by Tom Young
As usual, getting airborne put Parson in a better mood. Outside air ducted from the ventilation system flowed across his face and kept him pleasantly cool. He reached across the center console to fine-tune the prop levers. The engines made a rhythmic thrumming sound until he found the sweet spot and had both propellers synced to a harmonic RPM. The two Pratt engines purred as if new.
“Bravo, maestro,” Chartier said.
Before Parson could respond, a radio call demanded his attention.
“World Relief Eight-Two Bravo, Djibouti Departure,” the controller said. “Turn right heading one-seven-zero. Traffic is an MQ-1 entering the downwind. Should pass beneath you.”
“One-seven-zero for Eight-Two Bravo,” Parson said. “Looking for the traffic.”
As Chartier rolled into the turn, Parson scanned outside but saw nothing. That didn’t surprise him. Something as small as an MQ-1 Predator could be hard to spot, especially over hazy water. Parson checked the screen for the traffic collision avoidance system, an upgrade installed long after the DC-3 rolled off the assembly line. A white blip showed the Predator’s location.
“Got him on TCAS,” Parson radioed. “Negative contact visually.”
“He’ll pass a couple thousand feet below you,” the controller answered.
“Anything wrong?” Stewart asked.
Just as the actress spoke, Parson spotted the Predator. The aircraft looked like a big insect flitting across a pond.
“Eight-Two Bravo has the traffic,” Parson transmitted. Then he answered Stewart on interphone: “Nope. Just a drone passing beneath us.”
“A drone?”
Stewart’s face fell to an expression of great seriousness. She leaned to look out the window. By then the Predator had flown under the DC-3 and disappeared.
“What’s a drone doing here?” she asked.
“Hard to guess,” Parson said. “Predators were based here for a long time, and then they were transferred somewhere else. That’s not an armed model, so it’s just doing surveillance for somebody.”
A truthful enough answer, but one Parson kept deliberately vague. Stewart’s nose wrinkled as if she smelled some foul odor. From the actress’s manner, Parson figured she had a hang-up about drones. Why did these lefties—as well as some wingnuts on the far right—get so excited about one particular piece of technology? Drones seemed to figure in every wackadoodle conspiracy theory: Secret misdoings, nefarious intent. Blood for oil.
To Parson’s thinking, drones—or, more correctly, remotely piloted aircraft—were just tools. They did nothing that hadn’t been done before with manned aircraft. Except RPAs put no crews at risk and saved the expense of life support systems such as pressurization and oxygen. No drone had the payload capacity to carry all the symbolism heaped on it by people with political axes to grind. Would it make people happier, Parson wondered, if a pilot died every time a drone hit a target?
He kept those thoughts to himself as Chartier held the aircraft on a southerly course toward Mogadishu. But the Predator did raise questions in his mind. Yeah, what was that thing doing here? Presumably the United States was feeding imagery to AMISOM commanders fighting al-Shabaab. Why now? Had things in Somalia taken a turn for the worse?
Not Parson’s business, at least not officially. As far as the Air Force was concerned, he was on vacation.
The airplane’s new heading put it over turquoise shallows, and then the DC-3 crossed the beach. Camels grazed on sparse grasses among sand dunes.
“Are we over Somalia already?” Stewart asked.
“Yep,” Parson said.
“Somaliland, more specifically,” Geedi said.
“Like a province?” Parson asked. His charts showed airways and navaids, not state lines.
“Sort of,” Geedi said. “It’s an autonomous region. Back before the civil war, the dictator Siad Barre killed a lot of people there. The region declared independence in 1991, but other countries haven’t recognized it.”
“Sounds like they’re holding this country together with baling twine and chewing gum,” Parson said. “Kinda like this old airplane.” Parson patted the control yoke.
“I’d like to disagree with you, sir,” Geedi said, “but you speak the truth. The Somali language wasn’t even written in a standard way until 1972.”
Over land again, Parson included the ground in his scan, just as carefully as he watched the flight instruments and the GPS receiver. He half expected to see another smoke trail come up at him from the tormented land below. Today, however, the parched terrain scrolled underneath his wings with no hint of threat.
For a moment, Parson imagined himself as a pioneering flier in the youth of aviation—and the youth of this particular airplane. What was it like to cross oceans and deserts aided by little more than a whiskey compass and a sextant? In those days, Parson knew, just the sight of an airplane caused people to look up in wonder. And what was it like to fly those missions in peace, plotting routes for airlines or surveying virgin territory for mapmakers?
This Somalia trip, he figured, represented the closest thing in his experience to a sepia-toned 1930s expedition. Especially with Gold on board. In another era, she would have been the flaxen-haired adventurer, versed in languages and culture, waking up beside him in a bed shrouded with mosquito netting, wooden blades of a ceiling fan twirling overhead.
It sounded romantic, but the rational part of Parson’s mind knew there was no romance in slamming into a befogged, uncharted peak. Or getting lost because cloud cover kept your navigator from taking a celestial shot. Or just vanishing, like Amelia Earhart.
A request from Carolyn Stewart broke into Parson’s thoughts about the bad old days. “May I shoot some video?” she asked.
“No problem,” Parson said.
Geedi unstrapped and rose from his jump seat. “You can sit here for a few minutes,” he said.
“Thank you so much,” Stewart said.
The actress traded places with Geedi, settled into his seat. She raised her video camera and began shooting through the windscreen.
“Oh, this will be so cool,” she said.
Parson caught a whiff of Stewart’s perfume. Looked to his right, saw the blinking green light on her camera. She panned toward his face, then across the instrument panel.
“If you had to choose,” Chartier asked her, “would you stick with acting or become the next—what’s his name, the documentary guy?”
Without taking her eyes from the viewfinder, Stewart said, “Ken Burns. Yeah, today, I’d say I want his job. Don’t get me wrong; I know I’m living a dream. But when I come out and do this, there are no paparazzi, no egos, no attitudes. I get to be a normal person.”
“No paparazzi,” Parson said. “Just shoulder-fired missiles.”
“Gimme the missiles any day,” Stewart said.
“I thought you were smart until you said that,” Parson said. Stewart chuckled, still shooting video.
As the aircraft droned south, the radio traffic on the VHF air-traffic-control frequencies grew sparse. Parson continued to monitor the VHF radios, and he also fiddled with the HF radio. Fliers normally used HF radios for long-range communication over oceans. The HF sets could also tune in shortwave broadcasts from the Voice of America and other news services.
“I got the BBC World Service,” Parson said. “Anybody want to hear the news?”
“Yes, please,” Stewart said.
“Sure,” Gold said. She spoke on interphone from her seat in the cargo compartment.
Parson adjusted the comm boxes, and the voice of a British-accented broadcaster flowed into the headsets:
. . . has claimed responsibility for the murder of an African Union official in Djibouti. Dr. Maurice Kalinga directed police training for AMISOM, the African Union Mission in Somalia. Kalinga died in what officials call a botched abduction. Attackers s
evered his head and posted gruesome video on jihadist websites. AMISOM commanders, as well as Somali government leaders, vow to bring the killers to justice. An al-Shabaab militant who goes by the nom de guerre of “the Sheikh” says he has taken up the mantle of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a Somali fighter who led a revolt against the British a century ago.
“Lovely,” Stewart said. She stopped recording and stood up to let Geedi return to his place in the cockpit.
Parson turned down the HF volume, twisted his face into a look that combined disgust with puzzlement. “Taken up the mantle of who?” he asked.
“Mohammed Abdullah Hassan,” Geedi said, strapping back into his seat. “The Mad Mullah.”
Parson rolled his eyes. “These guys and their egos and their nicknames. They’re like professional wrestlers. The Sheikh. The Mad Mullah. The Undertaker. It would be funny if it weren’t so damned sick.”
“Roger that, sir,” Geedi said.
“Actually,” Gold said, “al-Shabaab really does have a lot in common with the Mad Mullah and his insurgents.”
“How so?” Chartier asked.
“Just like al-Shabaab,” Gold said, “the Mad Mullah claimed to fight on behalf of Islam.”
Gold described how Mohammed Abdullah Hassan massacred thousands of Somalis. The Mad Mullah ordered people skinned alive if he even suspected them of cooperating with the British. And, like Osama bin Laden, he fancied himself a poet.
“Winston Churchill deployed the brand-new RAF to bomb the Mad Mullah’s forts,” Geedi said. “Churchill was minister of war at the time.”
“Good for Winston,” Parson said. Sounded like the trouble here had gone on forever. How could Parson possibly make a dent with one outdated airplane, a handful of friends, and a hitchhiking actress?
He thought about a story he once read on a greeting card from an old girlfriend. A little kid walks along the beach with Grandma. A bunch of starfish have washed up on the beach. Kid starts throwing some of them back in the water. Grandma says, “Little Portnoy, you can’t make a difference, with all these hundreds of starfish washed up.” Little Portnoy throws back one more and says, “But Grandma, I made a difference to that one.”
Good thing I wasn’t there, Parson thought. I’d have said: Once you’ve flown around the world and fought a couple wars, you stupid little brat, you’ll realize your starfish will just wash up again in an hour.
He kept that bit of cynicism to himself; Gold wouldn’t like it, and he wanted to stay on his best behavior with Carolyn Stewart on board. Air traffic control handed him off to Mogadishu Approach, and Parson changed frequencies to check in.
“Mogadishu Approach,” Parson radioed, “World Relief Eight-Two Bravo is with you, level nine thousand feet.”
Though he had flown some of his Somalia missions under visual flight rules, he’d filed a flight plan under instrument flight rules today. The controllers would watch the DC-3 more closely. They’d know exactly where to find the wreckage if the aircraft got shot down.
“World Relief Eight-Two Bravo, Mogadishu Approach,” the controller answered. “Radar contact, expect visual approach to Runway Two-Three.”
“We’ll look for the visual to Two-Three,” Parson said.
Parson had not flown to Mogadishu in a very long time. As a young C-130 navigator in the 1990s, he had brought in loads of Unimix—a combination of mainly corn flour and soybeans. The stuff didn’t look very appetizing, but dangerously malnourished people could eat a porridge made from Unimix and not throw it up. In time, their bodies could tolerate more substantial food.
Didn’t look like the area had changed much. Acacia trees dotted an otherwise featureless expanse of brown, marked by a single road. Off to Parson’s left, a blue line appeared at the horizon. The blue line glowed and expanded as the airplane flew south—the Indian Ocean coming into view.
Eventually, approach cleared World Relief Eight-Two Bravo for descent, and Chartier knuckled back the throttles. Mud huts and tin shacks clustered along the outskirts of the city. The water loomed close now, with flocks of gulls riding the sea breezes. Those same breezes rocked the DC-3 with turbulence.
“Merde,” Chartier said when a hard jolt hit the aircraft. “At least I have an excuse for a rough landing today.”
“Never,” Parson said. He glanced back to make sure Gold and Stewart were buckled in.
Approach handed off the flight to Mogadishu Tower. When Parson tuned the frequency, he had to wait to make his call because another conversation was going on.
“Mercy Four-Two, Mogadishu Tower,” the controller said in Somali-accented English. “You are cleared for landing, Runway Two-Three.”
Funny call sign, Parson thought. Who are they?
When Parson finally checked in, the controller cleared him for approach and said, “You’re number two for landing behind a Kenyan Air Force Dash Eight.”
“Cleared for the visual, looking for traffic,” Parson said. He squinted, adjusted his sunglasses, and saw a twin-engine de Havilland turboprop turning from base leg to final approach. The civilian version of the Dash 8 served as an airliner. Parson wondered what this one was up to with a call sign like “Mercy.”
“I guess those guys are flying some kind of mission for AMISOM,” Parson said on interphone.
The suburban slums gave way to the mosques and multistory buildings of central Mogadishu, a few still bearing blast marks. Cars crawled along some of the streets, and in the distance, Parson spotted the runway. The airport’s new spire of a control tower looked out of place next to the destruction and decay of the city. Parson lowered the flaps and gear on Chartier’s call. By the time Chartier banked onto final, the Dash 8 had landed and taxied off the runway.
“World Relief Eight-Two Bravo cleared for landing,” the tower called.
“Eight-Two Bravo cleared for landing, Two-Three,” Parson said. Then he added, on interphone, “All right, Frenchie. Lemme see you plant it on centerline.”
“Pas de problème.”
To the left of the runway, Parson saw the pulsating visual approach slope indicator. The device consisted of a single light module and served as a low-budget visual aid. A pulsing white light meant a high approach. Steady white meant on glide path. Steady red meant low. Pulsing red meant dangerously low. Parson remembered an old flier’s saying: Flashing white, up all night. Flashing red, your ass is dead.
The light pulsed white twice and then went steady.
“You’re looking good on PLASI,” Parson said.
“Bon.”
Parson double-checked items on the landing checklist: gear down and locked, tailwheel locked, cowl flaps in the trail position, fuel crossfeed off.
“Configuration rechecks,” Parson said.
Chartier flew down final with the aircraft in a crabbed position. The maneuver corrected for the crosswind coming in from the ocean. Just before touchdown, he kicked the rudder pedals to straighten the nose, and he dipped a wing into the crosswind. The left main wheel contacted the runway first, and when the right wheel settled to the pavement, the DC-3 straddled the white stripes in the center of the runway. The tail settled to the ground, and Chartier let the airplane roll along at idle power.
“Well, Frenchie,” Parson said, “you might be a froggy bastard, but you can fly an airplane.”
“Merci.”
Chartier turned onto a taxiway and headed for the parking apron. Ahead, a sign on the terminal building read ADEN ADDE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. Shrubbery thrashed in the wind.
An odd mix of aircraft populated the ramp. An Emirates Airbus. A Ugandan L-39 Albatros attack jet. A Cessna Caravan. Parson remembered when C-130s and C-141s crowded this tarmac during Operation Restore Hope.
By the time Chartier rolled into a parking spot, the Kenyan Dash 8 had shut down its engines. An unusual amount of activity surrounded the Dash 8. A military staff car pulled up, fol
lowed by two red-and-white ambulances. Three more ambulances stopped behind the aircraft. Uniformed figures ran from the ambulances to the airplane.
Gold unbuckled her seat belt, stood behind Geedi’s jump seat, and looked out the window.
“What’s going on over there?” she asked.
“Looks like a medevac flight,” Parson said.
Medics began unloading patients from the Dash 8. The patients lay on litters, all black men in uniform. AMISOM troops, evidently. Some wore bandages on their heads or arms; others suffered from wounds Parson could not see. He counted the injured soldiers coming off the airplane: three, four, six, eight. More followed. For some, medics held IV bottles above them as stretcher-bearers carried them to the ambulances.
Parson stopped counting at twenty.
12.
Hussein had no idea that his al-Shabaab brothers numbered so many. He and six other boys had ridden all night long in the back of a pickup truck. At daybreak they found themselves in greener country; one of the boys said the truck must have driven south. After stopping the vehicle along a remote dirt path, the Sheikh and Abdullahi led a march into a wooded area. Along the way, they passed other parked trucks, all empty.
The march ended at a clearing, where the soldiers of God gathered for a council of war. Hussein could not remember what number came after twenty-nine, but he could count twenty-nine soldiers four times and never count the same one twice. A few of them were much younger than him, perhaps ten years old. In all his time with the Youth—a dry season and a wet season—he had never seen such a large gathering.
From the white, sandy ground underneath his sandals, he judged he was near the coast, though he could see no water. Cases of ammunition and weapons lay at the foot of a wild date palm. The Sheikh stepped atop one of the cases. He wore dark sunglasses and a green field jacket, and he brandished a Kalashnikov. He spoke in a loud voice so the great number of fighters could hear him.
“My pups,” the Sheikh said, “we have brought you here to help brothers already waging jihad in an important place. For those of you who do not know, you are near the town of Ras Kamboni, near the border with Kenya. Our former neighbors who fled to Kenya are coming home now, and we have no quarrel with them if they are faithful. Yet they must know they are returning to an Islamic emirate under sharia law.”