Night of the Cobra

by Jack Coughlin

  “Again, Bob. Where is he?” Swanson was on the edge of his chair.

  “Almost there, Kyle. With these financial connections in place, Hassan could sweep in donations and deposits and order legitimate money transfers and establish lines of credit with other banks, which would then gladly hand over whatever was requested.” He changed the screen again, and a glowing map came up with a highlighted dot glowing in yellow. As Bob narrated, the dot moved and trailed behind a yellow line that expanded steadily to show the movements of Hassan Abdi, based on hard facts and banking data. It started in San Diego and extended to Minnesota. There, he paused. “Hassan Investments hired a charter jet that brought them from California to Minneapolis. Police found a witness who saw them get off the plane together.”

  The date changed on the dot, moving it ahead in time, and the line reversed and headed back to California. “That marks when Hassan Abdi escaped,” Bob said, letting the story unfold. “The money trail shows San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico, and on to Havana, Cuba, where the Cobra broke his silence. Then Hassan drew down a substantial sum, and it was off to Rio. One of his wire transfers went to an operation in Brazil that breeds polo ponies, two of which were purchased by a rich sportsman in Angola and flown across the Atlantic by private jet. I have four sources that indicate that Hassan and Cobra bought their way aboard the plane.” The glowing line swam steadily over the South Atlantic.

  The cabin was absolutely silent except for Bob’s quiet, persuasive voice. “Hassan made large cash withdrawals in Angola, so he has a full wallet now. So it is pretty obvious that the Cobra followed his advance man to Mexico, and they have been traveling together since then. Hassan was the front to keep the Cobra off the books.”

  “Damn. So he’s finally made it back.” The words came softly from Ingmar Thompson as the yellow dot on the map traced over the eastern border of Kenya and entered Somalia.

  “Three months ago, Hassan Abdi signed a year’s lease on a large farm down near Kismaayo, deep in al Shabaab territory.” Bob splashed up an overhead sat view of the big place. Yesterday’s date on it. He turned to the others, and a smile creased his face. “He also leased another place at the same time.”

  The dot advanced steadily across three hundred miles of jungles and clearings, and Bob replaced the picture of Kismaayo with a tight satellite shot of Mogadishu that made Swanson’s stomach clench. He knew exactly what he was looking at. There was the oval stadium, and the familiar network of streets, the K-4 roundabout, and the spaghetti factory. The dot stopped there.

  Then Bob shifted to a red laser pointer and rested the crimson speck on a specific rooftop. “So, Hassan called the bank in Singapore from that location. He has been so intent on covering the trail of the Cobra that he forgot to cover his own. I can ask our head of station over in the Mog to authorize drone surveillance to get some pictures. Omar Jama is right there, right now.”

  * * *

  EVERYONE IN THE CABIN felt as if a jolt of electricity was sizzling from the bulkheads. This time, there would be no years-long clandestine hunt for another Osama bin Laden hiding beneath layers and layers of protection. Bob had carefully pieced together an electronic trail from points all over the globe, and it led to an exact address. They had guessed right about the maniac returning to his original lair.

  Swanson now wanted to pounce before higher-ups could start having second thoughts. “Great work, Bob. For now, hold on the drones request and do not pass this up the chain of command. Keep it tight. In this room. We are an autonomous unit, so our best opportunity for a strike is to remain independent and not allow too many fingers in this pie. Better to seek forgiveness than seek permission.”

  Lucky Sharif was thinking if this worked, no one would question the decision to keep Washington in the dark prior to the strike. If not, he could kiss his FBI career good-bye. “Good,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  Bruce Brandt checked the time. “It’s almost fourteen hundred hours. If we want to expedite this thing, we can use the rest of today and tonight, and all of tomorrow and tomorrow night to gather more intel, lay our plans and line up assets.”

  Bob scratched his chin, thinking about what was needed for even a limited raid. He had organized this sort of operation before. “A window of forty-eight to seventy-two hours is pretty tight, boys. There are lots of moving pieces involved for entry and egress protection, diplomatic notification, weapons, medical, comms, local support. Remember that we are dealing here not only with a foreign government within its own borders but also the African Union troops. They need to be in on it.”

  Swanson snapped, “I’m not waiting around two days just to get close. We go in tonight.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” said Bob.

  “Flippin’ impossible,” agreed Brandt. “We know nothing about his protective umbrella.”

  “I kind of like it,” said Ingmar.

  Kyle slowed down to consider their concerns. “If anyone can make this happen in a hurry, it’s us. You are some of the best operators around, and we don’t have to be tactically perfect, just better than the bad guys.”

  “Have you already forgotten your marine training; how hard it is to get the military machine moving?” Bob protested. “We can’t just snap our fingers and reposition hundreds of troops and machines. Putting boots on the ground and rounds on an exact target is a complicated business.”

  “No. I haven’t forgotten, but this is not a totally strange environment. I know Mogadishu like the back of my hand, and Lucky knows it even better.” He would not allow doubt to enter the room. “I can see how it comes down right now. It is a minimalist action, and actually all we have to do is work out a few details. Okay?”

  “No. Not okay.” Bob was suddenly edgy. “You and Special Agent Sharif have personal scores to settle with the Cobra, and a lust for revenge could lead to sloppy decision making. We just found the bastard a few minutes ago, Kyle! You have to slow down. Think in terms of military necessity and go by the book, because if you go too fast, all of you may be killed, and the Cobra might get away again.”

  Swanson understood that he was cornering his friends. “Look. If we wait too long, the Cobra might disappear anyway. He’s home now and can just put on an old shirt and khakis, then vanish in a crowd. There is no question that he already has alliances in place, and no matter how many fighters he already has, tomorrow he will have even more, and next week, more than that. To do this job, we have to move now. I want your help, guys. Goddammit, I need your help.”

  “The CIA is not going to allow you to go off on a suicide mission, Kyle. Just wait a few hours and let us make sure that when we go in, we do it right.”

  “I’m going in tonight. Lucky and I can do what we want.”

  “And I can stop you in a heartbeat with a telephone call.”

  “You can, but you won’t. Bob, you’re no keyboard warrior; you love this shit. We already have all of the authority we need to bend some rules and stage a lightning raid. I want to be looking at that house when the sun comes up tomorrow.”

  Bob was near his boiling point. Swanson was not bluffing. He would swim ashore if he had to, and Lucky Sharif would follow him through the gates of hell. If he couldn’t talk them out of it, at least he could try to make this work. He could always go back to Silicon Valley. “Okay. You win. Let’s get to work. We have about twelve hours.”

  Bruce and Ingmar did a high-five palm slap. Lucky felt his shoulders ease, as if a weight had been lifted.

  Kyle read the disappointment in the face of the senior CIA officer. “One last point, Bob. You’re coming in with us. We’ll have some fun.”

  “I don’t know if I can shoot a rifle.” The seriousness faded. A gunfight instead of keyboard!

  Swanson reached out for a fist-bump. “If we die, I will admit being wrong.”

  33

  THE HIGHWAY

  BRIGADIER GENERAL YUSUF DAHIR Hamud, the commander of army special forces within the Somali Ministry of Defense, had granted this unus
ual meeting at the request of friends in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and the sky and the ocean both wore the glow of liquid gold. Every day was a full day for the intense and thoughtful officer, because al Shabaab never stopped, but this was a special favor asked by his friend Mark Preston over at the airport. Fifteen minutes with one individual. A favor done for the CIA was a valuable thing. Keeping it off the record and out of official channels, as Preston also wanted, only increased the value.

  The general’s khaki uniform with the red tabs on the collar and pips on the epaulettes looked fresh off the hanger, which it was, and the shirt was crisp, as if wrinkles were enemies. Appearances were important, particularly when doing a favor. His hair and mustache were turning gray, unusual for such a young officer, but they were a telltale barometer of the constant stress under which he lived. Undisturbed sleep was a luxury.

  The general had been surprised when the guest arrived through a secluded entrance. Preston had not said that the man was a Somali. In fact, he was not even with the CIA. Settled in a chair on the other side of the desk was Special Agent Cawelle Sharif of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Another thoughtful and serious man.

  “My sympathies for those attacks in Minnesota,” said General Hamud. “I never got up to that part of America, but those people certainly helped a lot of our refugees back during the troubles.” His English carried only a slight accent. “I assume you were one of them.”

  Lucky Sharif agreed. “That is why I am here, to ask your help.”

  A polite question followed, although the general already was feeling a connection of common cause. “Do you want to arrest this terrorist, this Cobra fellow, Special Agent Sharif?”

  Lucky shifted in his seat. Tilted his head. “It would be good to put him on trial in a federal court. We have convicted a lot of terrorists, and this one even confessed his crime on the Internet. He would be put away forever in a prison from which escape is impossible.”

  “You did not answer my question.”

  “I don’t think that a trial is really the best resolution in this particular situation, sir.”

  Hamud leaned forward and slowly tore a piece of paper in half, then tore those pieces in half again before speaking. “No arrest and trial. Not if you want my help. I consider him a monster. I want him dead. As long as he draws breath, he will be a potential rallying point for al Shabaab. Not only that, he has this wild dream of taking over Somalia with his terror group. We won’t let that happen.”

  Lucky smiled. “Then here it is.”

  He had laid out the entire plan that was hatched earlier in the day, including the fresh news that the Cobra was already in Mogadishu, in a villa over by the spaghetti factory. The general’s last intelligence report had the man still down in the al Shabaab stronghold of Kismaayo. “We want him badly, General Hamud, but our team will act in support of your troops. Absolutely.”

  The general was wondering why he should not slam an immediate cordon around the neighborhood and go in and personally put a bullet in the head of Omar Jama. “Agent Sharif, I can handle this threat without you.”

  Lucky disagreed. “Our president needs absolute proof of his death, General. We want DNA and photographs, which is why we have not just dropped a big-ass bomb on that house. It has to be our people—me, actually—collecting it, to establish a solid chain of custody. There can be no hope left behind for his followers.”

  Hamud understood that process. It made sense, and the value of the favor would increase. “But why use these others, the CIA shooters? I truly don’t need them. You can come along to establish the validity.”

  “Why pass up this opportunity? Having our sniper in an overwatch position not only guarantees success, but he would provide your troops extra protection. Two other operators would be on the scene only to cover him.”

  “You don’t think my own snipers can do that job, Agent Sharif? It isn’t all that complicated, and they are very well trained—as good as any.”

  Lucky hesitated. “There’s something else. You want him dead. I want him dead. And so does my sniper.”

  He then unveiled the chilling story of what happened in a room at the Irish clinic twenty years ago. General Hamud had heard many horrible stories about the hell of those old days, when life was cheap and killers roamed the streets of Mogadishu like hungry dogs. This was one of the worst.

  “The Cobra killed your own grandfather and this Kyle Swanson’s girlfriend right in front of you both?” Two decades, and the wounds on the soul of Lucky Sharif were as fresh as the night they were made.

  “Yes, General, and he tried to get the rest of us, too. We eventually stopped him, and now we are all back at this same place. It’s time to finish the job. Kyle and I both deserve to be in on the kill.”

  The general put his palms flat on his desk. “Very well. Swanson can do the overwatch. We all want the same thing, and although your proposed timetable is tight, I agree with it. We must not give the Cobra time to build a viable strike force. Just be clear that everyone understands that I am in overall command, not the CIA, not the FBI, and not the U.S., nor the U.N. Me.”

  Lucky picked up the tone. “This is personal for you, too, isn’t it?”

  The general pulled back on the emotion. “Yeah. He murdered my grandfather about the same time. You take the word back to your team and get things moving, then come back to be my liaison during the raid. No miscommunication.”

  “Good. One last thing you should know. Your snipers may be good, but they aren’t better than Kyle.”

  General Hamud responded. “Really?”

  “No, sir. Nobody is.”

  * * *

  SWANSON WORKED IN THE armory to prep Excalibur. Spread before him was a clean blue plastic sheet on which lay the parts of the big .50 caliber sniper rifle, a weapon that was much more than the sum of its various components. Its sole reason for existence was its ability to kill a human being at very long range, almost on its own. He used a voltmeter to check the power packs, both the primary and secondary, and other specific lab instruments to tune the miniaturized circuits of the onboard microcomputer—all of the readings were within their proper range. Swanson had helped design the original Excalibur, and it became the cornerstone of Sir Geoffrey Cornwell’s empire. Then they steadily improved it. This was the fifth generation of the lightweight rifle, and the eighth version for the magical scope that brought pinpoint accuracy under any conditions. When firing with a unique rocket-propelled load, the fearsome weapons system was good for up to about 3,200 meters: two miles. Everything was patented, and the technology was out there earning money for Excalibur Enterprises.

  “That’s some gun. Is that what I’m going to use on this job?” The analyst Bob was at an adjacent table, cleaning and prepping a black Sony video camera with a long-lens combat camera from Nikon.

  “You’re coming along to take pictures. That’s all. We do the shooting.” Swanson slid the various parts home.

  “Well, I still need a gun. Something more than a Glock pea shooter.”

  Bruce Brandt was at another table, finishing with an M-16A4. He worked on the bolt carrier group with careful efficiency and a practiced eye: firing pin, firing-pin retaining pin, bolt-cam pin, bolt, bolt carrier, and the charging handle. “This one is yours, Bob. Kyle won’t even let me or Ingmar use the Excalibur.”

  “I’m rated as an expert. Shot a forty-two on the KD Course, and he’s worried that I might break his toy.” Thompson was wiping down his own gear. He was about ready to suit up and get on with this.

  “Get the CIA to buy you one. We’ll give them a good deal. This one is built to match my grip and my eye.” He slid the pieces of Excalibur back together, turning the screws to precise settings, and rubbed it down a final time. It was ready.

  “I’m done over here,” said Brandt, snapping the rifle back together. “Bob No Last Name is good to go. Let’s shove some food down our throats. It’s going to be a long night.”
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br />   * * *

  OMAR JAMA FELT UNEASY, although he remained outwardly calm. The sleep had helped. The trip was over, and the tensions had eased. He was concentrating on the present and the future.

  He stood on the verandah of his villa and took stock. There were about twenty-five young al Shabaab fighters inside the house and in defensive positions around the grounds. More volunteers were drifting in as the word spread among the rebels that the Cobra had returned. In truth, they were not grizzled veterans of many battles but much younger men, most with stars of idealism and religious fervor in their eyes, and their brains scrambled by khat. They were cannon fodder, not leaders around whom he could build an army. They would keep him safe until the force of some two hundred veteran fighters arrived from Kismaayo tomorrow morning.

  The sun was leaving the sky, and Mogadishu was quiet. He breathed it in. Gone was the steady beat of gunfire that he remembered, and from this distance on the outskirts of downtown, he could see people moving through the city as if nothing extraordinary was happening. A police car even drove by, slowed momentarily, then went away.

  This was not the Mogadishu he had dreamed about for so many years, the wild place of his youth, where guns and daring and the willingness to kill could take a young man far. It was too quiet. He had expected more of a welcome, although he had entered the metropolis quietly.

  “You must give this some time, brother. You have only just arrived.” Hassan Abdi shared the evening meal following their observance of the familiar call to prayer from the mosque. “It would not surprise me if you were visited tomorrow by a delegation of government officials who will want to broker a deal in order to keep their skins. You can offer a peaceful transition of power.”

  The scent of warm rice and lamb and fresh vegetables surrounded them. Hassan had hired a wonderful cook, and there was a woman housekeeper and a man who worked the grounds, which had grass and shrubs and was not rubble-strewn. Electric light bathed the freshly painted interior of the spacious home. Electricity! Plumbing that worked! Peace in the streets! He chewed a mouthful of food as he considered these magical events.