Mission Liberty

by David DeBatto

  “Okay,” Zoulalian said. He needed to get away from the others so that he could use his SATphone to warn MacKenzie. “I need to use the bathroom. Could you tell me where it is?”

  “I’ll do better than that—I’ll go with you. I have to go, too,” Rahjid said. “Come on.”

  MacKenzie wore a scarf over her head but raised the veil only when they approached a roadblock, or when the dust was too great. Dr. Claude Chaline drove, with Stephen Ackroyd in the backseat. The Doctors Without Borders logo on the side of the Land Rover got them through the variety of checkpoints marking the seventy-kilometer distance between Camp Seven and the mosque outside Kumari, the landscape changing from forested savannah to desert. Evelyn Warner had gone to Baku Da’al. Streams of displaced refugees walked in the opposite direction, women with baskets on their heads and children in tow, old men pushing two-wheeled hand carts, boys driving livestock, undernourished goats with their ribs showing, occasionally a truck or tro-tro so packed with people they reminded MacKenzie of the little cars full of clowns she’d seen at the circus as a child. The sun beat down relentlessly, the temperature well over a hundred degrees, and yet Chaline chose to save on fuel by driving with the air-conditioning off and the windows open. Instead of refreshing, the wind made it almost harder to breathe.

  Chaline grilled her most of the way, his French accent making him hard to understand at times above the noise. What was the reason she’d come to Liger? What could the Women’s Health Initiative do for the women in IDP-7, or the women in camps elsewhere across northern and central Liger? When he started listing the supplies and medicines they needed, she entered what he said into her CIM, feeling both appalled at how much they lacked and horrible that she was lying to him, and that all her promises were empty, and that she’d be unable to deliver on any of it. They needed surgical supplies, water purification equipment, all kinds of medicines down to the most basic antibiotics and pain relievers, penicillin, aspirin, and the more sophisticated AIDS medications—they needed everything. Chaline pointed to a collection of tin-roofed houses at the top of a hill when they came to an intersection.

  “What does that look like to you?” he asked, not slowing down.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “What is it?”

  “That’s a ‘boom-boom,’” Chaline said. “It’s a whorehouse. President Bo built new roads up here to move the oil equipment and the tankers and service vehicles, so the boom-booms sprang up at the intersections so that the prostitutes could service the truck drivers. The imams, including Dadullahjid, were morally outraged and blamed Bo, but a lot of the truckers themselves were Muslims. In five years, AIDS in this country went from 2 percent to almost 25 percent, and it’s almost two-thirds among the sex workers. We had people in the boom-booms handing out condoms but Bo stopped us. The church is against contraception, so Bishop Duvallier told him what we were doing was against God.”

  “So President Bo did him one better,” Ackroyd chimed in from the back, “and said all relief shipments had to be inspected by the government first to make sure no contraband was getting through to assist the rebels. He made a big public show of it when they found a supply of birth control pills and dumped it into the harbor.”

  “How he thought the rebels could use birth control pills to their advantage, I don’t know,” Chaline said. “We’ve treated people who’ve been tortured in his prisons. Cigarettes in their ears and eyeballs. I have a colleague who believes Bo introduced Ebola into a village of Da that had been friendly to the LPLF. We can’t prove it. My colleague is afraid Bo is going to bring Ebola to one of the camps. In ancient times, when a hemorrhagic fever came to a village, they’d block all the trails in or out and put the sick people in a quarantine hut, where they would stay until they either recovered or died. Today, with roads and cars, such viruses cannot be isolated or contained anymore. I’m going to speak to Dadullahjid because I have a plane in Burkina Faso full of medicine with a pilot who’s willing to fly to Camp Seven, but I need Dadullahjid to tell his men not to shoot it down.”

  MacKenzie also saw troop convoys, armored transports and half-tracks, artillery and heavy equipment, moving south in long columns, soldiers who looked suspiciously into the Land Rover as they passed. She kept the veil up and rolled her sleeves down to cover her white skin. Chaline had told her to leave her sidearm behind because they were certain to be searched. She’d considered hiding it somewhere in the vehicle, just in case, but in the end she complied with his request. She pasted the list of medical supplies onto an e-mail that she sent to General LeDoux, just in case there was anything he could do about it. She added a note to the e-mail:

  Rebel forces moving south in large numbers. Appear well armed and organized. Singing.

  Mack

  When she was finished sending, she deleted the e-mail and the list in case her CIM was seized. They approached a checkpoint, Dr. Chaline waiting in line behind a man on a motor scooter and an ancient Volkswagen microbus with a red cross painted on the side.

  “What are you going to say to Dadullahjid?” Stephen asked her.

  “I want him to protect the safety of women,” Mack said. “And other noncombatants. I want a guarantee. I want him to give me a letter with his signature and his seal on it, or whatever he has, so that if troops come, I can show them the letter. I have a favor. Evelyn told me it would be better if you spoke to him. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important.”

  He hesitated.

  “Okay,” he said. He seemed flustered, his eyes blinking nervously.

  “But what? Be honest with me.”

  “Well,” he said, “I was worried that if I got involved, as a journalist, that it could put the other journalists in Liger in danger. But I’m already involved. And it’s not like they’d look out for me.”

  The soldiers ahead of them pulled the man off his motor scooter roughly and dragged him away, while two other soldiers moved his scooter to the side. Ackroyd’s hand reflexively reached out for Mack’s.

  “Hopefully, all they want is his scooter,” Dr. Chaline said.

  When it was their turn, the soldier took a long time reading the papers that Stephen Ackroyd handed him before handing them back.

  “National Geographic?” he asked. Stephen nodded. The soldier held up Ackroyd’s passport and looked at it, then at Stephen. He repeated the process, then handed Stephen his passport. Mack caught a glimpse. The man in the passport photograph looked about thirty or forty pounds heavier than the man sitting beside her in the Land Rover.

  “You didn’t tell me you were working for National Geographic,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’m freelance. I just needed a letterhead.”

  Men’s Journal, he’d in fact said. She recalled quite clearly. She made a mental note of the discrepancy, though it seemed of little import.

  They drove another half hour, passing, along the way, another thousand refugees and a second convoy that appeared to be more a support column than combat units (she counted trucks, to report later), before turning onto a main thoroughfare and finally into the mosque compound. Two guards at the gate examined their papers, then directed them through. A group of armed men waiting in the courtyard told them where to park, pointing with their guns. Stephen was directed to leave his camera in the vehicle, and then they were taken to a room off the courtyard where they were searched, forced to lean with their hands against the wall and their legs spread. When the man searching MacKenzie appeared to be spending too much time feeling her breasts, Ackroyd said, “That’s enough!” A man raised his rifle butt, as if to strike Stephen, but paused. Stephen didn’t flinch. The man frisking MacKenzie backed away with a scowl.

  Dadullahjid sat behind a desk in the prayer hall. Three men stood behind him. One, MacKenzie didn’t know. The second was Rahjid Waid, who she recognized from the briefing file she’d read. The third was Dennis. She tried not to give any sign that she knew him or was surprised to see him. She was, for the first time, glad she had the veil to
hide behind. Claude Chaline approached the desk and spoke to the imam in French.

  “Je m’appelle Dr. Claude Chaline. J’ai un avion chargé de medicaments pour le Burkina Faso. Je voudrais le piloter au Camp Sept, mais j’ai besoin de votre aide,” he said. He’d explained earlier that Dadullahjid had lived for three years in Paris, and hoped that that connection might mean something. He had a plane full of medicine, he was saying. He needed assurances.

  Dadullahjid listened without responding, his arms folded across his chest.

  MacKenzie made eye contact with Zoulalian. His face was hidden half in shadow, but even so, MacKenzie read the message Zoulalian was sending with his eyes, coming across in a way that couldn’t be clearer. “This is a trap,” they were saying. “You’re in trouble. You are not safe.”

  She touched her nose to ask for confirmation.

  He sniffed. Sniffs meant yes. Touching the ear meant no.

  Chaline spoke for a moment longer, gesturing softly with his hands. Mack took in the room, noting the windows and exits. An instinct told her nothing was going to happen inside the mosque, a space that was sacred, or should have been, to those who would harm her. If something happened here, Dennis would take out one of the men next to him and she would move on the other. Was Dadullahjid armed? She doubted it.

  “These are innocent people,” Chaline said, finishing in English. “They are sick and need medicine. They are women and children. They are no threat to anyone. They are victims of displacement and violence and war. I know that the Koran teaches mercy and compassion for the innocent. Letting my plane through would be an act of compassion.”

  Dadullahjid thought for a moment longer. Mack thought she saw a figure move furtively, concealed behind a pair of louvered doors.

  “I think you overestimate what I can do,” the imam said at last. “I am one man. I don’t have some fancy communications center. If you want to fly your plane, fly your plane and I will ask those I know to tell the others, but I can guarantee nothing. I can guarantee your own safety only within these walls. I myself have been the target of President Bo’s assassins three times. I cannot give you what you want. It’s not within my power. I can ask, but beyond these walls, there is only so much I can do. Si les femmes et les enfants sont des Musulmans, alors Allah prendra soin d’eux. S’ils ne le sont pas, alors je ne sais pas qui tendra à leurs besoins.”

  Mack’s French was several levels below conversational, but she understood the gist of what Dadullahjid had said. “If the women and children are Muslims, Allah will look after them. If they are not, I don’t know who will.”

  “Merci,” Claude Chaline said. “J’ai la foi dans la puissance de vos mots.”

  When Chaline was finished, Stephen stepped forward. MacKenzie took a step toward the desk with him, her head bowed.

  “My name is Stephen Ackroyd,” the writer said. “This is Mary Dorsey. We speak on behalf of the United Nations Women’s Health Initiative. We’ve come in the hope—”

  “Enough,” Iman Dadullahjid said, rising suddenly and walking out the rear door without saying another word.

  Stephen looked stunned. He took two steps back and turned, his head down.

  “It’s not your fault,” Mack whispered. “I don’t think our friend was in a mood to listen.”

  “This reminds me of a date I went on in college,” he said.

  She stepped forward, rushing toward Zoulalian, who raised his AK-47 in front of him to block her approach.

  “Tell the imam he has to protect the women and children in Camp Seven,” she said, getting in Dennis’s face. “You can tell him. Grown men have nothing to fear from women and children.”

  Zoulalian grabbed her roughly by the arm, putting his mouth next to her ear in the struggle and whispering menacingly, “Deux camions. J’essayerai d’arrêter les autres,” before throwing her roughly back and causing her to stumble. Rahjid Waid laughed, as did the third man. “Two trucks,” he’d said. “I’ll try to stop the others.”

  “You have to tell him,” Mack again implored. “In the name of God.”

  They were led to their vehicle. Mack noticed that the two white trucks previously in the courtyard were missing, a white 4¥4 pickup and a white Montero, if her memory was correct. Two men guarded them as they walked.

  “Dr. Chaline,” she said, “would you mind if I drove?”

  “I will drive,” Chaline said.

  “Dr. Chaline,” she said, taking his arm and squeezing it firmly. “Il est très important que vous me laissiez conduire. J’expliquerai plus tard.”

  He looked at her and then, reluctantly, surrendered the keys. She saw the scornful looks on the faces of the men at the sight of a man surrendering his car keys to a woman.

  She started the car.

  “Seatbelts, please,” she said. She scanned the walls of the compound for gunmen but saw none. The gas tank was half full, not enough fuel to get back to Camp Seven. They had two ten-gallon steel jerry cans filled with gasoline attached to the back of the Land Rover. Either was certain to explode into a spectacular ball of fire if struck by a bullet. There wasn’t much she could do about it. Removing the gas cans, at that point, would have raised suspicion.

  She put the vehicle in gear and moved toward the gate. The Rover had seven forward gears, three of them in the low range for off-road traction or towing. The exit was protected by a gate, which swung open once the guard nodded to them, as well as by a zigzagged sequence of concrete barriers, forcing her to leave at a walking pace. At the last barrier, she stopped to adjust her rearview mirror and to drop her veil. The Montero was parked on her left, the white pickup on her right, with Dennis behind the wheel. There were four soldiers in the back of the pickup. She couldn’t tell how many men were in the Montero because the windows were tinted.

  “Everybody grab hold of something and stay down,” she said.

  She put the car in first with the clutch in, stepped on the gas until the engine reached 3,000 rpms, then popped the clutch, the vehicle lurching forward, spraying gravel, but holding a true line with all four wheels turning.

  “What are you doing?” Chaline shouted, but Mack kept the gas pedal to the floor as she worked through the gears. She heard a burst of machine-gun fire and then two bullets shattered the rear passenger window, broken glass flying across the passenger compartment.

  “Stay down!” she commanded. “Is everyone all right?”

  “What’s going on?” Stephen shouted.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want to find out,” she told him, her speedometer reaching sixty miles an hour on a road so rough that nothing above forty was advisable. Goats and sheep scurried out of her way as she honked the horn to let the people ahead of her know she was coming. She wove past a man on a bicycle, forced a boy to dive out of the way, and veered around a parked truck until it felt like she was riding on two wheels. In the rearview mirror, she saw the Montero, gaining ground.

  Zoulalian had tried to get in front of the Montero but didn’t have enough horsepower from the starting line to do it. He saw a man leaning out the window of the Montero, aiming a rifle at the Land Rover they were chasing. They’d gone perhaps a mile before he saw his chance, riding on the tail of the Montero and then passing it when it braked for a cart, which he struck as he passed before taking the lead in the chase. Two of the Algerians were firing from the back of the truck, so he tried to jerk the wheel every few seconds to throw off their aim.

  Mack saw in her rearview mirror that Dennis had passed the lead chase vehicle and was now behind her. She hoped that was a good thing.

  Zoulalian saw his opportunity ahead where the road narrowed to a constriction between two buildings, and narrowed further by a telephone pole at the corner of one building. He double-checked to make sure his seatbelt was fastened, glanced briefly to note that there was no passenger-side airbag, tapped the console at the center of the steering wheel (as if that might somehow ensure that his own airbag was going to successfully deploy—all he could re
ally do was hope), then slowed to about thirty miles an hour before steering the pickup into the telephone pole, to strike it head on squarely with his right front bumper. Either his demolished vehicle would block the road, or the Montero would crash into it or stop of its own accord, or maybe they’d swerve around him and continue their pursuit, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances—DeLuca had warned them that they would have to improvise. He only hoped he’d know whether he’d been successful, once he regained consciousness. Perhaps one of the soldiers in the back would slam through the cab’s rear window and kill him from behind.

  There was no time to change his mind now.

  When DeLuca logged onto his CIM to check his e-mail, he found a message from his son, who had been working in Image Analysis with the 23rd Air Expeditionary Force out of Kirkuk since the beginning of Iraqi Freedom. He also found an offer for Viagra from an online pharmacy and three offers for home equity loans.

  “Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath. “How did they find me?”

  Scottie’s e-mail read:

  Hey Pops,

  I know you’re busy. Greetings from Washington, first of all. Also I’ve been made captain, with a new assignment you may be interested in. I told “Uncle Phil” I wanted to break the news to you myself. I trust he hasn’t told you anything. After the last mission, his office decided Team Red needed its own JIOC officer. The idea of Joint Intel Op Centers is to “coordinate systems and flatten echelons.” We’ll see. Anyway, when he asked me who I could recommend, I might possibly have mentioned something about being open to a change of assignment. He thought I was right for the job despite the obvious conflicts of interest. The designation was by committee after blind review, and I was one of five candidates, so you don’t have to worry about the appearance of nepotism. I wasn’t going to tell you if I didn’t make it, but there’s no way to hide it now. The only thing keeping this from being permanent is your approval. I will, of course, miss Kirkuk… I think I found a house I want to buy in Silver Spring, but I need to talk to you about how to go about it. I tasked SIGINT to go over what the mortgage/loan officer was telling me but they couldn’t understand it either. On to business.