Mission Liberty (7 page)

“The king?” DeLuca said, remembering Kissick’s briefing. “Deposed 1972. See, I was listening. I just looked like I wasn’t.”

“Paul also went to school with John Dari. He might be the only one on our side who can identify him. Paul?”

“John was my roommate at Mill River. I was sent there by my father when it became unsafe for me to stay in Liger. We had little
in common, but they decided because we were both African, we would get along.”

“Dari is Da. Is that right?”

Asabo shook his head.

“John is Somalian. He was born in Mogadishu but he lost his parents in the war. He was a ‘Lost Boy,’ as they called them.
He was found by a doctor in Sudan and went to a missionary family in Baku Da’al, and they sent him, their church did, to Mill
River because he scored so high on the tests he’d been given.”

Asabo spoke English without an accent. Most people who learned a language without an accent did so only if they began to study
it before they reached puberty.

“We were both headed for Bennington when he was expelled,” Asabo continued, “so I went and he came back here.”

“And you’ve spoken to him in the interim?”

Asabo shook his head.

“We exchanged letters.”

“E-mail?”

Asabo shook his head again.

“He wrote me about becoming a Muslim. Returning to the religion of his father, of his early childhood, after temporarily adopting
the religion of his sponsors. He did not consider it a conversion. But in one of his last letters, he said he could not do
e-mail because he’d decided not to own a computer. He felt that the Internet and the pornographic images that Islamic youths
were downloading across the Arab world has meant the death of Islam as anybody has understood it historically.”

“I’d have to agree with him there,” DeLuca said. “And you think you’d recognize him? We were told he’d altered his appearance.”

“He underwent scarification,” Asabo said. “On his face. Most African men who do it have it done when they’re young, as a rite
of passage and progressively of manhood, but John had missed the opportunity.”

“But you don’t have it,” DeLuca said.

“It’s not a Fasori custom,” Asabo said. “But it’s quite widespread throughout West Africa. It shows a sense of piety. And
ethnic unity. I think John wanted to be accepted among his people.”

“And who does he consider his people?” LeDoux asked.

“Black African Muslims,” Asabo said. “He’s traveled too much and lived too many places to narrow how he identifies himself.
So he is Somalian, he’s Da, he’s Kum, he’s Muslim. I think he might even say part of him is American, but I don’t know. He
was bitter about how he left.”

“And he’s charismatic?” DeLuca said. “People follow him?”

“People always followed him.” Asabo smiled. “He was the star on the soccer team. Quite popular among all the boys. And the
girls, too.”

“He was expelled because of a girl,” DeLuca said. “Do I understand that correctly?”

Asabo shook his head again.

“Are you keeping score?” DeLuca said to LeDoux. “Is this three major things the CIA report got wrong, or four?” He turned
again to Asabo. “What exactly did happen, then? You can speak freely—we were all teenage idiots at one point ourselves.”

“And everybody is,” Asabo said. “I know. I don’t know how they did not understand that. There was a girl who perhaps lacked
self-esteem. I don’t know. I think her name was Karen. Or Kari. What I know is that one night at a party, she performed oral
sex on three boys.”

“On Dari?”

“Not that time. But a few days later, she was asked to do it again and she agreed, this time with five boys, in the locker
room, after soccer practice. Again, it was consensual, but this time they were caught, and because the girl was only fifteen,
it became a legal matter.”

“Where were you?” DeLuca said.

“I was studying,” Asabo said. “In the library. I was not athletic.”

“So they expelled him?” DeLuca asked.

“No,” Asabo said. “John and the other boys were suspended for a week but not expelled. John left school because the church
that was sponsoring him financially decided they could not support such behavior. They were a conservative Baptist church
from Oklahoma and they said John had betrayed their moral values. I told him he was the one who was betrayed. I think for
all he knew, he was just being an American. When he followed the others, that was why. To fit in. I’m not sure he even knew
that this sort of behavior was even unusual. He was just finding his way. As we all were.”

“And you got along, personally?” DeLuca asked.

“Yes. Though we were quite different in our upbringings. He used to tell me how I came from privilege and wealth. I told him
it wasn’t like that but he could not believe me. When I was quite young, perhaps, but my father was overthrown well before
I was born. He was only a figurehead after that. It became a kind of house arrest. And then when I was a senior, President
Bo considered him a threat, because my father was speaking out against the things the government was doing, and put him in
prison. And killed my brothers, Thomas and Daniel, because he was afraid of them, too. That they might overthrow him. But
by then, John Dari and I were no longer in touch. I was in college. I don’t know what he was doing.”

“And you haven’t been back?” DeLuca asked. “To Liger?”

Asabo shook his head again.

“It would not have been safe, I think. I work in Washington, for Conservation International,” Asabo said. “They tell me when
we go in, you will be posing as my colleague.”

“I haven’t got that far yet,” DeLuca said.

“We’ve given Paul a passport with a different last name,” LeDoux said, “but the rest of his backstory will be more or less
true.”

“How do you feel about going back?” DeLuca asked. He couldn’t imagine.

“I think I might be able to help,” Asabo said.

“We’re going to have a briefing with the team in the morning,” DeLuca said. “I’m not quite up to speed on all of this myself,
yet. Get some rest and I’ll talk to you after breakfast. Try the coffee—it’s delicious.”

“I know,” Asabo said. “The beans come from Liger.”

DeLuca made his way to his own quarters and turned the light on, enjoying the luxury of having the cabin all to himself. When
he tried to lift his duffel onto the top bunk to make more room below, his ribs hurt so much that he gave up, setting the
bag on the desk instead. His neck ached as well, from an old injury suffered in Iraq, when he’d been thrown through the windshield
of a Humvee. It was always something. He stripped to his skivvies and lifted his shirt to look in the mirror where something
had left a large bruise on his right side. He felt like he’d been clubbed in the ribs by a baseball bat, but other than that,
he was undamaged.

He lay down on the lower bunk and opened the documents he’d been given to read, setting aside the packets meant for his team,
one for Dan Sykes, one for Hoolie Vasquez, one for Dennis Zoulalian, and one for Colleen MacKenzie. Thousands of people had
been looking for Osama bin Laden for years now, without any luck. He would be one of five people, given a week to find Mujhid
John Jusef-Dari, the “African Osama.”

That made sense.

He opened the briefing file and began to read.

Hours later, he awoke in exactly the same position, having failed to read a single word before falling asleep, exhausted.

He shut the light off. He would deal with it in the morning.

CI, he reminded himself. It’s just a state of mind.

“YOU GOTTA BE SHITTING ME,” DAN SYKES said. “I’ve been training hard for six months. My sensei says I’m as good as he’s ever
seen me.”

“If you just really need to kick somebody’s ass, you could kick mine,” Vasquez offered. Sykes had been planning on entering
the Intra-Services Full Contact Karate Championship, being held this year at Eglin AFB in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. First
prize was an all-night lap-dance pass at the Gold Club in Panama City. Second prize was getting mooned by all the other competitors.

“Thanks, Hoolie,” Sykes said. “I appreciate that, but I could kick your ass any time I wanted to.”

“In your dreams,
cabrón,
” Hoolie said.

“Everybody read your packets,” DeLuca said as he distributed them. “I’ve skimmed each of them but I want everybody to study
your own and then we’ll brief each other. I’m sure we can find Dan an ass to kick. Think of what questions you have or any
special needs that might arise. The mission is to gather intel on Mujhid John Jusef-Dari, popularly known as ‘Brother John,’
northern warlord, leading an army with a strength estimated at between one and two thousand men, according to CIA estimates.
For what it’s worth—I’m not big on what the CIA is telling us about Liger. We are to determine his whereabouts and his viability,
prior to and as of one week from today, 2300 Zulu, at which point in time, unless certain conditions are met, Operation Liberty
commences, as per the president’s announcement. My sense is that, as in Baghdad with various parties, were we to locate Mr.
Dari early, in a way that locks in his GPS with confidence, he might be visited by a JSOW or some such ordnance in advance
of Liberty. TF-21 is in country to paint targets, so that’s not our problem. Should you meet someone from either TF-21 or
the CIA, he will identify himself with the phrase, ‘David Letterman went to my high school.’ The CIA report on Dari is at
the back of your packet, but read it with a grain of salt. No, read it with a ten-pound bag of salt, because we find it flawed.
When you’re done reading, Mr. Asabo here will answer your questions about Dari, or about Liger.”

They’d occupied a smaller conference room below the flight deck. There was a hot tray full of scrambled eggs, limp bacon,
and pancakes that seemed to get larger and larger in DeLuca’s mouth, the longer he chewed them, but there was fresh fruit
as well, and the coffee was good.

“My name is Mary Dorsey,” MacKenzie said at last, still reading. “I’m Irish. I sound like a washerwoman.”

“I wanted to be Irish,” Vasquez said, affecting an exaggerated brogue. “Saints be praised, sweet Mary mother of mercy, I’ll
be havin’ another Guinness down at the local…”

“You sound like the leprechaun in
Darby O’Gill and the Little People,
” MacKenzie said.

“I know,” Vasquez said defensively. “That’s what I was trying to sound like.”

“I’m with the United Nations Women’s Health Initiative,” Mack continued. “Does the United Nations know that?”

“It’s against international law and the United Nations charter for military personnel to pose as UN troops,” DeLuca said,
“but the charter doesn’t say anything about posing as a UN relief worker. They don’t like it and you’ll hear about it if your
cover is blown, but technically, we’re okay. DIA set up a fake phone number in New York with an automated phone menu that’s
so confusing that whoever tries to check up on you will give up.”

“I
knew
those things were DIA,” Zoulalian said.

“CENTCOM thinks Dari is using the refugee camps for cover,” DeLuca said. “The question has been, how do you hide two thousand
men? That’s how. He’s also recruiting from the camps. You’re going to have to get over on UN personnel for transport and security.”

“I can travel alone if I want?”

“If you feel you have to.” DeLuca nodded, aware of how MacKenzie bristled, justifiably, whenever he created the appearance
of making special considerations or allowances due to her sex. “Just remember how men treated you in Iraq. I’ll say this to
everybody—this is a place where there is going to be strength in numbers. There is also some strength in media attention.
I’m not saying bring reporters with you or pretend to be one, but if they’re around, be aware of the effect. There are some
things these guys are going to want to draw world attention to, and some things they’re not. This is a tool we might want
to apply.”

“Dari shuns attention, right?” Hoolie interjected.

“He does,” DeLuca said, “but the number-two guy who wants to succeed him might not. Whoever that may be.”

“Mary Dorsey,” MacKenzie read. “Ph.D. anthropology, University of Dublin. Nursing degree, Bardesley College, Liverpool. Hey,
I get to use my EMT training. She worked for six years with the World Health Organization. Divorced. Damn, that’s sad. Two
kids, Liam, six, and Molly, nine. I love the name Liam. My ex is a doctor. I’m guessing our work was so important to both
of us that we drifted apart and never had time for each other. I felt neglected. He felt misunderstood.” She put on an Irish
accent. “And of course, there was the drinkin’. He was a man just like me Da. Bastard used to take me lunch money and spend
it at the pub. Me sainted mother kicked him out of the house when I was nine, but that was just the first time—she always
took him back…” She dropped the accent. “Something like that? Without the clichés.”

“Maybe there was something about her health that made you dedicate your life to women’s health issues?” Vasquez suggested.
“Breast cancer?”

“From living too close to a toxic waste site,” Mack finished. “I like it.”

“Dennis,” DeLuca said. “What do you get?”

“Surprise surprise,” he said, throwing his folder down on the table in front of him. “Khalil Penjwin, act two. I guess I won’t
have to study too hard for that one.” It was the name of the identity he’d used when he’d gone undercover in Kurdish Iraq,
almost two years before Iraqi Freedom began, posing as an entrepreneurial kid who’d grown up smuggling cigarettes and alcohol
across the Iraq/Iran border for his uncle, a tribal leader and a U.S. ally during the time after Gulf One when U.S. planes
were enforcing the northern no-fly zone. Zoulalian had cross-trained out of Air Force para-rescue and into counterintelligence
largely because of his language skills, but the attraction to danger was what had drawn him to both. He’d allied himself,
in Kurdistan, with a group called Ansar Al-Islam, a small band of extremists led by a man named Abu Waid that hoped to overthrow
Saddam, and later the Great Satan- led coalition. Working as a double agent, “Khalil” had helped DeLuca and his team track
down Mohammed Al-Tariq, the former head of Saddam’s Mukhaberat, his primary secret intelligence agency. Al-Tariq had been
funding an operation to ship to the United States weaponized smallpox, until DeLuca and his team tracked Al-Tariq to his headquarters
deep underground at a place called the Ar Rutbah Salt Works, in the desert near the border with Syria. A combination of carrier-launched
cruise missiles and “bunker-buster” smart bombs had turned the salt works into a giant smoking crater in the earth.