Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

by Tom Kratman

"Easy, Gheddi," said Labaan. It was said gently but was an iron-bound order nonetheless. The older man placed a hand on Gheddi's wrist, advising, "We have other business this evening. And we don't need trouble from the local authorities."

  Gheddi seemed inclined to argue the point, at first. At least his hand continued to attempt to move under his long woolen coat. After a few moments of vain struggle, he gave it up, returning his hand to his pocket for warmth. "You're right, of course, Cousin," Gheddi admitted. "God will have to avenge me on the ill-mannered pig."

  "God will do as He will do," answered the cousin, Labaan, leader of the little family group and the only really fluent English speaker among them. Gray-haired, desert-and war-worn, Labaan spoke calmly. He alone knew this city, having studied here as a young man. Indeed, Labaan had studied at the same school as the group's target. That, however, had been many years and several wars in the past. Now, studies abandoned as useless in the violent, anarchic world he inhabited, Labaan led a small team in the service of his clan. And why not? It wasn't as if he had a country anymore.

  No, all I've got left is blood. The whole nation thing turned out to be a lie, and the whole international thing turned out to be worse than a lie. In the end, only blood matters, only blood counts, only blood lasts. Everything else is illusion. Everything but blood is a fraud.

  Labaan's was not a high-tech team. They had Bluetooth equipped cell phones, recently purchased at a Wal-Mart. They had pistols; this was what Gheddi had been reaching for, of course. They had a rental van, currently idling a few blocks away on Gardner Street under the control of the fifth member of the group, Asad, the lion. The van was GPS equipped, and there was also a hand-held device, which would be used to find the ship that would take them home. They also had tape to secure their target, the tape likewise courtesy of Wal-Mart. Lastly, for the delicate time between confronting their target and getting him on the ship, they had two surplus atropine injectors, the atropine having been removed and replaced with a cocktail of various drugs that the clan's chief chemist-Come to think of it, Tahir the pharmacist studied here, too. Wonderful city, Boston! Well . . . except for the weather-had assured them would render the boy half insensate but calm and cooperative in a brief instant.

  "He should be coming out soon," Labaan said. "Abdi, you and I are the only ones who can identify the boy. You and Delmar go past the entrance to his apartment building. Wait. If you take the boy, I'll call for Asad. If he turns toward us, you call."

  "Haa, Labaan," Abdi agreed. Like his cousins, he was tall and slender, with café au lait skin, and delicate of feature. He and Delmar walked briskly to the public transportation stop, a partially Plexiglas enclosed and fully covered shelter from Boston's execrable weather. In theory, the thing had radiant heaters. In practice, these helped little if at all. The two men shivered in a night far colder and infinitely wetter than the worst their barren country had had to offer since sometime around the last ice age. The shelter reeked of piss despite the cold.

  "And Gheddi? You get that hostile look off your face. Now."

  The air shimmered around the closing door, the result of the overheated air of the apartment meeting the frigid air of the second floor landing. Adam Khalid Hodan, twenty years of age and son and designated successor to his father, Khalid, chief of the clan of Marehan and leader of the Federation of Sharia Courts, shivered in his coat as he locked the door behind him.

  Khalid was approximately as religious as Richard Dawkins, but he knew how to mouth the right phrases. Adam, the son, was considerably more religious, though he wanted nothing whatsoever to do with some of the more extreme elements in his father's domain. For that matter, he avoided the big mosque on Prospect Street precisely because it seemed to him to be dominated by the nuts.

  And besides, as the boy often thought, there's no requirement to have any man interpose himself between oneself and God.

  The apartment was on the second floor, of five, in the converted townhome. Whatever heat there might have been outside of the twenty small apartments of the building had risen to the upper floors.

  "God," whispered Adam, "grant that spring come soon to this frozen place."

  Physically, Adam, too, was a near match for the men outside who sought him. Perhaps he was a bit darker, as coming from a more southerly province. About them, of their existence or their mission, he had not a valid clue. His father had sent him here-ordered him, really, and much against his will-to further his education for the day he would lead the clan. If his father had thought there was any danger to the boy, he'd neglected to mention it.

  Steeling himself against the coming wet and cold, Adam turned toward the door and began to walk the tiled landing to the steps that led down and out. His father could be very touchy about allowances if grades were not maintained. Adam had business at his school's library, across the river.

  "Warya, Adam," someone called out before Adam's feet touched the glistening street. He looked and saw someone he'd met, very briefly, in the restaurant down in Roxbury, a countryman, though of a different clan. Odd it was, how clan lines blurred in this foreign place.

  "We define ourselves by what we are not," one of Adam's professors had said once, in lecture. He'd found that true, once he'd thought on it. For that matter, what passed for a girlfriend here, Maryam, was not even of his own country, but of a neighbor. Though she'd hardly lived at all in the Dark Continent, she, too, defined herself as "not American, but African," and so she, too, seemed close kin here in Boston.

  Pretty and to spare, Maryam was pleasant to be around, except of course when she started speaking politics. Some of what she said, what she had learned from her UN father and his progressive friends, Adam agreed with. But she was depressed, so often, by things beyond her control, and let that depression bleed over to things that were, that the boy wasn't sure their relationship was going anywhere.

  Who, after all, wants to live with a steady diet of "brain drain," "rule of law," "reparations," "colonialism," "aid," or "Bob Geldof?"

  "Warya . . . Labaan," Adam returned, raising a hand in polite greeting. He'd had to search his mind for the name, which had, at least, taken his mind off Maryam's obsessions.

  Abdi saw that the target had turned toward Labaan. He immediately pushed the dial button on the cell phone hidden in his pocket.

  "I hear you," Asad answered, from the rental van idling not far away.

  "Come," Abdi said. "Labaan has the target close at hand. We are moving in."

  "Two minutes," Asad answered.

  Adam consulted his watch. Sighing, as if with sincere regret, he told Labaan, "I've a girl waiting for me, friend, at the library. I really must be going."

  Maryam was not waiting, however. She had nothing to do with his desire to leave the area. Instead, it was the look in the eyes of the one accompanying Labaan, the one introduced as "Gheddi." He looked hostile, however much he tried to hide it. He seemed a lion, about to spring.

  Waving farewell, Adam turned toward the trolley stop. He wasn't looking forward to the urine stench, but at least it would be out of the rain, now falling steadily. As he turned he discovered two men standing right in his path. Neither of them so much as attempted to hide the hostility in their eyes.

  Adam opened his mouth to call out for help. The cry never came. Instead, he felt a fierce stabbing pain in his right buttock, followed by a feeling of complete weakness and confusion. Distantly, he was aware of his arms being pulled over the shoulders of the two men who had blocked the path behind him. He barely felt or heard the scraping of his toes being dragged across the concrete of the sidewalk and the asphalt of the street. Of being stuffed into the back of a van, of the clammy feel of the rubberized sheet between him and the corrugated metal floor, Adam had no knowledge whatsoever.

  D-165, Constitution Marina, Charleston, Massachusetts

  It was useful, Labaan had reasoned, to change jurisdictions in case anyone had witnessed Adam's kidnapping and called the police. Given the place, Labaan had thought this
unlikely. Still, Any advantage that can be squeezed out, should be. And the extra time could mean the difference between spiriting Adam away to the ship and being caught red-handed. It also allowed them to take the more circuitous route across the river along Massachusetts Avenue and through Cambridge.

  Thus, wipers pounding a steady beat, the party had driven across the Charles River, along Memorial Drive, across the Gilmore Bridge, and finally to the marina.

  There, on the dock, next to a small boat that had been bought on the team's behalf, stood a lesser functionary of the big mosque on Prospect Street. Neither the mosque nor the functionary much cared about the mission. They'd gotten a request, a check to cover expenses and then some, and had, as dutiful members of the Umma, the Family of Islam, cooperated. The functionary, who had met only Labaan, simply handed over the keys to the boat and left for his own vehicle. He never even saw Adam, still laid out in the back of the van.

  Labaan watched as the unnamed functionary drove off, cold, muddy water spraying to either side. He sighed. Mouth the right words, utter a few pious phrases, and a devout Muslim will just assume you're on the business of the faith. Idiots. What I am about has nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with the position of my clan. When he was convinced the man had truly gone-no sense in having an unnecessary witness-he ordered, "Put him in the boat and get our bags."

  Abdi and Gheddi hastened to comply, opening the van doors, wrapping Adam carefully and fully in the rubber sheet, and carrying him to the waiting boat. Gheddi looped all five bags, including one Labaan had filled with necessities for their captive, over one shoulder. As he hefted the last bag, Gheddi thought, What a waste to be so solicitous of an enemy's welfare. Labaan's softheartedness will be his ruin.

  Rain running down his face, Labaan walked around the van and stared intently into Asad's eyes, demanding, "Tell me again what you do from here."

  Asad sighed. Labaan could be so anal about things. Even so, the driver answered, "From here I take the van back to our hotel and clean the thing with a lice comb. Then I put the seats back in place. After that, I check us out from the hotel. I return the van to the rental yard by the airport, before it opens. My flight to Amsterdam is tomorrow, KLM 8526, departing at twelve fifty-five in the afternoon."

  "Off with you then," Labaan ordered, slapping his hand to the van's driver's door. "And God be with you."

  The van began pulling away as Labaan turned his attention back to the small boat. He saw Gheddi pulling at the starter rope. Even from this distance he could sense the frustration growing in his younger comrade. You should have cut lawns here for some extra spending money, Cousin, Labaan thought. Then a little outboard would not vex you so.

  By the time Labaan reached the boat he could see, more than just sense, that the younger cousin was about ready to kick the outboard overboard and use the oars that lay in the small boat's bottom, half concealed by the rubber sheeting surrounding Adam.

  Carefully descending the few wet wooden rungs of the ladder and stepping into the boat, Labaan bent over and checked to ensure the tank vent was open. There was no time for tact. He pushed Gheddi aside and tilted the propeller into the cold salt water. He then set the gearshift for neutral. After adjusting the choke, Labaan took the handle of the starter rope. He gave the thing a smooth pull. Nothing. Another pull likewise produced nothing. On the third, the engine coughed but did not start. With the fourth, it did catch, spewing out a cloud of noxious fumes. Labaan nodded sagely, then called, "Cast off the rope."

  ***

  The stars were hidden behind the clouds, the half-frozen rain, and the sheen of the city glancing off them. The moon was no more help if, indeed, it was even risen. Labaan couldn't actually tell. Instead, they had a good GPS with an integral compass, a Magellan Meridian Platinum, in fact. It hadn't even been all that expensive. This Labaan held in his left hand while his right controlled the motor.

  "Call the boat," Labaan said. "They are waiting."

  Gheddi did, likewise relaying their position. "On your current course we're about three kilometers, dead ahead," the boat answered. "On our port side you'll find we've lowered a boat. Put your cargo in it, then board yourselves. Dump your outboard and drag your own boat in after you. We can raise the whole mess. We'll dump the boat at sea, after we prepare it.

  "We'll show a series of lights, red-green-red, to guide you."

  D-164, Bandar Qassim, Ophir

  The walls of the inner room were hung in banners of green, the sacred color of Islam. It would be stretching things to say that the people in the room were all that devout. In a place this arid, and with most of what wasn't dry being salty seacoast, hence mostly devoid of plant life, it wasn't hard to understand why here, as in Saudi Arabia, green was something between pleasing and divine.

  Because the local people shared considerable affinity-culture and blood, both-with the Arabs on the other side of the Red Sea, the floors were covered in carpets and cushions, with the dominant color of the former being red. Between the red and the green, and the gold of some of the cushions, the overall effect was not displeasing to the local eye, though a westerner might have found it garish, even Christmassy.

  Few or none of the locals, of course, celebrated Christmas. This close to Mecca and Medina, Christians were few and far between. Of those few, the bulk were slaves. Nonetheless, the ambient mood in the room was as joyous as any western Christmas.

  "We've got the little bastard," exulted Gutaale, chief of the Habar Afaan and ruler of this little experiment in anarchy. His ample belly, so unusual among his people, shook with unrestrained mirth. "Let, Khalid, that Marehan boy buggerer"-a charge even Gutaale knew was false-"balk us now!"

  Despite the back slapping, the laughter, the cheers, one of Gutaale's advisors seemed very subdued. Old, thin to the point of emaciation, nearly bald and gray where hair remained, Taban, one of the senior of the sept chiefs, just made a frown while staring at the red carpet and rubbing his hands together, worriedly.

  "What's the matter, Taban, old friend?" Gutaale asked.

  "Precedent, Chief," Taban replied. "I'm worried about precedent."

  "Well, I'm not," Gutaale said. "I'm more concerned with stopping the endless war among us while getting our people their just due."

  "Nonetheless, you have set a precedent," Taban said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A dream, too, is from God.

  -Homer, the "Iliad"

  D-126, San Antonio, Texas

  Neither the sun nor the chickens were quite up by the time Wahab had almost finished his story. Traffic had picked up a bit though; so much Stauer could hear from the streets and the nearby intersection. Even then, the traffic was much lighter than it would have been even a few years prior.

  "So they have your chief's son," Stauer shrugged. "So what?"

  "Not just his son, Wes," Wahab corrected. "His only son and his heir. They've got him-my chief, I mean-by the balls. We just don't do these kinds of things back home. At least decent people don't. That someone has is frightening."

  "And you've no idea where the boy is being held?"

  Wahab shook his head, sadly. "We don't even know for a fact what continent he's on; Africa, Europe, even maybe still here. And none of the governments that are friendly to our faction have been able to find a trace. We asked for help. They all said the same thing: ‘Tell us where he is and we'll be glad to help you retrieve him.' Oh, yeah, that was a big help."

  Stauer stood up from the leather couch on which he'd been seated and walked across the room to the bar. There he poured himself another drink and held the bottle up in query of Wahab's desire for another.

  "No thanks, Wes," the black said, holding up one hand defensively. "I'm a bad enough Moslem already and another would be pushing the willingness of the Almighty to forgive. Besides, it's a little early, isn't it?"

  Stauer shrugged off the question and returned the bottle to its place on the bar counter. He said, "I don't see where I could be a ‘big help' either. I
mean, sure, if I knew where the boy was-this is what you were getting at, right?-I could probably assemble a team out of personal friends to get him back. But if I knew that it would be because you knew that. And if you knew that, any of a dozen countries with first class special operations forces would be willing to help. Maybe even for free." Provided one doesn't attach a monetary value to influence, anyway.

  "Money wouldn't be . . . wouldn't have been a problem," Wahab assured his friend. "I mean, this is my chief's only son. Despite having four wives and a dozen concubines, all he throws are girls, except for this one. For that one, Adam, all he has to give . . . "

  "All he has to give," Stauer answered, "is still apparently not enough to find the whereabouts of his son. Get that and you can retrieve the boy."

  "Would you be willing to come to help organize the intelligence effort?" Wahab asked. "We'd make it worth your while."

  Unheard and unseen by either, just behind a corner, Phillie listened attentively as she had since shortly after hearing the doorbell ring.

  She felt sick to her stomach. Please, God, don't let him go. We've just really gotten comfortable together. I mean, this might really be a match good for both of us. I don't ask for much, God, but this one little thing . . .

  "I don't need money," Stauer answered, shaking his head. "Haven't in years. And the amount I could really use would be beyond your chief's means, I suspect. I mean, maybe Mobutu could have funded my wildest dreams. But your guy? Nah."

  Stauer laughed at the absurdity of his own "wildest dreams."

  "You might be surprised," Wahab answered, chewing at the inside of a cheek. That was all he'd say on the subject, however. Whether that was because of a negotiating stance he'd been told to take, embarrassment at his clan's poverty, if they were truly poor, or even simple ignorance, Stauer didn't know and wouldn't guess.