Shafiq was suddenly scared that he had been far too indiscreet. “I have said nothing you can repeat, Paul! Nothing!”
“Shafiq!” I said earnestly and with a hurt expression in my voice. “Shafiq. You and I are old friends. We have endured much together. We have taken risks for each other and protected each other. We have trusted each other.” I was laying it on with a gold-plated trowel for I knew it would all be music to Shafiq’s ears and, sure enough, tears showed in his eyes as I went on. “We have been fellow soldiers, and do you think I am the kind of man to betray an old comrade? My dear friend, I have heard nothing today that I had not already guessed, and I have heard nothing today that I will ever repeat to another soul. May my mother die of worms if I tell you a lie.”
“Thank you, Paul, thank you.” Shafiq took a deep breath as if to contain his emotion.
We turned into Monastir’s marina. It was winter, and the pontoons looked drab. There were plenty of yachts, but most were under wraps, their sails unbent, waiting out the winter months until the Mediterranean spring fetched their owners south again. There were a handful of liveaboards in the harbor, but not as many as usual for the prospect of war in the Gulf had scared people away from Muslim countries. Only Corsaire looked fully ready for the sea, even to the extent of having two crewmen sprawled in her cockpit. “Are they my guards?” I asked Shafiq.
“Your crew.” He sounded hurt that I should be so distrustful. “I hope you like them.”
“I’m sure I will.” I plucked my oilskin and sea-bag from the boot, then went to meet the two men Brendan had sent to guard me and, I suspected, to kill me when my usefulness was done.
My God, I thought when I got aboard Corsaire, but was this the best the Provisional IRA could drag up? It was no wonder that Shafiq had sounded so unenthusiastic about Liam and Gerry, for they were hardly the stuff of legends.
Liam was a skinny youth with a starved wan face, red hair and jug ears. He had timid, furtive eyes, suggesting that for all his short life Liam had been surrounded by stronger people who had left him pinched, resentful and ratlike.
The only ratlike thing about his companion was a small pigtail that decorated the nape of his thick neck. Gerry was a beefy, red-faced man whose cheap shirt strained across his plump back and bulging stomach. He had a massive chin, small eyes, and cropped black hair. He greeted me with a surly nod, as though trying to establish a pecking order at our very first meeting.
I chucked my sea-bag into the after cabin and ordered them to tell me about themselves. “We can’t be strangers and shipmates,” I said cheerfully, “so tell me your stories. How old are you for a start?”
They were both twenty-three, both born and raised in Belfast, and both now living in Dublin. They pretended to be battle-hardened veterans of the Irish Troubles, but their boasting was uncomfortable and unconvincing. They had the restricted vocabulary of deprivation, the fouled lungs of chain-smokers and the thin minds of ignorance. Liam and Gerry were the cannon-fodder of riots and revolution, the spawn of decaying industrial cities, and they were supposed to be my shipmates for the next three months. I asked if either had ever sailed before. Liam shook his head, though Gerry claimed to have spent some time aboard an uncle’s lobster boat. He was vague on the details, but bridled indignantly when I asked if he was competent to steer a simple course. “I can look after myself, mister!”
Liam was far more apprehensive. “We’re crossing the Atlantic in this wee boat?”
“Yes.”
“Fock me.” He went pale.
“It’ll do you good,” I told him. “Put some color in your cheeks. By the time you reach Miami you’ll be a competent seaman.”
“But I get focking seasick, mister!” Liam said.
“You what?” I asked in horror. Flynn had sent me seasick crew?
“I told Mr. Flynn that, but he said it didn’t matter! He said this would be like a focking cruise, so he did.”
“The airplane was real good,” Gerry said accusingly, as though Corsaire’s accommodation was a real disappointment after their charter flight from Dublin. For both boys it had been their very first airplane flight, but neither was looking forward to their maiden yachting voyage with quite the same excitement.
Shafiq, relieved that I had taken responsibility for Liam and Gerry, gave me Halil’s written instructions. They were simple enough. I was to take Corsaire to the north Tunisian port of Ghar-el-Melh where we should wait for the gold. Once the coins were concealed aboard Corsaire we were to sail for Miami. “And who the hell do I contact when I reach Miami?” I demanded of Shafiq. I could not believe I was simply supposed to call Michael Herlihy’s Boston office and risk being overheard by the FBI.
“They know who to contact.” Shafiq pointed to the two Irish lads.
“You do?” I challenged them.
“Yes, mister,” Gerry said.
“What a way to run a revolution,” I said unhappily. “So let’s get on with it.”
I stowed my few belongings, put my sextant in a drawer of the chart table, then rummaged through the supplies which il Hayaween had arranged to be put aboard. It took me two hours to check the boat, but everything seemed to be present, including thirty feet of flexible plastic tubing that I thrust out of sight in a deep cockpit locker, then, with nothing to hold us under the battlements of Monastir, I started Corsaire’s engine and singled up her mooring lines. The Palestinian influence had ensured that there were none of the time-consuming bureaucratic procedures that usually accompanied a Tunisian departure; instead, after bidding Shafiq farewell and shouting at Liam and Gerry to stay out of harm’s way, I cast off, reversed from the pontoon and motored toward the open sea.
At the very first surge of the waves Liam belched, gripped his belly and his cheeks turned a whitish green. I told him to stay on deck, for the last thing I wanted was to have the boat’s interior stinking of his vomit. He lay flat, groaning and unhappy, as we plugged head on into the persistent north wind. “Have you ever heard of Michael Herlihy?” I asked Liam, who shook his head miserably. “He’s much worse than you,” I said cheerfully. “He gets seasick just looking at a boat.”
“Oh, Jesus.” But he could not have been feeling too unwell, for he managed to light himself a cigarette. “How long till we get to wherever we’re going?” he said miserably.
“Two days to Ghar-el-Melh,” I said cheerfully, “then two or three months across the Atlantic.”
“Months?” He stared at me, saw I was not joking, so crossed himself. “Christ help me.”
The morning turned cold as we headed north into the Gulf of Hammamet. Liam’s seasickness got no better, yet he insisted on sharing Gerry’s enormous midday meal of eggs and bread fried in bacon fat and washed down with the sweet cola they had bought in Monastir. Liam fetched the meal back up in seconds. Gerry frowned at the bucket I had managed to thrust on to his friend’s lap. “Waste of good food, that.”