Choke Point

FORTY

‘Get inside,’ shouted Naseem, waving frantically to the team, then rushing forward to wrench open a door.

One by one the Ghosts stormed by Ross, who waited with Naseem, and once they were all inside the building’s entrance foyer, the van driver screeched off as car alarms triggered by the explosion continued to wail.

Ross returned to the door and stole another look down the street, where pieces of the police officer, now lumps of pink viscera, lay strewn in the road and splattered against the opposite building. The police car had been catapulted on to its roof, the windows shattered, the passenger’s side blackened and torn apart. A yellow mailbox that better resembled a fire hydrant had been blown out of the ground and had impaled the car’s trunk. Several dogs were charging the flames, barking, then running back to charge again. Dozens of people were on their balconies now, staring down not so much in horror but with a deep sense of dread, Ross could tell, as this was something painfully familiar. And there it was, that smell — the burning rubber, fuel, and the sickly sweet stench of human flesh.

The war zone.

He thought of going outside to see if anyone else was injured, but Naseem shoved himself in front of Ross and slammed shut the door. ‘Follow me,’ he ordered.

Shuddering off the adrenaline rush, Ross signaled the team, and they fell in behind the colonel, heading into the stairwell and double-timing their way up the stairs.

‘They’ve just started the bombing again,’ Naseem said as Ross got tight on the man’s heels.

‘Who are they?’

‘I’ll tell you in a moment.’

They climbed all six flights of stairs and came into a hallway of cracked plaster lit by dangling bulbs. Two armed men stood outside a door at the end of the hall. Naseem shouted for them to stand down as the team hurried behind. He unlocked the apartment door, holding it open as they filed inside.

The furnishings were meager, the rooms tiny, the entire place no more than 1,200 square feet by Ross’s estimate yet large by Aden standards. A hole had been cut in the ceiling near the doors leading out to the balcony, and an aluminum ladder led up to the roof, where at the moment a man wearing a pistol holstered at his waist was descending, his long scarf trailing behind him. Naseem muttered a few words to him before he hopped down and rushed toward the front door.

Then Naseem regarded the entire group, with Ross staring hard at the man, demanding answers.

‘The men you saw outside were not police officers. They were my men, protecting me,’ said Naseem. ‘But they must’ve figured that out.’

‘Who?’

‘We call them the Harak, but you may know them as the South Yemen Movement. They’ve been organized since 2007, and they refer to us in the north as dahbashi, basically savages. They want the south to secede from the government, and their numbers and support are growing. Up in the mountains of Yafa, there’s no longer any government control. They call it the “Free South,” and now they’ve begun flying their flags here, just outside of Aden.’

‘This like an Arab Spring thing?’ asked Kozak.

‘No, we had an uprising in 2011 to oust the president, which I’m sure you heard of, but this movement has been around for much longer,’ said Naseem. ‘Back in 1994 during our civil war, the north created several fatwas that advocated the killing of women and children and religious sheikhs in the south, branding them all Communists. That for me marked the beginning. Since then, the north has been trying to eradicate any southern identity and eliminate the desire for independence. But the harder they try, the deeper these people dig in. They see themselves as far more modern than us, abandoning the old ways, the tribes, and they view our military presence as an occupation.’

‘Sounds a lot like the American Civil War,’ said Pepper. ‘And if you’re heading in that direction, there’s gonna be a lot of blood.’

‘That’s why my guard troops are here,’ Naseem said. ‘The rumors of war are growing.’

‘I know a little about the Harak,’ Ross chipped in. ‘And I know it’s pretty rare for them to resort to violence. There have been a few incidents over the years, but nothing wide scale.’

‘That’s all changed,’ said Naseem. ‘One of their more famous leaders, Zion Haza, was recently executed in the north. He’s become a martyr, and his death we believe has sparked a new wave of violence. We’ve brought in two companies of Republican Guard and dressed them like local police to hide our numbers, but now …’ He drifted off into a thought, then suddenly faced them. ‘All of this is really none of your concern. You’ll remain here until your ship nears the port, and then I’ll take you to another safe house in Al-Ma’ala. From there you’ll be able to observe the ship and cargo operations.’

‘Excellent,’ said Ross. ‘And we appreciate your assessment of the situation here, but can we have a word in private?’

Naseem nodded and steered Ross into an adjoining bedroom, where on a small nightstand sat a pistol and a copy of the Quran, the image surreal and reminding Ross of any number of old Westerns he’d watched or read as a kid. ‘What is it?’ asked Naseem.

‘Back in 2011 during the uprising, more than seven thousand of your colleagues in the Republican Guard defected to the anti-government movement. Let’s just say the people in my community were watching that incident very closely.’

‘That’s true. I was in Nahm at the time, at our barracks. I fought against some of the traitors.’

‘You were there, all right. But you let them take over the barracks.’

Naseem shifted back a few steps, his hand drifting down toward the pistol holstered at his waist, right beside the short, curved dagger known as a jambiya. ‘Who are you?’

Ross shrugged. ‘I’m just a guy, and I’m asking — why are you lying to us?’