The Devil's Waters

CHAPTER 48





The blast of the Kalashnikov did not drown out Guleed’s frightened cry.

A dozen bullets threw the captain against his chair. The man was dead before he settled in shreds to the deck.

The rifle’s reports pounded the bridge into a stunned silence. Yusuf’s gun hovered. Guleed’s hands stayed in the air as if the moment of Drozdov’s killing needed more time to complete itself.

Yusuf whirled on the port door, taking fast aim at the large soldier standing in it. The soldier flew backward as if struck before Yusuf loosed a long blast, sweeping the barrel across the door, shattering the heavy pane and windows. The door slammed shut while Yusuf hammered it and the wall until the drum of his AK-47 clicked empty.

The dented bridge, its captors and hostages, paused while the racket and gunsmoke lingered.

The radio in Yusuf’s hand barked.

“Now! Throw!”

Yusuf stood panting, exhilarated and blanked by the long burst from the gun. Guleed screamed again, jarring Yusuf back to action. He did not wait for the next gush of air or the bounce of grenades. He lunged to grab Guleed by the scruff of his blouse. The boy, thin like Suleiman, came to his toes in Yusuf’s grasp. Suleiman had died to save the two of them; nothing was left to Yusuf now but to honor that.

“Run!” he belted in his young cousin’s ears. “The back stairs!”

Yusuf flung the boy ahead of him. Guleed, rigid with surprise, stumbled, not fathoming that they were escaping. In the next moment, he gained his feet to dash past the chart table for the rear door and steps. Yusuf did not turn to look at the hostages or the men he was abandoning to save Guleed, his kin. Yusuf had seen all his men dead on this ship; not the least honor lay with any of them. He, too, was without honor, just a pirate. Only Suleiman had died for something more than ransom.

At Yusuf’s back, something small and metallic bounced against the floor, then another.

Guleed yanked open the door to dive through. Behind Yusuf, an immense bang erupted, so loud that it shoved him the last stride through the doorframe. The stairwell walls flashed with the light of a starburst. Yusuf feared the bite of shrapnel chasing him. Guleed recoiled, hands to his eyes. Yusuf barged onto the landing, pulling the door shut just before a second explosion.

Guleed gulped for breath, Yusuf listened through the door. The detonations faded fast, replaced with the shouts of the pirates left behind. “I can’t see,” they screamed. “Where are they?” Ratcheting noises, claps more than gunfire, snapped in twos and threes, silencing the bursts of Kalashnikovs. When the weapons quieted, the Americans were the only ones left shouting.

Yusuf pulled his small cousin into an embrace. He spoke in a whisper to the top of the boy’s head.

“Listen to me. There are two American soldiers waiting on the floor below. When we come to the next landing, they will see us. We will have to fight past them. Can you do this?” He moved the boy to arm’s length, leaving his great hands across Guleed’s shoulders.

Guleed pushed Yusuf’s hands down, as if bothersome, or as if he did not deserve them. He sniffled along his sleeve, trying to right his nerve.

“I’m sorry, cousin. I was afraid.”

“I’ll settle the score when you’re old enough to marry. I will pick your first wife.”

Guleed snorted, making him wipe his nose again on his khameez.

Yusuf laid down his empty Kalashnikov. The flight of stairs below led to the landing and doorway for F deck. In the hall there, the soldiers were surely gazing down gun barrels, an excellent and protected view of the stairwell.

“Give me your gun. I’ll go first. I’ll fire and keep them busy. You run behind me and go down the rest of the stairs as fast as you can. I’ll be right behind you.”

Guleed nodded. “Then what?”

“We’ll get off this ship. The skiffs are still tied to the stern, but the warship will stop us. We’ll head for the bow and throw a life raft over. We’ll jump in it.” Yusuf showed the radio the Americans had slid to him inside the bridge. “Deg Deg’s behind us. We’ll call him. The old man and that cat will come find us.”

Guleed dug a tear from his eye. “That’s not a story, is it?”

“Yes. It is. And we’ll tell it at your wedding to your ugly wife.” Guleed shrugged his Kalashnikov into his narrow hands. His line was closer to Suleiman’s, carrying their family’s leanness and courage. The boy arranged himself beside Yusuf on the landing, facing the stairs.

Guleed said, “You did not surrender.”

“No.”

“I would have.”

Yusuf stroked the back of his kinsman’s smooth neck. “You are wrong.”

Guleed smiled up at this. “Tell the story that way, cousin. Allahu, jixinjix.”

Allah, have mercy.

With his gun still in his hands, the boy bounded away, racing down the staircase. Yusuf leaped after him, vainly stretching to pull the boy back. Guleed jumped in the air, crying like an eagle, to land spread-legged in the doorway. Throat in full battle cry, Guleed leveled his Kalashnikov into the hallway. He braced the rifle at his hip, laying down a withering cover fire. The boy swung the flaming muzzle left and right; the soldiers must have been on both sides. Yusuf rounded the banister in time to hear Guleed shout above the gun, “Go, go!”

The first rounds made Guleed backpedal, but nothing more. He leaned forward into the blows as if into an ocean wave. The Americans struck the boy again, staggering him without silencing the Kalashnikov.

Yusuf took the last image of his young cousin with him into the stairwells below, Guleed screaming the name of Allah alongside their clan, Harti of the Darood.