“Sshh. You must be quiet. I spoke to your Brooke Grant. She will send someone, but you must be quiet. He will kill us if he knows they are coming to rescue you.”
The HRT sniper secured a shooting position in the tree line about thirty yards southwest of the cabin at the edge of a clearing and watched with his spotter while their fellow operatives closed in on their target. It was mid-morning, the sky was clear, and anyone inside the Perfect Hideaway looking out of its windows could have seen them. But there were no visible signs of movement. Nor were there any cars parked outside the cabin on the gravel driveway.
The team reached the wraparound porch without incident, moving quickly to the cabin's front entrance where the team's “breacher” fired a twelve-gauge shotgun into the middle hinge of the front door. He fired at the top and bottom hinges next. Each blast contained nine .30-caliber balls that easily busted the hinges free. After kicking in the door, the breacher spun out of the way to give another HRT gunman a clear shot at anyone inside. A third team member simultaneously pitched flash-bangs into the main living area. They exploded, causing a tremendous noise, blinding flash, and a shock wave designed to disorient and confuse. In less than a minute, the team had gone through the entire cabin and determined that it was vacant.
“We missed them, but not by much,” the HRT leader explained when a clearly disappointed Brooke and Parker arrived. “Two bags of groceries were on the kitchen table and the time stamp on the receipt showed they'd been purchased less than two hours before we got here.”
“Roadblocks?” Brooke asked.
“There is no local police department in this area,” the leader said, “but I've notified state troopers here and across the state line in West Virginia. I told them to be looking for a Somali American couple traveling with one white and one black girl.”
Suddenly, the team leader pressed his right hand against the earpiece that he was wearing to better hear what was being said. Brooke and Parker, who were standing with him on the wraparound porch, were not wearing earpieces, so they had no idea what he was being told.
“I see them now,” the team leader replied into a thin microphone near his mouth. He raised his right hand and pointed away from the cabin. Brooke and Parker, who were facing him, turned so they could see southwest where he was pointing. Across the clearing, an HRT operative emerged from the trees holding Cassy's hand.
Brooke darted down the porch steps and bolted across the clearing toward them. “Is Jennifer with you?” she yelled.
Cassy threw her arms around Brooke, the only woman in the rescue party, and began crying.
“They got her,” the eleven year-old said, her words coming out in gulps because of her sobs.
“I'm Jennifer's guardian. Are you okay?” Brooke asked. “All of these men have first aid training.”
“She's dehydrated but otherwise seems physically fine,” the HRT operative who had brought her from the woods said. “She's one tough little girl.”
“That bad man hit me and Jennifer with a belt, but I'm okay.”
“We need to get her to a hospital and then to her mom and dad,” Parker said when he joined them in the clearing.
“I don't want to go inside there,” Cassy said, nodding toward the cabin.
“You don't have to,” Brooke said. “Have you had a helicopter ride?” Brooke was on her knees so that she was face-to-face with Cassy.
“No.”
“We flew down here in one just to get you,” Brooke said. “It's parked close by.” She took Cassy's hand and began walking with her and Parker toward the chopper, which was parked on a wide spot that was part of the gravel driveway. When they reached it, Brooke buckled Cassy into the passenger seat next to hers and said, “You're safe now. Before we take off, can you tell us how you escaped?” She was still holding the girl's hand.
“The man and woman watching us left this morning. I knew they both were gone.”
“How did you know that?” Parker asked. He'd taken a seat directly across from them after closing the helicopter's door.
“Their car was parked outside the room where we were being held. When I heard two soundsâtwo car doors closingâI knew both of them were leaving.”
“That was really clever, Cassy,” Brooke said, squeezing her hand. “And you are one very brave young lady.”
“I'm sorry I couldn't help Jennifer,” the teen said. “My hands were tied with tape.” An HRT operator had freed her wrists when he'd spotted her hiding in the woods. “I couldn't get it off and couldn't get the tape off her hands either.”
“I'm just glad you're safe,” Brooke said in a reassuring voice. She'd noticed earlier that Cassy wasn't wearing any shoes.
“That man taped my riding boots together. But I managed to slip out of them. They were too big for me when my mom bought them. She said I was growing so fast I would grow into them.”
Brooke smiled. “We'll need to thank your mom for those boots.”
“I couldn't get the tape off my arms or Jennifer's, so I went upstairs to get a knife in the kitchen. I told Jennifer I'd be right back, but when I got upstairs I heard the car coming, so I ran out the door as fast as I could until I was in the woods.”
“Did you see the man and woman? Akbar and Aludra?”
“Yes, I watched them from behind the trees. I was scared and didn't know where to hide. When they parked the car, the man came out with a gun and went inside the house. I was afraid he was going to shoot Jennifer, but I didn't hear a gunshot. He came out and called the woman, who carried in two plastic bags. While she was doing that, he started walking away from the cabin. He was coming right toward me and I was really scared. I wanted to run, but I was so scared my legs wouldn't move. I just stood there. Frozen. But then he stopped before he reached the woods and saw me.”
“Why? Why did he stop, Cassy?” Brooke asked.
“He got a phone call.”
“A phone call?”
“He had to answer his funny-looking old phone. It had a big antenna like the phones my grandparents used to have at their house in Minneapolis.”
“It was probably a satellite phone,” Parker volunteered. “They have big antennas.”
“What happened next?” Brooke asked.
“The man talked into the phone to whoever called him and when he finished, he turned around and ran back to the cabin. The next thing I saw was him bringing Jennifer outside. Her hands were still tied with tape and she had a hood on her head so the woman was helping her and they all got into their car and left. I didn't know what to do, so I just stayed in the woods watching the cabin and the next thing I saw was the soldiers crossing the field to the house and then one of them came up behind me and told me I was being rescued. And then he brought me out to you.”
Brooke glanced over at Parker. “She said Akbar got a phone call. That means someone warned him we were coming. That's why he didn't keep looking for Cassy in the woods. He knew we were on our way, so he ran back inside and got Jennifer.”
“This is important,” Parker said to Cassy. “Do you know what model of car they left in?”
“It was a Chevrolet, a black Chevrolet. I have an uncle who has one like it. A Malibu. I knew you would want to know and I looked at the license plate too. The first three letters were KWB. I know the numbers too.” She told him, and Parker immediately picked up a pair of headphones in the helicopter and spoke to the HRT commander in Quantico.
Brooke leaned sideways and kissed Cassy on her forehead.
“You did fabulous,” she told her as the pilot started the helicopter's engine.
“I'm sorry I couldn't save Jennifer,” Cassy said, as the aircraft began to lift off. She began to cry.
“Me too,” Brooke replied. “But you're safe and your mother and daddy will be waiting for you at the hospital.”
“I hope he doesn't hurt Jennifer,” Cassy said. “He's a bad man. My father told me it is wrong to hate people who hurt you. He said we have to pray for them. But I want him dead.”
“Yes, me too.”
Near the border city of El Wak
Northeastern Kenya desert
S
urrounded by goats and carrying a dead one across his shoulders, Walks Many Miles helped the old herder cross the desert for about an hour before they came to a hut made of sticks, pieces of scrap metal, and tattered strips of canvas. As they approached it, the herder released his grip on Miles's arm and made his way painfully forward to a rickety pen, calling his animals to follow him.
Miles dumped the carcass on the ground and listened as the old man yelled out what sounded like a name. A woman wearing a bright yellow headscarf and ankle-length blue-and-red-striped dress emerged from the hut. She was about the same age as Miles. She eyed him suspiciously as she hurriedly spoke to the herder in a dialect foreign to the American.
The woman helped the herder close the pen's gate and took his arm as the two of them walked toward the hut's entrance. The goat herder waved his hand, motioning Miles to join them inside.
Miles was surprised at how large the interior of the hut's dome-shaped room was and how much cooler the temperature became under the covering. The woman brought the old man a clay cup of goat's milk and offered one to Miles as both of the men sat on threadbare rugs. She'd heated the milk and added spice to it.
Miles listened as the herder spoke rapidly, apparently explaining to the woman how Al-Shabaab terrorists had accosted him and killed his goat. As he spoke, he nodded at Miles and when he finished, the woman parted the hut's fabric door flap and disappeared outside. Worried that she might be on her way to tell someone about his arrival, Miles followed her outside. He found her butchering the dead goat and realized he had carried home their dinner. Returning inside the hut, he sat on the floor and watched as the old man rubbed salve on his chest. When the herder finished, he scooted toward Miles with a handful of blackish goop clutched in his bony fingers. Miles shook his head. “Thank you, but no thanks. I got busted ribs and that isn't going to help them.”
The old man looked puzzled and again signaled with his hand, indicating that Miles should lift his shirt. Reluctantly, Miles complied, and the herder rubbed the black concoction onto his chest and sides. To Miles's surprise, the pain eased, causing him to wonder what analgesic the sticky substance contained. The old man fetched another cup of milk for himself and Miles. They drank it in awkward silence, occasionally grinning at each other.
Outside, the woman was cooking several pieces of goat meat over a fire. She'd already skinned the animal and scraped its bones, which she then boiled in a clay pot, making bone soup.
When she rejoined the men in the tent, she served them soup, meat, and wild berries. Miles found the meal more delicious and satisfying than the energy bars and prepackaged food in his field ration.
By the time they finished eating, it was dark, and now somewhat rested and refueled, Miles decided to leave. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly certain where he was.
“El Wak,” he said, as the three of them sat in a semicircle around a tiny clay pot that contained some sort of flammable oil and was being burned as a lamp inside the hut. “Me go El Wak now.”
The old man said something to the woman, who replied, and from the sharpness of their conversation, it sounded to Miles as if they were arguing.
Miles rose to his feet. He would use the stars to guide him east to where he assumed the highway was located.
“Don't leave,” the woman said.
“You speak English?” he asked, clearly startled.
“My late husband taught me. He was a missionary in Mandera before he was murdered. But my father does not understand or speak it.”
“I know,” Miles said, smiling. “All he kept saying when I found him was the same phrase. I heard it so many times, I memorized it: â
No gattee hindeemin.
”
“It is Cushitic. He was asking you to not leave him or his goats behind.”
“How old is he?” Miles asked.
“Sixty,” she replied.
Miles had guessed the herder was in his late seventies, possibly even older than that.
“Will you ask my age too?” she said.
“No, ma'am, but I'll ask your name.”
“Hani, a Somali name that means âhappy.' My mother was Somali. My father married outside his clan. I am their only child and I married a Kenyan missionary from the south. We are a family of outsiders, which is why we live alone and are not protected by a clan. It is why those men beat my father.”
“Did those men kill your husband?”
“He was murdered three years ago because he was a Coptic Christian.”
“By Al-Shabaab?”
She shrugged. “Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, they all eat from the same plate. Who can be sure today what they call themselves?”
“But they spared you, why?”
“My husband knew how dangerous it was for me. He told everyone I was his cook. I was never baptized and am still a Muslim, like my father. But I had to leave Mandera after he was murdered. It was where I was studying to be a teacher, and that made me a target. They do not like women to be educated.”
Her father said something and she spoke bluntly to him.
“What did he just tell you?” Miles asked.
“He wants one of your guns. He wants to have a weapon to shoot the men who killed his goat. He is willing to give you two of his best goats for your rifle.”
“Unless I can ride them out of here, I've got no use for them,” Miles said, grinning. “But I do have use for my weapons.”
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Walks Many Miles.”
“That is not an American name.”
“It is the name of a first American. I'm Indian.”
She let her eyes linger for a moment on his face. “Like the ones in movies?” she asked.
“No, those were white people painted to look like Indians. I'm the genuine thing.”
“My father says he saw the helicopter you were riding in when it was shot down. He was not far from where it crashed. He said he saw you and the men chasing you.”
“I need to use a phone,” he replied. Glancing around their sparsely furnished hut, he added, “I don't suppose you have one handy.”
“There are phones in El Wak, but it is a tiny village and going there would be dangerous for you. Al-Shabaab controls it, along with a rich man who has his own private army and lives outside the town.”
“Yes, I know. He's the billionaire Umoja Owiti. Do you know where he lives?”
“In a big house not far from where my father takes his goats to graze because there is water there. My father could guide you there, but this man is friends with Al-Shabaab. It would not be safe.”
“How do you know Umoja Owiti is friends with Al-Shabaab?”
“Because he welcomes Al-Shabaab into his house. His soldiers allow my father to graze his goats near the house except when several black trucks come to the compound. My father is always warned the day before to stay away and is not allowed to come close to the house with his goats until those cars are gone several days later.”
A visit by the Falcon
, Miles thought. That had to be the reason why the goat herder was told to stay away. The SAD team had been sent to watch the Umoja Owiti estate. Israeli intelligence had sent word that the Falcon was supposed to return there sometime during a five-day period. Once the team had confirmed his arrival, Langley would decide how best to capture or, more likely, kill him.
“I will give your father this rifle and ammunition,” Miles said, slapping the butt of the AK-47 next to him, “in return for two favors.”
“My father will be killed if he has a gun,” she replied. “I will not tell him your offer.”
But the old man, who'd been watching them intently, had seen Miles touch the rifle and instantly understood that it was being discussed. He spoke rapidly to his daughter, who again argued with him. Finally, the old herder shook his fist at her.
“He has told me that he will agree to your demands whatever they are. He has told me I am a bad daughter for arguing with him. He says we can use the rifle to protect ourselves from the men who beat him.”
The old man spoke again. “He wants to know what you want for the rifle,” Hani said. “What are the two favors?”
“I need you to walk into town and make a phone call,” Miles replied. “You speak English. Call a number and tell them I am alive and I will let them know when I need them to send help. Could you make a call like that without putting yourself in danger?”
“Everyone who lives here is in danger. What else?”
“I want your father to take me with him and his goats to graze near the house of Umoja Owiti. I want to see it.”
She relayed his demands to the old man and said, “He's not sure. He's worried they will kill us if they discover that we helped you. He will give you an answer tomorrow.”
The next morning, the herder nudged him awake before sunrise and handed him a bundle of clothes. The pants were several sizes too big as was the white buttoned shirt. The old man nodded approvingly when he saw how huge they hung on Miles. In the oversize garments, he appeared thinner. Several holes in the shirt's back panel had been mended, causing Miles to assume that Hani's Coptic missionary husband had been wearing the clothing when he was murdered. He tucked both of his pistols under the billowing shirt and stepped outside the hut. Hani already had made a fire and was heating milk for them.
“Good morning,” he said, taking a cup from her. “Can I assume your father is willing to take me since I am now wearing these clothes?”
“He will take you to the house and I will walk into El Wak and make the call,” she said. “In return, you will give him your rifle and bullets.”
“Let's hold off on that phone call. I want to see the house first.”
She placed another branch on the fire while her father emerged from the hut carrying a long piece of black cloth. “Are you finished with your milk?” she asked Miles. He handed her his empty cup and she poked a small burning stick inside it which she rubbed against the inside of the clay cup, sanitizing it, since water could not be wasted on washing dishes. Next, she took the long piece of fabric from her father and began wrapping it around Miles's neck and head until only his eyes peeked through a slit.
“Now you look like a poor herder,” she declared.
Using a walking stick to support himself, the old man opened the pen's gate, freeing the goats to walk with them. He and Miles herded the animals north, away from the hut.
Traveling with goats was mind-numbingly slow as they inched forward at their own pace despite Miles's prompting. By the time they reached a slight incline, they'd been walking for nearly two hours, and the sun was rising.
The old man nodded toward a walled compound, causing Miles to turn his attention away from the meandering goats. A massive white dome rose from the center of Umoja Owiti's main house, which had been built in the center of his expansive estate. A ten-foot-tall wall made of dried mud and painted white protected the grounds. The landscape outside of the compound was largely barren, but on the other side of the wall, Miles could see the tops of palm trees.
The herder gently prodded the goats toward the estate but stopped fifty yards outside the wall. While the goats searched for food, Miles sat next to the herder on a windblown stone and studied his target. The main gate had four sentries posted outside its metal doors. They were armed with assault rifles.
By noon, the goats had made their way to within ten yards of the mud walls. Miles had watched the comings and goings at the main entrance but had not seen anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Occasionally, a Land Rover from inside would emerge only to return later, presumably after running an errand into town. The afternoon warmth made Miles drowsy, and he fought to stay awake. His headscarf helped cool him, and when a sudden burst of wind sent sand flying, he was happy that his disguise was functional. His mind wandered. He thought of Brooke and wondered if she knew by some psychic bonding between them that he had not died during the helicopter crash nor had he been captured. Was she thinking about him? He had no way of knowing about the attack on the girls' school and Jennifer's abduction. Instead, he envisioned Brooke and Jennifer at the farmhouse waiting eagerly for him to return.
Miles snapped awake when a Land Rover exited from the front gate and drove off the road that led to El Wak toward them. Miles casually slipped his hand under his baggy shirt where his pistols were being held in place by a piece of rope holding up his oversize pants.
The two security guards riding in the vehicle were dressed in the same Owiti company uniforms that Miles had first seen at the helicopter crash site. When their vehicle neared the old man, the passenger lowered his window and hollered out to him.
The goat herder bowed his head obediently and raised his right arm in a gesture that Miles took to mean that he understood the man's command. The driver began a U-turn to return to the main gate, and as he did, the Land Rover passed close by Miles and the guard seated in the passenger seat stared out at him.