The Exile (25 page)

Kealey looked around to check on his teammates. He did not see Abby anywhere, but picked up Brun in close pursuit of the deckhand who'd been hauling the lines. The crewman ran aft outside the master cabin toward the stern and, to Kealey's surprise, revealed himself to be armed, stopping in the main cabin just inside the entrance to pull a gun on the Interpol agent.

His assault rifle already in his grip, Brun pumped a short burst into the crewman's midsection. Staggering backward, he somehow remained on his feet long enough to return fire, the round he had triggered catching Brun above the elbow, before he turned in a swoony half circle and dropped to the floorboards in a heap.

Kealey dashed back toward the rear deck. Enclosed by a paneled curve of glass, the main cabin ran the full beam of the yacht to form a luxury suite with leather chaise lounges and teak floors and furnishings. Hassan al-Saduq was on the other side of the window panels amidships, his gaze momentarily meeting Kealey's before he hastened down a hatchway beside the cockpit to the lower deck. But Kealey saw no sign of the man he'd met at the hotel. And Abby? Where was
she?

Kealey hooked through the cabin entrance to Brun, who stood just inside it, clutching his arm, bracing himself against a ladder running up to the flybridge.

“Shit,” Kealey said, eyeing his left shirtsleeve. “That doesn't look good.”

“Just a nick,” Brun said through gritted teeth.

“You're losing blood.” Kealey shook his head. “It won't stop by itself.”

Brun waved him off with his right hand—the one still holding his assault gun. “I'm all right,” he said. “You'd better get on with things.”

Kealey expelled a breath. “Where's Abby?”

Brun angled his chin at the ladder to the flybridge. “Up top,” he said. “She went after Saduq's friend and—”

The yacht abruptly jolted as its engines thrummed to life below-decks, almost throwing Kealey off his feet. He simultaneously grabbed the rail of the ladder and reached out to steady Brun, then stole a glance at the cockpit. It remained unoccupied.

The captain, then, was also up on the flybridge. The boat would have a second pilot's station up there. Kealey drew his submachine gun, gave Brun a nod, and scrambled up the ladder.

He was pulling his way up off its final rung behind an open-air banquette seat when he heard the crack of a gunshot, the bullet whistling past his ear less than an inch to his right. Raising his head slightly above the back of the seat, Kealey took in everything at once: The pilot's station was up toward the bow on the port side of the sundeck, the captain at the throttles. His quarry standing behind it with a pistol in his hand and a brown rucksack over his shoulder. Farther toward the rear, Abby had taken cover behind a fixed stowage container near the starboard rail.

The pirate got off another shot at Kealey, but it missed by a slightly greater distance than the first. Instead of dropping down behind the banquette, Kealey heaved himself up over the ledge of the flybridge without a moment's indecision, then squeezed a burst of fire over the seat back and scurried to his left. With Abby behind the single stowage container on the right side of the deck, and just the banquette between him and the gunfire, he would have far less protection here. But Kealey wanted to divide the pirate's attention—and aim—by giving him widely separated targets.

“You have a large enough catch down below,” the pirate shouted. “Leave me and be satisfied with it.”

Kealey did not answer…but given their situation, it was hard to see what he meant.
Leave me.
Did the pirate think he could toss them Saduq in exchange for command of the boat? What good would that do him if they were all stuck on it together? Unless…

Kealey realized what was happening all at once. The yacht was clipping along over the water now, its captain pushing thirty knots at the helm, and it was obvious the pirate hadn't ordered him to pour on the speed without good reason. He was not taking flight—there was no one in pursuit—and to Kealey that could only mean one thing.

He did not intend to remain on the
Yemaja,
but intended to meet up with another vessel somewhere out on the bay.

 

The pirates in the motor launch wore head scarves, military-style khakis with swim vests over them, and lightweight tactical combat boots. They were armed with fully automatic rifles and shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, with several wearing daggers or machetes in scabbards at their waists. Like their leader, Nicolas Barre, they had scorpion tattoos on their necks as symbols of their brotherhood.

In the vessel's otherwise blacked-out wheelhouse, the maritime GPS unit presently casting a muted glow over the pilot's face had guided them to the exact coordinates Barre had set for their rendezvous. But having reached it well ahead of the scheduled meet time, they had anticipated there would be little for them to do for the next twenty minutes or so but await the yacht's arrival.

Now, however, the man behind the wheel saw the unexpected brightness of a bow light pierce the darkness no more than 50 or 60 meters off to starboard. Listening, too, he could hear the throb of a powerful engine grow louder by the moment.

Turning quickly from the wheelhouse, he leaned forward against his craft's low gunwale and peered in the direction of the oncoming vessel with his night vision binoculars.

“Asad…what is it?”

The pilot looked at the man who'd come up beside him, passed him the glasses, and took notice of the stunned, puzzled expression on his face.

“It must be the yacht,” the man said. “But for it to approach at that speed without Nicolas signaling ahead—”

“We'd better hurry up and prepare, Guleed,” the pilot said.

 

On his haunches behind the banquette, Kealey lined his gun sight on the pirate as the yacht raced over the black water of the bay. He did not want to get into a shoot-out here on the flybridge. He wanted the man for information, and that meant he did
not
want him dead. But he had no intention of letting him escape with the unknown contents of the rucksack—a bag he had not carried with him from the Hotel Bonny Bight, and that he therefore had picked up on the yacht. He wanted to know what was in it.

Kealey was fairly confident he could squeeze off an accurate volley even with the vibrating movement of the boat. Aim for the man's legs, with a short three-round burst, and it would cut them out from under him. Miss his target, on the other hand, and all kinds of chaos would erupt. But the alternative was to remain at an impasse until they reached whatever was waiting for the pirate out in the night. If Kealey was going to do it, he couldn't wait.

He inhaled deeply, then held his breath, preparing to pull the trigger on his exhale, the old sniper's technique….

He never had the chance to get off his salvo. An instant before he would have fired, the pirate's weapon abruptly produced a loud report, then a second and third, the bullets slamming into the banquette in front of him. Kealey barely had time to wonder what had prompted his shots before the yacht veered sharply to starboard, throwing him off balance. Then he angrily realized he'd waited too long—they had reached the meet point.

He tried to spring to his feet to return the fire, and the yacht careered again, this time turning even more sharply in the water, the violent motion flinging him onto his side and knocking the assault rifle from his grasp. As it skittered across the deck, he saw Abby clinging to the fixed stowage container, struggling to hang on to it so she wouldn't tumble across the flybridge.

Kealey heard his own furious snarl as he again tried to right himself and saw the pirate holding tightly onto the rail, peering down over the side of the boat.
God damn, God damn!
They'd been taken for idiots, suckered….

The yacht kicked to a halt, its mainframe shuddering, throwing Kealey back onto the deck. Cursing under his breath, he grabbed hold of the banquette in front of him and launched to his feet, but by then the pirate had already leaped down from the pilot's station and was on his way over the side.

Kealey ran forward, grabbing up his rifle as he hurtled toward the rail just in time to see the launch speeding away from the yacht ahead of a churning wake of foam, vanishing in the pitch darkness, taking the pirate and the rucksack with it.

Expelling a disgusted breath, he turned to the pilot's station, grabbed the boat's captain by his collar, and tossed him off his seat.

“Stay away from those controls, you stupid bastard,” he said, pushing the bore of his gun against the man's temple with such force, it bent his head back. “You move this boat an inch—a fucking inch—and I swear I'll blow your useless brains out.”

Rushing down the ladder from the flybridge now, past Brun to the hatchway and down again, and then through a passage on the lower deck, Kealey reached the master cabin amidships, where Saduq had holed up behind his locked door.

He stood outside the door, inhaled, and then kicked it below the handle so that it went flying inward with a loud bang, the frame buckling around it, partially torn away from the side of the passage.

Saduq stood staring at him from the middle of the cabin, his eyes wide in his face.

“Who are you?” he said. “What is it you want?”

Kealey stormed into the cabin and pushed him so hard that Saduq went flying backward over a chair into the wall, the breath woofing from his lips.

“Who I am doesn't matter,” Kealey said. “All that does is that you're going to talk.”

“T
his isn't complicated, Mr. al-Saduq,” Kealey said. “We know how you earn your living. We know you came to Limbe to broker an arms and equipment deal between Ishmael Mirghani and the man who jumped overboard with what is presumably a considerable sum of money. We have a good idea about the merchandise on the selling block—”

“If you already know so much, then what more do you hope to learn from me?” Saduq said.

Kealey looked down at him, the assault rifle in his hand pointed down at the floor. They were in the
Yemaja
's master cabin minutes after he had slammed in its door, Saduq on a cushioned teakwood armchair against the wall, Brun sitting on the bed with his own MP9 on his lap and a pressure bandage around his arm—the wrap having come from a first aid kit they had gotten the boat's captain to provide. Abby, meanwhile, had brought the captain down off the flybridge to the interior pilot's station, where she was presently standing guard over him.

Kealey's dark gray eyes regarded Saduq with an almost casual detachment. “I hate to repeat myself,” he said. “But the key here for everyone really comes down to keeping things simple. What we want from you are answers to the questions we
don't
know. There are only a handful that matter.”

“And they are…?”

“The identity of the person who made off with the rucksack. And what you think he's going to do with the money now that he almost certainly realizes you've been captured.” Kealey paused. “Most of all, Mr. Saduq, we're interested in Mirghani's plans for the shipment, should he get his hands on it…meaning the name of its end user. That information would take us all a good way toward getting off this boat. In fact, I can almost guarantee it will eventually get you back to shore alive and in one piece.”

Saduq stared up at him from his chair. “Who are you?” he asked. “By what authority do you seize my vessel with impunity and try to intimidate—”

Kealey didn't wait for him to finish his sentence. He took a lunging step forward, clamped his hand under Saduq's chin, and pushed his head back against the cabin wall. Saduq grunted out in surprise.

“You are out of your mind,” he said.

“Maybe that's true,” Kealey said. “It even might be one of the reasons I'm here. But there's one thing you've got absolutely right—no maybes. I am in command of your ship. My people have boarded her, and from this point on we control where she goes. And decide what happens to you.”

Saduq regarded him, quickly summoning up his composure. “Are you CIA?”

“I'm asking the questions.”

“Maybe so, but I can tell you are an American,” Saduq said. “I have many long-standing and high-placed relationships within your country. If you are CIA, I can promise your brutish tactics will not be taken lightly by those who sent you.”

Kealey looked at him. “You seriously believe that's true?”

Saduq nodded. “I am an international businessman, not someone to be treated like a cheap criminal.”

Kealey looked at him another moment, then grabbed him under the chin again and smashed him back with greater force than before, keeping his fingers locked around his throat.

“I want answers,” Kealey said. “We're staying on this boat together until I get them, do you understand?”

Saduq said nothing. Staring at him, Kealey was struck with an odd sense of dissociation; it was as if he'd been watching the scene in the cabin unfold from some significant remove and taken cold recognition of two things. The first was that he once might have felt a mixture of anger and admiration for Saduq's unfaltering composure. The second was the complete and utter absence of any feelings or compunctions within him at all. It was exactly as he had told Abby before. He just wanted to get the job done.

“I asked if you understood,” he said and slammed the arms merchant back into the wall a third time.

Saduq remained silent. Kealey's upper and lower molars clicked together.
All right, have it your way.
He raised his gun and pressed its bore into the middle of his captive's forehead, tightening his grip around his neck, clamping off his windpipe.

“Let's try again,” he said in a flat, mechanical tone, looking directly into Saduq's eyes. “Do you understand me? Yes or no?”

Saduq swallowed and took a thin, wheezing breath, his Adam's apple a hard, straining lump against the rigid vise of Kealey's hand. Not letting up, Kealey dug his fingers in deeper, bringing the gun barrel to bear against his forehead with a pressure that made the skin pale around it in a small circle.

“Yes or no?”

Saduq produced a strangled, gurgling sound, his tongue writhing thickly in his mouth, the veins of his temples pulsating, his eyes bulging in their sockets. “
Yeesss,
” he croaked at last.

Kealey unlocked his fingers from Saduq's throat without moving his gun from his forehead. At almost the same instant, he heard Brun shift on the bed, shot him a quick glance, and detected a measure of discomfort in the Interpol agent that had nothing to do with the physical pain of his gunshot wound. This registered in Kealey's awareness with no more emotion than anything else about his situation. It was just another factor to be inventoried should it enter into play.

“The man who came aboard with you,” Kealey said, his eyes darting back to Saduq. “Who was he?”

The arms dealer swooped air into his lungs, his chest heaving up and down. “A Somali brigand,” he sputtered.

“Does he have a name?”

“He…he calls himself Ali.”

“What do you mean ‘calls himself'?”

“I cannot…cannot tell you…whether it is…his true identity.” Saduq pulled in another rapid series of breaths. “He is…a lieutenant. Nothing more. I have dealt with his group in the past.”

“Its leader, then,” Kealey said. “Give me
his
name.”

“He goes by many aliases…. I know him as Dafo,” Saduq said, massaging his throat. “They say he is based in Puntland…Boosaaso, Haradheere, or Eyl. But he communicates only via telephone and e-mail, and it's uncertain whether he even resides on the continent.”

“And that's the best you can do?”

“As far as what you have asked to this point,” Saduq said, looking him squarely in the eye. “I am prepared to tell you whatever else I might know about him…and can help with other information you wish to know.”

“I'm sure,” Kealey said. “Except you're full of shit.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Shaking his head in denial, Saduq began to respond, but before his lips could shape another word, Kealey bunched his collar in his fist and yanked him up off his chair, hauling him forward so he left his feet. He threw him to the cabin floor on his belly, the armchair momentarily getting tangled between his legs and clattering over sideways. As Saduq tried gathering himself, Kealey came up behind him, grabbed the back his shirt, and half dragged, half lifted him to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Saduq wheezed.

Kealey pushed the barrel of his gun rifle into Saduq's back. “We're going up top.”

“Why…I don't see what reason there is for—”

“Upstairs,” Kealey grunted, prodding him with the rifle. “Come on, let's go.”

Saduq went into the stairwell and then climbed to the glass-enclosed main cabin, coming up beside the cockpit, where Abby Liu stood with her weapon trained on the captain. At a near standstill in the bay, the
Yemaja
drifted slightly leeward beneath the partial moon, the glimmer of the harbor lights visible far off behind to port.

“Everything copacetic?” Kealey asked Abby.

She nodded and gave him an inquisitive look. But before she could ask what he intended to do, Kealey had already turned away, shoving Saduq down the length of the cabin toward the entrance at the stern.

“Keep walking,” he said.

The deckhand Brun had shot lay in a fetal position in the main cabin, a wide pool of blood around his dead body. Kealey skirted the dark red puddle as he followed the arms dealer into the open air, then steered him around to the narrow span of deck between the main cabin and the starboard rail. After a second he grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him around so they were facing one another.

“I want you to back toward the rail,” he said. “Do it slowly.”

His eyes on Kealey's face, Saduq obeyed his orders, taking one step, another…and then coming to an abrupt halt.

Kealey waved his gun. “I didn't tell you to stop.”

“I'm getting close to the rail.”

“No kidding.” Kealey shrugged. “Go on…. Back up some more.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“It depends,” Kealey said. “But if you don't pay attention, I promise you're going to end up like your deckhand in the main cabin. This isn't a bluff.”

Saduq gazed at him in disbelief and resumed edging his way back toward the rail until he was flat up against it. He could go no farther without falling over the side.

“Okay,” Kealey said. “Hold it right there.”

Kealey noted the flicker of relief on Saduq's face as he realized he was not going overboard…at least not yet. It was precisely the reaction he'd sought from the arms dealer. Let him feel he had a chance, give him a modicum of hope, and he would cling to it however he could.

Kealey took a quick stride forward and shoved the MP9 into Saduq's chest cavity. “You have balls, I'll give you that much. But for a deal maker you don't seem to be a great judge of people.”

Saduq tensed. “What are you talking about?”

“Look into my face,” Kealey said. “And then tell me if you believe I'd think twice about blowing you away. Right here and now.”

Saduq tensed. “How would you explain it to whoever sent you?”

“I wouldn't,” Kealey said. “I'm not CIA. I'm not anything. Consider me a walking ghost—I can pass through whatever walls I please.” Kealey grinned. “If you and your captain don't return to shore, the local authorities would be the only ones asking questions. And I'm betting they could be convinced it was pirates.”

Saduq was silent for a long moment. “I cannot believe you would kill me in cold blood.
Someone
sent you here, and it must have been for a reason….”

“I told you to
look
at me.” Kealey slugged him hard in his mouth, pushing the rifle into his middle with one hand. “Talk, Saduq. Talk, or I'll blow your guts out and dump you overboard like a barrel of trash. But I promise it won't be before I make you feel a whole world of hurt.”

“
Ya Allah,
” Saduq rasped, blood trickling from his mouth. “What do you want?”

“The truth. All of it. Starting with what I asked you down below.” He moved closer—so close Saduq was forced to lean back against the rail's upper horizontal bar. “That means the name of the man who came aboard with you. And who you were buying those weapons for. And whether your friend still intends to deliver the goods now that he's made off on a launch with their money.”

Saduq dragged the back of his hand across his lips and chin, glanced down at his red-smeared knuckles. “If I do cooperate with you…I will be a hunted man.”

“Better hunted than dead.”

Saduq stared into his face. “I'm going to need protection.”

Kealey shrugged. “We can worry about that later,” he said. “First let's hear what you have to tell me.”

Saduq hesitated for another moment before he finally expelled a long, trembling breath.

“The pirate's name is Nicolas Barre,” he said.

“And?”

“As you'd surmised, the payment he took with him was from Ishmael Mirghani and another man…an American like yourself. I received it at my home in Darfur.”

Something flashed in Kealey's eyes. “This American,” he said. “Who's he?”

Saduq hawked up a mat of blood and saliva and spit it onto the deck. “He was introduced to me as White,” he said. “Cullen White.”

Kealey nodded. He was sure his features had revealed none of his satisfaction—or curiosity.

“Okay,” he said. “I think we might be getting somewhere.”

 

When Kealey was finished with Saduq on the deck, he brought him back down below to a guest cabin and had him locked inside with the
Yemaja
's captain, posting Brun on guard out in the passage.

“How's the arm?” he asked.

“Still attached,” Brun said with a wan smile.

“Give it to me straight,” Kealey said. He had thought the bullet had hit muscle and passed through cleanly, but wasn't looking for bravado. “I need to know if you'll be okay down here for a while.”

Brun looked at him. “I'm fine,” he said. “We packed the wound well enough…. There isn't much bleeding.”

Kealey nodded, went upstairs to the main cabin. Abby Liu was in the cockpit, monitoring the yacht's basic positional data on its dashboard screens, and he squatted in the aisle beside her.

“How do we stand with the coast guard?” he asked.

She pointed to two numerically coded ship icons on the GPS tracker display. “Those are maritime patrol boats. They're on standby in case we need them. Thanks to Dirk and Leo, who apparently had quite an adventure after we left.”

Kealey studied the display, grunted. “I got Saduq to open up,” he said.

“I saw,” she said coolly.

He looked at her. “Something wrong?”

“I told you,” she said, nodding her head at the cabin's wraparound windows. “I saw how you obtained your information. What term shall we give to your interrogative tactics? Coercion? Intimidation? Or prisoner abuse? You see, Kealey, I'm trying to stay away from the word
torture
because that might be a little too strong.”