Ghost Watch

Kigali

Thirty-two hours later — after transiting through Incirlik, Turkey, and overnighting at Ramstein, Germany — another C-17 deposited me at Kigali airport. Packed into the long sausage-shaped bag at my feet were the bare essentials: body armor and Ka-bar knife, a metal case containing an M4 carbine and a Sig Sauer side-arm, a couple of changes of combat uniform, clean underwear, socks, disposable razor, and toothbrush.

The airport consisted of a single runway, a couple of crumbling taxiways, and one terminal that looked like some kind of traditional African grass hut built in concrete and steel. I stood on the square of paved ramp, sweat blooming on my scalp from the high temperature and choking humidity, my airman battle uniform sticking to all the wrong places. The clouds suspended above the airfield were spectacular — a thousand puffy white sails set on top of each other against a royal blue sky. Looked like rain and plenty of it.

I went into the terminal and found an old lady holding the insects at bay with a flyswatter. She stamped my passport, glanced at my papers and the firearms authorizations on my orders. Then I wandered around the deserted building, looking for a soda, but there were no vending machines and the one shop was closed. I had no local currency anyway. The arrivals board was equally busy here in Sleepy Hollow, so I went back outside.

Of Kigali itself, there wasn’t much to see, at least from where I was standing. Low hills flanked the airfield, and the closest one behind the terminal was dotted with small, nondescript shanty-style homes, nothing over two storys and only a few of those. On the opposite side of the apron I could see a faded old Soviet Mi-24 Hind gunship that was missing two of its five main rotor blades. Thinking about it, the presence of the relic was the only indication that this was an airport.

It was airless. Only the insects broke the silence. I brushed the flies off my face so many times that it looked like I was waving goodbye to an invisible plane. A large insect flew an orbit around my head, recon-noitering a place to land, before touching down on my neck. I slapped at it, and the thing flew off sounding like a door buzzer with too much voltage. It was ten-forty am. If everything was running to schedule, the principals would be here in twenty minutes.

Ten minutes short of the aircraft’s scheduled arrival time, a black limousine drove onto the far side of the apron, followed by five others, plus a khaki-colored truck bringing up the rear. When the convoy got close enough, I could see little flags flapping from atop their front fenders. The line of vehicles scribed a wide arc around the ramp, eventually stopping opposite me, fifty meters away. Soldiers jumped down from the back of the truck, some of them wearing Vietnam-era fatigues but many more outfitted in what appeared to be Rwandan Army Class As. The men in the fancy uniforms were also holding shiny nickel-plated AK-47s, and they formed up in an orderly straight line to one side of the lead vehicle, then stood at ease. The guys in the greens carried more businesslike H&K MP-5 submachine guns with the blue anodizing worn off, and they fanned out around the cars. Aside from the fact that the folks in the limos were obviously important, I had no idea who they were. No doubt Travis would, but he was on the inbound plane. The front passenger door of the fourth vehicle opened and out stepped a man wearing a blue suit, blue business shirt open at the collar, and wraparound sunglasses. He walked casually toward me. When he came within ten meters, I could also see that he was wearing an earpiece, which tagged him as security.

‘Bonjour,’ he said, smiling without any kind of warmth.

I nodded. ‘Hey.’

He followed with some French I couldn’t follow, then summed it up by holding out his hand, palm up, wiggling his fingers, and saying, ‘Documents.’

I handed him my paperwork and diplomatic passport.

‘US Air Force,’ he said, reading the words off my shirt. He turned his attention to the forms, and raised his eyebrows at the firearms authorizations. Then he toed the bag at my feet and said, ‘I see this.’

I knelt, unzipped the bag, and let him take a peek. ‘This,’ he said, motioning at the locked case. Despite the Status of Forces Agreement between the US and Rwanda that okayed the weapons I was bringing in, he was clearly nervous about it. He wanted the case opened, so I opened it. There was a moment’s indecision on his face, and I knew he was considering one option that had me face down while his buddies with the submachine guns stomped me into the pavement. But he checked the documents again, looked me up and down once more, and decided that maybe I was who and what my documents said I was — friendly, legal, and not to be messed with. I could feel the sweat on my back forming rivulets.

‘Hot, isn’t it?’ I said, flicking the droplets off my forehead with a finger.

He nodded, pinched his shirt away from his body, and said, ‘Oui, monsieur. Il fait chaud ici.’ All of which I took to mean, ‘Yeah, hotter than fuck.’

He handed back my papers and said, ‘Twenny Fo et Leila,’ and with his hand mimed a plane landing.

‘Yeah,’ I repeated. ‘Twenny Fo and Leila.’

He gestured over his shoulder and said, ‘Le président.’

‘The president,’ I repeated and made a face that conveyed wonder, respect, and surprise all at once.

We stood there looking at each other.

‘Alors,’ he said finally, then turned and walked back to the car. He got in and shut the door.

An hour later, I was sitting on my bag, the engines burbling in the black cars opposite me, their air-con units putting in overtime. I burned some minutes wondering why the presidential party was hanging around waiting. I stood and scoped the airport’s open expanse. I couldn’t see any spinning radar antennae. Maybe they didn’t have phones here, either. Maybe Monsieur President was relying on the same worthless schedule I was.

The air was growing thicker, along with the humidity. The underbellies of the clouds were now dark gray and about to break open. My ABUs were sweat-logged. I should have mugged the woman with the flyswatter and stolen it when I had the chance. I’d capitulated to the insects, which were now the owners of whatever piece of me they could carry off. Where the hell were these people I had come to meet? Impatient, I walked to where I could see the end of the runway in both directions. I stood there for another ten minutes and was finally rewarded by the sight of landing lights shimmering to the west, the plane a couple of miles away on final approach.

‘At fucking last,’ I said aloud to the insects.

Five minutes later, a United Airlines 767 kissed the runway and its engines screamed in reverse. It came to a stop at the eastern end of the strip, slowly turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, and taxied back.

In response to its arrival, the doors of the two limos at the rear of the convoy flew open. Secret service types jumped out, then moved to the front two cars and held open the rear passenger doors. Apparently, the security was traveling in a separate vehicle from the principals’. In a PSO sense, I didn’t like what I was seeing, but I had noticed that, as a general rule, foreigners do pretty much everything wrong.

First to exit were a perfectly groomed man and a woman, the president and first lady. The protection detail bowed. Two more men climbed out of the vehicle. The heads of the security detail were on a swivel, either looking for non-existent threats or trying to make it difficult for the flies to land. The president was in his mid-forties and wore an expensive navy blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. His wife was about the same age he was, but taller. She was wearing some kind of African dress in bright reds, yellows, and greens, and a matching scarf. The two overweight men who’d been sitting with them in the lead car were also in their mid-forties. I pegged them as high-ranking bureaucrats — fat cats who looked the same no matter which government they served. Out of the fourth limo spilled four kids — two boys and two girls — ranging in age from around five to ten, dressed in what I’d call their Sunday best. A young woman in loose white and gray clothing — a nanny presumably — chased them around the car. It must have been hell for her, cooped up with those kids all this time. I waved. The kids waved back.

A man holding a wand in each hand marched out of the arrivals hut and walked onto the ramp to a spot roughly midway between me and the presidential welcoming committee. The 767 turned onto the ramp and taxied in the direction of the man with the wands, who directed it to veer a little toward the limos over the last twenty meters. Then he crossed the wands over his head. The pilots hit the brakes; the plane dipped on its nose wheel, and then sprang back. An instant later, the engines died, and the man with the wands became the man who drove the pickup with stairs mounted on the back that would go to the aircraft’s front door. One of the president’s men ran to the trunk of the third limo, pulled out a bolt of red carpet, and unrolled it from the base of the stairs.

I looped around to the front of the plane, as the action would be happening on the side facing the president and his people, then stood out of the way. With the stairs and red carpet in place, and the honor guard now standing at attention with their gleaming rifles over their shoulders, the aircraft’s front door cracked open and swung inwards. A US Army lieutenant colonel appeared in the doorway, stooping slightly, and stepped out on the landing of the mobile stairs. A split second later, a woman barged past him as if the doors had just opened to a fifty-percent-off sale. I recognized her instantly — Leila was dressed in tight jeans, tan boots, and a pale green jacket. A pair of Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses sat on her face, and her long jet-black hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. She stormed down the stairs, gesticulating with her hands above her head, followed by two black women who were having a hard time keeping up with her. The one immediately behind her had buzz-cut blond hair and wore jeans and boots, and a photographer’s shirt with lots of pockets. The third woman was tall, black, and wore a tailored safari suit and pith helmet. They looked as if they’d been dressed by Vogue for a photo shoot with Tarzan.

Leila’s rant became audible.

‘Shaquand, I don’t see why — this concert being so damn important — we couldn’t have been given a private plane so that I could have brought all my people,’ she said to the taller of the two. ‘I am completely exhausted. Look at me! I’m a mess! The paparazzi will have a field day with this.’

‘I don’t see any of them around,’ Shaquand said, a hand above her eyebrows as she scanned the ramp. ‘Maybe they hiding. Using those long lenses, y’know.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Leila said. She stopped to examine the ends of her hair. ‘Lord, I hate this humidity. We need to get inside before it rains. Is this what it’s going to be like the entire time? My hair will turn into frizz.’ Over her shoulder, she said, ‘Ayesha, I hope you brought plenty of moisturizing treatments.’

The buzz-cut blonde nodded emphatically, as all three women stopped abruptly when they reached the bottom of the stairs, all forward movement blocked by the official welcome.

Finally the lieutenant colonel, who I figured was Travis, came rushing down the stairs and squeezed past the women.

‘Mr President,’ he said. ‘We are all so thrilled to meet you and your wife, Margaret, who is well known the world over for her style, elegance and graciousness. I am pleased to introduce Leila, our international star, her stylist, Shaquand, and makeup artist, Ayesha.’

The first lady was no Miss Universe, or even Miss Trenton, but after several tours of the Middle East, I was used to hearing extravagant compliments.

‘On behalf of my people,’ the president said with a heavy French accent, ‘I bid you welcome to Rwanda, the most beautiful country in all of Africa.’

‘I kindly thank you, your wife, and your people,’ said Leila, now with a beam that I was sure could be turned on and off like a flashlight. ‘I love your dress,’ she said to the first lady. ‘Those colors… they are gorgeous! Please accept these gifts as a token of my appreciation of your hospitality.’

Shaquand placed a number of CDs in Leila’s hand, which the star then distributed among the Rwandan VIPs. ‘They’re all personally signed,’ she let them know.

Meanwhile, Ayesha handed out posters to the kids. One of them unrolled and I saw a head-and-bust shot of Leila, hair tousled, her bulging cleavage slick with perspiration. The hunger on her face suggested a long period of sexual thirst about to be quenched. The four-year-old boy squashed it under his arm and went back to sucking his thumb.

Now emerging from the plane were two men in army combat uniforms, one black and one white, both NCOs, with eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. From Arlen’s briefing notes, I knew that the black guy was Cy Cassidy, a massive human being two pick handles across the chest with arms as black and thick as a couple of truck tires. His buddy, Mike West, was white and more reasonably proportioned — maybe two hundred and ten pounds, a shade under six feet tall, with dark hair and serious acne scars.

Behind them was a black man who towered over everyone. He was at least six foot six and fast-food-addict soft, the International House of Pancakes written all over his three-hundred-plus pounds. He wore loose basketball gear, several layers of t-shirts from a number of eastern conference teams, a fat gold chain around his neck, a bowler hat on his head, and a sneer on his lips. He was followed by Twenny Fo, rodent thin and of medium height, wearing a blue Adidas training suit, sunglasses with small, round red-tinted lenses, and a white Nike baseball cap with gold pinstripes. He spat the toothpick he was chewing over the stair railing. Behind the rapper was a medium-sized version of the behemoth with the bowler hat, all round shoulders and girth, and a big fan of the Denver Nuggets if the logos plastering his clothing were any indication. The guys waved at the gathering in a way that reminded me of the Queen of England.

Twenny Fo’s third and final ‘blood’ had a goatee on his chin and looked part black and part Hispanic, his hair tightly braided into roughly parallel rows across his head. He wore a combination of green and gray Everlast gear and a tattoo of a pit bull was on his neck. His body was compact and hard, and he walked like a street fighter, a threat in every step. He came down the stairs, lighting a cigarette.

Bringing up the rear was Captain Duke Ryder, short, slightly stooped and a little overweight, and Lex Rutherford, the blond Brit on loan from the SAS, who reminded me of a baby-faced choirboy.

Ryder caught my eye and tipped a finger to his brow in greeting, which I returned. Then he gestured behind him with a tilt of his head and gave me the thumbs-up sign. I took that to mean that the staging personnel and all the dancers mentioned in Arlen’s briefing notes were still on the plane and doing okay. The PSOs would have given them the standard operating procedure — wait on board until the principals were secured inside the terminal, after which they too would be escorted to the safety zone.

A traffic jam was forming at the base of the stairs. Travis steered Leila and her people away to make room for Twenny Fo’s crowd.

‘Ah, Mr Twenny Fo,’ said the president. ‘How wonderful it is to meet you.’

‘Is good to be here, you know,’ said the rapper. The two men shook hands.

‘Allow me to present my wife, Margaret.’

‘All right,’ said Twenny, leaning forward to take her hand.

The muscles of the first lady’s face were locked in a smile that mimicked a bout of tetanus. She probably didn’t speak English, not that it would’ve helped her much if she did, Twenny’s Baltimore patois being tricky to grasp even for English speakers.

‘These my associates, yo,’ Twenny continued economically. ‘Boink — head security.’

Mr IHOP gave them a nod.

‘This here’s Snatch, my bidness manager. An’ Peanut, who just is. Not his fault — you feel me?’

More nods.

Boink, Peanut, Snatch — Larry, Mo, Curly.

Travis appeared at my shoulder, tall and gangly, with sharp features and the type of pale freckly skin that sprouts melanomas at age forty.

‘Special Agent Cooper,’ he said. ‘It is Major Cooper, isn’t it?’ He leaned forward and read my name tape.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, standing vaguely at attention.

‘Oh, don’t do that. Too much formality for a rock concert. I’m pleased you could join us. I thought our wires would get crossed and they’d send you to the wrong place or something.’

He obviously worked for the same outfit I did. ‘How was the flight over, sir?’

‘Call me Blair. The word “interesting” just about covers it. You’ll find out why soon enough. As I’m sure you’re aware, we’re running a little behind schedule. Apologies for that. A certain party arrived late and delayed our departure.’

I didn’t have to work hard to figure out who that party might have been.

‘The UN helicopters will be here in about twenty minutes. We need to clear the ramp so they can land, and you should introduce yourself to everyone. Is there a place we can do that?’

‘The hut,’ I said, motioning toward the terminal.

‘Excellent.’

‘How many personnel are still on the plane?’ I asked.

‘Twenty-two.’

Just then, Leila stomped over, storm clouds on her face as dark as the ones above us. Despite her mood, I decided that all those magazine covers hadn’t done her justice. Her olive skin was almost poreless; her eyes the color of emeralds under polished glass; the proportions of her lips and nose, flawless. The only problem I could see was that she knew it.

She ignored me and said to Travis, ‘I didn’t come here to get drenched and catch a cold. My people and I are going inside.’

‘This is Major Cooper,’ said Travis. ‘He’ll be—’

Leila walked off before he finished his sentence.

‘Interesting,’ I said.

Travis nodded. ‘You got it.’

A few heavy droplets of rain broke up the party. An umbrella appeared over the first lady’s head, and she made for the limo. With a final wave, the president followed in her footsteps, motioning at the nanny to saddle up his children. As soon as his car door shut, the honor guard beat a retreat for the truck, along with their submachine gun-carrying buddies. The man who delivered the red carpet rolled it back up and threw it in the trunk. Moments later, the convoy was heading to the far corner of the field.

I walked over to Cassidy and West and exchanged the usual pleasantries. We all shook hands.

‘Let’s get everyone in the terminal,’ I said. ‘Have you briefed them on how we do things?’

‘No, sir,’ said Cassidy. ‘We thought we’d leave that up to you. You know, save on the confusion.’

‘Okay. Once we get our dignitaries secured, we can come back for the personnel still on board.’

Cassidy and West nodded.

‘Send Duke to eyeball the terminal. There’s not much to it, and no one’s home. I’ve already had a look around.’ I glanced over their shoulders and saw that Leila and her troop were already halfway across the ramp. ‘I’d hurry if I were you.’

‘Roger that,’ said West, summing up the situation.

I went up the stairs into the 767 and was met by a dried-out, petite blonde flight attendant.

‘Mind if I use your PA system?’ I asked her.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Yep. Just keeping everyone informed.’

She pulled the handset off its cradle and showed me which button to press.

I thumbed it and said into the mouthpiece, ‘Thank you for your patience, folks. You’ll be disembarked from this aircraft in about five minutes and escorted by your security team to the terminal building. Please collect your belongings and be ready to move.’

I went back onto the stair’s landing. It had stopped spitting. The clouds were teasing us, though the far side of the airfield was covered in a heavy gray mist of rain. A small jolt moved the aircraft. I looked down and saw that a tug had attached itself to the nose wheel.

Cassidy and Rutherford had left the terminal and were jogging across the apron toward the aircraft. Perhaps I was being overly cautious with all this escorting, but I didn’t know this place and losing al-Eqbal was a good lesson, especially for al-Eqbal.

I went back inside the aircraft. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked the attendant again, motioning at the handset.

‘Please,’ she replied.

I told the passengers to make their way to the forward exit and stood back on the landing. They filed past as I did a head count. Almost all of the staging crew were male, and even the ones who weren’t, looked male. Black jeans and old t-shirts predominated, as did dreadlocks, tattoos, and piercings. The dancers among them were easy to pick out, being the ones wearing deodorant. I totaled twenty-three persons, the right number. Then I went through the cabin checking seats, galleys, and lavatories. All clear.

Cassidy, Rutherford, and I escorted this second group into the terminal, getting them inside just as the clouds above us burst open with a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder. Blinding rain came down like buckets of six-inch nails. Inside the hut, the downpour was deafening. As the Boeing was towed to a far corner of the parking area, a tractor pulled up outside the front door with the luggage in a covered trailer.

There was plenty of tension in the room. Twenny and his buddies occupied one side of the terminal, while Leila and her girls took the other. Were we about to have a dance-off?

‘If I could have everyone’s attention,’ I called out. The room settled down. ‘My name’s Vin Cooper. I’ll be managing the security arrangements. We don’t think there’ll be any need for special precautions, but the Pentagon does a lot of unnecessary things, right?’

I grinned at a sea of blank faces that remained blank.

‘Yo, Mister Army. Head of security for Mister Fo is me,’ said Boink, folding his arms, head on a tilt. ‘I say who does what, dig?’

I blinked a couple of times.

‘Don’t think for a moment I’m getting on no helicopter with that,’ Leila said.

By ‘that’, she meant Twenny Fo, because she was pointing at him.

Ayesha and Shaquand stood behind her defiantly, chins jutting.

‘Well, you know, the feeling is mutual, bitch,’ said Boink.

‘You wanna piece a this?’ said Shaquand, flicking Twenny and his cohorts the bird.

‘I wouldn’t touch you bitches with rubbers on my fingers, yo,’ said Snatch.

I glanced at Travis, who again mouthed the word ‘interesting’.

Weren’t Twenny Fo and Leila supposed to be slurping each other’s juices? The room was suddenly full of shouting. I found Cassidy in the crowd, and he shrugged at me. I whistled hard, the piercing note cutting through the squabbling like an oxy torch through ice.

‘Okay, then we’ll go with plan B,’ I said in the sullen silence and with a hand gesture drew an invisible line down the middle of the room. ‘We’ve got two choppers inbound. Everyone on this half goes in one, the rest of you go in the other. Twenny Fo and Leila — either myself or one of my team will be accompanying you at all times. Apologies if that inconveniences you at all, but we have our rules.’

Boink shook his head and turned away, either not happy with the arrangements or displeased that I hadn’t consulted him. Twenny Fo sidled up to him and had a quiet word, a hand reaching up and resting on the big man’s shoulder.

‘Can we just go and get this shit over with?’ said Leila, addressing me, a hand on her hip.

I went across to her. She avoided eye contact. ‘Ma’am, we’ll be lifting off as soon as we can,’ I said. ‘We haven’t had an opportunity for personal introductions — Vin Cooper.’ Still no eye contact from the woman. I held out my hand to shake and she left it in midair. I let my hand drop. ‘It’s a pleasure to be working with you.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ she said as she walked off.

Twenny Fo sauntered over. ‘I was right ’bout choo, man. Choo one bad motherfucker,’ he grinned. ‘That’s why y’all here — keep that bitch an’ her bitches in line, you feel me?’

I missed the Taliban. I could shoot them.