them way too much. Birk took this as a good sign: Who cuffs you and then shoots you?
Idiots the world over, he answered himself.
* * *
Adnan felt sorry for the old man lying on the deck, captured by the surviving Waziristani. The seaman had been hoping that the jihadist would be killed along with the other three, or so seriously wounded that he wouldn’t make it aboard. Then Adnan wouldn’t have had to worry about the crazy, murderous Waziristanis. He would have ordered the captain to take them out to sea, and after three or four days of world attention, the great martyr would have blown up the tanker so he could have paradise and pomegranates and virgins who would make him want their ridiculous bodies with those silly breasts that shook like rice pudding.
Instead, Adnan eyed the jihadist, who pointed to himself and the ship’s bridge. Adnan nodded, and the man ran toward a metal stairway, holding his rifle ready, so he could shoot anyone who got in his way.
That means you, too, Adnan reminded himself.
* * *
Birk figured that the laminates had saved his butt. Raggedy Ass must have been smart enough to know the value of his prize.
So they’d use him, and that was fine with Birk. This could resurrect his career, win him a George Polk Award for foreign reporting. Not much competition for it these days because there wasn’t much overseas reporting anymore; Americans just didn’t give a fig about the rest of the world—focus groups didn’t lie—and network executives didn’t cram foreign coverage down viewers’ throats anymore, not with their corporate overlords constantly carping about the costs of running a global news operation.
So this escapade could turn out to be the pièce de résistance of Birk’s career. Go out in a blaze of glory. He might win everything—Polk, Emmy, duPont-Columbia, Peabody. And why not? He deserved every one of them, a whole goddamn panoply of prizes. And with any luck at all, he might get to accept them in person, rather than posthumously.
The asshole in the vest had plans, but they weren’t imminent or they’d all be dead by now. Birk figured the suicide bomber wanted airtime, and he, Rick Birk, would do everything possible to make that happen. It would keep him alive and on camera.
Birk held hostage, day one, he mused. Look what those Americans in Iran did for Ted Koppel’s career, and that poor shmuck looked like Alfred E. Neuman.
Birk laughed, then stifled his mirth with a mighty effort—mistake; don’t show them you’re amused—but he could feel his whole body shaking. Maybe that’s what an earthquake is, he thought. The whole planet trying not to laugh out loud at mankind’s latest folly.
* * *
The deck shuddered and Adnan looked up. Moments later he heard automatic weapons fire. Everything according to plan: The jihadist had forced the captain and crew to the bridge. Then the Waziristani had killed them, except for the captain himself.
Parvez had told them to leave the captain alive only till they got out to sea. “He can sail the ship by himself, if he has to.”
How did Parvez know all this? Adnan wondered. And in the same moment he realized that Parvez had studied far more than the Koran in Waziristan. He’d studied jihad.
* * *
Parvez sat blocks away in an Internet café, watching a computer screen that showed the tanker heading away from Malé. Live video of the hijacking. Parvez had arranged for a jihadist who’d studied with him in Waziristan to set up a camera and provide a feed to an Islamic Web site, which was making this historic event available to the whole world.
The authorities would track down the camera soon enough, but every minute of video would draw more viewers. Even more important, it would attract the attention of world media.
Parvez clicked on the major news Web sites, including Al Jazeera, CNN, and the BBC. All of them were streaming video of the tanker leaving port, noting the decimated bodies in the foreground, and commenting on the “terrorist attack” in barely restrained voices. It was already a huge story. Hundreds of journalists would race to the Maldives, much like the rescuers who’d run to the bombing last week, to try to save the ruined survivors.
And then what happened? Parvez thought with a smile. The second bomb exploded.
He lifted his heavy-lidded eyes to the luxurious Golden Crescent Hotel across the street, where every room would soon become home to a foreign journalist.