by Mel Odom
“I come from Alabama. Born and raised in a sleepy little armpit of a town on a farm.”
“Sounds a lot like where I’m from.”
“My wife still lives there and we raised two kids, so I’m not gonna speak too badly of it. Small towns are the backbone of America.”
“Not everybody feels that way.”
“Not everybody is as worldly as we are.”
Bekah laughed. Despite the tension that pinged inside her, she liked Gunney Towers.
Towers passed over another small container. “Sugar. Add it to taste.” He continued his presentation and pointed at a small serving of browned meat and soup in another bowl. “Hilib ari. Goat meat. Ever had goat before?”
“I have.”
Towers chuckled. “Not many first-timers we get over here have.”
“I grew up on a farm, Gunney. If my granddaddy raised it, we ate it.”
“I hear that. You’ll find the goat a little tough, but it’s good enough. Beats an MRE or powdered eggs all to pieces.” Towers pointed at another bowl that contained a pasty yellow substance. “That’s boorash. Looks like porridge, right? That’s ’cause it is porridge. Made outta cornmeal. Add butter and sugar. Pretty much pabulum. The real treat is the chunk of bread. They call it malawax, and it’s a lot sweeter than canjeero.”
“I suppose salads and fresh fruit are out of the question.”
“Yeah. But you can get those at the mess hall. Biggest thing is to stay hydrated. They got this stuff.” He tapped the cup beside his plate. “Shaah. It’s a weak tea, but it’ll get you going.”
Following Towers’s example, Bekah added sugar to the tea without even sampling it.
“I know this looks like a mean breakfast, but you’d be surprised at how many people in this city don’t start their day out with anything like this.” Towers dug into his breakfast with gusto, or like a man knowing he had an appointment in thirty minutes and wanting to be early. “You got a lotta displaced people living hard around here. If it ain’t guarded or nailed down tight, it’s gone. A lot of them are living outside of the city too, and they’re like locusts, eating everything they can find and starving slow.”
“How long have you been here?” Bekah tried the porridge and found it to her liking.
“Second tour.”
“Why aren’t you with enlisted instead of spare parts?”
“Spare parts?” Towers grinned. “Is that how you think of yourself?”
“No. But a lot of the enlisted do.”
“I suppose they do.” Towers broke up more canjeero and seasoned it. “I work with you guys because this is a dangerous place. You don’t watch where you step every minute of every day, Lance Corporal, you end up going home in a box. Your boy needs his momma.”
Bekah looked at Towers but didn’t say anything.
“Yeah, I looked at your service record. I look at every Marine I work with. I try to get to know every one of you so I can keep you boneheads from getting yourselves killed out here when you don’t need to.”
“I appreciate the straight-ahead approach.”
“You’ll appreciate me getting you back home in one piece more.” Towers sipped his tea. “I’ve seen enough of you people sent back home shot up, tore up, and dead.” His voice grew deeper and softer. “When I was given this opportunity—and I do see it as an opportunity—to shepherd you folks, I took it.”
Towers sipped his tea. “Regular Marines don’t get a lot more training than you do, but they’re out here in the soup every day. They don’t get as much time back in the real world as you reservists do, and they ain’t lived long enough to learn really bad habits or learn to think too much for themselves. Being a Marine is what they know. But you guys?” Towers shook his head. “You’re green. I don’t care how many times you got activated.”
“I don’t know why you bothered to sugarcoat it. Tell me how you really feel.”
Towers laughed. “I teach you a thing or two, Lance Corporal Shaw, you might be able to keep yourself and your people alive.”
18
“YOU’RE PART OF Rifle Platoon Indigo.” As Towers talked, he kept food moving toward his mouth. “Gonna put you in charge of Fire Team Indigo Eight. What I read says you got some experience doing that.”
“I have.” Bekah had made lance corporal in Afghanistan on her second tour and had been in charge of a fire team. The unit was a four-man operation that worked with the two other fire teams to make up a squad. There were three squads in a rifle platoon, nine fire teams in all. The responsibility to coordinate efforts was demanding.
“Good. Then you should be comfortable there. You’ve done MOUT?”
MOUT was Military Operations on Urban Terrain—basically urban warfare, fought building to building instead of in the open. More and more of the training concentrated on urban warfare because that was where the wars were being fought.
“We’ve worked a lot with MOUT scenarios, and I spent some time door-to-door in Afghanistan.”
“That’s outstanding. Here in Mogadishu, though, you’re gonna get a mix. When the Islamic Courts Union split up—that’s the Islamist group that took over a bunch of the southern parts of this country, including Mogadishu—the al-Shabaab started stirring up trouble in the city. And they haven’t all gone away—we’ve still got a lot of al-Shabaab waiting in the wings. You still have that nut job or this nut job trying to make a name for himself by taking down American or UN forces or Somali military. Or taking a profit here and there.”
Bekah nodded. All of that had been covered in the reports.
Towers’s dark eyes flashed. “Mostly I think those people just got to where they like killing folks. Gives them something to do when they get up in the morning. Gives me no end of pleasure to track them down and drop a hammer on ’em.”
“The briefing I got said Charlie Company’s Indigo Platoon was under Lieutenant Heath Bridger.” Bekah sipped her tea.
“Yeah.”
“He full-time like you too?”
“Nope. Part-timer. Like you.”
That made Bekah nervous. Officers of the Marine Reserve usually came in two flavors: people who knew what they were doing and took care of their unit, or people who were trying to make a name for themselves and got a lot of Marines hurt.
“Has Lieutenant Bridger been in Somalia long?”
Towers shook his head. “Hit the ground the same day you did. You guys probably came in on the same flight. He’s from Oklahoma too.” He grinned. “Only he speaks English a lot better than you and me.”
“What’s his background?”
Towers didn’t hesitate. “College. When he’s not toting an M4 and bleeding Marine green, he’s a lawyer. His father is some kind of big deal in legal circles back in the States.”
Bekah suppressed a grimace. He sounded like one of those glory grabbers who got people killed. “Is this your first tour with him?”
“No. I put some time in with him in Afghanistan. He’s solid. Just, like the rest of you, not a full-time Marine. You don’t have to worry about him being stupid with personnel.”
Bekah finished her tea and pushed her plate away because it was time to go. “I’m one of nine fire team leaders, Gunney. You plan on taking us all to breakfast?”
Towers grinned. “You were the last one on the list, Lance Corporal, and that was only because you got here late.” He stood and picked up his helmet and rifle. “Like I said, I get to know who I’m working with.”
“Well then, Gunney Towers, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Towers offered her his hand, and it engulfed hers for just a moment. She felt the strength in his grip, but he didn’t have anything to prove. The calluses spoke volumes.
Back at Indigo Platoon’s command post, Bekah was surprised to find that she’d already met Lieutenant Bridger. At least, she’d almost met him. He’d been the man with bars on his collar back at Will Rogers Airport.
As she sat in one of the folding chairs set up i
n the briefing room, she locked eyes with him for just a moment, and then he moved on. She doubted if he recognized her from the airport. She didn’t stick out in the room full of Marines, other than being one of only three women. Quietly, she placed her helmet on the ground between her feet and secured her rifle at her side.
A quick glimpse around the room let her know that she was one of two women heading up fire teams. One of the squads was led by another woman, who looked like she was in her early thirties, a quiet, steadfast woman with a stern disposition but an easy smile. She evidently knew some of the other people in the group.
Lieutenant Heath Bridger stood near a small desk at the front of the room. A screen hung on the wall behind him and displayed a street map of Mogadishu. He held an iPad in one hand, and Bekah knew for a fact that the device wasn’t military-issue.
So he brought some toys from home. Trying to impress the guys. Bekah decided she could resent the lieutenant on that alone, and the swagger that he made look so natural was another reason. He was handsome and clean-shaven, looking more like a poster board for a Marine than a real Marine.
“Good morning.” The lieutenant stood in front of his assembled platoon leaders and smiled. Evidently he wasn’t going for the no-nonsense approach that a lot of officers liked to try on for size at the beginning of new assignments. “I’m going to try to keep this short.”
One of the guys next to Bekah cursed softly and spoke in a whisper. “Yeah, that’ll be the day.”
Officers either tended to be reluctant to speak and turned the meetings over to a more experienced sergeant, or they liked the sound of their own voices. Bekah figured a lawyer would like the sound of his own voice.
“We’re being tasked to help bring some stability to Mogadishu.” The lieutenant tapped the iPad, and the scene on the screen changed to another view of the street map with several sections shaded in red. “That’s not an easy job. Despite the departure of the al-Shabaab and other Muslim terrorist entities from the city, Mogadishu is not yet free. Terrorist attacks continue to occur, and there are several underground efforts being made to strike out against us.
“From this moment on, none of you goes anywhere without your teammates. You work together, you bunk together, you eat together. As a unit. That means, fire team leaders, the three people under your command are going to stick to you like a bad shirt. And you’re going to stick with them. When you get leave—if you get leave—you have leave together. This is a dangerous place. If one of your team goes down and you’re not there ready, willing, and able to do something about it, you’re going to wish you had been. And, squad leaders, you’d better make sure you stay up to speed on your fire teams. We live and die on communication, people, and I plan on us living.”
The smile on the lieutenant’s handsome face didn’t mask the steel in his voice and in his gray-blue eyes. That caught Bekah’s attention. She hadn’t expected him to come off so strong—or to give such reasonable advice.
However, living that close and that tight with people you hardly knew was hard. Having to do that in a war zone made it even more difficult.
“That’s my operating criteria.” The lieutenant continued without missing a beat. Gunney Towers stood just behind the lieutenant on the right in a parade rest position that totally supported the younger officer. “That’s what I expect of you. As part of our assignment from Command, we’re going to be street sweeping.” He tapped the iPad again.
This time the image was of a ragged line of apartment buildings and shops separated by narrow, curving alleys.
“This city is a rat’s nest of blind alleys and underground warrens. Whatever you’ve heard whispered on flights over here or in the mess hall, put that on steroids. You don’t know your way around, and you’re taking your life in your hands. But you’ve each got three of my people with you. Take care of them by getting to know the terrain.” The lieutenant flipped through the photos quickly now. Several showed different views of the alleys, and Bekah was impressed at how thorough he’d been for the presentation. “Gunney Towers and I took these pictures yesterday.”
Bekah had been helping set up the temporary quarters, packing stuff off trucks and setting up cots. The fact that the lieutenant had been out on recon with Towers instead of hanging with the other officers impressed her too.
“The street maps you can get around here aren’t up to date. The satellite pictures we get of these areas aren’t up to date. An alley you went down one day might be blocked the next because of a terrorist attack that happened the night before. Do not enter an area unless you know of two ways to escape it. At least.” The lieutenant paused. “Otherwise you’ve just killed yourself and taken your teammates with you.”
That was a sobering thought, and one that Bekah had never been given by a commanding officer before.
“At nine hundred today, we’re taking to the streets in an effort to find and secure a bomb-making facility Intel learned of through an informant.” The lieutenant tapped the iPad again and brought up another image.
The man on the screen had dark and cruelly handsome eyes. He looked to be in his early thirties and wore a distinctive red-and-white-checked keffiyeh that covered most of his face. He held an SAR 80, a distinctive Singapore Assault Rifle that Bekah had gotten familiar with. Knowing an enemy’s weapons—knowing how to use an enemy’s weapons if the need arose—was important if she wanted to get back home to Granny and Travis.
“Intel says that the man responsible for the bomb-making operation, if we find it, is a guy named Korfa Haroun, a member of the al-Shabaab who’s got a special interest in taking down American soldiers.” The lieutenant paused. “This means you. Chances are if you meet Haroun in the streets, he’s going to be wearing the keffiyeh, but you might also spot him without it.” The lieutenant tapped the iPad again.
The next picture of Haroun showed the man more clearly, and unmasked. His face was chiseled, hard and sloped like a red-tailed hawk’s face back home. His dark eyes were cold and distant too. Haroun stood in a small room lit only by an oil lantern. Bekah figured it was a bunker. He wore a beard and his hair was curly.
“This is the only picture we have of Haroun’s face.” The lieutenant spoke flatly. “It was taken by an informant the CIA cultivated within Haroun’s circle before the al-Shabaab pulled out of Mogadishu.” The screen blanked. “The informant was found dead a couple days after the picture was given to the CIA. Haroun or his followers nailed the man’s body to a wall and laid the corpses of his family at his feet. His wife, his sister, his mother, and his three children.”
Bekah closed her eyes and tried not to think of the children, but that was impossible.
A young lance corporal spoke out. “I guess maybe the CIA can’t keep secrets.”
The lieutenant remained unflappable. “Haroun’s picture was also given to Marine recon teams. Nobody knows who let the cat out of the bag, Lance Corporal. At this point, the CIA isn’t happy with the Corps. For all you know, a Marine showed Haroun’s picture to the wrong person and word got back to the al-Shabaab. My point is that the terrorists are well connected in this city. Getting close to Haroun is going to be hard, and it’s going to be dangerous.” He looked around the room. “Are there any questions?”
No one said anything.
“All right.” The lieutenant glanced at his watch. “I told you I’d keep this short. Make sure you and your people stick to the chain of command. I want this unit nice and tight. Your teams are waiting in the barracks. You’ve got forty minutes to get with them and get ready to move out.”
Towers’s loud voice blasted through the room as he stepped forward. “Dismissed.”
Bekah picked up her helmet and got ready to go. As she stood, the lieutenant walked over to her. “Lance Corporal, I need five minutes with you.”
The other fire team leaders and squad commanders looked at her like she’d done something wrong. “Yes sir.” Bekah stiffened at the lieutenant’s terse tone, and she didn’t like being singled out
.
19
BEKAH STOOD UNEASILY at attention until the rest of the Marines filed out of the room. After they’d gone, she stood with the lieutenant and Towers. She was grateful that Towers was there. Whatever the lieutenant wanted, it couldn’t be bad, otherwise she wouldn’t have been put in command of a fire team. And Towers wouldn’t have taken her out to breakfast. She kept telling herself that, but she had her doubts. Things had certainly soured back in Callum’s Creek.
“At ease, Lance Corporal.” The lieutenant stood only a few feet away.
Automatically, Bekah fell into parade rest, eyes forward and staring past the lieutenant. “Thank you, sir.”
“I want to touch on a couple things.” The lieutenant studied her, making no attempt to be polite about it. “There’s a piece of paper on my desk requiring my attention regarding a legal matter you’re involved in back wherever you’re from.”
“Yes sir. That would be from Callum’s Creek. I need to show cause to change the court appearance I was scheduled for. My attorney said a letter from you would be fine.”
“Maybe you’ve discovered that I know a little about the law.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m sure Gunney Towers filled you in on me over breakfast this morning.” The lieutenant shot Towers a quick glance, then returned his attention to Bekah. “He has a habit of doing that.”
Since she wasn’t required to make a response, Bekah let that one go.
“Since I’ve been in command, I’ve gone with sergeants to get men out of local jails back stateside. They’d gotten into all kinds of mishaps. Driving while intoxicated. Fighting with other Marines and with civilians. Some of them were arrested for dealing drugs. And once I had to get a man who had killed a fellow Marine over the attentions of an exotic dancer.”
Bekah remained quiet and listened.
“I believe people can make mistakes. I’ve made a few myself. I believe in forgiving and forgetting. But if I have a Marine under my command who becomes a problem, I generally find a way to correct that problem or get that Marine out of the Corps.”
