by Matt Rogers
Perhaps this would be Reed’s defining incident.
Perhaps he would join the ranks of Black Force before this operation had reached its end.
King wondered why Lars hadn’t chosen to accompany him, if this was a recruitment mission after all…
‘You’re obviously not a pen-pusher,’ Reed said, closing the door and following King into the tiny space. ‘So can I ask what you’re doing here?’
The portable unit had been furnished in similar fashion to the main lodge — sparsely. King imagined the budget for these rooms was effectively non-existent, and it showed in the quality of the furniture. He eyed a fold-out table with two flimsy chairs, a tiny stove and fridge combination, and a single bed with a thin dirty mattress and a handful of sheets. Reed hadn’t bothered to make the bed — and why would he?
This wasn’t basic training anymore. He clearly thought he might be headed for prison if his superiors determined that his actions were unnecessary. What good was a spotless bed if he was soon to spend the rest of his days in a cramped cell?
King sat on one of the chairs and gestured for Reed to do the same — a mirror image of how things had unfolded with Beth just minutes previously. Now King was the one with the authority, the supposed big-shot who had been sent all the way from the States to deal with the Marines’ ineptitude.
Reed sat.
‘I’m here to speak to you,’ King said. ‘Things are a little muddied right now, as you can imagine. There’s no real official jurisdiction and you were told you could use discretion.’
‘Not to the extent of what I did, though,’ Reed said. ‘That’s obvious enough.’
King nodded. Smart guy.
‘Take me through what happened. In detail. Your future relies on it.’
King added the last quip to stress the urgency of what Reed was about to tell him. In truth, he had no authority over what happened to the man, but he wanted the crucial details — fast. He had never been one to mull over a decision for any significant amount of time, and the government was relying on his intuition.
Otherwise, they would have sent a bureaucrat, just as Reed had been expecting.
If necessary, King was prepared to go to hell and back to protect Reed, in the event that the man’s actions had caused a shitstorm of unknown proportions amongst the organised crime outfit at the port.
That differentiated him from a pen-pusher.
But he wasn’t about to disclose that information just yet.
‘In detail?’ Reed said. He leant back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. Like he knew he had crossed multiple lines in his conduct, but was willing to give King all the details if it meant they would show him leniency.
‘I want everything.’
‘Well — if you really want the truth — I got bored here. There’s not a lot to do when the peacekeepers are sticking to their schedule. I knew that the job description of a Force Recon Marine didn’t mean non-stop action, but I thought I’d be doing more than patrolling the perimeter of a bunch of huts for weeks on end. You know how long I’ve been here?’
King shook his head. ‘Can’t say I do.’
Reed paused. ‘You should know that kind of thing if you’re the one coming to investigate me.’
‘What if I told you this isn’t exactly an investigation?’
Reed raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh. What is this, then?’
‘I can’t say. Just give me all the facts, as straight as you can.’
The man nodded. ‘It’s been months. I’ve been shepherding these guys around for months. I wasn’t born to do this. So — and here’s where I messed up — I thought I’d take certain matters into my own hands. Spend enough time in one place and certain patterns start to present themselves. It took me long enough to realise, but I noticed some of the traffic tended to pass at the same time every single day.’
‘Traffic?’ King said. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere.’
Reed scraped his chair back and motioned for King to follow him over to the window. He pointed through the grimy, fingerprint-stained glass at the buildings across the sprawling fields, most of them reduced to pitiful piles of rubble.
‘See the track in front of them?’ Reed said.
King squinted. He could. It was barely perceptible, but he spotted a dirt trail spearing straight through the demolished neighbourhood. As they watched, a distant plume of dust trickled off the earth as a battered pick-up truck trailed through the area.
‘A convoy of trucks would pass by at around three in the afternoon,’ Reed said. ‘Every single goddamn day.’
‘Piqued your curiosity?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Why?’ King said. ‘That can’t be suspicious in itself. It’s an active war zone, for God’s sakes.’
‘I don’t know. I can’t really describe my exact thought process. I just had some downtime one day, and decided to travel a little further than we’re supposed to. I reached the port and went snooping around. You know — curiosity. I don’t have an excuse for it. It just happened. I could tell the trucks came from the port. That road originates at the docks. It’s a long and complicated back route out of Mogadishu. It heads further inland if you stay on it.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I drove it,’ he said. ‘Used a car I stole from the docks, so no-one would suspect I was military. Made it all the way into Afgooye before I turned back.’
‘Why the hell did you do that?’
‘I wanted to be sure that I did the right thing. That I wasn’t crazy.’
‘So you busted, what — a smuggling route?’
Reed nodded. ‘I’m going to tell you this now, because I don’t want to hold anything back from you. But none of the others know…’
King said nothing, simply raising an eyebrow.
‘I killed three men.’
King hesitated. ‘I know that. The al-Shabaab militants.’
‘No,’ Reed said, shaking his head slowly. ‘Before them. At the port.’
King froze. ‘What?’
‘I stumbled onto a live trade. In the evening, five days ago. That’s how all this shit started. The dock workers were smuggling drugs and guns out of shipping containers and funnelling it into a convoy of dump trucks that had just arrived. They saw me. I’ve kept the details of what happened private until you showed up. I wanted to wait until I was chewed out to tell you what I did. I want to own up to my mistakes.’
King didn’t respond for a long time. He weighed up his options, staring deep into Reed’s eyes from a few feet away. He didn’t get the natural sensation that he was in the midst of a psychopath. The man seemed genuinely regretful of what he had done — not that it meant anything. But King decided not to have the man arrested right then and there.
Can you even do that if you wanted to? he thought.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I ran at first,’ Reed said. ‘I got the feeling these men were ruthless, and I didn’t want to start World War Three at the Port of Mogadishu. I wasn’t in military gear, but—’
‘You weren’t?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t want to get caught.’
‘You could get discharged for that alone.’
‘I know. I thought that’s what you were here to do.’
‘If I was your superior in any way, you’d be in military prison,’ King said. ‘No offence. You might have had the right intentions. But I can’t see one of the bureaucrats seeing this in a favourable light.’
‘And I understand that completely.’
King didn’t respond.
‘Which brings me to the question of why you’re not a bureaucrat?’ Reed said. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘I told you — I’m not willing to disclose that yet. Tell me more about what happened on the docks.’
Christ, no wonder you’re public enemy number one, he thought. Sounds like you mowed down half the dock
workers.
‘I ran to the outskirts of the port,’ Reed said. ‘They came after me, man. Five or six of them. All with automatic weapons. All ready to use them.’
‘What did you have?’
‘An M45 MEUSOC. Standard-issue sidearm for Force Recon—’
I know what it is,’ King interrupted. ‘So you used it?’
‘Only when they shot at me.’
‘You do know there’s no way to prove any of this?’ King said. ‘You could have killed them all in cold blood and there’s no way we’d ever know.’
Vocalising that particular train of thought set off an idea in his head, but he quashed it until he knew further details.
Reed shrugged. ‘I thought as much after I gunned three of them down. But I realised there was a way to prove I wasn’t bullshitting, so I took the initiative.’
‘Oh?’ King said.
‘The car I used to navigate that supply trail. I hid it after the skirmish. They shot it to pieces trying to silence me after they realised I wasn’t one of their men. I killed three of them within the space of a few seconds from inside the car, where I was taking cover, and then the rest retreated. I drove straight out of there before they could regroup and come after me again.’
‘And what’s that supposed to prove?’
‘That my story’s consistent. I don’t know how much you know about crime scene investigation, but surely the bullet holes will match up with what I’m saying.’
‘What guns did they have?’
‘AK-47s. Pretty much exclusively. It’s the only weapon widely available amongst the criminal outfits around here.’
‘Where’s the car?’
‘At the edge of the port. Inside an abandoned warehouse with M51 scrawled on the side of it. I parked it in there and fled back here, late at night. I don’t know if it’s still there.’
‘And you’re expecting me to retrieve it?’
‘I’m not expecting anything. In fact, I was expecting someone entirely different to yourself. I don’t know what to think anymore.’
King shrugged. ‘Well, I was going to the port anyway.’
‘You were?’
‘I do things a little differently, as you said. I’m more hands-on in my approach. Seems to get the best results.’
‘If you antagonise them anymore… I mean, they’re already hiring militants to try and kill me.’
Reed hesitated, as if he had been thrown off by King’s brash behaviour. King narrowed his eyes, scrutinising the expression on the man’s face, but came away with nothing significant. He didn’t blame Reed for being startled by the wild development. What kind of military official flew into Somalia to investigate a serious war crime only to follow in the subject’s footsteps?
‘I just think you might make things worse,’ Reed said, filling the silence that had developed in the wake of King’s muted thoughts.
‘I tend to do that,’ King admitted.
‘And the government is okay with that?’
‘In certain situations.’
‘What kind of situation is this?’
‘One where I’m not affiliated with the government,’ King said. ‘I can do whatever I want, because I’m not relying on anyone to pull me out if things go belly-up. I’m on my own out there, so they’re a little more lax with what they allow me to do.’
‘Who are you, exactly?’
King shrugged. ‘I’m nobody. But I’m going to take a stroll down to the port tonight. So tell me if there’s anything else to this story?’
Reed hesitated. ‘That’s about it, man. I killed three men because my life was in danger, and then I did it again the next day. Got nothing else to say. I’ll take whatever punishment you all think is necessary. My mistake. Should have never left my post.’
Maybe not, King said.
If the guy’s story was consistent, then he might pose a welcome recruit to Black Force. That kind of quick thinking matched King’s style, a style that had revealed itself as advantageous after what went down in Mexico. The actions of a solo operator, who abandoned what was expected of him and did good work in the process.
Silently, King realised he liked what he was seeing.
Reed reminded him of himself.
‘Sit tight,’ King said. ‘I’ll snoop around, check out the car if it’s still there, and see what kind of effect you had on the smuggling route. If you killed three important guys, the whole outfit would have been thrown into disarray.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Reed said.
‘You mean that?’
‘Of course. To be honest, I’m only worried about what you and your superiors might think. Inwardly, I know I did the right thing. You should have seen the amount of stuff they were bringing in, man. It’s supplying all the forces out here. It’s facilitating the war. They all deserved to die, and if I could do it all over again — now that I’ve had time to think about it — I would have shot all six of them in cold blood. Call me a psychopath all you want. It’s the truth.’
King nodded. He agreed, but he couldn’t vocalise it.
Not yet.
‘It’s utilitarian,’ Reed said, almost talking to himself. ‘Kill one to save a hundred. Imagine if we stopped the flow of weapons into Mogadishu. It’d choke the life out of the fighting. You know how much easier it is to kill someone when there’s tens of thousands of AK-47s lying around on the black market?’
King raised a hand. ‘Enough semantics. We’ll talk again when I’m back.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Late tonight. I’ll meet with you tomorrow morning?’
‘Sounds good. Don’t get into trouble.’
Yeah, right, King thought as he shook the man’s hand. What else am I supposed to do?
13
He’d managed a sizeable chunk of sleep on the flight over from Washington, so he spent the rest of the afternoon waiting restlessly in the main lodge for night to fall over Mogadishu.
It set him on edge. The worst part about operations was having time to think. By no means did he consider himself an idiot, but sometimes instinct outweighed careful, attentive planning. He tried to take his mind off what lay ahead, and focused instead on keeping his business private. Men and women in all kinds of different uniforms flowed in and out of the lodge, accompanied by Victor, Johnson and Beth at regular intervals.
King didn’t speak to anyone.
He didn’t know the true extent of his jurisdiction just yet. He deemed it prudent to act like a fly on the wall, simply observing the peacekeeping operation without talking to anyone. His business was with Reed — and no-one else.
As much as he liked the brief time he’d spent with Beth, he wasn’t about to let those natural instincts overpower the crux of his presence in Mogadishu.
He was here to validate whether Reed was telling the truth, and report it back to Lars.
Nothing more, nothing less.
So he kept to himself for most of the time, exchanging polite greetings with the AMISOM members that interrupted him, but otherwise remaining silent.
At six in the evening, as the distant, intermittent cracks of gunfire began to die away as the sun melted into the horizon and bathed Mogadishu in an orange glow, Beth dumped herself down in the chair opposite King. She eyed him quizzically until he felt the need to manage a question.
‘What’s up?’ he said, twirling a pen he’d found in one of the drawers over the gaps between his fingers.
‘What’s up?’ she mimicked. ‘What’s your deal?’
‘I’m just sitting here. Not bothering anybody.’
‘By doing nothing you’re bothering all of us. Aren’t you here to talk to Reed?’
‘I talked to him.’
‘And?’
‘I got all the information I need.’
‘So you’re getting extracted?’
‘Not just yet.’
‘What business do you have with him anyway?’ Beth said. ‘You’re not here to hand out disciplinary measures —
that’s for goddamn sure.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You’re not a superior. I’m still trying to work out exactly what you are. You were too vague in the jeep.’
‘That was deliberate.’
‘I know.’
‘I need to verify a few things that he told me,’ King said. ‘I’m waiting to do that.’
‘Verify with who?’
King shook his head. ‘You’re not following.’
‘You’re not explaining well enough.’
‘I’m not supposed to be explaining at all.’
‘Give me something, at least…’
She reached over and touched a hand to his knee, keeping her gaze locked onto his. He recoiled from the gesture and shook his head, a wry smile spreading over his features. ‘That’s not going to work, Beth.’
She smirked back — knowing exactly what she was doing — and leant back in similar fashion. ‘Seems to work more than it fails.’
‘Not with me.’
‘So you’re verifying whether Reed’s telling the truth about what happened at the port?’ she said. ‘You’re going to sneak out of here late at night, stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, and if everything adds up you’ll offer Reed a job working with you? Doing whatever the hell it is you do exactly? Because it seems like that’s the way things are headed. He should be discharged or arrested by now for his actions, none of which were allowed, but instead he’s resorted to holing himself up in a unit back there and waiting for you to make up your mind. Am I right?’
King cocked his head, surprised at what she had managed to discern with such little information. ‘You’re half-there. But he doesn’t know I want to recruit him.’
‘So you do?’
‘Nothing’s set in stone.’
She nodded, thinking hard. ‘He never seemed cut out for this kind of thing, anyway.’
‘How so?’
‘He’s restless as all hell. He wasn’t put on this earth to guard things. He keeps to himself, but I can tell he wants to do more than patrol a fence.’
King nodded. ‘And yourself?’
She looked up. ‘Oh — no, thank you. I’m perfectly fine where I am.’
