One of the crew came in and barked at the Colombians in fluent Spanish. He was in his fifties, his face flecked with broken blood vessels, his nose almost blue from years of hard drinking. He spoke passable English but had said barely ten words to Carpenter since he’d arrived on board. Like the rest of the crew, he seemed to resent Carpenter’s presence. The only man who’d been friendly had been the captain, a guy in his thirties who wore a pristine white uniform and a peaked cap. He saw Carpenter as a chance to practise his English, but Carpenter had soon got bored with the man’s interminable conversations about twentieth-century novelists and avoided him when he could.

The Colombians got up, grabbing their weapons as they headed up to the bridge.

Carpenter went up to the bridge. He asked the captain if he could join him. The bridge was the captain’sdomain and only the crew or invited guests were allowed in. The captain nodded. He was looking aft through a large pair of binoculars. Two other crew members were with him, monitoring the radar and sonar systems, and the five Colombians stood at the windows, their Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, talking to each other in Spanish.

‘What’s the excitement?’ asked Carpenter.

‘Plane, coming from the north,’ said the captain. ‘It was up at thirty thousand feet but it started descending and now it’s heading back this way under the cloud cover.’

‘What sort of plane?’

‘We don’t know, but it’s moving fast so it’s not a small plane. Maybe a jet.’

‘Is it a problem?’

‘It’s too big to be a seaplane and even the Americans wouldn’t blow us out of the water, but it might be a spotter plane. Surveillance.’

‘DEA?’

‘Or Customs. Who knows?’

‘What will you do?’

‘Watch it. We’ll only dump the gear if we see a boat approaching.’

‘How much is on board?’

The captain grinned. ‘A lot.’

Carpenter stood up. ‘If you even get a whiff of a ship heading this way, I want off this tub,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry. No one has ever tried boarding us at sea,’ said the captain. ‘We are in international waters so we are free to defend ourselves,’ he chuckled, ‘and we are well equipped to do that.’

Carpenter knew he wasn’t joking. The Colombians were all crack shots. He’d seen them throw oil drums into the sea and fire at them for target practice. And he’d been told that there was a major arms cache below decks with enough firepower to fend off anything short of a full military attack, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles. ‘Can you see it?’

‘Not yet.’ The captain turned and spoke in rapid Ukrainian to one of his crew, who answered him.

‘It’s down to four thousand feet and descending,’ said the captain.

‘Engine trouble?’ asked Carpenter.

‘They’re not broadcasting on the emergency frequency, and it looks as if they’re under power,’ said the captain. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Carpenter. One plane isn’t going to do us any harm. And if it looks as though it is, we’ll shoot it down.’