by David Poyer
CAXI jerked awake to the radio crackling, the unmistakable rattle of fire. “Motherfucker, we’re takin’ small-arms hits,” Fire was yelling from the lead Humvee, voice gone high and fast. Something struck the truck’s windshield, glancing like a rock flung up off the highway. It barely cracked the glass, but the snap, the sonics wiping off on the flat surface, said it was no rock. He ducked for his rifle, down by his boots on the floorboards.
The quarter of a second he had to make a decision stretched out like a quarter hour while his brain shifted into megaflop overdrive. He straightened and charged his weapon, peering out into the boiling cocoa.
Behind and above him the ADs were shouting, then shooting. Through the dust glimpses assembled themselves into a canted, broken surface that might once have been a road. A collapsed culvert, dry as dust. Past that, above, to the right, a rise. Rocks vibrated through the mirage. A human figure against the sky? Quick reaction drills, you turned into an ambush and charged through it. But it depended on your adversary, how well they knew marine tactics, how far ahead they thought. If you guessed wrong, you died.
Turn in? Away? Keep going? They were just escorting food, right? But was this an ambush, or just shepherds taking potshots?
Suddenly the radio was solid noise. Instead of molasses, time blurred. “From the right, from the right,” Fire was yelling from the point Humvee, which was accelerating, spewing dust. “Hostiles at three o’clock, effectives four, five, six. Team, copy?”
Spayer was on the channel, but broke transmission to shout at the driver, who’d let up on the accelerator and was drifting toward the roadside. “What the fuck . . . don’t slow down, dude! We’re in the kill zone!”
“Six motherfuckers in those rocks—”
The motor roared. He charged his rifle, jerked up his goggles, cranked down the passenger window, and craned out. “Over there. See? Past the washout. Pull off there and hairpin back.”
“Off road?” The guy stared as if he were crazy.
“Fuck yeah! This is a six-by, right? Fuckin ay, get off the road.”
“Truck three stalled out. Truck three stalled out! Team, you copying this?”
“Shit gaw-damn. Shit gaw-damn.”
The shots merged into the clatter of AKs. As he talked Fire through the plan another hit clanged behind him. Their riders were firing nonstop, busting a lot of caps up there, but he doubted they were getting any just spraying and praying. Through the rolling dust a fraction of a second’s glimpse of Assist standing in the lead vehicle, the muzzle flash of his SAW bending fiery sickles as he put out short bursts. He should be up there. He’d meant to go, but he’d put it off, doped off. Now his guys were up front and he was back here with the kid.
Who was standing up on the seat, staring through the cracked window. Caxi hauled him down and folded him under the dash. The wheels hammered over the culvert. Had the Ashaaran army stockpiled mines?
Dismounting didn’t sound smart. Whoever was up there knew the terrain and he didn’t. Keep pushing? Maybe, but taking fire and not returning it wasn’t Semper Fi. They’d be safer off-road, and though the ground was rising, it ought to be flat enough for trucks.
The first rule of combat, shouted into his ear by an enraged DI at Parris Island: If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
“Go get ’em, I said,” Spayer shouted, cuffing the driver to make sure he had his attention. He looked shocked, but obeyed, hauling the wheel over and downshifting as the big front wheels lurched down the bank. The load swayed, springs protesting as they hit bottom and then came through the stream bed and almost floated, but not quite, not with all those tons of rice weighing them down. The engine roared like a constipated dragon as the crest of the rise grew over the hood. Caxi caught the sparkle of muzzle flashes. Bushes snapped and flew as the bumper bulldozed them.
He should call this in, but through the seething dust and flying brush he caught Fire’s Humvee pacing them on the left flank and the middle one pulling off to charge uphill on their right. It was the fucking Charge of the Light Brigade, motors roaring, spewing dust and the brrp, brrp, brrp of Fire’s SAW ripping off six-inch bites of belted 5.56. The ADs’ Kalashes went silent as they changed magazines. Then the heavier, slower note of the 7.62 got going, and mixed in with the rest of the noise the clatter of the hostile AKs. He slapped his magazine to seat it and leaned out the window, trying to aim.
This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. . . .
But the dust blinded him and the truck was jouncing so much he’d put a bullet in the tires or the hood. Not to mention his militia blasting away above him. He d be lucky if he didn’t catch a bullet in the top of the skull. He pulled back inside.
“Breakin’ out to the left—”
“Get some, baby. Get some.”
“Cap the motherfuckers. Light ’em up.”
“This is Team. Circle behind them, dismount your skinnies, and provide covering fire.” He reached for the wheel and jammed it left. The driver fought him, cursing shrilly. Something snagged his boot. Caxi kicked something soft before remembering the kid was down there. Another bullet cracked into the windshield. If the glass hadn’t stopped it he’d have taken it in the chest. Something black was sticking there. “The fucking bullet,” the driver said as a lean form materialized from the dust. An armed man half turned, eyes widening as he took in six-wheeled Fate bearing down.
The front end jolted. Only the briefest glimpse but Spayer could replay it like it was on tape: a spindly stick-figure with a cloth around his head, the end whipping free as he vanished under the wheels.
He got the muzzle outboard again and searched the ocher murk vainly for a target. He’d lost his bearings. Had no idea where the road was, the top of the rise, anything.
Then the wedge of a Humvee with a roof weapon shadowed the dusk like a shark in murky water. The driver slewed to miss it as the M60 slammed out a long burst. Cases clattered across the hood. Spayer couldn’t see what they were firing at but sent a half mag in the same direction.
Deafened, he pulled his head in as the truck burst out of the cloud. They were half a mile from the road. The driver locked the brakes and they skidded on gravel to a sloppy, rocking halt. He yelled up to the riders, pointing. They leapt off, hit and rolled, then gathered themselves and charged, yelling and spraying bullets wildly. They assaulted to the top of the slope, then slowed. On the far side, barely visible, he made out Assist and Fire dismounted, checking out something on the ground.
When he got there the guy was obviously about done breathing. The gravelly sand was dark scarlet. “Femoral,” Fire said, keeping him covered. Spayer kept his rifle handy too, but this ambusher was past being dangerous. Nineteen or twenty, emaciated under a dirty white robe. He panted, eyes closed. They opened to look at the faces peering down, but didn’t seem to register anything before the lids sank again. The ADs were shouting abuse, shaking their weapons. Spayer looked at them, then at Nabil, who’d come with him. “What’re they saying, Little Team?”
“He’s bad dude, Big Team.”
“No shit. Where’s he from?”
“They say, Sudan. Bad dude from Sudan.” The boy kicked the dying man and the militiamen laughed. Spayer took his shoulder and eased him back.
Caxi halfheartedly got a battle dressing on him, just to be able to say he’d tried, but a few minutes later the wounded bandit stopped breathing. The other prisoner—the one they’d run over with the six-by—couldn’t walk, but he wasn’t bleeding, at least externally. Caxi put him in the back of the second Humvee with Ready to keep him away from the ADs, who seemed eager to put him out of his misery.
He walked over to the Humvee, feeling lightheaded. Its interior was acrid with sweat and dust and burnt powder. Sucking air, he got on the radio back to the Three Shop. Fire taken, fire returned, no friendly wounded or KIA. (A miracle, considering the DAs’ frenzied barrage.) Fire hand-signaled from where the militia was policing up. Another dead hostile. The res
t had scattered. He asked for disposition of the wounded man and got a “Wait, out.” He hung up the handset and swapped magazines, in case Bad Dude had buddies on the way over the hill. But he didn’t think so. These were random bandits, nothing more.
When he got out again Nabil was still hanging with the ADs, the boy chattering as they regarded him with bemused astonishment. “Thought these assholes was supposed to be friendly,” the truck driver said, looking up from where he knelt beside the front wheel. “We’re fuckin’ bringin’ ’em food, for Chrissake.”
“Not all of ’em, I guess.” Spayer flexed his fingers on the pistol grip. “You fucking totaled that one motherfucker, all right. Ran his ass down.”
“Nah, I missed him,” said the driver, but his voice shook and he was as white as a white guy could get.
“Raven Eight, Red Raider, over.”
He jogged back to the Humvee. “Raven Eight, over.”
“Confirm location and distance from offload point.”
“Uh, not too fucking clear on that. Ten grid squares past that road, goes north to Fenteni? Stand by. Checking GPS.” He read off the coordinates.
“Roger, copy, you’re still sixty klicks out from Camp Five. On your prisoner: render first aid, load under guard, turn over to camp security element. Leave dead for local disposal. Over.”
He copied and signed off. Cleared his throat and rinsed his mouth from a bottle of the crated water and spat the sick taste into the dirt. Held it out to the kid, whose bright black eyes tracked every movement.
“Let’s get back on the road, Little Team.”
NIGHT at the airfield. Dan stood with other midgrade and senior officers, hands locked behind him. General Cornelius DeRoberts Ahearn didn’t live in a modular. He had a tent behind the terminal. That was his bunk in the corner, with his ruck, camelback, and holstered Beretta on it. The only other furniture was a folding map table, field desk, folding chair, and computer. The tent was deathly hot, despite two huge fans that made it a canvas wind tunnel.
Ahearn conducted morning and evening briefs with everyone standing, to discourage long presentations. An Army captain was briefing on the convoy attack. “A counterambush was decided on. The escort element and one of the six-bys went off-road and flanked the snipers, then overran their position. No friendly casualties, two unidentified dead, possibly Sudanese, one wounded and captured. The convoy reached Camp Five and turned over cargo to WFO personnel on scene.”
“ADs involved?”
“They made the final capture.”
“Good. OIC convoy?”
“A Lance Corporal Spayer.”
“Commend him. Interrogate the prisoner. I want the report in the morning. Hold him until we clarify his affiliation. Where’s my JAGman?”
“Uh, not here, sir.”
“I want him or a rep at the brief morning and evening. I don’t want us accused of heavy-handed treatment.” Ahearn turned to the rest of the attendees. “Gentlemen, our mission may be about to change.”
He paused as jet engines screamed overhead and thundered down on the runway.
“The UN message, sir?” the N3 said.
“We’re to organize a transition government based on the ADA. Disarm the militias and set up a police force. Distribute aid, run the camps, but number one, prepare for an early election. The Sudanese are just one hostile element out there. The Eritreans have always claimed the fertile land in the upper Tanagra.”
Dan saw the map in his head. In the Darwinian environment of East Africa, without an army or functioning government Ashaara was prey. He wished they hadn’t let the army disintegrate. It could’ve held the borders, while the JTF protected the relief distribution. He raised a hand and Ahearn nodded. “What about the Governing Council, sir? Have they come to an agreement with Dobleh? That’s the main fault line, seems to me.”
“Me too, Commander. The northerners resent losing power. But so far we’ve been able to buy them off. Not to put too fine a point on it . . . if we can get Dobleh to include Assad in a national unity party, maybe as chief of staff of a reconstituted army. . . .” He lifted his chin. “But for now, the camps are secure. We’re getting wells drilled, generators installed. Food’s on its way, thanks to Commander Lenson and his port team. Keep pushing and finish the job. That’s all.”
The ranks broke. Dan stayed in front of the fan, letting the hot but moving air dry the sweat. He’d pass on Ahearn’s praise to Buntine. Maybe in not too long they’d have a functioning government, food distribution organized. They could start thinking about extracting.
He realized suddenly he was the last man in the tent, aside from the general, who was sitting at his computer. He put on his cap hastily and left.
III
THE CRISIS
15
Dubai City,
United Arab Emirates
THIS was Dan’s first time, but everyone who visited the Mideast had heard about Dubai. The luxury hotels. The fantastic shopping. The desalinization plants that made the city a jeweled garden in a barren desert.
The stories were understated. He felt like a nineteenth-century time traveler as he followed his “butler” through the seven-hundred-foot-high atrium of the Burj al Arab, the world’s most luxurious hotel.
He’d stared astonished as they approached over a causeway curving into the tranquil Gulf from a palm-dotted beach. The hotel bellied like a spinnaker, modeled on the mainsail of a dhow. Flickering lights gave its immense fabric the appearance of being on fire. It towered above bungalows, cottages, and fishing piers on the glowing white beach. It seemed less welcoming than out of scale, a titanic monument to unlimited money and unrestrained architects. And to judge by the construction sites along the coast, it was only the first of dozens in a city trying—literally—to build itself into nationhood.
The lobby was curved marble, deep carpets, gold leaf, and dramatic lighting, but the effect was less luxurious than nouveau riche kitsch. Still, no one in the JTF party said a word as the escalators glided upward between walls of gigantic aquaria teeming with reef fish.
Along with Ahearn and other military and State personnel, he’d left Ashaara on a C-17 direct to the Gulf. A separate aircraft had been dedicated to the new Provisional Government: Dr. Dobleh and eighteen other former exiles and tribal sheikhs deemed the most promising candidates to reestablish order.
The Dubai Conference on Red Sea Affairs had been convened by the United Nations’ undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator. Its goals were to “raise consciousness” of famine in Ashaara, Eritrea, Sudan, and throughout East Africa; raise funds; coordinate relief operations; and reduce tensions. The special representative, Shinichi Kazuma, would announce the “Hundred Day Program” of accelerated relief and recovery assistance.
Unstated, Dan had thought as he read the program, was that participating in a high-level conference would raise Dobleh’s profile both internationally and in Ashaara. The diplomatic issues seemed obscure, but the meeting had been preceded by weeks of maneuvering about who would attend and who wouldn’t. Also, whether JTF Red Sea would fund their trip, since prices in Dubai were beyond astronomical.
Finally orders had been cut, and State had reserved a block of rooms. But that wasn’t why he kept checking his watch. In only a few hours Blair would be here, flying direct from DC.
Actually they’d met not far away. As the escalator ascended and the Gulf dropped away he could see far out to where he’d once gotten off a bicycle on a sandy deck so huge the crew used bicycles to get from one end of the ship to the other . . . and first seen her. Now in the falling dusk he counted eighteen tankers from horizon to horizon. To the east, cranes and dredgers were building new islands where open sea had stretched.
His room was jaw-dropping. Surely someone had screwed up. This wasn’t just a “suite,” but two stories high, with cream carpeting, damask wall coverings, green and rose marble, tilework, huge televisions, French colored-glass chandeliers, and enough gol
d that it no longer looked precious. Each of the four bathrooms was more outrageous than the next. Someone was busy in the kitchen; sizzling and good smells drifted out. He climbed a curved staircase to more white and scarlet, white and green. In the master suite he gaped up from a bed big as a tennis court to an enormous gold-framed ceiling mirror.
He grinned. When Blair got here . . . She looked passionless, but only till the doors closed. On that bed, under that mirror . . . tonight . . .
His per diem would cover about half an hour of this place. He walked from room to room, trying to enjoy it, apprehensive instead. At last he decided to say nothing. At least, he and Blair would have a time to remember.
TONIGHT’S get-together was to coordinate the military message before the conference convened. Ahearn was to brief Centcom himself, General Leache. Dan had McCall confirm the meeting room was commercial secure. She reported back that it held twenty seats, shielded from external signal reception by wire mesh in the walls, with a separate cubby for guards with metal detectors.
But when they got there a technical security countermeasures team was finishing its own sweep to the accompaniment of rock music from a player. They had to be body-scanned and take their notebooks apart before they could go in.
Sweeping consisted of a frequency tracker/analyzer that picked up emissions from sending devices. A tech noticed his interest and pointed to the player. Some devices went active only when they heard room noise, he said, so they played music while they worked. Dan wasn’t sure he bought that, but didn’t voice his skepticism.