This means there is hope. This means a part of him I’ve loved all those years still remain.
Aimee left the bag on the mat, closed her front door and locked it. She wasn’t stupid. Of course, she should lock all her doors and windows and take every precaution available to her. She also had another idea. She called her teacher friend, Shelley.
“How was the meeting, Aimee? And have you heard from Andy yet since he’s been gone?” She was always direct and didn’t sugarcoat anything.
“Not since he got there. I might hear tonight. But, Shelley, after I got home seeing Carmen Hernandez, I got a beautiful package left for me on my doorstep. It’s a bracelet, made from found things at the beach. Shells, a bottle cap, a marble, pieces of coral. It’s really beautiful, and a little crude, but he made it with his own hands.”
“Who made it?”
“Logan. I know it was Logan.”
“Oh dear, did you see him lurking around your door or something?”
“No. And that’s a little unkind, don’t you think?”
“Well, he does have a drug and alcohol problem. You don’t want to mess around with that, Aimee. I thought Andy made you promise—”
“Yes, he did. But I’m being careful.”
“You still keep the gun beside your bed?”
“Yup, in the bedside table. Just like when I was living in the bungalow last summer. But Shelley, I think this is a really good sign. I think it was a call for help.”
“You’re not qualified. He needs professional help.”
“But he’s my brother. He reached out to me. Am I supposed to just turn my back on him?”
“You’re not turning your back on him. You’re getting him the help he needs. He doesn’t need a friend who likes his jewelry. He has much larger issues. You don’t know how sick he is, and I’m pretty sure Andy would be upset if he thought you were trying to encourage him.”
Aimee wiped the thought out of her mind, refusing to listen to that little voice of doubt coming from the back of her head. “You should see the bracelet. It’s so unusual.”
Shelley’s voice became quiet. Then she asked the question Aimee didn’t want to answer. “So, what did you do, Aimee?” Shelley knew her all too well.
“I gave him some clothes. Well, I didn’t see him, of course. But I gave him a couple pairs of Andy’s old jeans, still in good shape. A couple shirts, some underwear, a pair of running shoes, and toiletries—soap and toothpaste.”
“Unbelievable,” Shelley sighed into the phone.
“I’ve locked all my doors and windows. Just to be sure.”
“Um hum.” Shelley was unusually quiet while Aimee also told her about the bananas, waters and the mango juice and hand sanitizer.
“I just wanted to help, that’s all. Wouldn’t you do the same? What if it was one of your kids, living on the street? Wouldn’t you do something?”
“I’d call the cops.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I know you, Shelley. You’re just as kind-hearted as I am.”
“There’s a reason they tell you not to give the people at the grocery store money. They buy drugs and alcohol with it.”
“I didn’t give him any money.”
“Oh. My. God. I should hope not.”
“I gave him clothes and stuff that would be good for him.”
“You know you’re wasting your time justifying what you did.”
Aimee felt her anger brewing and didn’t appreciate Shelley’s lack of compassion.
“You’re a fucking snob, Shelley.” She immediately regretted the outburst.
“Oh yeah? So, answer me this one question, Aimee. Why did you call me? Why even check the windows and doors? You know you were acting a little reckless. What would happen if he knocked on your door? If he showed up on your patio?”
“Well, he already did that.”
“Oh, Jesus. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Now I’m going to call the cops.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. He made a drawing in the sand. A heart. Inside, it had both our names in it. He was telling me he knew about the wedding. Shelley, this gives me hope. Hope that my brother, whatever faults he has and no matter what health issues are going on with him, that there’s some part of him—a good, healthy part of him that remains. I want to appeal to that good side, that healthy part of him, not treat him like a criminal or street urchin. I think you’re heartless, Shelley.”
Aimee could hear her heavy breathing and knew she was biting her tongue.
“And I’m sorry about the part about you being a snob. That was unkind of me.”
In a very measured voice, Shelley revealed her thoughts. “Aimee, this isn’t Disneyland, my friend. You have to start living in the real world, not the one you want it to be. Let the people who are professionals do their job. You need to get out of the way, even if you think you’re being cruel.”
“But—”
“Just imagine this. What would happen to him if he caused you harm? What if you encouraged him too soon, made a judgment about what he was thinking and who he was, when in actuality that didn’t begin to describe who he’s become, Aimee? And, if he really wanted to gain access to your house, wouldn’t he have a pretty easy time breaking your sliding glass door down? He could do it with a lawn chair, or one of your bricks on the patio. Are you telling me you’d shoot him? Or, would you hesitate?”
“I think you’re making more out of this than needs to be.”
“So, ask yourself honestly the answers to those questions. And the real reason you called me? You wanted to feel safe. You’d better check your gut, Aimee. And, I think you should come over and stay with me tonight, and then let’s go call Social Services or that doctor you met with and ask them what to do. Because, if you think you can help him on your own, you might make everything worse.”
Chapter 10
First light of day, Andy requested he be able to call Aimee on his cell. Peterson asked him to wait until they had a day in the city of Benot, which had been planned for tomorrow.
“Not worried about the technology of a group finding you as I am your bubble showing up in someone’s internet preferences here, and then that information gets relayed to someone else who can cause us a problem. And I’m the only one authorized to use the SAT phone,” Peterson said.
Andy could see it was hard for him to tell him no.
“So, am I on the team doing some reconnaissance in the jungle, or working the equipment?”
“Did you get your triage set up?”
“All done, sir. Your new man, Conley Brown. He’s got a good head on his shoulder. He organizes like it’s DIY Benin Jungle, Season 4. I can tell they’ve put those guys through some still drills to have them work that fast. I don’t remember being taught that.”
“He’s been around it all his life. His mother is a Navy doc, stationed right now in Djibouti.”
“No shit?”
“That’s what I’m told. He’s serious about not being a One and Done. Plans to get his twenty in.”
“He’s a good candidate for it,” agreed Andy. “So, you didn’t answer my question.”
“Well, if you’re not needed with the setup, then sure, I’d like you and Sven to take several guys and head south to a plain, a small savannah atop Mont Sokbaro. It’s a day trip. You’ll be on your own overnight, come back tomorrow morning. We got drone footage of some local trails. We need to check on something that showed up.”
“You’re gonna want it painted?”
“Only if you identify something. I’ll give you the com so we can do a three-way with our friendlies in the sky. What our bird can see, so can others. I don’t need them to know we’re looking there, if you get my drift.”
“Understood.”
“You want me to pick the team?”
“Yessir. I’m not quite up to date on the skillset.”
“Head back to the bunker and get Sven packing. I’ll meet you there with my list, and I’ll send others I see over there. Make s
ure Conley knows he’s not to be giving Viagra to the locals, okay? And no animal medicine in our surgery, got it?”
“Fuck no. You think—”
“Gunnar Larssen is a bullshitter from way back. We gotta work with him, but if I catch anything dirty on him, I’m reporting it. He has a huge authority complex. He’s going to be envious of some of your equipment, particularly the disinfectants and antibiotics and pain killers. All the expensive stuff.”
“Must be something in the water, sir.”
“I’m not tracking, Andy.”
“Seems like everyone is trying to seize power, using other resources to get it, or get one over on everyone else.”
“We’re talking centuries of uprisings and violence. They squander their freedoms fighting for everything. No one is strong enough to overcome it. So, Uncle Sam, the Chinese, Russians, we all add our powder to the mix and wham! Someone gets power who shouldn’t have. One thing’s for certain, it isn’t about the blue baboons, or the people or even about the ecosphere. It’s all about power and who has it, and who doesn’t.”
Andy didn’t have much to say, except to internally notice Peterson actually understood a lot more about the dynamics of Western Africa than he let on. It was running a Team he was light on. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“Sir, can I recommend someone to you?”
“Go ahead. I got turned down for several I said were critical. Who?”
“You need Tucker Hudson. You need Fredo, Danny Begay, and his cousin who is a SWCC boat guy, if we’ll be doing anything on the Niger River. Armando and T.J. would be good too. But Tucker. He’s the key. He’s like the glue. Second time around for him and the man is tough. Sven is great, but he’s not American-grown, and that makes a difference. The men trust Tucker. And, you need a couple of bullies standing up or silencing Mr. Larssen. Fredo has a way of using humor to knock a guy off his perch. Is Gunnar even military any longer?”
“Supposed to be strictly on the UN payroll. But we don’t know who else has him by the balls. I’m really not happy to have to work with him, and I’ve only been here not even a day.”
Peterson drew a line in the red dusty soil. “Tucker’s expecting a little one any day, Kyle told me. And he doesn’t want to miss the birth. You know how that is. It’s not his time up, so for a special duty, he’s got to be willing.”
“That’s too bad. How much longer?”
“He didn’t tell me. I think soon. But this is baby #2, so anything goes. You know that.”
“Indeed, I do.”
“Well, maybe Brandy and the kid will cooperate, and he can get out of night feedings and come join the circus over here, sir.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?”
Several minutes later Andy and Sven were trading equipment and admiring their packs. It was a common thing to do, show customization for little compartments used to stash their tools of choice. Like tattoos, showing off their gear or some cool feature they’d stitched into their bags—toolbelts to protect and hold that gear, was a pastime. Almost like a pissing contest and it helped spend hours of waiting or non-sleep when they were just too wired.
Dallas’ shadow completely filled the doorway. Behind him, stood Archie Nolan, Kit Holmes, Connor Lannahan and Qwanme Jones. Jones was the only one bigger and taller than Dallas, having just taken leave of a lucrative football career to join up with the Teams after his little brother was killed in Afghanistan some five years prior. Andy made the introductions to Sven, getting help from the team filling in the blanks.
Peterson arrived last.
“Dallas, you’re point man on this, and I want you right next to him, Sven. We got four of you who speak French, which will have to do. Benin has some fifty dialects and ethnic languages, and we’d not be ready until the next century if we had to be fluent in any of them.”
The team grumbled agreement.
“Last night we got some good drone footage of a nice grassy area—” he pulled out a map of West Africa, pointing to a northern central region of Benin. “This here is Mont Sokbaro, and it’s a favorite for excursions to capture baboons, chimps and some Western African Gorillas, mostly for poaching breeders for zoos, since it’s a big no-no to capture underage or females with little ones. They identified a couple sites here and here.” Peterson showed two lighted areas taken with night vision photography. “You need to check out both camps, determine if they’re civilian or militia, or otherwise. They have the advantage of heavy tree coverage, so a night drop was deemed unfeasible. But they can’t hide everything.”
Off to the side of both areas were perimeter square-shaped probably stone and block structures, and inside the heat signature showed a dotting of humans, either troops overnighting or setting camp, or kidnap victims.
“Quite common here is the kidnapping of school-age children for ransom. But aid workers? Those are greatly prized.” Peterson said and set his jaw, grinding his teeth. “One thing you don’t see are vehicles. No roads here. Lots of rough turf, even though the mountain forms a nice plateau, it’s still too rough for an airstrip. So, figure everyone who’s here has hiked up, same as you. And if there are prisoners or children, you have to figure they would have suffered under the laborious journey.”
The men passed around the IR black and white photos, occasionally pointing to mountain trails or other items of interest.
Sven had a question. “So other than the guys left back at base, who are our backups?”
“We’re to call State first, then the Africacorps. They earn a decent wage here, and come from all over Central Africa, but they can easily be hired by the militias, who pay a lot better. And, of course, they’ll be more motivated to fight to save their own farms and communities. When those guys desert, they take their guns and equipment and maps with them.”
One of the men asked if anyone had taken direct responsibility for the aid workers abduction.
Sven was quick to answer. “New groups sprouting up all the time. These aid workers are like cash cows to them. They are easy targets, usually have family somewhere who care about them and can pay up. Even the municipal police are sometimes in on it, or try to take over someone else’s operation.”
“And from what the Headshed told me, the Africacorps guys go home whenever violence starts erupting back at home, unless they’re conscripted criminals. They’ll work for the highest bidder, so don’t count on them.” Sven was all program now, not an ounce of frivolity in his tone of voice.
Andy asked the crowd if anyone had more questions or had noted something they hadn’t noticed. The room was silent.
“These guys aren’t evil, the ones who cause all this mayhem. They’re opportunity players and generally not well trained. But some of them have served along some of our Special Forces, and they notice everything. Do not show photographs, maps, or do anything to make them think we’re a forward guard of some small invasion or rescue army. They switch sides frequently, depending on who is paying. They’d prefer peace, but war is way more profitable. After generations in a row now of destabilizing wars, most of them have not known what peace even looks like.”
Andy added, “And you’re not going to win their hearts and minds by being a nice guy. They play rough, and hard and they are constantly looking for opportunity to remove certain things from your possession. So we should stay in twos. No lone wolf forays into the bush. You’re liable not to come back.”
Peterson handed Jones the com and watched as it was slipped into a padded pocket on the footballer’s backpack. He handed Dallas and Andy each a SAT phone. Sven didn’t attempt to hide his disapproval that he didn’t get one. Qwanme passed out Invisios to everyone. They tested batteries on everything they brought, and then announced the party’s departure in thirty minutes.
The jungle gave some relief from the scalding sun, except for small clearings which sometimes were just naturally dried-up finger lakes, or places where a building or residence had once resided. As they began to climb at the base of
the four-hundred foot “hill” that shouldn’t have been called Mont anything, Andy turned around to look at where they’d been. The sweeping vistas here were unlike anything else he’d seen in Northwest Africa. Thin fingers of light smoke drifted around in spots on the valley floor carrying with it the scent of barbeque.
At a distance, the whole plain below looked like some National Geographic special on the landscape of an underpopulated land famous for shipping more slaves to England and the Eastern United States than just about anywhere else. Yet it looked so serene and peaceful.
After several grueling hours, by midafternoon, they had reached what would have been a summit if Mont Sokbaro hadn’t blown its top centuries ago. What lay in the area before them was a lush, green valley overpopulated with vines and twisting trees covering up the jagged edges of the crater’s rim. Their feet padded across the red loamy soil easily five hundred feet deep that had at one time covered the entire area. Steam emanated from the red clay, indicating an abundance of moisture and the bio breakdown of dead branches and trees.
At an abandoned school or government building of some kind, they stopped to take refreshment, study the maps again and set up a temporary night camp.
Andy’s calves were burning and his ankles were sore from little stumbles and caused him to bring all his weight down on a turned foot. It was going to feel good to stop, and maybe they’d let him have just ten minutes of meditation, before they’d prepare their evening meal. He knew the instant spaghetti was going to taste damned good. He’d even lick the damned container, he was so hungry.
Chapter 11
“Have you made the call yet?” Shelley asked.
Aimee had gotten up late, still in a rotten mood. They tried to talk when she arrived at Shelley’s house last night. She probably had too much wine, and then she began the worry about what had been wafting around the back of her head now for the past twenty-four hours: no call from Andy.
The House At Sunset: SEALed At Sunset - The Beach Renovation (Sunset SEALs Book 5) Page 9