Shaking, Alexis furiously typed at the nearest console. Dr. Nassiri stood frozen, staring at his cousin’s bruised face.
“You going to pull a piece on me again?” Jonah shouted to Buzz. “Or are you going to start listening?”
“I will kill you,” growled Buzz through clenched teeth, holding his bruised face with one hand.
“Nobody dies today,” said Jonah.
Dr. Nassiri rushed out of the door and yanked the quick-release strap of the first life raft. It bounced off the side of the Fool’s Errand and tumbled into the ocean. As he struggled with the second, Jonah appeared beside him to help. In the distance, both men noticed a faint dot just above the horizon, and the distant whop-whop-whop of rotor wash.
“Doc, we’re out of time,” said Jonah as the second raft dropped. “Alexis!” he shouted. “Get below decks. Now.”
Dr. Nassiri and Alexis followed Jonah down to towards the engine compartment, past the heavy steel fire door. Buzz stood in the corner, bent over, still wincing as he held his hand to his face. Jonah opened the nearest supply locker and searched desperately. Dr. Nassiri watched his face light up when he came across three air bottles and a child’s Minnie Mouse snorkel. The bottles were each the size of a canteen, only with a built-in breathing regulator instead of a cap.
“I do not understand your plan,” protested Dr. Nassiri. Madness, all of this, letting the prisoner take charge with some strange course of action, a course of action he refused to fully explain.
“He’s fucking mental!” shouted Buzz. “He punched me!”
Jonah ignored both men, reached down and pried open a heavy floor hatch. Below it lay a massive cistern of filmy water holding drainage from the showers, kitchen sinks, dishwashing, and laundry, more than large enough to fit four persons. Dr. Nassiri suddenly realized the need for the pony bottles and the snorkel.
“That’s the greywater system,” said Alexis, still confused.
“Everybody in,” said Jonah.
Even over the engines, Dr. Nassiri could now hear the sound of the approaching helicopter. Looking at the water, the doctor saw Alexis transition from frightened to completely terrified.
Nobody moved.
Jonah cleared his throat with barely restrained fury at having to explain himself.
“Given our distance from Malta,” he began, each word dripping with anger, speaking as though to a small, disobedient child, “and the weight profile of a loaded Bell A212, the incoming helicopter—which will be over us in less than sixty seconds—has only fifteen minutes of hover time. That means that if the team onboard can’t fast-rope down, clear every room, and bring the ship to a halt within that time, they’ll be forced to re-board and clear out.”
“You want them to find a ghost ship,” said Dr. Nassiri, grasping Jonah’s plan. “No persons onboard, no life rafts, no way to change course, no way to escape, no way to stop the engines!”
“Exactly. And by the time they mobilize a second helicopter, we’ll be well out of range. Everybody in the tank—now.”
Dr. Nassiri took the first pony bottle from Jonah’s hands and bit onto the regulator. He breathed in, experimentally at first, and felt the cold hiss of pure air flow into his lungs. The oily water was actually a more pleasant temperature than he expected. Inside, the claustrophobic compartment was nearly completely dark save the light through the hatchway. There was nothing to hold on to as the tank rippled and jostled with the motion of the yacht.
Alexis slid in next to the doctor, her breathing short and choppy. Buzz splashed in next, grunting as he did so. He stuck the regulator to his pony bottle in his mouth and immediately ducked his head completely underwater. Dr. Nassiri saw Jonah save the Minnie Mouse snorkel for himself.
Jonah reached up and pulled the hatch shut, turning the interior of the compartment into a perfect inky-black as they heard footsteps on the deck above them. Dr. Nassiri’s under-stimulated brain played tricks, sending little imaginary flashes of light into his vision, the type of hallucination only seen in pure darkness. The doctor had to restrain himself from reaching up to test if the hatch could be re-opened from the inside to assure himself they would not be doomed to asphyxiate in a greywater cistern, clawing at the unyielding metal ceiling.
Dr. Nassiri felt motion swirling through the waters next to him, then Alexis’s hand as she grabbed his, intertwining their fingers. He tried to give her a little reassuring squeeze, but it was returned with a deathly tight grip. Her fright permeated the compartment, rapid breathing, short, twitchy movements, all the indicators of near panic.
A small splash and then a mumble.
“Oh, no,” whispered Alexis.
She’d dropped her pony bottle, leaving her to push her face into the air pocket at the ceiling of the tank.
Dr. Nassiri released her hand and touched the ceiling, pressing himself beneath the surface. He felt through the dirty water, pushing through food particles and grit until his fingers brushed against the smooth bottle. He slowly surfaced, and slipped the bottle into the engineer’s outstretched hand.
“I’m not so great with tight spaces. Or the dark,” Alexis whispered.
“It will be over soon,” said Dr. Nassiri. Bedside manner was never his forte. And why even comfort her, this strange female mechanic he’d known for mere moments?
“Thanks,” said Alexis. She took one deep breath, but it barely registered. She was still too tense. Her hand reached out, finding his again. Dr. Nassiri willed himself to be calm, to send a sense of peace flowing from his body through his fingertips and into hers.
Footsteps again, faster this time. The soldiers on deck were running out of time. Dr. Nassiri heard the fire door to the engine compartment open with a loud grinding noise. If they were able to stop the engines—if Dr. Nassiri and the other hidden passengers were discovered—he tried not to consider the possibilities.
Splashing noises came from the other side of the tank as Buzz surfaced and popped the regulator out of his mouth.
“I have to pee,” he announced to nobody in particular. Dr. Nassiri winced. Alexis giggled next to him, her teeth chattering with fear.
Jonah spoke next, his voice low and resonate with measured fury. “You all—everybody talking right now—you’re breathing my fucking oxygen. That’s what your air bottles are for. Stop talking.”
More footsteps, stomping. And the muffled echoes of men shouting at each other. Dr. Nassiri prayed for the hum of the engines to remain constant, just a little longer. The whop-whop-whop of the helicopter rotors returned for minutes but it felt like the sound lasted hours. And then, nothing. Nothing but the vibration of the engines, the faint splashing inside the tank, and the hiss of regulated air exiting the pony bottles.
“I goddamn hope you held it,” said Jonah, jabbing Buzz in the ribs with a finger.
He straightened himself up and cracked the grey-water tank hatch open a hair. Light sliced through the opening into the chamber, almost blinding Dr. Nassiri. In turning away, he caught a glimpse of Alexis, her blond hair dark and plastered to her face, her wide, beautiful eyes staring into his. Her gaze penetrated him more than the sudden blinding light, forcing him to look down and away. And then the moment was gone.
“All clear,” announced Jonah.
He flipped the hatch open and climbed out, followed by a wincing Buzz.
Dr. Nassiri held Alexis by the waist, helping her out of the tank, then climbed out himself. He smelled of a strange mixture of expensive soaps, laundry detergent, and fish. It was decidedly unpleasant, but dealing with it would have to wait. He followed Jonah to the bridge, passing Buzz as the former soldier cleaned his injured face in the galley sink.
Looking at the radar screen, Jonah nodded. The helicopter was heading back to Malta; they’d not succeeded in cutting off the engines despite their efforts.
“We’re receiving broadcast radio telemetry,” said Jonah, squinting at a computer screen. “They’re re-classifying the Conqueror as a hazard to navigation and recomme
nding sea-based interception. We’re in the clear.”
Despite Jonah’s proclamation, Dr. Nassiri felt anything but safe.
CHAPTER 6
His face creased into a deep scowl, Charles Bettencourt stood on the far corner of Anconia Island’s floating jetway with arms crossed as the cold sea air brushed over the tarmac. The imposing oceanic city rose behind him, glittering tower blocks of glass and steel on three massive platforms. His lawyer stood beside him, mimicking his concern with similarly crossed arms.
Then he spotted the helicopters, five Blackhawks coming in low. Still distant, they flew in an attack formation, tight, fast, and on an intercept course with the long jetway. Chaos erupted. Medical personnel popped up gurneys and IV lines, stacked bandages, and checked oxygen lines. Volunteers with medical experience stood out of the way as best they could, rocking from foot to foot with evident tension. Dozens of armed security personnel clustered in small groups, each decked in a collage of armor and weaponry.
Behind him, a single Gulfstream G-4 jet spun up engines to a screaming pitch, forward thrust pushing against orange plastic stop-blocks. The aircraft bucked and vibrated, engines drowning out all other sounds as the assembled personnel covered their ears. It was his, or at least it should be. Today, it would be a medical transport, rushing the wounded to a Level I trauma center in Munich.
Bettencourt didn’t even want to think of what blood would do to the made-to-order Venetian carpeting he’d recently had installed. Perhaps some good would come out of the situation and he’d finally have an excuse to get that Gulfstream G-650 he’d had his eye on.
The five helicopters drew close; he could hear the dull thumping of the rotors slicing through the African air.
“Should we help?” asked his lawyer. “When they come in, I mean. Do you think they’ll need us to unload the wounded? Assist the medical personnel?”
“You’re wearing a $15,000 suit,” snapped Bettencourt. “A suit I bought you.”
One of the helicopters dropped from formation, gradually losing ground and altitude to the other four. Harsh white smoke poured from the engine compartment, trailing behind the machine. The rear tail kicked out like a drift car in a hairpin curve, pulling the airframe into a flat spin. And then it simply dropped out of the sky, nosing down, smoke trailing, violently smacking into the ocean. The blades chopped into the waves, splintering as the engine ground to a halt, leaving the stricken hulk to bob in ocean whitecaps.
Many of the civilians stood frozen, but several of the soldiers leapt into one of the nearby tenders, one of which roared to life and sped towards the stricken airframe. It appeared to Charles that they’d reach it before it sank. Either way, the helicopter was well insured. That would go a long way to mitigate the disaster with the Conglomerate.
The remaining four helicopters approached the jetway, flared, and landed hard. Bettencourt put his hand up to protect his face as dust and debris washed over the collected personnel. An IV bag stand fell to the ground, its bag splitting open, spilling saline solution over the thin layer of asphalt.
The helicopters bore witness to the battle: shattered glass and blood stains, punctured aluminum pockmarked with bullet holes and burn marks. They’d been in a hell of a fight.
Colonel Westmoreland, chief of security operations, stepped from the nearest helicopter and into the chaotic scene. He was a massive man, made all the more massive by his Kevlar/ceramic armor and heavily customized G36 assault rifle.
Bettencourt’s lawyer approached Westmoreland first, ducking under the still-spinning rotor blades.
That’s probably a mistake, Bettencourt thought with a flicker of amusement.
Sure enough, Westmoreland shoved the lawyer with almost enough force to knock him down. The lawyer didn’t wait to see what would happen next and turned tail to sprint away. Westmoreland took off his Kevlar helmet and hurled it at the lawyer, narrowly missing his heels. His closely shaved head matched the starkness of his callous expression.
The men in the tender managed to pull one last soldier from the drowning helicopter before it turned belly-up and slipped beneath the surface, disappearing from view. The tender spun around and buzzed back towards the pier.
Colonel Westmoreland pushed his way past the medical personnel and reached into the lead chopper. The mercenary dragged out his struggling prisoner, a shabbily dressed Somali, hands bound, black hood covering his head.
“He’s captured one!” said the lawyer. “One of the pirates!”
“Not sure why,” mused Bettencourt. “They don’t bargain for their own.”
Ignoring the chaotic scene, Westmoreland dragged the struggling man away from the crowd and towards the side of the pier. Bettencourt followed him, watching as the colonel put the man on his knees at the edge of the pier, whipped off his hood, and placed a 9mm pistol against the back of his head.
“Bad day, Mr. Westmoreland?” Bettencourt asked, approaching him from behind.
Colonel Westmoreland turned to face his boss, shook his head, and turned back. The man at gunpoint wasn’t a man; he was a boy, maybe only fourteen or fifteen. His small frame, clad in filthy, threadbare rags, quaked with fear.
“Hey,” Bettencourt said to the kid. “You speak English?”
The pirate said nothing. Bettencourt slapped him lightly on the side of his face. “English?” he asked again.
“Fuck your mother!” shouted the pirate in a voice nearly an octave higher than expected. Bettencourt chewed down a snicker; the kid sounded like a Brooklyn cabbie who hadn’t been tipped. Not great at making his own case for survival—maybe too young to realize that capture and a bullet to the back of the head meant more than a red splash screen and a re-start from the last save point of his video game. He shook his head at Westmoreland and stepped away from the edge.
The colonel holstered his pistol and yanked the hood back over the boy’s face, ending any further conversation. Behind them, the doctors and volunteers continued the grim task of triaging the wounded; some turning their attention to the mangled, bloody men zipped inside black plastic bags.
Bettencourt put an arm around Colonel Westmoreland’s massive shoulders. It was the sort of consoling gesture he imagined might be appropriate for the occasion.
“What happened out there?”
“Dalmar happened.” Westmoreland practically spat the words. “Dalmar fucking Abdi happened. Come with me, I have something to show you.”
Grabbing the hooded prisoner, Westmoreland stomped off the jetway with Bettencourt and his lawyer following close behind. Bettencourt’s jaw clenched, his deep scowl returning.
Dalmar fucking Abdi indeed.
The free-flowing spigot in Bettencorp’s bottom line, the cocksucking jackal of the high seas. Nobody even knew who the bastard was. One rumor said Dalmar Abdi was the son of Mohammed Farrah Aidid, Somali warlord and illegitimate self-declared president of the country, a man who picked a brutal close-quarters fight that claimed two American helicopters and eighteen servicemen. Supposedly, Dalmar Abdi, all of six years old, rusting Kalashnikov rifle longer than he was tall, lead a company of ten children against an American rescue convoy.
Another said that he was the son of a Mogadishu soft drink magnate, educated in Rome before returning to his homeland as an aid worker. Once discovering the state of the country and the vicious campaign against it by western powers, he rose up, gathered supporters and became the most feared pirate in the region.
It was probably all bullshit. Dalmar Abdi was just another pirate, albeit an exceptionally gifted one. Bettencourt rankled at the fact that he’d made Dalmar rich, not just Somali rich, but coke-off-a-model’s-tits, soccer-franchise, private-island rich. Four years ago, Dalmar and his crew captured a Ukrainian transport loaded with Sovietera tanks and self-propelled artillery, enough firepower to redraw the entire region. It wouldn’t have mattered except for the fact that the transport was under Bettencorps protection and Bettencourt had personally guaranteed safe passage to some notably humorle
ss Russian plutocrats. It wasn’t just a matter of honor that the weaponry be returned. Bettencourt had little interest in waking up one morning staring at the wrong end of a Makarov pistol.
So he’d dug deep and paid. A lot. Low nine figures, to be precise. He was hoping it was enough for Dalmar to reconsider life in Somalia and go retire to some Swiss chalet like so many of the other political figures of the region. Hopefully a place where he could send a trusted asset to personally extract a refund for the ransom.
But then Dalmar did something completely unexpected. He gave it all away, some to the construction of a local hospital, and the rest to the locals themselves through a network of warlords and tribal leaders. Bettencourt realized he’d inadvertently kick-started the creation of one of the larger private militaries in the region, most of whom were volunteers. Abdi recruited from multiple tribes, continued taking ships under Bettencorps protection, and ransoming, stripping, and sinking them. Despite Bettencourt’s hopes, Abdi stayed out of Somalia’s territorial squabbles, content to simply pay off huge swaths of the country. He became the golden goose, a scrappy pirate with no visible manifestation of his staggering wealth and power. Perhaps Abdi knew that you can’t put a self-guided bomb into a man’s mansion if he didn’t have a mansion.
The tide didn’t turn until Bettencorps purchased a fleet of heavily armed helicopter and jet drones, enough firepower to keep the Somali shark at bay. They’d acquired the wealth of armaments from an American Department of Defense grant after a great deal of arm-twisting by a legion of extraordinarily expensive lobbyists. They’d needed an excuse, which Bettencourt was only too happy to provide—fudged satellite and high-aerial surveillance supposedly linking Abdi’s brigands to Al Qaida of Africa. A little bad press, it seemed, was enough to get the big guns.
Colonel Westmoreland scanned his security badge against a massive hangar door built into one of the four main circular steel pylons holding up the largest platform of Anconia Island. The marine equivalent to an underground vault, the doors opened wide to reveal an immaculately clean, white circular room filled with endless rows of humming black computer servers. The colonel led Bettencourt, the lawyer, and the prisoner into Anconia Island’s command and control system.
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