“It’s just a ship, Captain. Someone else’s ship, not yours. It’s not worth lives. Only money.”
Drozdov stormed past Suleiman’s outstretched gun, to fling open the infirmary door. In the hall, the guard jumped in surprise. The captain walked the length of the hall, headed for the stairwell. Yusuf kept pace.
“Captain.”
“What?”
“May I ask a question?”
“So polite. Where did you get manners, pirate?”
“In England. Where I grew up.”
Drozdov made a spitting noise.
“Ask.”
“Why is your ship going so slowly?”
Drozdov stopped in the hall. Face to face, he growled. “You know why.”
“Tell me so I can see if you know.”
“Sabotage.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“Vali otsyuda sure. Positive! You have put someone on my ship! You are worse than bastard. You are govnosos. Shit sucker.”
Drozdov stomped away. Yusuf held his ground, gesturing for the guard to stay with the captain to the staircase. Suleiman sidled close.
In a low voice, he asked, “Do you have someone on this crew?”
“No.”
In a second, all the victory of the hijacking leaked out of Suleiman. His head sagged to his chest, gold teeth bared.
Yusuf asked, “What does this mean?”
“It means everything I was afraid of has happened. We are being maneuvered by someone. It means we are puppets.”
Yusuf set a hand to Suleiman’s shoulder. He recalled this narrow, older shoulder at his side fighting in Plumstead alleys, plucking fish from the Somali sea, shaking and angry at sickness and civil war. Suleiman had stood with Yusuf on the bridge of six captured ships, had divided millions of dollars. Both had put blood on their hands for each other and for their clan. At every step, they had never been puppets.
“Lift your head, cousin. We are kings of this land. Come.”
The window framed a blue-eyed face in earmuffs. The glass was shatterproof, the door a steel watertight portal. The crew behind this door was impregnable.
Suleiman pushed his pistol against Drozdov’s temple. The Russian set his mouth hard, staring into the window and the head gaping back. Believing his life was on the line, Drozdov seemed to will his crew to stay locked in the engine room. What sort of man was this? Yusuf put this aside, another mystery to be untangled later. He stepped in front of his eight pirates holding automatic weapons ready.
Yusuf waggled the walkie-talkie he’d taken from Drozdov. The man in the window nodded, then pulled aside one earmuff to press a similar radio to his ear. The noise in the engine room was surely intense.
“Can you hear me?” Yusuf called into his handset.
The face nodded.
“I do not need you to come out. I have my hostages. The captain and the burned boy. The warships will not come to your rescue. You may all stay in the engine room.”
The blue eyes widened.
“But hear me. If you touch the engine, if you disable one system on this ship, I will bring the captain back down here in pieces. Then the boy. Do you understand?”
The face licked lips. He turned away, glancing to someone behind him. It seemed he got no guidance. He looked back at Yusuf without defiance or strategy.
“If you come out, we will feed you and keep you safe. I know you have wounded with you. They will get care. Do you have weapons?”
The face nodded.
“I want every armed man to walk out first. Then the crew. I need an answer now.”
The man lowered the walkie-talkie. He turned his back to the window. Yusuf imagined him shouting to the gathered crew: They have the captain. They have the boy. What should we do?
The discussion inside the loud engine room concluded quickly. The blue eyes returned and bobbed agreement.
The steel wheel of the door turned from the inside. Yusuf’s pirates lifted their weapons. The locking chocks spun. The door edged open.
A swell of engine clatter emerged first, then the man in the window, sheathed in black. He offered his automatic weapon to Yusuf. At his back came another guard, also surrendering his arms. The third, the largest of them, dragged himself propped on the shoulders of two Filipino crewmen. Gauze wrapped the man’s bare torso, scarlet seeped through the layers. He carried no gun.
Suleiman stopped him. “You were the one shooting.”
The big guard shook slowly, his laughter agonized into a cough.
“So were you.”
“Where is your rifle?”
“I dropped it in the water.”
Suleiman pushed a finger against the bandages to hold the big man in place. The two eyed each other, stopping the line, scowling as men who had traded bullets.
“Do you mind?” the guard rasped. “I prefer to lie down.” The guard hobbled to the elevator. Both smaller Filipinos struggled to support him.
Yusuf counted the seamen leaving the loud engine room, all of them shedding earmuffs. Twenty-seven filed past, including one strapped to a backboard carried between a pair of Russians. Adding the captain and burned boy, that accounted for all the crew and officers, plus three guards.
One of them was the saboteur. Whose man was it? Al-Qaeda, CIA, Mossad?
When the last sailors had been escorted up the stairs, Yusuf and Suleiman were left with Drozdov. Suleiman sealed the heavy portal, restoring quiet.
Yusuf asked the captain, “Is that everyone?”
“Yes.”
Suleiman seemed more galled by the minute. He shoved his gold teeth close to Drozdov, holding the pistol high beside his own head to show that it was asking, too.
“Then who did my men chase?”
Drozdov gave no inch. “My passenger. Iris Cherlina.”
Yusuf eased his cousin back from the Russian. “A woman passenger?”
“Yes.”
“She is on the manifest?”
“Of course.”
Yusuf turned Drozdov for the stairs. The captain walked off, muttering in Russian, surly as Suleiman.
“Just a woman, cousin.” Yusuf linked his kinsman’s arm. “Let her go.”
“At this speed,” Suleiman whispered, “it won’t be four hours to Qandala. It’s eight.”
“I know. We’ll make it. We anchor at sunup.” Yusuf towed Suleiman to the stairs. “Then we get off this damn ship.”
Chapter 14
CMA CGN Valnea
Gulf of Aden
LB lowered himself by a series of levels and ladders. Surrounded by steel, he became conscious of every noise he made, boots on the rungs, Bojan’s jangling gun, his breathing. His combat sense told him to sneak down until he knew what he was headed into.
Reaching the bottom of the hold, he gazed into a vast honeycomb. The size and complexity of the ship belowdecks stunned LB. The diffuse glow from his flashlight did not reach its limits. But only strides away from the bottom of his ladder, on the canyon floor, two rows of railroad cars looked puny and alone.
Here were the first of the Valnea’s secrets.
When Major Torres sent him on this mission, she hadn’t counted on pirates, gunplay, a saboteur. If LB’s life and the safety of others were at risk, he needed to find out everything he could about the terrain, the players, and the stakes.
Time for curiosity. If he got in trouble for it later, that’d be good news. He’d be alive for it.
The first line of nine railcars supported long, rounded cargos covered by tied-down tarpaulins. The nine beds in the second row held rectangular loads, also hidden by tarps. LB crept to the nearest car. When he was standing close, the shipment no longer appeared small. It dwarfed him.
He sliced his knife across the tarp, cutting a slash big enough to stick in his head and flashlight.
“Holy…” LB clamped his teeth, or he might shout.
He trained his flashlight along the frost-colored fuselage of an unmanned aerial vehicle. The drone’s long
wings lay bound to its sides. Inert and dismantled, the thing still looked deadly and blindly robotic. He’d seen plenty of UAVs on runways in Afghanistan. Always they gave him the same chill, knowing and disliking what they were, drone hunter-killers, the faceless future of warfare.
He scanned the colossal length of the plane, not recognizing the shape. This was no Predator or Reaper. It wasn’t American.
On one wing, close to the root, his light passed over a label. LB withdrew his head, shielding the flashlight. He moved to cut another slit in the tarp.
He aimed the light to read the label. IAI. Israeli Aircraft Industry.
LB sliced into the eight other tarps in line. He found identical UAVs.
Why were Israeli drones being shipped to Lebanon?
He cut through the tarps on all the railcars in the second row. The first four held CCS mobile bunkers. These were hardened nerve centers, C4I stations for command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence. The last five cars were packed with ground radar arrays, aerostat dirigibles, remote video terminals—every persistent surveillance sensor an army needed for detection, identification, and targeting.
Like the drones, all of it was Israeli.
This didn’t add up. Israel shared a border with Lebanon. If all this heavy hardware was bound for Beirut, why not ship it overland a hundred miles instead of loading it onto a freighter in one of the remotest reaches of the world, Vladivostok?
As he stared at the radar arrays under his flashlight, a few bits and pieces of this mystery ship began to fit for LB.
Why did the Valnea run empty, except for these railcars, for ten thousand miles?
Simple. She was calling into only one port. This wasn’t a commercial voyage but a charter, meant to ferry the drones and electronics straight to Beirut.
Then why load up so far out of the way in a far corner of Russia? And why protect the drones with Bojan?
The obvious reason was secrecy. This shipment wasn’t just sensitive. It was probably illegal. The customer was bound to be on a UN watch list. Russia couldn’t ship military technology this advanced to just anybody. In the Middle East, that list of banned parties was long, and it included Lebanon. The Valnea’s cranes would let her unload the drones anywhere along the Lebanese coast, self-sufficient and secretive.
To pull it off, the ship needed a captain who wouldn’t pry. Drozdov was perfect, an experienced but retread officer who would shut his mouth and click his heels to get back on his feet. The rest of the crew would follow his orders. Drozdov seemed angry with himself, and his ship, for it.
The size and expense of the operation were considerable. Drones, C4I stations, and battlefield radars would easily top several billion dollars. Major Torres had been real clear that LB should keep his nose out of exactly where he’d stuck it. This indicated pressure from above. That spelled government—LB’s government.
So Russia, the United States, and Israel were in bed together. That put a lot of horsepower in play. Who else?
Who was getting the shipment? Too soon to know. Chances were, the stuff wasn’t destined for poor Lebanon, not for $5 billion anyway. Because it was being delivered in secret, the customer was somebody who could afford it but couldn’t get military hardware like this above the table.
No surprise. Prisoners, technology, weapons, information; this sort of back-door, black-op swap was done all the time between nations who were at each other’s throats in public, in each other’s pockets under the table.
What was at stake this time? What was being traded for drones and radar? Surely more than just money.
Also too soon to know.
Just as vital to LB’s survival: Who on board the Valnea was trying to stop it? Who had the know-how, motive, access, and sheer stones?
If the saboteur’s purpose was to keep the ship from reaching Beirut, why foul just one piston? Why not pull a bunch of fuses and shut down the whole engine?
LB clicked off the flashlight, closing the flap he’d cut into the last tarp. He scratched his ear, mulling all this over.
What if the intent wasn’t to stop the ship? What if the saboteur wanted only to slow her?
Why? To delay arrival in Beirut?
But if the point was to get to Lebanon later, the sabotage could have been done anytime over the past two weeks. Why wait ten thousand miles to do it here, in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, pirate central?
Drozdov said someone had slowed the ship so she could be hijacked. Someone on this ship was working with the pirates. If this was true, incredible. Again, why? Who?
Too many open-ended questions. LB centered on the one thing he could be sure of. Drozdov was dead on. Very powerful interests had a lot to lose here. If the Valnea got hijacked and her secrets hauled into the light of day by a bunch of ragtag Somalis waving AK-47s, heads would roll in Tel Aviv, Washington, and Moscow.
Drozdov had sent the signal that the ship was under attack. Now that pirates were aboard, someone, somewhere, was sure to come gunning to get the Valnea back. Maybe if Drozdov and his crew made it to the engine room, that American warship could drop a marine assault team on board. To keep that from happening, the pirates would have to get their hands on a hostage. They needed Iris Cherlina. As soon as they checked the ship’s manifest, they’d know she was on board and at large.
What role did she play in all this? Iris claimed to be an electrophysicist. She likely hadn’t been lying—who picks that for a fake career? But how did that figure in with several billion dollars’ worth of illegally transported military electronics? Iris, the drones, and the radar were all bound for Beirut. How was she linked to the big undercover deal in the belly of this ship?
He hoped she had nothing to do with any of it, and in the same moment cut that wish loose as foolish. Iris Cherlina was plenty good-looking. She’d played up to him to chump him. Drozdov called her a liar. Plainly the captain was right. If there were vast amounts of money involved, as she claimed, Iris was likely in this mess up to her pretty ears. Along with who else on board?
In the middle of all this uncertainty, one fact stood rock solid. If the Valnea wasn’t freed by someone in the next several hours, she’d be anchored off the Somali coast by sunup. After that, no one would get her back, not before the pirates stamped her secrets all over the world’s front page.
If LB wanted answers, and he did, he needed to find Iris Cherlina. He was going to ask her one more time what she was doing on this ship.
He headed for the bow and the muffled light.
Chapter 15
The ship’s crew huddled beneath the long windshield in the ship’s bridge. The Filipino deckhands sat one way, legs crossed under them. The taller Western officers sat with knees pulled to their chests. The Serb guards hunkered beside their wounded, bandaged comrade, who lay on his back, his head in one of their laps.
Suleiman read names aloud from the ship’s crew list. Guleed guarded the sailors with his Kalashnikov, waving it slowly back and forth across them. The rest of Yusuf’s men had been given thirty minutes to loot the crew’s quarters, before they would take up positions around the freighter, guarding her beam, bow, and stern.
Suleiman mangled many of the Filipino and Slavic names. As he worked down the list, some crewmen did not know to raise their hands. Suleiman’s voice rose in frustration when a hand did not go up with every name. Yusuf quietly reminded his cousin to stay calm; they were in control, and anger did not help the situation.
Drozdov sat stiff in his captain’s chair, Yusuf beside him in the copilot’s seat. Outside the windshield, behind the crew’s heads, a searchlight from the warship’s helicopter washed back and forth across the broad cargo deck. The Valnea drove ahead at twelve knots, on autopilot for the Somali coast and Qandala eighty miles off.
Suleiman closed the manifest. Every crewman, officer, and guard had been accounted for, including the pair in the infirmary. The only name unanswered was Iris Cherlina, the passenger. She hid somewhere in the dark crevices of the ship.
Iris Cherlina was not worth sending men to look for her.
Yusuf hoped she stayed out of sight the rest of the night. He didn’t need the distraction of his men being around a foreign woman. They were rer manjo, good seamen and pirates. But they were mostly poor Somali men, and a man’s poverty rarely remained in his pocket. It wore down his soul. Yusuf could not guarantee her safety.
A woman would be useful, but not now. Later, in the ransom negotiations.
“Captain.”
Drozdov turned a weary head. The man had collapsed into himself in the ten minutes Yusuf had been on board. His face, pocked and weary, looked like a moonstone.
“Yes.”
“Hail the warship. Tell them to recall their helicopter. Or I will shoot a hostage under that searchlight.”
Drozdov did not move. “Is that how it will be? Everything you want you will get, or you will shoot a hostage?”
Yusuf took the VHF microphone from the dash. He held it out to Drozdov.
“Help me get through the next seven hours, Captain. We can judge each other another time.”
The Valnea’s crew beneath the flashing windows watched their captain refuse to take the microphone. One, a heavyset officer, unfolded from the floor. He raised both hands to tell Guleed that he was no threat, that he wanted to come forward.
Drozdov waved the officer down. Lethargic, as though moving through water, he took the microphone.
“USS Nicholas, USS Nicholas. CMA CGN Valnea.”
The loudspeaker piped. “Valnea. Coalition warship USS Nicholas. What is your status? Over.”
“Captain, we have pirates on board. They have taken ship and have my crew hostage. The pirates demand you to recall your helicopter.” Drozdov spoke directly to Yusuf, a seething wince of his eyes. “They will shoot a hostage.”
“Roger that, Valnea.”
Yusuf took back the microphone. He held it until the spotlight washing over the freighter shut off and the helicopter’s blinking lights moved away west, back to the warship that was visible on both the radar and the dark horizon.
“Valnea. Is the pirate captain nearby?”
The Devil's Waters Page 15
