The Trade Read online

  Published by Serf Books Ltd in 2016.

  www.serfbooks.com

  Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9935439-1-3

  All rights reserved.

  The characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Design by www.golden-rivet.com

  © Text Chris Thrall 2016.

  For Harry

  - 1 -

  Ten miles off North Africa’s Cape Verde islands, Hans Larsson prided himself on Future’s progress, the wind skimming the sleek-lined yacht across the wave tops at twelve knots. As the sea’s invigorating spray landed on his tanned skin, the American reflected on the voyage so far.

  It was eighteen months on from the murder of his wife and young son. Hans, a former Navy SEAL, had taken time off from running the Larsson Investigation Agency and his contract work for the secretive Concern organization to fulfill the family dream, taking his seven-year-old daughter Jessica on the yacht trip of a lifetime. Leaving Portland, Maine, they’d flown to England and bought the forty-one-foot Future in Plymouth, intending to sail back across the Atlantic via Europe, North Africa and the Caribbean.

  So far the passage had provided the perfect opportunity for father and daughter to work through their loss and reinforce the deep bond between them. It had been an education and adventure to say the least, made all the more enjoyable by the bubbly Penny Masters, an experienced English skipper who’d agreed to crew for them on the crossing.

  Having explored the historic port of Plymouth, Hans, Jessica and Penny sailed Future across the English Channel, stopping in Europe, the Canaries and now Cape Verde. Immersed in a kaleidoscopic mix of Anglo, Latin, African and postcolonial culture, they’d sampled exotic food, explored the sights and enjoyed excellent fishing and scuba diving.

  However, the trip was not without its challenges. A rogue storm slammed Future down in the Bay of Biscay, and a full-scale riot erupted all around them in Lisbon when the crew of a British aircraft carrier battled with the Portuguese police. Penny and Jessica had a close encounter with a bull shark while diving in Tenerife, and pirates had attempted to board Future off Cape Verde.

  Penny had been a pillar of support throughout and an accomplished crew member. Hans knew he was in love and couldn’t have felt happier, particularly as Penny and Jessica adored each other.

  Now, as the fiery red sun lowered to the horizon, Hans brought the yacht around, the impending darkness not the only reason he looked forward to reaching port, for Penny was ashore attending to last-minute preparations for their Atlantic crossing.

  Below deck, Jessica played with her beloved teddy in the sleeping quarters, clipping her safety line to the rail on their bunk.

  “You always gotta clip on, Bear!” she told him.

  Although knowing the man-overboard precaution was unnecessary inside the cabin, the little girl liked to demonstrate her seafaring skills to her companion – lessons drummed into her by her father.

  “Good night, Bear.” She tucked her furry friend under the covers and gave him a peck on his snout.

  - 2 -

  Washed off the deck of the Tokyo Pride during a storm, cargo container SIDU307007-9 had drifted around the North Atlantic for months, along with its consignment of high-tech televisions. Floating just below the surface, it was every sailor’s worst nightmare, resulting in many a yacht crew having to evacuate to their life raft. SIDU307007-9 sat at 16° 15’ north, 25° 40’ west, directly in the path of Future.

  At 1831 hours, Hans felt relaxed, content with the direction his boat and life were heading, all the time looking forward to dinner with Penny.

  At 1832 hours, with a sickening crunch Hans’ boat and life ripped apart, slamming him facefirst into the navigation console. He knew instinctively the yacht was about to sink.

  “Jessie, get out! Get out now!”

  The life raft’s hydrostatic releases hissed and the bright-orange pod deployed. Hans dived inside the cabin, but a barrage of seawater washed him back into the cockpit.

  Fighting for composure, he sucked in a lungful of air and thrust his body into the downturned hull, frantically trying to reach his daughter as the boat descended into the depths. Hans felt as though his chest would implode but continued into the blackness, rewarded to see his little girl swimming up to meet him.

  That’s it, Jessie! That’s it!

  Their hands clasped.

  Hans experienced an immense sense of relief . . .

  Well done, kid!

  . . . then spotted Jessica’s safety line clipped to the bunk, the sinking yacht ripping the little girl from his grasp, her desperate eyes fixed on his as the ocean devoured her.

  - 3 -

  Jessica felt the yank of the safety line and saw the horror on her father’s face. She turned and began swimming back down, pulling herself along the line and kicking with all her might. Rather than waste time trying to unclip from the bunk’s rail, she reminded herself to stay calm, as her father had taught her on countless scuba dives, and instead opened the locker under the bunk to retrieve her diving equipment. Hans always made sure they rinsed the kit in freshwater following a dive, refilling the tanks from the yacht’s compressor and stowing the reassembled gear under their berths ready for deployment. To a girl who had completed her first open-water dive shortly after her fifth birthday and could hold her breath for almost two minutes, locating the air supply was a logical course of action.

  In the gloom of the sinking cabin, Jessica grabbed her custom-made buoyancy vest as it attempted to float up past her into the open ocean, along with her teddy bear and other items of unsecured gear. Clutching the vest to her tiny chest, Jessica cranked open the air cylinder and flailed around looking for the mouthpiece, or regulator, which in the chaos had pulled free of the pocket she took care to store it in.

  As she was not wearing a weight belt, the deflated jacket had sufficient air inside to begin lifting her to the surface. Once again she willed herself to stay calm and began tracing the route of the regulator’s hose from where it connected to the air cylinder, a process she could do blindfolded, since her father always made her set up her own equipment.

  A touch of panic set in, but as Jessica contemplated ditching the kit and breaking for the surface, her hand contacted the round plastic regulator. She wasted no time clenching the mouthpiece’s rubber teats between her teeth.

  After blowing out to expel the water flooding the regulator, the little girl took several welcome breaths, unclipped herself from the bunk’s rail and kicked for the companionway, squeezing a burst of air into the jacket as she did.

  In her haste to exit the doomed craft, Jessica shot upwards, smashing her head into the companionway’s surround. For a split second the painful shock saw her mind blank and her limbs go numb. It was all she could do to hold on to the equipment and remember to breathe.

  By now Future was forty meters down and sinking fast – twice the depth Jessica had ever dove to, but she wasn’t to know this. She thrust an arm out of the opening and eased herself into the open sea, praying none of the buckles or hoses would snag.

  Once free of the cabin, Jessica knew it was imperative to ascend quickly. Too much time breathing air at depth would require a safety stop to rid her bloodstream of built-up nitrogen – impossible without a weight belt to achieve neutral buoyancy. She clamped down on the jacket’s air-in button, fattening it like a car inner tube until she felt the overfill valves vibrate and heard the belch of escaping bubbles.

  Rocketing to the surface, Jessica wondered if her ascent would ever end but knew her father would be there in the life raft to pick her up.

  When her head burst through the increasing swell, she frantically scanned all around . . . to see blackness and nothing. The breeze had blown
the life raft out of sight.

  “Papa!” she screamed to no avail.

  Ten miles out to sea, the little girl was alone, drifting in the dark on a vast ocean.

  Clutching the buoyancy vest and air cylinder, she floated around in silence, trying to think what her father would encourage her to do. Hans had experienced a turbulent upbringing. As a result, he always made sure to treat his daughter as an equal, empowering Jessica to make her own decisions and instilling a maturity way beyond her short years. He often praised her for being the kid who never cried, but tears rolled down her cheeks now.

  “Get a grip, sweet pea!” she said, echoing her father’s words. “Feel sorry for yourself, and sure as hell the world won’t feel sorry for you!”

  Her thinking helped – not enough to stem the fear but sufficient to see her struggle into the buoyancy vest, a safety drill she’d carried out numerous times in the icy water off Maine.

  Wondering what had become of her dear teddy, “Get a grip, Bear!,” she screamed across the void, then crossed her arms and settled back in the harness, exhausted but knowing her father would return.

  - 4 -

  Jessica awoke to the screech of a gull as it circled above, inspecting her floating figure as a potential source of food. The rising sun already burned with savage intensity, so she slipped out of her shorts and placed them over her head. Kicking around in a circle, she longed to catch sight of the life raft, but there was nothing, only rippling ocean and fragile sprays of white in an otherwise faultless sky.

  The harness cut into Jessica’s armpits, numbing her hands. She struggled to change position, wondering where Penny was. Surely she must know Future had sunk and be en route to pick them up.

  An almighty thirst took hold. Jessica splashed seawater on her face but knew better than to drink it, because Papa said if you swallow seawater it makes you go mad. She was hungry too and thought about the tuna they had caught and barbecued on Future in the Canary Islands.

  The noise of a diesel engine shook Jessica out of her muse. A black speck appeared on the horizon.

  “Penny!” she screamed, knowing her friend was coming to the rescue and hoping her father was already safely on board.

  The clank of the engine grew louder. Jessica grinned, but as the ugly rusting hulk bore down on her, it looked like no ship she had seen before. She began to feel afraid. Something didn’t feel right.

  The vessel was about pass on by when a shout of “Capitão!” went up, and she slowed and came around. Thick black fumes spilled onto the water as two black faces stared down at the little girl bobbing in the swell.

  Jessica read the faded nameplate on the rotting bow, Rosa Negra, and started to kick away.

  - 5 -

  One month later

  Jens Greyling wiped the sleep from his eyes and reached for his coffee.

  “Dankie,” he grunted in Afrikaans, scanning the ocean ahead as dawn’s fingers raked life into the oily black water.

  The boy smiled. He’d been with the skipper long enough to know that behind this gruff morning exterior the appreciation was there.

  Registered in Panama, the Kimberley II had plied the New York–South Africa shipping lanes for the past decade. At forty thousand tons fully laden, she was by no means a large freighter, and nearing her thirtieth year, the aging tub’s days were numbered – something Jens would worry about when the time came. He’d taken over her command not long after his divorce eight years previous, and the old girl had proved a faithful companion – unlike the last one. The Filipino crew was his family, the boy the son he never had. The Rhodesian captain had woken up in a shack in the township one morning after a drunken knife fight to find Chamfar dressing his wounds. They’d been inseparable ever since.

  Over the years Jens had put a moderate sum of money aside, and when his command of the Kimberley II ended, he planned to take the boy and retire to Mozambique. The former Portuguese colony had recovered from years of war, and Jens knew the exact spot on Naherenge’s endless powdery white beach where he would situate the fishing and dive center he planned to build amid the lush green palms.

  The skipper massaged his temples, which throbbed in harmony with the Kimberley II’s powerful diesel engines, cane spirit being an unforgiving mistress.

  “So, my friend, what are you going to do when we reach Kaapstad?” he asked his first mate.

  “Girls, girls, girls!” Chamfar did the sexy dance and grinned fat white teeth.

  “I guess I needn’t have asked.” Jens managed a chuckle, the sweet black coffee working its magic on his sore head.

  Having departed Pier 6 at the Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New York three weeks earlier carrying vehicle parts, office equipment and petroleum products, they would cross the equator in four days’ time and be two-thirds of the way to Cape Town.

  On the boat deck Juan, the chief engineer, pulled a Voyager from a soft pack and shoved it between his lips, a morning ritual throughout his time at sea. Soon he would give the systems a thorough checking over, looking for tripped fuses, topping up water and oil reservoirs and replacing clogged filters, but not before drawing the coarse smoke deep into his lungs and letting the resultant waves of euphoria carry him across the shimmering wave tops to his home in the Philippines. Leaning against the rusty rail, he pictured his wife collecting his two boys from school, treating them to a ripe mango sprinkled with paprika on the walk to their village shack. He saw them once a year, flying home when the Kimberley II stopped for a month of routine maintenance in Cape Town.

  The sun climbed ever higher into the unfolding azure. Juan flicked his butt over the rail and watched it tumble through the air into the ship’s wake. He was about to leave the boat deck to attend to his first chore when something in the middle distance caught his attention.

  It was an orange speck.

  Juan screened his eyes from the sun and looked again. Nothing. Likely just light reflecting off the water and playing tricks.

  Then there it was!

  Definitely something orange, the color of distress, bobbing in and out of view with the rise and fall of the ocean.

  Juan had seen his fair share of junk adrift on the sea over the years – cargo containers, fishing nets, steel and plastic drums, flotillas of ships’ garbage, even a forty-foot-long inflatable swimming pool – but his instincts told him this was different.

  Putting both hands up to block out the dazzling rays, Juan stared at the spot, waiting for the right combination of light and line of sight.

  A brief flicker of orange and then . . . yes!

  It was a life raft, cresting a wave and remaining in full view for what seemed an age though was probably less than a second. But it was definitely a life raft.

  Juan’s first thought was to duck inside the superstructure and run up the four flights of stairs to the bridge, where the binoculars were held, but he knew relocating the tiny craft could prove impossible, so keeping a fix on the life raft, he picked up the boat deck’s intercom telephone.

  “Captain, I can see an orange canopy one kilometer to starboard at three o’clock.”

  Jens Greyling jerked his head at the binoculars bracketed to the bulkhead, as he had done thousands of times before. The boy passed them to the skipper.

  Using a figure-of-eight-pattern search – a throwback to his army training – Jens scanned the area Juan had pinpointed. Minutes ticked by, and he made several passes with the binoculars until – “Ja!” – he spotted the distant orange dot. “We got her.”

  Chamfar relayed the message to Juan, who began unlashing the webbing straps securing the Kimberley II’s rigid inflatable boat, or RIB, in preparation for a potential rescue.

  Jens knew better than to take his eyes off the craft, which could disappear from view in a flash. Instead he barked orders at his first mate.

  “Throttle back full and bring her hard to starboard.” There was no way he could stop the ship on a dime, but an attempt to slow down while circling the tiny raft would
be better than sailing miles away from it. “And wake the men and tell them to assemble on the boat deck.”

  As the boy reached for the telephone it rang, for, sensing the change of course and the engines winding down, the crew were already out of their bunks, and Carlos, the ship’s cook, wanted a situation report.

  In minutes Carlos and Virgilio, the deckhand, had kitted up in dry suits and life jackets and climbed into the RIB. While Juan operated the davit, swinging the inflatable boat outboard and lowering it gently over the side, the two of them fended with their hands to prevent it from smashing into the ship’s iron hull.

  The RIB settled upon the relatively calm sea. As Virgilio tripped the davit cable’s quick release, Carlos throttled forward, and they surged into the white water streaming from the Kimberley II’s side.

  Jens radioed directions to the two men, and minutes later Carlos blipped the engine in reverse, nudging the launch up against the beleaguered orange pod. Virgilio leant out and grabbed the exterior handline, but eyeing the sagging tubes and rust and algae smears on the sun-bleached canopy, the men could see the raft had collided with a ship, and they assumed its occupants must have drowned.

  The raft’s flimsy doorway flapped in the breeze. With his thumb and forefinger, Virgilio slowly peeled it back.

  “Urrch!” Carlos retched on his empty stomach, the stench of death taking them by surprise.

  Virgilio viewed the utter devastation inside. Rotting fish carcasses washed around in a stagnant pool, along with empty tin cans and a filthy, worn-out sleeping bag.

  “Nothing,” he concluded, then, holding his nose, thrust a hand into the putrid brown brine and plucked out a child’s teddy bear. Turning to Carlos, he shook his head.

  “Okay. We go.” Carlos released his hold on the raft’s handline and was about to restart the motor when they heard a long rasping wheeze.

  Both men froze.

  Virgilio looked tentatively to Carlos, then, crossing his chest and muttering to Mother Mary in Tagalog, leant inside the flagging pod and lifted the flap of the sleeping bag.