Countdown: The Liberators-ARC

by Tom Kratman

  Welch beckoned for the man who claimed to be the accountant to come forward. Hesitantly, he did.

  From his breast pocket Terry withdrew a plastic bag. From the bag he took a single accounts sheet. He handed it to the man who claimed to be the accountant and asked, "What's wrong with this?"

  The accountant, if accountant he was, shook his head in disbelief. "You came here in the middle of the night? Killed so many people? Just to have me check your books?"

  Terry placed the still warm muzzle of his submachine gun to the man's chin and asked again, "What's wrong with it?"

  After a gulp, the man looked over the sheet, saw that the number at the bottom was exactly nine off, and said, "Transpositional error. It'll take me a minute to . . . "

  "Never mind; you're the accountant." Terry lowered the muzzle.

  "Yes," the accountant agreed. Nodding his head vigorously, he said, "Yes, yes, I am."

  "You know all of Gutaale's accounts? His codes?"

  "Yessss."

  "Very good. Pigfucker, take charge of Mr . . . "

  "Dayid. Jama Dayid," the accountant supplied.

  "Take charge of Mr. Dayid and get him downstairs to Blackguard. Then to the parking lot. Hotwire a couple of suitable vehicles and flatten the tires on the rest."

  Another first floor explosion, followed by a burst of fire, punctuated Welch's command.

  "Clear down here, Terry," Ryan called up. "But we've got a dozen civilians."

  "Abdidi, tell the rest of the people up here to come out with their hands up and empty! Tell 'em we're going to burn the house but if they cooperate we'll let them out before the fire."

  ***

  Once downstairs, Welch saw two armed men lying on the floor at the back of the house. That would be the roving guard, I suspect. He went to the front door and called out, "Grau, you engage anyone?"

  "Not since we took down the gate guards," the sniper answered.

  "All right. I'm pretty sure the roving guard's here and very dead. Roust the people in the servants' quarters out and bring them inside here."

  "Roger."

  "The rest of you, except for Blackguard, who will watch the prisoners, take up firing positions on the barracks side window. Abdidi, call out to the barracks that they are to surrender, same routine as the other."

  "Yes, sir."

  The first response of the guards remaining in the barracks was to fire on all the palace windows. Abdidi, unfortunately, was a little too exposed. One bullet-and even random bullets can hit, sometimes-took the top of his head off. A substantial piece of his skull was still flying through the air, from there to bounce off the far wall, as his body hit the floor.

  "Kill 'em all," Welch ordered.

  "RPG now?" Issaq asked.

  "RPG now," Graft agreed.

  The translator set the launcher on his shoulder and stood up enough to raise it just above the top of the wall. He shouted something in his own language that Graft took to mean, "Backblast area clear!" Then he let fly at the barracks, blowing a hole in the wall and sending a stream of hot gasses inside.

  After two more shots with the RPG, the remnants of the guard force attempted to stream out both doors. Both Semmerlin and Graft had a field day-way overlimit. Some tried to surrender but Welch had ordered no prisoners and neither the sniper nor the gunner were much inclined to disagree.

  Issaq fired a fourth shot, and then a fifth and final. Somewhere between the two, the building caught fire.

  A woman, tall and slender, walked up to Terry. She was veiled, but removed the veil when she reached him. Her cheekbones were high, her complexion quite smooth, and her eyes were absolutely huge. He thought she looked a bit like a model whose name he couldn't quite recall. Married to some ambiguously sexual singer . . . what was that woman's name? Anyway, this one looks pretty good by the light of a burning barracks.

  "You . . . American?" she asked, in very badly accented and hesitant English.

  "Yes, we're Americans," Terry answered.

  The woman gestured with a sweeping hand and said, still hesitatingly, "I . . . Ayanna. We . . . slaves. Christians. Some . . . Moslem . . . too. You take . . . with. Please . . . take with."

  "‘As he died to make men holy,'" Blackguard Blackburn quoted.

  Terry looked intently at the woman whose eyes were so eloquently pleading. Am I the good guy or the bad guy, he wondered. Maybe I'm a bad guy, but once, just once, maybe I'd like to do good.

  Slowly, maybe even reluctantly, he nodded his head. Let us try to make men . . . or women . . . free.

  "All right," he told Ayanna. "We'll try."

  "Let me make sure I understand what you want," the accountant said. Firelight from the barracks next door flickered off his face. "You want me to transfer all the money my chief has to you?"

  "That's about right," Terry Welch answered. "For the privilege, I am authorized to let you have one percent of everything . . . recovered."

  "Recovered" seemed like a better, more morally uplifting, word.

  "One percent? Twenty million U.S. Dollars? That's a lot of money . . . but . . . I can't."

  "The alternative . . . "

  The accountant sighed. "Sir, no matter what you may do to me, I would rather that than take Gutaale's money and leave my family in his . . . care."

  "Where is your family?" Terry asked.

  "A few miles from here, in Nugaal."

  "How many?"

  "Forty-two."

  ‘Forty-two?"

  "I have three wives and one concubine. Plus my parents. And three brothers and their families. Forty-two."

  Fuck. "Do you need any books?" Terry asked. "Any ledgers? Discs? Your laptop?"

  The accountant shook his head and then tapped one finger to it. "It's all here."

  Should I mention the couple of tons of gold in the basement? Dayid wondered. Mmmm . . . maybe not. They came in, probably, by air; they will leave by air. Given the weight of some members of my family, telling them about the gold might get them left behind. And no matter what I may say, I do not want to be rigorously questioned. No, let Gutaale keep the gold. Maybe it will incline him to be more forgiving of the more distant members of my sept.

  D-Day, MV Merciful

  "Terry reports ‘mission accomplished,' boss," Waggoner said. "He lost one of his translators. Dead, no dustoff required. But . . . he's got a problem."

  "Which is?" Stauer asked.

  "Beyond the eleven men left in his own team, and the accountant, he needs transportation for seventy-one more people. He says, ‘no argument, he needs it.' He says most of them are skinny and some are kids and that he can pack everybody on two helicopters. On the other hand, Buckwheat does need a dustoff."

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  The essential American soul is hard, isolate,

  stoic and a killer.

  -D. H. Lawrence

  D-Day, two kilometers south of Bandar Qassim Airport, Ophir

  Somewhere up on the ridge, Buckwheat and Fletcher traded shots with some locals who, by now, had become very reluctant to show their heads much. Rattus Hampson couldn't hear the outgoing shots. But he heard altogether too many incoming ones. Still, the ridge protected himself, his patient, and Wahab, even if it didn't do a lot for the snipers.

  Buckwheat had trotted into the hide position, unceremoniously dumped Babcock-Moore on the hood of the Hummer, grabbed Fletcher and headed back to the ridge. Rattus had suspected that the man was simply too out of breath to give instructions.

  Hampson and Wahab had gotten the black Brit to the ground without too much trouble. Now, with Wahab holding a flashlight, Rattus attempted to staunch some pretty severe bleeding.

  "Will I ever dance again?" Vic asked, through gritted teeth.

  "Sure you will," Rattus answered, cutting away torn cloth to get at the wound.

  "Then I should be happy, because I never could before."

  "You know how old a joke that is?"

  "Don't you know how old we are?"

  Gott
a save this limey, Rattus thought. Anybody who can crack jokes-even bad ones-with a bullet lodged in his femur is worth keeping.

  "You know," Rattus said, conversationally, as he probed for a lump of bronze-jacketed lead, "the last time I removed a bullet from a femur it was a goat's."

  "Oh, fuck," Vic moaned, "I'm in the hands of a veterinarian."

  D-Day, PZ Robin, formerly Beach Red, Ophir

  In theory, the MI-17 could lift twenty-four combat equipped troops. In practice, if one were determined enough, and willing to pack men in like animals in a stockyard, and didn't carry the potential extra fuel tanks, or machine gun or rocket pods, it could lift forty. Neither they nor the helicopter would enjoy it, but it could be done.

  Mooo, Cruz thought, as the double lines of twenty former Marines on each side fed themselves into the cargo bay through the rear clamshell doors. He expected it, but laughed anyway, as the first of his passengers sounded off, loudly, "Mooo." Pretty soon the entire load, forty men, was mooing, too, and enthusiastically.

  Cruz glanced to his right at his Russian copilot. Sure enough, the Russian understood perfectly well the joke and laughed right along.

  "And awayyy we go," Cruz announced, as soon as his crew chief gave him the thumbs up. In his intercom he heard the Russian humming "Ride of the Valkyries" as the chopper lifted.

  Ah, American culture, Cruz thought. Such as it is.

  The three Hip helicopters started in line abreast. As they lifted, they shifted to a trail formation. Great clouds of sand swirled up around them as they left the beach, deserted, behind. They flew low. There was no sense in going high when the first stop, to drop off the mortars, was less than fifteen minutes away.

  Cruz's Hip came down to a bouncy landing. Got to expect that when you're this overloaded. In the rear, the crew chief kicked open the clamshell doors and then got out of the way as six men unloaded, lugging a very heavy mortar with them. To the left and the right, other men, lugging other mortars, did the same. They dropped their chunks of steel and then queued up to receive the ammunition passed down to them, hand over hand, by the remaining men on the helicopter. This, twenty-two rounds only, didn't take that long.

  Once again, at his crew chief's signal, Cruz pulled pitched and scooted away. He, followed by the other two, headed generally west. They had some time to burn, about fifteen minutes worth, to allow the mortars to set up to fire.

  In the event, it took the mortars only about ten minutes before they called on the radio to announce they were ready to support. Cruz dialed in the frequency to the Merciful and said, "Send the air strike in now."

  D-Day, MV Merciful

  Luis had been trained to fire the machine gun mounted on the right side of the plane he had helped build. They even trained him to shoot wearing the funny goggles that let you see at night, like the ones the coyotes sometimes used to slip you across the border. But he'd never actually fired it from a moving aircraft. Still, how different could it be from firing off the side of the ship at a floating container?

  On the other hand, taking off from the ship? Well, he'd also helped patch together one plane from the two that had been wrecked. And he'd gotten his hands pretty bloody from that salvage job, too. He was . . .

  "Señor," he said to the pilot, Harley, "I don't mind telling you I am scared shitless. I thought I was just getting into something harmless, like running drugs or maybe something like that. But this . . . " The Mexican sighed heavily.

  "Too late now, amigo," the pilot said, just as the signal was given for him to take off. The plane began to vibrate as he gave it the gas. In moments it was moving at an ever-increasing pace down the PSP flight deck.

  Luis closed his eyes. He'd never liked flying and this was worse than most. His stomach dropped as the plane lurched upward.

  "Cheer up, Luis," the pilot shouted over the engine. "Nothing much to worry about now except the landing."

  Looking to his left, Luis saw a bunch of boats tied up near the shore or pulled right up on the sand. Some of the bigger ones looked fast. He thought, maybe, too, they might be armed.

  "I'll go in low," Harley said, "for this first pass. I'll expend the rockets on the big ones. You can try your luck with the little ones on shore. Got it?"

  "Si, got it, señor."

  "Good man," Harley said. "Now hang on to your balls, Luis, you're in for one fuckin' helluva ride."

  D-Day, Bandar Qassim, Ophir

  Gutaale looked west from the roof of his main residence in this, the largest city of his almost-country. Even at this distance, the light from the flames of fourteen burning aircraft was enough to notice.

  Who would do this to me? the chief wondered. Who could do this to me?

  An aide came to the roof and coughed politely.

  "Yes, what is it?" Gutaale asked.

  "It isn't just an attack on the airfield, Chief," the aide said. "Someone also seems to have stolen a boat from the naval warriors. Their leader has sent one of his faster boats in pursuit. Also . . . "

  ‘Yes?" Gutaale asked, impatiently.

  "Also the chief of the naval mujahadin says one of his boats went missing. Supposedly it, and the stolen boat, were in pursuit of a fat prize. The boat that was later stolen returned with engine trouble but the other continued on. It hasn't been heard from and does not respond to its radio."

  That aide stood there, awaiting his leader's orders, when another one came up to the roof.

  "Sir," said the second aide, "your brother has called. His village, Bandar Cisman, is under attack."

  With a curse, Gutaale gave his orders. "Launch the entire fleet of naval mujahadin. Get my personal guard company in trucks and have them assemble here. And tell the armored force near Rako to mount up and go to my brother's aid.

  "And I want a status report on everything, everywhere!"

  D-Day, Suakin, Sudan

  There was a guard not far away, standing in the light reflected off the waters from the prison on the mainland. The guard was pretty sure the boy wouldn't try to escape and, even if he did, that the blame would lie upon Labaan's head. For his part, the captive sat on the edge of the island, looking at the mainland wistfully, but also reminded by the prison's lights that things could have been much, much worse.

  So many miles to the north, Adam had no idea that this day, rather this night, had any particular significance. All he knew was that it was somewhere around the fifth or sixth month of his captivity, and that that captivity had become, in many ways, altogether too comfortable. That, and that Makeda didn't approve of "parole."

  On the other hand, the girl was realistic. Life had slapped her around far too much for her to be anything else. "Since you can't escape unless you're outside and you can't escape from outside if we're manacled together and since you had better not try to escape without me, since you gave me your word, too, I suppose we'll have to live with it. And, if your word to Labaan wasn't good, I suppose it wouldn't be any good to me, either."

  He found himself, from time to time, comparing her with his old girlfriend, back in Boston, Maryam the Ethiopian. Those comparisons did not generally favor the latter.

  What was Maryam, after all? Adam wondered. Her father worked for the UN. She grew up among the people Labaan sometimes calls "tranzis." She was going to school on the UN ticket. She lived a sheltered life, an artificial life, with almost no idea of Africa as it was.

  Compare that with Makeda, who not only knows Africa as it is, but has experienced the very worst of it, first hand.

  Maryam was dark and moody, despite her ignorance and sheltered life. Makeda is bright as the sun, despite her utterly shitty one. I would prefer day over night . . . and . . .

  I wonder if, perhaps, Labaan didn't do me the biggest favor of all in taking me.

  D-Day, Rako, Punt

  "Speak up, dammit!" Major Muktar Maalin shouted into his cell phone. Between the shouting, the massed shuffling of feet, the ascending roar of tank engines, and the cursing as some of those engines failed to roar, i
t was something besides easy to make out the frantic words of one of his uncle's, Gutaale's, minions.

  Whoever was on the other end of the connection forced himself to calm down and enunciate. "Your uncle . . . the chief . . . wants . . . you to . . . take your . . . battalion . . . and go . . . to the aid . . . of your uncle . . . his brother . . . in Bandar Cisman. He is . . . under . . . attack."

  Since the minion seemed to be having no trouble understanding Maalin's words, the major said, quickly, "Tell the chief I put my soldiers on alert when his brother called. We will be ready to roll within the hour."

  "Hurry! Our chief's brother . . . urges all haste."

  D-Day, Bandar Cisman

  Instead of a flight helmet, he wore a padded wire set with headphones on each side and an adjustable boom mike. Air through the open window rushed through Luis' hair. The pilot wore the same. Both sets of headphones were connected by wire to a central box.

  His gun was a fine weapon, Luis thought. His instructors had called it a PKB. It had spade grips he clutched to his chest, and fired, so they'd said, about eight hundred rounds a minute. Who could count so fast, Luis wondered. No matter, it fires fast enough.

  The pilot, Harley, had lined up on his first target and begun firing rockets mounted on the wings. Harley had experience with these, apparently, because it took him only four shots before one struck the boat, blasting off one corner and setting the rest alight.