— Same time
She was gone.
Asha arrived at the door at 02:30 the next night. The same gentle sounds alerted the two men who had been wide awake since lights out at eleven. Once more, there was a brief burst of Morse code, then Asha took the greatest risk of all so far. She stood up. Outlined against the glimmer of the stars, visible through the glass top of the door should either of the guards look her way, she stood up to slide the key silently into the door’s lock. All three of them held their breath as she turned it, but the tongue slid back without a sound. The door opened a fraction. All three of them breathed easily.
And the lights went on. The far door was suddenly full of terrorists, the leader calling, “Get up! Get up!” in that raucous voice of his. There was an instant when Asha was plainly visible in the brightness, then she dropped to her knees and rolled away into the shadows of the deck. The crew sleepily began to sort themselves out as ordered. The captain and his chief feigned confusion, too, but they stayed by the open door and when that moment came that the better part of forty men were standing between them and their captors, they stepped out into the darkness on the deck.
Once out of the glare shining from the gym, the two of them felt liberated by the shadows. They walked upright. They briefly discussed the possibility of stealing fuel for the helicopter and getting away in that. They called out Asha’s name dangerously clearly, and it was not until she materialized at their side and hissed a warning, that they began to take proper care again. Silently she led them down the side of the bridge-house, flat against the dew-damp metal walls, forward toward the main deck, their only obstacle a rack of BMX bikes. As they came past the big bulkhead door onto A deck, they hesitated by the ship’s office on the corner, before they dared go out onto the main deck. The curtains of the office were closed, but the windows were open — they probably had been since the air-conditioning was switched off. And an argument was going on inside. In English.
“But why?” demanded a woman’s voice. Both men were so busy eavesdropping they didn’t notice the expression on their companion’s face. “Why now? It is too early. We must wait until the message arrives.”
“No. It is taking too long. They are getting impossible to control. Moving them now will disorient them. Give us a few more days before we have to start executing troublemakers.”
“It is departing from the plan.”
“I know. But the plan is only of use when it serves our ends. And anyway, the doctor is doing too much harm. I am sure she took the chart. She is still aboard. Still a threat. If I can’t find her or kill her, I must move the others before the situation gets out of control.”
“But…”
“That is enough. No more discussion. I have decided. We go now, as I have arranged.”
“That is not enough! We have a plan. It is agreed with our friends on the high seas. It is agreed with our friends in Iran. We must stick to it.”
“No. There are aspects of this situation beyond even your knowledge. I have already contacted Iran…”
“Beyond my knowledge! What is there beyond my knowledge?”
“I will tell you in due course. I promise. We have no time to argue now, we must act before it is too late. The transports from Queshm are on their way. We have to move now!”
The sound of the door slamming galvanized the three of them into action. They moved as one person, Asha taking the lead. She ran out toward the shadowed deck keeping low. Forward of the bridge-house they went, sprinting past the pump-room hatch, past the first tank tops, toward the accommodation ladder. “Where are we going?” gasped John at her shoulder.
“To my hiding…”
As she spoke, the deck lights came on, trapping them out here, yards from cover. The instant the brightness blazed, a disorienting roar of sound washed over them. Shouts in a mixture of accents, far off and disturbingly nearby. The pounding of running feet. The rattle of safeties coming off guns.
“This way,” yelled John, diving to his left. Three seconds of frantic movement brought them halfway to the shelter of the central pipes, but as they continued to run wildly forward, so the first shots rang out.
“Christ!” yelled Bob, “they’re going to blow us all to hell…” Then he was gone, spinning away with a howl of frustrated rage as a ricochet clipped his left calf and blew the leg from under him, sending him tumbling across the deck. John turned as Asha dived into the safety of the shadow beneath the pipes. “Bob,” yelled the captain, blinded by the light. And a single shot blasted him round, chucking him back into Asha’s arms.
And she was off with him at once, half carrying him, using the strength lent to him by the shock, moving him as fast and as far as she could, before he realized how badly he was hurt. Down the length of the pipes they went, toward the bow of the ship. “Not the forecastle head,” he called. “There’s no way off…”
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I know where I’m going.”
She took him to the farthest hatch connecting to the inspection tunnels beneath the deck. She led him down and guided him back, until, after nearly fifteen minutes, they were above her secret room, almost exactly beneath the spot where he had been shot. By this time, the numbness of shock had worn off and she could tell from his movements that pain had set in. And yet he refused even to slow up. Grimly he swung onto that last ladder, and down he went, and down. He almost made it to the bottom before his legs gave out.
She pulled him away from the foot of it and across her secret room. How he had kept going for so long before passing out she would never know. Clearly, behind that boyish blend of exuberance and diffidence there lay a good deal of unexpected grit. She felt herself fill with warm affection for him. He was, after all, quite a man. Having rolled him onto her makeshift bed, she knelt at his side, busily undoing the buttons of his oncewhite shirt, pulling it away from his red-matted chest.
As she did so, she gasped. The damage was even worse than she had feared. The bullet had gone in at the back, followed the curve of the ribs, ripped through the muscles of the upper thorax by his left armpit, and exploded out the front, leaving quite a severe exit wound. These facts, accepted numbly at first as she worked to render rapid first aid, abruptly triggered off a vivid memory. John had been looking for Bob when he was shot. Looking back toward the bridge. And yet he had been shot in the back. That should have been impossible. The terrorists never ventured out onto the deck, let alone this far down it.
Therefore…
Then the memory came. Bob falling, a small wound in the calf, blood flying, bright in the blaze. John turning back for him. And out of the darkness behind John, another figure rising up out of the ground. Seemingly through the steel of the deck. But no. Of course. If they were beyond the light then they were beyond the deck. And that meant they were coming up the accommodation ladder. Up from a boat below. Her hands froze. She sat for an instant trying to work out the implications. But they were incalculable. The situation was too new; the alternatives utterly unknown. Only observation would tell her anything now. And, as it happened, she would have to go back to the surgery in any case. John required much more than she had here.
She took the greatest care as she planned her return to the bridge, caught between the urgency of helping John, simple curiosity, and the certainty that they would be looking for her now more than ever. The leader seemed a fundamentally unbalanced person, holding himself on a path of relative sanity only by the exercise of massive self-control. She wondered what he would be like without the firm hand of Islam to control his actions. Deeply disturbed and disturbing, she thought, and she had no desire whatsoever to fall back into his hands. How had Fatima become involved with him? With this whole horrific mess? And why hadn’t Fatima contacted her? She felt like screaming.