Frederick Forsyth - The Kill List

What the traffic did not confirm was two things the Tracker needed. The messages referred to “my brother,” but that could be a greeting between fellow Muslims. They referred to “our friend,” but never Zulfiqar Ali Shah or Abu Azzam by name. And they never confirmed that our friend was resident not in Kismayo but in a compound in the heart of Marka.

The only way he would achieve these two proofs and the authority to go for a terminal strike would be positive identification by a reliable source or the Preacher being goaded to make a terrible mistake and go online from his home. The Global Hawk high above the Marka compound would hear it instantly and snatch it out of space.

To achieve the first, it would need someone in a distinctive and preassigned headdress or baseball cap to stand in the courtyard, look up at the sky and nod. Tampa would see that staring face, as Creech had seen Anwar al-Awlaki look fatally at the sky, his exposed face filling a whole TV screen in an underground bunker in Nevada.

As to the second, the Tracker still had an ace of his own to play.

The MV Malmö eased out of the canal at Port Suez and into the Red Sea. Capt. Eklund offered his thanks and farewells as the Egyptian pilot slipped over the side to his waiting launch. Within hours, he would be on another freighter heading north.

The Malmö , back under her own command, nosed south toward Bab al-Mandab and the eastward turn into the Gulf of Aden. Capt. Eklund was content. She had made good time so far.

Opal returned from his work at the fish dock, checked that he was completely alone and unobserved and retrieved his radio from beneath the floor. He knew these daily checks to see if there had been an incoming message were the danger points in his life as a spy inside the al-Shabaab fortress.

He took the set, linked it to the charged battery, put on his earphones, took out pen and notepad and prepared to transcribe. The message, once slowed down to reading speed, took only a few minutes, and his pen raced over the paper making Hebrew characters.

It was short and to the point. Warm congratulations on tracing the pickup from the warehouse to Marka. The next time that happens, do not follow immediately. Return to the set and alert us that it is heading north. Then hide the set and follow. Endit.

The Taiwanese trawler was well east of the Somali coast and had not been stopped. There was no reason why she should be. A low-flying patrol plane, spotting for one of the international naval forces now trying to protect international shipping from Somali pirates, had dipped to have a look but had flown on.

The vessel was clearly what she was — a deep-sea, long-distance fisherman out of Taipei. Her trawl was not down, but there was nothing odd about that if she was looking for fresh and better waters. She had been captured by al-Afrit weeks before, and that had been noted — but under her real name. That name had been changed. Her Chinese crew, under threat, had been forced to paint a new name on her bows and stern.

Two of the same crew, all that were needed, were now on the bridge. The ten Somali pirates were crouching out of sight. The patrol plane crew, scanning with binoculars, had seen the two Asian men at the wheel and suspected nothing. The two men had been warned that any attempt to gesture for help would result in death.

The trick was not new, but it remained extremely hard for the international force to detect. Somali skiffs, pretending to be innocent fishermen if seen and intercepted, did not take long to expose. They might protest they needed their AK-47 Kalashnikovs for self-protection, but that could hardly apply to rocket-propelled grenades. The clincher was always the light aluminum ladder. You do not need it to fish, but you do to scale the side of a merchantman.

Somali piracy had taken some devastating knocks. Most big and valuable ships had taken on a team of professional ex-soldiers, who carried rifles and knew how to use them. About eighty percent were so protected. The drones now flying out of Djibouti could scan up to 40,000 square miles of sea in a day. The warships of the four international flotillas were helped by helicopters as wide-ranging scouts. And, finally, the pirates, captured in greater numbers, were simply being tried, found guilty and detained in the Seychelles with international support. The heyday was over.

But one ruse still worked: the mother ship. The Shan-Lee 08 , as she was now named, was one such. She could stay at sea far longer than an open skiff, and her range was immense. The attack skiffs with their fast outboard motors, were stored belowdecks. She looked innocent, but the attack skiffs could be on deck and in the water in a few minutes.

Out of the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Aden, Capt. Eklund was meticulous in following the internationally recommended transit established to give maximum protection to merchant shipping passing the dangerous Gulf of Aden.

The corridor runs parallel to the Adeni and Omani coast, from the 45th to the 53rd longitude east. These eight longitude zones bring the merchantman past the north coast of Puntland, the start of the pirate havens, and far out beyond the Horn. For ships wishing to round the southern tip of India, this brings them many miles too far north before they can turn south for the long haul across the Indian Ocean. But it is heavily patrolled by naval vessels and keeps them safe.

Captain Eklund followed the prescribed passage to the 53rd longitude, then, convinced he was safe, he turned southeast for India. The drones could indeed patrol 40,000 square miles of sea in a day, but the Indian Ocean is many millions of square miles, and in this vastness a ship can disappear. The naval vessels of NATO and the European EU NAVFOR could be thickly gathered in the corridor, but they were scattered far and wide out on the ocean. Only the French have a force dedicated to the Indian Ocean. They call it L’indien .

The Malmö ’s master was convinced that he was now too far east for anything from the Somali coast to threaten him. The days, and even the nights, were sweltering hot.

Almost all ships traveling in these waters have used engineers at home to construct an inner fortress protected by steel doors locked from the inside and equipped with food, water, bunks and toiletries, enough for several days. Also included are systems to disconnect the engines from outside interference and run both them and the steering mechanism from inside. Finally, there is a fixed-message distress call that will broadcast from the mast top.

Protected inside the citadel, the crew, if they can seal themselves inside in time, can await rescue, pretty sure that it is on its way. The pirates, though they have the run of the ship, cannot control it or threaten the crew, though they will try to break in. The crew can only hope for the arrival of a frigate or destroyer.

But as the Malmö ran south past the Laccadive Islands, the crew slept in the greater comfort of their cabins. They did not see or hear the skiffs racing through the wake or hear the clatter of ladders against the stern as the Somali pirates boarded by moonlight. The helmsman raised the alarm, but too late. Dark, agile figures with guns were racing into the superstructure and up to the bridge. Within five minutes, the Malmö was captured.

Opal watched the gates of the warehouse compound open as the sun went down and the pickup emerged. It was the same one as before. It turned in the same direction as before. He straddled his trail bike and followed it to the northern outskirts of Kismayo until he was sure it was on the coast highway toward Marka. Then he went back to his cabin and lifted his transceiver from its hole beneath the floor. He had already composed his message and compressed it into a fraction-of-a-second burst transmission. When he had removed the battery from its photovoltaic recharger and connected it, he just hit send.