Djibouti

CHAPTER TWO

XAVIER POINTED TO THE commercial port off to the west, fuel tanks and cranes standing against a glare of sky. They were loading container ships from a framework of steel girders. Dara saw a cruise ship in port, a navy supply ship at anchor in the stream. Xavier said, "The warships must be out tryin to catch pirates. I told a sailor the other night, 'Go to the bars, man, the pirates all in there spendin the loot.'" Xavier drove out a road past land development and across a causeway to follow the pier straight out to a jog, the pier jutting out on an angle to become a wide concrete dock where pleasure boats took on fuel and provisions.

"You see it yet?"

"Not that sailboat."

They were approaching a motor-sailer tied up on their left. "That's Pegaso," Xavier said. "Sixty-two feet bow to stern, enclosed wheelhouse. She's made for comfort, but she'll move in a wind."

"What is it, a yawl?"

"A ketch. Like a yawl but with a big mizzen aft, stepped forward some. She'll raise four sheets of canvas in a friendly sea, jib to mizzen."

Dara saw a guy with a girl in a bikini on the stern, the man raising a glass to them as the Toyota rolled past. The girl's hair was red, kind of wild.

"The guy's takin his girl," Xavier said, waving to them, "on a trip round the world. Givin her the test. She don't complain or get seasick he'll think about marryin her."

"You're kidding. The girl agreed to it?"

"Guy's wealthy, has his rules."

"I don't believe it."

"They started out in Nice, a cold wind, a mistral, come blowin down from the Alps. He figured, she become seasick he'd drop her off in Monte Carlo, not have to take her all the way round the world. But she made that part of the trip fine. They come down through the Suez, the Red Sea, now they gettin ready for the Indian Ocean."

"He told you that?"

"The man's chatty. Said his boat will run you thirty-five thousand a foot you want one like it. Full of electronics and power, so he don't have to lift nothin."

"How does he make his money?"

"As I understand, it's in the family, goin way back. It don't sound like he works any."

"Not an overnight millionaire."

"The man likes to talk is all. You ask him about his boat, he tells you. They stayin at the Kempinski, Billy Wynn and Helene. He's close to fifty. I'd put Helene at twentysomethin."

"And a knockout."

"It's how she has the ticket to ride. I been runnin into them different places. Had drinks with Mr. Wynn at the hotel, loves champagne. He said call him Billy."

They were coming to their boat now at the end of the dock. "I told you a trawler," Xavier said. "This one all cleaned up and painted pure white with a pretty orange trim. Lookin gay don't mean she ain't seaworthy."

Xavier pulled up even with the trawler, Dara looking past him at the white hull, the orange trim along the gunnels and around the top of the wheelhouse. She said, "You're right, it's kind of cute, isn't it?"

They stepped aboard, moved from the deck to the wheelhouse to go below, from the galley to the head and a double mattress wedged into the bow. Behind her Xavier said, "That's yours. I got a nine-foot hammock gonna hang from the foremast to the wheelhouse, while you sweatin below."

"Or I put the mattress under the hammock and stare at your butt till I fall asleep."

"You can take the hammock you want," Xavier said.

"We'll work it out," Dara said. "We've got a fridge, a shower…kind of a bunk in the galley. We get aboard we'll find places that suit us. How much wine did you get?"

"Five cases of red we don't have to chill."

"What if we have company?"

"Muslims don't drink, but I'll get us another case."

"Store them in the head, we'll look like that German U-boat, Das Boot. This one have a name?"

"Buster."

"You're kidding."

"They call it Buster 30, goin by its length, but chubby. The tank's topped off. Saab marine diesel below, but only fifty-six horsepower at twenty-eight hundred rpms, and that's it. We gonna be out cruisin the gulf at six knots. The boat manager called this a power cruiser."

"How much?"

"Man said he wanted two thousand a week, eight for the month. I showed him your piece with the write-ups and pictures. This a Frenchman leases us the boat. I tell him ordinarily the transportation is loaned to us no charge, since we show his company name in the film. I tell him he can even be standin by the sign says DJIBOUTI MARINE DESIGNS-LUXURY ON THE WATER. I tell the man, 'But you not the Salvation Army, you in business, so I'm payin you,' and put a wad of forty hundred-dollar bills in his hand. Now he's holdin the money, can feel it. He says, 'All right.' Says, 'Okay. You come back here in four weeks.'"

Dara said, "I have to put him in the film?"

"The man's savin you four grand. Course you put him in the film."

She paused, in the galley again. "Who cooks?"

"I take the helm and keep track of where we at, you do the fish."

"Are we forgetting anything?"

"The food serviceman's seein about gettin me a gun."

Dara stared at him, not saying a word.

It got Xavier to smile. "I do whatever you tell me. Still, situations can rise up you never been in before. We out there among the bad boys with AKs and weapons fire rockets. They drinkin, chewin khat, so they feelin good they go hijack a ship. I said to one of 'em I'm talkin to in a club last night, 'You always high you out to sea?' The man say, 'If we not drunk, what are we doin in a skiff and think we can seize an oil tanker?' They on the sauce gettin millions for their ransom notes. It's funny long as they don't have eyes for Buster."

Xavier would drop Dara off at the Kempinski and come back to see the stores put aboard. Get Buster loaded, ready to leave in the morning, 0600. This time, driving past the sailboat, there was no sign of anyone aboard.

"Mercedes came and picked 'em up," Xavier said. "You didn't see it? Billy Wynn has a man drives 'em around, he don't have to mess with traffic. He has a driver, you have me, and a suite at the hotel, price of a deluxe room, 'cause you a famous American filmmaker."

"Do I have to shoot the hotel?"

"It won't hurt you. Use Billy you need a model. I bet a dollar he's waitin for you."

"With his girlfriend?"

"I can't speak for Helene, but I know he's dyin to meet you. I told him what we up to." AT THE DESK SHE said, "Dara Barr. I have a reservation," and turned to look at the Kempinski Palace's five-star Arabian lobby, the fountain outside the entrance, while the desk clerk pressed keys and stared at the screen. Dara told him to look for it under Xavier LeBo, and the Somali's face brightened.

"Yes, of course, Mr. LeBo. You must be his companion."

"I'm his boss," Dara said. "We don't bunk together." She was given the card to open the door and was told her luggage would follow immediately.

The room was nice, sort of French, a settee and a couple of chairs with arms, a carafe of what looked like sherry on the glass table. Dara got a bottle of ice-cold water from the bar compartment and drank it looking out at the swimming pool that seemed to extend into the sea. She saw one, no, two women in lounge chairs, but not together, lying in the African sun and Dara thought, Not today. Check on the cameras before you do anything. She called the desk to say she was still waiting for her luggage. Got "Yes, madam, immediately," and went in the bathroom to wash her hands and fool with her hair for a few minutes, trying to give it some life. The phone rang.

She said, "Yes?" expecting it to be the desk clerk.

"Miss Barr, this is Billy Wynn. I met your cameraman, Xavier LeBo? We got along great talkin about seafarin…I had seen you on YouTube being interviewed and showing clips from your films-I couldn't believe you're here. The only one of yours I've seen the whole thing of is Katrina. I downloaded it and watched it last night. Dara, you nailed that hurricane. Thirty thousand people in New Orleans taken off their roofs?" Telling this with an East Texas sound, not much, but Dara heard it, Billy Wynn delivering his lines in no particular hurry, serious, sure of himself, a playboy-if that was still the word-taking his girlfriend for a ride around the world in his two-million-dollar sailboat.

What he said was, "If you're not too tired, why don't we meet downstairs for a drink?"

"I don't have my luggage," Dara said. "I've been waiting, I called the desk…"

"If I don't have it in your room," Billy said, "in five minutes, I'll owe you a bottle of champagne."

Dara set out two champagne flutes from the bar cabinet and went back to the bathroom to wake up her hair, rubbed it for a while with a towel, gave up and tied a bandana around her natural blond hair, leaving the ends curling out. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Now she slipped on her sunglasses.

That was better.

But why bother if his girlfriend's with him?

And thought, Why not?

He came to the suite with the bottle of champagne and a bellman pushing a luggage rack. Billy Wynn said, "Damn, but I'm a couple minutes late," and held up the champagne.

"I put the glasses out for you," Dara said, not bothering to watch his reaction. She dug a ring of keys from her jeans and turned to the bellman. "You can leave the trunk and cases here on the floor. The hanging bag goes in the bedroom." She went down on one knee to open the locker and got to her feet as she raised the lid and looked down at her cameras and battery packs snugged in foam inserts. She said, "It's all there."

Billy looked over as he opened the champagne: a tall guy with a noticeable belly hanging over his low-slung white shorts.

"You worried it wouldn't be?"

His hair was kind of a mess, long and uncombed, but seemed to go with his rich-beachcomber look.

"I don't worry about it," Dara said. "You met Xavier? He brought a camera and the rest of the equipment."

"I asked him"-Billy coming over to hand Dara a glass of champagne-"'What're your people, Watusis?' I'm six foot and have to look up at him." Billy said, "Why don't we sit down while we visit?"

He paid the bellman and came over to take a chair, Dara already on the settee, an ashtray on the end table next to her. Now she lifted a pack of Virginia Slims from her shirt pocket and lighted one and offered the pack to Billy Wynn.

He shook his head. "I smoke cigars."

"It doesn't bother Helene?" Dara stepping right in.

"I only smoke 'em at sea." He grinned at her. "You been talking to Xavier, haven't you?"

"He mentioned you had your girlfriend along."

"And if she likes sailing as much as I do, it could mean we're compatible. We take it from there."

"Were you ever married?"

"Almost, a couple of times."

"They got seasick?"

He was grinning at her again.

"Let me explain it to you. I spend a good half the year at sea, sailing all over the world. Do I want to leave my good-looking wife at home for that long if she doesn't care to sail? Helene says okay, she'll give it a try."

"What does she do?"

"You mean does she work? Helene's a fashion model. I met her in Paris, she's working a show for one of the houses. I'd watch her come down the runway with her bored-model look, red hair afire, her swarm of freckles subdued…She'd glance in my direction, sitting a couple rows back, and smile."

"She knew who you were."

"No. She told me after, she pretends to see people she knows and gives them a quick smile. Show she's not aloof."

Dara hesitated. She said, "If you're out in your boat half the year…"

"You want to know do I work. My family's had oil leases in Oklahoma for a hundred years. It was my granddad put us in the shipping business, oil tankers going back and forth between Nigeria and East Texas. This trip, I'm looking into doing business with the Saudis, see how they're dealing with the pirates"-grinning now-"and I find out you're making a pirate movie, a documentary, the real stuff. Xavier said you're gonna sail out to the gulf and talk to 'em, get interviews."

"I hope to."

"You think the Somali government's behind them?"

"I doubt it," Dara said. "It's been almost twenty years since they've had a government, one that works. The Islamists in Somalia, the straight-arrow Muslims, say they're against piracy, but who knows."

"They're all Muslims," Billy Wynn said.

"Some more than others," Dara said. "You know the Somalis hijacked a Saudi tanker."

"Months ago, the Sirius Star," Billy said. "The last I heard they're still trying to work out a ransom. I was wondering," he said now, "if it might be an outfit like al Qaeda financing the pirates. Where'd these fishermen get their guns, AK-47s, RPGs…? I've heard they come from Yemen. The government selling weapons is making money while the people go hungry." He said, "Well, the UN's taking serious action, finally. You'll see warships out'n that Gulf of Aden but, man, it's a mean piece of water."

Dara listened, sipping her champagne and smoking her cigarette.

"They catch some of the pirates," Billy said, "what do they do with them? Kenya will take some, throw 'em in prison. But whose laws have they broken? Who tries them?"

"I don't know," Dara said.

He turned on his grin.

"But you can sure get people to talk in your movies. I admire that."

"You like documentaries?"

"I do. Good ones always reveal the truth," Billy said. "I can't wait to hear what the pirates tell you."