Deadly Coast (A Tom Dugan Novel)

by R. E. McDermott

  Arnett froze him with a look.

  “Perhaps not,” he said. “Forgive me for asking, and may Allah grant you a safe journey.”

  Arnett nodded, and as Shehadi limped back into the wheelhouse, she turned back to the scene on the main deck, relieved the chaos was abating. The last of the Egyptians were going down the accommodation ladder, and as if by some silent signal, the late-coming vendors that circled the ship were moving off to other prey. Soon she saw Shehadi appear on deck, limping forward to accompany Charlie Brown down the accommodation ladder. She smiled as Charlie Brown stepped into the last boat and she saw the bosun begin to raise the ladder.

  Thank you, God. She lifted her radio to order Stan Jones forward to stand by the anchor.

  Ahmed Chahine, aka Charlie Brown, stood in the launch and watched as the stern of M/T Luther Hurd receded into the distance. Relief washed over him in waves. He was done now. His family was safe, and the men who had threatened them were gone. And he had been careful—no one could ever connect the men with him. He didn’t know who they were—nor did he wish to. What you don’t know, you can’t be forced to tell, and that was best for everyone.

  Chapter Three

  M/T Phoenix Lynx

  At anchor

  Harardheere, Somalia

  Ali Ismail Ahmed, aka Gaal (“The Foreigner”), crouched in the bow of the boat as it circled Phoenix Lynx to the cheers of the Somalis lining the big ship’s rail. The daily arrival of the khat boat was a much-anticipated event, a break in the pirates’ otherwise boring existence. He looked back at the boat’s cargo of the narcotic leaf, wrapped in damp cloths to preserve freshness and packed into plastic bags, and sent up a silent prayer to Allah for his good fortune. Catching a ride on the khat boat was a stroke of luck. He had quite a sales job before him, and it would be infinitely easier if the pirates were in a good mood.

  He worried again about his potential reception. Despite his embrace of jihad, al-Shabaab, the local al-Qaeda affiliate, had been wary of his American roots. He hoped the pirates would be more welcoming.

  His musings were interrupted by the bump of the boat against the ship’s side, and the pirates lining the sloping accommodation ladder began to clamor for khat. Smiling broadly, Gaal passed bags of the narcotic leaf to the men at the bottom of the ladder, who passed them hand-over-hand up to the deck of the ship. When the last bag had been delivered, he nodded to the boatman and trailed the happy pirates up the ladder.

  Gaal hung back a bit, fearing a challenge as he followed them aft to the deckhouse, but the khat-obsessed pirates didn’t look back. Reassured, he closed the distance, and entered the deckhouse on their heels. The passageway was thronged with more pirates, but they parted willingly to allow passage of the khat bearers, Gaal among them now. Through an open doorway of what must be a mess room, he glimpsed hostages, hollow-eyed and fearful.

  Knowing Zahra would have appropriated the best quarters for himself, Gaal separated from the group at the central stairwell and pushed through the door. He mentally rehearsed his pitch as he climbed the stairs.

  Zahra Askar leaned back on the sofa in the captain’s quarters—now his own—and transferred the wad of khat leaves from one cheek to the other with his tongue.

  “Forgive me if I’m skeptical of your sudden change of heart, Gaal,” he said in Somali. “But your activities aren’t unknown to me. For months you’ve been proclaiming your allegiance to al-Shabaab and holy jihad, and now you ask to join us. Surely you know those fanatics consider our business, and any money flowing from it, haram. Now, why would an enthusiastic jihadist decide to join a forbidden business to earn tainted money? You can understand my confusion.”

  Gaal shrugged. “Al-Shabaab isn’t what I thought. The same rigid philosophy that leads them to declare your operation haram makes me suspect because of my origin. I assumed my knowledge of the enemy would earn me a prominent place among them, but they use me as little more than an errand boy. I can’t help being born in belly of the Great Satan, but because of that, I will never be a true brother in their eyes. I realize that now.”

  Zahra seemed to consider that, then shifted the wad of khat again and smiled. “Then perhaps we can offer duties more in tune with your abilities.” He gestured to a chair and turned to a small man seated beside him. “Omar, offer our guest some khat.”

  The small man glared as Gaal took the offered chair, then tossed a plastic bag on the coffee table. Gaal nodded and extracted a stem of khat leaves.

  “So you’re American,” said Zahra, as Gaal stripped the leaves, rolled them into a ball, and popped it into his cheek. “I suppose your English is very good.”

  Gaal nodded. “I speak without accent. Or more correctly, with an American accent,” he said around the wad in his cheek. “I could interpret.”

  “I’m the interpreter,” Omar said.

  “Our only interpreter,” Zahra said. “We could use another.”

  Omar’s scowl deepened, and Zahra moved to defuse the situation. “In time, of course,” he added, looking at Gaal. “For the moment, Omar here is handling all our needs quite well. And you could hardly expect to start as interpreter. You must work your way up—first holder, then attacker, perhaps first attacker if you have the courage. After that …” Zahra shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Omar said. “He’s a spy from al-Shabaab.”

  “It’s precisely because that’s such an obvious possibility that it’s unlikely,” Zahra said. “The jihadists are fanatics, not stupid. If they wanted a spy, they’d corrupt someone already in our midst.”

  “I could be useful if you do take an American ship,” Gaal suggested. The Somalis shook their heads in unison.

  “Far too much trouble,” Zahra said. “Now, when the Americans or the Western navies catch us at sea, they take our weapons and free us. Even if they catch us during an attack on some foreign ship, they’re very careful to avoid killing us. They just send us to Kenyan prisons.” He smiled and rubbed his thumb against his forefinger. “And with proper placement of a little cash, we’re soon home.

  “But if we take many Americans, that may change,” he continued. “The Americans will come with guns to kill us. Then maybe we kill the hostages, and soon we’ll have American drones looking for us and bombs falling on our heads. All because the Americans don’t understand business.” He shook his head. “It’s much better to stick to capturing ships with Filipino and Indian crews. The insurance pays to get the ship and cargo back and no one causes trouble, even if we do kill a few crewmen. It is foolish to capture an American ship.”

  “What of the Maersk Alabama?” Gaal asked.

  Zahra smiled. “I didn’t say there weren’t fools among us. I can’t control the actions of others.”

  Gaal nodded, and Zahra turned to Omar. “Give him a chance to prove himself. Put him to work.”

  Omar glared before standing and motioning Gaal to do the same. “Come with me. The cook can use a helper. We’ll start you gutting goats.”

  Offices of Phoenix Shipping Ltd.

  London, UK

  “This is useless,” Dugan said. “Jesse gives us intel and then says we can’t use it? What the hell good does it do us if we can’t share with it with our negotiators?”

  Alex nodded and sighed. “I admit it’s disappointing. The insurers aren’t very forthcoming. One gets the impression they’re haggling among themselves. I’d hoped if we could offer them insights into how the pirates were reacting to their counters, we might play a larger role. “

  Anna appeared impatient. “I don’t think either of you appreciate just how far Ward has his neck stuck out on this. He’s re-tasked assets to help us on his own authority. If those assets are compromised, he could be in serious trouble. The least we can do is cover his back.”

  “We don’t even know what his assets are,” Dugan said. “How can we compromise them?”

  “By seeming to know more than we should,” Anna said. “If the insurance blokes doing the
negotiating begin to seem clairvoyant, the pirates may well suspect a leak. And if they start looking, they may well find it.”

  “OK,” Dugan said. “But the intel is still useless unless we can act on it. How do we do that without screwing Jesse?”

  “We vet the information carefully, sharing only things that have an impact,” Anna said. “And only if I can invent some plausible source that doesn’t compromise Ward’s assets.”

  “Sounds easier said than done,” Alex said.

  “Perhaps not,” she said. “Phoenix is a British company. There is no official government involvement, but suppose I chat with the insurers and imply there is? That might buy us a bit more participation in the negotiating process. We can then selectively share intel and vaguely attribute our source to MI5 involvement and monitor and control how the information is used.” She smiled. “And, of course, I’ll also threaten them with charges under the Official Secrets Act if they deviate so much as an iota from our instructions regarding use of the information.”

  Dugan smiled. “God, you’re a devious woman.”

  “And whose neck is stuck out now?” asked Alex.

  M/T Luther Hurd

  Gulf of Aden

  South of Bab-el-Mandeb

  Arnett took a last look at the chart and walked from the chart room to the wall of windows at the front of the bridge. Night was beginning to fall, and she set her coffee cup on the windowsill and raised binoculars to watch ships on the sea around Luther Hurd melt into pinpoints of red, green, and white lights—lights that revealed not only their positions, packed close to transit the narrow waters of Bab-el-Mandeb, but also their courses. She heaved a relieved sigh as those courses diverged, every captain taking advantage of the greater sea room of the Gulf of Aden to spread out.

  “Come left to zero-eight-eight,” she said to the helmsman.

  “Come left to zero-eight-eight, aye,” the helmsman parroted, and Arnett watched in the gathering gloom as the big ship’s bow swung to port.

  “Steady on zero-eight-eight, Captain,” the helmsman said a moment later.

  “OK, Green. Put her on the mike,” Arnett said.

  “Put her on the mike, aye,” said Green, as he transferred steering control to the autopilot, or “Iron Mike,” and stood watching the course heading for a moment to make sure the autopilot had engaged.

  “Helm’s on the mike at zero-eight-eight, Captain.”

  “Helm’s on the mike at zero-eight-eight,” Arnett confirmed. She took a sip of her coffee and shuddered. “Did you make this friggin’ coffee, Green?”

  Green’s grin was a flash of white in his dark face. “No ma’am. That was Gomez.”

  Arnett shook her head. “Well, I don’t want to hurt Gomez’s feelings, but while he’s on lookout, would you please pour it out and make a fresh pot. And if you see Gomez even look at the coffeepot again, please break both his thumbs.”

  Green’s grin widened. “Yes, Captain,” he said, and headed toward the coffeepot as Arnett turned back to the window. She looked up as Stan Jones walked in from the bridge wing.

  “We’re getting close,” Jones said. “Where the hell’s the navy?”

  “We’re two hours from the rendezvous, Stan,” Arnett said. “I wouldn’t start worrying just yet.”

  Despite her reassuring words, Arnett shared Jones’s concern. Something seemed off somehow. A feeling vague and undefined, shared but unspoken. Whether it was the Egyptians’ refusal to board the security team at Suez or running into dangerous waters with a new, untested skipper, she couldn’t tell. But she felt it. The crew had been twitchy for the whole four-day Red Sea passage, Jones most of all.

  “They should have met us at Suez,” Jones said. “Especially after the security team was a no-show. Just watch, this is all going to turn into a big clusterfu—”

  “Luther Hurd, Luther Hurd,” squawked the VHF. “This is USS Carney, do you copy? Over.”

  “Well, I guess your worries are over, Stan,” Arnett said, moving to the radio.

  “Carney, this is Luther Hurd,” she said into the mike. “We copy five by five. Nice to hear from you. We were afraid you didn’t love us anymore. Over.”

  She heard a chuckle on the other end. “Negative that, Luther Hurd. We’ve been waiting with bated breath. Understand you did not receive houseguests at your last stop. Do you require boarders? Over.”

  Arnett considered the offer. Extra people had a way of disrupting the routine of a working ship. “I am considering your last transmission, Carney. What are your orders? Over.”

  “I’m to stay with you to the discharge port, keeping you in sight at all times. Your cargo is required soonest. Over.”

  “In that case, Carney, then negative boarders; repeat, negative boarders. You should be able to scramble assistance if needed. Is that affirmative? Over.”

  “That’s a roger, Luther Hurd. Though you’ve broken my Marines’ hearts. They heard your chow was outstanding. Over.”

  Arnett laughed. “Get us to Diego safe and sound, and I’ll have Cookie put together a big feed. Over.”

  “Roger that, Luther Hurd. We have you on the scope and will maintain station one mile on your bow. USS Carney, out.”

  Mukhtar knelt with his three men, facing the stern of the ship and Mecca beyond, as they prayed the Maghrib, the sunset prayer, in the dim glow of the electric lantern. They couldn’t see the setting sun, but Mukhtar had carefully inscribed prayer times on a scrap of paper and checked his watch faithfully. When they finished the prayer, he rolled up his prayer rug on the aluminum floor plates of the ballast tunnel walkway and watched his men do the same. He’d yet to make his own hajj, and the four-day voyage down the Red Sea in the belly of the great ship took him as close to the holy city of Mecca as he’d ever been. He felt a twinge of guilt that here, so close to the Holy of Holies, he was compelled to pray in such filth.

  He’d done all he could, of course. Even though his men had complained, he’d forced them to walk far forward in the pipe tunnel, almost to the bow, to relieve themselves in the bilge. He’d realized his mistake on the second day. The ship was trimmed by the stern, and condensation on the ballast piping and tunnel bulkheads fed a tiny but constant flow of water into the tunnel bilge. Only millimeters deep as it trickled aft to the bilge wells, it was sufficient to carry stale urine and fecal matter a meter below the walkway where he perched with his men. By the third day, the tunnel reeked of human waste; so much so, Mukhtar worried the smell might carry to the main deck almost twenty meters above.

  Nor was that the only problem. The cavern-like tunnel, running the length of the ship along the keel, was the perfect hiding place—hard to access, seldom visited by the crew, and far enough below the waterline that the flow of water against the hull kept it cool. But cool in the Red Sea was a relative concept, and soon the rank smell of sweat and unwashed bodies mixed with the effluvium wafting up from below.

  To pray in such conditions was an abomination, and he’d compensated as best he could, diverting ever more of their limited water supply for ritual ablutions and ending each prayer session with an entreaty to Allah to forgive their transgressions and to bless their mission with success. It was in Allah’s hands, but as he watched his men move listlessly in the dim light, he struggled to suppress his doubts.

  Hiding in the American ship until its closest approach to the Somali coast had seemed an easy thing on paper, but who could foresee these conditions? Minutes had turned to hours as the men crouched in fetid blackness, saving the lantern batteries for prayer and mealtimes. At first they’d passed the time reciting and discussing Quranic scripture in the dark, but they were fighters, not scholars. Discussion turned to other things, and then stopped altogether.

  The men became fixated on food and water; so much so, Mukhtar felt compelled to guard their limited stores of both. They were near mutiny, and he was increasingly uneasy leaving them alone, even for his nightly twenty-meter climb up the ladder to the main deck to take a GPS reading through th
e open hatch.

  Mukhtar was pulled back to the present by a sudden change in the pitch of vibration in the steel hull, a change he’d come to understand signaled a major course adjustment. He nodded to himself as he felt the ship turn to port, and realized the significance. Last night’s GPS reading had them just north of Bab-el-Mandeb, and he’d been waiting for a sign they’d moved through the narrow strait into the Gulf of Aden.

  The men had sensed the change as well, and turned toward him, every face a question. Mukhtar ignored them and pulled the last water bottle from his pack. Less than a liter remained. They were not as close to home as he would have liked, but he could delay no more.

  He straightened and handed the bottle to the man beside him.

  “One swallow and pass it on,” he said. “We save the rest to cleanse ourselves this evening before Isha’a.” Mukhtar smiled at his men’s expectant looks. “We strike tonight, when everyone except the bridge watch is asleep.”

  “Allahu Akbar,” murmured his men in unison.

  Chapter Four

  M/T Luther Hurd

  Eastbound

  Gulf of Aden

  Mukhtar squatted in the darkness on the starboard bridge wing, his left shoulder pressed against the wheelhouse bulkhead, and his senses heightened by a rush of adrenaline. He felt the rhythmic throb of the engine through the steel at his feet and heard the soft breathing of the man squatting behind him. The others were similarly deployed on the port side, waiting for his signal.

  He rose until his eyes just cleared the bottom of the waist-high side window of the wheelhouse. The helmsman and the watch officer had their backs to him as they stood side by side, leaning on their elbows on the forward windowsill and gazing out at the ship’s bow. They appeared to be chatting, and even without the night-vision goggles, he would’ve been able to make out their silhouettes in the soft glow of moonlight. Good, the ship was on automatic pilot. Should something go awry, he wouldn’t have to worry about veering off course and alerting any escort.