Once out on the open water, a steady breeze from the south was creating three-foot swells that made the little boat hop and skip. Afua had been in many boats during his lifetime, either as a passenger or as a driver. At one time, Afua had been a pirate and had preyed on tourists and smaller vessels that came too close to the Nigerian coastline. But those activities had normally taken place on the Niger or Benue rivers. The ocean was a totally different experience.
Even then, the ocean’s vastness had taken Afua’s breath away. It reminded him of his boyhood home of Batagarawa and the stark Sahara Desert. The ocean and
the desert shared many attributes. In both, one could die from dehydration, become lost, or become scorched by the sun. Both appeared infinite. The desert had never provided the jihadi with anything tangible, other than the motivation to get himself and his family away from it, and, of course, the loot when he was a pirate.
After this unsavory task was completed, Mohammed Mboso had assured Afua that he would own his own region of the Boko Haram territory. That would allow for him and his family to once again move up in the world. Instead of living in a large apartment, his family would own their own home situated on a large piece of private property. Maybe they would even have their own pool.
As he pulled back on the throttle and decreased speed, he smiled at the thought. He was now within 100 meters of the big boat. Or was it a ship? Afua decided it was probably a yacht — by those who cared about such trivial matters. The boat was sleek, smooth, and shaped like the tip of an arrow. The nose of the yacht was pointy. A graceful arch of tinted glass and Plexiglas formed a shape that would assist the yacht to effortlessly glide through the water and wind. The arch terminated at the back of the boat which was quite stubby in comparison to the front. The flat area on the back of the boat had some writing that spelled the words: Nigerian Princess.
Now, almost at a dead stop and turning sideways to the waves, Afua applied about half throttle. He pointed his boat toward the large vessel. He was told that he would be met by a man by the name of Isaac Obano. Obano was a big-time real estate broker. He worked on many commercial deals with foreign entities who wanted to buy a chunk of Nigerian land for business purposes.
Now, less than twenty meters from the stern of the ship, Afua saw no one. He saw no activity at all. The sun hit one of the yacht’s many glass windows and momentary blinded him. Then, a second later, the angle changed, and the ship came back into focus. Afua began to reach over to press his boat’s horn, but just as his finger was within an inch from it, he stopped and retracted his hand. He tried to recall the training the Russian had given him. Many of the buttons and switches on the console of the little boat did what they were supposed to do; however, a few buttons had been programmed to very specialized things. Afua looked over the buttons and switches, cataloging each one in his mind and matching them up with their true functions. Now, confident that the horn button would blast the horn, he pressed it. A nautical-sounding screech was emitted, and Afua once again eased off the throttle. Moments later, the sliding glass door on the lower deck of the yacht opened, and a well-built black man emerged wearing a yellow polo shirt, white tennis shorts and sandals. He walked to the stern of the yacht and gave Afua
a confirmative wave. Afua waved back and gently bumped the throttle forward a half-inch.
The man on the yacht began to unlatch a pair of karabiner eyehooks that had been secured to the ship’s cleats. The eyehooks were connected to cables threaded through a set of thick boom arms. Once the lines were freed, the man let them go, and the cables dangled out over the water. He opened a small control box, pressing a button that operated the boom extension. Afua watched the boom arms begin to grow and extend until they were hovering well out over the water. Once they were in place, the man on deck pressed another button and the cables with the eyehooks began to lower down toward the water.
Less than ten meters away from the yacht, Afua turned the wheel sharply to align the side of his fishing boat with the stern of the yacht. As he passed under one of the two cables, he popped his boat into idle and grabbed the hook. On closer inspection, he noticed that there were two eyehooks. Each hook was connected to its own short length of cable that made a “Y” and connected to the main cable. Before he could drift away, Afua quickly made his way to the front of his boat. He clipped one eyehook into a cleat on the portside gunwale of his boat. He then clipped the other eyehook to a cleat on the starboard side. Behind him, he located the other greasy thick cable with the shiny eyehooks. He passed between the split windshield walkway of his boat and grabbed the line. He connected this new set of eyehooks to the cleats on the backend of his boat. With his boat secured to the yacht above, he then sat back down in the driver’s seat and turned off the key.
The man on the boat yelled, “Welcome aboard!” to Afua in his native Nigerian tongue. Instead of yelling back to the man, Afua waited until his boat had been lifted out of the water, and pulled up to the same level as the man. Then without the need to yell, Afua said, “Thank you,” using his best English.
Over the last ten years, ever since Afua had been with the current Boko Haram leader, Iniabasi, his teacher had spent a great deal of time and effort teaching him English. During this time, Afua hadn’t understood why he would ever have a use for the language. Even though the official language of Nigeria was English, it was most often spoken in the large cities. Out in the urban areas, and even further into the sparsely occupied areas where Afua was born, it was seldom used. Even so, if Iniabasi told him that he would need to learn English, then Afua understood to move up in the organization, he would need to learn the language.
The Russian had warned him that if the yacht was boarded by the Coast Guard, or any other contingent of officials, Afua was to pretend not to understand anything officials asked him. He was to act as if he didn’t understand any language other than his own native Nigerian tongue. Isaac Obano would pretend to translate any information of any importance to Afua, but no one anticipated that would happen. There was a good chance that the yacht might be boarded when they reached the Caribbean Sea, but the Nigerian Princess was a “pleasure boat” or a rich man’s toy.
Diambu’s boat was now suspended five feet above the ocean, parallel with the deck of the yacht. Afua stepped effortlessly stepped over the railing of his little boat and did a little hop onto the deck of the ship.
Obano held out his hand, and Afua shook it.
“Nice to meet you,” the realtor said.
“Nice to meet you as well,” Afua responded warily.
Obano stepped over to the controls that operated the tender launch. He pressed a button, and a hydraulic pump began to moan. The boom arms started to retract that pulled the boat into a hollow built into the stern of the yacht — an area designed to accommodate small boats such as this.
“No,” Afua said. “Let it stay extended. We can tie it off so it doesn’t sway, but it needs to be ready and out over the water.”
The big black man shrugged and released the button. “OK,” he said, closing and latching the control panel’s watertight cover.
“One line there and another there should do the job,” Afua said, pointing at tie down points on the swaying boat.