Quincy, listen up. The three of us and Wally are going to secure the ship. There’s one Somali left. You see him, shoot him. Plus a civilian out there somewhere, a woman. Be on the lookout for her. Questions?”
Doc asked, “What if the pirate surrenders?”
Wally answered. “If he throws his gun down, you keep him there for me. Then you walk away.”
“But, Captain—”
Wally cut Doc off. “Those are your orders. I’ve got mine, and I’m done with having them questioned. I’ll answer for them later. Not now.”
Wally split them into two teams, Doc and Quincy on the port rail, him with LB along starboard. LB took the lead onto the wing, down the external stairs. He moved quickly, believing Yusuf Raage was not interested in making a stand, only in getting off the ship. As they reached deck level, the hiss of the wake had fallen away. The Valnea was slowing.
LB turned for the stern, using more care now. Wally kept an eye behind them. All three pirate skiffs were still attached to the rail, trailing on the freighter’s fading momentum. The trio of Somali bodies lay undisturbed. Wally alerted Doc and Quincy on the radio, told them to watch for life rafts.
“What’s Raage doing?” Wally asked.
LB pushed forward to find out. He lowered his NVGs to scan the dark waters for an inflated raft or floating container. The gulf lay flat and moon-dappled. The goggles provided a panorama of the heavens, every star highlighted.
LB let Wally take the point. They passed the midship crane, stepping over corpses every forty yards. The Valnea sat dead in the water now. With no masking headwind or wake, the bodies asserted themselves in silence and pitiful odors.
The radio buzzed. Quincy reported no movement in the port companionway.
Wally answered, “Stay cool. Push forward.”
The pain in LB’s leg grew more jabbing, his limp more pronounced. He and Wally passed another skinny body with Wally’s bullets in it. LB was glad Wally had taken the lead, or, like the Valnea, he might just stop, drained of momentum.
Chapter 50
He ran from the boy’s death. Guleed had died the same way as Drozdov, on many bullets.
Gone from Yusuf’s grasp were both cousins, the ship, twenty-one clansmen, Qandala; these hounded him down the steel corridor. He slowed to hear if the soldiers chased him. They had control of the ship; would they just allow him to escape? No, they could not. Yusuf knew what was on this freighter and where it was going. They wouldn’t let that knowledge loose in the hands of a pirate.
Yusuf made his way forward along the starboard corridor. He passed three life raft canisters but let them alone. He jumped over four corpses. None had weapons. Yusuf was left with only his knife.
He ran the full passageway to the bow, not knowing how much time he had. Where was Suleiman’s body? Both cousins had died to save Yusuf. He could do nothing for brave Guleed, but he would try to take Suleiman home for proper burial and honor. If Yusuf could do this, he would not have lost all.
He carried the American radio in one hand, the onyx-handled knife in the other. The Americans would have to move more slowly than he did, afraid of ambush. The thought of ambush made Yusuf calculate what Suleiman might have done.
Where could his cousin have hidden, from where could he spring?
Or drop?
Yusuf leaped onto the closest ladder to the cargo deck.
The moon, high and peering white, lit the vast field. He gazed as far as the cluttered deck allowed, seeing no sign of Suleiman. Dropping to the corridor, Yusuf bolted to the next ladder, climbed again to the deck to find no trace, then ran forward to climb another. There, in the center of the white steel expanse, lay the dark blotch of his kinsman’s body.
Yusuf ran across the open steel. Hatred stoked in his heart, anger hardened his grip on the knife. He knelt in Suleiman’s blood without words or time to mourn. Those were for later, on Somali ground. The soldiers who’d done this and more, who would put a bullet through his heart too, could not be far behind. Tucking hands under his limp cousin, Yusuf bit his teeth to stop himself from shouting.
The body was light enough. He carried Suleiman quickly to set him beside the ladder well. He did not use the rungs but dropped down into the narrow passageway, choosing speed over silence.
The woman in the corridor could not avoid him.
She