The Night Ranger

22

LOWER JUBA PROVINCE, SOMALIA

Wells rested against a sloppy mud wall, his face kissed with rain. He was as alone as Adam without Eve. Though he was sure that the Garden of Eden was nowhere close.

He’d crossed the border more than an hour before. No fence marked it, but a few minutes after riding out of camp, he’d noticed rusted lengths of barbed wire that must once have sectioned the land, must once have meant the edge of something. The Kenyans had given up the chase. Wells hadn’t seen their lights since leaving camp. He was happy to have lost them, though he hoped they didn’t take out their anger on Wilfred.

The rain started as he left camp. At first Wells welcomed it. The day had filthied him with dirt and gasoline and blood from two species. He smelled worse than Tolkien’s foulest troll, looked like a refugee from the end of the world. Even in Afghanistan, after weeks without a bath, he’d never reeked so badly. The storm came as a relief.

But the rain kept coming, soaking his shirt and jeans, dripping down his chest. He could hardly see. The parched earth turned to mud that sucked at his tires and forced him to creep in second gear. The good news was that the low clouds muffled the engine.

A half hour after crossing the border, Wells spotted three dim lights on a hill to the northeast, the first evidence of human habitation he’d seen in Somalia. He was too far off to hear voices or generators. He cut the engine, waited. But the lights didn’t move or flicker and after five minutes he rode on, doglegging southeast. After another half hour, he checked his GPS. It showed him about twenty miles east of the border, and farther south than he’d expected. The ground was softening under his tires, and not just from the rain. Wells feared he had nearly come to the swamps that stretched from the Indian Ocean. He had only the vaguest idea of this land. His GPS was civilian rather than military, so it had almost no data on Somalia, just the broad outlines of Mogadishu and the other coast cities. Swamps weren’t his favorite topography. Mountains had their dangers, but they were cold and clean, no snakes or gators or quicksand.

Wells saw a wide puddle ahead, rain splashing into open water, and decided to turn northeast and look for a place to call Shafer. After a couple minutes, he saw an L-shaped section of cracked mud wall, the remnants of an abandoned hut. He stopped, reached for his phone. Two-fifteen a.m. He was supposed to see Little Wizard’s men at the border in fifteen minutes. He’d never intended to make the meeting. He’d set it because he wanted Wizard to send men to a place where the drone could find them. When he failed to show, they would return to their camp. The Reaper would follow them. He’d follow it. Simple as bread crumbs. The weather didn’t matter. The Reaper’s thermal-imaging systems and radar could see through walls.

“John.”

“Ellis.”

“Location.”

Wells gave it.

“Awful far south.”

“I’m aware. What are you seeing?”

“Five men. Two on their bellies, covering from a hill to the north. They were there when we got on station. Fifteen minutes ago, a pickup drove up, parked fifty meters east of the border. Two guys in the cab, a third lying down in the bed. Simple setup, but professional under the circumstances. Nobody’s moving too much.”

“Weapons?”

“The cloud cover’s got us stuck on radar and therms, not optics. It’s tough to tell for sure, but we think AKs only. I’d say they have orders to bring you in. Not shoot you.”

“Anyone come from the Kenyan side?”

“No. We did pick up three vehicles maybe five km west of the border. Not moving. You clean?”

“Think so.”

“It would be best if the Kenyans didn’t get more involved.”

“If they were going to get more involved, they would have already. You’ll let me know when Wizard’s guys go home?”

“I’ll call you. But if I were you, I would start heading north. They’re north. You a hundred percent sure you want to do it this way? That SOG team will be in Mombasa in a few hours. And the SEALs would be glad to join the fun.”

“You gave me tonight, Ellis.”

“Ever consider that getting our friends in uniform involved would tie Vinny down?”

Shafer had a point. Duto was oddly bipolar on these high-risk ops. Sometimes he liked belt-and-suspenders protection, presidential findings, memos from the Office of Legal Counsel. But every so often he liked to run off the books, in the dark, do what he thought best with nobody watching. What was best for him might not be best for Wells.

“I have the advantage of being here.”

“Don’t forget he gets to be most of the way there, too. Without getting killed if something goes wrong.”

“Fear the Reaper, you’re saying.”

“I bet myself you’d say that.”

“Glad you won. Vinny watching now?”

“No. But he wants to come down, I can’t stop him. His house, his rules.”

“Call me when you have that location, Ellis.” Wells hung up without saying good-bye. He was tired of Shafer’s wisdom.

He leaned back against the wall and thought of Anne. He wanted to hear her voice. They hadn’t talked since he landed in Nairobi. But he had to move, and anyway, he still felt guilty for what had happened at Castle House. He didn’t deserve to hear her tell him everything would be okay.

He mounted up and rode north. He wondered if the hostages had any idea that tens of millions of people were hoping they’d be saved. Probably not. Wells hoped they were being held together. At least they wouldn’t be lonely.

His phone buzzed forty minutes later. “It worked,” Shafer said. “They went back to camp.”

“Where?”

“Where are you?”

Wells pulled his GPS, gave his location. “You closed the gap but they’re still about eighteen, nineteen kilometers north-northeast. Shouldn’t have gone so far south.”

“Nothing I love more than twenty-twenty hindsight. What’s the setup?”

“Big camp. My guy estimates sixty to one hundred soldiers. Until the clouds break enough for us to use optics, it’ll be hard to know for sure. And unfortunately, the weather guys say the storm is stuck for at least two, three hours.”

“Weather guys?”

“Got drones, got to have weather guys. Anyway, the camp runs basically east-west. Uncultivated land all around. Probably living off what they steal from convoys. There’s a hill east of the huts and past that several vehicles, pickups and technicals mostly, behind a high wall. Well designed, tough to spot except from above.”

“They have generators?”

“If they do, they’re not running them. We’re picking up very little noise. Lot of guys awake, though. Plus sentries—”

“How many?”

“We count seven. One west, one south, the others north and east. The whole camp is oriented to the east. There’s also a cluster of men and vehicles several kilometers northeast. Not sure who they are or if they’re connected with the camp.”

“Define ‘cluster.’”

“Maybe forty. And growing.”

“No lights, lots of guys awake, sentries, another group massing nearby. Sounds like they’re on combat footing.”

“How it looks to us, too.”

“Fantastic.” Though Wells couldn’t pretend to be surprised.

“Any guess where the hostages are?”

“It’d be normal in this situation to keep them in the center of camp, near HQ.”

“Right.”

“If you’re going to do this, your best bet is to come from the southwest. Easier to hide. East, there’s that ridge above the vehicles. A guy’s posted there and he’s going to see you coming. But whichever way, you’ve got to get in quick. You have less than three hours of darkness left.”

“And there’s only one sentry to the south?”

“Correct. Looks like he’s in a static post because of the rain, maybe six hundred meters south of the western edge of the camp. I checked the topo and there’s a route along a streambed that’ll take you within two hundred meters before he sees you. I’ll give you the waypoints. Get to him, take him out, you can get nice and close before anyone sees you, one hundred meters from camp.”

Not for the first time, Wells found himself awed by American warfighting technology. The United States spent almost as much on its military as the rest of the world combined, but it got what it paid for. No wonder the Taliban had been forced to depend on suicide bombs. How else could anyone fight an enemy that had the advantage of an extra dimension?

“Give me the waypoints, the coordinates for the camp and sentry posts. Also that cluster of guys to the northeast.” Wells entered the figures into his GPS and saw a cluster of white dots north of his current position, which was marked in blue. He hadn’t been sure how best to use the Reaper’s firepower. He didn’t want to panic the Somalis into hurting the hostages. But as he visualized the camp’s layout he had an idea.

“The garage is east, yes?”

“Yes, but forget about stealing a pickup and taking off with the hostages. It’s too well guarded.”

“Not what I’m thinking.” Wells explained.

“That might work. At least it’ll get them moving the wrong way. Keep the body count down, too.”

“You’re not arguing? We must really be short on time.”

“Two hours and fifty minutes to daylight.”

“The Reaper okay for gas?”

“You mean, how long can it stay on station?” Shafer passed along the question. “Seven hours. Plenty of time for you to be a hero.”

Wells didn’t have to ask if Shafer was being sarcastic. They both knew what Shafer thought of this plan. If Wells was still in Somalia in seven hours he’d most likely be a prisoner. Or a corpse.

“Good news is it has a full payload,” Shafer said. “Four Hellfires, two laser-guided bombs, five-hundred-pounders. Blast radius on those is at least fifty feet, by the way. Within twenty-five they’re lethal.”

“Then I hope you won’t drop them if I’m within twenty-five.”

“We’ll do our best.”

“I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

“Good luck.”

“Forget luck. Just keep circling.”

Shafer’s route sent Wells along a two-foot-deep streambed. At midnight it had been dry. Now it was full of muddy water topped with a roiling white scrim. Despite the time pressure, Wells kept the engine nice and quiet as he closed, no more than twenty-five hundred revs per minute. Wells had set the GPS to warn him when he reached a kilometer of the sentry post. With no way to check until he was on top of it, he had no choice but to assume that Shafer had given him the right position. When the alert came, he ditched the bike, dug his hands into the earth, closed his eyes, and sopped mud across his face. Poor man’s camouflage. He strapped his night-vision monocle over his right eye and clicked it on. He took a few tentative steps to make sure he was seeing properly, putting together the flat green panel in front of his right eye with the three-dimensional world before his left. When he was sure he was ready, he loosened the strap on his AK, moved north, the mud tugging at his boots. He acutely felt the pressure of encroaching daylight. Once the sun rose, the Reaper’s advantages would be neutralized. Wells wouldn’t be the all-powerful commander with an invisible army and the gift of night vision. He’d be a crazy mzungu with a dirty face and a beat-up AK.

Wells followed the streambed as long as he could, hoping it might loop around the hill and the sentry completely. The cover here was better than he’d expected, thicker scrub than on the Kenyan side of the border, probably because there were so few sheep or goats grazing it away. After a few minutes, he came over a rise and ducked low. He spotted two poles two hundred meters away with a piece of tarp strung between them. The sentry’s cover, such as it was. Where the hill flattened to the right, he saw a single faint light. All right. He’d found the camp. He’d found Gwen and Hailey and Owen. They were so close he could almost yell to them. So close that when the sun rose, he might be able to see them. But he and they needed to be gone before then.

Wells had figured he’d kill the sentry and push to the edge of camp before he called Wizard. But he didn’t have a silencer, so he’d have to use a knife on the guy. Which meant crawling to hand-to-hand range. Even with the goggles he’d need at least fifteen minutes. He needed a faster move. He needed a distraction.

He pushed himself down into the mud, reached for his phone.

“I’m here. Can you hit the target we talked about in five minutes?”

“Hellfire or bomb?” Shafer said.

“Bomb.”

“That’s one five-hundred-pound GBU special delivery. Your order will be ready in five minutes,” Shafer said.

“Roger that.”

“Over and out.”