Security jack randall 4, p.7
Security: Jack Randall #4, page 7
Without another word the men spun around to leave. The pirates averted their gazes when the two men walked past them to their car. The tall man reached into the trunk and produced a few heavy burlap bags. He tossed them on the floor in the middle of the room before returning to the car. They drove away in a cloud of dust.
Two of the men approached the bags only to be kicked away by the leader who had risen from the floor. He beat the man who had touched the bags without mercy until his rage subsided. Leadership reestablished, he emptied the bags onto the floor.
Items from the ship. Trinkets to tide them over while they waited for the big money they had been promised. A few cellphones were passed out and hurriedly pocketed. Some watches and radios, too. Shirts and leather belts, all of them too large. Some electronic items that were fingered with curiosity. Items from the mess: knives and forks, coffee mugs, a frying pan. A pile of shoes in several sizes. The leader’s brother joined him and they sorted through the pile. Most of it was returned to the burlap bags and hauled to the prisoners’ room. The guards were given loud instructions so they all could hear: robbing the leader would be met with a quick death.
Dahir kept his face neutral when the leader returned, calmly chewing his share of khat, and ignoring the nervous looks of the others. A few of the prizes were handed out to the men. Most of them were happy to merely avoid their leader’s wrath. Many of them gathered to watch over a man’s shoulder as he thumbed the screen of a cellphone. He soon had an internet connection and was watching American news. Dahir smiled at the audio, a gossip news channel. It was their only idea of America, a land where everyone was rich and beautiful. A country where everyone had a car and a big house. Where woman drove and wore diamonds every day. It furthered their belief that the key to such riches lay bound and blindfolded in the next room. Millions of dollars were only days away. They stared at the tiny screen with rapt childlike attention, high on khat and their vision of America. Dahir watched them with a small sense of pity. For most this was their only chance of leaving the poverty they had grown up in, their one desperate grasp to live a better life. They grinned at the small screen, green drool running from the corners of their mouths. Drunk on America. It was a disease all its own.
His thoughts turned away from the group in front of him and returned to the items he had seen in the pile on the floor. One item in particular had caught his eye.
It was known as an EPIRB.
OUTSIDE LONDON, ENGLAND
“They’re moving.”
“I’m on ’em, Will.”
The mullah was on the move and so far it had been as expected. The man had risen early and performed morning prayers with a few followers before more arrived and they loaded up into several vehicles. Will had listened to them talk of the trip for the last two days and while he was sure they’d used a few code phrases he wasn’t surprised by their departure. The mullah was doing his welcome home tour. It was the third mosque he had visited in the last week. Today he would be traveling south to Portsmouth, a major port city on the English channel due south of his London home. All was as they had overheard, but something was bothering Will.
The lorries. The two white trucks were new. Before they had crammed as many followers as possible into a few vehicles. Today they had lorries rented from a company that serviced the entire country. Perhaps they were low on funds? Will didn’t know, but the lorries were something different and therefore he was on edge. The helicopter following the small convoy provided him with a bird’s-eye view of the procession when they turned southwest on the A-3. It did little to ease his mind.
“Coming up on Woking. Nothing unusual.”
“Very well.”
Will stewed until he couldn’t stay quiet. “Why the lorries?”
“Cheaper perhaps? They haul more people than the vans they had before?”
“Perhaps they feel we have the vans bugged?”
Will considered both opinions. They both made sense, still, he didn’t like it.
“How’s it look at the mosque?”
“It’s filling up as expected. Some clouds in from the sea there, gonna be hard for the observers in the air.”
Will shook his head. Even the weather was against him today.
“Our men make it inside all right?”
“Three inside so far with one more to arrive.”
“Outside?”
“A pair of uniforms at the entrance but they expect that. One camera van on the street within sight.”
“Can you bring that up?”
“Certainly.”
Will watched his screens and soon one of them flipped from the bird’s-eye view of the convoy to the mosque parking lot. It was filling with small cars and vans packed with Muslims of all sizes and shapes, mostly men with some women scattered here and there. The camera panned back and forth a few times before zooming in on the steps leading inside. Will knew they were trying to catch faces for future identification so he said nothing. Still, something was out of place. He couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Passing through Haslemere. No change.”
“Should we stop them? Do a search perhaps?”
“No, they’d be clean. They won’t endanger the mullah and it would just tip them off that we’re watching.”
Will ignored the conversations around him and watched the screens. The tea in his hands went cold while he followed their progress. Everything appeared to be routine, but his soldier’s intuition was still pinging. To further agitate him clouds began to cover the screen.
“Dammit, do we have a visual on the ground?”
“We have a car in front and another four klicks behind.”
“Move the car behind up until he has them in sight.”
Will was soon rewarded with a view of the rear end of a rented lorry. He stared at it and stewed.
A man reported, “The helicopter is breaking off. The clouds are too thick.”
Will frowned at that. If the helicopter dropped below the clouds it would tip their hand. But Will didn’t wish to send it home just yet.
“Can he orbit higher?”
“I’ll see.”
Will sipped his tea and made a face before discarding its contents in a trashcan. The cup spun on the desk as he returned to the screens. The view of the steps at the mosque was now partially blocked by the edge of a van. He cursed under his breath and thought about ordering the team to move it. Chances were they would be seen and the maneuver would ID them as the police. He forced himself to be patient. Minutes went by in silence.
“The bird can loiter for another twenty minutes before he needs fuel.”
Will considered his options.
“How long was the last sermon?”
“Forty minutes, give or take.”
“How long to refuel?”
“Less than thirty.”
“Fuel now and return as soon as possible. Report when on station.”
“Got it.”
“He’s arriving.”
The lorry pulled up to the steps and the mullah was helped from the rear. He waved to people crowded outside before being ushered quickly up the stairs.
“He’s inside.” A speaker on the wall began to sound, bringing them audio from inside the mosque. Will motioned for them to turn it down, he had heard it before several times and couldn’t stomach it again.
“What did you see?” he asked the room.
“Nothing new, Will. Looks like another pep rally, same as the last few.”
He turned to the tech running the camera footage through the computer.
“Any sign of Hanad?”
“The software says no. I’m checking it myself now.”
“The brothers? The engineers?”
“Nothing.”
Will glowered at the screens and rubbed his sore leg. A colleague put a fresh cup in front of him and he nodded a thank you.
“Relax, Will, he’ll screw up eventually and we’ll grab the whole lot of ’em.”
Will offered a smile he didn’t believe. The men let him sit and stew, most of them using the time to examine faces that the cameras had caught. They ID’d a few from memory while they waited for the hate speech inside to end.
That end came sooner than they thought.
“He’s done!”
The words jolted them back to the screens and they watched as the mullah was led out the door twenty minutes early. His men hustled him up the loading ramp of a waiting lorry before securing it and pulling the door down.
“Bloody hell, what’s happening?”
“Not sure. He was giving the same speech he did two days ago and he suddenly cut it short and walked away.”
“Is he sick?”
“Didn’t appear to be.”
“Something’s happening. Where’s that helicopter?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Hell! He’ll be gone in ten! Tell him to get in the air now!”
“They’re moving.”
The camera zoomed out and Will lost sight of the lorry as it passed other vehicles.
“What the—? Zoom out more!”
“What?”
“Zoom out more!”
The techs scrambled to comply and soon Will had a view of the entire car park. Several vehicles were moving.
Lorries. Several of them. All from the same rental company and all the same color, shape and size. They had been so focused on the door they hadn’t noticed them arriving.
“Bloody . . . Nobody noticed all those lorries? What the hell are we doing here?”
Will strained to keep the lorry with the mullah in sight but it was soon joined by five others before they left the park in a convoy.
“He’s in the second one.”
“No, it’s the third.”
“Five minutes on the bird.”
“Follow them. All units. I don’t care if they’re seen, don’t lose him.”
Cars scrambled from the surrounding blocks but it was a few minutes before they had all of the lorries in sight. They passed one another and took several turns, confounding their pursuers for several minutes.
“Which one?”
“Number four . . . I think.”
“Tommy?”
“I say three.”
Two more joined the procession from a side street.
“Dammit!”
“What do we do, Will?”
Will stared at the screens. The situation was getting out of hand.
“Start stopping them. Every one of ’em!”
“We don’t have enough.”
“I know. Just do it.”
The radio traffic tripled and Will could do nothing but watch as one truck after another was pulled over. The reports came in too slowly.
“Unit one. We’re empty.”
“Unit three, three men, none of them our guy.”
“Unit two, empty.”
“Unit four. They just split up. We’re grabbing the closest one, the other is heading toward Briton with another turning north.”
Will gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles were white. He waited.
“Unit four . . . we’re empty.”
“Bloody hell!” Will pounded a fist into the desk. The tea cup jumped and spilled across the table. He ignored it and stood, kicking the chair back and sending a shot of pain through his leg. He welcomed it as he stared at the screen. The image from a dashcam showed him the empty box of a rented lorry. A young, heavily bearded man grinned at him from the side of the frame.
“Will?”
They all watched as their boss took a deep breath and reined himself in.
“Send the chopper north. Find the other lorries. Call Briton and have them stop every one entering. Start visiting every rental company and pull all the records for the last month.”
“What if they switch vehicles?”
“They’ve probably already done so, but we have to try.”
The empty lorry pictured on the screen mocked him. He reached out and gently pushed the monitor over. It fell with a satisfying crash.
“What else, Will?”
“Report this to MI6. I’ll call Interpol and get them started on a Red Flag alert.”
He went to the door, venting his rage on the wall before yanking it open and hobbling through. His people took in the splintered wood with open mouths before wisely returning to their phones.
They would work for the next ten hours straight without stopping, but the mullah was nowhere to be found.
AL SHABAB-SOMALI PIRATE LINKS GROWING: UN ADVISER
—Reuters
—NINE—
BARAWE, SOMALIA
Hanad reluctantly gave up his rifle to the man and took the clothes he would wear in exchange. The mission would be starting in earnest now. He held still and listened to the young man from Minnesota lecturing him while another held clothes up to him for size before accepting or rejecting them. He had already endured the shaving of his beard and the haircut, he now felt naked and ashamed in front of his fellow al-Shabab members.
“Too skinny,” one of them remarked as he discarded yet another shirt. He searched for a new one among the pile.
There was no denying it, Hanad was too skinny. Like all of his fellow Somalis he had grown up without enough food. What protein he did get was usually from the sea. Like his father, and his father before him, Hanad had spent the majority of his life in the pursuit of food, leaving each morning before dawn to hunt for fish on the open ocean. The day trips had turned into weeks as the fish grew scarcer and scarcer. He would watch the giant fishing boats, from places as far away as Japan and China, drag their nets through Somali waters, taking tons of fish out of his reach. He had seen others dumping barrel after barrel of chemical and industrial waste overboard, staining the water a deep orange when they burst open. He was helpless to stop it. Soon there were no more fish to be caught. Drought, war and a lack of foreign aid left them with no other options. They had turned to the only fish left in their waters: ships. Ships owned by the very countries who had plundered their seas and stolen his livelihood. The clan leaders had seen the money to be made and had financed the pirates, letting them take all the risk for a small part of the profit. Hanad had participated several times, but in the end had always wound up back where he’d started, and his hatred of the foreigners grew. So he had given up fishing with a rifle and sought a different path.
The mullahs had welcomed him. Fed and sheltered him. Given him a sliver of hope and a way to strike back at the foreigners. They had given him a purpose. In return he had brokered a deal with his former pirate clansmen. That purpose would begin today. The training was over. He and his Pakistani brothers would soon be teaching the infidels a lesson.
“There, look at yourself.” The man gestured to the cracked mirror. “You’re an American.”
Hanad bristled at the insult. He examined himself in the mirror. He imagined that he looked like the Pakistanis who had left the country a week before him. Pulling himself up straight, he took in the clothes and adjusted them on his small frame. They fit. He smiled at his image, he looked like one of them. The men fell silent around him.
“Yes . . . I am.”
THE PAUL TREGURTHA
“Starboard two.”
“Starboard two,” repeated the helmsman.
“Midship.”
“Midship.”
“Dead straight ahead.”
“Dead straight ahead.”
Abdi watched closely while the pilot and his father steered the ship toward the lock at Sault Sainte Marie. It looked impossibly small from where he was standing and he thought for sure the boat would surely get stuck.
The pilot said, “Wind’s really pushing today. I’ll have to pin her to the rail a little early.”
His father grunted a reply. The ship was in the hands of the pilot until they were out of the St. Mary’s River on the other side of the locks. Although he was fully capable of steering his ship through the locks himself, the Coast Guard made the rules. This pilot was an old friend and Mitch had learned to trust his judgment a long time ago. He took advantage of the free time to point out things to his son.
“Look here.” He pointed out the angled Plexiglas. “The locks are on the south side of the river. There’s a north lock, called the Poe Lock, and a south lock, called the MacArthur Lock. We’ll be using the Poe Lock, it’s the only one big enough to hold us. The pilot will use that wall you see sticking out into the water to guide the bow in. Since it’s so windy today he’ll use the bow thruster to push the boat up against the wall and we’ll rub it a bit until we’re in the lock.”
“We’re going to hit the wall?”
His father and the pilot grinned.
The pilot said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”
The pilot twisted the throttle controls and the water on the port side turned white as the bow thruster shoved the bow up against the wall. A loud screech sounded before fading away.
“The wall has a rubber rail and the ship has a thick skin. We’ll be fine. Watch there on the starboard side, see the deckhands? Two of them will drop down in the bosun’s chair and help tie up the boat.”
Abdi looked from the frothing water on the port side of the bow to the deckhands now swinging in the wind as they were lowered to the wall of the lock. They caught lines thrown to them and walked with them as the boat entered, as if leading a giant horse into its stable for the night. The pilot reversed the pitch of the props and the ship slowed to a stop in the middle of the lock. Abdi gazed at the gap left over on both sides, barely half as wide as he was tall. The deckhands looped their lines over the yellow bollards and the mate pulled them tight from the deck of the ship. It was all over in less than a minute.
“C’mon.” His father grabbed a radio and stepped outside a few feet onto the bridge wing. Abdi followed and soon they were looking aft at the closing lock doors. Abdi eyed the safety cable that had been lowered and released. It looked to be as thick as his own arm.
“That chain. It will stop a ship?”
“Cable actually. Depends. At the low speeds we travel in the lock it will for a time. If we were to hit it going fast, I doubt it. It’s there to keep a boat from drifting into the doors and damaging them if it should head that way before the doors are open. Sometimes the wind can really push an empty boat around. That’s why they raise it after the doors are open.”
