Testament

by David Gibbins

  “Always a good idea,” Jack said. “You can liaise with Costas about that. And he had a point about the possibility of radioactivity. We’ll want NBC suits just in case, enough for all of the marines and crew as well.”

  Ahmed nodded, and Ibrahim got up too. “We plan to meet back here at 1800 hours ready to go. We’ll gear you up and feed you in the mess. And one thing before you go. Are you armed?”

  “Zaheed is, but we’re not.”

  “You need to watch your back in Mogadishu. This place is crawling with kidnappers, and with informants. By now someone will have noticed you and passed on the word, and your friends on Deep Explorer will probably know. If that old fisherman could be snatched in broad daylight, then so could you. The last thing we want is Jack Howard being held for ransom, or, more likely, found floating face-down off the coast with a bullet in the back of his head. On your way out, the corporal here will escort you to the armory and have you issued with side arms and body armor. Only do what’s absolutely necessary in Mogadishu and get back here as soon as possible. Two of my marines will accompany you in Zaheed’s vehicle.”

  “Understood,” Jack said. “Thank you.”

  Ibrahim gave Jack a steely look and offered his hand. “It will be a pleasure working with you.”

  Jack gripped it. “Likewise.”

  Costas finished penciling a list of equipment requirements, and slid the note over to Ahmed. “No expense spared. We’ll cover it all and then give you and your club the dive trip of your lives when Seaquest arrives and this is all over.”

  Ahmed beamed at him. “That would be excellent. I can’t wait to tell them.”

  Costas scratched his stubble and peered up at Jack. “Looks like we’re in it again. Game on?”

  Jack pocketed his phone and took a deep breath. “Game on.”

  20

  Two hours after leaving the Somali naval headquarters, Jack stood inside the heavily fortified compound of the British Embassy in Mogadishu, itself within the security perimeter of the international airport. He was wearing the body armor that they had been issued at the naval armory along with side arms, but he had removed his helmet and handed in the Beretta to the Royal Marines sentry when he had entered the compound an hour before. He looked up at the Union flag flapping over the entrance, feeling the heat of the sun on his face. Like the Somali navy, the embassy had been shut down when the city had descended into anarchy in 1991, and had only been re-established at its new site a few years ago.

  Gone were the days when Mogadishu was the most dangerous place on earth, a lawless battleground for rival clans, but the war against the Al-Shabaab extremists was a constant backdrop, and gang violence bubbled just beneath the surface, kept at bay only by the African Union military presence, which meant that large parts of the city were in virtual lockdown. Three times on the way in they had heard eruptions of gunfire, the distinctive clacking sound of Kalashnikovs, and Zaheed had driven at breakneck speed between the checkpoints. Like so many who were now trying to save Somalia, he had fled Mogadishu in 1991 as a teenager to live in the West, but he had been back long enough to know the dangers of travel through a city that was always at risk of another meltdown.

  Jack returned to the entrance and retrieved his helmet and Beretta from the sentry, checking the magazine before replacing the gun in the holster on his waist. He had needed to visit the embassy to explain their presence in Somalia to the ambassador, and to outline a possible aid program for the fishing communities with a visiting UK international development official. Meanwhile, Zaheed and Costas had gone to the National Museum to deliver a restored Arabic manuscript that Costas had brought with him from the IMU conservation department; they had dropped Jack at the embassy and sped off in the Toyota, Zaheed still at the wheel and the two Somali marines in the rear seat. That had been over an hour ago, and they were due back soon.

  Jack checked his phone, seeing only the text that Costas had sent him ten minutes before, saying that they had left the museum. He wanted to get back to the naval base so that Costas could liaise with Ahmed and check through the diving equipment they had requested. He was feeling jittery, anxious to get on the move, his thoughts already dominated by the long trip on the patrol boat toward the island they had planned for that night, excited and apprehensive about what might lie ahead.

  There was another burst of gunfire, this time much closer than previously, somewhere near the airport perimeter. Two long bursts of Kalashnikov fire were followed by a succession of single shots from a handgun, and then there was silence. The marine sergeant in charge at the sentry post spoke into his shoulder mike. “Shooting incident on the outer perimeter. Red alert. I repeat, red alert.”

  Four of the marines immediately assumed prone positions behind sandbags on either side of the entrance, their rifles aimed, and another hurried from the sentry post with a scoped sniper rifle, taking position behind a berm some ten meters along the wire. The marine sergeant glanced at Jack. “There’s usually some kind of shootout on the airport perimeter a couple of times a month. A suicide car bomber is our main concern, the possibility of a vehicle getting through the perimeter security and heading our way.”

  Another four shots rang out, handgun again rather than rifle, followed by another burst from a Kalashnikov. Jack had been counting the pistol shots. That was fifteen, a full Beretta magazine. He suddenly felt a cold jab of apprehension, and then his phone rang. It was Costas, barely audible. “Jack, I’m all right. Zaheed’s been hit. We got as many as we could. I think they’re going to take me. I’m…” There was a loud crackling sound, and the phone went dead.

  Jack turned to the marine sergeant. “You need to get me there. Those are my people.”

  The sergeant nodded, pointing to two others in the sentry box. “Anderson, Bailey. On me.” He ran to the jeep that was parked behind the box, followed by Jack and the other two. They all got in, the two marines in the back and Jack in the front passenger seat, and the sergeant gunned the vehicle through the entrance and down the airport approach road, screeching round a corner as they approached the perimeter. He had radioed ahead as he drove to the commander of the African Union detachment providing airport security, and the gate was already open. He pulled to a halt, leaned out of the window, and spoke briefly to the Kenyan officer in charge, then gunned the jeep forward. “It wasn’t a terrorist attempt on the perimeter after all,” he said. “It looks like it was specifically targeted at your people. A contract killing or a kidnapping. Sounds pretty bad.”

  They rounded another corner, racing out of the perimeter into the city streets, and then came to a screeching halt. A scene of carnage met their eyes. Zaheed’s four-by-four was resting at a crazy angle half on the pavement, smoke pouring out of its engine, its tires all shot out. Sprawled around it in pools of blood were six bodies, two of them the Somali marines who had accompanied Zaheed, the rest evidently attackers. Cartridge casings were strewn everywhere, but all the weapons had been removed and there were tire tracks through the blood and over one of the bodies.

  Jack saw Zaheed on the far side of the jeep, leaning over one bullet-ridden door. “Wait here,” he said to the sergeant. “There’s one still alive.” He took out his Beretta, opened the door, and got out, running over to the vehicle.

  Zaheed dropped heavily to the pavement, sitting upright for a moment and then falling on his elbows, twisting to one side. Jack knelt beside him, and he gestured weakly with one arm. “They’ve taken Costas. Not Al-Shabaab. The Badass Boys. I recognized them from the fishing village. One of them was the Boss. They headed off in a Toyota, going north.”

  Jack could see where a bullet had penetrated Zaheed’s chest under his left arm, one place that was not protected by the body armor. He coughed, bringing up blood, and then lay back, a slew of blood spreading beneath him from the wound and more coming from his mouth and nose. Jack knelt down and held his head, trying to make him more comfortable. His face was ashen, and he coughed more blood, this time weakly. “Jack,” he w
hispered, his breath rasping. “In my wallet.”

  Jack quickly felt in the zip pocket of the combat trousers Zaheed was wearing and pulled out his wallet, opening it up. Zaheed raised one arm weakly and fumbled in it, half pulling out a photo and then letting his arm drop. Jack pulled it out completely, showing it to him. “I can’t see it,” he whispered, barely audible, his eyes staring sightlessly past Jack. “My wife and daughter. We talked about them. I wanted you to see them.” His face crumpled, and then he was gone, his eyes half open and his jaw slackening.

  Jack pulled off the blood-soaked scarf that Zaheed had been wearing and placed it over his face, then got up and looked around. Already a crowd was gathering, the children with the glazed eyes of those who were used to this kind of scene, their minds already elsewhere. A police car swerved up onto the pavement, and he could see two African Union armored cars hurtling toward them from the perimeter post. The police would assume that this had been an Al-Shabaab attack, and soon the whole area would be in lockdown, roadblocks in every direction. If he did not get out now, he could be trapped here for hours.

  Jack knew he had no time for sentiment, only for cold, clinical reaction. Costas would be kept alive only as long as he was useful to the kidnappers’ paymaster, and that might be no longer than the instant of their arrival at the island and their discovery of the U-boat pen. He stepped away from Zaheed’s body, keeping the wallet and the photograph, and ran back to the jeep, where the marines had stayed put with their weapons at the ready. He jumped back into the passenger seat and turned to the sergeant. “I need you to take me to the Somali navy command center. You know where it is?”

  “Yes, sir. We help train their marines.”

  “I’ve got to get there now.”

  “I should get clearance.”

  Jack gestured at the naval ID card for the embassy that was still hanging from his neck. “You know who I am?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you’ve got all the clearance you need.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The sergeant shoved the gearstick forward and roared off, swerving around a corner and then hurtling along the main road parallel to the shore in the direction of the naval headquarters. “We can’t use lights and sirens, as it makes us a target for Al-Shabaab,” he said, dropping a gear to pass a donkey cart. “Fortunately there are no speed limits.”

  Jack was coursing with adrenalin, his hands shaking. He took out his phone and punched the number he had preset for Captain Ibrahim. The phone was answered almost immediately, and Jack quickly filled him in. “This is what I’d like you to do. We go ahead with the mission as planned. You dispatch the patrol boat toward the island, with a marine contingent on board. We can’t know for certain that’s where they’ve taken Costas, but if the kidnappers were who Zaheed said they were, then there’s a good chance they’ll drive him up the coast and put him on the trawler. But I’d like to take a small diversion first, if you can help me. The Somali defense force has a couple of Hueys, right? I’d like to be dropped on Deep Explorer. There’s someone on board I need to have a word with. And you might want to follow that up by sending a team to intercept them with your second patrol boat. I have a feeling Deep Explorer will be changing course and heading into Somali territorial waters, without permission and with suspicious intent. You won’t even need to invoke international law to seize them.”

  He gave Ibrahim the license plate number of the jeep they were in so that the naval guards at the compound would be forewarned, and then he pocketed the phone and stared ahead, bracing himself against the potholes and bumps in the road. They would be there in ten minutes, probably less. He felt preternaturally alert, as if he were seeing the people they were passing in slow motion, slow enough for him to scrutinize them as threats. He knew that it was the result of adrenalin, a natural defense mechanism. He thought of Zaheed. He was still clutching the picture, the blood already drying on it. Zaheed had planned to stop by his home on the way back that afternoon so that Jack could meet his wife and daughter. They had talked about the trials and joys of fatherhood, and Jack had told him about Rebecca. When this was all over, he would go and see Zaheed’s family. Right now, there was only one thought running through his head, only one thing he had to do. Payback.

  * * *

  Four hours later, Jack gazed out over the Indian Ocean from the door of the UH-1N Twin Huey as the distinctive red hull of Deep Explorer came into view, her wake showing that she was continuing to steam north toward Socotra, exactly as the satellite surveillance images had revealed. He leaned forward beside the door gunner, his helmet muffling the worst of the rotor noise and his visor giving the sea an unearthly green hue. He remembered the last time he had seen Deep Explorer, two weeks earlier, as he and Costas were taken off by the British Army Lynx following their dive on Clan Macpherson.

  He remembered how he had felt then. His relief had been tempered by the uneasy feeling he always had after his encounters with Landor. With his close knowledge of Jack, and his press conferences that so adeptly whitewashed his operations as legitimate archaeology, Landor had always seemed one step ahead, like a criminal taunting a detective who never quite had the evidence to make an arrest. Jack had dealt with some intractable enemies in his career, with warlords who ruthlessly controlled the antiquities trade, with sadists who were driven by twisted ideology. With Landor, it was different, more complex. Archaeologists and treasure hunters were inevitably at loggerheads, their motivations so radically different, the moral case for archaeology unambiguous. Yet the personal element, the old friendship and the shared passion for diving in those formative years, had always stopped Jack from confronting him head-on, and Landor knew it. Sometimes it seemed as if Landor were his doppelgänger, a parallel version of himself in a universe with little morality, with no higher purpose, and yet with that shared passion that had set Landor apart from so many of the others he had come up against in the past.

  This time, though, was different. This time Landor had gone one step too far, had let his greed and his bitterness, his desperation after his failure to raise the gold from Clan Macpherson, lead him into waters that were over his head. Jack was certain that he had ordered the gang to kidnap Costas as a bargaining chip to keep Jack out of the way until they had found the U-boat at the island. He had known that Landor would one day make a mistake that would destroy him, something more than his minor run-ins with governments in the past, but he had never guessed that it might be something this personal. He had spent most of the flight trying not to think of where Costas was now and what might be happening to him. He still had Zaheed’s blood under his fingernails, and that photo of his wife and little girl in his pocket. One thing was for certain: the Jack that Landor thought he knew was very different from the one who was going to be confronting him now.

  The gunner drew back the bolt on the 50-caliber Browning machine gun and trained it on Deep Explorer, traversing it so that those watching from below could see. The pilot expertly maneuvered the helicopter over the stern of the ship, dropping to fifty feet and mimicking the ship’s course and speed. The loadmaster hooked Jack’s harness to the winch and gave a thumbs-up as the door light went green. Jack dropped out, feeling the rush of air from the rotor, and seconds later was down on the aft deck of the ship. There had been no formalities, no courtesy call to explain their intentions. Deep Explorer was just outside the exclusion zone, so the Somalis had no jurisdiction here. But legal niceties mattered little on the high seas when a ship was confronted by a machine gun capable of ripping apart the bridge and any crew in its sights, not to speak of the destructive potential of the twin rocket pods under the airframe. Landor had hired pirates whose livelihood was attacking unarmed ships in international waters; now the tables were turned, and he was about to reap his own whirlwind.

  Jack took off his helmet, unclipped the carabiners, and cast off the line, pushing it out of the way as the loadmaster winched it up. The Huey drew forward and clattered deafeningly over the bow, t
he helmeted gunner with his machine gun clearly visible through the side door. Jack knew exactly where he was going, and went quickly up the steps to the bridge, pushing past several crewmen who had been ducking against the downdraft from the rotor. He pulled open the sliding door and stepped inside. The captain was at the helm, staring up at the helicopter with a mike in his hand. Jack shut the door noisily, and the captain turned round and saw him.

  “Where’s Landor?” Jack snarled. The captain paused, as if judging the best response, then quickly picked up a phone. “Make a call now and they will shut you down,” Jack said, pointing out at the helicopter. “Your ship will be impounded and you will relocate to a stinking Mogadishu jail while I do all I can to block any attempt to release you.”

  The captain held the phone and the mike for a moment longer, then lowered them both and jerked his head toward the door of the chart room at the back of the bridge. “Mr. Landor isn’t here, but Macinnes is. You can take whatever problem you have to him.”

  Jack gestured at the helm. “Change course to bearing 320 degrees.”

  “But that will take us into Somali territorial waters.”

  Jack pointed up at the Huey again. “Do it, or he’ll empty one of those rocket pods into your rudder and screw, and you’ll drift with the current toward shore anyway.”

  The captain pursed his lips, but stood behind the helm and did as he had been told. Jack checked the bearing, and then took out several plastic ties from his pocket. “Hands behind your back.” He put a tie around the man’s wrists and used another to attach it to a rail. “Apologies for the plastic,” he said. “The Somali navy officer who’ll be boarding in about half an hour when you enter territorial waters and impounding your ship has some real handcuffs.”

  Jack pulled open the door to the chart room. Macinnes, the operations director he had last encountered off Sierra Leone, was sitting in the easy chair behind the chart table, tapping a mobile phone and putting it up to his ear, then trying again. “It’s called electronic countermeasures,” Jack said coldly. “No comms to or from this ship while the helicopter’s outside. That’s the Somali navy.”