Vanessa gave her a quizzical look and Mary explained herself.
“The government has a bright-line policy when it comes to hostage scenarios. We will negotiate, but we won’t make substantial concessions. If a ransom is the safest way to end a standoff, we won’t stand in the way of the family, but we won’t touch the bag.”
The bag
, Vanessa thought.
Yet another debt we’ll owe to Curtis and Yvonne.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just paid? That way we can guarantee their safety.”
Mary joined her at the window. “Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee anything. The pirates are in it for the money, but they’re unpredictable. This has to be handled delicately.”
Vanessa took a sharp breath. “What you’re telling me is that I have to trust people I’ve never met to decide how to save my son’s life?”
Mary met her eyes. “Isn’t that what an oncologist would do if I went to him with cancer?”
Vanessa allowed her silence to convey her answer.
“When I said Paul Derrick is the best there is, I didn’t just say it to make you feel better. He trained me. I’ve worked with him for years, and I’ve seen him do things that no one else can do.”
Vanessa saw the passion in Mary’s eyes. “You’re saying I should trust him.”
Mary nodded. “If it were my family out there, I’d want them in Derrick’s hands.”
Paul
The Seychelles Archipelago
November 9, 2011
The Airbus A340 landed on the island of Mahé at half past seven in the evening local time. Derrick collected his duffel from the overhead compartment, threw his backpack over his shoulder, and left the plane for the warm embrace of the tropical night. A consular officer in a khaki suit met him on the tarmac beneath the glare of floodlights and checked his identification.
“I’m Roy Hartman,” he said. “Welcome to paradise. Maybe next time you can enjoy it.”
Hartman led him away from the terminal to a gray helicopter waiting in the shadows at the edge of the airfield. Derrick guessed it was a Seahawk, the Navy variant of the vaunted Blackhawk. The helicopter’s door stood open and its rotors were already spinning. An aircrewman approached Derrick through the downdraft and took his duffel, tossing it into the cargo bay. Then he handed Derrick a safety harness and helmet with a headset and goggles and watched as Derrick put them on.
“I’m Petty Officer Bass,” he shouted over the roar of the blades. “It’s a hundred and twenty miles to the ship. Flight time is forty-five minutes.”
Derrick nodded and turned to shake Hartman’s hand, reading the consular officer’s lips as he yelled, “Best of luck!” Then he followed Bass into the helicopter.
The inside of the Seahawk was like a sardine can—boxy, metallic—and crammed with supports and gear. Derrick strapped himself into a seat behind the cockpit and watched as Bass secured the door. He heard the concussive waves of sound increase and saw the pilot and copilot pressing buttons on the control panel between their seats. Suddenly, the pilot took the stick and lifted the helicopter off the ground. They hovered for a moment, and Derrick felt the tug of weightlessness. Then gravity returned as they banked to the east and climbed into the night.
The flight to the
Gettysburg
was a singular thing, like a capsule suspended in time. They left the lights of Mahé behind and flew out over the dark expanse of the Indian Ocean. The sea was a pale shadow, the stars above dimmed by the full moon. The noise of the rotors was deafening. Derrick imagined the Parkers sailing off into the void.
Madness and magic
, he thought
. Like spacewalking or climbing Everest
. He scanned the horizon for a sign of the cruiser, but the sea was empty.
There’s nothing out there for a thousand miles, nothing but a sailboat, a warship, and us.
The scene was so bizarre Derrick almost smiled.
At last he caught sight of the
Gettysburg
’s wake, and then the ship itself, slicing through the water like an arrowhead at the tip of a silver shaft. The Seahawk circled the cruiser once and then descended toward the helipad. The airframe shuddered as the rotor wash ricocheted off the ship, roiling the air around them. Then the wheels touched down and the helicopter settled onto the deck. Bass wrenched open the door and jumped out, grabbing Derrick’s duffel and beckoning him to follow.
Derrick threw his backpack over his shoulder and trailed Bass to the edge of the helipad and forward to the rosy glow of an open hatch. Beyond the hatch was a hangar bay illumined by red night-lights and housing a second helicopter. A middle-aged man and a young woman, both in dark coveralls, stepped out of the shadows. The man shook Derrick’s hand while the woman took his duffel.
“Agent Derrick,” the man said, raising his voice over the din, “I’m Lieutenant Commander Cardwell, the executive officer. This is Ensign O’Brien.” He gestured at the young woman. “She’ll be your liaison for as long as you’re with us. Captain Masters is waiting for you on the bridge.”
Derrick nodded and followed them to a hatch that opened onto a passageway lit by crimson bulbs. As soon as Ensign O’Brien sealed the hatch behind them, the noise fell to a whisper. Inside, the cruiser had the feel of a subterranean bunker. Pipes and cables snaked across the ceiling; doors and equipment panels lined the walls; and there were no portholes anywhere. Apart from the muted hum of the engine, the only sound Derrick heard was the squeak of their shoes on the floor.
Ensign O’Brien opened one of the doors and turned on a light. The stateroom beyond was outfitted with four racks, a quartet of metal closets, and a compact vanity and sink.
“This is your berthing,” said Cardwell, as O’Brien deposited Derrick’s duffel on one of the racks. “Your team will stay with you. The head is down the passageway.”
After O’Brien secured the cabin, Cardwell led them forward into the darkened ship. They followed the passageway through a seemingly endless series of hatches—some standing open; some closed—past the officers’ wardroom and the Admiral’s cabin, and around a number of blind corners to a steep, red-lit stairwell with handrails that led upward to the next level. Beside the stairwell was a plaque with three numbers separated by dashes.
“That’s the Bullseye,” Cardwell explained. “It tells you where you are on the ship. The first coordinate is the deck; the second is the compartment; the third is your position relative to the centerline. Don’t worry about learning it. If you get lost, just ask.” He pointed toward the overhang above the stairwell. “Watch your head. The bump can be nasty.”
Derrick had always prided himself on his fitness, but the ascent to the top deck left him winded. On each level he checked the Bullseye and saw that the first coordinate had increased from 01 to 02 to 03, and so on. At the summit was a sealed door. Cardwell opened it and ushered them onto the bridge.
Derrick was immediately struck by the near-complete absence of light. He blinked until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. There was a navigation station to port with a nautical chart illumined by a red bulb and surrounded by seamen. To starboard were the helm and throttle controls, manned by female sailors staring at a dim display. More seamen stood in the forward part of the bridge, some huddled around faint computer screens, others standing by and watching the gray-black sea.
A tall man approached them. “Agent Derrick. Gabe Masters. Welcome aboard the
Gettysburg
.”
“Thanks,” Derrick said, studying Masters in the shadows. He was handsome in a neighborly sort of way, with close-cropped hair and a carefully trimmed moustache. “So where do we stand?”
“Let me show you.” Masters led him to a computer screen on a pedestal in the center of the bridge. He touched the screen and it brightened a bit, revealing an interactive map of the ocean with an array of symbols and notations. “This is us,” he said, indicating a green arrow, or vector. “This is the
Renaissance
.” He pointed at a red vector. “They don’t know we’re here yet. We’ve been on station for seven hours, but we’ve stayed over the horizon. We put a bird up to get a radar fix. Thankfully, the seas have been calm, and we’ve been able to track them without difficulty.”
Masters zoomed out and drew a line on the screen between the sailboat and the Somali coast. A box appeared with two numbers: 798 and 5.54. “They’re on a course for Hobyo in central Somalia. They’re making about six knots under power with the pirate skiff in tow. Those numbers in the box are the distance to the coast in nautical miles and ETA in days, assuming nothing changes.”
Derrick remembered Hobyo from the brief Brent Frazier had sent him. Until a few years ago, it had been a nondescript coastal village three hundred miles north of Mogadishu, its desert climate hospitable only to livestock herding, artisanal fishing, and lobstering. Then came the piracy boom in Puntland farther to the north—young Somalis taking to the high seas in skiffs, hijacking commercial ships, and earning soaring ransoms. In a land as vast and minimally governed as Somalia, it was only a matter of time before a criminal entrepreneur turned hostage taking into a business. This opportunist was Mohamed Abdi Hassan, or Afweyne (“Big Mouth”). Trading on his clan network, Afweyne had invited wealthy investors into the piracy fold and pioneered the use of motherships—usually hijacked fishing dhows—to escort the skiffs deep into the ocean. Under his patronage, the rump region of Galmudug had eclipsed Puntland as the capital of the pirate empire, and Hobyo had become its principle lair. That the
Renaissance
pirates were headed there meant they were likely Afweyne’s heirs.
“What are your orders at this stage?” Derrick inquired, facing Masters again.
“We’re to keep our distance until tomorrow when your team and the SEALs arrive. At that point, Captain Redman will take command. I’m sure he’ll have ideas about how to handle this.”
Derrick heard a trace of resentment in Masters’s words. It was an innovation of the special-operations age that the SEAL captain would supplant the ship’s captain as the on-scene commander, answering not to Navy Central Command in Bahrain but to the Joint Special Operations Command back home. The streamlined chain of command made operational sense but had ruffled feathers among surface commanders, who felt overshadowed by their sexier counterparts in Spec Ops.
“Do we have any intel on the pirates?” Derrick inquired.
Masters zoomed in again on the GPS display. “Sixteen hours before the hijacking, the cargo ship
Jade Dolphin
was attacked by two skiffs carrying six men each. That happened here.” He pointed to the first of two “X” symbols on the screen. “One of the skiffs exploded after shooting off an RPG shell. I’m guessing the backblast ignited the engine. The crew of the
Jade Dolphin
saw the second skiff searching the blast area, but they didn’t stick around to see who survived.” Masters moved his finger to the second “X.” “The
Renaissance
was hijacked eighty-four nautical miles northwest. If it’s the same gang, there are at least six and as many as a dozen pirates on the sailboat.”
Derrick digested this. In a hostage crisis, there was an inverse relationship between the number of armed kidnappers and the likelihood that a tactical response would succeed without injury to the hostages. The more bad guys, the more crucial the negotiator became to the ultimate resolution.
The SEALs might not be in the driver’s seat after all
, he thought.
“Anything else?”
Masters shook his head. “Not until we talk to them.”
“I understand there are other ships en route.”
Masters zoomed out until they could see the northern Arabian Sea. He pointed to two blue vectors bearing south. “The
Truman
and the
San Jacinto
will offer support. The SEALs are bringing their own RHIBs. They’ll be based on the carrier.” RHIB was short for a rigid-hull inflatable boat. “But we’re the quarterback. All decision-making and communications with the
Renaissance
will happen here.”
“I need to see the comms systems in the morning,” Derrick said. “Everything we say from beginning to end will be recorded. And my team will need a workspace on the bridge.”
“We’ll put you at the chart table,” Masters responded, pointing at a table a few feet away piled high with books and binders. “It’ll be cramped, but we’ll make room.”
Derrick walked to the window and stared out at the night sea. He could feel the vibrations of the
Gettysburg
beneath his feet, like the purr of a sleeping tiger. In conventional warfare, the cruiser had no equal, but this would be a contest of wits, not might. All the
Star Wars
weaponry in the world couldn’t save Daniel and Quentin Parker from a pirate’s bullet.
“Here,” Masters said, handing him a pair of binoculars. “These have night-vision.”
Derrick put the binoculars to his eyes and saw the ocean glowing in a hundred shades of green. He looked toward the horizon and imagined father and son trying to sleep in the midst of a ragtag army of gun-toting mercenaries. The thought turned his stomach.
“I feel terrible for them,” Masters said quietly, as if reading Derrick’s mind. “You plan for everything out here, but you never think something like this is going to happen.”