Stephen Coonts: Pirate Alley

* * *

“She’s up to nineteen knots now,” the voice on Mustafa’s radio said. “Should meet the other ship in forty-one minutes.”

Mustafa typed the new coordinates into his GPS. The speed increase meant he was going to be a few minutes late. Just a little. He jammed the throttles forward and adjusted his course.

The men heard the change in the engine’s song and felt the prop bite deeper into the sea. They hung on tightly and ignored the spray coming over the bow when the boat nosed into a swell. Their eyes were on the horizon. Soon.

* * *

Suzanne’s husband was dead and Irene wished hers were, so they escaped Denver four times a year by going on ocean cruises. This late-autumn cruise from Istanbul to Doha was their thirteenth. Everyone they met on the Sultan tried to think up something witty to say when that number came up in conversation. Actually, comparing numbers of cruises was a popular topic of conversation among the passengers, most of whom, if they were to be believed, spent a significant portion of their lives leisurely sailing from port to port, seeing the planet on a floating luxury hotel.

“I’ve gained four pounds already,” Irene remarked to her sister as they surveyed the choices on the breakfast buffet.

“The ship’s paper says Denver is getting an early winter storm,” Suzanne remarked, because she didn’t want to discuss her weight, which was ten pounds more than Irene’s. After all, the price of the cruise was all-inclusive, so the gourmet food was already paid for; why not eat it? Indeed, so were the drinks. After loading her plate with eggs Benedict, extra ham, a few potatoes, a slice of tomato and just a taste of smoked salmon, Suzanne helped herself to a Mimosa-after all, a little champagne with the orange juice wouldn’t hurt much, would it? — and followed Irene across the dining room to a door that led to the porch overlooking the wake. The table they normally sat at for breakfast was empty, so they seated themselves. The waiter came over immediately, and Irene ordered coffee.

“Oooh,” whispered Irene, staring back through the window at the buffet line, “there’s Warren Bass and his new trophy wife.”

Suzanne eyed the skinny fifty-something babe with obviously fake tits who came in with Bass. He was, Suzanne knew, a Texas oil mogul. Rumor had it the woman with him was his fourth or fifth wife. Her name was Theodolinda, and she said everyone called her “Dol.” Bass was in his mid-seventies, with a full mane of gray hair, which he brushed straight back. He sported a matching mustache in a tanned, lined face. His hair stood up in the back, giving him a comb that reminded Suzanne of a woodpecker.

“She’s had some plastic surgery,” Irene said, scrutinizing Dol Bass, who was helping herself to one little spoonful of scrambled eggs.

“Liposuction, too, probably.”

“I watched her at dinner last night. She didn’t eat four bites.”

“One of those, eh?”

“A gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.”

“You need a set of tits like that,” Suzanne remarked.

“Right.”

“I’m thinking of getting a set when I get home,” Suzanne continued. “My Christmas present to myself. D’s, I think.”

“Look, there’s Atomic Man.” Sure enough, Mohammed Atom, accent on the first vowel, came strolling into the lounge. He was wearing a blue blazer, a shirt and tie, gray trousers with a knife-edge crease and polished loafers. “He’s from somewhere in Africa, I think. Stole a pile of money from the starving masses and now rides around enjoying it.”

After Atom had seated himself several chairs away on the porch and ordered coffee, the sisters saw Mike Rosen working his way through the breakfast line. He was about five feet nine inches tall, reasonably thin and relatively good-looking. An economist by trade, he held forth on a Denver talk radio station for three hours every morning. He sat down at the table between Irene and Suzanne and the Basses. Irene heard him order coffee from the waiter.

Suzanne looked at her watch. “Thirty seconds … a minute … ninety seconds…”

Just before the second hand showed two minutes, Nora Neidlinger and her daughter, Juliet, came out of the dining room, looked around and zeroed in on the talk-show host. They brought their plates over, and he stood and graciously invited them to join him.

The daughter was addicted to hats with wide brims, which she liked to shape so that the brim hid half her face. Her long brown hair swept down her back. Nora, on the other hand, wore her hair relatively short, the better to showcase her striking features, which people noticed when they tore their eyes from her surgically enhanced figure.

“Double D’s,” Suzanne whispered to Irene. “Mine will be a bit more modest.”

“That’s wise, dear. After all, you have to carry them around.”

The swirling sea breeze played with the brim of Juliet’s hat. She adjusted it.

When Rosen nodded at Nora, she smiled and held his eyes.

“Ten bucks she lands him before Doha,” Suzanne murmured to Irene.

“No bet,” Irene shot back and glanced around for a waiter.

Rosen was making conversation with Nora and Juliet; Suzanne and Irene couldn’t help but overhear. “Did you take the tour to Luxor?”

“Oh, yes,” Nora said and began discussing the bus ride from Al Qusayr and the ancient monuments by the Nile.

It was all very pleasant, with the blue sea and the light wind off Arabia and the sun shining down.

Irene winked at Suzanne and asked the waiter for more coffee. Suzanne ordered another Mimosa.

* * *

Harry Zopp glanced at the surface radar-and was surprised to see four small targets approaching from the south. They were on a collision course and closing. He picked up the closed circuit telephone, which rang in the captain’s stateroom.

“Pirates, I think,” Harry Zopp said. “Maybe fifteen minutes out.”

“Radio the navy and activate the boarding prevention plan,” Captain Arch Penney ordered, then added, “I’ll be right up.”

Zopp dialed the preset radio frequency into the box in front of him and picked up the handset. “Red Ryder, Red Ryder, this is Sultan of the Seas .”

“This is Red Ryder. Go ahead, Sultan. ”

“Looks as if we have four high-speed boats approaching from the south on a course to intercept us. About fourteen minutes out. Over.”

“We’ll get the chopper headed your way. Nearest surface warship is seventy miles northeast of you.”

Two hours, Harry Zopp thought. He used the intercom to call the bosun. “Activate the boarding prevention plan. Pirates less than fifteen minutes away.”

Zopp walked out on the starboard wing of the bridge with his binoculars. He was standing there trying to spot the boats on the horizon when Captain Penney joined him.

“Just got a glimpse of one of them,” Zopp said. “Radar says they are making thirty knots.”

The captain told the helmsman, “All engines ahead full.” Full speed for the Sultan was thirty-one knots, but with the pirate boats on the starboard quarter, there was no way he was going to outrun them on this heading. He went inside the bridge and looked at the moving map display on the GPS. He was twenty miles offshore. If he turned tail to the pirates, he would be heading toward Yemen. He could buy some time, but he couldn’t sail through sand and stone.

Penney glanced again at the radar. He could see the symbol for the Stella Maris, fifteen miles ahead. She would pass down his left side if he kept on this course. “Come left ten degrees,” Penney told the helmsman. This course would take him very near to the Stella Maris. He picked up the radio handset and dialed in the proper frequency, then called Stella Maris. Better tell her captain what was going on.