“Mariner!” Ben exploded into the room, almost hobbling in his hurry to get up here. When he walked at his own pace, in careful control of the wreck of his body, he could move normally. But let him rush, or try to run, as now, and his rebellious muscles twisted and turned him until he became almost hunchbacked. In their early days together, when his body twisted thus, she would sit for hours massaging him and listening dreamily to the story of how he was picked up, thinking himself dead, by a freighter in the English Channel. The little ship was crewed by Iranians. They never told him where they had been loading in Europe, but they were returning with war supplies to Bandar Komenhi at the north of the Gulf, and they were happy to take him with them. How he had come to be there, afloat in that stormy sea, how he had been reduced to the state he was in, he also never revealed. He treated his rescue as though it had been a new birth. He had been born again into Islam. As the freighter made its slow way back to Bandar Komenhi, he had been re-created, physically, spiritually, mentally. The gentle crew had adopted him, nurtured him, educated him in all aspects save one. He was when he came aboard, and he remained, an outstanding seaman. And, when Bandar Komenhi had been attained, he revealed that he knew the Gulf like the back of his hand. To the Iranians, it was little short of a miracle. And one of which they made increasing use, for the Bandar ports were hard up against the border with Iraq and, as the war between the two of them intensified, so the mysterious English convert joined the fleets of dhows who were doing for Iran what the little ships at Dunkirk had done for England forty years before. And there he made the contacts who now supported his personal jihad.
Romantic stories they had seemed to her then. Now she asked herself more often what really lay behind them since the murder of First Officer Smyke; especially since he had told her there was more to the plan than she knew.
“I know Mariner,” fumed Ben. “I know that murderous bastard of old. He won’t be sitting still for this. He’ll be up to some scheme or other. God, how I wish I’d killed him. Him and his bitch of a wife!”
Fatima had never seen Ben like this before and she stood aghast. A feeling of helplessness swept over her. A familiar feeling that had never been far away since that terrible day when she had stepped off the plane in Kuwait to find her father waiting for her, not dying after all. She was not a weak or subservient person, but she was beginning again to feel like the victim of forces far beyond her control. Once more she was feeling used.
She should have trusted her better instincts and stayed with the one person she knew for certain she could trust — Asha. But that was in the past now, far beyond recall, like those pointless letters she had written. Asha hadn’t even recognized her until she had revealed herself. No, she was utterly alone now, so she had better get a grip.
“Calm down, Ben,” she said quietly. “You know it makes the others nervous if we speak for too long in English and they cannot understand. And to see you like this as well…” She looked meaningfully across to where Ali was seated, dutifully staring into the bowl of their smaller radar set, his body unnaturally tense.
“It is bad enough that Dawn of Freedom is late and we are trapped here with the hostages and so few weapons. If you begin showing too much strain as well, you may sow the seeds of panic.” In her passion she pulled her kaffiyah open and frowned at him, her face naked, willing him to be calm. And her action shocked him: she could see it in his eyes. So traditional had he become in the ways of his new religion, that he saw a woman’s face unveiled in public as a sin. She turned away bitterly, rearranging her headdress, too well aware that her days as an equal member of the group were numbered. Soon he would find a convenient prison to condemn her to, just as her father had.
So the time for her own holy war was running short indeed: no matter what he demanded when the sea lanes had been closed, she must be sure her voice was heard as well, demanding freedom for all the sisters who found the yoke of submission too heavy to bear. Freedom from the abba, yashmak, and chador. Equality under the law.
“So the tanker has been moved, according to the unbelievers’ news,” she said, speaking in Arabic.
“What difference does it make to us?” Ben’s ruined voice had regained its icy calm. His twisted body came erect. Their leader had returned. “It is just another tanker now. Just another easy target as it tries to move through Hormuz.” He strode across to the window and positioned himself so that he could watch the tanker lanes and see into the radar over Ali’s shoulder. The light blips in the green bowl registered themselves as dark, funereal shapes, moving in dolorous series before him. High sided and empty, away in the distance close to Queshm. Low and fully laden, scant miles away, each one filling even this huge window as it passed. What targets they would make when Dawn of Freedom arrived. “The last few,” he said, calm now. “The last few to pass by Fate without knowing we are here.”
His black eyes looked down from the window into the radar bowl watching the radial line sweep round like the second hand on a clock, lighting up all the obstacles between themselves, at its center, and Queshm to the north, with its naval base to which he could look for help as the situation progressed. Counting the chain of tankers — each vessel a link — passing in and out in regular, predictable series.
Behind him, the woman turned the radio to Hormuz frequency and the room filled with the quiet communication between the coastal station and the ships. She had not asked his permission to do that. She was becoming unreliable. And as for that shameless display just now…
Something was wrong.
He forgot about the woman and concentrated on the radar.
Something was very wrong.
“What is that?” he snapped, his finger stabbing down.
“I don’t know,” said Ali, uncharacteristically hesitant. “I’ve never seen…”
“Fatima. Look at this. What do you make of it?”
It was not in front of them but behind them. Not over the tanker lanes at all but sweeping north along a line stretching from Rass al Kaimah to Sharja. Not from the coast, either: from above the coast. Whatever it was, it was airborne. He went cold. This had been his nightmare.
“Do you think it could be planes?” asked Fatima. “It’s difficult to tell.”
“Then let’s go and look. Quickly!” He was in motion at once, moving rapidly enough to twist himself all out of shape. His left arm curled up by his chest. He began to hurry crabwise to the door.
For once, the pain of his rapid movement was as nothing. Inside he was raging with tension. It had to be an airborne attack. It had to be. He had always reckoned that the hostages would be an effective barrier against such a thing — against any sort of attack at all. He had chosen them carefully, his contacts with that greedy fool Cecil Smyke allowing him full knowledge of the crewing of the Heritage Mariner ships. And their flagship Prometheus had furnished him with so much. English, Chinese, Pakistanis, Palestinians. The American, son of a senator, nephew to an admiral. He had hardly needed to bother with a Knight of the British Realm. But he owed Sir William Heritage, and taking him would hurt Robin and Richard most. All in all, they had seemed perfect protection even against the hysteria a closed Gulf would bring. But not against one of the emirates or sultanates if they decided to go it alone, and hang the consequences. Not against some madman in the Iranian Air Force with a squadron of fighters and blood in his eye. The struggle for power in the Iranian forces could not have come at a worse time for him. But recognition for his naval friends and supporters would just be another demand, when the time came, and they knew it. Unless this was the Iranian Air Force now.