Mission Liberty

by David DeBatto

  “Concerned?” she shouted into the headset. “CONCERNED?! I’m fucking more than concerned, Dan Sykes!”

  He waited for her to calm down.

  “I thought maybe I could figure out how to land, once we were in the air,” he said sheepishly. “Keep your eyes open for a pipeline. It runs north to south, parallel to the eastern border.”

  She had her eyes closed, thinking. Finally she opened them and glared at him.

  “Why are men like this? I know you hate to ask for directions, but this is insane,” she said. “Stop the helicopter. I want to get out.”

  “Well, that’s pretty much what I was getting at…” he told her.

  She fished inside her purse and handed him a satellite phone of her own.

  “All you had to do was ask,” she said.

  When he finally got through to the Pentagon, he explained the situation and said he needed to speak with Scott at Joint Intel, who told him, when they were finally reconnected, that he was afraid he’d hung up on him. Sykes said he’d had a dead battery and asked to speak to Captain Evans again.

  “Got him right here,” Scott said. “We’ve been talking, while we waited to hear from you, about diverting you south to a place called Camp Seven. We can vector you in if you’re willing. It’s not far. We have people on the ground who need evac. Let’s go to 122.8 on the VHF. We won’t have any privacy, but I don’t think anybody is listening right now.”

  Once they were on radio, Captain Evans directed him to turn south. Gabrielle looked at him, wondering what was going on, now that she could hear the transmissions in her headset.

  “Not a problem,” he told her. “We’re going to swing south a bit and pick up some friends of mine. They tell me landing should be a piece of cake.”

  His mother had always encouraged him to think positively. He wondered which was a stronger force, positive thinking or gravity? Probably gravity, but he didn’t want to let on that he thought so. Captain Evans asked Sykes to read the gauges out loud to him. They had enough fuel to fly for another hour or so.

  As they approached Camp Seven, Scott came back on the line.

  “We’re having a thought here—tell me,” he asked, “if you can see below you, what do you see?”

  “Trees,” Sykes said. “Grass. I see Africa.”

  “I’m going to ask you to bank left to get a look down,” Evans said. “Gently, with your right hand…”

  Sykes saw men marching across open land, scattered in no particular formation. He told Scott.

  “In what strength?” Scott asked.

  “Can’t say,” Sykes said. “More than five hundred and less than a thousand.”

  “Those are the bad guys,” Scott said. “Anything you can do to slow them down would be appreciated, but watch for triple A. Are you taking fire?”

  “Negative,” Sykes said. “Who are they? Dari?”

  “Adu’s unit,” Scott said. “We think.”

  “I got a mini in the tail,” Sykes said. “But nobody who can use it.” He looked Gabrielle in the eye. She shook her head. “Unless I could set this thing on autopilot…”

  “Negative, negative,” Evans said. “That’s not a Cessna.”

  “What is this?” Duquette said, pointing at a hatch in the floor of the passenger cabin.

  “That?” Sykes said, looking over his shoulder. “That’s the hell hole.”

  “What is it?” she asked. “Is it a trapdoor?”

  “More or less,” Sykes said. “It’s a rescue hatch. Winching men up, or down. Why?”

  “Can you open it?”

  “There’s a button next to the hatch that opens it. You have to pull the bar back manually. Why do you want to open it?”

  He looked over his shoulder and saw that she’d opened her Zero case and was holding a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills in her hand. She pointed with her other hand toward the hell hole at her feet.

  “I think we might have figured out how to slow them down a bit,” Sykes told command. “How low can I fly before they shoot me?”

  He turned, banking back into the sun as Evans instructed, and brought the helicopter to five hundred feet. Gabrielle Duquette propped her silver Zero case on the floor next to the hatch, opened the hatch, flipping it on its hinge until it lay flat, and then, as fast as she could, tossed fistfuls of American currency out of the helicopter, ripping the rubber bands that bound them and setting the binders aside, the cash dispersed by the rotor wash in a downward vortex, the money falling like so much green snow on the advancing rebel troops. They saw soldiers looking up, and then they saw men running everywhere, scrambling to recover the pieces of paper that fell from the sky, the rebel troops’ forward movement momentarily halted.

  “Whaddaya know?” Sykes said. “You can throw money at a problem. I wish my father was here.”

  “Why? Is he a pilot?”

  “No,” Sykes said. “He’s a Republican.”

  Camp Seven was a frenzy of activity. Everything seemed to be happening at once.

  When DeLuca saw MacKenzie step out of the Land Rover, he couldn’t have been happier. She introduced him to her friend, Stephen Ackroyd. It was none of his business, but somehow DeLuca sensed immediately that something had passed between them.

  “The fifth estate was talking about you back at the Hotel Liger,” DeLuca said.

  “Well, don’t believe everything you hear,” Ackroyd said.

  “We have some surprises for you in the back,” Mack said, pointing to the arms cache. DeLuca gave them a brief inspection.

  “Did you read the e-mail I sent you?” he asked her.

  “Haven’t had a chance,” she said. “Why? What’d it say?”

  Ackroyd was standing right next to them.

  “Read it, when you get a chance,” DeLuca said. Mack crossed to where Evelyn Warner was standing, giving her a big hug and receiving one in return.

  “Bill Murray went to my high school,” DeLuca said to Stephen, asking him flat out. “Did anybody famous go to your high school?”

  “Mine?” Ackroyd said. He looked genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. The guy who draws the cartoon Garfield, but he’s not famous.”

  “You’re a writer, right?”

  “That’s right,” Ackroyd said. He seemed suddenly suspicious.

  “What have you written that I might have read?” DeLuca asked him.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Stephen said, his eyes blinking rapidly. “Probably not much. I haven’t really published too much.”

  He moved to help Vasquez unload the Land Rover.

  DeLuca let it go, for now.

  “Are you all right?” Evelyn Warner asked MacKenzie.

  “We’re good,” Mack said. “We had to leave in a hurry.”

  “Where’s Claude?” Warner asked.

  “There was an accident,” Mack said. “Dr. Chaline went back to help them. I’m sorry. We couldn’t stop him.”

  “Of course you couldn’t,” Warner said, disconsolate that her friend was lost.

  “Evelyn,” DeLuca interrupted, watching as an unidentified Chinook helicopter turned in the air perhaps one or two kilometers north of them. He’d ordered Vasquez and MacKenzie to break out the AKs and load them. He’d sent for Corporal Okempo as well. “Everybody has to leave, now. There’s no time for discussion. My CIM says there’s a road along the river, going south. Where does it end?”

  “There’s a ford, about five miles from here, where the river is shallow enough to cross. Until it rained two weeks ago up north, both branches were down to a trickle.”

  “What’s on the other side?” DeLuca asked her.

  “Another road,” she said. “For about five miles. This is the West Liger. The western fork. The road comes to the East Liger, just above where the two branches meet.”

  “And on the other side of that?”

  “That’s the border,” she said.

  “If you cross, you’ll be safe?”

  “Safe’s a bit relative, i
sn’t it?” she said. “Safer, I suppose. Bo’s posted troops at the borders to stop people from leaving the country, but God only know if they’ll still be there. I don’t think the rebels would follow us across.”

  “Take your people there,” he told her. “Don’t let the border guards stop you. If you tell them two thousand rebel troops are chasing you, I suspect they’ll escort you across the river personally. Corporal Okempo, I’m going to give your men real guns with real ammunition. Agent Vasquez will show your men how to use them, but it’s the world’s simplest rifle. Point and shoot, just like Kodak. Keep the people in order and keep them moving. I’m hereby authorizing a field transfer to the United States armed forces, all right? If somebody gives you any trouble for following my orders, I’ll fix it later, okay? I promise you. You won’t get in trouble.”

  Okempo nodded uncertainly. DeLuca wondered just how much he understood.

  “I’m not sure these people can go ten miles,” Warner said. “They’re scared. They’ve been through so much already.”

  DeLuca saw the Chinook approaching. He was about to order Vasquez to fire on it when his SATphone rang and Scott told him the Chinook was friendly. He asked Scott to stay on the line.

  “It looks like help may be arriving, but you still have to evacuate. You have to do what you can,” DeLuca told Evelyn, holding his hand over the phone. “Leave everything. You have to go, now.”

  Warner spoke to Cela, who began the evacuation. Some people ran, some walked, carrying what they could. Some children thought it was a game.

  “David,” Warner said, “I have fifty people in the infirmary who can’t even stand.”

  “We’ll take care of them,” DeLuca said, though he wasn’t sure how.

  He found Asabo.

  “Paul, I want you to help Evelyn get the women and children to safety. Tell them who you are. They’ll follow you. They’ll calm down if they know you’re leading them. Okay?”

  Asabo nodded.

  DeLuca watched as the helicopter attempted to set down in a nearby field, moving up and down three or four times and rotating in place at least half a dozen times before settling in, nearly backing tail first into the earth before finally correcting and dropping with a loud thud from a height of three or four feet, teetering momentarily on two wheels before settling in a cloud of dust.

  “That’s the worst landing I ever saw,” Vasquez said.

  When Sykes emerged from the pilot’s door, DeLuca understood why. With him was the actress, her beauty as out of place here as a rose in a toilet bowl.

  “I didn’t know you knew how to fly jollies,” DeLuca said to Dan.

  “Neither did I,” Sykes said. “This is Gabrielle Duquette. Gabby, this is my boss.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” DeLuca said, turning to Dan. “How much fuel do you have left?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sykes said. “Maybe a third of a tank. The bad guys are one or two klicks north. You need a lift?”

  “Not me,” DeLuca said. “How many passengers can you carry?”

  “You’re asking me?” Sykes said. “Hang on.” He spoke into Gabby Duquette’s SATphone. “Captain Evans, how many passengers can I carry?” He turned to DeLuca. “He says thirty-six, including the crew. Fifty thousand pounds, gross weight.”

  “Thirty-six grown men?” DeLuca asked. Sykes repeated the question for Captain Evans, then nodded to DeLuca.

  “We have fifty immobile women and children,” DeLuca said, doing a bit of math in his head. “That ought to equal about thirty-six grown men. Evelyn, get your sick people on the helicopter. Agent Sykes will help you.”

  “I’ll help, too,” Gabrielle said.

  “Thank you,” DeLuca said.

  “There’s a minigun in the back we don’t need,” Sykes added. “We could lose the weight, too.”

  “Hoolie,” DeLuca said, pointing at the chopper, “can you get the mini and mount it on the Rover?”

  “I’ll have to punch a few holes in the roof, but yeah. Give me ten minutes.”

  “Do it. You have five,” he said.

  A pair of headlights approached from the south.

  “Jesus,” DeLuca said, “what next?” He scanned the terrain again, keeping his eye on the car that would soon arrive, then got his son on the SATphone. The approach from the north was guarded by a pair of hills with a gap of perhaps five hundred yards between them. If the rebels seized the high ground, anyone remaining in the camp would be easy to hit with mortar, RPG, or rifle fire. He needed to keep the enemy inside the chokepoint. “Scott, I need fire on the mountains. How many Preds do we have?”

  “Two on scene and two will be there in about ten minutes,” Scott said. “The Hellfires can be there sooner than that—they’re in range.”

  “Do you see the two hills north of my position?” DeLuca asked.

  “Roger that,” Scott said.

  “You got the bad guys on infrared?”

  “Got ’em.”

  “When they cross the line at the chokepoint, light the hills,” DeLuca said. “First one, then the other. I want them to think it isn’t safe up there.”

  “Roger that,” Scott said.

  In the distance, DeLuca thought he heard the sound of loud music, boom boxes, chanting. Apparently the rebels were in something of a party mood, and not interested in gaining the advantage of surprise, but then, it was a war where terrorizing the opponent seemed more important than killing him.

  Sykes interrupted him.

  “We got a problem,” he said.

  “You have your people loaded?”

  “Just about,” Sykes said. “You want me to fly across the river and out of country, right? To where the others are walking?”

  “Yeah,” DeLuca said. “Keep everyone together.”

  “Evans thinks I’m going to need an LZ. Something lit so I can see it. It’ll be dark in fifteen minutes. I had enough trouble landing that thing in daylight. We have zero NVGs.”

  “Scott,” DeLuca said. “Check your topos. We need an open space where the river road south turns east and crosses out of Liger, ten to fifteen klicks from here. What have you got?”

  “Hold on,” Scott said. “On your CIM. Got it?”

  “Roger—what’s the terrain like? Wooded?”

  “Semiwooded. It looks like some sort of refugee camp on the other side.”

  “Room for an LZ for the jolly?”

  “There’s room.”

  “What can you do to light it? We have zero NVG capabilities. Sykes is flying the jolly—he needs a safe place to land. We have fifty people on board.”

  “I can’t get command and control in that fast,” Scott said. “The closest FOP is still too far south.”

  “How much fuel do your Predators have on them?”

  “Two hundred gallons av gas at full,” Scott said.

  “They fly about the same speed as a chopper, right?”

  “About,” Scott said.

  “Here’s what I want you and Captain Evans to do—when Dan is up, send a Pred and lead him to a safe LZ. When you get there, crash the Pred to give him a target. Tell LeDoux he can put the cost on my tab.”

  “Not a problem,” Scott said. “At least not right now.”

  “I got you an LZ,” DeLuca told Sykes. “Go now—Evans will explain.”

  “See you on the Johnson,” Sykes said.

  “You got it,” DeLuca said.

  Gabrielle Duquette approached them.

  “Let’s go,” Sykes told her. “Get on the jolly—it’s going to get hot here in a minute.”

  “I gave up my seat,” Duquette said. “I can walk.”

  “Gabby…”

  “I can walk,” she said firmly. “I’m able-bodied. They need it more than I do.”

  “Gabby…”

  “Take the money,” she said, the Zero case still on board. “Use the rest when you’re safe. These people are going to need a lot of things. You should go.”

  Sykes put a hand on her shoulder.


  “I’m still going to get you home safe,” he said.

  He turned and ran to the helicopter.

  Only a few refugees remained in camp. Evelyn Warner was hurrying them down the river road, women shuffling in the dust with their babies strapped to their backs, what few belongings they could bring with them piled on their heads.

  “Ackroyd,” DeLuca said, pulling the man aside. “Time for the civilians to leave. I need to know who you are. Who you work for. My name is David DeLuca and I’m with U.S. Army counterintelligence. Who sent you here?”

  “No one sent me here,” Ackroyd said. “I came because I heard they needed people.”

  “Who are you working for?” DeLuca insisted. “Don’t say a magazine because we checked. Did David Letterman go to your high school?”

  “Why are you asking me about my high school?”

  The man appeared to be confused. DeLuca simply didn’t have time to take apart Ackroyd’s story. If he was CIA and needed to maintain his cover, DeLuca would learn the reasons later. He could be DIA, NSA, DHS, Special Forces, any number of things, or he could be a foreign national who spoke perfect English with an American accent. Or none of the above. DeLuca needed him to leave, to eliminate the variable. He looked Ackroyd in the eye and made a decision.

  “Would you be willing to carry one of these?” DeLuca held up an AK-47. Stephen Ackroyd nodded. DeLuca gave him the weapon. “Take Ms. Duquette with you and join the others.”

  “What about me?” Gabrielle Duquette said. “I’ve had gun training. They give it to you when you have to handle them in films.”

  “You want one, too?” DeLuca asked. She nodded. They needed every able-bodied person they could get. “All right,” he said, handing her a Kalashnikov.

  MacKenzie caught up with Stephen before he joined the exodus and told him to be careful.

  “Some day when this is all over, maybe we’ll look back on it and laugh,” she said. He just looked at her. He didn’t get what she was trying to say.

  “Just a joke, Stephen,” she said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Okay.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, smiling. “Everything’s peachy. I guess it never occurred to me that some day this would be over.”