The Aden Effect
Authors: Claude G. Berube
NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS
ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
© 2012 by Claude Berube
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berube, Claude G.
The Aden effect : a Connor Stark novel / Claude Berube.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-6125-1110-8 (e-book) 1. Aden, Gulf ofâFiction. 2. PiracyâFiction. 3. International relationsâFiction. 4. Middle EastâFiction. I. Title.
PS3602.E7693A66 2012
813´.6âdc23
2012020771
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
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First printing
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Book design and composition: David Alcorn, Alcorn Publication Design
FOR KATE
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany
was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in
Hungary was “illegal.”
âMARTIN LUTHER KING JR.,
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
PART
I
TWENTY-TWO DAYS AGO
Western Indian Ocean, 0215 (GMT)
T
he first rocket-propelled grenade hit the supertanker's bow twenty feet above the waterline. The second hit the superstructure a deck below the bridge. The crew staggered back from their positions, desperate to escape what they knew was coming next, knowing they had nowhere to go.
The
Katya P
. was exactly where Faisal's sources said it would be. His network had told him when the supertanker had transited the Strait of Hormuz, its next port of call, and its course. He had estimated the ship's speed correctly and saw it over the horizon an hour before dawn during the dark blue hour when the sky and seas were still and the only sound on the water was the gentle hum of his own ship's engines.
He ordered the three skiffs manned by six of his Somali pirate-soldiers to be released. Armed with a mix of AK-47s and RPGs, the men were fueled by the kind of courage found only in the effects of the drug khat. They believed they were prepared. They knew they were going to win the day.
Faisal checked the radar and smiled. The supertanker was on course two-zero-zero on its way to the Cape of Good Hope. This job had become far too easy.
“What is it, Faisal?” his helmsman asked. “Why are you smiling?”
“You were just a boy when we started. Do you remember? Only a few years ago the great ships were safe in the Gulf of Aden. Now they fear us.”
“I remember. We were all young when you recruited us. You promised that we would be the most powerful force in these waters and that we would no longer go hungry. You have kept your word.”
“Yes. Now it is the great shipping companies who go hungry seeking safer waters. But there are none. See our prey there? He avoids the Gulf of Aden and tries to sail around South Africa. He will fail like the others.”
The skiffs were away.
Faisal raised the handheld radio to his mouth. “Go faster and get alongside the ship,” he ordered.
The skiffs closed quickly on the supertanker, the hum of their motors rising to a crescendo as they chased it down. Through his binoculars Faisal saw that it was riding low and slow, full of oil bound for the great powers. Great white waves rose at the bow as the laden supertanker labored through the ocean, aching to outrace the small boats. The familiar crackling of a ship-to-ship radio confirmed that the ship had seen the pirates and that it was indeed the prey he had waited for.
“
Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the oil carrier
Katya P.
Our position is 10º 20´ 3´´ N and 58º 5´ 10´´ E on course two-zero-zero at fourteen point five knots. We are being approached by pirates and require immediate assistance
.”
“Their captain is desperate,” Faisal said to his helmsman. “Listen to how quickly he says the words. Listen as he gulps air. He cries out, but no one hears except the ocean and us.”
“We are safe for now, Captain?”
Faisal was tired of explaining what should have been so apparent to his helmsman after all these years. But he recruited desperate and hungry men, not the most literate or intelligent; and what small intellectual powers they had were slowed by years of khat use. They were his fodder, and there were enough men in Somalia to fill his crew no matter how many losses he incurred.
“There are two million square miles of our beloved waters and only one American warship,” he said impatiently. “We have time.”
As the skiffs closed on the
Katya
P., Faisal heard loud sirens on the tanker and saw the crew scampering to take up antiboarding positions. This was fine. All he could see were water cannons used for repelling boarders. He raised the radio and ordered his skiffs to open fire again. A third RPG struck the
Katya
P., followed by the familiar staccato of the pirates' AK-47s. He watched as the tanker's crew fell one by one while racing toward the superstructure, which no longer afforded them protection. Pirates from two skiffs continued firing at the crew as the third pulled alongside the
Katya P
. Using an extension ladder and ropes the Somalis deftly made their way up and over the rails.
Within a few minutes the pirates had secured the tanker. The captain and what remained of the crew stood on the deck, their hands behind their heads. Four tall Somalis, clad only in ragged shorts, held guns at the ready should any of them be so foolish as to try to escape.
Faisal's ship pulled alongside the tanker with the other two skiffs in its wake, their crews cheering their leader and their great victory; two of them fired blindly into the sky in celebration until Faisal ordered them to cease. He boarded and approached the prisoners. Most were much smaller than the Somalis. They were the workhorses of the oceans, these Filipinos, whose labor cost the great shipping companies little. One man among them was white and had the fat waist of a Westerner or a Russian.
“You are the captain?” Faisal asked.
“Yes. Captain Ilya Korchenko.” The overweight man's belly quivered with each breath.
“Your watch is very nice. Gold?”
“Here, take it,” Korchenko said, removing his watch and offering it as a token of surrender before it could be taken from him.
Faisal accepted the watch and examined it closely. “Very nice. This is inscribed. I have not known someone to inscribe their own watch.”
“It was a gift,” Captain Korchenko said. “From my family.”
Faisal smiled wolfishly. “I appreciate their gift. I will put it to good use.”
“I will contact my company to ask for your ransom,” Korchenko said.
“No. That will not be necessary.”
“What? But there has always beenâ”
“No ransom this time.” Faisal raised his own Kalashnikov and fired three rounds into the captain's chest. The other pirates did the same with the remaining crew. Faisal tossed the watch to one of his crewmen.
“Kick their bodies overboard, Saddiq. And send this watch to our friend in America. Tell him the time is coming when I will need him to act.”