An engine note screamed from the far side as the smaller craft shot away with its prow pointing up at a forty-five-degree angle with the force of the full throttle. Two of them were there, wide-eyed and staring back at us as they hung onto the boat to stop themselves from being rolled out backwards under.
My body switched back on and my eyes narrowed as I took aim and began to stitch the remainder of my magazine into their path. It ran dry and I reloaded without taking my eyes off them to resume firing in bursts as I tried to gauge how much lead to give them. I didn’t know if I had scored any hits on the boat, and I’d never tried to make shots under such difficult conditions as I tried to hit a moving target from a moving target. The boat carried on hard even after the sound of their engines, like a lawnmower on crack, disappeared away into the grey-blue of the Mediterranean Sea.
“Are we good?” Dan yelled.
“Fine,” Mitch replied.
“I’m good,” I shouted, checking my hands for the tremors I expected at any moment from the delayed reaction of the adrenaline.
“Two down,” Dan called.
“One down,” I shouted back, “two escaped.”
“Five tangos accounted for,” Mitch said loudly from the deck of the fishing boat. “Going below. Dan?”
Dan stacked up behind him. Mitch had slung his rifle and drawn his sidearm to activate the small torch mounted underneath the barrel. He held the weapon close to his chest in two hands ready to clear the cramped interior of the boat’s lower deck as Dan drew the shotgun from over his shoulder and slapped Mitch once on the back before they both disappeared out of sight.
I got to my feet, putting one foot on the railing and timing my jump to wrap both hands over the bar that RPG man had slid underneath, to land awkwardly on the higher deck. I looked around, seeing nobody but finding a lot of equipment stacked as though ready to be offloaded.
“Leah,” Dan bawled from below, “medkit. Now.”
I looked back at Mateo, pointing to my bag which he leaned down to grab, steadying himself quickly before tossing it up to me. I caught the strap, stepping back from the edge in fear of slipping and falling into the water between the two boats which now drifted away from each other. Moving into the dark interior as quickly as I could I found the five crew members tied and gagged, being cut free by the others. One of them was badly beaten, eyes swollen shut and blood soaking his shirt from the cuts on his face. I worked on him, calling loudly into his face to try and get a verbal response but none came. His head lolled badly as I laid him down and opened his eyes to look at his pupils. He was out cold.
“Get us back home,” I said to nobody in particular.
Back on deck, as the two boats went hard back towards land, I found Mitch on the stern looking at the body of a man with a bandolier of linked bullets criss-crossing his narrow chest.
“Pirates,” he said.
“What?”
“Pirates. Somalian probably. East African at any rate.”
“But… pirates?” I asked. “As in aargh?”
The Briefing
“Somalia’s government collapsed well over twenty years ago,” Mitch said to us. “Our boys have been out in East Africa since forever, and a lot of that work is classed as humanitarian, but the real reason is because a lot of the European terror attacks can be traced back to the region. The ones that didn’t happen mostly, because they were intercepted, but some of the ones that did, too. When the central regime collapsed there was no navy, and other countries exploited that by fishing their waters and some even started dumping their toxic waste there. It was like there was a vacuum or something and it followed the typical flow; NGOs swooped in under UN guidance and there was an international arms embargo in place to try and stabilise the region.”
He saw my eyebrows asking the question for me and explained that nobody was allowed to sell or give weapons or training to any force in the country.
“It split up into three main territories, all very tribal, and the south was a major problem. Northern Kenya and Southern Somalia had serious issues with Islamic extremism; Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and other smaller groups all linked to ISIS and Al-Quaeda, or what was left of them. You’ve seen Black Hawk Down?”
A few nods ran around our group.
“Mogadishu, although thank God I’ve never been there, is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. At least it was back before. The threat rating was as high as Helmand Province at the height of operations in Afghan. Some of these bastards treated the world like it had ended even when it hadn’t. It was not a place to go to on holiday, put it that way. The fuckers did things like getting kids to blow themselves up in marketplaces to fight the interference of the West, but all they did was kill innocent people.”
He cleared his throat and shifted position.
“Some of the fishermen were attacked or driven off by the foreign boats in their waters, and because there was no government to stop it they started fighting back. At first, I’m told, it was just defending their own livelihoods but it progressed a little faster from there. They started hijacking foreign boats and ransoming the crew and cargo back to the owners. It was seriously big business; I’m talking millions of dollars each capture. There were combined task forces of all different navies out there, usually commanded by us or the Americans.”
“The Horn of Africa cuts off the Gulf of Aden and is basically a gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal,” Dan chimed in. “Busiest shipping lanes in the world and we used to pay millions for our naval ships to pass through. Without protection the piracy was rife and everyone started making money off it. The biggest crooks were the insurance companies who offered the ransom sureties.”
“So,” I asked cautiously knowing that I would probably look stupid for asking, “what’s that got to do with here? We’re miles and miles away from there, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Dan said, “but look how far we’ve travelled over the years. What’s to say that they didn’t survive and have found their way through the Suez and into the Mediterranean?”
I shrugged to accept his point.
“You mean like that Tom Hanks film? Seriously?” Marie asked, a mild look of horrified shock on her face.
“Exactly like that,” Mitch said before frowning and amending his assessment, “probably worse, to be honest…”
“Shit,” she responded as she glanced at Dan, “what do we do?”
“Well they know we’re here, or here abouts,” he said simply. “Two of them out of the five that tried to capture our fishing boat escaped. They operate a little like a colony of bees, sending workers out from the hive to bring stuff back. There will be a kind of mothership most likely, and the smaller boats like the one we saw would go out and capture something. That fits with what our fishing crew said because they were arguing about who got what before they took the boat back. Back to where is the issue.”
“That big boat further out to sea?” I asked.
“Quite likely,” Dan said, “although there won’t be just them.”
“So,” I asked, “what do we do?”
Dan opened his mouth to speak but stopped as Mitch spoke.
“We do nothing,” he said firmly, brokering no further argument. Dan closed his mouth and looked at him, unaccustomed to the man being so forthright.
“We do nothing,” he said again, stabbing a finger into the table, “and we hope they don’t come back.” He let that hang in the room and looked at everyone in turn to make sure he was understood.
Something in his eyes made me believe him because he had lost all trace of the unflappable man I had known for years.
“Increased defences?” Neil asked.
“Absolutely,” Dan said, “we’ve got the fifty cal covering the bay, but I want the guard doubled at least with a standby force ready. One of us will need to head that up at all times.”
“What about night time?” said Neil, his forehead wrinkled in thought.
I was glad that nobody suggested searchli
ghts or anything else similarly daft as to light a beacon signalling our base.
“I can sort something,” Neil said, “leave it with me and I can fix it tomorrow in full daylight.”
We melted away. Dan went with Lucien to inspect the guard post overlooking our seaward vulnerability, but I said I’d catch them up. I didn’t say it was because I wanted to speak to Mitch, which I did, because I preferred to do so alone.
“You okay?” I asked him quietly.
“Aye,” he said unconvincingly, “it’s just that these bastards worry me.”
“Worry you how?”
He sighed, allowing his mask to slip and show me a glimpse of stress and fear.
“I’ve fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a half-dozen other places all over the world. I’ve worked on clean-up operations after earthquakes and hurricanes and major floods, but nowhere, nowhere, has frightened me as much as that place.”
“You’ve come across them before?”
“Not pirates specifically,” he said, “but we got into a contact in northern Kenya back in the day. We were there as a training and outreach kind of thing. You know, mentoring the locals. Their officers had been to Sandhurst, but the men were just recruited because they were able bodies of the right age. Basic training for them was mostly feeding them enough decent food that their legs didn’t break when we started pushing them physically. Half of them were probably connected by family to someone in Al-Shabaab or one of the other groups, because we were always warned not to give any intelligence to them or discuss things within their earshot. Bit hard to get them to trust you and listen to what you’re trying to teach when you’ve had the seed planted in your head that they’re the enemy.
“We’d driven them out to the arse-end of nowhere, dropped them off and marched back with them on a training exercise. I was with the lead group, only eight of us in total including my daft boy of a lieutenant, and as we walked into a settlement the trees just erupted with incoming.”
He bowed his head for a moment, making me stay very still and silent so as not to break the spell of his story.
“There we were; one minute giving it all ‘jambo’ to the kids and handing out a few sweets and pens to make them like us. Hearts and minds and all that stuff. The next the lads were all dropping like flies and screaming. You ever seen someone hit up close by a seven-six-two? What am I saying? Of course you have; you know it’s not pretty. Their boys didn’t know how to react, but my lot hit their belt buckles and found cover. Loads of them went down, including some of the kids from the village who had run up to see us. Now, we were told that we were there to observe and train, not to get involved, but my personal feelings on the matter differed from that of our officer. He was yelling for us to hold our fire, and I was yelling at my lads to flat-pack every last bastard insurgent they could see. Some of the Kenyan lads returned fire and their boss was switched on enough to lead a charge into the bushes.
“The wee boss and I had a falling out about it, no matter how many times I said my ‘with all due respect’ line. He was still prattling on in my ear when we were called forward to find that our attackers were just bairns, just wee boys who should nae been there. Should have been in school or anywhere apart from laying an ambush with a bloody AK-47 as tall as they were. The lieutenant, well”—Mitch gave a morbid chuckle—“he left his breakfast right there in the bush and did nae say a word more about it. I thought I’d never find a place on Earth as bad as Afghanistan, but yeah, Africa scares me. I’ve never encountered such a friendly and welcoming people who live shoulder to shoulder with the most bloodthirsty animals I’ve had the misfortune to meet.”
I took it in, realising why I hadn’t heard that particular story before, and just looked at him. Despite all of his mirth and his uncomplaining nature, Mitch was shaken up by the thought of pirates coming to our door.
“Mitch?” I asked after a while, as something Dan had said played on my mind.
“Aye?”
“Dan said that the AK was the ‘foreskin of Africa’,” I said a little sheepishly despite having tried to figure out the joke, “what does he mean by that?”
Mitch laughed.
“I’ve heard different versions.” He chuckled. “But he means that every last cock in Africa seems to be born with one.”
“Oh!” I said. “What other versions have you heard?”
“I’ll not say the C-word in the company of a lady,” Mitch answered as he stood tall and collected his weapon. I stood up too, rustling the packaging in my left leg pocket.
“You holding out on us?” he exclaimed gleefully. “Have you got sweets you haven’t shared?”
“No,” I said hurriedly, stepping out of his reach as I remembered what I had after the excitement of our return, “it’s lady stuff. Nothing you need.”
The embarrassment tactic worked.
“Oh, I, er,” he stammered, instantly glancing around for the safest route of tactical withdrawal, “carry on then.”
I went back to my room to dump my kit, knowing that Lucien wouldn’t be there and that I’d have time to sort it out before I was expected at the sea wall. I took the two pregnancy tests out of my pocket, looking at the packaging and only recognising them from the pictures I had seen on TV years ago, and stuffed them in between the collection of black tops of different sleeve length and thickness in the drawers. I left my bag and set off towards the sea at a jog.
“…a series of buoys,” Neil was saying as I caught up with them, “the lobster pots would do. Little solar lights on each one and a channel in the middle for our boats to get in and out. As long as someone is watching then any boat trying to slip into the bay would show up against them. They won’t be visible from far out either.”
“That would work,” Dan said, “and a flare gun for if they do try?”
“Yep,” Neil answered, “we have plenty of those from all of the dead boats we’ve cleared.”
“Raise the alarm too,” I said, thinking back to the only time the bell had ever been rung by was by me shooting it to try and get the attention of the others when we were under attack.
Dan nodded his agreement.
“I’ll take tonight,” he said, “someone else take over for the morning and another in the afternoon.”
“I’ll take the morning,” Mitch and I said in unison. He turned to me and explained, “I usually put the baby down in the evening.”
“I’ll take over after lunch then,” I said as I hurriedly tried to change the subject away from babies.
“I’ll sort the militia out into three watches,” Adam said. “It’s an easy job, and I’ll get them all to sleep down by the docks.”
The others left, happy with their plans for the morning until we could fine-tune things, and I remained with Dan who was having a one-way conversation with Ash who was grumbling at him for smoking again.
“We can’t stop the fishing boats going out,” I told him, “we’d starve and have nothing to trade for starters.”
“I know,” he replied darkly, “but we can put a halt on it for a week and hope they pass us by. Maybe they’re heading for America?”
“Who knows,” I said, “but we need a deterrent at least.”
“A deterrent?”
“Like a flamethrower,” I said with evil relish, “or another mounted fifty-cal onboard.”
“That would certainly deter me,” he said.
I got back to my, our, rooms late that night after running through all the ‘actions-on’ for the eventuality of an attack by sea. I was exhausted even before I slid under the sheets because it had been one hell of a long day, and before I blew out the candle beside my bed, I stared at the second drawer down and tried to put the contents out of my mind.
Hurry up and Wait
Bored people were annoying. When you stop fishermen from going out on the sea like they did every day, and combined their inactivity with stress and fear, then people really got on my nerves.
I had offered to take the standby force
, which was in reality just four people with guns ready to run the hundred or so metres to the sea wall if anything came into sight.
Dan and I had debriefed the terrified fishermen taken captive after breakfast, mostly because Kate had done her usual trick of puffing up her chest to signify that she outranked Dan when it came to medical matters and insisted that they be left alone until they had rested. Dan protested, obviously, pointing out that the memory was a fragile thing and that getting the information from them as early as possible was crucial.
He lost, because their health and sanity was of greater importance.
We sat them down individually, being very careful and gentle about it, as Polly helped with the translation. Her laid-back attitude actually made her a good interrogator if she didn’t mind me and Nemesis playing bad cop.
We learned that the pirate crew had come screaming out of the open water towards them, on a direct intercept course, and simply bumped up alongside them much as we had when taking back what was ours. They jumped aboard waving their machine guns and beat the crew into submission with rifle butts and threats of death by numerous methods. Being unaccustomed to violence, the fishing crews just folded as any normal person would do. They went into self-preservation mode, promising to comply just to stop the fear and the pain.
I had to admit that it seemed an effective tactic. Just as Dan and I practiced what he called ‘psychological kah-ra-teh’ when we would both stand in separate fields of view to someone and both took it in turns to speak or shout so that they were totally overwhelmed and didn’t know where to look or point their gun.
We did learn some interesting facts, however. The leader of the raid, apparently the one who had taken my opening shot straight in the chest, went overboard holding the radio he had been speaking into. Nobody recognised the language they used, which went a long way to supporting Mitch’s dark premonitions about their point of origin.
Piracy: The Leah Chronicles (After it Happened Book 8) Page 4