Lean on Me

by Claudia Hall Christian

  His eyes moved to the location of his private stash.

  “We burned that too,” Alex said.

  “That was impolite.”

  “I left my manners at home when I had to come to rescue more hostages from your ship,” Alex said. “We had a deal.”

  “We did…” The pirate Captain moved to get up and Bill gave a deep low growl. The pirate Captain squealed in horror. With his panic, his bladder let loose. A wet stain appeared on his expensive sheets. The pirate Captain looked down then looked at the men again. He pulled a handful of covers over the wetness.

  Alex continued eating her orange while the pirate Captain watched. She reached for another orange to peel.

  “Do you remember what I promised you would happen if you took hostages again?” Alex asked.

  “I’m not quite sure…”

  “We’d use a few members of your crew as shark bait. When the sharks were good and hungry, we’d cut you and throw your body overboard. The sharks would eat you alive,” Alex said. “I’m pretty sure you remember how many hungry sharks we can draw.”

  “Those bull sharks like human flesh,” Trece said.

  “You know, I’ve heard that,” Alex said.

  “You were dead,” the pirate Captain said. “Your team was dead. That horrible creature Michael Scully is dead. Our deal died with your murder.”

  “Clearly, I’m not dead,” Alex said. “And that’s Mike Scully’s son.”

  MJ sneered. The pirate Captain swallowed hard. She opened the orange and held out a piece to him. He shook his head. She started eating the orange.

  “You want to tell me how twelve U.S. Navy SEALs infringed upon your fishing rights?” Alex asked.

  “It’s not me,” the pirate Captain pleaded. Seeing only stone on Alex’s face, he implored the men. Bill growled. “These young kids. They want blood. They will accept nothing else. They are… not fishermen; they are animals.”

  “Huh,” Alex said. “Maybe we should turn you over to them.”

  “They seem to like human flesh too,” Vince said.

  She glanced at Vince and Trece. Shrugging, Trece took a step toward the Somali man. The pirate Captain cowered.

  “We were invited to take these gentlemen,” the pirate Captain said. “Paid good money for them.”

  “And you didn’t think to call me,” Alex said. “Don’t start on my being dead. Jesse Abreu is dead and he’s here. He’d love to have you join him.”

  Jesse threw a spark of electricity around the room. Horrified, the pirate Captain scooched away from them.

  “I spent the last hour or so trying to figure out what to do with you,” Alex said. “Turns out my commander contacted the UN. You and your crew are wanted for human rights violations. Imagine that?”

  “The UN has no authority over me!” the pirate Captain said. “I’m Somali. Somalia has not been recognized by that capitalistic bunch of hypocrites.”

  “Yeah well, unfortunately you managed to violate the rights of civilians who are covered by the UN,” Alex said. “I think if you had kept your raping, torturing, and kidnapping within Somalia, no one would have cared.”

  “I’m sure we can work this out,” the pirate Captain squirmed.

  “It’s all worked out,” Alex said. “I’m supposed to show you this.”

  Alex held up her handheld computer.

  “Your phone?”

  “Oh,” Alex looked at the computer. Trece leaned over to click the button Sergeant Dusty had set up. “Here.”

  She held up the computer again. The screen showed an image of a burning compound.

  “Recognize this place?” Alex asked.

  “That’s my home!” the pirate Captain said. “My wives! My children!”

  “Don’t worry,” Alex gave him a sick smile. “They are safe and on their way to the US as accessories to murder, torture, rape, and whatever else. Well, not the children. They’ve been dropped off at the SOS Children’s Village in Mogadishu. They should be safe and well cared for there.”

  “They are women! How can they be accessories to murder?”

  “Sorry, I said that wrong,” Alex said. “They’ve profited from the murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, and piracy. In fact, they told the soldiers they were quite proud of your activities. Bragged on tape even. How stupid can you be? I think that’s why they decided to burn the compound. Did they get the rest of the family?”

  “You can see them right here,” MJ pointed to a group of men standing near the compound.

  “Look at that,” Alex said. “Isn’t that your parents? Your… brothers? Wow, it must suck to be them. But then again, they’ve lived handsomely off the wholesale slaughter of human beings.”

  For a few minutes, the pirate Captain watched the video in silence. Vince pointed out the masked soldier burning various buildings with his flame thrower.

  “Do your wives know about the girls you keep as sex slaves?” Alex asked. “Funny. You didn’t even remember to ask about her.”

  “The prostitute who was here?”

  “Now that is weird,” Alex said. “She said she was kidnapped. She took my men to a chamber where we found three other terrified girls. They were chained to the wall and living in their own filth. One of them is pregnant. I wonder whose child that might be?”

  When he didn’t respond, she continued.

  “Of course, we videotaped the entire thing, took photos, forensics, stuff like that. I was amazed at all the expertise you can find at a naval air station. Who knew? A variety of agencies from countries around the world will be here in the morning to collect evidence. My guess is you’ll go from country to country raking up charges until someone eventually kills you. Currently, there’s a bet among the men as to whether you’ll be stoned or given a tidy lethal injection.”

  Alex shrugged as if she didn’t care which happened.

  “Knowing that your family lives in luxury while you keep these children to rape and torture?” Alex asked. “It takes the sting out of burning everything you own.”

  “They were sold to us by their parents,” the pirate Captain said. “If their parents don’t care what happens to them, why should we?”

  “It’s funny because they tell a very different story,” Alex said.

  “They lie,” the pirate Captain said.

  “You’ll eventually get a trial,” Alex began peeling the third orange. “You sure you don’t want some? They don’t serve fresh fruit at those CIA prisons. Anyone know why?”

  Trece and Vince shook their heads. MJ stared at the man.

  “Spoilage?” Sergeant Beetle asked.

  “Trust me,” Trece said. “There’s so much rot at those prisons, a few rotting oranges would fit right in.”

  “Get him out of here,” Alex said.

  The pirate Captain fumbled for something to say. Vince and Sergeant Beetle grabbed the man’s arms.

  “Can I at least get dressed?” the pirate Captain asked. “Do not humiliate me the way they did at Abu Graib.”

  Alex shrugged. MJ grabbed up a pair of pants from a dresser drawer. He checked the pockets for weapons and threw them at the man. The pirate Captain dressed. When he began to linger, Sergeant Beetle signaled Bill. Growling and snapping, Bill got the pirate Captain moving. MJ followed behind.

  Trece waited with Alex until they heard a helicopter take off.

  “Sorry, I’m going to barf,” Alex said. “I can’t eat those oranges on a drugged stomach.”

  Trece held up a trash can and she threw up. When she was done, he gave her a clean, gold-embroidered towel from the cabinet. He waited until she’d cleaned up then carried her out of the ship.

  On deck, US Navy MPs had taken control of the ship. Seeing Alex, the UN investigators went inside to review the pirate Captain’s quarters. The SEALs they’d brought from Norfolk stood at attention around the helicopter. Alex saluted them and Trece helped her into the chopper. Vince got in the helicopter after them and MJ shut the door.

  “What about those
guys?” Alex asked.

  “They’re taking another chopper,” Vince said. “We’re going home.”

  “Home home? Or to the US some place to work?”

  “Home,” Trece said. “It’s been determined that you have an infection in your hip.”

  “I do?” Alex asked.

  MJ helped her onto her litter.

  “Once you’ve had sepsis, you’re more susceptible to getting it again,” MJ said.

  “But I’m not even hot,” Alex said.

  “You always look hot to me,” Zack said over the intercom. “Alex, I’m taking you home. It’s all arranged. Cliff?”

  The sound of whistling came over the intercom. The helicopter rose above the ship.

  “What’s that?” Alex asked.

  “’Home’ by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, sir,” Cliff said.

  Alex closed her eyes and let the music wash over her. Somewhere between the verses of “Home, let me go home,” MJ attached the IV to her arm. He attached a nasal cannula and adjusted her oxygen supply. When the song slowed, MJ put his hand on her shoulder. She nodded and he put her out. She was in the middle of wondering whether she would go to hell for not personally killing the pirate Captain when she drifted off.

  The Vice-Admiral’s voice jerked her out of deep unconsciousness.

  “She’s quite amazing,” he said.

  “Sir?” MJ’s voice asked.

  “Was she in surgery when the team was found?” the Vice-Admiral said.

  “Yes sir,” MJ said. “She has an infection to show for it.”

  She had the sense of her men shuffling around her. She was being moved from the helicopter to somewhere else.

  “They say the men wouldn’t have survived the day,” the Vice-Admiral said. “She saved their lives.”

  “Yes sir,” Vince said.

  “Any idea on how she was able to incapacitate the ship?” the Vice-Admiral asked.

  “Some kind of gas,” Vince said. “The Fey Special Forces Team had stashed gas bombs around the ship in old clocks. I’m not sure how they got the clocks on board, but they were still there all these years later.”

  “Russian knock out bombs?”

  “I’m not sure, sir,” Vince said. “I was instructed that the captors were at risk of suffocation. We placed them face up and administered oxygen to a few.”

  “Why keep them alive?”

  “They are wanted for crimes against humanity, sir,” Vince said.

  “War crimes?

  “A lot of countries want justice, sir,” Vince said.

  “Unbelievable,” the Vice-Admiral said.

  Alex struggled to regain consciousness. She tried to speak.

  “She’s coming around, sir,” MJ said. “If you’d like to speak to her, this would be your only time. With all due respect, I’d prefer it if she remained unconscious. It’s a long journey and her body needs time to heal.”

  “Yes, Sergeant, you may put her under,” the Vice-Admiral said.

  And everything went dark.

  F

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  One week later

  Wednesday afternoon

  November 11 – 3:17 p.m. AST

  USS Peleliu, Indian Ocean

  The pirate Captain was escorted from his cell down a long hallway to a room. Exhausted from nearly forty-eight hours without sleep, he fell into the interrogation room. He lay against the cold steel for a while before he realized there was another person in the room. He looked from one corner of the small room to the next. Someone cleared his throat. The pirate Captain turned to look at the corner next to the door.

  A non-descript man stood between the door hinges and the corner. The pirate Captain had a sense that he should recognize the salt-and-pepper-haired man. He was medium sized and wore French or very high-quality American clothing. The pirate Captain stared at him for a moment. His stare was met with an amused twinkle in the man’s brown eyes.

  He had no idea who the man was. He only knew that he’d seen him before. Friend or foe, this man stared at him. The man flicked his finger and the pirate Captain pulled himself off the ground. The man pointed to a chair at an interrogation table. The pirate Captain dropped into the chair.

  Without breaking his gaze, the man lit a cigarette. The man didn’t move from the corner of the room or say anything. The man’s brown eyes burned a hole in the Somali man’s chest. The pirate Captain had never felt more naked.

  And the man smoked.

  When his cigarette burned down, the pirate Captain cowered as if he expected to be burned. The man raised his eyebrows in a silent laugh and dropped the cigarette on the floor. He flipped open a well-used lighter and lit another cigarette.

  Between the sweet odor of expensive tobacco and his lack of sleep, the pirate Captain slipped into a kind of trance. The man stared, the pirate Captain sat, and the time passed. An hour? Three? The pirate Captain had no idea. When the man moved, the Captain screamed in horror. The man gave the pirate Captain an ironic smile. Time stretched on until a tap came on the door. The Captain’s heart raced with panic when the man went to open the door.

  A taller man of about the same age stood on the other side. The second man’s blue eyes gave him the look of an American movie star. The two men spoke to each other in some unintelligible language. When the second man smiled, the pirate Captain felt his heart squeeze with terror.

  He recognized the second man. Noticing the pirate Captain’s discomfort, the second man sat in the empty chair. The smoking man moved back to his corner.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” the second man said in Arabic. “You’re going to correctly, openly, and without hesitation answer every single one of my questions. Or I’m going to turn you over to him.”

  The second man indicated to the smoking man with his thumb.

  “I believe his daughter had an agreement with you,” the second man said.

  The pirate Captain’s head jerked to look at the smoking man. The man smiled at him and the pirate Captain remembered who he was. The smoking man was Benjamin, the Fey’s father. The pirate Captain swallowed hard.

  “He made sure you stayed on the Indian Ocean. To his mind, his daughter made an agreement with the sharks. The sharks are waiting to fulfill that accord. And trust me, he doesn’t mind letting you watch while the sharks eat you one digit at a time.”

  The second man shrugged as if he didn’t care either.

  “What do you want to know?” the pirate Captain asked.

  “Where are the rest of the missing soldiers?” the second man asked.

  “How would I know?”

  “Let me put it to you differently,” the second man said. “I know that you know where the rest of the soldiers are being held. I know this because I know you’d never get involved unless you saw the whole plan. I also know that you made a number of telephone calls, email exchanges, and had in-person conversations to confirm where the other captives are being held.”

  The pirate Captain crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me,” the second man said. “Where are the missing soldiers?

  “Go to hell,” the pirate Captain said.

  The second man got up from his chair. Nodding to Benjamin, he moved toward the door.

  “Get me a map,” the pirate Captain said. “Get me a map.”

  Benjamin threw a world map onto the table.

  “I need a pen,” the pirate Captain said.

  “To use as a weapon?”

  The second man went to Benjamin and held his hand out. The smoking man gave him a cigarette. Taking his time, the second man bent his head to light the cigarette.

  “I’ll point,” the pirate Captain said. “I can only tell you what I know.”

  “Better be accurate,” the second man said. “If it doesn’t match our information, we’ll start with…”

  The second man looked at Benjamin. The smoking man pointed to the man’s crotch.

  �
��Good thinking,” the second man said.

  The pirate Captain told them what he knew.

  FFFFFF

  Two days later

  Friday afternoon

  November 13 – 4:17 p.m. MST

  Denver, CO

  Alex coughed and turned over. She smiled.

  She was in her own bedroom at the top of the sprawling rooming house she called home. She heard people moving downstairs. The rapid patter of little feet and a squealing laugh told her Troy’s sons were below. Her nose picked up the odor of fresh-baked bread. Colin must be here somewhere. She had no idea how she got home or how long she’d been there.

  Not long. It didn’t feel like she’d been here very long. Rolling onto her back, she wondered why it had taken so long to get home.

  “You’re awake,” Sergeant Beetle said. Alex heard the jangle of Bill’s collar.

  “What day is it?”

  “Friday,” Sergeant Beetle said. “November thirteenth. I’m supposed to get Colin. He wants to give you more antibiotics or something like that. MJ’s at his house. Something about a blocked toilet.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “About a day,” Sergeant Beetle said. “We’d planned on taking you home, but you actually got an infection. We don’t know where or how. By the time you landed, we had to take you straight to the hospital. But you haven’t been far. They put you up at National Jewish. Turns out they have an infectious disease lab.”

  Alex felt Bill’s soft wet nose on her cheek.

  “Hi Bill,” Alex said.

  “I’m supposed to get Colin,” Sergeant Beetle said.

  “Are you waiting for me to dismiss you?”

  “No, sir,” Sergeant Beetle said. “I wanted a second to talk to you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Alex said. “Talk away.”

  “First, I wondered if you might call me by my first name,” Sergeant Beetle said. “We’ve been through a lot and I thought…”

  “I don’t know your first name,” Alex said. “That’s pretty rude of me. If you tell my mother, she might kill me. But I misplaced your name in all the mess of Dahlia’s murder, the marathon, the World Trade Center dance, missing hostages, and taking over a sage military installation. It sounds like I’m being flip but I’m actually embarrassed. I keep forgetting to ask my Sergeant.”