The Crisis

by David Poyer

  The goggles lit a green depthless world where stray gleams glared like lighthouses. The effect was uncanny. He could see, though only in a narrow cone, and only with his right eye. Fortunately it was his dominant one, so he kept it to his rifle.

  They didn’t meet anyone until the 02 level, where they found a body facedown in a pool of blood. He knelt. The blood was warm-fresh. He started to turn it over, then left it as Kaulukukui hissed, “Up here.”

  The cabin where Suleyman had held court was empty. The safe was open and another body lay on the floor here. Even in the green shadows Teddy recognized him.

  It was the captain. Someone had been at him with a knife.

  He couldn’t help shivering. He turned for the door. “Mess deck,” he muttered. “And we go in full auto.”

  BUT there was no one in the mess. At least, no one alive.

  The hostages lay under the tables, atop them, wherever their final moment had found them. No smell of powder, but lots of shit and blood, sprayed over the ice cream maker, the racks of cheap dishes, the serving line. Arms, hunks of flesh, severed heads.

  “Machetes,” Kowacki murmured as he crouched with finger carefully lifted from the carbine’s trigger. “Like in Kenya.”

  “Anybody on deck, Whacker?”

  “No sentries. Nobody.”

  “Nobody on the bridge either.” Teddy saw a hand move, and went to the body. But it had been an involuntary spasm, the slow drawing up of an arm. He swallowed. “Okay, search this fucking ship.”

  They assembled fifteen minutes later on the main deck. Shamal swung to her anchor two hundred yards distant. The moon lofted over the silvery beach, glimmering in the sound. Teddy looked shoreward. Half a mile? He saw neither motion nor light. It was as if they’d never been here.

  Except for the dead.

  “Where the fuck did they go?” said Arkin. “They swam?”

  “We did,” said Kaulukukui, just as low. “Why’d we think they couldn’t?”

  Kowacki murmured, “Fuck. Fuck.”

  Teddy said nothing. Just stood with his shooting gloves on the rail and his head down, telling himself it hadn’t been his fault. It was the Dutch, for trying to get cute with the ransom. Koos and Con’s, for not staying to make sure the hostages were released. Geller’s, for not letting him assault earlier.

  But inside, he knew it wasn’t.

  The hostages would still be alive, if he’d been more aggressive.

  22

  In the Southern Mountains

  AISHA had prepared for this meeting, but not well enough. She wasn’t ready for ten sickening hours into the southern wastes, along the worst roads she’d ever driven. Nor for the dusty heat. Nor the slovenly, stinking men who avoided her eyes as they muttered things she couldn’t make out, as they avoided her touch and even her shadow.

  Nor above all for the emaciated, listless children who scrambled slowly to surround the white GMC and its GrayWolf escort vehicles, begging in soft hopeless voices whenever the caravan pulled over to debate the map or take a pee break.

  They’d met the Waleeli escorts on a shell-crumbled corner in Uri’yah. The town might once have been pretty, with the remains of shops and houses, sagging fences around what once had been gardens, a large cemetery on its outskirts. Now it was a ghost, the houses dead sockets, the withered gardens cut with slit trenches, the few inhabitants staggering husks. It marked the farthest the Waleeli forces had gotten in the face of a U.S. ultimatum: Stay on their side of a line five kilometers to the north, or be bombed.

  “Stay with the vehicle, please, Agent Ar-Rahim.”

  Whalen, the hard-ass GrayWolf squad leader, barking his requests like orders. Embassy personnel no longer had Marine escorts. The PMCs—private military contractors—accompanied them everywhere. She liked neither his presence nor his tone. But protesting had gotten her nowhere. Peyster insisted anyone on State business had to be accompanied by bodyguards outside the compound, and wear a vest. She snapped, “I’m taking a leak, all right?”

  “Just stay in sight.”

  She thought an unpleasant image as she searched for a corner to lift her abaya. But one boy, with an enormous hole in his face that he presented shamelessly, kept trotting alongside, hands outstretched. At last a Waleeli smashed him aside with a buttstroke, after which she found privacy behind a wrecked truck.

  Dust, everywhere. Her lungs hurt with each breath. She blew her nose and wiped reddened eyes. Coughed, until the choking passed. Then they climbed back into the vans for the last leg.

  Trying not to fidget, she said a du’a to quell her nerves.

  She was on her way to meet the mysterious man of the desert. General Al-Khasmi—which Nuura said meant “the Pruner” or “the Orcharder” in southern dialect—had emerged from obscurity to lead the mobile militia that’d defeated a small Governing Council force at Uri’yah. She’d tried a documentation build, but as happened so often here, there was no official paper, no computer hits, and verbal accounts conflicted. Some said he was a former imam, a madrassa student turned warrior. Others, a brigand and smuggler who’d made his bones in the qat trade. One summary suggested he had links to Iran. The one thing all agreed on was that he was no more than twenty-five.

  None of which prepared her for the bare-chested man in camo trousers who sat under a blue UNHCR tarp stretched tent-style over a frame of thornbushes.

  He was very young, with handsome features except for an ugly swelling that marred the lower jaw. The holes the thorns punched through the plastic sprayed beads of sunlight over his dark face. The GrayWolf uniforms—Whalen had insisted on clearing the area before letting her “exit the vehicle”—parted reluctantly as she advanced. They faced several ragged Ashaaran youths with the ubiquitous AK-47s.

  Beside Al-Khasmi another young man, tall, nervous-looking, with eyes red as stoplights and a qat lump in his cheek big enough to choke a goat, handed him a faded shirt as she came up. Pulling it on, he motioned to the carpet before them.

  Peyster had tried to make her use a male translator, but after trying him, she’d gone back to Nuura. Faced with a male, Ashaarans talked to him, ignoring her entirely. Nuura settled her swollen belly awkwardly. She was very close to term. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought her. Flies buzzed in tight circles, undeterred by the OFF! Deep Woods she’d soaked her clothing in.

  She was here to try to make a deal. The poorest quarter of the Old City had erupted into riots after the assassination of a local cleric. ADA forces, though grandiloquently titled the National Army of Ashaara, could keep order only within about a mile of the Palais du Président. Abdullahi Assad still defended his stronghold in the southern and eastern neighborhoods of Ashaara City, while Islamic elements, apparently allied with this young man, were gaining strength in the hinterlands.

  She’d pushed back against State’s assumption that an Islamist was automatically an enemy. Peyster had been dismissive when she’d suggested sounding out Al-Khasmi. “Another tinpot warlord,” he’d snorted. “Cut off his supplies and he’ll wither. If that doesn’t work, Ahearn can take him out with an air strike.”

  He might be a warlord. But she wasn’t so sure he was a “tinpot,” whatever that was. A nobody months ago, he now controlled the southern mountains, and there were reports of banditry under green-and-black banners in the west, heretofore solid Assad territory. She wanted to give him a chance to come in from the cold.

  She started in Arabic, but didn’t offer her hand. “Assalam aleikum.”

  He half smiled. “Tafuddal,” he said, waving again at the carpet, and she settled herself, careful to stay modest as she shook out her skirts.

  “Ismee Ar-Rahim. Ana min America.”

  He looked puzzled; shook his head. Nuura translated into lilting Ashaaran, and he spoke at length. When he was done she relayed, “He says he does not speak Arabic well. He is not educated. He has never met an American who wore abaya.”

  “Tell him I’m Muslim.” She watched his frown.

  “What
is your lineage?”

  This was the typical greeting in this part of Africa, and she made the best answer she could. His frown grew deeper, as if everything she told him pleased him less.

  “He wants to know if you will have food.”

  “I’ll have a bite with him.”

  He called and a woman emerged from a tent carrying a large copper pan. Aisha gave her a close examination, surprised to see another woman here. She was tall, perhaps even pretty under full hijab. Only her eyes showed, but in a microsecond’s flash they seemed to take in everything. Then she was gone, back to the tent.

  The pan was filled with a lumpy yellow paste, like her mother’s corn muffin dough before it was baked. The first sweet taste told her what it was. World Food Organization corn-soya blend. Along with long-grain rice, cooking oil, and beans, CSB made up most of the aid distributed in the camps.

  An insult, and not a subtle one. He was serving her the very food he’d stolen. Her jaws stopped. How to respond? He was waiting for her reaction. Yes, he’d have been handsome, before whatever had torn up the side of his face. For a moment his features tugged at her memory.

  “He wants to know, do you enjoy it.”

  “It is excellent in taste and very nutritious. It would make a good meal for starving children.”

  “He says it builds strong soldiers as well.”

  She thought they came out of that exchange even. But obviously guilt wasn’t going to work. She took another bite before he called again and the woman brought injera bread, dates, durra, and what Nuura whispered was camels’ humps, a delicacy. Well, perhaps she ought to make allowances. He was sitting down with her. Treating her on an equal basis.

  She wiped her mouth, remembering not to use her left hand. The dusty wind rattled the tarp with a sound like falling leaves. Suddenly she remembered Central Park, holding her father’s hand as the white passersby stared. How she’d hated them . . . “Try to explain something to him. Tell him: The Americans are not necessarily your enemies.”

  The answer came lightning quick. “They are enemies of Islam and God. Therefore they are our enemies.”

  “I’m an enemy of Islam? How can that be? I am Muslim myself.”

  “Americans are Christians,” he said with the complacency of the ignorant. She tried not to bristle. If only a closed mind came with a closed mouth!

  “Americans are of many religions. There are those who say Americans are the most religious people on earth.”

  Al-Khasmi shrugged, popped meat into his mouth, but winced as he bit down. Nuura added something in an undertone and he looked at her, at Aisha, then back at the food. Finally he muttered something she translated as, “Let them practice what religion they like, so long as they don’t do it here.”

  “If it’s our presence you object to, we’ll be gone as soon as the famine’s over and you have a functioning government. If you want us out of Ashaara, join the ADA. There’s room for your men in the new police force, the new army. Room for you too.

  “The Prophet, blessings be upon him, always sought to make peace. He endured hunger, torture, his loved ones’ murder by those who hated him, but he remained merciful. When he conquered Mecca only four died. Do you wish a name sweet in the mouths of the people? Then join in making peace.”

  Al-Khasmi had listened attentively, both to the English and the translation. He spoke at length, tapping the carpet with a fingertip. Nuura said, “He says: I do not know the Book as my old master did. But I do know this: ‘To those against whom war is made, permission is given because they are wronged; and truly, God is powerful in their aid.’ ”

  A voice in her left ear whispered, “You’re going to have to move six inches to your left to give me a clear shot.”

  She leaned forward, making sure her head covering concealed the earbud she’d tucked into her skull before getting out of the van. Behind her, behind the deeply tinted glass, Paul Erculiano would be focusing a telephoto. If nothing else, she’d return with photos of the elusive Tiger.

  Who was still speaking, in that gentle, persuasive voice. “It has been revealed to me that what the foreigners present as help is really war against us and our religion. If some, even innocents, must die as we defend ourselves, that must be God’s will; since to do otherwise would mean Islam itself perishes. If you are truly Muslim this must be clear to you as well.”

  She said more sharply than she’d intended, “That’s superficially persuasive, but both your premises and conclusions are wrong.”

  Nuura hesitated. “I don’t know those words,” she muttered.

  “Sorry, I’ll use simpler ones. Tell him we’re not here about religion—I mean, we’re not here either to attack or to promote Islam. We’re just here to feed the starving.”

  “He says that makes no sense. Why should those who have food give it to those who do not?”

  The Ashaaran spoke on, wearily, as if he’d said all this many times before. “What wise man buys a camel the price of which he does not know? Or a wife from a father who says, ‘I will tell you the price of your bride next year’? What is the fee for what you bring? Perhaps you can tell me. After all, you say you are an American.”

  Ah, she thought, sitting back. He talks Muslim, but thinks Ashaari. She’d noticed their callousness toward each other. The hardness toward even their own suffering. Like the boy with the hole in his face, who’d pointed to it, grinning, as he begged. Like the children she’d watched torture a kitten, pushing it into a fire with sticks, laughing as it screamed, until it lay down and smoldered and burst into flame.

  Maybe they had to be that way, to survive. She wouldn’t judge. But how to reach one whose view was so stark? So underpinned with the certitude that—like rainwater dipped from the hollow of a dune—something for you only meant less for me?

  “Because we’re all of the same family,” she said. “You understand the obligation to family, don’t you? It’s the same. Those who starve must be fed.”

  Now it was his turn to lean forward, no longer smiling, as he gave his triumphant words to the slight trembling woman beside her.

  “ ‘Those who starve must be fed.’ This sounds well, yes. You foreigners have so much. Machines and radios and airplanes. But you do not say, ‘If you are hungry, we will feed you.’ What you say is, ‘If you want your children to live, you must give up your weapons, give up your law that avenges injury, give up the purity of your women to our licentiousness.’ Did you not propose that bargain to my martyred master, the revered Sheekh Nassir Irrir Zumali, peace be upon his memory? For so he told me the day he died.”

  She deliberated her answer. It was acceptable not to respond at once.

  Who was “General” Al-Khasmi? The madman in the desert the intelligence agencies were portraying? The “menace to the fragile reconstruction of Ashaara” the Economist had called him? She had to admit, he looked the part. Wild-haired, with that terrible wound and far-off gaze. Again that familiarity tugged at her brain, and again, faded without bringing any association to the surface.

  But he didn’t seem clinically paranoid. (The jittery, mumbling guy next to him acted much more bizarre.) Only obsessed with narrow fundamentalism and dreadful suspicion of foreigners. The peace was fragile, but so far, it could still be called peace. The essential thing, Peyster had told her, was to drag the guy into the process. Once he was out from behind a machine gun, they could feel out leverage. Give him incentives to cooperate, and disincentives if he didn’t.

  “It’s true, that’s what I told Sheekh Nassir. And I believe he was considering what I said. I think he was murdered for it by elements of his own circle.”

  “This I do not believe,” spat the jittery man, the one with the swollen eyes and the hockey puck in his cheek. “American lies. It is they who killed our revered sheekh.”

  “We were not involved in his death.”

  The man shouted, spittle flying. Nuura translated. “You want to disarm us so you can occupy us. You are colonialists like the Italians and Fre
nch. Your election is a fraud, and your Dobleh is a toy.”

  “I have met Dr. Zumali Dobleh. He is the wise leader Ashaara needs. Not only is he a devout Muslim, he is a hajji, as am I. We have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Have you?”

  The red-eyed man didn’t answer, just jittered his leg violently and glanced at Al-Khasmi.

  “What about General Assad?” she asked them. “You don’t like Dr. Dobleh. Do you like Assad better? The Diniyue, Jazir, Xaasha—do you want them back in power? That’s what you’ll get if the Governing Council have their way.”

  Al-Khasmi answered that. “Assad’s our enemy, yes, but he’s a patriot in his way. At least he’s not uncovering himself for the foreigners. But they’re not the true government, no matter what they say.”

  “What’s the true government? If it’s not Dobleh, and not Assad?”

  “The only true government is of the ulama; sharia law. This is the policy of the Waleeli. The West lies with honeyed promises while they steal and kill. We tell the truth about our goals.”

  “That’s not an option,” she said flatly. “The United States won’t back it. Nor the UN. What about the Christians? The Hindus? Muslims who don’t care to stone women for adultery? You’re talking about starting a civil war, a religious war.”

  They shrugged, both at once. “So America will be our enemy,” the tall one said.

  She felt any chance slipping away. But maybe she could leave him with something to think about. “Only if you choose. But yes, we’d be your enemies. Do you have any idea what that means? How fast we can put a precision-guided bomb on your encampment here?”

  His wounded mouth twisted into a painful-looking smile. “Now we hear the true voice of America. Not food, but bombs. If what you say is so, why should I not take you hostage now? See what your people will pay for you.” Nuura flattened her hands on the carpet, looking fearfully at Aisha as she translated. “He says: ‘It seems to me, they will pay much.’ ”

  “Tell him he forgets my guards.” She nodded at the GrayWolf men, who stood facing her in a rough circle around their meeting place. Then she stiffened.