Out of the Red Sea and into the Gulf of Aden, Capt. Eklund was meticulous in following the internationally recommended transit established to give maximum protection to merchant shipping passing the dangerous Gulf of Aden.
The corridor runs parallel to the Adeni and Omani coast, from the 45th to the 53rd longitude east. These eight longitude zones bring the merchantman past the north coast of Puntland, the start of the pirate havens, and far out beyond the Horn. For ships wishing to round the southern tip of India, this brings them many miles too far north before they can turn south for the long haul across the Indian Ocean. But it is heavily patrolled by naval vessels and keeps them safe.
Captain Eklund followed the prescribed passage to the 53rd longitude, then, convinced he was safe, he turned southeast for India. The drones could indeed patrol 40,000 square miles of sea in a day, but the Indian Ocean is many millions of square miles, and in this vastness a ship can disappear. The naval vessels of NATO and the European EU NAVFOR could be thickly gathered in the corridor, but they were scattered far and wide out on the ocean. Only the French have a force dedicated to the Indian Ocean. They call it L’indien.
The Malmö’s master was convinced that he was now too far east for anything from the Somali coast to threaten him. The days, and even the nights, were sweltering hot.
Almost all ships traveling in these waters have used engineers at home to construct an inner fortress protected by steel doors locked from the inside and equipped with food, water, bunks and toiletries, enough for several days. Also included are systems to disconnect the engines from outside interference and run both them and the steering mechanism from inside. Finally, there is a fixed-message distress call that will broadcast from the mast top.
Protected inside the citadel, the crew, if they can seal themselves inside in time, can await rescue, pretty sure that it is on its way. The pirates, though they have the run of the ship, cannot control it or threaten the crew, though they will try to break in. The crew can only hope for the arrival of a frigate or destroyer.
But as the Malmö ran south past the Laccadive Islands, the crew slept in the greater comfort of their cabins. They did not see or hear the skiffs racing through the wake or hear the clatter of ladders against the stern as the Somali pirates boarded by moonlight. The helmsman raised the alarm, but too late. Dark, agile figures with guns were racing int
o the superstructure and up to the bridge. Within five minutes, the Malmö was captured.
• • •
Opal watched the gates of the warehouse compound open as the sun went down and the pickup emerged. It was the same one as before. It turned in the same direction as before. He straddled his trail bike and followed it to the northern outskirts of Kismayo until he was sure it was on the coast highway toward Marka. Then he went back to his cabin and lifted his transceiver from its hole beneath the floor. He had already composed his message and compressed it into a fraction-of-a-second burst transmission. When he had removed the battery from its photovoltaic recharger and connected it, he just hit send.
The message was taken by the permanent listening watch inside the Office. It was decrypted by the officer of the watch, who passed it to Benny, still at his desk in the same time zone as Kismayo. He composed a short instruction, which was encoded and beamed to a boat masquerading as a Salalah-based fisherman twenty miles off the Somali shore.
• • •
The rigid inflatable left the side of the fisherman a few minutes later and sped toward the shore. It contained seven commandos and a captain in command. Only when the sand dunes of the coast came into sight in the moonlight did the engine level decrease to a slow growl, in case of listening ears even on this desolate stretch of sand.
As the nose ground into the sand, the captain and six men leapt ashore and ran for the road. The spot, they already knew; it was where a dry wadi ran under a concrete bridge and a clump of casuarinas grew. One of the men jogged three hundred yards up the road toward Kismayo, found a spot in the sedge by the roadside, lay down and fixed his powerful night vision goggles on the road south. He had been told exactly what vehicle to look for and even its plate number. Behind him, the ambush party also lay in the cover roadside and waited.
The captain lay with the communicator in his hand, where he could not miss the pulsing red light when it came. Four vehicles went past, but not the one they wanted.
Then it came. In the green half-light of the night vision goggles, the commando down the road could not mistake it. Its dirty off-white original color was irrelevant in the all-green glow of the NVGs. But the battered grille was there, along with the twisted roll bar that had clearly not done its job. And the front number plate was the one he was looking for. He pressed the send button on his pulser.
Behind him the captain saw the red glow in his hand and hissed, “Kadima,” to his men. They came out of the ground, from both sides of the road, holding the broad red-and-white tape between them. In the darkness, it looked like a horizontal pole. The captain stood in front of it, shining a shaded torch at the ground, his other hand raised.
They were not dressed in camouflage but in long white robes and Somali headdresses. They all carried Kalashnikovs. No Somali would dare drive through a roadblock manned by the religious mutawa. The engine of the oncoming pickup truck coughed as the driver changed down a gear, then another.
• • •
The pirates had left two of their number to keep the Taiwanese skipper and his first-mate prisoner. The other eight had boarded the Malmö. One spoke a smattering of English. He came from the Garacad pirates’ nest, and this was his third capture. He knew the routine. Capt. Eklund did not, despite his briefing from a Swedish naval officer back in Gothenburg.
He knew he had had time to press the send button of the perpetual Mayday signal from his cabin. He knew it would be transmitting from his mast top, alerting a listening world that he was captured.
The pirate leader, who was twenty-four and called Jimali, knew it, too, and did not care. Let the infidel navies come; it was too late now. They would never attack and trigger a bloodbath. He knew of the kuffar obsession with human life and despised it. A good Somali feared neither pain nor death.
The five Europeans and ten Filipinos were gathered on deck. Capt. Eklund was told that if any more were hiding, one of the officers would be thrown into the sea.
“There are no more,” said the captain. “What do you want?”
Jimali gestured to his men.
“Food. No pig,” he said. Capt. Eklund told the Filipino cook to go to his galley and prepare food. One of the pirates went with him.
“You. Come.” Jimali beckoned the captain, and they went to the bridge. “You steer Garacad, you live.”
The captain consulted his maps, presumed the Somali coast and found the village a hundred miles south of Eyl, another pirate concentration. He worked out an approximate heading and turned the helm.
A French frigate from L’indien was the first to find them, just after dawn. It took up station several cables to port and reduced speed to stay in formation. The French captain did not intend to use his marines to board the Malmö, and Jimali knew it. He stared across the water from the bridge wing, almost challenging the infidels to have a go.
Far away from the seemingly harmless maritime spectacle of a French frigate escorting a Swedish freighter with a Taiwanese trawler far behind, a whirlwind of electronic communication was taking place.