once a week, something so unlike him that at least he noticed. There was also the creeping feeling that maybe he’d stopped caring about real things. That idea bothered him more than his stubble when he looked in the mirror. In his emails home, he didn’t think there was anything to say, nothing to talk about in a stream of identical days. His wife sent pictures of the house, of the flower beds and bushes turning green again in spring, and of the kids’ sports practices. They struck him as familiar and so terribly distant at the same time. He sent no more than a smiley face or a thumbs-up in reply. The last time they’d escorted a ship into Mogadishu, he’d stood on deck and watched the shelling around the port while he ate a packet of biscuits. Were there two bloated corpses floating past him as he took out the last one, or was it three?
Now he sat strapped into the cockpit and waited for final preparations to be completed on the helicopter deck. He leaned forward and squinted up through the glass canopy at the aft mast. A peregrine falcon was sitting there, despite the noise from the engines and the spinning rotor. For a week, he’d seen it following the ship, mostly perched there, watching, or gliding on the winds around the ship. Now it had prey in its beak, Christ knows where it’d been caught, because it was not a fish.
A fresh splash of seawater hit the rotor, spotting the glass. The ship rocked in the rough seas of the southwest monsoon. Newly arrived, it had brought strong winds over the past few days. The pilot tried to get comfortable, but he couldn’t, not with his bulky vest bursting with all the survival equipment someone else had decided he needed. The worst, comfort-wise, was the bulletproof vest beneath his flight suit, with its heavy protective plates front and rear. It weighed almost twenty kilos. But he wanted that vest, even though it would drown him if he crashed into the sea. Stray bullets were what scared him the most, beyond the fear of being taken hostage by any of the insane militias based in the Horn of Africa. The flight crews no longer joked about why they’d save one last bullet in their gun.
The ship lurched again, and the helicopter’s shock absorbers reluctantly responded. The copilot rattled off the final checklist items, and the gunner in the rear, after swearing about something, announced: “Cabin check complete.” Outside, the flight deck crew stumbled off, carrying the lashings they’d removed from the helicopter. Already, big flowers of sweat darkened the pale blue fabric of their jumpsuits. Even in the strong wind, it was impossible to defend against the heat.
They had an extra passenger in the helicopter. An hour before takeoff, the ship’s first officer had told the pilot: “You know, we’ll have Lieutenant Slunga aboard, the head of MovCon.”
MovCon, the logistics unit, normally kept to their unloading duties in Djibouti. The HMS Sveaborg had made a brief stopover in Salalah a few days before, when the ship’s air-conditioning had broken, and they’d quickly arranged a delivery of spare parts to the nearest port. It was Slunga himself who’d organized it, then stayed on board when they cast off again. “MovCon performs miracles, but they work their asses off, especially Slunga,” said the commander. “He’d probably appreciate a ride.” One of the few rewards the brass on board could give their men was a trip in a helo, if the pilot in command didn’t object.
“Of course we’ll take him.”
Before takeoff, the pilot helped Slunga put on his gear, a slimmed-down version of what the others wore, and they’d introduced themselves. The lieutenant, with his white-blond hair, projected something both friendly and preoccupied. He chatted about his family, especially his son whom he clearly missed a lot, and never stopped asking questions. But as soon as Slunga’s attention wasn’t required, his thoughts drifted away, and he seemed startled when the conversation started up again. He grabbed a cup of coffee before takeoff but took only a sip.
Now Slunga was in the aft of the cabin with the gunner. Amid all the commotion around him, he seemed finally to have forgotten what was bugging him, and he sat down looking expectant as the engines roared.
A gust ruffled the falcon’s feathers up on the mast, while on the helicopter deck, the pilot tried to get a feel for the motion of the ship, looking for the sweet spot in the erratic rhythm. The deck light turned from red to green, and he got his chance as the aft heaved upward. The helicopter lifted off through the gusty winds in one long sweep over the starboard side.
They flew under radio silence at low altitude toward the coast. After the tension of takeoff, they got a half hour of peace. The sea always seemed calmer and bluer from the air than when you stood on deck. The short period of calm invited conversation, sometimes even confidences.
“So …,” asked the pilot, “how’s it going?”
The gunner knew exactly what he was talking about. “I was in her cabin yesterday, but she said that now that we’re on duty, everything’s off. But the next time we’re in port, she wants to go out.”
“And you want to go in,” laughed the copilot. The gunner said nothing.
“Are you serious about her?” asked Slunga, the extra passenger.
“Yes, he is,” replied the pilot for the young gunner.
“Do something special, then, don’t just take her out for a few beers.”
“It’s hard,” replied the gunner, sounding blue. “You know, you only get one day ashore.”
“Not beer and a disco ball,” continued Slunga, “not with the life you live out here. Give her peace every minute of those twenty-four hours. Take her away from it all, to the beach, where it’s only her and you, with no one from the ship around.”
“That’s a sweet dream, but how can I make it happen from here?”
“Not you. I’ll do it, and I know just the place. If you say she’s worth it.”
“Are you serious?”
“Doesn’t MovCon have anything better to do than arrange love nests?” the copilot tried to joke.
“What could be more important?” said Slunga. There wasn’t a trace of irony.
They flew in silence for a minute, before the pilot broke it. “The first officer says you’re working hard these days.”
“Did he mention me specifically?” replied Slunga.
“Why?”
“No, nothing. We have enough to do, sure, we work around the clock. But I have all the people I need. I’ve even managed to hire a crew of locals on the base in Djibouti. It’s just that you’re on the ship out here, while I’m ashore with my little gang. Strong personalities, and lots of distractions near the base and in town.”
“Discipline problems?”
“Sometimes.”
“You’ve got to keep them on a short leash.”
“I try to.”
For the last few days, the Swedish patrol vessel HMS Sveaborg had been skulking outside a known pirates’ nest not far from Bosaso.
As they reached the beach, the helicopter climbed to a few hundred feet, and then the cabin door opened wide and the machine gun emerged, ready in case of trouble. With their powerful cameras, the crew started taking videos and stills. The beach was more than a kilometer wide, but what interested them stood by the water’s edge: a half-dozen open boats, their hulls resting wearily on their sides, right on the sand where the tides came up, along with some
