The Delta Solution

by Patrick Robinson

  On the other side, Elmi hurled and missed. The grappler hit the top of the rail and fell back down the side of the hull and into the sea. Elmi cursed and began to haul it out; meanwhile, on the starboard side, Wolde grabbed the knotted rope and swung out over the side of the skiff and onto the side of the ship.

  Ramming the soft soles of his combat boots onto the large knot in the rope, he pushed hard, pulling upward with his arms, covering around two feet at a time. It was a gruelling climb, but Ismael was built like a whipthin mountaineer. He carried not one ounce of excess weight, and he made it thirty-three feet to the top, exhausted but safe.

  He dropped a much lighter rope and hook down to the skiff, and Omar Ali fixed two rope ladders onto it for the admiral to pull up.

  Ismael was halfway through the exercise when Elmi tried again, but his rope was soaking wet and much heavier, and this time it never reached the rail. It hit the side of the ship, hard. In the night silence even Wolde heard it, and he was all of 150 feet away on the far side.

  Instinct told him that Elmi was in trouble, but his commander’s brain told him that before he did anything else, he needed to get his two rope ladders fixed and dropped down to the skiff. He hooked them both over the rails, grabbed his Kalashnikov, and then rushed the width of the huge ship to the portside to help Elmi. At which point one of the lower doors to the upper-works came open and flooded the area with light.

  Two crewmen, both Panamanians, walked out and looked around quizzically. At precisely that moment, Elmi tried again and, with a supreme effort, flung his grappler up and over the rails. It landed with a thump, right at the feet of the first crewman, who almost had a heart attack as he jumped clear of the three-pronged hook. He yelled loudly once, but not again because Admiral Wolde shot him dead at point-blank range, then swung his rifle left and shot the other man as well.

  By now the heavily armed Kifle Zenawi and Ibrahim Yacin were up the rope ladders and over the rail onto the starboard side of the stern deck. Elmi Ahmed had hauled his grappler tight and was on his way up the rope, climbing fast.

  Wolde rushed over and shut the door to the upper-works too late. Another door opened and a uniformed engineering officer stepped onto the deck, spotted Wolde lurking in the shadows, and demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

  Kifle Zenawi gunned him down in cold blood. Ahmed clambered over the rail in time to see the uproar, but he stuck to his task, dropped down his hook and line, and hauled the starboard-side rope ladders up and fixed them firmly, same as Wolde’s.

  This allowed the teenage pirates, two on either side, to climb aboard, then Omar Ali and Abdul Mesfin with the heavy machine gun on his back. With all ten members of his assault force on board, Wolde opted for housekeeping before the main attack, and he ordered his troops to clear the three bodies and throw them off the stern of the ship.

  While they did, Ougoure lashed his skiff to the stern of Sofian’s boat and then followed his team up the rope ladder, while the other helmsman stood off to starboard and kept steering alongside the Mustang, which was moving at 20 knots.

  Ougoure, the ordnance chief, was involved in the most difficult task of all—laying the dynamite bombs at the foot of each of the four holding domes without blowing up the ship and without being seen. On the plans of the ship, Wolde and Salat had seen only one definite entrance from the main deck down to the holding tank area—a large hatch, starboard side, between the stern dome and the third one, counting backward from the bow.

  The picture showed it just aft of the massive loading and discharging manifold, which helpfully cast a deep shadow over that section of the ship. Through a magnifying glass, they could also make out the words in heavy red lettering: DANGER—NO ENTRY.

  From what Wolde had seen, there was a long companionway going down beneath the hatch, and it was the only one, except for three entrances inside the upper-works, through which the engineering staff could enter.

  Somehow they had to get that on-deck hatch open, and then Ahmed and Ougoure could go below with two bodyguards and place their bombs under the domes. Only then would Admiral Wolde attempt to take over the ship.

  For the moment, he ordered no more shooting and instructed the remaining five members of the assault party to stay out of sight with him, deep in the shadows until the bomb group returned.

  Ahmed, Ougoure, and three armed junior bodyguards dropped to their knees and began the long, one-hundred-yard crawl along the steel deck to the hatch that led down to the bottom halves of the four domed holding tanks. In Elmi’s view this was a potentially fatal maneuver because for at least eighty of the hundred yards, there was no chance of concealment. They would be floodlit, moving along a part of the ship where no one had the right to trespass except senior officers and engineers.

  Elmi thought their only hope was that the crew was almost certainly unarmed, like most other tankers. But this one was American, and they took instruction from no one. If they were seen, someone would open fire on them, and their only chance of escape was to dive over the side and trust that Admiral Wolde was watching and that Captain Hassan or the skiffs were not far away.

  As the senior man, Elmi set the pace: dead slow, trying to make the journey without moving, or at least being seen to move. It took them ten minutes to get there and when they did, they found the hatch was not locked. Elmi opened it with a twist and a heave. He immediately detailed one of his guards to remain on duty in the shadows next to the hatch. The other two would go with him.

  The gap led directly onto a yellow-painted steel staircase. There were lights on and Elmi could see the steep flight of steps that led down to a steel gantry situated perhaps ten feet off the ground and running the entire length of the ship. Every twenty yards there were steps down to the enormous floor area on which one of the massive domes rested on great support girders.

  Each dome apparently had its own steel room, each about the size of Carnegie Hall. This suited Elmi, being out of sight, one from the other. They moved swiftly into action, running down the short flight of steps from the gantry and taking up positions at the base of the tank. It was like kneeling in the shadow of Mount Rushmore.

  Elmi hauled off his rucksack and took out the first taped pack of dynamite, twenty-four sticks, Russian-made, a foot long with enough explosives to blast a hole in the walls of Fort Knox. Ougoure handed him the spliced det cord and the electronic detonator, which would react to a remote-controlled device they would, if they had to, operate from the starboard side of the ship.

  Elmi connected the battery and tightened the terminals on the wire. He then slid the device hard under the girders, touching the dome. If that thing blew, the cascading liquefied gas would flood through the massive hole blasted through the single hull and freeze the ocean solid around the ship. Then it would vaporize back into gas before it exploded, probably causing a chain reaction and blowing apart the three other tanks. The scene would likely resemble a cross between the destruction on the Ross Ice Shelf, west of the South Pole, and Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

  Swiftly, tracked by their bodyguards, Elmi and Hamdan moved across the floor space and went through the archway leading to Dome Three and repeated the process. Their preparation had been so thorough that each area took only five minutes.

  By the time they had completed Dome One, just aft of the foredeck above, they were five hundred feet and twenty minutes from their start point. They had seen no one. In peace and quiet they had set the explosive devices, which were capable of laying waste to one of the most valuable cargo vessels on earth. Captain Jack Pitman might have been in command of the Global Mustang, but her fate was entirely in the hands of Ismael Wolde.

  Carefully, their soft boots making no sound on the steel floor, they moved aft down the ship and scooted up to the gantry and then the stairs. Ismael shoved open the hatch and his “sentry” pulled it open, dropping it closed when the four pirates were out.

  At this point the need for stealth was over. They were now going to take the ship and it did n
ot matter who saw them. They were armed to the teeth going into combat against an almost certainly unarmed and helpless opposing force.

  They ran down the starboard side and back to the base bulkheads of the upper-works. Wolde could still see Abadula off the port side charging along at 20 knots, level with the ship, and towing the second skiff. He assembled his men and positioned three on each of the three deck-level doors.

  He opened the door from which the now-dead Panamanian crew members had emerged. He and Elmi rushed in, Kalashnikovs held in the firing position, and blasted one short burst into the interior wall. There were two Ping-Pong tables inside, and the four players dropped their paddles in terror.

  “Hands high, everyone,” said Wolde sharply. “Back over there against the wall.” Four other crew members who had been sitting in the wide recreation room also raised their hands and joined the line of prisoners, which the Somali Marine admiral now addressed.

  “Right now no one is going to get hurt,” he said. “Is anyone armed?”

  No one responded and Wolde added encouragingly, “My men will now search all eight of you. Should we find a firearm, we will shoot two of you and throw the bodies overboard. Let me ask once more: Does anyone have a firearm or a knife?”

  Everyone shook his head. “Okay, start the search. And meanwhile you and you,” said Wolde, nodded toward two men who were dressed in light engineer’s overalls. “You will accompany me to the bridge.” He beckoned to Abdul Mesfin to join him, along with two of the bodyguards who had kept watch while he had set the explosives at the base of the domes.

  “Round up the ship,” he told Elmi. “Go room to room. Take the prisoners with you and get everyone back in the recreation room inside a half hour. Anyone who resists, shoot to kill. In this ship a prisoner is an obedient, privileged person. Anyone who steps out of line dies.”

  “Get us to the elevator, directly to the bridge,” he told the engineers. “Nobody gets hurt so long as you obey my instructions.”

  All five men stepped inside and the elevator took them seven floors above the deck. They walked out into a carpeted area, and the engineers indicated a wooden double door with gold letters that proclaimed: CONTROL ROOM GLOBAL MUSTANG. And in smaller lettering: Authorized Personnel Only.

  Wolde waved everyone back and told Abdul to fire a burst from the heavy gun, straight down the length of the door on the line where the handle and lock were located. The staccato noise of the big gun pulverizing the wood, splitting the door from end to end, shattered the calm of the evening.

  Wolde kicked it open and rampaged into the room with Abdul and his assistant right behind him, guns levelled. Captain Pitman could not believe his eyes. Faced with the obliterated door, the pirate king, and three machine guns, one of which clearly worked, he just stood there, gaping.

  “HANDS HIGH!” yelled Wolde. “All of you! Right now.”

  Dominic Rayforth, first officer, flung his arms skyward. The navigation officer, Ray Kiley, was slower but hopped to it when Ismael mentioned that he’d probably blow his head off if he didn’t obey his orders.

  There were two other members of the Mustang’s crew on the bridge, a watchkeeper and a cargo technician who had been standing in front of a long bank of instruments. They all had their hands high, and Ismael told the captain to slow the ship down to 3 knots. The others, all six of them, were told to back up against the interior wall of the bridge.

  “This ship takes a long while to slow down,” said Jack Pitman. “I should tell you that.”

  “Just make sure the engines throttle back right now,” said Wolde. “And then stand over there with everyone else.”

  They felt the huge turbines cut and slow. And Captain Pitman walked over and stood against the wall with his hands raised.

  “Anyone armed, please hand over your weapons. My men will then search you, and if anyone has lied to me, I will shoot him stone dead. Is that clear?”

  It was so clear that no one even needed to answer. And it dawned on them all that this was about as serious as anything could ever be.

  “Let me introduce myself,” said Ismael. “My name is not important, but I’m the field commander of the Royal Somali Marines.” He’d been contemplating giving his platoon a slightly grander name for some time, and being in this empress of an ocean freighter seemed an excellent time to start.

  “So far as anyone here is concerned, my troops have taken command of the ship,” he said. “There are eleven of us armed with automatic rifles and hand grenades. Within the next few minutes, every last member of your crew will be my prisoner. In your position, I should not even consider resisting my commands because I will not hesitate to shoot anyone who defies us.”

  Wolde paused. Just to let his words hit home. And then he continued, “Captain Pitman, now that the ship has slowed, I would like it turned around to face Somalia. When you have done that, I want you to show me your communications system.

  “I will be making three phone calls: one to the ship’s owner, one to the cargo’s buyer, Tokyo Electric, and finally to the shipping agents in New York. My price is 10 million US dollars, to be dropped on the main deck in cash. At which point you can have the ship back and continue on your way.”

  “And what if my people refuse?”

  “Then I shall blow up the ship with the entire crew on board, leave in our very fast boat, and no one will ever know we were here. Our loss will be nothing. To Tokyo Electric and the agents, the losses will be enormous. And the insurance companies will probably double your premiums.”

  Captain Pitman asked, “May I know how you intend to blow up the ship?”

  “Not yet. No.” replied Wolde. “Just lead me to the phones and remember: My men will shoot on sight if anyone tries anything unusual. Also you must dim the deck lights on the ship.”

  The captain led Admiral Wolde to the telephone desk and pointed out which ones had access to overseas communications. The pirate chief ordered him to join the other prisoners and then he picked up the phone and dialled the number of the Haradheere garrison.

  The operator put him through immediately to Mohammed Salat, who listened with undisguised glee as his operations admiral said simply, “The Global Mustang is now seven hundred miles off the Somali shore and under our command. I am on the bridge and the ship has slowed. I have ordered it turned around to face west, and I am now ready to call the relevant parties. I have informed the captain that we require 10 million US dollars for his freedom to proceed to Tokyo Bay.”

  “Excellent, Ismael. Couldn’t be better,” said Salat. “I will take care of Tokyo Electric from here. You call this man Heseltine in Houston. And then try your old friend Livanos in Monte Carlo. But be flexible. Advise them both to share in the ransom, and I’ll do the same in Japan.”

  “Roger that,” said Admiral Wolde. “I’ll get back to you when the calls are made.”

  OUT IN THE SKIFF, Abadula could see the golden tanker slowing down, so he cut his speed to stay level. It was obvious to him that Ismael Wolde had captured the Global Mustang. He had thought he heard gunfire but nothing prolonged. And he’d watched the guys swarm up the side of the ship.

  Now she was stopping. And there could be only one reason for that. The Somali Marines had done it again, and Abadula grinned broadly as he throttled back and called Captain Hassan on his cell phone.

  Mombassa’s master was glad for the call—he was staring directly ahead, and he could see the Mustang’s red-and-green running lights, which signalled to any seaman that she was coming dead toward. For a few moments he’d thought Wolde had been beaten and that the tanker was trying to run the pirate ship down.

  “She’s stopping, Hassan,” Abadula said. “I think she’s coming to a complete halt. The marines have taken her.”

  THERE WAS A FRENZY of activity in Haradheere. Wolde’s news has sent the $10 shares in the Mustang mission to $20. Then $25. And there was still heavy buying. Salat himself had walked down to the main office and drafted the dramatic bulletin for the ele
ctronic board:

  BREAKING NEWS—BREAKING NEWS!

  The world’s largest carrier of

  liquid natural gas, the Global

  Mustang, was captured by the

  Somali Marines 700 miles offshore

  at 11:00 p.m. this Sunday night.

  When the words began to flash inside the main trading area, there was a stampede among the tribesmen to invest. It was a license to print dollar bills. A license to double their money and then some.

  Several people had bought $1,000 worth of $10 shares at issue, and their money was now worth $2,500. Salat personally doubled his stake and then bought some more for his wife. He liked to be seen trading in his own stock market because it gave people a sense of confidence.

  Shortly after midnight he returned home, accompanied by a squad of his guards, and opened up the phone line to Japan, which was six hours ahead. Masaki Tanigaki, president of the giant Tokyo Electric Power, the fourth-largest energy company in the world, was awakened at 6:00 a.m. as he slumbered peacefully in a private room at the glorious Bristol Hill Golf and Residential Club.

  In the middle of this 6,947-square-yard paradise, the president nearly jumped out of his skin when his cell phone jangled on the bedside table. Mr. Tanigaki was unused to being disturbed without giving specific instructions to do so.

  “This is Masaki Tanigaki speaking,” he said. “Who calls me at this hour on my personal phone?”

  “My name is not important,” replied the voice, “but I am the commander of the most important ocean pirate operation in the world. My men have just taken over the Global Mustang in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I believe you own the cargo, several hundred thousand tons of liquid gas?”