Stealing Asia (20 page)

We turned a
corner to where a second corridor led on to the ships control room. I expected
this to be the scene of the most intense fighting as the marines seized the
heart of the ship. I looked up and down the corridor, but I could see no
evidence to corroborate my assumption. The entrance to the room was intact and
did not look to have been forced in any way. I was no sooner through the door
when Asia ran into my arms and embraced me tightly.

‘Oh, Ben, I am
so glad you’re alive,’ she said.

She rested her
head on my chest and started to cry. As I comforted her, I took a look around
the room. Clay was stood in one corner wearing handcuffs, but relaxed as he
answered the questions of an agent. Two medics were crouched down in another
corner attending to a man on the ground. It did not take long for me to
identify who the injured party was. He was surrounded by a lot of blood, but it
looked like his main injury had been to his hand. I was unable to see past the
medics to see if he was suffering from anything more serious.

‘What happened?’
I asked Asia.

I now knew that
was not her true name, but it did not seem right to call her anything else.

‘He wants to
kill me,’ she replied. ‘I cannot believe that he actually wants me dead. Please
don’t send me back to him.’

I had never seen
her so vulnerable and afraid. Even in the aftermath of the mugging she had not
shown this level of distress. I hated myself for leaving her alone with those
thugs. If only I could have been with her to the end.

‘It’s okay,’ I
said. ‘It’s over. Barrett cannot hurt you anymore.’

She looked up at
me, but the fear remained in her eyes.

‘Not him,’ she
said. ‘The senator - he wants to kill me.’

I understood her
no more than I had done Esteban and Manu earlier. Who was this senator that
they all talked of? There were so many questions I wanted to know the answers
to. It was too soon to ask Asia and I expected the CIA to remain tight lipped.
I was left having to figure it out by myself, but had no idea where to begin.

‘I will take it
from here,’ said Manu, stepping between us.

He placed a coat
over Asia and led her out of the room. An overturned chair was lying on the
floor, so I picked it up and sat down. After a few moments, Esteban ended a
conversation with one of the medics and came over to me. On the way, he offered
a friendly word to Clay and the two of them actually exchanged a brief laugh.
After everything we had been through, it really was just a game to him.

‘The plan
worked,’ he said. ‘The CIA has all of the evidence it needs to put their man
away and not one hostage was lost. None of this would have been possible
without you.’

He placed his
hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it away.

‘How can you be
so cold?’ I said. ‘And what about him; he tries to kill you one minute and you
are laughing and joking with him the next.’

‘Clay has made
right for what he did, although it is likely that he will still get jail time.
It is thanks to him that no lives were lost during the assault. Why do you
think Barrett is lying on the floor with a hole in his hand?’

‘That was Clay
who did that?’ I asked, not quite believing it. ‘I assumed that a marine had
shot him. Why the hell would his best buddy turn on him like that?’

Esteban told me
that he learned Barrett had lunged at Asia with a knife and the intent of
taking her life. Clay had then turned a gun on his friend to save Asia. This
was a world where the good guys lied and cheated and the villains were capable
of heroism as much as cruelty. I could not wait to get as far away from it as
possible and return home.

We followed the
medics out of the room as they carried Barrett away on a stretcher. The
American was in a daze and weak from loss of blood, so they placed him in one
of the cabins to recover a little before transferring him over to the navy
vessel. Asia was leaning against a railing staring out to sea. I wanted to join
her, but was stopped from doing so by Manu.

‘She needs a
little space to herself,’ he said. ‘That girl has been through a lot. It would be
best not to crowd her until she is ready to open up.’

What did this
jerk know about Asia? I tried again to get past him, but he was insistent.

‘You can’t stop
me from talking to her,’ I said.

‘Actually, I
can,’ he replied.

He led me to one
side of the boat where Asia would not be able to hear us talking.

‘Miss Cole has
been through a lot,’ he said. ‘We have been watching her for some time now. She
is very confused at the moment and we do not want anyone making this any harder
for her than it already is.’

As far as I
knew; Manu was not a King, so he could not have been using the royal “we”. Once
more, it all came back to politics.

‘At least tell
me what this is all about,’ I said. ‘You owe me that.’

He finally gave
me the answers I needed. I learned that “Katherine” had run away from her
overbearing father, who was a U.S. senator rather than a rock star. I always
suspected she had been pulling my leg with that whole story anyway. By
travelling overseas, she was considered a potential target for terrorists and
the CIA were routinely monitoring her in case of a possible attack. Through
watching the girl, they inadvertently discovered that her father was not the
loving parent he pretended to be in public. They believed he had hired that
thug to assault her in Penang and now they had him on tape admitting to her
kidnap and even ordering her death. Hell, that’s enough to screw anybody up.

‘What about the
kidnappers?’ I asked. ‘They will still go to prison, right?’

‘It all depends
on what deals can be made. Clay has already co-operated, but we are yet to hear
from his partner.’

‘I want to see
him,’ I said.

‘That’s not
possible.’

‘Make it
possible. Surely you need my co-operation too? If I am going to tell you
anything about what happened on that boat, then first I want to see the man who
put me through that ordeal.’

‘Okay,’ he
agreed, ‘but only because you have information that may be of use to us too.’

He led me to the
cabin where Barrett had been left to recuperate. I was amused to hear that it
had been Clay who shot him, but I still despised the pair of them. It would
take a long time for the scars they had given me to fade.

There was a
guard at the door and it was securely locked from the outside. Manu undid the
lock and we entered together. I did not know what to expect from seeing Barrett
again. When he had his hands around my throat, I thought that he was going to
kill me for sure. Perhaps, I thought that seeing him wounded and helpless would
help to ease my own pain a little. What I did not expect was to find an empty,
blood-stained bed and a hole in the wall.

‘Shit!’ cursed
Manu.

He ran to the
hole and took a look through it before pushing past me to go and gather his
troops.

‘Stay here,’ he
ordered.

I looked across
to the roughly carved opening at the far end of the cabin. The hole was barely
wide enough to fit an averaged sized person let alone a monster the size of
Barrett. Unlike the rooms below deck, which were made of steel, this cabin had
wooden panelling. The edges around the improvised exit looked frayed as if an
animal had chewed through them. I knew that Clay had shot Barrett in his hand
and it seemed possible that once he had created a small enough opening with his
fists, he tore the rest away with his teeth.

I could see the
ocean on the other side, so I walked over to take a better look. I glanced
first to the left and then to the right. Both directions were clear, so I
decided to squeeze on through to the other side. A smeared stain of blood on
the outside wall of the cabin showed me which way the fugitive had headed.
Tentatively, I followed. If I were to find the American, I hoped he would be
weak and cowering in a corner. How the roles would be reversed if that
situation arose.

I came around
the side of the boat and found myself back on the main deck. Asia was stood
alone staring out blankly into the horizon. Many guards were visible, although
the prisoners had now been transferred onto the U.S. vessel. Everybody else was
on high alert and searching for Barrett. It seemed unlikely that he could have
come this way without being seen and I wondered if he had left the smear of
blood as a deliberate red herring.

Then I spotted
him.

He was crouched
down not far from where Asia was and he appeared to be trying to hide
underneath some diving equipment.

‘He’s there!’ I
shouted.

Rather than
having the desired effect, all that my cries did was draw the attention of the
guards towards me. I had inadvertently supplied Barrett with the perfect
diversion. He had not been hiding under the diving equipment at all. He was
wearing it.

Seizing the
opportunity, he sprinted forward towards Asia. She raised her arms, but it was
a futile attempt at resistance and Barrett appeared to run straight through her
before leaping up and twisting around and over the railing of the boat. There
followed a tremendous splash and then both he and Asia were gone.

I did not wait
to see how the professionals would react. I sprinted along the deck of the ship
and dived overboard after them.

Just metres
below the surface the ocean did not appear as serene as it had from above. It
took every ounce of my strength to fight the current and sink deeper down, all
the while following the trail of bubbles ahead of me. Barrett may have been the
stronger and more experienced swimmer, but with the added drag of his hostage
under his arm, I soon caught him.

I grabbed hold
of his right foot and tried to twist it around. He turned to see what had
snagged him and when he saw that it was me he started to kick out with his
other foot. Luckily, the water took the sting out of his blows. He could not
muster enough force to shake me off. I continued to twist and push against his
ankle in the hope that I could inflict some damage.

If nothing else,
the struggle was enough to allow Asia to wriggle free of his grasp. Of course,
this meant that she had to give up access to his spare regulator, but like me
there was only really one thing on her mind at this point. Barrett was now the
focus for all of the anger and hatred that had been building inside over the
previous 48 hours.

She started to
kick and claw at him with all of her might. Her nails cut into his flesh like
hardened coral. In this underwater realm, his strength was rendered redundant
by weightlessness and Asia was now the more potent predator. She grabbed hold
of his injured hand and bit down on it with the ferocity of a shark. This was
enough to make him give up trying to fight us. He slapped her away and
hurriedly swam away into the blackened depths of the ocean. We were free of him
at last.

I looked into
her eyes and I knew that it was the end. We were maybe a dozen metres from the
surface and there was not enough air in my lungs to supply my muscles with the
strength they needed to make the return trip. Our lips locked and as we shared
our last breath together, I had no regrets.

Meeting Asia was
without doubt the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. Though our time
together looked destined to be short, I would not have traded it in for any
amount of riches or the long and dull existence I would have faced had we never
met. Thanks to her I could say that I had truly lived. I had experienced
extremes of passion that most could only dream of.

Feeling her grip
on me tighten, I sensed the end was upon us. I wondered which of us would go
first. Then I began to feel an altogether different sensation. The water
surrounding us changed. The current had us in its grip and I could feel it rush
all around until finally my head exploded.

I gasped for
air. The ocean was bubbling white and the sun was in my eyes and then darkness
returned as the ocean swallowed me once more. The world turned on its head and
again I found myself gasping for air. This time I was able to make better sense
of what had happened. Asia was treading water directly in front of me and between
us was Esteban. Once more he had saved both of our lives. Together, we swam to
the boarding ladder and returned to the safety of what had once been a pirate
ship.

‘Is this still
about the politics?’ I asked Esteban, as I helped him back onto the boat.

‘Maybe it is
time that I found a new career,’ he replied, before giving me a warm hug.

‘I knew that you
would come good,’ said Asia. ‘I don’t think you should give up this job for
anything. You were worth every cent.’

Esteban placed
his hand on her head and gently brushed away some of the excess seawater.

‘Somehow, I do
not think the senator will be paying me for my services, but it is good to be
appreciated by someone.’

‘What are you
talking about?’ asked Asia. ‘Why would the senator pay you anything?’

‘Like I said,’
replied Esteban. ‘It is no longer about the money.’

‘That’s not what
I meant. He owes you nothing, because he did not hire you – I did.’

Esteban and I
both looked at one another and then to the girl.

‘What?’ she
said. ‘You didn’t think that I would have come all this way without taking out
some form of travel insurance, did you?’

It took a moment
for her words to sink in. Esteban laughed and then I did too. I now understood
why she had kept on giving me the locket. All along she knew what it contained
and she knew exactly who Esteban was too. Perhaps she was not so much of a risk
taker after all.

‘What about
Barrett?’ I asked. ‘It’s a shame that he got away. I mean, he’ll probably
drown, but you never can tell.’