by Steve Richer
He put up other pictures on the screen.
Chapter 30
There was no time for Preston to enjoy the beautiful African climate. He was cruising the streets of Katoga City, gathering actionable intelligence. In the passenger seat was the bulky William Carver.
“Okay, okay, stop,” the former Marine urged. “My intel tells me the Minister of the Interior lives just around the corner. We need to be careful now.”
The younger man stopped the vehicle. Having returned from recruiting and training his men in a camp established in Cameroon, Carver had come to lend a hand with the preparations.
“We’ll drive slowly in front of the house,” Preston said. “You take pictures. We need to find out about all the security countermeasures they have here.”
“Sure.”
The explanation was unnecessary, Preston knew, but he had learned from his days in the military that it was better to assume nothing. It was preferable to be redundant than to risk failing a mission.
“I don’t wanna show up at this house on D-Day without knowing a cocked gun from a limp cock, you know?”
“Piece of cake, Preston.”
“Yeah, you said that earlier when we scoped out the Defense Minister’s house. It wasn’t you with two German shepherds on your ass.”
Carver was amused but tried hard not to laugh.
Since dawn, they had been running surveillance on the home of the Minister of Defense which was located in Katoga’s sole bourgeois neighborhood. There was a guard shack at the gate and a roaming army patrol which drove by every hour. Carver was able to spot only one security camera; it rotated on a 180 degrees axis every 30 seconds.
In an effort to learn more about the guards’ response time, they had thrown a small cat over the fence as a diversion. When one of the two guards went after the feline, the other guard laughing and enjoying the show, Preston climbed the wrought-iron gate to see if it was doable.
It was indeed. The fence was badly designed and there were enough holds, nooks, and crannies to climb without requiring a rope. Only when he touched the ground on the other side, security guards of a different nature were waiting for him.
Two hungry German shepherds bared their fangs at him and growled angrily. Preston just had time to climb back over the vine-covered wall before the guards arrived to see what was going on. Preston’s youth and speed saved him and he reached the Toyota one block away before being discovered.
“Shut up,” he barked at his colleague. “Get your camera.”
Despite his tone, Preston had difficulty not laughing. After the fact, it was easy to see the humor in it. He imagined his Wikipedia page 30 years from now: Coup d’État Foiled by Dogs. He put the transmission in gear and they drove off.
~ ~ ~ ~
It was night and Preston’s living room was crowded with the official tenant as well as Hewitt and Carver. The humidity level was beginning to wane and the ceiling fan was working overtime, its large palms whooshing by so fast that they were making an even hum. The veranda doors were open but no breeze came in.
Carver and Preston were drinking beer while the older man transferred some Smirnoff vodka into his trusted water bottle. The African-American noticed this supposedly covert move and shook his head in amusement.
On the low table in front of them, the laptop displayed a loosely edited video of scenes from the day-to-day life in Katoga such as children playing, people farming, and soldiers patrolling. Preston’s eyes were glued to the screen.
“Could somebody please tell me what we’re doing here?” he asked.
“I could be wrong but I think we’re enjoying a brew, living the good life, man.”
“It’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant,” Carver snapped back.
“You watch the news and you see people getting slaughtered, massacres in the streets. You see militias with 10-year-olds as section leaders. You guys seen any of this here?”
Hewitt sat on the couch, bringing his water bottle with him. His eyes were unfocused and he shook his head. He was about to say something but instead took a long swallow.
“There are a dozen countries that beg to be overthrown right now,” Preston continued. “We could save a million lives by taking out one of these dictators.”
It was something that had been nagging Preston for almost a week. By visiting the country, by talking with Jammeh, he’d come to the conclusion that while far from being democratic Katoga was not the worst country in Africa. Not by a long shot. Sure, it was poor, it was corrupt, but the average citizen didn’t complain. It could even be said that they were happy.
“Ours not to reason why, lad. Lord Tennyson realized that a long time ago.”
“Yeah well, Tennyson never lived in Africa.” After a beat, Preston added, “Did he?”
Hewitt chuckled and shrugged, unaware of Lord Tennyson’s travel history. “When someone pays you that much money, it is usually implied that you shouldn’t care about their reasons.”
“Call me concerned.”
“Jesus, Preston!” Carver moaned. “The first thing they teach you in Basic, after how to make a quarter bounce off your bed, is to never question authority. You get an order, you execute it.”
“I was never given an order. I was given a check.”
“Same difference.”
Hewitt drank some vodka, winced, and asked, “You really are having doubts about this?”
“What if we go on with this coup and the guy that becomes the next president is worse? I don’t wanna be that guy. I want some answers.”
He stood up and walked out to the veranda. He wanted to be alone, to think. Then again, thinking was overrated. You were liable to get ideas you wouldn’t like.
Chapter 31
Jasmine felt like she was in a gold-plated junk yard or at the very least in the greatly substandard dorm room of a chronic slob. There were old magazines – Soldier of Fortune, Playboy, Car & Driver – strewn amid dirty clothes and empty pizza boxes.
There was even a glass bong on the coffee table. She had seen enough in college to recognize what it was. Aware of her reputation as a Goody Two-Shoes, she had once sampled one, shutting up her critics and at the same time getting a little field experience for her career in law enforcement.
The dump’s atmosphere was definitely unsettling considering the apartment itself was high luxury. The building was new and located in Baltimore’s Harbor East district. This downtown area had once been filled with decrepit warehouses and other industrial constructions dating back to the manufacturing revolution of the early 20th century.
Now it was sparkling new, gentrified. There were condominiums, shops, hotels, and restaurants, all catering to a new breed of yuppies.
Large windows offered a spectacular view of the Inner Harbor, the northern end of the Patapsco River. She could make out the National Aquarium, the Baltimore Convention Center, Camden Yards, and the stadium where the Baltimore Ravens played.
She wondered what was the use of having high-price digs and not treat it better than this. Low levels of maturity, she concluded.
Her deduction was backed by the 65-inch plasma TV which was mounted on the wall. The image was frozen on a futuristic-looking man, armed to the teeth, in the process of shooting a monster twice his size while a giant explosion was obliterating the scenery in the background. She didn’t have much esteem for grown men who played videogames.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Mr. Littman,” she said.
Marcus Littman was dressed the part. The African-American wore baggy shorts and an oversize basketball shirt. In Jasmine’s mind, nobody over the age of 20 could pull off that look and Littman was 35 according to her notes. He wasn’t the exception.
The only reason she cut him some slack was that he was sitting in a wheelchair, both his legs having been amputated at the knees. The edge of his satiny shorts was barely covering the stumps.
“McSweeney was a good guy, you know. I just don’t understan
d why you would be interested in him.”
“Just part of a routine investigation,” Gervasi clarified. “We need to figure things out about Mr. McSweeney before we can move on to other things.”
“And you want to know about our time together working for MHU Security.”
He might have been immature but he wasn’t stupid. Jasmine had put her computer skills to work cross referencing IRS files for someone who had worked for MHU Security at the same time as McSweeney. Half a day of phone calls were required to narrow it down to Littman.
“We’re especially interested in how he came to leave Iraq,” Jasmine said. “How he came to leave the company.”
“I’m not sure I should be talking about this, you know?”
“Why not?”
“Look, I’ve made a lot of money working for MHU. After some suicide bomber got my legs, they paid the medical bills, got me a nice settlement. I don’t wanna appear ungrateful, you know?”
From his spot on the black leather couch, Gervasi shook his head. “It’s not like we’re asking you to testify in court, or anything. This is a conversation between friends. Nobody outside these walls needs to know anything about this.”
Littman looked away and he pondered the situation. Working for MHU had been the best years of his life. Good hours, great money, and unlike the military you weren’t liable to pull shitcan-emptying detail or kitchen duty.
In the private sector, you did what you were trained for. He didn’t want to jeopardize any of his benefits by talking crap about the best employer he’d ever had.
Then again, there was McSweeney to think about.
“All right, but this is off the record. If I gotta appear in court, you’ll find that the bombing wiped my memory clean. If I see my name in the paper, I’ll deny everything. You know?”
Gervasi and Jasmine exchanged glances and she nodded. At this point, they needed information more than character witnesses.
“Fair enough,” Gervasi agreed.
Littman took a deep breath and began. “We were in southern Iraq, some place I don’t think even has a name, well beyond Basra. McSweeney was on my team, we were providing security for oil fields.”
Chapter 32
Basra, in southern Iraq, is not only the third largest city in the country but also strategically located. By the Persian Gulf, it is a port city on the Shatt al-Arab waterway. The city is geographically atypical of the rest of the country as it sits in a fertile crescent where agriculture is ubiquitous. Some scholars have proposed that Basra is in fact the historical location of the Garden of Eden.
More importantly, the region is famous for its oil. The landscape is dotted with hundreds of oil wells and the city has refineries to output 140,000 barrels a day. Following the invasion in 2003, Basra became highly valuable for the Americans and British.
It was a beautiful day, as was always the case around here. The sun was shining but the temperatures were tolerable due to a gentle breeze coming in from the Persian Gulf.
Oil workers, all local Arabs, were going about their business, attaching the kelly and turntable. Others were preparing to add new joints of pipes as the drilling got deeper. Nearby was a cement truck which would be soon called upon as a concrete casing was mandatory to keep the hole from collapsing.
The massive steel structure of the driller was surrounded by half a dozen Caucasian males. They weren’t supervising the job. In fact, they were looking outward. They were dressed rather casually in tan slacks and T-shirts and were armed with assault rifles and submachine guns. They were walking the perimeter and Preston was among them.
“It was supposed to be a day like any other,” Littman narrated. “Except that we’d been told that one of the top US commanders, General Fairbanks, was touring oil wells in the region, some sort of publicity tour.”
A caravan of Humvees approached. The oil well had been hurriedly encircled by a chain-link fence and Jersey barriers creating a bottleneck for any vehicle that wanted to enter the perimeter. Preston himself had supervised this installation and had made sure the dividers were set up in a sideways Z in order to force cars to slow down.
Preston was vigilant, his eyes scanning the area and his fingers tight against the grip of his rifle. Nearby, Littman, on his feet and looking cool behind Oakley shades, was similarly disposed.
The Humvees were checked out, IDs were verified, and the military personnel were allowed to enter the perimeter. Moments later, the American officers disembarked and shook hands with Armani-clad oil executives who had come for this very reason.
“There had been several attacks on American convoys lately, you know. So everybody was on high alert. We thought we had every angle covered.”
General Fairbanks and his entourage were being shown around by the executives. He drawled out a joke about Texas oil and the suits laughed a little too hard. It was always good to have military commanders in your pocket.
Right at this moment, three of the oil workers who were not clustered together produced M-16 rifles from under their robes.
Preston made out the movement from the corner of his eye and spun around. Before he could take aim, the terrorists were already firing in the general direction of Fairbanks.
This was a security man’s worst nightmare. They had done so much to make sure that the area was secure, not just for the general’s visit but for sabotage in general. MHU providing security 24/7, screened visitors, swept for bombs daily.
Performing background checks on employees was the oil company’s responsibility and they had failed miserably. Then again, that’s what made the insurgents so powerful; you never knew who they were.
Preston, his instincts kicking into gear, trained his weapon on one of the terrorists and shot him, killing the man instantly. He turned around to shoot at the second terrorist but Littman was already pumping him full of rounds.
The third shooter was running away as Preston was firing on him. Simultaneously, the insurgent was shooting at General Fairbanks who was himself trying to take cover behind a nearby Humvee. The Iraqi put little value on his life and for this reason realized that running up behind the officer was a surefire way of achieving his objective.
Preston kept shooting, confident in his marksmanship, and finally managed to kill the last terrorist as he passed behind the general. The satisfaction of having saved the life of one of the highest ranking American officers in Iraq was short-lived.
Fairbanks, who had lunged forward to avoid the firefight, collapsed in the hail of fire. Blood poured out of his upper torso. His mouth was twisted in pain and surprise, but his eyes were lifeless. Littman quickly arrived to administer CPR while the other contractors were securing the perimeter. It was too late. General Fairbanks was dead.
The threat neutralized, Preston was shell-shocked. Caught in the fog of war, he had reacted impulsively but has also disregarded basic rules of warfare. For a moment, he’d been sure his skills with a firearm had no equal. It wasn’t the case.
He dropped his rifle, fell to his knees, and couldn’t stop looking at the American he’d killed.
~ ~ ~ ~
As it was her custom, Jasmine was taking notes. Her memory was flawless but her forensic mind told her only to trust hard evidence. Having proper notes were necessary to beef up her report.
“And that was that,” Littman said. “Everybody saw how McSweeney shot the general, you know?”
“McSweeney killed General Fairbanks?” Jasmine asked. “You’re sure about that?”
“There was no doubt about it. He disregarded shooting safety by discharging his weapon with a friendly in the line of fire. Like I said, everybody saw it.”
Gervasi was incredulous and he ran a hand through his hair. That was the last thing he had expected to hear coming to meet this guy.
“And that’s how he lost his job?”
“Well, did you learn about his Army career?”
“You mean about the gang rape and the shooting?” Gervasi pointed out.
; “Yeah well, if you know that then you know the company didn’t want that kind of liability. The official report was that Fairbanks was killed by insurgents because MHU didn’t want to lose contracts.”
“But everybody knew what happened.”
Littman nodded. “Spreading rumors is all there is to do in the desert if you don’t like fucking camels. I never heard from McSweeney again.”
Once more, Jasmine and Gervasi shared a concerned look. This guy has more skeletons in his closet than a politician from the Tudor era. Mulling this over, Jasmine couldn’t help wondering how many pages her report would have. Certainly not under 30.
Littman glanced at his watch not so discreetly and then allowed his eyes to roam toward his big-ass plasma. He was on level 12 and he was just about to destroy the command center of the alien invaders. He wanted to finish the game before the start of the Orioles doubleheader.
“Are we done here?”
Chapter 33
A light drizzle was falling on downtown Los Angeles. Preston was in a rental car which smelled vaguely of wet dog and Bengay. On the flight between London and New York he had caught a movie about Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper system who had to wage 15 years of legal battles against the Detroit Big Three to get his patents recognized.
In the spirit of things, Preston turned on his wipers on a low setting. This enhanced his view of the Civic Center neighborhood where the entire city was administered. City Hall rose majestically in the background. He gave the building a cursory inspection and then returned to his objective.
He was currently parked across the street from the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, the main branch of the Los Angeles Superior Court and the largest courthouse in the United States. The facade was almost plain though. On the ground level there were a series of glass doors and immediately above it were several floors worth of travertine blocks on which were inlaid three statues representing justice.