I took the couple of paces back to the bunk and lay down. What else could I do?
The door swung open. Box-cutter filled my field of view, but he wasn't alone. More than one pair of hands reached down and yanked me off the bunk and onto the floor.
I tensed every muscle that would still pay attention and curled into a ball. I took a hard kick in the back, and then my world became a frenzy of black leather. All I could do was stay foetal and take it. The drugs still had a hold. I'd be too slow to escape or retaliate. I'd have to bide my time.
Each time a boot connected, my whole body convulsed. The drugs were an advantage. I felt I had a barrier against the worst of the pain, at least for now. Tomorrow I'd be suffering. But at least I now knew that tomorrow would come.
The flurry of kicks and punches seemed indiscriminate, but none of them were landing on my face.
113
Lemony perfume did momentary battle with the diesel fumes and the attack stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
The throbbing of the engines increased. She had left the door open.
I opened one eye. A line of bright white det cord ran down the middle of the knackered red lino out in the corridor.
She hunkered down alongside me. Luxuriant brown hair brushed fleetingly across my cheek.
'Who betrayed us, Nick? Who gave up the Bahiti and my father?'
I kept looking down, waiting for a slap, a punch, a kick, but nothing came. She sounded very calm, very collected, but I could feel the anger burning in her eyes.
'You're dead anyway, Nick. It's not as if you're helping yourself. The woman and that wee little girl, and those two friends of yours from Dublin – they're the ones you can save.'
I stayed clenched, ready to accept the punishment.
I gave it a few more seconds.
'I'm giving you fuck all until I'm sure they're safe.'
Her breath whistled as she stood up. 'You're giving me precisely what I want you to give me, or your friends will die in the most painful ways even you can imagine.'
She stepped back into the corridor.
Box-cutter grabbed my right arm and forced it up. Not even bothering to roll up my sleeve, he jabbed an autojet into the bicep.
My world went into slow motion again. Even his shouting against my ear was muffled and blurred.
I felt myself drift away as my central nervous system closed down and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. The urge to sleep was just too strong.
Fuck it, I needed the rest anyway.
Fifteen seconds and I was gone.
PART ELEVEN
114
It was like an oven in here. My throat was painfully dry and my head thumped like a bass drum. I tried to sit up but was too fucked and dizzy and out of it. In the end I rolled off the bunk and used the wall to pull myself upright.
I worked my way over to the sink and slapped my hand on the press-button tap. I sucked at the tiny trickle. It took forever to get a mouthful of warm, brackish water.
I swayed back to the bunk. How long had I been out? No idea. I remembered getting injected, filled in, dragged about, no more than that.
I lay back on the bed and rested my eyes. Everything was still fuzzy and hazy. But I became aware that below the thud of the bass drum in my head, the chug of the engines was softer. They were doing no more than ticking over.
I struggled to my feet. The motion of the ship was definitely calmer, but it didn't feel like we were in dock. I tried the door and it was locked.
I went back and lay face-down on the bunk. Now that I'd recovered enough to notice such things, my stomach was aching. Was it the water I'd drunk? Was it the kicking? Or the fact that I hadn't eaten for fuck knew how long?
There was a bang on the side of the hull, then another. The scrape of metal. The odd shout. A couple of minutes later, a mechanical whine. I remembered the sound from the Bahiti. A crane kicking off. They were unloading.
That must mean we were near the coast: making an RV on the open sea would have been difficult for a ship as small as this one.
It also probably meant it was dark.
Ten minutes later, I heard shouts. The Russians. Then a young girl's cries. I was sure they passed the door.
I got up and stumbled towards it. I was about to put my ear against the steel when it burst open and caught me on the side of my head. I toppled backwards, banging my lower back on the edge of the bed.
115
Box-cutter followed, a whirlwind of punches. He caught me in the stomach and I crumpled onto all fours. My body wanted to vomit but all that came up was watery bile.
Another body came in behind him and got to work with his boots.
I went down.
I felt a hand on the back of my head. It grabbed a clump of my hair and yanked it up. I didn't need to focus big-time to see the box-cutter in his free hand.
He tapped the handle against my forehead. 'Later.'
The English was heavily accented and he wasn't smiling.
Two sets of hands grabbed my arms and dragged me fast along the floor. My chest banged over the threshold and then, agonizingly, my knees and shins.
116
I felt the difference in temperature the moment we were out on the red lino. They hauled me through another doorway, over another threshold, and my breath immediately clouded.
Were we outside?
There were lights either side of me, and I could hear the sea.
I could also hear a girl sobbing, and then a woman's shout. 'Bring them over! Bring them over!'
I lifted my head. I was in the cargo hold of a small ship or the cold store of a fishing trawler. Lights ran down two sides of an eight- by six-metre space. The deck was three or four metres above me. It was a small vessel, but you didn't need that much room to cart around a few hundred kilos of white powder.
In the far left-hand corner of the hold, towards the bow, was a huddle of bodies. I could see the back of the head of the one who was crying. Ruby. Holding her, protecting her, was Tallulah. Her eyes were fixed on me. Dom and Siobhan were there too, holding each other. All four were cuddled up, sharing body warmth. All they had on were jumpers.
Mairead stood over them. She turned as I was dropped onto the cold steel floor of the hold. I saw the camcorder in her hand. She came over and shoved it into my face.
'Now's your time, Nick. Now you get to tell everyone what you know. Tell the truth and they all go free. They all get on the boat with me. Everyone else has gone. The crew's gone, the shipment's gone. We're the only ones left. You're staying here – you know that. Accept it. But tell your story, and if I believe it they go free.'