Pirate Alley

CHAPTER EIGHT

ETHIOPIA, NOVEMBER 10

I settled myself into the earth and pulled the stock back into my shoulder, welding my cheek to the stock. The scope picture was right there, clear and crisp. I settled the crosshairs onto the target, a black circle inscribed on the side of a cardboard box with Magic Marker, and snicked off the safety.

The box was only two hundred yards out there. This rifle, a Sako TRG-42, was theoretically capable of putting a bullet into a one-inch circle at that range. No wind. If the shooter was capable of matching theory to practice.

The rifle was chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, which fired a 250-grain very-low-drag bullet at a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet per second. In the warm African air, the bullet remained supersonic for about 1,500 meters; in the hands of an expert, which I wasn’t, this rifle/bullet combination could take down a man-sized target about 80 percent of the time at that distance, penetrating five layers of ballistic material to do it. It had more capability than the 7.62 mm NATO bullet, and less than a .50 caliber Browning machine-gun round. Even though it weighed almost thirteen pounds with the scope, the gun kicked pretty good, so it was no rifle for anyone suffering from flinching.

To maintain expert proficiency with a sniper rifle, you should fire about two thousand rounds a year through your weapon, making every shot count. Needless to say, camping out with the CIA part of the year and doing the usual burglaries, safecracking and bug planting they expected of me the rest of it, when I wasn’t doing paperwork, I didn’t have that kind of time.

Nor had I ever had expert proficiency. At anything. In my whole life.

Still, I liked the rifle. If you were going to murder someone, this Sako was just the tool for the job. You could comfortably hunker down a goodly distance away, like a kilometer, set up with a tripod or bean bags, measure the range with a laser rangefinder, adjust your scope, and have a good chance to assassinate your man when and if he showed. Suck down water, shoot from a shady spot … all in all, this was the rifle for the gentleman sniper, which of course was the category I tried to fit into. No diapers, no camouflage, no lying motionless while insects chewed on your parts. Then, after you had done the dirty deed, you had an excellent chance of getting away clean since the unhappy people who had witnessed their friend’s death were a kilometer or more away. Snipers always worried about the getaway. Being a burglar, I did, too.

The Sako carried a 24-power telescopic sight that had turrets for changing the vertical and horizontal settings. Back when we were younger, my team members and I had shot this rifle and developed a table for the various ranges and possible wind conditions. The crosshairs were adjusted with the turret settings so that the shooter could put the crosshairs precisely where he wanted the bullet. The rest was breath and trigger control. Sounds simple, and at five hundred yards it was no great feat to hit a man-sized target. That’s military-ese for hitting a standing man holding stone stock-still just to make your task easier. Few of them do.

Beyond a thousand meters, which was about as far as a guy with my skill level should attempt a shot at our theoretical suicidal standing man, the rifle required a master’s touch. Sniper rifles defined the phrase “precision instrument.”

Today in Africa I concentrated on holding the crosshairs steady despite the heat mirage. I took a breath, exhaled, then ever so gently squeezed the trigger just the way those marine gunnery sergeants told me to in sniper school. The trigger on our rifle was adjusted for a feather-light two-pound let-off, so she went off while you were still thinking about it.

When I recovered from the recoil and steadied the scope on the target again, I could see the bullet hole. The round-spot target was roughly an inch in diameter, and the hole was about a half inch outside at the 10:30 position. Hmmm.

My second shot was just touching the circle at 3:00.

Good ol’ Number Three. Squeeze ever so gently … and it was maybe an inch below the spot. Like a two-and-a-half-inch group. Sigh.

“Your turn,” I told Travis Clay. He was the best shot we had, and he was no expert either. Still, he could routinely hit targets that I could only dream of whacking. Second best was a former Special Forces sergeant named Elvis Duchene. We called him Erectile Dysfunction, or E.D. He would answer to E.D., but not the other.

When we finished with the short-range stuff, just to verify the scope hadn’t been knocked out of zero, we took boxes to five hundred and a thousand meters and left them there. Then we got serious.

We had two rifles, both of which had been packed in aluminum cases along with ammo, logbooks and data sheets. We played with the range finders, ensured they were working properly and we knew how to use them, then settled down to some serious shooting at a dollar a shot.

I heard a buzzing sound, faint, while I was concentrating on a shot. I tried to ignore it. A good shooter gets in the zone, concentrates on the mechanics, sight picture, trigger squeeze, wind, target movement, all of it. A burglar never gets in the zone. Ever. A burglar must be constantly aware of everything in his universe, sights, sounds, smells, heat, light, searching for the most minute warnings of things not the way they should be. Unfortunately I was a burglar first, shooter second.

I looked up. Couldn’t find the buzzing. Then I saw it. Twelve feet above me. A maple seed, rotating … floating on the breeze … no. Not floating. Flying against the breeze. It dropped down, hovered just two feet in front of me. A drone, weighing less than an ounce. I knew the operators, Wilbur and Orville, were a hundred yards away, watching me on the drone’s sensor. I stuck my tongue out at the thing, then settled in again with the rifle.

I heard the buzzing growing fainter, until it was lost in the African day.

Two shots later I saw another drone. The guys were working with our big night flyer, a Dragonflyer X6. It had six counter-rotating props arranged in three pods, each pod sporting a top and bottom rotor. It measured thirty-six inches from rotor tip to rotor tip and weighed about two pounds. Carried a good digital video camera with a zoom lens and an IR sensor, plus a transmitter.

Wilbur and Orville were making sure their toys were in working order. Sand and dust were the enemies of precision machinery and electronics; in this desert we had plenty of both. The other guys were cleaning weapons and doing routine maintenance on our com gear. When they finished that, there were the usual camp chores.

We gunnies finally knocked off for beer. I had a sore shoulder and tried not to show it. I owed E.D. twelve dollars and Clay eighteen. We didn’t have any money here and would have to settle up later. I wasn’t flustered because I intended to welsh.

“So, E.D., you did this for a living back in the day,” I said. “How many kills did you get with a sniper rifle?”

E.D. was from New Jersey and still had the accent. “None. I wasn’t a sniper.”

“Any long-range shots at Taliban, bomb planters, suiciders…?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t even ask,” Travis Clay said. “I ain’t ever fired a bolt gun at anybody, near, far or in between.”

I contemplated my toes.

“Not even going to bother asking you, Carmellini. I can see it in your face.”

“Three fucking amateurs,” Erectile summed up succinctly.

“Hey,” I said, remembering that I was supposed to be the leader and in charge of morale and all that, “we’re the good guys. Truth, justice and the American way. That’s our edge.”

“Pot, chicks and porno flicks,” E.D. sneered and drained the rest of his beer. He crushed the empty can in his fist and threw it as far downwind as he could. It was still flying through the air when he got his first shot off with his Kimber 1911. Missed. Then the can hit the dirt and he used both hands and kept it skittering along until the slide locked open.

EYL, SOMALIA

Sultan of the Seas crept across the underwater sandbar that the river had formed two miles from the mouth. Once over, the cruise ship moved slowly toward the river mouth. There was a cape to the north that gave the harbor rudimentary shelter and a promontory several hundred feet high to the south, but that was about it. The city sprawled on both sides of the river, which wasn’t much, a trickle of water coming down to the sea from a jagged tear in the caprock. A sandbar essentially choked the river, which had just a small cut to flow through. The fishing boats and pirate skiffs were pulled up on the beaches to the right and left and the sandbar willy-nilly, above the high tide mark.

From the sea the town looked like what it was, a typical third-world tropical shithole made of a few good old buildings and lots of rusted corrugated tin and steel arranged horizontally to provide shelter from the rain and sun and vertically to provide rudimentary privacy.

On the northern cape, Bas Ma, stood the crumbling remains of a colonial fortress built in the era before naval guns fired explosive shells. It was large, low and squat, with dark, gaping gun ports looking out to sea. In places the sand had drifted against the masonry right up to the gun ports.

Most of the fishing boats were on the beaches while their owners and crews went pirating. About a dozen oceangoing freighters and container ships were aground in shallow water north and south of the main channel, right where the pirates put them when they brought them in from the high seas. The crews were ransomed but the ships stayed, abandoned and rusting and looted by the locals, at the mercy of the occasional storm coming in from the sea.

Mustafa al-Said had Captain Arch Penney anchor Sultan off the sandbar at the river’s mouth.

A small boat was pushed down the beach into the surf and came motoring out to the ship. Mustafa told Penney to open the pilot port in the starboard side, and he gave the orders over the handheld. Ten minutes later a large pirate with half his teeth and a scraggly beard walked onto the bridge accompanied by two bodyguards wearing pistol belts and machetes. All three were chewing khat.

Ragnar, for that is who the head dog was, slapped Mustafa on the shoulder and embraced him. They went out on the wing of the bridge and gabbled away excitedly while Arch Penney used binoculars to inspect the various beached ships and look over the town, trying to get a firm grip on himself. Behind him on the deck sat his wife, Marjorie and George from New York.

The pirates had thrown the body of the man Mustafa shot into the sea. The bullet that killed him, Arch had noted, had gouged a serious dent in the bulkhead after it had gone through him. There it was, in the middle of a grotesque little bloodstain. Another one. Arch thought he could smell the blood.

Over on the wing of the bridge Mustafa was issuing orders. Apparently Ragnar didn’t speak English, or if he did, he was keeping quiet about it.

Five minutes passed. Then two pirates marched a passenger into the space and handed Mustafa his passport.

Penney recognized the man: Mike Rosen, from Denver. The talk-show host.

Rosen looked ashen.

“So Meester Ro-sen,” Mustafa said jovially. “You have been sending computer messages to America all the time we try to get this ship to Eyl.”

Rosen said nothing.

Mustafa looked amused. He glanced at the captain, then remarked, “He has given you much publicity, Captain. Your name, your ship, my men, we are famous. All over the world. People see and hear. Television, computers, newspapers, radio—all of it. All because of Ro-sen.”

Rosen tried to control his face.

Mustafa continued. “Meester Ro-sen, you will do one more computer message to your radio station in Deenver. You will tell them you and everyone aboard Sultan are prisoners of Sheikh Ragnar.” Here he gestured grandly at the large happy slob on the wing of the bridge.

“You tell them that Sheikh Ragnar release all of you—everyone—and your ship, if he is paid two hundred millions American dollars. Cash. Old money, not new. If no pay, you all rot in Eyl. You may buy food, but when money runs out, you starve. Two hundred millions American dollars, Meester Ro-sen. Now go, write and send your message.”

Mustafa rattled off something in Somali to the two guards, who hustled Rosen off the bridge.

Mustafa and Ragnar conversed some more. Ragnar walked around, looking at everything, including the two women—especially the two women—and the bloodstains and the various displays and controls on the bridge.

A parade of small boats was coming out to the ship from the beaches. All those boats that Penney thought abandoned—well, here came most of them. Everything that would float. Some were rowed; some had engines; some were towed behind boats with outboards.

Ragnar and Mustafa walked over to where the captain stood. Ragnar spoke and Mustafa translated.

“Sheikh Ragnar says Americans on ships will try to rescue you.”

“Sheikh Ragnar says we take all passengers and crew off this ship.”

“Where are we going?” the captain asked.

Mustafa merely pointed at the fortress on the promontory as he listened to Ragnar’s next pronouncement, given as if Ragnar were one of Mohammed’s other sons.

“Sheikh Ragnar says you may take food from ship. When runs out, you must buy food. He is very generous.”

“Sheikh Ragnar says you tell everyone on ship they must cooperate. Do as they are told. If they do not, they will be instantly shot.”

“Sheikh Ragnar says surrender passports. To get off ship, everyone gives passport. If not, we shoot them.”

“Sheikh Ragnar says, tell everyone.”

Captain Penney reached for the ship’s loudspeaker microphone. He caught his wife’s eyes. She was staring at him. So was Marjorie.

Penney averted his eyes from the women, looked out the window at the brown river and shantytown and abandoned ships grounded in the mud, all under the merciless African sun, keyed the mike and began talking. “This is the captain…”

The captain’s voice on the ship’s loudspeaker system was heard in every compartment, stateroom, crew bunkroom, lounge and workspace. Everyone who heard it was horrified. Still, they had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, so in a way, it was a relief. They were leaving the ship, going to an old fortress. Crew would bring cooking utensils and all the food they could transport. Passengers were to bring all medications, at least one change of clothes, towels from the restrooms and all the toilet paper they could lay hands on. Passengers and crew would surrender their passports as they left the ship. Obey the pirates. Do as they directed.

The captain finished with the comment, “We are in a difficult position. We must do as these people direct because we have no other choice. Please help one another, give all the assistance you can to those who need it, and God will look after us. That is all.”

Benny and Sarah Cohen heard the announcement and sat stunned. “Leave the ship.”

“It will be all right,” Sarah told Benny. “We have each other. All we need to do is trust in God and go forward.”

Benny stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

Suzanne and Irene listened to the announcement as they watched the ragtag flotilla navigate across the harbor through their porthole.

“You heard that bit about the toilet paper,” Suzanne said. “I didn’t like the sound of that.”

“What’s in that old fortress, anyway?”

“It’s where the pirates keep their victims until somebody pays the ransom. I suspect the No-Tell Motel would be ten rungs up the ladder.”

Irene said a dirty word. She had been doing a lot of that lately. By God, Denver was going to look good when she got back there. Her husband was still there, presumably alive, but even he was preferable to the pirates. As she contemplated imprisonment in the old fortress just visible through the porthole, eating whatever, shitting in a hole in the floor, running out of toilet paper, dirty beyond description, Irene vowed to get a divorce when she got home. Pope or no pope, church or no church, she promised herself she would chuck that son of a bitch and live in her own house all by herself and stay home. Home! If she ever got back. She was going to call the lawyer from the first airport she arrived at in the U.S. of A. Tell him to draw up the papers and be damned quick about it. So help me God!

“This is our last cruise,” she told Suzanne.

“I know,” her sister said. “I’m ready for a five-star resort that doesn’t move. Wish I was there now.” A tear leaked down Suzanne’s cheek.

Irene wiped it away with a finger. “We’ll get through this, sis,” she said.

They hugged each other fiercely.

Mohammed Atom heard the announcement and dismissed it. He had a Saudi passport. He would wave that thing in front of these pirates and demand they release him immediately. Ransom! Of all the insults … He was devout, a good Muslim. Ransom, as if he were a slave woman captured in war. He had heard of those days, but they were long past, long past. No one did that stuff anymore.

He certainly didn’t intend to carry all his luggage when he left the ship, but he packed everything. The pirates could come get these suitcases, help him get them to the airport. They certainly weren’t stupid enough to screw with the Saud family, their entourage, their friends.

He was in a foul mood as he carefully folded his clothes and packed them in the suitcases. Really.

Mike Rosen was typing his last e-mail to his radio station when the captain’s announcement came over the loudspeaker. He jotted it down, quoted it in his e-mail. Passengers and crew were to be removed from the ship, held in the old fortress, two hundred million dollars ransom or else the pirates would let the captives starve. He typed it all as quickly as he could, read it while the pirate in the door watched with a bored expression. Corrected all the typos he saw. Changed a sentence around to improve the syntax.

Then he paused for thought. Decided to describe Sheikh Ragnar, big, fat and dirty, with a lot of missing teeth and a scraggly beard. He had no idea if the beard was a religious thing or if the guy was just too damn cheap and lazy to shave. Maybe he thought the scraggly chin hair gave him a unique look, gave him a leg up with the local trollops. Rosen wrote all this down, because he could and his psyche worked that way, and wondered what else he should say.

He had seen the blood and bits of flesh stuck to this and that on the bridge. He added a paragraph about that in the proper place. These pirates were homicidal—everyone ought to know it.

Added several paragraphs about the captain, who he was, how he looked. Rosen recognized the captain’s wife seated on the bridge, and he wrote about her, about what she must feel watching these pirates force her husband to do their bidding. What she must have felt as she watched them murder passengers.

He was bitter and he wrote as fast as he could pound the keys.

He was still going at it when the pirate in the door said something in Somali and gestured with his rifle. The meaning was unmistakable. Wrap it up.

Rosen did, and clicked the SEND icon. The screen blinked, and the e-mail was launched into cyberspace.

Then he signed out. Found out he had spent another $27.89 on Internet charges. His credit card would be charged.

The captain’s announcement gave Heinrich Beck a real problem. He had two kilos of cocaine stuffed in an air-circulation vent high in the wall of his stateroom, behind the metal intake screen. After the ransom was paid—Beck knew the pirates would demand one, although he didn’t know how much—would the passengers be put back aboard the ship? Or not?

Two kilos of cocaine, nearly five pounds of the damn stuff, was a serious investment for Herman Stehle. It was not to be lightly abandoned. If Beck could deliver it in Doha, Stehle would pay him a hundred thousand euros. If he didn’t get it there, well, Stehle would be a tough sell on the innocence defense. The risks were high, of course, which was why there was so much money to be made. Usually it was cops and customs inspectors who could ruin him. Or in Doha, an executioner’s sword. Now he was dealing with pirates who might rob or kill him.

And if for any reason he didn’t deliver the stuff, there was good ol’ Herman Stehle, a friend of all mankind.

Optimism was not one of Beck’s virtues. He knew in his bones that if he left the cocaine hidden in the vent, he would never see the ship again. If he took both packages with him, with all the risk that entailed, he would wind up right back in this stateroom in a week or so.

He decided to hedge his bet. Take one package with him and leave one in the vent. He removed a small piece of metal from the heel of his shoe and used it as a screwdriver on the two screws that held the vent screen in place. Pulled out one package, laid it on the bed and replaced the vent screen.

The backpack, he decided. Nearly two and a half pounds of coke was too much for his pocket, and he certainly didn’t have the materials to break it down into smaller packages.

The pirates weren’t in the business of enforcing drug laws. If they caught him with this stuff, he wasn’t going to be prosecuted—they would merely take the coke and laugh in his face. Cocaine was valuable in Africa, too, although the folks in these climes rarely had the money to buy the stuff. They would happily snort it up their noses, though, if he wasn’t very careful.

His decision made, Heinrich Beck packed his backpack. Several sets of underwear, one shirt, toilet articles, his blood pressure pills and his cash. Some socks and one sweater. His toothbrush. All the toilet paper in the bathroom.

That was it. The rest of his stuff he left right where it was. If fate allowed him to return to this room, the coke would still be in the vent. He didn’t care a whit about the extra clothes or shoes or dinner jacket. He pocketed his wallet and passport, opened the door and went out, making sure it locked behind him. A few other people were already in the passageway.

One of them smiled bravely at Beck, who wasn’t the smiling type. He bared his teeth anyway in what he hoped was a friendly manner and settled the backpack on his shoulders.