The Night Ranger

24

Wells lay prone eighty meters from the sentry post, covered in dirt soft and sticky as toffee. Through his night-vision monocle, he saw Wizard peering down the hill. Wells wasn’t worried. Even with a scope, seeing him through the rain and the scrub would be tough. Without it, Wizard had no chance, not as long as Wells stayed still.

His plan had worked. He had judged Wizard as a young, reckless commander who would want to see what had happened to his sentry firsthand instead of staying in camp. Wizard had obliged. And for whatever reason, he’d brought only two men with him. Now, even downslope, Wells had a huge tactical edge. Thanks to the scope, he could take out the three Somalis while they shot blindly into the dark. The men in camp would hear the firefight. But before they could respond, Wells would retrace his steps to the dirt bike a few hundred meters south. In the darkness and confusion, he could easily outflank his pursuers, enter the camp from the northwest.

A perfect plan. Just one problem with it. By the time Wells reached the camp, Gwen and Hailey and Owen would be dead. A few minutes before, after the Reaper dropped its bomb and Wells choked out the sentry, Wells called Shafer for an update. Neither man needed to comment on the irony of the fact that Shafer, halfway across the world, had the better view of the camp and the technicals.

“At first it looked like panic, guys running everywhere. Then they clustered up. I’m guessing your man gave a pep talk. A bomb would have taken most of them out. My pilot figured three-quarters KIA or seriously wounded.”

“Leaving the other quarter to skin Gwen alive.”

“Why we gave peace a chance. What’s your next move?”

“Hunker down, get him to come to me. He’ll see that I’m here, what the Reaper’s done. Now that he knows what he’s up against, he should want a deal.”

“And if not?”

“And if not, I’ll take him out.”

—

Wells had been half right. Wizard found the sentry right on schedule. But he wasn’t ready to bargain. Not at all. And Wells feared that the camp was close to anarchy. The attempted escape had changed the mood of Wizard’s men. They were furious that these wazungu had killed one of their own. If Wells killed Wizard, they might tear the hostages apart.

Wells saw only one option. To give up his ideal tactical position. To come to his feet, throw down his weapon, and put himself in the tender hands of a Somali warlord whom he’d been taunting most of the night. Shafer and Anne would tell him he was mad to surrender voluntarily. They’d tell him to back off, wait for the Deltas or Duto’s team to show.

But Wells didn’t think he could afford to wait. The situation was too unstable. Plus Wizard had already demonstrated a kind of good faith. He’d refused to sell the hostages to the Arab, made sure his men didn’t punish them for killing their guard. Now he sounded under his bluster like a man looking for a way out. A face-to-face meeting might convince him. Wells hit redial on his phone. Through the scope he saw Wizard shake his head, a what now gesture. Wells thought he might not answer. Then he did.

“I’m downhill from you. Almost straight south. Less than a hundred meters.”

Wells saw Wizard’s head tilt as he tried to see in the dark.

“I’m going to stand and put my hands in the air. Do me a favor, don’t shoot me.”

Wells clicked off, reached out to push himself up. Then stopped.

In his night-vision viewfinder, a stick was twisting across the hill above him, maybe seventy feet up. It hadn’t been there a few seconds before. It pulled itself into an S-curved shape, turned toward Wells.

Not a stick. A snake.

Wells kept still as it slithered his way, expecting that it would turn, change course. He couldn’t tell if it had any idea he was there, if it smelled him or sensed the heat of his body or saw him with its beady little eyes, but it headed directly for him, sliding under the bushes and along the muddy earth, long and sinuous and moving faster than he expected. When it was about twenty feet away, Wells saw it with his uncovered eye. Six feet long, not much thicker than a rope, with a narrow head and brilliant bright green scales, nearly neon in their intensity. Wells didn’t understand the coloring, it seemed impractical, but he had bigger problems at the moment. He knew nothing about African snakes, had no idea whether this one was poisonous. Best to assume it was.

His phone buzzed. Wizard. No doubt wondering why Wells hadn’t stood. Wells didn’t want to answer, but he feared if he didn’t, Wizard would shoot blindly down the hill and upset the snake. Wells brought the phone to his ear an inch at a time. The snake seemed to sense the motion. It stopped, shifted its green head side to side. It was no more than ten feet from Wells now, close enough for him to see that scales on its belly were lighter, a washed-out greenish white.

“No more tricks, mzungu. Get up.”

“There’s a snake.” Wells barely breathing the words. Before him, the snake spread its jaws, displaying two stubby fangs.

“Snake?”

“Bright green.”

Wizard said something in Swahili. Then, in English: “That a mamba. Bad poison. Don’ move, man.” He hung up.

Wells held himself just so, willing his breath to slow. The mamba lowered its head and slithered toward Wells, so close now that he could hear it rustling over the mud. It moved with a surprising elegance, a single sleek motion, no wasted energy from arms and legs. Wells seemed to remember that snakes were naturally frightened of humans and preferred smaller prey. But what if it saw him too late, or rubbed against him, and felt threatened?

He closed his eyes, hoping the darkness might relax him, quiet his breathing. It didn’t. He needed to see where the mamba was going, what it was doing. When he opened his eyes, it was hardly a foot from him, a green jewel in the night, so close he could make out each scale on its head. Its forked black tongue slid from the tight slit of its mouth and flicked up and down, like a judge about to pronounce a guilty verdict.

Wells’s pulse thudded through his neck. Yet some part of him couldn’t help but be impressed with this unfathomable, beautiful creature. Such a tiny brain, and yet it survived. A purely instinctual beast. It felt hunger, thirst, pain. Possibly fear. But no pity or anger, no joy or love. What could it make of him? It had to know he was here. This close it would sense the warmth of his body.

The mamba flicked its tongue one last time and zipped to his left, under his arm. Wells thought it might touch him, brush his cheek. He feared his control would break if it rubbed his face. But it slithered by—

Then turned and slid across his back, over his shirt, a living rope pulsing over him, only his thin wet cotton shirt between its scales and his skin. He imagined a bad gangster movie: Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt. What if the snake decided it liked the warmth of his body and coiled up on his back? The ultimate nightmare. Instead the snake slid off, rustled into the night.

Wells waited a few seconds and then turned himself carefully onto his left side and watched the mamba slither away through the viewfinder. When it disappeared, he pushed himself up, pulled on his pack. He unstrapped his AK and held it over his head as he walked up the hill. He tried not to wonder whether the mamba had friends in the vicinity.

Above him, Wizard yelled in Somali. The other two men stood and put their rifles on him as Wizard walked to meet him. “Put the AK down in the mud, we got plenty more.”

Wells did. Wizard stopped a few steps away. He was short, with wary eyes and the lithe muscles of a gymnast. He had a pistol strapped to his hip, a knife sheathed to his calf.

“The pack, too. Take it off, I carry it.” Again Wells complied. “You the American.”

“Name’s John. You’re Wizard.”

“That is so. Little Wizard.”

“Came a long way to see you, Little Wizard.”

“Almost didn’t make it. You one lucky mzungu. Them green mambas put a bite in you, you get all swelled up, can’t breathe.” Wizard bent his head forward, snapped his jaws together.

“Can we stop talking about the mamba?”

“Pretty, though. What is it you want from me?”

A tickle ran across Wells’s calf. He looked down, half expecting the snake to be curled around his legs. “Any chance we can get inside?”

—

They trudged toward camp, and Wells felt the full weight of the last three days. Even at forty a man could rise to his youthful heights in bursts—forty-year-old point guards and quarterbacks played in the pros—but Wells was past forty now. He was in great shape, but every mission left him more deeply spent. He walked carefully, conserving his strength for this last phase.

As they neared camp, Wells drew on his last reserves to make himself stand up taller, walk faster. He wanted Wizard’s men to think of an emissary from the outside world, here to give them the choice of freedom or death. Not their captive.

He saw dozens of soldiers standing in the rain, waiting around the western huts. They had AKs and RPGs, and most wore their white T-shirts. Wells couldn’t guess what they made of him, though one tall man pointed and laughed. “What’s he saying?”

“That you almost as black as me.”

Wells scraped a line of mud from his face. He was caked in it. His forearms itched, too, thanks to a dozen mosquito bites. The rain had brought them out and he’d been a perfect target lying in the mud.

At the edge of camp, several men watched a hut. “Mind if I say hi to Gwen?” Wells turned toward the men. Wizard grabbed his elbow, marched him along. Wells didn’t argue. He’d found out what he needed to know. The hostages were inside.

Wizard’s hut was clean and spare and most of all dry, with a cot and a wooden chest. Wizard turned on an electric lantern. A man brought in two rough-hewn wooden stools and a plastic bag filled with leaves. Wizard took the bag, offered it to Wells. “Miraa.”

“No, thanks.”

“The girl with the white hair, she takes miraa.” Wizard stuffed his lip with leaves.

“Gwen?”

“Yes. Gwen.” Wizard smiled. He liked her, Wells saw. Was that why he’d refused to sell the hostages to the Arab?

“Is she all right?”

“All three of them, sure, ’til they kill my man. Now we got them pinned up with one more my men.”

“They have a hostage?” No wonder the camp felt so unsettled.

“They not going anywhere unless I say. How you find me, mzungu?”

“The drone tracked your men from the border.”

“Tricky. Then it bomb my trucks.”

“That’s right.”

“It still here?”

“Yes. One for now. More coming.”

“But you alone.”

“The CIA, the Army, they know I’m here. In a few hours, they’ll have helicopters here.” Wells wasn’t sure whether he was lying or not. Duto and Shafer knew, but whether Duto had told anyone outside Langley depended on calculations that Wells didn’t presume to understand.

“And soldiers.”

“Special Forces. Only thing that will stop them is if they’re afraid you’ll kill the hostages. That’s the only reason I didn’t kill you on the hill.”

“Lying, mzungu. Couldn’t even see me.”

Wells handed over the night-vision monocle. “You couldn’t see me, but I saw you.”

Wizard looked through it. “Turn off the lantern,” Wells said.

Wizard flicked it off and the hut was dark. “Neat toy. Mzungu magic.” He flicked the lantern back on, gave the monocle to Wells, pretending he wasn’t impressed.

“I promise you that right now, satellites are photographing this place, analysts are figuring out where the hostages are, planners are thinking up ways to hit you so hard it’ll be over in thirty seconds. Plus, every SEAL and Delta within a thousand miles is raising his hand and begging to get in on this like a kid who doesn’t want to be last pick at recess—”

Wizard spat a long stream into the dirt. “Don’ know what you talking about.”

“What I’m talking about, Wizard, is that this is over. However you expected to get paid, Nairobi, Mogadishu, no one will touch you. Maybe if you had a thousand fighters, big weapons, shoulder-fired missiles, the Pentagon and White House would take you seriously. If you were in Mog and had a million civilians on all sides, you’d have some leverage. But not here. Not this. Every man here is a legitimate target, and the United States will kill them all. In fact, that’s probably the number-one option—hit quick, hit hard, so that you’ll be too busy trying to save your own skin to shoot those three in the hut. It’s what I’d do.”

“Let them try. They don’ scare Wizard.”

Wells coughed, a wet phlegmy rumble that started low in his stomach and took too long to stop. He’d come to a land of drought and wound up drenched and sick. He wanted nothing more than to lie on the dirt, close his eyes. He knew that he’d wake burning from the inside out, skin stretched over his bones, eyes worn dry, throat clotted and chafed, and still he ached to sleep.

“Listen to me. We both know that you can yell out to your men to shoot me and I can’t stop you. Maybe I take a few soldiers out, but not a whole camp. I gave up my chance to escape when I told you where I was.”

“What the point.”

“Point is”—another cough rose in Wells and he fought it down—“point is that if I tried to shoot my way out of here, it would be suicide. Not bravery. You try to fight the Americans, it’ll be the same. Let Gwen and Hailey and Owen go. Keep me if you like—they won’t send an army for me and you can ransom me back in a month when nobody’s paying attention, but let them go. I know you want to get them back to their families anyway—”

“Second time you said that. How you know?”

“I was the Arab who called you,” Wells said in Arabic, then in English.

Wizard grinned. And pulled a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker Blue from his chest, the amber liquid glowing in the low lantern light.

“Plenty tricks in you, mzungu.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Wizard handed Wells a glass.

“Are we toasting agreement?” Wells said. “You’ll listen.”

Wizard raised his glass. “This to thank you for letting somebody else kill me. You know I can’t let them go.”

At that they both drank. The scotch blistered Wells’s throat and his head swam. Something deeper and darker than fatigue had come for him this night. The bites on his arms itched madly. But he hadn’t been in Kenya nearly long enough for malaria or sleeping sickness to incubate. He wondered if he’d been unlucky enough to be infected with something more obscure, West Nile virus or Rift Valley fever. Whatever it was, he faced more dangerous threats in the next few hours. He forced the headache aside, focused on Wizard.

“You can trust me,” Wells said.

Wizard smirked. “How many times you lie to me already? Kill my men. Now telling me, do what you say. Now, what if I foolish enough to believe you, give up these wazungu? Out there, not ten kilometers away, creeping close and close, Awaale got three hundred Ditas—”

“Ditas? Is that what you call Shabaab?”

Wizard shook his head like he couldn’t believe Wells didn’t know. “Not Shabaab. Dita Boys. Fighters.”

“A local militia.”

“Yeah, militia. Awaale tells me I don’t give over the wazungu by sunrise he gon’ attack me. I got not even seventy soldiers and now one technical left. If Awaale come, half my men go to him straight straight. The rest of us, he slit our throats and leave the bones for the hyenas. He want this land for himself. You say I got to be frightened of these Americans, but they not here. Maybe I take all you wazungu and hide away—”

“You think you can hide from the drones.”

“No. You right. We gon’ stay right here. Die like men. All of us.” Wizard poured himself a fresh finger of Johnny Walker Blue and reached for Wells’s glass. Wells covered it.

“Keep me. Gwen and Hailey and Owen didn’t ask for this.”

“Anyone ever ask to die, mzungu?”

Wizard’s eyes glinted from the scotch, but his voice was steady and Wells knew better than to argue anymore. He wondered if he could overcome Wizard despite his fever, make a play for the hut with the hostages, but the Somali rested his hand lightly on his pistol.

“Been friends ’til now. Keep it that way.”

Even if he disarmed Wizard, he’d die before he got to the hostages, and they would, too. So close and yet so far. Maybe the SEALs would arrive in time and hit the camp perfectly and they’d all live. But Wells didn’t think so.

“You want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself,” Wells said.

“What that?”

“I said I’m going to learn plumbing when I get home. The basics, anyway. Expecting Anne to clear the drains is ridiculous. Can I have some water? There’s some in my pack.”

Wizard handed him a bottle. Wells forced himself to sip. He’d find a way through this night yet. He wondered how many hours he’d spent in rooms like this, huts and cells and airless apartments in the places anyone with a choice left behind. Such a strange way to spend a life, and yet he’d picked it freely.

“You Muslim, Wizard?”

“Little bit.”

“That sounds about right. Me, too.”

“Ditas, too, but they shoot us all anyway. They don’ care what Allah think. Hey, mzungu, how come you didn’t shoot me on the hill?”

“I didn’t come here for you. I came here for them.”

“But I tol’ you on the phone no way.”

“I thought I could change your mind.”

“You wrong.”

“Figured that out my own self.” Wells leaned back against the wall of the hut, closed his eyes. He didn’t expect to think of anything except the pounding in his head, but when he opened them he had a plan. He forced himself to stand, took a deep breath to clear his head. “Wizard. What if I can get rid of Awaale? Kill him. Will you let me have the wazungu?”

“No more Dita Boys?”

“I can’t promise that, but with your help I can kill Awaale at least.”

“And pay ransom?”

“Ransom, too. That’s ambitious.”

“They kill Samatar—”

“The guard.”

“Yah. I need something to show my men.”

And yourself. But Wells didn’t argue. “There’s forty thousand in the pack. In a bag at the bottom. That’s all I have.”

“Forty thousand shillings.”

“Forty thousand dollars, give or take. Not too bad for one day’s work. And I’ll throw in my lifesaving idea for free.”

Wizard sorted through the pack until he found the money, bundled up and dry in a Ziploc bag. “Okay. What your idea, mzungu?”

“First things first. You have a way to reach Awaale?”