The Hunters (32 page)

T
he heat woke Parson. Following a restless night, he had drifted into sleep after that first burst of gunfire at dawn. Now the air warmed around him as the sun rose, as if the landscape ran a fever.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and tugged at the sleeves of his grimy flight suit. Then he just listened—for the sound of gunfire, of aircraft, of explosions.

Nothing. Parson heard only the exhalation of the wind and the squawk of a seabird.

Everyone was awake. Frenchie had the watch. He sat by the door on the overturned bucket, holding the AK-47 like a dove hunter sitting on a field stool with a shotgun. His Smith & Wesson revolver rested in a holster on his survival vest. Geedi kneeled beside Hussein, chattering in Somali. Gold was looking through the medical ruck; Parson supposed she meant to change Hussein's or Chartier's bandage. Carolyn Stewart stood near the back of the bunker, brushing her teeth with a toothbrush she must have kept in her pack for emergencies—though she'd probably never imagined an emergency like this. She spat white foam and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.

Parson wondered if Hussein had decided to take her offer of help, but he didn't have to wait long for an answer. When Geedi saw Parson awake, the flight mechanic came over.

“Good morning, sir,” Geedi said, keeping his voice low. “He says he wants to go with us.”

That surprised Parson. He'd expected—hoped, even—that the boy would say he wanted nothing from the evil infidels. That would have made Parson's life a little simpler. He glanced at Hussein. At the moment, Osama Junior didn't look like a dangerous terrorist; he looked like a clueless, homeless kid. But Parson knew appearances could deceive.

“All right,” Parson said, “we'll take him with us, then. Once we land—assuming we ever get airborne—he's Carolyn's problem. Don't let your guard down. I still don't trust that little fucker.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do
you
trust him?” Parson asked.

Geedi sucked in air between his front teeth the way Parson had seen other Somalis do when they were thinking.

“He's a wild card,” Geedi said. “Who knows what trauma he's seen? He just said something to me about somebody making him do things he didn't want to do. I can only imagine what that might have been. Maybe he's decided he wants to get away from all that.”

“Hmm,” Parson said. “Well, anyway, now that he's said he wants help, it's hard not to give it to him. But watch him.”

“I will.”

Parson's career had required him to make a lot of tough calls, some quickly and under fire—but he'd never anticipated a dilemma quite like this. He hoped this decision didn't turn out to be one of his worst.

Despite having eaten his fill last night, Parson felt hungry now. His crew had no more food, so he told himself to suck it up and press on. He stood up, found a bottle with about two inches of water left in it. He picked up the bottle and sloshed the liquid inside.

“Anybody thirsty?” he asked.

When no one answered, he turned up the bottle and poured its contents into his mouth. Swished the water around and swallowed it. Picked up his survival vest, which he had taken off during the night, and found the nav/com radio. The earpiece was still plugged into the set. Parson carried the radio to the half-open door for better reception, and he slipped the survival vest over his body armor.

“See or hear anything?” Parson asked Chartier.

“Just a few random shots about an hour ago,” Chartier said. “Since then,
rien
. Nothing.”

Maybe that was good news, and Parson knew only one way to find out. He placed the earpiece in his ear, turned on the radio, rolled the squelch control until the hiss stopped. Pressed the transmit button.

“Spear Alpha,” he called, “World Relief Airlift.”

No answer.

“Spear Alpha, World Relief Airlift,” Parson repeated. “You up?”

After a long pause, Ongondo answered. “Spear Alpha here,” he said. “Very glad to see you made it through the night.”

“Same to you, friend. Hey, it's pretty quiet at our location. Do you think it's safe for us to . . . Ah, do you think we should proceed now as briefed?”

What Parson wanted to ask was whether it was safe to move in the open. But he didn't want to say it out loud on a nonsecure frequency. Instead, he had to hint at what he wanted to do and hope Ongondo understood. A bit like being a teenager, Parson thought, and trying to ask a girl out on a first date without being too direct. Stakes a little higher this time, though. Parson would have given six months' pay for a proper military radio, so they could use encryption and stop talking in circles.

“Negative,” Ongondo said. “Negative. We have some eyes to help us. You need to wait for showtime.”

Eyes to help you? Parson wondered. Ah, maybe eyes from that drone I thought I heard back at Nadif's. Surveillance for an air strike?

For the moment, it didn't really matter. Ongondo clearly wanted him to stay put for now.

“Copy that, Spear Alpha,” Parson said. “World Relief Airlift out.”

Parson turned off the radio and removed the earpiece. Chartier, who had heard only half the conversation, asked, “What did he say?”

“I think he's still expecting an air strike,” Parson said. “But when I asked if we could go to the airplane now, he said negative.”

“If he does not want us moving, it probably means the bad guys are moving.”

“Yeah,” Parson said. “I think he might be getting data from that Predator we saw the other day.”

“The aircraft will find them. I would like to show these terrorists a thing or two in my Mirage.”

“I bet you would. Put a hurting on those bastards.”

“Ça, c'est sûr.”

With little to do but bide his time, Parson sat by the door with Chartier and looked out into the trees. A discarded plastic bag tumbled with the breeze until it lifted into the air and caught on a low, stunted branch. The occasional gust whipped grit into the air, and the airborne dirt made Parson squint. So did the sweat running into his eyes as a result of the rising temperature. No animal life moved within the woods, not even a wayward bird.

“I feel like a critter waiting to get sprung from a trap,” Parson told Chartier.

“Moi aussi,”
Chartier said. “Me, too. I wonder if my
pépère
felt this way at Dien Bien Phu.”

“Your granddad was there, too?”

“Oh, yes. And if things had turned out a little differently, I might never have known him.”

Parson had read of the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, which effectively ended their hold on Indochina—and helped lead to the American entanglement in Vietnam. The French tried to establish a strongpoint near the border with Laos, to cut off Viet Minh supply lines. The Viet Minh would have none of that; they brought up artillery and placed Dien Bien Phu under siege.

“From March until May of 1954,” Chartier said, “that valley was a cauldron. Things got so bad that they asked for volunteers to parachute into the battle to replace soldiers who had died.” Some of those volunteers, Chartier explained, had never jumped from an airplane before. Including his grandfather.

“Damn,” Parson said. “He must have been scared to death.”

“He said the jump was the least of his worries, because if he went splat, he would have died much easier than at the hands of the Viet Minh.”

“But he made it, obviously, if he lived to tell you this.”

“Oui, heureusement,”
Chartier said. “He jumped from a C-119 Flying Boxcar, and he said when the chute opened it jerked him so hard he bit his tongue.”

As Frenchie told the story, things got worse from there. His grandfather could hear the explosions of artillery as he floated down under his canopy. Once on the ground, he learned that the tactical situation for the French was so hopeless that the French artillery commander had committed suicide with a hand grenade.

“The situation was awful,” Frenchie explained, “but my
pépère
became one of the lucky few. When the garrison fell, he escaped to Laos.”

“Man,” Parson said, “I bet he had some stories.”

“Would you believe that after he managed to evade the Communists, a tiger almost got him?”

“Wow. He shot the tiger?”

“No, he did not. He said he did not wish to harm such a beautiful creature, so he fired a bullet at the ground in front of its paws. The cat turned and ran away. He thought showing the tiger mercy gave him luck. Troops of the Kingdom of Laos found him nearly starved to death and eventually took him to the capital, Vientiane. A French plane flew him out and brought him home.”

“Is your granddad still around?”

“No, sadly. We lost him in 2002.”

“He must have been a badass.”

“A what?”

“Tough guy.”

“Oh, yes. Though in his later years he liked nothing better than tending his vineyard.”

Though Parson didn't say it, he hoped some of the elder Chartier's luck had been passed down. Parson and his crew were about to attempt an escape with similar long odds. Chartier, in his bloody flight suit with one sleeve cut off, looked himself like an escapee from Dien Bien Phu.

“How's that arm, by the way?” Parson asked.

“Sore, but I can still use it.”

A smattering of bloodstains marred the pressure bandage around Chartier's arm. The blood had, of course, seeped from the wound, but the bleeding had stopped.

“Can you fly?”

“Oui.”

Well, at least I still got a copilot, Parson thought. Thank God for that.

“Ah, sir,” Geedi said. “What if we get to the airplane and they've torn it up so bad we can't fix it?”

“We'll just have to make our way to AMISOM, to the friendlies,” Parson said.

Not much of a Plan B, Parson realized, but it beat the hell out of waiting to get slaughtered by al-Shabaab. He considered trying to get more rest, but he knew he'd never get back to sleep. If an air strike—or whatever the hell Ongondo was talking about—was going to happen, it could happen at any moment. Parson decided he'd better make sure everyone was prepared to move.

“Sophia,” Parson said, “can you get Hussein ready to travel?”

“Sure,” Gold said. She picked up the medical ruck and placed it beside Hussein's feet. She held up a roll of gauze to show the boy she intended to change his bandages. Hussein tipped his chin in assent.

Stewart was rummaging through her backpack. Through the open zipper of the pack, Parson noticed her video camera. He felt charitable toward her now that she'd offered to take responsibility for Hussein.

“You were shooting a documentary, right?” Parson said.

“Uh, yes,” the actress said. “But that's not important right now.”

“Well, we might have to move fast pretty soon, so you might as well shoot some scenes while you can. What do you media people call that? B roll?”

Stewart laughed. “B roll is an old-school term, but yes.” Then she turned serious. “Are you sure? I don't want to cause any more problems than I already have.”

“It's okay, Carolyn,” Parson said. “I think we're going to get out of here today or tomorrow or not at all. Either way, whatever's in your camera won't hurt us now.”

“Thank you, Michael. This means a lot.”

“Just make sure you get my good side.”

“I promise,” Stewart said, smiling. She lifted the camera and fiddled with its settings. Looked around for a moment. Then she spoke under her breath, perhaps more talking to herself than anyone else: “Not much light in here, but at least it will look authentic.”

Stewart began recording. She took video of Gold working on Hussein's bandage. After a few moments, she panned toward the door for a shot of Chartier on watch with the AK-47. The Frenchman waved with his wounded arm and winced. Stewart recorded Parson arranging the poles and blanket to remake Hussein's stretcher. Then she panned back to Hussein, and she spoke while she shot the video.

“This is a young al-Shabaab fighter named Hussein,” Stewart intoned. “We have learned few details about his background, but it is likely he has known little but mayhem in his few years. Despite his youth, he seems experienced in the ways of violence. Hussein took part in the attack that grounded our airplane, and he continued to pursue us despite a crippling wound to his foot. We found him wounded, bleeding, dehydrated, and intent on our destruction. But we hope this marks a new beginning for Hussein.”

For the second time, Parson listened to Stewart's ad-libbed narration and thought: Not bad. This wasn't Hollywood fluff; this was somebody getting into the shit and telling the story. Parson had heard of reporters and documentary filmmakers in war zones who got close enough to the action to take a bullet. Yeah, a lot of them were ass clowns. But maybe a few of them actually did some good.

A noise interrupted Parson's thoughts and Stewart's work. She stopped talking, but kept recording.

Parson heard it, too. The sound of a jet. No, more than one. Maybe two pairs. Coming in low and fast.

P
arson darted to the bunker door. Chartier was on his feet, looking up. The branches of the nearest tree obscured the sky, but through the leaves, Parson saw objects slicing through the scattered cumulus. When they flew beyond the tree into clear view, Parson recognized two sharp-nosed attack jets. Both aircraft featured two-seat tandem cockpits and short, stubby wings. The wings' low aspect ratio gave the jets the appearance of machines built for speed, and the roar of the engines rumbled down in waves.

“L-39 Albatros,” Chartier said. His tone suggested he was not impressed; the L-39s were no match for his Mirage.

But Parson was impressed as hell; the L-39s were good enough to rip the shit out of a bunch of bad guys.

“Rock and roll, baby,” Parson said.

Behind the first pair of jets, another pair followed—the formation comprised two sets of lead and wingman. The lead jet of the first pair peeled off and began a steep descent. As the aircraft drew nearer, Parson thought he recognized the tail markings—including a flag with black, orange, and red stripes.

“I think they're Ugandan,” Parson said. “I saw one of those jets at Mogadishu.”

Presumably, aircraft of the Uganda People's Defence Force, detailed to AMISOM. Parson didn't care where the damned planes came from, as long as the pilots and back-seaters could shoot.

“Saddle up, people,” Parson called. “Get ready to move.”

He wanted to head out the door and sprint for the DC-3 right now. But he quashed that impulse. Better see if Ongondo has a sit-rep first, Parson realized.

Once more, he pulled the nav/com radio from his survival vest and turned it on. Didn't bother with the earpiece this time. Pressed the talk button.

“Spear Alpha,” Parson transmitted, “World Relief Airlift. Talk to me, buddy.”

The radio hissed for a few seconds. Then Ongondo's voice came on the frequency.

“World Relief Airlift,” Ongondo said. “It's showtime.” Rifle fire popped in the background as he spoke.

Then we don't need to talk in riddles anymore, Parson thought. He pressed his transmit switch again and said, “Copy that, Spear Alpha. We're going to try to get to the LZ and see if we can fix the plane. Where are the bad guys?”

“Surveillance feed shows them west and north of your aircraft and moving. Spear Alpha's in contact—gotta run.”

“Surveillance feed” probably meant a downlink from a drone. So Parson's hunch had been correct. And “in contact” meant in contact
with the enemy
. Ongondo had no time to talk. Parson had to make a quick decision with little to go on. He did not ponder long.

“Let's go,” Parson said. “Follow me.”

“D'accord,”
Chartier said.

Parson picked up the RPK machine gun and checked its fire selector. Clicked the selector to semiauto. He wanted to be ready to shoot instantly, but he didn't want to waste what little ammo he had in one full-auto rip. With the weapon poised, he moved out of the bunker. Kept his Beretta holstered.

Chartier followed close behind, armed with the AK-47. Geedi and Stewart brought Hussein on the stretcher. Gold came out of the bunker last, carrying the medical ruck over her shoulder. Chartier handed off the AK to Gold, then drew his Smith & Wesson Magnum. That made sense to Parson; given Frenchie's wounded arm, it was better to let Gold handle the long gun for now.

“Should we tie the boy's hands again?” Chartier asked.

“Don't worry about it,” Parson said. He wished he'd done that earlier, but he didn't want to stop now. Though he'd warned everybody to keep an eye on Hussein, he figured the kid couldn't do much at this point, anyway. Hussein's wound weakened him and kept him from running. And with an air strike going on, his terrorist friends weren't coming for him anytime soon.

While leading the team out of the bunker, Parson lost sight of the jets. But their Ivchenko turbines thundered a crescendo that split the morning. When Parson spotted them again, one streaked just above the tree line, pure kinetic menace. Now Parson could make out the weapons mounted on pylons under the wings, bombs bristling with tailfins.

One of the bombs detached from its pylon and cut a diagonal path away from the Albatros. The bomb dropped below the trees . . . and for a moment Parson thought it was a dud.

He felt the explosion before he heard it. The blast creased the air; the pressure wave felt as if a professional fighter had smacked him square in the breastbone with a palm strike. A beat later, a mass of smoke and fire, a miasma of orange and black, boiled above the trees.

Under any other circumstances, Parson would have taken cover during a bombing raid like this. But now he counted on the air strike to make the bad guys keep their heads down while he moved. Parson headed toward the LZ at a brisk walk. He wanted to go faster, but he didn't want to outpace Geedi and Stewart as they carried Hussein. Parson moved in a crouch, his index finger across the trigger guard of the RPK.

The jet that had dropped the bomb pulled up and away in an escape maneuver. Clawing for altitude, the Albatros screamed toward the sun. As Parson ducked through the forest, the flight path of the small attack plane reminded him of the fierce little Mississippi kites that terrorized joggers at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma. If you got too close to their nesting trees, the miniature birds of prey would dive-bomb you to deliver a nasty peck.

It's not the size of the bird in the fight, Parson thought. It's the size of the fight in the bird.

The small jets above him had plenty of fight left. The aircraft that dropped the first weapon joined up with its wingman, and the second pair set up for a bomb run. Parson led in the direction of the DC-3—or whatever was left of it. That meant traveling west. The jets seemed to focus on a target even farther west, beyond Parson's airplane. He couldn't be sure, however. Though an expert navigator when equipped with the right tools, he lacked even a map. He'd have to rely purely on an innate sense of direction. He hoped he could get by without the precision of his handheld GPS, now smashed and useless. Even if he missed by hundreds of yards, maybe the sparse cover would make it easy to spot something as big as his airplane.

Parson could not guess whether he and his team would ever make it to the plane, let alone get airborne. But now that he'd set things into motion, he felt a small turn of satisfaction. It was like pressing a jet engine's start button and watching the sequence on the instruments: rotation, fuel flow, ignition, acceleration to a stable RPM. The unleashing of energy and the opening of possibilities.

•   •   •

H
ussein gripped the poles that made up the frame of his stretcher. He bounced along so much he feared that Geedi and that little red mouse would drop him. At first he resented being carried like a crippled child, but now the sights and sounds assaulting his senses made him forget all else.

Quick little flying machines danced and roared in the sky above him. He had seen airplanes before, to be sure. But not like these, and never so close. And, by Allah, he had never seen an explosion like the one that had just made the earth shudder. Once, from a distance, he had seen a suicide bomber detonate himself, but that registered as a mere firecracker compared to the weapons unleashed by these machines. And the airplanes looked like they might loose another bomb at any moment.

Wonder, not fear, dominated Hussein's emotions. And one of the many things astounding him now was the infidels' evident lack of fear. They were heading
toward
this storm of fire wrought from above.

Whatever their sins, these
gaalos
were no cowards. Hussein knew courage; he knew he possessed it in abundance. But the infidels displayed a strange brand of courage. To see such a mass of flames and smoke and rush to it? Where did courage end and madness begin? Could they really believe they would escape?

This day may bring my death, Hussein thought, but it will bring amazements as well. He hoped he would live long enough to see what the day might offer.

One of the flying machines fell from the sky like a knife dropped point-first from a high place. For a moment Hussein thought the airplane would crash into the ground; perhaps its motor had stopped or its driver had died. But it pulled up and swooped across the treetops with a noise so loud it invaded Hussein's body and vibrated his bones. He wanted to put his hands over his ears, but he dared not let go of his stretcher.

An object fell from the flying machine, and the falling shape looked different from the first bomb. This time, a cylinder without fins flipped end over end until it vanished behind some trees. The weapon struck the earth about twice as far away as Hussein could throw a stone.

The cylinder split open and released a mountain of flame; the
gaalos
must have found a way to bottle
Shaytan
's lakes of fire. Heat singed Hussein's skin. He let go of the stretcher and shielded his eyes. The smell of burning oil filled his nostrils. The fire sucked the very air from his lungs. When he looked up he saw ash and debris, some of it burning and trailing smoke, fluttering down like leaves from the trees of hell.

The infidels crouched low. Geedi and the red-haired woman put him down, and that little red mouse took hold of him and held him close as if to shield him. Hussein did not want her so close, but he did not resist. So much kept happening that his mind could not take it in fast enough. He had trouble deciding what, if anything, he should do.

Think, Hussein told himself. Watch and understand. You cannot use this situation if you do not keep your head. Choose what to do and then do it.

Just when he believed his eyes and ears had caught up with everything around him, a vision of horror rushed toward him. A figure—no, two figures—emerged from the black smoke and trees. They ran out of the fire and in Hussein's direction. But they did not escape the fire; they
were
the fire. Flames clothed them, wreathed them, as if they were jinns formed from fire itself.

But they were not jinns; they were men, overtaken by that hell bomb dropped by the airplane. They sprinted as if they might outrun the fire if they just pumped their legs fast enough. One, apparently blinded, ran full into a tree, collapsed, and lay twitching and smoking. The other came on fast, as if rushing to gather Hussein in his arms and deliver him to
Shaytan.
The air filled with the smell of cooking flesh.

Hussein's mind struggled to keep up. Just as he realized these were men, not demons, and probably al-Shabaab brothers, the infidels surprised him again. Yellow Hair and the one called Parson raised their weapons and fired quick shots. That woman could shoot after all; the burning ghoul fell to the ground.

They must have killed him out of mercy. Surely he would have died anyway within minutes or even seconds. Apparently these strange people could not bear to see the man suffer.
And he was their enemy.
Hussein thought he knew the ways of men, but clearly he had things yet to learn.

Red Mouse released Hussein from her shielding embrace. The heat from the fire made him sweat, and he felt his limbs grow damp. Geedi and Red Mouse lifted the stretcher again and began to carry him away from the fire. All the while, the red-haired woman kept speaking to him in words he could not understand. Despite the harsh sound of her native language, her tone sounded gentle, as if she were telling him not to be afraid. Foolish words, spoken from misplaced kindness. A mindless, knee-jerk form of kindness, in Hussein's estimation. But better than mindless cruelty; he had to give Red Mouse credit for that.

The infidels carried him out of the forest and to the edge of the grassland. They passed the village where the old couple had taken them in. Hussein saw no signs of life among the huts. Amid the firefights and the bombs from hell, anyone with any sense was surely taking cover. Rifle fire popped in the distance; Hussein could not tell who was shooting or where.

He'd expected the infidels to retrace their steps, to follow the dry creek bed in reverse direction back to their airplane. But that's not what happened; evidently the one called Parson was trying to save time and cut a corner directly to his damaged flying machine. They waded into the grass beyond the village. The rustling blades brushed at Hussein's elbows as Geedi and Red Mouse carried him into open country. The
gaalos
made no effort to hide; they plowed headlong through the grass, using only the chaos around them for cover.

With no trees to block the view, Hussein saw the full extent of that chaos. Smoke as black as a vulture's feathers churned into the air from three different spots, all in the general direction of where the sun goes to set. The fast airplanes—Hussein could now tell there were four of them—turned and climbed and zoomed in a pattern that made no sense to him. The smell of frying meat had faded, but now the landscape stank of burning oil.

Something on the ground exploded; Hussein had no idea what it was. One of the three columns of smoke grew larger. The smoke towered into the sky and bent with the breeze toward the ocean. Someone on a ship, Hussein imagined, would think all of Somalia was burning.

From somewhere between the fires, a rocket speared into the air. Gray smoke trailed behind the weapon as it cut a path toward one of the attack planes. The airplane turned hard and the rocket missed. Another of the flying machines rolled onto its side, curved around, and dropped nearly as low as the treetops. It dropped a hell bomb where the rocket had come up. Flames leapt from the ground as if Allah himself had pointed a finger that cut a long trench in the earth and brought forth fire.

An explosion sounded from behind Hussein, in the direction of the village. He turned his head and saw men with guns running through the trees. Some stopped to fire—at what, Hussein could not tell. Another blast boomed, and he recognized the sound: a mortar, one of those little bombs that you dropped into a tube. The battle seemed to swirl on every side with no shape at all. If he could have jumped from the stretcher to find al-Shabaab, he would not have known where to go.