Hunt the Leopard

by Don Mann

  “No,” answered Akil, at the wheel. “You make this up yourself?”

  “No, smart-ass. Heard it from an SF Master Sergeant I met in Iraq.”

  “Is it funny?”

  “Judge for yourself…An Army general, a Marine general, and a Navy admiral are all sitting around discussing whose service is better and whose troops are braver. The admiral, well into his third beer, says, ‘My SEALS are the best in the world and I can prove it.’

  “‘How?’ the Marine general asks.

  “‘I’ll call one of my guys right now and, I’ll get him to do the impossible. You’ll be amazed. You’ll see.’”

  Akil broke in, “Tiny, stop farting.”

  “My stomach’s still messed up. Can’t help it.”

  Crocker cleared his throat and said, “Crack open a window.” Then he continued, “So, the other commanders took up the challenge, and soon all three of them were on their phones summoning their best operators—a SEAL, a Force Recon Marine, and an Army infantryman.

  “The Admiral said, ‘Since it was my idea, I’ll go first.’ Turning to the SEAL, he said, ‘I want you to rappel down that cliff, swim across those ten miles of shark-infested waters, climb up that sheer cliff and return with two bird eggs…unbroken of course.’ The SEAL, being the highly trained mofo he was, turned and immediately started running toward the cliff.

  “‘Hoo-yah!’

  “After performing a triple-lindy into the water, he swam across the ten miles, while fending off sharks with his bare hands, reached the far cliff, and began climbing. Near the top of the cliff, he grabbed two eggs and started back down, fighting off the pissed-off birds, reached the sea, swam back, again fighting off sharks, climbed back up the first cliff, ran back over to the admiral and handed him the two unbroken eggs.

  “‘Fuck yeah.’

  “The Marine general turned to the admiral and said, ‘That was nothing.’

  “‘Fighting words…’

  “He turned to the Force Recon Marine guy and said, ‘I want you to go down that cliff, swim across those waters, climb that other cliff, then trek through four miles of unmapped jungle, and bring me back two eggs from the mountain on the other side of the jungle.’

  “The Force Recon guy saluted and moved out, rappeling down the cliff, swimming across the sea, climbing the far cliff, moving through the jungle, and upon reaching the two eggs, he heads back, all the while fighting off lions, tigers, bears, and sharks. Finally he reached the Marine general and handed him the eggs.

  “‘I don’t believe it.’

  “The Army general then leaned back and said, ‘Very nice, gentlemen, but now I’ll show you true bravery,’ and turning toward his best Airborne Infantryman, he said, ‘I want you to go down that cliff, across that sea, up the far cliff, through the four miles of unmapped jungle, over the mountain and bring me back two eggs from the forest on the other side.’

  “The paratrooper looked at the general, then the cliff, and again back to the general, and he said, ‘Screw you, sir!,’ rendered a proper hand salute, and walked away.

  “Then the general turned to the other two officers, whose jaws were on the table, and said, ‘Now gentlemen, that’s true bravery.’”

  Before they reached the capital of Taraba State, they turned left at a Total filling station onto another asphalt road and over a bridge, where they stopped at a sign for the Utorogu gas field and processing center.

  “It’s close,” Akil announced.

  “Close to what?” asked CT.

  “Dinner, I hope,” answered Mancini.

  The sun was starting to set as they slowed to a stop alongside a sleepy-looking Nigerian army compound. Two very thin soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders signaled them to stop.

  Akil lowered the side window. The soldiers took a casual glance inside their SUV, saw that they were foreigners and waved them through without asking a single question.

  “Top-tier security,” Mancini remarked. He was feeling better.

  The road bore sharply right, and past a patch of tall trees they saw the complex, which was larger and more elaborate than they had expected with dormitories, administrative buildings, and storage tanks and high cooling towers in the distance.

  “Nice…”

  The plant stood out because it was situated on a cleared patch of land in the middle of nowhere. Moxie, in a khaki uniform and maroon beret, met them at the gate with a cooler filled with cans of Foster’s beer.

  “Here’s something to wash the grit out of your mouths.”

  “If you’ve got anything for stomach gas, hand it to Tiny. Quick.”

  “Which one’s Tiny?”

  Soon as they parked the Suburban that 72 AFSF had lent them, Moxie and Scott showed the SEALs around, explaining that Utorogu was a wet-gas field, and the natural gas processing plant operated in partnership with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell produced over several billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, which made it the third largest in Nigeria and one of the top twenty in the world. Elaborate pipelines connected it to three separate gas fields, one of which was thirty-five kilometers away.

  “Billions?” Tiny asked.

  “Yes, billions.”

  “That’s a lot of beans.”

  The gas treatment plant had a capacity to process thirty million cubic meters of gas a day and consisted of three parallel trains for gas processing and condensate stabilization. The treatment plant was equipped with CO2 removal, mercury removal, molecular sieve dehydration, LPG recovery, residue gas re-compression, and power generation facilities.

  All of this was Chinese to Crocker, who was more impressed by the fact that the plant employed more than two hundred people, split between Nigerians and foreigners—engineers, managers, cooks, nurses, and security officers from the UK, Japan, the US, Australia, Norway, and the Philippines.

  Moxie pointed out that the plant contained separate dormitories, dining facilities, and gyms for locals, foreigners, and VIPs, which struck Crocker as odd.

  “What makes someone a VIP in a place like this?” he asked.

  “You’re either a top engineer or a plant manager.”

  Mancini was more concerned about the threat level and security arrangements, which Scott readily explained.

  “There are six of us Brits responsible for training and supervising the thirty-person security detail. It’s made up of Nigerians, mostly former military and policemen, and a few Peruvians, and includes four females. The locals tend to come and go, which keeps us busy. The threat level is low. It was higher four years ago when local bandits were stealing liquid gas. Now most of what we deal with is internal. Breaking up fights, lovers’ quarrels…Petty shit like that. Nothing major. You’re safer here than feeding the pigeons in Piccadilly Square.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “A hunter with only one arrow does not shoot carelessly.”

  —Nigerian proverb

  Crocker counted fifty-eight men and twenty-two women seated at nine large round tables in the expat dining hall. It was a habit called “situational awareness.” In any public gathering, in any part of the world, he always considered how to defend it in case of attack.

  They were in a large room, modern, rectangle-shaped, and multipurpose with a small stage. The walls had been decorated with blue, red, green, and yellow balloons and streamers—the official colors of the Royal Marines, where Rufus had served. The foods on offer included fish and chips, bangers, fresh peas, mashed potatoes, herbed Yorkshire pudding, and ice cream—his favorites.

  Rufus was dressed casually with a West Ham United cap worn backward. His fellow Brit security officers were taking turns at a microphone at the front of the room telling jokes and making tributes.

  When it was Scott’s turn, he said, “Rufus may look like a ponce, but he’s one of the toughest blokes I’ve ever met.”

  Rufus shot him the middle finger to jeers and laughter.

  “He doesn’t say a hell of a lot,
or brag about his exploits, or complain. But I can tell you that as my former sergeant in the Royal Marines, he’s an ornery SOB and an ancient fucker. Most of you don’t know that before he took this job with Shell, he tried his hand at being a high school teacher. Poor kids, right?”

  “Poor fuckin’ sloggers!”

  “It was a tough school in East London where Rufus was assigned. He taught British history, which he knows fuck all about. Thinks the Magna Carta is a volcano in France.”

  Rufus replied, “It ain’t?”

  “A week before his first day at the school, Rufus injured his back playing rugby, and was required to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body. Fortunately, the cast fit under his shirt and wasn’t noticeable. The Brit version of what you Yanks call ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’”

  The Americans in the room cracked up.

  “Because Rufus was a former Royal Marine, he was assigned to the most difficult students in the school. The smartass prats were leery of our boy Rufus and he knew they would be testing his discipline in the classroom.”

  Scott’s voice deepened. “That first day, all eyes were on him as he strode like the brave soldier he is into the rowdy classroom, opened the window wide, and sat down at his desk. When a strong breeze made his tie flap, he picked up a stapler and stapled the tie to his chest. All the rowdy kids watched in silence. Rufus never had a problem with any of them after that.”

  After dessert was served, they lowered the lights, and a DJ, who in real life was an intake engineer from Trondheim, Norway, played Motown tunes and EDM.

  Crocker, like the rest of his teammates, gravitated from the security team’s table to one of the ovals filled with women. Even though he was a lousy dancer, he’d asked a little self-possessed brunette named Zoe to dance as a way of breaking the ice. She accepted.

  The song was “My Girl,” by the Temptations. Light reflected off a disco ball on the ceiling, and she felt warm in his arms. Her thick, wavy hair reminded him of his ex-wife.

  “I assume you’re from the States, correct?” she asked in an Aussie accent.

  “Born in western Massachusetts, live in southern Virginia. You?”

  “I was born in south Australia. A city named Adelaide. Ever heard of it?”

  “I’ve been there, actually.”

  “Get off…When?”

  “Ten or eleven years ago.” He couldn’t tell her why he was there, so he lied. “Passed through on vacation. Beautiful beaches.”

  As they swayed to the beat, he traveled back to Methuen, the place where he’d first become familiar with the song and a girl named Leslie, who had been short and slim like Zoe. Leslie died after they broke up, when she was driving with her drunk new boyfriend who slammed their car into a tree.

  His entire body shuddered, and Zoe pulled back.

  “Something the matter?” she asked.

  “A back spasm, sorry…Old injury…”

  They sat outside on a concrete bench, where he was surprised to see the central parts of the Milky Way directly overhead, from horizon to horizon like a giant bruise. Reminded him that he was in the southern hemisphere where the night sky boasted the brightest external-eye galaxies, largest diffuse nebula, and some of the brightest stars in the night sky.

  He had located some of them and was trying to remember their names, while Zoe explained that she had studied anthropology at Melbourne University with her sights set on becoming the next Margaret Mead.

  When she couldn’t find employment in her field, she decided to pursue her interest in other cultures by taking a series of jobs in countries overseas. So far, she’d taught English in Brazil and Costa Rica, worked briefly for Qantas Freight, which had taken her all over Asia, and for the last eight years she’d been working as a freelance journalist.

  “What are you doing here at Utorogu?” he asked.

  “I’m actually visiting a friend for the weekend. I’m in Nigeria researching a story about Borno State for the BBC.”

  She reminded Crocker of a series of strong, independent-minded women he’d met various places overseas. Like the legendary Polish climber Edyta Potocka, who he’d climbed with in the Himalayas. Séverine also came to mind.

  “What have you learned so far?”

  “A lot of the discord in the north derives from environmental factors. A drought specifically, which is the result of global warming. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Borno is the home of Boko Haram.”

  “I’ve heard that. Yes…”

  “I’ve learned that most Boko Haram foot soldiers aren’t Muslim fanatics, they’re poor kids with no opportunities, up against a corrupt central government that pretty much ignores the entire northern section of the country, which is generally underdeveloped and uneducated.”

  He thought that she could say the same about a whole host of violent movements in other countries, including Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, but kept that observation to himself.

  “Different perspectives call for different kinds of responses,” he remarked.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “When someone is shooting at you, or has kidnapped your daughter, you really don’t care if they’re a poor kid or not.”

  “What brings you here?”

  “I’m working as an advisor to the Nigerian government.”

  “What sort of advisor?”

  He was looking for an evasive answer when he heard what sounded like a truck backfiring in the distance.

  “Security,” he answered.

  She smiled and took his arm. “You want to go inside. I have a good bottle of Aussie wine in my room.”

  “Sure.” His attention was divided now between the look in her eyes and a place in the distance, not far from the gate. He calculated the sound of the gunfire he heard was coming from the direction of the military outpost they had passed earlier.

  He stopped.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “You hear that?” he asked. The OODA loop, devised by United States Air force pilot Colonel John Boyd, was processing in his head: observe-orient-decide-act. Boyd had developed the loop to assist fighter pilots in directing their energies to defeat an adversary and survive.

  Crocker paused at “orient,” and turned back to Zoe. She didn’t appear alarmed.

  “Probably the Nigerian boys acting up,” she said. “They’re a rowdy lot…”

  He let her pull him in the direction of the expat dorm, hoping she was right.

  Festus Ratty Kumar was dressed in military fatigues and a Nigerian security forces black beret and riding in the first of two technicals (Toyota Hilux pickups) painted with Nigerian military symbols and colors speeding toward the Utorogu gas plant gate. Days of hurried planning and coordination were beginning to pay off, and he was psyched to the max.

  The idea for the attack had originated with Victor Balt, the Russian-born arms dealer, who wanted to strike back at the people who had destroyed his arms shipment. Balt had matched Ratty with a detachment of AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) jihadists operating out of Niger, who would represent his interests and share fifty percent of any ransom. The other fifty percent would go to Ratty Festus and Boko Haram.

  Balt promised that it would be a very healthy amount, given the value of the world-class natural gas processing plant. But Festus Ratty didn’t care about that. The audacity of the attack and the shock it would create in Nigeria and the rest of the world excited him.

  Both he and the AQIM commander, Umar Amine, had agreed to contribute fifteen of their most experienced fighters and operate under the name “Written in Blood.”

  Last night, Festus Ratty and Umar Amine had met in the Sambisa. Ratty was intent on attacking the AFSF base in Yola, but Umar Amine, who hailed from Mali, had larger aims than revenge.

  A serious, taciturn man, Amine’s thinking had been deliberate and carefully organized. The choice of target to his mind had to be based on four factors: economic impact, political impact, ideological message,
and audacity. While the base in Yola met the last three in his opinion, they didn’t answer the first, namely critically damaging the enemy’s critical infrastructure and destabilizing its economy. To Umar Amine’s mind, attacking the Utorogu gas plant did. Furthermore, as he had explained, the Utorogu compound would be much easier to overrun and hold.

  Festus Ratty had no argument with that. He was pleased to be collaborating with a highly motivated and intellectually vigorous militant. From a strategic perspective he understood any action against the gas plant had to be lightning fast, unexpected, and possibly suicidal.

  In addition to their usual AKs and pistols, Balt had armed both groups with 60mm mortar shells to serve as explosives, RPG rockets, PK and DShK machine guns, and sniper rifles.

  The combined force of thirty had left the Sambisa in the late afternoon and traveled over heavily obscured roads along the Cameroon border in six technicals (chariots of modern warfare) bearing the symbols and painted in the colors of Nigerian security forces.

  The plan called for Umar Amine’s men to attack the army outpost, taking hostages and seizing the barracks, which Festus Ratty’s BK force would simultaneously hit and penetrate the front gate of the gas plant compound itself.

  Festus Ratty heard automatic gunfire behind him and looked at his watch. It was 2258. The AQIM unit wasn’t supposed to strike until midnight. What he didn’t know yet was that Umar Amine’s force had run into a van filled with eight Nigerian soldiers leaving the plant, and had engaged them, hitting the van with rockets and gunfire.

  That had alerted the remaining twenty or so soldiers on the base, some of whom were firing back at them now.

  Ratty was so hyped up on adrenaline he didn’t care. He stuck his arm out the passenger window of the first technical and raised his fist. Both vehicles stopped twenty meters from the main gate, throwing up a wall of red dust. The militants inside them got out and immediately started firing rockets and machine guns at the guards around the gate. A number of them ran for cover. Those who remained were quickly mowed down.