Stephen Coonts - Pirate Alley

Thirty minutes later, just as he finished that pile, his secretary brought him two more. Man, that Rosen could type!

He was just about finished when his desk phone buzzed and his secretary informed him he had a visitor, Sal Molina. A lawyer from Texas in his former life, Molina was the president’s right-hand man. Or executive assistant. Or chief hatchet man. No one knew Molina’s real title at the White House; perhaps he didn’t have one. Apparently he got paid regularly with taxpayer’s money, and he certainly had the Big Dog’s ear.

Molina looked right and left and parked his butt on the couch.

“Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“For screwing Jurgen Schulz in front of an audience. If you’d told me ahead of time you were going to do it, I’d have paid money to film it. How did you know it was his staff that jerked Tarkington around?”

“I’m psychic.”

“I doubt that. I call it shit-house luck. What if it had been the president’s two favorite butt-boys who had their fingers in the pie?”

“You would have cut their fingers off.”

Molina chuckled. “So how in hell are you gonna get those Sultan people outta there?”

“I don’t know. Yet.”

A young aide appeared in the doorway. She had a sheaf of file folders in her hand. “These are just the first ones, sir. They’ll have more later today, they said.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

Jake opened the folders and spread out the contents, which were satellite photos of Eyl, Somalia. They were taken on different days, at different times, at different angles, as the satellites, for there were more than one, swung over the area. The information their sensors obtained was radioed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which used computers to construct these images.

Jake sorted them by date and time as Molina watched.

“You couldn’t have obtained all of this since the president appointed you.”

“No. I ordered this stuff as soon as Tomazic and I got back from New York. Took a while, but the info is beginning to dribble out of the pipe.” Grafton got a magnifying glass from his desk and began scrutinizing selected photos.

“You didn’t know you were going to get this job.”

“Of course not. Still, Omar Ali had something interesting to say, so I thought I had better get started checking it out.”

“You mean about the Shabab murdering everyone?”

“Oh, no. The interesting thing was that he said he knew about the assault on the cruise ship weeks before we snatched him.”

Molina the lawyer was dismissive. “He may have been lying just to get some leverage with the prosecutors. Hell, he had three weeks to offer us something, and he didn’t.”

Jake put down the magnifying glass. “Either the pirates were out there on the ocean randomly cruising around trolling for prospects, or they planned this assault. At least six pirate skiffs-one report says eight-simultaneous assaults on two cruise ships, shooting when threatened … No, this was carefully planned.” He tapped his fingers on the photos. “Ragnar had plenty of time to prepare his defenses, make a plan with a high probability of success. Not just to capture a cruise ship full of people, but a plan to prevent their rescue unless someone paid his price.”

“So they planned it. So?”

“These people aren’t stupid, Sal. The plan to capture the cruise ship is worthless unless they can force someone to pay ransom. The pirates have to plan for the worst. What is the worst thing that could happen, from their point of view?”

Molina’s eyes narrowed. “A military attack to rescue the hostages.”

“Right. They knew that when they contemplated capturing a cruise ship. That was the problem that they had to address and solve.” Grafton stirred the photos around. “We’ll have these gone over by experts tomorrow. I’m just an amateur.”

“So…”

“Sal, you and I and the pirates know we can apply overwhelming military force. Anyone who refuses to surrender immediately will die. Their only defense is the threat to harm the hostages. How? Shoot a few as we come thundering in? Or murder them all if we pull one trigger?”

“So what’s your timetable?”

“We’ll have answers in few days, I hope. A week. Maybe a little longer. What we need is time.”

Molina frowned. “We’re going to have to say something to the press about the ransom demand. The news is all over every network on earth. Got any suggestions?”

“The usual,” Grafton said airily. “We’re consulting with the owners of the ship, the insurance company, the British government … Add anyone you like. And get those aides pounding the phones. Do consult. Make it look good.”

“The press will ask bluntly if we will pay if the Brits won’t.”

Grafton propped his feet on the lower drawer of his desk. “Don’t give me that shit, Sal. Your press guy can dance around a direct question like that for weeks. We’re negotiating. The president is pondering, consulting Congress and the UN, reading tea leaves … whatever. Just don’t commit us to anything until I give the word.”

Molina looked amused. “You’d lie to the press?”

“Everyone else does.”

“That Rosen guy will probably tell us what the pirates’ sword of Damocles is.”

“He’ll tell us what the pirates tell him to say. Be kinda nice to know the true facts before we put people in harm’s way.”

Molina sighed. Through the windows one could see the lights of the grounds, very tasteful and decorative, designed to make security airtight. He could hear the faint sounds of classical music emanating from the windowpane vibrators, sounds so faint he couldn’t even follow the music. It was just noise. Molina hated this building. Hermetically sealed off from the outside world and the rest of humanity, the secure spaces reminded him of graves.

“The president says not a dime.”

Grafton waved away that comment with a dismissive flip of his fingers. “If you’re willing, I have a favor to ask,” Grafton continued. “When the sun comes up, how about talking to the secretary of the treasury. I need two hundred million counterfeit dollars, just in case. Make it hundred-dollar bills.”

Molina rolled his eyes.

Grafton pretended not to notice. “We need to keep all our options open until we figure out precisely what Ragnar has planned, what his capabilities are. We may have to buy him off, get the Sultan people out, then go back and liberate the money and whack him. Or we may decide to pay the ransom with counterfeit bills. We’ll make the decision, real or fake, when we know what cards Ragnar is holding.”

Molina’s face now wore its usual expression, eyebrows up, brows knitted, jowls sagging, his lips slightly pursed.

“The Shabab guy, Feiz al-Darraji,” Grafton added. “We’ll have to string him along, too. If we buy off Ragnar, we want the people out, not murdered. We don’t want the Shabab to get homicidal before we are ready.”

“Counterfeiting, now.”

“Ink and paper are cheap. The stuff’s gotta be good enough that it’ll pass for real, yet later we can tell the world the bills are bad and what to look for. Tell Treasury to get cracking. I need it in three days.”

“Just a thought,” Molina murmured. “If Treasury prints it and the government issues it, the courts may decide it’s real money, even if we put Johnny Depp’s picture on it.”

Jake Grafton snorted. “If I had a fart in me, I’d turn it loose, Sal. We get the hostages home alive, everybody safe and sound, I don’t give a damn what the courts decide five years down the road.”

They talked for another few minutes; then Molina left.

Grafton had had enough. He closed and locked his door, left the photos stacked on his desk, stretched out on his couch and was almost instantly asleep. He had met some pirates back when he was young, and he dreamed about them.