Pirate Alley

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mike Rosen stayed aboard Sultan in his own cabin. An armed pirate sat in the passageway outside his door day and night. Food was delivered occasionally, the toilet still worked, water trickled from the sink taps and showerhead, and the air-conditioning was out. Fortunately Rosen had a balcony and French door or he would have suffocated. As it was, he spent most of his time sitting on the balcony scribbling in a notebook.

He intended to sell a book about this adventure for serious money, just as soon as he got home. He was writing it now. Even added a paragraph to an e-mail yesterday telling the people at the radio station to call his agent and get him started calling New York publishers.

Strike while the wound is still bleeding.

Yesterday that prick al-Said had come for him in the afternoon and accompanied him to the e-com center, where his computer now resided on an apparently permanent basis. He had been given a list of names of passengers and crew and had to type every one of them into the computer and fire it into cyberspace.

Of course, he also had to print out all the e-mails that had accumulated in his account. A few were private messages from his ex-wives, an occasional one from his kid. The radio station was forwarding a lot of material to him, mostly news articles. And the station’s executives had oodles of questions and advice. When the session was over, Mustafa al-Said took with him all the private e-mails and news stories, plus the dirty jokes Rosen’s family and friends forwarded and the spam that had trickled past the filter, all of it, every single piece of paper. The guard brought Rosen back to his cabin. Perhaps al-Said wanted to show the stuff to his boss, Ragnar, who reportedly couldn’t read any language on earth, nor speak English.

Obviously somebody in Eyl was reading the e-mails and translating for the pirates. Rosen wondered who.

He looked up from his notebook at the city and harbor and the coast of Africa stretching away to the south. The head of the promontory and the old fort blocked the view northward.

Rosen squinted at the fortress, shading his eyes to see better, but it didn’t help. He couldn’t see a soul at this distance. He sighed and went back to the notebook.

Someone pounded on his door.

He tossed the notebook aside—he didn’t want Mustafa to steal it—and went to the door. Al-Said and the guard motioned him out. He went.

There was a man waiting for them in the e-com center, an overweight white man with short sandy hair and wearing a linen sport coat over a dirty white sport shirt. Sandals on his feet. He was sitting in one of the chairs and helping himself to a glass of clear liquid from a large bottle, which sat on the desk in front of him. A gin bottle. He reminded Rosen of Sydney Greenstreet in Casablanca, which was probably a slander on Greenstreet.

He glanced at Rosen, took a healthy sip of straight gin, then stuck out his hand and said, “Geoff Noon.” British accent.

Rosen ignored the proffered hand. “Mike Rosen.”

Noon withdrew his hand and addressed the gin. “Well, well.”

Rosen dropped into the chair in front of his laptop.

Noon eased himself in his chair, finished the gin and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Young al-Said here wants me to do a bit of translating. Hope you don’t mind.”

“You from around here?”

“Airport manager. They need someone who speaks English, international language of aviation and all that rot, and who can help them order little luxuries from here and there … all for hard currency, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Ten years this past June I’ve been here. Seen it all. Revolution, murder, piracy, what have you. Still, a chap could do worse.”

Rosen didn’t see how, but he held his tongue.

“Don’t know a thing about computers,” Noon continued, “but I can read English. Rare skill around here. You type it and I’ll read it, then you can send it on its merry way to a waiting world.”

“I see.”

Noon paused to pour himself another little tot of gin. Al-Said and the guard watched impassively.

“So, this fellow tells me Ragnar wants you to send a message to the world, especially the ship owner, telling them that he wants two hundred million American dollars. Cash.”

“Already did that.”

“Deadline is next week. This day next week, at twelve o’clock.”

“High noon?”

“Well, had to pick something, didn’t he? I suggested a week. High noon. You remember the movie? Poetic. That’s what my friends and colleagues in aviation call me. High Noon.”

“I’ll call you asshole.”

Noon flipped his fingers. “Start typing. Let’s see how you do.”

“Deadline is unusual for a pirate, isn’t it? I thought they just kept their victims until the ransom was paid, no matter how long it took.”

“That’s the hoary, age-old custom, tried and true, yes. The men and old women were enslaved, the young women went to harems. But in our new modern age Ragnar dares to be different. He has no facilities to hold almost nine hundred people indefinitely. They’ll start to get diseased, die on him from this and that; he has other uses for his men.”

“Right.”

“It’s the return on capital equation. He has a lot of assets tied up in this.”

“Capitalism is a wonderful thing.”

“Makes the world go round.”

Rosen got on line and called up his e-mail account. In the six hours since he was online he had received forty-seven e-mails. He ignored them all and addressed a new one to the manager of the station. Wrote out Noon’s demands.

Noon read over his shoulder. When he had it down, Rosen asked, “So what happens if they don’t pay by the deadline? What’s Ragnar’s threat?”

“Oh, death, of course. He’ll kill them all.”

“I’m one of them.”

“Sorry about that, old man. But we must keep life in perspective. No one lives forever.” Noon pointed at the keyboard. “Type it out.”

“He can’t be serious!”

Noon shrugged. “Humor is not one of his virtues. He has mined the fortress. If anyone attacks him or attempts to rescue the prisoners, he will kill them all with explosives. Blow it up, bury them under the rubble.”

“How do you stand yourself, you fat slob?”

“I live here, Mr. Rosen. I act as a translator occasionally for any of the locals who need one because I have to go along to get along. I don’t work for Sheikh Ragnar. His business is his business.”

“I’ll bet he greases your filthy palm with a little bit of blood money from time to time. Is that it?”

“Even rats have to eat, Mr. Rosen. Now write it out and I’ll read it to see if you are an honest scribe. Then you can send it.”

Rosen did as he was told. Noon poured himself another drink.

When that e-mail was on its way, Rosen settled back to read his incoming mail. He printed each one out after he read it. Nice notes from both exes. A long one from his station manager posing a dozen questions, copies of wire service stories on the Sultan capture, the headlines of which Rosen only skimmed, and a request from his producer to somehow record some of the conversations with the pirates. That brought a sneer to his lips. A joke from a fan who apparently didn’t know or care that he was a pirate captive: It was raunchy but not funny. Offers to enlarge his penis, insulate his house, buy Viagra, get a break on membership from a local singles Web site and help a Nigerian banker move money from an abandoned trust account into the States. That was the crop. As the e-mails scrolled off the printer he passed them to Noon, who read each one with interest while he sipped gin.

“You should try this Viagra supplier,” High Noon said finally. “They send me mine.”

“I’ll keep that endorsement in mind.”

Noon handed the pile of papers to al-Said and hoisted himself from his chair. He stuffed the big gin bottle in his side pocket. He had another one sagging the pocket on the other side, to balance him out, so to speak.

“I see the ship’s bar is still open,” Rosen said acidly.

“I didn’t think the cruise line would mind if I helped myself,” Noon said, adjusting his coat on his rotund frame. “Be a shame to waste it. The misfortunes of others are sad, yet life does go on.” He walked out, gin bottles and all, and al-Said followed.

The pirate guard motioned with his rifle for Rosen to get up. He followed the American back to his stateroom. Some locals were mining one of the ship’s storerooms and staggering along the passageway with their loot. They ignored him. At his stateroom the pirate pulled the door firmly shut after he went in.

EYL, SOMALIA

We were sitting on a small rise about a mile west of the Eyl airport. The hillock we were on only rose about fifteen feet above the plain, just enough to allow us to see over the brush to the two old hangars and a small building that looked as if it were sided with tin. That was probably the terminal.

We had the pickups parked behind the hill, out of sight of anyone there. Waist-high brush ran off in every direction. Behind us were the mountains, stark eroded desert mountains. Here on the coastal plain, the land was flat, but not rolling. The place reminded me of the Mojave, or perhaps Baja California.

From where I sat, using binoculars, I could see that there was some kind of draw between us and the flat place where they put the strip. Didn’t look as if they did a lot of earthmoving before they paved it. If it was paved. I assume so. Amazingly enough, this was Eyl International. Or Eyl Intergalactic, if aliens ever decide to visit.

Using a tripod to hold the 12-power binoculars, I slowly scanned everything in sight. After working behind us and to both sides, I began really examining the airport. Saw some people in a small tower near the terminal. No glass, just a pole tower maybe twenty feet high with a tin roof to shed sun and rain. I could just make out three figures … and a machine gun on a mount.

A pickup parked nearby with a machine gun in the bed. A technical. No, actually two of them. And a car. Maybe a sedan. No other vehicles. No signs of life around the hangars.

As I watched I became aware of a piston engine drone. Very faint at first, then growing gently in volume, a deep sound. Pleasant. Radial engines, sounded like, coming from the south.

I took the binoculars off the tripod and scanned the sky. Spotted it. A speck with wings. Low. I used the glasses.

“DC-3, I think,” I muttered to E.D., who was lying beside me smoking, scanning with his own binoculars.

In about a minute I was sure. I could see it clearly now, dancing in the binoculars. Yep. An old DC-3.

On final approach. It settled and landed on the runway, which was oriented north and south. Seemed like it would always have a crosswind, but I suppose that was the flattest layout, so that was where they put it. The plane eventually came to a stop and turned around on the north end of the runway, then taxied back to the terminal, where it parked and cut its engines.

The runway was a couple of miles from town, according to my satellite photos. The photos noted they had about five thousand feet of asphalt. Probably soft and crumbling, but sufficient for old prop jobs like the Douglas, which Grafton said came and went from Mombasa to Eyl, with a stop at Mogadishu, twice a week and return.

Air service.

I studied the photos, which had been annotated with contour maps. Looked like the airport was maybe four hundred feet above sea level. The dirt road into town wound down a canyon to the plain by the sea. If we got over there on the rim, we should be able to see the town and harbor—and the old fortress.

“So what do you want to do?” E.D. asked.

“Wait until dark, then I need to go over there, check out the airport. See who they got guarding the thing.”

“That tower.”

“Yeah. Machine-gun nest. There have got to be a few more, I’m thinking.”

“We’re sorta hanging it out here if those guys do any kind of patrols,” E.D. pointed out.

“See any tire tracks?”

“Not around here.”

“This will do for a few days,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. I glanced at my watch. Two hours till sunset, then another half hour to true darkness.

“What’s for dinner?” I asked.

“Chef’s Special, dude. MREs with Tabasco sauce. I get the applesauce.”

“Better set up camp and get grub cooked. No lights after dark.”

“Got it.” E.D. arose and walked down the hill toward the pickups.

I noticed an old stick lying about five feet in front of me, at the foot of a bush. The reason I noticed it was because it was straight as an arrow. I got it, played with it a bit, then got out my knife and scraped off the bark on the bottom six inches. Then I put the thing down on a rock and cut off that shaved half foot. Whittled on it a bit, until it was smooth and straight. Then I put it in my pocket.

I couldn’t see who got out of the old airliner or who got in. The door was hidden by the plane’s fuselage. Forty-seven minutes after it landed, the engines started with clouds of blue smoke; then it taxied out and took off. Did a turn toward the town, away from us, and headed off to the south.

I lay in the dirt with my binoculars listening to the music of the engines fade away to nothing.

After a while Travis brought me a beer from the cooler. Although the ice in the cooler had melted during the afternoon, the beer was still cool and tasty.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Rosen’s e-mail containing Ragnar’s ultimatum arrived on Jake Grafton’s desk about an hour after he sent it. It had gone from the radio station to the FBI, then to the White House and Pentagon, and finally from the Pentagon to the CIA and Grafton. It hadn’t cooled off on the way.

Grafton read it once, then put it facedown on the desk and went back to studying the satellite images spread on the credenza behind him. Three photo interpreters were seated around the credenza, which was just a large table, with a high-magnification, dual-lens device, a computer and a monitor sitting on it. Every now and then one of the experts slid another photo into the low-tech gadget and studied it. The computer was their primary tool, however. Software programs allowed them to take satellite images apart and analyze them. These were young people, a man and two women, CIA staffers. They studied satellite images for a living and were damned good at it.

A half hour after the e-mail arrived, Grafton received a telephone call from Sal Molina.

“We need a briefing,” Molina said.

“Who is we?”

“Me and the Schulz.”

“Got all my stuff over here. You want me to bring it over, or you want to come visit over here?”

“See you in an hour.”

Actually, it was closer to two before Sal and Schulz and another man came through the door. Sal was in shirtsleeves, wearing a jacket due to the weather. The national security adviser was togged out in academic tweeds and sported a bow tie, which emphasized the swell of his paunch.

Sal introduced the third man to Jake. The British ambassador, Sir Ronald Dahl. He was lean and had a little mustache that stopped halfway to his nose, with gray spots in his brown hair at the temples. Jake thought he was the kind of diplomat who would look snappy in striped trousers, but he wasn’t wearing them. Instead he was in a perfectly fitted dark brown suit with tiny blue pinstripes that must have set him back a couple of thousand pounds. White shirt with cufflinks. His tie was yellow, but not gaudy. Silk, undoubtedly.

“I never met a knight before,” Jake said as he waved them into chairs.

“You’ll be underwhelmed, I’m sure,” Dahl said. He flashed a tiny grin. Very upper-class.

Jake motioned for the imagery experts to leave. “You guys go get coffee or pop or something. See you in a while.”

“You’ve seen the latest, I guess,” Sal said.

“The ultimatum? Pay or we kill them all?”

“Yeah. That one,” Schulz said.

Jake picked it up from the desk and fluttered it.

“How will they blow up that old fort?”

“Fertilizer—ammonium nitrate. They captured a ship full of it two months ago. The crew was ransomed, but the ship is sitting on a sandbar just under the fort. Old tramp, rusted. The owner decided to let the insurance company buy it, and they left it right there in the mud. The pirates could have off-loaded some AN, stuffed it in the bottom of the fort, made a bomb out of it.” He tossed a couple of satellite images at the two guests.

“Will that work?” Schulz asked as he examined the first one.

“It’ll go boom,” Jake answered. “If they did it right. It’s not TNT or plastique, but a couple hundred tons or so of the stuff laced with diesel fuel, set off with a proper detonator, will make a hell of a bang. They’ll hear it in Cairo and Mecca.”

“What about his deadline?”

“What about it?”

“Can we get those people outta there by then?” Schulz demanded.

Grafton eyed the three of them. “We’ll do the best we can. How we doing for money?”

Sir Ronald spoke. “The cruise line is insured by Lloyd’s. They have decided to pay the ransom. They are scrambling to assemble the cash. They can fly it to the Middle East as early as tomorrow.”

“Has there been any announcement about Lloyd’s being willing to pay?” Jake asked.

“That’s what we’re here to talk to you about. The families are raising hell and pledging money to ransom their loved ones. It’s all over the press.”

Jake twiddled the pencil between his fingers, then tossed it on the desk. “I suggest you announce that Lloyd’s has decided to post the money, but delivery methods are still under discussion. Have someone figure out how much all that cash weighs, how bulky it is. Make a big deal about it. Anyone who wants to contribute money to buy out his family members should write a check to Lloyd’s. We’ll make sure Ragnar gets the money.”

“Really?” Dahl inspected Grafton’s face. “You Americans are going to do a military assault to get those people out, aren’t you?”

“That’s a secret,” Jake replied.

The British ambassador said a dirty word.

Sal Molina threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. Treasury is printing bills. This is a couple of tons of paper, by the way. The lawyers still don’t know if it will be real money or not. The money is just a stage prop for Jake. The president said no ransom, although if the British wish to provide tons of real currency, we can probably deliver it.”

Now Schulz said a dirty word. Two, actually.

Jake waved away the subject of filthy lucre. “MI-6 says Feiz al-Darraji, the Shabab general, is dead,” he said. “Murdered by Ragnar. They can’t confirm that, but they think it’s solid.”

“So?”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.”

“One less terrorist in the world is always a good thing,” Jurgen Schulz intoned.

“Righto,” said the ambassador. “Is there anything I can pass on to my government?”

Grafton stood. “Sir, we’ll do our very best to get every man, woman and child who was aboard Sultan out alive. Whatever it takes.”

Schulz popped up and walked out. Sir Ronald shook Jake’s hand, muttered, “Good luck,” and followed him.

When the door was closed and Sal and Jake were alone, he said, “Okay, you pissed Schulz off. Now, what the hell are your plans? What do I tell the president?”

“Sit down and I’ll brief you.” Grafton reached for a map of Eyl.

Thirty minutes later Schulz scratched his head and eyed the admiral. “Think it’ll work?”

“It should. The only question is how many Sultan people or marines get killed.”

“I know you’ll do your best.”

“Every man in uniform will. Tell the president that.”

“Okay,” Molina said.

“Tell me about the money.”

Molina took a bill from his pocket and passed it to Grafton. A century.

Grafton rubbed it between his fingers, held it up to the light, then put it on his desk and used a magnifying glass to study it. He looked at the serial number, the little curlicues, all of it.

Finally he said, “Looks real to me as if I’d know.”

“Oh, it’s real as a heart attack. Right paper, ink, plates, secret marks, consecutive serial numbers, everything. Except I am named as treasurer of the United States, and I signed my name on it.”

Grafton used the glass to look again. There it was. Sal Molina. He passed it back to the president’s man. “Congratulations on the promotion. I hope the pirates don’t have an expert inspect the bills. Why did the flaw have to be so obvious?”

“The treasury secretary had a conniption fit. This was the best I could do.”

“Okay.”

EYL, SOMALIA

High Noon drove an ancient Chevrolet station wagon. The seats were tattered, two windows were missing, and a cloud of blue smoke followed it everywhere. He parked it beside the airport terminal in the last of the daylight and managed to extricate himself from the vehicle.

He adjusted the gin bottles in his coat pockets, then walked unsteadily into the terminal. To his amazement, he found nine men and a woman sitting there on silver aluminum cases. Lots of them.

One of the men approached him. “Mr. Noon?”

“That’s right. Who are you?”

“We’re newsmen. Some of these men are photographers, and this is our equipment.”

Noon took off his coat and arranged it on the back of the chair behind the only desk. Then he sat in the chair and looked at them. It was obvious who the photographers were. They wore jeans and had unkempt hair, several had tattoos, and one wore a muscle T-shirt. The well-dressed ones looked like they got their clothes from some sort of safari outfitter and were on their way to assassinate elephants.

The man in front of him wore a button-up shirt and had a colorful handkerchief wrapped around his neck and arranged just so. A full head of curly hair and a huge mustache. He said his name as if Noon should recognize it. Ricardo Something.

Noon just nodded. Settled himself comfortably in his chair and scrutinized the woman. She was slim, wore her hair in some kind of flip and was striking. Not beautiful, but striking. She held his eyes. “I am Sophia Donatelli,” she said in English, “with Mediaset.” Mediaset was, Noon knew, an Italian television network.

“We need transport to the hotel in town,” the man standing in front of him said. “For us and all our gear. And we need the services of translators. Three, at least. And if someone could arrange an introduction to this pirate, Ragnar? You know him?”

“You have been misinformed, sir. Eyl doesn’t have a hotel.”

“Well, where do people stay when they visit?”

“Don’t get many visitors around here since we are infested with pirates and Shabab holy warriors. They don’t like visitors. Rob and kill them. Most unpleasant.”

Ricardo Something rubbed his hair. “We’re the press,” he explained.

“I got that.”

“Television networks. Fox, the BBC, and Mediaset.”

“No television around here. We get a few radio stations, but they’re down in Mogadishu. One from Mombasa.”

“Ragnar. You know him?”

“Oh yes. Difficult man. Doesn’t speak English. Shy, retiring. Doesn’t give interviews, I don’t believe.”

“Can we get in to see the Sultan passengers? The ship’s officers?”

Noon tore his eyes off Sophia Donatelli and looked Ricardo up and down. “Are you crazy?”

The reporter pulled a wad of bills from his pocket. “I saw you drive up. We can pay for a ride to town.”

“Perhaps I could take Ms. Donatelli.”

“No doubt.”

Noon sighed. He uncorked a gin bottle and took a little tipple.

“A hundred dollars a trip.”

“You pirate!”

“You will have to make your own arrangements for lodging and meals when you get to town. If you can pay…”

Sophia Donatelli sat beside him in the car. She even smelled good. She smiled at Noon and he smiled back. Dust came in the broken windows and settled on her and she made a face. God, she was cute. The other two passengers tried to keep the dust from their hair and eyes.

The breeze was off the land now, hot and pungent. Smelled of Africa. And road dirt.

He dropped them in the old square as half a hundred men and women looked on in the lantern light. Many of the men were armed. One of the male passengers paid him as the others unloaded their aluminum equipment cases. Then he drove back up the arroyo toward the airport for another load. The Chevy’s one working headlight bravely stabbed the darkness.