the business at Le Val had been predicated on the simple and well-proven fact that calling in law enforcement authorities was not always the most effective or advisable way to deal with a problem. Ben had been involved with several kidnap and hostage situations in which local police and paramilitary units had got there before him. Too many times, he’d seen the results of botched tactics, conflicting orders, poor communication and general inefficiency result in the wholesale slaughter of members of the raid team, the hostage takers and the hostages themselves. He did not trust these people. He was not going to let the same thing happen to his son.

Ben put the phone down.

Jeff’s look was so intense that his eyes were like lasers. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he said.

‘There isn’t a lot of choice,’ Ben said. ‘And even less time. I’d better get moving.’

Jeff kept up the intense stare. ‘What’s with the I?’

‘He’s my kid,’ Ben said.

‘And he’s my responsibility,’ Jeff said. ‘I’m the one he’s asking for help.’

Jeff would never know how much that stung. Ben’s guts writhed at the reminder that in such a moment of danger, Jude hadn’t even been able to get in touch with his own father.

‘I’m not asking you to come with me,’ Ben said.

‘And you’d better not ask me not to,’ Jeff said hotly. ‘I’m in, and that’s it. Don’t fucking fight me on this one, mate.’

Ben pursed his lips. There was no use arguing. And Jeff was right. There was no way one man on his own could handle this task.

‘Okay,’ he said after a pause. ‘If we’re going to get Jude out of there in one piece, we need to do it right. Full-on operation, no half measures. You know as well as I do what that’s going to involve. A lot more than I can afford right now.’