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

We were about a quarter of a mile from the ship when we saw it first and then heard it – a sheet of red flame like a giant Roman candle shot up into the air from the rear half of the ship, and a dull thud followed it.

‘That’s the fuel tanks,’ Jones shouted.

Taylor cut the engines and we watched as the rest of the ship was engulfed in flame, and the air filled with the noise of continuing explosions as the armaments in the crates exploded. The missiles wouldn’t explode as modern missiles are triggered by what’s called a proximity fuse, which is programmed to detonate the payload when the missile reaches a pre-determined distance from the target; the ones on the freighter wouldn’t have been programmed and they would be bent and battered by the explosions around them, dropping to the sea floor with the remains of the freighter as it sank as it surely would. Time to send Woodward an update, I took out his phone and sent a picture, probably out of focus through the storm but he should realise what it was and be happy.

Williams was watching the freighter through night vision binoculars.

‘Somebody’s made it away,’ he said, passing the glasses to Jones. ‘Do we go after them and finish the job?’

Jones looked and then turned to me. ‘It’s the lady you recognised at the dock and one other. Here, take a look.’

He was right – Eve Rambart was sitting in a lifeboat speeding away from the burning ship; I could only see one other person with her and he was at the back steering it. They were going away from us, heading towards the Turkish coast.

‘You want to chase them?’ shouted Taylor, starting the engines again.

Jones had taken the glasses back and was looking towards the coast.

‘If we do we’ll have company – there’s a small flotilla of naval craft on their way.’ He passed the glasses back to me and I could see what he was talking about. Fast small boats were bouncing over the waves towards the stricken ship, blue lights flashing, and every now and again the sound of sirens could be heard filtering through the storm to us. It would be suicidal to get mixed up in a firefight with them – we’d be well outnumbered. I swung the glasses right and looked towards the shore which was dark, overgrown with scrub and looked forbidding, then further right where the lights of Latakia could be seen. One thing was for sure, I had to go after Eve Rambart – had she been fooling us all along? She was only on the ship for one reason, delivering the missiles, and she wouldn’t have been there if they were a shipment from her husband. Putting two and two together was easy: she was the arms dealer putting these deadly weapons into Turkey and Iran, not Nicholas. Could be she’d been doing it for years, and the previous two husbands had found out and had to be killed? Had Nicholas found out too and was that why he wanted her killed and vice versa why she wanted him killed? She was stepping on his toes, threatening his business with her own, she had to go. Could be, but there was only one way to find out.

‘Put me ashore over there.’ I pointed to the nearest land which was to the left of Latakia.

‘Syrian territory,’ shouted Jones. ‘No way, Nevis – they have patrols all along that shore and the sea and beaches are mined. You’d be lucky to last five minutes.’

‘I’ve got to find out who’s shipping those missiles in for definite. Can you get me ashore anywhere along there?’

Jones looked at Taylor who shrugged. ‘Yes, I can get in to the shore on the Turkish side down from Antakya, but whether I’d get out again without being seen is doubtful – there are lots of patrols in that area. It’s near to the Turkey-Syria border, and both are a bit trigger-happy since Idlib was bombed and half a million refugees stormed the border. There is a sand bank – the sea is fairly shallow for about two hundred metres out from the beach, but there’s no cover. I’ve landed ops there before ’

‘Good.’ That gave me a lift.

‘But none of them ever made the return pick-up time.’ Taylor gave me a smile and raised his eyebrows, asking the unspoken question ‘are you sure?’.

I didn’t have a choice; I had to confirm it was Eve Rambart shipping the missiles. ‘Well, there’s always a first time.’

Taylor looked at Jones for orders.

Jones nodded. ‘Let’s go for it.’

Taylor swung the boat round towards the shore and we headed in, keeping an eye on the boats heading for the burning ship which was now just a very big flaming superstructure floating on the sea, with the occasional explosion of gas bottles and onboard armaments adding to the display.

As we got to within two hundred yards of the shore, myself Jones and Williams scanned it with night vision binoculars, looking for military patrols or any other movement. It seemed all quiet. Taylor brought us in on idle speed to keep the noise down and we all kept low in the boat; Williams had his AK-47 on night vision mode trained on the dark undergrowth above the beach. The dark storm and lashing rain whipping up the waves gave us good cover in such a low profile boat, and I doubt whether anybody would be able to hear us even at full throttle above the noise of the storm. The waves got smaller as we neared the beach until they flattened out over the sandbank.

‘Right – listen, Nevis.’ Jones eased next to me and shouted above the storm into my ear. ‘We will