Djibouti

CHAPTER TEN

NOW THE LAPTOP SCREEN showed cargo ships and the massive Saudi tanker Sirius Star lying at anchor a mile or so off the coast of Eyl, Dara's camera coming on to them from the sea.

"Waiting to be ransomed," Dara said. "I have the names of the ships and where they're from. The voice-over will say the going rate for ransom payments is between three hundred thousand and three million. For the Saudi tanker, hijacked three months ago with a hundred million dollars of crude oil, the pirates started out asking twenty-five million, but have come down considerably. We'll have to find out what they're after now." Dara said, "There's the Blue Star, an Egyptian ship and…I think the one straight ahead is the Biscaglia. Pirates attacked the ship and the paid security guards jumped over the side."

"You not armed," Xavier said, "you don't hang around." He said, "Now here's one of those planes nobody in it."

"Drones," Dara said. "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. They fly over at night and take pictures of the hijacked ships."

"If they know the ships are here," Xavier said, "send in some special forces people and take 'em back."

"I'd like to show here if we get the chance, ransom money being air-dropped."

"We seen them miss once."

"Helene said Billy thinks the airdrop is for show. Proof the ships are being hijacked for money. But people behind the pirates-Billy says lawyers and warlords, clan elders-are all getting a cut."

"How's Billy know that?"

"Helene says he makes phone calls. I'd love to shoot another money drop," Dara said. "The ransom's always paid in hundred-dollar bills, none printed before 2000. Somali shopkeepers don't trust older bills."

"And we cut to Eyl," Xavier said, "to Sayyid Ali Yaro in front of his shop full of expensive men's attire. Also watches, canned goods, automatic weapons and, down the street, Ali Yaro's car lot, full of black Toyotas."

"He's saying in Somali," Dara said, "It's true, pirates are his best customers, they don't bother to bargain. They buy high-priced outfits and aftershave. Beautiful women come here to meet our pirates."

A Somali on the street appeared on the screen. He's speaking English, taking his time to be clear, saying, "It surprise me the sea robbers don't fight among themselves. They know how much each one is paid according to his importance. They don't harm captives, the crew of the ships. We know this, because we see no bodies wash up on our shore."

Dara said, "Next, an open-air barbecue where the restaurant is preparing meals for the hijacked crews. Goat, on a spit."

"Goat wouldn't be bad," Xavier said, "they called it something else."

The screen showed Eyl from the beach and streets of flat, tin-roof structures, some framed from scrap lumber, doors open to show the entire store, and rubble in all the streets, a junkyard, houses rebuilt over crumbling remains; but a human feeling in the colors, a cement house painted yellow, another blue. The camera moved up a street of hovels and beyond, to homes among palm trees.

"The upper end," Dara said, "Idris Mohammed's digs, a tan brick California bungalow that goes on and on, with a patio. The sound of the generators must drive him nuts."

"The man has enough power," Xavier said, "to light New Orleans. Look at the big TV dish up there."

"Idris said, 'Shake a leg with your shooting so you have time to come to my home, please.' He always says please."

"You sound like him," Xavier said. "You gonna shoot the man in his house?"

"You are," Dara said, handing Xavier her cotton bag. "Get the cars in the drive, a Mercedes and a Bentley-Harry must be here-four, no five Toyotas, all of them black." A SOMALI WITH AN AK slung from his shoulder stood close to the open doorway. He stared at Xavier. Then at Dara. Then at Xavier again, looking up at him as he stepped aside.

Watching the picture on the screen, Dara said, "Remember this guy?"

"Everybody starin at us like we movie stars."

They watched Dara enter the house, the camera holding on her as Xavier followed to sweep the room in a pan, close to dark in here, low-watt bulbs in the ceiling fixtures. Daylight from the open doorway helped.

"I shot those blue walls tryin to make out the pictures hangin there. I think they were bare-naked ladies, but it was hard to tell."

"I thought they were landscapes," Dara said. IDRIS AND HARRY BAKAR were watching an Al Jazeera newscast on the flat screen across the room, the boys having a scotch, smoking cigarettes and sucking khat, the bottle, the bouquet and a bowl of ice on the stone coffee table between them. They knew Dara was in the room.

Dara knew it.

But they stood up to watch the news for several moments before Idris muted the Arabic words with the remote and came for Dara grinning, telling her she made him so happy to see her, took hold of her and kissed both cheeks. He said, "Look who I have, your travel companion, Harry Bakar."

Harry was grinning too. He took her hands but kissed only one cheek. He smelled of cologne.

In the suite watching the computer screen she said to Xavier, "The big grins. Was it the news or were they glad to see me?"

"I think it was the herb."

"Did you talk to Harry much?"

"Just enough to think he's okay."

"We have to work on the audio, try to clean it up."

"I can bring it up. But for now…" Xavier reached over and turned off the sound.

"I liked Harry's kaffiyeh," Dara said, "the way he does desert wear, draped over his hair and around his shoulders, a casual British look with the bush jacket."

"Has that way about him."

"You think he puts it on?"

"Takes it to the edge any more he's over the line."

Dara said, "'Call me Harry, if you will.'"

"You got him down, Mr. Harry Baker from Oxford."

"I said to him, 'Isn't it pleasant to relax with a scotch while you make a pitch to end piracy?'"

On the screen Harry was smiling. So was Idris. Idris glancing at Harry.

"I had the feeling," Dara said, "there was something between them they were dying to tell me. But Harry surprised me, started talking about a new president of Somalia, elected by the legislature meeting in Djibouti."

"Get into all that, you gonna lose your audience."

"I know, but I want to quote Harry saying the new president will bring peace, once the foreign fishing companies leave the gulf. I said, 'That's the stipulation? You'll have pirates until the fishing boats go home?' He said, 'Unfortunately, yes.'"

Xavier said, "What you want with that?"

"Show how the Somalis see it. Their only way to make a buck is hijacking ships."

"Or they starve? Come on, you gonna tell your moviegoers that?"

She said after a moment, "You don't think it'll work."

"Not the way you pitchin it. Do it straight. Make a picture about guys committin armed robbery at sea. What's wrong with that? They fun-lovin 'cause they found a way to get rich, but they still criminals…only with some class."

"Change the tone," Dara said.

"The one you have in your head. Shoot what you see, not what you want to see."

"I know what I'm doing, but I sound dumb."

"You are dumb," Xavier said, "and you know better." "YOU MIGHT'VE NOTICED," DARA said, "the two buddies making remarks to each other in Arabic, then raising their eyebrows, interested in what I'm gonna say. 'Did you know we have an aircraft carrier in the gulf?' 'Really? When did it arrive?' I tell them, 'Yesterday, the nuclear-powered Dwight D. Eisenhower.' Harry goes, 'Good show.' Idris says, 'You need a giant ship with jet planes to chase my little skiffs?'

"I said to Idris, 'Is there an Islamic group like al Shabaab behind pirate activities?'

"Idris said, 'Al Shabaab, are you kidding me? They're children playing like it's olden times. They're very serious.' I told Idris I've heard hijacking has cost the owners much more than thirty million. He said, 'Yes, perhaps as much as forty million. More coming in as we speak.' I said to Harry, 'Is that right, according to your estimates?' Harry said, 'He might be a bit low.'"

Dara said she asked Harry while Idris was out of the room how they met. He said he heard Idris might be interested in a sporting rifle he had for sale. "Over a few drinks we agreed on the price." Harry smiled. "And from that meeting on we're mates."

Dara said, "I'm not sure why, maybe because we were in the Middle East, I asked him, 'How many rifles did you sell Idris?' Harry stared at me rather deadpan before he said, 'Four hundred.' He said, 'Uzis I promoted off a chap in Tel Aviv,' giving his tone a hint of cockney, like Michael Caine, and kept staring at me until I smiled." Dara said, "You know why he told me? He wanted me to know he's half British but is still part of the Arab world. I said, 'And now you're promoting a solution to end piracy?' Harry said, 'You might call it that, yes.'"

"You ever ask Idris what he did with the Uzis?"

"I'm guessing he found buyers in Somalia. Warlords always need guns." Dara watched the screen. "This is where Harry's saying to Idris, 'Will you please tell her.'"

"I remember," Xavier said, "both watchin TV and grinnin when we come in. Now I shoot Idris changin the channel from Al Jazeera to CNN and we see a container ship flyin the Stars and Stripes. The Maersk Alabama, the first American ship, captain and crew, taken by the Somalis."

"The first American ship boarded," Dara said, watching the screen, "in more than two hundred years."

"This crew wouldn't stand for it," Xavier said. "Took the ship back and ran off the pirates. Only they had the captain a hostage by then."

"He gave himself up," Dara said, "so they wouldn't harm the crew. Richard Phillips, fifty-three, from Underhill, Vermont. They put him in the Alabama's deluxe lifeboat, tried to slip off to Somalia three hundred miles away and ran out of gas. Here's the lifeboat."

One like the Alabama's was on the screen now: an enclosed twenty-eight-foot orange fiberglass boat designed for thirty-four passengers with food and water for ten days.

"No toilet," Dara said. "It doesn't look big enough for that many people. The Bainbridge, the destroyer on the scene, tied onto the lifeboat to keep it from drifting off. Talks began now by satellite phone, between clan elders in the pirates' home port and I think navy brass and a hostage negotiator from the FBI. The elders wanted two million for Captain Phillips. The navy wanted the four pirates to surrender and stand trial, the only agreement they'd consider. The pirate spokesmen said if you don't pay the ransom or try to rescue the captain, this will end in disaster. Words to that effect. The navy took it as a threat to Captain Phillips's life."

Dara was looking at the screen. "This is Sunday. Idris and Harry were watching Friday-why they were grinning. I wanted to ask Harry what he was so happy about, but I didn't get around to it."

Xavier said, "So they got SEALs for the job."

"Three Navy SEALs were dropped on the Bainbridge with sniper rifles and set up undercover on the fantail. The lifeboat on the tow rope was less than a hundred feet away, like point-blank range for snipers. But waves were tossing the lifeboat, making it hard to get a target that wasn't moving. They could barely make out the pirates through the boat's windshield, and it was getting dark. Word came down from the White House. President Obama said, 'If the captain's life is in danger, take action.' The SEALs watched one of the pirates put a gun to Captain Phillips's head and they were given the word. Each fired one shot and the three pirates were taken out."

Xavier said, "Wasn't there four of 'em?"

"Four when they started out," Dara said. "The Bainbridge sent a rubber boat to see if Phillips and the pirates needed anything, food, medicine. The fourth pirate jumped ship, went back to the Bainbridge in the rubber boat and gave himself up."

"Had enough of bein a pirate."

"He was sixteen," Dara said. "I'm not sure how old the captain's son is. On TV the captain's wife, Andrea, sent a message after he was rescued that said 'Your family is saving a chocolate Easter egg for you, unless your son eats it first.'"

"Lemme see do I understand your meaning," Xavier said. "What you sayin, Somali boys don't have chocolate Easter eggs, they get shot?"

Dara didn't answer him. She thought of something else and said, "The Alabama was bringing four thousand tons of corn-soya to malnourished refugees in Somalia while Somali pirates were holding the captain for two million dollars. It was also carrying three hundred and twenty tons of vegetable oil for refugees in Rwanda."

"You have reasons now," Xavier said, "not to feel sorry for the pirates."

"After the three in the lifeboat were killed," Dara said, "bloggers all over the Internet were saying, 'Don't fuck with Americans.'"

"How'd that leave you?"

"It made sense. We have a problem, we don't pay our way out, we go after it." She said, "You know what I've learned since? It's likely the rifles were mounted in gyroscopes and the snipers wore night-vision goggles and took aim through scopes on their rifles. Put red dots on the Somalis and they're off to where Allah gives them all those hot-looking chicks. I thought, Shot by cool guys who know what they're doing. I reacted like everybody else."

She said, "Remember in Eyl I told you what I wanted to do? Get Idris to let us visit a ship he's holding for ransom. Get back to work. Talk only to members of the crew, no pirates."

"I believe I asked why would he let you? You said 'cause CNN's put him in a good mood and you know how to talk to him."

"I told Idris the afternoon we visited," Dara said, "the world must wonder how you treat your hostages. I'll ask the ship's crew and they'll say the Somali pirates are decent," Dara said, "a couple of Saudis among fifteen Filipinos. And the first officer was Saudi. I mentioned it to Idris and Harry and Idris asked me how I knew about the crew. No, first he asked why I picked the Aphrodite with all the ships anchored out there. I said I was curious about it, an LNG tanker. I told him I looked at the crew list to get the names and nationalities and saw two Arabs among all the Filipinos.

"Harry asked if I happened to know what the vessel was carrying. I said, 'I just told you, liquefied natural gas.' Harry said, 'Isn't that highly combustible?'"

"Playin dumb," Xavier said.

"Then Idris told him don't worry, the ship will be gone in a day or two."

"I remember we went aboard," Xavier said, "we're told we could speak to the crew all we wanted, as long as we know Tagalog. Idris havin fun with us. Idris said it wasn't his ship, but he'd come along and watch over us. Said he'd tell the pirates aboard to duck if they saw me aimin the camera at them. Meanwhile you shootin away with your tiny spy pen while Idris is watchin me with the Sony."

Dara brought the video spy camera out of her jacket and clipped it in the breast pocket, the top inch of the pen, its pinhole lens showing. "A pen if you didn't know better."

Xavier said, "I thought it was a pen."

"It is. Anyone who stares at it," Dara said, "I slip it out of the pocket, stop shooting and start taking notes."

"Whyn't you use it at Idris's house?"

"Too dark in there. This one does need a lot of light. Push the button on top and I'm the camera. I did manage to get the two Saudis while they're ducking away from you." She said, "If there's some kind of plot…You know what I mean, to use a highly combustible ship? I don't think Idris would be in on it."

"But you act like you suspect somethin's goin on. Way you start lookin over your shoulder."

"It was later," Dara said. "After I found out Billy's watching the gas ship and knows more about it than we do."