TURKISH DELIGHT by Barry Faulkner (learn to read activity book .txt) 📕

pretty open ground and deserted being out of season, but there wasn’t enough time to make it across the grounds to the building itself before the helicopter searchlight would pick us up.

‘The deckchairs!’ I shouted to Jones. I’d seen two piles of stacked deckchairs over by the pool.

We ran to them and squeezed in between the piles, reaching up to pull the top ones over the gap we stood in – if the ‘copter saw us we were sitting ducks. He swept his searchlight over the grounds for what seemed an eternity before making off further along the beach.

We didn’t hang about and started off towards the lights of the dockside, again keeping below the sightline of the beach.

The end of the concrete dock came into view, wide unlit concrete steps leading up to it from the beach. We crept up and peeped over onto the apron. Nothing happening this end; there were the two big freighters comms had mentioned tied up alongside about a hundred metres further along. All the activity seemed to be around the furthest one, which was steel grey and had Turkish Navy markings; an overhead crane was lifting on pallets with what looked like Rambart’s crates strapped to them. The lifeboats hanging on the freighter’s side swung slightly on their gantries as the crates were lowered into the hold, causing the boat to rock a little. The three green HGVs were parked with their back doors open facing the ship. I took a good look through the telescopic lens of the CF8 – yes, they were Rambart’s crates. On our left and all the way along the back of the dock apron ship containers were stacked three high in lanes. I motioned Jones to follow and made for the first lane. We worked our way along until we were opposite the ship being loaded and could watch proceedings through the gaps between the containers.

‘See the crates being loaded on?’ I asked Jones.

‘Yes.’

‘They are the target. They mustn’t reach Turkey.’

‘Okay, how do you want to play it – blow the whole lot up?’

‘Yes, but not here. I want to get onboard and sink her once outside the three-mile limit. The blame will be hung on the USA or a host of Middle Eastern Countries taking revenge for the attack on the Saudi oil tanks in Jeddah.’

‘Did Turkey do that?’

‘No, the Houthis did it. But the missiles came in through Turkey – they act as a middleman. These missiles might not be going to Yemen, but wherever they are going it’s not good news.’

Jones nodded. ‘Okay, so we have to get onboard then.’

‘Should be easy once the crates are onboard. The dockers will want to get off home and that only leaves the ship’s crew, and that won’t be many – just a couple in the engine room and the master and two others in the wheelhouse. It’s a freighter, not a warship.’

It was a good half hour before the crane driver climbed down the steel ladder from his cage. I shook Jones who had managed to drop off sitting next to me. We watched as the dock crew slammed the HGV doors shut and walked off en masse towards the main entrance at the far end of the dock. We took off our rucksacks and edged through the small gap between the containers towards the lit dockside with me in front. Voices! We froze as three people crossed my line of vision and stopped at the foot of the gangplank; they shook hands and two started off up the gangplank. The one in front turned to give a last wave to the man left on the dockside – the face was unmistakeable. What was Eve Rambart doing onboard a freighter with missiles heading for Turkey? I took a quick picture on Woodward’s phone, making sure the flash was off, and sent it. I think there was enough light from the dock lights to show who it was,

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CHAPTER 13

People often query my bill for the time charged on a job – they forget how many hours the PI spends sitting, watching and waiting for the mark to move. And so it was with this caper. I got over my surprise of seeing Eve Rambart go onboard the freighter and we stayed still, giving her and the goon with her time to settle in. The Captain, or somebody with a peaked officer-type hat, had welcomed her on deck and gone with her inside out of view. Freighters usually have a couple of extra crew cabins, so perhaps she was making herself comfortable in one of those for the trip.

It was forty minutes before the one with the peaked cap re-emerged onto the deck gangway, made his way along it for three-quarters of the ship’s length and then up some steps to the large wheelhouse that spanned the breadth of the ship. Now was our chance. We emerged from the gap and walked across to the gangplank as though we should be there; sometimes hiding in plain sight works, although this time there probably wasn’t anybody to see us and wonder who we were, but you never know. Once onboard Jones followed me along the gangway away from the wheelhouse to the far stern of the ship, where we hid behind a large anchor chain windlass which sheltered us from view.

Before long activity on the deck and dock pointed towards an imminent departure. The mooring ropes were slipped off their dock moorings and hauled up and the heavy throb of the diesels starting up shook the deck as they fought the water to turn the giant propellers. The dockside slipped away behind us as we edged out into the main breakwater bay, past the end of that with its flashing red warning light and into the Med. We gave it another ten minutes for everything in the wheelhouse