Pirate Alley: A Novel (25 page)

I decided this might be an excellent time to make tracks. Got up and began walking. When I was up on the ridge, walking away from the fort, I keyed the mike on my headset.

Nothing. Not even a click. I played with the controls.

Damn thing was dead as bin Laden. I wondered how long it had been that way.

Found I still had the knife in my hand. Put it back into its sheath, felt the gun butts, drew as much air in as possible and let it out slowly.

About a hundred yards later I started to shake. The shaking subsided after several seconds. Thought I might vomit, but I didn’t. Spit in the dirt a time or two and walked slowly on into the night.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Two pirates escorted Nora Neidlinger up the stairs in Ragnar’s lair. All six flights. Led her into the living room and pointed to a chair. She sat, with her knees together and her purse on her lap.

Ragnar was conversing with a Somali, using Arabic. She had no idea who the man was or what was being said.

The man was Yousef el-Din, and he was unhappy. Ragnar had refused to let his men in to see the captives, or to help guard them, or to talk with the journalists who were doing interviews in the town and with al-Said in front of the fortress.

Ragnar quickly deduced that Yousef wanted to be on television himself, and he was merely talking around that fact. He wanted to tell the world about the prowess of the Shabab, of the power of Islam. He wanted the world to see
him
. Presumably if his fame as a holy warrior were to spread far and wide, his standing in the Shabab would be enhanced.

Ragnar considered the matter carefully while he eyed Nora Neidlinger and her magnificent chest. He had never before seen a surgically enhanced bosom, and the sight fascinated him. The possibility that those two flesh melons might not be homegrown never entered his head.

He forced himself to come back to Yousef el-Din and his television ambitions.

“The object is to force the British and Americans to pay the ransom we have demanded. Seeing a man high in the Shabab here might complicate things.”

Yousef was working himself up to a tantrum, but Ragnar forestalled it. “After we have the money, then will be the time for you to talk to the television men. Explain to the world the demands of fundamental Islam, the inevitability of its triumph. Explain about martyrs and Paradise and houris and all of that.”

El-Din didn’t like Ragnar’s edict, not a whit, so he argued for another fifteen minutes, then stomped off down the stairs.

Meanwhile another man was escorted into Ragnar’s lair. A European. He clutched a backpack in his arms. He was perhaps sixty, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a medium-built man, close-shaven, in contrast to the pirates, who didn’t shave, nor did they have full beards. They were like adolescent boys, with mere tufts of facial hair or none at all.

Ragnar listened to his men explain in Arabic; then one of them spoke in broken English. “Ragnar says give him bag.”

“Explain to Herr Ragnar that I wish to trade the bag for freedom.”

The pirate translated, and Ragnar ripped the bag from the man’s hands. One of the pirates grabbed the man from behind and held him. “My name is Beck,” the man explained. “Heinrich Beck. I am a businessman, like Herr Ragnar. I do business with important people in the Arab world. I have many friends…”

Heinrich Beck ran down as Ragnar unzipped the bag, revealing a carefully wrapped package. Heavy. Several pounds, in fact. Ragnar hefted it and glanced at Beck. He said something, and the pirate translated. “What is?”

“Cocaine. Pure. Refined. Worth at least two hundred thousand American dollars. I wish to give it to Herr Ragnar in return for my freedom.”

Ragnar and his son Nouri took the package to a table and carefully unwrapped it, revealing a zip-lock bag full of white powder. Nouri unzipped it, took a pinch and sniffed it up his nose. He smiled at his father and zipped the bag shut.

Ragnar said something, and one of the pirates slapped Beck. “Where is rest?”

“Rest?”

“More. Where is more? This not all. Where is more?”

“Listen. I am a businessman, like Herr Ragnar. I wish to trade—”

Another command, and two pirates, one on each arm, physically dragged Beck through the French doors to the balcony and across it to the low wall that formed the safety rail. They hoisted him up on it and held him there.

“Where is more?”

Beck looked down, terror written on his features.

“If there is more cocaine,” Nora Neidlinger said loudly, “it is probably on the ship, in his stateroom. Why don’t you look there? And let the poor man go.”

This was translated.

Ragnar looked at Nora and laughed. His men laughed. After a moment Ragnar made a gesture and someone gave Beck a gentle push. His arms flailed the air, he teetered on the rail for just an instant, then he fell. Screaming. All the way down.

*   *   *

For the very first time in his life, Arch Penney felt completely helpless, unable to cope. Even when the pirates were capturing his ship, he had some control. Now, a prisoner in this old fortress at the entrance to the little harbor of Eyl, he knew he was unable to help himself and everyone else in his charge, including his wife.

She sensed his mood. As his strength ebbed, hers increased. She went among the women, talking, touching, listening, doing her best to maintain morale. Penney watched. Guilt washed over him like a tsunami. If only he had ran the ship at full speed, or chosen another route, or …

He still had bloodstains on his uniform, which was now filthy and rumpled. He hadn’t thought to bring more clothes from the ship …

Unprepared. He had been unprepared. Hadn’t really thought the problem through before the crisis presented itself. So he had been improvising. And he had failed.

“Archie,” his wife whispered. “Don’t get so down on yourself. Nothing you could have done would have made any difference.”

He grunted. He didn’t believe that, and doubted that she did.

He sent her to see the chief steward, to check the menus. Keep her busy. Make her responsible for something. That would keep her mind off this total, absolute … debacle. Disaster. Failure. Death for some of these people. Maybe all of them. Certainly more than had already died.

He went to the gun port and looked out into the night. The guards were out there, of course, although he couldn’t see them. Beyond this strip of loosely packed earth, out there somewhere in the brush.

He could crawl out this portal, start running. Run until they shot him. Then it would be all over. Mercifully over.

“Captain.”

It was the ship’s doctor.

“We have some people coming down with dysentery. The toilet facilities … there isn’t enough water, no soap…”

“Yes,” he said as he stared into the darkness. Stared at the surface of the ocean, illuminated by starlight.

“Do what you can.”

“Yes, sir.” The doctor went away, leaving him at the portal looking at the ocean, as far beyond his reach as the lunar seas.

*   *   *

She was living a nightmare, Nora Neidlinger thought. A cluttered bedroom that smelled of unwashed bodies and semen. Filthy, stained sheets, the mattress on the floor, a spider’s web in one corner. Insects flying around naked lightbulbs. An African whorehouse. Her revulsion made her skin crawl. She hugged herself.

Ragnar pushed her onto the mattress. Made a gesture, plainly,
Take off your clothes.

She didn’t think physical resistance would get her anything but a beating. She complied. Started with her blouse. Then the bra. Ragnar stood watching with his mouth open. She kicked off her shoes, wriggled as she pulled the slacks down over her hips. She was wearing granny panties, but apparently Ragnar didn’t notice. Or care.

Before she could get them off he launched himself at her and buried his face between her breasts.

*   *   *

Mike Rosen was frustrated. Alone on an anchored ship with only emergency power, he felt as if he were the last man left alive on Spaceship Earth. Obviously there were some crewmen aboard in the engine room spaces, making sure the emergency generator stayed online, but he didn’t see or hear them. They were imprisoned there, and he was imprisoned in his stateroom or the e-com center. Every now and then he heard noises, which he assumed were guards or Eyl citizens scavenging.

He wondered about Geoff Noon. The Brit was filthy—and so, Rosen suspected, were most of the things and people in northern Somalia—and an alcoholic. The possible fate of Rosen and the other people from
Sultan
didn’t seem to cause him a moment’s angst. Doesn’t give a damn about anyone or anything except his bottle, Rosen decided.

Gin. What a pissy drink.

Rosen opened the door to his stateroom. The pirate was right there, sitting on a chair, chewing khat.

“I’m hungry.”

The man stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Food.” Rosen pantomimed eating.

The pirate gestured,
Back inside.
Jabbed at him with his rifle barrel, trying to force him back in the room.

“Prick,” Rosen said. “You are a scummy little prick and your mother was a mangy hound dog.”

He was just getting wound up when the man jabbed him in the chest with the rifle so hard he involuntarily stepped backward into the room. The pirate pulled the door shut.

“Asshole,” Rosen roared at the closed door. “Fucking asshole.”

He was furious at himself. He should have grabbed the rifle, jerked it out of the pirate’s grasp and shot the son of a bitch with it. Blown his fucking khat-addled brains all over the corridor.

Well, why hadn’t he done that?

*   *   *

The black inflatable boat was powered by an electric motor that made no noise. The U.S. Navy SEAL lieutenant in the bow, Bullet Bob Quinn, could hear the tiny slap-slap of waves as the boat worked through the seas, but that was the only sound.

Quinn surveyed the Eyl harbor and anchorage with night-vision binoculars. He had the magnification set as low as possible due to the motion of the boat, which made it difficult to keep the binoculars focused on any one item.

When he was satisfied that there were no boats under way in the harbor, he turned his attention to a ship that was grounded against a sandbar on the south side of the harbor. Her anchor was out and she was listing slightly, but not a light showed. From all appearances, she was a derelict.

Her name, he believed—he couldn’t pronounce it—was Greek. Someone said the ship was named after a goddess. Bullet Bob didn’t know if that was true, nor did he care. The message traffic said she had been captured several months ago. The crew had been ransomed, but the insurer refused to pay ransom for the ship, which was almost forty years old, so, Greek goddess or not, she had been abandoned to the pirates.

Her bow was pointed toward the town, her stern the open ocean. From her bow to the pier in front of the largest building in Eyl, Ragnar’s six-story skyscraper, was a distance of 842 yards, according to the air intelligence techs who studied the drone photographs and compared them to satellite imagery. From her bridge to the fortress on the northern peninsula was 3,100 yards, over a mile and a half. The
Sultan
lay between, anchored in the main channel, 712 yards from the derelict’s bridge.

Satisfied that no one was aboard the Greek freighter and the harbor was still, Bullet Bob tapped the man beside him on the shoulder, pointed to the freighter and gave a thumbs-up. The man checked his luminous wrist compass, then rolled backward off the gunwale of the inflatable, holding his mask and mouthpiece in place. He was wearing scuba tanks, but Quinn hoped the man could make the swim on the surface. The tanks were for an emergency, if he had to get below the surface and stay there.

Ten seconds later, the second man followed the first into the water.

Quinn checked his watch.

The coxswain throttled back, put the engine in reverse and kept the little black boat almost stationary against the tide, which was coming into the harbor.

There were four men left in the boat: the coxswain, Quinn and two more SEALs. All wore black wet suits and carried black gear. Submachine guns were snugged up tight to their bodies, short-barreled things. The boat rocked gently in the swells.

Bullet Bob found himself checking his watch. As usual, there were time constraints. He wanted all his men and their gear aboard the derelict and the boat out of the harbor into the open sea by moonrise, which was only an hour and a half away.

He looked back at the open sea, using the light-gathering binoculars, trying to spot the two skiffs that were running back and forth, patrolling the entrance to the harbor. Yes. They were still going back and forth, slowly, from north to south and back again. These were the lookouts, tasked with warning the pirates if enemy ships or boats appeared. Quinn’s inflatable had slipped by them by hugging the shore, almost in the surf. A black boat, black-clad men, a dark night … the gamble had paid off. They were inside with the pirates none the wiser.

He hoped. Well, if there had been radio transmissions, the tactical watch officers aboard ship would have been warned him on his handheld.

Twenty-two minutes after he dropped the swimmers, his handheld radio did come to life. “We’re aboard.”

“Roger.”

Now the men had to check out the ship, to ensure that they were the sole occupants. This would take another fifteen or twenty minutes. They would use black light, invisible to the naked eye, to find their way around inside the ship, where the darkness would be total.

The waiting was the toughest part of the job, Bullet Bob thought, much more difficult than being in motion, doing something. Anything. When you waited you thought too much.

He looked again for the skiffs. He spotted them with the night-vision binoculars, still moving slowly on their patrol routes. When he lowered the glasses the darkness hid them. As it hides us, he thought.

The minutes dragged. Quinn heard a boat motor fire up inside the harbor. He looked. Yes, a boat near the beach, men in the surf, climbing aboard.