The Aden Effect (4 page)

The unmistakable pattern of a car's headlights dimly appeared in the starboard window, passing from fore to aft. Stark frowned. It was still too early for the fisherman to arrive on the pier and ready their boats. From the direction of the concrete pier, he heard three car doors open; none shut as an engine idled. Deciding it was no concern of his, Stark left the fore cabin and was about to lock it when three men stepped from the pier twenty yards away onto the
wooden dock. The idling car's headlights were still on behind them, and he could see only their silhouettes—tall and thin. Another few yards closer and he could tell that they were not Caucasian or Asian. And all held something at their sides—arm-length rods that appeared to be of metal. His heart beat faster as they continued to approach. Only two could walk abreast on the four-foot-wide dock. The third man was behind them.

“Can I help you?” he asked, testing them as well as to buy time. They were fifteen yards away now, and he could distinguish their features. They appeared to be East African. They did not answer him and continued to advance. They had almost reached the boat now, and he had nowhere to run.

Stark grabbed an orange life vest and passed his left arm through its straps, holding it like a shield. He took a long knife from the tackle box with his right hand. The first two men raised their rods like clubs. Standing near the wheel, Stark used his left elbow to press the button for the boat's horn. A loud squeal broke the silence of the night, temporarily distracting his attackers. He leapt up on the boat's starboard built-in external locker and steadied himself. The boat's freeboard was a foot above the dock at high tide; he would have the height advantage that Sun-tzu had advised twenty-five hundred years before.

The first two charged him. One clumsily swung what was now clearly a tire iron. Stark blocked it with the thick life vest and brought the knife up into the East African's chest. The man gasped and slipped backward off the dock, which was still wet from the earlier rain, as Stark extracted the knife and pivoted to face his next attacker. The man was clearly caught off guard by his partner's failure and the splash his body made as it fell into the water.

Stark took advantage of the moment of hesitation with a riposte. Though he wished for one of his old épées or sabers, the fishing knife still found its mark as its tip pierced the East African's eye. When the man dropped his bat and brought both hands up to his face, Stark thrust the knife into his unprotected abdomen. As he buried the knife he heard a snap and saw the glint of metal; instinctively, he held out his shield arm and waited. The life vest could deflect the strike from a tire iron but could only slow the penetration of a knife. The cold metal cut into his left forearm. He tossed the vest aside, and with it more than a few drops of his own blood, and shoved the man with all his strength.

Blinded in one eye and overcome by pain from it and his abdomen, the second attacker lost his footing and fell backward off the dock. Stark heard
the unmistakable crack as the man's head hit the transom of the boat in the next slip.

Only one of the three attackers remained, but Stark was injured now. The third man pushed Stark back into the cockpit and climbed on board for his own height advantage in this combat. His furrowed brow suggested a more cautious approach than his fellows had used and concentration on his next move. This man was not an amateur.

Behind him Stark saw a fourth shadowy figure approaching from the pier. The idling car engine and the screams of the second Somali had muffled the footsteps. He knew he had to dispatch the man in front of him before he could possibly handle the fourth.

The third East African drew back his knife and waited. Stark had experienced the pause of combat before, each side waiting for the other to make a move, hoping for a mistake on which to capitalize. His fencing training took over. Stark planted his left foot on the deck, shifting his shoe to create a dryer spot from which to launch his attack.

The East African bent his knees as if to project himself onto Stark and then grunted in surprise when an oar came from behind and hit him square across his legs. His feet slipped on the wet locker and Stark pounced, throwing him hard to the deck. He grabbed the slack of the stern line and wrapped it tightly around the man's neck. The East African struggled and vainly swung his knife, trying to connect with Stark. Stark pulled the line tighter and tighter until the man's arm fell by his side and the knife dropped harmlessly onto the deck. With the remainder of his strength Stark tightened the line one last time. The man's entire body went limp.

“I could have taken him,” he said to the figure still on the dock.

“You can't do everything alone,” Maggie said.

“A
ttention in the pilothouse, this is Ensign Fisk. I have the conn. Belay all reports.”

Fisk's eyes continued to adjust to the darkness around him and the ambient light from the consoles. Barely a quarter of the four hundred souls on board were awake and attending to their duties. It was oh-dark-thirty, and Bobby Fisk had joined the officer of the deck, a lieutenant junior grade who had been three years ahead of him at the Academy.

“You might want to hold off on belaying your reports, Bobby. It doesn't hurt to reinforce what's going on.” The OOD took a sip of coffee and grimaced as he handed another cup to Bobby.

“Thanks.” Fisk shuddered at the first sip. “Seaman Grace still trying to figure out the coffeemaker?”

“Yeah, but at least it'll keep us awake.” The OOD pointed him in the direction of the port bridge wing and secured the hatch behind them. Both men zipped up their jackets to keep out the cool night breeze. Bobby pulled his ship's ball cap lower on his head to secure it from a sudden gust. The blue cap was embroidered in gold with the
Ticonderoga
-class cruiser's name and hull number, crest, and motto: Vigilant and Victorious.

“Captain gave you double duty, too?” said the OOD. “Not exactly the way you thought you'd join your first ship, is it?”

Bobby shook his head, his round, earnest face solemn. “Six weeks ago I was walking across the stage and shaking hands with the vice president at the Naval Academy stadium and getting my commission. And I'm already in trouble.”

“You can't blame yourself for what happened,” the OOD said. “Heck, none of us were at fault.”

The
Bennington
had been under way from Bahrain for less than twenty minutes when the commotion started. First came the standard intervals of the navigator's recommended course headings and adjustments, essential information even in a familiar channel. Bobby, as the conning officer, repeated the figures to the helmsman, who repeated them back to Bobby to ensure there was no misunderstanding.

The scratchy, high-pitched voice of the five-and-a-half-foot-tall captain had broken in, ordering a course change. The navigator disagreed and stated the proper course. The ensuing countercommands and recommendations reached a confusing intensity. At another command from the captain, the ship jolted with an increase in speed and the port lookout simultaneously sang out a warning. Bobby felt a sudden gut-wrenching slam and heard a noise pitched a thousand decibels higher than the captain's voice, the unmistakable sound of steel meeting steel scraping along the port side of the hull. Bobby dashed out to see what the ship had hit.

Directly beneath him was one of the channel's buoys, passing fore to aft and leaving most of its paint on the
Bennington
.

“NAV, you're relieved. OPS take over for NAV,” screeched the captain. “Red mittens! Red mittens for everyone!”

Bobby knew what that meant for NAV, a woman he'd spoken to only briefly in the wardroom. She had tried repeatedly to warn the captain about his ordered course changes; he wouldn't listen. Now her career was effectively over. And it was entirely possible that the rest of the bridge officers wouldn't be far behind her.

All Bobby saw of NAV—or rather ex-NAV—after that was her back as she boarded the helo back to Bahrain with her bags.

The breeze picked up as the OOD lightly tapped his coffee mug against Bobby's cup: “Cheers.” After another sip and grimace he continued. “It'll get better, Bobby. This ship's not that different than the old YPs we used to drive on summer bloc, except she has ten times the crew, is three times as long and fast, and has weapons. Just remember what the chiefs of the YPs at the Academy used to say—drive it like you stole it, and park it like you bought it.”

Even in the dim light, Fisk could see the wink and grin that accompanied that last comment. He smiled weakly back and felt a little less alone.

After his watch, Bobby stopped by the wardroom to get some water. On his way out he paused at the cabinet devoted to the ship's namesake. Behind the glass was a map detailing a Revolutionary War battle and a portrait of the New Hampshire general who had led his troops to victory there—a stone-faced man holding a musket in one hand; his other arm was raised, commanding his men to follow. Ensign Fisk wondered if leaders like Brig. Gen. John Stark, hero of the Battle of Bennington, still existed.

“Going to the coroner's office, are we?” asked the police officer emerging from one of the back rooms. He carried a cup of coffee in his left hand and with his right placed a pen in the left pocket of his neatly pressed, short-sleeved uniform shirt. The nametag pinned above the pocket read Hertz. “I'm Tom,” he said, reaching out to shake the visitor's hand.

“Damien Golzari,” Golzari responded. “Diplomatic Security Service,” he added as he held out his identification. Hertz nodded with less surprise than the fat lady on the plane had shown. Hertz led the way outside, where the two men got into the squad car and left the lot.

Little escaped Golzari's sharp eyes, but even a casual observer would have noticed immediately that the few people walking the street on this windy day were dressed in the traditional full-length thobes of the Middle East. Judging by their clothing and features, he guessed they were Somalis. Odd, he thought, for a small town in Maine. “How long have you been with the department?” he asked Hertz.

“Nine years, ever since I graduated from the police academy. I grew up here.”

“I used to be a beat cop—in Boston. I miss it. This place looks like it's half a world away from there instead of a couple hundred miles,” Golzari said, his eyes scanning the pedestrians and their unusual garb.

Hertz laughed, surprised that this well-dressed government agent with a refined British accent had walked the streets of Boston as a cop. “Two blocks away is ‘Little Mogadishu.' I'll give you a little tour.” He turned into a blighted-looking neighborhood near the river. “A few years ago, the local politicians brought in a few thousand Somali refugees. It was a nice thought, but there were no jobs. The mills closed down years ago. Life is hard for them, maybe harder because a lot of them haven't tried to fit in. The cops have even been told to overlook certain things here and in a couple of other housing communities.”

“What kind of things?”

“Medical issues, for example, like girls being brought into the local emergency room because of botched clitoridectomies. My girlfriend is a nurse at the hospital, and she comes home with some real horror stories. Bankers talk on the QT about seven- and eight-thousand-dollar payments being wired overseas. Lots of other odd stuff. You ready to see the coroner, Damien?”

Golzari's mind had wandered, thinking about the people of this neighborhood and the vast difference between their immigration experience and his own, remembering what people had thought of him as an Iranian immigrant. Hertz's question snapped him back to the present.

“Yeah, I've seen enough here.”

As the squad car turned toward Antioch's small downtown, a Mercedes-Benz SUV pulled out behind it. The Somali driving the Benz followed the car at a decorous distance. He relished the thought of killing again. He had already killed three people in America, not nearly as many as he had been responsible for in Somalia and barely enough to keep his skills intact. He took his eyes off the road to admire his image in the rearview mirror, then put a bottle of spray cologne close to his neck and squirted himself several times, breathing in the scented mist.

“Who were they?” Stark asked the detective, giving Maggie's hand another reassuring squeeze. Maggie didn't relax her grip. They had spent most of the night in the pub in a booth overlooking the harbor. Two police cars with their flashing blue lights remained at the pier.

“Still don't know who two of them were,” the detective replied. “Not exactly the kind that carries identification, are they. The only name we have is the man who rented the vehicle. His current residence is in Birmingham, but he was born in Somalia.”

“Somali?”

“You did quite a job on them, Connor. Three men attack you, three men dead.”

“Would you have preferred a different outcome?”

“Alive so they could answer questions would have been nice,” the detective grunted. “We need more information. This doesn't seem like a crime of opportunity. We tracked the car to the other towns between here and Birmingham, and there were no significant crimes when they were there.”