“It’d be just like the military to fuck up the Milky Way,” he said.
“Are you antimilitary?” she asked him.
“Not at all,” he said. “My father was in the military. A colonel, in fact. I’m just feeling very pro Milky Way right now.”
“Me, too,” she said.
“We should get some sleep,” he told her. Most of the fires and lamps in the village had gone out now. They heard a woman singing softly somewhere. “There’s blankets here. If you put the seat down, you can sleep in the back of the Rover. It’s not bad, and you probably want to get up off the ground, where the no-see-ums won’t get you.”
He wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, then picked up a second one and wrapped it around his own before slipping down from the tailgate.
“So I guess I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
“Where are you going?” she asked him. “Where are you going to sleep?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking around. “I’ll find a place somewhere.”
“Get in the car,” she told him. “I’m sure it’s big enough in the back for the both of us.”
The fact was, in the last three days, she’d grown enormously fond of the young writer, with his nimble intelligence and his quiet good looks, his gentle manner, his large heart. He was not, at all, the kind of man she was used to meeting in the military, and perhaps that was why she was so intrigued by him, or maybe it was just the old-fashioned stuff, the way he made sure she was taken care of before attending to himself, held doors open for her, listened to her closely when she spoke, and showed an interest in her. In the military, most guys (her team members the exceptions) still didn’t know quite what to do with a woman who was also a peer and fellow soldier, except treat her like one of the guys, make coarse jokes, unless they felt threatened, and then they were complete assholes. Stephen was a good person. He told amusing stories. He found her stories reciprocally amusing. There was something mysterious about him, something he was withholding from her, and she wanted to know what it was. She’d had a fantasy, as a younger girl, of living in Hollywood and being an actress and living with a man who loved her and wrote fabulous screenplays for her to act in, sort of like Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. The fantasy changed to living with a rock star who wrote songs about her, and then after a few years of dating actual boys, her fantasy was just that someday she’d meet a guy who wasn’t a total dickhead. Stephen cared about what was going on in Africa, but not in a bleeding heart distant way—he was actually here, putting himself on the line, literally, though he didn’t have to, trying to do something about it, to make things better, and she admired that.
When he lay down next to her in the back of the Land Rover, she felt her pulse quicken and wondered if she was falling in love with him. The idea struck her fairly suddenly, but just as suddenly, it made a kind of strange sense. It was an unlikely time and place to fall in love, but who could control the time and place when you fell in love? Maybe she wanted to fall in love, willed herself there, because of the hatred and horror all around them. Maybe the urge or need or wish to fall in love was some sort of survival mechanism, a thing the body knows it needs, the same way it knows it needs water or food. It wasn’t the simple emotional release of sex she wanted, the way men wanted that, but something deeper and purer, a sense of connection and intimacy, where the bond came from knowing the utter truth about each other. There were men she trusted with her life, men like DeLuca, or Dan, but this was a man she trusted with her soul. That was how it felt.
She bunched her sweatshirt up beneath her head for a pillow and lay down next to him. They’d put a blanket down to lie on and used the second to cover themselves. He’d propped his head up on his backpack.
“I can’t wait to read what you write about all this,” she told him. “I’m sure it’s going to be brilliant.”
“I know this will sound strange,” he told her, “but it is brilliant. I don’t have any doubts. It might even win a Pulitzer. Sometimes I think the only thing that could stop it would be if Kruger and the others get jealous and sabotage me.”
“How would they do that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Stephen said. “Accuse me of plagiarism, maybe. Hack into my computer, when I start writing it into my computer, and erase everything.”
“I’ve been tempted to peek into your journal…”
“Don’t ever do that,” he said, flashing anger for the first time. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t like people reading what I write before I finish it.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said. “I only said I’ve been tempted…”
“Well just, please, okay?” he said, calming down. “I’m sorry. I’d rather wait to show you when I’m finished. I don’t want to sound like a wuss, but that’s how I feel.”
“All right,” MacKenzie said. “You have to promise. It’s just that I see you writing in your journal and I get curious. I’ll wait. I just wanted you to know that I believe in you. And as someone with whom I was recently shot at, I can tell you that I’ve been shot at before with other men, and you’re not a wuss. Not remotely.”
“Call me old-fashioned,” Stephen said, smiling, “but I don’t think I like hearing that you’ve been shot at with other men. I want to think I’m the only one.”
“You’re the only one, Stephen,” she said. “I’ve never been shot at before with anyone like you. I mean that.”
“Mary Dorsey…” he whispered.
“What?”
“I really have to kiss you now.”
“I really want you to,” she told him.
They made love quietly, her body pressed against his, which was thin and gaunt, she thought, but which she welcomed to hers. He was a surprisingly aggressive lover. They slept. In the morning, rising before anyone else was awake, he told her he wanted to remember this place always.
Telling him her true identity was out of the question. She knew the rules. It put you in greater jeopardy, and it put the people you knew in greater jeopardy, including both your fellow team members and the people who knew what your cover was. Evelyn Warner knew. Stephen would probably be upset if she told him. Perhaps when this was all over, the right moment would present itself.
Regarding more practical matters, she was hesitant to leave the enemy weapons cache they’d found intact. She spoke to Father Ayala again, using Stephen to interpret for her, and told him if the village was attacked, and he chose a passive resistance, there was a chance the enemy would use the weapons against him. She appreciated his commitment to nonviolence and respected the philosophy behind it, but, she told him, there were people working in Liger to terrorize the population by killing and raping and mutilating the innocent and (she decided not to spare the man’s sensibilities, because it was too important that he understand the impact of his decision) by forcing people to watch or participate in acts of cannibalism—“Father,” she said, “these guns can stop that from happening. Perhaps prayer will tell you whether or not you want to use them.” There were six crates, each containing a dozen AK-47s, one of the simplest rifles to operate ever made, and one of the most reliable. She opened three crates and unpacked the weapons, loaded clips, and prepared the rifles for use. She and Stephen loaded the remaining three crates into the back of the Land Rover, along with extra ammunition, to bring to Camp Seven.
Before they left, she remembered to turn her phone back on. She’d turned it off, the night before, to shut the war out, if only for a night. She called CENTCOM Ops, out of Stephen’s earshot, and gave the duty officer the GPS coordinates of her current position. He gave her directions back to Camp Seven. Stephen had been right, there was no direct route between Sagoa and Camp Seven, sixty kilometers apart as the crow flew but nearly two hundred by road. She felt the need to hurry, but at the same time, if it meant spending more time with him, she didn’t mind the circuitous route, particularly because a small voice, one she tried to ignore, was telling her their time together was limited, a thin
g she did not want to be true.
He was a terrible driver, she discovered, turning left when she said right and not paying attention. At one point, he stopped, confused, certain they were driving in circles. He was, she thought, adorable.
DeLuca had stopped to check in, paused at an intersection in the proverbial middle of nowhere. His map told him one road led to Sagoa, the other to Camp Seven. He was relieved when Scottie told him Dennis’s signal was moving again, even though Scott said he couldn’t say why Zoulalian had turned his phone off and left it off. He was in a black Mercedes, Scott said, owned, according to the license-plate number picked up by the cameras in the sky overhead, by a local warlord named Ali Khan who was believed to be aligned with IPAB.
“Is that satellite or UAV?” DeLuca asked.
“Actually, we have a U-2 up,” Scott said.
“U-2?” DeLuca said. “From the sixties?”
“They started making them again in 1988,” Scott said. “They stay in the air as long as a UAV but they fly a helluva lot faster, so they cover more ground. Do you want to call Zoulalian?”
“No,” DeLuca said. “I’ll wait for him to check in. How about MacKenzie?”
“On her way to Camp Seven,” Scott said.
“Patch me through to LeDoux,” DeLuca asked. “You okay?”
“I’m good,” Scott said.
“Have you told your mother anything?”
“Just that we were keeping an eye on you,” Scott said.
“You can tell her I’ll be out in three days,” DeLuca said, “if not sooner.”
When LeDoux came on the line, DeLuca asked him for an update. LeDoux said the rules of engagement had not changed. The Marines were boo-ya and ready to fly. A G-2 with the 27th Infantry had complained that his men hadn’t been given a chance to acclimate before heading directly into combat, the way troops invading Iraq had trained first in Kuwait. The colonel who’d expressed his concern for his men had been reprimanded for voicing his dissent. He’d gone rogue with the media after that, saying he had misgivings about sending his men into a conflict the undertones of which were more religious than strategic, at the whim of a born-again American president who was too willing to risk the lives of his troops in the service of his own personal religious vision. Needless to say, he’d been removed after that and reassigned, and would possibly face charges as serious as treason for his comments, though right now they were just trying to get him away from the microphones.
To make matters worse, LeDoux said, the evangelicals in Congress had led a group sing on the Senate floor of the song “Onward Christian Soldiers,” the pictures on television showing the Republicans in full voice while Ted Kennedy sat tight-lipped with his arms folded across his chest. To rally political support, the White House was referencing evidence of new atrocities unfolding on an hourly basis, perpetrated by Samuel Adu and John Dari and various IPAB or LPLF forces.
“I thought one of the reasons I’m here was to verify Dari’s participation in the atrocities,” DeLuca said. “And, for the record, I can’t.”
“They need names,” LeDoux said.
“How about Reverend Rowen?” DeLuca asked.
“Still debriefing that,” LeDoux said, which DeLuca understood to mean they were trying to figure out how to spin it.
“What’s the bottom line, as Kissick would say?” DeLuca said. “What can you do for me? I’m going to need fire support.”
“Bottom line,” LeDoux said, “no CAS. UAV only. I can give you what resources I have, but I can’t increase or jump the dates.”
“I figured. How many Predators can I have?” DeLuca said.
“We have six,” LeDoux said. “Rotating in eight-hour shifts.”
“Can you fly all six at once?” DeLuca asked.
“Not and give you coverage after they’re returned to base,” LeDoux said. “It’s your call. Where are you?”
“At a fork in the road,” DeLuca said. “About an hour out of Baku. You know what Yogi Berra said—‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it.’ Camp Seven is that-a-way and a village called Sagoa is this-a-way. I wanted your thoughts.”
“Baku’s gone bad,” LeDoux said.
“Gone bad?”
“Gone worse,” LeDoux said. “Government troops blew up a mosque. Near your hotel. We’re in Iraq for two fucking years and we avoid the mosques. Anyway, that’s behind you. Heavy fighting, door to door. LPLF, we think. According to SIGINT, we have rebels an hour or so north of Sagoa and the same for Camp Seven. Neither looks good. You can’t just sit tight?”
“Negative,” DeLuca said. Mack was headed for Camp Seven, where Evelyn Warner was waiting for help. He couldn’t reach Sykes or Zoulalian. He couldn’t divide his resources, nor did he really have resources to divide—even if his team was all together, there were only five of them, six if he included Paul Asabo. Sending one or two people to either Sagoa on Camp Seven didn’t make sense. He had to choose one, a village of men, women, and children, or a smaller encampment of women and children. There were more people in Sagoa, but the refugees at Camp Seven were more vulnerable, protected only by a handful of African Union troops whose value as a deterrent was very much in doubt.
“Can we move government troops?” he asked.
“We can make recommendations,” LeDoux said. “They don’t have to listen. Bo’s going to do what he wants. Ngwema will do whatever suits him. It looks like they’re both concentrating their forces around the urban centers and abandoning the countryside to the rebels. With all the predictable results.”
“Well,” DeLuca said, making a decision. “We’re going to Camp Seven. We should be there in about an hour. How long before the shit hits the fan?”
“About that,” LeDoux said. “Maybe a little longer.”
“We’ll have to risk a speeding ticket then,” DeLuca said. “Give me four UAVs now and two on standby. How long is turnaround? How far from base to Camp Seven?”
“Base is the LBJ,” LeDoux said. “We can turn ’em around pretty quick. From home to you is about forty-five minutes. The new ones are faster than the old ones. What are you going to do?”
“Not sure,” DeLuca said. “Still improvising. But like they say at last call, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
When he reached Camp Seven, he found matters in complete disarray, or rather, complete disarray would have been a significant improvement. Evelyn Warner told him the United Nations troops had been recalled before she’d been able to return. The African Union troops had been ordered to pull back and regroup with a larger contingent of AU forces positioned thirty kilometers to the south. For now, Corporal Okempo was stalling, but he was getting pressure from above to move his men. He didn’t want to defy his orders.
“I’m so grateful that you’ve come,” Warner said. “I wish I had better news. I think maybe a hundred of my girls have already scattered or run off, thinking they’ll be safer in the bush than here. Maybe they’re right.”
They were interrupted when DeLuca saw a trail of dust rising in the distance on the road from Sagoa, a single vehicle, a white Land Rover, making speed.
“That’s Dr. Chaline’s car,” Warner said. “I was almost hoping not to see him again.”
Hoolie tapped DeLuca on the shoulder and handed him his CIM. On the screen, DeLuca saw a map of the area, with Camp Seven at the bottom of the screen. Above the camp, to the north, a field of red dots representing troops marching south, perhaps five kilometers away, estimated strength, two thousand men, according to the attached dialogue box, led by Samuel Adu.
DeLuca looked at the sun, setting in the west. In another hour or so, it would be dark.
“We’ll have to work with what we have,” he said, surveying the surrounding landscape.
“Spoken like Davy Crocket at the Alamo. Remember the Alamo?” Hoolie said.
“Who could forget?” DeLuca said. “With one difference.”
“Which is?”
“They had a fort.”
>
Asabo looked puzzled.
“Famous American battle,” DeLuca told him. “Nothing to worry about.”
Chapter Eleven
“WHERE ARE WE?” GABRIELLE DUQUETTE asked Dan Sykes. She’d walked to the flight deck and was leaning over his shoulder after spending the first part of the trip staring disconsolately out the spotter’s window. He’d maintained a hover of about a thousand feet. They were going to lose the light in another hour or so.
“What do you mean?” he shouted back, trying to sound positive. He didn’t dare use the radio, but he was getting to the point where he needed to talk to someone who knew how to land a helicopter. He’d found a pair of helmets and plugged the com cords in so that they could use the intercom to communicate above the roar of the engines. She seemed to be in better spirits.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” she said, pointing. “That way, toward the setting sun, is west, unless I’m mistaken. We’re flying east. Port Ivory is south. I want to go to Port Ivory.”
“The closest border is east,” Sykes said. “I think we’d be safer if we left the country. Would you look in the cabinet where the flight engineer sits and see if you can find a manual or something?”
“Why do you need a manual?” she asked.
“See if there’s a chapter that says how to land.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to need you to read it.”
“Why do you need me to read it?” she said. “Why can’t you just ask your friend how to land?”
“My phone went dead,” he told her. “About half an hour ago.”
“What?” she said. “You’re telling me this now?”
“I didn’t want to worry you,” he said.
“You didn’t want to worry me?” she said. “Why did you take off if you didn’t know how to land? I should think that would have been a fundamental priority.”
“I didn’t really have much choice about taking off,” he said.
“We don’t have much choice about landing either, do we?” she said.
“I understand why you’re concerned—”
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