Stephen Coonts - Pirate Alley

Zakhem laughed. “You want me to bet on bullshit, right?”

“I like filet mignon.”

* * *

I took E.D. and Travis with me when I went sneaking that night. We all had knives and.45s, and they carried silenced submachine guns, MP-5s. Me, I was loaded down with night-vision goggles and binoculars.

We hiked through the brush to the sentry outpost on the northern end of the Eyl airport and settled in for a good look around.

Yep, the pirates or Shabab holy warriors, whichever had the duty tonight, were doing their relaxed campout. No sentry. Nice fire, way too big, on which they were frying something in a big pan. Some kind of fish, I figured. Or a dog. Or a couple of rats. Perhaps I didn’t properly appreciate the local cuisine.

Two pickups parked nearby. One of them had a machine gun mounted in the bed, and of course there was that tripod-mounted machine gun that commanded the runway. It was perfectly adequate to perforate any airplane landing or taxiing or taking off. If these guys didn’t like you, you weren’t going flying.

The three of them were sitting around the fire laughing and jabbering, probably telling lies about their sexual exploits.

I lay there in the brush on my belly watching. They had a plastic can strapped to the side of one of the trucks, and occasionally one of them would wander over for a drink from it. Water, I suspected.

A couple hours passed. A bug somehow got inside my lower trouser leg and decided to feast on the lean white flesh he found there. Moving as slowly as possible, I squashed the little bastard and itched the bite. Wished to Christ I were in Paris with a gal I know and happen to like, eating French grub at some white-tablecloth place with a bottle of good vino in easy reach, and contemplating the prospect of getting laid later.

Finally, as the fire began to die and the three warriors for truth, justice and the Muslim way got busy spreading blankets and rags, I started crawling. Crawled completely around the fire and got the pickup with the water between them and me. Worked my way right up against that thing, where I could see them by looking under it.

Finally they lay down in their blankets. Arranged weapons within reach and settled in for a pleasant night.

I waited another hour, until the moon sliver was up, then got to my feet and walked carefully around the pickup. Took the cap off the water can and dropped in three pills. I was about to screw the cap back on when I thought, what the hell, and added two more. That should be enough dope to knock out an elephant.

We left them there, sound asleep, and E.D., Travis and I hiked the length of the runway.

The guys on the other end were already asleep. One was in the cab of his pickup, and the other two were near the fire, which was burning nicely. They had piled such woody roots as they could find on the thing to keep the snakes and critters away.

I waited for half an hour, just to be sure, then doped their water can. Then I saw another can, so I doped it, too.

When we were hiking to our hidey-hole, E.D. asked, “How long do you want them asleep?”

“Until Grafton’s plane gets here tomorrow afternoon.”

“If they drink some of that spiked water in the morning, they may be awake by the afternoon. Or somebody may find them all sprawled out.”

“It’s a risk, sure. If you got any other ideas, let’s hear them.”

“We’d better get there around noon and check on them.”

“If they are asleep, spike the machine guns.”

“Okay.”

“If they are awake when the plane lands and it stops at their end of the field, kill them and haul away the bodies in one of their pickups,” I said. “That’s Plan B. It’s our only possible choice.”

Neither man said a word in protest. Those guys had to be asleep or dead when that DC-3 landed. We didn’t want witnesses. So maybe they were going to die tomorrow. On the other hand, maybe we three fools would.

I assured myself that the Sultan passengers and crew had an excellent chance. We all had an excellent chance. Yeah.

Hell, we had Jake Grafton.

I heard the radial engines murmuring gently.

“It’s coming,” I said into the handheld.

“Asleep North.”

“Asleep South.”

So there would be no witnesses awake to tell the sheikh that this Carmellini guy didn’t arrive with Jake Grafton.

I used the binoculars. Yep, the DC-3 was low to the south, coming straight in. I was across the runway from the terminal. I duck-walked back to the little draw that paralleled the west side of the runway and started trotting toward the northern end of the runway. Running, actually. I had a half mile to do, and in this heat it was a chore.

The wind was out of the west, hot and dry, right off the Sahara. It was pushed up and over the coastal mountains, so cooled a bit on being elevated; if there was any moisture to be squeezed out of that air the mountains got it. Still, here in their wind shadow it was a little bit cooler than it would have been without the mountains’ help.

I had been sweating anyway. I had bathed as best I could and shaved. Was now wearing a set of rumpled khakis and a button-up short-sleeve shirt from Sears. I was still in my desert boots. My backpack was packed with extra underwear and my toothbrush, plus the Kimber.45, the Ruger.22 with silencer and my knife. The pack bounced up and down as I ran because I didn’t have the straps tight enough.

Since I was about to join the diplomatic corps, I didn’t figure that the bad guys would search me. After all, there were fifty or a hundred of them and only one of me. If I got out of control they could always pop me. Even if they confiscated my weapons, I could always take a shooter from one of their warriors when I needed one.

Little puffs of dust rose from my footfalls as I booked it. The engines were plainly audible, even though throttled back. I kicked it into overdrive.

The plane was on the ground. I heard the engines pulled back to idle.

It went by me spewing choking dust, and I sprinted the last two hundred yards. I got there just as the tail kicked around and the guy goosed the outboard engine. The passenger door was already open, which was a good thing because the plane didn’t stop. Just completed its one-eighty and taxied toward the terminal.

As I hit the floor inside, Jake Grafton pulled the door shut and turned the handle.

He looked at me with a smile and said, “Nice run?”

His trouser leg was right there by my face, so I used it for a towel. His grin widened.

There were two other men in the passenger cabin. They were dark Middle Eastern types in ratty trousers, pullover shirts, and worn tennis shoes. They had AKs near at hand. Smallish men, less than a hundred and fifty pounds. They looked at me with dead eyes, expressionless faces. Except for us, the passenger cabin was empty. A single row of threadbare seats went up each side, so you got a window/aisle seat regardless of what you asked for.

Grafton introduced me as we taxied. Ben and Zahra. “They are on our side,” Grafton said, and the men extended hands. I shook them. Firm, muscular, calloused hands.

“They are on our side, but you don’t know them. Ignore them.”

“Sure.”

Grafton and I plopped into two seats near the rear door, with the aisle between us.

“Got a pistol on you?” the admiral asked over the rumble of the idling engines. With the engines at power this thing must reverberate like a kettledrum. I could see why. All the interior insulation was gone. Welcome to Africa.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“Put it in your waistband where they can see it. That bag there”-he pointed at a duffel bag two seats forward of mine-“is yours to guard. Full of money. Don’t let them take it away from you unless I give the word. Put this in your backpack.” He handed me a small handheld radio transceiver.