The Night Ranger jw-7

by Alex Berenson

  “Well, I believe what he says about not wanting to get kidnapped. Nobody likes a fat hostage,” Hailey said. “I’m in.”

  “Owen?”

  “Okay.” Though Owen didn’t sound sure to Gwen.

  “Gwen?”

  She wanted to say no, take me home. But she knew what would happen. They’d come back in three days and tell her what a great time they’d all had and how lame she was for missing out. Scott would be merciless. “Let’s go.”

  “All right.” Suggs put the Land Cruiser in gear and they rolled away from Dadaab down the soft red dirt road.

  And the real nightmare began.

  1

  DADAAB

  James Thompson’s voice rose. Again.

  “There are people who say we can’t do anything about this. Americans who say that. That we should let these Africans fend for themselves, starve for themselves. That they did it to themselves by having so many kids. That we can’t afford to help them. You know what I say to that?”

  “Tell me,” Paula Hutchens said. They were in Thompson’s office at WorldCares headquarters at Dadaab. Like the rest of the compound, the room was unadorned, the furniture simple and thrifty. A poster behind Thompson showed a black girl running hand in hand with a white boy.

  “I say letting kids starve is not in keeping with our principles. And I’m not afraid to tell you it’s racist. If these children had white skin and not black, you think anyone would be saying, Let them die? Let me tell you, we’ve forgotten how lucky we are. Even worse, we’ve forgotten the duties, the obligations, that come with that luck.”

  Thompson stopped speaking. He leaned forward in his chair, stared at Hutchens like he could see through her. Hutchens had only met Thompson a few hours before, but already she was getting used to that look. The man had presence.

  Thompson was in his late forties, with broad shoulders and thick lips and meaty hands. He wasn’t tall, but his bulk made him formidable. He looked like a bailiff. Or a pit boss. When he got excited, he spread his hands and raised his voice. He sounded like an old-time preacher. In reality, as he’d told Hutchens, he came from a family of railroad workers. He ran WorldCares/ChildrenFirst as a secular organization, no proselytizing allowed. “We’re here to feed the hungry and help the sick. We look after their bodies. Their souls are their own business, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Hutchens could already see that James Thompson would star in her feature on the aid groups at Dadaab. Fine by her. She was a reporter for the Houston Chronicle. Normally she covered the mayor, but the paper had reached into its not-so-deep pockets to send her on a ten-day reporting trip to Kenya. Roy Hunter, the Chronicle’s publisher, had taken an interest in Dadaab after his daughter read a book about Somali refugees. Every few months, Hunter called the paper’s editor and demanded a series on something that had caught his attention. Deep-sea fishing in the Gulf. The potential for hypersonic passenger jets. HOUSTON TO HONG KONG IN TWO HOURS? IT’S POSSIBLE!

  The editor knew better than to argue with the man whose name graced his paycheck. He looked for a plausible excuse to send a reporter to Kenya, and found it in WorldCares and other Texas-based aid organizations working in Dadaab. Now Hutchens was working on a series tentatively called “Texans with Heart.” It had been “Texans Who Love the World” until Hutchens pointed out that the title sounded like a bad porn movie.

  She couldn’t claim to know much about the issues over here, but she’d done some research on WorldCares before she’d come over. The group had grown a lot in the last few years. After meeting Thompson, she saw why.

  He leaned forward now, lasered in on her with those blue eyes. “What do you think, Ms. Hutchens?” He had a slight southern accent that took the edge off his ferocity.

  She hated when sources tried this tactic. Reporters didn’t have much going for them anymore. Her job security and prestige had evaporated years before. But she still had the privilege of asking the questions, not answering them. “About what?”

  “About this. All of it.”

  “I’m a reporter. My job is to tell your story. In any case, I just got here.”

  “With all due respect, ma’am, that’s a bunch of junk. People look to you for advice. They want the newspaper to tell them what to think.”

  “I’ve never noticed that, Mr. Thompson. Though the idea does have a certain appeal.”

  “I’m not joking. I’m serious as a heart attack. I’m publishing a book next spring. Called ‘The Children Will Lead.’ I want the world to know. It’s a crime to let these people suffer. And I’m not saying do everything for them, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying work with them, build something together.”

  “I get it.” Her digital tape recorder beeped. She decided to bring the interview to a close. For now, anyway. She had a feeling that Thompson wasn’t done talking, and might never be. “I’d like to see a little bit of the camp itself today, if that’s possible. You know, since I got here this morning, I’ve hardly seen a refugee.”

  “Today may not work. We don’t like to send people out late in the afternoon for security reasons. But tomorrow morning, sure.” Thompson settled back in his chair. “And you’ll still be here when my nephew and our other interns get back, right?”

  “When will that be?”

  “Two days, three at most.”

  “I should be here, yes.”

  “I think they’d give you a really good perspective. The four of them just graduated college and they’ve been here three months working seven days a week. Finally I told Scott, that’s my nephew, take a couple days off before you burn out. They went to Lamu.”

  “What’s Lamu?”

  “Island just off the coast. Amazing place. So I hear. Never been myself.”

  “I look forward to talking to them.” She slipped her recorder into her computer case.

  “Feel free to talk to anyone you might like on our staff. I’ve told everybody to do their best to answer your questions. Open-door policy.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  A heavy knock on Thompson’s door, which was in fact closed. Hutchens turned around to see it swing open. The guy who ran security—she couldn’t remember his name, something weird—strode in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but something important’s come up.” He looked at Hutchens.

  “I was just leaving.”

  “No, please. Whatever he has to say, I don’t mind you hearing.”

  The security officer hesitated. Then: “It’s the interns. Your nephew and the others. No one’s heard from them.”

  “What about Suggs?”

  “Not him either.”

  “That can’t be. They were going to call when they got to Mokowe.”

  Open-door policy or no, Thompson realized she’d just heard something she shouldn’t have. “Ms. Hutchens, can you go back to your trailer for a few minutes, let us sort this out?”

  —

  Hutchens sat forgotten for the two hours, as the sun set and the compound’s lights kicked on. Through her screened window, she heard hushed, urgent voices. Finally, just as she was about to head back to Thompson’s office and demand to know what was happening, a heavy knock rattled her door. Thompson stepped in.

  “There’s really no way to keep this from you. My nephew and the others, plus the Kenyan driving them, they’ve disappeared. Their phones are off, they didn’t check into the hotel in Lamu, their Land Cruiser didn’t reach Mokowe.”

  “An accident?”

  “Unlikely. Someone would have called us. It’s possible”—he hesitated—“it’s possible they’ve been kidnapped.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She was, too. But the reporter in her had one thought: Great story. And all mine.

  “I have to ask you not to write about this. Or tell your editors.”

  “I can’t do that, sir.”

  “Their safety—”

  “If they’ve been kidnapped, then every aid worker in Dadaab is at risk, every tourist in Kenya. They have a right to know.
” The right to know. Every reporter’s most sacred cow.

  “At least give us time to make sure. Try to get them back quickly and quietly.”

  Hutchens considered. “Look, Houston’s nine hours behind, it’s morning there. Tell you what, I won’t do anything today. But tomorrow morning there, afternoon here, I have to call my editors and tell them.” What she didn’t tell him was that she planned to spend the night and morning putting together a biography of the four volunteers and Suggs. This story would be big.

  “That’s the best you can do.”

  “It’s more than I should do.”

  “I’ve never understood until now why people don’t like reporters.”

  “Sorry you feel that way.” Over the years she’d had a lot of practice saying those words. They never worked, and they didn’t this time. Thompson pursed his lips in disgust and turned away, slamming the door to her trailer as he went.

  2

  NORTH CONWAY, NEW HAMPSHIRE

  John Wells ran.

  Over the river and through the woods. Wearing only a T-shirt and shorts despite the cold. His legs burning but his breath level and easy. His heart pumping twice a second and more. Tonka, his boon companion, a stride behind, matching him on four legs.

  The trail curved through grizzled trees in the low mountains outside North Conway. Gray wallpaper covered the late-afternoon sky. Wells kept his head down to watch the roots and dips in the trail. He hurdled a puddle left from rain two nights before, landed clean, ignored the twinge in his left leg.

  For Wells the woods offered a special sorcery, the magic of leaving himself behind. The missions, the kills, the towns and villages with names he could barely pronounce. He had lived in a world that few Americans outside the military ever saw, the North-West Frontier and the Bekaa Valley and the other red zones. Running here, he worked up an honest sweat, not the stink of tension and sleepless hours. These runs set him free from the question that had plagued him since the Arghandab: Had he acted justly? Francesca didn’t bother him. Alders did.

  Though in some ways the question didn’t matter. The word once writ couldn’t be undone, et cetera. No one else could help him answer, not Shafer, not even Anne. So Wells ran.

  —

  Back at the farmhouse he found Anne in the kitchen, squatting beside the open cabinet under the sink, which was full of dirty dishwater. Two wrenches and a penlight were laid on a rag on the floor. Wells squatted behind her, smoothed her hair away, kissed her neck.

  “What seems to be the problem, Officer?”

  She was a cop in the North Conway Police Department, though she was thinking about joining the state police, which investigated many murders and major crimes in New Hampshire. She and Wells had been together almost three years. In the last few months, she’d stopped asking if he thought they should marry. Maybe she thought he risked his life too casually to commit to a marriage, much less a family. Maybe she had her own reasons for taking marriage off the table. He couldn’t bring himself to ask. He was happy to be with her this way for as long as she would let him.

  She was past thirty now, and the New Hampshire winters had given her hints of crow’s-feet and wrinkles that city girls didn’t get until their forties. But her jeans and sweaters hid a supple body and strong legs. Wells loved watching her walk. At the moment, though, she wasn’t happy to see him.

  “Why don’t you go take a shower and let me fix this.”

  “I can help.”

  “Like you know anything about plumbing. If I weren’t here, you’d have done what you always do. Tossed in a bottle of Drano, and if that didn’t work, bought the really strong stuff, and if that didn’t work, called the plumber. It’s bad for the pipes.”

  “I’m feeling very emasculated.” Though Wells had to admit that aside from chopping wood, he wasn’t particularly handy around the house. His survival skills were more primal.

  “Where’d you and Tonka go?”

  “The usual.”

  She turned around, nuzzled against his neck. “You smell good. Like the woods. Tell you what. If I can fix this quick enough, maybe I’ll join you in the shower.”

  “Give me a chance to regain my manhood.”

  “Something like that.”

  —

  She didn’t join him. While he was soaping up, he heard the phone. He showered quickly and then brought up logs for a fire in their bedroom. She found him just as he kindled it. “Trying to prove you’re not completely useless around the house?”

  “That obvious?”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact. Evan called.”

  “Evan my son?”

  “Is there another Evan? Said it was important.”

  That’s impossible, Wells almost said. Just before his last mission, he had visited Evan in Montana. He hadn’t seen his son in more than a decade and wanted to reconnect, explain his absence. Evan had smashed that hope in the time they needed to finish a cup of coffee. He’d made clear that he hated the CIA and viewed Wells as a professional vigilante at best, a war criminal at worst. Wells had left Montana figuring that they wouldn’t talk again for many years. If ever.

  Wells couldn’t imagine Evan had woken up today and had a change of heart. He had no idea what his son might want. Not money. His stepfather was a doctor and they lived well.

  “Maybe somebody’s pregnant and he doesn’t want to tell his parents,” Anne said.

  “I don’t see him coming to me for that. I don’t see him coming to me for anything.”

  She handed him her phone.

  Despite everything, he knew Evan’s number by heart.

  —

  “Hello?”

  “It’s John.” “John” seemed safer than “your dad.”

  “Thanks for calling me back so fast.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “How are you, Dad?”

  The falsity of the last word churned Wells’s stomach.

  “Let’s talk about why you called.”

  But Evan didn’t seem to know what to say next.

  “Something wrong with Heather?” Wells finally said. Wells’s ex-wife, Evan’s mom.

  “You know on the news, those aid workers, the ones kidnapped in Kenya?”

  “Sure.” The story had taken over the media in the last seventy-two hours. Four American volunteers taken hostage. Dragged into the heart of darkness, most likely by Somali bandits. The cable networks couldn’t get enough of it. The fact that the two women were so photogenic didn’t hurt. If you were going to get kidnapped, being pretty was the way to go. Plus they were all friends, recent graduates of the University of Montana—

  Wells realized why Evan had called. “You knew them?”

  “One of them, mainly. Gwen Murphy. I’m friends with her sister. Catelyn.”

  “Friends.”

  “Good friends.”

  Words that could mean anything. Wells didn’t push.

  “Catelyn’s freaking out,” Evan said.

  “I can call some people down at Langley, ask them to watch it. They probably already are.” Wells had resigned from the CIA years before, but he’d stayed entangled with the agency. As a rule, the CIA avoided involvement in overseas kidnappings unless the victims were government employees or the crime had clear political or terrorist overtones. But given the media attention that this case had received, Wells imagined the agency was working its contacts inside the Kenyan security services.

  “Dad—John—it’s been five days and Gwen’s family is going crazy. Nobody has a clue. Nobody’s seen them, nobody’s sent any ransom stuff. Brandon, that’s her dad, he’s talking about getting on a plane, going over there. Even though everybody says that wouldn’t help.”

  “It wouldn’t.” It would add to the circus. The grieving father, wandering through the camps, passing out pictures as camera crews tagged along. Have you seen this woman? The irony that many people at Dadaab had lost their own children would be lost to the viewers, though not the refugees themselves.

  �
�I told Catelyn about you and she got really excited. She thought—she thought maybe you could look into it yourself.”

  The words gave more away than Evan had intended, implying that he’d never mentioned Wells to the girl before now. Wells tried to pretend that didn’t bother him. In a way neither of them could have anticipated, Evan had suddenly seen the value in his father’s skill set. Wells found himself both flattered and angry. “Kidnappings are tricky, Evan. I’m not an expert in them. Or Africa. I’m sure the Murphys are talking to people who are.”

  “They can pay. They have money.”

  “It’s not about that.”

  “Please, Dad. Please.”

  With those three words, Wells had no choice. Evan was using him. So? Parents existed to be used by their children. “Look. I’ll talk to the family, the Murphys, and if they want me involved, I’ll do what I can.”

  “I promise, they want you. They know who you are. I reminded them about the Times Square thing.”

  Several years before, Wells had stopped a terrorist attack on Times Square and briefly become a national hero. But his recent missions had stayed secret, and memories were short. “They remembered that?”

  “Wikipedia. Anyway. I’ll tell Mr. Murphy to call you. Thanks, Dad.”

  “Glad to be of service.” Wells wasn’t sure whether he was being sarcastic.

  —

  “So?” Anne said. Wells explained. She took his right hand between hers, squeezed his palm and traced its lines, half masseuse and half fortune-teller. “Had to have been a hard call for him.”

  “It didn’t sound hard.”

  “He’s a smart kid. He knows what he did. You’re in his life again, whether he likes it or not.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’s hoping to get laid. Not that I blame him. If his friend Catelyn looks anything like her sister.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re going to turn into a dirty old man.”

  The ringing phone saved him from answering.

  “Mr. Wells? This is Brandon Murphy. Thank you, thank you, for agreeing to do this.” Murphy sounded fevered. Wells wondered if he’d slept since he’d found out his daughter had been taken.