Free Those in Peril (Unlocked) by Wilbur Smith Page B

girl’s mother is very powerful.’
    ‘Everything will be taken care of before sunrise,’ Kamal assured him, and then he smiled and pointed over the bows. On the horizon dead ahead a red distress flare burst suddenly into flame, its ruddy reflection dancing along the crests of the swells. ‘There she is,’ he said with satisfaction.
    The two ships came together swiftly, and when they were only a few hundred metres apart Kamal throttled back and laid the Dolphin across the wind and the sea, forming a breakwater for the dhow. The ancient vessel came alongside in the Dolphin ’s lee and mooring ropes were thrown down to the men on the deck. Once she was moored securely the prisoners were transferred into her, and hustled down into the forward hold. Only Cayla was dragged struggling and weeping to Kamal’s quarters in the dhow’s deckhouse and locked in with a guard at the door.
    Working swiftly a party of Arab seamen knocked open the hatch on the dhow’s stern hold. From the hold they winched up to the Dolphin ’s deck five cargo pallets. Once they were on board the yacht the heavy canvas covers were pulled back to reveal a stack of a dozen large packages on each pallet. These were wrapped in bright yellow plastic sheeting and painted with black Chinese characters. It took three men to manhandle each crate below decks. The handlers worked gingerly, treating them with elaborate respect. The contents of each crate were thirty kilograms of Semtex H plastic explosive.
    ‘Hurry it up there!’ Rogier bellowed at them. ‘The detonators have not been primed. It’s quite safe to handle.’ He and Kamal followed the working party below deck, down to the Dolphin ’s bilges, and supervised the yellow crates being packed along the length of the keel under the engine room. Rogier left Kamal to set the charges and arm the delay device, and went up to the purser’s office. Georgie Porgie was sitting on the deck with the guard standing over him.
    ‘Untie him!’ Rogier ordered the guard, who obediently forced the point of the bayonet on his rifle between Georgie’s wrists and cut away the nylon cable tie. The blade nicked his chubby arm.
    ‘The brute has cut me,’ Georgie whimpered. ‘Look! I am bleeding!’
    ‘Open the safe!’ Rogier ignored his complaints, and Georgie Porgie began to protest more vehemently. Rogier drew the pistol from its holster, and shot him in the leg. The bullet shattered his knee cap. The purser squealed shrilly. ‘Open the safe,’ Rogier repeated, and pointed the Tokarev at his other leg.
    ‘Don’t shoot me again,’ Georgie whined and dragged himself to the steel safe set into the bulkhead behind the desk. His wounded leg dragged behind him, leaving a trail of wet blood across the planking. Moaning with the pain, Georgie fiddled with the combination lock, spinning the dial back and forth. There was a click and he turned the locking handle. The safe door swung open.
    ‘Thank you!’ said Rogier and shot him in the head. Georgie Porgie was knocked forward onto his face and his good leg drummed spasmodically on the deck. At Rogier’s nod the guard grabbed the leg before it stopped kicking and dragged Georgie Porgie’s corpse aside. Rogier knelt in front of the open safe and sifted swiftly through the contents.
    He discarded the ship’s working documents, amongst them her bills of lading and Grand Cayman registration certificate. But he selected the thick wad of the crew’s passports. His grandfather would have good use for the genuine green US and maroon EU booklets. Under the desk there was a canvas briefcase which he had noted every time he had previously been in the purser’s office. Rogier stuffed the passports into this. There were also about fifty thousand US dollars in bills of various denominations; without counting them he placed them with the passports. On the steel shelf below the cash were five blue jewellery boxes. The lid of the first one he picked up was lettered in gold: