Without warning

She clawed her way out of the corner she’d been jammed into and tried to roll out of the bridge and through to the companion-way in synch with the movements of the yacht. With seas running at ten metres and whipped up into a frenzy by sixty-knot winds, her progress was slow and extremely hazardous. She found the conventional stairwells and wide corridors of the Aussie Rules to be more difficult in extreme weather than the cramped conditions she’d grown used to on Pete’s little yacht. It was so much bigger here that the chances of being thrown clear across an open area by a particularly bad wave were significantly higher. As she proceeded towards the media centre, she climbed up a steep, pitching rise, levitated into the air, and crashed back onto a plunging deck as Lee took them through another boiling ravine on the surface of the southern oceans.

Having finally reached her destination after a trek that took three minutes instead of the usual one, Jules launched herself through the door and into the plush confines of the media room with a real sense of deliverance. She found Shah, Fifi and Pieraro there, all of them wedged deeply into the soft blue armchairs, talking amongst themselves, if somewhat volubly over the sound of the storm. The big screen was lit up with a feed from the Rhino’s radar, showing a highly degraded image on which a lone vessel occasionally popped out – the giant trawler Viarsa 1, according to the Rhino, a toothfish poacher turned pirate raider.

‘How’s it goin’, Julesy?’ asked Fifi.

‘Spiffing. They’re holding on. I was really hoping we’d lose them in the storm, but Rhino says not. They’re used to these conditions and worse. We’re not.’

‘No,’ Fifi agreed.

They really weren’t. On the Diamantina, they’d always run from big storms, harboured up or anchored on the leeside of an island wherever they could, and ridden them out. Only once or twice during their time together had Pete been caught out in open seas when a big blow started up, and that had been nothing like this.

‘Miguel, how’re your people hanging on?’ she asked. ‘They wouldn’t see a lot of ocean storms back in the village, I’d imagine.’

The vaquero, whose face was a study in granite stoicism, shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘Very sick, Miss Julianne. The children are frightened. They are all frightened, but only the children admit so.’

Jules saw the Viarsa 1 appear as an indistinct, faraway blip on the big screen. It must have climbed a crest at the same time as the Rules and been painted by the radar. She wondered if there was somebody on the other vessel hunched over a screen, hanging on for a fleeting glimpse of them through the fury of the storm. There had to be. Otherwise Lee would’ve lost them already.

She turned back to address the Mexican again. ‘As soon as the weather calms down enough to get them out of their bunks, Miguel, I want you and Sergeant Shah to start training everyone again, especially the Yanks. Just the basics, as we discussed. Aiming, firing, reloading, clearing jams. Over and over and over, with every minute we have. These bastards may never get within a bee’s willy of us, but if they do, I want to kick them so hard that their goolies pop out of their eye sockets.’

‘The passengers will be fine, Miss Julianne,’ Shah assured her. ‘They did very well in their lessons before the storm. They understand what is required, and what will happen to them if the pirates get control. They will fight. All of them. Even the children, if you let them.’

She looked across at Miguel. Deep hollows under his eyes gave him a ghoulish appearance in the dim light of the room. The ship plunged and rolled again, forcing him to grab the arms of his deep padded chair with white knuckles that stood out starkly against the blue fabric.

‘I have discussed this with Mariela, my wife, and the old ones,’ he said. ‘We have agreed that only the very youngest will go with Ana and one of the crew in the big launch if the worst happens. The other children will carry ammunition, and if they can hold a weapon, they may fire it too.’

It was hard to be certain in the half-light, but Jules thought he may have been on the verge of tears.

‘My daughters, they will fight,’ Pieraro went on. ‘They must. Better for them to die quickly than to live out their years as a slave to some stinking Peruvian cabron.’

‘Miguel, I promised you safe passage for you and your family,’ said Jules, as softly as she could and still be heard. The girls do not have to fight. If the Viarsa 1 gets close enough, we can put them in the sport fisher with Lars or Dietmar and Grandma Ana. They would outrun any pursuit.’