The Night Ranger

by Alex Berenson

  But then, Wells didn’t like to play if the game was easy. He didn’t want to win by twenty. He preferred the ball at his own five, down six, two minutes to go. He put himself in these situations intentionally. Though he would never own up to that truth. He was a thrill-seeking killer, a father who’d abandoned his wife and infant son, an operative who lied with ease to further his mission. He was also the bravest man Shafer had ever met. He never blamed anyone for the decisions he’d been forced to make, or asked for relief from the memories he carried. He judged himself, and his verdicts were as harsh as any the world could offer.

  John Wells was awfully simple and awfully complicated.

  —

  Now Shafer saw him, or a dull reddish blotch that represented him, on the thermal screen. The three Somalis had arrived near the sentry. They all burned a brighter red than Wells.

  “Why’s he look so washed out?”

  “Likely he’s covered in mud. Dulls the heat signature.” Tomaso clicked on Wells and a blue border appeared around his figure. Blue for friendly.

  The Somali commander went to the sentry. A minute later the sentry stood and walked back to camp, leaving the commander and the two soldiers alone on the hill. For several minutes Wells stayed in place, downslope from the Somalis. Shafer wondered if they were yelling to one another. Or maybe Wells was waiting in silence, gauging the moment to attack.

  Then a surprise. Wells stood and walked directly to the commander as the man stepped down the hill to him.

  “What’s he doing?” Tomaso said.

  Shafer wondered, too. Without audio, he couldn’t guess. No way the Somali could have seen Wells. He hadn’t needed to surrender. Maybe he’d traded his own life for the hostages. Maybe Wizard had tricked him, though Shafer couldn’t see how.

  Wells walked toward camp, the Somalis around him. Tomaso kept the cameras on him until he entered a hut beside Wizard. “What now? Want me to look for the hostages?”

  “Let’s stay on the hut.”

  —

  Then, disaster.

  In the form of Vincent Duto, DCI. He laid his thick hand on Shafer’s scrawny shoulder as Shafer stared at the screen. Shafer didn’t flinch. He pinched the skin of Duto’s hand until Duto released his grip.

  Duto was wearing a gray suit that accentuated his shoulders and a shirt whiter than any piece of clothing Shafer had owned in his life. He looked like a politician. A winning one. “Vinny. Meet Augustine. One of your landsmen.”

  “What’d I miss?”

  “We hit the technicals. Now Wells is in camp.”

  “He snuck in.”

  “He walked in with three Somalis.”

  “Captured.”

  “Didn’t look that way,” Tomaso said. “Looked like he came in under his own power.”

  “Come,” Duto said to Shafer.

  “It hurts me when you talk to me that way. Like I’m a dog.”

  Tomaso snorted.

  “Greaser,” Shafer said. “Anything happens, you find us.”

  “No need to take it out on him,” Duto said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  Duto led Shafer to an empty conference room and waved his magic director’s key card to unlock the door, let them in. The high-security basement suite of offices where the drones were managed had its own dedicated air-conditioning to defeat the heat that all the computer equipment produced. Arctic jets of air swirled from a half-dozen vents and converged on Shafer’s bald head. At the far end of the room, strings of software code covered three whiteboards. The drone program had more than its share of comp sci Ph.Ds.

  Duto reached into his inside suit pocket, came out with a silver-dollar-sized piece of black plastic. He laid the device on the table. A light on top flashed green and red before switching to a steady green.

  “You’re seriously worried someone’s listening to us, Vinny? Getting paranoid.”

  “Why’d Wells give himself up?”

  “Truth. I don’t know. I’m guessing he’s working out a deal.”

  “If he’s trading himself for them, he’s even dumber than I thought.”

  “I believe you mean braver.”

  “Has he said he’s seen them yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay. So I’ve gotten some expert advice, and as long as he doesn’t tell us he’s seen them with his own eyes, we’re still in hearsay mode and we happy three have a free hand.”

  Expert advice. Which meant Duto had talked to a lawyer. Presumably to ask what he risked by not immediately telling the White House that Wells might have found the hostages. Shafer wondered if Duto had gone to the CIA’s general counsel. Probably not. Probably he’d asked someone who would answer to him alone. “Inside or out?”

  “You think I’d stay inside on this, you’re also dumber than I thought. Justin Lerer.”

  Lerer had been a federal prosecutor specializing in national security and terrorism cases before leaving the government. Now he was building a reputation as the best kind of lawyer, the kind who made problems go away before they reached a judge, but who could go to court and win if necessary.

  “Know what he said.” Duto wasn’t asking. “That if I wanted to be sure I was clear, I ought to call the White House soon as I hung up with him. I told him that I couldn’t do that yet. Not until we know where John stands.”

  “Now you want me to believe you’re worried about him.”

  “He deserves a chance, that’s all.” Duto seemed almost defensive, as if he feared that caring about Wells might be a moral failing. “He’s given a lot to this place.”

  “You want a medal for not listening to a lawyer? Waiting a couple hours to make a call. Scared little toad. You belong in the Senate.”

  “Keep pushing me, Ellis, and I will call the White House. Let them take over. You want to take your chances with that?”

  Shafer didn’t need to answer. Wells had no use for politics, and presidents of either party rarely went out of their way to help anyone who wasn’t useful to them, much less anyone who disdained their power and its trappings. Wells didn’t even have the protection of celebrity any longer. After his first major mission, he’d become a public figure. But he’d done everything possible to keep his exploits private in the years since. CIA and Special Forces officers still knew his name, but civilians had forgotten. Besides, his three most recent missions weren’t the type anyone wanted to remember.

  So Shafer couldn’t count on the National Security Advisor or anyone else at 1600 Pennsylvania caring about Wells. Whether or not they said so, they would view him as one more ex–CIA operative skulking around Africa for his own reasons. The President’s men wanted the hostages back. Some of them wanted an excuse to invade Somalia, too. As for Wells, he’d have to fend for himself. Duto’s history with Wells was often unhappy, but at least they had a history.

  Shafer shivered, and not just from the air-conditioning.

  “So when you told Justin Lerer you were striking a blow for truth and justice—”

  “He gave me this fig leaf. Long as we don’t have direct eyes-on confirmation of the hostages, either from Wells himself or from the Reaper, we don’t have to call the White House. It’s still rumors and speculation. The fact that things are moving so fast helps. And the fact that nobody’s ever heard of Wizard. And, yeah, the Reaper’s up, but it’s only bombed trucks.”

  “For this you paid eight hundred bucks an hour?”

  “Eleven hundred. And worth every penny.”

  “I’d have to agree. He tell you how long you’d have to make the call once we do see the hostages?”

  “Expeditiously, he said. I asked what that meant and he said—”

  “Fast.”

  Duto didn’t smile. “He said fifteen minutes. Which will still give your boy some time. He also said that we can’t put our fin
ger on the scales, can’t tell Wells what to say. If Wells tells us he’s seen them, that’s it.”

  “So are you hanging around down here? Tell me you have a fund-raiser.”

  Duto swung his head like a prizefighter loosening up. “No no no. I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with you, Ellis.” Shafer saw that the DCI was enjoying himself. And why not? The hostages were at risk, and the United States might still wind up sending soldiers to Somalia, but Duto had protected himself neatly. As always. If everything went wrong, Duto would say Wells had insisted on going in. Duto couldn’t stop Wells, so he’d ordered a drone to monitor the situation.

  Duto pocketed the bug zapper, turned to the door. “Let’s see if your boy can pull it off.”

  Shafer’s phone buzzed. He didn’t need to see the caller ID to know it was Wells. He didn’t want to answer, not with Duto here. But Duto heard the hum. He opened his hands: What are you waiting for? And Shafer knew he had no choice.

  26

  LOWER JUBA REGION

  After Wizard dismissed Gwen, she trudged across camp, hoping the storm would wash her clean. She knew Wizard could have punished her far more brutally than he had. Still she hated him for the way he’d made her shame herself.

  At the hut, she found Owen leaning against the dirt bike she’d ridden, his thumb against the starter like he wanted to see for himself how she’d messed up. The AK was still strapped across his chest, Yusuf’s blood glinting off its butt. Owen didn’t say a word when Gwen explained what Wizard had said. He fiddled with the rifle, his new favorite toy, flicking the safety. Like he’d known all along that Wizard wouldn’t let them out. She wondered whether he’d sent her out simply to humiliate her, but she was too tired to ask.

  She sat against the back wall and ran her hands across the dirt floor, sifting the soft grit through her fingers, a strangely comforting feeling. A few feet away, Yusuf lay under the shredded motorcycle poster. A dribble of blood leaked down his face as he mumbled to himself. Gwen had brought a water bottle from Wizard’s hut. She handed it to Yusuf now. “Drink.”

  He looked at her blankly and raised the bottle to his mouth and sipped, his lips working it like a baby’s. The skin on his temple flapped loose, exposing the bright pink flesh underneath, intimate and terrible.

  “What are you doing?” Owen said. “He’s the enemy.”

  “He’s scared out of his mind. We need to let him go.”

  “Then what leverage will we have?”

  “Drop it, Owen,” Hailey said. She sat near the doorway, peeking at the men guarding them. The three of them were staying as far from one another as possible, Gwen saw.

  “Now you’re on her side,” Owen said.

  “Tried your way.”

  “If she’d known how to ride like she said, we might be in Kenya by now—”

  Gwen stopped listening. She didn’t understand how Owen had turned into a man who wanted to deny this boy water. They were molting, all of them, shedding their skin and finding a rougher underlayer. Though the change had some benefits, at least for her. A week ago she would have been crying at this moment, indulging herself in the pointless luxury of tears. Instead, she wasn’t even bothering to defend herself. She knew she’d done her best with the bike. She didn’t care what Owen thought.

  Hailey came over, sat beside her. “Truth is, he just doesn’t want to admit how stupid his idea was.”

  “The truth is I wanted to get us out of here before—”

  An explosion tore through the night to the east. The hut’s walls shook. Owen grinned at her like a scientist who’d predicted the end of the world for years and finally had the thrill of seeing the cataclysmic asteroid coming. We’re all going to die, but at least I was right. Gwen felt nearly serene, nothing like the panic that had come when Wizard raised his knife. Getting blown to bits would be quick and painless. So she hoped.

  “Before something like that happened.” Owen hopped off the dirt bike and looked out the doorway before striding back to her. He reeked of sweat and testosterone and mud and blood. Gwen felt a wholly inappropriate warmth between her legs. Now that he was a grade-A jerk, she wanted him? She and her libido needed to have a serious talk.

  “Looks like a third-grade fire drill out there,” Owen said.

  “What was that?” Hailey said.

  “I think it was a bomb. And I think it was one of ours. Felt too big to be anything else.”

  “They found us here in a day when they couldn’t in Kenya for a week?”

  “Maybe they’ve been looking for us here all along,” Hailey said. “Maybe they didn’t look in Kenya, they figured we had to be in Somalia.”

  “Which would mean Wizard did us a favor after all,” Owen said.

  “So why just one bomb?” Gwen said. “A warning?”

  “Or they were trying to calibrate it or something,” Owen said. “Either way, if the SEALs or whoever did it, they have to know we’re here. And they’ve got to be close.” He stood, put his hand over his heart. “God bless America, land that I love—”

  Gwen couldn’t decide if he was terrified or high on hormones and sleeplessness. “If they line us up and shoot us, how will you feel about spending your last few minutes in full jackassery?”

  “They line us up and shoot us, Ah don’t suspect Ah’ll care.” In a mock southern accent. “Let me tell you something about Wizard, Gwen. He’s a moron. He thought if he got us to Somalia nobody would come for him. How’s that working out?”

  “You know, with Scott gone, you could have gotten some if you played your cards right,” she said. “A pity lay for all those hours you spent mooning over me. From the way Scott described your equipment, it really would have been pitiful.”

  The cheapest of cheap shots, especially since Scott hadn’t said anything of the sort. But Owen looked down at his crotch like it had betrayed him. Forget the very real risk they wouldn’t see the dawn. He had a bigger worry now. Did his junk measure up?

  Men.

  —

  Outside, Wizard was yelling. After he stopped, Gwen snuck to the doorway. Wizard was gone, but Waaberi and his men watched the hut from three angles. They weren’t smiling. One of them, the tall one who had caught her by the latrine, saw her looking. He nodded and then slowly, distinctly, passed his fingers across his throat.

  She wanted to scramble away. Hide in the corner. Last week she would have. Not now. They would do what they would do, but she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they frightened her. She stared right back.

  She could hear the hens clucking and the goats scraping at the mud in their pen. They’d had as long a night as everyone else. She felt the most profound fatigue she could imagine. But when she closed her eyes, they fluttered open on their own, as though her mind knew it couldn’t risk sleep. So she sat against the wall, waited, as the rain lightened and the clouds thinned.

  But she did sleep, she must have, because time leapt forward without her realizing, and when she opened her eyes she saw Wizard coming out of the darkness, and beside him a tall man covered in a coat of mud so thick that at first she couldn’t tell if he was white or black. As he got closer she recognized him, not from his face but from the size of his shoulders and his arms. He was the white man Wizard had shown her on the cell phone the day before, in the Land Cruiser with the black guy. Gwen had asked if they were looking for her, and he’d said, If they are, they won’t be much longer. In his cool Wizard way. But he’d been wrong about that, along with everything else.

  The man didn’t seem to be a prisoner. His hands were free. He wasn’t hooded. Owen and Hailey stood beside her and watched as Wizard led the man to his hut. “Maybe he’s here with the ransom,” Hailey said. “Maybe that pack is filled with money.”

  “Why they dropped the bomb, a carrot-and-stick thing,” Owen said. “Luca Brasi making an offer even Wizard isn’t dumb
enough to refuse.”

  Gwen wondered what he was talking about and decided she didn’t care. Behind them, Yusuf groaned. She turned just in time to see him pull himself onto all fours and vomit a stream of clear liquid.

  She went to him, tucked herself under his bony left arm, straightened him up. His skin was sticky and feverish, his eyes unfocused. He stank of grease and sickness. The top of his head barely reached her chin when she pulled him to his feet. He couldn’t have weighed much more than she did, which was lucky, because when she edged him from the wall, he sagged onto her.

  “Hailey—”

  Hailey came over, put a thumb under his chin to lift his head.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I’m more at the holding hands while the nurse gives you an ouchie level of medical expertise.”

  “We’re getting him out of here.”

  “Nobody out there can do anything for him, either,” Owen said.

  “It’s too hot in here and he’s scared. We’re taking him out.”

  Owen put a hand under his rifle. He wasn’t exactly aiming it at them, but he wasn’t exactly pointing it away, either.

  “Planning on shooting us?” Hailey said. She came under Yusuf’s right side and lifted him. Together she and Gwen walked him past Owen. He took his hand off the rifle. His mouth was notched open, like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just done.

  Gwen and Hailey reached the doorway and stood with Yusuf between them. The rain had stopped now, and the clouds were lifting. A few stars shone weakly. Gwen sensed that the sun was close by, ready to banish the night.

  Three White Men trotted over and took Yusuf, squawking at him in Somali. “What you do to him?” one said in English. He spat at her feet. Gwen wondered if she’d made a mistake, if Owen had been right that without Yusuf they were defenseless.