I figured the guards were going to change, so trotted over to the other side of the fort. Sure enough, the holy warriors were walking around the fort. For just a moment, there was no one on the eastern side. I didn’t waste a second; just vaulted over the side into the loose dirt twelve or so feet below. Then I shot off down the hill toward the beach. Went about fifty yards and then flopped onto my belly.
Waited a minute or so for shouts, or shots, or someone running after me. Nothing. I started crawling. My leg hurt every time I moved it.
After I had done about a mile on my stomach around the north side of that rock pile and was thoroughly fagged out, with cactus stickers in my hands and knees, I decided to get on the net. Got my headset on and turned on the transmitter/receiver and keyed the mike. “Control, this is Tommy. Where is the admiral?”
“He’s in Ragnar’s lair.”
“E.D.? Travis?”
“Yo.”
“Where are you? We need to talk.”
Julie Penney was standing at a gun port looking at the sea when Tommy Carmellini landed in the dirt in front of her, picked himself up and galloped into the brush.
She recognized him, even though she didn’t see his face. Big, rangy, athletic, lean … Grafton’s assistant, the man who brought Nora back from Ragnar’s hellhole.
Marjorie was there and came over to the porthole. She had gotten a glimpse of the falling body, but hadn’t seen who it was.
“Tomorrow’s the deadline,” Marjorie reminded the captain’s wife. “One more night.”
Suzanne Ranta heard that remark and joined the conversation. “Out of here tomorrow. Or we’ll be dead.”
“Arch says the ransom will be paid,” Julie Penney reminded them. “Let’s keep our chins up.”
“Stiff upper lip,” Irene mocked, as British as she could.
Julie Penney wandered off to check on other passengers. She had had a little talk with her husband in the wee hours of the morning, after the shooting died down, and he had said, “It’ll be tonight.” She asked why, and was told, “The locals can’t see in the dark. The Americans prefer it. If there is going to be trouble, it will be tonight.”
Tonight. Conceivably, this could be the last day of life for a great many people.
So … if you knew this might be your last day, how would you spend it? Almost by instinct Julie Penney chose to spend it trying to buck up her husband’s passengers.
It was nearly four o’clock when I reached the rendezvous, what with crawling and sneaking along. The Shabab had patrols out, and they kept showing up at inopportune times. Sometimes I am lucky that way.
Our rendezvous was a big pile of rock overlooking Eyl West. It was just below the rim, a pile of hard rock that had resisted the rain and wind through the ages. I wouldn’t have been surprised if hundreds of thousands of years ago Homo erectus hadn’t huddled on random nights on the very spot where Travis had built a tiny, smokeless fire to brew coffee and warm up MREs. In Africa, you think about things like that.
It wasn’t just Travis and E.D., either. It was my whole snatch team. Harry, Doc, Willis, Buck, Wilbur … all of them.
“This is like a high school reunion,” I said. “Who brought the beer?”
“Jesus, Tommy, you look bad! What did you do, crawl the whole way?”
“Damn near. Where’s Orville?”
“Up on top of the rock. We have a drone up keeping watch.”
“I’ll recommend a Christmas bonus for all you guys.”
“Want a beer?” Buck asked.
“You are a prince among men. Wanna meet my sister? I’ll fix you up.”
E.D. handed me the satellite phone. “The navy wanted to talk to you as soon as you showed up.”
“I kinda thought so.”
“They weren’t expecting Admiral Grafton to get himself into a hostage situation. I think they want you to take care of that.”
“Did you guys get all those radio detonators?” Willis asked me.
“If you hear a really big bang, the answer is no.” I opened a can of beer and looked at E.D. “Anything else they want to ask me?”
“Now, Tommy, no one knew if you were going to get out of that fort before dark. We were Plan B.”
“I see.”
“What with you here, we’ll go back to Plan A.”
“The airport?”
“Yep. The Shabab boys are sitting up there looking mean. Kinda too bad about the pirates. When the Shabab came in shooting, the pirates’ machine guns split their barrels when the first round was fired. The battle was a little lopsided. Very tragic.”
I set about making the satellite phone do its magic. By the time the task force ops officer was on, I was halfway through my second can of beer. Even warm, it tasted delicious.
While I talked the guys worked on my leg. Got an antibiotic on it and a coagulating pad, then a tight bandage. At least now it wouldn’t bleed. Damn thing was sore, and the best I could do was a hobble.
When the ops officer was finished and had answered my three questions, I turned off the phone. I looked at my little band and told them, “We eat, then get at it. Timetable is unchanged. The airplanes are in the air.” They knew all that, of course. “E.D., you and Travis are going to cover me with the Sakos.”
They just nodded and handed me some MREs. I began wolfing them down. Damn, I was hungry.
E.D. sat down beside me. “I heard some shooting last night. Did you guys get any kills?”
He shrugged. Looked around to see who was listening to us. Apparently no one. “We missed,” he allowed in a low voice.
“Oh, come on!”
“Shit, Tommy. Shooting at people running around like crazy in the dark isn’t like shooting at a damn target. You know that! The damn guys wouldn’t hold still.”
“I thought you guys—”
“For the love of Christ!” he hissed, trying to keep his voice from carrying. “Of course I’ve been in combat before. A dozen times. Sprayed lead and threw grenades and called in air strikes and patched up wounds and all that soldier shit. We got those guys about to do you on the road, didn’t we? Sure, we were trying last night, but the crosshairs kept dancing and those guys wouldn’t hold still. You know what I’m saying?”
“It’ll be my neck on the chopping block tonight,” I pointed out.
“We scared ’em last night. Kept their heads down. When they got their heads down they’re outta the fight. We’ll take care of you.”
“Yeah. Sure. Anything happens to me, you’d better get off this planet. Shoot straight, damn your eyes.”
“Oh, of course, Tommy. Sure as shootin’.”
“Fuck you, Erectile Dysfunction.”
“Hey! Watch your mouth.”
“Fuck you, Limp Dick. Is that better?”
“Cocksucker.”
“Don’t drink any more of this horse-piss beer before we go, either.”
Properly motivating people is a fine art. It comes natural to me. It’s a gift.
We sorted our gear, made sure everyone had what he needed. Willis Coffey was leading the rest of the guys to the airport. Since they had farther to go, they left early. E.D. and I helped ourselves to more water. The sun had slipped below the hills to the west, but still made the ocean sparkle. When the sun was gone and the ocean turned gray, we started sneaking.
For some reason, the sky turned bloodred as the night came on. Perhaps the upper atmosphere was full of dirt from the desert to the west. Some kind of lensing effect, I suppose.
We finally reached our position just after dark. E.D. settled in beside me and set up the legs of the Sako’s bipod. Got his spotting scope beside him, focused it on Ragnar’s lair, used the laser range finder …