The gray-haired woman was so angry she spluttered. A younger woman said, “Now, Mom, Captain Penney is doing the best he can. So are his officers and crew.”
Penney smiled his thanks at her and let his wife pull him away.
Two of the passengers who heard this exchange, Suzanne and Irene, tried to apologize for their female colleague. Penney waved them off with “Do your best. We’ll all just have to make do the best we can.”
The place was almost dark. Penney sent a man who was cleaning up garbage with a board to tell the steward to get the emergency lanterns distributed and lit.
It was going to be a long night. One man found the captain and told him the crew had made a place for him and his lady. He was tempted to tell him they would sleep with the passengers, but his wife was leading the way in the direction the man indicated, so Penney followed.
At least the place was ventilated. The sea breeze sweeping in the open gun ports smelled of the sea, and it was relatively cool.
Oh, he wished he were out on that sea tonight with a ship full of happy passengers anticipating the adventures of tomorrow.
The e-mail from Mike Rosen went from Denver to Washington in nanoseconds. Within minutes the White House staff had it, as did every media outlet in America and Europe. Switchboards lit up in capitals all over the world.
Again Jake Grafton was summoned, this time to the White House.
He drove himself through the crowded streets. Rain drizzled down. Grafton gave the guard at the White House gate his name and was admitted. A valet was waiting to park his car. He went in and soon found himself in a conference room.
Tomazic motioned him over to sit by him. The president and his right-hand man, Sal Molina, were there, as were the national security adviser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the chief of naval operations, plus a dozen or so staffers and functionaries Jake didn’t recognize. The uniformed professionals nodded at Jake, who stopped to say hello before he dropped into the empty chair beside Tomazic.
A copy of Rosen’s e-mail to his Denver radio station was on the desk in front of Jake. He noticed that everyone had a copy. He was reading his when the lights went down and the briefer began. The capture of Sultan of the Seas was summarized and the current situation explained, quickly and succinctly. The briefer even had an old photo of Sheikh Ragnar that had appeared in a French newspaper several years ago. Some aerial photos of Eyl, and that was about it.
The president and several other people had questions, but most of the people in the room just kept their mouths firmly shut.
The attorney general got the floor when the president nodded at him. He informed them that Omar Ali, a Somali pirate in U.S. custody, had revealed that the Shabab, the Islamic fundamentalist rebel group in Somalia, was, he believed, going to attempt to murder the Sultan’s passengers and crew after the ransom was paid.
The president nodded at Tomazic, who expanded upon Ali’s tale. “He says he talked to a Shabab lieutenant named Feiz al-Darraji. We believe there is such a man, but beyond that, we have at this time no verification for Ali’s story.”
So there it was. Jake and Tomazic sat silently as the big dogs worried the bone.
As Tomazic had predicted eighteen hours before, the politicians were unwilling to discount Ali’s tale. It became the fulcrum on which the U.S. response would turn.
The president finally made a statement. “Lord knows I didn’t want us dragged into the Somali pirate mess, and none of our allies want to get tarred with it either. We can’t solve Somalia’s problems. We can’t go to war against the Shabab, we can’t give troops to the government, we can’t stimulate a moribund agrarian economy, and we can’t feed the whole population. It may sound brutal, but the hard fact is that the Somalis are going to have to work this out for themselves, one way or another.
“That being said, we are going to have to do something to clean up these damned pirates, who are interfering with world trade and endangering the lives of everyone aboard a ship that transits those seas. Thomas Jefferson faced the same problem over two hundred years ago. He acted decisively and made the Mediterranean safe for U.S. merchants and, incidentally, everyone else.
“So, I have decided, we aren’t paying ransom. Nor will we deliver it if someone else comes up with two hundred million dollars in cash. I don’t even know how big a pile that would be. That said, what are our options and your recommendations?”
They argued a bit, but everyone could see that a fight was the only move on the board.
“So who is going to be in charge of this operation?” someone asked.
Glances went around the room. The silence didn’t last long before the CNO said, “The best man is sitting beside Tomazic.”
Every eye in the place swiveled to Jake Grafton.
“If he’s so good, why wasn’t he a four-star?” the national security adviser asked the CNO. His name was Jurgen Schulz, and he was a Harvard PhD on sabbatical, loaning his vast intellect and learning to the government for the greater good of mankind. Schulz had never been a Grafton fan; his antipathy was in his voice.
The CNO gave him a salvo in reply. “We thought other people would be better at kissing politicians’ asses. Grafton was the warrior. Still is.”
The silence that followed that remark was broken by the president. “Mr. Chairman, your thoughts?”
“Grafton.”
The president didn’t hesitate. “Admiral Grafton, your thoughts.”
Jake Grafton opened his mouth, closed it, took a deep breath and spoke. “How much authority would I have?”
“There’s no such thing as carte blanche,” Jurgen Schulz said curtly.
Grafton squared his shoulders, looked the national security adviser right in the eyes. “The pirates would probably have surrendered if you and your staff had had the good sense to keep your mouths shut and let Admiral Tarkington do his job. Now we’re going to need a lot more people and spill some serious blood to fix this mess.”
Schulz turned livid. He was ready to fire a salvo when the president intervened smoothly. “Your point is well taken, Admiral. We expect you to work with the Joint Chiefs and fleet commanders. You’ll need their cooperation. I expect you to listen carefully to whatever professional advice they think important to offer. We’ll give you the responsibility and authority to do the job, and hold you accountable for the results.”
“Yes, sir,” Jake said, the relief evident in his voice. “I would be delighted to undertake this assignment under those conditions.”
The rain had stopped and the sun was burning off the overcast when Jake Grafton got his car and headed out the White House gate for his office at the CIA facility at Langley.
A line of thunderstorms built up to the southwest of our camp in the Ethiopian bush late in the afternoon. They were dark and huge, their spreading anvil tops towering into the stratosphere. I had sentry duty that evening and was in our lookout post a bit away from the camp.
Just before the sun set, I saw movement toward the southwest and steadied the binoculars on it. Some kind of antelope, it looked like, maybe a half dozen. Three miles away, at least.
We hadn’t seen much wildlife while we had been here. Three snakes and a couple of large mice or small rats was pretty much it. I sat watching the antelope graze as the sun slipped below the horizon and cast the earth in shadow. The sun shot the thunderstorm towers with golden fire, at first full blast. As the sky darkened, I could see flashes of lightning low in the storms.