“What happened?” I asked.
“We were straight-up mercenaries. We worked for just about anyone that had the cash to pay us, and we didn’t ask questions. We always got the job done, too. We spent most of our time in Africa. Business was good. Until this time we got in over our heads. We . . .” Hawk hesitated. “We basically overthrew the democratically elected government of Zembala.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“It doesn’t exist anymore,” Hawk replied. “It’s called the Central African People’s Republic now. The government of Zembala was corrupt, teetering on collapse. They had tribal conflict, religious conflict, and the Cubans screwing around there, too.”
“Fucking Cubans,” Tailor and I said simultaneously.
“We had been paid to protect the president of Zembala. He was a real piece of work, let me tell ya. He was a lying, whoring drunk, and the validity of the election results were questionable. Anyway, he was hoarding the cash from the state-run diamond mines, trying to fund his army to keep the Commies from overthrowing him. We protected him. He didn’t trust anyone from his own country. Too much tribal bullshit. We didn’t have a dog in that race, so he trusted us. But we got a better offer.” Hawk paused for a moment. “The Montalban Exchange, some big international firm, offered us a lot of money to kill the president.”
“That didn’t work out, did it?” Tailor asked.
“Christ Almighty, it was bad,” Hawk said, finishing his beer and crushing the can in his hand. “Decker went for it. We killed the president. That was easy. It got complicated after that. We left the capital for Sweothi City, getting our asses kicked the whole way. There were only a few of us left. The Montalbans were supposed to have a plane there to extract us.”
“There wasn’t a plane, was there?” Tailor asked.
Hawk laughed bitterly. “Hell, no.”
“How did you get out?” I asked. “Did the Montalban Exchange help you?”
“No, they didn’t. They just left us to die. We hooked up with some Portuguese mercs and made a run for it. Decker sacrificed one of our guys, young fella named Ozzie, to distract the Cubans. He pulled it off, though. The rest of us managed to get on a plane to South Africa. Lost a lot of good men in that mess . . .” Hawk trailed off, looking toward the darkened mountains.
“Holy shit,” Tailor said. “Ramirez never talked about that.”
“And yet the story sounds strangely familiar,” I said, giving Tailor a hard look.
Hawk opened another beer. “None of us talked about it. We made a mistake, and it got a lot of people killed. Well . . . even if we hadn’t been there, the same thing probably would’ve happened. And Africa’s Africa. Every time some politician sneezes over there a hundred thousand people get slaughtered.”
“Africa sucks,” I said, looking up at the stars. The time I’d spent there hadn’t been so pleasant, either.
“It is what it is,” Hawk said quietly. “You boys be careful over there, now. Always have a way out. Don’t trust the people you work for. Remember, if you die, they don’t have to pay you.”
“Okay, Hawk,” I said.
“I mean it, boy,” he said harshly. “I’ve been to too many goddamned funerals already.”
VALENTINE
Kelly Field Annex
Lackland Air Force Base, Texas
February 4
0545
Southern Texas was warm, even in February. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was a far cry from the harsh winters and lake-effect snow of Northern Michigan, where I’d grown up.
The last few days had been a whirlwind. Tailor and I had been flown from Las Vegas to San Antonio. From there we were hurried to a military installation that they tried to keep secret, but I knew it was Lackland Air Force Base. I’d gone to Air Force basic military training and Security Forces School here. They kept us cooped up in an old barracks for several days. Each day, more and more people would arrive. All told, there were forty-two of us living in the barracks, that we knew of.
Food, in the form of military MREs, was brought to us, and we weren’t allowed to go outside. All cell phones had been confiscated, and those that had kept theirs hidden had found that they had no signal anyway, meaning our hosts were probably jamming them somehow. They also took all of our personal identification documents, like passports and driver’s licenses. This caused all manner of outrage, but our employers insisted that these effects would be returned when the mission was complete.
People came and went from the barracks, but they weren’t part of our group. No one knew who they were, so we all guessed that they were associates of Gordon Willis. I had to hand it to Gordon: he’d certainly managed to recruit an interesting bunch. As Tailor and I talked to, and got to know, the people that were presumably our new teammates, we learned quite a bit about them and how much we all had in common.
For starters, almost all of us had combat experience. Most were ex-military, like me, and of those, a few had been kicked out or had spent time in the Fort Leavenworth military prison. Others had an intelligence background, and most of us spoke foreign languages. Tailor and I spoke Spanish fluently. Very few of us had any close family. None of us were married.
There were a few women in the building, too, but they were confined to a different part of the barracks and weren’t allowed near us. We didn’t know how many there were. I guessed that they were afraid someone would end up pregnant or something. It seemed silly to me.
So there I was, standing on the ramp, looking at a plain white Boeing 767 jetliner that was waiting for us. The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour. We stood there in a big cluster, smoking and joking, waiting for them to tell us to board the plane. A few of us, including Tailor and me, had formed into a little circle.
“Where are we going?” someone asked. “Anyone heard?” I turned around. The guy that had asked the question was named Carlos Hudson. He was a black guy from the south side of Detroit, originally. He was the only other Red Wings fan in the whole bunch, so he and I had hit it off.
“They haven’t told us anything,” I said. “They issued us a bunch of hot-weather gear, though. We’re going to the Middle East.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Tailor said, standing next to me.
“Why would they send us to there?” someone else asked. “What are forty-two guys going to do that half the US military can’t?”
“Maybe we’re going to Iran or somewhere, then,” Hudson suggested. “You know, someplace the US ain’t supposed to be?”
“Could be the Sudan,” another guy chimed in.
“I do not want to go back to Africa,” Tailor said for the umpteenth time, puffing a cigarette.
“Don’t worry, boys, we’re not going to Africa,” a woman’s dusky voice said. That’s when I saw her. She was tall, probably fve ten or so, and had auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had curvy features hidden beneath khaki cargo pants and a sage green fleece jacket. A green duffel bag was hoisted over her shoulder, and it looked like it weighed as much as she did. She was flanked by three other women, but there was something about her . . .
“Who are you?” Tailor asked.
“McAllister,” she said, sticking her hand out.
Tailor glanced at me, then shook her hand. “My name’s Tailor,” he said. “William Tailor. So, where are we going?”
“Zubara,” she said.
“Where?” someone asked.
“The Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara,” one of the other females, a tall black woman, said.
“It borders Qatar and Saudi Arabia,” McAllister added. “The US has no real presence there.”