Thunderbolt Wilbur Smith (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📖

I’ve no idea what he was after, but I do know what he got: a cuff round the head from Barrel-man not much softer than the one he’d given me on the boat. The kid can’t have been more than four but instead of squealing or bursting into tears he just ran away laughing.

Though we’d only ventured inland a few hundred metres, the heat had already intensified, prickly and dry. Sweat ran down my face. I tried to keep track of the route we’d taken. As we rounded the next corner, still at the centre of an excited throng, one building stood out. It was painted that intense blue colour you see on Greek islands. A woman in a brilliant orange headscarf leaned in its doorway. Her face, framed by the scarf, was completely set; I stared at it until we were marched out of sight and didn’t see it flicker, much less move.

Xander had noticed her too. ‘Nice welcoming smile,’ he muttered.

‘We’re not here as guests,’ said Amelia.

‘Fair point,’ he replied. ‘But still.’

Eventually we came to another beaten-up-looking building with a rusted metal door set in a low frame. I had to duck as we went through it. A guy with a squint so pronounced it almost made me overlook the AK-47 he had slung over his shoulder welcomed Flip-flops – and us – with a smile.

The clamour of voices in the street behind us dropped a notch after he clanged the door shut behind us, but didn’t disappear entirely. At one remove, the chatter sounded celebratory.

What little light there was in the shack’s front section took a moment to see by, and the inner room Flip-flops and Squint ushered us into beyond that hallway was darker still. I was still trying to figure out what – and who – was in it with us when I heard the metallic grinding of a bolt sliding shut.

A second lock clunked immediately after the first.

My eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom.

I made out two narrow beds pushed up against the walls of a room about half the size of mine back home. Either they were punishing Mo for his mistake with the fuel or they simply didn’t trust him not to run away on land, for here he was, walled up with us.

We stood in silence a moment. I for one felt suddenly exhausted, and Amelia was swaying on her feet. Xander guided her to sit down, and seeing her take the weight off her feet made me want to do the same so badly I think I let out a groan.

‘Four people, two beds,’ said Mo. He looked from me to Xander and said, ‘Jack was up most of the night. We can cope on the floor for now, yes?’

I sat down on the dusty concrete floor immediately, with my back pressed to the bare wall. ‘One of you guys take the first turn,’ I said. ‘I’m fine here.’

25.

As it turned out, none of us actually slept, or not to begin with at least. Nobody spoke for a few moments, and the quiet of this new room asserted itself, made all the more obvious by the faint chatter filtering in from outside. As before, the hubbub sounded cheerful.

‘What’s the deal with these guys?’ asked Xander. ‘They’re crooks, yet they step ashore in broad daylight to a hero’s welcome. They parade us – stolen children – through the streets and nobody gives a damn.’

‘It’s not quite as simple as that,’ said Mo.

‘On one level – the most basic, obvious, incontrovertible one – it definitely is,’ said Amelia.

‘I’m with Amelia on this,’ I said.

‘I’m sure you are,’ said Mo. ‘And don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to defend them. But you have to understand them.’

‘That’s an easy way to overcomplicate things,’ I muttered.

‘Hear him out,’ said Amelia.

‘My country, Somalia, is a difficult place,’ said Mo. ‘For many years there was civil war here, and the fighting continues today. We have attacked ourselves from within, and this has meant we have been unable to defend ourselves properly from outsiders.’

‘Whose problem is that?’ I couldn’t help saying.

‘Right now, it’s yours,’ Mo said quietly, before continuing. ‘But it is also a big problem for all of us, including our fishermen. Without a navy to protect our waters, outsiders took advantage. Big industrial fishing boats from other countries took our fish. This meant fewer fish for us. People on the coast grew poor and went hungry. Many pirates started out as fishermen. With nothing left to catch they put their knowledge of the ocean to other uses.

‘First, they began hijacking foreign fishing vessels, as much to scare others away as to steal the boats and fish. Then they grew bolder and, with the help of ex-soldiers, they started targeting big international cargo ships. The companies who owned them paid ransom monies for the release of their cargo and to free their employees. For a time, the seas here were a virtual no-go area. Soon the international community fought back however, sending warships to patrol the seas. US and Chinese navy boats, fully armed, and willing to shoot and kill. Many pirates died.’

‘My heart bleeds for them,’ said Xander.

‘But in the meantime, you see, the coastal communities had benefited. The pirates spent money ashore; markets thrived. It’s the same the world over: wealth creates wealth, at least locally. Also, since the pirates had scared away the foreign fishing boats, the fish came back, and the seas grew plentiful again.’

I thought of Mum and her environmental crusade. Protecting coral reefs was top of her list, but she was also striving to ensure marine diversity and looking after fish stocks. To think that her efforts were in any way aligned with what the pirates were doing, however inadvertently, by defending their seas, made a sick sort of sense.

Mo went on: ‘With the return of the fish, local fishermen made record catches. They earned money and others did too. People had enough to