by Peter Nealen
Unsurprisingly, Beret Boy was in the back. I recognized his silhouette, anyway, from the night before. He didn’t look like nearly the big man he’d acted like in the wee hours. He still tried to maintain his swagger, but the attitudes of the other men around him put the lie to it.
I picked out Colonel Qasi right away, though he wasn’t anything like what I was expecting. He was short, wiry, and didn’t walk with the swagger that his men did. He had short, iron-gray hair and an equally gray, neatly trimmed beard. His fatigues were plain green, totally unadorned, and his pistol belt and holster were plain green webbing. He carried a battered but clean-looking AKM slung barrel-up on his shoulder.
He walked up to Imad and offered his hand. Imad shook it calmly, betraying nothing. We watched--silent, still, hands on weapons.
“So,” Qasi began, in nearly unaccented English, “Captain Ould-Ali tells me that you are asking for our help.” His voice was cold, his face expressionless. “Why should we help you?”
“To begin with,” Imad said calmly, “Because we have mutual enemies to the south. The Islamist militias--”
Qasi cut him off with a slash of his hand. He sneered. “You Americans. You always say that you are here to help, to fight our enemies, if only we take sides with you, surrender ourselves to your operations. You will come to our country, wave your high-technology weapons and the bad people will all go away. Then we will all live in peace and harmony, according to your American ideas. You know nothing of our country, and you never have.” He waved his hand toward the south. “I was in Mogadishu the first time your soldiers came; I have more in common with Al-Shabaab, Allah curse their names, than I do with you.”
“We’re not here to try to remake your country,” Imad insisted. “But if you help us, maybe we can help you, by killing a few of your enemies, while we carry out our mission.”
Qasi snorted. “You weren’t going to remake Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya, either, were you? Where are those people you ‘helped’ now?” He gesticulated vaguely in what was supposed to be the direction of each of the stricken countries that had been the battlefields of the opening decade of the 21st century. “Iraq all but belongs to the Persians, the Taliban rule Afghanistan again with an iron fist, and the Salafi Party has overthrown the Libyan transitional government. The people you ‘helped’ are dead or in prison. So why would I expect your ‘help’ to end any differently?” He looked around at the rest of us, his lip curled.
“Besides, if you think to fight Somalis with so few, you should go home now. With all the power that you brought the last time, we sent you fleeing. These are too few,” he said scornfully.
“I never claimed to be able to send all your enemies fleeing at our approach,” Imad countered. I watched the Galmudug soldiers carefully, the hackles on my neck going up. Imad was getting his back up, and that could get really bad. I almost said something to him about dialing it back a little, but this was the wrong time and place for backseat driving. “You don’t want our help, fine. We can pay, though. All we ask is some fuel and supplies, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Just like that?” The scorn had not left Qasi’s voice. “Your countrymen do not have a presence in this country, American. There is no one to pressure the people to do what you want; there are no helicopters to come rescue you. Why do you keep thinking that the world will simply bow down to your will any longer?”
“That’s our problem,” Imad replied. “Like I said, we can pay for the petrol and we’ll leave.”
“Maybe I just kill you, take your guns,” Qasi suggested. “Then you aren’t my problem or anyone else’s. Your people sent so few of you, I doubt they would even miss you.”
Imad’s voice had gone cold and hard as granite. “You might. I promise you that a lot of your soldiers would die before we went down, and you’d be the first. You think that these four are all I have?”
There was a long pause, as Imad and Qasi stared each other down. I was going over target engagements in my head, picking out who I’d shoot first, second, third, etc. There wasn’t a lot of cover in the square. If Qasi decided to try to be a hardass, it was going to be a bloodbath.
After what felt like a small eternity, as the sun beat down, sweat dripped, and flies buzzed, Qasi regained his sneer. “Pay? What will Americans pay with? Your money is worthless.”
Imad jerked his chin at Ould-Ali. “Your man knows. I showed him the gold last night.”
Qasi’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t want to lift a finger to help us, but if we had gold, he wanted it, almost as much as he didn’t want his head blown off.
Finally, after an agonizing stretch of thinking, he curled his lip again, but this time it didn’t have the weight of contempt behind it. He was negotiating, but trying to make it seem otherwise, especially to his troops. I still didn’t relax. As soon as you relax in these sorts of situations, that’s when Murphy decides to bend you over.
“Petrol is expensive,” he said. “Especially these days. Do you have enough gold to pay for it?”
Imad just stared at him stonily for a moment. When he spoke, his voice held as much contempt as Qasi’s had. “You must either be stupid, or think that I am. Which is it?”
I think it was at just about that point that Qasi started to realize just what kind of people he was fucking with. And he didn’t like the realization. He kept his face straight, but there was a shift in his demeanor. I don’t know if any of his minions picked up on it, but he knew he’d overstepped, and was on more dangerous ground than he had imagined.
Imad continued. “Gas might be expensive, but gold is even more so, and somebody in your position would have to know that. So either you’re an idiot, and I should just go ahead and take what we want, over your dead body or not, or you’re trying to rob me, in which case I should kill you and take what we want anyway.”
Qasi was starting to sweat, and not just from the sun. He had to make a decision. His arrogance might have just fucked him, and he knew it. He also knew that how he reacted in the next few minutes would have long-standing consequences with his men. Scanning around, I could see them watching intently. More than one had a thoughtful look on his face. If Qasi jumped the wrong way, he could wind up undermining himself with his subordinates.
“We are very far from any petrol station,” Qasi said. “Petrol will be more expensive here. Say, two Krugerrands for one hundred gallons?” It was robbery, pure and simple, even with petroleum prices being what they were. At its worst, two ounces of gold could have bought two hundred fifty gallons.
Imad glared. “Okay, apparently you really do think I’m stupid.” He was bluffing more than anything else. We needed the gas, and ultimately would pay whatever we needed to. But we were playing a tricky game here. We couldn’t afford to show Qasi that. It might be seen as weakness, which would be exploited, and might get us killed and tossed into a wadi. Not right away, of course, but we didn’t want an ambush waiting for us, either.
“One Krugerrand, two hundred gallons,” Imad said. Which was still considerably higher than average gas prices at the time, but not nearly as high as Qasi was trying to extort out of us.
“You are the ones in need of the fuel,” Qasi said, seeming to relax a little. “Two Krugerrands, two hundred gallons.”
“You might get one for one hundred fifty,” Imad replied. “You want two? Three hundred gallons.”
“We cannot afford to give up that much fuel,” Qasi protested, apparently relaxing fully into the role of haggling merchant, more so than I expected a commander to. Made me wonder what really got this guy his rank. “One hundred twenty-five for one Krugerrand.”
Imad made a great show of thinking it over, but the truth was that it was probably about as good as we were going to get, and we didn’t have the time to fuck around. We needed to get moving, and the sooner we could get gassed up and get on the way, the better.
Finally, Imad nodded tightly. Qasi smiled just as mirthlessly, and turned to yell at one of his soldiers in Somali. I thi
nk he had reached the point where he was going to simply be glad to get rid of us. Were we to cross paths again, I suspected things wouldn’t be so pleasant or friendly.
I keyed my radio. “Coconut, Hillbilly. Deal is done, bring the trucks up.”
“Roger,” Alek replied.
We didn’t help the Galmudug soldiers who were bringing up the rickety trailer full of five-gallon jerry cans and two rusty steel drums. The four of us who hadn’t spoken maintained our air of stone-faced hired guns, watching as Imad checked each of the containers, before grudgingly handing over the one-ounce gold coin. Qasi inspected it carefully before accepting it and pocketing it with equal ill-grace. By that time, the three vehicles had pulled up, and Jim, Alek, and Danny started loading the fuel into the backs of the trucks, while we stared down the soldiers.
There was no trouble. We just stared at each other like boys and girls at an early high-school dance, while the fuel got loaded, which, since a lot of it was in the two drums, didn’t take a lot of time. Okay, granted, like boys and girls ready to shoot each other dead at the drop of a hat, but you get the idea.
With the last of the fuel loaded, we fell back to the trucks, Bob quickly clambering back on the PKM in the back of the HiLux that he had essentially claimed as his own personal property, and covered the rest of us as we loaded up. Qasi stood watching us, his arms folded across his chest, trying to look stern. To this day, I’m convinced the only reason he dealt with us was to preserve his own skin, after Imad assured him he’d be the first to die if he tried anything.
We left Balli Gubat in a cloud of dust, but we did look back. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
Chapter 20
We pushed hard, rattling and bouncing over the desert, changing direction about five times in an hour, hoping to at least make it harder for Qasi’s goons to follow us if he decided to come after us. I held on for dear life and listened to the suspension protest in agony as we jounced over the arid, rocky ground. It was only a matter of time before something went bad, and we had a notable dearth of replacement parts. We had gas now, but other fluids were pretty lacking. I knew what this sort of environment could do to vehicles.
After about an hour, our headlong rush began to slow, and then stopped. We circled the vehicles in a small laager, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Rodrigo, Tim, and Jim, who were driving, stayed in the vehicles, Hank, Bob, and Larry stayed on security, and the rest of us got out and gathered in the middle to go over our situation.
I glanced up at Bob, still standing in the back of the HiLux, and couldn’t help but comment, “We’re going to have to use a crowbar to get that PKM away from Bob when this is over.”
There were dry chuckles. “He does like that gun,” Hank agreed from the perimeter. “Can’t blame him.”
“Just because you never met a cheap communist gun you didn’t like,” Rodrigo called out the open window. Rod being an FN fan boy, he could always be counted on to rag on Hank’s love of AK’s and Galils, which were Israel’s AK-based service rifles. It helped ease the tension a little.
“All right, settle down,” Alek said. I looked around as the small team got quiet. We were all filthy, unshaven and haggard, crusted with dried sweat and dust. I couldn’t tell about the others, especially as none of us would likely complain about it out loud, but I was exhausted and I hurt. My joints felt like they were full of sand and I was battered and bruised from the hell-bent-for-leather ride across the desert.
We crouched in the sand between the vehicles, and Alek spread out his map on the ground before looking around at us. “All right, thanks to Imad, we’re good on fuel for a couple of days, at least. Danny and Rodrigo secured about thirty gallons of water from one of the outer wells during the night. It’ll have to be purified, but we’ve got water for about the next two and a half days.”
“We should be able to hit the Webi Shebelle by then,” Danny put in. “Still going to have to filter the hell out of the water, probably with chemical purifiers as well, but it’ll be water.” Nobody said anything. None of us wanted to drink unpurified water from anywhere in Africa. The chemical purifiers would ensure it tasted like shit, and it would be hot as hell, but at least none of us should get the galloping shits from it.
Alek looked at me. “How are we doing on ammo?”
I had checked during the pre-dawn hours while we waited for the meeting with Qasi. “We came with enough that even after that firefight on the way out of Hobyo, we’ve still got about a combat load and a half per man, give or take about a hundred rounds,” I said. I was counting two hundred rounds of 7.62x51 as a combat load. “We’ll have to be stingy with it, and try to avoid trouble when we can.” Again, there were no comments. We did our damnedest to hold to the rifleman standard as described by the late, great Jeff Cooper--disabling first-round shots out to five hundred meters. Of course, real-world that wasn’t always possible, but we always strove to hold to it. The limited ammo supply and lack of imminent resupply would only reinforce that.
“Well, we’re not here to try to take down the entire network, just to find our guys,” Alek said. “I think I can safely say that our plan to try to get the Galmudug forces to help us based on their antipathy toward Al Qaeda and its allies here wasn’t the best idea. From here on out, unless absolutely unavoidable, we are avoiding contact with any locals if at all possible.” That could be a tall order, given what little I knew about the nomadic population of Somalia. When I thought about it a little more, though, I reasoned that we were traveling in local vehicles. We didn’t have to look like locals close up, just from far away. Preferably very far away.
“That said, we do need to do some movement during the day,” Alek continued. “We’re on the clock; there’s no telling when Al Masri is going to get a wild hair and decide to teach the Great Satan a lesson by executing some more of his hostages. I’d like to only move at night, but we’ve got over five hundred miles to go just to get to this contact in Baardheere. Best case, that puts us two days away, and I’m not expecting best case, not by a long shot.” Which he almost didn’t even need to say. Whoever was paying the bills for this job, Murphy was most definitely in charge.
He squatted down and pulled out his knife to point to the map. “We don’t have a lot of up-to-date intel on what areas to avoid here, so we’re going to have to play a lot of this by ear. Terrain looks mostly flat, but as we all know, flat is relative in the desert, especially when we’re dealing with vehicles. We haven’t got much in the way of parts, fluids, or even spare tires.” He traced several lines with his knife point. “These are known major roads or tracks. We want to avoid them as much as possible, and see if we can’t arrange to cross any of them that we have to at night.” There were a number of semi-amused grunts, and he shook his head. “I know, I know. Probably not going to work out that way.”
He continued to use his knife as a pointer, this time tracing a thin black line drawn with a map pen. “This looks to be the most direct path we can take to the vicinity of Baardheere, while avoiding most habitation. We can’t guarantee that we’ll miss the nomads, of course, but we can avoid any towns or villages.” The knifepoint slid along the acetate-covered paper. “We push inland from here, and pass about thirty klicks north of Geedaley before turning south again.” He circled a spot on the map. “Imagery shows what looks like some pretty rough country here; we’ll avoid it if we can, but keep an eye on it as a bolt hole if we take contact. From there,” the knifepoint continued its path, “we should have a fairly straight shot for about two hundred fifty kilometers before we start running into the rougher country near the Shebelle River. I’m not going to lie, that river is going to be a major obstacle. Imagery shows it lined with farms; we’re going to have a tough time finding a covert way across it. We may have to cover a fair amount of ground north or south before we can find a crossing point.
“Once across, we’ll continue to push west for another fifty klicks, and then turn south. Like Geedaley,
I want to skirt wide around Baidoa. We’ll come out on the plains to the south, and push for the Juba north of Baardheere. Once we’re in place on the northern outskirts, it’ll be up to Danny to get us in touch with our contact.”
He looked around at us again. “We’re looking at something over seven hundred kilometers, and I want to get us there in two days. If you’re not driving or on lookout, try to get some rack time in the trucks while we move. There won’t be a lot of halts, I hope.”
He proceeded to list off a series of tentative rally points. With such a long route, there were a lot of them. We hauled out little waterproof notebooks to write them down. We went over reaction to contact and down vehicle SOPs one more time.
Alek called Hank over to go over the comm stuff, and Danny took his place on security. Hank started ticking things off on his meaty hands. “We’re low on batteries. Most of the short range radio batteries I can recharge; I brought a solar charger for that, but the big-ticket stuff is getting low. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any good way to procure more, especially in the disputed areas around here, so go easy on the radios. If you’re not a VC or a lookout, keep your radio turned off.”
There weren’t all that many questions; we had all done this before. There was no fire support piece, either. We had no support; no air, no fire support, no casevac. I don’t know about the others, but I tried not to think too hard about it.
Before we climbed back on the trucks, Alek went around to each of us, asking pertinent questions. It was a good way to make sure everybody had the plan set in their mind. Satisfied, he grunted, “Let’s go, gents. Miles to go before we sleep.”
With various creaks, groans and cracks, we got up and headed for our vehicles. I slid into the passenger seat next to Jim; I’d be taking the vehicle commander slot for the first leg. I gave Jim the brief rundown of the plan. He asked a few clarifying questions, then nodded.