Free At Risk by Stella Rimington Page A

was in marked contrast to previous people-smuggling endeavours. In the past, in return for hefty cash sums at the point of departure, migrants had been delivered filthy, traumatised and half starved to motorway lay-bys on the UK’s south coast, and abandoned without currency or documents to fend for themselves. Many had died en route, usually of suffocation in sealed containers or trucks.
    The organisers of the Caravan, however, knew that in an age of split-second communications their long-term interests were best served by a reputation for efficiency. Hence the overalls, whose grim purpose became clear the moment the Susanne Hanke cleared the port of Bremerhaven. The cutter’s draught was shallow, perhaps a metre and a half, and while the vessel was equal in terms of stability to anything the North Sea might throw at it, it pitched and rolled like a pig in bad weather. And the weather, from the moment the Susanne Hanke made open sea, was very bad, blowing an unremitting December gale. On top of this the Caterpillar power plant, pushing out a steady 375 horse-power, swiftly filled the converted fish-hold with the queasy stink of diesel.
    Neither of these factors worried the Susanne Hanke ’s bearded German master or his two-man crew, as they held a steady westwards course in the heated wheelhouse. But they had a disastrous effect on the passengers. Cheerfully exchanged cigarettes and optimistic bursts of Hindi film song swiftly gave way to retching and misery. The men tried to remain seated on their benches, but the motion of the boat alternately pitched them backwards against the bulwarks or forwards into the ice-cold bilge at their feet. The overalls were soon streaked with bile and vomit—and, in a couple of cases, blood from cracked noses. Above their heads the men’s suitcases and haversacks swung crazily in the netting carrier.
    And the weather, as the hours passed, had got steadily worse. The seas, although invisible to the men crouched beneath the foredeck, were mountainous. The men clutched each other as the hull reared and fell, but were thrown, hour after hour, around the steel-ribbed hold. Their bodies battered and bruised, their feet frozen, their throats raw from heaving, they had given up any pretence of dignity.
    Faraj Mansoor concentrated on survival. The cold he could deal with; he was a mountain man. With the exception of the Somali, who was groaning tearfully to his left, they could all deal with the cold. But this nausea was something else, and he worried that it would weaken him beyond the point where he could defend himself.
    The migrants hadn’t been prepared for the rigours of the four-hundred-mile voyage. The crossing of Iran in the stifling heat of the container had been uncomfortable, but from Turkey onwards—through Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Hungary—their progress had been relatively painless. There had been fearful moments, but the Caravan drivers knew which were the most porous borders, and which the easiest-bribed border guards.
    Most, but not all, of the border crossings had been effected at night. At Esztergom, in northwest Hungary, they had found a deserted playing field and an old football and enjoyed a kick-around and a smoke before trooping back into the truck for the Morava river crossing into the Slovak Republic. The final crossing, into Germany, had taken place at Liberec, fifty miles north of Prague, and a day later they were stretching their legs in Bremerhaven. There, they had dossed down amongst the warehouse’s disused lathes and workbenches. The photographer had come, and twelve hours later they had received their passports, and in the case of Faraj, his UK driving licence. Along with his other documents, this was now zipped into the inside pocket of the windcheater which he was wearing beneath the filthy overalls.
    Bracing himself in his seat, Faraj rode out the Susanne Hanke ’s rise and fall. Was it his imagination, or were those hellish peaks and troughs finally