for its name. If it’s not here, let them walk among the junk piles on shore and see if they recognize what’s left of it.”
Benja fidgeted a bit. “They have done that, uncle, with only partial results. They are pressed for time and they feel they shouldn’t really be here in the first place.”
“And if they are outsiders, then they are right,” Hadari shot back at him. “So why did you bring them to me?”
Benja replied by taking something out of his shirt pocket. It was a hundred-dollar bill, the equivalent of a year’s pay for him.
“Because they gave me this,” he said. “And they said they’d give you even more, if you would talk to them.”
Hadari’s eyes went wide at the sight of the bill.
“Well, then bring them in, you fool!” he roared. “Why do you delay?”
Alpha Squad squeezed itself into the tiny shack a moment later.
Hadari’s expression said it all. This was not what he’d been expecting. He’d assumed the “visitors” were just some steamer bums looking for their lost wreck—rich steamer bums, but bums nevertheless. These people were soldiers, dressed in battle armor and carrying enormous weapons.
“My God, are you Americans?” Hadari asked them.
“We’re working for Americans,” Nolan corrected him.
“Not those cursed environmentalists, I hope?” Hadari said.
Nolan emphatically shook his head no. “Not a chance.”
“Is that a woman with you?” Hadari asked, looking at the heavily armored Emma Simms.
“She’s just along for the ride,” Nolan said, hastily pushing her to the rear of the group. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if word got out that the world’s most famous actress was here, in the worst place on earth.
Hadari looked her up and down again, but bought the explanation.
“You people lost a ship?” he asked them in creaky English.
“We are looking for one, yes,” Nolan replied. “We know it’s already been broken.”
“Then you really haven’t lost it,” Hadari said with a toothless smile.
“What we need is information on it,” Nolan said. “We think pirates were involved in bringing it here. Can you help us?”
Hadari hesitated. Talking to the Americans alone could get him severely punished, if not killed, by Gottabang’s brutal overseers. Adding the topic of pirates would only seal a painful death.
But Nolan had assumed as much, so he pulled out a wad of cash—his best weapon of all—and peeled off a hundred-dollar bill.
He stuffed it in Hadari’s ragged shirt pocket.
“This is for your trouble,” Nolan told him. “For starters…”
Hadari considered the money for a moment and then yelled to his half-nephew. “Get outside and keep a watch out. If you see any guards coming, you must tell us before you run away like a little child. Do you understand?”
Benja understood. He disappeared out the front door and took up station just outside the little shack.
“Now, we can talk,” Hadari said. “There was a ship that came in here late yesterday. And yes, it had a crew of pirates—they called themselves the Tangs. The whole thing was very hush-hush, though. Their ship went to the head of the line of those waiting to come up to the beach.
“Our men tore it down in just a matter of hours. The big boss put every available person on it. It ceased looking anything like itself within the first hour.”
“What about the cargo it was carrying?” he asked Hadari.
Hadari nodded slowly. “It is so unusual that a ship arrives here still bearing cargo. When one does, it’s a bit of news. And yes, this ship was full of guns and something else.”
Nolan got excited. “What was the ‘something else?’”
But Hadari just shook his head. “Something strange, very unusual. But at least to me, something unknown. Before the ship was cracked, the pirates made arrangements to transfer their guns and this unusual thing to another ship. Something along the lines of a seagoing tug, I believe. Pirates favor such boats, especially if they are on the run, because they tend to blend in.”
Hadari lit a cigarette. “What is it that you’re really looking for then? The guns or the unusual thing?”
Nolan took off his helmet and rubbed his tired eye.
“The ‘unusual thing,’” he replied wearily.
Hadari used his cane to tap him twice on the shoulder. It was almost a fatherly gesture even though they were close to the same age.
“You are looking in the wrong place,” Hadari said. “Whatever the ‘unusual thing’ is, it’s gone from here by now.”
Nolan peeled off two more hundreds. He passed them to Hadari, whose eyes welled up at the sight of the money.
“Thank you,