The Hunters

by Tom Young

  The soldiers of God cheered, and Hussein cheered with them. He did not yet know his role here, but Allah and the Sheikh would give him knowledge.

  “Al-Shabaab once ruled this region,” the Sheikh continued, “but the enemies of God drove us out. The stooges of the African Union have made themselves slaves to the Crusaders. We will take this land back and make it the heart of our emirate. We have already killed and wounded many of the stooges in this new operation.”

  More cheers. Hussein raised his rifle and shouted the only words he knew in Arabic, the language of the Prophet: “Allahu akbar!”

  “There is something else you should know,” the Sheikh said. “We have learned that some new Americans are in Somalia, no doubt engaged in errands for Shaytan. One of them is famous. We do not know where they are. If you see these gaalos, you must try to capture at least one of them. If you cannot capture, you must kill.”

  “Allahu akbar!” Hussein shouted, along with many others.

  “I know most of you are unschooled,” the Sheikh went on, “and that is of no concern. Only your courage and your piety matter. But I wish you to know about your country’s greatest warrior and poet, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan. Some call him the Mad Mullah.”

  Some of the fighters cheered at the name. The Sheikh continued.

  “Many years ago Mohammed Abdullah Hassan waged jihad against the British,” the Sheikh said. “As he looked on the severed head of a British officer named Corfield, he wrote these lines.”

  From memory, the Sheikh recited a poem that told of this Corfield on the road to hell, and the things Corfield should tell those he met on his way. The Sheikh raised his voice when he came to certain verses:

  Say, “The beasts of the wild devoured my body and dragged away the carcass.”

  Say, “The hyena chewed and swallowed morsels of my flesh.”

  The soldiers of God cheered. The Sheikh let the cheers fade, and then he went on:

  Say, “The bones and tendons were left for the crows.”

  Say, “My kin and my army were defeated.”

  “You will kill new Corfields,” the Sheikh said. “You will write new poems. Show them no mercy.”

  When the final cheers and war cries died down, Abdullahi and some of the other older men opened the cases and began passing out ammunition. Some of the boys received launchers for rocket-propelled grenades. When Hussein’s turn came, he received three full magazines for his AK-47, along with one hand grenade. He placed the magazines in the special pockets of his combat vest.

  “I have not used this before,” Hussein said as he held the grenade. He did not know the man who gave it to him.

  “It is simple,” the man said. “You squeeze this lever and pull the pin. After you let go of the lever, you must throw it quickly. You must throw it far. Do not waste it.”

  That Hussein could do. He could throw stones far. He had hunted pigeons with stones. This weapon was merely an exploding stone.

  He took his grenade and ammunition and waited for his orders. While he waited, the man who had given him the grenade handed out bullets to some of the youngest boys. To one boy, the man also gave a necklace of cowrie shells.

  “Allah has granted you protection,” the man said. “With this necklace, the infidels’ guns cannot pierce your invisible armor.”

  Hussein had never heard such a thing. No invisible armor had protected his fellow fighters during the mission in Djibouti. Was this man a special sheikh with special powers? If magical necklaces existed, why wouldn’t all the soldiers of God have them? Hussein’s puzzling over the matter ended with a shouted order from Abdullahi.

  “You,” Abdullahi said, “come with me. I need six of you who can shoot.” Abdullahi pointed to a fighter with a grenade launcher. “And you. I need someone with an RPG.”

  Hussein joined the squad gathering around Abdullahi. He did not like Abdullahi, but his job was to fight for Allah, not make friends. The boy with the cowrie-shell necklace stood beside Hussein, fingering the shells with one hand, holding his Kalashnikov with another.

  “My name is Ibn,” the boy said. “What is yours?’

  “Hussein.”

  “I am from Beledwyene. Where are you from?”

  Why did this boy need to talk so much? Maybe he was nervous. Hussein remembered the fear he felt when he first joined the jihad.

  “Mogadishu,” Hussein said. Not the whole truth, but enough of an answer. “How old are you?”

  The boy pressed his lips together as if pondering a hard question. “I think I am nine,” he said.

  That did not necessarily mean the boy was weak in the head. Not everyone recorded birth dates.

  “Are you scared?” Hussein asked.

  The boy’s face brightened, and he held up the necklace.

  “Not anymore.”

  “Listen,” Abdullahi barked to the squad. “Most of our brothers are going to fight the main force of infidels. But we will stop the stooges from getting reinforcements. There is a road nearby. We will take up positions on either side of the road. When a vehicle full of the stooges comes along, we will destroy it. This tactic has already proved very successful in this operation.”

  As Abdullahi spoke, gunfire popped in the distance. Two shots, then a rip of automatic fire. Most of the older men ignored the shooting. Abdullahi glanced toward the sound of battle, but he did not look concerned. Under a nearby tree, the Sheikh huddled with some of the men and looked at a map.

  Hussein and the rest of Abdullahi’s squad set out on foot. At the same time, other groups of fighters broke away from the main group and headed in other directions. Hussein walked for a long time, Ibn beside him each step of the way.

  “Have you ever killed an infidel or a Crusader?” Ibn asked.

  “Yes,” Hussein said. “But you must be quiet now. You do not want the enemy to hear you.”

  The soldiers of God kept walking. Hussein did not know how far, but it seemed a long way, farther than the distance a gull flies if it flaps up at your feet and then lands so far down the beach you can barely see it. They came to a road of broken pavement, more dirt than hard surface. Berms of sand rose on either side of the road and thorny brush grew in the sand.

  Abdullahi chose a hiding spot next to a sharp bend in the road. The reason became apparent to Hussein immediately. Though Hussein could not drive, he had ridden in enough trucks to see that for a driver, this was a blind curve. With the berms and vegetation, nearly anywhere along this road would have made a good ambush site. The curve, however, provided a perfect location. Any vehicle traveling this way would slow almost to a stop to get around the curve. Allah’s justice would be waiting on the other side.

  Abdullahi, Hussein, Ibn, and the boy with the RPG tube hid in vegetation atop a berm. Four other al-Shabaab fighters scrambled across the road and took similar positions on the other side.

  “Do not fire your rifles before the tube fires the grenade,” Abdullahi ordered. “We will not shoot the first car that passes. We will wait for a truck full of stooges.”

  For a moment, Hussein felt like a hunter, a lion hiding in tall grass, flicking its tail and waiting for prey. Allah had chosen him to exact vengeance. But what about this boy Ibn? Did Allah really need one so young? And what about this magical protection from a necklace of shells?

  These things were confusing, but Hussein’s job was simple: Wait for the grenade launcher, then fire and fire.

  Dust rose from beyond the curve; a vehicle was coming. Hussein felt his heart beat faster. He lay in a prone position among the scrub brush, placed his cheek to the stock of his rifle. Pointed the barrel toward the bend in the road. The sound of a sputtering engine grew louder.

  “Remember,” Abdullahi said, “hold your fire until the RPG shoots.”

  Abdullahi bent low next to the boy with the grenade launcher.

  The vehicle ro
unded the curve no faster than a man could trot. Not a military truck full of gaalos, but a civilian car. Dented bumper, white hood, doors painted only with gray primer. Dangling exhaust pipe. Three people inside, probably going home to Ras Kamboni. The soldiers of God let the car pass.

  The sun beat down. Hussein wiped his face on his sleeve. Distant gunfire popped again, this time so far away that it sounded like the cracking of sticks. A helicopter throbbed in the background, but Hussein could not see the aircraft.

  While he waited, he reached into a pocket and found one of the food packets the Sheikh had passed out to the boys yesterday. Hussein could not read the label, but the men called the food “Plumpy.” As the Sheikh had explained, the infidels were trying to tempt the people away from Islam by bribing them with food. This food had been diverted from that purpose and would now feed the soldiers of God.

  Hussein tore open the foil pouch and squeezed some of the contents into his mouth. The Plumpy felt like mud and tasted like peanuts. Very good, actually. Not as good as an orange peel, but close. Hussein finished the Plumpy and dropped the empty pouch. Breeze caught the foil, and the foil sailed with the wind until it became what people called a “Somali rose,” one more scrap of trash caught on a thornbush.

  An hour passed with no traffic on the road. Hussein grew thirstier, and he wished he’d brought water. Maybe the men would reward him with water after the mission. To keep his mind off his thirst, he thought back to his few weeks at the al-Shabaab training camp.

  Many of the trainees were boys like himself, but others were men in their twenties. When the brother with the video camera came, he took pictures of only the men. They marched with their weapons, wearing their camouflage and head scarves. The younger boys, with their tattered assortment of clothing, would not appear in the pictures. Hussein resented being deemed unworthy of a picture, but he knew he must not question the ways of Allah.

  Of all the trainees, al-Shabaab most revered the martyr corps, those selected for suicide bombings. The men said only the smartest and purest could join the martyr corps. Hussein did not ask to join them. Not because he feared death; for Hussein, death was a constant companion, a thing coming soon regardless of his actions. Nor did he doubt his ability. But for now at least, he thought he could best serve Allah as a regular foot soldier. From experience, Hussein knew life was short, hard, and cheap. Yet it was the only life he had.

  The rumble of an approaching vehicle brought him back to the present. Sounded like something heavy. Hussein clicked the lever on his rifle to make the weapon ready to fire. He saw Ibn and the others in the bushes across the road raise their AKs.

  “Wait,” Abdullahi said to the boy with the RPG. “Wait.”

  Dust rose from the far side of the curve. The vehicle slowed, and when it appeared, Hussein saw it was military. Antennas swayed from a truck painted the color of sand. Two symbols, A and U, had been painted on the hood. At least four men inside and one stooge on top, swiveling a big gun.

  “Now,” Abdullahi shouted.

  The boy raised the launch tube and fired.

  Backblast from the tube threw sand into Hussein’s eyes. He felt a wave of heat. The bang of the launch and the explosion on impact came close together—ka-KOOM! A black cloud of smoke filled the roadway and boiled over the berms on either side.

  Gunfire followed immediately. The soldiers of God opened up on the stooges. Hussein started firing late because he had to wipe his eyes. When he finally aimed, he saw that the RPG had blown the stooge gunner apart. The truck veered into the ditch on Hussein’s side of the road and came to a dead stop.

  His sights on the windshield in front of the driver, Hussein pulled his trigger. The round punched through the glass. Hussein thought he hit the driver, but he couldn’t be sure. All the men in the truck were moving around. Hussein kept shooting. Each shot punctured glass. The men inside must have been stunned or wounded; they didn’t return fire.

  Hussein concentrated so hard on his shooting that he did not notice the second truck. Only when Abdullahi shouted, “Another one,” did Hussein look up.

  The truck came around the bend with its turret gun blazing. Bullets slammed into the berm on Hussein’s side of the road. One hit the boy with the RPG launcher as he tried to reload. The boy collapsed beside Abdullahi.

  Hussein expected the machine-gun fire to stitch right through him. But the stooge gunner shifted his aim.

  Ibn stood squarely in the middle of the road. He held his AK-47 to his shoulder and began to fire the way one might shoot at a can or a piece of paper. No effort to use cover. Absolute faith in his cowrie shells.

  Fire from the heavy machine gun cut Ibn nearly in half. His rifle flew from his hands and tumbled away amid red splatter. The truck veered past the first vehicle and sped through the kill zone. Crushed what remained of Ibn. Hussein lined up his sights and shot the gunner. The man slumped behind his weapon as the truck grew smaller in the swirling dust.

  For a moment, the al-Shabaab fighters held their positions. After all the gunfire and explosions, a strange silence took hold. Hussein’s ears rang. After a few minutes, moaning came from inside the wrecked truck.

  “Everybody stay where you are,” Abdullahi ordered.

  Abdullahi rose from his hiding place, rifle in hand. He picked his way down the berm, through the brush. Stopped to free his sleeve from a thorn.

  He walked over to the truck. Smoke still rose from the vehicle, and fluid leaked underneath.

  Abdullahi pried open the driver’s door. Peered inside for a moment. Raised his AK to his hip, one-handed. He spoke words Hussein could not hear. Fired two shots. The empty casings flipped through the air like two brass butterflies.

  “Get ready to move,” Abdullahi shouted. “Pick up weapons left by the dead.”

  Hussein looked down at the torn body of Ibn. The sight made him think of a melon dropped into the street and run over by cars. If the boy had not been told such foolishness about the cowrie shells, he might have stayed concealed and lived to fight another day.

  When Allah commands us to die, we must die, Hussein thought, but Allah gave us brains for a reason. Hussein began moving down the side of the berm. He cursed at the thorns that pricked him as he went.

  13.

  After Gold and Carolyn Stewart had left for their meeting, Parson, Chartier, and Geedi waited at the Mogadishu airport. Parson watched the activity on the ramp. After the medics finished loading the most seriously injured patients onto trucks and ambulances, the walking wounded limped and shambled to the nearest hangar. They wore an assortment of bloody bandages across foreheads, over eyes, around arms. When all the wounded departed, men carried three long boxes off the Dash 8 and set them down on the tarmac one by one, working quietly and with solemn gestures. The scene reminded Parson of evac missions he’d flown in Iraq and Afghanistan; you didn’t like to transport wounded in the same aircraft with the dead, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped.

  Having seen enough, Parson stepped away from the DC-3 and found a restroom inside a cargo hangar. He relieved himself at a filthy urinal, then zipped up his flight suit over the bellyband that held his pistol. When he washed his hands, he noticed the old faucets were labeled C and F. Back at the airplane, in the shade of the wing, Geedi explained when Parson asked about those letters.

  “This part of the country used to be Italian Somaliland,” Geedi said. “C and F are for Caldo and Freddo.”

  “Fair enough,” Parson said.

  He checked his watch. The DC-3 had been on the ground for more than two hours, and he expected Gold and Stewart back any minute. Geedi had refueled the DC-3 for the flight back to Djibouti, and Chartier had just returned from the freight operations building, where he’d checked the weather. Parson wanted to get ready to start engines—kick the tires and light the fires—and get out of Somalia.

  A Somali government van entered the airport ramp. That di
dn’t surprise Parson; the same van had picked up Gold and Stewart to take them to the actress’s meeting with the president. What surprised Parson was the van’s flashing red light and the way the vehicle sped across the tarmac. What was wrong?

  Parson looked at the van closely. Both women sat in the back, and they seemed safe enough.

  The van stopped in front of the aircraft, and Gold and Stewart climbed out carrying their backpacks. Gold pulled her Afghan scarf from around her neck and wiped her face.

  “You guys know how to make an entrance,” Parson said.

  “Michael,” Gold said. “Those wounded Somali and AMISOM troops came from new fighting that’s flared up down south. More than thirty wounded, three dead, and those numbers are probably going to rise. Al-Shabaab is making a big push into an area they used to control. The president himself asked if we could help.”

  “You’re kidding,” Parson said. “I know you told them we can’t carry military cargo.”

  “They want us to fly medical supplies down to Ras Kamboni. No weapons or troops, just medical stuff. They’re short of helicopters, and they need something that can land in the dirt.”

  Parson saw that he and Gold had a tough choice to make. The good guys needed supplies by the quickest means possible, and Somalia had precious little combat airlift capability. The DC-3 sat fueled and ready. But it belonged in a museum, not a combat zone.

  “I don’t know, Sophia,” Parson said. “If al-Shabaab’s in the area, it’ll be pretty damned dangerous.”

  “Remember Major Ongondo?” Gold asked. “He’s the African Union officer we met in North Africa.”

  “Of course I remember,” Parson said. Ongondo had been with Gold when terrorists ambushed the two of them in North Africa. They were gathering important intel for Parson at the time. You didn’t forget something like that. “What about him?”