Blue Warrior (19 page)

29

The village of Anou
Kidal Region, Northwest Mali

7 May

P
earce’s truck skidded to a halt by the well. Mossa knelt in the dirt, his men circled around him, the other Toyotas parked nearby. Early climbed down from the truck bed as Pearce and Cella opened their doors.

Mossa stood. “Mr. Pearce? Why aren’t you on the plane?”

“Heard you were shorthanded. Mind if I hang around?”

“It’s your life. Spend it as you will.”

“What’s the plan?” Pearce stepped closer to the group.

Mossa kneeled back down. He’d drawn a crude sketch of the village. Pearce had caught a glimpse of it from the air before they landed earlier. Anou was roughly a square, a ragged three hundred yards on each side, bordered by a low sand-brick wall. A one-lane hard-packed road led into the town from the southwest, linking it to Gao. The land on either side of the road was mostly loose sand and scrub juniper. Vehicles would have to stay on that road if they needed sure footing. On the western and northern sides of the wall there were clumps of jagged rock thrusting up through the harder-packed sand and loose rock, and even a few trees, twisted and barren. There were also remnants of older houses that had long since been broken down by years
of wind and neglect. Soldiers on foot could easily traverse the area, but wheeled vehicles would have a harder time of it.

“There is an old Soviet BTR-60 armored personnel carrier at the head of a convoy of five trucks,” Mossa said. He drew a road in the dust with a long finger. “As you can see, there is only one road coming into the village. They will advance as far as the wall but no further, then dismount, the BTR leading the way. The commander will be in the BTR. We have an RPG that can take out the BTR, then—”

“Permission to speak?” Pearce asked.

Mossa glanced at Early, asking an unspoken question.

“I heard you once say that a piece of salt doesn’t call itself salty. Troy here is the best warfighter I know.”

“Speak, then, Mr. Pearce.”

“You need fuel if you want to get out of here. That BTR carries at least seventy, eighty gallons of diesel. You need to capture it, not blow it up.”

“What do you propose?”

“Depends. What else do you have in your inventory?”

Mossa gave him the rundown. It wasn’t much, but it had possibilities.

Pearce had a few toys, too. They made a plan.

“You think like an Imohar
,
” Mossa said. “You may not live long, but at least you will die well.” Cella translated. The other Tuaregs chuckled in agreement.

—

T
he eight-wheeled BTR slowed to a crawl one hundred meters out from the entrance to the village. The front and side hatches were shut against gunfire, but the top ones were left open because the heat was unbearable even at this early hour in the morning. It rolled along for another thirty meters, but still there was no firing from the village. The commander signaled a halt to the convoy and the BTR braked. The five trucks a hundred meters behind him did the same.

The side hatches popped open and eight Red Beret soldiers in
camouflage spilled out and ran in a low crouch toward the wall. They hit the wall and hunkered down on either side of the road, out of breath and sweating, and surprised that they hadn’t been fired upon. The squad leader glanced back, taking comfort in the big 14.5mm KPV heavy machine gun on top of the BTR keeping watch over them. It would pour out liquid lead at the first sign of trouble.

The squad leader, a sergeant, gave the hand signal to his men and then rushed through the gate, guns up, building to building, up the narrow road toward the town square—old-school “cover and maneuver.” The old buildings were mostly one and two stories tall. No sounds, no movement in the windows, so they pushed on toward the well in the center of the village.

And that’s when he saw the girl. She was Tuareg and beautiful. She stood at the well with a clay water pot. She sensed something and glanced up. Saw the squad leader, dropped her pot, and ran for a darkened doorway.

The squad leader signaled his team and advanced for the house. His men followed. Four men circled around back, but the squad leader and three others stayed out front, backs pressed against the wall.

“Tuareg! Come out!” he shouted in French.

“Non!”
the girl shrieked.

His corporal pulled a grenade.

“No. Wait,” the squad leader said in Songhai, and pushed the grenade back down.

“Come out! We won’t hurt you. We’re only looking for bandits, not little girls.”

A moment passed, and the girl appeared in the doorway, trembling. Her pale brown eyes were wet with fear, but it didn’t diminish the beauty of her long, angular face.

“Who else is in there?”

She shook her head. “No one. Only my sisters.”

“How many?” he asked.

“Two. Both younger.”

“No one else?”

She shook her head. “All dead, or gone. We’re the last. We had nowhere else to go.”

The squad leader couldn’t believe his good fortune. He turned to his corporal with a feral grin and said in Songhai, “See?”

The corporal grinned back. “Such a beauty.”

“We have time, if we’re quick about it.”

The sergeant lowered his weapon. He towered over the trembling girl. “Show us,” he said, nodding at the house. He pulled out a chocolate-flavored PowerBar from a pocket and held it up to her. She snatched it out of his hand. He laughed. “If you are telling the truth, there will be more.”

“I am telling the truth,” she said, leading the way in.

True to her word, two other teenage girls were in the room, both sitting on the bed, clutching each other in fear. The sergeant, the corporal, and another soldier stepped into the cool of the house.

“Look around. There is only one other room,” the girl said, pointing at the doorway. “My bedroom. I’m the oldest now.”

“Show me,” he said, barely able to contain himself.

She nodded and stepped into her bedroom. She turned around. “See? I—”

The sergeant clapped a heavy hand on her mouth and wrapped his other arm around her back, forcing her onto the bed. He heard a commotion in the other room. His men, no doubt, having their way with the younger ones.

The sergeant’s broad nose nearly touched the girl’s face. Her eyes flared with fear.

“I’m gentle, I promise. I don’t like to hurt girls. Don’t scream, don’t bite. I’ll be quick, and then we’ll be on our way. Okay?”

She nodded yes beneath his hand, and he felt her body relax a little.

“Good. Quick and gentle. I promise,” he said again with a brotherly smile. He stood back up and unbuckled his belt, dropping his trousers. She saw the hardness of his manhood beneath his boxers. He pulled them down, then fell back on top of her, grabbing her shoulders.

“Here, let me help you,” she said, reaching one hand to the back of his neck as if to kiss him.

“Yes, good,” he grunted as she guided him toward her face.

The knife blade in her other hand plunged straight into his ear. His scream lasted until the tip of the thin steel blade plowed through his ear canal and into his brain stem. His body flew up and away from her in a violent spasm, then crashed to the floor.

Mossa stood in the doorway, his eyes smiling beneath the veil. He wiped his own bloody dagger on his trouser leg.

“You did well, little sister.”

“My sisters?”

“Untouched. We killed the others before they could harm them.” He sheathed his blade.

The girl leaped out of bed and kicked the sergeant’s corpse in the head, then spat on it.

“Bring me a hundred more of them, Mossa, I beg you!”

30

The village of Anou
Kidal Region, Northwest Mali

7 May

E
arly and Pearce scrambled up to the third floor of the only three-story building in the village. It was fifty meters back from the wall, but it had the best view. Pearce and Early shouldered their rifles and muscled the big Pelican cases up the narrow stairs.

Inside the house was a horror show, not unlike the many poor houses Pearce had cleared out in Iraqi and Afghan villages after the
haji
s had been inside. Blood, bullet holes, busted furniture. And the requisite pile of human feces in the corner. Predators marking their territory. They climbed a rickety wooden ladder through the hole in the roof and took up their position.

—

P
earce lay flat as possible on the roof to keep out of sight of the army troops who would be scanning the rooflines for trouble. He couldn’t see the street below him from his position, but the roar of the BTR’s big diesel in the road near his building told him it was almost showtime. A two-foot-long firing tube lay by his side, extracted from an opened Pelican case.

—

T
he BTR slammed to a stop at the well, as expected. The hatches were still open. Mossa was sorely tempted to toss the grenades inside, but Pearce had authority in his voice when he spoke, the kind of authority that comes only from men who have commanded in battle and lived to tell about it. So Mossa kept to the plan, and he and Moctar rolled four grenades beneath the BTR just as it skidded to a stop. Even the thin bottom-plate armor was too thick for the grenades to penetrate. But that was the point. They didn’t want to take any chances and destroy the vehicle.

Moments later, the grenades exploded, shredding all eight tires.

—

T
he exploding grenades were Pearce’s signal. He stood with the tube launcher and fired, throwing a Switchblade UAV into the sky. The electric-motored aircraft carried a high-definition video camera, laser target designator, and Wi-Fi transmitter.

—

R
ed Berets piled out of the trucks as fast as they could dismount, NCOs shouting orders in their ears. The soldiers fanned out and raced for the sand-brick wall for cover. Out on the road, they were completely exposed. The wall was their only protection outside of the village. Without it, they’d be sitting ducks.

The big transport trucks revved their diesels, belching black smoke out of the exhaust pipes as they raced backward out of harm’s way.

—

P
earce was still standing on the roof. The BTR’s machine gun opened up, pulverizing the mud-brick buildings in the square. The building shuddered under the soles of his boots, as the BTR had turned its massive gun in his direction.

—

M
octar and Mossa charged the BTR. The side hatches slammed shut as the two Free Men clambered up the back of the vehicle and onto the top, emptying their AK-47s into the open roof hatches. The 14.5mm gun silenced. Mossa listened. Nothing. He peered in. Blood and brains were splattered all over the compartment filled with gun smoke.

—

I
haven’t flown one of these for a while,” Early said. “You should let me work that thing.” He nodded at the weapon at Pearce’s feet, a specially modified M-25 grenade launcher with a high-capacity magazine.

“No worries. The Switchblade’s on autopilot. You’re just the backup.”

Pearce pulled on a pair of what looked like old-school mountaineering sunglasses. They were actually a mil-spec version of MetaPro holographic glasses loaded with Pearce Systems proprietary targeting software. The MetaPro glasses were mirrored to the Switchblade’s onboard camera that broadcast a 3-D stereoscopic image of the battlefield inside the MetaPro’s HD lenses, giving Pearce a holographic bird’s-eye view of the Red Berets crouching behind the wall.

Early watched incredulously as Pearce’s fingers danced in the empty air in front of his face, swiping, sizing, and tapping a giant invisible touchscreen.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Selecting targets.”

Once the targets were selected, the Switchblade’s computer transmitted data to the programmable “smart” laser-guided 25mm grenades in the M-25 launcher for a firing solution.

Pearce snatched up the bull-pup-styled grenade launcher, pulling the M-25 buttstock tightly into his shoulder.

He fired, putting all twenty rounds in the air.

—

T
he Mali soldiers hugging the wall had nowhere to hide. Airbursting grenade rounds exploded just a meter above their heads. Pure carnage. It was as if Pearce jammed a twelve-gauge shotgun against the back of each man’s skull and pulled the trigger.

The Tuareg Hiluxes leaped across the sandy moonscape. Two raced for the fleeing trucks, stuck running backward in a single line of retreat along the hard-packed road. The three other Toyotas flew across the sand and rounded the wall, firing in enfilade at the few surviving soldiers, limping away as fast as their wounded bodies could manage or cowering by the wall clutching their unfired weapons. A half-dozen Red Berets who screwed up enough courage to race through the gate toward the well before the grenade attack were cut down by the 14.5mm gun in the immobilized BTR. Mossa had turned the gun around and stood in the turret firing the big weapon, his feet slipping in blood.

—

T
he first two Toyotas quickly caught up with the trucks. Like ships o’ the line in the age of sail, the pickups came along broadside the five trucks, brandishing their 7.62 machine guns. The trucks didn’t stop. The first Toyota fired short bursts and blew out the tires of the rearmost truck, the first in the line of retreat. The tires shredded, wrapping around the rear axles and flipping the big truck over. The next truck in line slammed its brakes, slowing its crash into the toppled vehicle. The remaining three trucks slammed their brakes in time, avoiding a crash altogether. As tempting as it was to open fire on the vehicles, Mossa gave strict orders to capture the fuel in their tanks. Of course, he gave no orders when it came to the surrender of the drivers. None was needed.

In the desert, the Free Men took no prisoners.