by Jason Kasper
I fired three rounds, watching carefully for the outcome and seeing it when the group scrambled behind cover .
A single incoming bullet barked off the stone to my front. I slid behind it and began crawling to the other side of the rock cluster, dragging the case alongside me as Jais began firing on the opposite side of the hilltop .
Now angled to the southeast, I searched for targets and settled on another group closing inside of five hundred meters, rounding the base of a foothill and moving quickly toward us. I shot two more rounds, seeing one of their number stumble and get dragged behind cover as I chased his rescue party with another three bullets .
Once again, a single round slapped into the rock I was hiding behind .
I called to Jais, “That Dragunov is still out there! I’m getting some near misses .”
He shot twice and then yelled back, “There’s one on my side too. He’s almost tagged me a few times now .”
I slid the case through the dirt and crawled behind a rock facing east; Jais did the same on his side of the hilltop. No one was moving through my optic, but I found a pair of heads peering over a small berm. Not wanting to waste my crawl over the rocky ground, I shot twice before moving back to face the south .
Jais suddenly yelled, “Stop shooting !”
“What’s wrong ?”
Another sniper round pinged off the rocks beside me .
Jais said, “They’ve stopped advancing on my side. See if they’re getting any closer on yours .”
I crawled to another cluster of rocks, sweeping the low ground with my optic. “No, I don’t see any movement .”
“That’s what I was afraid of .”
I thought for a moment. “You think they’ve got a mortar ?”
“I’d be surprised if they didn’t—these aren’t your average Somali militia, David. We’re dealing with something else .”
“If they were going to hit us with indirect fire, they would have done it by now .”
“No, they would much prefer to take us alive. But they’re not going to wait all day and lose half their men doing it. They must know by now we’ve got a helicopter on the way .”
“Aren’t they afraid of blowing up the case ?”
“A regular explosion isn’t going to destroy what’s inside. They can pull it out of the ashes for all they care. But we’ve got to stay put. If we move from this hilltop, the snipers will get us. If we stay, at least we’ve got a shot of surviving the mortars long enough for the helicopter to get here .”
I shook my head. “If they don’t get a hit on the first try, it’s not going to take them long to adjust fire until they do .”
At this, we heard the distant thump of a mortar tube firing somewhere to the southeast .
The first round was airborne, beginning the parabolic arc that would carry it to its detonation against the earth. I realized that I was now on the receiving end of the same weapons system I had been tasked with employing to attack the Five Heads on my final mission with Boss’s team .
Jais and I scrambled to our respective rock clusters, and I slipped between the biggest boulders I could find. Looking out of the narrow opening, I saw Jais similarly huddled between stones rising to shoulder height above his crouched form .
“We only have to survive a few mortar rounds,” he said. “As soon as they think we’re dead, they’ll charge in to get the case before the helicopter gets here. We’ll let them get too close to use their mortar and then start killing them again .”
“Great plan, Jais, provided we survive the fucking mortars in the first place .”
“Baby steps, Rivers .”
The mortar round exploded behind me, and the quick reverberation of the earth and our boulders jolted us before the sound receded into an echo sweeping away from us like the tide .
I called, “Sounds like a 60-millimeter. Landed maybe 150 meters to the south .”
“More like two hundred meters. Let’s see how long it takes them to — ”
Another thump of the mortar firing .
“—adjust fire .”
I said, “Well I don’t hear a fucking helicopter coming, so I hope this case is worth dying over. You may as well tell me what’s in it .”
“You must have figured it out by now .”
“Judging by weight, I’m guessing uranium .”
“Not just uranium. We could cross the border into Uganda and find mines filled with uranium .”
The second mortar round exploded with a louder blast than the first, but this time the sound came from my front, on the opposite side of the hill—they were bracketing us and would be making progressively smaller adjustments to the mortar’s aim until they achieved a direct hit .
Jais continued, “The billet in that case was refined in a centrifuge at Novosibirsk. It was sold in Ukraine in 2004 — ”
There was another distant blast as the third mortar round shot out of the tube .
“—and then went missing as it crossed the Black Sea to Turkey. It showed up for sale in Yemen last month, open to the highest bidder .”
I looked at the case chained to my wrist. “If he could afford it, then why did we have to jump in to get it ?”
“Because everyone who couldn’t afford it has been looking for it. There’s only one place in this part of the world to keep something like that hidden, and that’s where he sent us .”
The third round detonated once again on the south side of the hill, so close that the deafening explosion was replaced by dirt raining over our heads .
I cringed with the impact. “So the Handler wants to build a bomb. That’s what you meant when you said it was the key to war .”
We heard a fourth round being fired, and I knew in that instant that it would hit the hilltop .
Jais was now yelling, “He didn’t send us so he could build a bomb with it; he sent us so no one else could. That’s why we have to hold these fuckers off until the helicopter gets here. If we don’t get the case out, the contents are going to be weaponized to the full abilities of whoever gets ahold of it. And they’re going to save it until they can get it into a population center or next to — ”
He was interrupted by a thunderbolt that split the sky and turned the world around us to blackness .
* * *
I heard the Indian’s voice in my head, his words as clear as they were during our meeting in the forest .
You tell me, David. How does one escape an enemy such as this ?
Then I was painfully descending the narrow staircase at the team house the day after I killed Saamir, banished from the dining room meeting where Boss, Matz, and Ophie were deciding my fate. Two doors at the bottom of the steps, the one on the right leading to my room and the one on the left leading to the cellar where —
“AMSAKTUH! KABADTO ALAYH ! ”
The words, shouted from mere feet away, were met with the sound of dozens of men cheering from farther down the hill .
I opened my eyes to see Jais’s motionless, bloody body sprawled on the ground between boulders .
My vision shifted to the Galil rifle lying two feet from my outstretched hand. I made a desperate scramble to grab it only to see a tan boot kick it away .
I rolled onto my side, squinting into the light at a tall, well-built Arab brandishing an AK-47 .
He was the first enemy fighter to have made it atop the hill. We faced each other, alone. Through a ringing head, I listened in vain for the drumming beat of helicopter blades approaching from the distance .
Instead, I heard the man speaking with a thick Middle Eastern accent. “It is over. You are prisoner now .”
I lowered my head back to the dirt and released a shaky exhale .
“Get up,” he said .
Pressing a palm to the ground, I struggled to rise to my hands and knees. He crudely grabbed the back of my shirt, jerking me upward as I stumble-stepped to a crouched, bent-over position, the weight of the case upsetting my perilous equilibrium. I grabbed the handle tightly
with both hands, trying to steady the momentum of the case before I toppled over .
Then I inhaled as deeply as I could .
Channeling all my strength into a single movement, I swung the case upward with both hands .
It moved with surprising speed, striking the side of the man’s head with a sickening pop . He spun a full rotation as he fell to the ground, landing on his back with his vacant eyes facing the clouds .
The Indian’s voice filled my head once more, though I had no idea why .
He is many things to many people .
I fell to my knees beside the body, raising the case over my head with both hands and bringing it down like a sledgehammer onto his face .
To his workers, he is the Handler .
I heaved the case away from the carnage and extended both arms above my body as high as I could reach. Then I swung it back down .
To his inner circle, he is the One .
As I lifted the case again, I saw that the remains of the human head looked as Karma’s did at the moment of her death, a gruesome display within pieces of fractured skull. Raising the case as high as I could, I flung it downward a final time .
To his enemies, he is —
“KHASHAM KHADA! ” I screamed, as loud as my lungs would allow. “KHASHAM KHADA! KHASHAM KHADA ! ”
Voices on the hill below began yelling in another language. Their chattering cries echoed from man to man down the hill and then reversed course as a garbled phrase was repeated back up in the form of an instruction .
A second enemy fighter emerged onto the hilltop, then a third, their AK-47s maintaining vigil on my figure as they surveyed the scene .
Still on my knees, I panted in exhaustion, the case now on the ground beside the dead man’s destroyed skull as I muttered, “Khasham Khada …Khasham Khada sent me, you motherfuckers …”
To my left I saw the cratered earth where the mortar round had impacted, charring the surrounding rocks into chimneys of black. Half a dozen fighters climbed onto the hilltop, directing their barrels toward me but saying nothing as they kept their distance. I saw both Somalis and Arabs among their ranks, the vengeance in their eyes intensifying the longer they stood, sweaty hands tightening on the wood grips of their assault rifles .
Then, without warning, their ranks parted .
Through the gap came a slight man whose shuffling passage caused the fighters to spread further. Alone, he limped toward me, a checkered shemagh tied around the top of his head with the excess hanging across the front of one shoulder. His left hand deftly maneuvered a cane as he walked, his only armaments untouched on an embroidered leather belt: a dagger with an ivory handle in a curved sheath on one hip and a holstered pistol on the other .
I looked at him and said, “Khasham Khada will kill you all. Khasham Khada .”
He watched my eyes without speaking .
He must have been in his sixties, with every possible line and wrinkle carved into his stern, olive-skinned face. The lower half of his beard was dyed a bright orange-red, and though long and unkempt his upper lip had been neatly and recently shaved bare. After directing his gaze around the hilltop, he gave a barely discernable nod before tapping a low rock beside me with two quick raps of his cane .
The nearest fighters leapt forward to support his arms as he lowered himself into a seated position on the rock and set his cane gently across his lap with a dignified air .
I bluffed as convincingly as I could. “My helicopters will be here any second with three dozen men. You had better be gone before that happens .”
He responded in an amused tone, with a crisp Middle Eastern accent that I couldn’t quite place, “Only one helicopter has departed Mogadishu in the past hour.” He swung his walking stick toward me, quickly setting the tip atop my right wrist with gentle precision. “And the timer on your watch is counting down from forty-seven minutes .”
I looked down at my wrist, then back at him .
“Worth a shot .”
He gave an appreciative nod. “It was a noble effort. Now let us talk. So there is no misunderstanding, what words have you been saying ?”
“You know the words. Khasham Khada .”
“Yes, I do know those words. I also know that I was not informed of your passage through Somalia .”
“Well I ‘informed’ as many of your soldiers as I could before you started shooting mortars. And the first man who made it over the hill was also well aware before his soul departed .”
“I see that. But if you know these words, then you also know the man who armed you with them to ensure your safety .”
“Of course .”
“And you would also know that he would not send a mission under the protection of the words you just spoke without first informing all relevant parties. In this case, and in this part of the Caliphate, that would be me .”
“Yet here I am. And your treatment of me will determine how well—or poorly—he responds to your interference .”
The man flinched. “He is willing to risk all-out war? For this?” He gave the side of the case a tap with his stick. “It is valuable, but not that valuable. If he had simply told me he was the buyer, we would have avoided this mess altogether .”
“I do not question the One. Do you ?”
He paused to examine the rolling hills receding into the distance toward the ocean that lay too far over the horizon to see .
“Of course not. Have you…have you met him ?”
“Yes. And I will be reporting to him immediately upon my return .”
“Is he truly the luminary that the network would have us believe ?”
I raised my eyes from his peculiar orange beard to meet his stare. “He is even greater than they say. His genius is decades ahead of its time .”
He paused, glancing skyward with his mouth ajar, looking deep in thought. “Tell him…tell him I would like his people to contact Sasa at their earliest convenience. To discuss this matter .”
I nodded. “I will relay your message, and if you grant one small request, I’ll also tell him that my mission was treated with the utmost courtesy despite the misunderstanding .”
“What is your request ?”
“You leave me one AK-47 when you go .”
His hands flexed on the cane, one sliding to the end before he replied, “A rifle? Why this of all things ?”
“Mine has suffered a malfunction, and I wish to remain armed. Decide quickly, because if the men aboard my helicopter arrive to see me surrounded I cannot assure your safety .”
He glanced back down at my watch and then yelled over his shoulder, “Carry the martyr and — ”
Then, shaking his head in mild embarrassment, he switched to Arabic and relayed his orders .
The fighters around us didn’t move for several seconds, at which point the man’s face clouded with a dark convulsion of rage and he screamed, “AL-AN ! ”
The men scrambled to action, splitting into two groups. One recovered the body of their fallen friend, whose head was scattered about the Somali hilltop and smeared upon my case, and the others helped their leader to his feet as he spoke to them quietly. I took the opportunity to glance at his belt, noting that the embroidered pattern was Arabic calligraphy .
He turned to me. “Until we meet again .”
I nodded. “Until then .”
Then the fighters turned and left, descending the sloping terrain away from the hilltop. They began disappearing over the ledge, casting backward glances at me that ranged from naive curiosity to lingering anger at my survival .
The single AK-47 belonging to the dead fighter remained on the ground beside me, resting beside a patch of sand congealed with blood and brain matter .
As the last fighters vanished from the hilltop, I clambered to my feet and rushed to Jais, kneeling beside him and pressing two fingers into his neck .
* * *
He was alive, his pulse steady below the corner of his jaw .
The right half of his face was
unmarred except for dirt and sweat, its expression appearing almost serene .
But the rest of his face was virtually unrecognizable .
His left eyelid was grossly swollen under a dark crimson thumbprint of a wound, the penetration serving as the source for a river of blood that flowed parallel to others streaming from his forehead, nostril, and the corner of his mouth .
Jais’s other injuries were muted by the veneer of his clothes, his chest and shoulder peppered with an irregular red splatter as if a dripping paintbrush had been flung at him. Dozens of tiny pieces of shrapnel were embedded in his flesh. Yet he had survived a near-direct mortar impact through the absurd and unfathomable ballistics of the angle of its strike and his positioning among rock cover .
Had he ordered me to cover the north side of the hill, the injuries would have been mine, and the Indian’s safeguarding words would have gone unsaid. Had the mortar been any system larger than a 60-millimeter, we both would have been killed on impact .
I stood and glanced at the countdown on my watch, recovering the abandoned AK-47 and checking that it was ready to fire. Then I searched the sky to the east but heard no trace of an inbound aircraft .
For a fleeting second, I was back on the staircase in Boss’s team house, approaching two doors at the bottom of the steps. The one on the right still led to my room, and the one on the left still led to the cellar where Boss had first interrogated me .
And where Luka had been tortured and killed before my eyes .
I kicked Jais’s rifle away from him and then swung the toe of my boot into his ribs .
He groaned and stirred, his right eyelid fluttering open as the left remained swollen shut. I stepped back and set the case atop a rock, then leaned the AK-47 over it to face him .
When Jais’s eye opened fully, he came to life in a panic and looked around wildly for his rifle .
“They’re gone,” I said. Realizing he couldn’t hear me, I yelled, “They’re gone!” His eye found me and his expression softened somewhat .
“What happened?” he asked in a loud voice .
“What does Khasham Khada mean ?”
