Sea fighter

by James H. Cobb

  Accordingly, when the trooper heard the sound of automobiles approaching, he knew it must be his target. Squinting out into the morning brightness, he watched as the small motorcade passed, first the Army Land Rover escort and then the battered Mercedes sedan. As the latter swept by, he caught the silhouette of the lone passenger in its rear seat. Yes! Target positively identified. All was going as planned.

  As the little convoy proceeded toward the city, the trooper dug his hands into the small pile of earth and crumbling clay brick beside the hut door frame. After only a moment, he unearthed the coils of wire he had been told would be there. He removed the second object from his pocket, an electric hand detonator, and began connecting the wires to its terminals.

  Another Special Forces team had preplanted the command detonated antitank mine in the roadway late the previous night, running the concealed detonator leads back to this firing point in the shack. The trooper’s task would be to explode the mine at the designated time, on the motorcade’s return run from Monrovia to the airport. The young soldier did not know why the U.N. representative was to be assassinated. However, Premier General Belewa had ordered that it be done, and that was enough.

  As the small convoy made its way through the streets of the Union capital, Vavra Bey noted the changes since she had last been there, the growing disrepair, the uncompleted projects, the devitalization. The streets and markets were, for the most part, empty and left to the accumulating trash. And the few people abroad moved with a sullen lassitude instead of the burgeoning pride they had once carried.

  The citizens of the Union might not be beaten, but they were rapidly forgetting what it was they had been trying to win. The U.N. representative could sense it. The stillness upon the city was a pause, like a man hesitating, wondering what he should do next.

  The Mamba Point Hotel, once the tall, white citadel of Belewa’s government, had been converted into a fire-scarred ruin, every window in the structure shattered and the upper floors burned out from a cruise missile hit. A missile Bey had claimed the responsibility for.

  She was alone here, amid a people who had no reason to have any great love for her. And yet, for what she hoped to accomplish, she’d had to come by herself.

  The elevators had all been knocked out, and the climb to General Belewa’s office was a long and slow one. Maintaining his base of operations in the battered hotel had to be a monumental inconvenience, but perhaps also a last act of defiance. Either that or perhaps the man simply didn’t give a damn any more.

  Bey’s silent escort ushered her through the door into Belewa’s office.

  She observed that change had come to General Belewa as well. Somewhere during the past few months he had made the transition from “young” man to “no longer young” man. His closely trimmed hair was hazed with gray now, and the seams in his face had deepened, defining with greater clarity the bone beneath the flesh. The brightness and intensity still lingered in his eyes, but a fever heat burned behind them now.

  He looked up as she entered, not rising, making no gesture of officiousness or formality. “What do you want?” he asked simply.

  It was good. This was how she wished it to be, as well.

  “It is time we talked, you and I,” she replied, crossing to one of the chairs before the General’s desk. “Not negotiate, but talk.” Uninvited, she sat down and met his gaze.

  Belewa suppressed a short, harsh bark of laughter. “About what? You’ve won. We’ve lost. What is there left to talk about?”

  “No one wins at war, General,” Bey replied levelly. “At best, one only prevents things from getting worse. It is true, we have no more reason to speak of Guinea. That issue is resolved. But we need to speak of the Union and its people and what befalls them next.”

  “There is little to speak of there as well,” Belewa retorted. “Hell returns, Madam Representative. Very likely, we collapse back into the chaos and mindless savagery we arose from. No, the United Nations need not concern itself about the Union much longer. As it was with Liberia and Sierra Leone, we’ll soon be eating ourselves alive and you will be able to safely forget about us once again.”

  Bey lifted an eyebrow. “And this is what you want, Obe Belewa?”

  “What I want?” Belewa stared in disbelief at the representative. “What I want?” The big African straightened and rose from his chair. Lifting both fists, he crashed them down on the desktop. “What I wanted was to end it all. I wanted to end all the suffering! All the starvation! All the killing and repression and brutality. Couldn’t you see that! Couldn’t any of you see that all I wanted was to end the madness that has infected this land for far too long?”

  “Yes, General, some of us could see that.”

  “Then why couldn’t you let me finish the job?” Belewa turned away, staring out of the glassless balcony doors toward the sea beyond. “Why couldn’t you let me put things in order here? For decades you ignored this corner of the world, letting it go to the devil. Why pay attention now, just because someone is trying to put things right?”

  “Because the day of empires and empire builders is past, General,” Vavra Bey replied quietly. “As is the concept of ‘the end justifies the means.’ No one argues with your goals. But the precedents that would be set by their achievement would have been too high a price to pay. Conquest can no longer be permitted by the world community, not even with the best of intentions.”

  “Then how else am I supposed to do the job? Tell me that.” Belewa spun back from the windows. “I’m a soldier! I have a soldier’s skills and I know how to use a soldier’s tools! What other options do I have?”

  The U.N. representative nodded slowly. “You are a soldier, a brave and able one. But if you wish to reach these high goals you have set, you must undertake a battle far more challenging than any you have ever before dreamed of.”

  Vavra Bey did not speak as a diplomat now, but as a grandmother, that wisdom being more appropriate and stronger for this moment. “You must learn how to make war in another way, General. A slower and more difficult way. You must learn how to invade with ideas and how to conquer by example.

  “You stand at a critical crossroads, Obe Belewa, one where many have stood before you. You have a choice. Out of stubbornness and pride, you may allow yourself to slide down into total defeat, taking all that you have built with you. Or you may lift your head again and begin this new and greater battle.”

  A grudging smile touched Belewa’s face. “Someone told me once that I was a man cursed with excessive pride.”

  Vavra Bey smiled back as she might have at one of her own sons. “With pride, it is not a matter of too much or too little. More it is a question of how it is used.”

  Belewa smiled again, more freely, and returned to stand behind his desk. “Then tell me, how should I use mine?”

  “By being willing to consider other options, both for the Union and for the region. You are right, General Belewa. West Africa has indeed been ignored by the world for far too long. But you have our attention now.”

  The U.N. representative rose to her feet. “I journeyed here this day to extend you a personal invitation, General. Let us resume formal talks to seek resolution in the Union’s conflict with Guinea and in the matter of dealing with the refugee crisis. Let us end this war, so that we may begin the greater battle.”

  Belewa rested his hands on the back of his chair, his face impassive, his eyes downcast in thought. Vavra Bey stood by quietly, listening to the cry of the cormorants from beyond the empty patio door frame. Finally Belewa looked up.

  “I hear your words, Madam Representative. You will have my answer by this time tomorrow.”

  The heat of the day had long since settled upon the little hut on the airport road. The Special Forces trooper fiercely resisted the lassitude the growing warmth carried with it. Kneeling in the dust by the boarded door, he ignored th
e sweat trickling down his back and peered between the slats, watching the highway. He must be ready. He would have only one chance and only a single second in which to act.

  He set the detonator down and wiped his palms dry on the seat of his shorts. The mine lay fifty yards down the road beneath a pothole in the incoming lane. The powerful Italian antitank weapon was potent enough to destroy the heaviest of armored fighting vehicles. It would totally disintegrate the representative’s car, but only if the vehicle was directly over the shaped charge when it was fired.

  Dust rose down the road. Hastily the trooper snatched up the hand detonator. Yes, it was the motorcade! They were coming! Again the Land Rover in the lead, trailed by the Mercedes.

  The detonator’s safety pin pulled free with a sharp metallic click. The trooper had carefully paced off the distance to the pothole when he had come on station and had noted a stunted eucalyptus tree growing beside the road, opposite the mine. That was his mark.

  The army vehicle rolled past, the limousine coming on.

  The trooper found himself regretting that the limousine’s driver had to die as well, but this was war. Prices had to be paid if the Union was to triumph. The shadow of the eucalyptus tree fell across the Mercedes, and the trooper’s hand closed convulsively around the firing lever.

  Monrovia, West African Union 2101 Hours, Zone Time; September 10, 2007

  As he climbed the hotel stairway, Dasheel Umamgi silently cursed the bite of the prickly heat beneath his robes, then cursed again because he could not bring himself to scratch in the presence of his soldier escort. Admitting to such human frailties would be an act unworthy of a holy man, especially in front of these black swine.

  He targeted yet a third curse at General Belewa for summoning him here at this hour and yet a fourth for the West African Union as a whole. This had been a most promising operation in the beginning. An opportunity for Algeria to establish a radicalist Islamic power base on the African Gold Coast. When the Council of Mullahs was ready to strike southward into Mali and Niger, such a base in the infidels’ rear area would prove most useful.

  The establishment of such a beachhead had seemed a simple matter. Take in a monkey republic general that everyone else had turned out and buy his allegiance with promises and a few shipments of obsolescent armament. Then support him in his struggles, as long as the cost was not too great, and manipulate him to Algeria’s advantage.

  All the while, agents could be inserted into his territory, beating the drum for Islamic radicalism. Weak points and weak men within his own government would also be sought out, preparing for the time when a puppet leader totally obedient to the Algerians could be installed.

  Simple matters all, and yet it had not worked out as planned. Belewa turned out to be strong and a most unwilling subject for manipulation. The General was popular as well, and Algeria’s plans for subverting the Union populace had faltered.

  All was not quite lost, however. The plan for finding weak points within the Union government had at least borne some fruit. For the glory of Islam and Algeria, as well as for himself, Umamgi had pressed on, seeking to further isolate Belewa from the world and from his own people. The Union government now stood on the brink of collapse, and sometimes much can be gained out of chaos.

  Yet it would pay to be cautious. Sometimes Umamgi had the uncomfortable suspicion that Belewa understood far more about Algeria’s plans for the Union than the Ambassador might have liked. And today, something had gone wrong. Very wrong.

  Reaching the floor that held Belewa’s office, Umamgi’s guide opened and held the stairwell door for the ambassador.

  Just beyond the door stood Brigadier Sako Atiba, a military police escort standing watchfully at his side. One look into the Chief of Staff’s face told the Algerian that indeed something had gone very, very wrong.

  “Good evening, Ambassador,” Atiba’s escort said politely. “General Belewa wishes to meet you and the Chief of Staff.”

  Umamgi and Atiba were not given a chance to speak together, the guards ushering the two men down the hallway toward Belewa’s suite. The floor seemed exceptionally quiet, the usual bustle of staff work suppressed. Men could be sensed behind the office doors, however, quiet men, waiting men.

  With the coolness of the instinctive conspirator, Umamgi gauged the situation. Brigadier Atiba still carried his side arm. He was not yet under arrest. And he still carried a look of defiance and not fear. A confrontation was coming with Belewa, but the possible outcome was far from a foregone conclusion.

  The Algerian pressed a discreet hand against the slit pocket in his robes, feeling for the outline of the silenced Beretta .22. The little automatic had served him well during his climb through the ranks of the Algerian revolutionary party. Perhaps tonight it might fire the first shot of a new revolution.

  The MPs ushered them into Belewa’s office, then fell back outside the door, closing it behind them.

  The General waited. Sitting behind his great desk, he afforded Umamgi only a brief glance, but he studied Sako Atiba’s face for long silent moments. Some large round object lay on the desktop, shrouded under a burlap sack.

  Belewa let the scene drag out wordlessly for almost a full minute. Then he straightened abruptly, his left hand coming from behind the desk to sweep aside the burlap, revealing the dirt-encrusted metal bulk of a disarmed antitank mine.

  “Our sappers made a surprise security sweep of the airport road at first light this morning, before Representative Bey’s arrival.” Belewa’s voice was little more than a whisper. “And the Military Police established a stake-out on the firing point. The young soldier who was supposed to detonate this mine was very disillusioned to learn that his orders did not, in fact, come from this office. He has cooperated fully with our investigation.”

  Belewa leaned back in his chair, his eyes seeking Atiba’s again. “Why, Sako?” he demanded. “Have you gone mad? Why would you set out to destroy the few rags of international recognition and acceptance this government has!”

  “Because we have to strike back!” Atiba exploded in return. “Because we have to show the United Nations and the Americans that we are not afraid, that we will not let ourselves be defeated!”

  “And we will do this by killing a helpless old woman in our streets! That would not prove we are brave! It would prove that we are rabid! She was a senior United Nations representative on a peace mission! What kind of respect could we ever hope to gain from such an act? What kind of honor?”

  “Respect and honor!” the Chief of Staff spat back. “That’s all you speak of anymore, Obe! What of the victories you promised! What of making things better for the people?”

  “And getting our people labeled as mad dogs will make things better?”

  Atiba stepped a pace closer to the desk. “At least mad dogs are feared. Under your leadership the Union has become a whipped and beaten cur chased into its kennel by the U.N. and by this Leopard of yours. We are losing, Obe!”

  Belewa caught his reply, holding it back for half a dozen heartbeats. And when he did speak, his voice was low and controlled once more. “You are right, my old friend. We are losing. We are losing far more than we can afford. It is time for a change.”

  Atiba’s reply was quiet as well. “Yes, Obe, it is.” And then the Chief of Staff’s hand swept back to the gun at his belt.

  Atiba never completed the draw. General Belewa had been holding his own drawn automatic just below the level of the desktop. The worn Browning Hi-Power elevated, a three-round burst flaming from its silvered muzzle. Brigadier Atiba, thrown backward by the bullet impacts, crashed to the floor, face upward, unseeing eyes staring, his fingers still hooked under the flap of his pistol holster.

  As was his way, Umamgi had taken a step aside when the confrontation had begun, waiting to see the trends before committing himself. However, even with a half-developed plan
for assassination in mind, the sudden explosive climax to the conflict between the two men paralyzed him. Brigadier Sako Atiba, the secret card he had husbanded so carefully for so long, had been taken out of the game before his eyes. And Obe Belewa yet lived.

  “Aiiiii, Sako!” The soft keening cry drifted across the room on the sea wind. The General sat unmoving, his head tilted forward, his face locked in a grimace of anguish. His eyes were closed, the automatic in his hand momentarily forgotten. Umamgi cut a look at the office door, so far away across the room, and took a silent, sidling step.

  “Sako Atiba was my friend,” Belewa’s quiet words froze the Algerian in place, “and a good soldier.”

  Belewa had looked up again. His voice was almost casual, but his features were fixed and cold. “But he was not born to lead. He was always a follower.”

  Belewa swiveled in his chair to face the Algerian, the leveled Hi-Power in his fist coming to bear with the deliberation of a traversing tank turret. “Tell me, Ambassador,” the African’s voice grew softer yet, “who was he following tonight?”

  Umamgi felt a scream well up within him. He clawed wildly for the Beretta. The pistol hung up as he tried to draw it, the silencer snagging in the robes prescribed for a holy man. Belewa’s automatic slammed again, and the last sound Dasheel Umamgi heard was the tinkling of an ejected cartridge case on a desktop.

  No one came in.

  Obe Belewa knew they were out there, though, in the hall way, waiting. Waiting to see who would walk out the door of this office. Waiting to see who would be the new leader of the West African Union. He let them wonder. Instead, he sat for a long time in the silent company of the friend who had become an enemy and the ally who had never been a friend.

  The flies came after a while, buzzing in through the open patio doors, seeking the freshly spilled blood.

  Was this what it had come to? He had dreamed of doing good, of uniting and lifting an entire people out of chaos and degradation. But what good was he doing now, beyond giving the flies fresh meat to raise their maggots in? Where had it all gone bad? What had gone wrong?