B009G3EPMQ EBOK (28 page)

Once they were given the mission and cut loose, it didn’t matter who had sent them. The attack would be sudden, harsh, and unrelenting.

Any assault force can minimize the risk of stray rounds by cutting down the number of bullets fired. But while knife attacks from the SEAL team might guarantee the hostages weren’t exposed to friendly fire, blades alone couldn’t be trusted to get the job done quickly enough to prevent any cries of alarm.

Thus it was unlikely the SEAL team could thin the opposition by selecting the closest few guards and surprising them with blades to their throats while they slept. The potential silence-breaker would come from that one guy who didn’t die on the first slice and managed to get his hand on a sidearm long enough to fire off a single shot. In seconds, random gunfire would be tearing through the campsite and be just as likely to kill the hostages as save them.

Still, when the SEAL team’s GPS units indicated they were closing on the campsite, the faceless men from DEVGRU glided through the darkness knowing it was safe to exploit their enemy’s most grievous tactical error.

There were no dogs.

Many people in that region have no affection for dogs, considering them unclean and good for nothing, one more mouth to feed. A more dog-friendly attitude would have greatly benefitted the kidnappers. If any had been out there, it would have severely complicated the infiltration effort. That simple precaution is often effective against sneak attacks because it can be so tricky to take out dogs in silence without alerting anybody.

The SEAL operators moving to their preattack locations shared the kidnappers’ appreciation for a lack of dogs. The element of surprise lay at the heart of their attack plan.

Zero hour found each of the SEAL special operators at his prearranged location with the weaponry specific to his job. Grenades and all heavy weapons were left behind, too hot for a surgical job like this. However, the Heckler & Koch MP-7 was ideal for close-quarters fighting, compact even with the suppressor mounted. Likewise the smaller MP-5 machine pistol. The larger H&K 416 assault rifle, with its longer barrel, would be more effective if kill shots were necessary at a distance. Suppressed large-caliber handguns topped their close-quarter firearms list. And the long-bladed knife strapped to each man gave him the opportunity to perform
a silent kill up close, or provided a last chance at survival if he got separated from his firearms.

They arrived already knowing the expected locations of Poul Thisted and Jessica Buchanan in the camp. They knew each one slept on the ground, ringed by guards. Their night vision systems allowed them to silently surround the camp and prepare to launch a coordinated attack under the welcome blanket of darkness.

But the appearance of the camp was all wrong. There were no fires for cooking. In spite of a chill in the night air there were no fires for warmth. The guards all appeared to be fast asleep—every one of them, even though guarding the prisoners was what they were there to do. And for some reason, the American female was moving around the camp by herself in the dark.

The news of a few days earlier had driven Erik into another nightmare, and he found himself clawing at Jessica’s attackers. The dream captured his extreme frustration, set off by the big media story—some American-German citizen working as a journalist had tried to get into the region where Jessica was being held. Word was he planned to interview her, then leave, just like that. He had actually crossed the Green Line and passed down into southern Galkayo traveling alone, as if his press credentials would keep him safe. The ill-fated journalist not only wasted his time and never got near her, now the word was that he himself had been kidnapped.

In a dream that night, Erik fought with a faceless reporter who was standing in his way and keeping him from Jessica. He struggled to get past him and the other dream attackers to reach her, tearing at them with every combat move he knew. There were always more coming, always more. Nothing he did could get past them.

He woke up gasping and angry. The clock showed it was past midnight, now the twenty-fifth of January. The only news from the region on that day was about the UN reestablishing contact with Mogadishu for the first time since 1995. He didn’t feel cheered up over it.

He lay back down, but was too awake to sleep again. Pretty soon he was back up and pacing around, trying to talk himself out from under the tension. He had expected a raid within six days of the Americans’ receiving his certification of Jessica’s deteriorating condition. But the twenty-fourth was the sixth day, and something obviously caused them to pause in their timeline. There had to be a reason or reasons, but they existed behind the official barrier of secrecy. He could only hope their delay would be a short one.

Thoughts of murderous revenge kept interrupting his concentration. The idea of an entire group of men working together to inflict this slow suffering on an innocent woman left him with no desire for another wasted word of negotiation.

As far as he was concerned, the authorities would have to get the job done right away. He was so exhausted from holding back out of concern over doing more harm, even as their inaction harmed her anyway, that if they abandoned plans to go in for any reason, he knew where to get a team of experienced men who would help him make the attempt himself. Every one of the perfectly good reasons not to do that was growing smaller in his mind. There was nothing left but the hell of the ticking clock until the “go” command was given, with the window of opportunity quickly closing. Once it was shut, nobody’s rescue attempt would do any good.

•  •  •

Jessica:

I opened my eyes and looked up from my place on the sleeping mat, but the sky was still so black that things didn’t look any different whether my eyelids were open or closed. There was no moon, and a heavy haze blotted out the starlight. This was the deepest
pitch black I’d ever seen out there. The chill in the air was sharp and woke me up in spite of, or maybe because of, the thin blanket and the damp sleeping mat. I guessed it was well after midnight, probably around 2:00 a.m. Time for a trip to the bush.

Oh, I hated to get up. I had to force my shivering muscles to stand. But the damned urinary tract infections made it impossible for me to sleep through the night. It was my first time getting up since falling asleep, but I knew there’d be more.

The routine was always the same. I stood in place and quietly said, “Toilet.” I had to get approval to move off the sleeping mat. To get off the mat without that permission would risk having someone think I was making an escape attempt. I called out softly enough to avoid waking everybody, but loudly enough so one of the nearby guards would hear me and, I hoped, give me permission to step away.

The problem was that nobody answered. I told myself they might be preoccupied or might not have heard me. So I repeated, still speaking softly but a little bit louder this time, “Toilet.”

I stood still and held my breath to listen. There was no response from any of them.

What is this?
The silence and stillness was so bizarre I felt my adrenaline spike, and I was instantly wide awake. There were nine guards surrounding us. I could hear our Helper, Dahir, snoring close by. Surely they weren’t all asleep at the same time. No way. It never happened.

Poul ought to have been sleeping about twenty feet away, maybe more, though I couldn’t see him. Each of us was forced to sleep surrounded by our own group of guards. It just didn’t seem possible that not one of either group of guards was awake. Unbelievable. It was wrong in a huge way. I felt my hearbeat begin to speed up, although I couldn’t have explained why, since there was no apparent danger. There was just this new and unbelievable situation.

I struggled to reason this thing through. They had spent the
day loaded to the gills on
khat
and stuffed themselves with roasted goat for dinner. So maybe they had all crashed at the same time and didn’t bother to set a guard? But that idea landed with a thud. All of them at once? These were paid mercenaries.

If Bashir caught his men doing this there would surely be bloodshed. The man who had been left in command, the big one called African, should absolutely have been awake and pushing the others to stay awake as well.

I raised my voice just a little louder. “Toilet! Come on, you guys! Dahir, you hear me?
Toilet,
okay?”

Not a peep. They either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. Must’ve been a great party.

The continual infliction of unnecessary difficulties was already a sore spot with me. Being stuck on that mat was at the top of the list. Right at the moment, I needed to go, and somebody had to respond. But when I squinted as hard as I could into the dark, everything was washed in black. My eyes hadn’t been able to get used to the dark because there was just no light out there to take in. No firelight, no ambient light from any source. The overcast continued to block the stars. We might as well have been in a deep cavern.

I gritted my teeth and exhaled in exasperation.
Great. Here we go, fellas
 . . .

I grabbed a little penlight that still had some battery power and used it to light the ground in front of me, just enough to walk without tripping over somebody. I made it to the nearest bush without raising an alarm from anyone, but the whole time I was out there I kept up a flashing pulse with the light, just to make it plain I wasn’t trying to hide or run off.

Then I was alone out there in the bushes, and everything was peaceful and very quiet. I couldn’t hear a thing but an occasional skittering leaf moving on a breeze. Small sounds, just here and there, barely enough to perceive at all. Maybe those sounds were out there all the time, and I just never noticed them before:
nocturnal movements of tiny life forms in the tropical scrub desert. All were somehow closer on this night. I wondered, had this pitch blackness forced my ears to work harder, like those of a blind person?

The darkness itself felt protective, as if it was inviting me to slip away into it and disappear, bound for any destination far from this place. And then, perhaps because of the unusual factors of the sleeping guards and the dark moon and the overcast sky, I imagined making my way over to Poul and rousting him.
Come on, while they’re all out cold!

I suddenly felt convinced we could vanish together in darkness like this.
If I could just shake this fever. We could hoof it out of here. I could stand the pain. I’m ready to try, anyway.

We might get lucky, if we just made a break for it and stayed away from people and made our way on foot. We could power though it and avoid people entirely and just keep going until we crossed the Green Line and could appeal to someone for help.

There were watering holes out there, once used for livestock back when there were herds. We might have to walk a hundred miles, maybe more, I thought. Could a person walk a hundred miles without food? Could I? Could I do that even if we found water along the way? Could I do it in my current condition, when just standing up felt like taking a stabbing?
Stick close to the bushes while we run. Hunt for small game, eat it raw.

I was ready to believe we would be protected in the inky black. I told myself the plan could work. As long as sunrise never came and the inkjet darkness cloaked us, it could absolutely work. All we needed to do was freeze time for a few days while we effected a clean getaway.

With that, the images left me. I was glad for them to go. Entertaining fantasies about unreal escapes did nothing but sharpen all those jagged feelings of isolation.

There was some physical relief when I was finished, but the
pain stayed in my lower abdomen.
Escape? Oh, yeah. We might have made it a few hundred yards.

I padded back to the sleeping mat, avoiding the inert guards. I got a glimpse of Dahir a few feet from the bottom of my mat. He was usually responsive to me when Jabreel wasn’t around. He also tended to be far less in the grip of
khat
than the other men. It was hard to see him included in this goofy party.

Dahir was probably in his early forties, well-groomed, and a trusted driver for the group. His green Land Cruiser brought regular shipments of those humble supplies that were allowed to us. It was surreal that he had included himself in this first-ever group sleepover. I hated to see him get down on their level. Among that unhappy lineup of men, Dahir was a good man by comparison.

Dahir, the Helper, spoke a little English, and indicated he was married with eight, yes eight, children plus his own house, somewhere nearby. For some reason, Dahir was finding it difficult to support a household of at least ten people in a broken society. I suppose that’s what put him there.

He always seemed to have a conscience about things and never mistreated me. If he was supposed to make me do something, he was respectful about it. I liked having his sympathetic presence around, and he seemed happy to remain right at my side whenever he was on duty.

Unlike Jabreel, Dahir was shy and restrained in his manners, and his behavior was never improper. He prayed five times a day, something Jabreel also did, though Helper appeared to be trying to live by his faith, as long as you set aside the little bits about kidnapping, sick prisoners, and withholding necessary medicine.

Dahir the Helper was what passed for a friend in this dark place, where it was so black at night and somehow just as dark with the sun shining. All he did was drive the car and deliver the supplies, so I suppose he mentally divorced himself from sharing guilt over the rest of it.

He was a living portrait of how a good-hearted man of peace conducts himself when carrying out terrible actions for an evil design. He tries to be nice about it.

I lay down on my side and curled into a ball for warmth, feeling like a bag of mud. I had lost fifteen or twenty pounds and my bony body couldn’t seem to retain heat anymore. It would have been some consolation to be able to see my mom’s star, but that was no option on this odd night when nothing was visible. So I conjured up images of her instead and projected them out into the solid black sky, using it as the world’s largest movie screen.