The Drift (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 1) (6 page)

Hans was about to call the dive to an end, unclipping the orange
marker buoy ready for inflation, when Jessica banged him on the arm. She made a
pincer sign and finned over to a ledge. Hans followed to see she had spotted a
lobster caught up in fishing line.

It was an impressive specimen with a burnt-orange carapace tinged
with ruby red and porcelain blue, and, over three feet in length, must have
been at least sixty years old. The terrified crustacean thrashed about like a
prisoner on the rack, its gigantic serrated claws powerless to extricate itself
from the awful scenario.

Jessica pulled out her diving knife and began to cut the
lobster free, her father helping her with the fiddly snarls while making sure
the captive didn’t nip them. Had the situation been different, Hans would have nabbed
the lobster for dinner, but under the circumstances he was happy to see it
scurry backwards under a shelf, with only the tips of its antennae still visible.

Climbing back aboard
Future
, Jessica couldn’t get her
words out fast enough.

“Penny! We saw Guz and we saw a lobster!”

“Wow, a lobster! Daddy said you were a good diver, but he
didn’t tell me you were that good! Was Guz behaving himself?”

“Ut-uh!” She shook her head. “He ate Papa’s fish!”

“Oh, so we’ve got no lunch, hey? In that case we better find
something else.”

With
Future
anchored in an idyllic cove nestled
amongst verdant-topped cliffs, they spent the afternoon snorkeling in the crystalline
water, collecting limpets and mussels to cook over a driftwood fire on the
beach. Back at the marina that evening, they rinsed the dive gear in freshwater
and stowed it under the bunks, and then Hans hooked his camera up to the TV and
played the video.

As Penny sipped a glass of chardonnay and praised Jessica’s
diving skills, her admiration for the father and daughter’s unique relationship
grew.

“
A
rnold Schwarzenegger,”
Ahmed whispered, lying on the top bunk
amid the stench of stale urine,
biting fleas and the muffled sob of a child.

“Jean-Claude Van Damme,” Mohamed replied
from the darkness below.

The young Moroccans were inseparable, blood brothers to the
end, with scar tissue on their palms to prove it. Neither recalled exactly when
they first met in the orphanage in Tangier. Ahmed’s mother had left him on the
steps as a baby. Mohamed arrived some years later when the French mission
station ran out of funding. What they did remember was the bond forged between
them and the promise, if called upon, to die for one another.

Now twelve and thirteen, the boys still played the Hollywood
game occasionally, fantasizing that in reality their parents were movie stars,
who would one day return to pluck them from obscurity with loving arms and
reassurances of “We never forgot you.”

“Mimi Farrar.” Ahmed claimed Morocco’s very own goddess of
the silver screen as his birthright.

“She’s
my
mother, you thief.” Mohamed hissed.

“I thought you didn’t know your mother.” Ahmed giggled,
which set Mohamed off for the umpteenth time that evening.

The door creaked open. Ahmed and Mohamed fell silent. Lamplight
bathed the crowded dormitory.

Abu Yazza, the orphanage’s elderly patron, cast a drunken
bloodshot eye over the sleeping children, beckoning the boy who was sobbing with
a bony finger.

“Pious old pig!” said Ahmed as the door closed. “He may have
the respect of the imam, but one day . . .” He leant over the side of the bunks
and drew a finger across his throat.

“Abu Yazza and his baboon-faced wife are gonna show poor
Omar some
hanan
.” Mohamed spat the term “tenderness.”

“And he will have to slave all day tomorrow, no sleep and
bleeding.”

In exchange for squalid accommodation and measly food, the
orphans worked twelve-hour shifts in the airless basement of Abu Yazza’s carpet
factory.

The next morning the boys sat on their haunches in front of
a traditional wooden loom strung with a half-finished rug, their nimble fingers
weaving shuttles of polypropylene thread to create a striking blue, cream and red
paisley motif. Mohamed coughed and rubbed his red-raw eyelids, for chemicals in
the synthetic fibers often resulted in festering infections, dermatitis and
asthma.

“Are you okay, brother?” Ahmed asked out the side of his
mouth.

“It’s painful.” Mohamed blinked, trickles of sticky yellow
fluid dribbling onto his cheeks.

“It’s not for much longer. Remember the plan.”

As youngsters, Ahmed and Mohamed had put up with the cruelty
meted out to them by the heinous couple, internalizing the pain and developing
coping strategies – lying, cheating, fighting and stealing – to get them
through another day. Yet the pair were smart, hardening to their circumstances.
Cunning replaced indifference. Plotting, the luxury of dreaming – and woe
betides anyone who got in their way.

“Brother,” Mohamed whispered, watching Omar scurrying around
on his haunches, unable to look anyone in the eye as he swept up stray tufts
with a dustpan and brush, “I remember the plan.”

O
ver
the next few days, while Penny spent time with Jessica fishing from the dock,
rowing the tender and visiting museums, Hans made final preparations for the
voyage.

Using a state-of-the-art software package, he interfaced
Future
’s
electronic equipment with charts downloaded to his laptop to create a
sophisticated navigation arrangement, making sure to back up the important
files.

Travel visas would not be an issue, but Hans still had to
make sure the yacht’s paperwork was in order ready for inspection by harbormasters
in the ports they intended to visit. He had the relevant tide tables and an
almanac detailing the Atlantic’s predicted conditions, together with a list of
meteorological websites and frequencies for weather bulletins in the regions
ahead. Giving a rough estimate of their arrival time, Hans emailed yacht clubs
and marinas along their route to reserve moorings.

After buying scuba weights and fishing tackle in a nearby
sports store, they provisioned the yacht with dried and canned victuals and
enough fresh food to last them until reaching port in France. Penny helped, her
knowledge of seafaring staples and British supermarkets making things a lot
easier.

All Hans had to do now was take Old Glory from his suitcase and
replace the English ensign flying astern.

Finally, they went to say good-bye to Old Bill, a tinkling
bell above the chandlery door signaling their entrance. On bended knees, Bill
stroked Jessica’s cheek and pressed a good-luck gift into her hand. It was a pocketknife
with a tiny silver anchor screwed to its ebony handle.

Her face lit up.

“Remember, don’t cross the Biscay without a five-day window,
and be sure to give her plenty of sea room when you do, mate.” He winked.

“Aye aye, skippa!”

“Aye aye, me little hearty. And fair passage to ’e.”

When Hans and Jessica left, Bill flipped the sign in his
window to “Closed,” then went into the backroom and poured himself a shot of
rum. He massaged his gray-stubbled chin, knowing he would miss that nice
American and his kid.

“
I
t
is our time,” Ahmed whispered, gathering his few possessions in the darkness. “There
is no going back.”

“Our future is bright.” Mohamed retrieved his knife from
under the mattress.

“Inshallah.”

Using a key stolen by one of the younger children on a “visit”
to the Yazza’s bedside, Ahmed unlocked the dormitory. He felt nauseous, though
unsure why.

Mohamed pulled a box of matches from his pocket. “Let’s get
the others out and torch this devil-forsaken fleapit while the filthy pigs
sleep!”

Ahmed chuckled, having gotten used to his friend’s
impetuousness over the years.

“Not now, brother. Their time will come. Inshallah.”

They hightailed into the night.

Heading in no particular direction, the boys soon found themselves
walking along narrow cobbled streets deep in Tangier’s Old Town. Water trickled
down dank mossed walls as the faint sound of laughter emanated from underground
taverns. In the glow of a streetlight, a scruffily dressed boy stood looking up
and down the road. He appeared on edge, stepping from one leg to the other as
the two of them approached.

“Salaam alaikum,” Ahmed greeted.

“And may peace be upon you too,” the boy mumbled, staring at
Ahmed’s palm for a moment before accepting it.

“What’s your name, friend?” asked Mohamed.

“Faar,” said the boy, which meant “mouse.”

Mohamed wondered why Faar stood here alone in the middle of
the night but didn’t ask, instead letting Ahmed explain their plight.

Faar’s timid brown eyes flicked alternately from Ahmed to
Mohamed, until eventually “Come” he said, leading them down a winding alleyway
and across a patch of wasteland. He stopped next to a pile of rubble overgrown
with weeds and lifted up a sheet of rotting plywood to expose an open manhole.

“Down, down,” Faar ordered, scanning the area like a soldier
on patrol.

Clinging to the iron rungs of a service ladder, the boys
descended into what at first was pitch-black silence, but nearing the bottom of
the shaft they began to detect the flicker of firelight as the stench of human
excrement and hushed conversations floated up to greet them. They stood at the
base of the ladder, their vision adjusting to the dark in the cavernous space.

“This way,” said Faar.

Following him along the sewer’s walkway, they passed small
fires and oil lamps, the flames illuminating haunted young faces and prone
figures.

“
Shemkara
?” Mohamed whispered. “Glue children?”

“Yes,” Faar muttered. “Here is my place.”

They sat down on dirty bedding insulated from the cold stone
by sheets of cardboard. Faar retrieved an empty tuna can from his shoulder bag.
He levered up the lid and dripped oil from a plastic drinks bottle onto the
wadding packed inside it, pulling a short length of the fabric through a hole
spiked in the top of the can to serve as a wick. He lit it with a cigarette
lighter and waited for the flame to take hold. Ahmed noticed Faar kept the bag
strapped over his shoulder.

“Tonight you can share my blanket, but tomorrow you must
find your own space. It gets cold down here.”

Faar pulled a half-eaten flatbread from his bag and ripped
it into three pieces.

Their eyes attuned to the darkness, the boys could make out
the sewer’s ancient brickwork conduit, the platform they were on set off to one
side. Sewage trickled along the bottom of the pipe a few feet beneath them.

In the light of the fires, Mohamed could only see male
faces. He was about to ask Faar why there were no girls when – “
Urrhk
!”
– a bark shattered the subdued atmosphere, and their friend rushed to blow out
the lamp.

“Shh!” Faar flattened himself against the wall. “Rat Boy!”

Sensing the fear in his voice, Ahmed and Mohamed did
likewise, knowing better than to ask questions. Huddling in the shadows, they
made out the silhouette of an older teenager staggering down the walkway,
grunting and kicking sleeping children.

Close to Faar’s bed space, two
shemkara
had fallen
asleep with their lamp still burning. Mohamed lurched to extinguish it, but a
terrified Faar gripped his arm.

“No!”

Taking Faar’s lead, Ahmed and Mohamed buried their faces, as
if in slumber, but whoever this frightening character was, it didn’t fool him.

“
Urrhk
!”

He booted Faar’s head, cracking it against the brickwork. The
kid stifled a yelp.

In the same instant Ahmed and Mohamed went for their knives
but froze at the sight that met them – a hideously disfigured head, bald with
burn tissue, face melted and shriveled like a mummified corpse.

“
Sssssssss
,” the creature hissed, like a snake
weighing up its prey, a sole lock of hair fluttering in the subterranean
breeze. Despite having no discernible features, Rat Boy appeared to give a
jeering smile, pulling a knife of his own and drawing it slowly across his
throat in mock slaughter.

“
Urrhk
!”

He stumbled off down the walkway and disappeared into the
gloom.