Saduq remained silent. Kealey’s upper and lower molars clicked together. All right, have it your way. He raised his gun and pressed its bore into the middle of his captive’s forehead, tightening his grip around his neck, clamping off his windpipe.
“Let’s try again,” he said in a flat, mechanical tone, looking directly into Saduq’s eyes. “Do you understand me? Yes or no?”
Saduq swallowed and took a thin, wheezing breath, his Adam’s apple a hard, straining lump against the rigid vise of Kealey’s hand. Not letting up, Kealey dug his fingers in deeper, bringing the gun barrel to bear against his forehead with a pressure that made the skin pale around it in a small circle.
“Yes or no?”
Saduq produced a strangled, gurgling sound, his tongue writhing thickly in his mouth, the veins of his temples pulsating, his eyes bulging in their sockets. “ Yeesss, ” he croaked at last.
Kealey unlocked his fingers from Saduq’s throat without moving his gun from his forehead. At almost the same instant, he heard Brun shift on the bed, shot him a quick glance, and detected a measure of discomfort in the Interpol agent that had nothing to do with the physical pain of his gunshot wound. This registered in Kealey’s awareness with no more emotion than anything else about his situation. It was just another factor to be inventoried should it enter into play.
“The man who came aboard with you,” Kealey said, his eyes darting back to Saduq. “Who was he?”
The arms dealer swooped air into his lungs, his chest heaving up and down. “A Somali brigand,” he sputtered.
“Does he have a name?”
“He…he calls himself Ali.”
“What do you mean ‘calls himself’?”
“I cannot…cannot tell you…whether it is…his true identity.” Saduq pulled in another rapid series of breaths. “He is…a lieutenant. Nothing more. I have dealt with his group in the past.”
“Its leader, then,” Kealey said. “Give me his name.”
“He goes by many aliases… I know him as Dafo,” Saduq said, massaging his throat. “They say he is based in Puntland…Boosaaso, Haradheere, or Eyl. But he communicates only via telephone and e-mail, and it’s uncertain whether he even resides on the continent.”
“And that’s the best you can do?”
“As far as what you have asked to this point,” Saduq said, looking him squarely in the eye. “I am prepared to tell you whatever else I might know about him…and can help with other information you wish to know.”
“I’m sure,” Kealey said. “Except you’re full of shit.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Shaking his head in denial, Saduq began to respond, but before his lips could shape another word, Kealey bunched his collar in his fist and yanked him up off his chair, hauling him forward so he left his feet. He threw him to the cabin floor on his belly, the armchair momentarily getting tangled between his legs and clattering over sideways. As Saduq tried gathering himself, Kealey came up behind him, grabbed the back his shirt, and half dragged, half lifted him to his feet.
“What are you doing?” Saduq wheezed.
Kealey pushed the barrel of his gun rifle into Saduq’s back. “We’re going up top.”
“Why…I don’t see what reason there is for-”
“Upstairs,” Kealey grunted, prodding him with the rifle. “Come on, let’s go.”
Saduq went into the stairwell and then climbed to the glass-enclosed main cabin, coming up beside the cockpit, where Abby Liu stood with her weapon trained on the captain. At a near standstill in the bay, the Yemaja drifted slightly leeward beneath the partial moon, the glimmer of the harbor lights visible far off behind to port.
“Everything copacetic?” Kealey asked Abby.
She nodded and gave him an inquisitive look. But before she could ask what he intended to do, Kealey had already turned away, shoving Saduq down the length of the cabin toward the entrance at the stern.
“Keep walking,” he said.
The deckhand Brun had shot lay in a fetal position in the main cabin, a wide pool of blood around his dead body. Kealey skirted the dark red puddle as he followed the arms dealer into the open air, then steered him around to the narrow span of deck between the main cabin and the starboard rail. After a second he grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him around so they were facing one another.
“I want you to back toward the rail,” he said. “Do it slowly.”
His eyes on Kealey’s face, Saduq obeyed his orders, taking one step, another…and then coming to an abrupt halt.
Kealey waved his gun. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”
“I’m getting close to the rail.”
“No kidding.” Kealey shrugged. “Go on… Back up some more.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“It depends,” Kealey said. “But if you don’t pay attention, I promise you’re going to end up like your deckhand in the main cabin. This isn’t a bluff.”
Saduq gazed at him in disbelief and resumed edging his way back toward the rail until he was flat up against it. He could go no farther without falling over the side.
“Okay,” Kealey said. “Hold it right there.”
Kealey noted the flicker of relief on Saduq’s face as he realized he was not going overboard…at least not yet. It was precisely the reaction he’d sought from the arms dealer. Let him feel he had a chance, give him a modicum of hope, and he would cling to it however he could.
Kealey took a quick stride forward and shoved the MP9 into Saduq’s chest cavity. “You have balls, I’ll give you that much. But for a deal maker you don’t seem to be a great judge of people.”
Saduq tensed. “What are you talking about?”
“Look into my face,” Kealey said. “And then tell me if you believe I’d think twice about blowing you away. Right here and now.”
Saduq tensed. “How would you explain it to whoever sent you?”
“I wouldn’t,” Kealey said. “I’m not CIA. I’m not anything. Consider me a walking ghost-I can pass through whatever walls I please.” Kealey grinned. “If you and your captain don’t return to shore, the local authorities would be the only ones asking questions. And I’m betting they could be convinced it was pirates.”
Saduq was silent for a long moment. “I cannot believe you would kill me in cold blood. Someone sent you here, and it must have been for a reason…”
“I told you to look at me.” Kealey slugged him hard in his mouth, pushing the rifle into his middle with one hand. “Talk, Saduq. Talk, or I’ll blow your guts out and dump you overboard like a barrel of trash. But I promise it won’t be before I make you feel a whole world of hurt.”
“ Ya Allah, ” Saduq rasped, blood trickling from his mouth. “What do you want?”
“The truth. All of it. Starting with what I asked you down below.” He moved closer-so close Saduq was forced to lean back against the rail’s upper horizontal bar. “That means the name of the man who came aboard with you. And who you were buying those weapons for. And whether your friend still intends to deliver the goods now that he’s made off on a launch with their money.”
Saduq dragged the back of his hand across his lips and chin, glanced down at his red-smeared knuckles. “If I do cooperate with you…I will be a hunted man.”
“Better hunted than dead.”
Saduq stared into his face. “I’m going to need protection.”
Kealey shrugged. “We can worry about that later,” he said. “First let’s hear what you have to tell me.”
Saduq hesitated for another moment before he finally expelled a long, trembling breath.
“The pirate’s name is Nicolas Barre,” he said.
“And?”
“As you’d surmised, the payment he took with him was from Ishmael Mirghani and another man…an American like yourself. I received it at my home in Darfur.”
Something flashed in Kealey’s eyes. “This American,” he said. “Who’s he?”
