Land of Promise (24 page)

After a few moments to let that sink in, Rick gestured to the young couple and said, “And now… back to you. Please let this congregation know what you have planned in Malawi. May God bless and protect you and make you his instruments.” With that, he shook the young man’s hand and returned to sit with Meital.

It was illegal to recruit mercenaries in the United States, which was a belated signatory nation to the UN’s 2001 International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries. It was also a violation of the Pelosi Act, which added a miry layer of restrictions to what the UN spelled out. So Rick and Meital had to be very careful about how they conducted themselves while recruiting pilots and technicians. They had diplomatic immunity, true, but it would hamper them greatly if they were ever declared
persona non grata
by the U.S. State Department. According to their legal counsel, as long as they mentioned Citizenship
first
in their contacts and “required IRDF service” later, then the new IRDF cadre would not be classified as mercenaries.

Following their now standard travel security procedures, the Akinses checked into different hotels each night and exchanged rental cars once every two days. They usually alternated between nondescript compact cars and small SUVs. The stated excuse for changing vehicles was either that they needed a car that could handle dirt roads, or that they were done offroading and no longer needed that capability. All initial contacts with aviator candidates were handled via e-mail, Skype, or Unseen. Face-to-face meetings near Fort Rucker were usually scheduled at restaurants. All phones were left in Faraday bags and never turned off at a scheduled meeting because the change in the device’s status would easily establish association networks. They were careful to never mention where they were staying and also careful to avoid mentioning their planned travel to the Philippines for additional recruiting.

The nightly change of hotels made it difficult for the FBI Special Agents to catch up to the Akinses. They had a description of their car and some still captures from the hotels’ video systems, but not much else. Their inquiry with the Provost Marshall’s office showed that the Akinses had never officially contacted Fort Rucker; their queries with the Dothan and Enterprise police departments also drew blanks. So Sunday and Monday were frustrating days of calling hotels and driving around, hoping to get a glimpse of the diplomats.

On Tuesday afternoon the Akinses visited the VFW post in Daleville, but they only found one retiree who was vaguely interested. Disappointingly, the VFW seemed to be more of a gambling and drinking establishment. But that evening, they attended a prayer meeting at the Military Christian Center in Daleville. There they met four pilots, three of whom were Reservists on active duty tours and one who was recently retired; all had extensive UH-60 and MH-60 flying experience. One of them ended up on Rick’s “hire” list. It was that evening that Meital noticed that because they had been around so many southern drawls, Rick unconsciously slipped back into his soft Texan accent.

About half the candidates they interviewed backed out for various reasons. A couple of them were hoping for a big signing bonus above and beyond the value of Ilemi Citizenship, and one was hoping to earn Citizenship with just a 24-month commitment. One other could not get his wife, a non-believer, to commit to a long-term move to the Ilemi. Rick flatly turned down two candidates. One of these seemed overly-confident, brash, and too eager. The other seemed to have insincere faith in Christ and, when quizzed, proved to be Biblically ignorant. Then he admitted that he wouldn’t be able to provide references from any recent church pastors.

But most of their meetings went well and ended with handshake agreements. A few of the recruitments would be delayed, because these officers and NCOs still had additional Army Reserve obligations ranging from three months to two years. Rick promised to be patient and hold slots for them.

On Wednesday afternoon, the FBI agents caught up with the Akinses. However, with just one car available, following them discreetly was difficult to do without being detected.

By the time they had dinner on Wednesday, Rick and Meital had commitments from eight pilots, five of whom had served as instructor pilots and one as a maintenance test pilot, 2 E-6 “15 Tango” Helicopter Repairers (A&P mechanics) who had both recently become Crew Chiefs, one E-5 “15 November” Avionic Mechanic, one CW4 maintenance warrant officer who had formerly been both a MOS 15B Powerplant Repairer and a 15D Powertrain Repairer, one E-4 “15 Bravo” Powerplant Repairer who had just recently cross-trained as a 15G Aircraft Structural Repairer, and one aerial gunnery instructor. The latter was a former pilot who recently lost his flight status because of a heart murmur. Rick hadn’t been shopping for an aerial gunnery instructor, but because this WO-3 could double as a pilot, Rick “waivered him in.” The IRDF’s flight physical exam standards were just being developed at the time and would not as demanding as U.S. Army standards.

Meital helped Rick compose a summary list of their candidates and sent it via encrypted e-mail to Colonel Kamwi. As usual for all of his overseas trips, Rick used three nested VPN connections to hide his location. He then got busy composing individual acceptance e-mails to the candidates. These were carefully worded to only mention “Citizenship, per our discussion, with requisite service in the Ilemi Republic Defense Force” but not offer any details on full-time cadre service. In addition, recruitment was contingent upon references and a favorable background check.

Just before midnight on Wednesday evening, an e-mail popped into Rick’s inbox from an instructor pilot with the 1
^st
Brigade of the 212th Aviation Regiment. He said he was a Lebanese Christian who had first served as a U.S. Army avionics technician before attending OCS and then flight school. He had logged 356 hours of experience as a UH-60M/UH-60V pilot and more recently 818 flight hours as a UH-100 pilot.

Reading parts of the letter narrative aloud, Rick told Meital, “Hey, this guy sounds good.”

The next part of the letter mentioned that he was TDY in Panama and would be returning to Fort Rucker in 24 hours. He begged Rick to stay in town so they could meet “for a F2F interview.” The letter also mentioned, “You will note that this letter is coming from a FreeMail account, that’s because I am TDY…”

That caused Rick to raise a suspicious eyebrow. Then he noticed that the letter was signed,

Reading one of those lines made Rick gasp.

Meital asked, “What was that about? You sound like you just felt a black mamba slither by your leg.”

“No mambas here, but this is some sort of snake in the grass! This guy is supposedly an
Army
Captain, but his signature block says ‘C-A-P-T.’ That would be fine and good in the Air Force, but that’s a definite no-no in the Army. They
always
use the abbreviation ‘C-P-T.’ What we have here is a fake e-mail. I’m sure of it.”

After he re-read the letter aloud to Meital, she said, “Wow, talk about ‘targeted for termination.’ It sounds like WIS-MOIS is sending us a special delivery hit man, or perhaps a suicide bomber.”

A quick Skype call to one of Rick’s other candidates from the same brigade yielded the response, “I’ve never heard of him, and I can assure you that I know every company-grade instructor pilot in the brigade by their first names, since one of my brigade-level Additional Duties is ‘Stress, PTSD Support, and Morale Officer.’ My assignment is to keep tabs on all O-2 and O-3 Instructor Pilots. They even make me keep track of their birthdays, so that I can send them obligatory birthday greetings. I kid you not.”

Rick tried to make light of the situation by responding, “Gosh, and I thought that I had aggravating Additional Duties when I was in the Air Force. That one of yours is a real charming time sink.”

After they had pleasantly signed off and he flipped his laptop screen shut, Rick said, “Meitali, I think that by God’s grace we just dodged another bullet.”

“Okay, Rick. So now we’ve dodged
one
car bomber and
one
hit man.” Then she looked toward the ceiling and said, “Thank you, Lord, for Your protection.”

Rick said in a low voice, “I think this tells us that we have to be a lot more careful about how long we stay in any one place whenever we are outside of the Ilemi.”

Feeling agitated, Rick stayed up and used some standard tools to trace the e-mail’s originating IP address. He quickly found that it had been sent from Dearborn, Michigan. It was frightening to think that the hit man was already “in CONUS,” but the Dearborn locale did not surprise him, since it had long been a hotbed of militant Islamic activity. As far back as 2010, Dearborn had been nicknamed “Dearbornistan,” and it was considered the bellwether for the growth of Thirdism in the United States. By the time the Ilemi Republic was formed, most of the major cities in the U.S. were at about the same point that Dearborn had been in 2015.

Rick and Meital both had trouble sleeping following their usual prayers. Rick could tell from Meital’s breathing that she was awake. At just before 4 a.m., he whispered to her, “What do you say we get to the airport a day early, switch to the first flight heading to the west coast, and also re-book for an earlier flight to the P.I.?”

“Sounds like a plan, my dear husband. I’ll sleep a lot better on the plane than here. Let’s go.”