The Aden Effect (17 page)

Faisal well remembered being his father's pride, the beloved firstborn son—before his younger brother had come along. Faisal had never understood how he had so suddenly lost favor to the mewling newborn Ali. As the years passed, it was always the perfect son Ali who received more attention. Ali, everyone said, was destined to surpass his older brother and lead their family in the future. They said his visions for the future would heal the country and make it prosper. Faisal's hatred grew with each word of praise for his brother.

One day when Faisal was fifteen, he was in the offices of his family's business in Aden while his father was negotiating with some American and British officials. His father called Ali, still just a toddler of four years, into his private office. Faisal watched through the office window as his father picked up Ali and kissed him, beaming with pride. The Americans and British shared the father's
joy in his perfect son. Wasn't Faisal also perfect? Had he not tried to please his father? The resentment had risen in his belly like the lunch the young American officer had just lost over the side of Faisal's ship. The Westerners' loud voices had carried clearly through the thin office walls. They spoke about port visits and said that the American Navy ship now in the harbor, USS
The Sullivans
, and the next visitor, the USS
Cole
, would bring money to Aden and its people.

Faisal had stormed down to the docks, trying to escape his humiliation, and had come across a few men loading boxes into a skiff. His imam was with them. Startled, they hastily threw a tarp over the deck.

“What do you want here?” one of the men asked. “Who is your family?”

“I am Faisal,” he declared proudly. “I require no family.” The men laughed at the boy's childish defiance.

“Welcome, Faisal,” said the imam, who introduced him to the men. “Would you like to help us?”

Pleased to be asked, Faisal said, “What do you wish me to do?”

“You see that American warship anchored in the harbor?”

“Yes. Who could miss it? The Americans should not be here; nor should the British. They bring us nothing but shame. I wish they would all go away.”

“You will have your wish, young Faisal,” the imam said. “That ship is one of their most powerful warships, and we are going to make it go away. Cast off that line for the men.”

Faisal did as he was asked and watched as the overloaded skiff pulled away from the pier. After going only a few meters it swamped and sank in the calm water. The men swam back to shore, and it was Faisal's turn to laugh as they tried to wring out the excess water from their thobes.

“You are fools,” Faisal scoffed at the men, careful not to include his imam. “Do you think you can destroy a warship with a leaky rowboat?”

“We will try again,” the imam said. “And we will have a better boat next time, but we must know when the American ships will be here in Aden.”

“I will get you this information. I know of another American warship that is coming soon. I will tell you when and I will help you prepare, but this time you must listen to me.”

“You are just a boy,” said one.

“You are men, and yet you failed. I know the sea. I know boats.” He drew himself up proudly. “I know many things; I hear and see many things. I know when warships will come to Aden. I can sink them.” He wanted to kill them when they laughed at him.

“Faisal is correct,” said the imam, admonishing them. “He can help us. The family he claims not to need has just what we want.”

The men consulted one another for a moment and quickly agreed. The boy's forceful personality, the timing of his appearance, and the imam's vote of confidence all seemed to suggest that Allah had sent him to help them.

As Faisal promised, the team succeeded in their attack on the American warship. Two of his team members died in the attack; the others were imprisoned. Faisal paid off the prison guards and engineered the men's escape, and with their help he founded his own business, making hashish runs in the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, and the Gulf of Aden. He watched warship patterns and noticed the decline in the number of American warships as America's priorities shifted away from the area. Their absence gave Faisal the opportunity to organize other insurgents and pirates.

When the Chinese approached him, Faisal immediately saw the opportunity to expand his business and his influence. He was patient and methodical in his plans as he worked with the Chinese businessman who introduced him to Abdi Mohammed Asha. Just as Asha would someday return to Somalia and become a great leader, when the time was right Faisal would lead an army of men and rise to power to rule Yemen. His father and brother would bow before him. It was his birthright.

H
u visited him only in the evenings, after the sun had set. Eliot Green unbuttoned his too-tight blazer and groaned in relief as he sat in one of the chairs next to the couch where Hu had taken his usual seat. Green pushed an ashtray toward Hu, who pulled a cigarette from a silver case. The trousers of his silk suit made a whispering noise as the businessman from Beijing crossed his legs. As always, Hu wore a black suit, black socks, and polished black shoes. His hair was black, as were his eyes. He had worn no other color in the half dozen years Eliot had known him, with one exception: the man had an endless supply of pastel shirts and subtly patterned ties.

Hu was taller than most Chinese Green had known. Green had read in an intelligence report that South Koreans were generally several inches taller than North Koreans because the dietary conditions in the capitalist country were vastly better than the decades-long near-starvation levels to the north. In the same way, Hu's height, if not genetic, suggested that he had always been part of the privileged class in China—even during the strictly communist era, party members had always had access to an improved quality of life.

Hu took a long, slow drag on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out his nostrils like a storybook dragon. His black eyes never left Green. He said a word in Chinese that Green had come to understand as “leave us.” At his command, the two dark-suited men who had accompanied him inside left the room. One always waited outside the door, the other in the car. Once, Green had glimpsed a shoulder holster when one of the guards opened his jacket. Green knew of few businessmen who required armed bodyguards in the United States.

Getting the men's arms into and out of the country wasn't a problem because Hu never used commercial airports. His company owned at least one private intercontinental jet—and a very plush one at that. Green and President Becker—before Becker was president or vice president, of course—had traveled in Hu's aircraft, and fondly remembered the fine food and even better female entertainment their host had provided.

“You have news for me about Yemen.” Hu wasn't asking a question; he was demanding an answer.

“Hu, you know these things take time.” Green shifted his bulk and reached for the Jack Daniels he'd poured for himself earlier.

“Indeed. I also know that you and I have invested time and resources into this project.”

Green tried to recall if the stone-faced Hu had blinked at all since arriving. Nope. Those damned eyes just sucked in everything around them like two black holes. “I've tried everything I can think of to hurry this along, Hu.”

“Tell me what you have tried. Perhaps I can offer further suggestions.”

Hu's silky voice gave him the creeps. Green gulped at his whiskey and leaned forward, grasping the glass with both hands as he looked toward the coffee table. “The Department of Defense has transferred all antipiracy assets away from the area except for that one cruiser—and we've essentially defanged it to prepare it.”

Hu gave the merest of nods.

Green hurried on. “I ordered the State Department to stop transferring personnel to the embassy, especially security and intelligence elements. And Dunner was starting to ask questions, so I convinced him to resign.”

Hu smiled. “Very good. What of Ambassador Sumner?”

“She has no clue what's happening.” He took another gulp.

“But she isn't stupid.”

“No,” Green chuckled, “she isn't.” He stuck his finger in the Jack Daniels and swirled it around, clinking the ice against the glass. “She may eventually figure it out, but I'm keeping her busy for now. She's holed up in the embassy trying to get the government to talk to her. Without success,” Eliot grinned.

“So the Yemeni government will have no formal contact with her, and she won't be able to complete her assigned mission,” Hu said, asking and answering his own question.

“If she becomes a problem, I'll make the proper arrangements,” Green assured him. “Hell, I didn't want her there in the first place; she just stepped into it.”

“Is Becker concerned for her?”

Green chuckled. “We both know the president, Hu. He's concerned for himself. She doesn't know about his other women, and he knows where his real loyalty lies. He knows you have been a strong supporter since his first Senate race.”

“Ah, good, Eliot. We already have plans for that oil. We would not wish to lose it to an American company.” Hu paused, his obsidian eyes narrowing. “On another matter, the president is sliding in the polls. Should we be concerned?”

“We'll be fine. The party convention is in a couple of weeks. The incidents your friends are helping with will generate public outrage and support for the president just in time for him to give the speech of his life. We'll win this election, Hu. No problem.”

“Very good. The money will be deposited tomorrow—the standard amount, of course.”

Hu said something in Chinese so quietly that no one outside the room should have heard. Eliot Green knew what that meant: Hu had a direct wire to his men. Green once feared that Hu might also be recording their conversations but had decided that he probably wasn't. If such a recording ever became public, the Chinese businessman and his associates would also be implicated, which would complicate their plans. Green heard the front door open. The bodyguard stood at the entrance to the living room.

Hu rose quickly and gracefully, and Green struggled to follow suit.

“We will be successful, Eliot,” Hu said firmly.

“Who the hell can stop us?”

“C
ommander Connor Stark to see Captain Johnson,” Stark shouted from the bobbing whaler to a deckhand. “Request permission to come aboard.”

“Permission granted, sir.”

Once he was on deck, the transport boat sped back to the pier at Mukalla.

“Welcome back to the
Kirkwall
, Commander,” said the skipper. She shook his hand and then hugged him.

Jaime's eyes were the same robin's-egg blue that he remembered so vividly from his first sight of her fifteen years earlier. “No gray hairs from the responsibility of command?” he joked.

“I dye them,” she said, pushing back an errant strand of blond hair. “You should do the same.”

“Bill says you're doing a fine job, just as I expected. I wouldn't have hired you as my replacement if I didn't think you could do it.”

“The money didn't hurt, especially when that son of a bitch left me and the kids. C'mon up to the pilothouse. I just made a fresh pot of your second-favorite beverage.”

Stark followed her up the ladder toward the aroma of rich, dark coffee. She handed him a royal blue coffee mug imprinted with the security company's logo and name.

“How's business?” he asked, taking an unsweetened gulp.

“Busy. We could use another hand around, but I see you've been co-opted. I was surprised when Bill told me you were back in uniform.”

“No one was more surprised than I was. Defense attaché is the last job I figured I'd ever hold.”

“Too bad. You were a great CO on the
Cyclone
. We all wanted to be part of your wardroom when you got a destroyer or a cruiser.”

“If that had happened, you'd have been my first choice for XO.” He surveyed the familiar pilothouse. It had become better organized and more efficient looking during the last year—the result of Jaime's meticulous work.