Stephen Coonts - Pirate Alley

“The Shabab did the pirates. God only knows how many of those bastards they slaughtered, but we didn’t do it. ”

“Grafton’s a genius.”

“Maybe the queen will knight him.”

“I just have this suspicion,” the president mused, “an inkling perhaps, just an itch between my shoulder blades, that this whole thing is out of control. It’s like a televised debate, with the cameras on and the swine reporter grinning like a moron on crack, and you just know the son of a bitch is going to ask you an unexpected question that will make you look like a friggin’ idiot in front of everyone on the planet. That’s the feeling. I got it big-time. This whole pirate gig is going to turn out badly.”

“Grafton is the best-”

The president smacked the table with one hand. “Homicidal Muslims, grinding poverty in Africa, people starving by the millions, polluted oceans, vicious pirates-this isn’t Johnny Depp swaggering in front of a camera wearing more eye shadow than a whorehouse full of sluts. This is real as a heart attack. That Grafton … he can certainly smash things. That’s the easy part. I have to pick up the pieces.”

Sal Molina sighed. After twenty-five years in politics, he thought most politicians had the courage of mice, present company included. They were constantly congratulating themselves on having the fortitude to take political risks, when the worst that could happen was losing some votes. Molina tried to recall just what the president had done about poverty and starvation in Africa, vicious pirates and polluted oceans. Maybe he made a speech or two. Tut tut.

All the guts inside the Beltway wouldn’t be enough for a Vienna sausage, Molina thought savagely.

* * *

I woke up with the sun in my eyes. I got up, went to the eastern edge of the roof and pissed through a gun port as the warm desert wind pushed on my back and the sun warmed my face. One of the guards eyed me, thought about shooting me and apparently changed his mind. Everyone has to piss, even infidels. He settled for a rude gesture.

Ahh, morning in fabulous Eyl. With any luck, this would be my last one. Tomorrow morning I’d either be dead or someplace else.

I turned on my headset. Not a lot of battery left, but maybe enough.

“Red Control, Tommy. Where is Grafton?”

“Good morning, Tommy. All indications are he’s in a hut in West Eyl. We’ve counted over two hundred armed men in that vicinity.”

“Thanks. I’ll get back to you.”

I went downstairs and found Arch Penney, who was conferring with his crew, trying to figure out how to feed eight hundred fifty people and not poison them. It was a tough problem. My personal contribution was to refuse to eat anything. Fasting wouldn’t give me the trots, although the water might. I had to drink it anyway.

“Did you bring binoculars from your ship?” I asked the captain.

He nodded.

“May I borrow them?”

His wife had them. He told me where she was and I went.

Nora Neidlinger was still asleep, and the women were talking in hushed tones. Nora’s daughter was asleep beside her. No one asked me what had happened to Nora, and I wasn’t letting on that I knew.

Lying on my belly on the roof, looking through a gun port, I surveyed the beach. A few kids were fishing in the surf, but there were no SEALs lying around. I wondered where they were. Looked the Sultan over. Probably aboard her, but I saw no one. She appeared to be a derelict.

Lots of guys with assault rifles wandering around Eyl. Up on top of the lair amid the rubble, in pickups in the plaza, stealing food from the locals. I could see men literally carrying pots out of the houses scattered about while women screamed at them and children cried. Those holy warriors … The distance was too great to see much detail. I needed to get closer.

I needed to get out of here. I got up, put the binocs in my backpack and wandered along the wall, looking at the guards and brush and considering possibilities.

* * *

In midmorning two guards came for Jake. He hadn’t eaten, nor had he been given any water. He was hungry and thirsty, but tried to ignore it.

His captors put him in a pickup, and away they went driving fast toward the beach. Roared into the plaza and screeched to a stop in front of Ragnar’s lair. Grafton saw that the plaza had been cleaned up, somewhat. The remnants of two pickups were still there, but the less-damaged ones had been removed, no doubt to be mined for parts, and the bodies carried off.

A group of hard cases with AKs watched Grafton get out of the bed of the pickup, and watched his two escorts take him inside.

Although he didn’t know it, Yousef el-Din had had a group working for hours cleaning up most of the mess in the penthouse. They disposed of broken glass and rubble and trash by the simple expedient of tossing it off the balcony and out the windows on the south side of the building, none of which had any glass left.

Jake was prodded up the stairs, all of them, to the penthouse. The roof looked as if it would cave in if even a mild breeze arose, but most of the rubble was gone. The bodies of the Ragnars, father and sons, were somewhere below under all that debris.

Yousef was waiting in the penthouse, seated on a carpet with his legs folded, looking every inch like an Arab slave trader waiting to haggle. Standing beside him was Geoff Noon, High Noon himself, still wearing that filthy old white linen sport coat with a bottle of gin in the side pocket. The pocket on the other side was empty, so he looked unbalanced. He glanced at Grafton but showed no sign of recognition. Also standing there was a white man of medium height, trim, wearing slacks and a short-sleeve pullover shirt with a polo pony on the left breast. He was obviously the cleanest man in the room.

“I’m Mike Rosen,” he said to Grafton, extending a hand.

Grafton shook and pronounced his name.

“Yousef wants to talk about money,” Noon said.

“Okay.”

“When and how it will be delivered.”

“Tell him that two helicopters will arrive at noon tomorrow. Each will have money suspended on a pallet below it. The choppers will put the pallets in the plaza, then fly over to the fort and land on the roof.”

Noon chattered a while, then listened as Yousef talked; then they went back and forth. Grafton put his hands in his pockets and inspected the holes in the roof. Those Hellfires had done a job.

Finally Noon asked, “Why pallets under the helicopters?”

“Two hundred million dollars in currency weighs over two tons. That is a ton for each chopper. In this heat, that is a safe load.”

More jabber.

Grafton interrupted. “Of course, after the money is paid we will want to transport all the people in the fortress out of here. We will use helicopters, take about a dozen people at a time. It will obviously take the rest of the day to fly eight hundred and fifty folks out to the ship. As each helicopter is loaded and takes off, another one will land on the roof.”

Yousef listened impassively to this statement.

Grafton continued, “I suspect that Yousef and his followers will wish to take the money and leave immediately. If they try any treachery, we will of course kill every single one of them and take the money back or destroy it.”

Yousef’s face darkened as he listened to Noon, and he rose swiftly to his feet. He had a pistol in a holster on his belt, and his hand went to the butt.

“We are Muslims of the Shabab,” he said, according to Noon. “Not liars and thieves and blasphemers and sinners, like the pirates were. They are dead, gone. The Shabab will not be insulted.” The men standing around listening made appreciative noises upon hearing this. They were Allah’s chosen. “You will do as you have said. If you try to betray our agreement in any way, all the hostages will die. Every last one. They will be shot and bombed until every single one of them is but crushed bone and bloodstains on the stone.”