The sudden thought of an escort chilled him. The plan called for the infidels to be subdued silently, but fire discipline was always a challenge with the mujahideen, and their weapons were not suppressed. The flash and sound of gunfire would carry a long way over water, and it wouldn’t do to alert either the sleeping crew or an escort before he was prepared. Mukhtar sank back into a crouch and reconsidered his plan to rush the wheelhouse from each bridge wing.
After a time, he smiled, and motioned for his man to follow as he duck-walked forward, staying below the wheelhouse windows. He stopped a few feet aft of the open door into the wheelhouse and pulled a spare magazine from his pants pocket. He turned to see his underling nod in understanding and follow suit. Mukhtar held up three fingers for a silent countdown, and they lobbed the magazines in unison, away from the wheelhouse, which struck the steel deck with a sharp metallic clatter.
As expected, the watch officer came to investigate, intent on reaching the source of the sound farther out on the bridge wing. He moved through the open door with the helmsman on his heels, both playing small penlights on the deck in front of them. The pirates let them pass, then rose as one from the darkness to press the muzzles of their weapons against the backs of the seamen’s heads.
“Move or make a sound, and you’re dead,” said Mukhtar.
Arnett hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since she’d watched the chopper carry Vince Blake away at Gibraltar. Sleep came in patches, punctuated by weird dreams, the latest of which was unfolding behind her twitching eyelids. In it, she watched helplessly as Charlie Brown and thousands of his minions sailed off with Luther Hurd, leaving her adrift in the lifeboat in her underwear. She screamed curses, and then jerked awake in the dark—wakened by a sound that shouldn’t be there.
She lay panting in the twisted sheets, trying to get her bearings and straining to hear what had wakened her, rewarded only with the distant throb of the engine and the familiar sounds of a ship at sea. She debated getting up, then decided against it. She wouldn’t be a nervous pain-in-the-ass captain that didn’t trust her people. The watch would call if she was needed, and she needed rest. She’d almost convinced herself that was going to happen when her phone buzzed.
“Captain,” she answered.
“Captain,” said the third mate, “I need you on the bridge.”
“OK. Be right up,” Arnett said, rolling out of bed.
Arnett pushed open the door from the central stairwell and made her way across the chart room, her path illuminated by the dim red lights of the chart table. She stepped through the curtains onto the darkened bridge, taking care to close them behind her, and then stopped a moment to let her eyes adjust.
“I’m here, Joe,” she said. “Give me a minute to get my night vision and—” The smell hit her first—the sickening odor of an unwashed body and excrement. Before she could react, strong arms encircled her, pinning her own arms to her sides, as she was pulled close to that unwashed body. Then her training kicked in.
At five foot two, 120 pounds dripping wet, and determined to make her way in what was still very much a man’s world, Lynda Arnett had carefully selected interests. Chief among them was martial arts. Rather than resist, Arnett tensed her legs and forced her back into her captor’s chest. She sensed his surprise and a slight loosening of his grip, and still in the circle of his arms, she spun violently to the right, raising her right arm to deliver a savage elbow strike at the place where his head should be. There was a sharp pain as her elbow struck teeth, mitigated by the satisfying feel of the teeth giving way and arms releasing her as her attacker spewed unintelligible curses. She stepped back, still night-blind, and stumbled through the dark toward the general alarm.
Then the night exploded in stars, and she felt, rather than saw, the deck rising up to meet her face.
Mukhtar pocketed the leather-covered sap, and squatted over the motionless woman. He felt her pulse at the neck. Strong and steady—she’d have little more than a headache. Which was more than he could say for his second-in-command. He looked over to where the man stood, florescent in the night-vision glasses, holding his face.
“Are you injured, Diriyi?” he called, as he bound the whore’s hands with a plastic restraint.
Mukhtar heard the sound of spitting and a soft click as something hard and small hit the deck. Diriyi’s reply came as a wet, lisping rasp. “The bitch broke my teeth. I’ll kill her!”
“Not yet,” Mukhtar said, as he felt Arnett’s pockets and extracted a key ring. “I’ll stay here and guard the bridge. You take her master key and the other men and secure the rest of the crew. Enter their quarters and take them while they sleep. Leave each bound and gagged in their room for now. Start on the top deck and work your way down to neutralize the officers first. If you must kill anyone, use your knives. Now hurry!” He rose, and pressed the key ring into Diriyi’s hand.
Arnett drifted back into consciousness, her head throbbing and a tightness enveloping the right side of her face as her flesh swelled from the savage blow she’d received. She couldn’t see, and she fought down rising panic as she attempted to touch her aching face and couldn’t. The panic worsened as she attempted to speak and couldn’t open her mouth.
She forced herself calm and tried to assess her situation. She was sitting on the deck with her back against a bulkhead. Her hands were bound behind her and something sticky covered both her mouth and eyes—duct tape, she guessed. Light leaked around the edge of her blindfold, so she knew it was daytime, and from the sounds around her, she knew she was on the bridge. It sounded like her attackers had released Joe Silva to con the ship.
The VHF squawked. “Luther Hurd, Luther Hurd. This is USS Carney. How do you copy? Over.”
“What do they want?” asked a foreign-accented voice.
“I don’t know. Probably just a communications check,” Silva said. Arnett heard the terror in his voice.
“Answer it and get rid of them,” said the foreign voice. “And do not attempt to warn them, or first the whore dies, and then you.”
“I’ll try,” said Silva, “but the captain’s been talking to them. They may be expecting her.”
Something hard pressed into Arnett’s temple and she heard the foreign voice from just above her. “Do it,” the man said. “And be convincing, or the whore dies.”
“This is Luther Hurd, Carney,” she heard Silva say. “We copy five by five. Over.”
Joe Silva had been in the States for most of his forty years—a US citizen for thirty—but there was still a ghost of his native Brazil in his speech, evidently enough to draw interest.
“Luther Hurd, this is Carney. Please identify the speaker. Over.”
“Carney, I’m Joe Silva, third mate of Luther Hurd. Over,” said Silva, his accent becoming more pronounced due to stress.
“Luther Hurd, stand by. Over.”
The radio fell dead for over a minute, then squawked again.
“Luther Hurd, this is Carney. Is Captain Arnett available? Over.”
Arnett could hear the panic in Silva’s voice as he addressed their attacker.
“They want to talk to the captain! What do I do?”
“Make some excuse to delay,” ordered the foreign voice. “Then break communications.”
Arnett heard Silva sigh and then key the mike.
“Carney, this is Luther Hurd. I must call Captain Arnett to the bridge. She will contact you soonest. Luther Hurd, out.”
“Understood, Luther Hurd. We will stand by. USS Carney, out.”
Arnett felt strong hands in her armpits as she was hoisted to her feet and pushed forward. She stumbled a few steps and felt the chart-room curtain brush her face as she was pushed through it. Rough hands seized her arms again, and she sensed she was being held between two men, her attackers having apparently learned not to underestimate her. The body odor�shit smell was overpowering and nauseating, and she thought of her taped mouth, visions of strangling on her own vomit flashing through her mind.
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She flinched as duct tape was ripped from her eyes and mouth, and blinked in the light as her eyes focused on the scene around her. The chart room was crowded. Two men held her against the chart table, and another stood across the room pointing an automatic weapon down at Joe Silva and Gomez, a young ordinary seaman on his first trip to sea. The terrified crewmen had been forced to their knees, and Gomez’s hands were bound behind him. Silva’s hands were free, but he looked almost catatonic from fear. In the middle of the small space stood a fourth man, very much in charge. The men were all black, armed, and of medium height and indeterminate age. They were dressed very much like the vendors that swarmed aboard at Suez.
Mr. In Charge smiled as Arnett’s eyes watered in the unaccustomed light, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
“Ah, the whore captain cries,” he said in accented English. “Did we upset you?”
He said something in his own language, drawing laughter from the pair holding her and a grin from the man across the cabin holding her crewmen. A grin somewhat spoiled by missing front teeth.
Arnett smiled back at the man across the cabin. “Nice teeth, asshole,” she said.
The man scowled and started for her, then stopped at the upraised hand of the man in charge.
Now she knew at least two of them spoke English.
Mr. In Charge moved in front of her.
“My name is Mukhtar, whore,” he said. “But you will call me master. In a few moments, you will radio your navy friends and convince them everything is in order, or you will live to regret it. Any questions?”
“Yeah. Would you assholes like some deodorant? I’ve got some in my cabin.”
Mukhtar’s fist flew back, then he stopped.
“No,” he said, “I must not damage your mouth. I want you to speak clearly on the radio. Diriyi,” he called over his shoulder to the man with the missing teeth, “show the whore we mean business.”
Without hesitation, the man raised his weapon to Gomez’s head.
“No!” shouted Mukhtar. “Use your knife.”
Toothless nodded and lowered his weapon to dangle from a shoulder strap, and whipped a knife from his side. He jerked Gomez’s head back by his hair and sliced the young seaman’s throat in one fluid motion, and bright arterial blood sprayed forward onto the deck. Toothless released him, and Gomez toppled forward, face-down as blood pumped from the wound and puddled in a spreading pool. Beside him, Joe Silva blanched, and dark stains of blood from the spray dotted his face in stark contrast to his skin. He trembled in wordless terror, trying to speak, but his mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fresh-caught fish in the bottom of a boat.
Shock coursed through Arnett, followed by rage. There was no training now, just undiluted hatred. She struggled to escape, but her captors were prepared and held her tightly. She aimed a kick at Mukhtar’s groin, but he sidestepped.
“You bastard,” she screamed. “I’m going to kill you!”
“I don’t think so,” he said, then turned to his underling. “Diriyi!”
Toothless moved toward Joe Silva with the knife.
“Wait!” screamed Arnett.
Mukhtar turned back toward Arnett and smiled. “Will you cooperate?”
“Let the crew go,” Arnett said. “You have me and the ship. That should be enough for whatever you plan.”
Mukhtar came close and grabbed her chin, putting his face inches from her own. “Listen to me, whore, because I will tell you once. What I ‘plan’ is of no concern to you, and you are in no position to negotiate. I can kill you all in five minutes, much sooner than any help can arrive, and I will do so if I must. My men and I are not afraid to die, and in fact, assume we will, so there is no threat you can use against me. Whether or not we complete our mission is the will of Allah, but you should hope for our success as well. It is the only way you and these other infidels will survive. Now, will you cooperate?”
Arnett glared at him. “Yes,” she said at last.
Arnett lay face-down on the chart-room settee, bound hand and foot and once again blindfolded with duct tape. Mukhtar kept her there, always within sight, allowing her to use the bridge toilet and having food brought up sporadically. From the sounds around her, she knew he’d released at least a few crew members to run the ship, their good behavior guaranteed by threats against their shipmates.
It was hard to judge the passage of time, but she’d been hauled to her feet to participate in three more communications checks, so she figured they’d been running at least a day or so. She felt dull and lethargic, drugged by failure, racked by doubt, and denied any visual stimulation. She tried to keep herself alert, but monotony and fatigue overcame her at times, lulling her into fitful sleep. Sleep full of dreams of Gomez, a kid just out of high school and on his first big adventure. She remembered his eagerness to please, and the unmerciful but good-natured teasing he got from his shipmates, herself included.
And she remembered her big mouth had gotten him killed.
Tough-talking, take-no-shit-from-anyone Lynda Arnett. She’d always been proud of that image, and the respect that came with it. But someone else had paid the price, and she was determined no one else would die for her pride. So each time the Carney’s captain used the word storm in their conversations, she’d worked good weather into her response, signaling that all was well aboard Luther Hurd. And each time she’d been tempted to respond with bad blow—the prearranged signal to alert Carney she was under duress—she thought of young Gomez lying on the deck. She saw no way Carney could intercede without getting more of her crew killed, and she couldn’t take that chance.
She roused at the sound of several people moving through the chart room, some of the steps hesitant, like those of blind men in unfamiliar surroundings, mixed with the more confident footfalls. The sound moved away onto the bridge, and despite her situation, she took comfort in the sound of a familiar voice coming from that direction.
“Get your goddamn hands off me,” said Jim Milam.
She flinched at the sound of a blow, followed by a moan.
“Get the woman,” she heard Mukhtar say, and moments later she felt the restraints on her ankles being cut. She was hauled to her feet and half dragged onto the bridge, where Mukhtar ripped the tape from her face and stood waiting for her eyes to adjust.
Chief Engineer Jim Milam stood on the bridge, his hands bound behind his back, with what looked like a small horse collar sprouting multicolored wires around his neck, held down by straps under his armpits. The cook, the bosun, and a seaman stood beside him, similarly bound and outfitted with the strange collars.
“Take them to the top of the wheelhouse,” said Mukhtar to Diriyi, in English for Arnett’s benefit. “Bind one to the rail at each corner.” He smiled at Arnett. “That should keep them far enough apart to allow us to detonate them one by one.”
“Just a minute, Mukhtar! You said—”
“Silence,” screamed Mukhtar, as he backhanded her. Caught off guard, and with hands bound behind her, she stumbled backward and lost her balance, crashing to the deck in a heap.
Milam started toward Mukhtar, to be folded over by a rifle butt to the midsection.
“Take them up,” said Mukhtar, jerking his head toward the door to the bridge wing, and Diriyi towed the still-gasping Milam toward the door. The other two terrorists herded the three bound seamen in their wake.
Mukhtar grabbed a handful of Arnett’s short hair and hauled her to her feet.
She twisted her head and glared at him. “What’re you going to do?”
He ignored her question and dragged her to the steering stand. Holding her with one hand, he fished handcuffs from his pocket and locked one cuff around the storm rail on the steering stand. He moved behind her, and she felt his gun at the base of her skull and heard the soft click of a switchblade opening.
“I am going to cut your hands free,” Mukhtar said, pressing the gun harder to her skull. “I want you to handcuff your right hand to the steering stand. M
ove slowly. Try any of your tricks and your whole crew will die. Understand?”
Arnett nodded, and she felt the blade between her wrists, slicing through the plastic cable tie like butter. She wanted desperately to rub her raw wrists, but did as ordered and cuffed herself to the steering stand. She heard the slightest sigh of relief from behind her.
He was afraid of her. Despite her circumstances, the realization brought a small thrill of satisfaction and a ray of hope.
“Now,” said Mukhtar, “place steering in manual and come right to a new course of one-eight-zero degrees.”
Arnett did as ordered, without bothering to repeat the course back to him. A mile or more ahead, she could see the stern of the USS Carney, moving out of view to port as the bow of Luther Hurd swung due south.
“What are you doing?” Arnett asked.
“What I’m doing is changing our destination,” Mukhtar said. “Very soon I’ll be showing your navy friends they can do nothing about it.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when the VHF squawked. “Luther Hurd, Luther Hurd, this is USS Carney. Why have you changed course? Over.”
“There they are now,” he said. “The show is about to begin.”
Chapter Five
Offices of Phoenix Shipping Ltd.
London, UK
Dugan gazed at Alex Kairouz across a conference table littered with sandwich wrappers, the debris of a working lunch.
“For Christ’s sake,” Dugan said. “It took the insurers ten days just to agree on a five-million counter on a fifteen-million ransom demand? While our ship and crew are rotting in some Somali shithole? What’s the matter with those guys?”
“I’m afraid feeding them intel may actually be working against a speedy conclusion,” Alex said. “They haven’t said it in so many words, but I’m increasingly of the opinion the insurers see this as a golden opportunity to drive the ransom as low as possible, with a possible knock-on effect on future ransom demands.”
“Then we need to explain to the insurers that our intel is a perishable commodity,” Dugan said. “I’m sure there’s a limit to Jesse’s patience.”
Deadly Coast (A Tom Dugan Novel) Page 4
