In the hall, the guard jumped in surprise. The captain walked the length of the hall, headed for the stairwell. Yusuf kept pace.
“Captain.”
“What?”
“May I ask a question?”
“So polite. Where did you get manners, pirate?”
“In England. Where I grew up.”
Drozdov made a spitting noise.
“Ask.”
“Why is your ship going so slowly?”
Drozdov stopped in the hall. Face to face, he growled. “You know why.”
“Tell me so I can see if you know.”
“Sabotage.”
“You’re sure of this?”
“Vali otsyuda sure. Positive! You have put someone on my ship! You are worse than bastard. You are govnosos. Shit sucker.”
Drozdov stomped away. Yusuf held his ground, gesturing for the guard to stay with the captain to the staircase. Suleiman sidled close.
In a low voice, he asked, “Do you have someone on this crew?”
“No.”
In a second, all the victory of the hijacking leaked out of Suleiman. His head sagged to his chest, gold teeth bared.
Yusuf asked, “What does this mean?”
“It means everything I was afraid of has happened. We are being maneuvered by someone. It means we are puppets.”
Yusuf set a hand to Suleiman’s shoulder. He recalled this narrow, older shoulder at his side fighting in Plumstead alleys, plucking fish from the Somali sea, shaking and angry at sickness and civil war. Suleiman had stood with Yusuf on the bridge of six captured ships, had divided millions of dollars. Both had put blood on their hands for each other and for their clan. At every step, they had never been puppets.
“Lift your head, cousin. We are kings of this land. Come.”
The window framed a blue-eyed face in earmuffs. The glass was shatterproof, the door a steel watertight portal. The crew behind this door was impregnable.
Suleiman pushed his pistol against Drozdov’s temple. The Russian set his mouth hard, staring into the window and the head gaping back. Believing his life was on the line, Drozdov seemed to will his crew to stay locked in the engine room. What sort of man was this? Yusuf put this aside, another mystery to be untangled later. He stepped in front of his eight pirates holding automatic weapons ready.
Yusuf waggled the walkie-talkie he’d taken from Drozdov. The man in the window nodded, then pulled aside one earmuff to press a similar radio to his ear. The noise in the engine room was surely intense.
“Can you hear me?” Yusuf called into his handset.
The face nodded.
“I do not need you to come out. I have my hostages. The captain and the burned boy. The warships will not come to your rescue. You may all stay in the engine room.”
The blue eyes widened.
“But hear me. If you touch the engine, if you disable one system on this ship, I will bring the captain back down here in pieces. Then the boy. Do you understand?”
The face licked lips. He turned away, glancing to someone behind him. It seemed he got no guidance. He looked back at Yusuf without defiance or strategy.
“If you come out, we will feed you and keep you safe. I know you have wounded with you. They will get care. Do you have weapons?”
The face nodded.
“I want every armed man to walk out first. Then the crew. I need an answer now.”
The man lowered the walkie-talkie. He turned his back to the window. Yusuf imagined him shouting to the gathered crew: They have the captain. They have the boy. What should we do?
The discussion inside the loud engine room concluded quickly. The blue eyes returned and bobbed agreement.
The steel wheel of the door turned from the inside. Yusuf’s pirates lifted their weapons. The locking chocks spun. The door edged open.
A swell of engine clatter emerged first, then the man in the window, sheathed in black. He offered his automatic weapon to Yusuf. At his back came another guard, also surrendering his arms. The third, the largest of them, dragged himself propped on the shoulders of two Filipino crewmen. Gauze wrapped the man’s bare torso, scarlet seeped through the layers. He carried no gun.
Suleiman stopped him. “You were the one shooting.”
The big guard shook slowly, his laughter agonized into a cough.
“So were you.”
“Where is your rifle?”
“I dropped it in the water.”
Suleiman pushed a finger against the bandages to hold the big man in place. The two eyed each other, stopping the line, scowling as men who had traded bullets.
“Do you mind?” the guard rasped. “I prefer to lie down.” The guard hobbled to the elevator. Both smaller Filipinos struggled to support him.
Yusuf counted the seamen leaving the loud engine room, all of them shedding earmuffs. Twenty-seven