Mission Liberty

by David DeBatto

  The M-113 parted the crowds, the soldiers in it occasionally firing their rifles in the air in warning. Some who saw the Isuzu van behind the transport, filled with men in masks, seemed bewildered, while others cheered and blew kisses. The truck stopped at the base of a long curving stone ramp leading uphill for fifty yards to the castle’s main portcullis. The gatehouse forming an outwork at the base of the ramp had been seized, with loudspeakers set up atop one of the turrets, from which Radio Liger blared, inciting the crowd, a voice saying, “Kill them, kill them all, you have much work to do…”

  The captain walked from the transport back to the van. He was smoking a cigar. When he offered one to the man in the van’s passenger seat, the man refused.

  “We have machine guns and RPGs on the roofs surrounding the castle,” the captain said, “and many SAM-7s hidden. SAM-9s. We think they will send their helicopters, and when they do, we will shoot them all down.”

  “Where are your SAMs?” the Arab in the passenger seat said in Arabic. The captain looked confused, so the man repeated the question in accented English.

  “We have one in the church steeple, there,” the captain said, pointing with his cigar, “and one is in the mayor’s office, right there. And we have another in the red truck over there. That one. Yes. I chose the locations myself.”

  “And the men firing them, they’ve been trained? They’re not your children warriors—they’re actual soldiers?”

  “Oh, yes,” the captain said. “They are my finest. Handpicked.”

  “You’ve done well,” the Arab said. “Keep them there. Now move your truck, please.”

  “What will you do?” the captain asked.

  “We came for the ambassador,” the Arab said. “We have his family. He has said if we release them, he will take their place. Move the truck now.”

  The captain gave orders, and the M-113 was moved. The man atop the van attached a large white flag to the barrel of his rifle, and then the Isuzu began to inch forward up the ramp. The curtain wall forming the outer bailey was lower than the bulwark inside, allowing the American soldiers visible at the rampart’s embrasures to shoot over it, if they chose to, but they held their fire. The crowd below watched in anticipation. Many backed away, expecting a massive explosion as word spread that a car bomb had penetrated the American defenses. The Arab in the passenger seat saw a pair of fifty-millimeter guns mounted atop the parapet guarding the main gate and told the driver to slow down. When the gates opened, the van drove slowly through, and then the gates closed behind it.

  The driver parked in the inner ward, just in front of the castle keep, and then the men got out of the van. They were met by a pair of Marines, who escorted them into the historical museum’s main exhibit room. Ambassador Ellis, wearing a helmet and a flak jacket, accompanied by a half dozen Marine bodyguards, stood in front of a large glass exhibit case, inside which was displayed a long flowing garment called, according to the brass plaque at the top, the Royal Sun Robe, worn, historically, by a succession of Fasori kings. The man who’d been riding in the passenger seat took off his ski mask, saluted, and extended his hand to the ambassador.

  “Special Agent David DeLuca, U.S. Army counterintelligence, Team Red,” he said. Some of the soldiers looking on were surprised to notice that one of the “men” in the ski masks was in fact a woman. “Thanks for not shooting us. I wasn’t sure you got our message. My driver is Agent Zoulalian. This is Agent Sykes, Agent Vasquez, and Agent MacKenzie. Sorry we weren’t able to visit you under happier circumstances. Your wife and kids are fine, by the way, but the cover story is that we’re swapping them for you, so they’ve been kept out of sight on the carrier.”

  “This is Captain Allen, in charge of my security detail,” Ambassador Ellis said. “Sorry we had to leave the embassy. What’s the plan? They’ve been jamming my goddamn SATphone.”

  “Who do you have here for staff?” DeLuca asked, scanning the massive stone walls. It was the kind of place where a few Marines with machine guns could hold off an entire army, for a while, anyway. He could hear the staccato stutter of gunfire beyond the castle walls, the voice from the loudspeakers at the gatehouse muffled, as if coming from a pair of headphones left on a pillow.

  “Just my secretary,” Ellis said. “Everybody else got out. What’s the situation at the embassy?”

  DeLuca shook his head.

  “How about the British embassy?”

  Again DeLuca shook his head.

  “The British pulled out yesterday and lost seven men trying.”

  “I’m blind here, DeLuca—fill me in. Why can’t I use my phone?”

  “We believe they’re using U.S. jamming equipment we sold the government,” DeLuca said. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Where’s General Ngwema? What’s Osman doing? Where’s LeClerc?”

  “LeClerc can’t move until the Security Council says he can,” DeLuca said. “Osman’s AU forces are waiting to hear from Addis Ababa, but I don’t think they have what they need, even if they get clearance. Most of the city’s Christians have fled. Ngwema’s holding the ground west of town. We think the majority of the refugees are behind him.”

  “Why isn’t he moving?” Ambassador Ellis said. “What’s he waiting for?”

  DeLuca shrugged.

  “He might not be waiting for anything. He might be protecting the oil fields and letting the city fall. We’re not sure just what his mind is.”

  “Bo?”

  “President Bo is in the presidential compound, which, from the looks of it, is more strongly fortified than this place,” DeLuca said. “We can debrief on the carrier if you want, sir, but I’m not sure I’m the person to do it, and I’m quite sure this isn’t the best time or place.”

  “Why did they send you?” the ambassador said. “No offense, but there are only four of you.”

  “Five,” DeLuca said. “We couldn’t do anything until we had more intel.” He turned to the Marine captain. “We want to fly in a couple of jollies for you and your men with CAS and AI but we weren’t sure what your ADOCS were,” DeLuca told Captain Allen.

  “We lost prepositioning along with our APS grids when the embassy fell,” Captain Allen said. “I have a lieutenant who served with a COLT in Kabul as the ‘lino’ and a sergeant who spent a week with a FIST team, but we could use an artillery intelligence officer for the DISE. We took a G/VLDD (he pronounced it “gee-vlad”) off a Hummer and mounted it at the top of the turret but it’s not going to be much use without the pulse codes.”

  “Agent Zoulalian has the codes,” DeLuca said, turning to his driver. “Run upstairs and program the laser. Number one is the church steeple, two is the mayor’s office, and three is the red truck parked across from the gatehouse.”

  Zoulalian took off on the double. Captain Allen looked at DeLuca quizzically.

  “We found a rebel captain who was only too eager to brag about where he put his SAMs,” DeLuca explained. “I think the intel is good, but my worry is that he wasn’t telling me everything. That and the RPGs—what’s your sense there?”

  “We haven’t seen much, but I’m sure they have ’em,” Allen said. “The question’s what we can suppress.”

  “Shock and awe,” DeLuca said. “Works for me.”

  “Plain English, gentlemen,” the ambassador said. “I know I’m a civilian, but I’m still in charge here.”

  DeLuca’s orders had been to take charge if he had to, but for now he could let Ellis continue under the illusion that he was in control.

  “I was asking Captain Allen if he had any deep ops coordination system,” DeLuca said. “He told me he has a man who served as a liaison officer with a combat ops laser team and another man who served with a fire support team. A gee-vlad is a ground/vehicular laser locator designator—that’s the laser we use to paint targets for the smart bombs. He took one off a Humvee and mounted it on a tripod on the tower. The rebels have three Soviet shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, in the steeple, the mayor
’s office, and the red truck parked by the gates. The lasers emit a pulsed code to tell the bombs where to go. My sergeant is upstairs programming the codes into the laser. What we’re going to do is blow those three things up and then fly in a couple of helicopters…”

  “Jollies?”

  “Yes, sir,” DeLuca continued, “under close air support and air interdiction. Noise and smoke. With minimal collateral, if we’re lucky. They’re going to get the Marines out, but what we don’t know about are rocket-propelled grenades, which can still down a helicopter.”

  “It sounds risky,” Ambassador Ellis said.

  “It is risky,” DeLuca said. “That’s why we’re going to take you out a safer way.”

  “Which is?”

  “The same way we came in,” DeLuca said. “You look like you’re about a forty-four regular, am I right?”

  Deluca pulled the abaya he was wearing over his head. Beneath it, he wore his “second chance” ballistic body armor, but beneath that he wore dress pants and shoes and a white shirt (soaked with sweat) with a red bowtie of the sort that Ambassador Ellis was famous for wearing, his identifiable trademark. Back home, the only time DeLuca ever wore suits was when he had to testify in court in the trial of somebody he’d arrested. He asked the ambassador if he could borrow his sport coat. The ambassador complied. Over the sport coat, DeLuca donned the bomber’s vest that Zoulalian had rigged from a Kevlar flak jacket, a spare set of distributor wires, and six cans of black Play-Doh, but it looked real. DeLuca bade Ambassador Ellis to don the flak jacket, the abaya, and a ski mask and then handed him an AK-47.

  “Is it loaded?” the ambassador asked.

  “It is,” DeLuca replied patiently to an incredibly stupid question. “But if we do this right, nobody’s going to fire a shot. In fact, they’re going to cheer you as you leave. I’ll bet you weren’t expecting that.”

  “We’re done setting up the Mark-10s,” MacKenzie reported, referring to the oil-drum-sized smoke bombs that had been disguised as explosives in the back of the phony car bomb, one in the near corner of the inner bailey and the second in a bartizan upwind from the keep. “Dan’s setting the delays.”

  “We’ve got a J-STAR zeroed with a Hellfire on the jamming gear they’re operating, in a building about a block from here,” DeLuca told Allen as he climbed onto the roof of the van. “Once that goes, your coms should work. You’ll hear it when it does. Fire support will call you at that point. It’s going to happen fast.” DeLuca saw Zoulalian returning at a quick jog. “You all done upstairs?”

  “Roger that—locked and loaded,” Zoulalian said, turning to Vasquez, who’d resumed his position atop the van. “You wanna drive?”

  “I’m good here,” Hoolie replied, raising his AK-47 and setting the safety, testing the trigger to make sure the safety had engaged. “How often do I get the chance to take my team leader hostage?”

  DeLuca turned his back to Hoolie and placed his hands together. Hoolie used a pair of flex cuffs to bind DeLuca’s hands behind his back, but with the plastic teeth filed off so that the cuffs were only on tight as long as DeLuca pulled on them. Hoolie threw a knit ski mask over DeLuca’s head with the eyes in back, though the fabric was of a wide enough mesh that DeLuca could see through it.

  “Make sure the bowtie is visible,” DeLuca said. “Mr. Ambassador, if you’ll take a seat in the back next to Agent MacKenzie, we’ll be on our way. We have a SEAL team with a fastboat waiting about a mile down the beach and a pair of Predators watching our every move, but we’re still going to need a bit of deception until we get there, so just keep your mask on and wave your rifle and look angry and we’ll do the rest. Do you know any Arabic?”

  “Allah akbar,” the ambassador said.

  “That’ll do,” DeLuca said. “We armored the sides and the doors but not the windows, obviously, so if somebody starts shooting, stay low. Dennis, let’s not give anybody too much time to think. Captain Allen, the jollies will be here in ten minutes, so get your men ready. See you on the Johnson.”

  Zoulalian started the car, with Sykes now in the passenger seat and MacKenzie and the ambassador in the back. DeLuca knelt on the roof with a black mask over his head while Hoolie held a gun to his neck, lifting the loose folds of the mask with his rifle to make sure the red bowtie was visible. The image was going to be a compelling one when it was shown on Al Jazeera later that night, a U.S. ambassador with bombs strapped to his chest being led from his stronghold at gunpoint by a brave band of terrorists.

  They breached the portcullis and were halfway down the ramp when Zoulalian was forced to step on the brakes. At the base of the ramp, the M-113 was parked across the drive to block the way. The rebel troops had dismounted and had their guns pointed at the van. The captain, his cigar still in his hand, shook it in the air and gestured for the van to come forward.

  “What the fuck?” Vasquez said under his breath.

  “Easy, everybody,” DeLuca said into his transmitter. “Remember Mog. Dennis—commence ranting and gesticulating.”

  Zoulalian got out of the car and screamed at the rebel captain, gesturing with both arms to get out of the way and let them through. When the captain waved him forward, Sykes got out of the car and walked down the ramp to speak with the man in the red beret and the wraparound sunglasses.

  “You have to move your truck,” Zoulalian said in accented English. “We have to get through. Now!”

  “Give the prisoner to us and we will take him,” the captain said. “We can provide security for him.”

  “We don’t need security,” Zoulalian screamed. “We have more than enough of that. We have to get to the soccer stadium.”

  “Inducements, Mr. Dan,” DeLuca transmitted.

  “Perhaps you could lead the way,” Sykes said to the captain, reaching into his pocket beneath his abaya and pulling out ten hundred-dollar bills, American. DeLuca always found it charming, the way people who hated America still liked its money. “Of course, we would want to pay you for the overtime. One hundred for each of your men and three hundred for you. Does that sound fair?”

  The captain saw the money and moved his body so that his troops couldn’t see the cash while he considered his options.

  “Give the money to me, and I will pay the men,” the captain said. Sykes handed him the cash, which the captain pocketed surreptitiously. “You will follow me, then.”

  He turned and ordered his men to get back in the truck.

  Zoulalian followed in the van, inching through the crowd. Hoolie did his best to block the things the people in the crowd were throwing at “the ambassador” to express their dislike for U.S. foreign policies, mostly fruit, vegetables, cassavas, one man picking up and flinging a piece of dog shit that struck DeLuca in the arm.

  “Tell that guy he’s going to hear from my cleaner,” DeLuca said.

  “What do you care? It’s not your suit,” Hoolie said.

  “Sorry for the delay, Johnson,” DeLuca told the mission controllers on the aircraft carrier, who he knew were watching them, both from an INMARSAT view and from a UAV-borne camera closer in. “What are you seeing?”

  “It’s going all to hell between you and the extraction point,” the voice in DeLuca’s earpiece came back. “But we expected that. Make time if you can.”

  “I don’t think our escort is going to let us pass him,” DeLuca said. “We’ll do our best. Meet you on the sands of Iwo Jima.”

  They were three blocks from the castle when they heard the first explosion behind them, a JDAM-5 destroying the building where the rebels’ communication-jamming equipment was operating. The decision had been made to use laser-guided ordnance first, because of the greater accuracy, but DeLuca understood that the destroyer USS Minneapolis was cruising eight miles offshore, ready to deploy six- and eight-inch guns that were nearly as accurate, should the first round of smart bombs fail to do the job. Within seconds, they heard another explosion as a missile struck the mayor’s office. Hoolie took the hood from DeLuca’s he
ad in time for DeLuca to see the church steeple disintegrate in a ball of flames, and then a fourth missile hit the red truck, flipping it and lifting it thirty feet in the air. The crowd dispersed and chaos quickly followed, men firing their rifles into the air or toward the castle, where a pair of CH-47 Chinook helicopters coming in low over the water climbed the seawall and descended on the courtyard, supported by a half dozen Apaches, swarming over the city like very angry bees. A pair of F14 Tomcats screamed over the area, a mere fifty feet above the rooftops.

  “Hit it!” DeLuca shouted to Zoulalian. He lay down atop the van and braced himself against the roof rack. Zoulalian floored the accelerator and turned right down a side street. DeLuca saw, briefly, the look of surprise on the face of the rebel captain from the back of the truck.

  “LBJ—can you cut enemy radio traffic?” DeLuca asked, aware that the E-6 Prowler in the air high overhead carried communication-jamming equipment.

  “Not without doing yours, too,” the answer came back. “They’re using our stuff. It’s your call.”

  “You getting SIGINT?” DeLuca asked.

  “Negative,” mission control came back. “Our Ligerian friend here says they’re not speaking Fasori. It’s some northern tribal dialect he doesn’t know.”

  “Might as well keep the channels open, then,” DeLuca said, dismayed that the mission had already crept beyond what had been intended, but then, he’d long considered “military planning” something of an oxymoron. “Loose the dogs of war” wasn’t even the right metaphor, because loose dogs at least run in the same direction. “Shit hitting the fan” failed for the same reason—war was Brownian motion, chaos and anarchy, and it changed every five seconds. “We’ll just have to outsmart them.”