Elmore Leonard: Djibouti

Xavier would hear her quiet voice in his head. This nice woman he kept thinking was a fox. Dara keeping some other part of her under wraps.

This time she told him she heard three boats coming. THEY WATCHED TWO OF the pirate boats swerve in close to cut their speed and have a look at them on the Buster before veering off after the first boat, going for a cargo ship in the distance, Dara waving and yelling to them, "Stop by on your way back," as loud as she could.

Xavier remembered shooting Dara but didn't see her in the footage on the screen.

"They comin like wild dogs and you cut it?"

"I like 'coming like dogs,'" Dara said, "but we don't need that girl showing off, that 'Stop on your way back.' Did you see Idris?"

"Those Arabs tend to look alike to me."

"He was in the lead boat, the guy in the yellow kaffiyeh. We're meeting him tomorrow," Dara said. "Today he's occupied."

"Takin care of business," Xavier said. "You guessed there were three boats comin." He waited and said, "Didn't you?"

"At first I thought there were four," Dara said. "It turns out Idris had two Yamahas on his."

Was this nice girl having fun with him? Xavier could never be sure.

THEY WERE CLOSER NOW to the cargo ships and tankers on the screen, Dara using a Super Telephoto lens, the big Sony mounted on sticks to keep the camera steady while she brought the ships even closer: as many as five or six spread over the screen at one time, merchant ships and now and then a warship riding shotgun.

"Most of this was filmed during our third week," Dara said. "I slipped it in here to get something going."

"You know how many times I shot you punchin up news stories on your Mac? Where's that footage?"

"I'm using the information."

"But you don't show how you gettin it way out here, waitin for somethin to happen."

"I'm showing what the news story's about. Here, the U.S. missile cruiser…"

"What I don't see," Xavier said, "is any documentary stuff goin on. Where the people this is about, the poor Somalis havin to hijack ships. The only one I've seen was drivin a tricked-out Mercedes."

"It's coming up," Dara said. "The logline is they've gone after a hundred and eleven ships, hijacked forty-two and collected fines that come to over thirty million, for trespassing."

"You can say that with a straight face, huh?"

Dara said, "Shut up, please, and watch." She said, "Eight ships are still in the hands of the hijackers. They're negotiating. What we want to find out is who all's involved."

Now they were looking at the guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf on the screen. "Flagship," Dara said, "of Combined Task Force 151. A search and seizure crew from the cruiser-the guys in the inflatable boat-are rounding up the pirates in their skiff. I'll say something about the seven guys with their hands in the air."

"No match for the U.S. Navy."

"I'll say they're being taken to the cruiser, where they'll be identified by the crew from Polaris, a ship registered in the Marshall Islands. I'll say the Somali rights activists have been thwarted in their attempt to seize the Polaris and levy a fine. Cut to the cruiser's Seahawk helicopter firing at them. Or I might call it the cruiser's gunship."

"I like 'thwarted,'" Xavier said. "You make the cruiser the bad guy."

"All that U.S. Navy firepower against seven guys in a skiff with an outboard motor."

"Seven guys with machine guns, RPGs, and twin Yamahas."

Dara said, "I requested permission to come aboard to interview the suspects-"

"I know-where is it?"

"I trashed it. My request denied over the PA system. We're having no luck with our navy. I find out on the Internet the Vella Gulf transferred the prisoners to the Lewis and Clark, a navy supply ship. Now they're being held down in the cargo hold, where we used to chain slaves."

"You makin the Lewis and Clark a slave ship?"

"You know what I mean. In the hold, guarded by marines."

"I know how you makin it sound."

"Here," Dara said, "a different boatload of nine freedom fighters, hands in the air. I got this from CNN. Caught in the act by a French frigate. I'll say, 'The French navy is said to have taken fifty-seven pirates in seven patrol operations.' I think the frigate's name is Le Floreal."

"What'd they do with them, the nine guys?"

"Watch. We cut to the Italian destroyer. You remember the name?"

"Luigi Durand de la Penne."

"Named for an Italian officer during the second war, served as a demolition team member. I don't like that. What is he?"

"He's an underwater demolition man."

"Responsible for blowing up two British warships in Egypt. I guess Cairo. Here they are. The reason the crew's laughing, they thought I was English, and Luigi was blowing up English ships."

"I got it," Xavier said.

"It's a good clip. We learned it's helicopters that make the difference. They can fly five times beyond the ships' radar and-CNN said-'deter pirates.' Captain Fabrizio Simoncini of the Penne said, 'My priority is to protect merchant shipping, not give chase to pirates.' Voice-over will say you chase them down and then what? Free them? Let them escape? Or hand these poor men to Kenya for trial?"

"By poor you don't mean they broke."

"CNN calls it a game of maritime cat and mouse. The mouse getting bolder, more sophisticated. While the cat, well-intentioned but largely declawed, isn't nearly as scary as he was imagined."

"You gonna tell it like that?"

"I'm not sure I'll keep the Italian captain, or get into what happens to the pirates. No, I don't have to use the CNN stuff. But now here comes a spokesman for the U.S. Navy I got off CNN."

The man on the screen-a navy commander in uniform-is saying, "We're making headway against the robbers. With the agreement of the countries that have ships in harm's way-"

"There, he said it. I knew somebody would."

"The ships' owners have agreed to bring these criminals to trial, then put them in a prison in the country of the owner or ship them off to Kenya."

Dara said, "They've made thirty million hijacking ships, but lost out on a three-hundred-million-dollar market when they had to stop fishing. Toxic waste dumped in their seas, while foreign fishing companies have come from as far away as Japan. And the commander says, 'If everybody else can make a living fishing here, why can't the Somalis?'"

She said to Xavier, "I don't have an answer to that."

"Girl, they don't care about fishin. They stumble onto piracy," Xavier said, "and can't believe it. They havin fun and gettin rich. They flyin out to take a ship, one of 'em stands up to piss over the side, bottle of Heineken in his hand, drunk as he wants to be-it's part of bein a pirate-drunk and mellowed some by the khat in his jaw, the man dreamin of Ethiopian pussy. Who's gonna stop him? This what you want to film, what these guys are doin? They enjoyin every minute of it. Gonna keep takin ships till it gets dangerous. A bunch of 'em will quit. The ones stick it out become as dangerous as the gunboats after 'em. Be more navies out here. Won't be long the pirates will come out shootin and your gunboats'll blow 'em out of the sea. I expect some will keep comin, not knowin anything else."

Dara was quiet lighting a cigarette, thinking of what she'd say. "I want to show why the Somalis became pirates."

"To get rich," Xavier said. "You stuck with the idea these rascals are good guys. It's like you made a picture called Men of Bosnia and left out all the women they raped. How they had children from guys, a line waitin to have their turn. The woman never knows which one's the father."

"The pirates aren't vicious," Dara said. "They don't rape and kill."

"That you know of. Katrina you show guys bustin into stores, comin out with TV sets. 'Cause they poor and can't afford to buy one? No, 'cause they bad dudes, they breakin the law and you say it, tell how it was. The pirates haven't taken and raped any women 'cause there no women on the ships they hijack. Maybe an old Filipina in the galley. They hit a cruise ship you gonna see what happens. Find some good-lookin young women among the old people they settle for robbin? Why these cruise ships are puttin their passengers off at Djibouti, fly 'em to Dubai and pick 'em up again. They gonna do it till they start goin broke."