Djibouti

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

BIN LADEN SAYS IN his speech, we ever quit being nice to the Israelis, clean up our intentions elsewhere, we could be friends. The only reason they ran the suicide flights into the Twin Towers, bin says, was to pay us back for supporting the Jews."

The Pegaso was about two hours out of Djibouti still trailing the gas tanker, Helene at the wheel in a cotton sweater and skimpy shorts, Billy watching Fox news.

"Is bin serious? The Israelis may be heavy hitters the way they do their paybacks, but they're still the good guys. You never see 'em taking any shit from Hamas. Why should they give back land they won fair and square?"

"I wouldn't," Helene said.

"What I don't understand," Billy said, "is how bin's still alive, all the smart bombs we've laid on his hooches."

"I'll bet he's dead," Helene said. "And it's what's his name, al Zawahiri doing the talking. They all sound alike." Helene said, "It's scary how a drone flies to a target in Pakistan, a guy in a trailer in California looks at it on his screen, presses a button while he's having a cup of coffee, and blows up the al Qaeda hideout in Pakistan with a Hellfire missile."

"You have a military-type mind," Billy said, "and a cute butt peeking out of your shorts."

"I could fire one from home," Helene said. "Turn from the range where I'm fixing supper for us and blast one off."

"I swear you learn faster than any girl I ever met. I sensed that when I chose you."

Billy went out on deck with his binoculars to spot drones, the UAVs crossing the sky at a few thousand feet in a glare of sun. "I see one," Billy said, "way up there, taking pictures of us and the gas tanker." Billy talking with the glasses at his face. "It's a Mariner, the navy version of the Reaper, the one belongs to the air force. She can stay up looking around for two days at two hundred and thirty knots packed full of sensors, plenty of fuel and weaponry. Six hardpoints, they call them, your Hellfire missiles. Muff, I'd like you to commit that to your memory."

"Six hardpoints," Helene said. "Got it, Chief."

It was fun sounding military. "Aye, aye, sir." Billy would drop into the cockpit and she'd say, "Captain on the bridge," and get him grinning at her.

"The drone can read a license plate from two miles away," Billy said. "What else you want to know?"

"Why are you grouchy?"

"I'm not grouchy. I'm telling about the MQ-9, a bust-ass hunter-killer and its firepower. We're getting to the point we won't need fighters or bombers no more, we send in the drones. I wonder what Joe Foss would think of that. Joe shot down twenty-six Zekes over the Solomons in his Grumman Wildcat and later on became governor of South Dakota. Major Bing Bang Bong flying a P38 shot down forty during his tour and gave his life testing a jet. Another ace, Pappy Boyington, a Sioux Indian, shot down his twenty-sixth Zeke over Rabaul. Later that same day some Nip sent Pappy down in flames." Billy said, "I forgot the name of the navy pilot in a Dauntless crashed his plane into a Jap cruiser after he'd been hit. Another hero giving his life for his country. All Medal of Honor winners."

Helene said, "Can you imagine doing something like that?"

"I'd love to see what it's like," Billy said.

He had his glasses on Aphrodite now, on her tall decks aft, the gas ship moping along toward Djibouti.

"We're gonna waste time wanting proof the ship's a bogey till it blows up a port in the U.S."

"But you aren't absolutely sure," Helene said, "are you?"

"If I believe that ship's gonna blow up at an appointed hour, and I see evidence of it, that's good enough for me. You might ask, 'You mean evidence you can prove?' Maybe not. I don't believe in wasting time on the horns of dilemmas, I go with my gut."

Billy paused and Helene said, "Yeah…?"

"My gut told me this morning the LNG tanker's gonna blow up right here. It's as good a place as any east-west-wise. Al Zawahiri makes a bullshit statement about al Qaeda drawing the line to cut us off. What he doesn't know hiding out in the hills, Djib's gonna get bigger, it's in the plans to become a major port in the east-west passage. Like Singapore. And if I'm convinced it's gonna blow up," Billy said, "I've got to do something about it, don't I?"

Beginning to sound like Sterling Hayden doing Jack D. Ripper again. No Communist plot or precious bodily fluids to deal with this time, but the destruction of a city.

He was serious.

Helene said, "Have you any idea what you'll do, Skipper?"

"Warn Harbor Security of the clear and present danger," Billy said. "Do that first, while the LNG tanker's still out in the Gulf of Tadjoura. If they're too dumb or set in their ways to take me seriously…"

Helene said, "Yeah…?"

"I'll address the risk of the ship directly. I'm thinking of doing it anyway. Hire a gook and send him out there in a skiff with a bullhorn. He tells them in Tagalog, English and Arabic to get your ass off the ship before she blows."

"They have to swim for it?" Helene said.

"Swim or get in the lifeboat. They got one like the Alabama the captain was in and snipers shot the three wogs. I hear they're making a movie about that. Some action picture, three Mohammedans are shot. The al Qaedas still aboard the gas ship want to die for bin, go ahead."

"That is so cool," Helene said. "You save all the gooks and the ship too."

"I don't save the ship," Billy said. "Once the decks are clear, I'll put a six-hundred-caliber Nitro Express round in her sweet spot and blow her up myself. Before, you understand, they can use it on Djib."

"That is so fucking smart of you."

"It's tricky, though, messing with liquid gas all frozen, twenty-seven hundred million cubic feet of natural gas aboard. You'll forget this if I tell you, but just one cubic meter-that's three of the twenty-seven hundred million-spill it, you got twelve thousand four hundred cubic meters of a flammable gas-air mix."

"You sound like you're reading it."

"I memorized it. You might want to look at it. My red notebook."

"I will when I have time, Skipper."

"If, say, nine, ten percent of the natural gas leaks out and spills in the water it will boil to gas in about five minutes. Because the water is at least two hundred twenty-eight degrees hotter than the frozen gas. It comes out and flows in a vaporous cloud close to the water until I hit it with a high-explosive Nitro Express round. It goes up, burning itself back to the ship, fireballs shooting up. That's a hundred times bigger than the Hindenburg disaster. Remember I showed you that news footage?"

"The German zeppelin," Helene said. "People running out of the fire…"

"Listen. The heat from this fireball, this inferno can cause third-degree burns and start fires miles away."

"Wow, really?"

"That's why I have to do it ten, twelve miles from Djib. But we have to be in position," Billy said, "where I can take the shots and still get us out of there in a hurry."

Helene said, "We might not get away fast enough?"

Billy said, "I'll make sure we do."

"We stay out here till you blow it up?"

Billy said, "I wish we could, Muff, but I've got to go to Djib to set up where the gas ship anchors. Then later on you can help me write the book, Ship Killer, that's the title. Under it: How We Lit or Lighted the World's Largest Natural Gas Conflagration. Something like that."

"I'll call the Kempinski."

"Or we tie up at the pier and stay aboard."

"We'll get a suite so you can walk around and think, and make calls."

Billy said, "You mean so you can see Dara and sound like a girl for a change."

"It's scary," Helene said, "the way you read my mind." She thought she'd better add, "But I was thinking of you, you need room to roam around in."

"That's good," Billy said. "'Room to roam.'"

"Around in," Helene said. THEY WERE IN BILLY'S suite, Helene and Dara having martinis with anchovy olives, talking, catching up. Billy was off to see people, Xavier went to see the police to tell what he knew about Jama.

"Billy started calling me Muffin," Helene said. "I don't know why. A person's face is either a bird, a horse or a muffin, right? What am I?"

"A bird."

"See, he didn't start with Muff. I was Muffin till he shortened it to Muff, but I don't think it has anything to do with mine. He's smoking a cigar and gets the urge to go down on me?"

"Disturbs your reading?"

"I could be doing the wash. Especially doing the wash and I'm a mess. My crotch smells like a fifty-dollar Havana."

"It must turn him on."

"Yesterday, he was General Jack D. Ripper again, but no precious bodily fluids, he was talking about drones, nobody has to fly the planes anymore. Grouched about that for a while. I think he wants to be a hero. Loves to talk about guys doing heroic things in the war. I asked Billy if he could imagine doing it and he said, 'I'd like to see what it's like.' What does that mean?"

"I'm guessing," Dara said. "He'd like to be known as a war hero who got the Medal of Honor posthumously without dying."

"Or," Helene said, "he wants to get the medal for making a phone call that saves some important guy's life. But now he's talking about doing it. Blow up the gas ship and get away before the gas fire catches up with us. He says he isn't worried."

"But you are."

"He says he may get a cigarette boat for the job, a Donzi."

"If you'd rather not go with him," Dara said, "don't."

"We're shipmates, and shipmates stand together," Helene said. "He's the captain and I'm the fucking crew. 'Bogey off the port bow, Skipper.' When I'm on watch. You don't go down to the galley, you lay below."

"It sounds like fun," Dara said.

"He's serious about it."

Dara said, "With a six-hundred-caliber rifle. You think he knows what he's doing?"

"He sure sounds like it."

"You two must be getting along."

"He loves it when I aye-aye him."

Helene sipped her martini. Put an olive in her mouth, took another sip and bit into the olive.

"God, this is good after champagne every day. I told you it's all he has?"

"But you don't have to drink it."

"My body requires alcohol to get through this."

"It must be a fine line," Dara said, "between keeping up your appeal and staying high enough to see it through."

"It gets tricky," Helene said. "I have to watch I don't fall overboard." IDRIS STOPPED BY THE hotel in the afternoon, smiling at Dara and Helene having their party.

"The turn of events does not give you pause?"

Dara said, "What turn of events?"

"Jama being loose," Idris said. "You not concerned about him?"

"Xavier's turning it over to the police," Dara said, "giving them Jama's real name. He's their case now."

"So we don't worry about him, good," Idris said. "I'm going to Paris for a few days to catch my breath. Come back and take up piracy again. I miss boarding ships."

Dara said, "If I had the energy I'd be right behind you, make you a movie star."

Idris said, "Yes, thank you," accepting the martini Helene offered him. He sipped it and closed his eyes knowing he'd have another one. Dara lighted a cigarette and gave it to him and he said, "Why do I want to go to heaven? I'm experiencing my reward here."

"I hate to tell you," Helene said, "but it's been a while since we were virgins."

"You are women of the world, and we don't see many of that kind here." Idris said, "Am I crazy to go to the gulf? More than thirty warships there bumping into each other? Over one hundred freedom fighters"-giving Dara a nod-"have been put in jail in Kenya. Most of them waiting for trial and go to prison for ten years. But," Idris said, "I believe pirating is still a good business. At least for someone knows what he's doing. I believe when I get boats with motors of a high power, I will make another fortune."

Dara said, "What's Harry doing?"

"He's drinking, but not too much," Idris said, "and taking methamphetamines. It makes him feel like Superman. He makes sudden moves. Turns holding his pistol."

"Riding on tweek," Helene said.

"He drums on chair arms," Idris said, "to music in his head."

"Does he have a little dance step?"

"He tells me with all the details of shooting a tiger in Bengal, from his seat on an elephant. He tells me he has local blokes, like they're his beaters, lookin for Jama. Scare him out of where he's hiding. Harry tells me he'll shoot the bothersome bugger and that will be the bloody end of it."

"He'll fuck up," Helene said.

"He can't do it alone," Dara said.

"He tells me he has help."

"They'd better be armed and dangerous."

"Two leftover Somalis," Idris said, "guards on the trip from Eyl. They're related to the four he killed to escape. They both want to shoot Jama."

Dara said, "Or is he James now?"