The Janson Option Read Online Free

mate, bosun, cook and helpers, deckhands, stewardesses, and helicopter pilot.
    â€œWhere is the captain?”
    No one spoke.
    Maxammed searched their faces and selected the youngest crew member, a yellow-haired girl wearing a white stewardess costume with a short skirt that exposed her thighs. He pressed his gun to her forehead.
    â€œWhere is the captain?”
    The girl began to weep. Tears streaked her blue eye makeup.
    A middle-aged Chinese in a stained cook’s uniform spoke for her. “Captain locked in safe room.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œBy engine room.”
    â€œDoes he have a satellite phone?”
    The cook hesitated.
    Maxammed said, “You have one second to save this girl’s life.”
    â€œYes, he has a phone.”
    Maxammed ordered Farole and two men below. “Tell the captain that I will shoot the stewardess if he does not come out. Hurry!”
    They waited in silence, the crew exchanging glances, the guests staring at the deck as if afraid to meet one another’s eyes. The blond beauty, Maxammed noticed, had withdrawn into herself, either frozen with fear or simply resigned. His men returned with the yacht’s vigorous-looking American captain and handed Maxammed the sat phone.
    â€œWho did you call?”
    â€œWho do you think?”
    â€œTell him, for chrissakes!” shouted the owner. “You’ll get us all killed.”
    â€œI called the United States Navy.”
    â€œDid you give them our position?”
    â€œWhat do you think?” the captain asked sullenly.
    â€œI think you put a lot of innocent people’s lives at risk,” said Maxammed. He turned to Farole and ordered in Somali, “Load the captain and his crew into a tender. Take the boat’s radios and wreck the motor.”
    â€œYou’re letting them go?”
    â€œWe’ll keep the rich people.”
    â€œBut the rest of them?”
    â€œToo many to guard and feed. Plus, we’ll look good on CNN.”
    Farole grinned. “Humanitarians.”
    â€œBesides, who would pay big money for crew?” Maxammed grinned back. The practical reasons were true, but there was more that he did not confide to Farole. This rich prize of a ship and wealthy hostages would make him a potent warlord in his strife-torn nation, more than just a pirate. A pirate who freed innocent workers and held on to the rich was a cut above—a Robin Hood, a man of consequence.
    â€œGive them plenty of food and water, but don’t forget to wreck the motors. By the time they’re picked up, we’ll be safe in Eyl.”
    *  *  *
    A LLEN A DLER WAITED to make his move until the pirates got distracted launching the tender. Putting the tender in the water involved slowing Tarantula to three knots, and opening the sea cocks to flood the well deck, then opening the stern port so the tender could drift out. It could all be done from the bridge, where the release controls were stationed by the big back window, if you knew what you were doing. To his surprise, they did. Sailors were sailors, he supposed, even stinking pirates. They turned on the work lamps, bathing the stern in light, and went at it as neatly as if Captain Billy were running the operation.
    Adler edged toward the stairs.
    What the pirates didn’t know, what no one else on his ship knew, not even the captain, was that Tarantula had in the bottom of her hull a one-man escape raft that could be launched under the ship in total secrecy and inflated on the surface. The raft carried food and water for a week, as well as a radio, GPS, and a sat phone. The reason no one knew was that there was no point in having a secret escape hatch if it wasn’t a secret; otherwise the crew would be fighting to get inside it. He had rehearsed this move numerous times, sometimes for real, sometimes in his head. It was vital not to panic and to remember to lock doors and hatches behind him as he ran.
    All the pirates