Night of the Cobra

by Jack Coughlin

  The commander of Suicide Charlie laughed. “Somalia is a feel-good sideshow, a nice humanitarian gesture, Kyle. The political timing is terrible, with the president being a lame duck until the new administration can take over. Throw in that ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and that bastard Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and a lot of people back in Washington are feeling that we’ve done our part here. They want to turn this business over to a coalition and get out.”

  Swanson stood and gathered his gear. “That’s too bad. I can feel trouble coming, Skipper, just as sure as one of these afternoon showers, but this one is going to become a typhoon. When this word gets around, General Aidid will want to have control of Mogadishu by the time we withdraw.”

  “Yeah. Well, go out with the patrol and see what you can see. Come across anything I might need to know on background, just come see me. Anything else?”

  “How about a hundred pounds of rice, sir?”

  “That’s a lot of rice. Can’t you just liberate it from the French?”

  “Already done that.”

  * * *

  LIKE EVERY OTHER BUILDING in Mogadishu, the spaghetti factory in the northern Yaqshid District had seen better days. The Italian colonizers had stamped their influence on the African city and built a thriving manufacturing plant to turn wheat flour into pasta that blended nicely with the rich tomatoes from the Shabelle Valley. It was now just a ruin, and urban warfare thrived in its rubble. Kyle and his team created a hide from which they could provide support for a recon team picking through the tangled mess.

  A light rain had passed through, but the temperature remained warm enough for steam to rise from the rubble. Swanson was seeing things he had not noticed before as they trekked downtown. Every wall was bullet-pocked, and stinking trash and war debris lay around like a lumpy, filthy carpet. Patrols were out probing other sectors, helicopter gunships were overhead, and CAATs scooted around like killer dune buggies. The gangs stayed curled out of sight or hid their weapons and appeared as part of the general population. An old man with a wrinkled face stared impassively at Swanson from a doorway. Children did not play, but begged the Americans for food.

  The snipers watched the marine patrol move slowly, exactly nine hundred yards away. Swanson had his big rifle tuned so fine that he would be able to deliver a bullet on target nine football fields away. He concentrated on his breathing, eye to the scope and finger on the trigger. Corporal Delshay was his spotter and glassed the area with a bigger scope.

  “Lookathere,” the Apache whispered. “Coming in on the flank.”

  Swanson saw the figure. No more than late teens, skinny, in sandals, shorts, and a T-shirt, with the usual AK-47 in his hands. When the thug spotted the American patrol, he raised his weapon, and Swanson made a snap shot that skipped in front of the gunman and drilled up into his thigh. The target jerked, dropped his weapon, and plopped into a sitting position. With plenty of time to spare now, Swanson made a slight adjustment and brought the crosshairs onto the forehead without ever bothering to look at the face, fired, and flipped him.

  “He’s done,” Apache said. Kyle made a note in his logbook. It was exactly 10:37 P.M., just another night in the Mog.

  Having to kill a bad guy wasn’t going to ruin his day.

  The marines went back to the stadium several hours later, having found nothing but a few targets, misery, and a total lack of hope among the people. As they approached the gate, Swanson saw that some of the inhabitants of Mogadishu were changing addresses and moving closer to the stadium walls, like settlers in the Old West seeking the sanctuary of a military installation. A shantytown was being born under the marine guns.

  * * *

  HE SLEPT WELL, EXHAUSTED and dreamless, until the middle of the morning. It was Wednesday, December 30. One more day for the year 1992. Showers had been made operational in the stadium, and he stood beneath the chill water in the canvas tent, working hard with the shampoo and soap to try and scrub away the city’s stink. He had a tight window of time before having to attend a mandatory noon briefing, so he rounded up Delshay and a Humvee to rush over to the clinic and get the list from Molly Egan. He didn’t care what was on the list. He just wanted to see her again, if only for a minute. He left Delshay at the wheel and jogged into the dark, muggy anteroom of the hospital.

  Molly was alone when he came in. She rushed to him without a word, and Swanson wrapped his arms around her tightly and felt her squeezing him just as hard. His fingers traced her spine and burrowed into her hair as her forearms locked behind his neck.

  Their kisses were hungry, and he finally, reluctantly, had to separate. “I gotta go, Molly,” he said, then stopped for another long kiss before pushing away. “I wanted to tell you my idea. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and there is going to be a party on the rooftop at the press hotel. Meet me there, and we can celebrate in style. There will be a lot of people around. You’ll be safe.”

  “I can be there at ten,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek, a light flutter of her lips. She shoved the list in his jacket pocket. She could feel the tense strain in his muscles, although his face remained locked in hard planes that revealed nothing. “You can go for now, but I warn you that you may not be safe from me tomorrow night.”

  “Ten o’clock it is, then, Molly Egan.” He gave her hand a final squeeze, then ran back out to the CAAT, and the big machine thundered away. He made the briefing with three minutes to spare.

  5

  THE BOATMAN

  KYLE SWANSON WAS AS tight as a spring by the time he got back to the sniper’s roost in the stadium press box. He knew what was happening to him, and would not let anyone see that Molly had almost shattered his barriers against getting personally involved while on a mission. He shucked the gear, grabbed a bottle of bourbon, and went to the lower level, then out around the edge of the field, where construction units with blades and hoes were tearing out all the overgrowth and garbage and rubble to make the grounds usable.

  He discovered a sanctuary on the far side, where a hill of wooden cases surrounded a large shipping container that had been left open and stood yawningly empty and inviting. Swanson made sure no one was near, then dodged inside and pulled the door almost closed behind him, jamming a two-by-four into the opening so it could not lock by accident. The sliver of light did not extend to the back.

  His boots walked him to the rear almost automatically, where he tore off his shirt and used it as a towel to mop his face and chest, then threw it aside and sat with his back wedged in the corner. Safe enough. He took a pull of whiskey and welcomed the bite of the liquid, and let the tension go. A tremor ran through his legs, the muscles flashing in spasms, and within a minute, he was curled into a fetal position, shaking hard and gritting his teeth to stop any sound. Swanson sucked fetid air into his lungs and set his mind free to roam and deal with the recurring, hallucinatory dream that haunted him, a subconscious creature that he knew as the Boatman.

  “You are doing well here in Somalia.” The deep, disembodied voice was familiar to Kyle, and the taste of dust in his mouth was replaced by salty brine and ash. He had been expecting it since he arrived in Somalia. All light in the box had disappeared, and in the blackness he made out the shape of a tall, lean figure approaching from the other side of the container, paddling a long boat. The phantom and the sergeant were not friends.

  “Leave me alone,” Swanson said in a subconscious voice. “Get the fuck away from me, you maniac!”

  The shadow assumed a more solid shape. It was a ghostly presence wrapped in a black cloak that billowed in a wind that could not be felt. A fleshless skull with empty eyes studied the marine, and there was a teasing giggle. “Heh. I was wondering when you would come. Look in my boat.”

  Kyle kept his eyes clenched tight, not wanting to look, but he saw them anyway. Twelve bodies were aligned in obedient sitting positions, six on each side of the rocking skiff. “I have more waiting to make the trip, but the boat can only hold a dozen at a time. As I said, you have done
well.”

  Swanson had been in country for less than a month, and already his total of confirmed kills had reached double digits when he included the kid at the spaghetti factory. He had killed them all, and now his mind was wrestling with the carnage that his sniper rifle had dealt. The hallucinated figure was only something his brain had concocted by pulling from the morbid writings about hell by Dante, and it was Kyle’s subconscious interpretation of the boatman, Charon, who ferried lost souls over the River Styx. Charon appeared only when Kyle had reached a point of mental overload, and served the purpose of scooping out the bad memories and hauling them away to a far, unseen shore where tall flames danced. Dumped over there forever, the souls were unable to haunt him.

  The Boatman leaned lazily upon his oar, as if ready for a long conversation. “You seem sad. End your misery now, sniper. Join us in the boat. It would be crowded, but I always have room for you.”

  “Never.”

  “Someday you will. Someday soon, perhaps. You will want to kill yourself to atone for all of your murders.”

  “None of them was murder, you asshole.”

  “Tell them that.” The Boatman waved his skeletal arm over Kyle’s victims, and the wind blew the rag of a sleeve. “Sanctioned murder, perhaps, but murder nonetheless.”

  “Leave me, and never come back.”

  “I will not promise that, Sniper Swanson. I must go for now, but I will return. I am part of you. And I will keep spaces for you and your friend.” Streaks of lightning bolts sizzled on the far horizon, and the Boatman spun his loaded craft around and slid away, back to the other side of the shipping container. He disappeared as Kyle yelled, “What friend? Who? What are you talking about?” There was no response.

  Swanson slept for thirty minutes in the hot box, pondering the last words of the dream demon, before he slowly broke from the nightmare. The stripe of brightness coming through the door reappeared like a searchlight beam, and he uncoiled and remained still to get his bearings. He felt better and took another shot of whiskey.

  Nobody had discovered him. Almost exactly two years earlier, he had endured his first visit from the Boatman after a hard fight in the Saudi border village of Khafji against an invading Iraqi armored troop. However, in Khafji, a spit-shined major named Bradley Middleton had found Kyle in the throes of the nightmare, and mistook the quaking for cowardice. Middleton had tried to throw Swanson out of the Marine Corps as being mentally unfit, but failed.

  Swanson felt there was no shame in this habit. Mental decompression in some form or another was not unusual for combat soldiers, all of whom experienced it sooner or later. He could just as easily have taken a snort of cocaine, beaten his wife if he was married, or tied on an all-night drunk that would have him crawling among the dust bunnies, followed by a healthy puke and a two-day hangover. The few minutes he spent with the Boatman cleansed him and banished the men he killed from his thoughts. It was just his way.

  Kyle twitched, stretched, took a final drink, then capped the bottle and put on his shirt again. He felt great. The marine sergeant was back. He plucked away the chunk of wood and kicked the damned door open wide. Time to go back to work.

  In this better frame of mind, he would spend New Year’s Eve with Molly, and he remembered her hug and kisses, as if her fingerprints were embedded on his skin.

  * * *

  “HEY! ANYBODY IN THERE?” Swanson turned in his overwatch position when someone pounded on the door of the press box. At least the SNIPER sign had stopped them from barging in unannounced. He found a helmeted captain standing outside.

  “Afternoon, sir,” Swanson said, stepping out. He did not salute because his hand was full of rifle. Night was almost on them.

  “Evening, Sergeant.” The captain was a serious and smart guy who had been a combat platoon leader before being plucked out for staff things. “We are going to need this place for the combat operations center.”

  Ah, our ownership is being challenged, Swanson thought. It was best if the officer did not see the improvements they had made, with walls of water bottles, and whiskey and good food, or all of the good shade from the hot sun that punished the Horn of Africa. Kyle called over his shoulder. “Apache. You get on the window. Watch that rooftop where we saw that guy. If he comes back with a gun, kill him.” He walked out, forcing the captain to follow. The door closed.

  Corporal Dave Delshay was startled. They hadn’t seen any suspicious figures. Then he realized what was happening and dropped his latest book. “Got it covered,” he said. Look busy!

  “I don’t think this is a good location for the COC, Captain,” Swanson said, intentionally moving toward a jagged crater that had been gouged by a mortar blast sometime back. Chunks of rock and debris stuck out like ruined teeth. “We’ve been catching sporadic fire from downtown. This is a regular RPG Alley.”

  “That right?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Swanson. “You don’t want this. Look at all the damage. It’s too exposed for a command center. We’ve got some sandbags stacked inside, but one RPG through the window and your whole staff would be gone.”

  “It is kind of beat up and exposed, isn’t it?” The officer was nodding agreement.

  “Yes, sir. We’re only in there to deliver long-distance counterfire.”

  “An RPG would take your team out just as easily.”

  “That’s why we’re paid the big bucks, sir. Did you see that big hole on the front of the place?”

  “Yeah. Good. I’ll take the word back. Where’s your helmet, Sergeant?”

  “Snipers aren’t required to wear helmets, Captain. They get in our way with our scopes. We wear boonies.”

  “Well, then, put that on. Stay sharp. Remember Beirut.” The officer needed to exert a little authority before closing the conversation and retreating downstairs.

  Swanson saluted and ducked back inside. “Close call, boys. Enjoy this place while you can.”

  6

  NEW YEAR: 1993

  DECEMBER 31, 1992

  MOGADISHU, SOMALIA

  THE SAHAFI HOTEL ON Maka Al Mukarama Road at the K-4 traffic circle was about as safe as anywhere in Mogadishu. Every side in the complicated and growing civil war needed it, as did the foreign governments who were fighting both Aidid and Ali Mahdi. An entrepreneur had seen a niche market in the war and opened the place to serve the press. It was neither subtle nor exotic: “Sahafi” meant “press” in Arabic, so it was, literally, the “press hotel.” Journalists could plunk down eighty-five bucks cash and get three meals, a bed for the night in an air-conditioned room, and the comfortable comradeship of others of their ilk.

  It had five floors, several hundred rooms, and was enclosed within chalky white walls. The rooftop provided an open view of downtown Mogadishu, and the lobby was a handy place for anyone wanting to make a news announcement. The press was propping up the economy of Mogadishu by hiring cars and drivers and interpreters and guards. Every day, the courtyard was the best place in the city for a local to find employment.

  Swanson exited the Humvee in the courtyard entry, where the party was already under way in a dozen languages. The guards placidly chewed cuds of khat and impassively watched the foreigners celebrate the end of their year 1992. As Muslims, they observed the Hijri calendar, so to them it was really 1413. They were being paid, so they didn’t care.

  Kyle found the halls jammed with civilians and men wearing the uniforms of many countries. Beer and booze had been flowing for some time, and nobody paid any attention to the newest marine in their midst. Many doors were open, and people were sprawled in the rooms, drinking and smoking and arguing. There was a hot new rumor of a bloodbath fight somewhere, but that story could wait until tomorrow. Two weird Japanese photographers had gone over to check it out but were not back yet, and who cared; they were crazy anyway.

  He spotted her quickly, for Molly had transformed from the blood-dappled aid worker into a beacon who stood out in the crowd atop the hotel. She was not being sensitive to Musli
m culture tonight and wore a loose dress of white Egyptian cotton that came just to her knees, with her small waist cinched in a wide green belt that matched her bracelet and her eyes. The red hair was uncovered and shone in lights that were strung on long poles about the parapet. Swanson thought that radiant hair should never, ever be covered. She spied him and gave an impish grin. A German photographer who had been trying to chat her up was summarily dismissed, and she gave Kyle a kiss and a beer from an iced cooler that was kept full by an American contractor.

  He popped the tab. “You are beautiful, Ms. Egan.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Swanson. You got all dressed up for the occasion, too,” she said, tugging the collar of his clean cammies. His .45 was holstered, snug on the web belt. Her skin was soft, and she had light perfume.

  “How come you look like you just got out of the shower?”

  “Because I have. See that dark-haired Brit girl over there? Her name is Maisie Turner, and she is a reporter with the Guardian newspaper, which keeps a room here. We met when she was doing a story on relief work, and she volunteered her facilities tonight.”

  Turner must have felt the look because she glanced over and gave a little wave. She was petite, had her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, and wore a loose top with tight jeans. Another woman not playing by local rules tonight, Maisie was happily scrunched between a tanned U.N. worker from Norway and an intense Australian freelancer.

  “I don’t understand these press people,” Swanson said, catching the drifting aroma of marijuana. The rooftop was a placid oasis. “Don’t they know there is a war going on?”

  “War is what they do, Kyle,” Molly said. “They move from one hotspot to another and keep bumping into each other in different hotels and clubs. One told me they follow the ‘boom-boom,’ just like we aid workers follow tragedy and you follow an enemy. They don’t want to be anywhere else, at least not this week. Next week, a better story may pop up elsewhere, and they will go chase that one. Now, dance with me, my pretty marine.”