Pirate Alley

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Pirate Alley Page 19

by Stephen Coonts


  If it got rough, Travis and E.D. would help out with the silenced rifles.

  “You guys see me?”

  “Oh yeah. You’re the tall cool dude waving your middle finger.”

  “If you lose me, for even a second, sing out.”

  “Yeah.”

  The town to my right was very dark. The only electric lights seemed to come from Ragnar’s lair. Everyone else was using lamps or candles.

  Using the goggles, I could see the harbor between the buildings, and every now and then get a look at the Sultan. She had a few lights on, but only a few. The other boats in the harbor were all dark.

  The old fort loomed above me on the ridge, black and massive. I worked my way through the brush. As I did, I realized a sliver of moon was peeping through the clouds over the sea. Still stars above me, so the clouds were only over the water.

  “Two sentries ahead,” E.D. said softly in my ear, which startled me somewhat because his voice was unexpected. “If you go to your right about twenty feet, then go straight for the fort, you should avoid them.”

  I clicked the mike twice in reply and dropped into a crawl. Kept looking for the two dudes E.D. said were there. I finally saw one on the ground, lying down … maybe asleep. I crawled a few feet, stopped and listened, then crawled some more. Saw the other guy lying down too. Both asleep, apparently.

  Of course, if E.D. or Travis missed a sentry, the evening was going to get exciting very quickly. I crawled slowly, like cold molasses, then paused every five or six feet to look and listen.

  I came up to the fortress on the western side, the only entrance to the place right in front of me. The road came up from my right. Several pickups with unattended machine guns were parked haphazardly in front of the place. There was no door to the fort.

  I counted carefully. Seven men in sight. The trucks were empty. I lay in the dirt between low bushes and watched, relying on Travis and E.D. to let me know if anyone approached me from the back or sides. No one did.

  Fairly quiet, except for the constant whisper of that desert wind, blowing out to sea. Then I became aware that I could hear someone crying hysterically from inside the fort. The pirates outside shifted their weapons from hand to hand and looked bored.

  I moved around to the north so I wouldn’t have to cross the road. Took my time, spotted the sentries, which were in pickups or lounging near foxholes. Here and there a machine gun pointed skyward.

  Slowly circling the building, I could see nothing out of the ordinary. The gun ports were windows allowing entry or exit, without bars or chains, but once the prisoners were outside, there were the guards.

  On the southwest corner of the building I hit paydirt. Literally. Found soft disturbed earth. I knew what it was the instant I stepped on it and sank in a half inch or so. I squatted for a closer look. Got a handful and smelled it. Some kind of petroleum smell. Then I recognized it. Diesel fuel. Just a hint.

  Crawled to the wall. Found that the earth had been trenched along the wall, and now filled in. There certainly could be explosives buried there. But were there?

  I watched for my chance, then stood up beside a gun port and listened carefully. Looked in and saw the heat from living bodies. Asleep, I figured.

  Well, if I went in there, sooner or later, I was going to run into someone who wasn’t sleeping … or wake someone up. A scream or two and I would have more trouble than I could handle.

  I turned and surveyed the darkness. Three long strides took me into the brush, and I sank down to watch and listen. Finally I returned to the wall, still looking for sentries.

  More disturbed earth. Someone had done a lot of digging here. I could hear voices. Sentries.

  Then I found it. A wire coming out of the earth and going up the side of the building. I flipped the goggles to ambient light and tried to examine it. Felt it. Insulation for about four feet, then bare wire. It was taped to the stone. It ran up, up, out of sight.

  An antenna. To pick up a radio signal. Oh boy. I wondered what freq it was listening for. Thought of all the VHF and UHF frequencies the military used, the freqs the headsets were on …

  I got the itch just squatting there. This trench bomb could explode at any moment. I could feel the hairs on my arms coming erect.

  It took an act of will to keep going. In the next half hour I found four more antennas coming out of the dirt. By then I had crawled completely around the fortress and could see the entrance. On the left side of the entranceway was a roll of wire. It seemed that one end went into the earth. The other end went off the ridge into the brush.

  Eight people here now, all men. All armed. Another pickup. Lights. Television lights. A portable satellite dish. A gasoline-driven generator. And some idiot standing in front of a camera with a microphone in his hands.

  I knew the signs. The press was here. I didn’t recognize the media dude, but the mustache looked familiar. He was dressed in the latest safari fashions from Cabela’s. The man he was interviewing apparently spoke some English, because there was no translator.

  As I watched, another pickup rolled up and more press people piled out. One of them was a woman. Lights were set up quickly, and her cameraman took his position. Then she joined Mr. Mustache.

  The pirate was obviously uncomfortable. Talking to a foreign reporter while the lights shone in his eyes and the camera rolled was one thing, but to a Western woman? In a designer dress, it looked like, with hair just so, a scarf around her neck, dark hair and high heels. The pirate tried to ignore her, but that proved impossible.

  I crawled down the hill, hoping to intersect that wire and find out where it went.

  * * *

  In Washington Jake Grafton and Sal Molina sat watching the live interview of Mustafa al-Said. “Two hundred million American dollars, or we blow up the fort and everyone in it.” Al-Said showed the television crew the rolled-up wire, with one end leading into the dirt near the fort. “We have mined the fort with explosives. If the Americans try to rescue the hostages, we kill them all. Boom. Or if we are not paid.”

  “Well,” Molina said, “that’s certainly clear enough.”

  Grafton grunted.

  The camera jiggled and they got a glimpse of the woman reporter, about a second’s worth. It was enough. She was a knockout. Al-Said studiously ignored her, even when she tried to ask a question.

  “We are going to have to say something to the press,” Molina said to Jake. “Schulz wanted to make a grand announcement, but the president vetoed it. Still, the reporters at the White House Briefing Room will be in a feeding frenzy in a few hours.”

  Grafton sighed. “Get the head of the shipping line to make an announcement in London. They said they would pay. Now they can tell the press.”

  “What about the U.S. government?”

  “Make no commitment. I’m going to Somali to see Ragnar, and I’ll need some wiggle room.”

  They watched the segment until the end, then turned off the television. Grafton was on the phone making preparations for his journey when Molina left for the White House.

  * * *

  Rear Admiral Toad Tarkington got the feed live via satellite on his flagship, Chosin Reservoir. His staff was there, Marine Colonel Zakhem, Lieutenant Angel Cordova, the captain of the ship. All watched without comment.

  The technician pushed some buttons, and in a few seconds they were watching the satellite feed of the Italian cameraman. He got the interview, all right, but he left his camera running when he lowered it from his shoulder. It was about waist height, apparently, when it panned the pirates, one by one, then the entrance to the fort, then made a complete circle. It took a few seconds for the camera to adjust to the low light level, but adjust it did. The picture was still there. The camera lingered on the wire coming out of the dirt, then seemed to follow it off down the hill.

  Now someone jostled the camera, and it came back to the Italian lady, Sophia Donatelli, who summed up her report in Italian.

  “They should have let us take them
down,” someone commented.

  Tarkington didn’t have much to say. He had a stack of classified messages in his hand, and he waited until the broadcast was over to start reading them. Everyone else wandered out. Lieutenant Cordova was using a cane. The admiral concentrated on his reading.

  * * *

  I saw a man come out of the fort, slip behind the cameramen and talk to one of the guards. The guy was wearing a backpack, it looked like. The sentry led him to a man standing by a truck near where I lay. I crawled three feet closer and listened carefully.

  Yes. English.

  “… to trade for my freedom.” The guy was like a magnet. In seconds he had three pirates around him. One on either side and the guy in front.

  “You have money?”

  “Something more valuable. Smaller. Easier to carry.” The guy had an accent, but I was too far away to place it. He was medium-sized, perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds. I tried to guess his age by the way he carried himself. He was no youngster. Nor was he a geriatric.

  Two more men drifted over to join the group.

  I crawled on.w

  Found the wire. Felt it, then saw it with the goggles on the ambient light setting.

  Decided I had crawled far enough. Got up, stayed crouched, followed the wire. I am not sure what was going through my mind. I was fed up, and maybe I was looking for someone to take it out on. I was in the mood to break someone’s neck.

  Fortunately the moment passed, just as I saw a little building up ahead. I automatically went down on my stomach. A shack. Made of scrap wood and a few tin sheets. I had my fighting Ka-Bar knife in my hand, the one with the seven-inch blade with a razor edge. A surgeon could take out an appendix with that thing.

  It took me at least twenty minutes to crawl up to the shack and satisfy myself that it was empty.

  I stuck my head it. The goggles let me see just enough. There was a box with a handle sticking out of it. Wired up. I backed out and quickly crawled about fifty feet up the hill. Got out my knife and sawed through the wire. Then heaped some dirt on the ends.

  I decided this might be an excellent time to make tracks. Got up and began walking. When I was up on the ridge, walking away from the fort, I keyed the mike on my headset.

  Nothing. Not even a click. I played with the controls.

  Damn thing was dead as bin Laden. I wondered how long it had been that way.

  Found I still had the knife in my hand. Put it back into its sheath, felt the gun butts, drew as much air in as possible and let it out slowly.

  About a hundred yards later I started to shake. The shaking subsided after several seconds. Thought I might vomit, but I didn’t. Spit in the dirt a time or two and walked slowly on into the night.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Two pirates escorted Nora Neidlinger up the stairs in Ragnar’s lair. All six flights. Led her into the living room and pointed to a chair. She sat, with her knees together and her purse on her lap.

  Ragnar was conversing with a Somali, using Arabic. She had no idea who the man was or what was being said.

  The man was Yousef el-Din, and he was unhappy. Ragnar had refused to let his men in to see the captives, or to help guard them, or to talk with the journalists who were doing interviews in the town and with al-Said in front of the fortress.

  Ragnar quickly deduced that Yousef wanted to be on television himself, and he was merely talking around that fact. He wanted to tell the world about the prowess of the Shabab, of the power of Islam. He wanted the world to see him. Presumably if his fame as a holy warrior were to spread far and wide, his standing in the Shabab would be enhanced.

  Ragnar considered the matter carefully while he eyed Nora Neidlinger and her magnificent chest. He had never before seen a surgically enhanced bosom, and the sight fascinated him. The possibility that those two flesh melons might not be homegrown never entered his head.

  He forced himself to come back to Yousef el-Din and his television ambitions.

  “The object is to force the British and Americans to pay the ransom we have demanded. Seeing a man high in the Shabab here might complicate things.”

  Yousef was working himself up to a tantrum, but Ragnar forestalled it. “After we have the money, then will be the time for you to talk to the television men. Explain to the world the demands of fundamental Islam, the inevitability of its triumph. Explain about martyrs and Paradise and houris and all of that.”

  El-Din didn’t like Ragnar’s edict, not a whit, so he argued for another fifteen minutes, then stomped off down the stairs.

  Meanwhile another man was escorted into Ragnar’s lair. A European. He clutched a backpack in his arms. He was perhaps sixty, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, a medium-built man, close-shaven, in contrast to the pirates, who didn’t shave, nor did they have full beards. They were like adolescent boys, with mere tufts of facial hair or none at all.

  Ragnar listened to his men explain in Arabic; then one of them spoke in broken English. “Ragnar says give him bag.”

  “Explain to Herr Ragnar that I wish to trade the bag for freedom.”

  The pirate translated, and Ragnar ripped the bag from the man’s hands. One of the pirates grabbed the man from behind and held him. “My name is Beck,” the man explained. “Heinrich Beck. I am a businessman, like Herr Ragnar. I do business with important people in the Arab world. I have many friends…”

  Heinrich Beck ran down as Ragnar unzipped the bag, revealing a carefully wrapped package. Heavy. Several pounds, in fact. Ragnar hefted it and glanced at Beck. He said something, and the pirate translated. “What is?”

  “Cocaine. Pure. Refined. Worth at least two hundred thousand American dollars. I wish to give it to Herr Ragnar in return for my freedom.”

  Ragnar and his son Nouri took the package to a table and carefully unwrapped it, revealing a zip-lock bag full of white powder. Nouri unzipped it, took a pinch and sniffed it up his nose. He smiled at his father and zipped the bag shut.

  Ragnar said something, and one of the pirates slapped Beck. “Where is rest?”

  “Rest?”

  “More. Where is more? This not all. Where is more?”

  “Listen. I am a businessman, like Herr Ragnar. I wish to trade-”

  Another command, and two pirates, one on each arm, physically dragged Beck through the French doors to the balcony and across it to the low wall that formed the safety rail. They hoisted him up on it and held him there.

  “Where is more?”

  Beck looked down, terror written on his features.

  “If there is more cocaine,” Nora Neidlinger said loudly, “it is probably on the ship, in his stateroom. Why don’t you look there? And let the poor man go.”

  This was translated.

  Ragnar looked at Nora and laughed. His men laughed. After a moment Ragnar made a gesture and someone gave Beck a gentle push. His arms flailed the air, he teetered on the rail for just an instant, then he fell. Screaming. All the way down.

  * * *

  For the very first time in his life, Arch Penney felt completely helpless, unable to cope. Even when the pirates were capturing his ship, he had some control. Now, a prisoner in this old fortress at the entrance to the little harbor of Eyl, he knew he was unable to help himself and everyone else in his charge, including his wife.

  She sensed his mood. As his strength ebbed, hers increased. She went among the women, talking, touching, listening, doing her best to maintain morale. Penney watched. Guilt washed over him like a tsunami. If only he had ran the ship at full speed, or chosen another route, or …

  He still had bloodstains on his uniform, which was now filthy and rumpled. He hadn’t thought to bring more clothes from the ship …

  Unprepared. He had been unprepared. Hadn’t really thought the problem through before the crisis presented itself. So he had been improvising. And he had failed.

  “Archie,” his wife whispered. “Don’t get so down on yourself. Nothing you could have done would have made any difference.�


  He grunted. He didn’t believe that, and doubted that she did.

  He sent her to see the chief steward, to check the menus. Keep her busy. Make her responsible for something. That would keep her mind off this total, absolute … debacle. Disaster. Failure. Death for some of these people. Maybe all of them. Certainly more than had already died.

  He went to the gun port and looked out into the night. The guards were out there, of course, although he couldn’t see them. Beyond this strip of loosely packed earth, out there somewhere in the brush.

  He could crawl out this portal, start running. Run until they shot him. Then it would be all over. Mercifully over.

  “Captain.”

  It was the ship’s doctor.

  “We have some people coming down with dysentery. The toilet facilities … there isn’t enough water, no soap…”

  “Yes,” he said as he stared into the darkness. Stared at the surface of the ocean, illuminated by starlight.

  “Do what you can.”

  “Yes, sir.” The doctor went away, leaving him at the portal looking at the ocean, as far beyond his reach as the lunar seas.

  * * *

  She was living a nightmare, Nora Neidlinger thought. A cluttered bedroom that smelled of unwashed bodies and semen. Filthy, stained sheets, the mattress on the floor, a spider’s web in one corner. Insects flying around naked lightbulbs. An African whorehouse. Her revulsion made her skin crawl. She hugged herself.

  Ragnar pushed her onto the mattress. Made a gesture, plainly, Take off your clothes.

  She didn’t think physical resistance would get her anything but a beating. She complied. Started with her blouse. Then the bra. Ragnar stood watching with his mouth open. She kicked off her shoes, wriggled as she pulled the slacks down over her hips. She was wearing granny panties, but apparently Ragnar didn’t notice. Or care.

  Before she could get them off he launched himself at her and buried his face between her breasts.

 

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