Fair Game (23 page)

The one walking next to Katie reached over and stroked her breasts and she twisted away from him.

‘Leave her alone!’ screamed Joy. ‘Keep your filthy hands off her.’

The pirate next to Joy punched her in the back of the neck and she pitched forward on to her knees. She scrabbled to her feet and spat at her attacker. ‘Fuck you!’ she screamed. ‘Fuck all of you.’

‘Easy, Joy,’ shouted Hoop. ‘Don’t give them an excuse.’

‘Fuck you too, Hoop!’ shouted Joy, her eyes blazing. ‘You’ve no idea what the fuck we’ve been going through.’ She pointed her finger at the man who’d hit her. ‘You fucking keep away from me, do you hear me?’

The pirate snarled at her and then shouted something to her in Somali as he raised his machete.

Joy stood her ground and stared at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Yeah, you want to kill me, do you? Go on, then. Big man with a knife, yeah? Well, fuck you!’ She spat at him again and phlegm splattered across his face.

Katie sank to the ground, sobbing, her hands over her face.

Joy’s husband jumped out of the skiff he was in and waded through the waves, screaming her name. Two pirates jumped out and chased after him, lifting their legs high and jumping through the waves. He reached the beach ahead of them and ran across the sand to his wife.

‘Come on, you bastard, do it!’ shouted Joy. ‘You think I’m scared? You think dying is worse than what you scum have been doing to me?’

‘Joy!’ screamed Andrew, but Roobie whirled around and slammed the butt of his AK-47 into his stomach. Andrew doubled up, gasping for breath, and Roobie swung the butt again, this time bringing it crashing down on the back of his neck.

‘Please, Joy, don’t!’ cried Katie through her tears.

‘I don’t care!’ screamed Joy. ‘I don’t fucking care any more!’

Everyone on the dock had stopped what they were doing and were staring at Joy. There were fishermen squatting over nets, beggars, bare-chested and shoeless children, women in brightly coloured dresses with baskets of fruit and vegetables balanced on their heads. Katie even saw two men in what she assumed were scruffy police uniforms and half a dozen lanky teenagers in military fatigues with rifles standing by an open jeep. ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something!’ Katie screamed up at the sky, but no one looked at her, all eyes were fixed on Joy and the pirate who stood in front of her, slowly swinging his machete.

Andrew tried to get up and he reached out to her with one hand but then he fell back, face down, his chest barely moving.

‘Come on, you bastard, do it!’ shouted Joy. ‘Put me out of my fucking misery, why don’t you.’

‘Joy, no!’ yelled Katie. ‘Stop it, please!’

The pirate took a step towards Joy, a cruel smile on his face. He said something in Somali, and sneered at her. Joy stared at him, her chest rising and falling, her hands bunched into fists at her side. ‘Come on, you piece of shit,’ she said scornfully. ‘You’re man enough to rape, are you man enough to kill?’ She raised her chin and then turned, exposing the left side of her neck to him.

‘Joy! No!’ screamed Katie, pulling at her own hair. ‘Stop!’

The pirate raised the machete high in the air and it glinted under the fierce African sun. Joy seemed to relax, her face slowly went blank and her hands unclenched. Her eyes remained open, staring at the pirate.

The man screamed at the top of his lungs and brought the machete down hard, towards the exposed neck, but at the last second he stopped, the blade less than an inch from Joy’s neck. Joy didn’t so much as blink. The pirate threw back his head and roared with laughter.

The soldiers standing by the jeep were laughing and pointing. Katie looked over at them, wondering why they hadn’t done anything to help. Everyone on the dock could see that they were being held prisoner and were being forced from the boats to the truck at gunpoint, so why didn’t they step in? The two policemen were leaning against a dirt-streaked white car and one of them was drinking from a bottle that looked as if it contained whisky. ‘How can you let this happen?’ she screamed. ‘Why won’t anybody help us?’

Two obese women, one in a bright yellow dress, the other in a dress with dark blue and light blue checks, laughed at her, and a boy who couldn’t have been more than eight years old picked up a stone and threw it at her. It smacked against her bare shoulder and drew blood, and he ran away laughing.

Roobie walked over to Joy, who was still staring at her tormentor. Without breaking his stride he slammed the butt of his AK-47 against the side of her head and she went down without a sound. He bent down, grabbed her under the arms and picked her up in one smooth movement, then swung her over his shoulder and carried her over to the truck.

The pirate with the machete seized the back of her shirt and pulled her to her feet. She folded her arms and walked slowly towards the truck, mumbling to herself.

Two more pirates picked up Andrew, who was moaning incoherently, and dragged him after Roobie.

Hoop and Eric were marched at gunpoint from the dock to the truck. They were followed by half a dozen children who were chanting in Somali as they marched like soldiers, their bare feet kicking up clouds of dust around them.

Roobie dumped Joy in the back of the truck and turned around to shout at the rest of the pirates. The pirate behind Katie pushed her in the middle of the back and shouted at her. She climbed into the back of the truck and crawled over to Joy. She was breathing heavily, her mouth wide open and her eyes closed. Katie sat down next to her and lifted her head on to her lap.

There was a thump at the end of the truck and Andrew was tossed in. He landed heavily and lay face down. The back of his head was matted with blood. Tears ran down Katie’s face as she cradled Joy.

The tarpaulin was pulled back and Hoop climbed in. He cursed when he saw the state of Andrew’s scalp. ‘Bastards,’ he said.

Eric climbed in after Hoop and sat down at the far end of the truck, with his back against the cab, his head in his hands.

Hoop gingerly moved Andrew’s hair to get a look at the wound. ‘It’s not bleeding too much,’ he said.

‘He could be bleeding in the brain and we wouldn’t know,’ said Katie. ‘He needs a scan.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen any time soon, is it?’ said Eric, sitting back on his heels.

The tarpaulin was pulled back and Roobie looked in.

Hoop scowled at him. ‘We need water,’ he said. ‘And I need a cloth to clean his wound after you caved his skull in.’

The tarpaulin closed and they heard Roobie shouting. Two minutes later and Roobie reappeared, and he tossed two plastic bottles of water and a piece of dirty cloth at Hoop. Then he pulled the tarpaulin shut and threaded a rope through a series of holes to tie it closed.

The truck engine coughed and spluttered and the entire vehicle started to shudder. It jerked forward and picked up speed. Through a gap in the tarpaulin Katie could see the two SUVs fall in behind them.

‘Why didn’t anyone help us?’ asked Katie. ‘How could they stand by and let it happen?’

‘Most of them depend on the pirates for money,’ said Hoop. ‘The fishing industry has been in decline for years. If it wasn’t for the pirates most of them would be starving.’

‘So they let them beat us up and rape us and treat us like animals?’

‘Katie, look at us. In case you haven’t noticed we’re the only white people here. We’re the outsiders, we mean nothing to them, we’re just a source of income.’

‘But the police? You saw the police?’

‘Yeah,’ said Eric. ‘And they saw us. The pirates pay them off like they pay everyone in Puntland. The cops aren’t going to help us and neither are the army.’ He drew his knees up to his chest. ‘That’s why they haven’t bothered tying us up or gagging us. They don’t have to. Even if we get away from this lot anyone who finds us will hand us straight back. The whole bloody country is corrupt.’

Katie stroked Joy’s cheek. ‘She wanted him to kill her, you know? She meant it.’

‘It’s going to work out all right in the end,’ said Hoop. ‘They always hand their hostages over alive once the ransom has been paid.’

Katie shook her head. ‘Joy was right,’ she said. ‘We’d be better off dead.’

Captain Peter Giles flopped down into his chair and waved for Shepherd to sit down on one of the two chairs facing the teak-effect desk. ‘Take a pew,’ he said. They were in a nondescript office in the old War Office building in Whitehall. There were bomb-proof curtains over the windows and two of the fluorescent light bulbs were missing from the fittings in the ceiling. Giles was a few years younger than Shepherd, with blond hair cut very short and skin that was so white it suggested he spent more time in submarines than on the deck of a ship. ‘I appreciate you coming in,’ said Giles. ‘A lot of the info I have is classified and can’t leave the building.’ He flicked his hair from his eyes.

‘In case it gets left on a train?’ said Shepherd.

‘You can mock but it has happened, several times,’ said Giles. ‘Not to me, I hasten to add. Now, can I get you a coffee or tea or water? The coffee and tea are from a machine, I’m afraid – they did away with the tea ladies years ago.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Shepherd. ‘My boss says you’re just back from Somalia.’

‘Not quite,’ said the captain. ‘I was at sea all of the time but we did get to within about twenty miles of the Somali coastline a few times. I was out with the task force that patrols the MSPA within the Gulf of Aden.’

‘I’m really bad with initials,’ said Shepherd. ‘MSPA?’

‘Sorry,’ said Giles. ‘Maritime Security Patrol Area. It was set up by CTF-150 in August 2008, basically a secure corridor between Somalia and Yemen. Ships know that within that area they are under our protection, though between you and me the bloody pirates don’t pay it much attention. What tends to happen now is that ships gather at either end of the corridor and group into convoys that are then guarded by warships. Safety in numbers and all that.’

‘CTF-150?’

Giles shrugged apologetically. ‘CTF. Combined Task Force. Strictly speaking it’s the CJTF-HOA, Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, but it’s generally accepted that that’s too much of a mouthful. We advise shipping to stick to what we call the IRTC, the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor, which runs down the middle of the Gulf of Aden, bisecting the MSPA. Provided ships stick to the IRTC, they’re pretty much safe, especially if they’re in a convoy. The danger areas are in the Arabian Sea before they get to the IRTC. There’s a lot of sea out there so it’s harder to patrol. If they encounter a problem out at sea then they have to radio for assistance, and if there’s one available we’ll send out a chopper.’ He stood up. ‘Look, I’m going to need a coffee. If I don’t put caffeine into my system every few hours I get a blinding headache. You sure you don’t want anything? I’ve a lot of info to get through and this could take a few hours.’

‘Coffee with a splash of milk and no sugar,’ said Shepherd.

‘No sugar’s easy enough but the machine isn’t programmed for a splash,’ said Giles as he headed for the door. ‘Frankly, I’m not even sure it’s milk.’

He left the office. Shepherd sighed and looked around the room. There was nothing of a personal nature, no photographs, no certificates, no books, just a computer on the desk along with an empty in-tray and out-tray. There had been no name on the door, just a number, and Shepherd realised that the office was probably one that Giles was using temporarily.

The captain returned with two white plastic cups. He put one down in front of Shepherd and walked around the desk to sit down. ‘Just a few ground rules before we start,’ he said. ‘Feel free to take notes but I can’t let you take photocopies or print-outs from the building, and we can’t give you any thumb drives or disks.’ He grinned. ‘Though your boss tells me that you’ve got some sort of trick memory, right?’

‘It’s pretty much photographic,’ said Shepherd. ‘I can remember anything I see and most of what I hear.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Yeah, it comes in handy.’

‘So you’d be a good card counter?’

Shepherd frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘In a casino. Blackjack. You’d know what cards are still in the deck.’

Shepherd chuckled. ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he said. ‘If you showed me a deck of cards one by one I’d be able to recall the order you showed them to me. And if you asked me to tell you what card followed the ace of diamonds, I could tell you that. But if you showed me fifty cards and asked me which two I hadn’t seen, I’d have to think about it for a long time.’

‘What about languages?’

Shepherd grinned. ‘You sound like a psychiatrist,’ he said.

‘I’m just fascinated by it,’ said Giles. ‘My job is all about information and I find it a real pain to remember most of it. But I’m great at languages. I can speak French, Italian, Arabic and Russian almost fluently and can make myself understood in half a dozen more. I’ve never had a problem remembering vocabulary but I can’t remember numbers, for instance.’

‘Then we’re opposites,’ said Shepherd. ‘I can memorise numbers without trying, and I’m good with vocabulary, but I can’t follow a conversation in another language.’

‘But faces you can remember? And names?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘That’s where it comes in really handy,’ he said. ‘Once I’ve seen a face I never forget it.’

‘Well, I’ve plenty of faces to show you,’ said Giles. He tapped at the keyboard on his desk, then he sat back and steepled his fingers on his chest. ‘OK, how are you on the background to this whole piracy thing?’

‘Only what I’ve read in the papers,’ said Shepherd. ‘Illegal fishing destroyed their livelihoods so they turned to piracy instead.’

‘That’s pretty much what happened,’ said Giles. ‘Though fishing declined during the civil war, the Somali fish stocks were reduced to almost nothing by overfishing. Plus European companies have been dumping hazardous waste offshore for years. With the government in disarray there was no one to stand up to the big companies and between the toxic waste and the commercial overfishing, the Somali fishermen saw their livelihoods destroyed. Some three-quarters of the population exist on less than two dollars a day, so you can understand why they took up piracy.’