by Tom Saric
He went up to the fourth floor. AFRICOM spanned floors four through seven, but the important meetings happened in the fourth-floor boardroom. The monthly meetings brought together the leaders of various task forces and humanitarian organizations to coordinate U.S. efforts on the continent. This was where the United States Department of Defense made decisions regarding operations in Africa. Usually wrong decisions, as far as Kaczmareck was concerned.
Two years ago, he had been appointed to run the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa division. He was an ideal candidate for the position--decorated, confident, and had experience on the ground in the Horn. He was a commander in ‘93 in Mogadishu, and received a Bronze Cross for his work there, but he never wore it. The mission was a failure in his mind.
He had watched Somalia destroy itself for a decade, but his appointment to the Task Force presented his chance to effect change. Two years into the job, the only changes he saw were for the worse. Al-Qaeda had made inroads to all countries in the Horn, especially Somalia. Their influence stretched through most of the terrorist groups who had taken over half of the devastated country, including the capital. One movement in particular, the Asabiyyah, was most troubling. He pleaded with the Department of Defense, the Defense Secretary, and anyone who would listen that ground forces were needed to stop the spread of radicals, but no changes were made. The reason? Opinion polls. Americans still remember what happened in Mogadishu and would never support an invasion, the politicians told him. Their solution? Support internal resistances within the country, the warlords they had previously fought against. Short-sighted, he thought. Don’t they even remember what happened in Afghanistan in the eighties?
The general opened the doors to the boardroom. A dozen senior members of AFRICOM sat around a long, impressive table. Three wore formal military attire, the rest were in black or navy suits. At the head of the table, a large screen projected the face of the Chair of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Janet Carter. Neither she, nor the rest of the talking heads at the table, seemed pleased to see him. He gave a quick nod and moved towards the only empty chair.
“General, so glad you could join us,” Senator Carter said.
“Glad to be here, Madam Senator.” He sat down in his chair and leaned back.
He picked at his nails as she continued on the topic she had been on before he had sauntered in. It was the same old thing: Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, Sierra Leone’s rebuilding, and droughts in Ethiopia. The politicians (the ones that wore suits) around the table said the occasional, well-rehearsed line about working with local governments to develop new water sources and to establish programs to remove landmines. Everyone talked about the progress they had been making and they reframed failures with the standard “we’re still working towards [blank]…”
“Major General Kaczmareck,” the Senator spoke. “I didn’t receive your written report.”
He awoke from his daze. “Sorry about that, but I didn’t think there was much need for a new one as there’s been no changes. But if everyone takes a look at last month’s, you’ll be up to date.”
Nervous laughter spread amongst a few of the people around the table. They managed to bottle up their giggles when they saw that Senator Carter’s face, several times normal human size projected on the screen, stayed serious. Kaczmareck leaned back in his chair and flashed a wry smirk and a wink at the projection. He swore he saw her right eyelid twitch before she continued.
“What is our progress in Somalia?”
“Well, I’d have to say there isn’t any progress. But what I can confidently say is that in many areas we’ve regressed.”
“Such as?”
“Two roadside bombs three weeks ago with forty-four dead. Ongoing fighting on the Ethiopian Border. People are starving to death and estimates indicate that less than five percent of aid is getting to the intended recipients. Radical militias have control of eighty percent of Mogadishu and have taken over four towns in the southwest portion of the Puntland region.” He crossed his arms. “People are welcoming them with open arms.”
“So what is our…”
“I’m not done.” He leaned forward and raised his voice. “The Gulf of Aden is one of the busiest commercial waterways in the world, and pirates operate freely. And, if you haven’t heard already, another ship was captured yesterday.”
The Senator leaned back in her chair and exhaled. “I’ve heard about the ship. It was a weapons transfer. But I’ve heard that the weapons are at the port in Bosaso in the hands of the governing body there.”
“You mean the warlords.”
“They are the governing body right now. And they are fighting the radicals. So for now, they are on our side.”
“For now,” he said, “but they weren’t a year ago, and they certainly won’t be five years from now, either.”
“What are you suggesting, General?”
“The same thing I always do. We need ground forces, American ground forces, to go in and stabilize this region. I have drawn up plans and would need less than fifteen hundred troops to--”
“That is just not possible,” her voice went up a little.
“Of course not.” Kaczmareck shook his head and flicked his hand in the air. He glanced around the room. The suits sat like wooden mannequins, avoiding any gesture that could be construed as agreement.
“We are involved in two large and very unpopular wars right now, General, and while I can see that the conditions in Somalia are far from ideal, we have to concern ourselves with real, concrete, and immediate threats.”
“What does that take?” he gritted his teeth. “A group of Somalis crashing a plane into a skyscraper? Is that when this government will act? I’m sorry, Janet, but a reactionary military will never keep our country safe.”
“We do not have time for these kinds of discussions, Bob. We do not have the resources, nor for that matter do we have due cause to risk American lives to engage in a battle on another front.”
“It’s a hotbed for terrorists. If we do not act now, we are risking innocent American lives.”
The Senator shook her head; Kaczmareck knew he was getting to her. They had butted heads on more than one occasion. He knew she was doing what she thought was right, but she was a politician. She had never worked on the ground, looked in the enemy’s eyes, and seen his determination. She didn’t know what it took to win a war. And this was war.
“People still remember Mogadishu,” she continued. Kaczmareck shook his head. Here it comes, he thought. “No one will support a deployment there.”
“So we’re letting the media and opinion polls dictate our foreign policy now? Your government was elected to make the tough decisions.”
“I am making a tough decision, General,” she softened her tone. “Staying out of Somalia is a tough decision, because with adequate resources and positive public opinion we could make a difference. But the reality is that we can’t. Not now.”
Kaczmareck sulked in his chair, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his glasses. “I hear you’ve got a presidential campaign to run. Am I right?”
She blinked twice and leaned toward the camera. “My rumored presidential candidacy has nothing to do with what is happening in Somalia right now. I’m elected to serve the people of the United States, their best interests, and their best interests alone. That includes not caving in to pressure from hawkish generals.”
13
Paul drove the Benz back to the clinic. The line-up looped around the building. He only noticed a few casual glances from patients sitting up in their beds as he walked in. The nurses all seemed preoccupied. He saw Ellen sitting alone at a desk at the back of the auditorium.
Ellen didn’t look up. “I have nothing to say to you.”
She kept writing in a patient chart. She pressed the pen down on the paper hard enough to make the tips of her fingers white. Bags had formed under her eyes and her hair was pulled back. She only pulled it back when she was exhausted. Perha
ps from waiting for him overnight. Maybe for having given him yet another chance.
“Okay, you don’t have to say anything, just listen for a second.”
“Listen to what, Paul?” her voice rose to a volume that Paul hadn’t heard before. A level that caused the elderly man in the bed fifteen feet away to startle. “Listen to another one of your excuses? Your bullshit?”
“Ellen…”
“There’s nothing to say.” She still didn’t look up. “While you were out getting high, or…or…whatever, I was here. Managing this clinic. By myself,” her voice trembled. “You didn’t call, you didn’t leave a note, nothing. We had a deal, Paul. That was your last chance and now that’s it, it’s over. But, let’s face it, it’s been over for a while.”
Paul let her words sink in. He often wondered what kept her with him for so long. He assumed it was companionship. Living in a place so far from home, maybe he provided her with a certain familiarity and comfort level. Why else would a young, beautiful woman with an insatiable wanderlust get involved with a graying middle-aged man who was stuck in a place like this? Maybe she had been waiting to have an excuse to end their relationship, and he just handed it to her.
But Hadad would almost certainly come looking for him. She was involved by proxy. Letting her stay was letting her die.
“We have to leave now,” he said, steady and commanding.
“No, we don’t.” she slammed the pen on the desk. She looked up at him and her eyes initially glowered, but that was displaced by bewilderment. “I don’t even want to know.”
Paul looked down and saw what caused Ellen’s mouth to hang open. Raw, weeping scrapes ran up both of his forearms and stung when the sleeves of his t-shirt rubbed against them. His light-colored vest was now a patchwork of bloodstains. Sami’s blood. His bandaged hand throbbed more than his nose and blood had soaked through the bandage.
He was unsure of what to say. If he offered her a little bit of information, she would ask questions. If he told her about Hadad, she would ask questions about his past. Could he gloss over Nairobi? Could he leave out the manifest? He didn’t expect her to shut him out, but how many lies was too many?
“I can explain,” came out, though he immediately felt a pang of regret in the pit of his stomach.
“I don’t want an explanation.”
“We have to leave here now.”
“Not with you.”
Ellen looked at him with distant, tired eyes.
“I don’t go anywhere with you anymore, Paul. Nowhere.”
She walked away. Paul grabbed her by the arm, but she didn’t look at him.
“They kidnapped me. They interrogated me. They tortured me.”
Ellen didn’t move, her head turned away from Paul.
“They’re going to come looking for me, and probably you too. We have to leave now.”
She turned. Where he expected to see tears, he saw distance.
“Okay. You can leave me at the airport.”
Paul expected questions. He wondered why she didn’t want to know who had captured him or why, as though a chasm had opened between them and he could no longer see the other side.
Ellen followed Paul out of the clinic, and they got in the Mercedes. She buckled up and stared at the gun lying on the dashboard.
“Sorry,” Paul said, putting the gun below his seat.
“Take me home to get my things,” Ellen ordered.
“We can’t.”
“I’m just going home for a week, then I’m coming back. You don’t control me.”
“Ellen, they might be there.”
She took a deep sigh and clenched her jaw. She shook her head slowly. “Go ahead, Paul. Spin your tale. Who is after you?”
He’d never heard such skepticism in her voice. “Asabiyyah.”
“What?”
“They’re the ones who kidnapped me.”
Ellen sat up and turned her head. “How do you know that?”
“What kind of question is that? Maybe from the black and white checkered scarves over their faces? From the AK-47 jabbed into my back? From the forceps used to rip my fucking nail off? They told me, Ellen!”
“Why? Why would they kidnap you? What did you do?”
He thought to lie. They wanted me for ransom. Since when does Asabiyyah take ransom? She would say. No, a case of mistaken identity. Who did they think you were? Someone else. But who? And how did you get away?
He had lied to her about who he was hundreds of times and it was easy. But the lies that used to flow so naturally had suddenly dried up. The charade had ended hours ago and even then it was well overdue.
“They think that I’m a spy.”
“Are you?” Ellen asked.
Paul thought about the inevitable barrage of follow-up questions if he answered in the affirmative. But what other explanation would suffice?
“Yes.”
Ellen looked at Paul with a combination of shock and disdain and then turned and stared out the window. They were strangers, weren’t they? All the moments they had shared, the times they had camped seaside, the grief she shared with him when her mother died of a sudden heart attack, the heated political debates they had over tea, were tainted. She had shared them with a stranger.
But she had known that in some way, hadn’t she? Ellen had complained that he was shut down, that he never let her into his world. She wanted to know more about him, about his childhood, about his parents, but he knew he could never tell her. It was his duty. It was his burden. Maybe on some level, even when their love blossomed, she knew the relationship was doomed. Maybe the best solution was for Paul to let her walk out. But his secrets and his past now threatened her. Because of him, her life was in danger. Get her to safety, he thought, then let her walk out.
“I want you to hear this from me, Ellen, not anyone else. I’m a U.S. government operative. I’ve worked in Bosaso for the past ten years.”
“Our whole relationship.”
“Yes.”
“How did Asabiyyah find out?”
“I was feeding shipping information to pirates. This is one of the ways that the U.S. gets supplies or money to U.S.-friendly security forces. So they can fight groups like the Asabiyyah.”
“And I guess they found out. Before me.”
“I’m sworn to secrecy. I never thought this would—”
“But it is Paul. It is. Now, you’re telling me I have to leave this place.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just take me to the airport.”
“We can’t.”
“The airport, please.”
“There’s another agent in Garowe. He’s the only person I have contact with in the agency. We have to go there.”
“Why can’t we just escape? That’s a drive across the desert, Paul.”
A headache set in. He had already told Ellen too much.
“I have to give him some intelligence.”
“What intelligence, Paul?”
He said nothing. He tried to process that he had broken the oaths he had taken by telling Ellen his covert identity. But safety demanded that information about the missing weapons be passed back to Langley. If he was killed, that information would die with him.
“The last ship I gave the pirates information on was one carrying weapons from the Ukraine. Pirates hijacked it two days ago, docked and unloaded it. But they found something I had no idea was on it. Ellen, there were nuclear weapons on the ship and the Asabiyyah have stolen them and I don’t know where they’ve taken them.”
“Why would the U.S. allow nuclear weapons on a ship to be hijacked?”
“I don’t think they know. Langley sends the manifests as encrypted documents, then the agent in Garowe sends me the decryption code. Only he can send it to me because the SIM card on my cell phone recognizes only his phone’s signature. So the only documents I receive get sent from the agency.”
“So they don’t know about weapons?”
“They weren’t on th
e manifest.”
Ellen didn’t flinch at what he told her. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose. Paul looked at her, waiting for her eyes to open and look at him again.
“Paul, is there anything else you need to tell me?”
He thought about telling her about Kadar Hadad. About Nairobi. About Marshall Ramsey.
“No,” he said confidently. “That’s everything.”
14
In the safe house, Paul sat at a glass dining room table across from James Wright, who poured mineral water into a crystal tumbler. Ellen sat silently across from Paul, staring at her interlaced fingers. They hadn’t spoken during the two-hour ride from Bosaso to the safe house in Garowe, despite the massive pressure Paul felt to explain himself. But Ellen didn’t ask for an explanation. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Maybe she didn’t care.
“So let me get this straight,” Agent James Wright said. “There were nuclear weapons aboard the ship?”
Paul nodded, tapped a cigarette out of the box, and placed it in his mouth.
“No smoking in here.” James smiled, masking irritation below the surface. “Agency policy.”
Paul kept the cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it. Somehow, the information about the ship was leaked to Hadad, and Paul didn’t leak it. The only man directly connected to Paul was standing across from him, sipping loudly.
But that meant that James also suspected Paul. He wouldn’t like Paul showing up at his doorstep. He’d made that much clear. During their first and only meeting James pointed a finger at Paul and said, “communication only goes one way: from me to you. Last thing I need is a cowboy blowing my cover.”
James sat down cross-legged at the table and stroked his chin. “And the weapons are now in the hands of Asabiyyah.”