The Janson Option

by Paul Garrison

  “May I count on you to redouble efforts?”

  “Triple,” said Morton. “I won’t let you down.”

  “Thank you.” She hung up and Morton kicked himself. He had just broken his first rule of business: never promise what you’re not sure you can deliver.

  * * *

  “GOOD EVENING, DOUGLAS,” said a digitally morphed voice on Doug Case’s satellite telephone. “What is the most pernicious threat to ASC?”

  Listening to this voice, and obeying its owner, whoever he or she was, had made Doug Case not only rich but now an American Synergy Corporation division president—an ASC baron—one of the king’s men.

  Doug Case answered what the voice wanted to hear: “China is the most pernicious threat to ASC.”

  He had encountered early voice transformation systems years ago at Cons Ops. These days, exotic technology to fool voice-print ID systems was simple stuff. Third-gen VTS15 software reproduced subtle nuances of timbre and pitch, vibrato and tremolo, which made generating impersonations a snap.

  The voice had chosen, this evening, an oral disguise that sounded like Barack Obama telephoning from a restaurant. The synthesized clinking of glassware and the background babble of conversation from imaginary nearby tables were the cool third-gen touches you got when artists displaced engineers.

  When these telephone calls started shortly after he snagged his job at ASC, Case had presumed that it was one of the division presidents looking for an ally in the viper fight to succeed the Buddha. You were the best covert officer who ever served his country, the voice had said, buttering him up. Serve me, and I will repay you. Case had gone along with it, listening patiently, answering obediently. He had hoped it was CEO Bruce Danforth, the Buddha himself. Now he was 99 percent sure it was the Buddha, teching up a time-honored custom of whispering orders that could never be traced back to him.

  It had paid off Buddha-big. Huge money, at first—tons of it in safe accounts. Now the far more valuable division privileges: his seat on the executive board, the helicopters and jet planes at his beck, and virtual autonomy in any act involving company security.

  “What is the immediate threat?” the voice persisted.

  “China,” Case answered again. The voice had become obsessed with China. More proof that it was Bruce Danforth.

  “Think, Douglas! What is the more immediate threat?”

  Not China tonight. That left only: “Paul Janson.”

  “Your old friend.”

  “I have told you before, we were colleagues, not friends.”

  “Warriors are never ‘colleagues.’ Warriors are brothers.”

  “Cain and Abel were brothers.”

  “Then why isn’t Abel dead?”

  “Abel got lucky in Beirut.”

  “Thank luck. Never blame it.”

  “Well put,” said Case, thinking, pure Buddha. Bruce Danforth loved rules and he loved them stated as aphorisms. He was getting old.

  “Have you any idea where Janson has gone?”

  “Mogadishu.”

  “Perhaps your people will perform better than they did in Beirut.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Personally?” asked the voice with unconcealed surprise, and maybe, Case thought, admiration.

  “I took off four hours ago,” said Doug Case.

  He cast an appreciative eye about ASC’s luxuriously fitted Bombardier Global Express, a twin-engine jet with a longer range than Paul Janson’s Embraer, and faster. Hidden in the cabin were hermetically sealed lockers. In the corrupted flyblown nations where Doug Case did business, it was unlikely that local constabulary would ever dare search an American Synergy corporate jet. If some fool tried, Case would make a phone call and long before the fool found guns, money, or drugs he would find himself shackled in a secret-police dungeon by direct order of his pissant dictator.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  4°52' N, 47°53' E

  Five Kilometers West of Harardhere, Somalia

  The instruments of a battlefield medic and Kincaid’s dressed wound, as well as their white skin, were a puzzlement that caused them to be taken to the Uganda AMISOM force’s HQ at a cratered and potholed airstrip secured with tanks and heavy artillery outside Harardhere.

  From what Janson could see, the captain commanded nearly a hundred men. His name tag read “Museveni,” and the fact that he and Kincaid had been treated well so far gave Janson hope that Captain Museveni ran a tighter outfit than most. His men had carried Kincaid on a stretcher into his tent and helped make her comfortable in a camp bed. He offered morphine. She had already refused it from Janson.

  How long that treatment would go on was doubtful, though. And when the captain demanded what he called “Straight answers starting now!” in a loud voice, it was time to try to bring in the big guns.

  “Let me speak with General Ddembe. He’ll have your answers.”

  “General Ddembe is not here.”

  “I know. He’s gone back to Kampala,” said Janson. “He’ll still want to talk to me.”

  Captain Museveni looked equal parts pissed off and uncomfortable. In an army in desperate need of reform, General Darwin Ddembe was a fighting man with political connections and ambitious dreams he had a very good chance of achieving. General Ddembe, therefore, was not a boss that sensible captains got on the wrong side of.

  Janson said, “I’ll give you his private number, but it will be better for you if I dial it myself. He tends not to give it out even to his best captains.”

  The captain stalled just long enough to save face. “All right. Go ahead. Call him.”

  “My phone’s in my pack.”

  Museveni snapped his fingers and shouted, and the pack was brought into his tent. Janson dialed. General Ddembe answered. Janson said, “It is Saul.”

  “Saul?” echoed Ddembe. “Who is Saul?”

  Janson was in no mood for joking around. He was desperate to get Kincaid into a real hospital, and the shootout in the fish factory was a wound that would stay raw forever. But he had to give the general the laugh he expected, so he went along with the ribbing.

  “Good evening, General. As soon as you are done busting my chops, I am in need of your assistance.”

  Janson tilted the phone so Museveni could hear too.

  “Ah, that Saul. Yes, yes, I received your message earlier in the week that you’d be around. Where are you?”

  “I’m with your very competent Captain Museveni about five klicks west of Harardhere.”

  “Who are you killing out there?”

  “No one, sir. It’s a rescue mission.”

  The general laughed back. “I’ll bet. Rescued for St. Peter. All right, all right. What can I do for you that I won’t regret?”

  “I would be grateful if Captain Museveni could arrange a lift to Mogadishu.”

  “Just you?”

  “Two of us.”

  “You’re getting old, Saul. Always used to go solo.”

  “Catches up with all of us, sir. Not you, of course.”

  “I knew I’d be getting a call like this.”

  “I only call the best, sir,” Janson said lightly, with a wink for Museveni, who had the survival instinct to smile. “And only when I really need them.” Then he added, “Which I remember from some years back was a standard you upheld in our dealings.” There was no need to say aloud how profitable those dealings had been.

  “Who’s chasing you?”

  “No one at the moment. Although Captain Museveni looks dubious.”

  “Put him on the line. Call me when you get to Mogadishu.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Janson handed his phone to Captain Museveni and said quietly to Kincaid, “This is going to be a very expensive ride.”

  “Helms can afford it. What do we do when we get there?”

  “Get you in a hospital and start over.”

  “I’m not going in any damned hospital.”

  “My beautiful, I am so sorry I fucked up. But
you are going to a hospital and getting checked out from head to toe and that’s final.”

  “Don’t send me away to get over your guilt trip. You are not kicking me off this job. I’ll go anywhere you want after we get her back.”

  “Just one day, to check you out.”

  “One day, period. Then I’m back.” She stuck out her hand and they shook on it. She held on and pulled him close. “Lighten up, Mr. Machine, we’re both alive, and the lady needs us with both our heads on straight.”

  * * *

  SURFING POWERFUL TAIL WINDS, Doug Case’s ASC Bombardier sped at five hundred knots across the Caribbean Sea, the North Atlantic Ocean, and sub-Saharan Africa. He refueled in Puerto Rico and Senegal, where he took on fresh crew. Putting down again in Juba, capital of South Sudan, Case welcomed a guest he had invited to fly with him to Somalia—Kin Poy Lam—senior field executive for China’s Ministry of State Security, East Africa Bureau.

  Mr. Kin was a fine-boned, elegant Shanghainese.

  The state-owned China National Petroleum Company gave Mr. Kin cover, which he embellished with the superior manner of a “blue-blood-league” heir of a high-up party official. The Ministry of State Security furnished communications, intelligence, and assassins. And the People’s Liberation Army’s elite Taiwan pre-invasion units supplied bodyguards.

  Doug Case allowed the guards to frisk him for weapons and poke around his wheelchair. But he protested when they confiscated the Glock in his shoulder holster.

  “Forgive their excess of caution,” said Kin, though his expression made it clear that forgiven or not they would keep his gun as long as Case was in Kin’s presence.

  “Don’t you want to check the laser obliterator in my wheelchair?” asked Case, establishing by the alarm on their faces that the bodyguards were as fluent in English as Kin himself. Kin stayed them with a gesture and said to Case, “I applaud your sense of humor.”

  Despite his superior airs, Kin Poy Lam had the scared eyes of an operator tasked with an impossible job. China had invested billions in Sudanese oil—building infrastructure, which included a pipeline that delivered a large portion of her voracious petroleum needs to Chinese tankers in the Red Sea—until she backed the wrong side in Sudan’s long and bloody Muslim-Christian, North-South civil war. China’s side won the pipeline, but the new nation of South Sudan won the oil.

  The fact that Kin had urged the bosses in Beijing to bet on the rebels had earned him no friends. He still had orders to move heaven and earth to keep the pipeline flowing. If there was ever a man desperate for Somali oil, it was MSS Agent Kin Poy Lam.

  Case put the screws to him as soon as the Bombardier was airborne.

  “Your man messed up. Paul Janson is not dead.”

  Kin had enjoyed too much privilege for too long and was not used to being spoken to bluntly. “I’ve summoned him to explain.”

  “What’s to explain? I told you Janson would be in Beirut. I told you when he would be there. I even told you that my people, who were watching him in Beirut, reported to me that Janson would be wearing a bright-blue vest! Fucking pacifists could have terminated him.”

  “I will not disappoint you again,” came the stiff reply.

  Case said, “It was your thought to help me out as a sign of goodwill. Earnest money, so to speak, to ensure that you and I could do business.”

  “No, that was your idea!” Kin Poy Lam shot back. “I went along to smooth the way.”

  So much for poker-faced Chinese, thought Doug Case. Lips tight, eyes hot enough to ignite firewood, Kin Poy Lam could not hide half his anger. He looked ready to order his bodyguards to “smooth the way” by rolling Case’s wheelchair out the Bombardier’s emergency exit.

  Doug Case gathered his own bland features into a dubious expression.

  Kin moderated his tone. “Surely we can still do business.”

  “Let me ask you something,” said Case. “China is a large and great nation. Large and great nations are naturally hobbled by competing bureaucracies. Is it possible that you have rivals within China who are sabotaging your efforts to secure more oil in East Africa?”

  “I won’t insult your intelligence by denying that. Just as you duel with rivals within your corporation. But no one can sabotage me in Somalia. In Somalia,” said Kin, “I am fully in command.”

  “I hope for both our sakes that you are right,” said Doug Case.

  But in fact, the plane ride had just paid for itself. Case was glad that the PRC’s State Security agent had not tried to inflate his résumé by claiming autonomy in Sudan. It made Kin’s claim about Somalia believable. Which meant that Case could continue operating on the premise that Kin Poy Lam was China’s only man in Somalia.

  * * *

  WHEN ISSE NOTICED that the Mogadishu street he was walking on was an unpaved dirt road, it dawned on him with sudden pride how far he had come from home. The rap he was listening to on his iPhone was perfect accompaniment. He played it over, mouthing the words as he walked.

  Start walking in the poverty.

  Keep praying to the east.

  Before you join the Ummah,

  Leave the belly of the beast.

  In other words, he thought, Muslim pride, Islam is on the rise. But to join the community, you have to walk in the poverty and share the despair of lost hope. And then the most amazing thing happened. Right there on a dusty dirt road in a beat-up neighborhood a short walk from the center of town he saw a mosque in the row of buildings that he swore he recognized. It had a stucco front painted yellow and a couple of bullet-pocked pillars around the door and he was positive he had seen it behind Mullah Amriki in a preaching video on YouTube.

  Wait a sec, he thought. Most of the buildings look alike. But it had to be. And if it was, was Abdullah al-Amriki inside? Couldn’t be. He was somewhere out in the bush, hiding from AMISOM.

  A couple of kids came running toward him.

  “Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki?” he asked. “Is this his mosque?”

  The kids were carrying sticks. They swung in unison. Isse ducked. One stick skimmed his hair, the other caught him full in the face. It hurt like hell and he staggered backward holding his cheek, and the next thing he knew they were galloping down the road, one with his iPhone, the other waving his ear buds.

  He stood there blinking tears from his eyes. It hurt like hell, but he laughed when he realized he didn’t care about the iPhone and he spoke out loud.

  “I am doing just what the Imam said, living in the crisis zone as a Muslim, to respect the proper ways of the faith.” His voice trailed off as it struck him how empty his efforts were. Those kids saw a fucking tourist, he thought. “They were right. A tourist from America.”

  He stood staring at the mosque. It couldn’t be the same as in the video. He went inside. An old man was standing watch in the front courtyard. “Is Mullah Abdullah al-Amriki here?” Isse asked him.

  “No.”

  “Was he here before AMISOM?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where he preached in Mogadishu?”

  “Bakaara.”

  That was hardly news. Bakaara Market had been an al-Shabaab stronghold before they were kicked out of the city. Fat chance Isse would find him there now. But he thanked the old man and left, heading back to the market with an idea. The Internet Café. There were all sorts of crooks and scammers hanging around there. He could Skype his parents, ask for money, and use it to buy information.

  He didn’t even need the iPhone. He could hear what he had to hear in his head.

  Join the caravan before you lose your soul,

  Sell this life for endless happiness down the road.

  * * *

  ALLEGRA HELMS WASHED Adolfo’s blood from his vest in the sink in the captain’s bathroom, the only place they let her be alone, and then only briefly. She hated wearing it. The pirates laughed and gave her a nickname: “Bullet-Hole Lady.”

  But Cousin Adolfo’s riddled vest had an inside pocket to hide the pistol s
he had discovered while weeping over his body.

  She had examined it carefully and rehearsed how to cock the hammer and release the safety with her thumb. It was small, shorter than the span of her thumb and middle finger, and fit her hand. Her father, fearing the kidnappers who preyed on the rich, kept handguns in all their houses and had taught her to shoot. That was many, many years ago. Neither could she trust herself to use it. She recalled her fencing master berating her for failing to follow up and go in for the kill.

  Today came an emissary from Mogadishu, who wore a terrorist’s head garb. It was strange. He brought a telephone with him, a satellite phone. She could not understand what he and Maxammed said in Somali. Maxammed seemed perplexed and eventually allowed the emissary to use the telephone, which he handed to Maxammed.

  Suddenly, to her astonishment, Maxammed broke into Italian.

  Had Maxammed forgotten it was her language, or did he not care that she overheard? He spoke with an African accent, but with great assurance, and employing clever idiom. The conversation was cryptic, but long, as he paced the bridge alternately cajoling and shouting. At first she thought they must be discussing her, but that was not the case. They were talking about politics, about the vice president. Maxammed asked again and again for assurance. Sicurezza. And garanzia.

  He mentioned her, occasionally. But of course she could not hear the other speaker, only Maxammed asking over and over, “What about Home Boy? What about Gutaale?”

  She had a strong feeling that he mistrusted the man he was speaking to, which Maxammed confirmed by shouting, “I’ll come to Mogadishu when he’s dead… Call me back when he’s dead.”

  He started to end the conversation, but whoever he was speaking to said something that caught his interest and Maxammed ended by saying, “Yes, of course, I will think about your proposal. Arrivederci!”

  Thank God for Adolfo’s gun. She was terrified of what would happen if Maxammed left and she had to face his men alone.