God's Cleansing

By W.Wm. Mee

In ‘God’s Cleansing’, we meet Wayland Crow, the sheriff of the sleepy little modern town of Robert Lee, Texas. To celebrate their betrothal, he and his girlfriend Wynona go on a three week cruise from Rome to Australia. As they enter the Indian Ocean the luxury ship is boarded by Somalian pirates and both crew and passengers are terrorized --- until Wayland and Wynona decide to fight back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.Wm. Mee
• Release date: Jun 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301307142

W.Wm. Mee

Wayne William Mee is a retired English teacher who enjoys hiking, sailing and walking his Beagle hound. He is also a 'living historian' or 'reenactor'. You can see Wayne's historical group on Facebook's 'McCaw's Privateers' 18th Century Naval Camp' page. Building & sailing wooden sailboats also takes up a chunk of Wayne's time, but along with his wife Maggie,son Jason and granddaughter Zoe, writing is his true love, the one he returns to let his imagination soar.Wayne would like you to 'look him up' on FACEBOOK and click the 'Friend' button or even zap him an e-mail.If you enjoyed any of his books, kindly leave a REVIEW here at Smashwords and/or say so on Facebook, Twitter, Tweeter or whatever other 'social network' you use.Thanks for stopping by ---and keep reading!!Drop him a line either there or at [e-mail]'ll be glad to hear from you!'Rest ye gentle --- sleep ye sound'

Book preview

GOD’S

CLEANSING

‘A Novel of Terrorism

on the High Seas’

by

W.Wm.Mee

A ‘Wayland Crow’ Adventure

Dedicated to my wife and partner, Maggie,

who has put up with my foolishness

from the very beginning.

Copyright 2013 W.Wm.Mee

Smashwords Edition

***

INTRODUCTION to a WICKED BOOK

‘May God help me,

I’ve written a wicked book --- and I feel as spotless as a lamb!’

Herman Melville, the author of ‘Moby Dick’, wrote those words in 1851.

His main character, ‘Captain Ahab’, is one of the greatest ‘anti-heroes’ in literature.

‘Speak not to me of blasphemy; I'd strike the sun itself if it offended me!’

Apparently Old Herman enjoyed writing about ‘bad boys’.

Milton’s epic 17th century poem, ‘Paradise Lost’, also has an interesting ‘bad boy’

--- the Devil himself! Milton admitted that he found the ‘fallen angel’

much more fun to write about than ‘you know who’!

‘Better to rein in Hell than serve in Heaven!’ Now ‘there’s’ an interesting quote!

The simple fact is that ‘bad boys’ are more ‘interesting’, alive or in print!

But don’t take my word for it --- go ask your sister.

In ‘God’s Cleansing’, the main ‘bad boy’ is Awkmed Ajeed,

a former hard line Islamist rebel leader turned Somali pirate.

Awkmed finally realized that though the ‘God Business’ may pay poorly,

‘piracy’ certainly did not!

Deciding to try out his new-found ‘religion’, Awkmed and his followers

take over a luxury cruise ship, where they systematically begin to

loot, rob and terrify everyone on board.

Now, every good tale needs a hero, and this one has several, both male and female, who I’m sure you will find interesting as well, perhaps even as interesting as

Ahab or Awkmed --- but I doubt it.

‘This is what ye shipped for, men!

To chase that white whale on both sides of land!

Till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out!

Now, what say ye?! Will ye splice hands on it now?

For I think ye do look brave!’

***

BACKGROUND

Little Awkmed

Twenty years earlier

Slums of Mogadishu

Somalia, Eastern Africa

Awkmed Ajeed was a rat; a two legged baby rat, living off the garbage that littered the streets and back alleys of war-torn Mogadishu. His mother, little more than a homeless child herself, had been gang rapped till she crawled away and died in the same filthy streets that her son, Awkmed, now scavenged in.

Then, after all the long, lonely years, a miracle happened and Awkmed was saved! Allah had sent a soldier to save him; a child soldier only a few years older than Awkmed himself, but a soldier none-the-less. Recently returned from an Islamist training camp in Uganda, thirteen year old Hassan was eager to recruit nine year old Awkmed and put him on the glorious path to martyrdom!

Awkmed turned out to be a natural and he took to the rebel life like a fish to water! And why not?! It gave him everything that he had always wanted: a steady supply of food, friends, even ‘brothers’ --- and more importantly, it gave him power!

In five years he was Hassan’s sergeant, in ten he was high up in the Al Shabab leadership. After fifteen years, at the ripe old age of twenty-four, he had begun to see some hidden ‘cracks’ in the stairway to heaven that the older men seemed so eager to push the younger ones up. Awkmed began to notice that these aged leaders did all their ‘leading’ from the rear and seldom, if ever, went anywhere near the ‘front lines’! Most seemed quite content to send the wide-eyed young ‘believers’ like he used to be out to get killed, while they stayed in ‘safe houses’ sipping tea and planning their next ‘great attack’ on the decadent enemies of Allah.

A very young Awkmed & Hassan on guard duty

And so, for his twenty-fifth birthday Awkmed decided to give himself a present; but not just ‘any’ present. Oh no! This was one life-changing, world shattering, motherfucker of a present! Instead of waiting patiently for his seventy-two virgins after he had died gloriously for the ‘cause’, he stole some money, bought some bootleg liquor and paid for a light skinned hooker with dyed blond hair in the very real ‘here and now’.

Half way through their all night fuck-fest a revelation had struck Awkmed like a hammer blow to his soul. Basking in this new ‘enlightenment’, he made a monumental decision that he would fight not to 'destroy' the decadent West, but to ‘use’ it and its people to get all the things that he himself had secretly craved for so long!

His plan was cunning, detailed and required a great deal of patience, but Awkmed had all three in abundance. He’d learn English, learn how they think, act and feel. Learn their dreams and hopes; their worries and their deepest fears. He would study his enemy and find their weaknesses --- and in the end he would enslave them all!

No longer would he or his people be the penniless puppets of the long bearded ancients! He and his followers would go into business for themselves! They would become modern day pirates --- taking what they want and to hell with the sour faced old men!

Soon after this startling ‘revelation’, Awkmed, along with Hassan and a dozen or so other young rebels that were more faithful to him than to any vague religious promises, joined one of the many local ‘pirate gangs’ scattered all along the Somali coastline. Awkmed however, soon found the gangs sadly wanting in many areas. They were disorganized, ill equipped, had no idea at all of discipline and were very poorly led. Putting his many ‘military skills’ to work, he quickly rose through the ranks, finally killing the strutting fool at the top and taking his place. A year later he was the leader of one of the largest and most successful, ruthless pirate bands on the Somali coast. His growing fleet of hard young men in long, sleek boats soon controlled the coastal towns of Hobyo, Hardhere and El-Hur

Now, closing in on his twenty seventh birthday, Awkmed was planning his most daring raid of all. Instead of attacking and boarding commercial freighters filled with Ex-Boxes, I Phones, Korean CD’s and bags of fertilizer, his target was one of the gigantic luxury cruise ships jammed pack with rich, decedent whites from all over the world!

Awkmed planned to surround the beast with his fast, deadly boats, disable it’s rudder with a rocket launcher, board the giant ship and leisurely rape, loot, pillage and kill his way from one end of the infidel ship to the other --- then bow the ship up and bring his loot back to his pirate compound at El-Hur!

THAT was how a leader actually LED his men! Not by pushing them from behind, but from out front for all to see!

And if he and his men got filthy rich from it as well, so much the better, for though he may hate the loud, greedy, godless Americans, he positively loved the things that they made!

‘Allah Akbar: God Wills It, Motherfucker!’

***

Chapter 1: ‘Showtime!’

On of a dozen of Awkmed’s ‘attack boats’

Present day

Gulf of Aden

Indian Ocean

‘Money talks, bullshit walks’. It was one of those many profane yet sage facts of life not covered in the Koran, but rather seen spray painted on walls by adolescent children of the West or, as in Awkmed’s case, whispered in his ear by English speaking prostitutes paid to empty his balls and fill his head with American slang. For ever since his ‘awakening’, brought on by the blonde hooker and a bottle of Jim Beam, Awkmed had become a self taught ‘student of the West’. His ‘newfound insight’ showed him that the sour old grey beards were actually right about the West's corrupting forces, but they were wrong in their belief that it must me erased from the face of the earth and that all Westerners and Non-Muslims must be either converted or killed.

Awkmed’s plan was much simpler. They should all be made the ‘slaves’ of the believers of the One True Faith. They should be forced to ‘work for them’ like donkeys in the field and provide all the wonderful things like guns, fast cars, fast food and video games --- along with blond hookers and endless bottles of Jim Beam!

"Unless we use their own weapons against them, how else can young men like us rule over the rich infidels?!" he preached repeatedly as he and his crew sat round their driftwood fires, passing stolen bottles of the ‘old men’s forbidden fruits’ back and forth, firing off their marvellous new machineguns and sharing out the ‘plunder’ they and their fellow brothers had reaped from the wild and heady winds of war.

We must fight them with modern weapons, in fast, modern boats with big, modern motors! Would we have captured this booty in a leaky wooden dow with a patched sail?!

No! the eager, young faces shouted back at him.

Would we have taken these fine automatic weapons from the white-faced soldiers if we had only sticks and stones?

No! they shouted again, this time twice as loud.

"You are right, my brothers, we would not! The sour faced greybeards know this, but they are afraid to go against the ‘old ways’. They want us to live like we did a thousand years ago, herding goats, riding donkeys and shitting in a pail! They want us to spend our youth on our knees and our knights sipping tea and singing prayers! Well, not for me the old ways!"

No! they shouted back at him.

"And not for you, either!"

Nooo!

"No longer will we die young just so old men can sit around and pray!"

NOOO!

"And no longer will we be bound to a god that takes our blood and gives nothing in return!"

That last part shocked some of them, for martyrdom was a deep scar that all male Muslims in Somalia had carried for generations. ‘There can be no greater good’ the old bearded men had always said; ‘than dying gloriously in the service of Allah!’ --- this coming from old men who had somehow managed to avoid such service all their long, comfortable lives!

But Awkmed’s young followers knew little of such things and cared even less. He had awakened their deprived ‘taste buds’ for all sorts of ‘forbidden Western fruit’, and most only hungered for more and cared little if anything about the condition of their immortal soul. Awkmed’s young pirates now preyed only to the god of war, seeing that age old deity in the body of their strong, young and fearless leader.

Awkmed! Awkmed! they began to chant, as sparks from the growing fire leapt heavenwards and more bottles of the western drink were passed around.

Someone raised his Russian made machine pistol and emptied the fifty round clip at the stars, then puked into the sands and crawled off to sleep in the shadows.

But most stayed, drank, fired off their guns, and chanted.

Awkmed will lead us! Awkmed will lead us! Awkmed will make us all kings!

As the beardless youth’s danced around the blazing fire, the subject of their chanting stood back and smiled, the dancing flames showed his face in contrast: light and dark, good and bad, religious fervour and total disbelief.

Standing beside his friend of almost twenty years, Hassan was even more confused about Awkmed than ever. All he really knew about him was that the younger man seemed incapable of finding the ‘middle ground’ in anything! When Awkmed was younger, religion had been his guiding light --- religion and war. Killing for Allah had been his food and drink!

But then something had happened and he had begun to doubt things that should never be doubted. He questioned things that none dared question --- and in the end he had turned away from the old ways and embraced this strange, heady new philosophy.

Do not obliterate the West, but enslave it!

Be not the destroyers of the decedent modern world, but the masters of it!

Use it and it’s ‘wonders’ to rule the world in Allah’s name!

Hassan, thought that there was a basic contradiction there somewhere but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Then his cell phone vibrated and he took it out and turned so he could see the text.

Very large cruise ship heading south from Gulf of Aden.

Will be ten kilometres off El-Hur by tomorrow midnight.

Will have trucks waiting when you return.

Allah Akbar!

Siead

Siead? Awkmed asked, his eyes still on the dancing flames.

Yes.

A ship has been sighted?

Hassan nodded. Heading south. Ten K offshore by tomorrow midnight.

A tanker or a freighter?

Neither, the older man replied. "A cruise ship."

Awkmed turned, his smile at last showing some warmth

Big?

Very.

A deep, savouring breath, then: And the trucks will be ready for our return?

As always.

Another deep breath, this time to quiet his leaping heart. This could be the one, my friend! The one we’ve been waiting for!

It could also bring NATO down on us. Or worse, the Americans.

You worry too much, Hassan.

And you worry not enough! the reluctant pirate shot back.

That’s what I have you for, my old friend! Besides, once we do this, we will have money enough to disappear for a year or two, maybe more. You and I will travel the world. I’ll teach you English and we’ll get motorcycles and ride across America! I would like to see a real forest before I die, and they have trees in California that reach the heavens!

We might all reach heaven sooner than you think! Hassan growled back, yet there was a hint of a smile in his dark eyes. I have always wanted to see Disneyland.

"Blasphemy, my friend! Awkmed grinned The old greybeards would have you whipped for such evil thoughts! Wanting to actually see the hated Mickey Mouse!"

Hassan turned away, more embarrassed than angry. Awkmed draped his arm around his shoulder and steered them back towards the drunken beach party.

Come my brother, it’s time to put the children to bed. We have a big day in the morning!

***

Chapter 2: ‘Enter the Reluctant Hero’

Wayland Crow’s namesake & great-great grandfather top left

Two months earlier,

just before the cruise begins.

Robert E. Lee, West Texas

Wayland Crow always believed he was born in the right place, but at the wrong time. He believed he’d ‘missed all the 'fun’ by at least a hundred and fifty years or so. Maybe even a couple of hundred more than that! Way back in the Davy Crocket times and good ol’ Dan’l Boone! Truth be told, Wayland would have settled for just about anytime when they used horses instead of cars --- and as long as they had guns!

He had a couple of old time muzzleloaders. A cap & ball dragoon horse pistol from the 1860’s and an earlier flintlock from the American Revolution; and each fall, come the Black Powder deer season, his brothers Lenny, Jimmy and him and maybe one or two other fellas would go camp out for a week along the Pecos River, tell lies, drink beer, shoot at targets --- and maybe even do a little hunting! The trouble with hunting deer is they really only come out of hiding for a half hour or so around dusk and dawn; the rest of the time its lies, cards, targets & beer. Wayland, neither a card player nor a large imbiber of spirits, but a very large craver of solitude, often wandered around for a day or two on his own --- and usually brought back a doe or a buck, if not both.

He’d tried bow hunting a few times with Jimmy, but he never really got the hang of it. Oh, he could hit a pie plate at fifty feet --- that’s what the state of Texas requires a fella to do when he applies for his archery licence, but a pie plate is a far cry from a razorback hog that’s bearing down on you with a nasty intent to do bodily harm.

Wayland's brother, Jimmy Crow

One time he was out bow hunting with Brother Jimmy and they scared up a big ol' boy with tusks like Bowie knives! Wayland had shot and missed. Brother Jimmy shot and hit --- but the bugger had just kept right on coming! Wayland finally tossed the bow away, drew his great grand-daddy’s 'Peacemaker' and put two in the sonovabitch’s head. It lay there bleeding out at his feet --- but they were the best damn pork chops he ever had!

Now, sitting in his small sheriff’s office in the small town of Robert Lee in the far from small great state of Texas, he glanced up at the old picture on the wall for what must have been the godzillionth time. It had hung there for some ten years now, ever since he took office. It was actually a blow up of an old tin-type his grandmother Mable-Beth had given him just before she passed away. Fresh back from his second tour over in ‘towel-head country’, he’d just been