Pirate Alley: A Novel (37 page)

“Did you bring binoculars from your ship?” I asked the captain.

He nodded.

“May I borrow them?”

His wife had them. He told me where she was and I went.

Nora Neidlinger was still asleep, and the women were talking in hushed tones. Nora’s daughter was asleep beside her. No one asked me what had happened to Nora, and I wasn’t letting on that I knew.

Lying on my belly on the roof, looking through a gun port, I surveyed the beach. A few kids were fishing in the surf, but there were no SEALs lying around. I wondered where they were. Looked the
Sultan
over. Probably aboard her, but I saw no one. She appeared to be a derelict.

Lots of guys with assault rifles wandering around Eyl. Up on top of the lair amid the rubble, in pickups in the plaza, stealing food from the locals. I could see men literally carrying pots out of the houses scattered about while women screamed at them and children cried. Those holy warriors … The distance was too great to see much detail. I needed to get closer.

I needed to get out of here. I got up, put the binocs in my backpack and wandered along the wall, looking at the guards and brush and considering possibilities.

*   *   *

In midmorning two guards came for Jake. He hadn’t eaten, nor had he been given any water. He was hungry and thirsty, but tried to ignore it.

His captors put him in a pickup, and away they went driving fast toward the beach. Roared into the plaza and screeched to a stop in front of Ragnar’s lair. Grafton saw that the plaza had been cleaned up, somewhat. The remnants of two pickups were still there, but the less-damaged ones had been removed, no doubt to be mined for parts, and the bodies carried off.

A group of hard cases with AKs watched Grafton get out of the bed of the pickup, and watched his two escorts take him inside.

Although he didn’t know it, Yousef el-Din had had a group working for hours cleaning up most of the mess in the penthouse. They disposed of broken glass and rubble and trash by the simple expedient of tossing it off the balcony and out the windows on the south side of the building, none of which had any glass left.

Jake was prodded up the stairs, all of them, to the penthouse. The roof looked as if it would cave in if even a mild breeze arose, but most of the rubble was gone. The bodies of the Ragnars, father and sons, were somewhere below under all that debris.

Yousef was waiting in the penthouse, seated on a carpet with his legs folded, looking every inch like an Arab slave trader waiting to haggle. Standing beside him was Geoff Noon, High Noon himself, still wearing that filthy old white linen sport coat with a bottle of gin in the side pocket. The pocket on the other side was empty, so he looked unbalanced. He glanced at Grafton but showed no sign of recognition. Also standing there was a white man of medium height, trim, wearing slacks and a short-sleeve pullover shirt with a polo pony on the left breast. He was obviously the cleanest man in the room.

“I’m Mike Rosen,” he said to Grafton, extending a hand.

Grafton shook and pronounced his name.

“Yousef wants to talk about money,” Noon said.

“Okay.”

“When and how it will be delivered.”

“Tell him that two helicopters will arrive at noon tomorrow. Each will have money suspended on a pallet below it. The choppers will put the pallets in the plaza, then fly over to the fort and land on the roof.”

Noon chattered a while, then listened as Yousef talked; then they went back and forth. Grafton put his hands in his pockets and inspected the holes in the roof. Those Hellfires had done a job.

Finally Noon asked, “Why pallets under the helicopters?”

“Two hundred million dollars in currency weighs over two tons. That is a ton for each chopper. In this heat, that is a safe load.”

More jabber.

Grafton interrupted. “Of course, after the money is paid we will want to transport all the people in the fortress out of here. We will use helicopters, take about a dozen people at a time. It will obviously take the rest of the day to fly eight hundred and fifty folks out to the ship. As each helicopter is loaded and takes off, another one will land on the roof.”

Yousef listened impassively to this statement.

Grafton continued, “I suspect that Yousef and his followers will wish to take the money and leave immediately. If they try any treachery, we will of course kill every single one of them and take the money back or destroy it.”

Yousef’s face darkened as he listened to Noon, and he rose swiftly to his feet. He had a pistol in a holster on his belt, and his hand went to the butt.

“We are Muslims of the Shabab,” he said, according to Noon. “Not liars and thieves and blasphemers and sinners, like the pirates were. They are dead, gone. The Shabab will not be insulted.” The men standing around listening made appreciative noises upon hearing this. They were Allah’s chosen. “You will do as you have said. If you try to betray our agreement in any way, all the hostages will die. Every last one. They will be shot and bombed until every single one of them is but crushed bone and bloodstains on the stone.”

He pulled a radio control device from his pocket and tossed it on the carpet on which he had been sitting.

Jake Grafton didn’t seem impressed. “We’ll want the
Sultan,
too,” he said. “A team of sailors will arrive tomorrow by boat after the money is paid. They will go aboard, start the engines, raise the anchor and sail her away.”

Yousef wanted more money. Grafton stood his ground. He had made a deal with Ragnar. There was no more money.

“Two hundred million for the people, another hundred million for the ship,” Noon reported.

After thinking it over, taking his time, Grafton said, “We will sell him the ship for a hundred million. We will give him a hundred million for the people and he can keep the ship. Maybe start up a cruise ship line. Eyl to Rome, via Suez and Athens.”

It was an argument for show. Yousef played to his followers, with much back-and-forth with them that wasn’t translated.

After a while Yousef caved. “Two hundred million, and you can have the people and the ship.”

Grafton merely nodded. He looked a question at Noon. “You taking Rosen back to the ship?”

Noon nodded.

Grafton turned toward Rosen and said, “Put it on the Internet.” He turned on his headset, arranged it on his head and had a short conversation with Admiral Tarkington. Then he turned it off to save the battery.

Yousef issued orders, and Grafton’s escorts led him to the stairs and down. They ended up in a room on the third floor. Still some trash about. Grafton looked out the shattered window and the one that still had glass, then sat down. He paid no attention to the guards.

*   *   *

High Noon accompanied Mike Rosen back to the ship. They waded out from the beach and managed to heave themselves into the boat without tipping it over, and the boatman started the little one-cylinder engine. Away they putted.

When they were back aboard the
Sultan of the Seas
and climbing stairs to the e-com center, Rosen asked, “What happened to Ragnar?”

“He is no longer with us.”

“And the rest of the pirates?”

“The same, I am afraid. Yousef el-Din and his men did their level best to kill them all. Oh, no doubt a few of them are hiding in the brush, but only a few.”

“That e-mail I sent?”

“Oh, yes. It stimulated them vigorously.”

“And whose idea was it to send that?”

Noon grinned and didn’t answer.

When Rosen’s computer was online, over a hundred e-mails vomited forth.

“We will send the Shabab’s communiqué first,” Noon said, “then the substance of the conversation between Yousef el-Din and Mr. Grafton.” He extracted a grimy sheet of paper from a pocket. “Send them to your radio station. Your colleagues will, I assume, put them on the Net where the world can read them.”

He handed the paper to Rosen, who spread it out on the desk and read it carefully. It merely stated unequivocally that unless the two hundred million dollars was paid by noon tomorrow Eyl time, the Shabab would kill all the prisoners. A couple of sentences of boilerplate followed, exhorting the faithful to jihad.

“Apparently Allah’s soldiers have inherited the pirates’ business,” Rosen muttered.

“Their assets and their debts,” Noon said, uncorking his gin bottle. “Start typing.”

*   *   *

It was close to noon when I heard trucks coming up the hill toward the fort. A man would have had to be deaf not to hear them, since none of them had a working muffler. Sounded like a NASCAR race.

I figured the guards were going to change, so trotted over to the other side of the fort. Sure enough, the holy warriors were walking around the fort. For just a moment, there was no one on the eastern side. I didn’t waste a second; just vaulted over the side into the loose dirt twelve or so feet below. Then I shot off down the hill toward the beach. Went about fifty yards and then flopped onto my belly.

Waited a minute or so for shouts, or shots, or someone running after me. Nothing. I started crawling. My leg hurt every time I moved it.

After I had done about a mile on my stomach around the north side of that rock pile and was thoroughly fagged out, with cactus stickers in my hands and knees, I decided to get on the net. Got my headset on and turned on the transmitter/receiver and keyed the mike. “Control, this is Tommy. Where is the admiral?”

“He’s in Ragnar’s lair.”

“E.D.? Travis?”

“Yo.”

“Where are you? We need to talk.”

*   *   *

Julie Penney was standing at a gun port looking at the sea when Tommy Carmellini landed in the dirt in front of her, picked himself up and galloped into the brush.

She recognized him, even though she didn’t see his face. Big, rangy, athletic, lean … Grafton’s assistant, the man who brought Nora back from Ragnar’s hellhole.

Marjorie was there and came over to the porthole. She had gotten a glimpse of the falling body, but hadn’t seen who it was.

“Tomorrow’s the deadline,” Marjorie reminded the captain’s wife. “One more night.”

Suzanne Ranta heard that remark and joined the conversation. “Out of here tomorrow. Or we’ll be dead.”

“Arch says the ransom will be paid,” Julie Penney reminded them. “Let’s keep our chins up.”

“Stiff upper lip,” Irene mocked, as British as she could.

Julie Penney wandered off to check on other passengers. She had had a little talk with her husband in the wee hours of the morning, after the shooting died down, and he had said, “It’ll be tonight.” She asked why, and was told, “The locals can’t see in the dark. The Americans prefer it. If there is going to be trouble, it will be tonight.”

Tonight. Conceivably, this could be the last day of life for a great many people.

So … if you knew this might be your last day, how would you spend it? Almost by instinct Julie Penney chose to spend it trying to buck up her husband’s passengers.

*   *   *

It was nearly four o’clock when I reached the rendezvous, what with crawling and sneaking along. The Shabab had patrols out, and they kept showing up at inopportune times. Sometimes I am lucky that way.

Our rendezvous was a big pile of rock overlooking Eyl West. It was just below the rim, a pile of hard rock that had resisted the rain and wind through the ages. I wouldn’t have been surprised if hundreds of thousands of years ago
Homo erectus
hadn’t huddled on random nights on the very spot where Travis had built a tiny, smokeless fire to brew coffee and warm up MREs. In Africa, you think about things like that.

It wasn’t just Travis and E.D., either. It was my whole snatch team. Harry, Doc, Willis, Buck, Wilbur … all of them.

“This is like a high school reunion,” I said. “Who brought the beer?”

“Jesus, Tommy, you look bad! What did you do, crawl the whole way?”

“Damn near. Where’s Orville?”

“Up on top of the rock. We have a drone up keeping watch.”

“I’ll recommend a Christmas bonus for all you guys.”

“Want a beer?” Buck asked.

“You are a prince among men. Wanna meet my sister? I’ll fix you up.”

E.D. handed me the satellite phone. “The navy wanted to talk to you as soon as you showed up.”

“I kinda thought so.”

“They weren’t expecting Admiral Grafton to get himself into a hostage situation. I think they want you to take care of that.”

“Did you guys get all those radio detonators?” Willis asked me.

“If you hear a really big bang, the answer is no.” I opened a can of beer and looked at E.D. “Anything else they want to ask me?”

“Now, Tommy, no one knew if you were going to get out of that fort before dark. We were Plan B.”

“I see.”

“What with you here, we’ll go back to Plan A.”

“The airport?”

“Yep. The Shabab boys are sitting up there looking mean. Kinda too bad about the pirates. When the Shabab came in shooting, the pirates’ machine guns split their barrels when the first round was fired. The battle was a little lopsided. Very tragic.”

I set about making the satellite phone do its magic. By the time the task force ops officer was on, I was halfway through my second can of beer. Even warm, it tasted delicious.

While I talked the guys worked on my leg. Got an antibiotic on it and a coagulating pad, then a tight bandage. At least now it wouldn’t bleed. Damn thing was sore, and the best I could do was a hobble.

When the ops officer was finished and had answered my three questions, I turned off the phone. I looked at my little band and told them, “We eat, then get at it. Timetable is unchanged. The airplanes are in the air.” They knew all that, of course. “E.D., you and Travis are going to cover me with the Sakos.”

They just nodded and handed me some MREs. I began wolfing them down. Damn, I was hungry.

E.D. sat down beside me. “I heard some shooting last night. Did you guys get any kills?”

He shrugged. Looked around to see who was listening to us. Apparently no one. “We missed,” he allowed in a low voice.

“Oh, come on!”

“Shit, Tommy. Shooting at people running around like crazy in the dark isn’t like shooting at a damn target. You know that! The damn guys wouldn’t hold still.”