Scott Mariani 2-book Collection: Star of Africa, The Devil’s Kingdom - Scott Mariani

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did it,’ Jude said. ‘The message went off without a hitch. That’s the best we can do.’

      There were grins and sighs of relief all round. ‘Well done, son,’ Diesel said, thumping Jude on the shoulder.

      ‘So now what?’ Condor asked nervously.

      ‘Now we wait,’ Gerber said. ‘What the hell else is there to do?’

      ‘Pray to God we make it through this,’ said Trent.

      Gerber gave a grunt. ‘You go ahead and pray to that sonofabitch, if it pleases you. I stopped wasting my breath on him thirty years ago.’

      ‘I need to use the bathroom,’ Jude said, and Gerber motioned with his torch to show him over to a corner of the engine room where a bucket had been placed, out of sight in as private a spot as possible. It had already been used more than once. One bucket, for thirteen trapped men. As time went by, the smells inside the enclosed space would become horrendous.

      In all the excitement, nobody had noticed the lump in Jude’s pocket sticking out as big as a tennis ball. Now that he had a moment’s privacy, he took it out and reopened the leather pouch to examine its contents more closely under the beam of his Maglite.

      There was little doubt in his mind what it was he was holding. It was hard to believe the thing was even real. But it was real, all right. The more he stared at it, the more bewildered he became as questions layered up in his mind. Was this what the pirate leader was after, the big man with the awful scarred face? Or had Carter, or whatever his name was, been keeping it from him?

      Amid all the uncertainty, one thing was for sure. If this thing was what Jude thought it was, forget the value of the cargo. Forget the value of the whole ship and everything aboard. Jude was no expert, but he was pretty certain you could buy an entire fleet of ships for the value of what he was holding in his hand.

      He spent a fevered moment debating with himself whether he should tell the others what he’d found. Gerber, Hercules and Diesel, he felt strongly that he could trust. Some, like Trent, Allen, Lorenz and Park, he knew much less well, and it worried him how they might react. As for Scagnetti, it would be running a huge risk. Jude remembered Mitch’s warning. Scagnetti would be the first to slip a blade between your ribs for even a few bucks. With something like this, Jude wouldn’t trust him any more than he trusted the pirates. He wasn’t closed inside a steel box with them.

      Jude decided that he should keep his secret to himself, at least for now. Then what was he going to do with it? He’d had no clear idea in his head when he’d picked it up, just a vague notion that he didn’t want Carter to have it. Should he toss it in the sea, first chance he got? Return it to the hijackers and hope for leniency? Use it as a bargaining chip to plead for the lives of the crew? Some hope. The pirates would just take it and kill them all anyway.

      If the pirates didn’t, Carter certainly would. When the man came to and found it was gone, he was going to know exactly who took it, and he was going to want that person’s blood. Jude had seen him personally execute four men as if it were nothing. What wouldn’t he do to the thief who’d stolen this from him?

      Even in the oppressive heat of the engine room, Jude felt a coldness wash over him. In taking this thing, he might have just made the worst mistake of his life.

       Chapter 18

      Pender let out a long, tortured groan as he opened his eyes and the agony shuddered through his skull. ‘Jesus Christ!’ He tried to shake his head to clear it, but that only made the pain worse. ‘Motherfucker!’

      He managed to prop himself up on one elbow. There was a burst of panic before he remembered that the blood on the floor had been there before, and wasn’t his own. With that memory came the recollection of the last thing he’d seen before the white flash and the ensuing unconsciousness. It was the thin young blond-haired guy sneaking up behind him with the torch in his hand. The bastard who’d clobbered him. He could have busted his damn head open. Must have been one of the crew. Why wasn’t he dead already?

      Pender struggled into a kneeling position. As he moved, he felt the tug on his left wrist from the chain connecting him to the metal case. He had to smile. That was all that mattered. The crew weren’t his problem. Headaches, he could deal with. What was a little knock on the nut? A man in his position could forgive and forget such minor transgressions with great magnanimity.

      But then the smile dropped like a ton weight from Pender’s face when he saw that the lid of the case was open. Someone had been through his pockets and got the key. The bundles of cash were strewn about. The thick envelope was torn open, the phony legal papers it contained scattered on the floor.

      He didn’t give a shit about the papers, not even about the money. With a despairing moan he yanked the case to him and delved inside. He blinked. It was empty. Empty!

      No. No. It couldn’t be. Please Christ oh Christ don’t let it be. Pender searched frantically about the floor, but there was nothing there.

      It was gone. His rock. Fucking GONE!

      He wanted to scream. He did scream. A howl like a wounded dog.

      His aching head was completely forgotten. He leapt to his feet and dashed from the mess room, running aimlessly in a breathless panic until he got a grip on himself.

      Gone. Stolen. By the same dirty rotten little shit who’d sneaked up on him. Was this a targeted attack? How could he have known what was in the case? No, it was impossible. It was just some sailor.

      Pender was floored by this unthinkable turn of events. For this to happen, after all he’d been through, after planning everything so carefully down to the last detail!

      The plan had been so beautifully worked out. Starting with the escape from Oman, personally organised weeks in advance by none other than Eugene Svalgaard, heir to the shipping line dynasty, as the perfect way to smuggle out of the country what was possibly the hottest piece of stolen property in modern history. Who better to set up a passage for three anonymous stowaways on board a ship than the owner of the whole fleet? All it had really taken was a small donation to Captain O’Keefe’s retirement fund. Fifty thousand bucks was a drop in all the world’s oceans put together for a man as obscenely rich as Svalgaard.

      Pender’s fee for the job had been a little steeper, but then five million dollars was the going rate for hiring a professional mercenary and sometime jewel thief, never caught, to assemble a crew of hitters and carry out a home invasion robbery so serious that its perpetrators could never work again. The third-generation Dutch shipping magnate from New York hadn’t even blinked at the cost. As both Svalgaard and Pender knew very well, five million was a ridiculously small investment to make in return for such incredible booty.

      Of course, ol’ Svalgaard had never had the faintest suspicion that, when he turned up in Mombasa for the rendezvous, there would be no ship, no Pender, and worst of all, no magnificent uncut rock the size of your fist waiting for him to collect and hustle home to his secure vault. The smug little crook was so used to getting his own way, it hadn’t seemed to even occur to him that a common gun-for-hire like Lee Pender could outfox him and snatch the loot for himself.

      Yet it had been so damned easy. Already drooling over the fifty-thousand-dollar bribe Svalgaard had slipped him to take on the unauthorised passengers, Captain O’Keefe hadn’t needed too much persuading to accept a further hundred grand in cash from ‘Ty Carter’ to look the other way and make sure nothing was reported when the pirates appeared. Nobody would get hurt, Pender had assured O’Keefe. The pirates would help themselves to a few cargo containers and then go on their way rejoicing. It was just business. What did the captain care, anyway? This was to be his last voyage.

      Pender had been a step ahead of everyone. The look on O’Keefe’s face when the old fart clocked that he’d been tricked! And how that arrogant burger-stuffing hog Svalgaard would rant and rave on the dockside in Mombasa, when

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