—
They trudged toward camp, and Wells felt the full weight of the last three days. Even at forty a man could rise to his youthful heights in bursts—forty-year-old point guards and quarterbacks played in the pros—but Wells was past forty now. He was in great shape, but every mission left him more deeply spent. He walked carefully, conserving his strength for this last phase.
As they neared camp, Wells drew on his last reserves to make himself stand up taller, walk faster. He wanted Wizard’s men to think of an emissary from the outside world, here to give them the choice of freedom or death. Not their captive.
He saw dozens of soldiers standing in the rain, waiting around the western huts. They had AKs and RPGs, and most wore their white T-shirts. Wells couldn’t guess what they made of him, though one tall man pointed and laughed. “What’s he saying?”
“That you almost as black as me.”
Wells scraped a line of mud from his face. He was caked in it. His forearms itched, too, thanks to a dozen mosquito bites. The rain had brought them out and he’d been a perfect target lying in the mud.
At the edge of camp, several men watched a hut. “Mind if I say hi to Gwen?” Wells turned toward the men. Wizard grabbed his elbow, marched him along. Wells didn’t argue. He’d found out what he needed to know. The hostages were inside.
Wizard’s hut was clean and spare and most of all dry, with a cot and a wooden chest. Wizard turned on an electric lantern. A man brought in two rough-hewn wooden stools and a plastic bag filled with leaves. Wizard took the bag, offered it to Wells. “Miraa.”
“No, thanks.”
“The girl with the white hair, she takes miraa.” Wizard stuffed his lip with leaves.
“Gwen?”
“Yes. Gwen.” Wizard smiled. He liked her, Wells saw. Was that why he’d refused to sell the hostages to the Arab?
“Is she all right?”
“All three of them, sure, ’til they kill my man. Now we got them pinned up with one more my men.”
“They have a hostage?” No wonder the camp felt so unsettled.
“They not going anywhere unless I say. How you find me, mzungu?”
“The drone tracked your men from the border.”
“Tricky. Then it bomb my trucks.”
“That’s right.”
“It still here?”
“Yes. One for now. More coming.”
“But you alone.”
“The CIA, the Army, they know I’m here. In a few hours, they’ll have helicopters here.” Wells wasn’t sure whether he was lying or not. Duto and Shafer knew, but whether Duto had told anyone outside Langley depended on calculations that Wells didn’t presume to understand.
“And soldiers.”
“Special Forces. Only thing that will stop them is if they’re afraid you’ll kill the hostages. That’s the only reason I didn’t kill you on the hill.”
“Lying, mzungu. Couldn’t even see me.”
Wells handed over the night-vision monocle. “You couldn’t see me, but I saw you.”
Wizard looked through it. “Turn off the lantern,” Wells said.
Wizard flicked it off and the hut was dark. “Neat toy. Mzungu magic.” He flicked the lantern back on, gave the monocle to Wells, pretending he wasn’t impressed.
“I promise you that right now, satellites are photographing this place, analysts are figuring out where the hostages are, planners are thinking up ways to hit you so hard it’ll be over in thirty seconds. Plus, every SEAL and Delta within a thousand miles is raising his hand and begging to get in on this like a kid who doesn’t want to be last pick at recess—”
Wizard spat a long stream into the dirt. “Don’ know what you talking about.”
“What I’m talking about, Wizard, is that this is over. However you expected to get paid, Nairobi, Mogadishu, no one will touch you. Maybe if you had a thousand fighters, big weapons, shoulder-fired missiles, the Pentagon and White House would take you seriously. If you were in Mog and had a million civilians on all sides, you’d have some leverage. But not here. Not this. Every man here is a legitimate target, and the United States will kill them all. In fact, that’s probably the number-one option—hit quick, hit hard, so that you’ll be too busy trying to save your own skin to shoot those three in the hut. It’s what I’d do.”
“Let them try. They don’ scare Wizard.”
Wells coughed, a wet phlegmy rumble that started low in his stomach and took too long to stop. He’d come to a land of drought and wound up drenched and sick. He wanted nothing more than to lie on the dirt, close his eyes. He knew that he’d wake burning from the inside out, skin stretched over his bones, eyes worn dry, throat clotted and chafed, and still he ached to sleep.
“Listen to me. We both know that you can yell out to your men to shoot me and I can’t stop you. Maybe I take a few soldiers out, but not a whole camp. I gave up my chance to escape when I told you where I was.”
“What the point.”
“Point is”—another cough rose in Wells and he fought it down—“point is that if I tried to shoot my way out of here, it would be suicide. Not bravery. You try to fight the Americans, it’ll be the same. Let Gwen and Hailey and Owen go. Keep me if you like—they won’t send an army for me and you can ransom me back in a month when nobody’s paying attention, but let them go. I know you want to get them back to their families anyway—”
“Second time you said that. How you know?”
“I was the Arab who called you,” Wells said in Arabic, then in English.
Wizard grinned. And pulled a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker Blue from his chest, the amber liquid glowing in the low lantern light.
“Plenty tricks in you, mzungu.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Wizard handed Wells a glass.
“Are we toasting agreement?” Wells said. “You’ll listen.”
Wizard raised his glass. “This to thank you for letting somebody else kill me. You know I can’t let them go.”
At that they both drank. The scotch blistered Wells’s throat and his head swam. Something deeper and darker than fatigue had come for him this night. The bites on his arms itched madly. But he hadn’t been in Kenya nearly long enough for malaria or sleeping sickness to incubate. He wondered if he’d been unlucky enough to be infected with something more obscure, West Nile virus or Rift Valley fever. Whatever it was, he faced more dangerous threats in the next few hours. He forced the headache aside, focused on Wizard.
“You can trust me,” Wells said.
Wizard smirked. “How many times you lie to me already? Kill my men. Now telling me, do what you say. Now, what if I foolish enough to believe you, give up these wazungu? Out there, not ten kilometers away, creeping close and close, Awaale got three hundred Ditas—”
“Ditas? Is that what you call Shabaab?”
Wizard shook his head like he couldn’t believe Wells didn’t know. “Not Shabaab. Dita Boys. Fighters.”
“A local militia.”
“Yeah, militia. Awaale tells me I don’t give over the wazungu by sunrise he gon’ attack me. I got not even seventy soldiers and now one technical left. If Awaale come, half my men go to him straight straight. The rest of us, he slit our throats and leave the bones for the hyenas. He want this land for himself. You say I got to be frightened of these Americans, but they not here. Maybe I take all you wazungu and hide away—”
“You think you can hide from the drones.”
“No. You right. We gon’ stay right here. Die like men. All of us.” Wizard poured himself a fresh finger of Johnny Walker Blue and reached for Wells’s glass. Wells covered it.
“Keep me. Gwen and Hailey and Owen didn’t ask for this.”
“Anyone ever ask to die, mzungu?”
Wizard’s eyes glinted from the scotch, but his
voice was steady and Wells knew better than to argue anymore. He wondered if he could overcome Wizard despite his fever, make a play for the hut with the hostages, but the Somali rested his hand lightly on his pistol.
“Been friends ’til now. Keep it that way.”
Even if he disarmed Wizard, he’d die before he got to the hostages, and they would, too. So close and yet so far. Maybe the SEALs would arrive in time and hit the camp perfectly and they’d all live. But Wells didn’t think so.
“You want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself,” Wells said.
“What that?”
“I said I’m going to learn plumbing when I get home. The basics, anyway. Expecting Anne to clear the drains is ridiculous. Can I have some water? There’s some in my pack.”
Wizard handed him a bottle. Wells forced himself to sip. He’d find a way through this night yet. He wondered how many hours he’d spent in rooms like this, huts and cells and airless apartments in the places anyone with a choice left behind. Such a strange way to spend a life, and yet he’d picked it freely.
“You Muslim, Wizard?”
“Little bit.”
“That sounds about right. Me, too.”
“Ditas, too, but they shoot us all anyway. They don’ care what Allah think. Hey, mzungu, how come you didn’t shoot me on the hill?”
“I didn’t come here for you. I came here for them.”
“But I tol’ you on the phone no way.”
“I thought I could change your mind.”
“You wrong.”
“Figured that out my own self.” Wells leaned back against the wall of the hut, closed his eyes. He didn’t expect to think of anything except the pounding in his head, but when he opened them he had a plan. He forced himself to stand, took a deep breath to clear his head. “Wizard. What if I can get rid of Awaale? Kill him. Will you let me have the wazungu?”
“No more Dita Boys?”
“I can’t promise that, but with your help I can kill Awaale at least.”
“And pay ransom?”
“Ransom, too. That’s ambitious.”
“They kill Samatar—”
“The guard.”
“Yah. I need something to show my men.”
And yourself. But Wells didn’t argue. “There’s forty thousand in the pack. In a bag at the bottom. That’s all I have.”
“Forty thousand shillings.”
“Forty thousand dollars, give or take. Not too bad for one day’s work. And I’ll throw in my lifesaving idea for free.”
Wizard sorted through the pack until he found the money, bundled up and dry in a Ziploc bag. “Okay. What your idea, mzungu?”
“First things first. You have a way to reach Awaale?”
25
LANGLEY
The drone pilot was no taller than Shafer, muscled up the way short guys so often were. Like he thought he was fighting for real instead of with a keyboard. He had slick black hair combed straight back. His name was Augustine Tomaso. Shafer couldn’t believe anyone outside the Old Country went for names like that anymore. He wanted to ask Tomaso, Was there a recent wave of Sicilian immigration that I missed? Was it for a favorite uncle? Some kind of retro hipster thing? Come on, man, I have to know. And, by the way, what’s with the hair? He kept his mouth shut. Tomaso might look like a Sopranos extra, but he’d been invaluable so far.
The actual flying was the easiest part of piloting a drone. Unlike fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles were underpowered and designed to fly slowly and smoothly. The Reaper’s long wings gave it plenty of lift. Its onboard software rejected commands that might make it stall or spin out. Overriding the software was possible but rarely necessary. CIA and Army drones could even take off and land on their own—and they had a better safety record than Air Force drones, which pilots controlled during takeoff and landing. The gap didn’t give Shafer much confidence in humanity’s future.
But the pilot wasn’t entirely useless. His real job was making sense of the flood of information from the drone’s cameras, heat sensors, and radar. Both the drone and the computers that controlled it from the ground had software filters to process the data. But the software couldn’t tell a kid holding a stick from a guerrilla pointing an AK, or a wedding party from a terrorist meeting. When three pickups filled with armed men broke off in three directions, the computers couldn’t decide which was the most important to follow. Not yet, anyway. And tonight, when Wells asked for the Reaper to annihilate a row of technicals, the software didn’t know that the right move after the bomb hit would be a pivot back to the center of camp to see how the White Men reacted.
“They’re going crazy out there,” Tomaso said. “See?”
Shafer didn’t. Worse, he wasn’t sure where Tomaso wanted him to look. The pilot’s workstation was straight out of a Wall Street trading floor, a half-dozen computer monitors offering different feeds. The smallest screen, on the far right, replicated the altitude, speed, and heading of the drone’s flight against a plain blue background. The dummy shot, Tomaso said when Shafer asked. In case I get confused. The Reaper’s thermal cam fed another monitor with a smorgasbord of red and blue streaks that reminded Shafer of the worst acid trip of his life. Forty-five years ago, and his mouth still went dry to remember.
“What am I looking for?”
“They’re huddling up.” Tomaso pointed to a cluster of reddish shapes on the thermal cam. “If we wanted mass casualties, this would be the time. Put a bomb in there, it’s seventy-five percent KIA, WIA.” Tomaso knew the outlines of the mission, that the hostages were probably in the camp and an American operative was nearby, but no details.
“Not on the agenda.” Not yet, anyway.
“Looks like this guy’s talking.” A red splotch that Shafer now recognized as a man stood in the center of the thermal cam, surrounded by dozens of similar streaks. Tomaso clicked on the man, surrounding him with a white border.
“Now, he moves anywhere, we’ll go with him. It’s a long shot. Let me see if I can get anything from the optical cam. Be nice to see his face.” Tomaso pulled up yet another menu on another screen and ran through a series of commands. “Clouds still too thick.”
The red figure grew taller. “What’s that?” Shafer said.
“Raising his arms. Rousing the troops, maybe.”
Shafer wondered what this man who called himself Wizard was telling his soldiers. Probably trying to calm them after the shock of the explosion. Whatever he said didn’t take long. The clot of men broke up, and the white-bordered figure marched toward the site of the explosion.
“Checking out what we did to his trucks,” Tomaso said. “Want me to go with him?”
“Yes.”
Tomaso pulled up a menu. “I’m dialing down the therms so they don’t fry the screen when we go back over there. There’s an autofilter that comes on when you play Whac-A-Mole with the Hellfires or the GBUs, but I took it off when we went to the center of camp.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Nah, man, I like it, it’s thinking out loud. Plus I’ve found that above a certain age, this isn’t that intuitive for people.”
“What age would that be? Eleven?”
“No offense. It’s easier if you’ve grown up with video games.”
“None taken, Augustine.”
Tomaso raised an eyebrow: You’re old enough to be my grandpa and you’re making fun of my name? Classy.
The Reaper’s cameras turned far faster than the aircraft, so the drone flew away from the men on its screens for nearly a minute. The change in perspective made Shafer vaguely seasick. Tomaso didn’t seem to mind, or even to notice. Shafer had never felt so obsolete. Those old Mustangs were great. Pretty as anything. But they’d hardly get off the line today.
“Okay, now they’ve met this third guy—”
—
Shafer’s phone rang. Wells. Who wasn’t showroom clean but still had a few years of useful life. Shafer hoped.
“You hit the trucks.”
“Blew out three technicals.”
“How did they react?”
“They didn’t exactly muster into squads and secure the perimeter. Lot of confusion. You’re still on the southwest side.”
“Correct.”
“The sentry—”
“Took care of him. You looking at me?”
“No. Watching guys on the hill above the trucks. We think one’s Wizard, but we can’t be sure. If they come your way, we’ll pick you up again. Give me your coordinates so we know exactly where you are.”
Wells did. “Don’t confuse me with the sentry. He’s maybe eighty meters closer to camp.”
“He’s still alive?”
“Didn’t say he was dead. Said I took care of him.”
“Like a massage, you mean.”
“Any read on where they’re keeping the hostages?”
“Not yet.”
“Tell me exactly what happened after the bomb hit.”
It was then that Shafer recounted the meeting, and Wells told Shafer his plan: Wizard should be ready to deal . . . and if not I’ll take him out.
Shafer wasn’t so sure Wizard would give up the hostages, but they’d long passed the point of no return, so he didn’t argue.
“What now?” Tomaso said when Shafer hung up.
“Keep tracking the commander.”
“Right. Got good news on the weather too, bro. Rain’s passing within the hour. We’ll have better visuals even before the sun comes up.”
“Bro.”
“Sign of respect.”
The three shapes walked away from the fire, toward Wells. The Reaper followed and along the way made a pass over camp. “Can’t be sure, but I’m guessing the hostages are in those western huts,” Tomaso said. “Lot of activity over there.”
Close to Wells. Maybe a lucky break. If he could take out Wizard clean and quick . . . and the Reaper’s Hellfires killed the guys in the open and Wizard’s lieutenants were among them . . . and Wells reached camp and found the hostages before someone put a magazine in them . . . and they escaped and the remaining White Men didn’t want to risk the Reaper and decided to let them go . . . Four big ifs. Each might have a fifty-fifty shot of breaking for Wells, which meant the overall odds of a rescue were one in sixteen. Not even ten percent.
The Night Ranger Page 29