Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Janson Option (Paul Janson) Read online

  “What does ‘missions’ mean?” Isse shouted.

  “Al-Shabaab—pray like we say or we’ll kill you.”

  “There is more to al-Shabaab. They are about respecting Islam.”

  Ahmed laughed. “Islam should be more than bitching about being dissed.”

  “Al-Shabaab demands respect.”

  “Somalis don’t need that shit.”

  Isse balled his fists. “Islam is not—”

  Janson stepped between them, impermeable as a cinder-block wall. “Isse, do you have pirates in your family?”

  The student said, “My father is a doctor, my mom’s a nurse. One of my grandfathers was a cleric, the other was a pharmacist.”

  “I can see how you’d be short of pirates in your immediate family, but what about clansmen and cousins?”

  “I know what you’re saying, sir. But it’s not like all Somalis are pirates.”

  “Let me put it this way,” Janson said patiently. “Who are you connected to in Mogadishu who could help us ransom this lady who was kidnapped by pirates?”

  Isse looked alarmed. “I thought you needed a translator. I mean, I just don’t know any pirates.”

  Kincaid stepped closer. “Do you know anyone in the government?”

  “Sure. Ministry of Health people. They stay with my parents when they come here.”

  “What about clerics? Any of your grandfather’s colleagues?”

  “I never met him. He was killed before I was born—But I really want to help you.”

  Janson said, “I appreciate that. Jess, why don’t you give Isse and Ahmed a tour of the cockpit? Jess is a pilot too,” he explained to Isse and Ahmed.

  Ahmed bounded eagerly after her. Isse followed, looking anxious.

  Janson exchanged grown-man smiles with the real estate agent.

  “Mr. Hassan, do I understand correctly that you have maintained your business contacts in Mogadishu?”

  Salah Hassan’s smile grew enormous. “There’s a saying in real estate: the broker knows everything in town before it happens. Since my clients are from Somalia, I’m up to date in two towns: Minneapolis and Mogadishu. Knowing who is up and who is down, who chooses to emigrate, who has to run for it, that’s how I know to have my agents scout a home or a factory or a shop before they arrive.”

  “In Mogadishu? Who’s up? Who’s down?”

  “Home Boy Gutaale. He’s nicknamed Home Boy for ‘He who came home.’ Gutaale prospered abroad, here in America, with a heating-oil business. But instead of just hanging out in a dollar country, Gutaale went back home and put himself on the line—long before things started calming down. Gutaale is much admired by the wealthy expatriate Somalis who control Somali business from abroad. It’s in their economic interest that Gutaale imposes stability.”

  “How would Home Boy do that?”

  “You could call him a warlord. Very, very good at it. He is a mythic figure, secular, not religious, allied by blood and marriage to many clans. Ordinary people love him too. He’s got the common touch. Wears a bushy red beard people see a mile away. And also, he’s pushing the old dream of Greater Somalia, which they all love him for.”

  “The empire?” asked Janson.

  “Believe it. Five hundred years ago the king of Soomaaliweyn ruled the Horn of Africa from Mombasa all the way to the Red Sea. Home Boy reminds the world’s most infamous failed state of our prouder history. People have begun to call him the George Washington of Soomaaliweyn.”

  “Won’t Kenya and Ethiopia object?” Janson asked drily, thinking that there was nothing like a war with the neighbors to pull a nation together.

  Hassan replied with a dismissive shrug, “Did your George Washington give a hoot for British objections?”

  “Have you ever met Gutaale?”

  “He spoke at one of our fund-raisers. Haven’t seen him since he went back and that was years ago.”

  “But I understood you’re back and forth from Mog. Never bumped into him there?”

  Hassan smiled. He straightened his necktie. He cast an appreciative eye over the Embraer’s luxurious interior. Then he shook his head. “Our stations changed, shall we say? Realtors tend not to bump into warlords.”

  “Unless they’re looking for a safe retreat abroad.”

  “Gutaale is not looking for safety.”

  “Who else is up?”

  “The radical wingnut Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki—‘The American.’ Muslim cleric. You can see him rapping in al-Shabaab videos on YouTube. He wears a long beard and rants against Western oppression. Abdullah, of course, means ‘slave of God.’ But he’s also called ‘Thumper.’”

  “Thumper?”

  “He has a habit of pounding his chest when he raps. Thump. Thump. Thump. Here’s the crazy thing: his parents emigrated to Maine when he was a teenager and he spent a couple of miserable years in an American high school. For some reason microwave ovens really annoy him. His raps are always bitching that Somalia doesn’t have any microwaves. Like I say, the Thumper is a wingnut.”

  “But you say he’s up?”

  “Believe it. He is a hell of a fund-raiser for al-Shabaab, and he commands their foreign fighters. Inshallah, a CIA Predator takes him out or the pirates shoot him.”

  “Why would pirates shoot him?”

  “Abdullah al-Amriki declared piracy haram—religiously forbidden. Ordinary citizens thank him for that. They hate swaggering gangsters taking over their villages, roaring around their streets in SUVs. Needless to say, the pirates are not amused.”

  “Which pirate would hit him?”

  “Whoever stops chewing khat long enough to concentrate. I expected ‘King’ Bashir would gun him down. Bashir had set up a sort of pirate ‘stock exchange’ in Puntland. By kicking in seed money to get a cut of the ransom, you could invest in hijacking without getting your feet wet. Bashir also organized a pirate coalition in response to the foreign navy pressure.”

  “Bashir sounds like a comer.”

  “He was. But I just heard a rumor that Bashir is out of business. And I can assure you in Somalia, most rumors are true.”

  “Who will replace him?” asked Janson. “Mad Max?”

  Hassan raised an eyebrow. “You should be in real estate, Paul.”

  “What’s the word on Max?”

  “Maxammed belongs to the same subclan as President Mohamed Adam.”

  “That ought to give him a long leg up.”

  Hassan shook his head. “President Adam is known as ‘Raage,’ which means ‘he who delayed at birth.’ In other words, he is very cautious.”

  Janson said, “I don’t suppose President Adam can protect Mad Max hundreds of miles up the coast in Puntland?”

  “Even if he could, Adam can’t risk any appearance of extending government protection to a pirate. He’s just been appointed by the new parliament, which puts him on very thin ice. President Adam will be way too busy trying to convince Somalia that he can become a visionary national leader.”

  “Why is Max called Mad Max?” asked Janson, expecting something more precise from Hassan than Special Agent Laughlin’s “When in doubt, shoot.”

  Salah Hassan delivered a roundabout answer in wistful tones. “Among the joys of my country—almost equal to her most beautiful women, and right up there with proud herdsman, amazingly resilient farmers, tenacious businessmen, lovely beaches yearning for rich tourists, and her once-glorious cities—is her custom of giving people nicknames. Everyone gets a nickname and most are dead-on accurate.”

  “What precisely do people mean when they call him Mad Max?”

  “Mad Max is volatile as jet fuel and vicious as a scorpion. But, having said that, I would also say that considering his connections and the atmosphere of leadership he observed growing up in his family, Mad Max’s ambitions are more ambitious than ‘khat and SUVs.’ Is it he who hijacked the yacht?”

  “Could be,” said Janson, and changed the subject. “Who else is up?”

  “The Italian.”

>   More nicknames. “What does ‘Italian’ mean? Another outsider?”

  Hassan shrugged. “A new player surfaced in Mogadishu recently. I’ve heard of no one who has seen his face or knows his true name. Talk is he’s raising a private army—maybe one of the private security companies in Dubai is working for him. He has money—vast resources.”

  “Where does he get his money?” Janson asked. “Who’s backing him?”

  “I don’t know. But there are rumors he will take over Mogadishu or all of the south or maybe even the whole country.”

  “If no one has seen him or heard his name, how do they know he’s there?”

  “People have disappeared. Key people. Supporters of President Adam. Supporters of the AMISOM, the African Union’s army. People who might help stabilize the country. People who might ask for help from the Ethiopians or the Kenyans or the UN. Even al-Shabaab allies.” Hassan grinned. “The Italian appears to be an equal-opportunity assassin.”

  “Don’t you find it hard to believe that no one in Mogadishu has even seen this new player?”

  “Are you aware, Paul, that Mogadishu is a very large city?”

  “I recall a beautiful city the first time I saw it.”

  Hassan looked surprised. “You must have been very young when you were there.”

  “Very young,” Janson admitted. “I was passing through.” Shedding identities on his way to South Africa. Or, as his controllers had put it: sanding your edges. “I remember palm trees and white stucco and beautiful women and elegant streets. You could imagine people strolling in the evenings, like the passeggiata in Italy.” The truth was, bombings and firefights had begun pocking holes in the stucco, and the rebel factions attacking the dictator’s regime had cleared the streets. But it had been possible to imagine what was being lost.

  Hassan said, “It is more crowded than ever. Two million people are packed into Mogadishu. Hundreds of thousands are newcomers. Many are fleeing famine and war. But some smell opportunity. Global corporations want our oil and gas. Government agents scheme to shift East Africa’s balance of power. Mercenaries want to fight. All have reason to operate undercover in Somalia.”

  Janson was more interested in how the “Italian” might connect to the pirates who held Allegra Helms. It was harder and harder to believe that assassins from Naples had pegged shots at Kingsman Helms by mistake.

  “You say that Somali nicknames are always accurate. Does that mean he is actually from Italy?”

  “We have a long history with Italy. Italians tried to colonize us. Italians modernized farming in the river valleys. What remains of our city architecture is Italian. And to this day we love marinara sauce on our ‘basta.’” He grinned, again. “We eat much more ‘basta’ than camel burgers.”

  “What’s your best guess? Is the ‘Italian’ actually from Italy?” Janson pressed.

  “Perhaps the ‘Italian’ is Italian. Perhaps he only is ‘Italian-like.’”

  “What would be ‘Italian-like’?”

  “Having a strong desire to own Somalia.”

  Paul Janson stood up and offered his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Hassan.” He had learned all he could. It was time to get off the ground and work the phones. “When we meet in Mogadishu, feel free to bring along friends as knowledgeable as you are. They will be compensated.”

  “May I ask you what you want from the youngsters, Isse and Ahmed?”

  “Same thing I want from you. Information and contacts in the event we can’t simply ransom the hostages.”

  “So we are your contingency you pray you won’t need?”

  Janson said, “I was taught to never depend on options that I hoped I would think up at the last minute.”

  As they shook hands, Janson drew the Somali close and asked in a low voice with a nod toward the cockpit, “What do you think of young Isse?”

  “The hope of tomorrow. Educated Somali youth who come home will save our country.”

  * * *

  JANSON HANDED OUT “shanzhai” counterfeit smart phones, a type commonly purchased by young budget-conscious Third World businesspeople. “Numbers to reach us are programmed in.”

  “Direct?” asked Ahmed.

  “They’ll get you to people who can get to us. Use it like any mobile. You can store new contacts, set up your e-mail. But here’s the thing: there’s a panic Delete app if you get in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Use the panic button if you’re afraid you’re caught by people who might endanger your contacts. You can protect your friends and yourself by deleting everything potentially incriminating with one swipe. Contacts, e-mails, texts, GPS history, everything. Watch.”

  He called up the app and held his finger over a red button that appeared on the screen.

  “Touch and hold for two full seconds. Once it’s wiped, you can say you just bought a new phone and haven’t loaded it up, yet. Where’d you buy it? On the street. See, it’s a counterfeit…”

  The Somalis looked sobered by the thought. He said, “Ninety-nine out of a hundred you won’t need it. But it’s there; you’ll be safe from everyone except Apple’s patent-infringement detectives.”

  That got smiles. Janson gave Kincaid the nod. She walked Hassan and Ahmed down the boarding stairs.

  Isse hung back. “Paul, could I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Should I maybe try to make contact with Abdullah al-Amriki?”

  “The cleric? What for?”

  “To ask if al-Amriki might help if we need help rescuing the woman.”

  Janson said, “He hates Americans. Why would he help?”

  “He hates pirates, too. He declared pirates haram.”

  “So I’m told. But he’s tight with al-Shabaab.”

  “But al-Shabaab is getting their asses kicked.”

  “And you’re thinking al-Amriki may need new friends.”

  The boy answered earnestly, “He may want to be part of a new government. He wouldn’t be the first fighter to beat his sword into a plow. Right?”

  “All right, keep your ears open. He’s hiding in the bush, but he’ll have agents in Mog.”

  “Maybe I should try to find him,” Isse ventured.

  “No!”

  “I wouldn’t mind trying. I mean, he doesn’t hate all Americans. Only ones who disrespect Muslims.”

  “Stay away from him,” Janson said firmly.

  “Why, if he would help?”

  Janson slung an arm around the kid’s shoulder. “Isse, I appreciate your wanting to help. But Abdullah al-Amriki is hiding in a war zone. I do not want you to happen to be shaking his hand when AMISOM tanks open fire. What I want you to do, in addition to standing by to translate, is this: First thing, when you get to Mog, call on your parents’ friends at the Ministry of Health. You will be most helpful to me if you make government contacts.”

  “Yeah, but they won’t know pirates.”

  “You don’t know that. Doctors meet everyone.”

  “I guess.”

  “I want every door open,” Janson said. “Do you understand me? The more friends we make, the more options we have.”

  * * *

  TARANTULA RAN FOR the Puntland Coast, trailing a creamy wake.

  Her cruising diesels were straining flat out, but the fastest they could drive the yacht was a frighteningly slow twenty knots while a frantic Maxammed and Boyah, his engineer, tried every trick they knew to start the high-speed turbines. Somehow, they concluded, the captain who had sabotaged the radar had also disabled the turbines. Only at dawn did they finally discover what the devil had done.

  The fortified safe room that contained the circuit breakers he had manipulated to zap the electronics with a power surge was also astride the fuel lines that fed the high-speed turbines. Hidden behind a false cabinet were valves. Sabotage had been a simple matter of shutting them. Laughing with relief, they opened the valves and fired up the turbines. Tarantula’s speed leapt to thirty knots and her p
ropellers churned the Indian Ocean white as snow.

  EIGHT

  43°31' N, 67°35' W

  42,000 Feet Above the Gulf of Maine

  We’re on our way. Thank everyone who got us the Somalis. Hassan was a good catch.”

  Paul Janson’s Embraer was soaring through the night on a northeasterly course, bound for Hamburg, with a refueling stop in Newfoundland, and he was checking in with Quintisha Upchurch, who was Catspaw and Phoenix’s general operations manager. He instructed her to continue posting research reports to the cloud so he could read them on the fly and asked, “Any calls?”

  The moment he had gone operational, calls to his regular cell and sat phone numbers were rerouted directly to her. Quintisha and Quintisha alone could find him anywhere in the world, night or day.

  “The most interesting is from Mr. Douglas Case of ASC,” she answered in a honey-toned, musical voice. “Mr. Case asked if you could return his call when you have a moment.”

  “Well, well, well.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  They went through the other messages—impatient queries from Helms, FBI agent Laughlin reporting he’d have something soon, and confirmation of their appointment at the Hamburg shipyard.

  “Any word on Denny Chin?”

  “Dr. Novicki reports he’s settling in.” The Phoenix doctor was their pilot Lynn’s husband.

  “Any other ‘unauthorized self-checkouts’ I should know about?”

  Quintisha replied that none of the Phoenix rehabilitation homes reported any patients lighting out for parts unknown. “But I did get a disturbing call from Daniel.”

  “The kid in Corsica.” Former SEAL intelligence officer who had made an impressive comeback from an IED head injury. “Is he still OK?”

  “Yes. I don’t have to bother you with it just now, as it doesn’t concern a Phoenix patient.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Daniel caught wind of something in Sardinia.” The island lay just across the narrow Strait of Bonifacio from Corsica, where Daniel ran a dive shop. “Yousef is gone.”