Elmore Leonard: Djibouti

He watched the high-ass nigga thirty yards from him going out to the beach, stopping now to look at something, footprints? Showing the Reebok's tread? He could shoot him. Run up calling for him to wait and take him out with one shot. They hear it and say what was that? Come looking for Xavier and he'd have to shoot all three, pick them off or walk up firing at them. Even Dara, without talking to her first. Maybe have to come back and go through this whole fucking drill again. What if the tanker wasn't here? Got moved someplace and he couldn't find it?

Let the high-ass nigga go. Catch up with him later on. More clouds were blowing in, making the look of the island dismal. Be dark early. Another hour, that's all. Make the phone call and watch the ship blow up. Go to all this trouble-he had to see it happen and thought, They'd see it too, wouldn't they?

For the first time he wondered about something should've been on his mind. What were these people doing out here popping champagne corks a few miles from the gas tanker? XAVIER WAS BACK, EVERYBODY ashore now sitting under one of the thatched umbrellas. They had dessert left, no more oysters, and the last bottle of champagne not yet opened. Xavier showed them the vest with bullet holes and the blood. Said he didn't see anybody but he might've been seen.

He said to Dara, "I know what you thinkin."

Dara said, "He's al Qaeda, he blows up ships."

"So does Billy," Xavier said. "He must be with the Republicans' al Qaeda."

Billy said, "You gonna tell me what that means, the whites' al Qaeda?"

"I doubt it means anythin but sounds like it does. The one on the Buster saw us or he wouldn't be hidin out now. Has his dinghy…I think he forgot his groceries and jug of water."

Billy said, "Or he doesn't want to be seen by anyone on the island. He could be an escaped convict, if they have any around here. Your Buster doesn't have a thing to do with our venture. I say let's get the show on the road. Muff, my weapon, please, and my vest with the hot new loads. I mean the new hot loads. It could be construed as hot because they're new, and I don't mean that."

Xavier listened and was patient, seeing he'd have to take the man's gun, but at the right time. He still wanted to see the show. JAMA FOUND HIGH GROUND where it rose on the other side of the bay, inland, the coral getting piled up over thousands of years of tides, maybe thirty feet above the gulf. It should be high enough to make his call. Coming here he saw who had to be army people on the island. Girls with tats coming out of their bikinis, one with a fish jumping up her arm. Girls from pokey towns come over to where everything's the opposite and got their bodies fucked up with drawings. It took him ten minutes to get up to the high ground and he saw Aphrodite way out there. A spotlight from the ship's bridge shining down on the five LNG tanks.

Qasim hadn't known what the shape charges would do to frozen gas. Rip it open, thaw it out quick with the heat from the blast? Qasim said if you were closer than three miles it could burn your skin. He said oxygen in the air kept the fire burning. Could blow this way or that. Have to be careful it doesn't come at you.

Any of the GI chicks happen to stroll by, he'd say, "Want to see what the end of the world's gonna be like?" They weren't too bad-looking for girls you run into on an island ten miles from the end of the line. Tattooed white girls drinking Cosmos, checking him out. He'd tell them to look at that ship out there all lit up. "See what happens I point my finger at it, the kind of power I have?" His other hand in his pants touching the cell number committed to his memory. He points at the ship saying, "Be gone," and the motherfucker explodes. The GI chicks freak.

If he tried to pull out tonight he'd be in open water two hours, searchlights swiping at him to pin him down. The best thing was to stay on the island. Wipe Buster clean and hang with the GI chicks. Tell them he worked on the base doing translations. Wear his Brown University T-shirt and recall some of Hunter's bullshit about college days. Get the GI chicks on his side, he'd be home.

Jama told himself to pay attention now, looking out at the lit-up ship. You ready to make the call? He believed he was. "LET HER DRIFT NOW," Billy said, "correcting enough to give me clear shots from the port side of the bow. I say go, you cut to starboard in a half circle and we'll be tying up at the Kempinski dock ten minutes later, assuming we get sixty out of these Mercs. The only trouble, ships'll be coming out of Djib and put their spots on us. I'll slow down and wave and ask the officer hanging over the rail what that big explosion was. Muff'll be looking up at the ship and her captain. This officer asks too many questions, I say, 'Lemme talk to your skipper.' Loved destroyers, we called him Tin Can Courtney. Or whatever his name is."

Xavier said, "What if it's Jackabowski?"

"He'd be down in the engine room," Billy said. "We get stopped again, don't worry, I'll handle it."

Xavier said, "You want to steer for a while?"

"No, I'm ready to shoot. The gun's loaded. I fire both barrels, open the breech and the Muffer slips in two more high-explosive rounds. I fire, hit two more pods and that might be plenty." Billy was holding the Holland amp; Holland in his firing position.

Muff said, "Can we practice doing it, Skipper?"

Billy lowered the rifle and opened the breech. Dara, eye to her camera, tripped and fell against Billy as Muff grabbed the rifle, jacked it closed, put it against her shoulder and fired the six-hundred-caliber Nitro Express rifle at the gas tanker. IN THIS MOMENT, JAMA holding the cell in front of him, pressed the final digit of the twelve numbers he knew by heart…

And the gas ship exploded five times.

Jama, looking right at it, said, "Jesus," awed by the sight and the air-splitting sounds, rocking booms like none he'd ever heard, waves of heat coming at him from the inferno he'd set off. THE ELEPHANT GUN KICKED Helene hard, slammed her into Billy's arms to see the sky on fire, Helene saying in a murmur, "I hit the ship?"

Billy said, "Who else?"

Her shoulder killing her, she groaned, saying, "Really, I hit it?"

Billy told her, "Look at what you did, Muff."

The fire rising in a fury to sweep over the tanks to the stack of decks in the stern, fire climbing to cover the bridge. Now gas was oozing out of the hull's broken plates to form vapor pools that ignited and burst into fireballs, exploding in the clouds hanging low over the Aphrodite, the ship consumed by its cargo, burning to death.

Billy saw the vapor cloud coming toward them on the water and yelled at Xavier, "Go, for Christ sake. Now."

Xavier powered up and kicked the Donzi into the arc of a circle, Dara turning to keep her camera on the fire, and he got the Donzi around to do what Billy wanted: planing out of there at sixty miles an hour to be home in ten minutes.

Being good citizens it took them almost a half hour, slowing down when navy patrol boats came out of the dark to put spotlights on them. They were looked over till Billy got on his bullhorn.

"We have an injured young woman aboard who needs medical attention. In severe pain with a separated shoulder. Hurts like hell."

They took off again and Billy said, "Muff, lemme have a look." He got her in kind of a headlock, Muff screaming, Dara shooting the procedure, and Billy yanked her shoulder back in the socket. "We'll get an X-ray, have you taped up. You'll be left-handed for a while, but I don't think it'll interfere with anything. I'll help you put your clothes on, help you take them off…"

Helene was quiet now, smoking a cigarette. She said, "I can't believe I did it."

"You only blew up a thousand-foot tanker with one shot," Billy said, hugging and kissing Helene trying to hold him off. "Only you can't tell anybody you did it, Muff, or we could get thrown in jail."