by Connor Black
Vehicle number 56 turned out to be an old Toyota pickup. Tucked into a corner of the dirt lot behind the police station and covered with a thin layer of dust, ‘56’ wasn’t just the identifier, it was probably its age.
Standing before the little truck, Sterba turned to me and said, “Well, at least this will be familiar to you.” I smiled at the reference to my grandfather’s flat deck in Auckland that Sterba disliked so much.
“Feels like home,” I said as I sat behind the wheel and turned the ignition. She was a little reluctant to start straightaway, but soon we were sputtering up the hill to the hotel.
Having cleared security and parked the little pickup, we found ourselves in front of the collapsed portico, exactly where we’d stood the day before. My eyes ran over the burnt facade again, imagining the guests in their beds as the bomb went off. It was a scene that was sadly familiar.
A loud crashing sound came from our left. Instinctively, I crouched and moved my hand in the direction of the weapon holstered on my hip.
“Easy, partner,” Sterba said, coming to my side. “Worker just dropped some lumber.”
“Sorry,” I replied.
“Something you want to tell me?”
“Mmm.” I wasn’t really listening. I stepped forward, making my way over small piles of debris into the destroyed lobby. Having looked at the bomb’s point of origin yesterday, I found myself making a circuit of the rooms surrounding the kitchen.
We came across a stairway and moved up to the second floor. A long corridor, badly damaged by smoke and fire, led to rooms closer to the blast radius. The narrow confines of the hallway, combined with the smell of burnt wallboard and plastics, continued to remind me of a very similar situation.
“It was a few years ago,” I said quietly. “The Kabul Inter-Continental.”
The scene in Kabul had borne a striking resemblance to this one. A long hotel, five stories high, slightly isolated location. I was with NZSAS at the time, and we had arrived on scene after the first three suicide bombers had detonated themselves.
“I remember hearing about that. Terrible night.”
“It was.”
As we made our way further down the hall, more rooms had caution tape across their doorways. Looking in one, we could see the exterior wall gone, and most of the floor missing. The next showed the same. And the next.
“It was 2011. There was a security conference on at the hotel. Local officials were organizing and preparing for the withdraw of international forces.”
“There was a wedding in the hotel as well, right?” Sterba asked.
I nodded, and continued, “Nine insurgents were hidden in the vegetation behind the hotel. When they entered, they came in hard and fast. Blew right through security.”
“I would’ve thought a meeting like that would be heavily secured.”
“It was. But these guys came loaded for bear. Assault rifles, grenades, RPGs, you name it. They cut through the checkpoints all too easily. They also wore suicide vests. When the surviving security forces saw that, they turned and ran.”
I remembered our assault vividly. Fast roping from helos onto the roof inside a protective ring of cover fire. Gaining entry and clearing the stairs, one of the more dangerous moments for any operator. The screams of hotel guests mixing with the screams of the Taliban fighters as we cleared each floor. The grenades they used that injured one of my squad mates. The venomous anger on the dirty face of one of them through my reflex sight just before I squeezed the trigger.
And I remembered the explosion when the last of the Taliban fighters detonated himself just as the sun rose.
The scene here was, for some reason, sadder to me. In Kabul, we had been able to shorten the attack, and kill those responsible. Here, we were too late. With eleven people dead, the damage had been done.
The next room we looked in had a small pile of clothes inside the door. I reached down and pulled up a young girl’s dress. A large portion of it had burned away. The seared edges crumbled in my fingers. I didn’t know if the dress had belonged to a daughter in the British family that had been killed in this attack, or if it had simply burned in the fire after another family had evacuated. In reality, it didn’t matter.
We might have been too late to save the eleven people that died here, but we were not too late to find the monster that did this.
I let the dress drop back to the ground. “I’ve seen enough,” I said.
In the lobby, we met one of Kahembe’s men we recognized from yesterday. As he was telling us how the cleanup effort was coming along, the soft sound of distant thunder interrupted. I looked out through the damaged portico.
“Thunder?” Sterba asked.
The weather in Tanzania, especially at this high altitude, can be changeable. But there was nothing indicating a storm was nearby. The silence was broken by a chirp on the officer’s radio.
“Please excuse me,” he said, turning away and putting the radio to his ear. Two other policemen just outside the lobby were doing the same.
“I don’t think that was thunder, Sterbs.”
The policemen began shouting to one another in rapid Swahili. The officer we had been speaking with broke out of the conversation to explain.
“The airport,” he said, urgency in his voice. “Another bombing. I must go.”
“We’re right behind you,” I said. “Kilimanjaro?”
“No, Arusha,” he said as he ran to the car park.
9
“It appears an explosive device was in one of the suitcases,” Lieutenant Kahembe explained as we stood on the apron at Arusha’s tiny regional airport. “It detonated after falling off one of the baggage carriers that were being hand-towed to the plane.”
Having left our vehicle in the dirt parking lot, Sterba and I were brought immediately to the scene of the detonation. Lieutenant Kahembe stood before a train of three small metal wagons that were used to pull bags to the aircraft. The device had obviously been in a bag on the last wagon, because the frame was a tangled mess, covered by suitcase fragments and singed strips of clothing.
A man in a dirty high-visibility vest held a battered red water can, the black hose in his other hand delivering a tiny stream of water over the smoldering pile of tattered luggage. Behind him, a fire truck—easily fifty years old—rested. It’s hood was up, and two men were arguing about something to do with the engine.
This was the kind of sleepy little airport that, under any other circumstance, I loved. A place where, after your flight landed, you’d help the pilot unload the bags, and then join him at the pub for a beer. But terrorism put more and more of these precious, informal gems on the endangered species list.
“Casualties?” Sterba asked.
“The baggage handler pulling the hand truck was injured quite severely. He’s been taken to hospital,” Kahembe replied. “But thankfully, there were no deaths.”
“Lucky it didn’t detonate when the plane was in the air,” Sterba said, pointing to the small twin engine that had been roped off.
Kahembe nodded. “Baggage is typically stored in the nose and just behind the last row of seats. They would have had no chance if the device had gone off in flight.”
As they spoke, I ran my eyes across the airport and the crowds that had gathered. The first thing we needed to do was assume another device was on site and get passengers scheduled to be on this flight to safety, while remembering that one of them could be the bomber. Kahembe, however, appeared to be a bit stunned, and wasn’t showing the cool efficiency he had yesterday. The poor man wasn’t used to this, and needed a little support getting things rolling.
“Lieutenant,” I said, “I think it might be wise to take the passengers from this flight to a safe location. I saw an empty hangar just down the ramp, so I’d suggest organizing the group there.”
This seemed to kick him into gear, and he immediately pulled his shoulders back and said, “You’re right, Commander, thank you. This flight was taking tourists to the Seren
geti. We will get the manifest and match it to the passengers.”
“And if you can, get a photograph of each of them along with a statement.”
He nodded in affirmation. I turned to Sterba and said, “Let’s have a look around.”
“What are you looking for?” Kahembe asked.
“The outlier, Lieutenant. The one who stands out with too much—or too little—interest,” I said, my eyes beginning the search already.
As we looked over the distraught passengers on the apron, Sterba asked, “Uncommanded det?”—An accidental detonation, common enough with IEDs, improvised explosive devices.
“That’s my guess. Either from the bag falling off the dolly or some sort of radio interference from airport operations.” Something else was bothering me, so I asked, “Why so little damage?”
“Small amount of explosive material. No shrapnel. Wouldn’t need much to take down a small plane like that, and anything more than necessary would have made the bag noticeably heavy.” He was right. The skin of the plane was thin enough that even a small detonation would have had the desired effect.
As Kahembe’s men moved the passengers across the ramp to the empty fire brigade hangar, we looked over each face. And while we were looking for the fidgety nervousness of a bomber, we only saw fear and sadness. These tourists had come to Tanzania to fulfill a dream of seeing Africa’s beautiful wildlife. If today had gone as planned, they would have been setting down on the Grumeti’s dirt strip, watching a group of giraffes carefully nibble leaves from the Acacia trees. Instead, they we being ushered into a hot shed, left to wonder what would have happened had their plane taken off.
“He’s not in that lot,” I said.
Sterba nodded. “Increase the perimeter. Could have been thrown on the baggage cart by someone not on the flight. Easy enough here.”
He was right. While there was a fence around the perimeter, it had likely been put up ages ago more to keep animals off the runway than anything else. Efforts had been made to secure the row of small hangars and sheds that ran parallel to the runway, but the scraps of gates and fencing could easily be hopped.
We walked by the terminal building, the sturdiest building of the lot that looked more like a standalone restaurant. Faces, a mixture of black and white, stared out at the tarmac. To the right was a tiny wooden building, its age and colonial style leading me to believe it was the original airport terminal. There was a gap between the little old building and a rusty corrugated hangar just beyond. It was obscured slightly by a large green dumpster and some old barrels.
Sterba turned away so as not to look directly at the suspicious location, and said, “Looks like a good spot if you needed to do a BDA.”
While we assumed that the bomber had left, there was still the chance he’d stick around to do a battle damage assessment. I doubted jihadists used the term BDA, but I was pretty confident they’d want to see how many infidel notches they could put in the stocks of their AKs.
“Let’s keep the pace, then jump,” I said.
And so we strode with a slow gait past the gap, as if headed towards the fire brigade shed further down the ramp. When we were just past the dumpster, both of us spun quickly. Sterba drew and covered deep down the weed-strewn space between the buildings. I charged the dumpster, arriving there in a flash.
Nothing. I made a quick circuit of the area to be sure. I holstered my weapon, disgusted at this lack of progress.
“Damn it, Sterbs, I have had enough!” I said with a bit more volume than intended. “We’re chasing, playing detective.”
“I know, but that’s how this one is going. Gotta play the hand you got, partner, so let’s stay cool and keep hunting.”
I looked at him, my teeth clenched in the frustration I felt. He was right, of course. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.
“We have to stop them, Sterbs.”
“We will,” he replied, his voice calm. “Now let’s clear these buildings.”
We continued, scanning the odd assortment of sheds and the gaps between, and still found nothing more than the occasional worker who would wave, or come up and ask us about the explosion.
The last building was the fire brigade shed. Beyond that, only a scattering of rusty barrels and retired trucks and tractors remained. We resigned ourselves to the fact that whoever had loaded that suitcase had long since left and went to see Kahembe.
“Anything?” he asked.
“No, Lieutenant,” I replied, likely betraying a bit of my frustration.
His hands clenched. “I have had enough of this in my city, Commander. This has to stop.”
“I feel the same way, Lieutenant. And what I’ve had enough of is playing defense.”
Kahembe stepped forward, coming closer to me. He stood ramrod straight, and, grasping both of my shoulders, said, “Then don’t, Commander. Find the monster that is terrorizing my city. Find him now.”
As if on cue, my phone vibrated. I looked at the screen and scrolled through the message.
“Locations on calls made during the hotel attack are in from Chen,” I said.
“Be nice if Naseeb could take us directly to these locations, since he knows the area,” Sterba said, looking down at his own phone, “but still no response from him.”
“She’s given us coordinates. I think we can figure it out on our own.”
“Those sound like the famous last words of every male.”
Kahembe shook his head and returned to the hangar.
10
The locations Chen had provided were scattered, and often on strips of road in between clusters of buildings, likely from someone driving along and placing a call. Some came from street corners where people gathered and motorcycle taxis took a break from the intense sun beneath scraggly trees. Our chat with the men in each of these locations turned from friendly to rather quiet when we asked about the provenance of their phones.
A few of the marked locations were the ubiquitous mobile phone stands that were a part of every dusty little row of shops. And while nice enough, the proprietors had no idea that some of the SIMs they had used were stolen.
We carried on, wanting to cover each location, and soon found ourselves near the edge of town on the western side of Arusha, the road that eventually turned north to Nairobi.
Head down, monitoring the map display on his phone, Sterba said, “Number eleven on the list. Just over a klick ahead.”
We hit, for perhaps the hundredth time, a large pothole in the dirt road. Sterba’s head knocked into the doorframe.
“Could you please not hit every hole in the road?”
“Could you please stop whining every time I do?”
“200 meters,” he finally said. “Left side.”
I scanned ahead. A woman stood below a tree next to a bushel of onions, waiting for a bus or dala dala. A man pulled a wooden wagon loaded with corrugated roofing material past her. Just beyond them was what appeared to be a disused petrol station. A faded sign reading ‘Niake’ stood on two exceptionally tall posts. The pumps had been pulled out, but the workshop and attached office remained.
I slowed, preparing to make a left turn into the area under the portico where the pumps once stood. Just as my finger went to the indicator, Sterba suddenly said, “Contact! Don’t turn. Continue straight ahead.”
I resisted the urge to turn and look, sensing that Sterba’s urgency meant whoever saw could be looking our way. We continued on past the petrol station.
“What do you have, Joe?” I asked while trying to maintain a constant speed.
“No threat,” he said. “Noticed someone on the roof holding what could be a rifle. Or a broom, for that matter. But keep your eyes straight ahead. Don’t want to spook ‘em.”
To our right was a small hill. An opening in the vegetation showed the corners of some buildings.
“There’s a small road to the right that may go up the hill. How about we find a good spot to have a look?”
“Sounds good,” St
erba said.
We were about 800 meters or so past the petrol station when I turned off the main road and onto the small dirt trail. The surface was loose and deeply rutted, throwing the little truck side-to-side as we made our way past a couple of small sheds. They were in a sad state, and gave me the impression we were entering an old farm of some sort.
I pushed my chin out and to the right, needing both hands on the wheel, and said, “Let’s take this path to the right. Might double us back.”
“Take it slow. I don’t want to leave a dust trail they can see,” Sterba said.
The path took us up a slight incline, the brush thickening as we backtracked. It finally ended after 500 meters or so.
“End of the line,” Sterba said.
“Grab the gear for a little recon time,” I said. “I’ll call Chen.”
Sterba hopped out of the passenger seat. I pulled out my phone and dialed.
“Haley, it’s Jackson,” I said when she picked up. “We’re at site eleven on highway 104, edge of town. Sterba pinged a guard on the roof, and we’re proceeding on foot to have a look.”
“Understood,” she replied. “I’ve been digging into calls made on the stolen cards. There are inbound and outbound calls overseas before and after the bombings that I’ve been focusing on.”
“You think a go-order came from overseas?”
“The timing is suspiciously close,” she continued. “Could be nothing, but I want to check. I’ll focus on calls made to and from site eleven.”
“Good. We’ll keep you posted.”
“Might want to let Kahembe know you’ve hit on something.”
“Will do. He is at the airport. Assume you heard.”
“I did. We have to stop this, Jackson. Take them down.”
There wasn’t the need to respond.
“Once I collect these data, I’ll have Naseeb bring me back to the police station.”
“Roger. Out.”
I closed the line and stepped out of the truck to join Sterba. He passed me a small pack and continued to try and find a path through the brush.