Captain Wilkins stepped over the combing. With wrists tied, he was unable to steady himself and stumbled forward, falling to the floor of the crew's mess. Hans the big blond Swede and Potter the cook jumped up from the table and rushed to pick him up.
One of the pirate crew stood by the opening and grinned. “Now be ye quiet while we look out for the booty. There be no need to worry as long as ye be good and quiet as a tar full o’ rum.” The door clanged shut, and his sarcastic laughter grew softer as he walked down the passage and reached the outside hatchway.
‘Wilkins faced his crew who set him free. “Don’t let these swine fool you. I don’t know the story of the Kalypso, but I do know our Chief Officer and four men have been separated from us which now gives our captors the upper hand. I reckon we have six pirates, for want of a better description, to our five and five of our men on the Kalypso being held by at least two pirates. This was a well-planned operation. No ghosts I know can navigate a ship as they did. We were meant to find those two drunks.” He rubbed his chin. “What I don’t understand are the old coins and their purpose in all this.”
“What are they after, Captain?” Hans pushed a mug of tea towards Wilkins. “I saw boxes and crates of machine parts and agricultural machinery. They can’t be after that.”
Wilkins gulped some tea and looked around at the expectant faces. “Now and again we carry black cargo…that’s normally not on the manifest and carried for a government ministry. It can be anything from gold to platinum, arms or a secret food supply for a charity working in a war zone.”
Hans took a deep breath while the others looked at each other with worried looks. “So what are we carrying? It has to be something very special for these pirates to capture a ship or two.”
There was an electrifying silence as Wilkins wrapped shaking fingers around his mug of tea. “We are en-route for Bayrut to deliver two hundred boxes containing a new British drug, BD one zero nine. The refugees from Syria are dying from a crippling bone disease caused by malnutrition. The government cannot be seen to be helping one side in the terrorist war so we deliver machine parts and the Arabs get the stuff to the Syrians.”
“Christ.” Potter stood and puckered his lips. “How much is this stuff worth then?”
“In the wrong hands on the black market…about three million dollars to manufacturers of illegal drugs sold on the street. Broken down and used as an ingredient, the dealers would then make millions.”
“The pieces of eight must be counterfeit then and part of an elaborate hoax, surely?” quizzed Potter.
The door opened, and a pirate stood holding a pistol. “Wouldn’t you like to know, eh?"
Comments
Hmmm, makes me think of "The Black Pearl", real 'pirates of the Caribbean .' Love it.