Shift Tense: Eshu International Book 2

by Patrick Todoroff

  Rat-Face scowled as we got our weapons back from the Sia-qa guards. He must have been looking forward to strangling us with piano wire and was immensely disappointed. Tam and I each gave him the “You’re Number One” gesture and walked away.

  We passed the command bunker. Major Dratshev and the Juggler were in a rather animated conversation with the Dutch colonel. They fell silent as we passed. I grinned. Once the Professor’s orders came through, I figured we’d be out of Alpha’s line of fire. And hopefully on Deer Voort’s better side.

  We saluted Captain Sparrow-ski at the gate. He raised his vodka bottle and booted the Tortoise gun drone as it tried to track us. He was in a good mood today: his no-necks were huddled over Game Boys under the shade of a gnarled Boswellia tree.

  Local heroes, triple pay, officially snuggled nice and close to our target; our mission had just gotten simpler by several orders of magnitude.

  So why did I suddenly feel so shitty about it?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – Bushwacked

  UNHCR IDP Camp, Dhubbato, Somaliland

  Men yelling. Urgent, angry. Almost frantic. Truck engines coughing through broken exhaust pipes, the gravel rasp and squeal of brakes as more pull up.

  Alejo and Carmen sat up in bed, the window beside them bright with the false noon of headlights. Half a dozen vehicles were crowded at the front entrance to the medical compound twenty meters away. Long, many-limbed shadows seethed in the hard light—people moving. Then, there was a keening ululation atop the din like a frantic gull—a woman wailing an immense loss.

  “What’s that?” Carmen asked.

  Alejo hopped out of bed. “Trouble.”

  The Spaniard pulled on old hospital scrubs and dingy white medical coat, then grabbed his walking stick and twelve-gauge Benelli shotgun from the corner. He turned around and found Carmen already dressed.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “With you.” She tied her dark hair back. “You might need me.”

  “I do need you.” Alejo racked the shotgun one-handed. “To stay safe.”

  His wife of thirty-one years smoothed down her sweatshirt and looked over at him, one eyebrow raised. She didn’t step forward but didn’t sit down either.

  Alejo smiled under his walrus moustache and jutted his chin toward the window. “It’s probably nothing. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She returned the smile, but the eyebrow remained raised. “One minute. Then I’m coming after you.”

  “OK.”

  Her husband ducked into the front room, and Carmen heard the screen door slam. Peering out the window again, she dialed Wonli on her cell. Two overnight guards stayed at the medical compound to fend off would-be thieves and black-market traders.

  Was Wonli on watch tonight?

  Wonli’s phone went straight to voicemail.

  Of course it did. Any normal person would be asleep at 2:17 a.m. She looked out the window at the shadowy mob. Unless he already had his hands full.

  Carmen set down her phone and began to pray.

  ***

  Alejo made his way through the maze of tents in the dark. In the four months he and his wife had been in the camp, they’d made the trip so many times, they could navigate it blindfolded.

  He skirted the high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and approached the front gate. The noise of arguing grew louder with each step. Whoever had guard duty was undoubtedly already there. More trucks arrived, but there’d been no gunshots. That was something he took as a good sign.

  He came around the last corner and blinked in the glare. A dozen vehicles were formed up in a semicircle, illuminating the front area with their high beams. Twenty men were pressing against the chain link, and the whole compound was filled with urgent noise and hard, writhing shadows. Alejo saw Wonli and Korfa standing inside, trying to reason with the intruders.

  Squinting, Alejo made out large bundles at the men’s feet, but he couldn’t tell what was in them. His eyes adjusted until he could make out mismatched camouflage clothing and the stubborn shapes of rifles and rocket launchers.

  He raised his shotgun unconsciously, then caught himself. There were far too many armed men, and there was no need to shove an already ugly situation off a cliff. Besides, no one was brandishing their weapons, and the tone of their voices wasn’t belligerent.

  Bandits? Deserters?

  One of them, some sort of officer with an eye patch, was waving his hands like he was trying to fly, demanding Wonli open the gate—pleading. Wonli refused, holding up his cell phone. Alejo felt his pockets. Empty. Wonli must have called him and was waiting for an answer.

  Alejo stared, trying to piece the scene together. It wasn’t until more soldiers emerged from the semi-dark at the rear of the vehicles carrying other men that he realized the bundles on the ground were makeshift stretchers with bodies on them.

  These ragged soldiers had brought their wounded to the camp, to the only medical facility within a hundred kilometers.

  Alejo hid the shotgun in the shadow of his leg and stepped into the light. “What happened?” he demanded.

  At the sound of his voice, every conversation paused for a weird, split second of silence—like drawing in a breath. Every head turned his way. Then the crowd surged toward him, erupting in a jabbering mix of English, Somali, and desperation.

  “Boss! Boss! Mos’ urgent, this one! Here, here. Belly shot! Much bleeding, boss. Here! Here!”

  Wonli’s whistle cut through the noise like an ice pick. The mob paused for a second time, and Alejo held up his hand.

  “When we open the gate, I want all the wounded lined up on the right. The staff will be here in a few minutes. We’re going to get to everyone, but the rest will have to wait outside while we treat them. No one except staff and wounded are allowed inside the compound. Understood?”

  Korfa translated. Alejo saw soldiers’ heads bobbing and heard their murmured approval. Once he was satisfied, he motioned for Korfa to swing open the gate.

  He walked toward Wonli, watching the men hobble, carry and drag their injured friends inside the compound. “What happened?” Alejo asked.

  “Ambush,” Wonli answered. “On Highway Three.”

  “Where?”

  “Twenty kilometers south by the Duraal Ravine.”

  Alejo shook his head. “Too close. The SPLM know better. What were they thinking?”

  Wonli’s face contorted—half-snarl, half-anguish. “Not SPLM. Visser.”

  “Tell me you’re joking!”

  Wonli shook his head now. “He and thirty others bushwacked a National Army convoy as it was crossing the overpass. Trapped the first and last truck with IEDs, then sprayed the column as the troops un-assed.”

  Alejo bit down on the profanity that flashed in his mind. “How many more wounded?” he asked tightly.

  “Four trucks are burning, two more crashed down the wadi. Bodies everywhere. This is the first of them.”

  “And Visser?”

  “Gone.”

  Alejo gripped the shotgun’s stock. “You sure it was him? Not SPLM? Not bandits?”

  “No. These are Visser’s men. They bragged all the way back. They claimed God aimed every shot.”

  Alejo passed the Benelli to him. “Take that away from me. But keep it handy.”

  The older Spaniard eyed the scruffy militia clumped outside the gate. They were growing louder—more angry. Their blood was up from killing government troops and seeing their friends maimed. There were too many AKs, RPGs and machetes in the bunch for comfort. “Get them out of here before Chutani finds out. He’ll blow his cork if he finds armed soldiers inside the camp. Especially Visser’s men.”

  Wonli stepped toward the militia but turned back. “Why would the Dutchman do this?”

  Alejo weighed his answer for a long moment. Pim Visser called himself a Christian, but it was more God-crazy than reverence. Like a suicide bomber; his heart might be in the right place, but he was missing the point. “Because it’s
easier to fight for your beliefs than it is to live up to them,” he replied.

  Wonli walked away, furrowed and frowning.

  The eye-patched officer intercepted Alejo on his way to the medical tent. His filthy camouflage was blotched with dark mud and bloodstains. He leaned into Alejo’s face, eyes bright and dilated, green flecks of khat in his teeth.

  “My men do the Lord’s work,” he declared. “They protected you from Satan’s darkness. Amen?”

  Alejo gritted his teeth and went to step around him, but the officer clutched his shoulder.

  “All these innocent souls, saved now.” The man spread his hands to encompass the entire camp. “You see? God is with us, with his soldiers.”

  He pointed to a row of stretchers. “Those very brave. You treat them first. Amen?”

  Locking eyes with him, Alejo took hold of the man’s wrist and peeled it off. The Somali winced as the old Spaniard began to squeeze and slowly rotate his forearm into a submission hold. The man’s eyes flew wide open. He clawed for his rifle with his off-hand, but Alejo sidestepped and continued to twist.

  Half a second later, Korfa’s compact frame was between them, and Alejo let the soldier’s arm drop.

  The militiaman sputtered. “We are the Lord’s strong right hand. We protected you, shed blood, and this is how you repay?” He spit, but Alejo didn’t budge.

  Voices all around the compound fell silent. The militia, who’d been leaving, turned and fingered their rifles. Wonli stepped out of the shadow of the medical tent, shotgun at his side.

  His soldiers were watching, so the eye-patched leader had to save face. He lunged over Korfa’s shoulder, shouting something Alejo didn’t understand but didn’t feel devout in the least.

  Undeterred, Alejo snapped back. “Protected the camp? Ambushing an army convoy right down the road isn’t protection—it’s stupidity!” He held back from grabbing the man’s arm again and breaking it.

  “Dhubbato is seventy percent Isaaq, you understand? Thousands of refugees here fled burned villages and government massacres, and your heroics just painted a giant target on all of them.”

  The officer opened his mouth to speak, but Alejo cut him off. “More soldiers will come now. Not sleeping in old trucks but in tanks. With gunships and drones. President Dhul-Fiqaar will blame us!”

  Breathing hard, Alejo hefted his walking stick. “Jack-ass.”

  Korfa caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and said something short and sharp to the scruffy officer. The man glared, then threw up his hands and strode away.

  “I have half a mind to beat some sense into him.” Alejo’s growl was lost in the rumble of three more vehicles pulling up.

  Civilian cars were transporting the wounded now—a battered Toyota, a rusted Hyundai and a dented Renault. The cry went up, “Boss doctor! Boss doctor!” as people began unloading the injured with blanket slings, carrying them on wooden planks.

  As this new group of wounded came to the gate, the militia raised their weapons and started shouting. The civilians froze, eyes darting between rifle muzzles and Alejo’s face. Alejo and Korfa yelled for them to stop, but the ragged soldiers formed a line and barred the newcomers from the medical compound.

  Wonli appeared out of the darkness beside the main tent, Anis at his side now. Both carried ugly little South African NS-2000 shotguns.

  Lord help us, Alejo prayed. Hasn’t there been enough blood spilled tonight?

  Suddenly Alejo heard his wife’s voice, loud and fast. He peered into the headlight glare.

  Carmen, Bello, and half a dozen other women had moved in between the ragged soldiers and the new arrivals. Hands moving, eyes furious, stomping up and down the line, Carmen launched into the Visser’s militia. Bello did her best to keep up the translation, but his wife’s rapid-fire English was peppered with Spanish. The exact meaning was lost, but the gist of it got across.

  Less than two minutes later, the men lowered their weapons and sheepishly shuffled aside. The new wounded entered in the arms of the women and the civilians.

  “What was that?” Alejo asked Bello as she passed.

  “National Army casualties. They wouldn’t let them in.”

  “They will now,” Carmen called out.

  Alejo went and stood beside his wife. “I asked you to stay back,” he whispered.

  Carmen was bent over a stretcher, but she reached back and clasped his hand. “It was longer than a minute, so I came looking for you.”

  Hair back, in rumpled old clothes, face washed out in the glare of headlights, Alejo was struck once again by how beautiful his wife was. He squeezed her hand back.

  “This one first,” she said. “He’s been shot in the face, and the bullet is lodged behind his eye.”

  The civilians hesitated, looking to Alejo.

  “Do what she says,” he said. “The boss is here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – Insurance

  SPLM Camp, near Biye K’obe, Ethiopia

  A part of Harun Hamid was still amazed every time he entered the command bunker. Constructed eight months earlier by a Jordanian outfit, it was essentially a large, underground vault crammed with German communications equipment and giant computer screens. The center of the floor was dominated by a large holographic projector that could display 3D terrain from real-time satellite photos. The constant parade of video images gave the room a rippling, underwater glow, while the LED strips high up on the concrete walls threw the steel-reinforced ceiling into stark relief.

  The Muslim Brotherhood had funded the entire project, piously declaring no price was too great for Allah’s victory over the infidels. Several SPLM commanders thought it was like burying a spaceship in the wilderness, but the Egyptians insisted such a thing was essential to defeating General Dhul-Fiqaar. Oddly enough, militia forces had been short on ammunition the last six weeks.

  Spaceship or not, Harun agreed the operations center was light years from a cave in the hills, tattered maps, and a shelf full of surplus radios.

  Even the air was different—cool and dry courtesy of the air-conditioning required by so many computers. But below the electronic fuzz, the stale chill of Puron, the ripeness of close-packed bodies, and a hint of fresh dirt lingered. Harun Hamid stopped in the middle of studying the map projection and inhaled.

  Growing up on a farm, it reminded him of the smell of mornings after a rain; that half-dark hour when the earthy musk of soil and new growth rose from the fields. He remembered spreading his arms and breathing in its warmth, trying to store some away in his lungs before the sun emerged and baked everything to a crisp.

  He cradled that memory—the enormous stillness before sunrise, roosters crowing, the tickle of wood smoke, the clatter of his mother in the kitchen, his father rummaging in the shed. The smell of fresh dirt was a smell from a home long gone, from a youth lost too soon, and a peace all but forgotten.

  Fifty years later, after decades crowded with other places, people, sights and sounds, Harun could think of no smell he enjoyed more.

  His military advisor, Colonel Deer Voort, was speaking. Major Sajiid, commander of the Muharib Guard stood ten paces off, waiting. Professor Hamid, leader of the Somaliland People’s Liberation Movement, tucked his memories of peaceful farming away and focused on the present—on war.

  “—it’s nothing less than dumb luck they haven’t deployed them properly. Remotes are deadly enough, but if Dawson-Hull fields this new Nemesis drone system, even National Army trainees become a serious threat. It’s too great a force-multiplier to ignore,” the Dutch soldier was saying.

  “How can I ignore them, Colonel?” Hamid smiled. “You mention them every time.”

  “That’s because you pay me to help you win this war,” Deer Voort answered. “And those damn robots are a serious threat. So far, London has restricted support to money and materials, but when—not if—when they get sick and tired of watching Drooling Fu—, sorry, Dhul-Fiqaar squander it away, they’ll airlift Corporate Services and prosecute t
he ground war themselves. They’re not going to risk losing control of the mines. The coltan is too valuable.”

  Professor Hamid pointed to a cluster of blue flags on the holo-map. “We’ve spent nearly sixty million on foreign contractors and their gear in the last six months—”

  The colonel started to protest, but Professor Hamid held up his hand. “Not a reprimand. You made a judicious decision. But that should be more than enough to neutralize the Duub Cas units and take Drone Control at Egal International. With them out of the picture, the militia will take Hargeisa and Berbera. Once the palace falls, any remaining regular SNA units should fold.”

  “True,” the colonel replied. “But the skies have to be clear for your troops to succeed. It’s tough enough dividing the foreign teams between two targets, but all eighty percent of our anti-air capability is small, man-portables. That’s nowhere near sufficient. I need jammers and mobile systems. Tell Riyadh it’s a small price to pay for insurance.”

  Professor Hamid shook his head, irritated. “Secretary Ghotta and Major Sajiid stressed the tactical needs to our Egyptian allies in their last meeting, but we’ve been informed the key to victory is Allah’s strength, not more gadgets.”

  “Really?” The colonel raised an eyebrow and looked around the command bunker.

  “Even so,” the Professor conceded. “We have to trust our resourcefulness, and our luck, a little further.”

  The mercenary’s face softened. “I’m urging you, pleading in fact, we can’t bank on the enemy’s incompetence anymore. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and the general is getting more desperate by the hour. Even a thousand Strela-4s, missiles, and two dozen mobile ECM units would make a vast difference.”

  “I can’t get them. The Shura Council is reluctant until they see a sign of God’s blessing on our struggle.”

  “They’ve been backing you for three years. What the hell does that mean?”

  “The phrase they used was ‘dynamic strategic improvement’.”

  “I repeat the question,” the colonel said.