Richard Fox
The Socotra Incident
To my wife and children
Chapter 1
Ilyas kept his eyes on his prey as their speedboat tore through the waves. One hand gripped the stock of the AK-47 slung over his chest; the other held onto the splintered wood of the speedboat with white-knuckle intensity. The man at the engine, Guleed, gunned the engine and sent the speedboat through the top of a whitecap. The craft dropped through three feet of air and slammed into the sea.
“Take it easy, or we’re going to swim home!” Ogaal yelled over the roar of the engine and wind. Guleed shrugged and spat a glob of khat juice at Ogaal. Ogaal choked down a mouthful of bile and put his head between his legs.
Ilyas shook his head in disappointment at the seasick pirate. The two other armed Somalis inched away from Guleed as he dry heaved — not that they’d find much sanctuary on a boat that could barely hold five men.
Their target, a two-hundred-foot fishing boat, came in and out of view as the speedboat worked through the chop. Two large booms meant to trawl fishing nets from the boat’s sides remained visible over the surf, making Ilyas’s job as the spotter all too easy.
“Turn into the wake!” Ilyas yelled.
Guleed jerked the rudder and pivoted the speedboat into the churning water flagging behind the trawler. With the rising sun at their backs and the smooth water to guide them in, the angle of attack was perfect.
The fishing boat had seen better days. Barnacles rose and dipped into view as the waterline shifted with the waves. Wide patches of rust scabs marred a whitewash that probably hadn’t been refreshed in years. The painted Philippine flag looked new, at least. The lack of gulls and the high level of freeboard told Ilyas that this boat had an empty hold, which suited him just fine. There would be no smell of dead fish to deal with once the boat was theirs.
Ilyas rose to a half crouch and aimed his rifle at the railing across the stern of the boat. No crewmen stood watch in the early morning light. There was no sign of anyone on the boat readying flares or fire hoses — or scrambling for a safe room. There was no one to repel boarders.
“Get the grappling hook,” Ilyas said. An iron hook scraped against the wood as Ogaal picked up the grappling hook.
“Closer!” Ogaal said as a swell shoved the speedboat away. Guleed revved the engine, and the speedboat crept back toward the trawler. Ogaal twirled the grapple at the end of a nylon line and hurled the pig iron hook with a grunt.
The hook soared through the air and bounced against the hull with a hollow clang.
Ilyas whirled around and smacked the back of his hand against Ogaal’s face as a chorus of curses and insults rose from the rest of the pirates.
“Idiot! Now they know we’re here. Waris, get the hook,” Ilyas said. Waris, a good six inches taller and ten years older than Ogaal, drew in the line to the hook with a fisherman’s ease.
Ilyas turned his attention back to the trawler. A light snapped on in the forecastle.
Waris threw the hook over the railing with ease and found purchase immediately. Waris and Ogaal pulled their speedboat against the hull of the trawler moments later.
The last pirate, Arale, lifted an aluminum ladder, with hooks jerry-rigged onto the end, and attached it to the railing.
“Go! Go!” Ilyas ordered.
Ogaal slung an AK-47 over his shoulder and scurried up the ladder. As the youngest member of the crew, he had the honor of taking the first bullet the trawler’s crew might offer in resistance.
Ilyas followed, the aluminum rungs biting through the soles of his decrepit sandals. His calloused hands slipped against the cold metal as sea spray covered the ladder. He looked up and saw Ogaal slither over the top rung. The ladder shifted in the air despite Guleed’s best efforts to hold the base against the gunnels of the speedboat.
He made it to within arm’s reach of the railing when the trawler’s engine rumbled. Ilyas scrambled to the top as if it had suddenly caught fire and fell onto the deck. The AK broke his fall, driving the metal nub of the charging handle into his chest.
Shouts of panic came from the two men following Ilyas up the ladder as the trawler’s engine went full speed ahead. Ilyas watched as the ladder’s angle against the side of the boat increased as the trawler pulled away. The speedboat and trawler veered apart and the base of the ladder slipped over the side of the pirate boat. The ladder swung free and ladder slammed into the side of the boat.
Ilyas looked over the side; Waris and Arale clung to the ladder like terrified children clutching a parent. The uncaring ocean churned beneath them.
“Help them,” Ilyas said to Ogaal. Ogaal reached through the railing and held the ladder against the hull with all the might his skinny limbs could muster.
A door on the forecastle swung open, and a man wearing nothing more than boxer shorts burst through the opening. The man, squat and nearly hairless, wasn’t dressed for a fight, but he carried a belt-fed PK machine gun, the big brother to Ilyas’s AK-47.
Ilyas wasted no time with threats or demands. He thumbed the selector switch on his rifle to auto and fired from the hip. The first rounds sparked off the deck and past the man with the machine gun. The kick from the weapon pulled the barrel up and to the right, stitching bullets from the deck up the side of the forecastle.
Two rounds hit the defender, who doubled over and fell to the deck without a sound, crumpled over his weapon. Ilyas aimed his rifle into the open door and glanced over his shoulder. Waris had made it onto the fishing boat; spent shells rolled around his feet as he fumbled with his rifle. For all his years of piracy, Ilyas had never seen a crew armed with a PK machine gun, a weapon rarely seen outside of state armies… and pirates. Undamaged, it would make a nice addition to his crew.
“Come with me,” Ilyas said. He didn’t wait to see whether Waris followed him as he bounded across the deck, his feet splashing through rusty puddles.
Blood pooled from the lone defender; his face lay in his own vital fluid. Ilyas pointed his weapon at the body as he passed it, his eyes darting from the body to the darkness beyond the open door and back.
He stepped over the bulkhead and into the forecastle. A metal staircase led up to the bridge on the next level. Ilyas kept his rifle pointed upward and took the stairs two at a time. Men shouted at each other from the bridge.
Ilyas stepped onto the bridge and shouted, “Kamay!” over and over as he swung the muzzle of his weapon from side to side. His Filipino was rough, but the bridge crew should have gotten the idea to raise their hands.
Half a dozen men clustered around the helm and computer screens at the front of the bridge. The men had dark hair, broad faces, and Asian features. Ilyas hadn’t traveled far beyond the Horn of Africa and Yemen in his life, but he knew these men weren’t Filipino. Most raised their hands and cast furtive glances at the one man who didn’t obey.
The lone holdout had a satellite phone to his ear, rambling in a language foreign to Ilyas. The talker looked like the rest of the crew and wasn’t a Westerner that shipping and fishing corporations hired as senior crew members. As such, the man on the phone probably wasn’t worth much of a ransom to Ilyas.
Ilyas aimed down the sites of his rifle and fired a single round. The bullet shattered the satellite phone and passed through the talker’s skull, splattering skull and gray matter against the window behind him.
The crew started babbling; one man fell to his knees and held his hands out to Ilyas, begging.
“Out! Out!” Ilyas yelled. He motioned to the hatch with his rifle and stepped aside to let the crew pass him, well beyond arm’s length. Waris barked orders at the crew as they clambered down the steps like chastened sheep.