Black Flag

by David Ricciardi

  * * *

  —

  JAKE STUDIED THE shipowner’s biography as the plane flew northwest over the Red Sea: In his eighties now, the shipping magnate had started his career as a ship broker, mainly arranging shipments of crude and occasionally the sale of the ships themselves. He bought his first tanker from a bank that had foreclosed on it and was so eager to get it off their books that they provided him with the financing to buy it.

  The deal happened at the lows of a shipping cycle and the value of the ship quickly appreciated. In eight months, Romanos had built enough equity to buy two more ships. He sold all three at the peak of the next cycle and cashed out for eighteen months until the market corrected again. He repeated the trade several times, perfectly timing his acquisitions and dispositions, until people were afraid to buy ships when Romanos was selling. He started moving them through intermediaries and shell corporations, always spotting the clouds gathering on the horizon before everyone else.

  Buying ships at the bottom of the cycle was easier—he was the only one who had any money.

  And he had a lot of it.

  CIA estimated his net worth to be between five and ten billion U.S. dollars. The exact number was impossible to know because Greece was a notoriously difficult place to track wealth. Shipowners were exempt from most taxation, and men as skilled in international commerce as Giánnis Romanos tended to spread their assets around to preserve them in case of little things like civil unrest or the election of a leftist government. He didn’t want to give away his fortune on someone else’s terms.

  But he had given a lot away.

  At least a couple billion.

  His late wife had handled most of the philanthropy. Together they’d endowed hospitals and schools, supported the Greek Orthodox Church, and provided lifelines to hundreds of charities around the country. In the absence of a capable federal government, Romanos had stepped in to take care of his fellow man.

  * * *

  —

  THE G550 DESCENDED through light turbulence as it turned onto final approach at Athens International Airport, but the Agency pilots hardly noticed the rough air. After flying spiral approaches into Baghdad at night and under fire for almost a decade, and using unprepared runways across Africa for the last three years, it took more than a bumpy ride on a cool November day to get them excited.

  Jake had never spoken directly with Romanos, but his assistant had been cordial and immediately scheduled the appointment when Jake had called. He’d also insisted on sending a car to the airport. It was a midsize BMW sedan, just like thousands of taxis across Europe. The courtesy car prevented Jake from running a surveillance detection route, but he’d just flown in on a private jet from Somalia. A tail was . . . unlikely.

  Jake and the driver headed southwest across the Attica peninsula toward the shipping company’s headquarters in the affluent Athens suburb of Glyfada—and drove right past it.

  Jake caught the driver’s eye in the rearview mirror.

  “I’ve been instructed to take you to the residence,” he said.

  The highway turned into a two-lane road that wound between the foothills of Mount Hymettus on one side and the seaside cliffs off the Saronic Gulf on the other. They soon reached the coastal enclave of Vouliagmeni, where towering palm trees and manicured parks lined the main boulevard.

  The driver turned onto a narrow spit of land and entered the Romanos estate, following a crushed-stone driveway through an orchard of olive trees whose gnarled trunks looked as if they’d been twisted by giants. At the end was a sprawling, modern home with glass walls, metal railings, and a flat roof. Its elevation varied with the terrain, masking its true size.

  The driver stopped at the front door and Jake stepped out. The air smelled of pine trees, wild chamomile, and the breeze blowing in off the sea. The contrast with Mogadishu was almost unfathomable.

  * * *

  —

  ROMANOS’S ASSISTANT WAS waiting at the door in a light gray suit and a tie.

  “It’s good of you to come,” he said. “Mr. Romanos is on the terrace. Please follow me.”

  The assistant led Jake through the house, past simple, modern furniture and a few pieces of original art. It was a minimalist style of decorating that suited the home perfectly—anything more elaborate would have been a waste—because nothing could compete with the view. The twenty-three-acre estate had a 270-degree vista of the rocky cliffs and the sea.

  A sliding glass wall was open to the terrace. Romanos was alone outside, sitting in a lounge chair wearing a warm jacket with a blanket over his legs. The assistant pointed to a chair next to him.

  “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you. He doesn’t get many visitors anymore.”

  Jake was about to ask the assistant to elaborate, but he’d already returned to the interior of the house.

  Jake introduced himself. “I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Romanos.”

  The silver-haired shipowner nodded behind a pair of dark sunglasses but said nothing.

  Jake expressed condolences for the loss of his son and the ships’ crews and gratitude for Romanos’s offer to help combat the threat. Jake broadly laid out what he’d learned about the highly sophisticated pirate operation and his search for the man who ran it all.

  “Who is he?” asked the shipowner.

  “We don’t know. The United States is hopeful that you might help us identify him.”

  “Who?”

  “The man atop the whole enterprise.”

  Romanos said nothing.

  “We’d like to assemble a list of who knew about the Lindos’s and the Rhodos’s routes before—”

  Jake heard rapid footsteps behind him and turned to see a woman a few years older than himself. She was wearing a black silk blouse over white linen pants and her dark hair was pulled back tight.

  She was stunning.

  And she was furious.

  “Who are you?” she snapped.

  Jake stood to introduce himself, but the shipowner’s assistant was already there. She started firing off more questions before anyone could answer.

  “Who is this?” she said. “What does he want?”

  “Forgive me,” said the assistant. “He is from the U.S. State Department.”

  “I’m with the Maritime Security Division,” Jake said. “Mr. Romanos contacted us several months ago and offered to assist with an investigation we’re conducting.”

  “And you just let him in?” she said to the assistant.

  “I thought it would be good for him—” The assistant glanced at Romanos.

  “Let me see your identification.”

  Jake handed over his State Department credentials. The cover story had been thoroughly backstopped and the information would be corroborated by State Department headquarters if anyone checked.

  And she checked.

  She pulled out a mobile phone and searched the internet for the State Department’s main number—not willing to trust the number printed on Jake’s ID. A ten-carat canary yellow diamond engagement ring sparkled in the sunlight as she held the phone to her ear and verified Jake’s employment.

  “Come with me,” she said to Jake once she’d finished.

  It was an order, not an invitation.

  She led him back through the house to a home office.

  Jake began to apologize. “I’m sorry if—”

  “I am Athena Romanos. My father had a stroke four months ago and suffers from advanced vascular dementia. He is a kind and generous man, and many people have tried to take advantage of him since his stroke.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Romanos,” Jake said. “I didn’t know.”

  “You should have known. What do you want?”

  “Your father called—”

  “I know about the call. I was the one w
ho insisted he make it after my brother disappeared.”

  “We were hoping your father could help with the investigation.”

  “So the authorities are asking the victim to solve the crime?”

  Jake didn’t appreciate the confrontational attitude.

  “I’m sorry about your brother,” he said, “but those two ships were overinsured by almost forty million dollars, so let’s not overplay the victim card. Each of—”

  “How dare you—”

  “Each of the missing ships had a very similar profile in terms of tonnage, cargo, and routes, which means that these hijackings were not targets of opportunity. These were intelligence-led operations, led by a very capable and very dangerous organization. Someone knew the ships’ routes, cargo, and timing—probably someone on the inside.”

  She sat down behind the desk.

  “First of all,” she said, “the excess insurance proceeds were closer to thirty-three million, and you obviously have no idea what happened to that money.”

  She typed something on the computer keyboard in front of her and turned the monitor to face Jake.

  “Excluding my brother, forty-one crewmen did not return home. Their families each received a million dollars—all of the excess proceeds, plus eight million from the company, which is one hundred percent owned by my family.”

  Jake examined the spreadsheet. It was the names of the forty-one sailors, their beneficiaries, addresses, bank routing numbers, local currencies, and dates of payment. It could have been fake, but she hadn’t even known he was coming.

  Athena stood and walked him to the front door. “We didn’t call you because we lost a couple of ships,” she said. The edge in her voice could have split a block of marble.

  “Good-bye.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  JAKE WASN’T GIVING up just yet. The more he analyzed the data, the more convinced he became that the pirates had someone on the inside—someone who was feeding them advance intel on the targets.

  And the two Romanos ships were the first to fall.

  He spent the night at the Westin Astir Palace in Vouliagmeni and called Athena’s office the next morning to schedule an appointment. She acquiesced after his sixth attempt and agreed to see him for ten minutes at the end of the day.

  The company’s offices occupied the top three floors of a five-story glass-and-steel building in Glyfada. Jake arrived ten minutes early and was escorted into a conference room with seating for thirty and a spectacular view of the Saronic Gulf. The island of Aegina, twelve miles off the coast, looked as if he could reach out and touch it. Lining the conference room walls were models of ships and dozens of deal mementos called “tombstones,” eight-inch-high acrylic blocks with the details of various ship purchases and cargo deals encased in the heavy plastic. Jake found the tombstone for the Lindos, the first ship taken by the pirates, and took it down from the shelf to read the details.

  “That was my brother’s ship,” said Athena. She was wearing a fitted black suit and a printed silk scarf. Her dark wavy hair was pulled back tight.

  She took the tombstone, replaced it on the shelf, and remained standing. It was not going to be a long meeting.

  “The pirates aren’t striking at random,” Jake said. “These are intelligence-led operations, and something caused them to select your ships.”

  “Do you think we’ll be attacked again?”

  Jake nodded.

  “There’s a very real possibility that someone in your organization is feeding information to the pirates.”

  “I’m not naïve, but I find it difficult to believe that one of our staff would sell information, knowing that it would result in the deaths of their colleagues.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone, but someone is providing that intel. We need to follow the flow of information and see where it leads us. Roughly half of the tankers that disappeared were loaded with refined products from the Indian coast, mostly Mumbai, Mangaluru, and Kochi. We looked at India as the common element, but other targets were carrying crude and had no connection to India, which is why I’m asking for your help.”

  “A common destination, perhaps?”

  “Some were headed for the Mediterranean, some for Africa, and some for Asia.”

  “I seem to recall something similar happening a few years ago,” Athena said, suddenly intrigued. “Several tankers vanished in the western Pacific. Do you think it’s related?”

  “Those ships all reappeared after a few months with new names, counterfeit manifests, and phony flags. It turns out they were smuggling oil into sanctioned countries and trying to hide their tracks.”

  Athena looked out the window. “How can I help?”

  “Tell me about your ships. Who would have enough advance knowledge of their routes to plan an attack?”

  “How much time would they need?”

  “At least a week before the tanker sailed, probably two.”

  “Outside our company, only the brokers and the shipping agents would have the details that early.”

  “Did the same men work the Lindos and the Rhodos?”

  Athena pulled a laptop from a cabinet and her fingers flew over the keyboard—despite the enormous diamond that was weighing one of them down. She had an answer in under two minutes.

  “They were different brokers,” she said as her eyes rose to meet Jake’s, “but the same agent.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ATHENA MUTTERED SOMETHING in Greek.

  Jake didn’t speak a word of the language, but he could tell from the tone that she wasn’t pleased. She reached for the telephone.

  “Who are you calling?” Jake said.

  “The police,” she said.

  “Please don’t.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Well, to start with, you don’t have any evidence, only suspicion.”

  “Then I’ll confront him and force him to admit it.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “He killed my brother.”

  “My point exactly. These are dangerous criminals.”

  “Fine,” she said. She lifted up the phone and started dialing.

  “Who are you calling now?”

  “My operations room. We have another ship at sea with this agent. I’m bringing it back to port.”

  Jake put his hand on the phone and gently hung it up.

  Athena eyes widened in disbelief. She looked as if she might kill him.

  “If that ship turns around,” Jake said, “the agent will know we’re on to him. We have to let it play out.”

  “I won’t let you use my men as bait.”

  “Then more men will die.” He stood from his seat and looked out the window. “Not your men, but men will die, and they’ll keep dying until we identify the pirate leader.”

  “You can’t blame me for those deaths . . .”

  “No, but the pirates need to be stopped, and right now the agent is our only lead.”

  Athena stood from her seat and joined Jake, staring out over the Saronic Gulf of the western Aegean Sea.

  “How much time do you need?” she said.

  “Give me a week.”

  “The ship will be in the Arabian Sea in five days. You have four.”

  Jake nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

  He left the building and made several calls on his secure mobile phone as he walked in the park next to Athena’s office—using the overhead cover of the palm trees and the noise from the fountains to avoid surveillance. Athena was waiting for him when he returned to the building an hour later.

  “You need to visit the agent,” he said as he closed her office door.

  “I suggested that an hour ago . . .”

  “But you can’t confront him and go to the police. This agent is the only lead we have. If you spook him, our in
vestigation is over and your brother’s killer gets away.”

  “So what would you have me do, pay him a social call?”

  “Exactly. Tell him you happened to be in the area and stopped by to say hello.”

  “You must be joking.”

  “Have a look around his office . . . a detailed look. I want to know the type of phone, the make of his computer, any remote controls, the kind of light fixtures, desktop decorations, furniture.”

  “What am I searching for?”

  “Details,” Jake said. “We won’t know what’s important until you’ve finished. I can get you a concealed camera if you’d like.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I don’t forget anything,” she said as she fidgeted with her ring, “unfortunately.”

  “Ms. Romanos, I want to make sure you understand the risk here. If we’re right about this agent, and he gets suspicious, you could be in physical danger. These probably aren’t the sort of people you normally associate with.”

  “You have no idea what kind of people I associate with.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “My family has a long history with the Greek mafia.”

  Jake was shocked that it wasn’t in the Agency dossier—it was the kind of information that CIA generally uncovered—even if it was only speculation. He couldn’t help but show his surprise.

  “We aren’t criminals.” Athena smirked. “Quite the opposite. Greece is a waypoint and a destination for the Eastern European and African sex trades. My mother started several shelters in Athens two decades ago so the girls would have a place to stay if they were able to escape the traffickers. It gave the girls hope and safety, but my family has lived with death threats, and an occasional attack, from the organized crime syndicates ever since. So thank you for your concern, but I think I can handle the agent.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  JAKE WORE A black suit and tie as he drove Athena’s silver Jaguar sedan along the congested Akti Miaouli boulevard. He stopped outside a five-story office building in the port city of Piraeus and opened the rear door.