Djibouti

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

BILLY KEPT PEGASO TRAILING the gas ship by a mile, following its lights at night, the thousand-foot tanker making ten knots all day and through the night. The wind would stir up behind Pegaso and Billy would tack to hold the distance between them, Billy searching his memory for the time an LNG accident happened in the U.S. A major disaster. He believed it was in Cleveland.

Helene, with him in the cockpit, sat perched in a tall director's chair, so far this morning wearing shorts and a T-shirt. She was looking at an issue of Architectural Digest from two years ago that featured the pages of Billy Wynn's home on Galveston Island overlooking miles of gasworks. The spread opened with: "Billy Wynn, the whirlwind Texas entrepreneur with countless commercial irons in the fire-" Helene stopped.

"I thought you were an oil man."

"Basically," Billy said. "I keep my hand in for the family, bunch of old farts-God bless 'em-still living in the past. My decorator, Anne Bonfiglio, calls the house Texas Tudor. Has a bowling alley and two swimming pools, one inside." Billy said, "How come it took you so long to find the magazine?"

"I don't usually look at Architectural Digest unless I'm waiting like to get a Pap smear, at a doctor's office. I didn't have to find it, you've got at least thirty copies."

Billy said, "The most destructive LNG accident I think was at Cleveland in '44. Look it up for me, okay? Blow up an LNG tanker I imagine would be a terrorist's wet dream."

Helene opened her notebook and turned pages, looking at headings over transcripts and handwritten notes. MISSING SHIP LOCATED, only one page. HOW RANSOM IS DIVIDED, three pages.

Billy was watching the gas ship again, dead ahead, not more than a mile. A man on the fantail was looking at Billy through binoculars.

DETAINEE WENT FROM GITMO TO AL QAEDA, three pages.

Billy picked up his glasses and was eye to eye with the man on the fantail. "He's a Mohammedan," Billy said.