Pushing Up Daisies (4 page)

He heard rapid movements from inside and grinned thinking about the two naked women in there. When he pushed the door open, they were both huddling under the covers. He pointed to his phone. “We got orders to move. Get dressed.”

Immediately, Daisy was all business. “Got the message, House, uh…give me a minute, will you?”

Still grinning, he backed out and shut the door. He'd snagged a partial shot of one of Daisy's perfect breasts. She did have quite the rack.

The other two members of the team were sitting in the living room when he went back down. “What we got, House?” Berry asked.

He lifted one eyebrow. “Somalia, a rescue or a recovery. Could turn out to be either one.”

Berry groaned. “Not Somalia? We need to nuke that place and just end the misery.”

“Can't, too many innocent people, and you know it's strategically located right on the Gulf of Aden. We need it.”

“Screw the Gulf of Aden, too,” Berry snarled.

“Who got snatched?” Gopher asked.

“Aid workers; an American, a Brit and a Swede. So we'll have U.N. soldiers with us and the Brits will toss in a team.”

“Where's Daisy?” Gopher asked.

House looked up.

“She got a chick up there?”

House nodded.

Gopher groaned and grabbed his crotch. “I'd kill to be the meat in that sandwich.”

Berry laughed. “She wouldn't ever. She looks at you like you was a cockroach.”

Gopher rubbed his hand over his stiff hair. “A man can have dreams, can't he?”

“Dream on, little brother, she'd chew you up and spit out little pieces,” Berry said and laughed from deep in his belly.

Daisy emerged from the stairway seconds later, saw them laughing and slapped a hand on her sidearm. “You laughing at me?”

They all jumped up. “No, Daisy, we wouldn't.”

House picked up his gear, his armor, his M-4 and his bullet belt and shouldered his bag. “Let's go. We got work to do.”

A Little Bird landed on the grass in an open area beside the house. They climbed in and rode to Ioannina. They landed at the airport and moved on to a Company jet. The Leer jet was kept in a hanger on the outskirts of the small international airport. They loaded into the jet and took off for the asshole of the world, Somalia.

House had been on ten missions in the African country and the last one had ended with six killed in action. He and Daisy were the only two that came back alive. They'd been jumped by one of the rebel units allied with Al Shebab. It had been a blood bath. His team lost six men. The rebels were well-armed. They got trapped and House fired over two hundred rounds. As medic, he'd tried to save the injured men, but it was hopeless. In the end, they'd had to evac without the dead and return later to recover bodies.

Somalia was engulfed in a power struggle between rebel forces controlled by pirates and criminals and U.N. and African Union troops. Several times the United Nations had pulled out. But over four hundred thousand displaced people, running from either drought and famine or war, resided in the Afgoye corridor outside Mogadishu and someone had to feed them.

The rebels had reportedly moved north into land controlled by Puntland on the Gulf of Aden. There was no safe place to be in Somalia.

Sarah huddled in the back of a truck moving at a high-rate of speed down a bumpy road. A bag over her head prevented her from seeing her two companions. Her hands were tied behind her back. She knew they were in the truck with her because Freidrick moaned constantly. He'd been injured when the pirates leaped into the cavern and captured him and Coop. Coop was quiet, but Sarah knew he was there.

The endless ride in the heat of the truck had her faint and exhausted. It was hard to breathe under the burlap fabric covering her face. She felt responsible for everything; for Freidrick's injury, for Coop's capture. It was her fault. She'd selfishly dragged them into what Coop had told her was a dangerous, unpredictable land. She should have done what she was told and stayed in the headquarters building where there was at least an illusion of safety.

Sarah wasn't afraid for herself. Her upbringing made it so she rarely thought about her own troubles or her own danger. Her only concern was for her companions. Somehow, she had to save them. They were in this mess because of her.

She'd tried hard to keep the pirates from jumping into the cave. After they hauled her up, they'd conversed at length in Somali which she followed better and better as she heard it. She told them over and over it was a hole she'd fallen into. There was nothing down there. They didn't believe her and now they were all in this situation together.

The truck squealed to a stop. Sarah was tossed onto her side. She bumped into a solid figure. “Coop, is that you?”

“Shhhh,” he hissed. “Don't talk. Don't say anything.”

Rough hands and voices alerted her to the presence of her captors. “Take her to the room upstairs,” she heard one of the pirates say in Somali. “These two we will hold in the basement.”

Cold dread filled her. They were separating them. She was dragged to her feet and hauled along by her bound hands. She stumbled behind her captor, falling several times until the pirate picked her up and carried her by wrapping his arm around her waist. They climbed a set of stairs and she was pushed into a room and the door slammed behind her.

* * * *

House and his team sat in the Little Bird as it flew above ten thousand feet to avoid discovery. Two other birds filled with U.N. soldiers and Brits accompanied them. He had a new demolitions expert, an ex-Navy Seal, call-sign Bam Bam and a new shooter. His name was Mark Connors, no call sign. This was his first field run. He looked scared, his face frozen and his eyes glassy as he clutched his weapon close to his chest.

Daisy and Gopher broke into the rations and began passing out peanut butter crackers. The two newbies stared at them as they munched on the crackers.

“How can you guys eat?” Connors finally said.

“Never know when we'll get another meal,” Blackberry said as he took a swig of water out of a bottle. “Need to hydrate. It's hot as fuck out there.” He held up the crackers. “Salt and water.”

The bird began descending. House stared out the open door. They were coming in over a town. It was poorly lit, looked like every other Somali town. They had no idea where they were going. They knew they had three captives being held by pirates who were brokering a deal with Al Shebab. If they didn't get them before the deal went down, it was likely they never would.

* * * *

Alone, Sarah allowed tears to roll down her face. After only a few minutes of sobbing, she gathered her wits and her courage and worked the bag off her head by scraping it on the rough board floor. She harvested a few splinters and some scrapes for her efforts but was finally able to see. She examined her surroundings. There was a filthy mattress on the floor in the corner. The one window showed a dark sky. It was night. She crawled to it and looked out. The room was part of a two-story concrete and stone house. A courtyard below held trucks and lots of men, armed men. Each one carried an automatic weapon and ammo belts.

She was familiar with weapons. Her father had taught her to shoot and in every country she saw armed men. She knew what kind of weapon each of the men below carried. It looked like they'd bought a shipment of older AK-47s. The men were all dark-skinned like the local Somalis and were dressed in shorts for the most part and grubby T-shirts.

The courtyard was surrounded by a concrete and rock wall and lit by the yellow glow of sodium vapor lights. A rusty iron gate suddenly opened and a shiny SUV entered. She backed away from the window so she wouldn't be spotted.

The five men who emerged from the SUV were different. Two wore
keffiyehs
on their head and black robes. They were Arabs…al Qaida or maybe al-Shebab. The other three were Africans, dark-skinned locals from their looks, all heavily armed.

Sarah spoke Farsi. She strained to hear them talking below her. What she heard caused her heart rate to accelerate and hope for rescue evaporate. They were members of Al Shebab and the pirates were negotiating a sale for the three of them. If the rebel insurgents controlled them, they would die. The pirates would ask for ransom. Al Shebab would use them as pawns in their power game.

She leaned against the wall. There was so little she could do, but at least she was aware of what was going on. Ignorance was deadly. The commotion in the courtyard died and Sarah closed her eyes. She was exhausted but too scared to sleep. Refusing the small comfort of the filthy mattress across the room, she leaned against the wall to rest.

It seemed as though she'd slept for only a few minutes when the door flew open and one of the pirates entered. He saw her bag was gone, found it and shoved it over her head. Once again, her world descended into darkness. The pirate grabbed her elbow and dragged her from the room.

In her pocket, the gold object she'd taken from the tomb bounced against her thigh with each step reminding her of the price she'd paid for it. She was lifted into a vehicle, the door slammed shut and a seatbelt was strapped over her, bound hands and all.

The vehicle's seats felt soft and the cool interior smelled of leather and men. She was in the back of the big SUV. She wondered if Freidrick or Coop was with her and her heart raced with terror. If she was being moved without them, the pirates might kill her two friends while she would be used to gain some kind of advantage for the Islamic insurgents. If Coop and Freidrick were in the SUV, she couldn't sense them or hear Freidrick's moans.

When the pirates leaped into the cave on the outskirts of Elaayo, they'd slashed his leg with a machete. Sarah saw the bloody blade later. It looked dirty. She'd torn a strip off the hem of her dress and wrapped it around the wound before they were loaded into the truck, bagged and bound.

Two men climbed in with her on both sides pressing her between them. The men smelled like goat, garlic and sweat. They hadn't gone far when she heard helicopters overhead and the men inside her vehicle began shouting in Farsi. They were under attack. Sarah's heart soared. Maybe it was a rescue mission. But she wasn't with Freidrick and Coop. How far had they traveled?

The SUV stopped and the doors opened. Sarah heard weapons firing. The windshield exploded and she screamed. Men yelled to each other and the sound of the helicopter roared around her. She heard sand and pebbles hit the car, splattering the sides and the windows. Sarah ducked low, dropping off her seat to the floorboards where she huddled in terror listening to the war blazing around the vehicle.

The firing stopped and gentle hands lifted her from the SUV. The bag was stripped off and she saw a blond-haired man wearing a black T-shirt and a lot of gear. He clipped the plastic ties off her wrists and she rubbed them.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “Where are my friends?”

“House went on to the pirate's headquarters to see if they're still alive.”

“House?”

The man laughed. “Yeah, that's what we call him ‘cause he's a medic like that weird doctor on TV, House. He can be mean and sharp like House, too. My name is Gopher, ma'am. Let's get in the bird and get the hell out of here.”

She nodded, near speechless with terror and some kind of strange aftershock from the experience. He took her elbow and led her to a small helicopter. A woman dressed just like the men helped her inside. She smiled. “My name's Daisy. Welcome aboard.”

Daisy pushed her into a seat and sat next to her. “Let me help you with that harness.” Daisy was very beautiful in a fierce way. Body armor covered her to the waist and her biceps were clearly defined. A baseball cap on her head was turned backwards. Over it, she wore a set of headphones. When she leaned across Sarah and buckled her into the safety harness, the chopper was already in the air.

Sarah stared out the open door and recognized the area beneath them. They were flying over Badan, the capital of the Sanaag region. Boosaaso was a hundred kilometers northeast, closer to the gulf. She'd been to Badan several times with the aid group. It was a densely populated city with many dangerous sections.

The city was dark except for several lights winking from the sporadic sections with electricity. The helicopter kept moving toward the outskirts of the city, flying low over the buildings. It was headed toward the gulf and Laasqoray, an infamous pirate stronghold. As they closed in on the seaside town, she saw lights and the flash of gunfire.

Straining to see, she heard the sound of shooting. The helicopter's nose dropped and the chopper sped up. They swooped into the pirate enclosure. The girl named Daisy and Gopher were out of their seats on each side of the door with automatic weapons aimed below. Daisy opened up on something, firing deliberately, one shot after another. She absorbed each round without moving. Sarah knew from her own shooting experience, the recoil must be powerful. Daisy was strong.

Someone below fired on the choppers. The pilot took evasive tactics and the bird ducked and swerved. Sarah was glad she was strapped in. Daisy and Gopher rode the erratic movements of the helicopter like they didn't notice, leaning into the tilts to the left and right, maintaining their balance with ease. They returned fire, leaning out of the door to take better aim. Shots pinged into the side of the aircraft and the two never moved from their position.

Sarah could no longer see what was happening below, the rear of the bird tilted back and then settled. Daisy and Gopher leaped out firing. Sarah huddled in her seat. The yellow glare of the lights illuminated two bloody pirate corpses and another helicopter. She was back in the original compound. Freidrick and Coop were here somewhere.

A tall man with dark hair and silver eyes that glowed in the yellow light stuck his head into the helicopter as more shots rang out. His smile contained no warmth. “You okay?” He asked as he scanned the interior of the bird.