“By Henry’s account, the hideout was well provisioned, and there was an elderly servant to attend to their needs. Every few months, a camel caravan would come by to barter for food in exchange for some of the plunder Al-Jama had hoarded, though he made them promise not to tell his men he was alive.”
“Plunder?” Alana asked.
“Henry’s exact words were ‘a mountain of gold,’ ” Perlmutter replied. “Then there’s the belief that Al-Jama was in possession of the Jewel of Jerusalem.”
Alana looked to Undersecretary Valero. “Do you want to send me on some sort of treasure hunt?”
Christie nodded. “In a manner of speaking, but we’re not interested in gold or some mythical gemstone. What do you know about fatwas?”
“Isn’t that some kind of proclamation for Muslims? There was one issued to kill Salman Rushdie for writing
Alana was beginning to understand. “Suleiman Al-Jama?”
St. Julian leaned forward, the couch’s leather creaking. “According to what Henry told Charles Stewart after his return to the United States, Al-Jama did a complete reversal of his earlier position concerning Christians. He had never even spoken to one until Henry rescued him. Henry read to him from the Bible he carried, and Al-Jama began to focus on the similarities between faiths rather than the differences. In the two years before he died in the hideout, he studied the Koran like never before, and wrote extensively on how Christianity and Islam should coexist in peace. That is why I believe he didn’t want his sailors to know he had survived the attack, because they would want to go raiding again and he did not.”
Christie Valero interrupted. “If those documents exist, they could be a powerful tool in the war on terrorism because it would cut the underpinnings of many of the most fanatical terrorists. The killers who so blindly follow Al-Jama’s early edicts on murdering Christians would be honor-bound to at least consider what the old pirate had written later in his life.
“I don’t know if you are aware,” she continued, “that there is a peace conference in Tripoli, Libya, in a couple of months. This is going to be the largest gathering of its kind in history, and perhaps our greatest shot at ending the fighting once and for all. All sides are talking serious concessions, and the oil states are willing to pledge billions in economic aid. I would love for the Secretary of State to have the opportunity to read something Al-Jama wrote about reconciliation. I think it would tip the scales in favor of peace.”
Alana made a face. “Wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, largely symbolic?”
“Yes, it would,” St. Julian answered. “But so much of diplomacy is symbolism. The parties want reconciliation. Hearing about it from a revered Imam, a powerful inspiration for violence who changed his mind, would be a diplomatic coup, and the very thing these talks need to be a success.”
Alana recalled feeling excited about helping to bring stability to the Middle East following her meeting with Valero and Perlmutter, but now, after weeks searching vainly for Al-Jama’s secret base, she felt nothing but tired, hot, and dirty. She pushed herself to her feet. Their break was over.
“Come on, guys. We have another hour or so before we have to head back to the Roman ruins and check in with the dig supervisor.” As part of their deal for tagging along with that other expedition, Alana and her team had to return to camp every night. It was an onerous burden, but the Tunisian authorities insisted that no one spend a night alone in the desert. “Might as well check where Greg’s gut is telling him our discovery awaits, ’cause the geology isn’t telling me squat.”
FIVE
He was so confident that he wasn’t bothering to participate. Eddie Seng, who had pretended to be Captain Kwan, would lead the team. Eddie was another CIA veteran, like Cabrillo, and was one of the most proficient fighters on the
But as Cabrillo watched the view screen, he saw his plans fly out the window.
The camera was mounted high atop one of the ship’s gantry cranes and had an unobstructed view of the dock. Moments before Didi was to step onto the boarding stairs, he paused, spoke a few words to his followers, and moved aside. Dozens of Somalis raced up the gangplank, shouting and whooping like banshees.
“Chairman!” Mark Murphy cried as the multitude swarmed the ship.
“I see it.”
“What are you going to do?” Giuseppe Farina asked.
“Give me a second.” Juan couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen. He keyed a mic button built into his chair. “Eddie, you copying this?”
“I’m watching it on a monitor down here. Looks like plan A is out. What do you suggest?”
“Stay in the staging area and out of sight until I think of something.”
Mohammad Didi finally started to climb the gangway, but already there were at least a hundred natives aboard the old ship and more were trickling up behind their leader.
Juan thought through and discarded his options. The
Eric Stone raced into the Operations Center from an entrance at its rear. He was still dressed as Duane Maryweather. “Sorry I’m late. Looks like the party’s bigger than we intended.”
He took his seat at the navigation station, tapping knuckles with Murph. The two were best friends. Stone had never gotten over being a shy, studious high school geek, despite his four years at Annapolis and six in the Navy. He dressed mostly in chinos and button-down shirts, and wore glasses rather than bother with contact lenses.
Murph, on the other hand, cultivated a surfer-punk persona that he couldn’t quite pull off. A certified genius, he had been a weapons designer for the military, which was where he’d met Eric. Both were in their late twenties. Mark usually wore black, and kept his hair a dark shaggy mess. He was in his second month of trying to grow a goatee, and it wasn’t going well.
Polar opposites in so many ways, they still managed to work as one of the best teams on the ship, and they could anticipate Cabrillo as if able to read his mind.
“Depress the—” Cabrillo started.
“—water-suppression cannons,” Murph finished. “Already on it.”
“Don’t fire until I give the order.”
“Righto.”
Juan looked over to Linda Ross. She was the Corporation’s vice president of operations. Another Navy squab, Linda had done stints on an Aegis cruiser and had worked as an assistant to the Joint Chiefs, making her equally skilled at naval combat and staff duties. She had an elfin face, with bright almond eyes and a dash of freckles across her cheeks and nose. Her hair, which changed routinely, was currently strawberry blond and cut in what she called the “Posh.” She also had a high, almost girlish voice that was incongruous with belting out combat orders. But she was as fine an officer as any of her male shipmates.
“Linda,” Cabrillo said, “I want you to monitor Didi. Don’t lose him on the internal cameras, and tell me the minute he enters the hold.”
“You got it.”
“ ’Seppe, are you satisfied that Didi came onto this ship of his own free will?”
“He’s all yours.”
Juan keyed the microphone again. “Eddie, Linc, meet me down in the Magic Shop, double time.”
Juan slipped a portable radio into a pocket and fitted headphones over his ears so he could stay on the communications grid. As he ran from the room, he asked over his shoulder for Hali Kasim to patch him in to Kevin Nixon, the head magician of the Magic Shop. Launching himself down teak-paneled stairwells rather than wait for one of the elevators, Cabrillo told the former Hollywood makeup artist what he had in mind. After that, he got in touch with Max Hanley and gave him his orders. Max grumbled about what Juan wanted to do, knowing it would make for a maintenance headache for his engineers later on, but he admitted it was a good idea.
Cabrillo reached the Magic Shop on Eddie and Linc’s heels. The room looked like a cross between a salon and a storage shed. There was a makeup counter and mirror along one wall, while the rest of the space was given over to racks of clothing, special effects gear, and all manner of props.
The two gundogs, as Max called them, wore black combat uniforms festooned with pouches for extra ammunition, combat knives, and other gear. They also carried Barrett REC7 assault rifles, a possible successor to the M16 family of weapons.
“Lose the hardware,” Cabrillo said brusquely.
Kevin bustled into the Magic Shop from one of the large store-rooms where he kept disguises. In his arms were garments called
Nixon also gave them headscarves, and as they started winding them around their skulls he applied makeup to darken Eddie’s and Juan’s skin. A perfectionist, Kevin detested doing anything slipshod, but Cabrillo’s impatience radiated off of him in waves.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Juan said. “People see what they expect to see. That’s the number one rule in disguise.”
Linda’s voice came over Juan’s microphone. “Didi is about two minutes from the main hold.”
“Too soon. We’re not ready. Is there anyone on the bridge?”
“A couple of kids are playing with the ship’s wheel.”
“Hit the foghorn and pipe it down to the hold through the speakers.”
“Why?”
“Trust me,” was all Juan said.
The horn bellowed across the mangrove swamp, startling birds to flight and sending the mongrel camp dogs cowering with their tails tucked between their legs. Inside the corridor where Mohammad Didi and his retainers were walking toward their prize, the sound was a physical assault on the senses. Clamping their hands to their heads did little to mitigate the effect.
“Good call,” Linda told the Chairman. “Didi has stopped to send one of his men back to the wheelhouse. Those kids are in for it when he gets there.”
“What’s going on everywhere else?”
“The horn hasn’t stopped people from looting. I see two women carrying the mattresses out of the captain’s cabin. Another pair are taking those hideous clown pictures. And don’t ask me why he’s bothering, but a guy is working on pulling up the toilet.”
“A throne by any other name,” Juan quipped.
Kevin had finished with their makeup by the time Didi’s lieutenant arrived on the bridge and cuffed the two boys behind the ears. Linda disengaged the horn when the pirate reached for the controls, though he looked at the panel oddly because he hadn’t actually hit any button. He shrugged and hurried back to be with the warlord.
An armorer had arrived in the Magic Shop and handed over three Kalashnikov AK-47s. The weapons looked as battle worn as the ones the pirates carried, but like every facet of the
“You got us down here,” Linc said, “and got you boys looking like a couple of imitation homeys, but I don’t know the plan.”
“We couldn’t waltz up to Didi dressed like a bunch of ninjas with so many armed rebels roaming the ship. We need to get close to him without raising an alarm.”
“Hence the mufti,” Eddie surmised.
“In all the excitement,” Juan explained, “we’ll blend in and wait for our moment.”
“If Didi decides to open the drums of ammonium nitrate and discovers they’re filled with seawater, he’s going to sense a trap and hightail it off the
“Linda, where is Didi now?” Cabrillo asked over the radio.
“They’re just outside the hold. There are probably twelve men with him. All of them are armed to the teeth. Speaking of which, our pirate leader, Hakeem, is grinning ear to ear.”
“I bet he is,” Juan replied. “But not for long.”
He led Linc and Eddie to an unmarked door on one of the
Oregon
This was the moment none of the Corporation operators ever discussed or acknowledged in any way. He could imagine Linc’s and Eddie’s horror if he turned to them and asked if they were as scared as he was. This was the essence of any good soldier, the ability to admit he is afraid while having the discipline to channel it into something useful in combat.