Daisy’s killer was driving. He was a tall black man. He’d removed his robe and now wore a red T-shirt and khaki shorts. His skin was very black and his head shaved. He laughed often and talked about the huge sum of money the U.N. had offered for her return and of the plans he had to sell Dimah. Apparently he had to give Fayruz to another pirate for allowing him to use the extra Rover. When he smiled, she saw he had a gold-capped eye tooth. He never mentioned Coop or Freidrick. Maybe they’d already been ransomed.
As the sun set and the land turned dark, the pirates switched on their headlights. The barren landscape became illuminated by two beams of yellow light. The one thought in Sarah’s head was the lights would give their location away, especially if House used a bird to search for them.
She closed her eyes for a minute, trying to rest. She felt the lump of gold in her dress pocket and reached under her burqa to pull it out. Did it help her see ghosts? She squeezed the gold until it was warm and silky-smooth in her hands. “Daisy,” she whispered. “Did you die? Are you close?”
She felt warm breath on her left ear. The voice she heard was soft and felt like it was in her head. “I’m with you.”
Sarah felt a flood of warmth rush through her body. Tears flooded her eyes and she fought to keep from sobbing. She touched her heart. “Love you,” she whispered so the men couldn’t hear.
“I love you, too,” she heard. When she turned her head to look, she got a quick glimpse of Daisy’s face, her hair a dark cloud around her head, her eyes red. Sarah had never seen Daisy’s hair loose. She’d always kept it braided. As she stared at her friend, Daisy blew her a kiss and morphed into a huge black wolf with the signature red streak running across its head and into its ruff. She howled once and was gone.
When Daisy howled, Dimah opened her eyes. “What was that?”
Sarah wished she could reach out and comfort the girl. She had the blood of shifters in her veins and she’d heard Daisy’s voice from the grave.
Sarah fell back against the seat and closed her eyes. What could Daisy possibly do to help as a ghost? Still, being able to see her and feel her love, gave Sarah strength. She squeezed the golden snake hard and thought of Gopher. No matter how hard she squeezed and concentrated, Gopher did not appear.
* * * *
House and Nasr knew where the pirates had gone. They were following their own trail back to the coast. The long wait for the helicopter to come was almost more than House could handle. He paced, cleaned his weapons, and paced some more as the tribe prepared Hanifa’s body for a funeral.
All the dry wood for miles was collected and placed in a huge pile. Abdalla was unable to talk to him. His grief had him incapacitated. He sat with his back to a tent and stared at the preparations for his wife’s cremation. Nasr found House. He brought an AK-47 and several hand guns, sat next to House and began cleaning them.
House had Daisy’s two handguns, her forty-five and her thirty-eight. He took the big Glock and handed it to Nasr. “Here, Daisy would want you to use it to revenge her death and for Sarah.”
“Thank you for this incredible gift.” Nasr took the gun but his eyes were for Daisy’s M-4.
“I’m gonna hang onto this,” House said. “If we need it, it will be there for us to use.”
House just couldn’t give Daisy’s rifle away. It had been part of her and along with her coins had a lot of meaning for him.
They spotted the helicopter approaching just after ten. House was overjoyed to see they’d sent a Jolly Green Giant, the Sikorsky MH-3E. It had a range of eight-hundred miles and held twenty-eight men. The Company must have been worried about the range and now House prayed they had enough fuel to make the coast. “We’re on,” House said to Nasr. “You coming?”
The young man leaped to his feet. “I will regain my aunt’s daughters and do honor to my name.”
“Good man.” House clapped him on the back and they ran for the descending helicopter. A three-man team hopped out and stood with their guns trained on the landscape, night-vision goggle harnesses fitted to their heads. House stepped out of the shadows with his arms raised. They recognized him by signaling with their rifles. When Nasr stepped out beside him, they pointed the rifles at his chest.
House ran to the bird. “He’s with me. I lost the package. The pirates attacked and we need to reacquire,” he said tersely to the team leader.
He knew these guys. The team leader was in his forties, call sign Rabbit. The shooter was a woman. She held her M-203 with authority. Her call sign was Bombshell. She was blond and hot and a very bad chick. The other member of the team was a medic, call sign Freakshow. He’d been retired from the military when his face was badly burned in a Humvie accident.
The Company didn’t care if you were scarred. As long as your skills remained intact, you were good. The Company was an equal-opportunity employer. Race, color, gender, looks, none of that meant anything to the Company. It was all about your skills and Freakshow was a hell of a medic and scary-good with a knife.
Rabbit held out his hand to help House into the bird. “What’s her twenty? We going after her? Where’s Daisy?”
“We lost Daisy. The pirates who snatched the U.N. chick have the package. I need some payback and we need to recover Sarah.”
Rabbit nodded. “Give us some coordinates.”
“Can’t,” House said as Nasr loaded into the bird and the pilot lifted off. “There’s a clear trail leading back to the coast. We can follow it. Give me a set of NVG.”
Rabbit handed him night vision goggles and House took the front seat next to the pilot. He had the pilot circle, picked up the trail and pointed. The pilot aimed the bird along the ridge and they took off after Sarah.
The pirates had a six-hour lead and could probably max out over this terrain at thirty or forty miles per hour. The helicopter could go over a hundred-fifty miles an hour, but they were following a very faint trail across the desert. House had to focus hard to keep it in front of them. Twice he lost it and they had to circle.
The Rizeigat camp was over fifteen hundred klicks from the coast. It must have taken the pirates almost two solid days of driving to get to them, more if they were tracking.
House started thinking about how they could have found them as far away as they were. He concluded though they’d escaped in the bird, their long walk had given the pirates plenty of time plus a burned-out Company bird as a landmark and the Bedouins had left a huge trail; all those camels and people.
It was even possible the pirates and al Shebab could have been in contact with al Qaida who knew the location of one of their camps and could have tracked the phone to the area around the second camp. House’s money was on the al Qaida connection because they had been found so quickly.
It didn’t matter anymore how they’d been found. All that mattered was finding Sarah and killing the gold-toothed bastard that put Daisy down.
The Sikorsky’s range was eight hundred miles. If they didn’t locate the pirates en route, they might not make it to the coast. House gnawed at his fingernails and kept staring at the ground trying to see tire tracks through the gritty-green glare of the NVG.
They crossed the border into Somalia, skirting a low group of mountains, mostly just hills. The chain of mountains was ancient and worn from centuries of wind and little rain. He lost the track twice and they had to circle. House sat on the edge of his seat, his heart hammering with fear they would lose the trail or run out of fuel before they found them.
They used a road to guide them as they crossed the mountains. The tracks of the Rovers disappeared on the road. House had no choice but to assume they were using it. The road entered a small town, Beledweyne, and House lost the trail. He figured the raiders must be on the road heading toward Ethiopia to make time. Even though the road took them a little out of the way, they could increase their speed and the distance covered.
House mopped sweat off his face as they followed the road until it cut northeast toward the coast, a typical Somali road,
little more than a dirt track heading nowhere.
“Follow the road, it’s gotta be the way they went,” he told the pilot and sat back against the seat.
“You need to chill,” Rabbit said from behind him. “I ain’t never seen you this worked up over anything. You’re usually Mr. Cool.”
House growled and Rabbit handed him a can of dip. “Here, take a pinch. It’ll help.”
He flicked off the top, gathered a pinch of tobacco and crammed it between his cheek and gum with practiced ease. The soothing effect quieted his nerves, but the rush of nicotine kept him alert.
They passed west of a small village. The tracks were easy to see on the sandy road running close to the Ethiopian border. When they’d gone five hundred klicks, they spotted a dust plume racing across the flat land along the road. House’s heart raced. “That’s gotta be them,” he said to the pilot, turned in his seat and waved to Rabbit.
The team leader stuck his head into the cockpit. “Whatta ya got?”
House pointed. Rabbit checked out the dust plume. “I don’t see any headlights.”
“Could be running with NVG.”
“Why would they do that?” Rabbit said. “Do they expect you to come after them?”
“Don’t know. If it was me, I’d expect it.”
“But they ain’t you and they don’t know who they pissed off,” Rabbit said with a chuckle.
The Sikorsky caught up with the dust plume in seconds and swooped down. It turned out to be a herd of camels running for their lives in front of a cheetah. House clearly saw the cheetah catch a young camel and bring it down. The camels kept running.
“Fuck!” House swore. He’d gone off the actual trail of the Rovers to chase camels. Now he had to circle and find it. The camel tracks added another level of difficulty. The so-called road was virtually impossible to spot. It was just a packed-down area of brown dirt in the arid landscape.
When House finally located the two Rovers’ tire tracks, they’d lost twenty minutes and wasted more fuel.
“Looks like they’re following the road to make time,” Rabbit said.
“I hate to assume that,” House said as he kept his goggles trained on the trail of the two Rovers.
“We can save time if we go straight here.” He held out a map. “The road goes east toward this here village of Garoowe and then jogs back to the northwest. If we just go straight toward the coast and that village, we’ll save time.”
House shook his head. “They have to be close. Even driving like maniacs and taking no breaks, they have to stop to refuel. Their maximum range has got to be a thousand klicks which puts their destination right around here somewhere.”
They continued searching and the pilot finally gave House the bad news. “We’re gonna have to refuel.”
“How long have we got?
“Less than a hundred klicks.”
House grabbed the laptop and pulled up a map of the area. “Laascaanood, it’s our only chance to refuel and get back in this chase.”
“That town is controlled by al Shebab. We have to cut and run for Hargeisa. We can buy fuel there without getting blown to hell.”
House nodded. “At least that’s the direction we’re traveling. We might be able to reacquire.”
The pilot leaned forward and pointed. “Well I’ll be fucked. I guess we don’t have to worry about that after all. There they are.”
Chapter 16
Sarah heard the helicopter. It sounded big, bigger than the little birds House used to evacuate them from the pirate stronghold. She bent to look out the window. When she stared up at the night sky, she saw nothing. If there was a helicopter out there, they were running dark, no lights. How could they see?
The pirates heard the chopper as well and started chattering rapidly in Somali. Sarah understood most of it. They spoke so fast, she had to remember large chunks of conversation and mentally translate. That made her translation sketchy, but what plainly radiated from them was fear. The pirates were afraid of the helicopter.
The wind from the rotors suddenly churned up dust and gravel all around them. “Roll up your window,” Sarah screamed at the girls as gravel and flying sand stung their cheeks.
Dimah wound the crank on their window until it was shut. Sarah couldn’t get hers because of her bound hands so she and the girls ducked low to avoid being peppered with sand. Just the one open window created a stifling heat and stench inside the vehicle. The men in the front seat smelled like sweat, garlic, goats and cigarettes.
Sarah wished she could see, but it was so dark and the idiots driving had killed their headlights without slowing. They argued and chattered constantly as they struggled to keep the Rover lined up behind the one in front.
When the Sikorsky flew low over the two racing Rovers, the drivers of the vehicles killed their headlights. The headlights had been a handicap to House and the pilot. They’d avoided looking at them because it caused their night vision goggles to white out. So when the pirates turned them off, they could see as well as if it was daylight, but the pirates were driving blind and for no reason. The lights would have made things more difficult for House, now they could see without having to avoid looking at headlights. House was able to see into the two Rovers. He saw the girls sitting in the back seat of the rear vehicle.
“Open up on the first Rover,” he yelled over his shoulder to Bombshell and Rabbit,
They slid open the side door. Rabbit leaned out holding a fifty-caliber machine gun and fired into the first Rover. It suddenly veered off the road, hit a huge embankment, flipped, skidded for twenty feet upside down and came to a smashing halt against a bolder, crumpling the front end.
“Down, down, down,” House yelled to the pilot who immediately dropped to a level spot close to the road.
House turned to find Nasr leaning out of the door. “Out,” House yelled. He turned to the team in the bird. “You guys need fuel. Take off. I got this.”
Freakshow shook his head. “No, man, let us come with you.”
“This is my mission,” House insisted. “Go. After you guys refuel, you can find me later.”
House leaped out of the Sikorsky, ducked under the swishing rotors and found Nasr. “I’m going for the women. You take care of any survivors of that wreck.”
The Sikorsky slowly rose sending a hail of sand and gravel everywhere. House and Nasr turned their backs to it and waited while the helicopter slowly lifted and took off to refuel.
Nasr nodded. They raced behind a dune, shifted and took off in two different directions. House had to run as fast as possible to catch the Rover. When the chopper landed, the driver had switched his headlights back on and cut hard to the right, running across the desert. That gave House a tiny edge. If the driver had just kept heading straight, House might not have been able to run fast enough to catch them.
As it was, when he caught up to them, he was almost out of breath. He felt a sudden surge of energy and a whisper in his ear. “I’m with you.”
He didn’t stop to consider what or who was with him. He knew it was Daisy.
He surged to a position beside the Rover. The windows were all down except one in the rear, the one on the left. He switched sides, put his legs on auto-pilot, scoped out the window and leaped through it. He hit the top of the window with his head, ducked and slid into the back seat.
Two girls screamed with terror. “Be quiet. It’s House,” Sarah told them.
The screams died to whimpers as House shifted into a very large naked man. The man in the passenger seat started screaming when he saw the big wolf.
“Shoot! Kill him,” the guy with the gold tooth yelled.
Before the passenger-seat guy could get his handgun out, House had wrapped a huge arm around the passenger’s neck. He broke it in a second and the driver began shrieking and swerving the vehicle left and right in an effort to disorient and disable House. It didn’t work. House reached up, opened the passenger-side door and shoved the man in the seat out. He hit the ground hard
and House climbed into the front.
* * * *
Sarah forced the two girls to the floor and lay over top of them. Terror gripped her. Her stomach was knotted so tightly she could hardly breathe, but she sheltered the girls beneath her, whispering into their ears. “We are saved. Stay quiet and House will kill them both.”
The pirate driving suddenly opened the door of the Rover and dived out. House yelled something unintelligible as he was forced to grab the wheel to stabilize the vehicle. He stopped the Rover and dived out the open door shifting in midair. Sarah saw him do it and marveled at the speed and fluidity of the change.
Sarah pulled the girls off the floor. “Untie me,” she told Dimah.
The two girls worked at the wire around her wrists, finally untwisting it. Sarah rubbed her sore wrists. Dried blood crusted deep gouges cut into her flesh from the wire. Purple bruises were already showing around the marks. “Out,” she ordered the girls.
They climbed out of the Rover and Sarah stared into the darkness. She couldn’t see anything. “Come on.” She grabbed Dimah and Fayruz by the arm and started walking back across the desert following the tire tracks. She has no idea if she was doing the right thing, but there was no way she was hanging out in a Land Rover with a dead guy. What if his ghost appeared to her? She shuddered.
The helicopter House arrived in was gone. The quiet of the night was frightening. Dimah squeaked with fear when a wolf suddenly howled. They slowed their pace. Up ahead, Sarah saw the other Rover buried in an embankment, the front end crushed. She didn’t see House anywhere. A figure climbed out of the wreckage carrying a pile of clothing. He struggled into some shorts and a T-shirt and pulled on a pair of shoes.
Pushing Up Daisies Page 12
