Stephen Coonts: Pirate Alley

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA

The little drone made a low buzzing sound, a bit more than a dragonfly. It was about twice the size of that insect and weighed three and a half ounces.

We were on the roof of a three-story building. The locals would have been unhappy if they knew, but so far, our presence was our little secret.

I’m Tommy Carmellini, and sneaking around is what the CIA pays me for. It’s in my job description somewhere. I was here today with Travis Clay and Joe Bob Sweet, who were what the agency likes to refer to as “covert operatives.”

I watched the drone soar above our heads, watched Clay maneuver it around with the joystick on the control unit until he was sure it was functioning properly and the telemetry was good. I checked the small television screen, adjusted the contrast and brightness, then nodded at Trav.

He flew the drone off the edge of the roof and dropped it gently, stopping at each window as it came up on the monitor.

We thought our guy was in this three-story apartment building-or what had once been an apartment building back when the people of Somalia paid rent and obeyed laws. They didn’t do either anymore.

Before we went in to get him, we wanted to know where in the building he was and who else was there, and in what rooms.

I watched the monitor over Travis’ shoulder, and when he flew the thing to the next window, I glanced around. We were squatting near a water tank. People on the street couldn’t see us, and people some distance away, or across the street in that dump building, who could couldn’t tell who we were or what we were up to.

Mogadishu reminded me of some sections of Newark and Detroit, only worse. Dirt streets, trash, abandoned vehicles and ruined buildings, the stench of raw sewage, dirty people in rags carrying weapons … all in all, I thought it looked like hell might look when I got there. Seventeen years of civil war had brought them to this.

Believe it or not, when I joined the CIA I thought I would be spending my time in Europe or Russia or exotic places like China or Istanbul. I did a little of that, sure, but these days it seemed that the third-no, make that the fourth-world had my name upon it. Tommy Carmellini.

Using a device that picked up electromagnetic energy, I checked the satellite transceiver mounted on the roof one more time. It was hot. As amazing as it sounds, someone in the building was on the Internet.

After the drone had looked in every window, Travis flew it back to the roof and we conferred. The third-floor rooms were empty except for one man, who we thought was the guy we were after. Travis stowed the drone in his backpack.

I checked across the roof. Joe Bob Sweet was hunkered behind the remains of a chimney, keeping watch on the street below, the main drag.

Like me, Travis and Joe Bob were wearing dashikis and sported unruly beards. They also wore sweatbands that kept long, unkempt hair out of their eyes. Compared to them, I looked like a boot recruit. We smelled as bad as we looked.

I nodded at my two colleagues, who had their backpacks on and their weapons in their hands, then opened the door that led down into the building. I was following the wire from the satellite antenna. The installation expert hadn’t bothered to drill holes in the walls or floors to get the wire out of the way; he had merely unrolled the thing, so it ran down the steep stairs, then along the poorly lit, trash-infested hallway to a closed door. The insulated wire ran under the door.

My little EMI receiver indicated the wire was hot.

Travis and Joe Bob already had silenced MP-5s in their hands. I put the electronic gizmo away and got out my Ruger with the silencer on the barrel. Travis looked at me and I looked at him as I slowly turned the knob on the door. Didn’t see any locks. After all, locks only kept honest people out, and in Somalia, there weren’t many of those folks left alive.

The door moved a millimeter.

I took a deep breath and opened it slowly, oh so slowly.

There was a guy sitting at a table by the window with his back to me. He was staring at a computer monitor. Didn’t see anyone else.

I walked across the space between us as slowly and silently as I could. The man must have seen my reflection in the computer screen, because he turned suddenly, startled. I jammed the silencer barrel against his teeth, and he froze.

Travis was right behind me. Joe Bob charged for the open doorway that led into another room, a room we couldn’t see.

Fear. I could see it in the eyes of my guy. He was one scared fella, which was fine with me. He had a right to be. If he even twitched, I was going to kill him as dead as a man can get. Maybe he saw that in my face, because he remained frozen, immobile, as I turned him slightly and began checking him for weapons.

Behind me I heard a single shot, then a stutter from the MP-5. Then another. I didn’t even turn around.

Travis went charging for the other room. He was in there too long.

“Guys?”

“Joe Bob caught one.”

Shit! I thought this floor was empty!

The shot must have been heard all over this building. We had mere seconds.

“Help me,” I said urgently.

Travis whipped out a plastic tie and secured my computer guy’s hands behind his back. Then he pulled out a preloaded syringe from a bag on his belt. “Sweet’s gut shot,” he said. “A fucking kid.”

“Where’d he come from?”

“Oh, fuck!”

The computer guy was trying to watch Travis and me; his eyes got big as saucers when he saw the syringe. Whatever he had been expecting, that wasn’t it.

Clay didn’t bother pulling up the guy’s sleeve or any of that nurse stuff; he merely jabbed the syringe needle through the dirty shirt straight into the muscle and pushed the plunger.

The guy collapsed before Clay could get the syringe put away. Clay stepped quickly back into the other room.

I stowed the Ruger and checked out the computer, which was an old IBM clone. I was prepared to operate-take out the hard drive-but saw that the computer box wasn’t very big. I jerked the plugs off it, stuffed it into my backpack and carefully put both arms through the armholes.

I ran the three steps into the other room. Joe Bob had taken a slug right in the gut, then put three into the kid’s heart. I merely glanced at the kid, sprawled across a filthy mattress. I saw he was small and dead; his pistol lay near his hand.

Joe Bob was on one knee, bleeding.

“Help me get him up,” I grunted at Travis. The two of us lifted Joe Bob onto my shoulder. He weighed about a hundred and eighty, so I wasn’t going to move fast with him there. “Goddamn fat slob,” I told Sweet as I walked into the other room. Travis picked up the computer guy like he weighed about fifty pounds and tossed him over his shoulder. Clay weighed maybe a hundred and fifty, but it was all muscle and bone.

“We got him,” I said into my headset and received two mike clicks in reply.

Away we went, back the way we had come onto the roof. Kept going to another roof, then another. I wasn’t going fast, not with Joe Bob draped over my shoulder and his MP-5 in my hands. If anyone was curious about the gunshot, they were waiting for the news to find them.

I could hear the chopper coming. Glanced around, saw it and stepped out where the pilot could see me. It was an Italian chopper and carried the markings of an Italian petroleum company.

There was just enough room on that roof. The pilot eased that thing in there slick as a whistle, and Travis tossed our prisoner through the open door onto the floor, then scrambled aboard. The crewman on the chopper helped me with Joe Bob, then grabbed my hand and I vaulted in.