Djibouti by Elmore Leonard

meeting in Djibouti.”
    â€œGet into all that, you gonna lose your audience.”
    â€œI know, but I want to quote Harry saying the new president will bring peace, once the foreign fishing companies leave the gulf. I said, ‘That’s the stipulation? You’ll have pirates until the fishing boats go home?’ He said, ‘Unfortunately, yes.’”
    Xavier said, “What you want with that?”
    â€œShow how the Somalis see it. Their only way to make a buck is hijacking ships.”
    â€œOr they starve? Come on, you gonna tell your moviegoers that?”
    She said after a moment, “You don’t think it’ll work.”
    â€œNot the way you pitchin it. Do it straight. Make a picture about guys committin armed robbery at sea. What’s wrong with that? They fun-lovin ’cause they found a way to get rich, but they still criminals…only with some class.”
    â€œChange the tone,” Dara said.
    â€œThe one you have in your head. Shoot what you see, not what you want to see.”
    â€œI know what I’m doing, but I sound dumb.”
    â€œYou are dumb,” Xavier said, “and you know better.”
    Â 
    â€œY OU MIGHT’VE NOTICED ,” D ARA said, “the two buddies making remarks to each other in Arabic, then raising their eyebrows, interested in what I’m gonna say. ‘Did you know we have an aircraft carrier in the gulf?’ ‘Really? When did it arrive?’ I tell them, ‘Yesterday, the nuclear-powered Dwight D. Eisenhower .’ Harry goes, ‘Good show.’ Idris says, ‘You need a giant ship with jet planes to chase my little skiffs?’
    â€œI said to Idris, ‘Is there an Islamic group like al Shabaab behind pirate activities?’
    â€œIdris said, ‘Al Sha baab, are you kidding me? They’re children playing like it’s olden times. They’re very serious.’ I told Idris I’ve heard hijacking has cost the owners much more than thirty million. He said, ‘Yes, perhaps as much as forty million. More coming in as we speak.’ I said to Harry, ‘Is that right, according to your estimates?’ Harry said, ‘He might be a bit low.’”
    Dara said she asked Harry while Idris was out of the room how they met. He said he heard Idris might be interested in a sporting rifle he had for sale. “Over a few drinks we agreed on the price.” Harry smiled. “And from that meeting on we’re mates.”
    Dara said, “I’m not sure why, maybe because we were in the Middle East, I asked him, ‘How many rifles did you sell Idris?’ Harry stared at me rather deadpan before he said, ‘Four hundred.’ He said, ‘Uzis I promoted off a chap in Tel Aviv,’ giving his tone a hint of cockney, like Michael Caine, and kept staring at me until I smiled.” Dara said, “You know why he told me? He wanted me to know he’s half British but is still part of the Arab world. I said, ‘And now you’re promoting a solution to end piracy?’ Harry said, ‘You might call it that, yes.’”
    â€œYou ever ask Idris what he did with the Uzis?”
    â€œI’m guessing he found buyers in Somalia. Warlords always need guns.” Dara watched the screen. “This is where Harry’s saying to Idris, ‘Will you please tell her.’”
    â€œI remember,” Xavier said, “both watchin TV and grinnin when we come in. Now I shoot Idris changin the channel from Al Jazeera to CNN and we see a container ship flyin the Stars and Stripes. The Maersk Alabama, the first American ship, captain and crew, taken by the Somalis.”
    â€œThe first American ship boarded,” Dara said, watching the screen, “in more than two hundred years.”
    â€œThis crew wouldn’t stand for it,” Xavier said. “Took the ship back and ran off the pirates. Only they had the captain a hostage by