Pirate Alley

CHAPTER NINE

The helicopter from Langley flew under low clouds, through a cold, rainy, miserable day, across New Jersey and New York Harbor. It settled to the tarmac at a New York heliport, where Mario Tomazic, director of the CIA, and Jake Grafton got out after thanking the crew. The Justice Department had a black Lincoln Town Car waiting. After creeping for a while over glistening wet Manhattan streets, through the usual heavy traffic, the car deposited the two men at the secure entrance to One St. Andrews Plaza, a building adjacent to Foley Square in lower Manhattan, the building that housed the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

An escort was waiting, a handsome young lawyer in a tailored suit. He took them via elevator to a conference room high in the building, where they were met by an assistant U.S. attorney in his fifties. His suit wasn’t tailored and his tie was crooked. He was at least three weeks past his haircut due date.

After the introductions and handshaking, he got right to it. “The attorney for Omar Ali has requested a plea bargain.”

Grafton and Tomazic both remembered Ali, the computer geek for Sheikh Ragnar that Tommy Carmellini and his team had snatched from a building in Mogadishu, Somalia, three weeks ago.

“I thought he was going to plead not guilty and take his chances,” Tomazic said grumpily. His low opinion of the American justice system’s ability to successfully prosecute terrorists—and pirates—was well known in government circles.

Grafton, ever the pragmatist, asked, “What’s he got to bargain with?”

“His attorney says that he has knowledge of a terrorist plan to assassinate the passengers and crew of Sultan of the Seas,” the government lawyer said.

“The pirates didn’t capture the ship until yesterday. How could he know that?”

“He says Ragnar has been planning the attack on the Sultan for over a month.”

“The question remains, What could he know?” Tomazic said curtly. “The son of a bitch has been locked up in the States for three weeks.”

“He knows that the Shabab plans to murder everyone after Ragnar collects his ransom.” The Shabab was the Islamic extremist organization that had been waging civil war with the Somali government for seventeen years.

“Does he have specifics?”

“His attorney says he does.”

“Oh, poop,” Tomazic said and raised an eyebrow at Grafton. He had learned through the years of their association that Grafton was a competent, levelheaded operator who never panicked. The retired admiral was at his best in high-pressure situations that called for Solomon’s ability to weigh risks and possible outcomes. On the other hand, as Tomazic well knew, Grafton was at heart a gambler, a man willing to stake everything to win everything. In fact, he was the exact opposite of Mario Tomazic, a career army officer who had risen to the top of his profession by avoiding risk with the fervor of a devout Baptist avoiding sin.

Still, the measure of Tomazic’s leadership ability was that he allowed a man like Grafton into his inner circle and listened carefully to his counsel. Mario Tomazic believed in winning. For himself, for his agency, and for America. And Jake Grafton was a winner. He made his own luck. Sometimes, Tomazic knew, the wisest course was to give Grafton his head and let him run while chugging Pepto-Bismol.

“We’ve passed this on to the White House,” the assistant U.S. attorney said. “It was too hot for us.”

Tomazic and Grafton traded glances. They knew precisely what the lawyer meant. If Justice discounted Ali’s tale and the Shabab did indeed attempt to murder the Sultan’s people, they would be pilloried. Yet if Omar Ali sold them a bill of goods, they would be pilloried for being too easily manipulated. In other words, a lose-lose situation.

“We would need details,” Grafton said, “all we can get, and we’ll check out his story. Keep you advised. If he’s telling the truth, we’ll let you know. If he’s peddling bullshit, we’ll let you know that, too.”

“Off the record, have you guys heard anything about a planned mass murder of the Sultan’s people?”

Tomazic’s bureaucratic instincts took over. “That’s something we would have to talk to the White House about. Not here.”

The prosecutor examined their faces. “No, you haven’t. I thought not.”

“So how does this work?” Jake Grafton asked. “We want everything this guy can tell us, and if it turns out to be true, you can do any deal you like. A light sentence, kiss his ass and send him home, or give him asylum and a job sweeping around here at night. Your call. But we can’t evaluate his story until we’ve heard it and asked questions.”

Tomazic nodded his concurrence.

“The White House told us to give you everything we can get.”

“Let’s get at it, then,” Tomazic said and rose from his chair. What he hadn’t told the Justice Department lawyers was that he had already had extensive conversations that morning with the president’s national security adviser and chief of staff. The credibility of Omar Ali’s story would determine whether the United States was going to pay the ransom Ragnar demanded or mount a military mission to rescue the Sultan’s passengers and crew. Tomazic was not about to share those conversations with the lawyers at Foley Square, who didn’t need to know.

Two hours later, when Tomazic and Grafton got into the limo for the ride back to the heliport, they didn’t know a lot more than the prosecutors or the White House had told them. Ali said that he had told a high official in the Shabab about Ragnar’s plans to hijack the cruise ship. The terrorist had wanted to know everything Ali knew, and had a bunch of questions that Ali didn’t have the answers to. All these questions, about where the passengers and crew would be held, how many pirates would be guarding them, when the ransom exchange would take place, led Ali to believe that the Shabab was interested in a lot more than stealing the money from Ragnar. Or sharing a goodly portion of it. Ali thought the Shabab leadership would try for a terror event that would break the shaky truce between the terrorists and pirates, and reignite holy war in Somalia.

Tomazic was in a foul mood. “He doesn’t actually know anything,” he muttered.

Grafton held his tongue.

“There was not one single fact capable of being checked,” Tomazic added. “We don’t even know if he really met this Shabab dude, Feiz al-Darraji, or if he’s making it all up.”

It was still raining. Grafton sat looking out the window at people holding newspapers and umbrellas over their heads, trying to hail taxis.

“So what do you think?” Tomazic asked at last.

“I think Ali really believes what he is saying,” Jake said slowly. “At least, he thinks it is highly probable. He knows we’ll check it out. There is undoubtedly a guy named Feiz al-Darraji. We sure won’t get any answers out of him, if we can find him. If events turn out the way Ali tells us they will, he’ll get a plea deal. If they don’t, he’ll get a long stretch in a federal pen, which is precisely what he’s looking at anyway.”

“He’s just buying a lottery ticket,” Tomazic countered.

“Ali’s not the most sophisticated man I’ve met lately.”

Tomazic mulled it over for several blocks. “The White House meddled in Task Force 151’s efforts,” he said. “Arguably Admiral Tarkington could have forced the pirates to surrender and we’d have all the hostages back if the White House savants had kept their mouths shut and let Tarkington do his job. When the dust settles, Congress is going to have a field day investigating.”

“There’s that,” Grafton said dryly. “So far, the White House staffers haven’t covered themselves with glory.”

Tomazic grunted.

“Ali’s tale will force their hand,” Grafton continued. “They can’t pay the ransom and hope for the best. Shooting Ragnar isn’t going to solve their problem. They are going to have to send in the marines.”

“So what should I tell them?”

“Tell them they have run out of choices. No more hand-wringing and fretting about what the Europeans will think. No more sitting around worrying about all the things that could go wrong. It’s time to suck it up and fight.”

Captain Arch Penney watched from the bridge as a small armada of fishing boats and skiffs was overloaded with people and sent scurrying across the brown water toward the crumbling piers under the old fortress. Several times the boats were so overloaded that they shipped water over the gunwales, but he didn’t see any sink or overturn. A minor miracle, he thought.

Julie went below, presumably to pack a few things. Mustafa stood beside Penney watching and issuing orders on a small handheld radio. Actually, he seemed to have this evolution organized fairly well, because it came off without a lot of aimless milling around.

The key part of the operation was getting enough food ashore to sustain nine hundred people. The food and cooking utensils were being off-loaded onto skiffs through the port pilot’s landing. The chief steward was in charge of that operation and would undoubtedly do his best.

Penney knew damn well it took a lot of food to keep everyone eating for any length of time. Once food was removed from refrigeration, it wouldn’t last. Mustafa’s remark that Ragnar would sell them food had left him a little queasy. Nine hundred Western stomachs couldn’t make it on roasted goat.

Well, he thought, a little belt-tightening wouldn’t do anyone any harm. As long as they had adequate clean water.

There was little he could do about any of it except argue with Mustafa, and he suspected that would not get him far. Still, even Ragnar and Mustafa al-Said must be smart enough to realize that ransoming dead people was not a viable business.

Finally Mustafa herded Arch below to the captain’s cabin. He and Julie didn’t have any time alone. He was ordered to carry their stuff and prodded off for the pilot’s port where everyone was embarking.

It was only after everyone was off the ship that Ragnar and Mustafa sat down with the passports and began trying to evaluate who they had and how much their lives might be worth. Normally Omar Ali would use his computer wired to the Internet to get this information.

Since Ali was now firmly grasped in the bosom of the Americans, they made do with what they had, which was Mike Rosen.

Ensconced in the e-communications lounge, which Rosen swept clean of broken glass and spent brass while the brain trust noodled over the passports, they looked a little befuddled. Mustafa spoke some English but read little of it. Ragnar, Rosen soon decided, was essentially illiterate. He liked looking at the photos in the passports and studying the stamps to see where the owner had been. He quickly tired of it, though, and let Mustafa do the heavy lifting.

Mustafa soon turned to Rosen.

“We use computer,” he said and gestured to the desk unit in the little office.

Rosen logged on. Went to his e-mail account and found he had over a hundred new messages. He opened the first one, but Mustafa had other ideas.

“No, no, no. We search.” He shoved a passport at Mike. “This man. Type in his name. Find out who he is.”

Rosen didn’t hit the Google search key quickly enough, and Mustafa rapped his knuckles with his pistol barrel.

“You do as I say, and when I say, or I don’t need you anymore.”

Mustafa put the barrel of the weapon flush against Rosen’s left temple and pressed lightly.

“You think you only man use computer?”

Well, he had Rosen there. Probably 90 percent of the passengers and crew were computer literate. Mike made an instant decision to do precisely as Mustafa asked. He had no choice and he knew it.

As he typed names into the Google search engine and printed out search results for Mustafa to study, Mike realized that there was a book in his future. He was going to make a real bundle writing a book. Probably as much as Mustafa al-Said would earn in a lifetime of pirating. Maybe more.

Life isn’t fair.

The old fortress was a ruin, Captain Penney found, but the walls and ceilings were remarkably intact. Crumbling in places, but still habitable. If the roof didn’t fall in.

The old cannons that had once stood in the casements were long gone, if they had ever been installed. The people were herded into these rooms, each of which held thirty or so people.

Unfortunately the place was filthy with the trash of prior tenants—apparently the pirates had used the place as a jail for years—and human waste. There were no restrooms, merely rooms with holes in the floor. From the smell, the cisterns under the holes were not empty.

Penney’s officers had taken charge and were getting the place cleaned, using every able-bodied person. A gunpowder storage room near the center of the structure had had a hole hacked in the overhead at some time in the historic past, so they built a fire under the hole and set up a makeshift kitchen.

The chief steward had even remembered to bring battery-operated emergency lanterns, so they would have a little light at night, as long as the batteries lasted. Just now he handed Julie Penney a cup of tea, then gave one to the captain.

A grateful Arch Penney greedily sipped the sweet hot liquid.

“Don’t stint on the food,” Penney told the steward. “Use it before it spoils. Where are you going to get water?”

“There’s a well behind this place. You lower a bucket.”

“How are you going to purify it?”

“Only way we can. Boil it.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll do our best, sir,” the man said. That simple statement and the trust it implied brought a wave of emotion over Penney. Fortunately the light was so bad no one could see his face. His wife, who was holding his hand, sensed how he felt and squeezed his hand.

Most of the passengers acknowledged his presence with a nod or word and let him move on. A few wanted a lot more.

One old lady, whose name Penney didn’t know, gave him a blast. “I want to tell you right now, young man, that this outrage is your fault. Do you know that there are rats here? Right where we are going to sleep! Rats! It’s your fault, and your company’s fault. You people said this cruise was safe. When I get home, I intend to sue your company, and you, for every penny you people have or ever hope to get.”

“Yes, ma’am. That is certainly your right.”

“I know my rights, Captain, and I don’t need you telling me what they are. A damned outrage, that’s what this is. People are going to get sick and catch their death in this squalid building. And it’s all your people’s fault.”

Penney’s wife was tugging at his hand, trying to get him to move. “Don’t forget the pirates, ma’am. You might want to include them in your suit. Except for the rats, lovely accommodations, don’t you think?”

The gray-haired woman was so angry she spluttered. A younger woman said, “Now, Mom, Captain Penney is doing the best he can. So are his officers and crew.”

Penney smiled his thanks at her and let his wife pull him away.

Two of the passengers who heard this exchange, Suzanne and Irene, tried to apologize for their female colleague. Penney waved them off with “Do your best. We’ll all just have to make do the best we can.”

The place was almost dark. Penney sent a man who was cleaning up garbage with a board to tell the steward to get the emergency lanterns distributed and lit.

It was going to be a long night. One man found the captain and told him the crew had made a place for him and his lady. He was tempted to tell him they would sleep with the passengers, but his wife was leading the way in the direction the man indicated, so Penney followed.

At least the place was ventilated. The sea breeze sweeping in the open gun ports smelled of the sea, and it was relatively cool.

Oh, he wished he were out on that sea tonight with a ship full of happy passengers anticipating the adventures of tomorrow.

The e-mail from Mike Rosen went from Denver to Washington in nanoseconds. Within minutes the White House staff had it, as did every media outlet in America and Europe. Switchboards lit up in capitals all over the world.

Again Jake Grafton was summoned, this time to the White House.

He drove himself through the crowded streets. Rain drizzled down. Grafton gave the guard at the White House gate his name and was admitted. A valet was waiting to park his car. He went in and soon found himself in a conference room.

Tomazic motioned him over to sit by him. The president and his right-hand man, Sal Molina, were there, as were the national security adviser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the chief of naval operations, plus a dozen or so staffers and functionaries Jake didn’t recognize. The uniformed professionals nodded at Jake, who stopped to say hello before he dropped into the empty chair beside Tomazic.

A copy of Rosen’s e-mail to his Denver radio station was on the desk in front of Jake. He noticed that everyone had a copy. He was reading his when the lights went down and the briefer began. The capture of Sultan of the Seas was summarized and the current situation explained, quickly and succinctly. The briefer even had an old photo of Sheikh Ragnar that had appeared in a French newspaper several years ago. Some aerial photos of Eyl, and that was about it.

The president and several other people had questions, but most of the people in the room just kept their mouths firmly shut.

The attorney general got the floor when the president nodded at him. He informed them that Omar Ali, a Somali pirate in U.S. custody, had revealed that the Shabab, the Islamic fundamentalist rebel group in Somalia, was, he believed, going to attempt to murder the Sultan’s passengers and crew after the ransom was paid.

The president nodded at Tomazic, who expanded upon Ali’s tale. “He says he talked to a Shabab lieutenant named Feiz al-Darraji. We believe there is such a man, but beyond that, we have at this time no verification for Ali’s story.”

So there it was. Jake and Tomazic sat silently as the big dogs worried the bone.

As Tomazic had predicted eighteen hours before, the politicians were unwilling to discount Ali’s tale. It became the fulcrum on which the U.S. response would turn.

The president finally made a statement. “Lord knows I didn’t want us dragged into the Somali pirate mess, and none of our allies want to get tarred with it either. We can’t solve Somalia’s problems. We can’t go to war against the Shabab, we can’t give troops to the government, we can’t stimulate a moribund agrarian economy, and we can’t feed the whole population. It may sound brutal, but the hard fact is that the Somalis are going to have to work this out for themselves, one way or another.

“That being said, we are going to have to do something to clean up these damned pirates, who are interfering with world trade and endangering the lives of everyone aboard a ship that transits those seas. Thomas Jefferson faced the same problem over two hundred years ago. He acted decisively and made the Mediterranean safe for U.S. merchants and, incidentally, everyone else.

“So, I have decided, we aren’t paying ransom. Nor will we deliver it if someone else comes up with two hundred million dollars in cash. I don’t even know how big a pile that would be. That said, what are our options and your recommendations?”

They argued a bit, but everyone could see that a fight was the only move on the board.

“So who is going to be in charge of this operation?” someone asked.

Glances went around the room. The silence didn’t last long before the CNO said, “The best man is sitting beside Tomazic.”

Every eye in the place swiveled to Jake Grafton.

“If he’s so good, why wasn’t he a four-star?” the national security adviser asked the CNO. His name was Jurgen Schulz, and he was a Harvard PhD on sabbatical, loaning his vast intellect and learning to the government for the greater good of mankind. Schulz had never been a Grafton fan; his antipathy was in his voice.

The CNO gave him a salvo in reply. “We thought other people would be better at kissing politicians’ asses. Grafton was the warrior. Still is.”

The silence that followed that remark was broken by the president. “Mr. Chairman, your thoughts?”

“Grafton.”

The president didn’t hesitate. “Admiral Grafton, your thoughts.”

Jake Grafton opened his mouth, closed it, took a deep breath and spoke. “How much authority would I have?”

“There’s no such thing as carte blanche,” Jurgen Schulz said curtly.

Grafton squared his shoulders, looked the national security adviser right in the eyes. “The pirates would probably have surrendered if you and your staff had had the good sense to keep your mouths shut and let Admiral Tarkington do his job. Now we’re going to need a lot more people and spill some serious blood to fix this mess.”

Schulz turned livid. He was ready to fire a salvo when the president intervened smoothly. “Your point is well taken, Admiral. We expect you to work with the Joint Chiefs and fleet commanders. You’ll need their cooperation. I expect you to listen carefully to whatever professional advice they think important to offer. We’ll give you the responsibility and authority to do the job, and hold you accountable for the results.”

“Yes, sir,” Jake said, the relief evident in his voice. “I would be delighted to undertake this assignment under those conditions.”

The rain had stopped and the sun was burning off the overcast when Jake Grafton got his car and headed out the White House gate for his office at the CIA facility at Langley.

A line of thunderstorms built up to the southwest of our camp in the Ethiopian bush late in the afternoon. They were dark and huge, their spreading anvil tops towering into the stratosphere. I had sentry duty that evening and was in our lookout post a bit away from the camp.

Just before the sun set, I saw movement toward the southwest and steadied the binoculars on it. Some kind of antelope, it looked like, maybe a half dozen. Three miles away, at least.

We hadn’t seen much wildlife while we had been here. Three snakes and a couple of large mice or small rats was pretty much it. I sat watching the antelope graze as the sun slipped below the horizon and cast the earth in shadow. The sun shot the thunderstorm towers with golden fire, at first full blast. As the sky darkened, I could see flashes of lightning low in the storms.

When next I looked, the antelope had disappeared in the gloom that was obscuring the savanna. The last of the sunlight faded from the top of the storms … and their lightning hearts became brighter, flashing almost continuously. They were also, I realized, drifting our way. There wasn’t much wind, just a zephyr out of the southwest, but it was enough.

I walked down the hill in the darkness, refusing to use the flashlight and trying not to trip over a rock or pebble or incongruity.

I said a few words to the guys, who were playing cards, told them the storms were coming and to batten us down, then got a beer and went to my personal tent. I was the only guy who slept alone, but being the exalted, esteemed leader, I figured I deserved the privilege. I hung every piece of gear I had up off the dirt floor. Tied my boots together and put them on a hook where I could get to them easily. Checked that the M-16 was loaded and handy. When I heard the first faint rumble of thunder, I turned off the propane lamp and crawled under my sheet. Arranged my Kimber 1911 .45 under the pillow and settled down for a good rain.

I like rainy nights. We didn’t get a lot of them in Southern California where I grew up, so they were sort of a treat. A sloppy wet kiss from Mom Nature.

The wind blew hard at first, strong continuous blasts that stretched the tent fabric and made it flap furiously. Thunder crashed and rolled. After a few minutes of that, the first big drops splattered on the tent, then came in a torrent. I pulled my army blanket around me. Snug as a bug.

Went to sleep to the sound of the rain. Was sawing some zees when the buzzing of the satellite phone woke me. The thunder was gone and the rain was just a gentle pattering. I grabbed the flashlight. It was about 5:00 A.M. Water was running through the floor of the tent, even though I had personally ditched around it. Yep, I could hear the damn phone buzzing.

I got my boots down, put them on, stuffed my Kimber into my pocket and went out into the rain, which was down to just a drizzle, almost a mist. Slogged the forty feet through the mud to the com tent.

It was Grafton.

“Tommy, sorry to wake you, but there has been a change in plans.”