Pirate Alley

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I managed to reach the back corner of the building without being seen. I had crawled the whole way, taking advantage of every shadow, every turned head, and eventually I reached the corner of the building on the dark side, away from the fire in the plaza.

I had my headset on, so I could hear reports from everybody involved in this operation, if they were on my freq. I thought the SEALs were, but they hadn’t said much. A few minutes earlier I had heard Willis Coffey say that he was in position. I triggered the mike. “Tommy going in.” I got a Roger.

I took one more quick look around, then began free-climbing the building.

I had studied that building since I arrived in Eyl, and knew precisely how it could be done. During my college years I was a rock climber, which was the perfect sport for a guy who aspired to burglary. I had an interesting youth, one that I tried to avoid discussing in polite company. Of course Jake Grafton knew—he knew everything. The thought occurred to me a few years ago that he had spent so much of his life around straight arrows that he was amused by bent ones.

I gained the second floor in just a few seconds, hauling myself up by my fingertips. Try it sometime. If you think chin-ups are difficult, this will be an interesting challenge for you.

I reached a window, devoid of glass. Maybe it had been shot out in the excitement last night … or some kid threw a rock through it just to piss off Ragnar.

I looked in, saw no one and crawled through in less time than it takes to tell.

The lightbulb hanging from the ceiling was lit. I reached up and unscrewed it. It’s something in my character—I feel safer in the dark. I pulled the Ruger from my backpack and checked the safety.

The hallway was empty. I checked each room, then listened in the stairwell. Heard people coming down. Ducked into an empty room and waited. I felt naked with all these lightbulbs burning. Should have completely disabled the generator, not just turned it off. Maybe I should ask for a do-over.

Three of them, by the sound. They went on down.

I went back to the stairwell, listening carefully. Went on up to the next floor and eased my head around the corner for a look. There sat a guy on the floor outside one of the rooms. No one in the other direction.

The man was about twelve feet from me, more or less. Chewing khat and looking bored. His rifle rested on his lap. If I didn’t drop him with the Ruger and he shouted, this gig could go south fast.

For a few seconds I hoped he would get up, walk away, or toward me. Anything but just sit there. Yet even as I thought about it I heard someone come into the lobby down below. Two of them, and their voices came up the stairwell, which was a sounding pipe. I heard footsteps on the stairs.

Out of time. I stepped out, squared around and, as the startled guard turned toward me, shot him in the face. He swayed, his mouth opened to scream. I ran the three steps to him, put the muzzle of the silencer against his forehead and pulled the trigger.

Tried the door. Unlocked. Pushed it open, grabbed the AK and dragged the guard inside.

Jake Grafton was sitting against the far wall, watching me. He started to say something, and I put my fingers to my lips, silencing him.

The guard was still alive. At least his eyes were fluttering, though unfocused. I don’t know much about brain injuries, don’t want one myself, and if I ever get one, hope someone will quickly send me along to the next adventure. That’s what I did for the guard. Took his head in one hand, twisted sharply and broke his neck. His body went limp.

Voices in the hallway were coming this way. I left the guard where he lay, tossed Grafton the AK and stepped back out of sight.

Voices. Gabbling. Probably remarking that the guard was supposed to be here. They came through the door together, saw the guard and froze for just a second. I shot them both above the ear. Down they went.

“I’ve got Grafton,” I whispered into my headset mike.

“Roger that.”

I helped myself to an AK, motioned to Grafton, and we slipped out the door.

Paused to listen.

Down the stairs to the second floor. Grafton wasn’t quiet. He was trying, but to me we sounded like a symphony warming up.

I froze to listen some more. People talking in the lobby.

We had to chance it.

Down to the ground floor. A squint into the lobby. Two guys standing there talking, one with an AK, the other with an RPG-7 launcher and a bag of warheads over his shoulder, looking out into the plaza. Fortunately the window glass was long gone, so there would be no reflections.

I could just hear the hum of the generator in the basement.

I motioned to Grafton. I wanted him to step through the door, then turn left and go down the stairs to the basement armory. When I saw that he understood, I checked the guys, then gave him a nudge. He went. When he had made it, I followed. The diesel generator was louder here.

Going down was going to be iffy. Someone in the basement was going to get another free shot at our legs.

Well, we couldn’t stay here, and the noise helped mask our footsteps. Suck it up and do it, Tommy.

I led off, the Ruger in my right hand and the AK in my left.

Thank God the room was empty. We cleared the stairs and I walked over for a look into the other room. Just piles and piles of weapons.

Grafton didn’t say anything. Just stood and looked.

He wandered into the other room.

After he had had his looks, he whispered, “Thanks, Tommy.”

“Do you still have your pistol?”

“Still do. A little hideout popper.”

“When the shit hits the fan in a few minutes, one of these guys may rush down here to shoot an RPG into this mess. Blow us all to kingdom come.”

Grafton didn’t say anything to that. He started walking, looking at everything.

In less than a minute he stopped and pointed. I looked. He was pointing at a battery. From a car or truck. Wires on the top. We walked toward it. Saw that there were actually three batteries, wired in series. The positive and negative wires ran to a radio-controlled switching unit, then into a box of PVV-5A.

“It’s set to blow when someone triggers it,” Grafton said. He walked over to it and crouched down. I was right behind him.

“This wasn’t here last night,” I told him.

“Ragnar wasn’t in a hurry to get to Paradise,” he replied.

The simplest way to safety the thing appeared to be to merely pull the wires off the batteries’ terminals. Grafton must have thought so, too, for that is what he did.

“Look around,” he hissed. “See if there’s another rig like this.”

There wasn’t.

Grafton, Mr. Sunshine, said, “Well, if there is another trigger unit we’ll find out soon enough.”

With the generator droning monotonously, we hunkered down in the doorway arch between the rooms where we could watch the stairs. Grafton must have been glad to see me, because he punched me once in the arm and gave me a quick grin.

I looked at my watch. Three minutes to go.

Two companies of marines were spread out on the dunes above the beaches, one company to the north and one to the south. They had spent the last two hours getting into position, aided by armored personnel carriers that delivered them to within a few hundred yards of their combat positions.

From where they lay, they could see the plaza and the numerous armed pickups that sat there, and those that buzzed around aimlessly, apparently piloted by nervous drivers.

The guards at the fortress never heard or saw the British Royal Marine commandos. They came out of the darkness like ghosts, cut throats and pulled the bodies into the brush. The whole job took two minutes.

Then they sifted into the fortress through the gun ports. The lieutenant found Captain Penney standing by the kitchen area with his officers and saluted.

“Lieutenant Mick Laycock, sir, Royal Marines.”

Arch Penney’s jaw fell. As the marine held the salute, he realized he should return it, and did.

“The admiral asked me to inform you, sir, that transport has been arranged. Your passengers and crew will be driven to the airport as soon as possible.”

“The airport?”

“Yes, sir. Transports, sir. I don’t wish to be forward, sir, but I suggest you inform your people and organize them as you wish.”

“Yes, Lieutenant … What did you say your name was?”

“Laycock, sir. Royal Marines.”

“Indeed.”

“If I may make a suggestion, sir? You might wish to get your people away from these openings in the wall. As a precaution, sir.”

Arch Penney grabbed the young man and gave him a bear hug.

Bullet Bob Quinn was watching from the Sultan’s bridge. Mike Rosen and High Noon were there, too, sharing the binoculars and night-vision scope. Two other SEALs manned the Big Fifty machine gun, one to shoot and the other to ensure the ammo belt fed properly. Quinn had the Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle lying nearby on the deck, but he thought the guys on the beach and the marines on both sides probably had enough firepower. Really, there is such a thing as enough.

Rosen was excited. He could feel the tension, tangible as smoke.

For the last ten minutes Quinn had been watching a boat being launched from the beach. Apparently the holy warriors were coming out again to check the ships and harbor area. The boat was under way now, heading straight for the anchored cruise ship.

Bullet Bob keyed his headset mike. “Vince, do you see the approaching boat?”

“Roger.”

“Take him out when I give the word.”

“Roger.”

Vince was standing on the topmost deck of the liner with an M-3 recoilless rifle on his shoulder. This reloadable weapon fired an 84 mm warhead and could take down anything up to a tank. This one was equipped with an ambient-light-gathering sight, so the boat showed quite clearly on the dark sea. Vince could even see the crewmen. He counted heads. Eight. Fairly small boat propelled by an outboard engine. The exhaust of the engine whispered in the night air.

Another SEAL was on the pilot sponson, actually just inside the ship, waiting, in case the fighters boarded before the bell rang.

Out at the airport, Willis Coffey looked at his watch, misread it and told the guys on his net to start shooting. The sniper rifle boomed, submachine guns opened fire, and within seconds all the Shabab warriors in the five positions they occupied around the airstrip were dead, wounded or standing with their hands up. The CIA team ceased fire and moved in.

As they did, one of the standing men leaped to a machine gun in a truck bed and cut loose. He managed to spray the area and wound a man before he was killed.

When the controller aboard ship said, “Go,” the SEALs on the beach cut loose with submachine guns and M-3s. Aboard Sultan, Quinn’s men opened up on the trucks with the Big Fifty.

On the upper deck, Vince fired his M-3 at the approaching boat. The charge literally went through the boat and detonated in the water, lifting the boat and breaking it in half. It quickly sank, taking most of the men with it. Two managed to stay afloat until the SEAL in the pilot sponson shot them; then they slipped under.

A Shabab lieutenant standing on the balcony of the lair saw the muzzle flashes coming from the beach, aimed his RPG-7 and triggered off a rocket. Fortunately he had launched an antiarmor warhead, which vented its main charge into the sand. One man was injured. Before the holy warrior could reload, he was cut down by a .338 Lapua Magnum slug fired by E.D.

The recoil of the Sako jerked the rifle off target, so E.D. brought it back to the balcony as he chambered another round. He looked for his man, and saw only a hand hanging over the lower railing.

I got him! Holy damn!

E.D. scanned with the rifle scope and found a man who had apparently bailed from a pickup running toward the entrance to the building. It was actually a fairly difficult shot at a moving target, but E.D. didn’t miss this time. The 250-grain bullet striking with about three tons of energy swept the man off his feet, killed him instantly and dropped him on the plaza like a sack of rocks, and continued on its way. It struck a stone a half mile out, ricocheted and plunged into the ground five miles southwest of Eyl.

Meanwhile the trucks in the plaza were being riddled. One was already on fire, with RPG rounds cooking off in the bed.

E.D. chambered another round.

Yousef el-Din heard the racket. It sounded as if World War III had started right outside, all at once. A fervid believer in the efficacy of treachery, he instinctively knew that the Americans had lied. They weren’t coming tomorrow with two tons of currency: They were here now with enough firepower to overwhelm the Shabab’s men, and quickly.

He extracted the radio controllers from his pocket—he had two—and turned them both on. Waited for the little green lights. First the Sultan prisoners.

He looked at the fortress, a massive dark shape up there against a dark sky. He pushed the button.

Nothing happened.

He pointed the device at the fortress and pushed the button repeatedly.

Those damned pirates! Doubtlessly they improperly installed the radio controls and detonator. Incompetent fools!

Well, he still had the unit to blow this building. The batteries and radio control and fuse were installed by al-Gaza, the Hamas expert. It would explode. But the time was not yet. He would explode it when the building was full of Americans. A true believer to the core, Yousef was ready to die. He would take the American infidels with him to Paradise to prove his faith to Allah.

Meanwhile he shouted down the staircase to the men on the floor below. They were armed with RPG-7s. “The fortress,” he shouted. “Shoot at the fortress!”

The fact of the matter was that the fort was a bit too far for the RPG-7 rockets, which had a maximum range of a thousand yards, a few feet more than half a mile. Unfortunately, the fort was almost six thousand feet away from the lair. Yousef didn’t know the range of the rockets; technical matters were a bit beyond him. On the floor below three men fired rockets—lots of back blast that nearly asphyxiated them and their loaders on the spot—that went zipping off trailing fire from their rocket exhaust. The trajectory of one of the rockets was insufficiently elevated; it went into the ground and exploded at eight hundred yards. The other two were elevated enough, but the warheads self-destructed at a thousand yards, making a flash and spraying shrapnel in a cone-shaped pattern ahead of them.

From the lair, the fact that the rockets hadn’t reached the target was not readily discernible in the darkness. Looking up the fiery trail, it appeared the flashes had actually occurred on or around the fortress.

“More,” el-Din roared down the staircase. “Shoot, shoot, shoot at the infidel dogs!”

Three more grenades roared out on their rockets, trailing fire.

The second salvo was the last. The Big Fifty aboard Sultan chewed into the room in a long rolling burst. When it ended, the three RPG men and their three loaders were dead or bleeding to death.

Meanwhile, on the plaza below, all six of the pickups were either on fire or being riddled with automatic gunfire. A few of the men were still alive, huddling under a truck chassis or behind the stones around the fire pit. A thoughtful observer would note that the scene looked much like the one last night, only the actors were Shabab warriors, not pirates.

Amazingly, the evening fire in the cooking pit was still burning. Its glare competed with the light from the burning trucks. Several of the tires had caught fire, and they burned with little intensity but gave off copious quantities of noxious black smoke. There was little wind, so the tire smoke lay over the area like fog.

The generator in the basement of the lair was still running fine. The lights were still on in the old pile, which was beginning to resemble a burned-out tenement building in Philadelphia or the Bronx.

The marines were advancing toward the town. They had to be careful when they used their weapons so they wouldn’t shoot each other. They came under fire from fighters in the brush and those in buildings or in pickups. Machine guns chattered, RPGs lit up the night, and assault rifles belched bursts.

At the airport, the parachutists were rounding up surviving Shabab fighters. They collected eight who were uninjured and three with bullet wounds. All eleven had their hands bound behind them with plastic ties, and their ankles tied together. The wounded were not treated.

Some of the Shabab warriors had hit the brush, running for their lives. The lieutenant in charge had expected that, and he didn’t have the people or time to chase them. He merely kept some men on guard and hoped the Somalis kept right on running.

Ricardo, Sophia Donatelli and Rab Bishop from the BBC were beside themselves. They could hear the battle going on in the town, but they were stuck in this damned old pile of rocks. They made a corporate decision to move operations to the roof, film what they could, and send it to the satellites whenever they could get the generators running. If ever.

As they raced for the stairs carrying armloads of equipment, they passed by two Royal Marines in battle dress standing near the entrance with their weapons. Ricardo and Rab Bishop did a double take.

“I say, I think the cavalry is here,” Bishop said.

“Damn, we’re gonna get rescued,” Ricardo echoed.

“Let’s adjourn to the roof and get these cameras grinding,” Sophia Donatelli told them. “We can interview the shooters later.”

So they went. The cameras were on, recording muzzle flashes and RPG launchings, when a helicopter went over with its machine guns blazing at the lair.

Ricardo was beside himself.

“We’re going to get rescued,” he screamed into his mike, and the digital camera recorded it on the sound track.

This was the scene when the SEALs on the beach charged the lair. The Big Fifty aboard Sultan laid down covering fire; helicopters materialized out of the darkness and added their machine guns to the fusillade. The cameras on the fortress roof caught it all, for later rebroadcast.

The fusillade stopped as the SEALs gained the lobby. They went up the stairs in pairs, alert for grenades or booby traps. The surviving Shabab warriors were shell-shocked. They offered no resistance, so were quickly immobilized with plastic ties on wrists and ankles, searched for weapons and radio controllers, and left where they lay.

In the penthouse Yousef heard the infidels’ footsteps thundering on the stairs, the shouts, the occasional shots, and knew the moment had come to leave this earth for Paradise.

He pushed the button on the controller that was to trigger the explosives in the basement, the trigger that the Hamas expert had assured him would work. The explosion al-Gaza swore would take him, el-Din and a hundred infidels to Paradise.

He pushed the button … and nothing happened.

El-Din’s bodyguard had seen what the Shabab leader was doing, tossed down his weapon and curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Sixteen years old, he had been herding goats until six months ago, and had never imagined what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of a barrage from automatic weapons wielded by a modern military force. His nerves were shot. He was incapable of even standing.

As the SEALS topped the stairs, they saw Yousef el-Din viciously kicking the boy lying in the rubble, and cursing him and his ancestors. The SEALs swarmed them both, immobilized them in seconds with plastic ties and confiscated the radio controllers.

Outside the shooting was dying down. A burst or two now and then, and silence for long seconds. Then nothing.

In the fortress, people began cheering as the shooting trickled off. When the night was silent they filled the old stone fortress with shouts of joy and cheering.

One of the SEALS found Grafton and me in the basement, ready for anything. The generator was still snoring, the light was on, and the wet-suit-clad man with a submachine gun looked like an apparition from the black lagoon. Still, he was the best sight I had seen in years. I almost kissed him while he tried to salute Jake Grafton.

“Admiral Grafton, Admiral Tarkington’s compliments, sir. He said we would find you and Mr. Carmellini in the basement.”

Even though he wasn’t in uniform, Grafton saluted him back. “The fortress? The hostages?”

“They’re okay, sir. The building is still standing. The Royal Marines secured it.”

Grafton got a sappy grin on his face, grabbed the SEAL, who was built like a middleweight prizefighter, and gave him a hug that nearly crushed him.

We went up the stairs, through the lobby, and walked out onto the plaza. The stench of burning trucks and tires almost gagged me. We were just in time to hear the swelling of jet engines passing overhead.

“Globemasters,” he said by way of explanation. “C-17s. We’re flying the hostages out of here.”

Even as he spoke, two choppers with landing lights ablaze were landing on the roof of the fortress to pick up people and transport them to the airport. They settled in like birds on their nests. Over the water were other choppers, all with their external lights shining brightly and landing lights stabbing the darkness.

Grafton was soon surrounded by officers, SEALs and marines. The senior marine was Colonel Zakhem. He saluted, and Jake Grafton grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let go. Kept pumping it.

I wandered off and found a place to sit. My leg was throbbing and I felt drained. Exhausted.

I looked at my watch. Only nine thirty. The whole damn thing hadn’t taken an hour.

The arrival of the choppers, the news that they were leaving tonight, now, flying home, reduced many of the hostages to tears. Suzanne and Irene cried and laughed at the same time and hugged each other fiercely, then started hugging everyone in sight.

The Sultan’s crew began herding passengers up the stairs to the roof in groups of twelve or so. There they were led to the idling choppers and helped aboard. When the chopper crew made a sign, the passengers backed away to wait for the next one, which was hovering nearby. The loaded chopper lifted off and the next one landed.

Two marine armored personnel carriers pulled up to the door, and the Royal Marines led people out. Someone suggested the women leave first, but Arch Penney nixed that. Families, he said. Keep the families together. So they went in couples, usually holding hands, carrying what little they had. Some were sobbing, all were joyously happy.

Arch Penney stood with the Royal Marine lieutenant keeping an eye on the operation, and he wore a broad smile.

Julie and Marjorie materialized beside him. “Go,” he said. “You two get on the next vehicle. I’ll be along after a while.”

“We’ll wait for you.”

“I’ll see you wherever the planes take us. I have to ensure we get all the crew out of here.”

Julie locked him in a hug, and Marjorie did likewise. And they went.

Penney murmured the names of his passengers, all those he knew, as they walked past. “Mr. Jones, Harriet, Reverend Franklin, Mr. and Mrs. Cohen … Benny. I’m sorry about all this. I’ll get your address from the company and write you when I have time. Thank you for your courage and example.”

Others got the same treatment. Von Platen with his three friends, a farm implement dealer from Iowa, a bookseller from Birmingham, a retired schoolteacher and her companion from Stoke-on-Trent …

Over their heads the helicopters were coming and going. More APCs rolled up, more smiling marines helped people into them …

Arch Penney wiped the tears from his eyes and kept shaking hands.

Sitting in the plaza made me restless. Everyone was busy except me. I tried my headset. “E.D.?”

No answer. I tried three or four more times, but he didn’t reply. Willis Coffey called from the airport and wanted to tell me all about what had happened out there, but the controller aboard ship shut him up with a curt admonition to keep the net clear.

The shooting seemed to have stopped, but who knew? Anyone could take a potshot at an infidel at any time. I kept my Kimber in my hand and started walking toward the location where I had left E.D.

Found him there. Dead. Chopped up pretty badly by shrapnel. Looked like an RPG warhead to me. The Sako was there, damaged. I scanned about with my penlight. Found six empty .338 Lapua cartridges lying near him in the dirt.

He hadn’t moved from this position after he started shooting. I told him to, but he didn’t.

I picked him up, got the corpse over my shoulder, managed to bend enough to snag the rifle and walked toward the plaza. I wasn’t leaving E.D. in Somalia. We could bury him back in the States.

I laid the body in the plaza. Had blood all over me, and I didn’t give a good goddamn. Blood everywhere on everything. My leg screamed.

I sat a while. Some marines came along with a body bag and took E.D.

They were bringing the prisoners in trucks. Marched them into the building. Other marines were carrying in armloads of weapons. Machine guns, AKs, RPG-7 launchers and bags of warheads.

I don’t know how many prisoners they put in there—at least fifty, maybe seventy-five. More or less. I wasn’t counting, and I don’t guess anyone else was.

The two Mossad agents showed up with one, a guy who had been shot through the lower body sideways, it looked like. He was obviously bleeding from a torso wound. The two Israeli agents were supporting his weight, but his feet were dragging along. So they had found the Palestinian bomber, al-Gaza.

They dragged the guy into the building.

One of the marines, a sergeant with lots of stripes, checked the prisoners as they were led out of the truck, or carried out. Some of them were bleeding from horrific wounds. I saw him pick out a few, and they were loaded into another truck.

Curious, I walked over. “You’re letting these guys go?”

“Kids. Got one who weighed sixty pounds and was just five feet tall.”

As I was standing there I saw a woman with an AK approach one of the vehicles. She came out from behind a pickup. How long she had been there I don’t know. A group of prisoners was being herded toward the building.

The marines tensed.

“Stand easy, men,” the sergeant said in his parade-ground voice, not shouting, but with a voice that cut through the noise.

The woman was perhaps middle-aged. She didn’t hesitate or break stride. She was staring at one Somali. She stopped about fifteen feet from him, lifted the AK and gave him a burst in the gut. Two Marines swung their weapons, ready to kill her, but the sergeant roared, “No.”

He walked slowly over to the woman, held out his hand, and she handed him the rifle. Then she turned and walked away, back toward the huts that comprised the town.

“What was that all about, Gunny?” one of the marines asked.

“God only knows,” the gunnery sergeant said. “Maybe he killed her man. Or raped her. Or raped her daughter. She figured he earned it. You people pick him up and carry him inside.”

The marines didn’t even check to see if the guy was dead. They carried him into the building and threw him on the floor.

“How’d you know she wouldn’t shoot our men?” I asked the sergeant.

“After three tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, you get a feel. The aggression, the bad vibes. I just knew.”

The thought crossed my mind that you only have to be wrong once to end up dead, but I kept my mouth shut.

The gunnery sergeant had some more to say in that gravelly, parade-ground voice. “These women have been taking shit from these ragheads all their lives. The times, they are a-changin’.”

I looked around for Grafton. Didn’t see him. Wandered into the lobby past the rows of prisoners lying on the floor trussed up with plastic ties and looked down the stairs. Heard a noise and saw Grafton coming up with the two Israelis.

He didn’t say anything. Just slapped me on the shoulder. Then he saw a young marine in battle dress standing there amid the prisoners lying on the floor, trussed up with plastic ties, tearing pages from a book. Maybe it was the Koran.

Grafton went over to him and took the book from his hands. Tossed it on the floor. “This isn’t good for your soul,” he said. He put a hand on the young man’s shoulder and guided him out. I followed him into the plaza.

He stood looking, watching the prisoners being marched in, the weapons being policed up. Marines were carrying them into the building by the armload, then hustling back for more.

An APC came down the hill from the fort and stopped in front of the lair. Four Royal Marines carried three wounded men from the APC into the building. Grafton nodded at one man who had apparently been shot through both knees. He was screaming as they toted him in, one holding his shoulders and one his ankles. “That’s the pirate that led the team that captured the Sultan. Killed some crewmen, threw the wounded overboard to drown, murdered several passengers.”

“Maybe we should take him back to the States. The defense lawyers would love you for it.”

Jake Grafton made a rude noise. “His pirating days are over,” he muttered. Then he turned to me. “Tommy, you did well. I thank you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hitch a ride up to the airport. Get all your guys. Keep them alert, guarding the planes. Then put them on the last plane out. You, too.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be along after a while. Gotta make sure we get all the hostages out of that fortress. We’re not leaving anyone behind.”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked off to talk to a knot of marines. I called Willis on the net, told him E.D. wasn’t coming, and relayed Grafton’s order that the CIA team was to be on the last plane.

Then I started walking up the hill toward the fortress. My leg needed some exercise to work the soreness out.

It was almost dawn when the last of the Sultan’s crew were evacuated. I was sitting with my back against the parapet of the roof when Captain Penney and a few of his officers boarded the last chopper to the airport. The Italian and BBC news crews were already aboard. At the last minute Ben and Zahra, the two Mossad agents, came over with Mohammed Atom, who had his hands cuffed with a plastic tie behind his back. They put him on, then climbed aboard after him.

Ricardo refused to go. I saw that he was shaking his head violently, and strolled near enough to hear the argument over the noise from the helo’s idling engines. “There is another story here. What about the people of Eyl, after the battle is over? I am staying to do this story.”

“We aren’t keeping a plane at the airport to wait for you.”

“I understand. I absolve you of all responsibility. My cameraman and I will find our own way home.”

“Jesus, you are a stubborn son of a bitch. There’s dozens, maybe hundreds of those murderous Shabab assholes out there in the brush. They’d love nothing more than to do you, just for the fun of it.”

“This is my job,” Ricardo said heroically.

The loadmaster threw up his hands and waved to the chopper. It lifted off, and we were swamped with silence.

I headed down the stairs. Walked through the fortress one last time—a few of the emergency lanterns from the ship were still lit, but mainly the place was dark. A rat shot through the beam of my penlight. I suspected the locals would mine the trash when the sun came up.

I left the fort, waved to a Royal Marine standing at the entrance with his weapon cradled in his arms and started hiking for town. The U.S. Marines were still there, though most of the fires had burned themselves out. A couple of APCs had their headlights and spotlights on, lighting up the plaza.

Willis Coffey called me on the net. He was a happy fellow. “We’re ready to get aboard this last plane, Tommy. Where are you, dude?”

“Go on. I’ll catch a ride with the marines. See you in Langley.”

He didn’t argue. “Adios, amigo,” he said.

I turned off the com unit and stuffed it and the headset in my backpack.

When the sun came up, the marines started to pull out. Machine guns were broken down, packed up. Ammo stowed in boxes. Water cans picked up and stowed in the APCs. Then the SEALs and marines piled in, and they headed off up or down the beach to the landing craft that were waiting to take them back to the ships.

A U.S. Navy destroyer was anchored near the Sultan, and small boats were coming and going. They were going to tow her away, I thought.

Jake Grafton was still in the plaza, standing beside an APC, a commandeered pickup and some marines. One of the marines was a captain.

Grafton asked him, “Did you get all those people evacuated from those huts?” He nodded toward the village.

“Yes, sir. Made them walk at least a mile. Some of the old women and kids we gave rides to.”

“How many rations did you leave?”

“Two pallets, sir. One of rice, beans, canned meat, juice, lots of stuff from the ship. The other was MREs.”

Grafton eyed me. “I thought I told you to take a plane.”

“I disobeyed orders. Thought I’d ride along with you. Wheedle some leave out of you, maybe a pay raise while you’re so full of cheer and love for your fellow man.”

He merely nodded and climbed into the truck’s passenger seat. One of the marines got behind the wheel, and two jumped in the back. I didn’t jump, not with my leg. I eased myself aboard and swung my sore leg in.

The APC preceded us. We hadn’t gone a hundred yards when we saw Ricardo and his cameraman hiking our way, waving their arms.

The truck stopped, and he rushed over. Maybe he didn’t recognize Grafton, because he asked the buck sergeant driver, “Where are all the civilians?”

“I think they cleared out, sir.”

“But where?”

“I don’t know. Now you’d better get in the truck.”

“We’re not leaving,” Ricardo said flatly. “We’re the press, and we don’t take orders from anyone.”

The sergeant made a gesture with his hand at the two marines who were riding in the bed. They jumped off, picked up Ricardo bodily and threw him in the truck bed. The cameraman decided discretion was the better part of valor, hoisted his camera in, and climbed up under his own steam.

The truck rolled. We were up near the fortress when the truck stopped and Grafton got out. He was standing beside the truck, right beside me, and I think I was the only one who saw him pull something from his pocket. He fiddled with it for a moment, then pointed it at Ragnar’s lair.

The building exploded. The explosion started in the basement and just kept getting bigger and bigger, I guess as more and more of the PVV-5A and ammo and RPG warheads got involved. The noise and concussion felt like a punch, even at this distance. The fireball rose and turned into a mushroom cloud.

Grafton dropped the controller and climbed back into the truck. The sergeant started it moving. Everyone in the bed was looking at the still-growing cloud. The blast knocked down most of the shacks in Eyl. Little bits and pieces began raining from the sky. I covered my head with my hands.

As the truck topped the crest I got my last look. The breeze had moved some of the cloud to seaward. Ragnar’s lair was no longer there.

Mike Rosen was in Sultan’s e-com center typing, as usual, trying to get the events of the evening into e-mails. He had stopped and was sitting looking at the town of Eyl in the early-morning sun when Ragnar’s building went up in a cloud of smoke and fire. He watched it for a moment, typed out what he had just seen and hit SEND. Then he turned off his computer.

He went up on deck and watched the giant mushroom cloud drift toward the Sultan. Looked at the destroyer and the boats and saw that one of them was towing a hawser toward Sultan.

An hour later the ship was free of her anchor and moving. Sailors were aboard on the bridge, using handheld radios to talk back and forth to each other and the destroyer, Richard Ward.

Sultan was turned toward the east and the destroyer towed her toward the open sea. Mike Rosen stood on the upper deck watching Africa slowly recede. An hour and a half later, all he could see in every direction was water, and some navy ships. High Noon joined him. Amazingly, his coat pockets were empty and he was drinking coffee from a ceramic cup.

“There’s coffee in the galley,” he said and leaned on the rail.

“Where’s your gin?”

“Oh, that. I poured gin on myself from time to time, but the bottles held mostly water.”

“Who do you work for? MI-6?”

Noon grinned. “Been in Africa over twenty years,” he mused. “Time to go home. Fact is, I think I’ve worn out my welcome.”

“What am I supposed to say when people ask me about that e-mail I sent Wednesday evening? How the Shabab was going to kill the pirates, steal the ransom and kill everyone in the fort.”

“Oh. Amazingly accurate prediction, that. True, even.”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you just say you overheard some people talking, and let it go at that?”

“The e-mails from the States had a lot to say about this Grafton fellow. That he was in charge of the rescue. You know him?”

Noon laughed.

“I was going to write a book about the Sultan’s capture, but I am rethinking that.”

Noon emptied the last of his coffee into the sea. The wind whipped the liquid away.

“The truth is, I don’t know very much.”

“Life’s like that. I could use some more coffee. Want some?”

They headed toward the galley.

“Fact is,” Rosen said, “I’ve been offered an hour show on a cable television news channel, five days a week. Big pay increase. I’m going to take it.”

“Congratulations. Something good came out of this mess, after all.” Noon took a deep breath of the sea air. “I always wanted to take a cruise.”

“Enjoy.”

“I intend to.”