by Jason Kasper
“We’ve got six grenades, three AKs, eleven magazines, and around twenty rounds for the Dushka,” I called to Jais. “And there are two full fuel cans back here .”
“Be glad there are fuel cans, because we’ve only got a quarter of a tank .”
“For once, why couldn’t we have stolen a vehicle that’s actually been filled up ?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve only got forty miles to cover before we can go off road and head north toward the landing zone, and with the cans in the back we’re good to hook .”
“Until they come looking for us .”
“That’s what I meant. Get the weapons and ammo sorted, David. We might have a hell of a fight ahead .”
8
After checking that there were no vehicles within view, I knelt to my combat pack and sipped from a flexible hose to gain a mouthful of hot river water tinted with the medicinal taste of plastic and iodine tablets .
It was almost noon, the heat soaring into the mid-nineties as we rolled down the red dirt path extending as far as I could see in either direction .
We had passed little in the way of traffic aside from the occasional van or motorcycle overburdened with people and cargo, the occupants acting remarkably unperturbed by the sight of our bullet-ridden pickup mounted with a heavy machinegun .
I had kept my shemagh and sunglasses on and my sleeves rolled down over shooting gloves that now served a purpose beyond hiding my skin color. Other than its wood handles, my Dushka had become too hot to touch .
Since leaving Kamsuuma, it had taken us a full two and a half hours to cover forty-five miles. Our movement was slowed by a twelve-mile stretch of alternating dirt trails and off-road movement as we detoured around the town of Jilib, where militia checkpoints would surely have been bolstered in search of the captured truck headed their way. Now we were on a different road headed east, making good time as we watched for a break in the dry riverbed that was thinning enough to soon be passable by truck. Once we crossed it, we had a scant thirty miles of off-road driving to reach our landing zone .
From behind the wheel, Jais called, “You see a break in that riverbed yet ?”
“Not yet, but we should be able to cross it soon. Shame it didn’t rain this far north, because I’m running out of water fast .”
“Then drink less,” he yelled .
“Easy for you to judge from inside the truck. It feels like the surface of the sun back here .”
“It’s almost noon on the equator. Were you expecting Greenland ?”
“Don’t give me that. We would have been there by now if you hadn’t taken so long on the Jilib bypass .”
“If we hadn’t found a cross-country route around Jilib, this truck would be a pile of twisted metal right now. Besides, I offered to switch you out on the gun and you refused .”
“I’m trying to pull my weight on this op, okay ?”
“Don’t act like you’re back there for my benefit. Since you shot the Dushka, it’s become the other woman in our relationship .”
“You’re wrong about that, Jais. Since I shot the Dushka, you’ve become the other woman .”
I scanned the riverbed to my left as the crease in the land continued to narrow. We’d be moving off road again within minutes, and once we’d crossed into the open desert and began driving northward, our odds of being effectively pursued by the enemy would lessen by the minute. We were virtually guaranteed to make our landing zone; then, the only question became whether the Silver Widow’s reception party would still be there to greet us twelve hours past our anticipated parachute landing. If they weren’t, I felt certain that Jais would be able to use the satellite phone to arrange either our linkup or extraction .
Either way, we had overcome tremendous odds and reacted seamlessly to a tumultuous situation. It was a solid beginning to my reputation in the Handler’s private army, one that would be further bolstered if we were able to bring the case back home. And with Jais ascending the ranks of the organization beyond the fenced perimeter of the Complex, our smooth working relationship was likely to benefit me in the future, one way or another. I should have been ecstatic .
Instead, I found my thoughts drifting back to Ian .
My heart sank as I considered the facts. His participation in the final mission—and its fallout—seemed the most damning evidence in favor of him working for the Handler all along. Only Ian knew my exact location at the mortar firing point, but a seemingly random patrol had somehow walked straight into me. I’d barely escaped alive before reaching a car with him behind the wheel .
And while he had been driving when Karma was killed in an ostensibly sporadic burst of gunfire, Ian and I had somehow emerged unharmed. But why wouldn’t he have shot me to achieve total closure ?
There was an explanation for that, too, I thought grimly. All the old hands who knew too much about the Handler’s operation were conveniently killed on their way back from an ambush point whose location, again, only Ian knew. By letting me survive, Ian had just gained a naïve, newly-trained team member with unlimited motivation to kill .
Moreover, Ian had been the only one to enter the garage of the target house, where he’d supposedly acquired the existing assassination plot from the Five Heads—and he had admitted to not sharing that information with Boss. Even my unquestioning belief in the so-called attempt to kill the Handler while I was in the Dominican Republic represented a blind leap of faith. Ian had subsequently refused to show me the footage of the supposed failed assassination attempt. Considered objectively, Ian’s many ominous warnings about the Handler could very well have been mere ruses to direct my wrath toward an unseen entity, thereby absolving Ian himself from suspicion .
If Ian did work for the Handler, it would explain nearly every mystery since the team’s path had crossed mine on the night I killed Peter .
Jais called, “Why are you so quiet back there ?”
“Enjoying the scenery,” I said, snapping back to the present moment. “We’re actually going to pull this thing off, aren’t we ?”
“You’ve got me in charge. Was there ever any doubt ?”
I nodded vigorously. “When we landed a hundred miles from our destination last night, I’d say yes, there was plenty of doubt. Roughly speaking, I thought our life expectancies had dropped to about one hour. I thought you were crazy for not calling the helicopter .”
“That’s the genius of the Outfit. The cost of failure is worse than anything the enemy could do, and that inspires a degree of commitment you wouldn’t get any other way .”
“I’d say the militias here in Somalia are a pretty powerful motivator as well .”
“Lesser of two evils. The Outfit is worse .”
“Then why are you working for it ?”
He paused. “The more missions you run out of the Complex, David, the more you’ll see that the Handler is the greatest force for good you’ll ever serve .”
I smiled to myself, remembering Ian heralding the exact opposite while briefing Boss’s team. “We just smoked about two dozen fighters in probably the wildest upset in Somali sports history because it was safer than calling our own bosses after God tried to kill us in the sky last night. ‘Force for good’ isn’t the term that springs to mind .”
“You’re assuming it’s not for a higher purpose .”
“I’m not assuming. But this case better be worth it .”
He didn’t respond immediately, leaving me to wipe the stinging sweat out of my eyes as I scanned the road around us. After two and a half hours of standing, every joint ached .
“The case isn’t as important as what he’s going to do with it,” Jais said after a few more moments of silence. “If you saw the bigger picture, you’d know that his refusal to accept failure—on this mission more than most—is a mark of true character .”
“I’m not doubting you, brother, but let’s not pretend either of us ended up here to pursue philanthropy .”
“’Course not. Until I made it into the
Outfit, the only thing I cared about was money .”
“You don’t strike me as greedy .”
“I’m not, but that all changed when it came to my momma .”
“You’re serious ?”
“Hundred percent. I don’t know if you had both parents growing up, but I just had my mom .”
“Tell me about her .”
“She was everything to me, David. Did I tell you I was almost a minor league baseball player ?”
“Definitely not .”
“No shit. Didn’t even make the high school tryouts freshman or sophomore year, and she made me train so hard I had farm team scouts coming to my senior games …”
I squinted ahead to a shallow dip in the terrain marred by previous vehicle tracks and called, “Break in the riverbed, fifty feet up .”
“All right, I see it. Let’s get this truck off the road. Thirty miles to the landing zone and we’re home free. One way or the other .”
As he steered off the road and onto the bumpy dirt descending toward the riverbed, I saw sunlight glinting off a windshield on the road far to our front .
I called out, “Vehicle front .”
“If they follow us off road, you better make them regret it .”
He steered along the winding trail as it descended sharply into the riverbed. Slowing to a near stop, he nosed the pickup downward and then accelerated to gain enough momentum to make it up the far side. The other vehicle continued approaching, though I was still unable to distinguish what type it was .
I called out, “Jais, let’s find a spot to watch the riverbed. If that vehicle follows us, I want to hit them while they’re at that chokepoint .”
He continued driving, cutting a hard right between a cluster of low trees that concealed the riverbed. I talked him forward until a small break in the vegetation revealed the crossing point .
“Three more feet…two…stop .”
I oriented the Dushka on our own tracks where they traversed the riverbed, now barely visible beside the main road. The trees to our front obscured my visibility, but I knew we were well-concealed. An onlooker would have to look at us directly from the low ground to make out my weapon through the leaves, and by then it would be too late .
It wasn’t until the approaching vehicle slowed to turn off the road that I could make it out—the Hilux pickup was almost a mirror image of ours. A militiaman swept his machinegun barrel over the ground to his front as the truck slowed to descend into the riverbed .
I waited for the vehicle to commit to the off-road turn and roll into the low ground, its momentum slowing to a near-halt where the terrain rolled upward. Then I pulled the dual triggers of my machinegun, holding the front sight post steady as the Hilux nearly disappeared in a sudden cloud of smoke and sand. The gunner bowled over and the vehicle came to a complete stop. I released another burst to ensure the engine was disabled; the back blast from my muzzle poured a flash of scalding air at my face with every massive round I fired .
I saw flames emerge under their hood and fired my last bullet through the Dushka .
“Got him,” I called to Jais. “Drive .”
As he began pulling forward, I caught sight of a second pickup screeching to a halt on the main road, this time with a gunner who leveled his PKM machinegun in our general direction. He unleashed a burst that decimated the treetops behind us .
I dropped to the bed as Jais floored the gas, wheeling our truck through a labyrinth of brush and trees sprawled across the ground .
Jais yelled, “It doesn’t sound like you got him .”
I pulled myself back up behind the gun, hearing successive machinegun blasts to our rear as the remaining gunner probed for our position .
I hesitated. “It’s a second truck .”
“All right, let’s find a good hiding spot and run the same play .”
“We’re, ah…we’re out of ammo for the big gun .”
“Is that a fact ?”
“Yeah. I suppose you can thank the militia assholes for shooting so much of it at us in the forest .”
“Don’t blame the militia assholes for your inability to conserve ammo, David .”
I puffed a breath and shouted, “It was my first time shooting a Dushka—I can’t be held accountable for my actions. But I can fix this .”
“Enlighten me .”
“I’ve got grenades .”
He laughed. “Been a while since I played baseball, but I’m pretty confident their machinegun can outrange my grenade throw by a kilometer or so. Much less yours .”
“Yeah, yeah, I get that. So I’ll jump off, hide next to our tracks, and roll a grenade under their truck when it passes .”
“Unless it blows under a fuel line you’re just going to end up with a lot of pissed-off survivors in a truck that won’t move .”
“So come back for me fast once you hear the explosion. Come on, you keep trying to get me to make decisions. Can you think of anything better ?”
“No. That still doesn’t make your idea a good one .”
The low-lying trees and scrub brush clinging to the rugged terrain required a series of chance detours. Jais’s fleeting choices of right versus left could spell the difference between a continued journey and a dead end, so I had to move quickly. Finding concealment for my one-man ambush wouldn’t be difficult, particularly from the eyes of a driver and a gunner trying to catch glimpses of our tire tracks where the hard-packed ground gave way to sandy patches that betrayed our passage .
But I had a harder time locating terrain that would provide physical cover from a close-range grenade explosion .
I spotted a washout to our right side, where the ground dropped steeply to a depth of two or three feet. The elevation difference was packed with dry scrub brush that filled the void. It probably wasn’t enough to protect me from a grenade blast, I thought briefly, but the rippling crack of machinegun rounds soaring through the sky caused me to reevaluate my risk tolerance .
“Slow down,” I said, picking up my Galil and feeling the truck decelerate as we approached the washout. “I’m off to save your life, buddy .”
The last words I heard from Jais were as nonchalant as almost everything else he spoke .
“Don’t let the tailgate hit you on your way out .”
I leapt off the right side of the truck, keeping my legs together and knees slightly bent as if taking a hard parachute landing .
It was a well-measured precaution, because a second later I smashed through a dry bush that crumbled on impact, its thorns punching into my right side as I slammed against the hard dirt. My roll down the washout was arrested by the tangled mass of branches and thorns that gradually held me in place like Velcro, and I hissed with pain as I pushed myself upright .
Then I scrambled left along the trail, throwing myself down again beside a shoulder-height plant representing my best odds of concealment from the oncoming Hilux. I pushed my way through the brush, African dust coating my teeth, and positioned my head beside the two-and-a-half-foot dirt ledge rising toward Jais’s tire tracks. Setting my rifle down to my right, I rolled onto my side and fumbled a grenade out of the side pouch of my chest rig as I heard the enemy truck’s approach .
I pulled the safety pin on the grenade, keeping the lever compressed to its metal body. Lifting my head slightly toward the blazing, cloudless sky, I tried to gauge the distance of the truck’s engine above the omnipresent high-pitched ringing in my ears. Before long, I could hear the passengers conversing urgently in a foreign language .
Opening my hand to allow the curved lever to spring free from the grenade body, I counted down the five-second fuse as if it were a BASE jump .
One thousand, two thousand …
I pushed myself up on one hand and gently rolled the grenade between Jais’s tire tracks as the enemy truck closed in on my left .
A man onboard the truck yelled something as I collapsed back down, feeling the shards of brittle thorns in my skin as I flattened myself into the ear
th. An AK-47 opened fire just over my head as I plugged both ears with my fingers, mouth ajar in anticipation of the grenade’s overpressure. I tensed my body and waited for a bullet to hit me, hoping for a grazing wound at worst .
The AK clacked off four rounds on full automatic before my body was jolted by the grenade’s detonation. The alarming blast was stifled under an even greater explosion as a scalding shockwave flashed across my body .
I opened my eyes with the certainty that my clothes were ablaze and instead saw a black sky. As I released my fingers from my ears, I could hear the moaning wail of disoriented survivors above the snapping groan of flames. I inhaled a cloud of smoke-filled dust and nearly retched .
Grabbing my rifle in one hand, I rose to a knee. As I cleared the berm amid the clanging in my head, I saw the hollow eyes of a Somali fighter of perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old looking at me from three feet away, his body prone on the ground .
There was no time to consider whether he was alive or armed as I pointed the Galil, its muzzle almost touching his forehead as I fired. Then I shifted my aim right, toward the truck that rolled to a stop five meters beyond the blast .
The grenade must have ignited the fuel in the cylinder heads, because I saw a great cloud of black smoke billowing from the engine and tires as orange flames licked the sides of the truck. Before I could shift my optic onto the truck bed, a pair of muzzle flashes pierced the smoke like stars in the darkness .
A spray of sand stung my eyes as bullets impacted the ridge I’d been aiming over, and I dropped back down as survivors in the bed fired automatic weapons. With my rifle cradled between bent elbows, I writhed in a crawling motion over sharp plants and jagged rocks, clumsily following the washout as it descended away from the trail .
Blinking hard to clear my vision as I slithered belly-down over the sand, I saw the washout descending far enough below ground level for me to crouch there without being seen. I rose and ran, keeping my figure bent as I gained distance from the ambush position .
