Force Protection

by Gordon Kent

  “I do know that. I know that you went to a Nyali Beach hotel and got the name of Lieutenant-Commander Alan Craik, following which there was an attempt on his wife’s life. I know that you conspired in the murder of Special Agent Robert Cram. I have a witness who saw you with him just before you lured him away to his death.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh, yes, you did.”

  Balcon opened his mouth. To his own slight surprise, Triffler shot out his left hand and caught Balcon’s lower jaw.

  “Yes, you did!” He stared into Balcon’s frightened eyes. “I’m a patient man, Mister Balcon—an honest man, a religious man—but I won’t stand for you telling me lies! If you tell me lies, I’ll throw you to the Egyptians—is that clear?” Triffler let go and sat on the bed again, his back to the room’s door now, feet on the floor so that he was actually sideways to Balcon but able to turn his head to give him the full force of his eyes. “You have no rights. You have no recourse. You are a conspirator with terrorists, and I am your only hope.”

  Balcon tossed his hair, passed a hand over it, tried to wet his dry lips. When he spoke, his voice was thin. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what you’re doing for them next.” Balcon’s eyes flicked to his left—the clock. “And when.”

  “What do I get?”

  “What do you get? It isn’t what you’ll get, it’s what you won’t get! Don’t you understand? You can be dead!”

  “I have to get something.”

  “You get not to die; you get not to have an electric prod shoved up your rectum; you get not to have twenty Egyptian hardcore prisoners make a toy out of you; you get not to be shot by three military marksmen in some Egyptian prison you’ve never even heard of! You’re in very, very deep shit, Mister Balcon. You’re not Jean-Marc Balcon the three-day TV star anymore. You’re a terrorist. You’re a piece of shit. You have no rights.”

  Balcon couldn’t comprehend that. “That cannot be!” he cried. He lived in a world of rights. Rights were inalienable, even if you’d conspired to kill people.

  Somali-Kenyan Coast.

  Soleck’s first pass over the poachers’ camp was high, well over fifteen hundred feet. He came in from the east out of a shallow dive, with the morning light at his back, and the S-3 made a valiant effort to reach three hundred knots as he passed over the hangar. Below him, he could see men spilling out of the tents (they really are tents!) and he could see where one had blown off its frame in the high wind. He couldn’t see any vehicles, and the fuel bladders, if they weren’t a figment of their collective imagination, were invisible in the pearly light. Before he was a mile past the camp, Soleck hauled at the yoke and pulled the plane around in a turn so tight that the wings protested and the SENSO made a noise, quickly hushed, and then he had the wings level on a new course. He had lost seven hundred feet of altitude and a good deal of his velocity in the turn, and he had a lot longer to look at the camp this time. There were more men than he had expected, most of them with guns. Unconsciously, a wide smile pasted his lips against his teeth. His stomach turned over. Next to him, Donitz described the layout of the camp in detail. Soleck picked out the tent that Menendez said held vehicles.

  “Check that out, Donuts!” Soleck pointed at the biggest tent, which two armed men were pulling down. Underneath the canvas was something metal with a mounted weapon, like a Somali technical, and then they were climbing and Donitz was describing the vehicle to the skipper, a mile away on the ground. “Might have been two of them!” Soleck shouted, his voice too loud with fear and adrenaline.

  Donuts waved at Soleck and tapped his comm cord and then switched the skipper to cockpit so that Soleck was also in the link.

  “Any hostile acts, Mister Soleck?”

  “Nothing, sir. They have some sort of armed vehicles—”

  “But no fire.”

  “No, sir. I’ll just go around again. Maybe they were still asleep.” He suited the action to the words, pulling the plane out of a shallow climb and hard around to the north. The hi-bypass turbofans rose from a whine to a roar, like vacuum cleaners from hell, and the whole airframe shuddered.

  “Belay that, Mister Soleck. I do not want you going around again. Do you hear me? If they have a Stinger—”

  Soleck tapped his helmet at Donitz and shrugged, the universal aviator sign for lost comms.

  Donitz laughed.

  On the ground below, the Marine lieutenant had the fire-support team in place on the low ridge and an assault team ready at the base, with two hundred meters of open ground and windblown grass between him and the first outbuildings. Alan’s team had farther to go, and he started to get his men up as he watched Soleck’s plane.

  Soleck pressed his intercom to switch to the back seat.

  “Give us some chaff and flares.” He thought a trail of fire and silver chaff might provoke a response. He heard the chaff launcher start with a dull thud, and then they were over the camp. He pressed the nose down a fraction. This time he was going in at treetop level.

  Directly ahead of him, the two vehicles were visible, and one of them had men on top. He saw the muzzle of their weapon sparkle.

  “I’m taking fire,” he called, his communications miraculously restored.

  Alan watched the plane dive for a third pass on the camp and cursed Soleck’s bravado with the bitter knowledge that he’d have done the same and his subordinates all knew it. Three hundred meters away, the pounding noise of the auto cannon on the back of the hidden vehicle was clear even before Soleck’s voice came through the headset.

  “I’m taking fire,” Soleck said, his voice rising with excitement.

  Donitz said, “Bomb away.”

  Alan looked at the Marines waiting at the edge of the brush. “Let’s rock,” he said, handing the headset to the radioman with a smile. He was happy. Worried about Soleck, worried about the mission, but happy. It was all beyond planning and worry now. They were committed.

  The bomb exploded. A fountain of fire and dirt rose into the air over the camp, and the heat and shock wave knocked Alan flat where he was on the edge of the brush line and deafened him. He lay still a moment, stunned, the explosion beyond his limited experience of war, and then gathered his wits and rolled to his feet, looking around blearily like a fighter who has taken too many punches. Then he started to run forward, his intention of crouching in the long grass forgotten until Fidelio’s hand pushed him down lower.

  When he started, the Marines got to their feet, too, and a corporal shouted, “Spread out; don’t bunch up!” Those words were the first sign that Alan could still hear, and then he heard the sound of the S-3’s engines laboring to climb out and knew that Soleck was okay.

  Then all the sound came back to him in a rush, and he heard the rattle of automatic-weapons fire from the camp and a steady stream of fire from the ridge beyond, short bursts fired at intervals, braat, pause, braat, the Marines firing their squad weapon. Less than a hundred meters in front of him, Alan saw a small truck at the edge of the clearing. Even as he watched, the Marine fire-support team walked their fire across the vehicle and it burned, first a line of fire as the big bullets hit it, then a secondary explosion as the fuel went up with a hollow boom. It was gone in black smoke and fire in an instant, and the fire was moving on. Alan kept moving forward. He couldn’t see the enemy or much else but the grass and the sheds and tents of the camp.

  Ten steps and the ground began to rise and his boots no longer made squelching noises as he ducked his head and pushed on. Now there were low bushes in the grass as the ground rose, making the footing treacherous, and he got a long thorn in his leg when he decided to push through one. It burned there. He raised his head. He could hear the Marine fire to the north and, quite close, return fire from the camp. He had no idea where Opono’s men had gone, but it seemed to him that the whole attention of the camp was on the lieutenant’s men on the ridge. He didn’t think anyone had noticed his party. He turned and saw the radioman just behind Fidel
io, unheard in the wind and the chatter of the weapons. The radioman pointed off to their left and Alan saw the corporal. He pointed, and in a moment the gunny emerged from the waving grass.

  “Gunny?” He had to shout.

  “They don’t even know we’re here, sir.”

  Alan nodded. The radioman held out the headset, but Alan shook his head. He signed to the gunny.

  “Break the resistance any way you like, gunny. I’m not the tactician, here. I want this wrapped up.”

  The gunny nodded, clearly pleased, and exchanged a glance with Fidelio. Fidelio touched Alan’s arm, pointed, and moved off into the grass. Alan crouched and watched the gunny tap men he hadn’t even seen in the grass, banging on their helmets and sending them off. He must have briefed them on their roles before the attack went in. In seconds, Alan was alone in the tall grass with the radioman. He checked his rifle and started forward. He heard four flat cracks, big rifles loud even over the wind, and then again, and then a burst of firing off to the west.

  There was another rise, almost a berm, at the edge of the camp. Alan felt naked going over it and flung himself flat at the top, but all the firing was directed elsewhere, and he pulled himself up and forward into the shelter of a tent with an awning that seemed to function as a mess hall.

  A Somali man in shorts and a T-shirt came out of the tent, saw Alan’s radioman, and snapped off a shot with an assault rifle. Alan dropped to one knee and fired back, the rifle light and responsive. He didn’t miss. The man fell in a heap and started to sob. Alan’s radioman fired a long burst through the walls of the tent at waist height and then put in a new magazine and fired again, lower, ripping the side of the tent. Alan crawled forward a few yards. The man he had shot was close, rocking himself in a little ball and moaning. Alan fought the urge to shoot him in the head just to shut him up.

  He saw several rifle pits and men in foreign camo shooting from any cover they could find, most of their fire directed off to the north. He heard someone just to his left fire a burst and turned his head in time to see one of the men in a rifle pit spasm in pain. He heard the S-3 engine noise again and didn’t look up, instead rolling into the cover of a big oil drum. He almost had his muzzle on a target when a symphony of fire came from all around him. Two grenades sailed through the air and he ducked his head. Wham, thump. When he raised his head, the rifle pits were silent and Gunny Fife was leading his men forward cautiously. One enemy, a black man in ragged green shorts, apparently unwounded, had thrown his gun down and was trying to surrender. Gunny Fife waved one of his men to the job and Alan watched the man pushed to the ground, his hands behind his head. The Marine yelled “Chini!” as he had been taught, although Alan thought that all the enemies he had seen were Hutus, who wouldn’t speak Swahili. To his left, Fidelio kept pace with the Marine advance, his rifle barking in short bursts. Alan didn’t see him take any prisoners.

  He caught up with Gunny Fife at the edge of the metal hangar. The radioman was still following Alan doggedly, and as soon as Alan knelt by the gunny, he held out the headset. Alan took it this time while looking at the gunny.

  “Skipper, this is Jaeger One, do you copy?”

  “Wait one, Jaeger One. Red Jacket, this is Big Blue, over?”

  Sounds of an AK-47 firing nearby.

  “Big Blue, this is Red Jacket. Go ahead, sir.”

  “Location?”

  “Red Jacket is at the edge of the camp, sir. We have the berm as cover and we’re clearing resistance on the north side. We’re taking fire from the hangar.”

  “They’re taking fire from the hangar!” Alan shouted at the gunny.

  The gunny nodded, rose to his feet, and went down. Just like that, and he was clutching his chest and men were taking cover—

  “Move!” Alan bellowed. He ran to the corner of the building, suddenly at the point of the attack, aware that he was the least-trained infantryman present, and then Fidelio pushed past him, a blur of motion that pinned him to the side of the hangar. Alan’s radioman fired at something, and Alan leaned around the corner low and fired blindly, and then the second team went around the corner of the hangar. Fidelio had crossed the open ground to an abandoned vehicle and was covering them.

  They took fire from somewhere; the shots threw puffs of dust off the concrete foundation by Alan’s feet. He was slow to realize what they were, and when he did, he threw himself around the corner after the other fire team. The squad 30mm grenade launcher ripped a hole in the hangar. One of the Marines threw a grenade, and then another, and then they were at the side door and there was smoke all around them and Alan felt like a third wheel. The men hesitated at the closed door. Then one readied a grenade and another shot the center of the door in. The first man tossed the grenade and Alan followed the Marines as they threw themselves down. There was a burst of return fire from inside. No one moved.

  “Follow me,” he yelled, rolled to his feet, and charged through the door.

  Someone next to him said “Jesus!” and he was thrown back against the doorframe.

  They all seemed to go through the door in a clump, and later Alan couldn’t remember if he had been first or not, but the inside of the hangar was full of smoke. Something moved ahead of Alan and he fired, dropped his rifle, and drew his pistol, and then he was out of the smoke and the Marines with him chopped down two white men in green fatigues with a heavy weapon. Mercenaries, Alan thought. One kept twitching and the other lay still. Alan found that his voice was raw from shouting and he looked down and saw that the slide of his pistol was open. He didn’t remember shooting at all. Ahead of him, a little clump of fighters in shorts and bush jackets seemed to melt as Marines ran at them from all directions.

  “Chini, motherfucker!” yelled the Marine next to Alan. And Fidelio was there, grinning from ear to ear.

  The fighters hesitated. The Marine at the berm with the squad weapon fired again; two of them threw their guns down, and then another, and then two more. Two of them ran for the bush, and a kneeling Marine began to lay down automatic-rifle fire as the man with the launcher dropped two grenades beyond them and the bush erupted. One fell; one turned and screamed at them and dropped his weapon.

  “Get down, get down—!” The Marine lieutenant appeared behind them with the rest of the second squad and was screaming at them. “Chini, goddamit, get on your chini. Chini or you’re dead meat—!” At the same time, he was running through and across his men, waving them into a wider front. Alan, winded, finally able to stop running, knelt and gasped for air. The mercenaries in their green fatigues were all on the ground on their faces.

  “Get me the officer!” Alan panted. “Cut out the officer—!”

  A white face lifted. Alan saw the man as a big head, very black hair around baldness, high forehead. The man lifted a hand to identify himself. The Marine lieutenant screamed, “Chini, motherfucker!” and somebody fired a three-round burst at waist level above the prone men. Then the lieutenant was moving his men into a position on a mound above the lagoon, and two of them were cutting out the mercenaries one at a time, not letting them get close until they knew they were unarmed, shoving them down to the beach where they sat, exposed, at the water’s edge. They had surprising numbers of hidden weapons. Fidelio joined the team searching them. He was ruthless and quick.

  The officer was the fifth of the eight. They brought him to Alan.

  Ismailia.

  Triffler was hammering at the French journalist. “Why are you in Ismailia, Mister Balcon?”

  “There is gossip of new activity in Iraq; my agency told me to get footage of the canal, any U.S. ships—”

  “As God is my redeemer, Balcon, if you tell me another lie, I’ll turn you right over to that cop who wants to pound you to pulp! I want to know now! Where are you going, and when?”

  “If I tell you, you let me go?”

  “If you tell me the truth, and it checks out, I’ll help you.”

  “No, no, oh no, you must—”

  Triffler brought his
right hand down on the bedside table so that the clock jumped and a pencil and pad tumbled to the floor. “Don’t tell me what I must!” He was looking at the clock, seeing for the first time that the alarm was set for six-thirty. Six minutes. Then what had Balcon planned?—a shower, shave, dress, get rid of the woman—half an hour? Something going down at seven? If so, time was running out. The thought that he’d have to turn Balcon over to the Egyptians made Triffler suddenly sick, because they would in fact do pretty much what he had threatened, what he could not, would not do—and they’d get answers. And he had to have answers. “Tell me.” Triffler risked a leap. “You’re supposed to be ready for your friends soon.”

  That hit home. Balcon chewed his lower lip once. He looked into Triffler’s eyes. “You’re not going to call the French consul.”

  “No.”

  “You know this is a violation of international law.”

  “I know that if I turn you over to the Egyptians, nobody will care about international law. What’s the French consul going to do, cut off Cairo’s supply of Beaujolais?”

  “But I am—I am a person of some importance!”

  Triffler stared at him. Triffler didn’t need to act this part; his contempt for people with blow-dried hair who swanned about the small screen was profound. Balcon met the stare, tried to hold it, finally looked away. Triffler drew the .380 again. “Mister Balcon, the bullet from this gun is nine millimeters across. That is how important you are. Nine millimeters’ worth—one-third of an American inch.” He put the gun back, his eyes on Balcon’s until Balcon again looked away. “In your phony little world, you may have some phony importance, but here, now, you’re nothing.”

  Balcon swallowed, looked again at the clock. “I, uh—I am supposed to get a call.”

  “Yes?”

  “From a, ah, guide?” His assurance had dissolved. “To tell me when he is coming to, ah, guide me? To the, mm, to a, so to speak—to film—?”