Elmore Leonard - Djibouti

The first officer's head came up, eyes open, confused. Now he was getting his legs under him to rise.

Harry said, "Stay as you are."

The first officer was now upright on his knees. He said, "Yes?" He said, "Please tell me why we wait in this place. Are we your guests or not?"

The two sitting against the wall had not moved. The one with the wrap of white cloth around his head was black, about thirty, with a beard and hair to his shoulders. They sat watching Harry Bakar with little interest. Idris had already put them both down as al Qaeda. Harry believed it too. He said to the younger one, "You must be Jama Raisuli. Is that correct? Tell us who gave you your name. It sounds Berber to me."

Jama, looking up at Harry, said, "The party must be over," in English, with no hint of a Middle East accent.

Harry said, "It certainly is. Tell us, is the first officer one of you?"

"I don't know him," Jama said.

Harry turned to Idris. "You hear him? This Jama Raisuli is American. What we hear about him must be correct. He turned to Islam for the love of Allah and protection while in prison." He said to Jama, "What prison were you in?"

The man sitting with Jama turned his head to say a few words against his shoulder. An Arab with short hair, the bones of his face showing in his skin.

"Qasim al Salah wants you to keep your mouth shut," Harry said. "I'll bet you prefer Jama Raisuli to being called 'boy' or 'nigger.' Isn't that correct?" Harry waited, got no response and said, "There are others like you, still citizens of America. You can return whenever you want as a traitor and be tried in court. Tell us why you came here."

"You're nada to me," Jama said, "and I tell you nada."

Qasim put his face to his shoulder again and spoke to him.

"I turn to a true life," Jama said.

"Good for you," Harry said. "Tell me about your shipmate Qasim al Salah, who hasn't said a bloody word. He's one of you?"

"He and I are one in Allah."

"With little room for the first officer," Harry said and turned to the young Saudi still upright on his knees. "So we don't need you, do we?" Harry extended the Walther and shot Duad Dahir Suliman straight off in the center of his forehead, Harry stepping back as the first officer fell toward him, the young man's eyes still open.

The two against the wall stared at Harry without expression, Idris turning to him stunned. "You had to shoot him?"

"He's of no use to us," Harry said. "We inform the master of the Aphrodite his first mate disappeared. Ran off with these two and the cooch dancers in one of your Toyotas." Harry grinned. "A jolly group. The Egyptian can believe it or not, it makes no difference." He looked at the two sitting against the wall. "This Jama the Amriki is thinking how he can persuade me not to shoot him. Qasim al Salah has faced death many times before. He's tired of it, so he gives himself to his fate, still refusing to speak. I'd like to know what's in his head."

"He doesn't have to speak," Idris said. "Allah put these two on the gas tanker and sent it to us."

Harry said, "Why didn't you take it yourself?"

"I smoke too much to board a tanker. Three packs a day-I'm going to climb on a gas ship? I chew a bit of khat so I don't smoke so much," Idris said. He watched Jama the black American take a cigarette from his pack of Marlboros and light it with a match, Idris saying, "Let me have one of those if you will, please."

Harry watched Jama, not bothering to look at Idris, slip the cigarettes into his shirt pocket again, Harry smiling.

"As the Americans like to say, 'Fuck you.'"

Idris said, "I thought Americans were generous."

"Some are, some not," Harry said. "They have the world's nationalities in America, blacks from the time they were used as slaves. It should be enough to make blacks disposed to Islam if not al Qaeda." He said to Jama, "You should go home and tell the darkies how much fun you're having as a terrorist."

"You have to insult us," Jama said, "before you shoot us?"

"Shoot you," Harry said, "where did you get that notion? Tomorrow you will be riding in a procession of cars under armed guard. Shackled and blindfolded if you give us the least trouble. Late the second day the caravan arrives in Djibouti. We phone the American embassy and speak to the person in charge of their Rewards for Justice program, a way they've planned to stop your atrocities."

"They have a list of the ones," Idris said, "known to be al Qaeda. Both of you are on the list."

"With photographs," Harry said. "We hand you over to the American State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security"-Harry had to grin-"and guess what they give us for you naughty boys. Six million U.S. dollars. Five for Qasim and one for Jama."

"You didn't spread enough terror," Idris said to Jama, "to get your numbers up."

THEY WERE AT WORK again in Dara's hotel suite, looking at the rough cut on her seventeen-inch screen, a bottle of red on the table. They watched:

Xavier coming out to the Buster in a pirate skiff, a young Somali at the tiller. "Sixteen years old," Xavier said, "dyin to hijack some ships. I told the boy it wasn't for my age I'd be a dedicated pirate myself. They give us all these stores, stalk of green bananas, liter bottles of water wrapped in plastic, the meat-"

"I smelled it," Dara said, "and threw it over the side."

"That's what happen to it. I wondered how those sharks got diarrhea. The boy was no help to me till he picked up the bunch of khat I promoted for us." Watching the screen, Xavier said, "Good, you got me relievin him of the bouquets. The boy startin to chew on a bunch."

"This was Friday," Dara said, "the natives still friendly. They've got the captain of the Alabama in a lifeboat and want two million for his release. Sunday, the SEALs took out the pirates and the standoff was over."

"And all hell broke loose," Xavier said. "You ever use that expression?"

"It broke loose shooting Katrina but I restrained myself."

"You ask me did I see Idris and Harry Baker that morning. I found out from the khat-chewer runs the coffee stand, they left at six A.M. in five Toyota SUVs, armed, gun barrels stickin out the windows. Want people to see they mean business. I ask the khat-chewer where they headed, to Djibouti? He say, 'Where else?' They have water and gasoline strapped on top the vehicles."

Dara said, "Idris and Harry and two guys in handcuffs with hoods over their heads."

"In separate SUVs," Xavier said, "in the middle of the parade, one with Idris, one with Harry Baker."

"Did we know at that time who they were?"

"We knew they had to be the two guys off the gas tanker, one Saudi, one American. That got us wonderin about the ship, full of liquid natural gas. You not thinkin and light a cigarette, the port where you sittin could go up in flames. But these two and another one from the ship, the first mate, were at Idris's cookout. We don't know what happened to the mate. Where did he go?"

"And the Egyptian captain," Dara said.

"I told you I served under him one time?" Xavier said. "Captain Wassef. That trip, the captain picked me out to be a helmsman and we'd talk some when he was on the bridge. He was the only captain I ever served under was friendly."

"That's right," Dara said, "you ran into him."

"Still ashore the mornin after the party. Upset," Xavier said, "chain-smokin Turkish cigarettes and drinkin coffee. It's when he tells me his first officer's missin and two from the crew."

"The two with hoods over their heads," Dara said, "put in the SUVs."

"See, Captain Wassef didn't know nothin about them," Xavier said. "The Aphrodite stopped at Balhaf in Yemen, the LNG terminal there, took on their load of liquid gas and was escorted out of the port by the local Coast Guard. Then out a ways-they in international waters now-another gunboat, he believes from Yemen, stops the ship to inspect the load. This is when the two al Qaeda guys come aboard."