Night of the Cobra

by Jack Coughlin

  “Cease fire. Stand down,” came the voice of General Klimp. The battle was over.

  The warlord turned away slowly from the sniper, intentionally ignoring him now, and gingerly left the balcony. The Cobra also backed away, but never took his eyes off Swanson. He raised his empty right hand and pointed an accusing finger at the marine in silent threat. Swanson did not put aside the rifle until the balcony was clear.

  * * *

  “WERE YOU AT THE Aidid compound yesterday? I hear it was a real battle.” They were walking on the beach, holding hands and barefoot in the silver sand. Molly’s baggy khaki pants were rolled up to her knees. Swanson wore old cargo shorts and a T-shirt, with his .45 ACP on his hip. Almost every man on the beach carried a weapon.

  “Yep. Along with about five hundred other marines. It wasn’t much. The whole thing didn’t take more than five minutes.”

  Lucky Sharif was with them, out deeper, but not too deep, for sharks might be about, drawn by the blood of slaughtered camels rendered at a nearby plant that dumped the waste directly in the Indian Ocean. Kyle spun an old football that he had bartered from a corporal, and he tossed it to Lucky. The boy knew soccer, and trying to handle a ball that had points on both ends was unnatural to him, and it knocked him down with a big splash. He came up laughing. “That boy is going to be a fine wide-out for the Pats someday.”

  “A what for the what? You are sooooo American, Kyle. The rest of the world doesn’t follow your sports teams, you know.”

  He pulled her close and they bumped shoulders. “Maybe the world would be a better place if they would, and the sports of other countries are even more weird. I’ll bet that even you can’t understand cricket.”

  “You changed the subject. What about that fight?”

  “Deqo says you’re going down to Kismaayo to do some work. When were you going to tell me that?”

  “You’re changing the subject again. Some of the other marines told me you were right in the middle of it.”

  “Nature of the job, Molly. Really, it was not a big thing. We had them from the start. In fact, we picked the fight to teach General Aidid still another lesson. That jerk needs a lot of lessons.”

  Lucky dashed from the surf and threw the football back to Kyle, using both hands. The boy was having a good time. He had survived dangers bigger than any shark.

  “Go long!” Kyle called, pointing, and the boy took off down the beach, his long legs churning. Kyle lofted a tight spiral that fell into Lucky’s outstretched arms. The boy juggled it and almost hauled it in, but it bounced away. “He needs some work. What about Kismaayo?”

  “It will only be two days to help out with a new U.N. food-distribution point. There is so much matériel pushing into the pipeline these days that the NGOs are having a hard time on the other end.” Marine trucks, choppers, and ships could haul the supplies only so far. Then the NGOs took over because there was no Somali government to handle the distribution.

  “Two days and two nights,” Kyle said with a glum tone. “That might as well be forever.”

  “This is nice,” she said, and kicked at a small incoming wave. They walked past some bare-chested marines playing beach volleyball over a sagging net, their rifles on nearby towels. Some women in little swimsuits baked in the sun.

  Kyle had often scolded young privates who swooned over girls they had just met and wanted to marry as quickly as possible, no matter the situation. Now he had fallen for this Irish girl, and having to swallow his own medicine did not make it taste any better. Stolen hours were all they had, and both were determined to enjoy their remaining time, as long as they had. Kyle had already convinced himself that Somalia, or even forever, would not be long enough. He did not want their love to become a casualty of war. Somalia had brought them together, but it was very weak glue. Either of them could be transferred at a moment’s notice.

  “Well, I guess that Lucky and I can work on his pass routes while you’re gone.”

  “You realize that he is placing you and me in parental roles, at an age between himself and his grandparents, Lon and Deqo.”

  “Umm. What are we going to do about that? We’re not his parents.” Kyle looked at her serious face. “We never will be.”

  They moved on in silence for a little while, then slowly turned and started walking the other way, back toward the airport.

  “I have been thinking about something, Kyle. It’s only an idea right now, but maybe we can get all three of them out of this place. I can check out the procedures for Ireland, and you can look into the qualifications for America. Maybe we can pull Lucky, Deqo, and Lon out and safe—all of them.”

  Swanson felt a wind, and Lucky raced by, football beneath his arm, being chased by another boy. “Doctor Sharif probably won’t leave, and Deqo won’t leave without him. You know that. Lucky can’t go alone.”

  “It’s just something to think about,” she said. “Here’s something else to think about: suppose we take him back to the clinic and retire up to Maisie’s room at the hotel. She flew over to Uganda on a story.”

  “Things happen when I get you there, Irish. Things of which your mother probably would not approve.” He grabbed her by the waist. “Consider yourself warned.”

  “Words, words, words.” She mocked him, then quoted Eliza Doolittle again. “Show me.”

  She’s the one, he decided.

  8

  KIA

  GENERAL AIDID TUMBLED INTO a great and furious sulk following the embarrassing defeat of his forces. Ali Mahdi crowed that the Americans had finally taken sides, and everyone in the city was gossiping about how easily the marines had taken down Aidid’s forces. The substantial losses in manpower and matériel paled next to the image of being so easily whipped. Weakness was propaganda poison, and Ali Mahdi would use it to the fullest.

  Aidid had planned to trap the marines in the urban canyons of Mogadishu and force them into wicked door-to-door battles. His warriors had gotten their guns from the warehouses under the cover of the storm but didn’t even get out of the gate to use them. Instead, the marines struck first by leapfrogging out of the stadium and raiding his most important storage site. Seventeen fighters had been killed and twenty-five wounded. Then the marines confiscated hundreds of his rifles and machine guns—sixteen truckloads of valuable weaponry. That was the big picture.

  A smaller picture was also seared in his memory: that of the Marine Swanson positioned on a rooftop and deliberately aiming a huge rifle at the general, grinning while he did so. It was salt that rubbed hot and hard into Aidid’s wounded pride.

  The general was relaxing on a floor mat in his home, wearing a loose sarong and sandals in the heat as he thought things over, trying to calm himself. He spooned up a ball of spicy rice, vegetables, and camel meat; chewed; swallowed; and made a decision.

  “Omar!” the general called, and the Cobra strolled easily into the room, holding a book that he had been reading. “I have a special assignment for you,” Aidid said.

  “Anything.” The face remained expressionless, the eyes unseen behind wraparound sunglasses of the type favored by the Americans. Beads of sweat laced his forehead.

  “Thousands of American marines have invaded our country, and thousands of other foreign troops, too.” He did not have to finish the thought.

  “The Swanson Marine.” The Cobra’s dour face regained a bit of spark.

  “Yes. His time has come. We have spies and a lot of money. Use it. Find him for me.”

  “And kill him?”

  “A simple death would be too easy. I want this sniper to die in spectacular fashion. I want to make an example of him.”

  “I will have this death, General.” Omar also seethed with a desire for revenge.

  “Of course. First, we pay him back for being a sniper.”

  Aidid sprawled back on the mat and covered his tired eyes with folded hands. “You are going back into the Green Line tonight, I hope.”

  “Yes, sir. I plan to drive out with ten men to r
aid an Ali Mahdi storehouse. We need to restock our own armory.”

  “Be savage tonight, Cobra, and instill fear. I want you to try a new tactic. Take two trusted men who are good with guns and are disciplined. Leave them behind to be a sniper team of our own. They will remain in place until a marine patrol comes near and then shoot one of the Americans. When this killing happens in Ali Mahdi territory, any alliance he is building with the Americans will collapse. They will send more troops in there.”

  “Ah. And that will help draw the marines into the street fighting we have wanted.” The Cobra logged away the information; always learning.

  * * *

  A PATROL STEPPED OFF into the darkness and was soon beyond the airport checkpoints and into the city itself. An easy rain pelted their faces, much gentler than the recent storm, almost refreshing after the scalding afternoon. The eleven-man column was a coiling snake that would prowl through abandoned buildings, down tight alleys, around blind corners, and into gutted neighborhoods. Out front, on point, was Corporal Jerry Evans, who had been a wrestler in his Iowa high school days and carried his heavy gear with ease. Evans looked up at a tall building and felt a hundred unseen eyes looking back. His night-vision goggles painted things green, and he saw no threats, so he leaned forward into his work, keeping his finger near the trigger.

  Evans was not scared. He had lost his combat cherry two years ago in the Desert Shield war that kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Mogadishu was just another stop on the marine train. He loved this shit and was going to be a lifer. At the moment, his entire being was concentrated on what he was doing step by step, moving into the heart of the Mog.

  It was a repeat of what they had done last night, and by coming back to the same place, they hoped to catch some gunmen who would mistakenly gamble that the marines would not show up twice on the same streets. An hour into the patrol, he had found nothing of interest. The deep cigarette-gritty voice of Sergeant Marty Reyes came through his earpiece and ordered him to change direction and head down an alley to the northeast. Evans stepped out, and the ten other marines followed.

  He was on cruise control. Mogadishu was like New York, a city that never slept. There was always something or someone stirring. The big corporal had never been to New York, but he had seen it a lot on television. Lots of clubs and girls. But the Big Apple didn’t have the danger factor of the Mog, and that was the rush over here. He stepped around a stack of rocks, paused, listened, and moved again.

  Not a single marine had been killed by enemy gunfire since the original unload back on December 6. One civilian contractor died when he ran over a land mine, but that was it. With all the sporadic gunfire that could be heard at almost any hour, it seemed to Corporal Evans that the bad guys should have been able to have hit something by now. He heard the rumble of a vehicle engine and brought the patrol up short, hugged back against a wall as a dirty technical turned the corner, motoring around like it was all king of the night. The marines had the truck surrounded before it could come to a complete halt, and the four gentlemen in it were so surprised that they bailed out, broke, and ran. Their machine gun hung useless on its mount. Sergeant Reyes taped on a block of C-4 explosive to the automatic weapon, and the whole technical went up with a crash.

  That would probably do it for the night, Evans thought. Every goon in town would now know where the marine patrol was. A minute later, headquarters gave the order to come back, and the patrol turned around, being just as careful going back to the airport as they had been on the way out.

  A single gunshot cracked from a dark rooftop, and the bullet took Evans in the neck and drilled into his chest, dropping him hard on the stones. The other marines engaged the sniper with a hail of fire as they dove for cover. Sergeant Reyes did a quick head count. Someone was missing.

  “Evans?” he called. “Where are you? Anybody got eyes on Evans?”

  The marines looked at each other. No Evans. “Let’s go find him,” said Reyes. He set up a base of covering fire that smothered the building from which the shot had come and then led several of his men back to where Evans had last been seen. He lay facedown on the filthy street, bleeding hard, his head twisted at an awkward angle. They grabbed his web gear and dragged him to cover.

  “We have a friendly WIA,” Reyes reported over the radio, forcing his voice to remain steady and understandable while a corpsman worked on Evans. “We need an evacuation.” He gave the grid coordinates. New rips of AK-47 spattered out of the night, forcing the marines into a tighter defensive perimeter.

  Within minutes, three armored vehicles from the Quick Reaction Force trundled into the wasteland. All of the militias were wide awake by now, bringing new guns to the fight. Bullets pinged off hulls, and the armored tracks opened up with their heavier weapons to cover the patrol members, who stuffed Evans into one of the bays, climbed in, and slammed the hatches shut.

  A doctor met the little convoy back at the base. He pronounced Corporal Jerry Evans dead on arrival.

  * * *

  KYLE TURNED TO THE Central Intelligence Agency for help. They occasionally borrowed him for temporary assignments, and that had built some relationships with their hardened operators. They kept trying to get him to join their secret pack of field spooks, but Swanson was a marine, and would stay one. In marine speak, the CIA acronym stood for “Christians in Action.”

  One of the rough men was Nicholas Hamilton, a former West Pointer, currently stationed in Somalia. The CIA had a bad habit of making their workplace so secret that it became strikingly obvious. In Mogadishu, the Christians worked in a heavily guarded and separate compound deep within the airport grounds. The place wore a crown of communication antennae and was surrounded by repetitive rows of high fences and coils of spiky concertina wire and bore a wooden placard at the gate that read STAY THE HELL AWAY. Swanson told the sentry to send word into the tent that he wanted to see Hamilton.

  In a few minutes, the CIA agent appeared and barked, “Can’t you read signs, you fuckin’ jarhead?” Hamilton walked to the fence, opened the gate.

  Swanson entered. “We lost a guy last night up near the Green Line,” he said when they ducked inside and into the cool blast of air-conditioning. Several people gave him a glance but then went back to whatever they were doing.

  “Not one of yours, was it? I haven’t read the after-action report.”

  “No. It was a corporal out of the three-eleven. What disturbs me is that it was a clean sniper hit, Ham, not just the usual wild shot in the night. If the Skinnies start good sniper work in that urban terrain, we will have a whole new set of problems.”

  “A lot of rooftops and rubble,” the CIA man agreed. “We have some people out and about, spreading money and asking questions. Who the hell knows? They were bound to nail somebody sooner or later.”

  “I don’t like losing any marine,” Swanson responded. A full mug of coffee was put on the table in front of him. “Even if it is just bad luck.”

  “Neither do I, but the famous Kyle Swanson didn’t trot down here because of that incident. What brings you to the land of the supersecret decoder ring? Did somebody call for you? Maybe you want to tell me about your redheaded girlfriend?”

  “You know about us?”

  “You two are the talk of the town.”

  Kyle put his face to an air conditioner and let the cool wind blow directly on him. “Passports, Ham. I need three genuine U.S. passports for a Somali family we, meaning the US of A, may want to evacuate in a hurry.”

  Nick Hamilton laughed. “Every Somali in Somalia wants an American passport, including the warlords. What makes these three so special, out of a couple of million people who would love to leave this godforsaken country?”

  “Proper egress papers, too. Visas to pass through Kenya, a smooth entry to the U.S., and some restart cash.”

  “Why, shit, Kyle! Sure as hell! Anything else? You want me to charter a private jet, too?”

  “Not a bad idea, but no.” Swanson unfolded a metal chair an
d sat down, leaning forward, elbows on knees. Drank some coffee. “Ham, these people are nobody, and that makes them special. Just a doctor who will never desert his patients; his wife, who will never leave without him; and their only living relative, an eight-year-old grandson. They live and work at the Irish agency—never stop working, from what I have seen. All three of them speak English. I can get some reference letters from NGO and relief types, but these are not really important people in the grand scheme of things. They are just rocks of resistance who have dedicated their lives to helping other Somalis, which is why we are all here in the first place.”

  Hamilton leaned back and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts. “So, there is no real reason other than Kyle Swanson likes them.”

  “No! Godammit all, Ham. We should do this because we can! Because we should! Do you want to go back to the real world and have accomplished nothing at all over here? I don’t. Someday when we are old, you and I can rock on the porch of your home in New Hampshire and remember back to when we did something more than hand over bricks of cash to warlords.”

  “We can’t save everybody in Somalia, buddy. That’s cold, hard fact.”

  “We can save these. Trust me. They are worth it. They made a difference.” Swanson emptied a little envelope from his shirt pocket, and out slid a sheet containing all of the data needed for a passport and regulation-sized photographs.

  Nick Hamilton was stunned. He had never seen this Kyle Swanson before, so different from the nerveless shooter who sometimes did black jobs for the CIA. “Idealism doesn’t suit you, Kyle,” he said.

  “You Christians owe me big, Ham. I always come running whenever you crook your finger to tell me to go somewhere and kill somebody. I want a little payback: three passports for a family that would never ask for themselves and probably will refuse to make the jump anyway.”