The Hunters (25 page)

Gold covered the wound with the antiseptic-treated gauze. Hussein winced, but the gauze didn't seem to hurt him nearly as much as the alcohol wipes. Over the treated gauze, Gold wrapped a dry bandage, and she secured it with medical tape.

“I'm not much of a doctor,” Gold said, “but this is better than what he had.”

Nadif unfolded a blanket and spread it out beside the boy. The blanket was a lot wider than the rug Hussein was lying on. Nadif spoke a few short words to Geedi.

“He says we can take Hussein to the cellar on the blanket,” Geedi said.

“Yeah,” Parson said. “Let's do the vampire thing and get him out of here before the sun comes up. Frenchie, grab his weapon, will you?”

“D'accord,”
Chartier said. He picked up the AK-47 and slung it over his shoulder. Hussein glared.

“At least the little dickhead brought us some firepower,” Parson said. “How many rounds are in the magazine?”

Chartier detached the magazine, checked it, reinserted it.

“About twenty.”

“Better than nothing,” Parson said.

Chartier picked up the boy's ammo vest and checked for more magazines. He found none.

“All right, Geedi,” Parson said, “tell him we're going to lift him on the blanket and take him where he can get some sleep. And if he gives us any trouble, we'll drop his ass on the ground and drag him by his hurt foot.”

“Be nice, Michael,” Gold said.

I
am
being nice, Parson thought. Lord knows, I'm being nice. That's why I haven't beaten this juvenile delinquent to a bloody pulp.

O
ddly, Hussein did not feel any different. He still felt his love for Allah, his willingness to fight, his belief in jihad. So perhaps these pills and potions were not turning him into a craven infidel. Was it possible the
gaalos
weren't lying, that they really meant to help him?

He did not resist as they rolled him onto a blanket. The
gaalos
lifted the blanket and carried him from the hut. At first he wondered if they were taking him outside to shoot him, but then he realized they wouldn't have bothered to bandage his foot if they were going to kill him. These were strange, strange people. He could no more predict their intentions than those of the lion that had stalked him but let him pass unharmed.

Even if they wished to help him, Hussein did not want their help. He needed no help from Crusaders. In fact, he wished they had already killed him. He might have arrived in paradise by now, attended by a harem of virgins, his pain and struggles over.

But no. He lay on the blanket, in agony, as the infidels moved him. The stars whirled in the blackness above, stars in such number that only Allah could count them. A brother in jihad had once told Hussein that the Americans and Russians dared to shoot rockets among the stars—an act of blasphemy so unimaginable that the Quran did not even address it. Hussein doubted the story, though. Nothing mortals built could go that far.

The
gaalos
put him down beside a wooden cellar door. They opened the door, and one of them descended into the hole in the ground.

“We will help you stand and get down the steps,” the one called Geedi said. “Just keep your injured foot off the ground.”

Hussein wished this
kafir
Somali would stop talking. The man claimed to be a Muslim, but how could that be? Perhaps he had been captured, a slave who had surrendered all his will. Or worse, he had made himself an infidel by choice. Either way, they had swayed him with their luxuries: He looked well fed. He had straight teeth. He wore a watch.

My soul is worth more than a watch and pretty, girlish teeth, Hussein thought. He did not even know how to read a watch. The thing looked like a woman's bracelet.

Geedi and the older infidel helped Hussein sit up on the ground. They took him by the arms and pulled him to a standing position. He kept his injured foot raised, and he put all his weight on his good foot.

“I hate you all,” Hussein said.

“Very well,” Geedi said. “Be careful going down the steps. Colonel Parson will help you through the door.”

“Go to the devil.”

Geedi and the older white man helped Hussein place his left foot on the top step. Hussein bent to grasp the sides of the cellar entrance with each hand. He let his hands and arms take his weight for a moment, and he moved his foot down two steps. The younger white man, standing inside the cellar, took him by the right arm. Geedi reached down and grabbed him by the left arm, and they lowered him down the rest of the steps. Hussein stood on the cellar floor and leaned on the stairway, balancing on his good leg.

The older man, the one called Colonel Parson, climbed down and turned on a tiny flashlight. The light revealed a dirt floor, and shelves of food lining the walls. One of the women tossed down the blanket they had used to carry Hussein, and Geedi spread it on the floor.

“Let us help you lie down,” Geedi said.

“Go to the devil.”

“You already said that.”

While Geedi arranged the blanket, Hussein considered whether to cry out for help. But he made no sound. He hardly had the strength and breath for a scream, and he contented himself with the thought that he really had no choice. He had taken a painful wound in battle with the enemy; anyone would say this soldier of God had come into a weakened state honestly and after long, hard fighting.

In fact, the deepest part of him felt relieved to have the injury and exhaustion as a reason not to shout for his al-Shabaab brothers. Because, in truth, he did not know whether they would take care of him in his current state. He would slow them down and use up food and water. For a while, he would be no good to them. These infidels had at least bandaged his wound.

I will bide my time, Hussein decided. I am wily like a fox. I will take from the
gaalos
what they are foolish enough to give me. When I regain my strength and when I see my chance, I will kill them all.

Sooner or later, he reasoned, these infidels would put down his AK-47. He could let them believe he had lost the will for jihad, and then he would go for his weapon. Someday, al-Shabaab recruits would sing praises not only of Hussein's strength and courage, but also of his wits. The brothers would tell the story of how he fell into the hands of the enemy, and how he fooled the fools.

The one called Colonel Parson held the flashlight to show the spot where they meant for Hussein to lie down. Geedi and one of the women—the strange yellow-haired one who spoke in such smooth tones—helped him lower himself to the blanket. Hussein did not want this uncovered harlot touching him, but he did not fight her. She seemed to have a strange power over the others—or at least over the older man. Whenever the one called Parson spoke harshly in that awful sharp-edged language of theirs, Yellow Hair said something quiet that calmed him down. What manner of men took their orders from women? These
gaalos
were not just sinners; they were mad.

“Try to rest,” the one called Geedi said. “You need to sleep.”

Hussein made no reply, but he admitted to himself the truth of that statement. For a second time, Geedi had said something that was not a lie. Perhaps these devils spoke truth just often enough to made it hard to see their falsehoods.

That, Hussein decided, was a matter he could puzzle over later. For now he would try to sleep. With all the infidels standing and sitting around, he barely had enough room to stretch out his bad leg. He kept his left leg bent, with his arms folded across his chest. At first he thought the pain would keep him awake, but sleep came over him in a strange manner. The ache seemed to move an ever-widening distance from him. Hussein felt the pain like the fading barks of a dog running farther and farther away.

He found himself dreaming of the lion he'd seen earlier in the day. The cat stalked effortlessly from his waking thoughts to his unconscious mind. In his dream, Hussein walked on an uninjured foot, with all his toes intact. The lion came bounding to him through the grass, and Hussein was not afraid. Somehow he knew the great cat would not hurt him. The lion stopped five feet from him, the sun shining on its fur, its tail lifted and curled.

Hussein did not know what to make of this. The lion gave no sign of its intentions other than a reluctance to attack. Hussein came awake just long enough to realize he'd been dreaming. He'd always thought Allah sent dreams to tell of the future or to convey a clear message. Yet there was nothing clear about the lion—not the real one on the creek bank or the spectral one of his dream. The creature's presence, Hussein decided, would have whatever meaning he chose to give it.

•   •   •

O
nce everybody got settled back into the cellar, Parson took the next watch. He sat on the steps, holding the AK-47 and cursing his luck. Things had gone badly enough to begin with; Osama bin Laden Junior here represented a complication he couldn't believe. Parson had no idea what to do with this boy.

The sun began to rise. As it climbed, the cellar filled with subdued daylight. The light, filtered by the threadbare tarp over the entrance, streamed from cracks between the planks of the door. The lumber that lined the cellar walls started to creak, perhaps from the rising temperature. Though Parson had never suffered from claustrophobia, he had the vague feeling he'd been buried alive. As a hide site, the cellar had little to recommend it except that it was big enough for everybody, and it was better than standing around in the open.

Hussein appeared to sleep peacefully. His hands remained tied together; Gold had checked to make sure the bonds didn't cut circulation. Apart from the tied hands, he looked like an eighth-grader about to wake up and get dressed to catch the school bus. Hard to imagine this child could have killed people.

After a while, Parson noticed a faint buzz, barely audible. He wondered if the sound came from a drone overhead, perhaps the Predator he'd seen on his departure from Djibouti. An academic question; the thing could do him no good now.

Gunshots registered in the distance, so far away they sounded like the cracking of twigs. The reminder of firefights going on around him made Parson feel impotent. He knew nothing about the tactical situation, so he had no information on which to base a plan. As a senior officer, he was used to having all kinds of data at his fingertips: intel reports, drone feeds, radio and sat-phone calls from the field. A commander seldom possessed all the information he wanted, but he always had
something
. Maybe he could try calling Ongondo again, after everybody woke up.

Depending on what Ongondo might tell him, Parson seemed to have two options. He could stay in one place and wait for rescue. Or he could try to move and link up with Ongondo or some other friendlies.

The second plan seemed pretty impractical. Evading capture by yourself was hard enough; with a whole crew moving together it was probably impossible. And you needed to know which way to go.

The first plan sucked, too. Waiting for rescue could amount to waiting for capture. Survival depended on whether AMISON or al-Shabaab came this way first. Fifty-fifty odds, at best.

Did other options exist? The DC-3 had carried a spare tire. If they could get back to the airplane, could Geedi change the tire?

Now you're thinking crazy, Parson told himself. They probably couldn't reach the airplane without running into more bad guys. And by now the bad guys had probably stolen everything in the airplane, including the tire. Jacking the plane and changing the tire would take a lot of time in an exposed location. And the sons of bitches had blown holes in at least one of the fuel tanks—the aux tank. Parson would have only whatever fuel was left in the mains: flying time measured in minutes, not hours. Once he and his group got airborne, where would they go?

As an aviator, Parson wanted to get back to his element, the sky. That's where the bulk of his knowledge, training, and experience gave him the advantage. For the same reasons, a Navy SEAL might head for water when in trouble. An Army Ranger might go for steep mountains or thick jungle. Parson's natural refuge seemed completely out of reach.

In the pool of darkness at the foot of the steps, someone stirred. Parson looked down and saw Carolyn Stewart waking up. She rubbed her eyes, sat up with her arms around her knees, and glanced at Parson. By now, with her mussed hair, dirty clothes, and circles under her eyes, she hardly looked like a celebrity.

“Good morning,” Stewart whispered.

Parson gave her an amiable nod. Figured he'd keep the truce going. He needed no more complications.

“Can't sleep?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I'm just so sorry about sending that tweet. I was trying to make things better by coming here. But it doesn't help to make stupid mistakes.”

Parson shifted his legs to avoid getting too cramped. He stood the rifle on his thigh, resting it by the heel of its stock. After a few seconds, he said, “I wouldn't know. I've never made a mistake.”

His attempt at humor seemed to affect the actress like a painkiller. The lines around her eyes softened, and her drawn expression gave way to a hint of a smile.

“Thank you,” she said.

In reality, Parson wondered if he was making a much bigger mistake than Stewart's. By showing mercy to this boy terrorist, was he putting his crew in more danger for no good reason? Kindness was a beautiful thing, but toughness had its place. Parson had certainly seen the truth of that during his years in the military.

More movement interrupted Parson's thoughts. Geedi woke up, covered his mouth with his palm as he yawned, and rose up on one knee. Fingered the corners of his eyes to clear the sleep.

“Shall I take watch for a while?” he whispered. “You look tired, sir.”

I
am
tired, Parson thought. Still, he wanted Geedi to save his strength.

“I'm good for now,” Parson said. “I'll hand off the rifle to Frenchie here in a bit.”

Though Parson could not bring himself to say it out loud, he knew why he wanted Geedi well rested. As much as he hated the thought, he'd have to send Geedi out again.

In the cellar, they were just too vulnerable. They couldn't keep a proper watch, they couldn't defend themselves, and they probably couldn't even make a radio call. Parson planned to give the radio a try when everybody woke up, but he doubted the signal would go through. And if the group stayed, things probably wouldn't end well for Nadif and his wife. Holing up here had always been a temporary solution.

Geedi could scout for a better hideaway, maybe talk to locals and get an idea where the al-Shabaab fighters had gone. Act as a spy, basically. Parson knew it wasn't fair to ask a flight mechanic to be an intel spook, but the situation denied him the luxury of fairness.

Such decisions, Parson believed, were the hardest part of leadership under fire. The old cliché said you shouldn't send somebody out to do something you wouldn't do yourself. But sometimes you had to send a guy out to do something you
couldn't
do yourself.

Parson also had a more immediate problem. He had to piss something awful, and he supposed everybody else did, too. He wished he'd thought to ask Nadif for a chamber pot or something.

“See if you can find an empty container,” Parson whispered. “When Hussein wakes up, we'll use his blanket as a privacy screen and we'll rig us up a latrine.”

“Good idea,” Geedi said.

“A
very
good idea,” Carolyn Stewart said.