Task Force Desperate

by Peter Nealen

  “Hey, take a deep breath, man. Game face,” he said quietly. I tried to comply, and almost gagged. There were a lot of smells floating around the market, and not all of them particularly savory. Larry tried to hide his smile as I coughed, and clapped me on the back.

  Our destination was not, in fact, the market itself, but a small café on Avenue 13. It was cooler, though not cool, shadowy, and smelled of hookah smoke. It catered to Arabs, locals, and Westerners with a taste for Arab food and atmosphere. I had a taste for neither, but we hoped to pick up or overhear some intel here.

  Larry and I picked a small table where we could sit with our backs to the wall, in a dark corner where we could see most of the street. I wasn’t very hungry, due to the heat, and when the server came and asked for our order, I asked for water.

  “Fifty-two dollars, sir,” he said.

  “What?” Even with inflation being what it is, that’s straight robbery. I think more than a little of that assessment came out in my tone. He got a little stiff.

  “Fifty-two dollars for bottle of water,” he repeated. I had to shuffle through my wallet. We didn’t get paid in dollars much, these days, ever since the bottom dropped out of it, but we still kept some on hand, mostly high-denomination bills, since those were the only ones that were any good, except for getting exact change. I peeled the money off and shoved it at him with little grace. He bobbed his head and left.

  As we were waiting, we watched and listened, saying little. The traffic on the street was steady. Nobody seemed to be in much of a hurry, and in this heat, why would they be? It took almost twenty minutes for my bottle of water to get to the table, unsurprisingly. I twisted off the cap and took a gulp. It was warm, but I was bathed in my own sweat, and thirsty.

  I had noticed another Caucasian on the far end of the café, sipping on a bottle of something and just lounging. I kept watching him, and saw that he was doing much the same thing we were; he was carefully observing the people going past, as well as in and out of the café. He was watching us, too. I was starting to suspect he’d made us when he made eye contact, and lifted his bottle in salute. Fuck.

  I nudged Larry, as the other man finished his drink, got up, and started to weave his way across the café toward us. Larry nodded fractionally. He had already spotted the guy.

  My attention was suddenly drawn to a rising human noise outside. The man approaching us turned his head to look toward the unmistakable sound of an increasingly restive crowd, but didn’t seem overly concerned. I tried to continue to watch both, as he came closer.

  He stopped at our table, and in faintly accented English, asked, “May I join you?”

  “Sure,” Larry said easily. He was relaxed in that particular way that said his hand was within inches of the grip of his STI Tactical under the table, if not on it. The man inclined his head, pulled up a chair, and sat down.

  He was around six feet tall, brown-haired, and gray-eyed. He was dressed in a green short-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts, with good hiking boots. And, unless I missed my guess, he was armed.

  “Fine day, isn’t it?” he said, casually, looking out on the street. He noticed my attention to the crowd noises coming from up the street, and smiled. “Don’t worry about that, my friend. Just the daily protests. It’s nothing to worry about, yet. When you start hearing screams or gunshots, then it’s time to worry.”

  “Have to say, I haven’t seen many other Westerners out and about today,” I observed.

  “Indeed not,” he replied. “A lot of that--” he gestured toward the noise “--is aimed at foreigners, particularly Westerners. The opposition has long believed that it’s foreign money propping up the President, and with his landslide election to a fourth consecutive six-year term, they are getting a little upset with the West these days.”

  “Have you been here long?” Larry asked. “You seem pretty well versed.”

  “I have been stationed here for four years now. It is home, of a sort.” He smiled.

  “Legion?” I asked. He nodded.

  “Sergent Chef Arno Kohl, at your service,” he said. I raised my eyebrows. I didn’t think anybody used “at your service” anymore. “And yourselves?”

  “Lou,” I replied. I jerked a thumb at Larry. “This is Bud.”

  He laughed. “Hardly the most inventive cover names, but as I was not born Arno Kohl, I suppose I have no room to argue.” He looked us over. “What brings you to delightful Djibouti?”

  “We’re with a refugee aid organization,” I replied, pulling out one of the phony business cards that Sam had cooked up. They looked professional, and in fact they were, having been made through an online company that specialized in them. The fact that no such organization as Team Refuge existed was beside the point.

  He studied it as though it were genuine, though, nodded, and handed it back. “Veterans, yes? I have met a few such, turned to relief work.”

  “It’s an exclusively veteran organization,” I replied. I was talking out of my ass, since we didn’t really have all that thick a back story for Team Refuge. I had to be careful that I didn’t go too overboard. Not only did that present problems for the rest of the teams, keeping up with my lies, but it could awaken some suspicion in our new friend. I didn’t trust this Legionnaire, especially since we were in the country without the knowledge of the US Embassy or the local authorities.

  He was a pleasant enough conversationalist, though. He spoke at length about the city, and a few of his experiences with the Legion.

  “So, Arno,” Larry said congenially, “I haven’t seen much Legion presence out on the streets today. And you’re not in uniform. Last time I was around the Legion, you guys wore your uniforms everywhere. What’s going on?”

  Kohl grimaced. “The French government has issued strict ‘hands off’ orders for the demi-brigade,” he answered. “We have an arrangement with the President, but apparently that doesn’t extend to dealing with this rabble.”

  “I understand the opposition is just pissed that the President stays in power no matter what the people want,” I said. “Pro-democracy demonstrations and suchlike.”

  “That’s what they say,” he said derisively. “And a lot of them certainly are just that--they want a functioning democratic republic. But a lot of these people are Somalis, driven out of that scheissloch of a country as the wars worsen.” He took a gulp of his drink. “There are plenty of infiltrators among the Somalis--Shabaab and Al Qaeda, and plenty of Sudanese who are happy to help.” He leaned forward. “They are appealing to the poor Muslims to unite and drive out the infidel-influenced President. Then they can set up an Islamic state here, on the only major port on the Horn.”

  “Why would the French want to sit back and allow that?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Because they don’t want to piss off all the jihadis in their own country,” Larry snorted.

  “Exactly,” Kohl said. “Verdammt cowards are overrun with Arabs and Algerians now. Entire tracts of Paris are off-limits to infidels. The Republic is hanging on by a thread, and they are terrified of doing anything to further inflame the Islamic population. If they do, the rioting might overthrow the whole country.” He spat.

  “You don’t seem to like the French much,” Larry commented amusedly.

  “Of course I don’t, I’m German,” Kohl said. “The Legion gave me a chance when I had to get out of Germany. I am loyal to the Legion, not the fucking French.”

  “Legio patria nostra,” I said quietly. He nodded emphatically, and smote his hand on the table.

  “So, what, the entire demi-brigade is just staying inside the wire?” Larry asked.

  “Essentially,” Kohl said. “As soon as the attack went down, the Colonel recalled all of our units, except for the higher-profile advisors, to the operations base. We are to stay static, inside the wire, until we receive orders otherwise.”

  “But liberty’s fine? Even with the attack, and the unrest you were talking about?” I was starting to suspect something about our
German friend. It was confirmed when he froze, then smiled.

  “You are most astute, meine freunde,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “As it turns out, mon Colonel is no fool. He has a few of us out on the streets, to keep an eye on things.”

  “So he’s getting ready to act, even if his higher headquarters isn’t?” Larry was leaning forward, his forearms on the table, paying close attention.

  Kohl had gone slightly colder, and was eyeing us both carefully. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “He does not reveal his plans of action to me. I am only a sergent-chef.”

  “Of course,” I said apologetically, even as my ears pricked up. The noise down the street had changed. It was getting louder, and taking on a distinctly nasty edge. I was starting to feel my hackles rise. “I’m sorry, I was just curious.” I nudged Larry, who looked over at me, and saw how I was listening. He cocked his head, and his face changed. Trouble.

  Kohl heard it too, and also saw how we reacted. I was hoping that he’d write it off to our being veterans, like we’d told him, but he didn’t say anything about it. He just put a handful of francs on the table and stood. “I think we had best get elsewhere, my friends,” he said, cool professionalism in his tone. “It sounds like things might get a bit ugly today after all.”

  “I agree,” I said, standing up as well, and starting to move for the street. As I did so, Kohl stepped close to me, and spoke in a low undertone.

  “I will see what my contacts can find about what you’re looking for, my friend. I will be ‘in touch,’ as you Americans say.” I looked at him in surprise, and he smiled, then hurried out of the café.

  I looked at Larry, shrugged, and we followed him out.

  The street, which had been bustling with hucksters, merchants, and shoppers, was now deserted, left to the trash and standing, brackish water. The noise of the crowd was coming from the west, in the direction of the traffic circle at the end of Avenue 13. We promptly turned and headed the other way.

  We were already several blocks down the street by the time the crowd cleared the corner. Crowds don’t usually move all that fast, and I was extremely thankful for that. From the scraps of Arabic chanting I could pick out, we would be targets if anyone in the crowd spotted us.

  Looking up, I spotted a balcony that we could climb up to, and pointed it out to Larry. I wanted to get a better picture of what was going on, and watching the crowd for a little bit might be informative.

  “And if the house is occupied, we get compromised that much faster,” Larry objected. “And if we get compromised, odds are we get torn apart by the crowd. I’m not in favor of that.”

  I hesitated for a moment. I really wanted some more information to go back with, but Larry had a good point. Finally, as the crowd got closer, I shrugged. “You’re right. Bad idea. Let’s get moving.”

  The trouble was, as much as we wanted to get out of sight, I didn’t want to cut through the slums. We’d have to go in there eventually, but going in blind and in broad daylight was not a course of action I was comfortable with. But the crowd was getting closer, spreading out along Avenue 13, even as it seemed to be generally pushing north. We had to either go to ground or find a different route.

  “Fuck it,” I finally decided, and ducked into an alley leading to the slums, Larry close on my heels.

  We wove through the filthy back alleys, piled with trash, and often with raw sewage running down what passed for streets, which were mostly bare dirt or crumbling asphalt. Increasingly run-down brick and stucco buildings started giving way to ramshackle hovels built out of cardboard, plywood, corrugated metal, canvas; anything their desperately poor occupants could get their hands on. The filth was staggering, the emaciated faces watching us suspiciously a testament to the nightmare of living in such squalor.

  Some of the people were friendly, calling out greetings in French or Arabic. A lot of the kids were excited at the strange faces, and ran alongside us, laughing. There were groups of young men, however, whom the others seemed to avoid. These guys were hostile, mean-mugging us as we went past. I was glad of the weight of my 1911 strapped to the small of my back, covered by the fall of my shirt, but hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. That would only draw attention, something we really, really didn’t need at the moment. I was still nervous about how much that Legionnaire, Kohl, had guessed.

  Several of the hostile young men were moving as we passed, and I started to notice a pattern. “We’re getting encircled,” I muttered to Larry, as we crossed another cramped intersection.

  “Who are these guys?” Larry asked.

  “Best guess?” I replied, stepping over a running stream of sewage. “Some of the young radicals that Kohl was talking about. I think we’re in trouble.”

  Ahead of us, one of the groups of young men was blocking the alley. The ones in the front were all chewing. Great. Khat. Which meant, that aside from all the Islamist claptrap and hatred of Westerners that the jihadis had been putting in their heads, they were high as a kite. We were indeed in trouble. A lot of trouble.

  I tried to turn the corner to get away from them, but another group was blocking that way. I started cussing under my breath. This was not going to end well, for anyone involved. They didn’t appear to have guns, but they didn’t need them to be dangerous. I started to reach for my pistol. Larry was moving laterally, getting a better angle on the ones we’d just turned away from, no doubt getting ready to throw down himself. I found myself kind of wishing I had that STI of his; fifteen rounds of .45 versus the eight I had in my Springfield sounded really good right about now.

  My hand was under my shirt, my fingers touching the butt of my 1911, when there was a torrent of loud Somali from behind us.

  The old man was so skinny I half expected him to collapse just from walking. His bones stuck out from his flesh, and his shirt hung off him like a clothes hanger. He was spry enough, though, and had some considerable lung power, as he yelled at the young men confronting us, and waved angrily at them. One of them said something, only to be cut off with another torrent of angry words. Finally, the young men turned away, shooting glares of pure hate at us, and drifted off into the rest of the slums.

  “Forgive,” the old man said, in broken English. “Boys. No enough discipline.”

  “Thank you, grandfather,” I said. I spoke in English, as I didn’t know any Somali. “God be with you.” Not exactly the local blessing, but I hoped it would suffice. The scrawny old coot with rheumy eyes had probably just saved quite a few lives by intervening. I wondered if he knew it. I suspect he did.

  “A salaam aleikum,” He replied. “Nabakey.”

  I put my hand over my heart. That much Somali I had learned. “Nabakey.” The old man nodded, waved his skeletal hand at us, and walked back into the maze of alleys.

  “Huh,” Larry said. “Good of him.”

  “Sure was,” I replied. “Let’s get out of here before we need him to come back.”

  Looking up at the sun, I got re-oriented, and this time busted a hard left, moving east to try to get out of the slum, and back over to the Boulevard De General De Gaulle. That would get us close enough to the industrial areas along the shoreline, and hopefully allow us to avoid any more such unpleasant encounters.

  Chapter 4

  We got back to our little urban base camp as the sun was going down over the city. Most of the rest of the team was back, and we gathered in the op-center to go over what we’d found out.

  It was mostly atmospherics, and some background info we hadn’t had going in, which was about what we’d expected. We didn’t exactly blend in here, and that was a liability when it came to getting intel. I was pretty sure we’d have to start working sources, something of which I knew next to nothing. Hey, I know my strengths and weaknesses. Shooting and blowing stuff up, I’m good at. Recruiting sources in an entirely foreign culture; not so much.

  There was a picture forming, however. Larry and I had gotten a little of it from Arno Kohl, but other pieces were starting to
come together.

  The President had just changed the rules for the second time, allowing himself to run for a fourth six-year term. There had been plenty of outrage the last time, when he had done the same thing, and been elected by a suspicious 80-something percent. He apparently didn’t even try to mask the election fraud this time, with something closer to one hundred percent. This alone wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Kleptocrats were a dime-a-dozen in this part of the world.

  The trouble was, the president was the single richest man in East Africa. Meanwhile, some sixty-percent of the men in Djibouti were unemployed, and living in the crushing poverty we had gotten such a good look at that afternoon. Envy is a powerful tool in the wrong hands.

  Much of his wealth came from the port, i.e., from foreigners. The Islamists, from Eritrea, Sudan, Egypt, and Somalia, were capitalizing on that, especially in the slums. Anger at the rich, fraudulent president had started to build.

  There were demonstrations. They started out peacefully, but the president’s security forces had heard some of the grumbling, and overreacted. Over a hundred people died in the resulting massacre, and the demonstrations turned into riots. The president hadn’t been seen outside the presidential mansion since.

  There had been more riots, some aimed at the security forces, but most at the Westerners or even the equally poor Afar. There were militias forming in the slums, and even in some of the more affluent parts of the city. The military was being held close to the presidential palace, and after an entire squad was killed and mutilated in the slums, they didn’t venture too far from the main drags.

  Lemonier had been a target because of the growing outrage against Westerners. Nobody seemed to know why they’d gone after a guarded US military base, but were still leaving the European quarter pretty much alone, but that wasn’t really our concern. It was obvious to me, as more of the story came out, that the opposition had been entirely co-opted by Shabaab and Al-Qaeda types, probably with several other random jihadi organizations thrown into the mix. The Muslim Brotherhood wasn’t making any secret of its presence in most of the mosques, either.