Force Protection

by Gordon Kent

  “Sandy said you went to school in the States.”

  “University of Michigan.”

  “Like it?”

  “I didn’t take a degree. White Americans don’t take Africans seriously.” That killed conversation for a little. David and Sandy had in common a certain prickliness. Alan made more small talk, got to his own wife and children. Opono had a wife and children, too, it seemed.

  “I understand you were in the KWS special forces. I didn’t even know the Wildlife Service had such a unit.”

  “We killed poachers.” That seemed to be that. Alan looked over, saw the look of pain on Opono’s face again. We killed poachers and I didn’t like it. No, that didn’t seem right. We killed poachers and— And what?

  And, as if to answer the unspoken question, Opono said, “It didn’t solve the problem. The solution was temporary; Africa is forever.” He scowled over the wheels. “I used to protect animals by killing the poachers. Now I protect trees and I kill time.”

  Alan thought he would simply sit silent for the rest of the ride. David Opono was not big on small talk. On the other hand, it was likely that he was very big on big talk—principles, ideals, and their African opposites—self-service, corruption. Not a conversation Alan wanted to have just then.

  He looked around at a traffic jam of sweating men hauling carts piled high with produce. It didn’t seem possible that a single man could haul so much. Quite near them, a young man was resting with his cart, his muscles standing out like Geelin’s. He looked at the jeep and at Alan. No smile.

  They broke out of the crowd and went on, and then slowed for yet another checkpoint. Every checkpoint, whether army or police, was the same: when they saw the KWS jeep, they got nasty. Alan’s American credentials and sometimes American cash made them put on a gloss of rather ugly courtesy. It was plain to him that Opono lived with their hatred: his principles, expressed as his work, made him a hated man. Africa.

  Alan turned to Opono as soon as the pickup had cleared the checkpoint and the pickup truck was behind them again. “Why are they so angry? Do they know? The checkpoint?”

  “Know what?”

  “That I’m going to meet the IPK.”

  “They are more likely angry to find me going to Nyali.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the police in Nyali take money to allow the trees in the park and the fish in the maritime park to be taken, and I have caught them at it. I’m no friend of the police here, of that I can assure you.” Or of anybody else, Alan thought. Was that his attraction for Sandy Cole?

  Once out of the last of the urban sprawl near the bridge, the road was flat and smooth.

  “Good road!” Alan shouted over the wind noise.

  “The best in Kenya!” David shouted back. “It gets the tourists to the beaches!”

  Nyali wasn’t so much a town as a collection of resort beaches with bandas for the hotel workers in between. The big hotels, he found, hadn’t changed except to age a little, with spiderwebs of cracks in the concrete and a certain smell that suggests age in a hotel—mildew, detergent, people. David pointed out big trees as they came up the resort drive. “That is one of the best mangrove trees on the coast,” he said, like a man talking about a loved child, pointing to a gargantuan tree growing in a little cut near the beach. “The hotels keep them for their shade.” He shook his head and smiled. Across the road, a small town of cheaper hotels and bars had grown up to handle the overflow from the Intercon. Most of them were busy. And the great, dark mangrove tree had graffiti sprayed on one side.

  At the hotel entrance, Alan got out and walked back to the pickup. The man in the passenger seat, Woodrow, a parachute rigger when he wasn’t nailing plywood walls together, shook his head and tried to laugh. “Hairy, sir. I mean, hairy.” They all agreed the checkpoints were hairy. Alan made sure they knew where they were going to get the det personnel’s gear and that they were coming straight back here, no side trips or stops. He slapped the side of the pickup. “Piece of cake!” He started away, swung back. “Keep those guns out of sight.”

  They’d already got that message.

  David was waiting beside the jeep. “I’ll wait for you on the patio.” Alan started to say that he was welcome to come to the meeting, saw that the idea was foolish, a hollow courtesy—the meeting wasn’t a party where you could bring a friend. Anyway, he saw, as a hotel underling led them across the lobby, four edgy young men standing at the entrance to a corridor. A phrase occurred to him from somewhere—the youth of today. These were the youth of today. They looked angry, and under the anger was despair.

  After they had led him down the corridor to a door, they searched him and took his pistol. Objecting would have been useless. Would he suggest that they would keep it? Did he think they were that stupid? In fact, he didn’t think they were stupid at all. So he nodded and gave the man who had taken the gun a thin smile. Then one of them opened the door and he went in.

  Four men were in the room, drinking coffee, seated cross-legged on the floor around a low table. Alan recognized one of them, a short, thin man in Western business attire with a silk knit cap on his head, as the proprietor of the silver shop. Alan thought he looked shattered. The other two were clerics; they wore the robes and turbans of religious conservatism, with Western shoes just visible. One was older and heavy, even fat; the other had an intense look, not fanaticism but focus. The youngest was no older than the hard-faced boys outside. He jumped up as Alan entered. “Commander Craik?”

  Alan extended his hand and the young man took it. “I am Ali Rahman. I serve Sheik Khalid, okay? I’ll translate.” He smiled and nodded several times. He pointed at the three seated men, who looked at Alan with dignified interest, and indicated the heaviest man. “This is Sheik Labala. He is very well known.” An understatement. Sheik Labala was a Muslim celebrity, for Kenya. He was one of the government’s most vocal opponents. “This is Sheik Khalid. He is the head of our youth movement. Yes? Yes. Our youth movement is very important to us, Commander.” The youth movement, with its implied message from the angry boys outside. Our youth are our soldiers. “And this is Mister Mohamed Nadek. He is a prominent local businessman.”

  “I have met the commander.” Nadek inclined his head. “I see that you survived the unfortunate disturbances of yesterday. Did you find your friend?”

  “I did. Unfortunately, he was killed by a sniper.” Alan sat carefully, choosing the spot across from Mister Nadek and farthest from Labala. It was natural; he had experienced hospitality from Nadek, and Labala’s hostility was thinly veiled. Khalid, the leader of the youth, was curiously neutral. He was the one Alan felt he had to win. The youth of today.

  “I lost one of my sons,” Mister Nadek said. He said it gravely, as one might discuss important news, but with no personal reference. Alan remembered the young man he had seen lying in the street, and his eyes stung for a moment. The other men around the table were murmuring greetings as Mister Rahman translated what Alan and Nadek were saying. Mister Nadek raised a hand slightly. The small movement seemed as dramatic as a salute; the others fell silent. “Our losses were much greater than only mine, Commander. At least seventy people are dead. Another two hundred are in hospital, and there are more. Women. Children. My son’s fiancée was also killed.”

  Alan looked around the table and saw anger there, even rage, just under the surface, so that Labala’s jaw worked, his teeth grinding as he listened to something from Sheik Khalid that was not translated.

  These men were close to explosion. He knew Mombasa well enough to know where their thoughts were, and how deeply yesterday’s events had scarred them. Their community had taken massive losses and was now facing a crackdown that had the potential to kill more. Behind that lurked the specter of a violence that would kill the tourist trade and close their businesses. He nodded. “I am sorry for your losses. More than a dozen sailors and my admiral were killed by the bomb on the USNS Harker.” Alan paused. “And at least one woman was killed as well.�
� He thought about the service that would be held in the hangar. “I lost a close friend.”

  A waiter came in with American coffee for Alan. The IPK men were drinking Arabic coffee from an urn. It might have been meant as a slight; certainly, none of them moved to offer him their own coffee. Perhaps they expected him to prefer the familiar. Alan added sugar to his coffee, the grains audible as they rustled clear of the paper packet. Outside on the patio, her shape just visible through closed blinds, a woman dove into the pool. Alan stirred his coffee, the spoon ringing against the china cup. He had seldom felt so self-conscious while he prepared a cup of coffee, but he made himself continue, unwilling to break the silence because he had nothing to say until his hosts chose to speak their piece. He had a sip of coffee, the cup trembling slightly against his lips as if to remind him how keyed up he was. He took a second sip and placed the cup softly on its saucer and looked each of the three principals in the eye. As he turned to look at Sheik Labala, the big man twitched his eyes away to the interpreter and spoke into the silence in Arabic. He spoke for several minutes. Alan kept his on Labala, willing some personal contact to flow through his gaze, but the man wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Alan glanced at the others from time to time, trying to gauge their reaction to whatever Labala was saying.

  Sheik Khalid listened passively, although Alan noted his pupils dilating twice; Mister Nadek was clearly uncomfortable with a great deal of what was said. When Sheik Labala was done, the young interpreter spoke. His voice rose with passion as he translated.

  “Sheik Labala wants to speak of the injustice of the Kenyan government. He wishes to know why the U.S. government gives money and guns for the suppression of Muslims in Kenya and everywhere in the world. He relates that he was active in helping the U.S. recruit young men to fight in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, and yet when he spoke out against injustice later, the Americans had him arrested and exiled to Germany. He talks about how the Kenyan government deals with Muslims, and how they fired on our people in the protest yesterday.”

  Alan nodded.

  Sheik Khalid spoke. He spoke briefly, and his eyes were on Alan the whole time.

  The interpreter waited for him to finish, which he did with a slight smile. “Sheik Khalid says that he is pleased to meet with you today and happy that your friend arranged this meeting. He wishes you to understand that none of the men in this room would have anything to do with a direct attack on Americans.”

  Alan nodded.

  Mister Nadek leaned forward, making a little throwing motion with his right hand. “We need the tourists from the West, or we will starve. No one here with any sense would advocate direct attacks on Americans. None of us would tolerate such talk if we heard it.” He looked at Sheik Labala. “We are not friends of the regime here. That is true. And we grow angry at the way that America treats Islam in the world. But none of us would tolerate a direct attack on Americans in our city.”

  Alan couldn’t help but notice how careful they were. Direct attack. Our city. Enemies of the regime. He nodded his understanding. “So let me be clear. Neither you nor your people were responsible for the attack on the Harker?”

  “Absolutely not,” Mister Nadek said. The young man translated and the other two men shook their heads, their long beards moving slowly back and forth as if sweeping the table.

  Alan sat up straight and turned to face Labala. “I can’t speak to America’s mistakes in the past.” He imagined the response he’d get from the embassy in Nairobi if he tried. “I cannot comment about the politics of Kenya. I have seen corruption in the armed services and anti-Muslim feeling with my own eyes. I wish to be impartial, not to take a side or be on one.” He looked from one to the other and waited, motioning to the translator to repeat what he had said. Khalid looked interested; Labala was openly derisive. Nadek was looking at him, a level stare. Interested but hesitant? He continued, “Please be clear. This is not a political forum. I am not here to discuss any past before yesterday.” He gathered their eyes and went for his point, his only card of any importance, and he found he was speaking to Khalid. “I saw a gunman open fire at the GSU yesterday. He was high on the wall in Fort Jesus, and he fired repeatedly at the GSU as their trucks were deploying.” Alan reached into his pocket and tossed a shell casing on the table. “This was from his gun. If you haven’t already heard of this, then ask your people. I wasn’t alone in seeing him. He wasn’t local—he could have been Arab or even American. I am not making an accusation, you understand? I’m just saying what I saw. I saw this gunman fire first. The GSU return fire was retaliation.”

  The three men talked among themselves, rapid talk, with some angry comments from Labala and then from Nadek at Labala. The interpreter added something, his hand pointing at Alan, and Nadek spoke one word. It was clearly reproof. The translator glowered, and all three of them rounded on him. Alan’s Swahili was not close to catching the quick questions and replies, but he got the gist—that the interpreter or someone he knew had also seen the gunman on Fort Jesus. Alan wondered if everything he said had been translated accurately.

  A waiter tiptoed in and motioned to Alan. “You have a call.” He pointed at a telephone outside by the pool. He grinned. The four IPK men scowled at him. “Telephone,” the waiter said in Swahili. “Very important, the man says.”

  Only Geelin and Cohen and Sandy Cole knew where he was going. He supposed the call must be important. “If you will excuse me?” He stood. “I must apologize. But I have duties—”

  The silversmith nodded, and then first one and then the other of the sheiks nodded as Rahman translated.

  Alan followed the waiter out to the patio. He had to go out the door of the room, around a corner and back, so that he was standing now with the picture window of the room on his left—on the outside now, looking in. The telephone was red, standing on a white table. Two oiled blondes lay topless to his right, then the pool, David Opono sitting upright on the edge of a lounge chair. The beach was close, a backdrop for the entire scene, a speedboat rocking gently in the near foreground.

  Alan reached for the telephone.

  “Down! Commander, down, down—!”

  It was Opono. Alan knew the tone—the stridency born of combat, half terror, half adrenaline—and he headed for the blue patio floor. Something hot scorched his ear and the glass beside him shattered. Shots echoed in the pool courtyard. The blondes screamed. A semiautomatic rifle was firing.

  At him.

  Alan found himself behind a flagstone planter as a shot blew a fist-sized hole in the flowers above him and ricocheted for an impossibly long time around the stone box of the patio.

  Opono was on his knees with a big Glock 17 in his fists. He had been lying about having a gun. He began firing at the ocean.

  Alan reached back for his H&K and remembered that the IPK guards had taken it. The cigarette boat revved its engines to a roar and he heard it move away, from his right to his left. Opono kept firing at it until the gun was empty. He straightened and trotted to Alan. When he saw that Alan was alive, he laughed. “I might as well have thrown the damn pistol at him.”

  The blondes were still screaming. A male voice was shouting for a doctor. Waiters began to run around.

  “The waiter,” Alan said. He sat up. “Find the damned waiter—it was a setup—!”

  But Opono had gone to give first aid to the shouting man, who had been hit in his right knee. He seemed to be the only casualty. The blondes were standing in a huddle by the pool, their naked breasts suddenly on display now that they were standing. Their nakedness became an idea that flashed through his mind—how offensive the men inside the room would find it. They had had their backs to the window the whole time he had been with them.

  Alan went back into the room. All four IPK men were on the floor, brushing broken glass away, picking sharp shards from each other’s clothes. Mister Nadek was helping Sheik Labala when Alan came in. All four looked at him. He pointed at the shattered glass in the window facing the beach.
r />   “You say your people had nothing to do with an attack on the Harker. But someone did. Someone got together the protest that covered the riot and provided fuel for the attacks. Someone told that gunman that we’d be meeting here today.” He waved outside. “If I’d been killed, gentlemen, no power on earth would have convinced my government that you weren’t responsible. To be honest, I’m a little concerned myself.”

  Rahman, shaking, translated. The three older men looked at each other. Mister Nadek opened his mouth and then shut it.

  “Look at your own, gentlemen. Somebody wants war.”

  Alan touched his ear, which still felt hot; his fingers came away with blood on them. He looked down. His ear was bleeding on his safari vest and on the carpet. A ludicrous picture of himself sprang into his mind—maimed hand, now a maimed ear, a man vanishing piece by piece. He found the bathroom, jerked toilet paper from the roll, held it to his ear. The bleeding seemed to stop.

  When he came back, Labala pointed at him and said something angry in Arabic. The young translator looked at the floor while he conveyed the gist, as if unwilling to be part of the message, his hands twisted together to hide their trembling. “The sheik says it takes two to make a war. He says that the oppression of Islam is what makes young men willing to give their lives.”

  “Tell him—” Alan walked over until he was standing by the sheik and his blood began to drip on the floor next to the seated man and he put the wad of now-red toilet paper back. “That’s for politicians, Sheik. This is us. I can’t change U.S. policy and I’m not sure I would if I could. Right here, right now, we need a little calm before everyone starts shooting and the Kenyan coast becomes Somalia. You guys have a provocateur. A man who wants this war. I don’t want him. I want you to find him. And stop him. Before more people have to die.”

  Sheik Labala said something angrily to Sheik Khalid. Mister Nadek held up his hand, cutting them off. His face was working. They were all slipping into shock; the meeting was ruined. “We will find him,” he said. “You should go.”