Chapter 10

As Serendipity headed out into the North Sea, two parties in black approached two houses in Suffolk. The original intention was to make a frontal approach, with Zoe and Goat playing the part of new blood; that would not now work. Instead, Alex, Bernie, Snoopy and Zoe made their way stealthily to the back of one house, and Chalky, Fatso, Dusty and Goat to the other.

Each made sure of the Taser in one hand; Alex and Dusty of the lock-picks needed to gain access. The doors opened to them easily, with just a squeak from poorly maintained hinges, but there was no-one to hear – any minor sounds made by the intruders would have been drowned out by the noises coming from the upstairs. The professionals isolated their anger and distress at the significance of those sounds; Zoe swallowed hard and went very pale.

Each team, mere seconds apart, burst into the rooms where they found, in both cases, four naked girls and three half-naked men; the men were tasered and secured with cable ties. All the professionals had a working knowledge of Russian, but Alex and Dusty were the best linguists. In each case, they said something to the effect;

"Be calm. We won't hurt you, and neither will these men, ever again. We will get you out of here and either get you back to where you came from, or find a safe home for you, whichever you prefer."

Zoe in one house and Goat in the other took off their balaclavas and opened their jackets before approaching the girls cautiously. The men were stripped and secured to kitchen chairs, then ... persuaded ... to talk to a video camera about the ring. Once the information was on record, Bernie and Fatso, as the best medics, inserted cannulas into veins in the men's arms and were about to give them large injections of potassium.

"Alex!" Zoe interrupted the proceedings.

"Yes?"

"Valda here has a request..."

"Go on?"

"She would like to repay ... each of the girls would like to repay ... some of the suffering they have experienced. She feels tightening those cable ties round their balls before they die would go some way towards making them feel better."

It went against Alex' training and principles, but somehow he felt there was justice there. He communicated with Dusty, and it was agreed that, yes, the cable ties would be used and the girls would, once the pain had set in, be allowed to administer the lethal dose of potassium.

Clothes were found for the girls, the computers checked and found to contain considerable quantities of very nasty porn. Discs with the record of the men's 'confessions' were left with the bodies and the living left the scene.

A full account would take too long. Suffice it to say, five of the eight girls had been abducted from families and wanted to return. Having ascertained that the families would accept them back and provision made for their support, they were returned to their homes. Three were found suitable places in England, plus Nadiya, of course. In the meantime, they were all taken to Whitham.

"I need a couple of volunteers, people, to try to track down the one that got away."

"I'll go, Cap." It was Goat speaking, "I'd have the best chance to get close and I think he won't notice me. I don't think I'd have any trouble taking him down."

"No ... I don't think you would. Who would you like to take with you?"

The woman glanced round. "I'd like Snoopy, if he's okay with it..." She looked round at the other man, seeing the surprise in his face. "Of course, if you'd rather not..."

Her expression, a mixture of sadness, fear and appeal, deepened his surprise. But he saw the sadness take a larger role. "Hey, I'm good about it. Yeah, sure, I ... I'll enjoy your company, Goat."

She turned back to Alex. "Perhaps," she glanced at Zoe, "your wife might have some clothes suitable for making me look ... innocuous?"

Alex laughed. "You couldn't look innocuous, Goat! But I'm sure we could make you look less like a warrior and more like the attractive young woman you are."

Her eyebrows raised. "Steady on, Cap. You could give a girl a swelled head."

"He's only speaking the truth, Goat." Snoopy spoke quietly in her ear. "You might want to be careful, though. It might be difficult to keep my hands to myself."

The shock at his words – he'd never given the slightest indication that he'd noticed she was even a girl, let alone an attractive one – was clear. After a pause, she considered and rejected several possible responses, finally settling on... "You'd better get used to calling me 'Becky' rather than 'Goat'."

"As you say ... dear."

Her look was speculative rather than quelling and a slight smile touched her lips. "Very good, Sweetheart."

"Break it up, you two. We need to get you on the way or we'll lose him."

Oh two hundred on board Serendipity; Pippa and CC relieved Cherry and Nadiya. The night was still thick and black. They kept heading east and a little south. By dawn, they were only about forty miles off Orkney, but the fog was still thick and they were moving in a circle of visibility barely two hundred yards across. The throb of the diesel was an unnoticed background, insulating them from the hiss of water past the hull.

Pippa stood close to CC and slipped her hand round his back companionably. "I'm not sure what I expected, but this has been..." she shook her head, "I don't know. It's changed me, for sure."

"So ... are you happy with the change?"

"Oh, yes. Very happy."

"Good ... It's been special for me, too." He took one hand off the wheel to hold her and pulled her even closer. "What's the time?"

"Nearly six. I'll go and get the kettle on."

"Can I have a kiss first?"

"Of course!"

When Cherry surfaced, everything was ready to make coffee and she smiled at Pippa as water hit the grounds. Nadiya followed, blinking sleepily. Cherry hugged the younger girl. "You didn't need to get up, Nadiya."

"I wanted to, Skip-per."

Pippa poured hot water onto a tea-bag in a mug before depressing the plunger of the cafetiere.

"Okay, Pippa," Cherry said, "that's wonderful. Get off to bed now. I don't expect to see either of you before mid-day."

By the time CC arrived, Pippa was naked under the covers. They were sufficiently familiar with each other that nerves were no longer a factor and they made love gently, pleasure unalloyed by angst. Pippa remembered just in time to position a small towel between her legs before they slept.

Almost six hours of sleep. Pippa was feeling good as she and CC made their way aft.

"Soup," Nadiya told them, "bread. Cheese."

"Sounds good!" Pippa smiled at the younger girl before popping her head out into the cockpit. "We're up, Skipper. Lunch is about ready, I think."

"Fine. I'll stay out here, though – I want to keep a good lookout. I'll have my soup in a mug."

"Right-oh, Skipper."

In Kirkwall, early afternoon on Sunday, a man had decided that his pursuit was futile. Calls back to the two houses had been unanswered, visibility was still negligible. Continue just to kill the bitch and the interfering idiots who had kept her out of his way? Better to get clear and bide his time. So, what to do? He considered getting a flight to Bergen – but there wasn't one for two days. Better to return to Edinburgh on his existing ticket and consider options from there.

Getting north proved to be awkward. Alex called in a favour and Goat and Snoopy ... Becky Watson and Steve Bassett ... found themselves on board a light aircraft, a Piper Malibu, taking off from Southend airport heading north at about two hundred and forty miles an hour.

It wasn't the first time for either of them in a light aircraft. It wasn't the first time they'd flown together, or even sat next to each other while flying. It was, however, the first time they'd done so as 'civilians'. Steve, for the first time, saw Goat ... no, Becky ... as a very pretty, shapely young woman. Not wearing bulky, shapeless combat dress, no Kevlar jacket, no harness. Becky, for her part, had fancied Steve (having long decided Alex was way out of her reach) at a distance for quite a while. He had many of the same interests as herself and they'd often chatted about technical stuff, played video games, listened to music ... but always there had been the detachment, the separation necessitated by discipline. They were buddies, friends, colleagues. They trusted each other, because you had to when a mission went to shit, but sex?

Conversation was stilted.

They landed at Edinburgh mid-afternoon, and parked at Fixed Base Operations to await the next step. "The flight from Kirkwall leaves about sixteen hundred," The pilot told them, "I can get you there in about an hour, but you'd be cutting it very fine. The slightest delay in ATC," (Air Traffic Control – both Edinburgh and Kirkwall handle international commercial flights) "and you would be watching the aircraft heading south."

Goat took a deep breath and sighed. "Let's wait in Arrivals, then, and see if we can spot him."

On board Serendipity as they finished their lunch, it was apparent that the fog was thinning and there was some wind ... from the south-east. Cherry altered course to south-south-west, which meant they were heading towards Aberdeen, about ninety miles away, and shut down the engine. The wind at that point was not strong, but, "It's going to strengthen and veer. For now ... CC, perhaps we'd better have the reflector back aloft."

While he was doing that, she made use of the sat-phone. Hearing Alex' report about their action, she closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

"CC, take the helm, please? Everyone, gather round. Alex says ... they raided the houses they knew about. Those men won't be any more trouble. Only one is loose, and he has people after him. What it means is ... we can go home. It's all over. Except for a small matter of five hundred nautical miles and an imminent gale. Nadiya ... you're free, love."

The young Russian leapt across the cockpit and hugged Cherry fiercely, then did the same to Pippa. "Thank you ... all. Pippa ... I think ... it was your idea to take me in, was it not?"

Pippa shrugged, blushing, but couldn't think of anything to say.

While Nadiya was still squeezing Pippa, Cherry went on, "It's at least four days' sailing back home. In twenty hours, we could be in Peterhead, in shelter, with showers and laundry ... shops and restaurants. Or we can carry on to the south. We should have enough supplies to get us home. If perhaps not exciting, we won't starve or die of thirst. This isn't a democracy, but, who would like to do what? Pippa?"

"I came in the first place to sail. I vote to carry on."

"Nadiya?"

The youngest member of the crew smiled, "I ... happy to be here. Do not mind, sea or land."

"CC?"

He shrugged, "I, like Pippa, am here to sail. I vote to carry on; Serendipity can cope."

Cherry smiled. "Very well, then. We'll carry on. At least, for now; we won't run for shelter."

The wind strengthened and veered through the rest of the day. When it got to due south, Cherry tacked. Shortly after, at nightfall, the wind strength reached force seven.