"If he wants to be a hero."
"One that could win him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Or whatever they award if you're not military. That's the chance, what puts him in the right place. Get him pictured on the cover of Time or Newsweek."
"Or both. Sometimes they do the same stories."
"This one about an American looking his fate in the eye. The wogs want two million for him." Billy paused. "They aren't Kafirs, Kafirs are Hindus, and they aren't gooks. Wogs are in a huge area from the Middle to the Far East. I'm thinking there must be a special name for these guys."
"Towelheads."
"That's crude. I'll stick with wogs, or Mohammedans. Four of them are holding the captain for ransom. They don't get two million for him he's a dead man."
"They said that?"
"Not in those words. This is a standoff between armed wogs who want money and the government of the United States represented by Captain Phillips. If we give in to their demand and pay the ransom, we're pussy. We're turning our back to what's most precious to us, the ideals of a free people."
She thought he was going to say "our precious bodily fluids."
Helene, on the settee, put her glass down and looked at Billy. He was serious. He was the guy Sterling Hayden played in Dr. Strangelove, General Jack D. Ripper. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the subtitle. Sterling Hayden was so serious he was weird. Calm, talking about the Communist conspiracy to put fluoridation in our drinking water to fuck up our precious bodily fluids. They watched the picture twice while they were still in the Mediterranean. Billy said he'd watched it six or seven times at least and thought Jack D. Ripper was a martyr, giving his life for the sake of our precious bodily fluids. That's who Billy sounded like at times, Sterling Hayden.
Billy said, "I'd be willing to bet Richie Phillips somehow got on the horn with the commander of the Bainbridge and told him, 'Don't pay them. Not one dime. Threaten to send a missile up their ass if they don't surrender. Tell them how it works, you get caught you stand trial. Give 'em one minute to make up their minds, with a ticking clock next to the phone the wogs can hear. I bet anything the commander gave them a time limit. The wogs tell him, 'But we have Captain Phillips, he will be killed too.' The commander tells them, 'Richie Phillips is willing to give his life for his country and what he believes. Are you?'"
Helene listened to the CNN report and said, "Well, it isn't gonna happen tonight."
She needed to get straight in her mind which guy was the real Billy Wynn. Serious enough when he was sailing the boat, but weird when they anchored and he sounded like Sterling Hayden. She wondered what he'd be like at home, if he wore a cowboy hat. Sooner or later she'd have to meet his friends down in East Texas. Have people over for a cookout and square dance in their cowboy boots. She thought, No. Wait a minute. Billy didn't listen to country, he liked-what was the guy's name he played almost every day? His friends would come to the cook-outs in raggedy straw hats and move their shoulders in time to Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville." Jesus. WHAT BILLY DID MOST of the day, anchored off Eyl, was listen to CNN and study the ships held for ransom, creeping over every inch of them with his huge binoculars. He'd get the names of the ships and look up their registry and then make a few satellite calls to his informants in Djibouti and Qatar, Billy lounging in the Pegaso's salon.
Helene heard him say, "Well, it's the Aphrodite now, a thousand-foot LNG tanker. I can see five tanks sticking out of the deck." Billy said, "What I want to know is where it's going," and hung up.
He said to Helene, "They changed the name of the ship from Heureka to Aphrodite."
"Yeah…? They sound like cool guys."
"Originally it was out of Piraeus with a Greek master and crew. The owner now is from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates but lives in London. I said to my informant, 'You sure the owner isn't living in a cave up in Pakistan?' If they don't find that fucker soon I'm gonna get on it. We're offering twenty-five mil to learn his whereabouts and nobody's stepped up. You know why? We're offering too much. What's a former goat herdsman who delivers milk to him gonna do with twenty-five million bucks? Buy a car?"
Helene said, "Are you talking about whoever fingers Ben Laden?"
"Hon, it's bin, Osama bin Laden with a small b. No matter who my informant tells me owns the ship, I think it could belong to bin Laden. I wonder if anybody calls him that? 'Hey, bin, how you been?' It was on the History Channel all the ships he owns. You ever watch it?"
"I love the History Channel."
"You never saw it in your life."
"I've heard of it."
"Their shows are great. The world's worst natural disasters, Krakatoa, tsunamis, the Johnstown flood, the attempt to assassinate Hitler. They show him for what he really was, a homasexual dictator."
"Hitler was gay?"
"You ever see him at play up at his mountain retreat? Acting like a girl, slapping Eva Braun on the ass? I'm of the opinion Eva was a tough broad. She loved Adolf and wanted to straighten him out. You understand Eva was his cover."
"I don't think it's possible to turn," Helene said, "or they don't want to. Guys you can tell are gay-ones I'd meet-are always having fun, and they're smart. I don't know about the ones you can't tell if they are or not."
Billy said, "We finally got a lead on something that's bigger than these Mohammedans playing they're pirates. We'll keep tabs on the Aphrodite when she's released, not let her get too far away. I think she'll have to put in at Djibouti to take on stores."
Billy popped open a bottle of champagne.
"I told you I saw Dara and her bearer going out to the ship with Idris. How would she know, without my kind of sources? You know how many paid insiders I have on this now? Six. How could she know Aphrodite's gonna blow up a U.S. port?"
"How do you know?"
"Hon, al Qaeda's got a huge hard-on for the U.S. It's been eight years since 9/11, al Qaeda's thinking up its next move against us. It's got to be a good one, something different but showy. Dara might not suspect what's going down, but something's on her mind. I bet her a bottle of champagne I'd have her luggage in her room inside of five minutes. I intended to come with the bottle, a cool way to meet her. Miss Smarty's already got the flutes out. The girl's aware, has a keen sense of things."
He sounded just like Sterling Hayden.
"Are you gonna tell her what you think?" Helene said.
"I've only thought of one scenario. I may need a couple more people on this. There's an ex-SEAL I hire. I tell Buck what I want to find out and he delivers. Won't take any pay till he does the job, then holds me up. The man has style. Buck Bethards. He could be anywhere, but I'll give him a call. Buck'll drop whatever he's doing to work for me."
Billy was pouring champagne now, telling Helene, "When you're not too busy, google the ports in the U.S. that allow delivery of liquid natural gas. I'll bet there's no more'n a half dozen, all of them inland a ways." He raised his flute to touch Helene's.
"I notice you and Dara seemed to hit it off. Why don't you talk to her girl to girl, see if you can find out what she's up to." Billy said, "Hon, I'd appreciate it." THEY WERE TOPSIDE NOW, early evening, the sun sliding around before falling like a stone behind the hijacked ships. Or it was the fucking wine. Helene said, "You're still looking at them?"
Through his huge binoculars. "I'm trying to locate the three Saudis, one of 'em's first officer."
"What's the captain?"
"Egyptian. His name's Wassef."