I stood up. “Be sure to have a bottle or two of your moonshine ready. I’ll need it for that discussion.”
He laughed and said, “How many times must I tell you. It is medicine, not moonshine.”
I looked at my watch and said, “It’s almost time for me to head back to Male.”
“How long will you be gone for this time?” he asked.
“Just a week. They’re taking a three-day break for the Remembrance Day Weekend.”
“They are taking a break so close to the arrival of the ship?”
I shrugged and walked to the door. He reached out his pudgy arm and pushed it open for me. I stepped outside and said, “Thanks again for fixing me up and for the advice. I’ll see you when I get back.”
“Stay safe, my friend.”
I turned to leave, but stopped when he said, “Wait. I almost forgot.” Turning around, I watched him disappear into his hut. A few seconds later he reappeared with an old water bottle that I knew wasn’t filled with water.
“Here, take this. It will help with the stress of the Council.”
I took the bottle and smiled. “You of all people should know that booze is prohibited in Male. What are you trying to do… get me arrested by the morality police?”
He smiled and said, “If anyone says anything, you have them call me. I am a doctor, remember? I am prescribing this medicine to help ease your hypertension.”
Two hours later, my teeth rattled in my skull as the hull pounded against the waves. It was useless to try to read anymore, so I bunched up my data mat and tucked it into my back pocket. There would be time to finish reviewing the updated list when I got to my room on Male.
I stood up and grabbed the railing to keep from falling over. After getting my sea legs, I climbed two steps up to the bridge. Kamish sat behind the console, steering the twenty-four foot speed boat through the shallow channel that ran between a chain of islands. He kept one hand on the wheel and the other on the throttle, cutting back the engines every time we launched off the top of a big wave.
His younger brother, Lanka, was strapped into a fishing chair up ahead on the bow. I watched for a second as Lanka swept the horizon with his binoculars. If anyone could find something out there, it was Lanka.
Then I turned around and saw Kamish’s youngest brother, Senil, on the aft chair doing the same thing. Both of them held fast to their rifles.
Above the high-pitched whine of the electric engines and the roar of the wind I yelled, “How much longer?”
Without taking his eyes off the waves, Kamish said, “Maybe ten minutes. I can just make out the light from the port.” He nodded toward the horizon.
At first I didn’t see anything, but when we crested the next big wave I saw the light for a brief moment before we slid down the backside.
Ten minutes was a long time out here, but it didn’t used to be. For the first several years, the MDF Air Patrol had kept the pirates outside the atoll. But there were fewer functioning boats and helojumpers nowadays, and there were more pirates. So nobody took anything for granted.
I felt my shoulders tighten and I tried unsuccessfully to crack my neck. It wasn’t that I was afraid of getting killed; it was what they did to their prisoners before they killed them that bothered me. That brought back the image of Rick tied to the tree.
I checked my watch. It was seven o’clock. The heavy storm clouds that blanketed the entire sky made it seem later. At least the rain had stopped, so visibility wasn’t too bad.
“How are we doing on juice?” I asked.
Kamish glanced at the gauge and said, “Should be enough to get us into port, but I will have to swap out batteries before we head back. There wasn’t enough sun today to get a full charge.”
Like most vehicles manufactured after the gas crisis of 2021, the boat was solar powered. Its paint passively collected the sun’s energy and eventually converted it into electricity. The technology used to work pretty well before the storm, but the weather patterns had changed and it was a lot cloudier than it had used to be. Most boats had to deploy a floating solar net to help them get a full charge.
I walked aft to add my eyes to the watch. Besides, it wasn’t as bumpy back there. Senil greeted me with his mischievous smile. In this light, his teeth looked luminescent.
“Better hold on. It is a bit bumpy back here,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I replied. “It’s better than up front where Lanka is.” I held fast to the boat rail and crouched down next to his chair. “See anything?” I yelled.
He must have picked up the concern in my voice because he winked and said, “Do not worry. The pirates won’t bother us tonight. They do not like the rain. It makes their prayer rugs all wet,” he laughed.
I forced a smile and said, “Kamish said you guys aren’t staying in Male tonight? What’s the rush to get back?”
His smile got wider. “Mohamed told me that Jemil will deliver soon and I want to be there when my son is born.”
“What makes you think it’s going to be a boy?” As far as I knew, there wasn’t a working ultrasound in the atoll.
“I can tell. My grandmother used to say that if the baby rides low in the belly then it will be a boy. Jemil’s belly is almost touching the—”
Blood poured out of his mouth as he tried to finish his sentence. I didn’t hear the shot that killed him, but I saw who did it. The pirates were coming up fast behind us in a large, rigid-hull inflatable boat and they were shooting wildly at us. One of the bastards had gotten lucky.
Where the fuck did they come from? I looked around. They must have been hiding in one of the small coves of the island off to the right. I reached for Senil, but his lifeless body slumped to the deck before I could get a hold of him.
Crouching next to him, I yanked the rifle from his hand and yelled towards the front of the boat, “Pirates!”
Kamish looked back and I saw the horror in his eyes and he screamed, “Senil!” Then, looking out ahead, he blasted the horn to alert his other brother. Lanka unbuckled himself and sprinted to the back of the boat. Kamish was already on the radio calling the MDF for help.
Lanka took a quick look at Senil and then crouched down next to me. Putting his hand on my shoulder, he pulled me further down below the railing. Then, shouldering his rifle, he took aim and fired. I just knelt there and watched. It took the ricochet of a bullet near my head to remind me that I had a rifle of my own. I brought it up and fired.
Kamish must’ve had the throttles pegged because we were bouncing so hard that I couldn’t aim. It didn’t matter. I kept firing. At the rate they were closing, I could tell that we wouldn’t reach the protection of the port in time. And the damned MDF Air Patrol wouldn’t get here in time either. It took at least fifteen minutes for those assholes to get a helojumper off the pad.
I was about to fire another shot, but stopped when I saw something that looked like a snake flying through the air. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at. It was a grappling hook on the end of a rope and it was heading straight for us.
Lanka shoved me hard out of the way. I rolled into the corner. When I looked up I saw Lanka pinned against the rail. The hook was in his back, and two of its metallic prongs protruded through his chest. I watched in horror as the rope tightened. I tried to get up, but before I could reach him the hook ripped his body in half. He collapsed onto the deck next to his brother. The hook was now solidly jammed into the back of the boat.
I heard Kamish scream above the rush of wind. “No!”
I looked toward the bridge. His face was filled with rage. He pushed the throttle as far as it would go. It didn’t help. We were slowing down. Our engines were no match for their diesel hybrids.