She didn’t move, her eyes fixed on his.
Lotto looked at Stratton for a sign that he was winning the operative over. He saw none.
‘Why’d you come back?’ Stratton asked the girl.
‘For my family. I had to finish my work.’
‘And Lotto?’
She was still looking at the Somali. ‘To kill him if I could.’
Lotto could feel the walls closing in.
Stratton was enjoying the man’s pain. ‘A nice idea,’ he said. ‘But we’ll have to leave that possibility for later. Right now you’re both coming with me.’
She looked from the pirate to him, but not with anger in her eyes. Only sadness.
‘I cannot go with you,’ she said. ‘If I do, I will fail and my family will die.’
Stratton appreciated her dilemma. But there was nothing he could do about it. The call was far above his station. To complete his job, he needed to deliver them both to Downs on the beach. From there on it was up to London.
The girl could see the operative’s resolve. She knew what it looked like well enough. ‘You know what they’ll do, don’t you?’ she said. ‘They’ll let him go because he is a Somali. But the British will be happy to deliver me to the Chinese. Me and my family will die and he will live. All of my pain will have been for nothing.’
Stratton had to agree that her assessment was most likely correct. But he still could do nothing about it.
She slowly stood and faced him. ‘You know how I am by now. You know I would rather die. I can’t come with you. You will have to kill me. But please, I beg you, please kill him too.’ Tears began to roll down her face. ‘Please kill him,’ she said softly. ‘Do that for me. He is an animal and enjoys making people suffer.’
Lotto grabbed his moment. He threw the bundle of dollar bills in his hand at the table lamp and dived for the gun. The lamp toppled and went out before it hit the floor and the room went black instantly.
But Stratton knew the precise point that Lotto was reaching for, and adjusted the end of the barrel of his pistol to allow for the length of Lotto’s arm and fired two shots. The Somali got to fire one, the muzzle flashes illuminating the moving figures for a split second. A body hit the floor hard.
Then silence.
Then a dozen long seconds.
The floor creaked like a foot had stepped on a worn floorboard. A switch flicked and the porch light came on.
Stratton stood in the doorway with a finger on the light switch, his gun in his hand. Lotto lay still on the floor, his eyes half open, blood seeping from a hole in his temple and another in his cheek.
The girl was kneeling beside Lotto with the Somali’s gun in her hand and pointed directly at Stratton.
Stratton didn’t have the Sig aimed at her but it wouldn’t need to travel far to line her up. But even so, she still had the drop on him. It would be a close call and he would probably take a bullet. If he was lucky he would live, and if not he would die.
He looked into her eyes, evaluating her. He knew from experience that she had an ample supply of determination. He also needed no further convincing that she would rather die than let her family become victims of the Triads. And the bottom line was he did not care enough about her paying for her crimes to risk his own life to see it through.
But she had one more surprise in store for him.
She lowered the gun and let it hang in her hand by her side. ‘I cannot kill you. Not because you saved my life so many times, although I am grateful for that. Because each time you saved me you saved my family. And I don’t believe you will waste all of that karma and kill me. I won’t go with you and I will kill myself if you try and take me.’
Stratton wasn’t entirely surprised by her decision. His gut instinct had been that she would not shoot him. He had failed to figure out her occupation but he had more or less nailed her character.
He sighed, holstered his pistol and shrugged. ‘What the hell. I think the world might even miss one crazy Chinese girl like you.’
She smiled slightly and put the pistol on the table.
‘How will you get out of here?’ he asked.
‘I have a few ideas,’ she said, walking up to him.
She stood close to him, looking into his eyes. She put her arms around him and gave him a hug, her face against his chest. It felt completely natural for him to return the gesture and he wrapped his arms around her. For a brief moment, amid all the madness, he felt his heart soften.
She looked up into his eyes again, placed the palm of her hand on his face and gently kissed him on the cheek.
‘Your friend’s death was not your fault. You are who you are. And things happen because of who you are, good and bad. I think you have much more good in you than anything else.’
She let go of him and walked out of the door.
He stood on the porch and watched her go down the street and disappear into the darkness. He looked back at Lotto lying in a pool of blood surrounded by his money. That will be a good find for someone, he thought.
He switched off the porch light and headed away.
When Stratton stepped on to the beach, he found Downs standing with his hands on his hips looking at the ships like he was deciding what to do next. Stratton could see the hostages all sitting in a group, waiting patiently. They looked more than content to wait all day. They were under the protection of the British military and on their way home. At that moment in time, life for them did not get better than that.
One stared at Stratton in the poor light, certain he had seen the man somewhere before. He asked the fellows either side of him and together they scrutinised Stratton until one of them twigged who it was. The news spread quickly and they were soon all in agreement: it was the one who had escaped and they had thought must be dead.
One of them whistled to catch Stratton’s attention. When he looked at them, the collection of European and Asian faces cracked into broad grins, the first in a long time for some.
Stratton nodded at them, somewhat embarrassed.
‘Brought your own fan club with you this time, did you?’ Downs asked.
‘Well, you know how it is. You reach my level and those are the perks.’
Downs started laughing and Stratton joined him.
‘Is it my imagination or do you suddenly look more chilled?’ Stratton shrugged and looked out to sea.
‘What happened back there in the town when I left you?’ Downs said.
‘I told you. I tied up a few loose ends.’
Downs knew he wasn’t going to get anything more out of his friend and he shut up and looked out to sea alongside him.
By late morning the last of the Somali pirates had been cleared from the ships and the crews allowed back on to their respective vessels. Two of HMS Ocean’s launches had arrived to provide food and water and medical aid for the lads and the freed crews. All of the captured Somali pirates were stripped of their weapons and allowed to leave. The British were keen to avoid the complex legal hassle and publicity that would accompany the abduction of a Somali citizen from his own country even though they had proof of the crimes. A couple of hours after that the anchors were weighed and the ships turned out to sea.
The two glider crews that had gone down before the bomb run turned up at the beach as the sun was getting higher. Downs knew they were inbound because their trackers were still working perfectly and HMS Ocean could monitor their progress. Both pilots’ radios had broken in the crash and their move to the beach rendezvous point had been slow because one of them suffered a broken leg. His partner had carried him over nine kilometres.
They couldn’t resolve one minor issue. Shortly before the bulkers’ anchors were retrieved, one of the SBS lads looking out through a porthole high in the superstructure of the East Asian carrier saw a figure climb through a stern anchor chain hole and dart along the deck and out of sight. Whoever it was had obviously swum to the anchor chain and climbed it to the top.