“What are you doing?” Saduq wheezed.
Kealey pushed the barrel of his gun rifle into Saduq’s back. “We’re going up top.”
“Why…I don’t see what reason there is for-”
“Upstairs,” Kealey grunted, prodding him with the rifle. “Come on, let’s go.”
Saduq went into the stairwell and then climbed to the glass-enclosed main cabin, coming up beside the cockpit, where Abby Liu stood with her weapon trained on the captain. At a near standstill in the bay, the Yemaja drifted slightly leeward beneath the partial moon, the glimmer of the harbor lights visible far off behind to port.
“Everything copacetic?” Kealey asked Abby.
She nodded and gave him an inquisitive look. But before she could ask what he intended to do, Kealey had already turned away, shoving Saduq down the length of the cabin toward the entrance at the stern.
“Keep walking,” he said.
The deckhand Brun had shot lay in a fetal position in the main cabin, a wide pool of blood around his dead body. Kealey skirted the dark red puddle as he followed the arms dealer into the open air, then steered him around to the narrow span of deck between the main cabin and the starboard rail. After a second he grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him around so they were facing one another.
“I want you to back toward the rail,” he said. “Do it slowly.”
His eyes on Kealey’s face, Saduq obeyed his orders, taking one step, another…and then coming to an abrupt halt.
Kealey waved his gun. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”
“I’m getting close to the rail.”
“No kidding.” Kealey shrugged. “Go on… Back up some more.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“It depends,” Kealey said. “But if you don’t pay attention, I promise you’re going to end up like your deckhand in the main cabin. This isn’t a bluff.”
Saduq gazed at him in disbelief and resumed edging his way back toward the rail until he was flat up against it. He could go no farther without falling over the side.
“Okay,” Kealey said. “Hold it right there.”
Kealey noted the flicker of relief on Saduq’s face as he realized he was not going overboard…at least not yet. It was precisely the reaction he’d sought from the arms dealer. Let him feel he had a chance, give him a modicum of hope, and he would cling to it however he could.
Kealey took a quick stride forward and shoved the MP9 into Saduq’s chest cavity. “You have balls, I’ll give you that much. But for a deal maker you don’t seem to be a great judge of people.”
Saduq tensed. “What are you talking about?”
“Look into my face,” Kealey said. “And then tell me if you believe I’d think twice about blowing you away. Right here and now.”
Saduq tensed. “How would you explain it to whoever sent you?”
“I wouldn’t,” Kealey said. “I’m not CIA. I’m not anything. Consider me a walking ghost-I can pass through whatever walls I please.” Kealey grinned. “If you and your captain don’t return to shore, the local authorities would be the only ones asking questions. And I’m betting they could be convinced it was pirates.”
Saduq was silent for a long moment. “I cannot believe you would kill me in cold blood. Someone sent you here, and it must have been for a reason…”
“I told you to look at me.” Kealey slugged him hard in his mouth, pushing the rifle into his middle with one hand. “Talk, Saduq. Talk, or I’ll blow your guts out and dump you overboard like a barrel of trash. But I promise it won’t be before I make you feel a whole world of hurt.”
“ Ya Allah, ” Saduq rasped, blood trickling from his mouth. “What do you want?”
“The truth. All of it. Starting with what I asked you down below.” He moved closer-so close Saduq was forced to lean back against the rail’s upper horizontal bar. “That means the name of the man who came aboard with you. And who you were buying those weapons for. And whether your friend still intends to deliver the goods now that he’s made off on a launch with their money.”
Saduq dragged the back of his hand across his lips and chin, glanced down at his red-smeared knuckles. “If I do cooperate with you…I will be a hunted man.”
“Better hunted than dead.”
Saduq stared into his face. “I’m going to need protection.”
Kealey shrugged. “We can worry about that later,” he said. “First let’s hear what you have to tell me.”
Saduq hesitated for another moment before he finally expelled a long, trembling breath.
“The pirate’s name is Nicolas Barre,” he said.
“And?”
“As you’d surmised, the payment he took with him was from Ishmael Mirghani and another man…an American like yourself. I received it at my home in Darfur.”
Something flashed in Kealey’s eyes. “This American,” he said. “Who’s he?”
Saduq hawked up a mat of blood and saliva and spit it onto the deck. “He was introduced to me as White,” he said. “Cullen White.”
Kealey nodded. He was sure his features had revealed none of his satisfaction-or curiosity.
“Okay,” he said. “I think we might be getting somewhere.”
When Kealey was finished with Saduq on the deck, he brought him back down below to a guest cabin and had him locked inside with the Yemaja ’s captain, posting Brun on guard out in the passage.
“How’s the arm?” he asked.
“Still attached,” Brun said with a wan smile.
“Give it to me straight,” Kealey said. He had thought the bullet had hit muscle and passed through cleanly, but wasn’t looking for bravado. “I need to know if you’ll be okay down here for a while.”
Brun looked at him. “I’m fine,” he said. “We packed the wound well enough… There isn’t much bleeding.”
Kealey nodded, went upstairs to the main cabin. Abby Liu was in the cockpit, monitoring the yacht’s basic positional data on its dashboard screens, and he squatted in the aisle beside her.
“How do we stand with the coast guard?” he asked.
She pointed to two numerically coded ship icons on the GPS tracker display. “Those are maritime patrol boats. They’re on standby in case we need them. Thanks to Dirk and Leo, who apparently had quite an adventure after we left.”
Kealey studied the display, grunted. “I got Saduq to open up,” he said.
“I saw,” she said coolly.
He looked at her. “Something wrong?”
“I told you,” she said, nodding her head at the cabin’s wraparound windows. “I saw how you obtained your information. What term shall we give to your interrogative tactics? Coercion? Intimidation? Or prisoner abuse? You see, Kealey, I’m trying to stay away from the word torture because that might be a little too strong.”
Kealey sat quietly for a moment, shrugged. “Use whatever definition you want,” he said. “I don’t see what difference it makes.”
“You threatened to kill Saduq. Would you really have done it?”
“Things never got to where it was something I needed to consider.”
“Which ignores my question.”
“No,” Kealey said. “It’s the most truthful answer I can give you. We don’t have time for proper bows and curtsies. I thought it was something you understood.”
“It was…and is,” she said. “But I don’t have to like watching you work, and don’t know that I’m too proud of my participation.” She stared into his face. “I’m also not sure I know what kind of man Harper sent me.”
More silence. Kealey raised his eyes to hers, held them. “The truth is that I’m not sure, either,” he said. “Let’s leave it alone, okay? Just leave it be and stick to discussing our little assignment.”
She frowned. Then after a second gave him a small, reluctant nod.
“Does the name Barre mean anything to you?” Kealey asked.
“Nicolas Barre?”
“That’s it.”
�
��He’s head of the Hangarihi…the Scorpion gang,” Abby said. “The Somali pirate organizations you hear about are the Marka Group, the Puntland Group, the Somali Marines, and the National Volunteer Coast Guard. But this is based on outdated intelligence. There are more than those four major bands. I’d estimate between seven and a dozen, some with active alliances, others in competition, and all affiliated with one or more warlords. Barre’s group is relatively new, but it’s one of the most sophisticated-a breakaway from the marines, who are known for their military-type chain of command and technology.”
“And their politics?”
“Money and greed,” she said.
Kealey grunted. “According to al-Saduq, he’s going to fulfill his end of their bargain. What’s your take?”
“I’d be surprised if he didn’t.”
“Why? Our bandit’s already made off with his cash. If you’re right, that would make him more trustworthy than Saduq.” Kealey massaged the back of his neck. “Think about it. He brokers the original arms deal between Russia and the Egyptian government, then turns around and arranges for it to be taken by Barre’s men.”
“Quite a spin on what you Americans call regifting, I know,” Abby said. “Still, Hassan al-Saduq has built up considerable international cachet-and deniability, since there’s no firm link between him and Barre’s capture of the shipment.”
“So you’re saying Barre realizes he can’t hide behind a reputation of legitimacy.”
“Or quasi legitimacy, I suppose. He’s an upstart on the scene.”
“And by that logic his goal is what? To prove there can be honor among thieves?”
She shrugged. “It’s good business. The success of this deal would mark Barre as a player on a large regional scale. Especially when word gets around that he could have easily taken his bundle and run.”
“And then resold… regifted…the shipment a third time,” Kealey said.
She nodded.
Kealey was thoughtful a moment. “Saduq insists the details of the arms delivery weren’t worked out. He says it was something they’d meant to discuss aboard the yacht before we rudely interrupted.”
“My turn to ask, then,” Abby said. “Do you believe him?”
Kealey tried to choose his words carefully. He did not want their conversation doubling back to where it had started out. “I think he realized it would be in his best interests to tell me the truth.”
She gave him a glance that said his bit of verbal finesse hadn’t made his methods any easier to tolerate. “Which means there’s going to be direct contact between Saduq and Mirghani.”
“There’ll have to be,” he said. “The delivery needs to happen soon.”
“Is this something else Saduq told you?”
“He didn’t need to,” Kealey said. “Back in Yaounde, you told me the merchandise was initially loaded aboard a Ukrainian ship bound for Egypt and was then meant to be transported into Sudan… Is that accurate?”
“That was our intelligence, yes.”
Kealey looked at her. “Think about the difficulty of it for a minute. Guns and artillery would be one thing-the Egyptians could have piled them aboard a C-One-thirty Hercules or two and airlifted them over the border. But you talked about thirty-odd tanks, a dozen attack birds… They’re too heavy to be flown in without a fleet of air transports bigger than anything Egypt could muster. Unless you’re talking about a whole lot of very conspicuous trips.”
“They would have been moved overland, then,” Abby said. “At least for part of the distance.”
Kealey was nodding in the affirmative. “I guess the easiest way would have been for the ship to pull into Port Sudan via the Red Sea, off-load its cargo, then rail it east to Khartoum. That entire route’s controlled by Omar al-Bashir, so his forces could’ve kept a tight lid on things. You figure from there the tanks and choppers might have been divvied into small groups, warehoused at stopover points, and then slowly integrated into Sudanese army units. The biggest hurdle would have been surveillance by Israeli patrol boats out of Eilat before the ships reached harbor.” He paused. “Israel wouldn’t inter-cede unless the consignment got it really edgy-but it would have damn well made sure intel satellites were keeping tabs on its composition and movement from the docks.”
Abby considered that. “The fact is, Kealey, all of this has become moot, hasn’t it? The shipment never made it to Egypt. And if it’s going to Mirghani’s opposition forces, there’s the double obstacle of needing to slip it past Bashir’s security. Even if the Scorpion band made a transfer along their water route and moved the materiel from the Ukrainian vessel to some rusty barge or barges, no amount of bribes could have gotten it past Bashir’s harbor agents in Port Sudan. They simply wouldn’t bring it that far north.”
“That’s right,” he said. “But any way you cut it, a haul of this magnitude would be tough to keep under wraps. It’s what I meant about the delivery needing to get done before too long. The seizure took place in the Gulf of Aden, down near Yemen. I think we need to be looking at the quickest and likeliest routes into Sudan from there.”
Abby reached for her sat phone and keyed up a map. “So what do you think? If the merchandise is coming in from the south, does it travel up by land from Ethiopia or Eritrea?”
“Eritrea would be my pick,” Kealey said. “It’s actually just right. The bribes are cheaper and tracking the shipment’s harder. You can barge the merch to Massawa, then probably rail or truck it west to the border on the old nomad trails, where the outposts are lightly manned…except maybe at Kassala.” He thought for a moment. “The territorial line with Eritrea runs, what, something like two hundred kilometers?”
“Closer to three,” Abby said, studying the map.
“That’s a lot of barren terrain unless you’re an archeologist,” Kealey said. “And if you do get noticed, there are going to be fewer hands held out.”
Abby tapped a key to zoom in on Sudan. “The railway at Kassala has stops to the southwest in Shobak and Gederef. It runs from coast to coast, with spurs into South Darfur, and north into Port Sudan, Khartoum, and Egypt.”
“In other words it can take you almost anywhere in the country.”
She was nodding. “Did Saduq have any idea where the munitions are being brought? Or what they’re to be used for?”
“I don’t think he knows or wants to know,” Kealey said, shaking his head. “I suppose I could push him harder to be positive. But I wouldn’t want to make you upset at me again.”
Abby did not look amused. “What’s next? If we can’t learn the shipment’s destination, the best we can do is try and have it interdicted while it’s being smuggled over the border into Sudan-”
“No,” Kealey said. “You’re wrong.”
“How is that?”
“We can find out where the arms are headed from Ishmael Mirghani. We need to find out. Because that’s the first step toward finding out his objective.”
“Kealey…how do you plan to go about that?”
He adjusted himself in the aisle, still crouching beside Abby. “Saduq told me two men brought him the cash for tonight’s handoff. They flew it from Khartoum to his home in Darfur. One of them was Mirghani. The other was an American named Cullen White.”
She gave him a perceptive look. “You sound like you know a bit about him.”
“I can give you the full lowdown later,” Kealey said. “The important thing for you to know now is that he’s an operator. Former CIA, smart, and connected.”
“Connected to whom?”
“Long story…and like I told you, it can wait,” Kealey said. “You’ve been at this game awhile, Abby. It was you who gave John Harper the dossier on Simon Nusairi…aka David Khadir. You know as well as I do that it’s always about following the money. And White having brought it to Saduq is big.”
“It tells us he’s bankrolling Mirghani,” she agreed. “Or that whoever’s behind him is doing it, since he doesn’t sound like the sort who’d have that
kind of funding in his piggy bank.”
Kealey nodded, his brow creased in thought. “Here’s what we need to consider right now. Barre is going to tell Mirghani we’ve got Saduq…that’s if he hasn’t already…and then Mirghani will relay the news to White. But for all he knows, this was strictly an antipiracy raid, and our interest was on the shipment and the people who stole it. He might wonder if it goes beyond that, but there’ll be no proof, nothing concrete. He’ll be on the alert, though. And he’ll pass the word about what happened along to his backer.”
“Do you think that will stop whatever they plan to do with the armaments?”
“No,” Kealey said. “My guess would be the exact opposite. If anything, their plans could be stepped up. They’re in too deep to quit based on White’s suspicions. Because they don’t know who we are, won’t know I’m involved, won’t know the scope of our operation…”
Abby held up her hand to interrupt him. “Before you get too far ahead of yourself, you might want to consider that I don’t know its scope, either-or my role in it going forward,” she said. “Yes, I shared some information about Khadir with John Harper. But if your Mr. White’s connections are the sort I think they might be…Interpol will not become involved in an investigation of your internal government affairs. Particularly, if I may be frank, if it leads to its highest offices-”
Kealey was shaking his head, his features suddenly darkening. “What if it isn’t really that complicated?” he said. “If it leads back to a massacre at a refugee camp in Darfur six months ago, and an innocent young woman that somebody had raped, beaten, and murdered so they could dangle her dead body in front of someone like bait on a hook? What if I told you that’s the only reason I’m involved?”
Abby stared at him for a long minute, her expression bordering on astonishment, looking completely taken off guard by the intensity in his eyes, the emphatic emotion in his voice. She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it, at a loss for words. Finally she seemed to distill all the questions inside her to a single brief, almost preposterously bland sentence.
“What do you intend to do next?” she said.
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