Stephen Coonts - Pirate Alley

Penney obsessed about the murdered officers and crew, one of whom, a woman, was raped to death. The three raped women who survived the experience were in the ship’s tiny hospital; the doctor had telephoned him and reported. He tried to clear his mind and focus on the current situation. The dead were dead-his responsibility was to the living.

Penney picked up his binoculars and aimed them at the warship on the port quarter. Amphibious assault ship-all he could see was her running lights, and red lights on the flight deck. The lights of helos and Ospreys flitting across the sky. Destroyer on the starboard side. Both ships were much closer than they had been during the day, but were maintaining their station now. Penney wondered if Mustafa was paying attention.

* * *

Peering out the window of the shot-up passenger computer room, Mike Rosen had seen the warships during the afternoon and evening. They were out there, but closer.

He went back to the office and shoved the desk against the door. He had talked to the ship’s steward, the bosun, the doctor, every department head on the list.

He stared at the phone. Should he?

Well, hell, no guts, no glory. He dialed the bridge. Got someone who identified himself as the second officer.

“The captain, please.”

“Who is this?”

“One of your passengers.”

“Kiss my bloody ass, mate.”

“God damn you, shithead! Gimme the captain!”

Silence. The line was still open. Rosen could hear himself breathe. Then a male voice came on. “Captain.”

“Mike Rosen, sir, a passenger. I am in the computer room, and we still have a satellite connection. I’ve been e-mailing my radio station in Denver. Do you have an accurate casualty list?”

“No. I know that there are at least three officers dead, the helmsman, two bosun’s mates and a woman passenger who was raped to death. Someone told me another passenger, a man, was killed, but I don’t know that for a fact. Four or five more have been injured.”

“Is there a message you want to get out to the world?”

“I’m not free to talk.” The voice was lower.

“Our destination?”

“Eyl.”

“Is that in Somalia?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else.”

“We are doing our best to ensure our passengers and crew remain safe.” The connection was severed.

Rosen got on the computer and started typing. He had his lead. The captured cruise ship, Sultan of the Seas, with at least seven dead, perhaps eight, was being taken to Eyl, Somalia, by pirates.

* * *

Mustafa al-Said decided to feed the passengers at 8:00 P.M. The crew members who cooked and served were ready, so at the appointed moment the captain used the loudspeaker to send the passengers to dinner, deck by deck. He started low in the ship and worked up.

By then Irene and Suzanne were back in their small stateroom, trying to get the marijuana smoke smell out of their hair.

“I didn’t know that stuff stunk so badly,” Suzanne declared. Actually, she felt pretty good-knew she had a buzz on, and was past caring how she smelled.

“There are a lot of things we don’t know,” Irene said philosophically. She too had inhaled a lot of that smoke and was feeling very mellow.

“I wonder why those men didn’t bring their wives on this cruise.”

“Because they’re gay, you twit.” Irene laughed hugely.

The captain’s announcement ended the conversation. Food would be good. Irene and Suzanne locked their small stateroom and hurried up the ladder to the restaurant on the fifth deck.

Under the watchful eye of a pirate with half his teeth missing and the other half stained a putrid yellow-brown, the bar at the restaurant entrance was doing a land-office business. They were serving the drinks free. Anything you wanted, they mixed and poured, then you grabbed it and made room for the next thirsty person behind you.

With a Cosmo in each hand, the two sisters sat at a table that already had a man and a woman at it.

“Do you mind?”

“Of course not. Twila and Harold. We’re from Arkansas.”

When the introductions were over, the diners began comparing experiences. The Arkansas couple had had a long, boring afternoon. The Arkansas lady’s nose twitched. She had caught a good whiff of the marijuana smell on the sisters. “My heavens, what is that smell?”

“It was coming out of our air-conditioning,” Irene explained. “Terrible stuff.”

“Well, with pirates and all, what can you do?”

Eventually the conversation turned to what might come next.

“These pirates just want money,” Suzanne said. “Someone will bail us out and we’ll all go home.”

“Who?”

“The cruise company or the government or something. The pirates can’t keep us forever. And why would they want to?”

“I am worried about what happens when we get to wherever we are going,” the lady from Little Rock said. “Are we going to stay aboard ship, be taken ashore … what?”

“How much food and water is on this ship?” the husband wanted to know. “How long before the sewage tanks fill up and the commodes stop working? How long can they keep the generators going?”

Neither of the sisters had thought for a minute about those questions, and now they looked at each other and considered.

“We’re in a hell of a pickle,” Irene said.

Suzanne nodded soberly.

“Well, who is going to bail us out?” Irene demanded. “Pay the ransom? I don’t have any money and my kids don’t. Any pirate who thinks he is getting money from me or any of my relatives is wasting his time.”

Suzanne went off to get refills for herself and Irene. The Arkansas couple were sticking to soft drinks, the poor bastards.

“Oh, it will all work out,” the Little Rock lady said when Suzanne got back with the booze. “Harold here worked for Walmart for a lot of years, and he always said everything works out in the end, didn’t you, Harold?”

“Yes,” Harold agreed. “There were days at Walmart-”

“But who is going to pay ransom for us?” Harold’s mate, Twila, asked, interrupting her spouse. She then answered the question herself. “Why, our neighbors at the church. Our congregation always sticks together. Or the government. The people in Washington can always print more money and give the pirates some.”

“I guess so,” Suzanne said pensively, glancing at the pirate standing in the door with his AK-47 pointed negligently in the diners’ direction.

“I don’t see why not,” Irene declared. “They ship money in heaps to every dictator on the planet. Might as well send some to Somalia and spring us. Boy, am I going to be mad if they don’t!”

The waiters brought plates heaping with good things, so they all became too busy to talk.

With her mouth full, the Little Rock lady asked the key question. “Do you think the cruise ship company will give us a refund? After all, pirates?”

“Pirates are going to make their marketing more difficult,” Irene said, forking chicken. “Even a partial refund would be good PR.”

“Walmart always worried about good PR,” Harold remarked. “Even a discount on another cruise would be welcome. We always wanted to go to South America. No pirates there.”

“Except in Venezuela. That screwball dictator, what’s-his-name.”

“Chavez. Like the ravine.”

“We’ll skip Venezuela,” Harold said flatly. “Carnival in Rio would be nice.”

“Nice,” Suzanne agreed and finished her third Cosmo.

INDIAN OCEAN, NOVEMBER 10

When Angel Cordova glimpsed the lights of the Sultan of the Seas, the SEALs had been in their boats for an hour. It was 3:00 A.M. They were only twenty-five miles off the coast of Africa, sixty miles north of Eyl.