‘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.’

The cloud was disorienting. Shepherd couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of him. The parts of his face that were exposed were ice cold and the surface of the black thermal suit was soaked. His body was dry, though, and surprisingly warm.

There was no sense of movement. He felt as if he was suspended in fog. And other than the occasional static through his earpiece, it was eerily silent. He looked up but could barely make out the black canopy above his head. It was a GQ-360 nine-cell flat ramair canopy that was designed to be virtually silent as it moved through the air. He checked his watch: forty-four minutes since he’d jumped out of the Nimrod. He checked his altimeter: eight thousand feet. They should reach the ship in sixteen minutes. Give or take one minute, and they’d miss it by a quarter of a mile.