Chasing the Storm (23 page)

“Thirty seconds is not a very long time.”

“
Faen ta deg din kødd
!”

“Okay, okay.” Faisal grinned at Lena. “When he starts swearing in Norwegian, you know you must obey. Okay, Torgrim, listen to this. I had Yannis ask around – anything to do with Russia, Israel, Iran, you know. And he turned up something. He says there is a Russian chap – quiet, professional, diplomat-type – who came into town two days ago. Now, most of the diplomats, they come to Larnaca to … they like to have a good time. There are nice ladies, nice restaurants. But this chap doesn’t go out at night, he doesn’t pay any attention to the pretty ladies in the lounge. Okay, fine, he’s a straight player. What’s he doing? Yannis made some calls. You know what he is? He’s logistics.” Faisal nodded slowly. “Logistics,” he said again, meaningfully.

“Logistics? I don’t get you,” Rygg said.

“He’s doing prep work for a delegation. Hotel reservations, vehicle reservations, translators – Russian-English, Russian-Greek. Very, very thorough, no expenses barred, but also very discreet. No names, no nationalities, no passport numbers.”

“How many?” Marin asked.

“Looks like about nine.”

“There are at least twenty-one on board the
Alpensturm
.”

“So maybe just the hijackers? Or just the crew?”

“Why wouldn’t the crew stay on board?”

“Just the hijackers?”

“A Russsian diplomat making a nest for Israeli hijackers?”

“I know, I know.” Faisal rubbed his fat fingertips together. “But here’s the other thing. Remember the airport?”

Marin nodded.

“He was there, too. The cargo area is being cleared.”

“What are they bringing in?”

“Get this: An-124.”

“Oh my God!” said Marin.

“Oh my God is right,” Faisal beamed.

“What is An-124?” Lena asked.

“Russian cargo plane,” Marin told her.

“So when is all this happening?” Rygg asked Faisal.

“Two nights from now.”

“Mr. Faisal.” Marin leaned forward. There was an urgent note in his voice that Rygg hadn’t heard before, even during the Moscow run. “Listen. We have to be there before they arrive. We
have
to.”

“But you promised me. My villa is being prepared.” He looked mournful and his chins quivered.

“It’s really life or death, Mr. Faisal. And not just my life. We’re talking the lives of thousands here. Possibly Egyptians. If Iran gets the bomb, anything is likely. We
must
be on Cyprus by tomorrow evening.”

“Well, if you absolutely …”

“We do.”

“I have a friend who has helped me out from time to time. Girgis is his name. But it’s not a safe option. I am worried about you.”

“We’ll take any chance.”

Faisal shrugged. “It’s your life,” he said. Then he leaned across the table. Rygg thought he was going to grab Marin’s shirt front, but he pointed past his shoulder and into the bay, where a hundred or so boats bobbed. “That is your boat,” he said. “With the stripe.”

“The one with the sail?” Lena said delightedly, but he shook his head.

“Beside that one. To the left. It has the painting of an eye on the front.”

Rygg looked dubious. “It’s awfully small,” he said.

“True. But it is the only option I can think of. If it does not sink – and that is a very strong
if
– tomorrow afternoon you will be on Cyprus.”

“It looks fine, Mr. Faisal,” Marin said. “It looks fine. Thank you very much. And money is not a problem, you know.”

“If you mention money again,” Faisal said equably, “I will destroy your face.” Needless to say, no one ever mentioned money again.

After their Yachting Club luncheon, which ended pleasantly with coffee and a couple water pipes, Faisal led them slowly around the club and across a filthy strip of beach where yachts were being built – mostly for wealthy Gulf clients, Faisal informed them. At the waterline, he ushered them onto a long wooden dock along which men sat fishing. When they reached the end, he called to a couple boys who were diving off the prow of a fishing boat.

“
Aandi shugul l’Girgis
,” he told them, and they immediately flicked into the sea. Arms flashing, they wove their way through the prows and painters and buoys. After a while, they heard them banging on the side of a boat and shouting: “
Girgis! Ya Girgis
!”

About five minutes later, they heard a tinny putt-putt and saw the boat slowly nosing its way toward them, one of the boys pushing the prows of the fishing boats out of the way with a rubber-tipped stake. The boat pulled alongside the dock. It looked far too small – like a large rowboat with a motor. There was a makeshift awning of palm stems and plastic bags over half the boat, and a fishing net lay tangled in the bilge-water under the benches.

Girgis tossed the painter to Faisal, cut the motor, and stepped onto the wet boards of the dock. He grinned at the company gathered there. Rygg tried to summon a reciprocal smile, but it withered on his lips. Most of Girgis’s teeth were missing. Those that remained were little rust-brown pebbles. His right arm had been broken at some point and had clearly been left to heal on its own: it was bent almost backward, the elbow turned outward and the forearm deeply dented above the wrist. Three of the fingers were missing. Despite the horror of the man’s appearance, Faisal embraced him. He seized his head with both his flabby palms and whispered something in his ear, then took an envelope from his jacket and shoved it into Girgis’s belt. Girgis just nodded, but his grin grew wider, displaying even more rotten teeth. He gestured to the boat with his left hand.

“Well, here we go,” Rygg said. “Are you ready, Lena?”

“No,” she said.

“You will be fine,” Faisal told her. “Girgis is very experienced.”

They said goodbye to Faisal, and then Marin extended a hand to Lena and helped her onto the boat.

There was barely room for all five of them on the boat. Rygg took the front bench, a little triangle wedged into the prow of the ship. The gunwales squeezed his ass. Lena and Marin sat together on the middle bench, and Sasha sat under the awning, close to Girgis.

Girgis was fiddling with the motor. It had no casing, and looked as if it had been roughly wired together from pieces of other motors. He fished a bent spoon from beneath his bench and shoved it into the innards of the motor, turning it this way and that. Then he reached under the bench again and brought out a rock and bashed the motor on the side.

“I like his tools,” Rygg said. “I wonder where he shops for those.” He chuckled at his joke; however, no others did. They were clearly nervous about the condition of their vessel.

Marin was looking around the boat. He peered under the benches, and parted Rygg’s legs so he could look into the little triangular area at the front of the boat. He looked up at Faisal. “Where’s the water?” he asked.

Faisal turned to Girgis and said something. Girgis replied with a shrug.

“It’s a short trip,” Faisal said. “Just twenty hours. You don’t need water, I think.”

“Sorry,” Marin said. “We cannot leave without water and food.”

Faisal hesitated, then nodded. “One moment,” he said. He brought out his phone and made a brief call. He’d just stuck the phone back into his pocket when the motor shuddered into life. It popped and fizzed, releasing fat gouts of black smoke. Girgis waved at Faisal and gunned the motor, but Marin leapt up and grabbed his arm. Girgis released his hold on the throttle. The motor idled, spitting and hiccupping, jostling the boat.

In five minutes or so, a waiter from the Yachting Club trotted over with four plastic bags. Three were filled with plastic water bottles. The other contained a pile of pita bread and a number of little plastic containers. Faisal handed them to Marin, who stashed them under his bench. He gave a thumbs-up to Girgis, who gunned the engine, swung the boat around, and they were off.

Chapter 20

The Boat

It took them
a few minutes to negotiate their way out of the harbor, past ocean-going yachts and rickety fishing dories and tiny catboats and rowboats. On Girgis’s orders, Rygg wielded the rubber-tipped prod, directing the boat under painters and between hulls. But at last they were moving past the Qait Bey fort, through the arms of the breakwater, and into the open sea. Turning back, they could still see the rotund figure of Faisal waving at them from the dock.

The water of the bay had been relatively smooth, but as soon as they eased beyond the breakwater, the waves grew higher, and the little boat rocked and danced. They gripped the gunwales. The waves were coming at an angle, and every time the boat crossed one of them, a salt splash wet their shirts.

Rygg looked down at his bandaged finger, fearing that the wound would really sting and take a turn for the worse if it got all wet. They adjusted one of the plastic bags filled with water and wrapped it around his bandaged finger, protecting it from the elements.

“It will be a long voyage,” Marin said. “But we will take turns to sit in the cabin.”

“By ‘cabin’, Marko, are you referring to those plastic bags over Sasha’s head?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Good. I’m looking forward to it. Hey Sasha, how is it in the cabin? Don’t get too comfortable in there – I’m taking a turn after a while.”

But Sasha just looked at Rygg grimly. His face was a grayish green, his eyes were sunken, and he was gripping the bench so hard his knuckles were white.

“Are you okay there, Sasha?” Rygg called again, but there was no response.

Marin turned around and looked at Sasha for a moment. He said something to him in Russian, and Sasha nodded. He moved over to the side. The boat tipped slightly, and Marin immediately scooted to the opposite side to compensate. A moment later, Sasha lifted the lower edge of a plastic bag, stuck his face out over the side of the boat, and vomited copiously. Rygg watched the remains of the fish feast join the wake. “Sorry about it, man,” he said. After a while, Sasha pulled his head back in. Lena reached into her handbag and pulled out a pack of tissues and passed them over. He cleaned his face off, then swished some water from one of the bottles around in his mouth, likely hoping he could alleviate the bitter taste of vomit. His face was still mottled green and white. He buried it in his knees.

It was extraordinary how quickly the Egyptian coast receded. Central Alexandria, with its line of waterfront hotels, was soon just a little jagged scrawl at the edge of the horizon. The city sprawled a long way, expanding out to both the left and right.

The first few hours, after they got used to the rocking, were not intolerable. They were wet through, but that kept them cool. The sun set to their left, turning the sea into a landscape of scalloped gold.

“Oh! Look! Look!” cried Lena, pointing ahead of the boat. Like huge bees, a shoal of fish leapt out of the waves and skimmed through the gold air, then plunged with little rips back into the water.

They were now out of sight of any land, just a scraping of human flesh tickling the surface of the sea. “How does he know where he’s going?” Lena asked.

“I’m not sure.” Rygg turned to Girgis and said something in Arabic. Girgis pointed to the sun, which was now just a bright dollop on the western horizon.

“And when the sun goes down?” Lena pressed.

“The stars, I suppose.”

“But what of these?” Lena said. She gestured to the southern horizon, where a froth of dark clouds was building.

“I don’t know,” Rygg said. “We will find out. Is anyone hungry?”

Sasha raised his head from his knees long enough to shake it. He still looked terrible. Lena passed as well, but Marin took a couple pitas and a plastic container from Rygg. The container was filled with rich, creamy hummus. They ate as night fell. Every once in a while the clouds flickered, like an old black-and-white movie, and he could see that they were bubbling higher. Within an hour, they had covered a third of the sky, and they could see the thorns of lightning shuddering within them. Thunder muttered over the racket of the outboard. And then, with a sudden rush, the first drops of rain hit them, rattling on the plastic bags. Soon they were in the middle of the storm. A couple hundred yards away, a gigantic column of fire, so bright it turned the boat white, roared into the sea. The water hissed and bubbled, and they could see the cloud of steam bursting up. Lena screamed, and screamed again.

“
Helvette
!” Rygg shouted. “That was pretty close.”

“If we’re hit, we won’t know anything,” Marin shouted back. “So don’t worry.”

“I like your attitude, Marko.”

The wind blew up and the waves grew higher, so it seemed that they were climbing mountains, tipping over the peaks and rushing down the far sides. A huge wave curled over the side and for a second it looked as though they were going to go under, but the boat somehow righted itself. Their shoes were entirely covered in water.

Girgis was shouting something. He leaned forward and banged Marin on the back with an object. Marin took it and handed it forward to Rygg. It was a plastic detergent jug that had a section sliced out of the top. “Move the water,” he said.

So Rygg set to work bailing with the jug, scooping and tipping the water over the side as fast as he could. It wasn’t a labor that seemed likely to end anytime soon as waves kept pouring over the gunwales, but he thought he might be keeping the level down around his ankles. Between the roars of the thunder, Lena shrieked and Sasha groaned.

And then, as abruptly as it had begun, the storm was over. The clouds passed northwards, bristling with lightning. They could see the long jagged stems of light stabbing into the water. If they hadn’t been so cold and exhausted, they would have found the sight exhilarating. The sky cleared, revealing a vast spread of stars as if the storm had rinsed the air. The Milky Way was like a spatter of whitewash overhead. Rygg kept bailing until the bilge-water was below the tops of his shoes. Then he took off his shirt and wrung it out. He was shivering.

“
Allah, allah
!” Girgis was saying repeatedly. He sounded shaken.

“The cabin is gone,” said Sasha, his voice tremulous.

Rygg peered down the length of the boat. Sure enough, the wind had ripped off all the plastic bags and clawed apart the basketwork of palm stems. “Well, at least that’s over,” he said. “Should be smooth sailing from now on.” But he spoke too soon. A minute later, there was a small munching noise and the motor clattered into silence.

“That wasn’t what I think it was, was it?” asked Rygg. He said something to Girgis, who just made snuffling noises. It sounded as though he was crying. Marin clambered back to Girgis. There was the sound of a palm smacking flesh, and Girgis gave an exclamation. Then there was a little pop and the far corner of the boat was illuminated by the glow of a flashlight Marin held.

“Torgrim, come back here please,” Marin said. Rygg maneuvered his way down the center of the boat, using Lena’s and Sasha’s shoulders as handholds, and crouched beside Marin. Marin handed him the flashlight. It was about as long and thick as his forefinger, clad in rubber, and gave off a surprisingly strong light.

“The engine has broken,” Marin said. “Please hold the torch while I examine it.”

“Have you worked with outboards before?” Rygg asked.

“I used to have a motorcycle when I was a teenager. The engines are similar.”

Sitting to one side, Marin fingered the innards. He had Rygg relay a couple questions to Girgis, but he was moaning with his face in his hands and just shook his head. Marin took a light multi-tool from his pocket, opened the Philips screwdriver, and loosened a plate. He peered behind it. “More light in here, please,” he said, and Rygg angled the flashlight downward. Using Girgis’s bent spoon, Marin plucked forth various wires and tubes. He ran his fingers along several. Finally, he gave a short exclamation: “Ah!”

“You found something?” Rygg asked him.

“I think so. I believe the tube to the fuel pump has a crack. We will need to fix it.” He fumbled around some more in the motor. Then he sat back. “What kind of underwear do you use, Torgrim?” he asked.

“Well, Marko, this could put a strain on our relationship, but I guess I’ll let the secret out. I wear boxer shorts. What about you?”

“Could I see them?”

“Marko …”

“Just the tops.”

“He’s cracked up. Lena, the captain’s lost it here. You’re in charge.”

“Torgrim, please,” Marin said. “I
must
see your underwear.”

“Well, okay, if you insist.” Rygg tugged up the elastic of his boxers and pointed the flashlight at them.

“No good,” said Marin.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rygg said.

“Lena, show me your underwear,” Marin said, ignoring him.

“Of course, Marko. Any time you like.” And she undid the button of her jeans and parted the cloth. Delighted, Rygg shone the flashlight onto her. Marin leaned over and peered.

“Very nice,” he said.

“Marko, thank you.”

He climbed across the benches. With the scissors on his multi-tool, he made a slit in the elastic, then ripped it off entirely, passing his hand around her back. “Marko!” Lena exclaimed. “Why you never do this at home?”

Holding the strip of elastic, Marin returned to the motor. He pulled away the cloth, then bound the rubber around the fuel pump tube, overlapping it several times before knotting it.

“Sasha!” he barked.

Rygg swiveled the flashlight. Sasha raised his head and looked at him.

“Sasha, you have gum?”

Bleary-eyed, Sasha nodded.

“Sasha always have gum,” Marin confided to Rygg. “How many pieces?”

Sasha pulled a packet from the pocket of his stonewashed jeans and stuck a finger into it.

“Three.”

“Eat them all.”

So Sasha obediently chewed the gum while Marin fiddled with the motor some more. After a couple minutes he stuck out his hand. “Gum!” he ordered, and Sasha spat the gum into his palm. Marin kneaded it, then stretched it into a pancake and tamped it around the elastic on the tube. He fitted the tube into place once more, screwed on the plate, and tapped Girgis’s knee.

Muttering, Girgis, tugged on the cord. It took fourteen tugs, and a couple bangs with the rock, but finally the motor sputtered into life.

“
Alhamdulillah
!” Girgis yelled, and Rygg and Lena shouted along with him. Girgis turned the boat about, and they set off once more through the waves.