The Janson Option

by Paul Garrison

  He looked her over very carefully. Then he said, “Bad guys.”

  Kincaid nodded. Bad guys from a US point of view in this corner of the world were al-Qaeda, and that was all he would tell her.

  He asked again, “What are you?”

  “Sniper.”

  He almost spit his beer. “Why you telling me this?”

  “’Cause this job’s going to hell and I need every bit of help I can get.”

  “Where is she?”

  “On a hijacked yacht off Eyl.”

  “Oh, her.”

  Kincaid watched him very carefully to see whether he would back off, which would indicate that Special Forces was planning a rescue. But he just nodded. If they were, he was not part of it. Neither had he caught scuttlebutt of a SEALs operation.

  “You know who I mean,” she said.

  “I’m just a guy in a bar.”

  “No kidding… You know anything?”

  “Not what you’d expect,” he said, “but I heard something really strange.”

  Kincaid kept her mouth shut. She didn’t even ask what he’d heard. She just waited and prayed that he would take a crazy chance on his gut reading of her.

  He spoke into his glass like it was a microphone and all he had to do was whisper. “I’m not doing this job. I just heard about it. Kind of tangential to something I’m doing. Cell intercepts? There’s a guy on the yacht.” He glanced at her, testing.

  “Mad Max.”

  “Right. Max talked to a guy in Mog. On the guy’s phone.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “ELINT’s been listening to the phones of a certain guy in Mog. Right?”

  Kincaid nodded. Electronic intelligence surveillance of telephones, sat phones, cells, and radio. A modern version of what Janson used to call wiretapping. “OK…?”

  “So there’s a call to one of the guy’s own phones in Mog from another of his own phones in Eyl. Both phones are mega-encrypted. You get what I’m saying?”

  “The guy in Mog wanted to talk privately with Max, so he somehow delivered to Max an encrypted phone he could trust.”

  “You got it.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Whoever told me what went down was not going to tell me any more. But it sounds like the guy in Mog wanted something from the pirate holding the lady. Right?”

  “Right.”

  He shrugged. “It’s not much.”

  One way to get somebody to tell more was to impress them with how much you knew. Kincaid asked, “Was the guy in Mog named Gutaale?”

  “No.”

  “No? Somebody with the president?”

  “No, no, no. Nothing like that.”

  “Then who?”

  The SF guy looked around like they were kids passing notes in high school. “The dude they’re trying to trace? He’s totally hip to e-tracking. Every time they think they’ve nailed him, he and his folks are gone when they kick in the door. They know tech. They know computers. They know as good as we do.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s got one of those Somali nicknames.”

  “The Italian?”

  “How’d you know?”

  Jessica Kincaid plucked her cell from her shirt pocket as if it had just vibrated for a text, and pretended to read the message. “Bird’s fixed. I’m outta here.” She jumped off her barstool and extended her hand. “Pleasure talking to you, soldier. Stay safe.”

  He shook her hand and held tight a second. “Hey, what’s your name?”

  Kincaid gave him a warm kiss on the cheek before she took her hand back. “Don’t make a liar of me.”

  * * *

  MOHAMED ADAM, the president of the newly declared Federal Republic of Somalia, had a smooth brow, a black mustache, close-cropped hair, and a youthful appearance, except for an incongruously white goatee. His office looked like he had moved in just the day before. The walls were bare. His desk was cluttered with computer monitors, keyboards, mobile and landline phones, and open files. Nearby, printers and fax machines held more files and newspapers. He was working in shirtsleeves with his jacket slung over the back of his chair. He was frowning at his computer monitors, tugging his goatee with one hand and manipulating a mouse with the other, when his chief of staff ushered in American oilman Kingsman Helms. Helms thought he looked bewildered.

  “Mr. Helms. I’m told you have urgent news. Does it concern the safety of your wife?”

  “No, I have—”

  “I’m sorry. And I am sad to tell you that while I presume the rumors she is held by Maxammed are true, Maxammed has ignored my attempts to make contact with him through clan brothers. We are, as I’m sure you know, vaguely related.”

  “I thank you for your effort,” Helms said. “But in fact, I’ve come to report the latest from my headquarters in Houston. If you’re not too busy,” he added politely, indicating the computer.

  “Decisions loom,” said Adam, “and demand to be resolved. What do we name our national celebration for returning expatriates? Our homecoming for youth? Do we call it a simple welcome-home? Some suggest we call it the Homecoming. Others protest that that sounds like an American football game or a movie about vampires. Do we call it Coming Home Youth? Or Welcome Home Youth? What about older people? We need them too, after all. What do you think, Mr. Helms?”

  Helms said, “I think one can waste a lot of time on slogans.”

  “Do you?” President Adam removed his glasses and hooked one of the wire temples over his finger. Without his glasses, his eyes were piercing. He asked, “How about ‘New Energy for a New Tomorrow’?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “American Synergy Corporation’s slogan last year was ‘New Energy for a New Tomorrow.’”

  “Oh, yes, of course.”

  “It’s featured in the title of a promotional Blu-ray video, American Synergy Corporation—New Energy for a New Tomorrow.”

  Helms allowed an indulgent chuckle. “Turn your back and the media department runs amok.”

  “I recall that Blu-ray touted your personal slogan. How did that go? ‘At ASC, leadership is not about now, not about today. Leadership is about then, about the future, about tomorrow.’”

  Helms kept his smile intact. “What is it they say about publicity? As long as they spell—”

  President Adam cut him off with a cold gesture. “Give us our due, Mr. Helms. We too are trying to sell something. Or at least convince ourselves we have something to sell.”

  Helms bowed his head as if to acknowledge the point. “We have slogans in common.”

  “Judging by your current office accommodations in his seaside villa, we also have Home Boy Gutaale in common.”

  “Which is one of the subjects I hope you have time to discuss,” Helms replied smoothly.

  “Was Gutaale on the agenda of your Houston meeting?”

  “Some asked what he wants.”

  “I know what the warlord wants from me,” said President Adam. “What does he want from you?”

  This was not the cautious Raage whom Helms had grown accustomed to. Nor was he acting like the detached academic that ASC Research depicted in his dossier. It occurred to Helms, belatedly, that while Adam had worked in education his whole career, he was among the tiny minority of elite Somalis who had not fled but stayed in the country through two decades of violent civil war. Helms realized he had to make some fast decisions about how to proceed because mild-mannered President Adam had become surprisingly more direct, more blunt, and more in charge. As if he were rising to the occasion. Aren’t we all? Helms thought. He had said and done things today with Paul Janson that he could not have imagined a week earlier.

  He decided to give Adam a straight answer. “Gutaale wanted money and the imprimatur of a global corporation.”

  “Legitimacy.”

  “You could call it that. May I ask what he wants from you, Mr. President?”

  “He wants me to ask Parliament to appoint him vice president.” />
  “Vice president? That would be a big step up for a warlord.”

  “It can be argued that the difference between a warlord and a politician is the difference between war and peace. Inshallah, we are headed toward peace.”

  Kingsman Helms was ready to change horses in midstream if Gutaale turned out to be the best horse to back. He told himself that if Gutaale attained high public office it would be to his advantage to persuade Maxammed to free Allegra. “Would Parliament agree?”

  “It’s within their power. And you, of course, know that Gutaale has broad support.”

  Helms ignored the jibe and fired back, without a trace of a smile, “Such a vice president could make your life, potentially, a risky proposition.”

  President Adam shrugged. “The Koran says we cannot know when or where we will die.”

  “May I ask, Mr. President, what do you want from Home Boy?”

  The president looked at him guilelessly. “His clan connections are golden. Combined with mine, which are less weighty, and the respect I command abroad, which far outweighs his—pooling our strengths—we could bring stability to our nation. That’s what I want. What does the American Synergy Corporation want from Home Boy Gutaale, Mr. Helms?”

  “Stability.”

  “What about exclusivity?”

  Helms answered very carefully. He’d had similar conversations with various African politicians. “In our experience, exclusive rights to develop oil and gas reserves increase the profits for all concerned.” The president could read “increase the profits” as efficiency stemming from exclusive development rights, or he could read it as an offer of a bribe. It was up to him.

  “Did Home Boy offer you exclusivity?” Adam asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That was generous of him, considering he was in no position to make such an offer.”

  “When we started negotiating, the political situation was more volatile,” said Helms. “The Transitional Federal Government was barely holding on to a few neighborhoods of Mogadishu. The rest of the city, and all of the countryside, was up for grabs. There was reason to believe he might be the man to deliver what we agreed upon.”

  “The former Transitional Federal Government.”

  “Replaced by elections to Parliament,” said Helms. “And your subsequent appointment.”

  “Did you and Home Boy agree on refineries?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. Did ASC promise to build a refinery so that Somalia could reap more economic benefit—jobs and profits—from our oil than we would if we merely shipped the unprocessed crude oil abroad?”

  Helms hesitated. This argument about demanding local refining had stopped development dead in Uganda. There was no good answer, because to agree to refining Somalia’s crude in Somalia meant losing control of the market. All ASC wanted were pipelines to offshore loading facilities so tankers could then ship the oil to wherever the market was strongest.

  President Adam said, “Are you quite sure you want stability?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Even if stability puts you in a less than exclusive bargaining position?”

  Helms said, “Surely you would agree, Mr. President, that for ASC to gain an exclusive bargaining position in a failed nation that cannot secure its own oil fields would be a hollow victory.”

  * * *

  HOME BOY GUTAALE showed up at the presidential palace shortly after the ASC executive had left. President Adam greeted him warmly. “I am facing a conundrum, my brother. You must help me decide.”

  “Inshallah, I will do my best.”

  “Do we call the event ‘The Homecoming’? Or do we call it ‘Welcome Home Youth’?”

  Gutaale stroked his red whiskers. “How about ‘Welcome Home, Boys’?”

  Thinking that sounded too much like “Welcome Home Boy,” President Adam asked, “But what of the women?”

  “Good point. How about ‘Welcome Home, Boys and Ladies’?”

  President Adam shook his head. “What we are trying to say is ‘All of you—boys, girls, men, women, old, young—all who prospered in the dollar countries should come home and build a new Somalia.’”

  “Why not ‘Welcome Home, Somalia’?”

  President Adam took off his glasses and stared at the warlord with new respect. “I think you’ve got it.”

  Home Boy Gutaale grinned proudly. “See? I told you we would make a fine team. I hope this means that you and I can appear together at the homecoming.”

  “Someone who will remain nameless suggested to me that having a warlord for a vice president could be unhealthy.”

  “Did that accusation come from a nameless oilman with an ax to grind?”

  “Whatever his motive, he raises an interesting point.”

  “Which surely you had already thought of on your own.”

  “Yes, I had,” President Adam said bluntly. “And it is very troubling.”

  “Of course it is troubling to be frightened.”

  “I am not frightened. But I am concerned by what could be lost.”

  “That’s what I mean. Your life—”

  “No, Home Boy. Not my life. This opportunity.”

  “What opportunity?”

  “I see that militias want to carve the city into fiefdoms. In the countryside, yesterday alone, thirty clansmen were killed fighting for water and grass. In the government nothing gets done without someone asking, ‘What’s in it for me?’”

  “This is opportunity?”

  “If you were vice president and did not murder me, we would hold this country together.”

  “I agree. These groups need an iron fist. Strong, professional police forces in the cities and an army in the field.”

  President Adam nodded vigorously. “Together, between us we can stop the clans from fighting long enough to establish a real army and real police and real courts.”

  “We can do all that,” said Gutaale.

  “We can,” said President Adam, eyeing Gutaale shrewdly, “but will we?”

  “Together,” said Gutaale.

  “Why don’t we start by securing the city,” said Adam. “I am issuing an order to the Army to remove all illegal checkpoints from Mogadishu. Do you think they will meet strong resistance?”

  Gutaale, whose clansmen’s militias exacted tolls at many of those illegal barriers, said, “Excellent idea. The time has come.”

  “An excellent start,” said Adam.

  “No one can stop us. Inshallah.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Paul Janson joined Jessica Kincaid aboard the Embraer the instant she landed in Mogadishu. “How’d it go?”

  “No luck with Hassan’s friends. Just legit businessmen. But I got a couple of neat pieces of intel—”

  “I meant your CT scan.”

  “I’m healing. No tendon damage. Muscle’s OK.”

  Janson looked hard at her. “Kincaid—”

  “Truth. The doc said I was really lucky. Nothing permanently hurt—I got the CT scan on a disc. You want to see it?”

  “I’ll trust you. What neat intel?”

  “I was talking to a Special Ops guy in the airport and he told me something really weird. One of our outfits traced calls between Mad Max and the Italian.”

  “All we need is the Italian hooking up with Mad Max—Is Special Ops going for Allegra?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Part of me wishes they would,” said Janson.

  “Affirmative. But it didn’t sound like it would happen.”

  “You sure you read the guy right?”

  Kincaid did not hesitate. “It’s still on us.”

  “You said two pieces of intel.”

  “I saw one of ASC’s Global Expresses at Nairobi.”

  “Helms is here. I saw him today.”

  “No. Sarah batted her baby blues at the pilot. It wasn’t Helms’s plane.”

  “Doug Case?”

  “The pilot
wouldn’t spill, but she did find out it was not Helms’s.”

  Janson took out a smart phone and keyed an app. “Let’s just have a look.”

  “What?”

  “See if Case is around… You called it, Jess. He’s right here in Mogadishu. Down by the beach. Probably the Red Hotel.”

  Kincaid pressed close to look over Janson’s shoulder. On the screen was a map of Mogadishu and a pulsing green dot. “What is that?”

  “I told you I’d keep an eye on Case.”

  “Paul, what the hell is that?”

  “Doug has horrific pain from breaking his back. Right?”

  “And?”

  “Spinal-cord-stimulation implants have helped. He got a new, improved one recently. A tiny titanium-metal can no bigger than a dime holds the stimulator electrodes and the coil and the battery. And a GPS transmitter.”

  “GPS? So his doctor knows where he is?”

  “So I know where he is,” said Janson.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what Doug did to us on Isle de Foree. I don’t know that he did anything to us. But you made a very good case for not trusting him. So this little thing is a kind of insurance policy.”

  “How did you get it in him?”

  “It’s apparently never occurred to Doug that the Phoenix Foundation originally got him his doctors. They’re the best in the business, so Doug stayed with them all these years.”

  “How did you get the docs to go along?”

  “They owed me.”

  “For what?”

  “This and that.”

  “Janson, you are one shifty, twisty sumbitch.”

  “That’s what they pay me for. This thing isn’t perfect. I can’t track him minute by minute without screwing up the battery and running down his charge enough so he’d notice. But I can light him up now and then.”

  “So he’s here. What do you suppose he’s up to?”

  “My best guess is he’s screwing Kingsman Helms.”

  “Will he get in our way?”

  “I would hate to believe that Doug would put Allegra’s life at risk just to screw Helms. So I think the worst threat is the Italian.”