Read Those in Peril (Unlocked) for Free Online

ordinary communications. However, this device had been modified by one of his grandfather’s technicians. He switched it on and checked that the battery was full. It had sufficient power for at least a week of operation before he had to recharge it. Ever since sailing from Cape Town he had surreptitiously searched the superstructure of the yacht for the most suitable place in which to plant the device, and had finally decided on the small locker on the aft deck in which the deck-chairs and cleaning equipment were stored. Its door was never locked, and between the door lintel and the low roof was a narrow ledge which was ideally suited to his requirements. From the pocket of his rucksack he took a roll of double-sided adhesive tape and a small Maglite. He cut two pieces of the tape and stuck them to the back of the mobile phone. He zipped the mobile phone and the Maglite into the pocket of his windcheater, left the cabin and went up the companionway to the aft deck. He leaned his elbows on the rail and looked down on the vessel’s wake. It was creamy with the phosphorescence emitted by the tiny marine creatures being churned up by the propellers. Then he looked up at the sickle moon which was now well clear of the dark horizon. The Moon of Islam; he smiled, it was a propitious sign. He straightened up from the rail and looked about him casually to make certain he was not being observed. He had made it his habit to come on deck every evening after his bar duties were finished, so that there was nothing suspicious about his presence here on this occasion. The door of the storage locker was in the shadow of the superstructure. In his dark clothing Rogier was almost invisible as he moved towards it. The latch on the door opened easily. He let himself in and closed the door. He switched on the Maglite, but shaded the powerful beam with his hand and shone it into the recess above the lintel. This was above the eyeline of even a tall man entering the locker. With his free hand he took the mobile phone from his pocket and decided on the exact spot in which to place the device. He reached up and pressed the adhesive strips against the bulkhead. He tried it carefully and found the device was firmly attached; it would take considerable force to remove it.
    He pressed the ‘Power’ button and the small red light glowed immediately, emitting an almost inaudible electronic tone. The transponder was transmitting. Rogier grunted with satisfaction and pressed the mute button. The tone was silenced but the red light continued pulsing softly. Only a receiver that was tuned to the precise wavelength of the transponder and that was correctly encoded would be able to read the transmissions. The squawk code was 1351. This was the Islamic equivalent of 1933 in the Gregorian calendar, the year of his grandfather’s birth. Rogier switched off the torch and slipped out of the locker, shutting the door quietly behind him. He went down to his cabin.

    O ne hundred and eight nautical miles north of Madagascar and five hundred and sixteen miles east of the port of Dar es Salaam on the African mainland lay a tiny scattering of uninhabited coral atolls. In the lee of one of these a 170-foot lateen-rigged Arab dhow lay at anchor in six fathoms of water with her grubby canvas sail furled around the long boom. She had been lying there for eleven days, indistinguishable from any other coastal Arab trader or fishing boat. Her hull had not been painted for many years, and it was zebra-striped by the human faeces which the crew had voided as they hung their buttocks over the ship’s rail. The only oddity that might have caught the attention of a casual observer was the three much smaller craft that were moored to the side of the dhow. Twenty-eight feet long, their low hulls, with sharply streamlined prows, were of modern fibreglass construction, and painted a nondescript matt colour which would merge into the watery wastes of the open ocean. On the stern of