by Project Itoh
Interrogator: But how could such a mindset develop in such a short time? I can just about understand it happening in one person. But for such a large, disparate group of people to suddenly develop such intense hatred that they felt the need to go about systematically murdering their fellow countrymen? Impossible!
Ahmed: I think you’ll find that we’re living proof that it’s very possible.
The clip came to an end.
“It’s estimated that there were a total of forty-six thousand victims of the Black Sea Massacre,” Erica Sales said, her voice dispassionate. “What we have to remember is that Ahmed here was an agent for peace in Somalia up until a year ago. There were bouts of civil unrest in the late twentieth century, but by the middle of the 2000s, that appeared to have been resolved once and for all. Somalia was about as stable a country as you could have found in the region.”
I asked if some foreign military power had intervened to put an end to their previous civil strife. I was embarrassed to say that Somalia barely registered on my radar, and I couldn’t have told you much about it. I’d been too occupied with work and eating pizza and watching Saving Private Ryan previews that my worldview was shaped almost exclusively by a combination of the dossiers handed to me in the line of duty, CNN, and the occasional TV movie.
“No, that was the impressive thing—it was the will of the Somalian people that brought about an end to their civil war,” Sales answered. “Their troubles started in the 1970s and intensified in the 1990s to the extent that the international community tried to intervene once, just after the first Gulf War. The problem was that the operatives—your predecessors in US Special Forces, if you will—failed, and spectacularly at that. After seeing the battered corpses of his key operatives being dragged ignominiously and very publicly through the streets of Mogadishu, President Clinton decided that Africa was beyond hope and abandoned the whole area to its own devices. After 9/11, Somalia was initially suspected of being a hotbed of Al-Qaeda activity, but that soon died down once the full-scale invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were underway. In fact, you could go as far as to say that the world at large had thoroughly forgotten about Somalia and its woes.”
The land the world forgot. You could try and publicize its plight online, but you might as well try and push back the ocean for all the good it would do you. There was too much noise, too many layers, and the plaintive cries for help were all but buried. Help us. Help us. The silent death throes of many a country, sinking under the weight of its own plight. No one gave them a second glance.
“But then, in the 2010s, Somalia started to pull itself up by its own bootstraps,” Colonel Rockwell suddenly interjected, and my eyes flicked over toward him to see him grinning. “You’re looking at someone who was actually there on the ground in Mogadishu back in ’93. I was part of Delta Force back then. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in Bakaara Market when I heard the news of the Black Hawk going down. I’m one of the spectacularly failed predecessors that Ms. Sales refers to.”
“Forgive me, Colonel, I had no idea. Of course. I meant no offense.” Erica Sales put on a show of having the decency to look contrite.
“None taken. In fact, you’re absolutely right. The operation was a spectacular failure. Not so much militarily, as it happens, but certainly a political failure. In any case, I’ve had a keen personal interest in keeping tabs on developments in Somalia ever since. Not that there’s been much I’ve been able to actually do, other than send the odd donation. Anyway, my understanding of the situation—admittedly gleaned from what I’ve observed from afar—is that during the mid-2010s Somalia did indeed, as Ms. Sales suggests, start to drag itself out of the quagmire of civil war, entirely on its own initiative. The AKs and RPGs that had been the weapons of choice were gradually collected up in a general amnesty; civil order and education systems were restored, and the government, police force, and judiciary were rebuilt. The country found a semblance of order where there had been chaos. It’s as if they were determined to prove Hobbes’s theory wrong: that bellum omnium contra omnes, the war of all against all, was not always the inevitable and final result of civil breakdown. And by ‘they,’ I’m talking about one person in particular who was the driving force behind this recovery: a quiet but passionately determined man.”
“And that man’s name was Ahmed Hassan Salaad,” said Erica Sales.
To be honest, I wasn’t surprised when I heard this news. Just saddened a little, though mostly numb. The men who fought oppression on behalf of the weak, children, women, the destitute, and dying—had a habit of transforming into the next generation of oppressor once they had seized power. Power corrupts. It was a common story, and I couldn’t afford to be surprised or affected too much by a common story.
“It wasn’t an easy path, but Ahmed’s group managed to forge a semblance of peace in Somalia for a while. They established a consensus that however poor, however needy, however destitute the country was, there were still fundamental principles that could not be abandoned. Children went to school and learned to read and write. Jerry-rigged armored trucks no longer patrolled the streets at night, and people could sleep peacefully again. Once that basic level of law and order had been established as a fundamental principle, the country could start focusing on its desperate poverty.”
“What sort of natural resources does Somalia have?” asked Williams.
Erica Sales shook her head. “Virtually none to speak of. It is possible that there are some marginal sources of income that remain undiscovered or untapped, but as of the end of the twentieth century there were no significant resources along the lines of oil, ores, or even agricultural products. Investigations were made and surveys were taken, and no potential prospects for an income stream from exports were discovered.”
“They were screwed, in other words,” Williams continued tactfully.
“Not true—not so long as they had their people.” Erica Sales shrugged. “Humans mean human resources, which means potential labor for hire. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals have fostered a reasonably successful track record of seeing underdeveloped, resource-poor countries achieve a level of economic stability. And the African scenery always has significant potential for tourism, given appropriate development of infrastructure. The problem is—”
“—the country was stuck in a messy war for so long that no one wanted to invest, and all the tourists have long since been scared away, huh?” Williams interrupted.
“Just so,” Erica Sales said with an air of finality and looked over at the undersecretary of defense.
The USD nodded and took the stage again. “Thank you, Ms. Sales, for your thorough briefing. We will now proceed to discuss internal matters.”
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time and attention.” With that, Erica Sales turned sharply and left the room without further ado. The audience watched the Pentagon style–attired PMC director as she exited.
“Very well, ladies and gentlemen. I will be taking it from here,” the USD said, clearing his throat in such an exaggerated and pompous manner that I had to bite down on my tongue to keep from laughing.
“So, Somalia had experienced some success in its disarmament drive and was making some progress. But the poverty and hardship continued. Some sort of drastic measure was needed to change the world’s attitude toward the country in order to attract some foreign capital. To convince the world that Somalia was once again a civilized country with an educated and willing workforce and a safe place for tourists to visit. After all, all this was true, up until a year ago at least. But it wasn’t enough that it was true—it had to be seen to be true.”
“Public relations, in other words?” I asked.
The USD nodded. “Exactly. Ahmed had studied International Relations at the University of Oxford, and he recognized just how powerful a factor PR was in the creation of Bosnia and Herzegovina out of the ruins of the Yugoslav Wars.”
Hope is a powerful weapon, but exceedingly difficult to wield
effectively. Wasn’t that written in some book somewhere? Well, the American people were going to have to believe in Somalia, believe that there was something to be hopeful about, if Somalia were to succeed as a nation. The American politicians in Washington were going to have to believe, as were the news networks. Lobbyists would have to be mobilized. How to achieve all this? Step onto the scene a certain PR specialist who was prepared to take Somalia on as a client.
A press conference was held in Washington. Somalia’s cabinet ministers were trotted out. They were granted an audience with key US political figures. The dire straits of the Somalian economy were impressed upon them. Articles were written for the media. The word got out. And so the wheel started turning, and the powerful weapon called hope started creaking into action—at least, that was how the world was supposed to work …
“They needed to get the word out one way or another. The world needed to know that the fighting in Somalia was over, and that Somalia was now a progressive, forward-looking country with massive potential that just happened to be desperately poor at the moment. And that’s when Ahmed made the decision to hire a former PR man as press advisor to the Somalian government,” explained the USD.
He didn’t need to say any more—I could see what was coming next. “John Paul, of course,” I said out loud.
The whole room seemed to swivel toward me. I hadn’t particularly intended—or expected—to draw focus, but apparently everyone was surprised at my prescience.
“Exactly. And I’m sure, Captain Shepherd, that you know exactly what happened next after John Paul entered Somalia.”
Think of a murder case. Except the murderer is a country.
A reporter interviews the next-door neighbor for a sound bite. “He was a quiet type,” Mrs. Smith (56) says. “His lawn was neat and trimmed, and he always took the trash out on time. Never in a million years would we have imagined him doing a thing like this. It’s such a shock to the entire neighborhood …”
That was the best analogy they could give us. I nodded, listening to the USD’s words. “Yes, in other words, that’s where we are now. The country was plunged back into chaos in a heartbeat. A Hobbesian war of all against all. Chaos. Lines were drawn: the killers and the killed. And then—”
“—the famous scenes on the beaches of the Black Sea with the thousands of corpses like so many beached whales.” Williams finished the story. The room was heavy with silence.
John Paul.
It was pretty clear now that he wasn’t just some tourist with a bizarre penchant for seeing civil war zones. Well, it had been clear from the start to those at HQ who had given us the command to assassinate him; this was just the first time anyone had properly explained the situation to us.
This man who we’d tried and failed to kill on numerous occasions had somehow been a catalyst for genocide in locations throughout the world.
For some reason, when this man went into a country, it plunged into chaos.
For some reason, when this man went into a country, the blood of innocents would pour forth.
“The time span for all of this was a mere six months,” the USD continued. “Now, the silver lining was that these countries that attracted nothing but the world’s indifference when they were peaceful did at least manage to capture the world’s attention when the massacres were as graphic and vivid as they were. With public opinion being what it was and with a presidential election looming, the US’s response was all but inevitable. The problem was, the US Army was already massively overcommitted, thanks to all the existing civil wars and terrorist cells and ethnic conflicts around the world, and was in danger of spreading itself too thin to be effective. That’s how, for the first time in modern warfare, outsourcing on a massive scale became the norm.”
“The US forces are being worked to the bone,” interjected one of the Congressmen. “This sudden escalation in overseas conflicts is simply unnatural, that’s what it is. All these countries that have pulled themselves away from their violent pasts and were looking forward to bright futures suddenly seemed to collapse. It’s one step forward, ten steps back! Even countries with absolutely no history of racial tension suddenly find their citizens at one another’s throats. We’ve commissioned all the major think tanks to analyze the situation to come up with some sort of explanation, but so far they’ve been firing blanks.”
“And yet you’ve all known the answer from the start, haven’t you?” I asked. “From before I received orders to assassinate John Paul?”
Nobody said a word.
I didn’t move. My eyes were fixed on the men and women around the table.
The sea of faces also remained motionless, except for almost imperceptible twitches. Who could be used as the scapegoat? None of them wanted to be the first to speak in response to my question, lest a wrong answer cost them their job. Such were the dynamics of Washington.
Eventually a woman in a navy blue suit broke the abstruse Washingtonian silence. “That’s right. We attempted to capture John Paul a number of times prior to issuing the assassination order.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Williams asked bluntly, pointing a finger at the woman’s face. The woman was visibly taken aback by his bluntness and lack of respect but said nothing to object—neither did Boss or the undersecretary of defense.
“CIA. Overseas is our territory after all,” the woman in the blue suit replied.
“No it’s not. It’s not your ‘territory.’ The world is what it is, a giant mess of a place full of confusion and chaos. Thinking that it’s somehow ‘your territory’ is what’s caused this whole clusterfuck in the first place.”
Despite the extraordinary words that were coming from his mouth, Williams was absolutely calm. He wasn’t riled up or trying to pick a fight, particularly. He just had no time for amateurs.
Colonel Rockwell had to rein him in. “Watch your tongue, Captain.”
“Apologies, sir. I take my words back fully, although not the sentiment behind them. If there’s anyone who’s being rude here, it’s the lady over there. Calling the world her territory is disrespectful to the rest of the world and disrespectful to us.” Williams seemed to accept his reprimand but showed no remorse for his outspokenness. We were the ones who had been fighting for the US abroad after all, unlike the CIA, who basically played teddy bears’ picnic with their “paramilitary” activities. What right did they have to call the world their territory? I could figure what Williams was thinking.
The USD urged the CIA woman to continue, and she did so without changing her blank expression.
“As you say, we did indeed fail on a number of occasions to capture John Paul. In our defense, it hadn’t yet been established at that stage that he was instrumental in fanning the flames of conflict around the world. There was a correlation, but there were numerous factors involved at that stage, and all we could say for sure was that he seemed to be cropping up in the shadows quite a lot whenever there was some sort of atrocity. It was only when the level of the atrocities started intensifying exponentially that we started receiving reliable intel confirming that John Paul was at the heart of all this.”
I wondered how many innocent people had been murdered in John Paul’s wars and atrocities in the time it had taken the CIA lady to explain this to us with her arms folded in front of her.
Just one single man, traveling around the world, leaving a bloodbath in his wake. He seemed to find his way to the heart of power—government or insurgency forces, it didn’t seem to matter to him, so long as he could whisper his seductive spell into the ears of those who had the power; and then, as if by magic, piles of dead bodies would start appearing.
Was that a credible explanation of events?
I thought back. Two years ago, when I had killed the ex-brigadier general. Why? Why? Why has my country ended up like this? The former brigadier general hadn’t been asking a hypothetical question born of regret, he’d been genuinely trying to work out what had happened. I remembered his expression when I confro
nted him; even though he knew what his motives were, what he was trying to achieve by causing those atrocious scenes of mass murder, he didn’t know why.
I remembered that expression and I saw it now, on a different face, right in front of me: the trembling face of Ahmed Salaad projected onto the wall.
“So, Boss, why have we been summoned here today?” I asked. Colonel Rockwell adjusted his beret as he looked around at the other people in the room to secure their tacit consent to continue. Having received it, he said in a calm voice:
“It’s been decided that we’ll be putting into effect a plan to assassinate John Paul.”
Williams frowned. Uh, wasn’t that already decided a couple of years ago when you first sent us in to try and kill him? he obviously wanted to say.
I, on the other hand, immediately grasped what Boss meant. “A search and kill op, sir? Will we be trailing him?”
“Exactly.”
A trailing op. Find him and hunt him down like a dog. A team of us were going to be dispatched into the thick of a war zone, armed to the teeth with the latest gadgets, primed with all the prep work the intelligence community could throw at us, and then left to it.
“It’s thought that John Paul is currently entrenched somewhere in Europe. Now, Intelligence Corps assassination work has, of late, been producing spectacular results. In particular, Unit G’s stock has never been higher. There’s only one fly in the ointment, and that’s John Paul.”
“So you want us to go undercover? Like spies?” I asked.
“Exactly,” the navy-blue-suited CIA lady spoke up. “As much as we hate to admit it, the CIA simply doesn’t have the experience or the track record that you do at assassination, and even our best operatives simply don’t match up to your level of toughness and training. We did consider the option of having one of our moles on the ground do the work, one of the local radicals, but this is an extremely delicate and precisely planned operation, and we need to do everything we can to maximize our chance of success. Once upon a time this was the sort of plan we would have put in the hands of the Green Berets or Delta Force. As it is, Special Operations I Detachment is undoubtedly the most suited to this line of work.”
