He peeked through the doorway. The fighter on the right had taken a bullet to the right shoulder, his gun arm. His AK dangled low. As Wells watched, he jammed his right elbow into his stomach to brace the rifle and fired a wild burst aimed half at Wells and half at Wilfred. Lottery shooting. A round slapped the corner of the hut behind Wilfred, but nothing more.
The fighter on the left was more dangerous. He dropped to one knee and focused on Wilfred, his left elbow propped on his left knee, the butt of the rifle hard against his right shoulder, his head tilted as he squinted over the AK’s crude but effective sight. The classic shooter’s position. He was looking into the sun, which made the shot tougher. But less than a football field separated him and Wilfred. Trained shooters were plenty accurate with an AK at that range. Wells saw all this in a fraction of a second, those years of close combat experience, knew Wilfred was in trouble—
“Down—” he yelled. Spent cartridges flared from the AK, glinting in the sun. Wilfred grunted in Swahili. Even without looking at him, Wells knew he’d been hit. Bad. Wells took his own shooter’s stance, knowing that if he didn’t take the guy down, he and Wilfred were done. Wilfred would be wounded on open ground, Wells pinned in the hut. The two bandits would kill Wilfred without too much trouble, then focus on Wells. So, really, now or never. Wells reminded himself that the Glock would kick harder than the Makarov and—
From behind the huts came a low growl that grew until it split the air, a wall of sound as overwhelming as a jet engine. Only one animal dared announce its presence in so lordly a fashion. The hyenas knew, too, the enemy they hated even more than man had come to steal their feast. As the roar wound down, Wells heard them gobbling and cackling in dismay—
But Wells forced the lion and the hyenas out of his mind, made himself focus on the man with the rifle. When they learn to shoot, I’ll worry about them. Hurry, but slowly. He squinted over the Glock like a pool player looking for just the right angle on a tricky bank shot. Pulled the trigger, controlled the recoil, pulled it again. And missed. Two jets of red dirt spurted up left of the shooter. Who had also been distracted by the lion. Now he shifted his eyes back to Wells, fired a burst—
That drilled bricks two feet to Wells’s right. Wells didn’t duck or dive. No point. He had as clear a chance as he could hope. He would make good with this pistol at long-gun range or die trying. Arms steady. Don’t overgrip. Let the weapon do the work. He moved the Glock a fraction of an inch to the right, fired. Didn’t wait to see whether the shot was true but fired again—
The fighter must have fired back just as he was hit. An AK round swept over Wells’s right shoulder close enough for him to feel the punctured air it left behind. Another tore through the mud brick beside the doorway. Across the field Wells saw the Somali stumble, hands fumbling over his belly like if he just pressed down hard enough he’d straighten himself out, put the skin and muscle back together—
But now the other shooter, the one Wilfred had hit in the shoulder, was running at Wells, legs pumping, AK on auto, locked and closing. Wells had no choice but to dive out of the doorway, hope the kid shot himself out of bullets before he got too close.
He rolled down onto the hard-packed dirt inside the hut and twisted himself against the wall as AK rounds gashed through the rough bricks. Then Wilfred’s Makarov popped three times and a body thumped down.
Wells stood, walked out. The fourth shooter was face-planted in the dirt, his AK sprawled over his head. Wells didn’t know where Wilfred’s shots had caught him, but they’d done the trick.
“Saved you,” Wilfred said, his voice fluttery. He lay on his back, unmoving. No wonder the fourth shooter had ignored Wilfred. From across the compound he probably looked dead. Wells ran for him. His jeans were two different shades now, light blue for his left leg, blue-black for the right. Wells knelt beside Wilfred’s right leg, found the denim soaked through with blood.
“I got you here and I’m getting you home.”
Wilfred cleared his throat.
“Yes.” Wells had a sat phone, but calling the agency wouldn’t do any good. Even if Shafer got through to Nairobi right away and convinced the station chief to spend thousands of dollars to medevac a Kenyan it didn’t know, the station wouldn’t have a chopper ready to go. It would have to find one willing to fly at night to the Somali border. Plus they were more than three hundred miles east of Nairobi, which meant the helicopter would have to refuel at least once on the way out, twice more on the return. It wouldn’t get Wilfred back to Nairobi for close to twelve hours, long past midnight.
Better to get to the Land Cruiser and then drive for the Saudi-financed infirmary in Bakafi, the village they had passed on the way down. With luck, the clinic would have a bush doctor who could stabilize Wilfred enough to keep him alive overnight. If not, they’d have to drive for the hospital that Médecins Sans Frontières ran in Dadaab.
—
From behind the huts, the lion bellowed again. Wells scrambled for the shotgun. He didn’t think the lion would attack, not until it scattered the hyenas, but the thing sounded like it was six feet tall. Wells had been on bloodier battlefields, but nowhere closer to a true state of nature. No reinforcements were coming for either side, no medevacs, no police, not even any curious locals. Only the lion and the hyenas, pacing and watching and waiting for darkness.
“He wants fresh meat,” Wilfred said. “That’s me.”
“With a side of fries.” Wells laid down the shotgun and ran for the third hut, where he had stowed his pack before the shooting started. On his way back, he detoured for four bottles of water from the first hut. He handed one to Wilfred.
“Drink.” Wilfred dropped the bottle, trying to unscrew the cap. Wells picked it up, opened it, shoved it back into his hand. He clasped his fingers around Wilfred’s and lifted the bottle to Wilfred’s mouth. Most of the water went down Wilfred’s chin, but he swallowed a few sips.
“Good.” Wells reached for the scissors in the first-aid kit, snipped off Wilfred’s jeans high on the thigh. The bullet hole was four inches above the knee. Blood was seeping out, not a gusher but heavy and steady. Wells thought the round had cracked the femur and nicked the popliteal artery, the main artery down the leg. He’d seen a man die from a similar wound years before in Afghanistan.
Wells raised Wilfred’s leg as gently as he could to feel for an exit wound. Nothing. “Listen to me. I have to do things you won’t like.” Wells tapped Wilfred’s cheek to make him focus. “Get a tourniquet on your leg, tie it off so you don’t lose more blood. That’s going to hurt bad, because the bullet probably broke a bone in there. Then we have to get to the Cruiser. Either I leave you or we ride. I don’t want to leave you. I’m afraid you’ll pass out. Even though the lion might like it.”
Wilfred sipped his water, nodded. He was relaxed now, no wasted motion, no panic. “We ride.”
“That’s right. You on the back with that broken leg. I’ll tie you to me and you hold on and we’ll get there. But I promise you it’ll hurt more than anything in your life.”
“One question, mzungu.”
Wells hoped that Wilfred wouldn’t ask if he was going to lose the leg. Wells didn’t know, didn’t want to guess.
“I get a bonus for this?”
This kid. Cooler than the other side of the pillow. Wells squeezed his big hand around Wilfred’s skinny arm. “Five bucks. Only if you live.”
—
The bare-bones first-aid kit had rubber tubing that might have worked for Wilfred’s forearm. Not his thigh. A T-shirt or pant leg wouldn’t do the trick either. Wells thought of the hot plates in the first hut. He cut loose their electrical cords, twin four-foot lengths of thick black plastic. He grabbed a whiskey bottle from the second hut, a crude way to sterilize the wound, an even cruder painkiller. Not the ideal choice, since alcohol slowed clotting, but Wilfred needed a distraction. “Take a drink. Not a big one—”
Wilfred nearly gagged but choked down a sip.
Wells p
ulled off his T-shirt, balled it up. “Put this in your mouth and bite down, hard as you can.”
Wilfred stuffed the shirt in his mouth. It stuck out like a limp flag. Wells raised the cord.
“I’m going to tie this around your leg. It’s going to hurt. The shirt’s in your mouth so you don’t bite off your tongue. Ready?”
Wilfred nodded. Wells chose a spot two inches above the bullet hole, wrapped the cord around Wilfred’s leg. He crossed the ends and pulled, tight as he could and then tighter. Wilfred keened, a high strangled sound the hyenas might have recognized. He banged his hands against the earth and his eyes bulged wide. But he didn’t move his leg. Not an inch. Wells pulled until the cord dug into the meat of Wilfred’s thigh and then knotted the plastic.
He wiped away Wilfred’s leg with his shirt, watched the bullet hole for fresh blood. It still leaked, a trickle but steady, too much. Wells grabbed the second cord. This time he pulled until he thought the plastic might break. Silent tears lit Wilfred’s eyes as Wells tied off the cord. Wells wiped away the hole again and watched as the trickle slowed to a dribble. It would have to do. Wells poured whiskey over Wilfred’s leg and wiped off the wound with the little tube of antibiotic from the first-aid kit and taped gauze over his thigh. He pulled the T-shirt from Wilfred’s mouth, offered him a water bottle. Wilfred sipped a few drops and let it drop. He wiped the spit from his lips, the tears from his cheeks.
“That all you got. Too easy.”
“Easy.” Now Wells needed a way to keep Wilfred on the bike. A rope. He hadn’t seen any ropes. But he had seen chains. In the fourth hut. He picked up the shotgun and walked the hundred-meter battlefield, stopping beside the men Wilfred had killed, turning out their pockets. He found no identification, but one man did have a cell phone. Wells grabbed it.
Outside the hut he took a lungful of air, like a man trying to see how long he could stay underwater. He stepped into the stinking swollen darkness, Scott Thompson’s eternal home. He walked over the hyena—it had stayed dead, at least—and found a chain. A reminder that three hostages were still missing, probably alive, with any luck close to here. Wells needed to bring Wilfred to safety so he could return to finding them. He put the tip of the shotgun to the post in the wall and pulled the trigger. The chain clanked down to the floor, a strangely playful sound. Wells liberated a second chain and jogged out, still holding his breath. He wondered whether any Scott Thompson would be left by the time the Kenyan police found this place. Probably not. Though maybe the hyenas and the lion would be so busy outside that they wouldn’t bother with the hut for a while.
—
Wilfred lay on his side, his eyes closed. Wells picked up the bike, put it in neutral, dropped the kickstand, sparked it. Wilfred opened his eyes, tracked the chains. “Mzungu. You dirty man.”
“I’ll cinch them around us. You hold me and I’ll hold you.”
“Sound like a song.”
Wells knelt behind Wilfred, reached under his arms, pulled him up. Wilfred grunted and his body shook, but he didn’t complain. He leaned against Wells and held his bad leg off the ground. Wells halfthrew him over the bike and wrapped the chains around his back and slid in front of him. Wilfred put his arms around Wells’s waist, but he had no strength. Without the chains supporting him, he couldn’t stay on the bike. Wells needed his right hand for the throttle, which meant he would have to hold the chains in his left hand. But he couldn’t get the bike going unless he pulled in the clutch, put the bike in gear—a move that required that same left hand. He tried twice. Both times he lost his grip on the clutch handle and stalled the engine as he struggled to hold the chains. After the second try, he sat in silence and listened to the hyenas gibbering. The animals had moved closer. It wouldn’t be long before the bold one, the big one, returned.
“Let me,” Wilfred said.
“You know how?”
“Come on.”
Wells leaned forward until his chest nearly touched the bike’s gas tank. He pulled the chains tight to keep Wilfred close. Wilfred snaked his left arm under Wells’s shoulder and pulled in the clutch. Wells twisted the throttle a fraction, giving the engine a taste of gas. Twenty-plus years of riding had made these moves as intuitive as inhaling and exhaling. But today he was on a respirator, trusting Wilfred to help. Wells tapped down his left foot, put the bike into first. “Let go—”
Wilfred eased off the clutch and Wells rolled his right hand a half inch on the throttle. Dirt bikes were twitchier than street bikes, and the bike jumped ahead. Wells thought Wilfred would drop the clutch too quickly and stall them. But he let the handle out smoothly. Wells added gas and then they were moving, bouncing along. Wilfred jabbered in Swahili, no doubt cursing Wells for this mess, but Wells held the chain tight, and with every turn of the tires, they left the corpses and vultures and hyenas behind and rode toward the Cruiser. And life.
12
LANGLEY
In his golden years—oh, my, how he hated that phrase—Shafer had unaccountably developed a liking for sugar cereal. He had a boy’s taste buds and an old man’s colon. So it was that he sat down to a lunchtime bowl of Frosted Flakes and Lactaid as he watched a White House press conference livestreaming on CNN.com.
The question-and-answer period had started a few minutes before, with every question so far about the hostages. Now Josh Galper, the White House spokesman, pointed at a dark-haired woman in the front row. Galper wasn’t afraid to smack down dumb questions. Shafer appreciated him. The reporters didn’t.
“Emily. I’m sure The Wall Street Journal has a question on the budget? Taxes, maybe?”
“Can you tell us if the President has been in touch with the families of the missing volunteers?”
“The President has spoken privately to family members to express his concern.”
“Can you tell us what he said?”
“Last time I checked, that wasn’t what ‘privately’ meant.” Galper pointed to a black guy in the second row. “Brett?”
“Brett Ward, Washington Post. Would the United States consider the use of force to rescue the hostages if and when their location is confirmed?”
“We’re ready for any eventuality.”
“Including an invasion of Somalia?”
“All options remain on the table.”
“Including military action?”
“I’ll say this as clearly as I can. It would be premature to discuss an invasion at this time. That said, I think the American people should understand al-Shabaab is a terrorist threat both within and outside Somalia. For many years, the United States and United Nations have been concerned about the situation. That’s the context here.”
“So this would be a full-scale invasion, not just a rescue mission.”
“I didn’t say that. Please don’t say that I did.”
“Would the President ask for congressional approval before an invasion?”
“You’ve gone way past what I’ve said, Brett. However, in the theoretical event of a theoretical invasion, the President would inform senior congressional leaders—”
“That’s not what I asked—”
“Brett, you know I love dancing with you, but I need to let some other reporters cut in.”
—
Shafer had seen enough. The war drums were a-beating, as Duto had predicted. He muted the conference and dug into his Frosted Flakes before they could get soggy. But he managed only two spoonfuls before his cell phone rang. Wells. Who was probably in Mogadishu by now, hanging out with clan leaders as he pretended to be a Saudi royal with a hankering for blondes from Montana. Say what you wanted about the man, he wasn’t boring.
“John. Roofied anyone lately?”
“I found the camp where they were being held.”
“That’s great—”
“Not so much.”
“Are they dead?”
“Scott Thompson was. The others, gone. It’s possible they were killed and I didn’t find them, but my best guess is some Somali ban
dit group got wind of them and came after them and whoever was holding them.”
“When?”
“Probably last night. The bodies were still fresh.”
“By bodies, you mean Thompson.”
“And a bunch of Kenyans.”
“Did it look like a real kidnapping? Like they were prisoners? Or hiding out, waiting to come in?”
“Prisoners. There was a hut where they were chained up. Where I found Thompson.”
“This was Somalia?”
“Kenya. Near the border, but Kenya.”
“You have a lead on the others?”
“Not yet. My fixer took a bullet. I’m getting him to a hospital.” Wells told Shafer how the bandits had attacked him and Wilfred at the compound, how Wilfred had been wounded.
“And you think the ones who attacked you were Somali?”
“Yeah. The Somalis look different than ethnic Kenyans. Plus I took a cell phone off one. The numbers in the register have the Somali country code, 252, not the Kenyan.”
“Where are you now?”
“Outside this village called Bakafi, ninety miles south of Dadaab. There’s an infirmary here. I’m hoping they can stabilize Wilfred. But he’ll need a helicopter to medevac him to Nairobi tomorrow morning. Otherwise, he’ll lose the leg.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“No ifs. Promise me, Ellis.”
“All right.”
“Now. Please tell me the grown-ups have put a stop to this invasion nonsense—”
“I’d say we’re up to at least fifty-fifty.”
“To attack Somalia?”
“There’s momentum. And when people hear Scott Thompson’s been killed—”
“But he was killed in Kenya. After being kidnapped by Kenyans.”
“The Kenyan police will tell a different story. And I’ll bet by the time they get to that compound, there’s nothing left but bones. Can you tell a Somali femur from a Kenyan? Because I can’t. And there’s something else. Even if the Kenyans were wrong about what happened before, they’re not anymore. You said it yourself. The other three are probably in Somalia now.”
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