Power and Empire

26

Mamat bin Ahmad sat on an overturned wooden crate with his back to the trunk of a tall coconut palm, gazing out to sea, when the satellite phone in his lap gave a startling chirp. He and his men were on the southern shores of the Indonesian island of Buru, within easy pouncing distance of any passing pleasure craft — if one would only pass. The window for their operation was small. He’d already received an earlier call informing him that the USS Rogue had passed Timor-Leste hours before. The American Cyclone-class patrol ship was steaming north from a recent stop at HMAS Coonawarra, the Australian naval base in Darwin, where it would join the Philippine and Malaysian military vessels in a joint antipiracy patrol of the Sulu Sea.

Mamat had been expecting the second call and kept the satellite phone’s plastic antenna extended and oriented toward the sky. Even so, the sudden noise made him jump and he very nearly dropped the device in the sand. All his men were jumpy — it was understandable, considering their mission — but they needed leadership and, mercifully, did not seem to notice his fumbling.

Mamat was a young man, not yet twenty-five years old. Had he been a happier sort, his intensely white teeth would have shone through a broad smile. But since his father had died, his family had known nothing but poverty. His older sister had run off with a Dirty Joe — one of the older American or European men who came to Southeast Asia looking for a wife. His mother cleaned hotel rooms for wealthy tourists in the Indonesian city of Manado — but she was perpetually sick. Mamat’s father had fully expected his son to follow his path. Men in his family had fished for generations. Mamat learned about boats and became a better-than-average sailor, but the tenets of Jemaah Islamiyah lured him away while he was in his teens. JI provided stability — and, even more important, a cause higher than living hand-to-mouth as a simple fisherman. Mamat’s parents were both devout Muslims, observing a strict Ramadan or meticulously making up missed days when illness made fasting impossible. But even they saw things in moderation.

Moderation bored Mamat almost as much as fishing did. The leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah taught him that the one path lay in complete devotion — a religious zeal that allowed no room for moderation or compromise. Yes, Mamat knew boats, but his true skills lay in other areas. Recent interactions with members of Abu Sayyaf had made him witness to enough bloodshed that a surprise chirp should not have startled him — but it did, because this was no ordinary call.

He did not recognize the number. The men who would call this phone rarely used the same phone more than a few times. Still, he knew Dazid Ishmael would be on the other end of the line. He could almost feel the man’s uncanny energy coming through the handset.

Mamat had seen Ishmael behead four different Abu Sayyaf captives, each time with an American Ka-Bar knife. The commander’s resolve and devotion against the infidels was nothing short of amazing. He’d begun to think of Ishmael as a father figure and prayed for the moment he might prove himself.

That moment had come with this satellite phone call.

“Are you ready?” the commander asked.

Mamat looked at the six men sitting in the shade on either side of him along the deserted length of beach. Some stared out at the water; others sipped fruit juice as they pondered their coming fate.

“We are all ready,” Mamat said.

“Very well,” Ishmael said. “AIS shows that a likely vessel departed Ambon four hours ago, sailing southwest. Her present bearing leads me to believe that she is trying to reach Wakatobi.”

Mamat nodded. The Wakatobi reserve was a popular yachting destination. Rich infidel tourists had sailed past his father’s fishing boat many times.

Ishmael provided the AIS identifier. “Can you intercept?”

Mamat logged in to the satellite connection on his tablet computer and pulled up a marine traffic tracker. He found the vessel immediately. A simple click gave him a complete description of the vessel and its call sign, along with direction of travel, speed, and previous track. It amazed the young man how much information a modern sailor made available to anyone who knew to look for it — all in the name of safety.

“We are less than fifteen kilometers away.”

“That will work,” Ishmael said.

“The tracker does not show the U.S. Navy vessel,” Mamat said. “I am unsure of its whereabouts. What if it has passed?”

“Have you seen it sail by your position?”

The Indonesian man shook his head despite being on the phone. “I have not.”

“I anticipate it will pass to your west,” Ishmael said. “But it should be near enough. You must proceed quickly, within the hour. Understood?”

“Understood,” Mamat said.

“Go with God,” the Abu Sayyaf commander said before breaking the connection.

Mamat folded the antenna and shoved the satellite phone into a waterproof bag at his feet. Shouldering the bag, he walked toward the long wooden runabout bobbing in the green water. His men followed him unbidden. They needed no one to tell them it was time to go.

Awang, a man five years older than Mamat, waded into the sea at the stern of the nineteen-foot open boat, checking the single 250-horse Honda outboard motor. Speed was of the essence, and Mamat would have preferred two such motors, but two big motors on a wooden skiff was considered evidence of piracy. The AK-47s and RPGs secreted under the orange tarps on board would be enough to confirm suspicions if they were boarded by Indonesian authorities. Awang had gone so far as to rub mud over the Honda’s cowling to make it match the sorry state of the wooden fishing skiff.

Mamat and the other six pushed the boat deeper into the lagoon before climbing over the gunwales and taking up their respective seats. Most of the men were in their late teens and early twenties. Osman, the de facto second-in-command — because Awang refused to accept the position — sat on a wooden bench beside Mamat.

Hydraulics whined as Awang lowered the Honda into the water. The motor started with a burbling growl, and a moment later the skiff arced gracefully over the emerald-green waters of the lagoon. Awang sat at the helm, Mamat’s tablet on his knee for navigation.

He looked up at Mamat. “Lucky Strike?”

“That is correct,” Mamat said.

Awang frowned. “A sailing vessel seems a poor target.”

Osman turned and looked at him, shaking his head but saying nothing. Awang was trustworthy enough, but his periodic indiscretions with alcohol made him a leaky vessel when it came to important information. The rest of the men had kept the true nature of the mission from him. It didn’t matter. His job was to drive the skiff.

Mamat smiled. “Do not worry, my friend. Lucky Strike is not our target. She is the bait.”

Karla Downs sat with her feet up on the cockpit bench, her back against a dazzlingly blue cushion that matched Lucky Strike’s hull paint. Glancing down, she noticed a bit of errant sunscreen and rubbed it into her chest. They were sailing west on a close reach, and the huge sails provided welcome shade from the evening sun. A steamy breeze caressed her body, which had never been so tan. The smell of salt water and coconut oil swirled across the fiberglass deck.

She had to be the second-luckiest woman on the planet. Her husband, Tony, had remained relatively faithful over the course of their twenty-eight years of marriage, neither of her boys was in jail, and she had rich friends. Karla was remarkably fit for fifty-two, with manicured nails and stylishly dyed red hair. A cosmopolitan ponytail kept her hair off her shoulders in the heat and humidity. Round Hollywood-starlet glasses and a liberal coating of SPF 30 protected her from the intensity of the Southeast Asia sun. Her olive-green swimsuit swooped high on her hips and low on her bust. It made her feel half naked at first, but she wore it anyway, because Tony liked it.

Things had gotten a little stale in the boudoir department over the past several years. She’d hoped the bodacious swimsuit might give a yank to Tony’s old starter rope, but she needn’t have worried. Maybe it was the roll of the waves or just the idea of sailing the open ocean, but Karla wasn’t going to second-guess it. Usually not even the type to kiss her in public, Tony didn’t seem to care about the thin walls on the Whites’ forty-two-foot sailboat. Judy had been winking at her every morning at breakfast from the time they’d left Darwin. Kenneth never said anything, preferring to fuss with his boat and take sightings with his sextant at odd hours of the day. Everyone else on the boat might consider this a vacation. To Kenneth White, sailing was serious business.

The Downses had known Kenneth and Judy since they’d started White’s Energy Exploration in the Houston, Texas, suburb of Katy two decades before. They leased a small strip-mall office, and Judy answered the phones while Kenneth spent his time at the drill sites. They’d sold their little company the year before for a tidy sum The Katy Times described as “the mid-millions” and sailed off to explore the world.

Unfortunately for Karla, drilling-rig-parts salesmen didn’t get rich like oil company owners. But the Whites were generous to a fault and kept up the friendship no matter how wealthy they got. They’d even invited Karla and Tony along on a three-week sail from Darwin to Singapore on their new Texas-built Valiant yacht.

Karla had never been much of a traveler, but the Spice Islands were nothing short of jaw-dropping. They’d sailed for days across open water, passing in the shadow of huge container ships or seeing nothing at all but horizon for days. They’d stopped in places with mythical names such as Saumlaki, Banda, and Ambon, and met dozens of fascinating and wonderful people. There had been a few glares and some poverty, but yachts like Lucky Strike brought tourist dollars, so the unsightly portions of the area were mostly hidden from the view of travelers, allowing Karla to pretend that this was the paradise of the guidebooks.

Kenneth and Judy were excellent hosts and take-your-time sailors, loving the journey even more than the destination. Green pinnacles rose in a thousand tiny islands from an emerald sea. People smiled broad smiles and fed them dishes Karla had never conceived, much less tasted, from rich curries to the gluelike papeda, made from the starch of a sago palm and meant to be slurped from the bowl. The crew of the little sailboat had eaten their weight in delicious grilled fish, all of it either offered at feasts onshore or purchased from passing skiffs from which people called out “Hey, mister!” even when one of the women happened to be at the wheel.

Karla closed her eyes and took in a breath of the moist air. No, “lucky” didn’t even begin to describe her condition. She could not imagine returning to her old life in Houston.

Judy poked her head out of the hatch from below, where she’d been working on dinner. Karla had volunteered to help, but the Valiant had a one-butt galley, meant for bracing in the open ocean, and was not suited for two women cooking together.

“Spaghetti’s on,” Judy said. She was pixie of a thing, with dark hair that, as far as Karla knew, had never seen a drop of dye. She wore a yellow wraparound sundress and a smile just as bright. The wind-vane autopilot kept the boat on the correct heading, so Karla was alone in the cockpit. “Mind yelling at the boys?” Judy asked before ducking back below.

Karla sat up on her elbows and craned her neck without moving the rest of her body. The pace of the past week had endowed all her movements with a delicious laziness.

Both Kenneth and Tony stood up front, staring over the right side of the boat. Kenneth would have called it starboard, but Karla had an awful time keeping all the sailing terms straight in her head. At first she thought Kenneth was shooting another sight with his sextant, but a closer look revealed both men were looking through binoculars. Tony had a way of rolling his foot sideways when he was focused on anything important. The way he held it now caused Karla to sit up a little straighter.

The whine of an approaching boat motor pulled Karla to her feet. She’d just started forward when both men turned. Tony motioned for her to stay where she was as he made his way around the mast. They were coming to her.

The look of worry on her husband’s face was unmistakable. She folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

Kenneth stuck his head below and barked at his wife.

“Get the shotgun,” he said. “Keep it down below, but be ready to hand it to me.”

Judy appeared at the hatch. She started to say something, but he hushed her with a look that she must have seen before, because she rolled her lips until they turned white.

“What is it?” Karla asked again.

Kenneth ignored her, bending instead to open the locker under the starboard cockpit bench. He took out an orange plastic case that Karla knew contained the flare gun. From another case, this one stored deeper in the locker, he retrieved a black metal cylinder, which he dropped into the open chamber of the flare gun. Into this he loaded a single round of .38-caliber ammunition. To Karla’s horror, he put the makeshift pistol into Tony’s hands.

“Keep this out of sight,” Kenneth said. “But if you have to use it, just thumb the hammer back, aim for center mass, and pull the trigger.”

Tony licked his lips and nodded. He stuffed the flare gun down the back of his shorts and pulled his T-shirt over it.

Karla gave an emphatic shake of her head. She could see the fishing boat bearing down on them now, less than a hundred yards away.

“What the hell?” She cast her eyes around the cockpit for the colorful sarong she used as a wrap when they were near any of the locals. She’d been warned that some of the more devout might find her swimsuit off-putting, or even downright evil. She pulled the strip of cotton around her and tied it behind her neck as she continued to plead for an explanation.

“What do you think they want?”

Tony stepped between her and the approaching boat. “Probably just to trade us some fish,” he said.

“Then why the guns?”

Kenneth shot a glance down the companionway. Judy gave him a curt nod to let him know the shotgun was where he wanted it. They’d obviously been over this drill before.

“Because they have guns,” Kenneth said. “Lots of guns.”

Karla’s mouth fell open. “I thought we were staying south of pirate waters!” She gasped, her chest so tight she could hardly breathe. “You promised we’d be fine if we stayed away from the Philippines!”

The men in the approaching boat were yelling now, ordering them in broken English to lower their sails and come to a stop.

Tony grabbed her hand and clutched it tight.

“It’s not Kenny’s fault,” he whispered.

“I count seven of them,” Kenneth said out of the corner of his mouth. He waved, giving a forced smile as the fishing boat motored up alongside the sailboat, matching her speed of around six knots. Outrunning the skiff was unthinkable, even as loaded down as it was.

The men on the fishing boat screamed all at once, waving their guns in the air. There were no pleasant shouts of “Hey, mister!”

One of the pirates, a boy who couldn’t have been more than fifteen, raised a rifle and pointed it at Karla. Tony’s hand dropped for the flare gun at his waist, but he didn’t know guns. He was a parts salesman. As far as Karla knew, her husband hadn’t fired a gun in years. He fumbled with his T-shirt, causing the boy to swing the rifle his way — and loose a rattling barrage of shots that stitched up the side of the boat and into Tony Downs’s chest.

Karla screamed as her husband pitched forward, toppling over the side to splash into the sea. Lucky Strike quickly left Tony’s body behind, bobbing in the blue-green water that only moments before had been so incredibly beautiful.

Kenneth roared, reaching for the shotgun, and earned two bullets in the spine for his effort. He fell as he turned. The shotgun slipped from his hands, sliding along the deck to drop over the side with a sickening plop. It disappeared instantly beneath the surface. Judy, now armed with a large kitchen knife in the shadows, motioned Karla belowdecks — as if there could be any refuge from these men on the tiny boat.

Karla stood frozen as a man in a blue T-shirt and oil-stained khaki pants grabbed an upright metal stanchion and hauled himself over the lifelines, jumping deftly from the fishing boat to the Lucky Strike. The man released the sheets to let the sails pop and flap in the wind. The boat slowed immediately.

Others from the skiff began to pour onto the boat. All of them were young, with the wispy facial hair of boys trying in vain to be men. But they all carried guns and wore hateful looks, both of which they aimed at Karla Downs. She rushed past the man in the blue T-shirt in an effort to get down below with Judy. If she was going to die — or worse — she didn’t want to do it alone. A sweating young man reached to grab her, but the man in the blue T-shirt pushed his hand away, shaking his head, and the boy let her go unmolested.

She had to leap over Kenneth’s body to get down the companionway. She would have fallen, had Judy not been there to catch her. The poor woman had to look at her husband’s lifeless eyes staring down at her from above — and still, she somehow kept her composure.

Karla gulped, trying to catch her breath.

“What…? I mean why…?” Her eyes were transfixed on the stern, where her husband of nearly thirty years had fallen dead into the sea.

Judy blinked at her friend, fighting back tears. “I am so, so sorry.”

“What do they want?”

The small brunette squared her shoulders and sighed. A tear rolled down her stricken face. “Ransom, I imagine,” she said.

Out on the deck a young Jemaah Islamiyah recruit stood to the side of the hatch, a battered AK-47 held to his chest. This was his first operation, and he chewed on chapped lips, a bundle of frayed nerves.

“What if they have another firearm down there?”

Mamat gave a slow shake of his head. Dusk was falling rapidly, but he welcomed the darkness. It would only make their job easier. “They would have shot by now.”

“Shall I bring the women back on deck?”

Mamat closed his eyes and listened, the dead man at his feet, his back to the cabin. “In time,” he said. “For now, they are doing exactly what we need them to do.”

Stooping slightly and craning his neck, he was just able to hear a shaky female voice below as she whispered on the cabin radio.

“Mayday! Mayday! This is sailing vessel Lucky Strike. We are under attack from pirates! I say again, we are under attack from pirates…”

The woman repeated her call for help. Her shattered voice grew more shrill with every word.

At length, the words Mamat had hoped for crackled over the radio in a barrage of static.

“Lucky Strike, this is United States Naval Vessel Rogue…”