Ocean of Storms

by Christopher Mari

  He made his decision. He picked up the photo and ran his hand across the glass. “Forgive me, son.”

  He reached for the phone and dialed a number he didn’t often use but knew by heart.

  “Colonel Casey? Jim McKenna. Sorry to call you so late, Mitch, but I’ve got a job for your boys.”

  Badru’s village was poorer than Donovan remembered. All around him red-robed Maasai warriors drifted by, eyeing them with caution, their spears ever at the ready but with eyes and arms too tired or weak from malnutrition to use them. Once Badru was spotted among their group, the warriors let down their guard somewhat, but the exhaustion in their eyes remained. The continuing battles between the Maasai and the Tanzanian government had left the tribe on the edge of extinction.

  Ever since settlement of the Ngorongoro Crater had been banned by the government back in 1974, the Maasai had experienced numerous difficulties in trying to maintain their traditional lifestyle. The first came in the early 1990s when cattle grazing was banned from the crater and the tribe was unable to find pastures for their livestock in the dry season. Without hunting or pasturing or water rights in the crater, the tribe had come to rely more and more upon tourism as a means for survival. And now even that had been taken from them. Since the government closed the crater two years ago due to the supposed outbreak, few tourists had come out to see the remnants of East Africa’s once-most-powerful tribe.

  The village was also smaller, less lively, with fewer children running around. The few that Donovan did see either clung weakly to their mothers’ breasts or limped softly into view, usually peeking around the hips of their elders. Despite the efforts of industrialized nations over the last decade to bring life-saving drugs to the continent to combat AIDS, Ebola, and other diseases, far too little of the medicine had gotten through to the people who needed it most. Whatever corrupt government officials hadn’t snatched up for themselves had been stolen by bandits. And despite their once-overwhelming power in the region, the Maasai had been no exception to the overall population drop in Africa.

  Looking at the Maasai now, Donovan was reminded of the Native American reservations that he had visited with his father while they were living out west. The only thing that separated the Maasai now from those indigenous peoples was a few hundred years of history, a few hundred years of pillage, murder, slow death by disease and poverty. Except in the Maasai’s case, they might not even last that long.

  “Hey, Donovan,” Benny muttered from the corner of his mouth. “You mind telling me why this dude’s holding my hand?”

  Donovan grinned despite himself. “He’s leading you to dinner.”

  “I can see that,” Benny said, nodding at the feast laid out before them. “But why does he have to lead me around by the hand like I’m his girlfriend or something?”

  “The Maasai are a very affectionate people,” Zell noted from his place in the procession. “Men often walk around holding hands. They’re welcoming us into their family as honored guests.”

  Benny sighed. “I’m just glad the guys in my squadron can’t see this. I’d never hear the end of it.”

  “But they’re the ones missing out, Commander,” Zell added. “You see, we’ve come on a special day. They’re going to be initiating a new group of young men into the morani, the warrior class of the Maasai.”

  “You’re kidding,” Benny said as he took his seat at the banquet table. “So it’s like a graduation or something?”

  Soong laughed. “Not exactly.”

  Benny shook his head. “I dunno if I like the sound of that laugh. What am I missing? Do they haveta kill a lion or something?”

  “In the old days we did,” Badru noted as he sat next to Benny. “But conservation laws now restrict that. But there is one trial that the warriors must still endure.”

  “I hate to ask, but—”

  “It’s a circumcision ceremony.”

  “Oh no,” Benny said, rubbing his eyes. “Somebody please tell me he’s kidding. We’re gonna see a bunch of kids get snipped?”

  “Not kids,” Donovan noted. “Most are about fourteen or fifteen; some are as old as eighteen. It all depends on when the elders of the tribe decide they need a new group of warriors.”

  “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Benny groaned.

  “I’d suggest you don’t,” Zell said, leaning across the table. “The morani can’t so much as flinch during the procedure. If they do, they disgrace their families. If you do, you’ll disgrace us.”

  Before them now were gathered the uncircumcised Maasai, known as the laiyok. Each of them wore long black robes and kept his hair long and oily as well. Soon, as Badru explained, their heads would be shaved to display their new status, and over the next few months they would be required to wear headdresses of birds’ feathers.

  “The boys who do not flinch at all during the ceremony are given ostrich plumes and eagle feathers,” Badru noted. “And after the ceremony they’ll go around teasing younger boys to go through the ceremony and not flinch.”

  “Talk about rough basic training,” Benny said. “But how do they prove themselves as warriors?”

  Badru sighed. “Again, the tests have now long since been banned. Once, they would kill a lion, armed with only a spear, and later they would be able to wear a headdress made from a lion’s mane. Or they could prove themselves in battle. Now also outlawed.”

  “It seems like this teenage circumcision is a lot to go through nowadays,” Benny noted, “with very few perks.”

  “At least for now,” Badru remarked. “Perhaps someday we will be called upon to become true warriors again.”

  “What’re they doing?”

  Sherwood lifted his eyes from his binoculars and looked at Miller. “Nothing. Looks like they’re getting ready to eat. We’re not going to be able to get a shot at them now. Too much activity.”

  Miller grunted in agreement. “They want us to do this quietly. Knocking out a whole village might get the government’s attention.” Miller took the binoculars from Sherwood and peered through them at the village. “So we take them at the crater. Dispose of the bodies there.”

  “Our employer doesn’t want them to reach the dig,” Sherwood observed.

  “We can get them as they enter the crater,” Miller said. “There they’ll just become food for the wildlife.”

  Chapter 20

  September 12

  Arusha, Tanzania

  1:16 p.m.

  “Colonel? They’re on the move.”

  Mitch Casey snapped awake from his brief combat nap, stood up ramrod straight, and looked his lieutenant in the eye.

  “Do we have confirmation?”

  “We spotted a Jeep loaded down with equipment heading in the direction of the site.”

  Casey nodded, staring out at the midafternoon sun. “Then let’s go get ’em.”

  “Yes, sir!” barked the lieutenant, then ducked out of the tent and began rounding up the men. Casey smiled. He had spent more than thirty-five years in service of his country, twenty-seven of those in special warfare, but he honestly felt this was the finest unit he’d ever led. On the books the team was known as Task Force Sierra—or the Sierra Club, as the boys in the teams liked to say—but to Casey and those around him, they were more commonly called the Wolverines, having adopted the ferocious mammal as their symbol. The name had come about as a result of the team’s reputation for fighting tirelessly to the last soldier. In the team’s seven-year history, they had traveled to some of the worst hot zones the planet had to offer and had taken down more than their share of heavy hitters. Before long, the word spread: if you wanted someone bagged, tagged, and brought home, you called in the Wolverines.

  When Casey had gotten the call from General McKenna, he realized something serious was up. A team like his wasn’t often contacted directly by the top brass, who always wanted to have as much plausible deniability as possible between them and whatever mission the Wolverines would be sent on. And what he learned from McKenna a
bout this mission was almost beyond belief. A ship on the Moon. Time travel. Technology beyond belief. As crazy as it all sounded, since the pulse Casey found few things beyond imagining.

  Yet the reasons behind this mission didn’t matter now. All that he needed to know was that some folks had gone off the reservation. He and his men had to bring them back.

  Which was exactly what he intended to do.

  September 12

  Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

  1:17 p.m.

  The Jeep sped through the Serengeti Plain, kicking up dust in its wake. The vehicle had to be at least twenty years old and, from the way it was rattling over the terrain, seemed destined to fly apart at any moment.

  “It figures we’d be ferried to what promises to be the most important dig of our careers in this rattletrap,” moaned Zell. “It’s something like poetic justice.”

  “I don’t know what’s worse,” Donovan said, turning the vehicle onto a main road. “This car’s clattering or your whining.”

  “Whining? Who’s whining? I just think this journey would have been much more pleasant if we could have taken Jolene with us.”

  Jolene was a monster of a Humvee, which Zell had personally outfitted with the latest in hi-tech GPS, radar, and infrared technology, as well as numerous other gadgets—and creature comforts—that made remote digs a little easier. He had not yet had the chance to use the vehicle.

  “Yes, Little Lord Fauntleroy’s Twenty-First-Century Panzer Tank,” Donovan quipped. “Just the thing for traveling incognito. We head out in that thing, and everybody from the Navy SEALs to the Cub Scouts will be on our tail.”

  Donovan took Zell’s silence and the lighting of his cigar for acceptance.

  “If I could interrupt for a moment,” Soong said, leaning forward in her seat. “what’s the game plan here?”

  “Well, my dear, not for the first time do we find ourselves in uncharted waters,” said Zell. “I’ve loaded this girl up with as much equipment from the institute as she could take. It’s not a lot, but it should give us enough to analyze the crater site once we get there. After we find the ship, well, that’s where the guessing games start.”

  With that, the group lapsed into silence, taking a moment to enjoy the sights around them. Donovan and Zell had been here before, but to Benny and Soong, the terrain was a wonderland of new discoveries. As far as their eyes could see, the shimmering plains of the Serengeti stretched out before them. In the distance, Soong could see scads of flamingos skimming down onto the waters of a lake, in whose reflection she could make out a silver line of sky. Soong’s eyes flitted to the rearview mirror. At the same instant, Alan’s eyes met hers in the mirror. He quickly looked away, concentrating a little harder on the road.

  She in turn glanced out the window, letting herself get lost in the landscape.

  September 12

  Arusha, Tanzania

  5:05 p.m.

  “Something’s not right here,” muttered Mitch Casey. He and the team had been following their quarry discreetly for the better part of the day, lagging behind in their APC, which had been cleverly redressed as a tourist van. But now Casey was beginning to smell a rat.

  “Sir?” asked the lieutenant, a young, dark-haired man named Kapoor.

  “They’re leading us in the wrong direction.”

  “I don’t know, sir. They’re with a guide. He knows the area.”

  Casey took another look at the map. “If he knows the area, then why are they driving away from the target area? Face it, Kapoor. We’re being taken to the cleaners.”

  “Should we intercept?”

  Casey scratched his chin as he thought on it. “Negative. They’re already a little jumpy. We go in hot right now, and it could get bad really quick.”

  “What do you advise?”

  “They’re heading for that forest,” Casey said. “The map calls it the Lerai Forest. My guess is they’re going to make camp and figure out how best to ditch us for good.” He turned to the driver. “Disengage, Corporal.”

  “Sir?” the driver asked.

  “You heard me. Fall back. We’re going to let them think they’ve lost us, then do a little snooping.”

  “And after that?” Kapoor asked.

  “After that,” said Casey, “we move in and put an end to this little safari.”

  September 13

  Lerai Forest, Tanzania

  6:16 a.m.

  In Lerai Forest, a heavy mist clung to the trees. A lone figure stood at the campsite, stirring the dying embers from last night’s fire. Suddenly the site was alive with red points of light as the Wolverines stormed out of their natural cover, the laser sights of their weapons pointed at the man’s back.

  “Freeze!” barked the team leader. “Get down on your knees, put your hands behind your head, and interlock your fingers . . . now!”

  The man did as he was told, raising his hands with an obvious air of defeat. It was over. The team leader reached out, spinning him around by his shoulders. He stepped back, surprised at the smiling face in front of him.

  “Vipi, rafiki?” Badru said. What’s up, friend?

  In response, the steady sound of clapping filled the morning air.

  “Very clever,” said Casey, walking toward Badru. “Very, very clever. So tell me, how long were you planning on keeping up this wild goose chase?”

  “Until you ran out of gas or I ran out of interest, I suppose,” Badru replied in a conversational tone.

  Casey paused. “Let me tell you something. My mandate for this mission doesn’t call for the use of terminal force.” He moved in closer, face-to-face with Badru. “Unless I’m met with resistance. Interfering with a military operation. Jeopardizing national security. You’re in dangerous territory, my friend.”

  Casey then became aware of subtle, almost imperceptible movements in the spaces between the trees. Moving soundlessly, a host of Maasai warriors emerged from the mist. Dressed in red robes, their faces painted in the traditional makeup of the warrior class, they looked like time travelers from an age long forgotten. They brandished spears, swords, and clubs confidently and with assurance. The lead warrior, newly inducted only two nights before, sidled catlike up to Casey and put his sword to the colonel’s throat, his skeletal face locked in a determined grimace.

  “No, my friend,” said Badru. “I am afraid it is you who is in dangerous territory.”

  Casey paused a moment, reading the movements of his teammates. He had to admit, even after all the years of warfare and all the hot spots they’d been in, his men seemed frightened. He himself was not, having long since abolished fear from his genetic makeup. However, he knew enough to realize that should things take a turn for the worse, he could be looking at an international incident the likes of which could forever taint the office of his commander in chief.

  In capitulation, he raised his hands. Almost in unison, the rest of the Wolverines performed similarly, lowering their weapons, if not their guard.

  “That’s better,” said Badru. He looked at the warriors. “Asanteni sana,” he said with a wave of his hand, and they quietly stood down. Badru looked back at Casey. He clapped him on the shoulder warmly, then broke into a wide smile. “Karibu, rafiki. Do you like coffee?”

  Casey paused in slight bewilderment. “Sure.”

  “Then sit with me, friend. And your men too. The fire’s just getting started.”

  Badru took a seat on a rock and began poking at the fire with a stick. When Casey joined him after a moment, the suddenly stoic archeologist looked at the colonel and leaned in closely.

  “And now,” Badru said, “perhaps you can explain to me your interest in Alan Donovan.”

  September 13

  Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania

  6:47 a.m.

  After a few more hours of driving through the mountain roads, Donovan and the others pulled off to an area alongside the crater wall. Their somewhat circuitous path to the crater cost them valuable time, but
Donovan deemed the delay necessary. The main road into the conservation area was always guarded, even when it had been a tourist spot. Since its closing two years ago, the site was even more closely watched. Donovan opted to play it safe, after he was informed by Maasai scouts that he and his team were being followed.

  “I think we’re going to need to hike from here,” he told the others flatly.

  “What?” Zell roared. “And leave all this equipment behind?”

  “Come on, Elias. You know we’re being tracked.”

  Zell reluctantly agreed. He was frustrated, sneaking around like this, yet he was also reminded just how valuable the prize was.

  The crater wall stretched up in front of them, more than sixteen hundred feet high and sloping at a steep angle.

  “So we’ve got to climb this thing?” Benny asked, shouldering his pack as he peered up the crater wall.

  “It’s the only way,” Donovan said. “Straight up.”

  “Great, great. So what happens when we reach the top?”

  “Then, Benny, we head the only other way. Straight down.”

  Benny shook his head and began the hike up the crater wall. “This trip just gets better all the time.”

  The hike up was long, tortuous. But for all its arduousness, the climb provided many wonders as well. The forested woodlands of the crater wall revealed a primeval paradise that seemed untouched by the passing of centuries. As the travelers wound their way through rugged outcrops of rock and thick, riverine forest, they were treated to a number of thrilling spectacles. Poking up from the dense underbrush, Soong noticed the akimbo limbs of a wildebeest. She peered a little closer before the bloodied face of a lioness popped up. Her curiosity quickly vanished, and she froze a moment before Donovan’s hand on her shoulder brought her back onto the trail.

  “This isn’t the place to sightsee,” he said with a smile.

  After a few more hours of hiking, they reached the rim of the crater. The view was spectacular. In the distance, they could see yellow fever trees, shining silver lakes, and verdant grasslands. Two thousand feet below them, they could just make out the crater floor, with herds of animals moving silently about.