Ricardo refused to go. I saw that he was shaking his head violently, and strolled near enough to hear the argument over the noise from the helo’s idling engines. “There is another story here. What about the people of Eyl, after the battle is over? I am staying to do this story.”
“We aren’t keeping a plane at the airport to wait for you.”
“I understand. I absolve you of all responsibility. My cameraman and I will find our own way home.”
“Jesus, you are a stubborn son of a bitch. There’s dozens, maybe hundreds of those murderous Shabab assholes out there in the brush. They’d love nothing more than to do you, just for the fun of it.”
“This is my job,” Ricardo said heroically.
The loadmaster threw up his hands and waved to the chopper. It lifted off, and we were swamped with silence.
I headed down the stairs. Walked through the fortress one last time—a few of the emergency lanterns from the ship were still lit, but mainly the place was dark. A rat shot through the beam of my penlight. I suspected the locals would mine the trash when the sun came up.
I left the fort, waved to a Royal Marine standing at the entrance with his weapon cradled in his arms and started hiking for town. The U.S. Marines were still there, though most of the fires had burned themselves out. A couple of APCs had their headlights and spotlights on, lighting up the plaza.
Willis Coffey called me on the net. He was a happy fellow. “We’re ready to get aboard this last plane, Tommy. Where are you, dude?”
“Go on. I’ll catch a ride with the marines. See you in Langley.”
He didn’t argue. “Adios, amigo,” he said.
I turned off the com unit and stuffed it and the headset in my backpack.
When the sun came up, the marines started to pull out. Machine guns were broken down, packed up. Ammo stowed in boxes. Water cans picked up and stowed in the APCs. Then the SEALs and marines piled in, and they headed off up or down the beach to the landing craft that were waiting to take them back to the ships.
A U.S. Navy destroyer was anchored near the Sultan, and small boats were coming and going. They were going to tow her away, I thought.
Jake Grafton was still in the plaza, standing beside an APC, a commandeered pickup and some marines. One of the marines was a captain.
Grafton asked him, “Did you get all those people evacuated from those huts?” He nodded toward the village.
“Yes, sir. Made them walk at least a mile. Some of the old women and kids we gave rides to.”
“How many rations did you leave?”
“Two pallets, sir. One of rice, beans, canned meat, juice, lots of stuff from the ship. The other was MREs.”
Grafton eyed me. “I thought I told you to take a plane.”
“I disobeyed orders. Thought I’d ride along with you. Wheedle some leave out of you, maybe a pay raise while you’re so full of cheer and love for your fellow man.”
He merely nodded and climbed into the truck’s passenger seat. One of the marines got behind the wheel, and two jumped in the back. I didn’t jump, not with my leg. I eased myself aboard and swung my sore leg in.
The APC preceded us. We hadn’t gone a hundred yards when we saw Ricardo and his cameraman hiking our way, waving their arms.
The truck stopped, and he rushed over. Maybe he didn’t recognize Grafton, because he asked the buck sergeant driver, “Where are all the civilians?”
“I think they cleared out, sir.”
“But where?”
“I don’t know. Now you’d better get in the truck.”
“We’re not leaving,” Ricardo said flatly. “We’re the press, and we don’t take orders from anyone.”
The sergeant made a gesture with his hand at the two marines who were riding in the bed. They jumped off, picked up Ricardo bodily and threw him in the truck bed. The cameraman decided discretion was the better part of valor, hoisted his camera in, and climbed up under his own steam.
The truck rolled. We were up near the fortress when the truck stopped and Grafton got out. He was standing beside the truck, right beside me, and I think I was the only one who saw him pull something from his pocket. He fiddled with it for a moment, then pointed it at Ragnar’s lair.
The building exploded. The explosion started in the basement and just kept getting bigger and bigger, I guess as more and more of the PVV-5A and ammo and RPG warheads got involved. The noise and concussion felt like a punch, even at this distance. The fireball rose and turned into a mushroom cloud.
Grafton dropped the controller and climbed back into the truck. The sergeant started it moving. Everyone in the bed was looking at the still-growing cloud. The blast knocked down most of the shacks in Eyl. Little bits and pieces began raining from the sky. I covered my head with my hands.
As the truck topped the crest I got my last look. The breeze had moved some of the cloud to seaward. Ragnar’s lair was no longer there.
Mike Rosen was in Sultan’s e-com center typing, as usual, trying to get the events of the evening into e-mails. He had stopped and was sitting looking at the town of Eyl in the early-morning sun when Ragnar’s building went up in a cloud of smoke and fire. He watched it for a moment, typed out what he had just seen and hit SEND. Then he turned off his computer.
He went up on deck and watched the giant mushroom cloud drift toward the Sultan. Looked at the destroyer and the boats and saw that one of them was towing a hawser toward Sultan.
An hour later the ship was free of her anchor and moving. Sailors were aboard on the bridge, using handheld radios to talk back and forth to each other and the destroyer, Richard Ward.
Sultan was turned toward the east and the destroyer towed her toward the open sea. Mike Rosen stood on the upper deck watching Africa slowly recede. An hour and a half later, all he could see in every direction was water, and some navy ships. High Noon joined him. Amazingly, his coat pockets were empty and he was drinking coffee from a ceramic cup.
“There’s coffee in the galley,” he said and leaned on the rail.
“Where’s your gin?”
“Oh, that. I poured gin on myself from time to time, but the bottles held mostly water.”
“Who do you work for? MI-6?”
Noon grinned. “Been in Africa over twenty years,” he mused. “Time to go home. Fact is, I think I’ve worn out my welcome.”
“What am I supposed to say when people ask me about that e-mail I sent Wednesday evening? How the Shabab was going to kill the pirates, steal the ransom and kill everyone in the fort.”
“Oh. Amazingly accurate prediction, that. True, even.”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you just say you overheard some people talking, and let it go at that?”
“The e-mails from the States had a lot to say about this Grafton fellow. That he was in charge of the rescue. You know him?”
Noon laughed.
“I was going to write a book about the Sultan’s capture, but I am rethinking that.”
Noon emptied the last of his coffee into the sea. The wind whipped the liquid away.
“The truth is, I don’t know very much.”
“Life’s like that. I could use some more coffee. Want some?”
They headed toward the galley.
“Fact is,” Rosen said, “I’ve been offered an hour show on a cable television news channel, five days a week. Big pay increase. I’m going to take it.”
“Congratulations. Something good came out of this mess, after all.” Noon took a deep breath of the sea air. “I always wanted to take a cruise.”