Nick Oldham - Instinct

Boone was sick of waiting. He took one last drag of his hand-rolled cigarette, inhaling the pungent smoke deep into his ravaged lungs, before exhaling with a death-watch beetle rasp, then flicked the minute butt over the side of the boat into the muddy river. It extinguished with a tiny ‘ phtt ’. A fish, believing it to be a fly on the surface, rose quickly and took it, but spat it out in disgust.

Boone hunched the collar of his battered flying jacket up around his ears and thumbed open the tobacco tin that contained another dozen or so pre-prepared filterless roll-ups. He selected one, closed the tin and tapped each end of the cigarette flat on the lid, and lit it with a disposable lighter. This was the fourth in the present chain.

As he blew out the smoke he tilted his head upwards and looked at the African sky which was becoming increasingly leaden. Thick black clouds moved ominously in from the west, laden with moisture, and the wind had started to build. Boone scowled as the first big spat of rain slapped on to his forehead.

He stepped under the cover provided by the cockpit of the sportfishing boat named Shell and turned to the man sitting uncomfortably on the bench seat. The man looked up at Boone through watery, yellow eyes.

‘We need to get moving if we’re going to make it,’ Boone complained. ‘I’ll need to beat the weather out of the estuary.’ He tapped his wristwatch to emphasize the point.

‘He’ll be here,’ the man said. Set between his ankles was a briefcase that Boone glanced at, causing the man to react by sliding his feet closer together to trap the case more tightly.

‘Don’t worry,’ Boone mocked, ‘I won’t nick it.’ He checked the digital clock on the instrument panel and sighed impatiently. ‘If we don’t get out we could be trapped here for four days,’ he warned the man. ‘Big storm a-coming.’

‘That cannot happen.’

Boone shrugged and sucked on his cigarette, already burned down to his fingertips. His roll-ups didn’t last long. ‘I don’t make the weather.’ He paused. ‘He knows where to come?’

‘He knows,’ said the man, who had introduced himself as Aleef.

Boone considered him and gave a ‘whatever’ shrug, then dropped down the tight steps into the galley where the kettle had started whistling on the single gas hob. He made himself a mug of strong tea, laced with a shot of Black Label. Now he could hear the rain hitting the boat’s superstructure. Actually, the weather wasn’t usually too much of a problem for Boone and his boat. At thirty-five feet long, Shell was a classic sportfishing craft, and although its length matched its age, it was still a formidable, trustworthy and well-designed boat, with a superbly balanced flying bridge, a functional galley and adequate sleeping accommodation. Rough seas and bad weather posed no problem for such a vessel.

Boone came back up into the cockpit bearing an extra mug of tea for Aleef, which was taken with gratitude, although he did sniff the brew suspiciously before taking a sip.

‘No whiskey in it,’ Boone confirmed. ‘I know you lot don’t like alcohol.’

‘Very true.’

Boone nodded and walked to the outer cockpit door, leaning against the jamb to drink his coppery tasting brew. He watched the rain fall harder and looked down the road that ran by the creek where the boat was moored, near to Denton Bridge. It was eight p.m., still hot and humid, almost thirty degrees. Two other sportfishing boats were tied up on this creek just off the main Gambia River, but no one was aboard either vessel. They were owned by rich African businessmen, rarely seen in these parts. Boone was paid a retainer to keep an eye on them and see to their maintenance. Regular money, but not enough to keep him going.

He sighed, knowing he needed the money from this ‘charter’. He took a sneaky glance at Aleef, the man who had approached him two weeks before in a seedy bar in Banjul, the country’s capital, and put a proposition to him. Aleef had obviously done some homework on Boone prior to the meeting.

The approach and offer had been simple: two and a half thousand US dollars for a drop-off on Gran Canaria, then a pick-up three weeks later and a return to Banjul.

One package, no questions, simple return trip. Bread and butter.

Boone had swigged back the last of his drink, imported Dutch lager he’d become rather too fond of. Blinking at Aleef in the murky light of the riverside bar, he’d eased away a prostitute who’d been squirming around him most of the night, declaring her undying love for him, and had pushed his luck with Aleef by saying ‘Four.’

It wasn’t that he was flush and could manage without the money. Boone was constantly broke, always chasing the dollar or its sterling equivalent — but never the local currency that was as weak as water. He thought he could bargain with a man like Aleef — a man he had never met personally before that day, but someone he vaguely knew of as a shady entrepreneur. No doubt Aleef was acting on behalf of others — Boone had immediately pegged him as a middleman, a link in a complex chain just like Boone himself — and two-point-five G was simply the opening figure. If he couldn’t get more out of him, then so be it, but he had to try. Business was business.

Boone didn’t even ask the nature of the cargo, but knew it would obviously be a body, probably a crim, maybe a freedom fighter — someone else’s terrorist — but Boone didn’t care. It was the bottom line that interested him.

Aleef had shaken his head at Boone’s preposterous response.

‘Hey — ’ Boone had pointed at Aleef with the roll-up held between his nicotine-stained fingers — ‘it means I go there and back, there and back. It’s a long way and it costs, and even four big ones is a snip.’

‘Mr Boone,’ Aleef said patiently. ‘I know what you do for a living. You deliver packages of all sorts up and down the coast. You purport to be a charter boat fisherman, but it’s well known that your tourist business is, shall we say, virtually non-existent.’

‘Not true.’

Aleef shrugged and gave Boone a withering look. A few beats of silence passed between the two men as they sized each other up. Boone, still over six feet tall, but his width now narrowing; Aleef, small and slim, of Asian origin, smart, dressed in a light summer suit, probably made by one of the tailors in Banjul; Boone, casually dressed in three-quarter length pants, tattered T-shirt and four days’ growth on his face.

‘Three-five,’ Boone said, dropping the price. He knew he could actually make a decent profit on two and a half if he used the cut-price stolen fuel he had access to, but that wasn’t the point. He had other jobs in the pipeline, even a few legitimate fishing charters, but he wasn’t exactly rolling in it and needed every extra cent. This wasn’t like the good old days of short crossings on a rigid inflatable and big bucks. They were long gone. Summer in the Gambia wasn’t far away, the doldrum months — and he needed the cash to see him through. The cost of living was still pretty cheap out here, but booze and tobacco was rising all the time, as were the demands of his African wife to be.

Aleef considered this and said, ‘Three. If you say no, I walk away and find someone else.’

‘Yeah, but no one as honest and trustworthy as me,’ Boone countered without a hint of irony, just complete sincerity. ‘Three it is.’

And that was the deal made. Aleef dropped him five hundred dollars there and then, promised a thousand on the day, then the rest at the end of the final return — when ‘the package’ was brought back in one piece.

Boone disliked the terms, but the five hundred in Aleef’s inner jacket pocket weakened him and made his eyes twinkle. He snatched the wad off him in mock disgust and quickly secreted it so none of the whores in the club would spot it and converge on him.