The apparent leader of the team, a bearded, grizzly bear of a man who identified himself only as “Gizzard,” had two flash-bang stun grenades on a load-bearing vest he’d thrown on over his polo. He’d winked when he’d handed Carr an MP5. “I believe in all the force multipliers I can get. Your boss said you’re good for this.”
The ambassador was more than a little grouchy when he’d not been given a gun as well, but he got over it quickly. Gizzard told both men to grab some much-needed rest. Their orders, the team leader said, were to sit tight and wait.
It seemed like seconds later when Carr’s eyes flicked open to Gizzard’s gloved hand on his shoulder.
“We’re about to go kinetic,” he said. “Wait for the signal.”
“What’s the signal?” Burlingame asked.
Both Carr and Burlingame couldn’t suppress their smiles when Gizzard explained.
Carr took up a position behind the rusted semitrailer while two teams of four men — including Gizzard — flanked the door to the warehouse. The remaining four set up at cardinal points, facing outbound to pull security. The kidnappers, apparently feeling safely ensconced inside their own country, had neglected to check outside even once.
Three minutes after the D-boys had taken their positions, the warehouse door opened a crack and one of the kidnappers — the most junior from the looks of him — poked his head out. He was just two feet from Gizzard, who stood on the other side of a small extension of the entryway. Had the man come out another inch, Gizzard could have reached out and touched him.
Instead, the kidnapper took a cursory look as if he was expecting something. Completely oblivious to the presence of the nearby Americans, he sniffed the air a moment, and then ducked back inside.
Thirty seconds later, the air shook with a tremendous roar. The ground, the trees, the warehouse itself, trembled as four F/A-18 fighter jets ripped overhead in a finger-four formation, turkey-feather exhaust nozzles open. They flew just five hundred feet off the deck at six hundred ninety miles per hour — almost but not quite the speed of sound. Breaking the sound barrier at that altitude would have shattered windows, but a sonic boom would have been too quick. The pilots wanted to maximize the duration of their engine noise. Carr knew it was coming and he still jumped. Watching, hearing, the four jets scream overhead, seeming close enough to touch, was the epitome of “shock and awe.”
Three of the kidnappers rushed outside to investigate the terrifying noise. Bald Spot remained inside.
Gizzard gave the one in the lead a rabbit punch in the back of the neck, grabbing him by the shoulder to swing him around and to the ground, like a matador’s cape. The next two Cameroonian soldiers in line received similar treatment, and were facedown and flex-cuffed before they had time to cry out.
Gizzard pointed a knife hand at the semitrailer where Carr and Burlingame were positioned and motioned them forward. The ambassador stayed on Carr’s tail as he crossed the thirty feet of open ground to the corner of the warehouse.
Gizzard held up a small tablet computer strapped to his forearm, showing the video feed from inside.
Bald Spot had left his weapon against the wall and now paced in front of Mrs. Porter. It was a simple matter for three of the D-boys to breach the door, plow the hapless soldier to the dirt floor.
Carr heard one of the men inside shout, “U.S. Army! We’re here to get you out, Mrs. Porter.”
Gizzard gave Carr a nod. “It’ll be less traumatic for her if someone she knows removes her hood.”
Carr and Ambassador Burlingame rushed inside.
“Sarah!” Burlingame said. “It’s me, Chance.”
“Mr. Ambassador,” she said from beneath the hood. Her chest finally gave way to sobs.
Burlingame gently lifted away the hood.
Carr’s jaw convulsed when the cloth came off to reveal an ugly black bruise under Mrs. Porter’s left eye.
The DS agent wheeled on the downed kidnapper, kicking the man hard in the ribs, rolling him so he was faceup. “You bastard!” Carr screamed, falling on top of the man and pummeling his face with blow after blow. He expected one of the D-boys to pull him off. No one did, so he kept hitting until he got tired — and he was in better-than-average shape.
“You cannot do this,” Bald Spot whimpered, when Carr finally let up. “You will be arrested.”
Carr hit the man one more time. “Nope,” he said. “Pretty sure I’ve got diplomatic immunity.”
Sean Jolivette had once heard a quote from a Lockheed Skunk Works engineer to SR-71 pilots that a sloppy turn started in Atlanta could put the airplane over Chattanooga by the time it was complete. At speeds of Mach 1.7, the Hornet was roughly half as fast as the venerable Blackbird, but it still required a fair amount of finesse to turn. Jolivette bled off speed as soon as he passed over the warehouse coordinates, slowing to best cornering velocity of three hundred and thirty knots. He tensed the muscles against his thighs and gut in the so-called “hick” maneuver, keeping blood flowing to his brain as he took the Hornet into a 180-degree horizontal turn — pulling nearly 7.5 Gs and eating up a hell of a lot of real estate over the ground. Any more Gs and he risked making the guys in maintenance mad when he broke the airplane.
Pouring on throttle, the strike fighters overflew the warehouse once again. Unaware of how things were going on the ground, all four of them repeated the horizontal turn and pointed their noses toward the presidential residence, dropping even lower this time, to do it all again.
Njaya was apoplectic. “You are attacking us!”
As if by magic, Ryan switched to his calmer, more diplomatic self. “What are you talking about, François? My people are there to help you regain control. If the hostages go free unharmed, we can stand down. All this will be forgiven, though, I must caution, it will not be forgotten.”
“And the money?” Njaya asked.
“Oh, we’ll get that all sorted,” Ryan said. “I’m sure the accounts will be unfrozen as soon as every American is released and your troops pull back from the embassy. You can see to the men who have committed these crimes as you see fit.”
Njaya gulped. “I will make certain the men who now surround your embassy depart at once.”
“That is all I can ask,” Ryan said.
“But what of Mbida?”
“He’ll be given safe passage out of the country.”
There was a long pause on the line. Ryan and the others in the room couldn’t help but smile when it was filled with the booming roar of jets overhead.
“I see,” Njaya stammered. “But Mr. President. This entire incident has cost me politically. I am begging you. Do not send your troops into my country. It would make me appear to be weak.”
Ryan’s voice grew dark again. He spoke clearly and slowly. “You misunderstand the situation, François. I am not going to send in anyone. They are already there, overhead, in your shops, on your highways, behind every building and tree. They are embedded with your rapid response soldiers, whom they have worked alongside against Boko Haram for years.”
More silence.
Ryan got a thumbs-up from Burgess that Mrs. Porter was free and safe.
“Very well,” he said. “If I can be of any further assistance, please let me know.”
He disconnected before Njaya could respond.
Exhausted, Ryan waited in the Situation Room long enough to hear that the Cameroonian troops were pulling back from the embassy. He said good night, knowing the morning alarm was going to come before he knew it, and he made a quick stop by the Oval to grab some papers he wanted to read the next morning before coming in. Standing behind his desk, he stretched, then looked at his watch. He awoke so frequently in different places around the globe that his circadian clock was in constant reset mode. He only paid attention to the time anymore so he wouldn’t inconvenience too many others.