Stephen Coonts - Pirate Alley

“Bloody cheeky blighter. Try to behave yourself. Let’s see if you and I can get through this little adventure alive, with all our body parts still firmly attached, shall we?”

When Geoff Noon arrived via boat at the beach in front of Ragnar’s lair, the press was waiting. Both the Italian and Fox News reporter/photographer teams were there filming him arriving in a punt powered by an outboard motor that gave off great clouds of white smoke.

Geoff waded ashore with his battered leather attache case right into the middle of the mess.

“Mr. Noon, are you going upstairs to see Sheikh Ragnar?”

“Yes.”

“We wish to interview him.”

Noon ignored the Fox man with the massive mustache and concentrated on the Italian woman, Sophia Donatelli. He couldn’t help himself. He smiled at her.

“Where are your colleagues from the BBC?”

“They are filming ‘human interest’ stories,” Ms. Donatelli replied cheerfully, demonstrating her excellent command of the English language. She had a small, delightful accent. “How the people of Eyl live in their tropical paradise, fishing for fun and profit, the jolly life of a pirate at home…” Her cameraman was filming the conversation.

“What do you wish to ask Sheikh Ragnar?”

Mr. Mustache jumped right in. “It would be great if he could repeat his ransom demands on camera, and his threats to murder everyone if not paid.”

“I see.”

“That would be terrific television.”

“Doubtlessly. Anything else?”

“We want access to the fort to interview the prisoners. People all over the world are watching in huge numbers.”

“A perfect market,” Noon murmured. Ms. Donatelli grinned at him.

“We sell beauty soap, automobiles, wine and soft drinks,” she said cheerfully.

“If you will wait here,” Noon said, “I will go upstairs and ask Sheikh Ragnar if he will cooperate in your efforts to keep the wheels of commerce turning vigorously.”

With that, he walked toward the hotel, trailed by two pirate bodyguards.

Ms. Donatelli’s cameraman was named Carlo Luria, although everyone called him Joe. Just now a feminine voice spoke in English in his right ear. “Pan the building and zoom in on each floor.”

Unlike the other cameramen, who wore an earpiece in one ear so they could hear their producer’s comments and directions via the satellite link, Luria wore two, one in each ear. His producer in Rome had his left ear and used Italian. His CIA producer in Langley, Virginia, had his right ear and always spoke English, even though she understood Italian perfectly and listened to everything Joe and Ms. Donatelli said to each other and to their Italian producer, who didn’t know about the CIA connection.

Luria did as the lady in America requested. His camera habitually rode on his right shoulder so he had easy access to the controls with his right hand. With his feet planted, it was easy enough to scan the building, then zoom in and pan across each floor. A few seconds would be enough.

The digital feed from the camera was sent to a satellite transmitter that the third man on the team had set up in the town square, beside the satellite gear of both the other networks. All three transmitters were powered by diesel generators that were snoring loudly, making the necessary electricity. The satellite transmitters sent the signal up, and from there it went hither and yon.

Luria knew that in addition to the network control room in Rome, his digital signal was being recorded by the CIA in America. They could freeze the audio and video or slow it down and study it at their leisure.

The Americans rarely said much to him-only when they wanted a specific shot-and he only gave it to them when he thought his producer in Rome wouldn’t get suspicious.

When finished with the building, Luria panned the pier, the boats and the harbor. He carefully focused the camera on the anchored cruise ship, Sultan of the Seas, and zoomed in. The only sign of life was a wisp of smoke from the stack, almost invisible.

He swung the camera on to every ship he could see, almost a dozen of them, anchored, run onto mud flats or sandbanks, rusty with peeling paint, glass gone from the bridge windows, lifeboats gone or hanging haphazardly from davits, lines trailing over the side … It was a depressing sight.

Soon a pirate came from Ragnar’s building and motioned to the media people. They followed him inside and up the stairs. Luria kept his camera running, even though he carried it in his right hand as if it were an attache case. The building reminded him of the crumbling tenement in Naples where he grew up, with the aroma of rotten food scraps mixing in with the smell of urine and feces.

Sophia Donatelli climbed ahead of him. He kept his eyes on her hips, which were the only things in Somalia worth looking at.

She was a smart, breezy woman, full of self-assurance, with a face and figure that blessed any camera that gazed at her. She was a reporter now, but in a few years, Luria believed, Sophia Donatelli would be one of the largest personalities on European television or a film star. She had it in her.

She marched right up to Ragnar and stuck out her hand. “Sophia Donatelli.”

The pirate was visibly taken aback. Carlo Luria caught the moment. Mustache came charging into the picture, babbling something. The fact that Ragnar spoke no English hadn’t sunk in. One of the pirates grabbed Mustache and jerked him away from the chief. Another stuck a rifle barrel in his face.

With the translation help of Noon, who had watched that little scene, an interview of sorts was accomplished. Ragnar leered at Donatelli, ignored Mustache, and generally proved he was a wart on the world’s ass.

“We are poor men,” Ragnar said. “They have stolen our fish and dumped poison in our oceans. Our people are starving. We will do as we must to live. We have no choice.”

“Do you condone murder?” Sophia asked. “The slaughter of innocent people?”

“We are pirates. Buccaneers. Gentlemen of adventure.” Ragnar had gotten this last phrase from Pirates of the Caribbean, the favorite movie of everyone in Eyl, but Donatelli didn’t know that. “We do not apologize. We have chosen this way of life in order to eat, to feed our families. Our cause is just. We do what we are forced to do. The ransom must be paid. Without it, the prisoners will die quickly and we will die slowly.”

Donatelli waited to ensure Ragnar had run down and Noon had finished translating. She said, “Various international aid agencies have tried to relieve the suffering of starving Somali people, yet armed bands of men prevent the delivery of aid. They steal any food and medicine that is delivered, sell it on the black market. They abandon the helpless, condemn them to starvation and death. Do you condone this behavior?”

Ragnar was frowning as he listened to this soliloquy by Ms. Donatelli, and was answering before Noon could finish the translation. “We have fought the Shabab and won here, in Eyl. They are strong other places. They fight for Islam. We fight for survival.

“But I did not make the world. The strong will live, the weak will die. It is that way. Since forever it is that way. You in Europe and America are strong. We have been weak. Europeans pollute our oceans and kill our fish. We will take what we must have. We will be strong.”

The pirate chief refused to answer more questions.

Ricardo tried anyway. He requested an interview with the captain of the Sultan . To his surprise, Ragnar nodded yes. Pirates escorted Mustache and his cameraman to the stairs and prodded them downward. The little procession was not seen again.

“You stay,” Ragnar told Donatelli. Soon tea was brewing, then being served. Ragnar laughed and joked with his men. Noon translated a word here, a word there, but contented himself with slurping tea. Donatelli looked calm and cool, as if she were drinking tea at a restaurant in Davos while the world’s economic leaders vied to be interviewed by her. She had that ability.