In Cold Blood by Mark Dawson

have no-one like that.”
    He smiled at him again, the same smile that he had used just before he had pumped half a dozen rounds into Vasquez’s chest but, this time, there was no repeat. “I understand why you say nothing. I do the same, if it were me. But I know you have men here, on boat, who are soldiers. Sailors do not use such weapons. They do not have the skill. And a soldier is worth more to al Shabaab than a sailor. You must remember that, Joe. You understand?”
    “I do, but it’s not relevant…”
    Farax laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “We will talk about this again.”
     
    THEY UNTETHERED the skiffs and brought them around the port and starboard. Farax indicated that they should get into the boats and, once they were safely aboard, the sixty horsepower outboards were opened all the way to maximum and they bounced across the shallow waves into the harbour. It was a wet, bumpy ride and Joe held on to the gunwale. They swerved into the opening of the harbour, flashed past the abandoned lighthouse and proceeded to the shore, driving right up the beach. They lurched to a sudden stop. One of the other hijackers shouted at them, “Out! Out!” and they did as they were told. Joe’s feet slapped down onto the wet sand as the second and third skiffs followed them up the beach. Joe looked around and saw a fleet of small boats on the beach, attended to by twenty or thirty men. Some were working with angle grinders and welders on engine mountings, others were siphoning fuel, others were attending to damaged hulls. It was busy with activity. Whatever this place was, it was important to them.
    They were led at gunpoint up from the harbour through dusty streets, the sun’s glare blindingly bright against the whitewashed walls. The foreigners were penned in by the Somalis, AKs lowered and readied. There was no use in trying to resist. Where were they going to go? Local fighters appeared along the street as the procession climbed up from the beach and soon there was an excited, fractious atmosphere. A couple of the men from the boat aimed their AKs into the air and fired off celebratory rounds. It set off others, and, soon, their passage was marked by an earsplitting barrage.
    Joyce was alongside him. Joe had watched as he had been herded from the trawler and the man’s sangfroid was remarkable. On first glance he might have appeared above it all, but Joe had watched him carefully. He noticed that Joyce was observing everything and everyone, soaking it all in. The signs of stress were difficult to find. There was a barely noticeable tic in his right cheek, above the line of his jaw, but that was it. Joe knew next to nothing about him or the men from Manage Risk. He had been pleased that they had been included on the crew roster but, save that they were all ex-military, he was ignorant about them.
    “You can’t give us up,” he said in a terse whisper as they climbed natural steps to the street level above.
    “I wasn’t about to.”
    “They will kill us if you do. You know that, right?”
    “I won’t say anything.”
    “And your crew?”
    “They’re good men. They won’t, either.”
    “What he was saying about soldiers, that was true. This is all about propaganda. If they think we’re all just sailors, maybe we get out of this in one piece. It’ll definitely give us more time.”
    “You don’t think this is about a ransom?”
    “These boys? No. They don’t need money. They run the coastline north of here. They don’t need whatever it is your company would pay to get us back. This is about ideology. We are their chance to make a big splash.”
    “So … what will they do?”
    “They’ll hold us. Parade us in front of the cameras. Get us to make statements denouncing the Great Satan, all that shit. I figure we’ve got six months before they change tactics. It might get dangerous then, but that’s more than enough time for your government or my employer to decide to teach these pricks a lesson