by Peter Nealen
But the soldier didn’t let him finish. He peered into the cab, studying not the gear, but Wade’s and Brannigan’s faces. “You are going to the refugee camps?”
“Yes,” Brannigan repeated, hoping that didn’t mean they were going to get a Chadian escort.
The soldier studied them some more, then looked behind them at the other two vehicles. “How many of you are there?”
That was a strangely pointed question. Brannigan still kept his face carefully neutral as he answered, “Seven.” There was no point in lying about it; the soldier could presumably count.
“When did you get here?”
Brannigan was getting a bad feeling about this, but at the same time, there wasn’t much they could do besides pull guns and start shooting. Especially if he looked at the stamps on their passports, the soldier could easily tell if they were lying. “Yesterday,” he replied.
“And you have already been outside the city?” The soldier didn’t seem to be interested in an answer, but looked down at their passports again.
Wade was looking tense, his pale eyes fixed on the soldier and his hands wrapped around the wheel. Brannigan knew the big former Ranger well enough to know that he was not a patient man. And that he was keyed up for violence if the Chadian made the wrong move.
At the same time, he trusted Wade to restrain himself until the time was right. Wade might be the next best thing to a functional sociopath, but he was a pro.
Finally, the Chadian soldier handed the passports back. “Have a good day,” he said. He stepped back, though his hand was still resting on the pistol grip of his AK.
Wade handed Brannigan the passports as he started the pickup rolling, his eyes still fixed on the soldier in the red beret. “I don’t like this,” he muttered.
“I don’t, either,” Brannigan replied, turning to watch the other two vehicles pass through the checkpoint. While they had gotten off scot-free, without the vehicles being searched—with the attached discovery of the very contraband weapons and tac gear—there was something about the soldier’s questions that had his hackles up.
The other pickup and the Land Rover passed through behind them without being stopped. Meanwhile, the soldier in the red beret stepped back and lifted a cell phone to his ear. He was still watching the three vehicles as they put some distance between them and the checkpoint. Brannigan lost sight of him as they passed deeper into the city and more traffic blocked his view, and he turned back forward.
“I think we just got flagged,” he said.
“You think he was calling somebody higher up?” Wade asked.
“Or somebody who paid him,” Brannigan replied grimly. “I thought his questions about how many and when we got here were too pointed.” He grimaced. “Somebody saw us come in through the airport and put out the word to keep an eye out for us.”
“That kind of rules out jihadis, doesn’t it?” Wade asked.
“Not necessarily,” Brannigan answered. “Jihadi groups often have spotters at airports. And with the amount of NGO traffic Abeche seems to be getting right now, it makes sense. Where else would they get early warning that some infidel targets just came in?”
Even so, as he pondered it, the problem became worse. They were made, at least on some level. And they still didn’t quite know where to start when it came to finding which jihadi organization might have grabbed the missing doctors.
But as he thought, and they wove their way deeper into Abeche, a plan started to form. Maybe, if they continued on with the deception, acting as if they really were some kind of do-gooder NGO, there to document as much suffering as possible so that they could cement their standing as “good people” by plastering it in front of affluent Westerners to make them feel bad—Brannigan didn’t have a very high opinion of most “humanitarian” Nongovernmental Organizations—then they just might draw the enemy’s attention, and in so doing, draw them out.
And when they went to make the “reporting agency” disappear, they’d get a hell of a surprise…
***
It had taken some doing to get the gear and weapons into the hotel. The place looked more like a guesthouse than a hotel, set within a walled compound with barbed wire strung along the top of the wall. But fortunately, Van Zandt had packed plenty of carrying cases that didn’t look like they’d just been pulled out of a platoon’s underway container, and while they’d gotten lots of curious looks, some loud improvised conversation with Bianco about what order to check the conditions of the camps seemed to do the trick, getting their observers to dismiss them as more of the usual.
They crammed seven men into two small, dingy rooms. It was still spacious compared to some of the accommodations some of them had seen on combat deployments, but that didn’t necessarily make it pleasant. The hotel did offer some food, apparently largely thanks to the influx of Westerners through the airport, and Brannigan ordered, thankful that Javakhishvili had arranged for plenty of antibiotics and anti-parasitic meds to come with them. It wasn’t quite the tropics, but he’d had local food in the Middle East and Africa before, rarely with good results. It was a crap shoot, especially in a place like this.
“You notice the Chinese on the way in?” Flanagan asked. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, his rifle leaning up next to him. “Seems like an awful lot of them around.”
“Maybe they’re here for the same reason we are,” Curtis suggested.
But Flanagan shook his head. “The Chinese don’t do ‘humanitarian aid,’ at least not the way Westerners do,” he said. “They show up in Africa, for the most part, for natural resources. And I don’t know of any oil around here. The Chadian oil fields are all down south, aren’t they?”
“They are,” Brannigan confirmed. “You’re right, Joe. There do seem to be an awful lot of young Chinese men around town, and without any concrete reason why.”
“Sort of like us,” Curtis said. When Flanagan rolled his eyes at him, he shrugged. “I’m serious. We’re probably getting attention for the same reasons. We stand out. And we’re here because there’s trouble. Maybe the Chinese are moving in on it. Aren’t they taking more of an interest in security matters in Africa?”
“Whoa,” Flanagan said. “Did Kevin read a book before coming on this trip? I didn’t think it was possible, given how long it takes to sound out the words.”
“Oh, ouch,” Curtis replied, wincing and groaning theatrically. “Joe’s got jokes. Did you strain something coming up with that? Morose bastard that you usually are…”
Before he could get a full head of steam going, though, there was a knock at the door.
Everyone in the room froze. Hands reached for loaded rifles. Flanagan was on his feet in a flash, his own L1A1 already in his shoulder and trained on the door. They’d set up a knock signal in case they needed to move from room to room, and that hadn’t been it.
With Flanagan standing offset from the door, Brannigan moved to it, keeping as far as possible out of the “fatal funnel,” the roughly triangular area within the field of fire of anyone standing in the doorway, and asked, “What?’
“I’m an American,” a deep voice said from outside. “We need to talk.”
Brannigan paused for a moment, wishing there was a peephole so that he could see their impromptu visitor. But there wasn’t, and the room was full of four men, all armed and with rifles trained on the door. Anyone trying to break in and cause trouble was in for a world of hurt. He glanced at Flanagan, got the nod that the man was ready, and reached out to open the door.
A large black man, wearing dingy khakis, was standing outside, glancing to either side. He wasn’t looking around furtively or nervously; he was scanning his surroundings. A quick assessment told Brannigan that this was a man who was trained, and had experience in combat zones. The kind of experience that doesn’t go away.
He was also carrying. It took a keen eye to see it, but he had a pistol under his untucked shirt.
The man looked up at him; as big as the guy was,
he was still a couple inches shorter than Brannigan. “Can I come inside?” he asked. “This isn’t a conversation to be having in the courtyard.”
Brannigan just jerked his head to invite him inside, his rifle still in his hands, his eyes flicking past the big man to scan the courtyard beyond. It was midday, but it was hot enough that there weren’t many people out and about. More importantly, there didn’t appear to be a strike team waiting to take advantage of the open door.
The man stepped inside and Brannigan shut the door behind him. Flanagan, Curtis, and Wade had shifted positions so that they could still cover the man as he entered, without accidentally flagging each other with their rifle muzzles in the process.
“All right,” Brannigan said, still holding his L1A1 loosely in his hands, the muzzle pointed at the floor but ready to snap it into action quickly, though he suspected that Flanagan and Wade would easily get the first shots off if it came to it. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“My name’s Vernon,” the big man said. “I know you’re Colonel John Brannigan.” He held up his hands, pointedly keeping them away from the faint lump of his pistol at his waist. “My employer was watching the airport. He recognized you from the little dustup in East Africa a few years back that got you cashiered. It might not have been public at the time, but for certain people in the industry, you were known. After all, that op was audacious enough that somebody was going to hear about it.”
“So, who is your employer, and what does he want?” Brannigan asked.
Vernon didn’t look particularly comfortable, but being the focus of four sets of unfriendly and suspicious eyes behind 7.62mm rifle muzzles wasn’t a comfortable position. “First of all, to warn you that you’re the focus of some unfriendly attention. The Chinese have surveillance on you, have since you came back into town. Somebody in the Chadian Army tipped them off; they must have had a BOLO out for you since you came into the country.”
Brannigan glanced at Flanagan, whose mouth had tightened, disappearing into his beard. Wade’s expression had gotten stony, but his pale eyes were more intensely focused than ever. So, that Chadian soldier had been calling someone about them.
“They’re not the only ones, either,” Vernon said. “I don’t know how much you really know about the situation here. But whatever you’re doing here, my employer wants to meet with you. He’s fairly sure you’re not working for the bad guys; your reputation alone suggests that, Colonel. You’ve just walked into a hornet’s nest, and I don’t think you really realize just how bad it is.”
“I’m not going to repeat this question again,” Brannigan said, steel in his voice. “Who is your employer?”
“Mitchell Price,” Vernon said. He glanced around the room, noting the faint reactions that even these men couldn’t quite disguise. “I see you’ve heard the name. And you probably already knew he was here.”
“We had some idea,” Brannigan replied. “And frankly, we’re still not sure if he’s in the ‘good guy’ or ‘bad guy’ column.”
“He has that effect,” Vernon answered wryly. “I can tell you that he’s not in the ‘bad guy’ column, but you’ve only got my word to go on for that. But he wants to meet, and he wants me to bring you there. You’ve got me outgunned. And just from the reaction you’ve shown here, I don’t think I need to say that you’ll be ready and waiting for an ambush. There’s some seriously heavy shit going on here, and Mr. Price thinks that we can handle it better as allies than by working at cross-purposes.”
“Why should we trust him?” Wade asked. It was half a question for Vernon, about Price, and half for Brannigan, about Vernon and Price both.
“All I can tell you is that I trust him,” Vernon said. “He got me out of some serious trouble a few years back. I’d be dead in a jungle in the South China Sea if not for him. He’s not one of the bad guys.”
Brannigan studied him for a moment. He’d had to develop a skill for reading men as a leader in the Marine Corps, and as the commander of the Blackhearts, he’d needed to hone that skill. They did too much work in the darker, seamier sides of the world, usually without support.
Vernon was sincere, at least as far as he knew. He was being cagey; he clearly wasn’t telling them everything. That could be because Price didn’t want him to. And he wanted to know more about this South China Sea business. Van Zandt had certainly hinted at it, but it sounded like Vernon had been one of the guys on the ground.
“All right, Vernon,” he said. “We’ll meet with Mr. Price. But just so we’re clear, though you’ve already said as much; if this turns out to be a double-cross, you’re going to be the first dead body on the ground.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Vernon said. “And you’ll understand when you meet Mr. Price.”
Chapter 10
It was a longer ride out into the Sahel than they’d taken to get to the first logistics drop. And, rather as Brannigan had suspected—and Vernon had hinted was probably going to happen—there was a vehicle behind them for part of the way.
“Who is it?” Brannigan asked. He was riding in the Land Rover, as decrepit as it was, so that he could keep an eye on Vernon.
“Hard to say,” Vernon said. “Probably the Chinese, or somebody they hired, given everything that’s been going on.” He glanced out the window. “They might be keeping tabs by drone, though. They’ve got dozens of the things up. It’s hard to keep them isolated, too; with the NGOs using them for everything from counting cattle to monitoring human traffic routes from Sudan, it’s easy for the more hostile camps to lose theirs in the noise.”
“Go another mile,” Brannigan told Jenkins. “Then we’ll do a security halt.” It was no guarantee that it would scare off their shadowers, but there was a chance.
Sure enough, as soon as they stopped and laagered up, the vehicle behind them also stopped. As the minutes ticked by, and they stared at each other, the shadow didn’t seem to want to come any closer. Finally, the distant HiLux turned around and headed back toward Abeche.
“Still can’t do much about the drones,” Vernon said. “But we should be able to proceed now.”
Brannigan nodded, and keyed his radio. “Halt’s over,” he said. “Let’s move out.”
***
They drove for another hour. When they finally came to a halt in low, scrub-covered hills overlooking small farms that lined a distant river, the sun was starting to dip toward the western horizon.
There was a small encampment set up in a shallow wadi between the hills. Four vehicles, all modern HiLuxes, were parked near three GP tents. There were also fighting positions dug in around the perimeter, and Brannigan thought he spotted a similarly dug in observation post up on the higher ground.
They stopped just short, and Vernon got out. There were two men in one of the fighting positions facing them, with FN SCAR 16s in their hands. Vernon stepped away from the Land Rover. “Friendly!” he called, his deep voice echoing slightly off the surrounding hills.
“How’s the weather?” one of the men asked. His voice was high-pitched, in marked contrast to Vernon’s.
“Fair weather ahead, according to the forecast,” Vernon replied. Brannigan wasn’t sure just what the challenge and pass was, but he was pretty sure it was somewhere in that seemingly innocuous exchange.
The only question was, what was their duress word, and had that been included as well? He wasn’t ready to trust these people yet.
“Come ahead,” the high-pitched voice said, and Vernon looked back at Brannigan, who nodded. Together, they started toward the camp.
One of the tent flaps opened, and a man in khakis, with a low-profile chest rig on and a SCAR 16 in his hands stepped out. Brannigan recognized Mitchell Price; the man wasn’t exactly low-profile in the media world.
But he suspected that most of the pundits and reporters who constantly either lauded the man as a super-patriot or vilified him as a war-profiteer and the ultimate villain wouldn’t have recognized him. The lantern jaw and piercing eyes w
ere there, but he was sporting several days’ growth of beard, his ordinarily impeccably-groomed brown hair was dusty and disheveled, and there were bags under his eyes. He’d clearly been in the field for a while.
As his eyes lit on Brannigan’s towering figure and the men behind him, Price seemed to relax slightly. He let the rifle hang on its sling as he stepped forward, his hand outstretched.
“John Brannigan,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You’re a bit of a legend in this business, did you know that?”
Brannigan let his own L1A1 hang and accepted the handshake. As he’d somewhat expected, Price’s was firm, though his hands weren’t as hard and calloused as Brannigan’s own. “Your associate mentioned that you knew about me,” he said. “I wasn’t aware that I was so well-known.”
“Only in certain circles,” Price said. “We have some mutual associates. I hadn’t known that you’d come out of retirement, though. I’ll admit, I was surprised to see you show up in Chad. You’ll understand if I’m curious who you’re working for. I initially thought that maybe the Humanity Front had lured you in with the paycheck. I was pleasantly surprised when you didn’t link up with them.”
“I’m working for interested parties,” Brannigan said. Until he knew more, there was no way in hell he was letting Mitchell Price in on the secret of the Blackhearts’ operations. He frowned. “Why do you say that you were ‘pleasantly surprised’ that I’m not working for the Humanity Front? They’re a humanitarian NGO, one of the biggest around.” The question was implicit.
There was a tightening around Price’s eyes. “Indeed,” he said flatly. He eyed Brannigan thoughtfully. “As I’m sure my associate told you, there’s a lot going on under the surface here. Your reputation precedes you, and I’d like us to work together. But without knowing more, I’m not sure I can trust you.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Brannigan told him. A glance to either side showed the Blackhearts in an uneasy standoff with Price’s men. Nobody was pointing weapons, but nobody was relaxing and shooting the breeze, either. “You can probably imagine some of the things I’ve heard about you. For all I’ve heard, you could have had something to do with the missing doctors we’re here for.”