Pirate Alley: A Novel (23 page)

Noon just nodded. Settled himself comfortably in his chair and scrutinized the woman. She was slim, wore her hair in some kind of flip and was striking. Not beautiful, but striking. She held his eyes. “I am Sophia Donatelli,” she said in English, “with Mediaset.” Mediaset was, Noon knew, an Italian television network.

“We need transport to the hotel in town,” the man standing in front of him said. “For us and all our gear. And we need the services of translators. Three, at least. And if someone could arrange an introduction to this pirate, Ragnar? You know him?”

“You have been misinformed, sir. Eyl doesn’t have a hotel.”

“Well, where do people stay when they visit?”

“Don’t get many visitors around here since we are infested with pirates and Shabab holy warriors. They don’t like visitors. Rob and kill them. Most unpleasant.”

Ricardo Something rubbed his hair. “We’re the press,” he explained.

“I got that.”

“Television networks. Fox, the BBC, and Mediaset.”

“No television around here. We get a few radio stations, but they’re down in Mogadishu. One from Mombasa.”

“Ragnar. You know him?”

“Oh yes. Difficult man. Doesn’t speak English. Shy, retiring. Doesn’t give interviews, I don’t believe.”

“Can we get in to see the
Sultan
passengers? The ship’s officers?”

Noon tore his eyes off Sophia Donatelli and looked Ricardo up and down. “Are you crazy?”

The reporter pulled a wad of bills from his pocket. “I saw you drive up. We can pay for a ride to town.”

“Perhaps I could take Ms. Donatelli.”

“No doubt.”

Noon sighed. He uncorked a gin bottle and took a little tipple.

“A hundred dollars a trip.”

“You pirate!”

“You will have to make your own arrangements for lodging and meals when you get to town. If you can pay…”

Sophia Donatelli sat beside him in the car. She even smelled good. She smiled at Noon and he smiled back. Dust came in the broken windows and settled on her and she made a face. God, she was cute. The other two passengers tried to keep the dust from their hair and eyes.

The breeze was off the land now, hot and pungent. Smelled of Africa. And road dirt.

He dropped them in the old square as half a hundred men and women looked on in the lantern light. Many of the men were armed. One of the male passengers paid him as the others unloaded their aluminum equipment cases. Then he drove back up the arroyo toward the airport for another load. The Chevy’s one working headlight bravely stabbed the darkness.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

E
YL
A
IRPORT

There is a school of thought that postulates the best time for a breaking and entering is in the wee hours of the morning, “when life is at its lowest ebb,” which is a fancy way of saying most folks are asleep or wish they were. Another school of thought, equally valid in my opinion, is that the best time to do a breaking and entering is when they least expect it, regardless of the position of the sun or the hands of the clock.

I figured these airport guards—I’m being charitable here—would be most relaxed right after sunset, at dinnertime. So that’s when I planned to do my scout and see what’s what. I didn’t know how many there were, where they were, or how diligently they performed their guard duties. I needed to find out so I could tell Grafton.

If we didn’t use the cruise ship, airplanes were going to be necessary to get a large number of troops in and passengers out—and this was the only airport.

As the last of the light faded from the sky, I used pliers to pull the bullets from six of the machine-gun cartridges arranged in links in cans in the back of the pickup I was driving. I poured the powder on the ground, tossed the empty cartridge cases in the back of the truck with the others and pocketed the bullets. I was dressed in black trousers and pullover, so to complete my ensemble I smeared black grease paint on my face, neck, ears and hands. Finally, I checked and stowed my gear in a backpack.

The guys and I sat around finishing the coffee until the darkness was total, enlivened only by stars. It was night as dark as you could find in Africa, and it was only seven o’clock, according to the hands of my luminous watch. Wind was out of the west, off the desert, as usual, at about ten knots, gusting to fifteen.

“Don’t wait up for me,” I said, adjusting my night-vision goggles and radio com headset. Wearing all that stuff, I felt like a Martian. Probably looked like one, too, but I hoped no one would get the chance to see me.

“Look me up the next time you’re in town, baby,” E.D. said. He was wearing a headset, too, so his voice sounded in my ear.

I hoisted my backpack and began hiking.

Night-vision goggles are tricky. The more you wear them, the better the experience. If, like me, you don’t use them often, the transition from looking at something far away to something just in front of you, like a path through and around the scrub brush, can be jarring. The neophyte stumbles and bumps into things a lot. Then there is the lack of peripheral vision. That is the corner-of-the-eye stuff you don’t think you use much until you strap something to your face that restricts it.

So I hiked along, staying in the waist-high brush. This place reminded me of Arizona after a wet summer. Normally the Somali state of Puntland was extremely dry; sometimes years would pass without rain due to the prevailing wind off North Africa. I realized I had been lucky the other night to witness a rare thunderstorm.

As I walked I looked. Yep, fires on both ends of the airstrip.

Approaching the airfield, which was unlit, I had a decision to make. Should I go left around the north end, or right around the south end? Eeny meeny miney moe …

I went left. The fire was up ahead, offset just a little from the bitter end of the crumbling asphalt. There would be people there guarding the airstrip, against what I didn’t know. Nor did I know why they needed a machine-gun nest in the tower structure by the terminal.

I took my time approaching the fire. Stopped under a swaying bush fifty feet away and surveyed the scene. Wind whipping at the fire. Three guys visible, one old pickup. The machine gun was mounted on a tripod that sat on the ground behind a bush of some type to make it a bit more difficult to visually acquire quickly. It allowed the gun to be fired by a man standing erect behind it, and he could swivel it in any direction and elevate it as required, all by merely circling the tripod. An ammo box was attached to one side of the thing, and I could see the belt going into the gun.

No one was around the gun. They were over by a fire, cooking something. God knows what. I could hear their voices, and an occasional laugh. The joys of the military life. They were doing the male-bonding thing, farting and telling lies and not working or fighting. While getting paid for it. Welfare in the fourth world.

I sat in the dirt watching. Finally, when I was sure there were only three men, I moved on, between their camp and the vast darkness that was the runway.

Walked and looked and paused to listen. The whispers the wind made in the brush masked sounds, a mixed blessing. I couldn’t hear the bad guys and they couldn’t hear me.

The terminal and hangars were about a half mile south on the east side of the runway. I took my time. When I got there I could see that there was no one in the tower. All the guys were gathered around an open fire between the pickups, which apparently contained food, fuel, ammo and whatnot.

I raised the goggles to my forehead and waited for my eyes to adjust.

Taking my time, I moved over to the tower. There was a ladder, so I went up it carefully, watching everything. Got to the platform and found the machine gun I knew was there. It was mounted on a tripod identical to the one at the north end of the field. Since there was a roof above it to keep off the tropical sun, it couldn’t shoot at airplanes overhead. A couple of boxes to sit on. Discarded food cans underfoot. These guys weren’t neatniks.

I got a bullet from my pocket and inserted it into the barrel of the weapon. Tried to push it in with my thumb and got the nose started in. I used the butt of my pistol to tap the base of the bullet flush with the muzzle. Tiny little sounds, which sounded to me like someone using a sledgehammer on a garbage can. The locals didn’t hear it, though. I got out the stick I had whittled that afternoon and put it against the bullet. Used the butt on my pistol to tap the bullet about five inches up the barrel.

I could hear the voices around the fire, hear the clanking of a metal spoon on a pan.

After one last look around, I climbed down the ladder and faded around the corner of the hangar. Got my goggles down, checked around in starlight and infrared. I was alone.

There was an open door in the side of the hangar, inviting. No light inside. I slipped inside and waited for the goggles to adjust. The only light came through the open door and a few cracks in the siding. Just enough.

The only thing in the hangar was another pickup with a machine gun mounted in the bed. What the heck. I climbed up and forced a bullet down the barrel. Anyone who fired that weapon was also in for a surprise.

The other hangar was empty. Just a few tools scattered around and a couple of cases of oil. For the DC-3, I guessed. Just in case.

Another long walk to the south end of the field. No surprise, I found another camp. The fire was only coals. Time was marching on, and the people here were settling in for the night. No one on guard. Using the goggles on infrared, I located four men.

Moved on toward the west side of the field and started back to our camp. I knew my guys would be alert and ready, so I used the mike to call them.

“Have a nice walk?” Travis asked.

“You bet. Outposts on the north and south end, guys in the watchtower, at least five pickups with guns. I managed to spike the gun in the tower and one in a pickup in the hangar. No airplanes.”

“What about the others?”

“We’ll take them out if and when.”

“Did you leave tracks?”

“Yep. Nothing I can do about that. Dirt is pretty hard, though. I’m betting they don’t notice them. Just in case, we’ll keep one guy on guard duty around the clock. Four hours on, eight off.”

“Want a beer?”

“Sure.”

I had about finished it when Jake Grafton called on the satellite phone. I made sure the others weren’t listening. When I had reported, he gave me a tentative “this is what we’re planning” heads-up. I listened, didn’t say anything. He told me about Mike Rosen’s e-mail, relaying a threat from Ragnar to kill everyone if the ransom wasn’t paid within a week.

“How the hell is he gonna do that?” I asked. “Machine-gun them?”

“If anyone runs, yes, he’ll probably do that. Now, tomorrow, next week. But we think he’s off-loaded tons of fertilizer from a ship he hijacked in September. The insurance company wrote off the ship, which is lying in the mud below the fort. It’s possible he stuck some of that stuff under the fort, or in the old magazines and sealed them off. We’ve got some aerial recon from the navy, and we could use anything you guys can get with the drones.”

“Been windy here today, too windy for the drones. Still blowing pretty hard.”

“Then go eyeball it up. Tonight.”

“Roger, eyeball.”

“Even if we pay the ransom,” Grafton said, “the Shabab may try to kill the hostages. Probably by setting off that crude bomb.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“I don’t know anything for a fact. I have rumors and possibilities. Threats. I want you to check out what is physically there, to the extent you can.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He told me what he knew about the fort. I had already studied the satellite images, but he told me things the images didn’t reveal. I didn’t ask where he got his information, although of course I was curious. I didn’t have a need to know. That’s sorta the way it goes in the CIA, the mushroom agency.

When he ran down, I told him, “When this is over, I want out.”

“Out of what?”

“The CIA.”

“Any particular reason?”

“A dozen or two. First and foremost, I am tired of killing people.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s at the top of the list.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Tommy, there are eight hundred fifty civilian prisoners in that fortress, give or take.”

I didn’t say anything.

“These pirates are not nice people,” Grafton remarked. “The Shabab dudes are even worse.”

He had a bad habit of stating the obvious when I wanted some insight, profound or stupid. I thought I was used to it, but it irritated me occasionally, like now.

“The only nice person I know is my mom,” I shot back, “and I’m not really sure about her.” That was a lie, but I was in no mood for a pep talk from Grafton … or anyone else.

Grafton apparently got the message. “Let me know how it goes,” he said, quite superfluously. “Good night.” He hung up.

I sat there a while with the phone in my hand, then put it back in its cradle.

Yeah, the world is full of assholes. We can’t kill them all. Even if we could, what would that make us?

T
HE
F
ORTRESS

The people in captivity settled down to another long evening. Somehow the ship’s cooks managed to prepare enough food to feed all eight hundred fifty people, which was quite a feat over open fires. They even made enough tea to give everyone two cups. Coffee was more precious, and was all gone by the time Suzanne and Irene got to the pots. They took tea and loaded it with sugar, a treat women their age didn’t often put in their mouths.

The sisters found a spot to sit while they nursed the cups of hot, thick, sweet tea. “What is that smell?” Irene asked. “This place reeks of it.”

“What I wouldn’t give for a bath,” Suzanne mused. “Hot water, shampoo…”

All around them tired, hungry, dirty people were gobbling the food as fast as they could shovel it in. Not everyone was eating, though. Some of the elderly people didn’t bother. Merely drank tea or coffee and sat staring at nothing at all, or holding hands, or whispering with someone beside them.