The Hunters (12 page)

Ibn stood squarely in the middle of the road. He held his AK-47 to his shoulder and began to fire the way one might shoot at a can or a piece of paper. No effort to use cover. Absolute faith in his cowrie shells.

Fire from the heavy machine gun cut Ibn nearly in half. His rifle flew from his hands and tumbled away amid red splatter. The truck veered past the first vehicle and sped through the kill zone. Crushed what remained of Ibn. Hussein lined up his sights and shot the gunner. The man slumped behind his weapon as the truck grew smaller in the swirling dust.

For a moment, the al-Shabaab fighters held their positions. After all the gunfire and explosions, a strange silence took hold. Hussein's ears rang. After a few minutes, moaning came from inside the wrecked truck.

“Everybody stay where you are,” Abdullahi ordered.

Abdullahi rose from his hiding place, rifle in hand. He picked his way down the berm, through the brush. Stopped to free his sleeve from a thorn.

He walked over to the truck. Smoke still rose from the vehicle, and fluid leaked underneath.

Abdullahi pried open the driver's door. Peered inside for a moment. Raised his AK to his hip, one-handed. He spoke words Hussein could not hear. Fired two shots. The empty casings flipped through the air like two brass butterflies.

“Get ready to move,” Abdullahi shouted. “Pick up weapons left by the dead.”

Hussein looked down at the torn body of Ibn. The sight made him think of a melon dropped into the street and run over by cars. If the boy had not been told such foolishness about the cowrie shells, he might have stayed concealed and lived to fight another day.

When Allah commands us to die, we must die, Hussein thought, but Allah gave us brains for a reason. Hussein began moving down the side of the berm. He cursed at the thorns that pricked him as he went.

A
fter Gold and Carolyn Stewart had left for their meeting, Parson, Chartier, and Geedi waited at the Mogadishu airport. Parson watched the activity on the ramp. After the medics finished loading the most seriously injured patients onto trucks and ambulances, the walking wounded limped and shambled to the nearest hangar. They wore an assortment of bloody bandages across foreheads, over eyes, around arms. When all the wounded departed, men carried three long boxes off the Dash 8 and set them down on the tarmac one by one, working quietly and with solemn gestures. The scene reminded Parson of evac missions he'd flown in Iraq and Afghanistan; you didn't like to transport wounded in the same aircraft with the dead, but sometimes it couldn't be helped.

Having seen enough, Parson stepped away from the DC-3 and found a restroom inside a cargo hangar. He relieved himself at a filthy urinal, then zipped up his flight suit over the bellyband that held his pistol. When he washed his hands, he noticed the old faucets were labeled C and F. Back at the airplane, in the shade of the wing, Geedi explained when Parson asked about those letters.

“This part of the country used to be Italian Somaliland,” Geedi said. “C and F are for
Caldo
and
Freddo
.”

“Fair enough,” Parson said.

He checked his watch. The DC-3 had been on the ground for more than two hours, and he expected Gold and Stewart back any minute. Geedi had refueled the DC-3 for the flight back to Djibouti, and Chartier had just returned from the freight operations building, where he'd checked the weather. Parson wanted to get ready to start engines—kick the tires and light the fires—and get out of Somalia.

A Somali government van entered the airport ramp. That didn't surprise Parson; the same van had picked up Gold and Stewart to take them to the actress's meeting with the president. What surprised Parson was the van's flashing red light and the way the vehicle sped across the tarmac. What was wrong?

Parson looked at the van closely. Both women sat in the back, and they seemed safe enough.

The van stopped in front of the aircraft, and Gold and Stewart climbed out carrying their backpacks. Gold pulled her Afghan scarf from around her neck and wiped her face.

“You guys know how to make an entrance,” Parson said.

“Michael,” Gold said. “Those wounded Somali and AMISOM troops came from new fighting that's flared up down south. More than thirty wounded, three dead, and those numbers are probably going to rise. Al-Shabaab is making a big push into an area they used to control. The president himself asked if we could help.”

“You're kidding,” Parson said. “I know you told them we can't carry military cargo.”

“They want us to fly medical supplies down to Ras Kamboni. No weapons or troops, just medical stuff. They're short of helicopters, and they need something that can land in the dirt.”

Parson saw that he and Gold had a tough choice to make. The good guys needed supplies by the quickest means possible, and Somalia had precious little combat airlift capability. The DC-3 sat fueled and ready. But it belonged in a museum, not a combat zone.

“I don't know, Sophia,” Parson said. “If al-Shabaab's in the area, it'll be pretty damned dangerous.”

“Remember Major Ongondo?” Gold asked. “He's the African Union officer we met in North Africa.”

“Of course I remember,” Parson said. Ongondo had been with Gold when terrorists ambushed the two of them in North Africa. They were gathering important intel for Parson at the time. You didn't forget something like that. “What about him?”

“He's the commander down there,” Gold said. “A lieutenant colonel now.”

“Hell, why didn't you say so?”

Now all of Parson's instincts said go. Despite the Somali president's unusual request—and the downright recklessness of taking an antique plane into a combat zone—Parson thought mainly of a friend in need. The crew dog in him strained at the leash; this was what tactical airlift was all about. And it had been a long time since he'd landed on a dirt strip to help fellow troops. Earlier in his career, as a C-130 navigator, he'd flown with crews that landed on “unimproved” runways in Afghanistan. Unimproved sometimes meant no runway at all, just dirt and rocks.

Parson turned to Chartier and said, “Frenchie, what do you think? Ongondo needs our help.”

“
Absolument
, we help him,” Chartier said, “but what do we do about our VIP?”

“Oh, I'm not a VIP,” Stewart said. “Think of me as an embedded reporter. Well, filmmaker. And I feel safer staying with you, Alain. And with Colonel Parson and Ms. Gold.”

Then you don't know our luck very well, Parson thought. He found it brave of her to want to go, and Parson respected courage—even if it was what fliers called “Kodak courage,” the urge to do something stupid for good photos. But you couldn't let Kodak courage make your decisions.

“I appreciate your confidence, Carolyn,” Parson said. “But for a combat mission like this, the protocol is minimum crew.” So you kill the least number of people if something goes wrong, Parson thought. Minimum crew didn't include documentary-shooting VIP actresses. Minimum crew didn't even include Gold.

“Michael,” Gold said, “I'd rather not leave her anywhere in Somalia without security. If we do this, let's do it together.”

Gold really wanted this mission to go; Parson could see that clearly. Did she miss the action, too? Or could she just not turn her back on someone in need?

“Sounds like you're growing fangs, Sophia,” Parson said. An old Air Force expression. It meant you'd become so focused on the mission that you'd abandoned prudent caution. Officially discouraged—but not always looked down upon.

“This isn't necessarily a combat mission,” Gold said. “AMISOM should have cleared the area if they're calling for resupply. Technically, the flight's still a humanitarian mission.”

And that made it legal under the WRA charter, Parson knew. WRA didn't take orders from the Somali government—or any government. The president had made a request, not a directive. Parson would have to check with flight ops in London, but as pilot-in-command, he had final authority. He felt his own fangs growing a little sharper.

“So are we all on board with this?” Parson asked Chartier and Geedi.

“You bet,” Geedi said.

“Oui.”

“All right, then,” Parson said. “It's okay with me if it's okay with the operations desk.” Stewart clapped like an excited schoolgirl. Parson turned to Gold. “Can I use your sat phone? I'll call home to mom.”

“Sure.”

She gave that half smile he loved so well. Yep, Parson realized, she got her way again. And made it look like it was his idea.

Gold dug the phone from her backpack, and Parson dialed the number for World Relief Airlift. At the ops desk in London, a kindred spirit answered the phone: a retired group captain who had flown C-130s in Britain's Royal Air Force.

“Hey, Simon,” Parson said. “I'm on the ramp in Mogadishu. You ain't gonna believe what they want me to do.”

“What's that, mate?”

Parson explained the situation.

“Wow,” Simon said. “Are you game?”

“I've landed bigger planes in smaller places.”

“Sounds like a personal problem, mate, but if you think you can manage, I think it's legal. Just make sure all the cargo is medical. Not one round of ammunition. You don't have any ammunition, do you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Good. And you're sure the old bird can handle it?”

“Oh, yeah. She was built for this stuff.” So was I, Parson thought.

Parson terminated the call, then took Gold's phone into the airplane. He sat down in the pilot's seat and opened a cockpit window to let in some breeze. Reached into his flight bag and pulled out a tablet computer. He kept most of his charts and flight publications digitally now. Saved a lot of weight and paper.

When the tablet booted up, he opened a VFR chart that included southern Somalia. He noted the land elevations around Ras Kamboni. Close to sea level, naturally. No real obstacles—certainly no big buildings, not even any power lines or antennas. No hills and valleys that would require fancy gear like terrain-following radar. As tactical airlift went, this looked easy.

Except for the presence of al-Shabaab.

Parson leaned out the cockpit window and called, “Hey, Sophia. Did they give you Ongondo's sat-phone number?”

“I'll bring it to you.”

While he waited, Parson felt his pulse quicken. He hated like hell to hear the good guys were getting chewed up, but he felt excitement at a chance to help. The situation demanded his greatest strengths—and robbed him of his best tools. The prospect of an assault landing with a DC-3 made him feel like an expert modern sniper sent into battle with a Kentucky long rifle.

Even his emergency equipment came from another era. A survival vest hung from the back of his pilot's seat, but not one as well stocked as the Air Force would have issued. This vest Parson had put together himself. From an online supplier, he'd bought a sage-green mesh-type vest from the Vietnam War. It had arrived with empty pouches. He'd filled the pouches with odds and ends ordered from U.S. Cavalry and Brigade Quartermaster: camo face paint, a signal mirror, a lensatic compass, a pocket first-aid kit, water purification tablets, and other items. A handheld GPS receiver had set him back five hundred bucks—and he hoped never to use it. The unit was made for land navigation, which Parson would need only if shot down. He'd special-ordered topographical data for Somalia and loaded it into the GPS with an SD card.

Did I really need all this stuff? Parson asked himself. Chartier had shown up with nothing except an overnight bag and a big gun. But Parson was an old navigator, and he had a navigator's love of gadgets.

Among all the other gear, almost as an afterthought, he'd picked up a bracelet made of braided parachute cord, which he wore on his right wrist. In a pinch, he could unbraid the cord for ten feet of emergency line.

In addition to his first-aid kit, he'd also bought a more complete medical bag—a small rucksack filled with bandages, tourniquets, and other gear. He kept the medical ruck stowed behind the pilot's seat.

Parson couldn't get his hands on a state-of-the-art military survival radio, so he'd substituted a handheld pilot's nav/com radio ordered from Sporty's Pilot Shop. If necessary, he'd use that radio to speak with other aircraft and perhaps to military units. In a lower leg pocket of his flight suit, he had another radio, as well—a little Midland civilian radio used by hikers and hunters for short-range communication. He'd given Chartier an identical radio in case something happened and they got separated on the ground.

Parson's survival vest also carried a folding knife and a multi-tool, and—as always—he wore his boot knife on his left boot, a finely crafted weapon made from Damascus steel. He'd put together all this gear in case an emergency forced him to the ground: “Dress to egress,” as they said in the Air Force.

Gold entered the cockpit and sat down beside Parson in the copilot's seat. She handed him a scrap of paper from a waterproof field notebook. The specially treated paper felt rougher than regular writing paper, and it had a number written on it.

Parson had always felt he owed his friend Ongondo a case of beer, at a minimum. Looked like the debt might get paid with a case of blood plasma instead. Parson dialed the number. The phone rang several times before anyone answered.

“Ongondo here,” a voice finally said.

Parson thought he heard gunfire in the background. Hadn't the area been cleared? Didn't matter. An old friend was on the phone, and Parson had made his decision.

“Lieutenant Colonel,” Parson said, “this is Michael Parson. Remember me?”

Ongondo paused. Then he said, “Yes, sir, I do. To what do I owe this honor?”

“No ‘sirs' today, buddy. I'm working as a civilian at the moment. I know you got your hands full, so I'll be brief. I'm flying an old DC-3 for an NGO. I'm in Mogadishu, and they tell me you need a rush delivery.”

“I certainly do, sir. I have many wounded.”

“You got a landing zone set up?”

“I do.” Ongondo read off the coordinates.

“What you got for comms?”

“Can you call me on UHF, frequency two-four-three?”

“Negative. Civilian airplane. All I got is VHF.”

Parson heard Ongondo put his hand over the receiver and confer with some of his men. When Ongondo came back on the line, he said, “We can talk to you on one-two-one-point-five. We have smoke flares, too. We'll give you green for a good LZ, red if anything goes wrong. My call sign is Spear Alpha.”

“That'll work. I'll see you this afternoon.”

“Bless you, Colonel.”

“Forget it. I still owe you.”

As Parson terminated the phone call, he hoped he wasn't letting loyalty supersede his judgment. But he found it hard to say no to a friend in trouble. There were worse reasons to get yourself killed.