“Their shows are great. The world’s worst natural disasters, Krakatoa, tsunamis, the Johnstown flood, the attempt to assassinate Hitler. They show him for what he really was, a homasexual dictator.”
“Hitler was gay?”
“You ever see him at play up at his mountain retreat? Acting like a girl, slapping Eva Braun on the ass? I’m of the opinion Eva was a tough broad. She loved Adolf and wanted to straighten him out. You understand Eva was his cover.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to turn,” Helene said, “or they don’t want to. Guys you can tell are gay—ones I’d meet—are always having fun, and they’re smart. I don’t know about the ones you can’t tell if they are or not.”
Billy said, “We finally got a lead on something that’s bigger than these Mohammedans playing they’re pirates. We’ll keep tabs on the Aphrodite when she’s released, not let her get too far away. I think she’ll have to put in at Djibouti to take on stores.”
Billy popped open a bottle of champagne.
“I told you I saw Dara and her bearer going out to the ship with Idris. How would she know, without my kind of sources? You know how many paid insiders I have on this now? Six. How could she know Aphrodite’s gonna blow up a U.S. port?”
“How do you know?”
“Hon, al Qaeda’s got a huge hard-on for the U.S. It’s been eight years since 9/11, al Qaeda’s thinking up its next move against us. It’s got to be a good one, something different but showy. Dara might not suspect what’s going down, but something’s on her mind. I bet her a bottle of champagne I’d have her luggage in her room inside of five minutes. I intended to come with the bottle, a cool way to meet her. Miss Smarty’s already got the flutes out. The girl’s aware, has a keen sense of things.”
He sounded just like Sterling Hayden.
“Are you gonna tell her what you think?” Helene said.
“I’ve only thought of one scenario. I may need a couple more people on this. There’s an ex-SEAL I hire. I tell Buck what I want to find out and he delivers. Won’t take any pay till he does the job, then holds me up. The man has style. Buck Bethards. He could be anywhere, but I’ll give him a call. Buck’ll drop whatever he’s doing to work for me.”
Billy was pouring champagne now, telling Helene, “When you’re not too busy, google the ports in the U.S. that allow delivery of liquid natural gas. I’ll bet there’s no more’n a half dozen, all of them inland a ways.” He raised his flute to touch Helene’s.
“I notice you and Dara seemed to hit it off. Why don’t you talk to her girl to girl, see if you can find out what she’s up to.” Billy said, “Hon, I’d appreciate it.”
THEY WERE TOPSIDE NOW, early evening, the sun sliding around before falling like a stone behind the hijacked ships. Or it was the fucking wine. Helene said, “You’re still looking at them?”
Through his huge binoculars. “I’m trying to locate the three Saudis, one of ’em’s first officer.”
“What’s the captain?”
“Egyptian. His name’s Wassef.”
“I got what you want. The Times did a story about dreading the day an LNG tanker is used by terrorists. You’re not the only one smells a plot. There are five ports in the U.S. for this kind of tanker, all inland. Everett, Mass., near Boston. Cove Point, Maryland. Elba Island, Georgia, and Lake Charles, Louisiana.”
“That’s four. Where’s the fifth one?”
“A hundred and sixteen miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, the Gateway Energy Bridge.”
Billy said, “Want to walk on the beach?”
Helene stared at him, the glasses against his face.
“Stretch our legs?”
“Slip the raft over the side, lock the hatch and turn on the Mean Dog tape.”
“Idris asked us to stop by. He’s throwing a party.”
“For his Mohammedan buddies?”
“For Harry, he’s still here.”
Billy lowered the glasses. “I wouldn’t mind talking to Harry. See if I can find out what side he’s on.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NIGHT OF HIS party Idris presented a bonus to a half dozen of his mates: brown oxfords from Tricker’s on Jermyn Street, London. Now they were showing the inscription inside the shoes: By Appointment to His Royal Highness Prince of Wales. R. E. Tricker, Shoe Manufacturers Ltd. Now they were throwing away their sandals.
Dara and Xavier were in her hotel suite watching footage.
“About when we got there, the boys lookin down at their kicks, grinnin,” Xavier said, “pokin each other. ‘Look at mine.’ They all wearin the same brown wingtips. How’d Idris know their sizes?”
“I don’t know if he asked them or took a guess. I’m using the spy pen at the party,” Dara said, “only the second time for a film, after I shot the guys aboard the gas ship. I still wasn’t sure it would give me what I want.”
“You said long as you facin what you shootin.”
“I know, but I still try to be so casual about it. What I got of the two Saudis looks great.”
“They kept duckin out on me. Did not want to be in a movie.”
“And I got them at the party.”
Xavier said, “Where are they?” looking at the laptop.
“They’re coming up.”
“You got Idris and Harry in their white suits.”
“I’ve got tons of Idris and Harry.”
“I liked those dogs,” Xavier said. “They puttin it on ’cause they can do it, spend their lives misbehavin. I ask Idris, ‘You get along with the al Shabaabs? Understand where they comin from?’ Idris shrugs his shoulders like he don’t care, says to me, ‘Some like it jihad.’ Like it’s something cool Arabs say.”
“Maybe it’s an Arab expression.”
“I don’t know—it’s the first time I thought a Arab said somethin funny.”
“Look at the color,” Dara said. “High def and you don’t even see the camera.”
“You like the torches?”
“I love the torches. Exotic lighting and mood in the same prop. A gang of Arab pirates, a goat turning on a spit, the pool lit. Music. Several ass shakers. Here they are, the two Saudis, always together, always smoking Marlboros.” Dara lighted a cigarette. “I’m trying to figure out why Idris brought the Saudis and not the rest of the crew. The captain and the first officer stayed in the house most of the party.”
“Passed on the roast goat,” Xavier said.
“The two we thought were both Saudis ate but didn’t drink. I kept shooting with the spy pen as I talked to them. ‘Hey, didn’t I see you guys on the Aphrodite?’ The younger one said, ‘You making a movie, uh? Want me to star?’ There’s no way he’s anything but African American.”
“Boy visitin his homeland,” Xavier said.
“I told Idris and he said, ‘Oh, is he?’ Idris said Harry invited those two. Harry didn’t think the Filipinos would fit in and feel comfortable. Like the captain was having a ball staying in the house.”
Dara said, “And there’s the guy you gave your gun to, Kwame. Putting on his new shoes.”
The pirates lounged on the floor around a cocktail table eating and drinking, were still admiring their new shoes.
“I didn’t give him my heat, you did.”
“Tell Idris you were showing Kwame the gun and he thought you were giving it to him,” Dara said. “Remember?”
“I’m showin my piece to a man was robbin us?”
“I didn’t see you had to go into that. You told Idris Kwame took your gun by mistake. Idris got it from him and gave it to you.”
“I don’t see it in the movie.”
“I didn’t use it. Too much to explain. I told you we’d get it back, and we did.”
BILLY BROUGHT HELENE THROUGH the Eyl people squatting in the dark at the edge of the yard, the locals watching the dinner party on the patio: most of the guests eating with their fingers from bowls they shared. The watchers murmured to one another licking their lips.
“Mmmmm, roast g
oat,” Billy said. “You ever have it?”
“Love it,” Helene said.
He brought her among the diners in camp chairs and on fat cushions, to the ones lounging on the brick floor around the cocktail table.
“You like the music?”
“Love it.”
Billy started toward Dara in the crowd talking to her bearer, Xavier, Billy believed born of Watusi stock. “Eating with his fingers seems natural to him, doesn’t it? And look at Dara sucking her fingers, enjoying the Arabian cookout.”
Helene thought of “Margaritaville.”
Billy was saying, “Mohammedans are a unique people, aren’t they? Like to sit on the floor eating goat. We see chickens in the yards, but goat seems to be their dish.” He said to the table, the Somali nearest him about to take a drink, “Tell Allah you’ll be back on the Islam wagon tomorrow.”
The Somali stared at Billy, his mates jabbing Arabic words at him until he said, “You sink one of my boats, you leave the other one with no use in it. I believe you should pay me for their destruction.”
Helene saw Harry and Idris coming in their white suits. New York, they’d start a trend, guys in white suits with different color scarves. She waited for Billy to make a thing out of the Somali’s demand so he could talk for a while.
Billy said to the pirate, “What’s your name, amigo?”
The Somali said, “My name is Booyah.”
Billy said, “You putting me on?”
Idris stepped in. “No, Booyah Abdulahi is his name. Booyah’s an honorable man.”
“Well, I want to pay him what I owe,” Billy said. “I hit his boats with six-hundred-caliber Nitro Express rounds. Firing the gun will knock a normal person on his or her ass. I’ve been trying to get my companion to fire the rifle, a Holland & Holland, but she won’t take my dare.”
Helene rolled her eyes looking at Dara.
“I put one of the boats under,” Billy said, “and the other’s beached for good. I’ll pay what they’re worth.”
“And the motors?” Idris said.
“Yeah, and any personal effects.”
“The weapons they lost,” Idris said, “and the gasoline, in five-gallon containers, several of them in each boat?” He turned to Harry Bakar. “What is petrol selling for now, eight dollars?”
“Look,” Billy said, “I’ll pay for all that. I’m curious about those ships anchored out there”—talking to the table now—“that tanker especially. You weren’t afraid to board it?”
“No smoking,” Booyah said. “No lighter, no matches.”
Harry said, “Excuse me,” to Billy, “but this afternoon the owners of the Sirius Star agreed to pay Mr. Abdulahi three million dollars for its release. I believe within the next few days.”
“Three million, huh, that’s all?” Billy said. “How much you asking for that LNG tanker? I wouldn’t touch it you paid me ten million dollars. I bet you could get that much too. Ten mil or you’ll blow her up. I understand you have to keep the gas cool once you convert it to liquid. I read if any leaks out and turns to vapor and becomes a cloud and you ignite it…?”
Helene looked at Harry listening to every word.
“The heat will melt steel at twelve hundred feet. I read that if terrorists had a gas tanker and blew it up, you’d have thousands dead and injured on your hands.”
Helene said, “I’m going to the loo, okay?”
Idris watched Dara say something to Xavier and follow after Helene. He thought it was curious how women always go to latrines together. He heard Billy say:
“Anybody ever ask the crew if they worry about getting blown up?”
HELENE SAID AT THE mirror, “With my tan I could lose three pounds and do bikinis.”
Dara said, “What’s it like being a companion?”
“It’s the same as ‘lady.’ Or, ‘the lady.’ Once in a while ‘old lady.’ He tries so hard to impress me.”
“You’re a possession.”
“Yeah, but he’s in love with me. He tells me whenever he’s high. That’s when he’s the nicest, if you’ve ever heard of that. He’s never mean, he’s just so fucking boring.”
“I’ll bet you don’t marry him,” Dara said, “if he ever asks you. You decide the money isn’t worth it.”
“He promised to put ten mil in my account the day of the wedding.”
“He’s buying you.”
“So what, he loves me. He grins when I say ‘fuck.’”
“How do you say it?”
“Like, ‘This fucking boat is driving me out of my fucking mind.’ The regular way, but I wouldn’t say that.”
“Why’s he so interested in the gas tanker?”
“You heard him, he thinks bin Laden’s gonna blow it up.”
“Where?”
“He’s trying to figure that out. Or they’ll run a ship into it.”
“The crew’s part of it?”
“Billy says not the gooks. He says if they don’t change the crew again, like at Djibouti, then it’s the two Saudis will blow it up at some American port.”
Helene was using a comb now trying to untangle her hair, saying to Dara, “You went on board to talk to the crew?”
“Tried to communicate. We didn’t get much.”
“Billy wonders if you have pictures of the Saudis.”
Dara said, “Tell him I got them aboard the gas ship and this evening, a little earlier.”
“Billy said if you have the Saudis on film”—Helene working on her hair—“he can tell if they’re terrorists or not. He has head shots of all the bad guys.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE PARTY COMING TO an end reminded Xavier of a stage once the show was over and the houselights were turned up, the pirate chiefs walking off in their new shoes with leftover dinner wrapped in newspaper, for the women who had to stay home. Xavier was waiting for Dara to finish talking to Idris and Harry Bakar, Dara still digging for information.
Telling them she read that the people running the pirate business were wealthy Somalis living other places now, in England and Saudi Arabia. Harry said he heard gangsters were running the show, the Italian Mafia telling the pirates what ships to look for coming through Djibouti on their way everywhere, information they got from secret agents, spies. Harry smiling, saying to Dara, “Did you know you were making a thriller?”
Dara said she wasn’t sure what she was making.
Xavier said to her, “You ready?”
And Idris said, “Harry doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Do you think I work for criminals?” He took time to name the seven pirate clans boarding ships for the honor of the Somali people, making it sound as if they were Arab Robin Hoods.
Dara seemed to have eyes for Harry Baker, the reason they stood there thinking up things to say, Harry and Idris too polite to end it.
Xavier said, “We gonna make our train, we better get movin.”
No smiles or chuckles, only Dara got it. She said, “Well, it was quite a party.”
Sitting in the hotel suite with her, Xavier said, “You had trouble tearin yourself from their company.”
“I was trying to think of a way to mention the gas tanker,” Dara said. “Tell them why Billy thought it was a bomb. But if I was serious about it they’d say I was imagining things.”
“And if you made fun of Billy’s idea—”
“We’d all be grinning and I’d feel stupid. I wouldn’t have learned anything.”
“You coulda asked what happen to the Saudis at the party? They disappeared on us. They go back to that gas ship? Then you in it, you wonderin about it.”
“Why didn’t you ask them?”
“I just thought of it,” Xavier said. “You know at that time, hijackin an American ship was the best thing they’d done, the Somalis still proud of theirselves but tired of talkin about it, tired watchin Al Jazeera, nothin new happenin. That was Thursday, the night of the party. The SEALs didn’t shoot the three pirates till Sunday. After that it was death to Ameri
cans, but we didn’t know about it yet.”
“I’ve got a lot of that I can use,” Dara said, “if it goes with my story. ‘Somali Pirates Threaten to Target Americans,’ in the news. ‘Pirates want revenge, not ransom.’”
“That time, it was gettin hot, wasn’t it?”
“It was turning into a movie,” Dara said, “a real one.”
IDRIS AND HARRY WALKED across the front of Idris’s California ranch toward rooms off the four-car garage, Harry saying, “You tell them you don’t work for criminals. What difference does it make? Dara leaves and we never see her again. You like her,” Harry said, “because you aren’t used to a woman being herself, and also intelligent.”
“I like her and would like to know her better,” Idris said and looked at Harry. “Are you ready?” Opened the door and walked ahead of Harry into a room without furniture, the walls and floor unpainted concrete. Harry followed bringing a Walther PPK from inside his white suit.
The three Saudis were on the floor, backs against a wall, the first officer in his uniform slumped, his chin resting on his chest.
“Bored,” Harry said, and then in a louder voice, “Duad Dahir Suliman, are you bored?”
The first officer’s head came up, eyes open, confused. Now he was getting his legs under him to rise.
Harry said, “Stay as you are.”
The first officer was now upright on his knees. He said, “Yes?” He said, “Please tell me why we wait in this place. Are we your guests or not?”
The two sitting against the wall had not moved. The one with the wrap of white cloth around his head was black, about thirty, with a beard and hair to his shoulders. They sat watching Harry Bakar with little interest. Idris had already put them both down as al Qaeda. Harry believed it too. He said to the younger one, “You must be Jama Raisuli. Is that correct? Tell us who gave you your name. It sounds Berber to me.”
Jama, looking up at Harry, said, “The party must be over,” in English, with no hint of a Middle East accent.
Harry said, “It certainly is. Tell us, is the first officer one of you?”