Djibouti By Elmore Leonard

Djibouti By Elmore Leonard

Excerpt

Somali pirates, the Pittsburgh Pirates, underwater demolition men, CNN, a movie, and a bullet between the eyes — all without bad guys

They were closer now to the cargo ships and tankers on the screen, Dara using a Super Telephoto lens, the big Sony mounted on sticks to keep the camera steady while she brought the ships even closer: as many as five or six spread over the screen at one time, merchant ships and now and then a warship riding shotgun.

"Most of this was filmed during our third week," Dara said. "I slipped it in here to get something going."

"You know how many times I shot you punchin up news stories on your Mac? Where's that footage?"

"I'm using the information."

"But you don't show how you gettin it way out here, waitin for somethin to happen."

"I'm showing what the news story's about. Here, the U.S. missile cruiser..."

"What I don't see," Xavier said, "is any documentary stuff goin on. Where the people this is about, the poor Somalis havin to hijack ships. The only one I've seen was drivin a tricked-out Mercedes." "It's coming up," Dara said. "The logline is they've gone after a hundred and eleven ships, hijacked forty-two and collected fines that come to over thirty million, for trespassing."

"You can say that with a straight face, huh?"

Dara said, "Shut up, please, and watch." She said, "Eight ships are still in the hands of the hijackers. They're negotiating. What we want to find out is who all's involved."

Now they were looking at the guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf on the screen. "Flagship," Dara said, "of Combined Task Force 151. A search and seizure crew from the cruiser — the guys in the inflatable boat — are rounding up the pirates in their skiff. I'll say something about the seven guys with their hands in the air."

"No match for the U.S. Navy."

"I'll say they're being taken to the cruiser, where they'll be identified by the crew from Polaris, a ship registered in the Marshall Islands. I'll say the Somali rights activists have been thwarted in their attempt to seize the Polaris and levy a fine. Cut to the cruiser's Seahawk helicopter firing at them. Or I might call it the cruiser's gunship."

"I like 'thwarted,'" Xavier said. "You make the cruiser the bad guy."

"All that U.S. Navy firepower against seven guys in a skiff with an outboard motor."

"Seven guys with machine guns, RPGs, and twin Yamahas."

Dara said, "I requested permission to come aboard to interview the suspects —"

"I know — where is it?"

"I trashed it. My request denied over the PA system. We're having no luck with our navy. I find out on the Internet the Vella Gulf transferred the prisoners to the Lewis and Clark, a navy supply ship. Now they're being held down in the cargo hold, where we used to chain slaves."

"You makin the Lewis and Clark a slave ship?"

"You know what I mean. In the hold, guarded by marines."

"I know how you makin it sound."

"Here," Dara said, "a different boatload of nine freedom fighters, hands in the air. I got this from CNN. Caught in the act by a French frigate. I'll say, 'The French navy is said to have taken fifty-seven pirates in seven patrol operations.' I think the frigate's name is Le Floreal."

"What'd they do with them, the nine guys?"

"Watch. We cut to the Italian destroyer. You remember the name?"

"Luigi Durand de la Penne."

"Named for an Italian officer during the second war, served as a demolition team member. I don't like that. What is he?"

"He's an underwater demolition man."

"Responsible for blowing up two British warships in Egypt. I guess Cairo. Here they are. The reason the crew's laughing, they thought I was English, and Luigi was blowing up English ships."

"I got it," Xavier said.

"It's a good clip. We learned it's helicopters that make the difference. They can fly five times beyond the ships' radar and — CNN said — 'deter pirates.' Captain Fabrizio Simoncini of the Penne said, 'My priority is to protect merchant shipping, not give chase to pirates.' Voice-over will say you chase them down and then what? Free them? Let them escape? Or hand these poor men to Kenya for trial?"

"By poor you don't mean they broke."

"CNN calls it a game of maritime cat and mouse. The mouse getting bolder, more sophisticated. While the cat, well-intentioned but largely declawed, isn't nearly as scary as he was imagined."

"You gonna tell it like that?"

"I'm not sure I'll keep the Italian captain, or get into what happens to the pirates. No, I don't have to use the CNN stuff. But now here comes a spokesman for the U.S. Navy I got off CNN."

The man on the screen — a navy commander in uniform — is saying, "We're making headway against the robbers. With the agreement of the countries that have ships in harm's way —"

"There, he said it. I knew somebody would."

"The ships' owners have agreed to bring these criminals to trial, then put them in a prison in the country of the owner or ship them off to Kenya."

Dara said, "They've made thirty million hijacking ships, but lost out on a three-hundred-million-dollar market when they had to stop fishing. Toxic waste dumped in their seas, while foreign fishing companies have come from as far away as Japan. And the commander says, 'If everybody else can make a living fishing here, why can't the Somalis?'"

She said to Xavier, "I don't have an answer to that."

"Girl, they don't care about fishin. They stumble onto piracy," Xavier said, "and can't believe it. They havin fun and gettin rich. They flyin out to take a ship, one of 'em stands up to piss over the side, bottle of Heineken in his hand, drunk as he wants to be — it's part of bein a pirate — drunk and mellowed some by the khat in his jaw, the man dreamin of Ethiopian pussy. Who's gonna stop him? This what you want to film, what these guys are doin? They enjoyin every minute of it. Gonna keep takin ships till it gets dangerous. A bunch of 'em will quit. The ones stick it out become as dangerous as the gunboats after 'em. Be more navies out here. Won't be long the pirates will come out shootin and your gunboats'll blow 'em out of the sea. I expect some will keep comin, not knowin anything else."

Dara was quiet lighting a cigarette, thinking of what she'd say.

"I want to show why the Somalis became pirates."

"To get rich," Xavier said. "You stuck with the idea these rascals are good guys. It's like you made a picture called Men of Bosnia and left out all the women they raped. How they had children from guys, a line waitin to have their turn. The woman never knows which one's the father."

"The pirates aren't vicious," Dara said. "They don't rape and kill."

"That you know of. Katrina you show guys bustin into stores, comin out with TV sets. 'Cause they poor and can't afford to buy one? No, 'cause they bad dudes, they breakin the law and you say it, tell how it was. The pirates haven't taken and raped any women 'cause there no women on the ships they hijack. Maybe an old Filipina in the galley. They hit a cruise ship you gonna see what happens. Find some good-lookin young women among the old people they settle for robbin? Why these cruise ships are puttin their passengers off at Djibouti, fly 'em to Dubai and pick 'em up again. They gonna do it till they start goin broke."

On the computer screen now they were looking at Le Ponant, a 290-foot, three-masted sailing cruise ship.

Dara said, "You remember Le Ponant? Hijacked in the gulf on its way to the Mediterranean for summer cruises. No passengers aboard, but a crew of thirty young people, seven of them women. You remember that?" Dara said, "I read it to you off the computer."

"Now I do, yeah. The women hid."

"In a forward storage area for most of two days," Dara said. "All they had to eat were nuts and raisins, and helped themselves to the wine stored there. The seven ladies had to go to the bathroom in a metal bucket. The rest of the crew, meanwhile, were allowed to have meals prepared by their chef. The pirates brought their own food, spaghetti," Dara said. "The women finally came out of the storage locker — for all they knew the rest of the crew were dead. Three of the women's boyfriends were crew members, so they were worried sick. They had no idea the crew was treated quite well. The women came out and the pirate leader, Ahmed, asked the captain, 'Why did you hide them?' Very indignant. 'You thought my men would take them to bed?'"

Xavier said, "Was more like, 'You thought we gonna get some ass off these women? Shame on you.' Was his tone."

"The point is," Dara said, "Ahmed addressed the captain with indignation for thinking he had to protect the women."

"His khat-suckin guys grinnin at the girls, not even mindin all the warships layin out around them."

"Look," Dara said, "as long as the pirates were underdogs and behaved themselves, didn't shoot anybody, they're the good guys. All they're doing is getting back at the shipping companies, and 'getting back' seems acceptable in their world."

"You gonna explain that in your voice-over?"

"Or," Dara said, "we show the pirates are being used by unscrupulous middlemen in London, in Dubai, Nairobi — this was on the BBC — who contact the shipping companies, work out ransom negotiations and take their cut."

"I'll ask you again," Xavier said, "you gonna explain all that in the movie?"

"If I have to."

Xavier said, "You gettin into somethin over your head. Where the dudes climbed up on the Buster, boarded us on the high seas? You trash that episode?"

"It's next," Dara said. "I'm still thinking of a way to use it."

Now they were watching on the screen a ship stacked to the bow with trailer-size containers that would be dropped onto railroad freight cars or hooked to eighteen-wheelers in a few weeks, the ship coming west to the Red Sea and Europe.

A bottle of French Pinot Noir stood on the table between them. "This wine," Xavier said, "cost twelve bucks, a store on Magazine. Djibouti wholesale we pay fifty and think we drinkin pretty good wine."

Dara said she was never sure why a good wine was good. She liked this one, but never got much of a taste holding the wine in her mouth. Xavier said, "You any good you can even tell where it's from. Catch a scent of maybe smoke, you sniff it, or has a taste of wood." Xavier said, "I have a friend name of Christopher in Tucson, Arizona, could take a sip of this wine, roll it over his taste buds, tell you where it's from and what the taste is, Christopher detectin a hint of tobacco juice musta been spit in the barrel."

The container ship was passing within a mile and a half of the Buster, Dara on it with the Sony. She said, "You hear what I hear?"

"I see 'em," Xavier said, "comin top speed. Two pirate boats, six in one, three in the other. Goin for the aft end of the ship like hyenas gonna nip at her fantail, the lowest freeboard and no containers in the way. Yeah, I remember this. The crew puttin fire hoses on the pirates. Hittin 'em good and the boats veer off."

"Now they're firing at the ship," Dara said.

"Can't get close enough to hit anybody. They veer off a ways and Niag'ra Falls comes down on the pirate boats, the hoses reachin out to them."

"They're giving it up," Dara said. "Who wants to board a ship soaking wet?"

They watched the boats heading for shore, more than a mile from the Buster. "Here's where the one spots us," Dara said, "and falls back. The boat with all the guys continues heading in. If they'd seen us we'd be facing nine instead of three."

Xavier said, "Facin? You they mama, one of their biggest fans. You love pirates."

"I should've asked if they want to be in a movie," Dara said. "It might've given them pause. I remember I told you to use the Sony and shoot as long as we can. I had the Canon peeking through the hole in my bag."

"I remember I said they try and snatch it from you," Xavier said, "lemme have it."

The screen showed one Somali in the boat, holding it against the Buster; the other two coming up over the side, both swinging AKs from their shoulders while Xavier was shooting the closer one looking right at him, Xavier filming until the hand spread open in front of the lens. The pirate put his hand on the camera to take it and Xavier held on. He said, "You want to put me out of business?" and looked over at Dara and the other pirate — a young guy with a skullcap of short hair.

Xavier saw him snatch at Dara's bag hanging from her shoulder. Dara took his hand around the wrist and started talking to him in what sounded like a kindly way, speaking Cajun French to him, and now the young pirate was nodding as Dara glanced at Xavier.

"He said yes, he would love to be in a movie."

Now she was speaking French to the pirate looking up at Xavier standing over him, translating to Cajun what Xavier was saying. "You won't be in the film you don't return my boss's camera. She'll be all over my ass. Understand what I'm sayin?" Dara at the same time shooting him through the hole in her cotton bag.

Xavier's pirate said something to his buddy in Somali, yanked the Sony from Xavier's hands and went into the wheelhouse, this fella with a don't-fuck-with-me attitude. Dara slipped the bag off her shoulder, handed it to Xavier and followed the one with the Sony through the wheelhouse and the hatch to go below.

Now Xavier faced the younger pirate holding the AK.

He said, "How things goin, Dog?"

The boy looked nervous, not knowing how to answer this English coming at him.

Xavier said, "Why don't you hand me your gun," moving a step toward him. "So I don't have to take it from you and heave your ass over the side. You comprende 'heave your ass'?" Xavier smiling to show the pirate he was offering this suggestion as a friend. Now he motioned to the young man to step over here, closer to him, Xavier saying, "We got Pirates at home playin baseball for Pittsburgh. Only time I saw 'em was in '79, they playin the Orioles for the World Series and won it. I was seein a woman in Baltimore and she got the tickets. Willie Stargell, my hero at the time, thirty years ago when I was prime, was named the Series MVP. Hit four hundred with seven extra-base hits. I think it mighta been a record. I won money bettin the Pirates, but this woman got mad and quit doin right by me."

Xavier was ready to take the AK from the boy, but heard Dara's voice again speaking French, Dara coming out of the wheelhouse now with the other guy, Dara holding Xavier's Beretta in her hand, the gun loaded, thirteen in the magazine, one in the throat.

"Kwame," Dara said, "will return the Sony if we give him your pistol. But you have to say it's okay."

"They neither one speak English?"

"Hardly a word."

"Tell Kwame," Xavier said, "he don't give you the camera, I'm gonna shoot him between the eyes with this gun and pitch his ass in the sea."

Dara told the Somali in her Cajun French, "Kwame, my associate says yes, he'll let you have the pistol, if you prefer it, to the camera."

Said all this handing Xavier the Sony and said, "Start shooting," as she handed Kwame Xavier's Beretta and the deal was done.

Xavier said, "You know what you doin?"

Dara said, "We'll have to use subtitles on my lines."

"You giving this man our only protection?"

"We'll get it back," Dara said.

Excerpted from Djibouti, by Elmore Leonard. Copyright 2010 by HarperCollins.

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