The impact collapsed Youssef’s windpipe and his eyes bulged as he staggered back into the ship, one hand reaching for a Bowie knife thrust into the belt around his waist. Aaron lunged forward, one hand closing around Youssef’s wrist as he dropped his weight forward behind his forehead and smashed if across the captain’s face.
Youssef’s nasal bridge collapsed as blood spilled across his face and he twisted away, his legs failing beneath him as his eyes rolled briefly up into their sockets. As the captain collapsed toward the deck, Aaron twisted the man’s wrist up and around as he grabbed his hand and folded it over.
Youssef hit the deck and sprawled face down as Aaron folded the captain’s arm over at an awkward angle. Youssef regained consciousness and opened his mouth, sucking in air and screaming as his arm neared breaking point.
‘The offer has changed,’ Aaron whispered softly as his men moved into the ship, their side arms drawn. ‘Your life, in return for the Americans.’
Youssef gagged in agony as he tried to speak above the pain wracking his body.
‘Deck B, port aft quarter!’
Aaron did not need to order his men into motion. With extraordinary fluidity and speed born of Special Forces training they deployed into the ship’s gloomy interior. Aaron looked down at Youssef for a long moment, and then with his free hand he drew the Bowie knife from Youssef’s belt. The blade was long and stained with age, had perhaps sailed the oceans with Youssef his entire life.
‘Who paid you?’
Youssef squirmed and writhed on the ship’s grimy deck.
‘I don’t know, it was all done by telephone and Internet. They paid into my ship’s account and that was it.’
‘Who arranged the American’s presence here?’
Youssef continued to squirm and Aaron lowered the blade to his neck.
‘The American agent,’ Youssef finally spluttered. ‘Willis! His name is Willis!’
Aaron heard shouting coming from somewhere further inside the ship. He yanked Youssef’s arm upwards, forcing the captain to clamber painfully up onto his knees and then to his feet. With the blade pressed firmly against Youssef’s flank and his arm twisted up against his spine, Aaron forced him to walk through the ship’s ugly corridors of unpainted metal toward the uproar.
The odours of damp, salt and neglected machinery grew as they descended toward the sounds of distress. Aaron walked Youssef out into a cargo area deep inside the ship, just above the open holds. Fresh air wafted across them as Aaron saw his men standing in a ring, their weapons pointed down at a man lying face down on the deck, his hands over his head.
The agents separated to let Aaron through. He shoved Youssef inside the ring of agents and looked up briefly to the massive hatch open in the decks above them, a crane suspended above the ship’s cavernous interior and the blue sky flawless beyond it. A massive shipping container was dangling from the crane’s hooks, suspended ready to be transferred to the dock alongside the ship.
‘We caught him fleeing here,’ one of Aaron’s agents said. ‘Looks like he was going to climb up to the deck from this cargo bay.’
Aaron looked down to see the man lying before him, peering up with fearful eyes.
‘Agent Willis,’ Aaron said. ‘Where are Ethan Warner, Nicola Lopez and Stanley Meyer?’
Willis’s brow creased in confusion. ‘Who?’
Aaron looked up at the crane above them and then he gestured to Willis. His men grabbed the terrified agent and hauled him to his feet. Aaron stepped across and in one fluid motion he swung a giant bunched fist into Willis’s belly. The agent’s face bulged and he doubled over as his legs gave way beneath him, the agents dragging him to one side as Aaron turned his attention to Youssef where he lay on the deck.
The captain scrambled backwards and away, but Aaron stomped one heavy boot across the captain’s ankle with a furious effort. A sharp, brittle crack echoed across the storage hold and Youssef screamed once again, the cry bouncing off the walls and escaping out into the brightening sky above.
Before Youssef could suck in enough air for another sob of pain, Aaron stamped down on the other ankle and it snapped with an equally sickening crackle of fractured bone. Youssef gagged, his face sheened with sweat as he slumped, weeping, onto the deck.
Aaron turned and left the crippled captain where he lay and walked toward Agent Willis, held in the firm grip of Aaron’s men and with a pistol jammed against his ribs. The smaller man cowered and blubbed without further provocation.
‘I’ll tell you where they are,’ he cried. ‘I’ll tell you!’
Aaron turned away from Willis and strode across to a control panel affixed to one wall of the hold. Usually manned by the crane’s operator but currently abandoned, Aaron surveyed the controls only for a moment before he spoke.
‘Where did they go?’
Aaron activated the controls and the crane above them hummed into life, the massive shipping container shifting position slightly in the light breeze.
‘They jumped ship,’ Willis mumbled. ‘They didn’t trust me to keep them safe ashore.’
Aaron grinned without warmth as he pressed a button and the massive shipping container above them began descending to the sound of whining hydraulic winches. Youssef yelped in fright as he looked up from where he lay crippled in the centre of the hold and saw the huge container descending toward him.
‘What the hell are you doing?!’ Willis cried out in horror.
Aaron watched as Youssef began trying to pull himself out from beneath the container, dragging his ruined legs behind him and crying out in pain as he did so, his yellowing teeth gritted against his dark skin.
‘Don’t do it!’ Willis gasped in grief, his voice trembling.
‘Please!’ Youssef wailed in agony as the descending container’s shadow consumed him, the base of the weighty container now just four feet from the deck.
Aaron did not look at Willis as he spoke.
‘Who was Ethan Warner’s direct contact at the Defense Intelligence Agency?’
Willis’s features collapsed in defeat and he shouted his response.
‘Jarvis! It was some guy called Jarvis!’
Aaron flipped a switch on the control panel and the container hissed to a halt, swinging just a couple of feet above the deck as Youssef appeared, tears glistening on his face as he crawled toward the edge of the container. Aaron looked at Willis.
‘Where did they go?’
‘The airport,’ Willis blubbed. ‘They got a jet to some place in France, I have the tail code. Take it, just take it!’
Aaron nodded slowly in satisfaction. He glanced at Youssef and then hit a button on the control panel. The crane’s hooks released and the container dropped the last two feet and slammed down onto the deck with a deafening crash, Youssef vanishing beneath it. Willis cried out and turned away from the grisly scene.
Aaron stepped down from the control panel and moved slowly to tower over Willis, the agent coughing and spitting the acrid taste from his mouth as Aaron spoke.
‘If I should hear that you have spoken to anybody in Washington, ever, about anything you have seen here, I will return and another tragic accident will occur. Do you understand?’
Willis, barely able to stand, nodded, his face pale and his eyes glazed with tears.
‘The flight number, now,’ Aaron demanded.
Willis blubbed a tail — code, weeping openly.
Aaron turned and Willis sank to his knees as Aaron and his guards left the storage hold.
As he left the docks in the white sedan, Aaron did not see the dark skinned man watching him quietly from the deep shadows thrown by the rising sun across the quay.