Arch Penney stood with the Royal Marine lieutenant keeping an eye on the operation, and he wore a broad smile.
Julie and Marjorie materialized beside him. “Go,” he said. “You two get on the next vehicle. I’ll be along after a while.”
“We’ll wait for you.”
“I’ll see you wherever the planes take us. I have to ensure we get all the crew out of here.”
Julie locked him in a hug, and Marjorie did likewise. And they went.
Penney murmured the names of his passengers, all those he knew, as they walked past. “Mr. Jones, Harriet, Reverend Franklin, Mr. and Mrs. Cohen … Benny. I’m sorry about all this. I’ll get your address from the company and write you when I have time. Thank you for your courage and example.”
Others got the same treatment. Von Platen with his three friends, a farm implement dealer from Iowa, a bookseller from Birmingham, a retired schoolteacher and her companion from Stoke-on-Trent …
Over their heads the helicopters were coming and going. More APCs rolled up, more smiling marines helped people into them …
Arch Penney wiped the tears from his eyes and kept shaking hands.
Sitting in the plaza made me restless. Everyone was busy except me. I tried my headset. “E.D.?”
No answer. I tried three or four more times, but he didn’t reply. Willis Coffey called from the airport and wanted to tell me all about what had happened out there, but the controller aboard ship shut him up with a curt admonition to keep the net clear.
The shooting seemed to have stopped, but who knew? Anyone could take a potshot at an infidel at any time. I kept my Kimber in my hand and started walking toward the location where I had left E.D.
Found him there. Dead. Chopped up pretty badly by shrapnel. Looked like an RPG warhead to me. The Sako was there, damaged. I scanned about with my penlight. Found six empty .338 Lapua cartridges lying near him in the dirt.
He hadn’t moved from this position after he started shooting. I told him to, but he didn’t.
I picked him up, got the corpse over my shoulder, managed to bend enough to snag the rifle and walked toward the plaza. I wasn’t leaving E.D. in Somalia. We could bury him back in the States.
I laid the body in the plaza. Had blood all over me, and I didn’t give a good goddamn. Blood everywhere on everything. My leg screamed.
I sat a while. Some marines came along with a body bag and took E.D.
They were bringing the prisoners in trucks. Marched them into the building. Other marines were carrying in armloads of weapons. Machine guns, AKs, RPG-7 launchers and bags of warheads.
I don’t know how many prisoners they put in there—at least fifty, maybe seventy-five. More or less. I wasn’t counting, and I don’t guess anyone else was.
The two Mossad agents showed up with one, a guy who had been shot through the lower body sideways, it looked like. He was obviously bleeding from a torso wound. The two Israeli agents were supporting his weight, but his feet were dragging along. So they had found the Palestinian bomber, al-Gaza.
They dragged the guy into the building.
One of the marines, a sergeant with lots of stripes, checked the prisoners as they were led out of the truck, or carried out. Some of them were bleeding from horrific wounds. I saw him pick out a few, and they were loaded into another truck.
Curious, I walked over. “You’re letting these guys go?”
“Kids. Got one who weighed sixty pounds and was just five feet tall.”
As I was standing there I saw a woman with an AK approach one of the vehicles. She came out from behind a pickup. How long she had been there I don’t know. A group of prisoners was being herded toward the building.
The marines tensed.
“Stand easy, men,” the sergeant said in his parade-ground voice, not shouting, but with a voice that cut through the noise.
The woman was perhaps middle-aged. She didn’t hesitate or break stride. She was staring at one Somali. She stopped about fifteen feet from him, lifted the AK and gave him a burst in the gut. Two Marines swung their weapons, ready to kill her, but the sergeant roared, “No.”
He walked slowly over to the woman, held out his hand, and she handed him the rifle. Then she turned and walked away, back toward the huts that comprised the town.
“What was that all about, Gunny?” one of the marines asked.
“God only knows,” the gunnery sergeant said. “Maybe he killed her man. Or raped her. Or raped her daughter. She figured he earned it. You people pick him up and carry him inside.”
The marines didn’t even check to see if the guy was dead. They carried him into the building and threw him on the floor.
“How’d you know she wouldn’t shoot our men?” I asked the sergeant.
“After three tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, you get a feel. The aggression, the bad vibes. I just knew.”
The thought crossed my mind that you only have to be wrong once to end up dead, but I kept my mouth shut.
The gunnery sergeant had some more to say in that gravelly, parade-ground voice. “These women have been taking shit from these ragheads all their lives. The times, they are a-changin’.”
I looked around for Grafton. Didn’t see him. Wandered into the lobby past the rows of prisoners lying on the floor trussed up with plastic ties and looked down the stairs. Heard a noise and saw Grafton coming up with the two Israelis.
He didn’t say anything. Just slapped me on the shoulder. Then he saw a young marine in battle dress standing there amid the prisoners lying on the floor, trussed up with plastic ties, tearing pages from a book. Maybe it was the Koran.
Grafton went over to him and took the book from his hands. Tossed it on the floor. “This isn’t good for your soul,” he said. He put a hand on the young man’s shoulder and guided him out. I followed him into the plaza.
He stood looking, watching the prisoners being marched in, the weapons being policed up. Marines were carrying them into the building by the armload, then hustling back for more.
An APC came down the hill from the fort and stopped in front of the lair. Four Royal Marines carried three wounded men from the APC into the building. Grafton nodded at one man who had apparently been shot through both knees. He was screaming as they toted him in, one holding his shoulders and one his ankles. “That’s the pirate that led the team that captured the Sultan. Killed some crewmen, threw the wounded overboard to drown, murdered several passengers.”
“Maybe we should take him back to the States. The defense lawyers would love you for it.”
Jake Grafton made a rude noise. “His pirating days are over,” he muttered. Then he turned to me. “Tommy, you did well. I thank you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hitch a ride up to the airport. Get all your guys. Keep them alert, guarding the planes. Then put them on the last plane out. You, too.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be along after a while. Gotta make sure we get all the hostages out of that fortress. We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
“Yes, sir.”
He walked off to talk to a knot of marines. I called Willis on the net, told him E.D. wasn’t coming, and relayed Grafton’s order that the CIA team was to be on the last plane.
Then I started walking up the hill toward the fortress. My leg needed some exercise to work the soreness out.
It was almost dawn when the last of the Sultan’s crew were evacuated. I was sitting with my back against the parapet of the roof when Captain Penney and a few of his officers boarded the last chopper to the airport. The Italian and BBC news crews were already aboard. At the last minute Ben and Zahra, the two Mossad agents, came over with Mohammed Atom, who had his hands cuffed with a plastic tie behind his back. They put him on, then climbed aboard after him.