by Gordon Kent
They walked three more hours before dark. The GPS said that they had made twenty-one miles since the battle at the airfield.
Sarajevo.
Pigoreau called Dukas thirty hours after they had started interrogating Mrs Obren and said she was being tough but was starting to give. She was still trying to bargain for news of her husband. “I’m not sure she is quite sane, Michael.”
Well, that made sense. Dukas hadn’t thought of it before. “How long?” he said. He was drinking scotch from a coffee cup.
“She’s tough, Michael.”
“Tell her if she doesn’t give to us I’m going to throw her in prison and she won’t get to go looking for her husband for five, ten years. Tell her we’ll try her in the States, which she’ll believe, because the fucking Serbs think America is the Evil Empire and can do anything. Tell her I’ll get her twenty years in an American women’s prison full of black dykes where she won’t fuck anything more interesting than a broomstick until she’s too old to care.”
“Don’t make it personal, Michael.”
Maybe he wasn’t quite sane, either, he thought. Maybe that was why they had been drawn to each other. “Okay, cut the last part. Just scare the shit out of her and get me some information.”
He arranged with the Bosnian border cops to make up a sheet on her, charging her with having false documents, which Dukas knew was true because he had given the documents to her when he had recruited her. The paper trail said she had been arrested at the border and was being held in the women’s jail. The word would get back to RS, then to Belgrade.
Thirty-six hours later, two of the female cops took her to the train station and north to the UN jail at Stobranica. They were going to keep her for a few weeks while they set her up as a double and turned her back to RS. Dukas watched them from his office window. She looked thinner and pale. They hadn’t marked her; they were too good for that.
The transcripts of the interrogation made up a thick file. Most of it was shit. She was an instinctive agent; she may not have known the theory of interrogation, but she had surely known how to weave and dodge and backtrack and confuse. After she had started to talk, most of what she said was small stuff—the schoolteacher who was her contact, Serbian cops in RS whom she fed information on her neighbors—but she got good on the subject of Zulu. He came last. It was as Pigoreau’s snitch had said: she had taken Zulu home twice, had been a hostess for a recruiting party, had informed to him on Dukas and the WCIU.
Did you tell the man Zulu you were having an affair with Mister Dukas?
Yes.
What did he say?
He said to keep it going, to keep him happy.
Late in the interrogation she had started to make things up again and the transcript got incoherent. She was a natural liar, to be sure, but by then she was trying to please them and she was making up things she thought they would like to hear.
I know his name. I know that man’s name.
She didn’t call him “Zulu” or “Z.” She called him “the man” or “the man who came to my flat” or “the recruiter.” She must have been saving that, and they never got in that far.
You went to bed with him but you didn’t know his name?
Yes.
You spent the night with him? What did you call him?
I didn’t call him anything.
Dukas remembered his delight in hearing her speak his own name. She said she loved the name Michael.
Then, at the end, she had started to let it go.
I know his name. I know that man’s name.
What man?
That—the recruiter—the one who comes to my flat—who I said before. Didn’t I tell you before? NOTE: Subject not entirely coherent from lack of sleep and other factors.
What is his name?
It is on his arm—top of the arm—you say—?
Shoulder?
No, here—here—
Upper arm.
Yes, I see it when he is—nude? Without his clothes. His name.
What is his name?
It is Italian name, not Serb. Maybe he is spy? Not a name I know.
What is his name?
His name is Semperfi. NOTE: Subject spelled name here. This appears to be invention. Name does not check in standard lists.
Well, Dukas thought, it wouldn’t. And no reason for a couple of Brits to recognize it.
He printed the name on a pad in front of him. Then he drew a line between two of the letters.
Semper/fi.
Semper Fi.
Had she known? Or was she simply crazy? She must have known the man wouldn’t have his own goddam name tattooed on his arm. No, she was being smart—smart even when she was exhausted and hurting and frightened, smart because she suspected everybody and she thought that somehow what she said might get back to the Serbs. So she had handed over this bonbon as if she didn’t know what it was—handed it over, Dukas knew, to him. Because he would know what the tattoo meant.
Know that Zulu had been an American marine.
At sea, the flag deck of the Jackson.
“Sir, I’d like to start the battle group west now, rather than wait another week.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“The Russian sub, sir. We’ve lost it—had it four days ago and we lost it. I’d like to move away from the deep water here and the trench off Gold Coast, and get out to where our guys have a better chance at detection. I wouldn’t mind getting to where P-3s out of Rota could support our ASW effort, too. We’re wearing the S-3 guys mighty thin, flying them around the clock.”
“How far do we need to go?” Admiral Pilchard knew the answer. He wanted to make sure that everybody else did.
“I’d like to head for a point south of Cape Palmas. We’ll be closer to the Med and still within range of Zaire. We’ll set up a set of cleared boxes in the water, here and here, and move between them at high speed to make him run to catch up. Then we’ll hear him.”
“Make it so.” The admiral went back to his message traffic.
It was a good plan. Except that the Shark was already eight hundred miles away.
Zaire.
The morning of the fifth day, they found a place where a helo could get in and where Alan could make contact via the cell phone. Djalik knew what the helos needed for an extraction site, and he did the scouting while Harry slept and Alan watched, worried about insecure communications going through a cell switch in a town overrun by Hutus. He was worried, too, by the volume of refugees in the woods. Too many, and the helicopter would not want to land if he couldn’t claim the area was clear.
As soon as Djalik was through, muttering that the site was crap but the best they could do, Alan had the coordinates on the way to the boat. Transmission was horrible, but he kept at it and at it, waiting for the battery to go down, but finally he believed he’d got the coordinates through and had heard a time.
“0630,” he told the others. He thought that was what he’d heard, anyway. “Now we wait.”
At sea, the flag deck of the Jackson.
Parsills was waked by the flag lieutenant with the news that the extraction was on. The admiral wanted to see him, he was told; he pulled on clothes, brushed his hair enough to make the loose ends lie down, and went forward. Pilchard was awake, up, sitting in one of the leather chairs in a navy bathrobe, looking rather elegant. He was going through paperwork, and there was a stack beside him on the floor.
“You’re working too hard,” Parsills said.
“Can it, Jack.” He held out a page, a transcript of the last exchange with Craik. “This cell-phone crap sucks. We’ve got to get a radio to him if the extraction bombs.” He looked up. “Rangoon gives it one-in-three of succeeding. The position is too close to a town, too close to reports of FAZ units. They think Craik’s desperate, because the site is crap.”
“We’re doing our best.”
“And it isn’t good enough! Or won’t be if we miss him.” He held out another page. “Pfor to me
from CNO—he got a call from some tame columnist on the Washington Post, guy says State is ready to put out the story. ‘Navy Team Lost in Zaire.’ That’ll cook it—once you get the media on it, our guys’ll be hunted like rabbits.”
“Jesus, they can’t do that—”
“Yeah, they can. But they’re willing to deal: we stay out of country, they’ll sit on the story. The embassy’s denied us over-flight as of 0800 tomorrow. If we violate it, they’ll blow the story.” He sipped at coffee that must have been cold for an hour. “An embassy can do that—legally, they’re on solid ground to keep us out. We’re supposed to abide by their rules. Practically, in a situation like this, we’re usually allowed to take care of our own people, so long as we’re discreet and don’t scare the horses. Did you hear one of our guys lit up a French aircraft yesterday? French went ballistic. Apparently that got all the way to the White House.” He held the cup in front of him like a sick man. “CNO wants me to go along on this, Jack.”
“Christ. Jesus, this is our last chance, then.”
The admiral put the cup down. “Not yet. CNO’s Pfor had a suggestion, off the record. There’s a black Agency operation down south whose people still believe we all work for the same government, thank God. They’ll make an air drop for us if we get out of it otherwise—it’s a three-way deal—us, the embassy, the Agency. If the extraction doesn’t take, it’s our best hope. So, get on this now: Send an S-3 with everything we want airdropped to Craik. Specifics’re in the Pfor—country clearance on the way, route that has to be strictly abided by, no mistakes, no assing around. No over-flight of Zaire.”
“The S-3 squadron XO,” Parsills said. “He’s burning to do something.” He looked at his watch, saw how little of the night there was left. “Jesus, don’t you ever sleep?” He reached for some of the message traffic. “I’m a morning person, myself.”
Zaire.
Alan heard the rotor blades before he saw the helicopter coming low along the ridge. Early light made any kind of identification difficult. The three of them were in a small brush pile in the corner of a big field that had once been planted to sisal. He had a very patchy signal from the cell phone, but they had wanted the cover, and they were well hidden from anyone down toward the town. He pressed the Send button and was connected, after a painful delay, to the Jackson. In seconds he had been switched through Air Ops and was talking to the helo.
“Stranger, this is Big Bird, over?”
“Big Bird, I can see you.”
“Roger, Stranger. Say the words.”
“Roger, Big Bird. Stranger had a big mongrel dog called Bayard; Bayard was deaf.”
“Roger, Stranger. I copy.”
Djalik heard a burst of fire over the rotor blades and grabbed at Alan’s arm.
“Shit!” Probably terrified deserters, shooting at anything. Alan shouted into the phone. “Big Bird, you’re under fire!”
The helo turned sharply and climbed the ridge away from the fire.
“Stranger, roger weapons fire. Please wait—gotta check how bad.”
The second helicopter had stayed well back and now came in, firing a heavy machine gun from the door. The marine choppers were well equipped for this role, but there was a lot of firing coming from the far side of the old sisal field. This wasn’t a few guys with guns, but half a company, maybe even with squad weapons. Djalik was motioning to him.
Alan had to make the decision.
“Can you hold them off, Big Bird?”
Could you hear regret over a cell phone? “We have orders not to return fire, Stranger.” Well, what the hell was that you were just doing—pissing? There was more firing from the other chopper, but the aircraft was hanging back, trying to impress rather than suppress. He knew what they were afraid of: if one of the choppers went down, the shit would hit the fan in Kinshasa, and in Paris, and in Washington.
And now figures were moving through the patches of sisal toward them.
It was already too late. He said the words that made him sick.
“Abort, Big Bird, abort. We have to move on.”
“Confirm abort.”
The big chopper swung toward the trees.
“Hang in there, Stranger.”
The helicopter swung over the trees, then disappeared behind the treetops, leaving only the diminishing sound of its rotors behind. Djalik already had Harry on his feet and was moving him away along the escape route. Alan was drained by the failure, his hopes dashed in one minute of gunfire.
Djalik was worried by a different aspect: the volume of fire. Very professional. Djalik thought of the white mercenary called Zulu and the look that he had exchanged with Mr Craik.
29
The End of November
Zaire.
Zulu was sitting on the ground with his head in his hands, fever making his shoulders and neck ache. If it didn’t get worse, he would get along. It couldn’t be malaria, he thought; he had taken his medication, still had pills. But even those were running out.
He heard the helicopter coming in, and he looked up, his eyes red and watery. His own chopper had been rolled off the improvised pad and more or less camouflaged, but it was a half-assed job because there weren’t enough men, and the FAZ soldiers hung back, looking on but not helping. Not helping at anything, he thought. As useless at this as at fighting.
The helo winnowed down and touched, sending up spray from the puddles that stood everywhere in the rain-soaked field. Zulu shuddered and got to his feet as a man dropped to the ground and splashed toward him, ducking his head as everybody does, as if he feared the rotor blades would take it off. He was a white civilian, Lascelles’s best man in central Africa.
His best man, Zulu thought, and look where we are.
“Eh, Jackie.” Zulu put out his hot hand. “Welcome to nowhere.”
“Thank God for global positioning—the only way I found you—what would we do without the Americans, eh?” Jackie was in his forties, thin, small, red-faced. He had been Lascelles’s intermediary with Peter Ntarinada—until Ntarinada had died. “What the hell are you doing here, Zulu? You look sick. Malaria?”
Zulu waved a hand a little weakly. “Some fucking bug. Africa.” He wiped a hand over his forehead, running his little finger into the hollow where the bridge of his nose should have been, as he always did. “We need to talk, Jackie.”
“No, we don’t. I know what you want to say: It’s over. Right?”
Zulu was surprised. Maybe it was the fever. He had expected a fight. “I want you to tell Lascelles I have to take my boys home. What’s left of them.”
Jackie led him under a tree, as if it were more private there. “He already knows. He’s willing.”
“I still get my money? It isn’t our fault, what’s happened! The fucking blacks, they won’t stand; the troops are okay, Jackie, but the officers are a joke! See that lot over there? I could make something of them, give me a month or two. But their captain’s a kid from Kinshasa whose father is some buddy of Mobutu’s; the kid’s shitting himself that he’ll get shot at. The only part of his uniform is dirty is the seat of his pants.” Zulu wiped his face with a hand again, unconsciously felt the old knife wound on his nose. “We did our best. Better than our best. Jesus Savior, I’ve lost so many guys—”
Jackie put a hand on his shoulder. He was a little man, but he behaved with the physical ease of a big one—clearly not scared of Zulu, not scared of Africa. “What the hell are you doing out here in the nowhere, Zulu?”
“Following three fucking Americans who started all that trouble at the airfield. Where they killed poor Ntarinada. Shot him down.”
“The Hutus say your boys did that.”
“Like hell! There was a shootout, these American Navy guys showed up, killed Ntarinada, and took off with a prisoner. I’m not going to let them get away with it. I’m after them.”
Jackie looked at the bigger man’s flushed face. “You’d be better off in bed. Listen, Zulu, I don’t care who killed Ntarinada; it’s too
late to care. Don’t bother. Let them go.”
Zulu looked at him, looked away at the helo. “They know who I am.” He shrugged. “The prisoner—”
“The black CIA guy.”
Zulu nodded. “I worked him over; he’ll remember me. Plus, you see, one of the American Navy guys, we’d run into each other before—I’ve got a face people remember, Jackie—”
Jackie patted Zulu’s shoulder. “The way Lascelles figures it, you were going to take all three Americans and use them as hostages, and it went bad and Ntarinada got killed. Okay, who cares? It’s too late. Kabila’s people are going to take Bumia any day, and they’ll take Kinshasa, so we’ve lost this round and we’ll have to come back in a year, two years.” He lit a cigarette, offered one to Zulu, who shook his head. “Lascelles is willing that you leave. On one condition.”
“I don’t bargain!” Zulu cried. “He owes me—!”
“Lascelles has one job for you to do on the way home. You and ten or a dozen of your men. Libya.”
“Fuck that. We’re going home.”
“Of course you are, but you’re going by way of Libya and you’re going to stop there for twenty-four hours to do a job, very quick, fairly easy. If you don’t do it—” He waved a hand. “Lascelles is a little angry with you, Zulu. He can withhold your aircraft. He can withhold your money. He can fix it so you rot in Zaire.”
“No, he can’t!” But Zulu knew he could. His head was aching now. All he wanted to do was lie down.
“Here’s what you do, Zulu. You go up to Gbadolite. That’s Mobutu’s home territory, and there’s an airfield that will take big jets there. Lascelles will tell Mobutu you’re up there to guard his homeland from the rebels. You train up there for ten days to two weeks for this mission in Libya, then we send in two cargo jets for you and you’re out. Okay?”