by Mack Maloney
Indeed, the mission earlier that night had gone off extremely well. The hostages had been freed, no one on the rescue force had been seriously hurt, the equipment had made it through unscathed and the world had one less pirate gang to worry about.
But now, as they were roaring back to retrieve Batman, Nolan was not getting a signal from his colleague’s GPS locator. Even worse, Batman was not answering his sat-phone, even though Gunner was punching the number repeatedly.
They knew this part of the Somali coast was infested with pirate gangs, criminal clans and al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups. Had their wayward associate really been able to avoid all of these dangerous sorts? Had Whiskey been too caught up in their victory earlier not to think clearly about leaving Batman behind? What kind of hot water could he have gotten into?
“Or maybe it’s just like he said,” Twitch said dryly. “Maybe he’s just taking a nap.”
* * *
THE SUN WAS barely up when Nolan spotted the coastline of Somalia again.
They’d hit a fog bank about ten miles out and it stayed thick right up to landfall. Nolan was doing his best to get them to the same spot where the rescue mission had taken place. They were hoping that Batman was still in the area and, on hearing the copter, would send up some kind of signal so they could swoop in and pick him up.
But Nolan was prepared for the worst.
“Lock and load,” he told Gunner and Twitch. Twitch checked his M4 assault rifle, stringing out its extended ammo belt. Gunner did the same with his massive Streetsweeper. Nolan reached down and pushed an oversized ammo clip in his own M4. Experience told them they had to be ready for anything.
So it was with great surprise that when they broke out of the fog and zoomed in on the nearby beach, what they saw was not a murderous gang of gunmen ready to shoot them down, but a lone figure in a bright blue battle suit—doing jumping jacks.
It was such a surprising sight, Nolan yanked the copter into a sudden, violent turn. Flying parallel to the beach a moment later, he was looking down through the lingering mist at this person: blue suit, rock star hair, and prosthetic hand at the end of the left arm.
There was no doubt about it: it was Batman.
But what the hell was he doing? Nolan had known Batman for more than twenty years. He’d never seen him as much as eat an apple, never mind do calisthenics.
Nolan turned the copter again just as Batman broke from his jumping jacks and started running wind sprints up and down the beach. Again, his colleagues were shocked.
“Is this a trick?” Gunner asked. “Some way to get us to land and ambush us?”
Nolan had half expected to be picking up Batman’s bullet-ridden or hacked-up body. But this?
Batman had stopped his wind sprints and was now doing a handstand—on his one good hand.
“My guess is he got hit on the head and went nuts,” Twitch said as they came in for a landing.
“Whatever it is,” Nolan yelled back, putting the copter down with a thump, “just grab him and let’s get out of here.”
But Batman had spotted them by this time and was actually hand-hopping over to the copter. Then when he was about twenty feet away, he did a tremendous backflip, soaring some fifteen feet into the air before landing squarely on his feet.
“He’s fucking crazy!” Nolan yelled to Gunner and Twitch. “Grab him!” They were out of the copter in an instant, tackling Batman just as he was breaking into another round of jumping jacks. They dragged him to the aircraft and threw him inside just as Nolan engaged the controls and prepared to take off again.
Throughout it all, Batman was laughing hysterically.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?” Nolan yelled back at him.
But Batman never stopped laughing. “Besides feeling great you mean?” he replied. “And clean? And warm? And one with the earth, and the sky and…”
Nolan looked him over for a moment. He knew Batman loved smoking marijuana. But though his skin seemed slightly singed, at the moment Nolan could not see any of the telltale red-eye side effects usually associated with getting high.
His friend just looked, well … different.
“Let me fly this goddamn thing,” Batman yelled up to Nolan, trying to climb over the seat as Gunner and Twitch fought to keep him in the back. “C’mon! Let me bring us back in class.…”
Nolan just shook his head, pulled up on the copter’s collective and took off.
“Strap him down,” he told Gunner and Twitch. “And sit on him if you have to. If not, he might jump out and try to fly back on his own.”
6
Aboard The Immaculate Perception
TEAM WHISKEY RETURNED to Aden once they had retrieved Batman.
But they stayed only long enough to make sure their payment from Hollywood had arrived, to wash up and get into clean clothes. Then they flew back to The Immaculate Perception, which by this time was sailing off the southern tip of Yemen again, five Omani warships in tow, providing security overkill.
Whiskey returned to the mega-yacht not for another mission, but for a party. The vessel’s very famous passenger was throwing herself a bash to celebrate her own rescue. The crème de la crème of the Persian Gulf’s wealthiest characters were invited, along with a lot of Euro-trash, as well as a sizable contingent of A-list Hollywood types who happened to be vacationing in Israel, Greece, Italy, even as far away as the Riviera. While the oil people had their own transportation, many of the Hollywood crowd had to make the trek in leased jets and then helicopters, a particularly expensive way to travel. But this was a party no one wanted to miss.
Few of the guests even knew what the party was for; the news of Emma Simms’s dramatic kidnapping and rescue was not yet public knowledge. However, a People magazine correspondent had also been invited to the festivities—and offered an exclusive interview. This guaranteed that Emma’s harrowing adventure would dominate the news cycle around the globe within twenty-four hours. And that meant more headlines, more cover photos, and more need to have that morning toast served at precisely the right temperature.
As for her multimillion-dollar movie shoot in Rome?
That would have to wait at least another week, maybe longer.
* * *
NOLAN FLEW THE OH-6 copter out to the yacht, setting down on the rear helipad, relieved to survive another copter landing.
It was just sunset, not quite twelve hours since the end of the hostage rescue, but already the yacht was full of people ready to celebrate far into the night.
Nolan had barely shut down the copter’s engines when Batman bounded out of the aircraft. The yacht’s stern helipad was elevated about eight feet off the rear deck. Without prompting, Batman stepped to the edge of this pad and launched himself into another spectacular aerial backflip, spinning high in the air before landing with the precision of a trapeze artist, feet first, onto the main deck.
Those guests nearby gave him an enthusiastic round of applause and welcomed him like one of their own—a celebrity. The other Whiskey members were simply bewildered. Batman had been acting extremely strange since he’d been lifted off the Somali beach that morning. First, he hadn’t shut up about his time with Chief Bol Bada and the Ekita clan. They’d heard several times about how the chief had saved him when the Jihad Brotherhood unexpectedly showed up, how the clan had nursed him through the early morning hours, how they’d bathed him, cleansed him, given him all kinds of potions and herbs and tulip bulbs, anointings, on and on.
In the course of this, Batman had become the exact opposite of what he used to be. His cynicism was gone. He was suddenly talkative, trusting and compassionate. The chip was off his shoulder and the bitterness about losing his hand, always bubbling below the surface, was nowhere in evidence.
Nolan wrote it off to the excitement of the rescue mission combined with an overindulgence of the killer pot Batman always seemed to have access to.
But this didn’t explain the twenty-foot aerial backflips.
After his grand entr
ance, Batman headed straight for the middle of the party. He was absorbed into a clutch of beautiful people who were just oozing with fascination at meeting a real-life pirate hunter, especially one with a mechanical hand.
More typically, Gunner and Twitch made a beeline for the obscenely sumptuous buffet in the process of being served on the second deck. Twelve pheasants, seven cows, four geese and at least one octopus had given their lives for this spread. Mangosteen, African cucumbers and jackfruit were also in abundance, as were large bowls of Chinese black ice cream. Magnums of Krug Clos du Mesnil champagne were lined up like soldiers nearby, waiting to be popped. A vast array of scotch and other liquor was also on hand. Gunner and Twitch were among the first in line for this exquisite feed.
Nolan was just happy to feel his feet on something solid again. He was here only because the other guys wanted to come. Parties were just not his thing. He felt self-conscious about his eye patch and was no good at making chitchat. But he was here now and vowed to make the best of it.
He went down the helipad’s access ladder and walked toward the second deck midships, grabbing a glass of beer along the way. The mega-yacht had looked spectacular as they were flying in; it appeared even more so now. It was lit up stern to bow with thousands of tiny white lights strung in intricate patterns all over. The bridge was bathed in red. The swimming pool was a light green. Each of the vessel’s many cabins had an amber glow coming from within. A fine, rose-perfumed mist was being generated throughout the yacht’s ventilation system, settling on everybody and everything. Live chamber music was playing somewhere.
The middle deck was where the action was; it was about the size of a football field and was overflowing with gorgeous women wearing incredibly sexy party wear. The female wait staff, in miniskirt tuxedos and serving drinks and miniscule bits of food, were knockouts as well. There were even 3-D holographic images being randomly projected throughout the yacht, some showing tranquil aquatic scenes, others depicting clips from famous sci-fi and horror films, still others of Emma Simms in a variety of erotic poses. The sweet scent of pot was also in the air.
Nolan had never seen anything like this. It was like stepping into a real-life movie.
The beer went right to his head and he started to get caught up in the swirl—it was hard not to. The beauty, the glamour, the smell of money mixing with the rose-scented mist and the marijuana; it was intoxicating.
Maybe I’ll like this more than I thought, he mused.
But at that moment, the ship’s headwaiter appeared from nowhere and growled at him in French: “Ne restez pas là imbécile. La cuisine doit être nettoyée!”
As in: “Don’t stand there you fool. The kitchen must be cleaned!”
Nolan looked at the guy like he was insane. But then he realized his bright blue Whiskey fatigues looked exactly like the one-piece suits worn by the yacht’s maintenance crew.
He was instantly pissed. He tossed his beer glass over the side, then grabbed the headwaiter by the collar. He pulled his jacket open to give the guy a peek at the massive Magnum handgun he was carrying. Then he spat back at him: “Je suis le gars qui a sauvé votre patron - tête de merde!”
As in: “I’m the guy who saved your boss, shithead…”
The waiter almost had a myocardial infarction right there on the spot. He began babbling apologies, bowing and scraping as he hastily retreated below decks. But it was too late. Nolan had received the cosmos’ message loud and clear.
Hero or not, he was just another part of the hired help here. This whole scene was way out of his league.
He grabbed another designer beer, then retreated to portside amidships and slipped into the shadows.
* * *
THE ITALIAN PHOTOGRAPHER drew in a lungful of pot and nearly collapsed to the deck.
“My God,” he gasped. “Where did you get such great stuff?”
Batman used his mechanical hand to retrieve the joint and pass it on to the stunning British model. Though she took only a baby toke, she, too, was instantly legless. Her icy demeanor melted away as she became a hopeless ball of laughter.
Batman caught the joint just as she was dropping it and passed it on to the Austrian movie director, who imbibed and then passed it to the two gay French musicians. The doobie made one complete lap around the circle of Batman’s new best friends, being reduced to nothing by the time it reached him again. Everyone had a toke and everyone got quite high—except Batman himself. When the model asked why he wasn’t partaking in his own weed, he replied with a shrug, “I just don’t need it anymore.”
Giggling and chattering, the group commandeered a table up on the top deck where the Italian photographer produced a large vial of cocaine. Once again, everyone in the newly formed coterie partook, but Batman. Yet he seemed the highest of them all.
Between snorts, sniffs and gales of laughter, he regaled them with details of his recent adventure with the Ekita clan. The battle. The rescue. The potions. The cleansing. The tulip bulbs. He even showed them his bare back, where the four bullets stopped by the body armor had left a quartet of huge bruises, contusions that had already vanished.
The Dutch plastic surgeon opined any Ekita potions Batman had ingested were probably coca-based, with some sort of hallucinogenic property added in. He also guessed that the hot cleansing waters he’d simmered in probably contained a significant amount of aloe, or something akin to it that had taken care of his wounds.
But Batman good-naturedly dismissed the explanation.
“I like to think it was pure magic,” he told them.
* * *
BATMAN EVENTUALLY EXCUSED himself from the table and made his way to the tip of the yacht’s extended bow. There was no one up here, which is just as he wanted it.
His spirits were soaring into overdrive. The night sky above seemed to be on fire, with the stars revolving and dancing and moving in elaborate patterns. The air itself smelled glorious. The water below looked like a lake of champagne.
He felt all this, truly and deeply, even though he’d not had a drop of alcohol or any drugs since coming aboard. These things really didn’t interest him anymore. He was naturally high. Feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from him, he was seeing life as it really was for the first time. And life was wonderful.
He whispered under his breath: “Thank you, Chief … thank you for saving me.”
That’s when he sensed someone behind him, someone close enough to touch him. He turned, expecting to find the Italian or the Austrian, looking for another joint.
Instead he saw a strange glowing figure materializing before his eyes. The figure was dressed all in white, yet Batman could see right through him.
A ghost …
Was that possible?
The apparition looked him in the eyes—and Batman felt his knees turn to rubber.
This was no ordinary phantom.
Batman knew him well.…
* * *
NOLAN HAD DRAINED four beers in thirty minutes. He was still hanging back from the rest of the guests and constantly checking his watch.
The encounter with the headwaiter had burst his bubble. Now he was counting the minutes before they could get off this tub.
A woman approached him out of the dark. She was not a model, but then again not unattractive. Maybe in her forties, blond, with a good shape and a nice tan.
California …
Nolan knew it the moment he spotted her.
She introduced herself, but Nolan didn’t really catch her name. She was with People magazine.
“I was just briefed by studio publicity about this rescue mission,” she said. “And someone told me you were involved?”
Nolan was nonchalant. “I was,” he replied.
“Do you know that Miramax is already talking about a movie?”
“Seriously?” he asked.
“You sound shocked.…”
“I shouldn’t be, I guess,” he said. “Things move pretty quick these days.”
She took out a small tape recorder. “So, how did it go?” she asked him. “During the rescue mission?”
Nolan shrugged. “We got the gig, flew in, found the bad guys’ camp, blew it up, rescued the hostages and flew back.”
“And how many pirates did Emma herself take out?” she asked.
Nolan laughed. But then he realized the reporter was serious.
“None that I saw,” he replied. “She was tied up until the battle was over.”
“Interesting,” the reporter said. “Can I use that?”
Nolan shrugged again. “Sure, why not?”
Suddenly all activity on the yacht came to a stop. Everyone’s attention was drawn to the center of the mid deck where a dozen people had been led up from below. None of them were wearing party gear; just the opposite, in fact, many were dressed in rags. Nolan realized who these people were: the twelve other hostages Whiskey had rescued earlier that day.
A half dozen photographers followed them up on deck, all from People. The hostages were made to line up in two awkward rows, the photographers turning them this way and that. Then giant flash reflectors were put in place. Strobes were tested. Light readings taken. Soon enough, they were ready to take a picture.
But someone was missing.
Emma Simms.
Thirty seconds later, she appeared across the deck, making a grand entrance as usual. But to say she looked beautiful was like saying the ocean was wet.
Radiant. Striking. Transcendent …
Even those words didn’t come close.
She was wearing an elegant white gown, with a plunging neckline—but nothing too drastic. Her hair was flowing blond curls. Her face angelic.
But she also looked terminally bored and totally uninterested in her own party.
She was ushered to a spot in the front row of the hostages. Once she was settled, she gave her publicist a curt nod and the photographers started snapping away. A warm smile came across her features, as she looked left and right, up and down. The dozens of strobes flashing on fast advance made for an interesting special effect.
Then, just like that, it was over. The cameras stopped, the strobes died away. Emma stood up and, without a word, disappeared below, a small contingent of handlers following in her wake.
