Wizard ordered the technical to lead the convoy, then three pickups and the two Rovers. Two more pickups brought up the rear. They rolled out slow and steady. Waaberi drove with two fingers on the wheel. The Rover was in showroom condition inside, too, its leather polished, its air-conditioning strong. It made Wells want a bath.
The sun breached the horizon, its equatorial rays turning night into day with all the subtlety of a nickel slot that had just hit triple sevens. In the light the land was flat and empty, aside from the low hills where Wizard had set his camp. The rain had left pools of muddy water that were already disappearing, shrinking into the dirt.
The convoy moved east-northeast, almost straight into the sun. Wells raised a hand to shield his eyes, wishing for his Ray-Bans. But they were in his backpack, which he’d foolishly left in Wizard’s hut. He wondered if he’d ever see those glasses again. He missed them, and the woman who’d given them to him.
He reached for his sat phone, dialed Shafer. The call went to voice mail. Wells counted to ten, redialed. One ring . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . Finally, Shafer picked up. “Sorry. My internist says I have a generous prostate.”
“Tell me you’re joking, you left the room to hide from Duto or whatever—”
“Get to my age, you’ll see. I would literally have pissed myself—”
“Enough. Are you back?”
“I’m running back now. Just a sec.” Shafer sounded winded. He was old, Wells realized. Somehow in the last year Shafer had gone from late middle-aged to flat-out old. “I’m back.”
“You see us.”
“Yes. Count eight vehicles in your convoy.”
“I’m in the second Range Rover, sixth overall. Front passenger seat.” Wells leaned forward, waved.
“You’re waving. It’s a little lame, but yes. Hi, John!” This last in a mock-girlish tone.
“I guess the optics are as good as advertised.”
“Better. I can pick out every finger. The volunteers are in the other Rover?”
“Correct. Wizard’s driving that one.”
“You’re separated.”
“We’ll see if it’s a problem. But he knows he needs the Reaper to have a chance. Speaking of, how big’s the welcoming committee?”
“Last pass was ten minutes ago. We counted two hundred–plus armed men. AKs mainly, some RPGs. Twelve technicals.”
“Twelve technicals.”
“Correct.”
Too many. The heavy machine guns the technicals carried could tear up Wizard’s men in one burst. Even the armor on the Rovers could stop those rounds for only a few seconds.
“Give me the setup.”
“Main element has four techs side by side. At least one hundred men in that area. Two more techs spread wide to left and right. Four behind, a reserve element and also guarding against any flanking move by your side. Those four will need to be moved up to have an open field of fire. Pilot thinks he can disable the main element with the GBU, take out all four techs and maybe fifty percent of the men. More or less simultaneously he can fire Hellfires at two of the spread technicals, but then he’ll have to circle around to hit the other two.”
“So absolute best case, he takes six techs out right away, but at least two will survive that first round of fire.”
“Yes.”
“Then he’ll come around, take out the other two technicals that have an open field of fire. But after that he’s got no Hellfires left. So those last four technicals, the ones in reserve, Wizard’s going to have to deal with those on his own.”
“Any chance you can bring in additional Reapers? Or even the Pentagon?” Wells knew that asking for help ran contrary to everything he’d done in the previous twenty-four hours.
A profound silence followed. Wells wondered if Shafer had hung up. “Is that what you want now, John? Because that’s a little different strategy than we’ve been discussing.”
Now a new voice spoke. “We’ve informed the White House that you’ve found the hostages.” Duto. “They’re looking at putting a SEAL team in the air. And the Air Force is launching at least four MQ-9s”—Reapers. “But the minimum ETA is five hours.”
Too late, as they all knew.
“If we’d had a little more time. If you’d given us a little more time.”
“Miss you too, Vinny,” Wells said.
“Last thing,” Shafer said. “We’re considering ourselves cleared to drop soon as Wizard gives us a PID”—positive identification—“on Awaale. He knows what to do, right?”
“Yes. He asked you to give him at least one minute. He said he’s going to move a bunch of guys up after he meets with Awaale.”
“He say how? Because I can’t believe Red Team would allow that.”
“I didn’t ask.” But Wells realized that Shafer was right. He didn’t know how Wizard would get armed men forward when he was more or less surrendering to Awaale.
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll see it if it happens. So we’ll give him that minute, but he’s got to know that the bomb will be most effective when the other side’s all clustered up.”
“He knows.”
“And you know if things set up good, we’re not going to give you a heads-up. Be ready.”
“Fantastic tip. Where would I be without you?”
“I know why you’ve made it this long, John. You’re too big a prick to die.”
“Roger that. Over and out.”
Wells wondered if he ought to tell Wizard that they were headed for twelve technicals. But the Somali would go ahead even if Wells told him they were facing an entire mechanized brigade. He’d roused his men and he couldn’t back down.
Wells would just have to seize his chance when it came. And remember that his responsibility was to the hostages, not the White Men.
—
In the Rover ahead, Wizard made his own calculation. He’d promised to let the wazungu go home to their families. He would keep his word. He had no choice, anyway. Too many people wanted them. But the man who’d come for them was a soldier. He’d come on his own, even offered to trade himself for the three.
Wizard decided to take the man up on that offer. After he destroyed the Ditas, he would set the others free. But not this one. A single hostage would be easy to hold. Wizard wouldn’t make the same mistakes as he’d made before. Handcuffs and hoods for him. Wizard would sell him back after a few weeks. Maybe not for a million dollars. But even a hundred thousand would be enough with the Ditas gone. His men would see Wizard had destroyed their enemies and found another mzungu to ransom. Wizard relaxed in his seat, hands loose on the wheel, eyes smiling behind his sunglasses. This new mzungu had arrived at just the right moment. Wizard didn’t feel a twinge of remorse for betraying him. The man had killed four of his soldiers.
The sun rose, filling him with its power. Wizard realized he’d been a fool to lose his confidence. How could he have imagined his magic would leave him?
28
LANGLEY
Shafer and Duto stood side by side behind Tomaso’s workstation, watching the convoy chug northeast through the empty plains. Wizard and Awaale had set their meeting at an abandoned watering hole ten kilometers from Wizard’s camp. They were less than three kilometers apart, close enough that they would soon glimpse each other through the scrub that covered the pancake-flat land. Tomaso dialed back the Reaper’s main camera to pick up both the White Men and the Ditas simultaneously.
“The God view.”
“The Old Testament God,” Shafer said. “All-seeing and vengeful and loaded for bear.”
“Just wish we had a little more ammo.”
“A B-52’s worth, yeah.”
“What’s a B-52?”
This kid. “Ever heard of the Cold War? Dr. Strangelove—”
Tomaso grinned. “Messing with you, Ellis. Course I know what a B-52 is.”
“I hope you choke on your hair.”
But the joke was on them both. Maybe they didn’t need an eight-engine bomber, b
ut they could have used an A-10 with a full load of depleted uranium shells. The gap between the two militias was painful to see.
The Dita Boys had showed up at the meeting site a few minutes before Wells called Shafer from the convoy. As Shafer had warned Wells, the Ditas had come with a dozen technicals, enough to keep four in reserve in case Wizard tried to circle and attack from the rear. Each technical was mounted with a 12.7-millimeter NSV machine gun draped with belts of copper-jacketed ammunition. Shafer recognized the NSVs immediately. They had been the Red Army’s frontline machine gun during the seventies and eighties. They were sleek, nasty weapons that fired thirteen rounds a second. They were easily lethal at five hundred meters, and capable of serious damage at three times that distance. A skilled NSV gunner could take out a light plane.
The Ditas didn’t bother with unarmed pickups, either. Their soldiers traveled in three open-topped five-ton trucks, the same troop transport that real armies used. At this distance, even their uniforms were convincing, the mismatched jumble of their camouflage blurring together.
Meanwhile, the White Men looked like a bunch of recruits on their way to their first day of basic training. Or worse, kids headed for camp, with those ridiculous Range Rovers that belonged in a Connecticut suburb. Coach said if we were good we could ride with him after practice. Their lone technical was a couple hundred meters ahead. The rest of the convoy was bunched close, running single file down the track, spinning up mud.
Shafer had worried that Awaale might set an ambush near Wizard’s camp, trapping the White Men before the meeting. Instead, the Ditas hadn’t even bothered with scouts. Shafer could see why. No doubt Awaale saw the meeting itself as all the trap he needed. The technicals gave the Ditas an overwhelming advantage. Once Wizard brought his men within firing distance of those machine guns, Awaale would decide whether they left.
Whether the White Men survived this battle or not was irrelevant to Shafer. The alliance between Wells and Wizard didn’t even deserve to be called a marriage of convenience. It was more like a one-night stand. But if the White Men were overrun straightaway, Wells and the hostages would be captured. Wells might be killed on the spot. For them to have any chance at all of getting away clean, Tomaso would have to land the Reaper’s five-hundred-pounder perfectly and Wizard would have to move instantly in the chaos that followed.
—
Duto tapped Shafer’s shoulder. “Come.” Duto had been furious since Wells asked for help, confirming what they all knew anyway, that the White Men were badly outgunned.
“This is not the time.”
“Now, Ellis.” Duto kept his voice even, walked out loose and easy, like he was inviting Shafer for lunch. But once they were outside the operations center he grabbed Shafer’s arm and pulled him back to the ice-cold conference room.
“You should have found a way to slow this down, given us time to bring in more drones.”
Like Duto hadn’t signed off, too, making his own selfish calculations.
“You keep forgetting, Vinny. That guy on the ground, Awaale, gets a vote, too. And he wasn’t waiting on us.”
“If Wells hadn’t been so in love with doing this himself, we could have put guys in the air hours ago.”
“Funny. I didn’t see John in your office with a gun to your head to stop you from telling the Pentagon about this. Anyway, what are you worried about? You made the call your eleven-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyer told you to make. You’re protected.”
“Not the point.”
They were standing close now, and Shafer took some small pleasure in seeing the row of tiny pimples high on Duto’s forehead. Duto was appearing regularly on CNN and Fox News and Sunday-morning talk shows, raising his profile for his Senate campaign, and he had the bad skin that came with television makeup. Duto could have his teeth brightened until they were supernova white and wear two-thousand-dollar suits, but he’d never be handsome. Shafer knew he shouldn’t care, he was hardly the best-looking guy in the room himself, but he took some small pleasure in Duto’s ugliness. “That’s always the point with you,” Shafer said.
“You let him gamble with these hostages.”
“You’re so upset, I almost forgot it’s his ass on the line out there and not yours, Vinny.”
“We put ourselves in this corner for no reason. Because you couldn’t talk him down last night. He ran all over you. Like he always does.”
“We both know he’s earned the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you should save the blame game until we see whether he pulls it out.”
“This crush you have on him—”
Shafer felt his cheeks sting like Duto had slapped him. “Loyalty. A word I know you can’t imagine.” He brushed past Duto. “If it’s all the same to you, we should get back, see what’s going on over there before you write John’s obituary.”
—
Back at Tomaso’s workstation, they watched in silence as the convoy edged closer. On screen, the technical turned off the track, rolled through a pool of rainwater. The rest of the convoy followed. Fifteen hundred meters from Awaale, the lead three pickups spread out and rode side by side by side, the Rovers single file behind them.
Shafer couldn’t tell if Wizard had a tactical reason for the change or if he simply hoped the T shape might make his force seem larger than it was. Either way, if the White Men tried to charge the Ditas in open pickups, the technicals would tear them apart before they got close, as Wizard surely knew.
Tomaso’s hands never stopped moving, adjusting the cameras, making sure the Reaper was flying smoothly despite the weight imbalance that came from having a five-hundred-pound bomb on one wing and not on the other. He looked up at Shafer.
“The air looks good. Unless you object, I’m going to go brain, fly autopilot on a two-click hold around the Red Six. That way I can focus on the payload. But we’ll only have partial visuals on the friendlies.”
“In English,” Duto said.
Tomaso’s eyes slid to Duto, like he’d just remembered who his real boss was. “We have smooth air right now, nothing the software can’t handle. I want to set the Reaper on autopilot to circle at a two-kilometer radius around those four technicals in the middle. We’re assuming that’s where the enemy commander is—”
“Awaale—” Shafer said.
“Awaale is. That way I don’t have to worry about keeping the Reaper in the air, I can focus on putting the GBU and the Hellfires on target. Only downside is that we may lose visual contact with the friendlies.”
“Sounds fine,” Shafer said.
“Great,” Tomaso said. But his eyes stayed on Duto until the DCI nodded approval.
29
LOWER JUBA REGION
The convoy emerged from the last of the scrub and the White Men fell silent.
Even from five hundred meters away, the technicals loomed over the empty plain. They were Toyota Hilux pickups, crew cabs with wide tires and roll bars, built to be indestructible on the world’s worst roads. The White Men drove them, too. But each of the Dita Hiluxes carried a machine gun, its long steel barrel poking over the top of the cab. Three men stood in each pickup, one to aim and shoot, one to handle the ammunition, and one in reserve.
If Wizard had commanded the Ditas he would have turned around half the Hiluxes so that the guns could shoot out the open bed of the pickups for maximum visibility and flexibility. But the Ditas didn’t seem worried. Wizard couldn’t hear them, but their hands told the tale, loose and relaxed. Awaale stood in the center, a head taller than most of his men.
Wizard wasn’t surprised. In truth, this meeting would have been suicide for the White Men if not for the drone. Even with it he would need every bit of magic in the world. He slipped the Range Rover behind his pickups to give it a few extra seconds of cover if the Ditas opened up. When the Ditas opened up.
The hostages had been silent during the drive. Now Gwen leaned forward.
“Be careful,” she said.
Just then Wizard knew he would never see her a
gain, whatever happened in the next few minutes. He’d be gone, or she would. He missed her already, her and her magic, the magic of her blond hair and blue eyes, the magic she’d won just by being born in America. In his pocket he found a plastic bag that held a sheaf of miraa. The bag was mostly empty, the miraa growing stale. He had nothing else to give her. Nothing else she could possibly want. He handed it to her. She seemed to understand as well as he did.
“You tell everyone at home about Wizard.”
“You know it.”
He popped his sunglasses back on, stepped out of the Rover. His men leaned against their pickups, their sad naked Hiluxes. Their feet sank into the mud as they snuck glimpses at the technicals.
Wizard faced his soldiers one final time. “What I told you before, it’s still true. You acting like these Ditas got tanks. Look over there.”
One by one, the White Men lifted their heads.
“You see tanks? I don’t see no tanks. I see technicals. And I see a bunch of boys never could be White Men. Stupid boys. Weak boys. We the ones with the secret. This all gonna look different soon. So different.” He turned to the Donkeys. “You know what you supposed to do, when you supposed to do it.”
“When you wave,” Donkey Junior said.
“Right. Keep it tight and keep coming. Everyone else, when the shooting start, remember, it the Ditas gonna be scared. Not us. They not expecting this. Done and done.”
“Done and done,” his men said without enthusiasm. Wizard knew that if the bomb didn’t hit quickly, many of them would lose their courage and run. Without further delay he took off his pistol and held it high where Awaale could see and handed it to Donkey Junior. “You ready to give this back to me,” Wizard said.
He started the long walk toward Awaale. The sun stared into his eyes, but he stared straight back, wouldn’t blink even as his eyes sprouted tears behind his sunglasses.
Awaale was taller than Wizard remembered. He stood with arms folded across his chest like he was posing for a statue of himself. Leader of the Dita Boys, Savior of the Somali Nation. He wore a pistol on his hip and the shiniest mirrored sunglasses Wizard had ever seen. He had a new gold bracelet, too, thick and shiny. His men stood close, their AKs trained on Wizard, their lips full of miraa.
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