Those in Peril Read online

  Even though she was prepared for it, the force and volume took her by surprise every time. She gasped and swallowed as rapidly as she could but she could not take it all and the excess overflowed and drooled down her chin. She wanted to suck every last drop out of him. She went on drinking it down and now despite herself she was moaning softly. Her mother’s voice roused her from her daze of ecstasy.

  ‘Cayla! What’s happening? Are you all right? What is happening? Speak to me!’ Cayla had dropped the telephone receiver and it lay squawking on the bed beside her. She snatched it up, and gathered her wits.

  ‘Oh! I spilled the coffee all over myself and the bed. It was hot and it gave me a start.’ She laughed breathlessly.

  ‘You didn’t scald yourself, did you?’

  ‘Oh, no! But the duvet is a mess,’ she said and ran her fingertips through the slippery outpourings that were splattered over the silk coverlet. It was still warm from his body. She wiped her fingers on his chest and he grinned up at her. She thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes upon. Her mother changed the subject and began to reminisce about their recent visit to Cape Town where the Dolphin had stopped over for two weeks. Cayla’s grandmother lived in a magnificent old Herbert Baker-designed mansion amongst the vineyards just outside the city. Hazel had purchased the wine estate with the idea of retiring there one day in the far distant future. In the meantime it made a perfect home for her beloved mother, who had scrimped and saved every penny to enable her daughter to follow her quest to the great tennis tournaments of the world. Now the old lady had a magnificent home, filled with servants, and a uniformed chauffeur to drive her to the village in the Mercedes Maybach every Saturday, to do her shopping and to drink tea with her cronies.

  Rogier stood up from the bed and made a sign to Cayla. Then he sauntered naked to the bathroom. His muscled buttocks oscillated tantalizingly. Cayla jumped up from the bed and followed him, with the telephone receiver still held to her ear. Rogier stood at the urinal and she leaned against the bulkhead beside him and watched with complete fascination.

  She had met Rogier in Paris where she was studying the art of the French Impressionists at the Université des Beaux-Arts. She knew that her mother would never approve of her relationship with him. Her mother was only a lip-service liberal. She had probably never been brought to bed by any man with darker skin pigmentation than orange skin pith. However, on first sight Cayla had been enthralled by Rogier’s exoticism: the glossy iron blue patina of his skin, his fine nilotic features, his tall willowy body and his intriguing accent. She had also been titillated by the accounts of the girlfriends of her own age, those with more experience than her, when they described in prurient detail how men of colour were so much more abundantly endowed with masculine apparatus than those of any other race. She recalled vividly that when she had first seen Blaise in his full imperial tumescence she had been terrified. It seemed impossible that she would be able to accommodate all of him inside herself. The task had not proved as difficult as she had at first imagined. She giggled at the memory.

  ‘What are you laughing at, baby?’ her mother asked.

  ‘I was just remembering Grandma’s story about the wild baboon that got into her kitchen.’

  ‘Granny can be very funny,’ her mother agreed and she went on talking about their impending reunion at Ten League Island in the Seychelles. Hazel owned the entire 1,750-acre island and the big sprawling beach-side bungalow where she planned to pass the Christmas holidays with the family, just as she did every year. She would send the jet to Cape Town to fetch her mother and Uncle John. Cayla put the thought aside. She did not wish to be reminded of her coming separation from Rogier. She reached down and took a firm hold of Blaise and led Rogier back to the bed. Her mother ended the conversation at last.

  ‘I must go now, baby. I have a very early start tomorrow. I will call you again the same time tomorrow. I love you, my little one.’

  ‘I love you a zillion times plus one, Mummy.’ She knew the effect that her baby talk had on her mother. She broke the connection and tossed the telephone onto the antique silk carpet on the deck beside the bed. She kissed Rogier and slipped her tongue into his mouth then she drew back and told him in a peremptory tone,

  ‘I want you to stay with me tonight.’

  ‘I cannot do that. You know I can’t, Cayla.’

  ‘Why not?’ she demanded.

  ‘If the captain finds out about us he will wrap an anchor chain around my neck and drop me overboard.’

  ‘Don’t be utterly wretched. He won’t find out. I have Georgie Porgie under my thumb. He will cover for us. If I smile at him he will do anything for me.’ She was referring to the ship’s purser.

  ‘Anything for your smile and a couple of hundred-dollar bills.’ Rogier switched into his native French with a chuckle. ‘But he is not the captain.’ He stood up and went to where his uniform was thrown over the back of an easy chair. ‘We cannot afford to take that chance, we’re taking enough chances as it is. I’ll come to see you again tomorrow at the same time. Leave the door unlocked.’

  ‘I am ordering you to stay.’ Her voice rose. She was also speaking French now, but a more rudimentary form of the language. He grinned infuriatingly.

  ‘You can’t order me to do anything. You are not the captain of this ship.’ He was fastening the brass buttons of the white jacket of his steward’s uniform.

  Captain Franklin was right. Cayla didn’t give a damn for the French Impressionists, or, for that matter, any other Impressionists. It had been at her mother’s insistence that she had gone to the Université des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her mother was besotted with paintings of water lilies or of half-naked Tahitian girls, just like the one hanging on the bulkhead facing her bed, painted by a syphilitic, drug-blowing, alcoholic Frenchman. She had a crazy idea of setting Cayla up as an art dealer once she had graduated, when the only thing that Cayla really cared about was horses, but there was no point in arguing with Mummy, because Mummy always got her way.

  ‘You belong to me,’ she told Rogier. ‘You will do what I say.’ With her Black Amex card she had paid for his first-class ticket from London to Cape Town, and she had arranged his job as a ship’s steward, greasing Georgie Porgie with a peck on the cheek and a sheaf of green bills. She owned Rogier just as she owned her Bugatti Veyron sports car and her string of show-jumping horses, the true loves of her life.

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow night at the same time.’ He gave her that infuriating grin again and slipped out of the cabin, closing the door softly behind him.

  ‘You will find the bloody door locked!’ she screamed after him, and scooping up the telephone from the deck she hurled it with all her strength at the glowing Gauguin nude. The telephone receiver bounced off the taut canvas and slithered across the deck. Cayla threw herself back on the bed and sobbed into the pillow with fury and frustration. When Rogier refused to obey her was when she wanted him most.

  Rogier checked the stock in the cocktail bar in the main salon. Georgie Porgie trusted him to do this. He retrieved his knife from where he had hidden it under the counter before going to his assignation with Cayla. The blade was of Damask steel made by Kia, the same Japanese firm who had once crafted Samurai swords. It was as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel. Rogier lifted the cuff of his trouser leg and strapped the sheath to his calf. His life was dangerous and the weapon gave him security. He locked up the bar for the night, and then ran lightly down the companionway to the working deck. Before he reached the crew’s mess he smelt the roasting pork. The greasy odour sickened him. He might have to go hungry tonight, unless he could work his charms on the chef. The chef was as gay as a lark on a spring morning, and Rogier was beautiful with thick dark crinkly hair and smouldering eyes. His smile matched his outwardly sunny personality. He took his seat at the crew’s long dining table and waited until the chef looked through the hatch from his kitchen. Rogier smiled at him then gestured at the thick slice of pork on the plate of the stoker b
eside him and rolled his eyes in an eloquent gesture of disgust. The chef smiled back at him and five minutes later he sent a thick middle cut of kingklip through the hatch to him. One of the finest eating fish in the seas, it was cooked to flaking white perfection and slathered with the chef’s famous sauce. It had been destined for the captain’s table before it was diverted.

  The stoker glanced at Rogier’s plate and muttered, ‘Bloody bum boy!’

  Rogier kept smiling but he leaned forward and lifted the cuff of his trouser leg. The thin stiletto blade appeared in his hand below the table top.

  ‘You really should not say that again,’ Rogier advised him and the stoker glanced down. The point of the stiletto was aimed at his crotch. The colour drained from his face and he stood up hastily, abandoned his pork cutlet and hurried out of the mess. Rogier ate his fish with genteel relish. His elegant manners seemed out of place in these surroundings.

  Before leaving he paused at the hatch and waved his thanks to the chef. Then he went up on the stern deck where the crew were permitted to exercise or to relax in their off-duty periods. He looked up at the sickle moon. He felt a deep longing to pray here under this symbol of his faith. He wanted to expunge the memory of the Christian whore and make atonement for the sacrilege he had been forced to commit with her by his grandfather’s orders. But he could not pray out here. There was too great a danger of being observed. He had let it be known on board that he was a Roman Catholic from Marseille. This explained his North African complexion.

  Before he went below he looked to the northern horizon and was able to fix the direction of Mecca in his memory. He went down to his tiny cabin, collected his wash bag and towel, and went along the passage to the shower and toilet that were shared by all the lower deck crew. He washed his face and body carefully, brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth in ritual purification. When he had dried himself he knotted the towel around his waist, returned to his cabin and bolted the door. He took his kitbag down from the rack above his bunk and unpacked his silk prayer mat and his spotless white prayer caftan. He spread the mat on the deck facing Mecca, whose direction he had calculated from the yacht’s heading. There was barely enough space on the deck for the mat. He slipped the caftan over his head and let the hem fall to his ankles. He stood at the foot of the rug and whispered a short introductory prayer in Arabic. He did not wish to chance being overheard by any of his shipmates as they passed his cabin door:

  ‘In the sight of Allah the Merciful and of his prophet I declare that I am Adam Abdul Tippoo Tip and that from the day of my birth I have embraced Islam and I am now and have always been a true believer. I confess my sins in that I have cohabited with the infidel and have taken unto myself the infidel name of Rogier Marcel Moreau. I pray your pardon for these deeds; which I have committed only in the service of Islam and of Allah the Most Merciful and not by my own wishes or desires.’ Long before Rogier’s birth his sainted grandfather had taken the precaution of sending his pregnant wives and the wives of his sons and grandsons to give birth to their offspring on the tiny island of Réunion in the south-eastern corner of the Indian Ocean. By a happy chance his grandfather had himself been born on the island and so he knew just how convenient this birthplace was. Réunion Island was a directorate of Greater France and thus any person born on its rugged black volcanic slopes was a citizen of France and entitled to all the rights and privileges which that entailed. Two years previously at the beginning of the present operation, and at the insistence of his grandfather, Adam had formally changed his name by deed poll in the directorate of Auvergne in France and had been issued with a new French passport. As soon as he had delivered his personal appeal to Allah, Rogier began the evening prayer with the Arabic salutation:

  ‘I intend to offer four Rakats of the Isha prayer and face the Qibla, the direction of Mecca, for the sake of Allah and Allah alone.’ He commenced the complicated series of bowing, kneeling and prostrating as he whispered the required prayers. When he had finished he felt enlivened and powerful in body and in faith. It was time for the next move against the infidel and the blasphemer. He removed his prayer robe and rolled it into the silk rug, and returned both items to the bottom of the large kitbag. Then he dressed in a pair of denim jeans, a dark shirt and black windcheater. Next he brought down his rucksack from the luggage rack above his bunk, and opened the side flap of one of the pockets. He took out a black Nokia mobile phone. It was an identical model to the one he used for ordinary communications. However, this device had been modified by one of his grandfather’s technicians. He switched it on and checked that the battery was full. It had sufficient power for at least a week of operation before he had to recharge it. Ever since sailing from Cape Town he had surreptitiously searched the superstructure of the yacht for the most suitable place in which to plant the device, and had finally decided on the small locker on the aft deck in which the deck-chairs and cleaning equipment were stored. Its door was never locked, and between the door lintel and the low roof was a narrow ledge which was ideally suited to his requirements. From the pocket of his rucksack he took a roll of double-sided adhesive tape and a small Maglite. He cut two pieces of the tape and stuck them to the back of the mobile phone. He zipped the mobile phone and the Maglite into the pocket of his windcheater, left the cabin and went up the companionway to the aft deck. He leaned his elbows on the rail and looked down on the vessel’s wake. It was creamy with the phosphorescence emitted by the tiny marine creatures being churned up by the propellers. Then he looked up at the sickle moon which was now well clear of the dark horizon. The Moon of Islam; he smiled, it was a propitious sign. He straightened up from the rail and looked about him casually to make certain he was not being observed. He had made it his habit to come on deck every evening after his bar duties were finished, so that there was nothing suspicious about his presence here on this occasion. The door of the storage locker was in the shadow of the superstructure. In his dark clothing Rogier was almost invisible as he moved towards it. The latch on the door opened easily. He let himself in and closed the door. He switched on the Maglite, but shaded the powerful beam with his hand and shone it into the recess above the lintel. This was above the eyeline of even a tall man entering the locker. With his free hand he took the mobile phone from his pocket and decided on the exact spot in which to place the device. He reached up and pressed the adhesive strips against the bulkhead. He tried it carefully and found the device was firmly attached; it would take considerable force to remove it.

  He pressed the ‘Power’ button and the small red light glowed immediately, emitting an almost inaudible electronic tone. The transponder was transmitting. Rogier grunted with satisfaction and pressed the mute button. The tone was silenced but the red light continued pulsing softly. Only a receiver that was tuned to the precise wavelength of the transponder and that was correctly encoded would be able to read the transmissions. The squawk code was 1351. This was the Islamic equivalent of 1933 in the Gregorian calendar, the year of his grandfather’s birth. Rogier switched off the torch and slipped out of the locker, shutting the door quietly behind him. He went down to his cabin.

  One hundred and eight nautical miles north of Madagascar and five hundred and sixteen miles east of the port of Dar es Salaam on the African mainland lay a tiny scattering of uninhabited coral atolls. In the lee of one of these a 170-foot lateen-rigged Arab dhow lay at anchor in six fathoms of water with her grubby canvas sail furled around the long boom. She had been lying there for eleven days, indistinguishable from any other coastal Arab trader or fishing boat. Her hull had not been painted for many years, and it was zebra-striped by the human faeces which the crew had voided as they hung their buttocks over the ship’s rail. The only oddity that might have caught the attention of a casual observer was the three much smaller craft that were moored to the side of the dhow. Twenty-eight feet long, their low hulls, with sharply streamlined prows, were of modern fibreglass construction, and painted a nondescript matt colour which would merge into the
watery wastes of the open ocean. On the stern of each boat were bolted two massive outboard motors. The engine maker’s original flamboyant paintwork was covered by a blotchy coating of the same colour as the hulls. However, they were finely tuned and capable of pushing the light craft at speeds of over forty knots, even when fully laden.

  The long boats were empty at the moment. The crews were all assembled on the deck of the big dhow, where they had just completed the evening prayers. They were moving about the deck, embracing each other and repeating the traditional invocation,

  ‘May Allah hear our prayers.’

  Above the hubbub of their voices the radio operator’s trained ear picked up the soft electronic beeping coming from the deck house forward of the single mast. He broke away from the group and hurried to attend to his equipment. As soon as he entered the deck house he saw the red light blinking on the front panel of the radio receiver and his heart beat faster.

  ‘In the name of Allah the All Merciful, may his glorious name be exalted for ever!’ He squatted cross-legged on the deck before the radio set. Ever since they had reached the atoll and dropped the lump of coral which served the dhow as anchor the radio had been tuned to the correct frequency. In Morse he tapped out the squawk code: 1351. Immediately the transponder in the locker on the aft deck of the Amorous Dolphin changed from broadcast to passive mode, waiting to respond to interrogation. The radio operator sprang to his feet and rushed to the doorway. He shrieked excitedly,