LIMBE, CAMEROON
“Nicolas, you will please excuse my tardiness?” said Hassan al-Saduq. He sat at the table. “I trust your wait has been agreeable.”
Chewing his tomate cravettes, Nicolas Barre looked across the hotel dining room, where a sultry blond singer in a black strapless gown was accompanying her own smooth French vocals on the keys. “My men have had enough to occupy them,” he said. “Hopefully not too much for their own good.”
Saduq grinned. “I’m told boredom is a killer.”
“Perhaps,” Barre said. His eyes were on the blonde. “But I’ve no fear of losing any of them to it here at this fine establishment.”
Saduq sat at the table, his smile growing broader. Even through the melancholy piano music, his attentive ear could detect the clatter of roulette wheels in the casino across the lobby of the Hotel Bonny Bight.
Barre had reached for his wineglass and washed a mouthful of shrimp down with a gulp. “I suppose the diversions will keep my dogs from raising too much hell, since I won’t be back to rustle them together,” he said. “It would be best for the city of Limbe-most especially its innocent young women, I think-if I brought them along with me.”
Saduq laughed. “I have five wives, and not one would have even flirted with innocence if I’d caught her out of the womb,” he replied, deliberately avoiding the issue. He had not gotten as far as he had in life without being cautious, and their transaction was simply too sensitive to be conducted within range of very many eyes and ears. At his insistence, Barre would come onto the yacht alone. Barre, however, had accepted that condition only after putting forth one of his own, stipulating that he rendezvous with a motor launch approximately three kilometers offshore once their deal was cemented. His reasoning was evident enough. The meeting with the launch was insurance-if he did not show up, the sea rogues aboard would be instantly put on alert for a betrayal. And would be prepared to react in an unpretty manner.
Studying the pirate, Saduq could hardly fault him for seeking to equalize the terms of their handoff. He, too, had survived as long as he had thus far only by making wariness his close friend and ally.
Barre ate under his momentary scrutiny, digging into his meal with enthusiasm. He was a whipcord lean Somali with a deep mahogany complexion, a diamond stud in his right ear, and a black scorpion tattoo peeking over his shirt collar. “Will you be joining me, Hassan?” he said, glancing up from his dish. “The shrimp is exceptional.”
“I prefer to dine once we’ve concluded our business,” Saduq said. “But don’t rush. I would hate to see good food wasted.”
Barre took another bite of the tender shrimp, then drank more of his wine as the lounge performer continued singing, her voice sultry and wistful, the notes gliding from her baby grand piano in minor arpeggios: “Les feuilles mortes se ramassent a la pelle. Tu vois, je n’ai pas oublie. Les feuilles mortes se ramassent a la pelle. Les souvenirs et les regrets…”
“She is a strikingly beautiful woman,” Barre said. His eyes had held on her. “Do you understand French?”
Saduq gave a small shake of his head. “Barely enough to exchange pleasantries.”
“She sings of a lost lover, the passage of seasons, and lingering regret,” Barre said. “Such an emotional delivery…I wonder if she carries some personal sorrow.”
Saduq chuckled. “Would you try to make her forget it?”
“Do not laugh,” Barre said with a shrug. “I may return here some other night and introduce myself to her.”
Saduq looked at him. “Tender soul that you are, Nicolas, I have no doubt you’d be ready with a healing touch,” he said. “But I have found the best way to avoid sadness and regret is keeping my mind on one thing at a time…and for this night it is the business at hand.”
A 52-foot Ferretti with an open flybridge, broad sky lounge, and streamlined hull, the motor yacht rocked gently in the berthing area with other quayside luxury vessels, her interior and running lights on.
“There’s Saduq’s boat,” Abby said, pointing out the right side of the windshield. “The Yemaja.”
Kealey studied it from the SUV’s backseat as they approached. The name on its hull was easy to spot in the streetlights along Avenue de la Marina. A couple of dark-suited men stood near the foot of the dock, no less visible to him.
He shifted his gaze to the glass-fronted, balconied, four-story building up the harbor, its entry spilling more brightness into the night. “Is that the hotel?”
Abby nodded. “We believe our friend Hassan has a silent stake in its ownership-he isn’t hesitant to diversify his portfolio,” she said. “Still, we’ve managed to slip a casual employee onto its staff.”
Kealey grunted. A short while ago Abby’s cell phone had trilled, and when she disconnected after a brief exchange with the caller, she’d reported that Saduq had arrived at the hotel to join another man in its restaurant.
“This plant of yours…he’s sure Saduq is alone?”
“ She is, yes,” Abby said. “Or entered alone, at any rate. Danielle plays a fine piano in the dining room, has a lovely voice, and is quite observant. Unfortunately she cannot see through walls.”
Kealey thought in silence. He was willing to bet the arms broker had bodyguards with him somewhere-besides the two at the dock. And then there was the posse Abby had said accompanied Saduq’s contact. According to her information, he’d brought at least four men into the place with him, though they had vanished into the casino once he was seated at his table.
“Take it slow going past the boat,” Kealey told Steiner, leaning forward. “Or as slow as you can without being conspicuous.”
Steiner nodded behind the steering wheel and moments later was driving by the yacht. Kealey hastily counted three men moving about the deck and guessed they represented close to the Yemaja ’s entire staff. A boat that small, Kealey figured Saduq could take it out into the bay himself if he had a pilot’s license. But if he was going to hold an important meet aboard her, there would be a man at the helm, maybe a hand or two to assist him. You could probably add a galley steward to the crew list, since Saduq would be the type to like sailing in style. That would be about it.
“What’s next?” Abby asked from in front.
Kealey had been grappling with the same question. His eyes intent, he noticed a dimly lit outdoor parking lot at the end of the dock, a row of tall royal palms forming the boundary line between its far side and the hotel grounds.
“Any idea who belongs to those vehicles?” he said, nodding toward the small number in the lot.
“It is general marina parking,” Brun said across the backseat. “Also for the hotel’s staff.”
“What about its guests?” Kealey asked.
“The Bonny Bight has valets. An underground garage,” Brun said.
Kealey was noting that quite a few of the outdoor lot’s available spaces were well back in the shadows. It gave him, if not exactly an idea, then the bare seed of one. “Okay, let’s pass the hotel so I can have a look at it,” he said. And a chance to think. “Then we’ll hurry up and make some plans.”
Steiner nodded again and cruised by the front of the hotel. Outside were landscaped shrub islands and a circular drive that wound around to a separate drive adjacent to the resort-one Kealey assumed led to the underground garage. Cleverly recessed floodlights illuminated the elongated dome awning over the glass entrance doors, and a white-gloved doorman and valet stood talking behind them in the vestibule.
Steiner had continued on for only a short distance before the multilane Avenue de la Marina tapered off into an undivided blacktop, its streetlamps falling away, a mix of wild saw palmettos, figs, and mangroves shagging the roadsides. Peering through the brush to his left, Kealey made out a black curve of beach in the throw of the SUV’s headlights. They’d gone far enough.
“We’d better double back now,” he said. “Pull into that open-air lot. Find a space that’s dark.”
Abby glanced around at him. “Are you going to share what you intend to do afterward, or will we have to guess?”
Kealey gave her a cool look. “You asked me to lead the way on this ride,” he said. “I don’t remember hearing you lay down terms.”
“I didn’t,” she said. “But I wasn’t expecting to follow you blindly-”
“Nobody said you would.” Kealey’s tone was as controlled as his expression. “I need to figure some things out in a hurry. I also need a pair of binoculars if we’ve got them. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking when we reach the lot.”
As Abby reached into a dash compartment for the binocs, Steiner swung the SUV around in reverse, his cargo hatch pushing into the brush at the verge of the road. Then he was driving back toward the harbor.
The glasses to his eyes, Kealey looked out at the Yemaja through the SUV’s tinted windows. Three crewmen had stepped onto the deck. One was lowering the yacht’s sea stairs; another stood over the anchor winch toward the stern. The third, its pilot, was up on the flying bridge. They were preparing to set sail…and it appeared they’d be ready as soon as she was boarded.
Passing the hotel now, Steiner turned into the parking lot and rolled into one of its open spaces near the entrance, his front end facing the yacht on Kealey’s instructions. Then he cut his engine and lights.
“We’re going to hijack her,” Kealey said after a moment, his binoculars lowered.
Four pairs of eyes stared at him in utter surprise.
“What?” Abby said. She looked as if she hadn’t comprehended him.
“There are too many moving pieces,” Kealey said. “We have to simplify our part of things.”
They all continued to sit with their attention fixed on Kealey.
“I still don’t know what you mean,” Abby said.
“Then think about it,” Kealey said. “We can’t just grab Saduq on the dock and risk his friend bolting off on us. If we’re going to be sure exactly what’s going on here, we need both of them.”
“No, Kealey. You’re wrong,” said Abby. “Saduq is our link to Ismail Mirghani. And Mirghani to whoever might have-”
“You told me yourself you can’t prove anything when it comes to Saduq and the Russian arms deal,” Kealey replied. “What exactly is it you figure to do? Wave your Interpol badge in his face and politely ask him to fess up?”
“We can do more than that,” Martin said beside him.
“I’ll ask it again. What? You can’t arrest him without a warrant.”
“But we can bring him in for questioning,” Abby said.
Kealey’s grin was scathingly harsh. “I hope that was a joke. You don’t really believe he’ll talk without serious motivation.”
“Such as?” Abby asked.
“Leave that to me.”
“Kealey, we can’t just break the law and abduct those men,” Abby insisted. “ They’re the bloody thieves and bandits-”
“And this is our chance to get them rolling in the mud together,” Kealey said. “There’s nowhere on the boat they can run that can take them too far.”
She was shaking her head. “Say we go along with your idea. There are only five of us. We don’t know how many guards Saduq has back at the hotel. The same applies for the man he’s come here to meet.”
“That’s what I meant by moving parts,” Kealey said. “We take the yacht, it cuts some of those parts out of the equation. My guess is those two won’t have much company. It’s obvious they want to put distance between themselves and any possible surveillance. But their business is happening where it is to keep eyewitnesses to a minimum-and I’m betting that includes their own men.”
Abby regarded him for a long moment. “Kealey, this is absolute madness.”
“Maybe so. But call it what you want. I’m here to get the job done.” Kealey shifted in his seat to look out the rear windshield, snapped his head back around toward Abby. “It’s push time, Abby. You asked me to lead you-I didn’t offer. So do we move or head back to Yaounde for more of your custard?”
Abby was silent. She’d also glanced out the rear and seen the men leaving the hotel. After a moment she inhaled, formed a spout with her lips, expelled a stream of air. “All right. Tell us what you have in mind,” she said finally.
Leaving the Hotel Bonny Bight together, Saduq and his companion turned right, strode by the parking lot, and then walked along the edge of the quay on the Avenue de la Marina. They would have to pass six or seven other craft before they reached the Yemaja.
In the BMW’s backseat, Kealey adjusted the MP9 carbine’s concealed black carry pouch on his waist and then zipped the front of his jacket shut over its spare magazine rig.
“Ready?” he asked Abby.
She looked around from making her own preparations, nodded.
“Okay,” Kealey said. “The rest of you sit tight. And stay alert.”
He grabbed his door handle and exited the SUV, then moved to the front passenger door and opened it. Abby slipped her arm through his as she got out.
“You’re too tense,” he said in a hushed voice.
She shot him a look. “What do you expect?”
“For you to pay attention,” Kealey said. “Now loosen up so those guards don’t make us on sight.” He waited a second, felt her body relax against him. Better. “Come on, let’s walk.”
They left the parking lot and then turned up the street, strolling toward the yacht about 10 yards behind Saduq and the pirate. The press of her hip and shoulder made Kealey think of Naomi Kharmai-he would have guessed they were about the same height and weight, Abby perhaps a bit slighter. It was a reminder he neither wanted nor needed.
They continued walking along the lip of the quay. After about thirty seconds he saw Saduq ever so slightly hesitate, cast an unobtrusive glance around, then resume his steady pace beside the other man without giving them another look.
Kealey drew Abby closer and appeared to nuzzle her cheek, brushing her ear with his lips. He could feel the small bulk of his ammunition rig between them. “You see him check us out?” he murmured without slowing down.
She nodded. “What do you think?”
“We’re fine,” he said, giving her a lover’s gentle and affectionate smile.
“So, Yasir, I trust all is quiet on the waterfront?” Saduq asked one of the two guards on the quay in Arabic.
Puffing on a Djarum Black, the guard gave an affirmative nod. “ Na’am, sayyidi, ” he replied. Behind him the yacht’s sea stairs had been firmly secured to its starboard side and lowered to the dock.
Saduq stood in the warm breeze drifting off the bay, the spicy aroma of the clove cigarette mingling with the salt air. “A beautiful night is always to be savored,” he said and tilted his head toward the man and woman strolling up the street behind them. “Too bad the best of it is reserved for young lovers rather than men of our restless ambition, eh, Nicolas?”
Nicolas Barre glanced in their direction. “I hadn’t noticed them behind us.”
“Perhaps it’s because your thoughts have lingered on the blond songstress-we’re not immune to romantic impulses, after all,” Saduq said with a laugh. “Come… Let’s get aboard before you’re irresistibly drawn back to the hotel and her vocal charms.”
Barre turned from the couple. Saduq motioned for Barre to precede him onto the quay, and he did so, climbing the sea stairs to the deck of the Yemaja. A moment later Saduq followed, leaving only the strollers and his guards behind in the dimness along the dock.
As Saduq and his companion mounted the sea stairs, Kealey gave Abby’s arm a soft tug, pausing under the pale silver glow of the half-moon to motion toward the bay. A casual observer might have thought he was pointing out a harbor beacon in the near distance, or possibly one of the constellations visible above the low horizon, its stars spilling across the sky as countless tiny sequins of light.
“You’ve killed before,” he whispered. It was not so much a question as confirmation.
She stood looking out over the water, her features becoming almost imperceptibly tighter. “Yes.”
Kealey couldn’t have articulated how he’d known. To say it was something he’d seen in her eyes was oversimplistic, although that was part of it, and he paid close attention to what he intuited. But he supposed another part was realizing she wouldn’t have gone along with his plan if she hadn’t, because killing was essential to its success. He decided to leave it alone.
“Those guards on the dock will be armed,” he said. “I can take them. But I’ll need you to distract the one with the cigarette.”
She nodded her head. “Okay, let’s get on with it.”
Arm in arm, they walked the rest of the way up the dock, past the bobbing recreational boats, to the Yemaja.
“Excuse me,” Abby said. “Might I trouble you for a cig?”
Saduq’s guards had been aware of the couple even before their employer and Barre turned to board the yacht, but their attention had turned up a notch as they’d come within a yard or two of the berthing area.
His Djarum between his lips, Yasir looked at her in stony silence. He had understood her question perfectly but was interested only in seeing the pair move on.
Abby slipped her arm out from Kealey’s and mimed holding a smoke to her lips. “Cigarette?” she said, tilting her head back in the direction of the Bonny Bight. “I must have left mine back there in the lounge.” She sniffed the breeze. “Did you know clove cigarettes were banned in the States? It’s been a problem since I moved there…”
Yasir continued to ignore her with visibly growing impatience. Kealey could see a concealed weapon bunching the fabric on the right side of his sport jacket and, while looking at him peripherally, noted how his partner’s jacket fell over a holster in the small of his back. Having the weapon in that spot would add at least a fraction of a second to his draw time.
Kealey turned to face the second guard, keeping his hand loose near his hip. “Sorry if we’ve bothered you, but-”
The Muela combat knife came out from under Kealey’s Windbreaker in a blur, his right fist around its lightweight rubber grip even as he grabbed the man’s wrist with his free hand, locking his fingers around it, pulling him forward and off balance an instant before he tried reaching back for his firearm. The black blade plunged deep into the man’s throat, Kealey giving it a sudden twist, dragging it through the flesh as bright, warm carotid blood came out in a spurt. Then he shoved the man back hard with his forearm, plunging him into the dark water between the yacht and quay.
A pulse beat later Kealey spun toward the one with the cigarette, the MP9 appearing from under his jacket. He jammed the forward end of its cylindrical sound suppressor between the second man’s ribs and then moved between him and Abby and squeezed the trigger. The flump of the discharging weapon was louder than Kealey would have wanted, its removable tube not nearly as effective as what an integrated can would have done, and he knew the sound would echo across the water. But there was the slap of the current and the soft creaking of wooden planks and the openness around him-and, most of all, an element of surprise, which he hoped would buy him the small amount of time he needed.
The lighted cigarette spinning out of his hand, the guard went limp and collapsed around the barrel of the gun as the 9-mil round’s kinetic energy burst his heart in his chest. Kealey bodied into him with his entire weight, pushing hard, forcing him off the dock and into the bay seconds after the first man had toppled into it with a dull splash.
Soft, swift footsteps came now from the direction of the parking area-Etienne Brun sprinting light-footedly toward him as they’d arranged, a B amp;T MP9 identical to Kealey’s against his thigh.
Kealey made eye contact with him, sheathed his knife, glanced around to see Abby staring down at the water, her hair blowing about her face. Her posture was wooden, the tendons of her neck bulging out in tight, strained cords.
“Come on, let’s move!” he said, placing his hand firmly around her arm to snap her out of it.
She took a breath, nodded. And then the three of them were bounding off the dock and up the sea stairs onto the deck of Hassan al-Saduq’s yacht.
“Hell, look, ” Martin said in the SUV’s backseat.
Steiner saw him motion toward the Bonny Bight, flicked his eyes toward his window, and instantly spotted three large men trotting toward the dock through the tall, columnar trunks of the royal palms. Hurrying along Avenue de la Marina, they ran abreast with furious purpose…and there was no mistaking them for ordinary guests of the hotel.
“You think they’re with Saduq or the pirate?” Martin asked.
“I don’t know-but it’s only important that we stop them.” Steiner slapped a clip into his submachine gun with the ball of his palm and heard Martin doing the same, his magazine locking into place with a metallic click. Then he set the gun down beside him on his seat and keyed the ignition. “Hang on!”
He stepped on the gas, shot out of the parking space with a jolt, then swung the steering wheel to the right and pulled from the lot onto the pavement, his front end facing the curb. Gripping his door handle, he braked to a sudden stop between the men and the dock, grabbed his compact assault rifle, and lunged out of the SUV, keeping its armored body between himself and the trio. He had his ID holder in one hand, the rifle in the other.
“Halt! Halte! ” He waved the ID holder at them. “Europol!”
The men held in their tracks, one slightly ahead of his comrades. Steiner kept his identification in clear view as Martin exited the right side of the vehicle. Using his partially open door as a shield, Martin angled his weapon at them over the top of its laminar glass window.
“What do you want from us?” one of the men said in English. “Let us through-”
“I’m afraid we cannot,” Martin said.
“What are you talking about?” The man motioned past him toward the yacht. “We have to get over there. Our employer is expecting us to-”
“That’s enough bullshit,” Martin said. “Put your hands over your heads. All three of you.”
The men just glared at him.
“ Merde, are you deaf?” Martin jerked his weapon upward. “Let’s see your hands in the air now. ”
The lead man’s eyes continued boring into Martin as he finally frowned and raised his arms with slow reluctance. The other two followed suit a moment later.
Alert for any sudden move, Martin slid around his side of the car, his left hand around the assault gun’s barrel, his right on the pistol grip, the back of its stock pressed into the hollow between his shoulder and chest. Out the tail of his eye he saw the sparse traffic on the street slowing down at the scene as drivers in both directions began to rubberneck. Then he became aware of something else-the warble of police sirens in the near distance. At least one of those gawkers must have phoned for the gendarmes.
Which, Martin thought, was not the worst thing for him and Steiner. The key was to play the situation to their advantage. The Interpol-EU antipiracy task force was under no obligation to coordinate its efforts with local authorities. A little finesse, then, and their actions here might be explained as falling inside the bounds of a covert investigation. But Hassan al-Saduq had not been charged with any crimes. The task force could not violate the law, and hijacking Saduq’s yacht crossed lines Martin didn’t wish to contemplate. Or explain.
He would have ample opportunity to consider that later, though. Right now he needed to buy Kealey and the others more time-and make sure these men stayed right where they were.
He glanced at Steiner, nodded for him to frisk the three while he covered him with his MP9. Steiner moved quickly from the SUV to where they stood, found a holstered Beretta under the lead man’s jacket, and shoved it into his pocket. The second man had the same weapon at his side-and a Walther PPK in an ankle holster. He handed off both to Martin, who tossed them back into the SUV while keeping his rifle leveled.
“Who do you work for?” Martin asked them. “Is it Saduq or his sailing companion?”
Cold stares in return.
“We already have a good idea why they came here,” Martin said. “Tell us the truth and it might help you in the long run.”
The lead man snorted loudly, then spat in Martin’s direction. Martin just smiled-it was more or less the response he’d expected. His greater concern was that a hurried glance over his shoulder had disclosed that the arms trader’s yacht still remained berthed at the quay. He did not know if it meant the American’s mad plan-if it truly could be considered one-had led to trouble for Abby and Brun, or if they simply needed more time. But he was hoping he wouldn’t have to find ways to buy it for them and stall the gendarmes from going aboard.
Steiner, meanwhile, had disarmed the third man, producing a Ruger semiautomatic from under his blazer. He backed toward the SUV with it as the sirens in the night got louder and closer. Within seconds the police cars appeared, their roof lights flashing, shooting past Saduq’s yacht as they arrived from the direction of the harbor.
It had not taken them very long, Martin thought, his back to the vehicles. But he had known their precinct house was close. Limbe was a small city, with its wealthiest citizens and visitors-and therefore those the police most diligently protected-concentrated here at the shore.
The patrol cars pulled up, their doors flying open, uniformed officers pouring out with their guns drawn. There might have been four or five vehicles. Martin was unsure of the exact number. He would neither lower his own weapon nor take his attention off the men on whom it was pointed to count them.
“Drop your gun!” one of the uniforms shouted.
Martin held out his identification in one hand. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“Captain Justine,” the gendarme barked. “Your weapon.”
Martin spared the gendarme a glance. Tall and husky, he was holding his regulation Beretta out in front of him, aiming it at Martin in a two-handed police grip.
Martin tossed his ID holder at him, heard it hit the ground. “I’m with Interpol, Captain. Leonard Martin. Since you couldn’t manage to see my goddamned identification while I held it, feel free to pick it up for a better look.”
Justine bent to lift the holder from where it had landed near his feet, eyes quickly moving over it, then shifting to Steiner and the three men still standing with their hands up in the air.
“What’s going on here?” Justine barked.
Martin took a long, deep breath and held it, wishing he had the vaguest notion of how to explain.
Aboard the Yemaja, the two deckhands had been raising fenders and pulling in lines when they heard the scuffling below on the quay.
Leading the way up onto the boat, Abby and Brun behind him, Kealey came off the stairs to see one of the hands turning from the rail toward the master cabin. His MP9 holstered, Kealey took one running stride after him, another, and then grabbed him before he could run in under the tail of the flybridge, clamping his right arm around his throat and hauling him backward while jamming a knee into the base of his spine.
The deckhand groaned in pain but managed to take a decent swing at Kealey as he was unwillingly spun in a circle. Kealey easily ducked the blow, bounced up on his knees, and punched him hard in the face, smashing his nose with his fist. As the man’s legs folded, Kealey moved in to hit him again, taking no chances, delivering a second blow across his jaw, feeling it give at the hinge, then grabbing his sleeve and tossing him against the rail. The man slammed back into it before he crumpled to his knees, spitting and coughing up blood.
Kealey looked around to check on his teammates. He did not see Abby anywhere, but picked up Brun in close pursuit of the deckhand who’d been hauling the lines. The crewman ran aft outside the master cabin toward the stern and, to Kealey’s surprise, revealed himself to be armed, stopping in the main cabin just inside the entrance to pull a gun on the Interpol agent.
His assault rifle already in his grip, Brun pumped a short burst into the crewman’s midsection. Staggering backward, he somehow remained on his feet long enough to return fire, the round he had triggered catching Brun above the elbow, before he turned in a swoony half circle and dropped to the floorboards in a heap.
Kealey dashed back toward the rear deck. Enclosed by a paneled curve of glass, the main cabin ran the full beam of the yacht to form a luxury suite with leather chaise lounges and teak floors and furnishings. Hassan al-Saduq was on the other side of the window panels amidships, his gaze momentarily meeting Kealey’s before he hastened down a hatchway beside the cockpit to the lower deck. But Kealey saw no sign of the man he’d met at the hotel. And Abby? Where was she?
Kealey hooked through the cabin entrance to Brun, who stood just inside it, clutching his arm, bracing himself against a ladder running up to the flybridge.
“Shit,” Kealey said, eyeing his left shirtsleeve. “That doesn’t look good.”
“Just a nick,” Brun said through gritted teeth.
“You’re losing blood.” Kealey shook his head. “It won’t stop by itself.”
Brun waved him off with his right hand-the one still holding his assault gun. “I’m all right,” he said. “You’d better get on with things.”
Kealey expelled a breath. “Where’s Abby?”
Brun angled his chin at the ladder to the flybridge. “Up top,” he said. “She went after Saduq’s friend and-”
The yacht abruptly jolted as its engines thrummed to life below-decks, almost throwing Kealey off his feet. He simultaneously grabbed the rail of the ladder and reached out to steady Brun, then stole a glance at the cockpit. It remained unoccupied.
The captain, then, was also up on the flybridge. The boat would have a second pilot’s station up there. Kealey drew his submachine gun, gave Brun a nod, and scrambled up the ladder.
He was pulling his way up off its final rung behind an open-air banquette seat when he heard the crack of a gunshot, the bullet whistling past his ear less than an inch to his right. Raising his head slightly above the back of the seat, Kealey took in everything at once: The pilot’s station was up toward the bow on the port side of the sundeck, the captain at the throttles. His quarry standing behind it with a pistol in his hand and a brown rucksack over his shoulder. Farther toward the rear, Abby had taken cover behind a fixed stowage container near the starboard rail.
The pirate got off another shot at Kealey, but it missed by a slightly greater distance than the first. Instead of dropping down behind the banquette, Kealey heaved himself up over the ledge of the flybridge without a moment’s indecision, then squeezed a burst of fire over the seat back and scurried to his left. With Abby behind the single stowage container on the right side of the deck, and just the banquette between him and the gunfire, he would have far less protection here. But Kealey wanted to divide the pirate’s attention-and aim-by giving him widely separated targets.
“You have a large enough catch down below,” the pirate shouted. “Leave me and be satisfied with it.”
Kealey did not answer…but given their situation, it was hard to see what he meant. Leave me. Did the pirate think he could toss them Saduq in exchange for command of the boat? What good would that do him if they were all stuck on it together? Unless…
Kealey realized what was happening all at once. The yacht was clipping along over the water now, its captain pushing thirty knots at the helm, and it was obvious the pirate hadn’t ordered him to pour on the speed without good reason. He was not taking flight-there was no one in pursuit-and to Kealey that could only mean one thing.
He did not intend to remain on the Yemaja, but intended to meet up with another vessel somewhere out on the bay.
The pirates in the motor launch wore head scarves, military-style khakis with swim vests over them, and lightweight tactical combat boots. They were armed with fully automatic rifles and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, with several wearing daggers or machetes in scabbards at their waists. Like their leader, Nicolas Barre, they had scorpion tattoos on their necks as symbols of their brotherhood.
In the vessel’s otherwise blacked-out wheelhouse, the maritime GPS unit presently casting a muted glow over the pilot’s face had guided them to the exact coordinates Barre had set for their rendezvous. But having reached it well ahead of the scheduled meet time, they had anticipated there would be little for them to do for the next twenty minutes or so but await the yacht’s arrival.
Now, however, the man behind the wheel saw the unexpected brightness of a bow light pierce the darkness no more than 50 or 60 meters off to starboard. Listening, too, he could hear the throb of a powerful engine grow louder by the moment.
Turning quickly from the wheelhouse, he leaned forward against his craft’s low gunwale and peered in the direction of the oncoming vessel with his night vision binoculars.
“Asad…what is it?”
The pilot looked at the man who’d come up beside him, passed him the glasses, and took notice of the stunned, puzzled expression on his face.
“It must be the yacht,” the man said. “But for it to approach at that speed without Nicolas signaling ahead-”
“We’d better hurry up and prepare, Guleed,” the pilot said.
On his haunches behind the banquette, Kealey lined his gun sight on the pirate as the yacht raced over the black water of the bay. He did not want to get into a shoot-out here on the flybridge. He wanted the man for information, and that meant he did not want him dead. But he had no intention of letting him escape with the unknown contents of the rucksack-a bag he had not carried with him from the Hotel Bonny Bight, and that he therefore had picked up on the yacht. He wanted to know what was in it.
Kealey was fairly confident he could squeeze off an accurate volley even with the vibrating movement of the boat. Aim for the man’s legs, with a short three-round burst, and it would cut them out from under him. Miss his target, on the other hand, and all kinds of chaos would erupt. But the alternative was to remain at an impasse until they reached whatever was waiting for the pirate out in the night. If Kealey was going to do it, he couldn’t wait.
He inhaled deeply, then held his breath, preparing to pull the trigger on his exhale, the old sniper’s technique…
He never had the chance to get off his salvo. An instant before he would have fired, the pirate’s weapon abruptly produced a loud report, then a second and third, the bullets slamming into the banquette in front of him. Kealey barely had time to wonder what had prompted his shots before the yacht veered sharply to starboard, throwing him off balance. Then he angrily realized he’d waited too long-they had reached the meet point.
He tried to spring to his feet to return the fire, and the yacht careered again, this time turning even more sharply in the water, the violent motion flinging him onto his side and knocking the assault rifle from his grasp. As it skittered across the deck, he saw Abby clinging to the fixed stowage container, struggling to hang on to it so she wouldn’t tumble across the flybridge.
Kealey heard his own furious snarl as he again tried to right himself and saw the pirate holding tightly onto the rail, peering down over the side of the boat. God damn, God damn! They’d been taken for idiots, suckered…
The yacht kicked to a halt, its mainframe shuddering, throwing Kealey back onto the deck. Cursing under his breath, he grabbed hold of the banquette in front of him and launched to his feet, but by then the pirate had already leaped down from the pilot’s station and was on his way over the side.
Kealey ran forward, grabbing up his rifle as he hurtled toward the rail just in time to see the launch speeding away from the yacht ahead of a churning wake of foam, vanishing in the pitch darkness, taking the pirate and the rucksack with it.
Expelling a disgusted breath, he turned to the pilot’s station, grabbed the boat’s captain by his collar, and tossed him off his seat.
“Stay away from those controls, you stupid bastard,” he said, pushing the bore of his gun against the man’s temple with such force, it bent his head back. “You move this boat an inch-a fucking inch-and I swear I’ll blow your useless brains out.”
Rushing down the ladder from the flybridge now, past Brun to the hatchway and down again, and then through a passage on the lower deck, Kealey reached the master cabin amidships, where Saduq had holed up behind his locked door.
He stood outside the door, inhaled, and then kicked it below the handle so that it went flying inward with a loud bang, the frame buckling around it, partially torn away from the side of the passage.
Saduq stood staring at him from the middle of the cabin, his eyes wide in his face.
“Who are you?” he said. “What is it you want?”
Kealey stormed into the cabin and pushed him so hard that Saduq went flying backward over a chair into the wall, the breath woofing from his lips.
“Who I am doesn’t matter,” Kealey said. “All that does is that you’re going to talk.”