Riding a Tiger

By Helen J Beal

An ostentatiously luxurious super yacht. The endless cerulean blue of the Indian Ocean. The sun warming your skin. Sounds like heaven? Not when you are hostage aboard, captured by bandits, waiting for the ship’s owner to pay the ransom for your release and you find out he’s going bankrupt. This is a story about paradise becoming a prison.

When super yacht Talisman is hijacked on her way home to Cyprus from the Seychelles, stewardess Rachel still thinks she’ll be spending Christmas in Cornwall. But negotiations with the owner, businessman Herr Liebe, now in Paris on the last leg of his honeymoon, leave his crew high and dry and moored a mile off the coast of Somalia, a warship impotently looking on.

Captive aboard, living with their gun toting, khat chewing guards, the crew’s belongings are ransacked and their supplies commandeered. Lars, the ship’s captain, refuses increasingly forceful attempts to move them off the boat onto land, fearing that Herr Liebe’s overriding concern is for Talisman and not the human lives aboard. He also knows that separated from the boat they will be virtually impossible to find in this lawless state.

The arrival of the gang’s translator and negotiator, Omar, a Boston educated, spectacle-wearing Somali, renews hope for their release, and to Rachel’s delight, he can also play Scrabble. But at what price their freedom?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781909354081

Book preview

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Chapter One

As I shook his hand, I noted that it was the first time that the owner of Talisman had looked directly at me during the two weeks I'd spent serving him aboard his yacht. I mumbled good-bye and stifled a curtsey whilst catching a sardonic smile from Harry, who stood a head taller than the rest of the crew, his white shirt still crisp in the early Seychellois afternoon, his eyes masked by mirrored shades. I felt my cheeks redden as Herr Liebe made his way along the line of his uniformed staff, trailed by his new, fourth, wife who teetered down the broad, wooden pontoon. I hoped Harry, if he had noticed my flushed face, would think it was just the heat.

Talisman rose sleekly leviathan out of the water behind us, casting a shadow across the marina, her curved edges gilded with sunlight. When he stood eye to eye with his ship's captain, Herr Liebe slipped a fat envelope from the back pocket of the linen trousers I had laundered for him that morning and pressed it into his palm. Uncertainty skittered across Lars' face and I watched as Herr Liebe's wife simpered up at Harry, while swinging a tiny quilted handbag dangling from a gold chain, and inclined her head to peer at her tanned toes, the nails perfectly painted coral. Their vast collection of luggage had gone ahead, ferried to the limousine waiting to take them to the airport and on to the final stage of their three-month honeymoon: a fortnight in Paris, residents at the Ritz.

Lars subtly transferred the envelope to his own back pocket as his first mate, Richard, stared at him, his expression the one he carried most commonly; one part envy, one part disdain, two parts crushing disappointment with life's lot. We stood watching as Richard helped the couple onto a buggy, hopping on himself to accompany them to the airport and see them onto their flight. We waved.

Sam, his wayward chestnut hair curling in the salty humidity, punched Harry playfully in the shoulder.

'Dude,' he said. 'We're free!'

I smirked as Harry grabbed Sam's wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. Lars surreptitiously pulled the envelope from his back pocket and tore open the glued end, smiling as he saw the denominations, running the rough pad of his thumb across the end of the wad.

'I'm going to make a start on dinner,' said Sarah, the boat's chef and my recently discovered half-sister, rolling her cobalt eyes at Harry who now had Sam grasped by the hips and was humping him from behind. Sam's sunglasses fell off his face and bounced on the pontoon as he struggled to extricate himself, his arms flailing. Sarah tightened her glossy black ponytail as she stepped back onto Talisman.

'And I have a mountain of laundry begging for my attention,' sighed Cara, the chief stewardess and Sarah's best friend. She turned and followed, her long legs striding. Sam watched as her bottom rolled in her short, tight skirt.

Emmanuelle - skinny, brunette, French, my cabin mate and nobody's friend - stood still and superior next to me. I could smell her perfume, a complex chorus of citrus, vanilla and orchids; too sweet for her, I thought. She should smell sour or sharp, like rancid butter, or petrol. She glared at Harry and, catching me observing her, sniffed and followed the other girls back aboard.

'Put him down, mate,' Byron drawled at Harry, his hands in his pockets, his Sydney accent imperious and deceptively lazy. Byron was a workhorse and a slave to his body. His tightly trained biceps strained the seams of his short sleeves.

'You want to have a go?' scoffed Harry, shoving Sam between his shoulder blades and sending him sprawling. 'Why don't you have her?' he said, flicking his head at the third deckhand, Tom, who stood mute next to me, his tension palpable, his concave torso stooped, skinny legs sticking out his uniform shorts, a vein pulsing lightly in his forehead.

'Enough.' Lars knitted his sun-bleached eyebrows. 'You all have plenty to be doing to be ready to set sail tomorrow.' His voice carried his command.

A small dark cloud formed above the trees on the shore, where the white sand was fringed with mangroves and palms. It built and spread along the treetops.

'Can we have our tips, sir?' quipped Sam, always cheeky enough to push one more inch, squinting up at him from where he sat, legs stretched out, wiping the dirt from his palms.

'At dinnertime,' said Lars, shoving the folded envelope back into his pocket and leaning down to yank him to his feet by the rumpled collar of his shirt.

The cloud splintered into the sky, expanding then contracting - a murmuration of starlings, hundreds, maybe thousands of birds crowding above us, chattering, swooping across in a thick black ribbon, rolling as if a wave, twisting like a tornado, blinking out the sun, dividing, deafening, regrouping, their mass forming an organism of its own, racing away to diminish along the horizon.

I stood with both my hands clinging to the rail of the sundeck behind me, looking down to the surface of the turquoise Indian Ocean, glittering idly in the calm of the late afternoon sun. The rail smarted hot against the bare skin of the backs of my thighs. My toes gripped the side of the boat, sending cramps along the curled soles of my feet. The water looked a very long way down. I forced my lungs to breathe and looked up to see the bright white of a pair of fairy terns silhouetted against the cerulean sky, their wings outstretched like angels' as they wheeled.

'Everybody ready?' Lars shouted up from where he was bobbing about in a tender a little way out, Byron's camera in his huge hand. He brought it up to his face and the lens glinted. I looked towards the stern of the boat, along the rail where the rest of the crew dangled, girls in candy coloured bikinis, boys in weathered knee-length shorts. Emmanuelle was looking nonchalant, her thick tawny hair streaming to her waist. Cara was whispering into Sarah's ear, wrinkling her freckled nose. Byron was stretching out as far as he could go, the straps of his abdomen solid as he held himself taut, stiff as a plank. Sam stuck a hand up the back of his shorts. He didn't flinch. Richard was missing - back from the airport but sulking or skulking on the bridge.

'You okay?' asked Tom, his voice soft and low and audible only to me. I feigned surprise at his question, faking a frown and then producing a bright smile, damping down my nerves, ignoring the wild thumping inside my chest.

'Of course,' I dismissed.

'I'll count down,' volunteered Harry, in the middle of our group, sweeping his mesmerizing brown eyes from left to right. 'Three!' he shouted, 'Two! One!'

At the final count, all our hands released the rail and we jumped in unison, shouting, whooping and raising our arms and eyes up to the heavens, pointing our feet and touching our heels to our bottoms, posing for the moment in time the photograph would record forever. A snap of utopian carefree joy.

I quickly straightened myself out as the air streamed past my ears, not wanting to hit the solid surface of the water like anything less than an arrow. I stretched out my legs and made myself as thin and long as I ever could be and almost instantly felt the cool water on the tips of my toes, swallowing me whole, my ears filling with the thundering hunger of the brine and, beyond my crunched shut eyes, everything was suddenly deeply dark. I struggled against the force of my fall, trying to pull up against the vastness of the water around me, holding my breath, clamping my mouth shut, ignoring the pressure in my nasal passages, the faint stinging at the creases of my eyelids.

I pushed upwards, the water heavy, turbulent against my arms, a million little bubbles scooting caresses across my skin as they raced me to the surface. I broke through into the warm, light air and gulped it into my ravenous lungs, inhaling and choking, spitting out the seawater. My hair, the darkest of browns - like my sister's, like our father's - plastered itself to my forehead, the sun drawing an apricot line where the sky finished and the ocean began. And I laughed.

As I swam back to Talisman, spluttering and euphoric, the distant howl of a desperate dog drifted across the eternal lapping of the waves.

'Happy birthday, little sister,' Sarah said to me as she placed the hot pie, fragrant with fresh herbs, on the table in the cramped crew's mess. Pristine white oven gloves swaddled her hands. I sat engrossed in a paperback, its orange covers curling, on the leather banquette. My legs were tucked up beneath me, my hair was damp and wavy from the shower I'd taken to leach the salt from my skin. I looked up from Emma and Dex's argument, and beamed up at Sarah. 'Well, half-sister,' she added on her return to the galley, failing to reflect my smile. The slap of the correction stung. I slipped my marker between the pages and shut my book.

'Qu'est-ce que c'est ça?' Emmanuelle demanded, momentarily distracted from filing the perfect ovals of her fingernails and staring at the dish in the middle of the table.

'Penis pie,' said Sam, lolloping in with bowls of crisp, fresh vegetables in each hand. Harry followed, loaded with a stack of warmed plates topped with an enormous bowl of steaming potatoes, fresh from the fryer. 'Happy Birthday, Rachel! Twenty-three today!' Sam said with a grin.

'Mate, that is classic. Look you've even done a spunky bit.' Harry peered closely at the piecrust, where a large male member, complete with testicles, had been incorporated into the pastry decoration. I giggled at Emmanuelle's look of horror.

'Icing sugar,' said Sam, nudging Harry with his elbow and nodding smugly. Harry smudged his finger across the surface of the pie and sucked his fingertip into his mouth.

'So it is,' said Harry, licking his lips. 'Tastes good.'

'Filthy,' said Sam, crushing his lips together and shaking his head.

'And that's why he's not allowed in the galley,' said Sarah as she sat down, her face shiny, still wearing her apron. 'Honestly, I turned my back for five minutes to peel the potatoes and he did that!' She pointed at Sam and then at the pie and narrowed her eyes, but the upward curl at the edges of her mouth divulged her amusement.

'Quite funny, though,' said Cara as she slipped past Harry and took her seat next to Sarah. As she began to distribute the plates, Sam winked at her across the table and she languorously winked back.

'It's even got pubes,' I murmured, leaning over and inspecting the pastry where small, curly tendrils had been placed on the balls.

'You want a slice, birthday girl?' said Harry, wielding a metal serving spoon in his hand.

'Go on then,' I said, looking directly at him; his mussed up dirty blonde hair, the almost cruel set of his generous lips, the breadth of his lean shoulders, feeling a pang of lust twist in my underbelly. He dropped his gaze first and I held out my plate.

'Stop!' shouted Byron, appearing in the doorway just as the curve of the spoon hit the bronzed crust. 'We're going to be needing a picture of that.'

'Hell yeah,' said Harry. 'That's going straight on Bookface.'

'Where's Tom?' asked Cara, as Byron lined up a shot of the pie in his viewfinder, Sam leaning over to grin up into the picture, proud of his masterpiece.

'Probably found a mast to climb and having a weep,' said Harry, banging the spoon on the tabletop. 'Are you done yet, David Bailey?' he asked Byron, who flicked the off button on his camera and clicked the lens cap on.

'Yeah, I'm starving,' he said, stealing a chip from the bowl as he sat down. Sarah slapped his hand. He wafted at his mouth as he chewed. 'Hot,' he gasped, his mouth open, revealing the part masticated food. Emmanuelle averted her gaze in disgust, helped herself to some green beans and lined them up on her plate. I snapped open a cold can of lemonade and took a couple of massive gulps. The fizz in my nose made my eyes water and I pressed the flat of my hand hard to my sternum to stem the escape of a belch.

'Here he is!' crooned Cara as Tom walked in, followed by Lars, clutching a stack of paper and envelopes to his chest, studious and wise in his tortoiseshell framed glasses. Tom shuffled onto a spare bit of seat on the end and waited as the others served out their dinners before helping himself.

'Crew,' said Lars, looking sideways at the pie, now mostly sliced up and on plates, but still the unmistakable outline of a glans remaining. Harry indolently pressed the spoon through it. Byron winced.

'Yes, Dad?' said Sam, jiggling in his seat as Cara served him julienne carrots, cooked just the way she knew he liked them.

Lars stood firm at the head of the table and looked at Sam over the rim of his glasses. Sam grinned impishly. Lars shook his head in an expression of fond despair.

'Whilst I have all of you here in the same place and relatively quiet,' he said, and there was a hush in the room as we began to eat, punctuated by the odd chink of cutlery on crockery, 'I wanted to thank you for all your hard work during the past three months, a particularly long charter, but one that was obviously very important for our employer, Herr Liebe, and one which each and everyone of you helped to make very special.'

'Rachel's only been here a fortnight,' chirped Sam, a chip spiked at right angles on the end of his fork. He waved it in my direction. I scrunched my face at him. Lars ignored the interruption. Sam dipped the chip in a dollop of ketchup on Harry's plate.

'Herr Liebe is keen to convey his appreciation for your contributions and left us a generous tip to this effect.' He began to hand out envelopes, our full names written neatly in capitals. 'You all have the same amount,' he said as the envelopes were laid down by plates or secreted into pockets, 'apart from you, Rachel, as you have only been with us a short time.' I smiled at him as he handed me mine, grateful for any tip at all. 'So, tomorrow morning we will depart Eden Island and set sail for Cyprus, heading north east up to the coast of Oman and sailing around Yemen and up into the Suez Canal back to Talisman's mooring in Limassol, from where I expect you will all want to take a break and visit your homes, what with Christmas around the corner. We can't leave Talisman unstaffed, obviously, so there will need to be some discussion about who goes when.'

Tom had his hand up.

'Will there be pirates, sir?' asked Byron.

'That's why we're heading up to Oman,' said Lars. 'It should keep us well out of their range. It takes us somewhat off course but will still be significantly faster than sailing all the way back around the Horn of Africa, and beautiful as Zanzibar and Madagascar were, I for one am eager to see my loved ones as soon as possible. I've got a baby on the way. And having missed my first two daughters' arrivals I am determined to make this one. My marriage may depend on it. All that said, tomorrow morning, before we set sail, Richard will be coordinating a drill on what to do should we come under attack. There are ways in which we can defend ourselves and Sam has kindly rewired the locks on the guest suite so that it can function as a panic room for the girls. We're more likely to see pirates as we go up into the Suez Canal and will take more precautions then but it will be good to have a practice now. Tom?'

'How much holiday are we allowed?'

'Up to two weeks, outstanding entitlements allowing. Normal rules. I will be available between six and seven tomorrow morning for requests. We're aiming to set sail around nine. Richard's drill will start on the sun deck at seven.'

'I'm happy to work Christmas,' said Cara. 'I'll be going back to New Zealand for a long holiday for my birthday at the end of February.'

'Thirty-two, eh? Clock's ticking Cara!' said Sam.

'Actually, I'll only be seven.' She stuck her tongue out at him.

'Yeah, you leap year baby. If you're not here how are you supposed to propose to me?'

'Er, as if I would ever marry you,' she scoffed.

'In your dreams,' said Sam.

'In your dreams,' said Harry with a derisive snort.

'You know,' said Lars. 'If it were the old days, I would have signed you up until your thirty-fifth birthday and you'd be here until around, ooh, 2043.' He looked at Cara over the top of his specs. 'Making you sixty-three. Just about ready to retire.'

'Thank you, sir. But I think seven years is long enough don't you? I don't think I know anyone else who's spent so long on one boat.' Lars looked at her curiously. 'Anyway,' she said, 'another Talisman Christmas alone. I can hardly wait.'

'I might stay for Christmas too,' said Sarah. 'Nothing much to go home for...' She looked at me as she said it.

'Well, come to me in the morning with your requests and we'll work it out from there. Before seven, please.'

'It's okay for us to go out tonight then?' asked Harry. 'It's Rachel's birthday…'

'That's fine,' said Lars, 'but no leaving the marina. I don't want anyone disappearing unexpectedly and, as you now know, we have an early departure planned and have Richard's drill to run through. I have also noticed we are not yet fully stowed. Conditions are forecast calm tomorrow so you will be able to carry on while we are underway. I'll take you up to the Boardwalk when you're done here and buy you all a drink to thank you for your hard work.'

'Cheers, boss,' a number of voices chimed from around the table.

'One more thing,' said Lars. 'The flag's fallen off.' He held it limp in his hand. 'Can someone please go and fix it?'

Tom jumped to his feet leaving his supper unfinished.

I lay in my bunk doing a crossword, ready and waiting to go out. Emmanuelle stood in her underwear at the small mirror that she'd propped up against the wall, plucking her eyebrows, stretching the skin taut between her fingertips as she ripped out invisible but superfluous hairs one by one.

'Like a pre-adolescent male smell lives in youth hostel,' I murmured, the lid of my pen held between my teeth, causing the words to minutely whistle.

'What?' said Emmanuelle, looking at my reflection behind her.

'Nothing,' I said. 'Just a crossword clue.' I looked past Emmanuelle's jutting shoulder blades and into the mirror where my cabin mate looked scornfully back at me.

'I don't understand why you are interested in those things,' Emmanuelle said, returning her attention to her depilation.

'It's just a way to pass the time,' I said, wondering if I should spend a greater proportion of my free time on personal grooming, as Emmanuelle did. 'Keeps my brain moving.'

'You are not eighty years old.'

'I didn't know there was an age limit.'

'It's not very... sexy, is it?'

'No, I suppose not,' I sighed, shutting the book and putting it and my pen to one side. In my fortnight aboard, despite sharing a very intimate space with Emmanuelle, this, I thought, was the first conversation we had embarked upon and, as such, perhaps I should give it my full attention. Usually Emmanuelle just told me to turn off the light, or to stop making so much noise, or that my snoring was annoying and had kept her awake all night. 'What sexy things should I do instead, do you think, Emmanuelle?'

'Oh, je ne sais pas,' said Emmanuelle, smoothing the tip of her index finger across the arch of her brow. 'Peut-être...'

'Pole-dancing? Striptease?'

'Ah non! Zut alors! So obvious.' She put her tweezers down and turned to face me. 'Some sport, maybe. You would look good in sports wear. Athletique.' I thought she probably meant fat. Everything is comparative. 'Men like sport. But not too much. You mustn't be better than the man. They hate that.'

'Some sport…' I mused. 'So I'm an okay surfer. Does that count? I hear Harry's quite a fan too.'

'Ah. Harry…' Emmanuelle turned back to the mirror and pulled a lip-gloss out of a crammed cosmetics bag.

'What about Harry?' The subject was of such interest to me that I sat up so rapidly I banged my head hard on the ceiling above my bunk. I blinked a little, stunned. Emmanuelle tutted.

'Harry, he is a, how you say? Slut! Every girl likes him and he knows it. Et toi aussi maintenant, non?'

'Do you like him?' I asked, rubbing the top of my head where I was wondering if I would develop a lump.

'I know him too well to like him,' Emmanuelle replied, picking up her hairbrush.

'Does Sarah like him?'

'Ha! Non! She hates him now, but once she did, she liked him. Liked him very much.' She brushed her hair with long, languid strokes, tipping her head to each side.

'What happened?'

'You should ask her that. Et, bien sûr, there was Megan. It is because of Megan that you are here. He has had every girl on this boat. Well except…' said Emmanuelle, slipping her arms into the sleeves of a navy chiffon blouse. 'The only reason he has not had Cara too is because she is in love with Sam.'

'In love?' I had so many questions, but that was the one I blurted out.

'Eeesh,' she said, doing up her buttons to just above her bra. 'They will not admit it, they say it's just casual, how is it Cara describes it?'

'Friends with benefits?'

'Oui, c'est ça. But really, they are in love. I can tell. Harry is jealous I think.' She picked a skirt from a pile on the floor and stepped into it, zipping it up the side and twisting it until it lay straight.

'Jealous?'

'Harry thinks he is in love all the time. But he's just in love with the idea of it. He would probably like to have Cara, just to piss Sam off. What Harry really wants is someone to love him, but he is scared he's not worth it. He is too frightened to love himself, even if he doesn't show it.'

'Really?' I said in surprise. 'But he's so…'

Before I could finish her sentence, the door to our cabin flew open, crashing into the wall. The mirror slid from its perch and smashed into shards on the floor.

'Come on girls!' Harry yelled into the tiny room, his tall, broad frame filling up the doorway. I wondered how long he had been stood outside. Emmanuelle smiled to herself before she turned round, picked up her purse and slid her feet into some vertiginous heels.

'Cocktail for the birthday princess!' said Cara as she settled the drink down in front of me. I cringed and forced a smile. She wore mascara on her naturally white blonde, but very long, lashes, spiking the light grey of her eyes. Her pale skin was sprinkled with freckles and almost sparkled in the dim light of the bar. Outside, the stars winked as clouds scudded across the ebony sky. A cool sea breeze skimmed my shoulders.

'Blimey,' I said, 'what is it?' I picked up the half coconut bristling with miniature paper umbrellas, streamers and straws and waggled my head, trying to figure out how to tackle it.

'House special,' said Harry, sidling in beside me on the couch and laying his arm along the back so that his fingertips brushed my spine, bare in the white strapless dress, printed with cerise hibiscus that I'd bought especially for the occasion, tight across my breasts, my ribs. I shivered. My skin pimpled, raising the fine dark hairs along my arm. He sat back, feet planted flat, knees wide and arrogant.

'Yummy,' I said, my mouth coconut and pineapple sweet. 'Thank you. You want to try?'

Harry raised an eyebrow and sucked from the straw.

'Suits you,' said Byron, snapping a picture.

'Is that a coconut?' asked Sam sitting down with a bottle of beer in his hand. 'Did you know one hundred and fifty people are killed by falling coconuts every year?'

'That's bullshit,' said Byron, as