Djibouti (19 page)

“Directly across from us,” Buck said. “It crept past once. Now it's coming around again. Tell me if you know the car.”

There it was, silver shining hot in the sun. She said, “I've never seen it before.”

She watched it drive past them, the windows dark, she couldn't see the driver. She watched it make a wide turn toward Marshal Foch, taking its time. She glanced at Buck drawing a nickel-plated Mag revolver from under his jacket.

Buck said, “I tell you to hit the deck, hit it.”

The BMW got almost to Marshal Foch before it began to come around in a slow right turn, back this way but closer to the curb, approaching the Café Verdun and the sidewalk tables and she heard Buck yell at her and saw him pull the table over on its side, Dara going down behind it seconds before gunfire came from the car. She didn't see Buck. She looked past the table and saw Jama in the car, the window down, Jama holding his Walther and firing point-blank at the table, the rounds splintering wood and she went down to press herself against the pavement, thinking, Where's Buck? Thinking, Jesus Christ, please shoot him. And it stopped. The ringing in her ears faded. She looked over the table and saw Jama still in the car window, still pointing his gun at her. She could say she didn't know what his name was, he'd never told her. But thought, Take a chance, and said, “I bet your name's James Russell, isn't it?”

“Rus
sell,
” Jama said. “The idea was a tease, see if law people could figure it out. You know how many knew it? Two. No, three down, four to go.”

Past him she saw the white Toyota enter the plaza. Dara gave the white Toyota time to get over here, saying to Jama, “Who cares what your name is. You'll either be shot down or go to prison—” She stopped, was going to say “for life” but never got to say any of it. Jama was aiming at her and Xavier was ramming the white Toyota straight into the right side of the BMW, banging in the door and some of the fender.

Xavier said after, “Jama didn't know what hit him. Fired
three out his right side window, nothin to shoot at, and ran. Fired three times through the table. That leaves him two shots in the gun.”

“One,” Buck said.

He was standing a few yards from them brushing at his knees.

“He hit me with his first shot.” Buck opened his coat to show his white shirt bloody beneath his arm. “He got me right here in my love handle, through and through.”

Dara said, “We'll take you to a hospital.”

“I can manage,” Buck said. “I know where I can have it fixed up.”

Dara said, “Did you hear him say his name?”

“I did, but you're the one got him to tell it. I'd say it's your score.”

Dara said, “I wouldn't feel right about it.”

“It's worth five grand easy,” Buck said. “More, you hunt down where he did time and get a positive ID.”

Dara said, “Oh…?” She said, “But it would look like I'm doing it for the money.”

Buck said, “Yeah…?”

H
E WASN'T SURE HE
hit the movie girl. Talking too much, not tending to business. He hit the suit was with her but not in a good spot. Saw him grab his side twisting around and go down. Not a cop, a white man with a bright-metal piece. But the one rammed into him could be cops, the reason Jama gunned it out of there, tires screaming on the pavement, and thanked Allah for saving his ass. Jama didn't look back till he was out past Marshal Foch and saw in his rearview it was a white Toyota had plowed into him. Saw the tall nigga outside the car. Saw him standing, hands on his hips, watching him drive away. Saw Dara the movie girl and the suit on his feet now raising his piece, sun flashing on it. Then lowered it, cars passing in front of him. Jama remembered the suit scooting away from Dara and aiming the piece to fire when Jama shot him. Was he drawing gunfire away from her? It looked like it. What was he, the suit, a boyfriend? Jama asked himself what woman he knew, any of them, he'd stand up to draw fire away from. And saw Dara looking out
from behind the table, her shirt wet from coffee spilled on her. He saw her at Idris's party at Eyl and aboard
Aphrodite
the time she visited.
She knew his name
. He came to realizing it, he didn't start with it. He saw her by the table and shot holes in it to scare her. He wanted to hit her he'd of done it. Then why didn't he?

He turned north on to rue d'Éthiopie and thought of Celeste and knew she'd lied to him. He didn't know it in her room but did now, sure of it. She didn't know his name, even after he told her. Saying she pretended not to know it. Lying was the girl's business.

He pictured Dara again on the tanker, while they were anchored off Eyl. On
Aphrodite,
full of liquefied natural gas. He thought of the phone number that would set off the C4 in the hold. Saw the numbers in his mind, 44-208-748-1599. He had another number Qasim had given him, an al Qaeda contact. Someone with the latest word. And saw Dara again in the room where he was handcuffed to the chair. She never put on different looks, she used the same one all the time. Show she was interested in him. He believed they could sit down and have a conversation and keep each other thinking. He wondered if she was fucking that tall nigga. If he wasn't too old. He could be her grandfather. Mean. Told you he can break your neck and you believe him. Dara, he couldn't see her going to him to fuck her. Dara could take her pick. No, there was nothing going on with Xavier. Maybe she'd let him see her naked once in a while, that's all. The old fucker stares thinking of the old days. Jama knew he had to kill her. She knew his name. Except he'd like to get to know her better first.

He could be running out of time, once she gave the FBI his name. If she did. Or if she was in no hurry, he believed Dara would like to sit down with him, too. She was cool, but not how she talked, told you things. She talked eye to eye with you and
could put you on doing it. That was cool, asking did he want to be in the movie she's making. Was she fucking with him or was she serious? Find that out if you want, then shoot her.

He'd put the car in the alley behind Hunter's digs—what he liked to call his apartment—and make some plans for the next couple days or so. See if he could pull off something with
Aphrodite
he needed to do. That big fat LNG tanker waiting in the stream to blow up. When he wanted to see Dara again for some reason—he might feel a need to do that—he'd go to her hotel. Right now he had to phone his al Qaeda connection, find out if they were still fucked up, couldn't make up their mind, and tell his guy what he was going to do. Take it out of their hands. Get it done.

He called the number of his contact.

 

T
HE VOICE ON THE
cell repeated the numbers Jama called and said in Arabic, “Allah is God. He hears us and watches over us.”

Jama said, “Why, I believe that's Assam Amriki I'm speaking to. My old buddy, is that you?”

The voice said, “Don't use names.”

“It's been seven years, man, I still recognize your voice, your proper way with the Arabian, showing you cultured. Assam, my brother, where you at?”

“Don't ask that.”

“You still the propaganda man, doing recruitment videos?”

“I'm hanging up the phone you talk to me like that.”

“How you want me to talk to you?”

“Tell me why you called.”

“I want to know about the tanker, where it's at.”

“The mission is no more.”

“Delayed? Postponed?”

“It's
off
. We don't touch the ship.”

“It's got explosives on it.”

“The
ship
is explosive. It makes no difference, we don't touch it.”

“Once they took us off, Qasim thought you'd put two more Qaedas aboard and get it done.”

“I'm telling you it's been called
off,
” Assam's voice rising as he said it. “We have other work to consider. We are losing people in Pakistan, this week in Somalia, our brothers being killed one after another by their planes with no pilots, their drones.”

“Where you located these days? I want to see you.”

“Impossible.”

“I saw you on CNN one time,” Jama said. “Had like before and after shots of you. Back in '02 when you still looking Jewish, they call you a computer geek then. Now with your turban and your beard grown out, you running the news for al Qaeda. They calling you their media director. Another time I saw you, I believe on a Shabaab Web site, you showing Palestinian children all blown to hell on a bus, an Israeli bomb set off under it. It don't bother you being a Jew most of your life? You know you the first American charged with treason in fifty-eight years? I haven't seen they put any money on you yet. There was a picture of you with Khalid Sheikh Kiss-My-Ass Mohammed they calling a 9/11 mastermind. You hanging out with the big boys, huh?”

Assam's voice in the cell phone said, “I'm going to warn you, you have been marked for death.”

“No shit,” Jama said. “Tell me about it.”

“See? You show no respect. Listen to what I say, as a former American to another who has my sympathy. You tried perhaps, at least at first, but you failed. Now there is a
fatwa
on you, condemned to death for the murder of Qasim al Salah.”

“You talking about?” Jama said. “Was a Somali they hired as a guard plugged Qasim and I plugged the Somali. Understand, Qasim was my boss, my teacher, my best friend in the al Qaeda world for seven years, the most dedicated motherfucker I ever knew, and I say that with respect for the man. I want to know who's saying I shot him.”

He heard Assam's voice in the cell telling him, “There is no more I can say to you. I leave you with regret that knowing you I never felt like a brother to you.”

“I can't say I give a shit,” Jama said. “What I want to know is where the ship is now.”

“It is of no concern to you. The ship will take on supplies and continue to the U.S.”

Jama knew he was lying. He said, “Assam…?”

He was gone.

It didn't matter. He could pick up a boat and cruise around till he found the tanker. There was no way he could miss it, the ship's structure hanging on to its ass end, the rest of it five tanks of deadly frozen gas reaching to the bow. You couldn't miss spotting a ship looked like
Aphrodite
. It would be off Djibouti, out in the Gulf of Tadjoura ten miles or so. No port wanting a ship sitting close by could blow up on them. He had to make sure of the phone's range, how far it would reach to do the job.

Jama saw himself sitting at an outdoor cocktail lounge in the European quarter having—what would he have?—a rum and Coca-Cola, once he sent it back for more ice. Like they were saving their fucking ice, never put enough in the drink. Hunter's cell in his pocket. At some time, after he'd had a couple of Cuba Libres, he'd take out the phone and dial the 700 number Qasim had given him. Look up and hear the explosion, a terrific thundering
BOOM
coming from some miles away but loud, man, everybody in the place looking up, the glasses on the bar shak
ing, all the white people in there asking each other what was that. Some would go out in the street. Jama would sip his drink. Somebody would say to him, “Jesus Christ, you hear it?” And he'd say, “Hear what?”

Cool.

But wouldn't he like to see the tanker explode?

Else why go to all the trouble.

B
IN
L
ADEN SAYS IN
his speech, we ever quit being nice to the Israelis, clean up our intentions elsewhere, we could be friends. The only reason they ran the suicide flights into the Twin Towers, bin says, was to pay us back for supporting the Jews.”

The
Pegaso
was about two hours out of Djibouti still trailing the gas tanker, Helene at the wheel in a cotton sweater and skimpy shorts, Billy watching Fox news.

“Is bin serious? The Israelis may be heavy hitters the way they do their paybacks, but they're still the good guys. You never see 'em taking any shit from Hamas. Why should they give back land they won fair and square?”

“I wouldn't,” Helene said.

“What I don't understand,” Billy said, “is how bin's still alive, all the smart bombs we've laid on his hooches.”

“I'll bet he's dead,” Helene said. “And it's what's his name, al Zawahiri doing the talking. They all sound alike.” Helene said, “It's scary how a drone flies to a target in Pakistan, a guy in
a trailer in California looks at it on his screen, presses a button while he's having a cup of coffee, and blows up the al Qaeda hideout in Pakistan with a Hellfire missile.”

“You have a military-type mind,” Billy said, “and a cute butt peeking out of your shorts.”

“I could fire one from home,” Helene said. “Turn from the range where I'm fixing supper for us and blast one off.”

“I swear you learn faster than any girl I ever met. I sensed that when I chose you.”

Billy went out on deck with his binoculars to spot drones, the UAVs crossing the sky at a few thousand feet in a glare of sun. “I see one,” Billy said, “way up there, taking pictures of us and the gas tanker.” Billy talking with the glasses at his face. “It's a Mariner, the navy version of the Reaper, the one belongs to the air force. She can stay up looking around for two days at two hundred and thirty knots packed full of sensors, plenty of fuel and weaponry. Six hardpoints, they call them, your Hellfire missiles. Muff, I'd like you to commit that to your memory.”

“Six hardpoints,” Helene said. “Got it, Chief.”

It was fun sounding military. “Aye, aye, sir.” Billy would drop into the cockpit and she'd say, “Captain on the bridge,” and get him grinning at her.

“The drone can read a license plate from two miles away,” Billy said. “What else you want to know?”

“Why are you grouchy?”

“I'm not grouchy. I'm telling about the MQ-9, a bust-ass hunter-killer and its firepower. We're getting to the point we won't need fighters or bombers no more, we send in the drones. I wonder what Joe Foss would think of that. Joe shot down twenty-six Zekes over the Solomons in his Grumman Wildcat and later on became governor of South Dakota. Major Bing Bang Bong flying a P38 shot down forty during his tour and gave his life
testing a jet. Another ace, Pappy Boyington, a Sioux Indian, shot down his twenty-sixth Zeke over Rabaul. Later that same day some Nip sent Pappy down in flames.” Billy said, “I forgot the name of the navy pilot in a Dauntless crashed his plane into a Jap cruiser after he'd been hit. Another hero giving his life for his country. All Medal of Honor winners.”

Helene said, “Can you imagine doing something like that?”

“I'd love to see what it's like,” Billy said.

He had his glasses on
Aphrodite
now, on her tall decks aft, the gas ship moping along toward Djibouti.

“We're gonna waste time wanting proof the ship's a bogey till it blows up a port in the U.S.”

“But you aren't absolutely sure,” Helene said, “are you?”

“If I believe that ship's gonna blow up at an appointed hour, and I see evidence of it, that's good enough for me. You might ask, ‘You mean evidence you can prove?' Maybe not. I don't believe in wasting time on the horns of dilemmas, I go with my gut.”

Billy paused and Helene said, “Yeah…?”

“My gut told me this morning the LNG tanker's gonna blow up right here. It's as good a place as any east-west-wise. Al Zawahiri makes a bullshit statement about al Qaeda drawing the line to cut us off. What he doesn't know hiding out in the hills, Djib's gonna get bigger, it's in the plans to become a major port in the east-west passage. Like Singapore. And if I'm convinced it's gonna blow up,” Billy said, “I've got to do something about it, don't I?”

Beginning to sound like Sterling Hayden doing Jack D. Ripper again. No Communist plot or precious bodily fluids to deal with this time, but the destruction of a city.

He was serious.

Helene said, “Have you any idea what you'll do, Skipper?”

“Warn Harbor Security of the clear and present danger,” Billy said. “Do that first, while the LNG tanker's still out in the Gulf of Tadjoura. If they're too dumb or set in their ways to take me seriously…”

Helene said, “Yeah…?”

“I'll address the risk of the ship directly. I'm thinking of doing it anyway. Hire a gook and send him out there in a skiff with a bullhorn. He tells them in Tagalog, English and Arabic to get your ass off the ship before she blows.”

“They have to swim for it?” Helene said.

“Swim or get in the lifeboat. They got one like the
Alabama
the captain was in and snipers shot the three wogs. I hear they're making a movie about that. Some action picture, three Mohammedans are shot. The al Qaedas still aboard the gas ship want to die for bin, go ahead.”

“That is so cool,” Helene said. “You save all the gooks and the ship too.”

“I don't save the ship,” Billy said. “Once the decks are clear, I'll put a six-hundred-caliber Nitro Express round in her sweet spot and blow her up myself. Before, you understand, they can use it on Djib.”

“That is so fucking smart of you.”

“It's tricky, though, messing with liquid gas all frozen, twenty-seven hundred million cubic feet of natural gas aboard. You'll forget this if I tell you, but just one cubic meter—that's three of the twenty-seven hundred million—spill it, you got twelve thousand four hundred cubic meters of a flammable gas-air mix.”

“You sound like you're reading it.”

“I memorized it. You might want to look at it. My red notebook.”

“I will when I have time, Skipper.”

“If, say, nine, ten percent of the natural gas leaks out and
spills in the water it will boil to gas in about five minutes. Because the water is at least two hundred twenty-eight degrees hotter than the frozen gas. It comes out and flows in a vaporous cloud close to the water until I hit it with a high-explosive Nitro Express round. It goes up, burning itself back to the ship, fireballs shooting up. That's a hundred times bigger than the Hindenburg disaster. Remember I showed you that news footage?”

“The German zeppelin,” Helene said. “People running out of the fire…”

“Listen. The heat from this fireball, this inferno can cause third-degree burns and start fires miles away.”

“Wow, really?”

“That's why I have to do it ten, twelve miles from Djib. But we have to be in position,” Billy said, “where I can take the shots and still get us out of there in a hurry.”

Helene said, “We might not get away fast enough?”

Billy said, “I'll make sure we do.”

“We stay out here till you blow it up?”

Billy said, “I wish we could, Muff, but I've got to go to Djib to set up where the gas ship anchors. Then later on you can help me write the book,
Ship Killer,
that's the title. Under it:
How We Lit or Lighted the World's Largest Natural Gas Conflagration.
Something like that.”

“I'll call the Kempinski.”

“Or we tie up at the pier and stay aboard.”

“We'll get a suite so you can walk around and think, and make calls.”

Billy said, “You mean so you can see Dara and sound like a girl for a change.”

“It's scary,” Helene said, “the way you read my mind.” She thought she'd better add, “But I was thinking of you, you need room to roam around in.”

“That's good,” Billy said. “‘Room to roam.'”

“Around in,” Helene said.

 

T
HEY WERE IN
B
ILLY'S
suite, Helene and Dara having martinis with anchovy olives, talking, catching up. Billy was off to see people, Xavier went to see the police to tell what he knew about Jama.

“Billy started calling me Muffin,” Helene said. “I don't know why. A person's face is either a bird, a horse or a muffin, right? What am I?”

“A bird.”

“See, he didn't start with Muff. I was Muffin till he shortened it to Muff, but I don't think it has anything to do with mine. He's smoking a cigar and gets the urge to go down on me?”

“Disturbs your reading?”

“I could be doing the wash. Especially doing the wash and I'm a mess. My crotch smells like a fifty-dollar Havana.”

“It must turn him on.”

“Yesterday, he was General Jack D. Ripper again, but no precious bodily fluids, he was talking about drones, nobody has to fly the planes anymore. Grouched about that for a while. I think he wants to be a hero. Loves to talk about guys doing heroic things in the war. I asked Billy if he could imagine doing it and he said, ‘I'd like to see what it's like.' What does that mean?”

“I'm guessing,” Dara said. “He'd like to be known as a war hero who got the Medal of Honor posthumously without dying.”

“Or,” Helene said, “he wants to get the medal for making a phone call that saves some important guy's life. But now he's talking about doing it. Blow up the gas ship and get away before the gas fire catches up with us. He says he isn't worried.”

“But you are.”

“He says he may get a cigarette boat for the job, a Donzi.”

“If you'd rather not go with him,” Dara said, “don't.”

“We're shipmates, and shipmates stand together,” Helene said. “He's the captain and I'm the fucking crew. ‘Bogey off the port bow, Skipper.' When I'm on watch. You don't go down to the galley, you lay below.”

“It sounds like fun,” Dara said.

“He's serious about it.”

Dara said, “With a six-hundred-caliber rifle. You think he knows what he's doing?”

“He sure sounds like it.”

“You two must be getting along.”

“He loves it when I aye-aye him.”

Helene sipped her martini. Put an olive in her mouth, took another sip and bit into the olive.

“God, this is good after champagne every day. I told you it's all he has?”

“But you don't have to drink it.”

“My body requires alcohol to get through this.”

“It must be a fine line,” Dara said, “between keeping up your appeal and staying high enough to see it through.”

“It gets tricky,” Helene said. “I have to watch I don't fall overboard.”

 

I
DRIS STOPPED BY THE
hotel in the afternoon, smiling at Dara and Helene having their party.

“The turn of events does not give you pause?”

Dara said, “What turn of events?”

“Jama being loose,” Idris said. “You not concerned about him?”

“Xavier's turning it over to the police,” Dara said, “giving them Jama's real name. He's their case now.”

“So we don't worry about him, good,” Idris said. “I'm going to Paris for a few days to catch my breath. Come back and take up piracy again. I miss boarding ships.”

Dara said, “If I had the energy I'd be right behind you, make you a movie star.”

Idris said, “Yes, thank you,” accepting the martini Helene offered him. He sipped it and closed his eyes knowing he'd have another one. Dara lighted a cigarette and gave it to him and he said, “Why do I want to go to heaven? I'm experiencing my reward here.”

“I hate to tell you,” Helene said, “but it's been a while since we were virgins.”

“You are women of the world, and we don't see many of that kind here.” Idris said, “Am I crazy to go to the gulf? More than thirty warships there bumping into each other? Over one hundred freedom fighters”—giving Dara a nod—“have been put in jail in Kenya. Most of them waiting for trial and go to prison for ten years. But,” Idris said, “I believe pirating is still a good business. At least for someone knows what he's doing. I believe when I get boats with motors of a high power, I will make another fortune.”

Dara said, “What's Harry doing?”

“He's drinking, but not too much,” Idris said, “and taking methamphetamines. It makes him feel like Superman. He makes sudden moves. Turns holding his pistol.”

“Riding on tweek,” Helene said.

“He drums on chair arms,” Idris said, “to music in his head.”

“Does he have a little dance step?”

“He tells me with all the details of shooting a tiger in Bengal, from his seat on an elephant. He tells me he has local blokes, like
they're his beaters, lookin for Jama. Scare him out of where he's hiding. Harry tells me he'll shoot the bothersome bugger and that will be the bloody end of it.”

“He'll fuck up,” Helene said.

“He can't do it alone,” Dara said.

“He tells me he has help.”

“They'd better be armed and dangerous.”

“Two leftover Somalis,” Idris said, “guards on the trip from Eyl. They're related to the four he killed to escape. They both want to shoot Jama.”

Dara said, “Or is he James now?”