The Janson Option (14 page)

7°59' N, 49°50' E
Eyl, Somalia

P
aul Janson heard the attacking helicopter when they were a mile from
Tarantula.
It sounded like a Defender 500, a lightweight AH-6 observation craft, and he assumed it belonged to an EU patrol ship. Although, being hugely less expensive than a Black Hawk, the Defender was a machine that smaller armies like Kenya's, Uganda's, and Ethiopia's retrofitted with weapons. When it opened fire, he saw that he and Kincaid had caught a very lucky break.

Wherever it had come from—laying down incendiaries with the angry buzz of a M134 six-barrel minigun—Maxammed's beach base was in flames, which provided an excellent distraction. Angry pirates multiplied the mayhem, shooting up the sky with AK thunder and muzzle flashes, deafening and blinding themselves in the process.

Kincaid cruised the hydrofoil back and forth until the pirates ran out of energy or ammunition and the shooting died down. Then she drove straight at
Tarantula.
The frigate hull raked a warship's silhouette against the fire, and Janson thought it almost looked as if the yacht had bombarded the beach, softening it up for an old-fashioned Marine landing. He tapped Kincaid's shoulder and pointed at the yacht's stern, where, by the green glow of his Panoramic, he saw that the pirates had rigged a ladder for boarding from their skiffs. With all the boats burned, the ladder offered an easy route aboard.

M
AXAMMED STORMED
in from the open bridge wing, into the red light. His eyes were bulging, his face a mask bloated by rage and disbelief. “They're crazy!” he yelled at Allegra. “Why are they attacking my boats? Don't they know I can kill all of you?”

Allegra said, “They don't care.”

“What? What do you mean?” He grabbed her arm and jerked her close to his face. “How do you know that?”

He was twice her size, too big to pull away from. “I don't know. I'm only saying, based on what just happened, they don't act as if they are worried about us.”

“But that's not right.”

Allegra laughed. She did not mean to provoke him, but she could not help herself. Maybe, she thought giddily, it was a sudden release of the tension from the noise of the shooting—all that shooting and still unhurt. But a pirate murderer wailing that burning his boats was not fair was so absurd that there was nothing to do but laugh out loud.

“You think it's funny?”

Slowly, Maxammed lifted his rifle above his shoulder. Allegra saw it graze the ceiling tiles, glowing red, and she realized he was going to hit her face with it and she could not move quickly enough to escape the blow.

“Maxammed!”

Farole, Maxammed's skinny assistant, rushed in shouting frantically. “A boat!”

“The boats are burned.”

“It came while we were shooting. From the town. It's Home Boy!”

“Here?”

“He's taking the Sikorsky!”

Maxammed ran, trailed by Farole, down a deck and halfway back toward where the bigger helicopter, the beautiful Sikorsky S-76D, was lashed to the midships helipad. Home Boy Gutaale was swaggering about, hands on his hips, eyeing it covetously. Two men who Maxammed feared were pilots were directing Gutaale's bodyguards in the unfastening of the tie-downs. The fighters stopped what they were doing to aim rifles at him.

Maxammed was not surprised that Home Boy was trying to steal his helicopter. Thieving clansmen of Gutaale had sneaked aboard the first day to strip the hostages of their iPhones and laptops. His men stopping them had almost led to gunfire.

“Gutaale. What do you want here?”

Home Boy Gutaale gave him the look he always gave him, a contemptuous look that said,
You, Maxammed, are born of lowly fishermen from the insignificant coast. I, Gutaale, am born of herdsmen with great flocks. My clan is rich and strong. We spawn kings. Your clan is small and poor; the best you can spawn is your weak and ineffective Raage “delayed-at-birth” President Mohamed Adam.

“Want?” Gutaale echoed. “I want this helicopter, for starters. This is the last time I will drive three days on ass-breaking camel tracks for the pleasure of visiting Puntland.”

“But you said we should have no contact until the ransom was paid.”

“I meant no contact until I wanted contact.”

“But you still refuse to ask for the ransom.”

“We will ask for ransom, in time. Be patient.”

“No. It's taking too long,” Maxammed protested. “We agreed we would demand the ransom the moment I got the yacht to Eyl. I got the yacht to Eyl and now I am a sitting duck for the Combined Forces.
What are we waiting for?
”

“Now, my friend. My brother. You remember how suddenly, out of nowhere, I discovered the opportunity to catch this yacht. Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“I told you we had to move quickly.”

“I did move quickly. I moved like lightning to catch this yacht.”

“But mere catching is only the beginning. These things take time.”

“This is not the first yacht I've taken!” Maxammed shouted. “It does not take time to pick up a cell phone and demand ransom.”

“But who to telephone? Who will pay the most?”

“You are stalling.”

“Why would I stall? Do you think I don't want my share?”

“I don't know why. But you are stalling.”

“Is the woman still alive?”

“Of course the woman is alive,” said Maxammed, wondering, How big a fool do you think I am? Without Allegra Helms to hold off Combined Forces attacks, I am a dead man.

“‘Of course'?” Home Boy echoed mockingly. “Three hostages have already died. You only have four left. The old man. The couple. And the woman.”

“Four is plenty.”

“The woman is the richest. She had better stay alive.”

“If you're so worried about her,” Maxammed shot back bitterly, “why aren't you taking her with you in my helicopter?”

“Me?”
Home Boy Gutaale laughed at Maxammed. “How would it look for the George Washington of Soomaaliweyn to be a kidnapper holding innocent women for ransom? The world would think I am a lowly pirate, and think Greater Somalia less great for it.”

His fighters laughed with him, smirking at Maxammed and Farole, daring them to try something.

Maxammed looked to the beach, where the embers of his boats were still glowing. It suddenly dawned on him how far Gutaale had gone in order to steal his helicopter. “You told the Maritime Force to attack my boats.”

“Why would I do such a thing?” Gutaale asked innocently.

“With my fighters stranded on the beach, how could I stop you from taking my helicopter?”

“I did not order any attacks on your boats,” said Gutaale. With another laugh, he added, “It would have been a good idea, actually—strand your fighters, reduce the likelihood of a violent misunderstanding where hostages might be killed in a cross fire…”

“Such a good idea that you did it.”

“Do you seriously believe that I would drive from Mogadishu to this godforsaken coast for one helicopter? I happen to be on other business, more important business. If Bashir is gone, you can't expect me to rely on you as my only pirate in Puntland. What if you were to suffer an accident—fall overboard or something—then where would I be?”

“Bashir is gone,
Inshallah
.”

“
Inshallah
?
What do you mean,
Inshallah
? It is not up to the will of Allah. It already happened. You killed Bashir.”

Surely, thought Maxammed, Home Boy Gutaale would not journey all the way to Puntland to find out if I killed Bashir. Or would he?

“I did not kill Bashir. I might have considered it, but I did not do it.”

“Then who killed him?” Home Boy demanded.

“The Italian beat me to it.”

“The Italian? I do not believe you, Maxammed.”

“It's what I hear. What do you hear?”

Gutaale's grin seemed a little less superior. The mocking expression slid from his face and he looked troubled. Even afraid. Troubled? Or afraid? Or acting? Maxammed wondered.

“What do I hear? Here is what I hear: No matter how deadly, no matter how treacherous, no one man could possibly engineer all the betrayals that are blamed on the Italian. The Italian is a figment of imagination. A convenient figment. There is no Italian. I'm surprised that a man as smart as you say you are would fall for such a story.”

Maxammed shrugged. His own fighters were coming up behind him, as heavily armed as Gutaale's, evening the odds. Boldly he said, “You don't care who killed Bashir. You came here only to steal my helicopter.”

Home Boy Gutaale was glad to switch the argument back to the helicopter. Bashir was treacherous ground, ransom even more so. “You don't need a helicopter. Where would you find a helicopter pilot to fly it out here in your seawater bush?”

“When they pay the ransom, I will have plenty of pilots.”

“Maxammed,” Gutaale cajoled, “our ultimate goal is similar, is it not? Why—”

Gutaale's bodyguard hushed him with an urgent gesture.

The man pressed a finger to his lips and pointed down, over the side, with his assault rifle. Maxammed, Farole, Gutaale, and their fighters edged to the gunnel to look at the water. Maxammed sensed the outline of a small dark boat, darker than the sea, creeping silently alongside the yacht. It stopped directly under the bridge.

“Yours?” whispered Gutaale.

Maxammed's emphatic “No” was punctuated by the muffled
thunk
of a rubber-coated grappling hook.

A
LLEGRA WAITED FOR
Maxammed's return, trying not to think what he would do to her. He had almost smashed her face with his gun. Would he cool down before he came back from wherever Farole had taken him? Would he return even angrier than he had left? All she knew, and it was no better than knowing nothing, was that her fate depended on what Farole had shouted in Somali that had made Maxammed run so fast.

A deep silence had settled over the bridge. She realized that for the time since the yacht had been taken, she was unguarded. The few pirates shooting outside had vanished. Maxammed and Farole were nowhere to be seen.

She looked around in the dim light. The old man and Hank and Susan were curled up in a corner—under the chart table—drifting into sleep. She was still in the middle, near the helmsman. She looked toward the door to the stairs that led down the side of the ship to the main deck and wondered if she had the courage to dive overboard and try to swim to shore like Monique. Would there be sharks at night? And if by a miracle she wasn't killed by the sharks, what would she find on the beach? Angry men looking for someone to blame for destroying their boats. But how could it get better if she stayed there on the yacht?

While she debated, her eyes kept drifting to that door to the stairs and freedom, as temporary as it would be. Suddenly, she thought she saw something move through the door. It was as if she had conjured a hallucination floating in the dark. At first it hovered just outside the red instrument glow. Then it moved closer and where she sensed a floating apparition, a figure appeared—a slight figure all in black and behind it, another, much larger.

They stepped into the glow of the red light.

Allegra's heart soared.

Commandos
.

Soldiers in black. From their boots to their balaclava face masks, only their slitted eyes reflected any light at all. Commandos coming to rescue her, one big man, one small.

They saw her.

Silently, urgently, they gestured for her to lie flat on the deck.

She did as they signaled, pressing her cheek to the filthy wood, which had been so clean and polished before the pirates. Watching them, with every nerve alert, she saw, suddenly, a third figure pop up behind them.

She recognized the tall, broad-shouldered silhouette of Maxammed. The pirate had laid a trap.

English failed her in her horror and up from her breast exploded,
“Attento!”

The commandos whirled.

Hours, years, decades too late.

Maxammed's gun was already flashing, thundering. Behind him, more pirates were shooting. Bullets tore into the commandos and threw them across the bridge. They crashed against the shattered windows. Their bodies slid to the deck. And still the guns fired.

G
o!”
Paul Janson double tsked into his lip mike the instant that muzzle flashes lit up
Tarantula
's bridge.

Whatever had triggered an enormous firefight, Janson could only guess. A dozen guns at least were going at it, hammering bulkheads and shattering glass. He guessed that the pirates were fighting one another, so dismayed by the attack on the beach that they were shooting it out in an eruption of a week of stress and old animosities. Whether Allegra Helms and the other hostages had survived such gunfire, or desperately needed medics, could not be known until they boarded the ship.

But the light-and-racket show gave them welcome cover as Kincaid drove the scooter silently toward the low, dark loom of the stern. Janson watched for guards and lookouts.
Tarantula
's engines were stopped; she was adrift. He spotted rope ladders hanging straight down into the water. But no guard. The entire back of the ship was deserted, as if every man aboard had grabbed his gun and run to the bridge.

There was a sudden lull in the shooting.

In the silent aftermath, Janson heard a diesel engine. Raking the surrounding sea with his night goggles, he saw the silhouette of a fishing trawler churning a big wake. It was racing away from the yacht, lights out, engine straining for speed. Frightened fishermen? A supply boat? The pirates' enemies? Maybe the pirates
weren't
fighting one another. Maybe the trawler had delivered rival pirates who busted in on their prize. No way to know, but the trawler was leaving as fast as a clapped-out diesel could push it. And no way to know if it had taken its fighters with it or left them on the yacht.

Janson tapped Kincaid's shoulder. She stopped the scooter and they stepped off into the warm water and breaststroked, heads high, a hundred yards to the back of the yacht and up the ladders. Janson took the lead, sweeping the boat launch bay with his silenced MTAR, climbing in and up to the main deck. Kincaid followed six paces back, covering.

The shooting started up again.

Janson and Kincaid broke into a dead run. The decks ahead glowed green and empty in their Panoramics. Then, within sight of the steering bridge, high against the murky sky, they saw hot spots moving, indicating living flesh. A dozen people, at least. How many hostages? How many gunmen?

The gunfire petered out raggedly.

I
N THE SILENCE
that followed the shooting, Allegra Helms could hear the gunmen gasping for breath, as if they had run marathons. None of them moved. Those who had been shooting from the hip stood frozen, with rifles clutched to their sides. Those aiming carefully pressed them to their shoulders. Then Maxammed swaggered across the bridge. He switched on his cell phone. He played the screen's pale light over the riddled bodies and ripped the mask from the smaller figure.

Allegra Helms screamed, a terrible sound of heartbreak, rage, and dismay.

J
ANSON AND
K
INCAID
switched fire-mode selectors to full auto and bounded up the stairs three at a time, vaulting their weight on the handrails to hush their footfalls. The deck layout was burned in memory from repeated readings of Lynds's builder plans. They split up at the helo deck, Janson darting across the ship so he could mount the exterior stairs to the bridge from the opposite side.

He tsked that he was in position, and they raced up the final flight, trusting the Panoramics' sharp green images to avoid shooting each other in a cross fire. He was halfway up the stairs when he saw a big man in jungle fatigues. The pirate sensed the rush behind him and whipped around with an AK-47. Janson fired the sound-suppressed MTAR once, lowered the pirate's body and assault rifle smoothly to the steps, and continued up.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.” Kincaid, signaling a holdup.

Janson kept going. A triple meant she could handle it. A quad would summon help. He eased himself onto the open wing outside the bridge and scanned the interior through his night-vision goggles.

More than a dozen armed fighters were staring at two commandos in battle black who lay dead against a bulkhead, shot to pieces. Someone else's rescue team? From where? Three hostages—a woman and two men in civilian clothes—lay in a heap under the chart table. Whether dead, wounded, or huddling for cover, Janson could not tell.

Allegra Helms's long blond hair showed lemon yellow in the green image. Her back was to him, as was the back of one of the big men flanking her. The other, facing her—close enough to grab her for a shield—Janson recognized as Mad Max Maxammed, from the Navy drone video of the pirate using her as a shield when the Chinese PLAN forces attacked. He could kill Maxammed with his first shot, and the other pirate with his second.

Kincaid whispered in his earpiece, “I see her.”

Janson covered his lip mike. “Too many fighters. Fall back.”

“I can kill five before they know what hit them.”

“The rest will hose the place. No civilian casualties.”

“I'm only ten meters—”

“I'm five.”

Janson kept looking for signs of life. Were the hostages dead? Were they wounded? Were they frozen with fear? Or did they, reeling in whirlwinds of terror and chaos, still have the presence of mind to play possum?

“Can you see the hostages?”

“I'm looking right at 'em. I can't tell if they're dead or alive. And Allegra's in the line of fire. Fall back.”

“But I see her face.”

“Fall back!”

“I can kill 'em all.”

“Fall back!”