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

and engine room to settle down; the officers and engineers would probably settle back with a drink and relax, with everything on autopilot. Nothing to do now until we were well clear of coastal waters. Jones sat and I watched Cyprus fade into the far horizon as daylight began to break.

‘You think we are in international waters yet?’ I asked after a while.

He pulled a mobile from his shin pocket and turned it on, then using his thumb to page through various apps found the one he was after. It was a map of the Mediterranean, showing us a flashing red dot in the middle of it off the far tip of Cyprus.

‘Looks like we are, but better give it another thirty minutes to make sure.’

‘Wake me up then.’ I settled back and closed my eyes; he’d grabbed forty winks at the dock, so my turn now.

In what seemed only a minute later a jab in the arm woke me up from my slumber.

‘We’re in international waters now,’ said Jones. ‘Let’s go.’

I slung the carbine round to my back, pulled out the Sig and took off the safety; Jones had done the same. Then I pulled down my balaclava and followed him along the side gangway and we took up position either side of the door Eve Rambart had gone through. It was solid – no window – so I turned the handle slowly and pushed it open. Inside was a corridor that had doors off it and at the end an opening in the floor with a steel staircase leading down into it. The cover to close off the staircase was propped open and the deep thudding noise of pistons turning the drive shaft to the ship’s propeller somewhere below us came up the well of the staircase, together with a blast of heat; the engine room was down there.

I set foot on the stair rungs and went down slowly my Sig in my hand, looking around as I went. The stairs led down directly into the engine room, and the noise became deafening as I reached the floor level. Two big steel turbines hid the stairs from the rest of the engine room, I beckoned Jones down and he joined me. The heat was quite suffocating, which I assumed was why the stair cover was open. Peeping round the turbines I could see three men: one was sitting at a table with bottles of drink on it reading a paper, the other two were standing in front of an array of gauges on the back wall checking pressures and taking readings. Their naval insignia jackets and caps were hung on wall hooks and their three rifles were leaning against the wall.

I raised two fingers to Jones and pointed to the two standing – I’ll take them. He nodded and we walked out from behind the turbines and were within twelve feet before they noticed us and made for their rifles – well, how can you miss from that distance? The first shot from my Sig was already aimed at the back of one man’s head and he crumpled to the ground as it sped through his brain and left via his forehead; my second target was so shocked and surprised to see us he couldn’t move, which allowed me time to make sure my second shot had the same effect on him, only going in at the front and out the back. Jones’s target had suffered the same quick death. No way would the shots have been heard above the engine noise, so we were quite relaxed – nobody would come running.

Yeah, I know what you are thinking – we just killed three men, maybe three husbands, or dads, or brothers. I know, but that’s what I do – not often, and without people like me you wouldn’t sleep so soundly at night, would you? You have to remember these are military people, who signed up knowing the risks; these are the bad guys who are transporting live missiles to an enemy who will pass them on to some other enemy, who will probably aim them at a busy public target to cause the most damage and kill maybe a hundred or so of the good guys. You want to live in a failed state run by warring warlords? Okay, disband MI5 and 6 and that’s what you’ll get, believe me.

Taking off our rucksacks we pulled out the slabs of Semtex and peeled off their greaseproof wrappers. There was an obvious place to set an explosion for the maximum result, and that was where the large driveshafts went through the ship’s hull to the propellers. Semtex is very malleable and like playing with plasticine, so I was easily able to mould around the thick eighteen-inch rubber seals where the drive shaft went through the hull. As I was working at that, Jones took out the timers and set them for thirty minutes. I checked my watch – I wasn’t going to be anywhere near this ship when that lot went off. He pushed the timers into the Semtex, and I could see their LEDs flashing red as the seconds ticked by. Dangerous things, timers; basically they ticked away for thirty minutes or whatever length of time you set them for, and then a small battery sent an electric shock through a small amount of magnesium which flared up, exploding a small amount of Semtex or dynamite that in turn exploded the main charge. Simple, effective and deadly.

We had thirty minutes to get off that ship. When the Semtex and timers were all set we dragged the bodies out of sight and went carefully back up the staircase. I poked my head up and saw the corridor was clear before we hauled ourselves up into it. We slowly lowered the heavy steel cover to close the opening and I saw a padlock that, looking at its