Four minutes.
Mustafa al-Said put down his binoculars and walked back into the covered portion of the bridge. He had the butt of his AK braced against his hip, the muzzle pointed at the overhead, his hand wrapped around the handle and his finger on the trigger. Arch Penney could see that finger, see that the assault rifle would go off with the slightest squeeze of that trigger.
Mustafa turned toward him and made a show of looking at the clock on the bulkhead, a clock that had somehow survived the RPG attack and all the shooting. He strolled back until he was in front of Penney, who was standing in front of the unmanned helm.
“Which one?” he asked.
Penney stared at him without expression. He hoped. Actually the revulsion he felt was plain to see, and Mustafa saw it.
The pirate snarled, “You think, he will not shoot. He is not serious person. He is reasonable. You think that, do you not?”
Mustafa’s fetid breath washed over Penney, who thought the smell was caused by rotten teeth. Mustafa’s body odor was undoubtedly due to the fact he never bathed. “No. I think you are a bloody raving murderous asshole,” the captain said evenly.
“Call engine room,” Mustafa said.
Arch picked up the direct line handset. He could hear it ringing. Finally someone answered. Harry Wooten. “Captain here. How much longer?”
Mustafa put the rifle barrel under Penney’s chin and took the handset from him. “Two minutes,” he said. “In two minutes I shoot someone on the bridge.”
Arch could hear Harry Wooten’s strident voice. “It will take at least another thirty minutes. I promise you—”
“Two minutes. I let you listen.” He dropped the handset, which fell to the length of its cord, an inch or so above the deck.
“Which one?” he asked Arch Penney.
“Me.”
“Ah, you think I would not. Your officers can drive the ship. I do not need you.”
“Shoot and be damned.”
Mustafa glanced at the clock, took a few steps toward the bridge wing, leisurely, just strolling, then turned back. He stood there with that rifle pointed up, glancing occasionally at the clock.
The second hand swept up toward twelve. The man seated against the wall was moaning gently now, almost mindlessly. Penney wondered if he even realized he was making the noise.
Mustafa pointed the gun at Penney.
The captain closed his eyes. Took a deep breath, forced himself to exhale, relax. As Marjorie said, everyone has to die once. But only once.
He was standing there, his hands at his side, his eyes closed, when he heard the shot. He opened his eyes.
The man who had been moaning and sobbing was lying on his side with his eyes frozen, a smear of blood on his chest. His heart must have stopped instantly.
Mustafa picked up the handset. “Did you hear?”
He paused, then said, “In thirty minutes I shoot another one. Work quick, or I start shooting one every five minutes.”
Mustafa al-Said walked to the wing of the bridge and looked again at Chosin Reservoir and the Ospreys flying back and forth to a destroyer. Several more Ospreys were overhead, several thousand feet up. Two more destroyers … a helicopter.
He could feel the situation slipping out of his control. With the ship moving toward Eyl, which was only a couple of hours away, there was little the Americans could do to stop him. But here, dead in the water, drifting, the Americans had more options. Mustafa didn’t know exactly what they were, but he felt the threat—and he was worried.
His men were pirates, not soldiers. They wanted money and were willing to risk their lives to get it. But they weren’t willing to die for nothing. That was a hard fact. If pressed … well, if pressed hard, Mustafa didn’t know what they would do. Surrender, he suspected. A man could always go pirating another day.
They had already seen what the Americans could do. The pirate killed by a sniper after he shot a swimming passenger had been an object lesson. Mustafa wondered if any of his men could be induced to kill another passenger.
He stuffed another wad of khat in his mouth. The khat would keep his fingers from shaking.
Admiral Toad Tarkington believed the pirates would surrender rather than drown or be shot. He was acting upon that belief.
Toad, his chief of staff, Captain Haducek, and his ops officer had a plan, and they were busy telling everyone their part in it. People who jumped would be pulled into rafts. Anyone armed would be shot.
The pirates couldn’t fight it out. Shooting hostages would do no good. They would be in a real corner.
“Have the captains check out their loud-hailers,” Toad reminded Flip Haducek. “I want Somali speakers on those things.”
“Yessir.”
“We may have casualties,” Toad told his staff. “Passengers may jump into the water; we must be ready to rescue them. Innocent people may get shot. I know all that. Still, I think the benefit of rescuing these people and thwarting the pirates is worth the casualties, which we will do our very best to minimize. I want Recon marines to rappel onto that ship as soon as the pirates surrender. They are to check below deck for casualties and evacuate any wounded they find. Kill anyone who offers resistance.”
“Sir, Ward has its marines aboard.”
“Very good. Load up the Recon guys and let’s get this show under way.”
Colonel Zakhem had marines in helmets lining the flight deck walkways. Several platoons waited on deck behind the island for the flight deck to clear.
Watching the ships, Ospreys and helicopters through binoculars, Mustafa al-Said realized that the Americans were up to something, and whatever it was, it was going to happen soon.
He couldn’t shoot it out with the Americans. He couldn’t run. His only option was to threaten the hostages. He had serious misgivings, but no other options, so that is what he decided to do.
He gave terse orders. His men were to herd the passengers up on deck and line them up against the rails. They were to hide behind them, and shoot them if he gave the order.
Mustafa didn’t think it would work. He knew his men. Oh, they were perfectly willing to kill people, but they weren’t willing to die to win victory. After the hostages were dead, what then? The Americans would slaughter the pirates, and they all knew it. Still, maybe the Americans would chicken out. Maybe they didn’t have the stomach for blood.
He used the ship’s loudspeaker system to give the orders in Somali. In seconds he could hear shouts and screams and the sound of running feet.
This would work or it wouldn’t.
Mustafa had a man on the bridge take the two women out on the wing of the bridge and stand behind them. He grabbed the captain and led him to the other wing of the bridge. Jammed his rifle in his back.
USS Chosin Reservoir was a mile away from Sultan, making two knots, when a yeoman ran up to Toad on the flag bridge and handed him a message. Richard Ward was approaching the cruise ship from the other direction, which was bow on to her. Marines with rifles were all over the weather decks.
Toad took a deep breath, exhaled and glanced at the message. From Washington.
“Reference your message”—there was a date-time group—“notifying us of your plan to confront the pirates. Permission denied. Risks to noncombatants judged to be too great. Do not allow any of your vessels to approach within two miles of Sultan without permission from this headquarters. All flights to remain clear by at least two thousand yards.”
Toad Tarkington wadded up the message with one hand.