Task Force Desperate (27 page)

Imad was already at the enclosure, and starting past it. I could see down the track that served as a main road through Balli Gubat, which also ran past the same large enclosure, heading straight to the town square/well area. It was there that the Galmudug soldiers had set up, and I could see a couple of them gathered around a fire barrel. I couldn’t see a lot of detail with the NVGs, since it showed mostly their heat signature, but it looked like they were wearing cammies and some sort of chest rigs. One had an AK variant slung, while the other looked to be unarmed, until I caught sight of the PKM leaning against another barrel.

I flicked on the IR laser on the PEQ-15 affixed to my rifle, laid it on the AK-carrier, and waited for Imad’s move.

Imad was going old-school, without night vision. While he was still dressed in our pseudo-field uniform of baggy cargo trousers, T-shirt, and hiking boots, as opposed to much of any local attire, he wasn’t fully tac-ed out, and only had his Kimber holstered high on his hip, under the trailing edge of his shirt. He’d look pretty non-threatening at first glance.

He paused just inside the shadow of the enclosure, back where the two paramilitaries couldn’t see him in the glow of the fires, and called out in Somali. It apparently was a hell of a shock to hear a voice calling out from the darkness, especially as it looked, from a cursory sweep of the surrounding buildings and enclosures, like they had the town under a curfew. The one with the AK started, and got tangled in his sling trying to bring his AK around. I put my laser on his chest, my forward elbow braced against my knee, and waited. The other one was reaching for his PKM, swinging it up with the ammo belt rattling loudly in the nighttime quiet, and I saw another IR laser from my right track in on him.

The AK wielder yelled out a challenge and took a step forward. He couldn’t see shit, especially since he’d been staring at the fire a moment before. Imad barked a warning to him, explaining in Somali that there were two rifles trained on him and two more on his buddy. That gave him pause, and he rattled off a suspicious-sounding query. My guess is he figured that maybe he was being bluffed.

Imad answered calmly, explaining that he had business to conduct, and that the men in the bushes with guns were only there as a precaution. He then demanded to see the soldiers’ commanding officer.

The PKM gunner yammered at his fellow, who snapped at him then reached for something and lifted it to his lips. He spoke into what had to be a small tactical radio, and even from where I was I heard the crackling response. Seemed they had their radio turned all the way up, probably so they’d hear it if they fell asleep. Some professionals.

The rifleman yelled at Imad that someone would be coming, and demanded he step into the light where they could see him. Imad agreed, but not before reminding them that we were out in the dark with rifles, ready to shoot them if we thought he was in danger. From their body language, I think they hoped he was bluffing, but were afraid he wasn’t. They weren’t prepared for something like this; they were supposed to be guarding a tiny rural town against rag-tag pirates.

Of course it wasn’t hard to guess that part of their job, since they were in the middle of the town instead of outside, was to enforce the curfew on the locals, who might or might not be entirely in favor of having the former USC/SNA troops in their town. But that wasn’t our business, and we couldn’t afford to care.

After about ten minutes, an ancient UAZ jeep came growling down the main drag from the north. There was a driver, passenger, and one soldier standing in the back at a machine gun mounted to the roll bar. I couldn’t tell what kind it was through the NVGs, but that it was the size of any number of medium MGs was enough. I shifted my laser to the gunner. If this blew up on us, I’d need to take him out of the picture first.

The UAZ came to a stop a few yards from the guards and the passenger got out. I couldn’t see a lot of detail with the thermals, but he was dressed in fatigue trousers, a T-shirt, and beret. From his swagger, I somehow got the impression that if it had been light out, he’d have been wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses. I did make out that there was a pistol on his hip, but no rifle. With the MG watching over him, he didn’t really need one.

He didn’t approach or speak to Imad at first. Instead he strode up to the guard with the AK, who was already starting to cringe. He stopped in front of the man, stared at him for a moment, and then punched him in the face.

It wasn’t much of a punch--most of us could have taken it standing up and kept coming without even blinking. But the guard fell on the ground, where Beret Boy kicked him and started screaming in Somali.

Now, I’ve already established that my Somali sucked. But even I could tell what was being said to the poor bastard on the ground, as his commander started stomping on him, while he tried to cover his head with his arms. He’d been on watch, and, regardless of how outclassed he was, we’d gotten the drop on him. Beret Boy was
pissed
.

Imad didn’t interrupt. He just stood there with his back to the enclosure behind him, a bare two paces from the shadows, his arms folded.

Finally, Beret Boy finished beating and berating his subordinate, and with one last perfunctory kick, he turned to Imad and swaggered up to look him over. Imad just stood there, coolly returning his arrogant gaze. After a moment’s posturing, which Imad refused to answer, the guy demanded to know who he was, and why he was there.

Imad calmly replied that we had been attacked by pirates, that we were mercenaries here to fight pirates and Al-Shabaab, and we were looking for fuel. He didn’t mention payment at first. It never paid to let these kinds of thug soldiers know you had money.

He didn’t have to, of course. Any mercenary outfit or NGO out here would have money of some sort. Beret Boy was doubtless aware of that, and starting to calculate how much of it he could get and for what risk.

But his first question seemed to throw Imad for a bit of a loop. I couldn’t make it out, even if I’d been able to understand the language, but Imad asked a question in return, that sounded like he was trying to clarify what he’d just heard.

For a while, there was just the two of them talking, overwatched by the gunner on the truck and the driver, who was now sitting half out of the driver’s seat, an AK across his lap. The PKM gunner who’d been on post there in the square was now helping his battered comrade toward one of the enclosures off to the side of the square.

As Imad and Beret Boy talked, I saw Imad reach into his pocket and draw something out. Beret Boy flicked a lighter to take a closer look, and I knew it was one of the gold Krugerrands that we’d brought for just this purpose. As quickly as he’d shown it, Imad slipped it back into his pocket and started to take a step back.

Beret Boy started getting agitated, and his voice rose until I could hear it pretty clearly in the bushes. My earpiece clicked.

“Hillbilly, Spearchucker,” Imad called quietly. “Can one of you switch to your vis laser for a second? I need to make a point.”

I didn’t say anything back, but just reached up and flicked the switch on my PEQ. The beam in my PVS-14s didn’t appear to change as I moved it off the UAZ gunner, but Imad pointed at Beret Boy’s chest, and the man started, as he looked down and saw the red glowing dot hovering over his heart and lungs. I kept it there for just long enough to get the point across, then switched back to IR. No reason to give them a possible line back to my position, which they would pick out sooner or later.

Imad continued to slowly move back toward the shadows, and called out something in Somali as he went. Then he was back in the darkness and moving toward us pretty quickly.

I blinked a tiny green LED light on my vest, down in the weeds where they shouldn’t be able to see it from the square, but Imad picked it up, and vectored in toward me. Behind him, I could hear Beret Boy yelling, and saw him gesturing wildly at his subordinates. I didn’t lower my weapon, but kept the UAZ gunner covered while Imad moved. If this had gone south, I wanted to put the hurt on these mothers as fast as I could.

Imad rustled through the brush and took a knee beside me, his knee touching my foot. “What was that all about?” I whispered.

“Let’s get some distance first,” he replied. “Not sure I trust him to hold tight until morning.”

“Is that the deal?” I still hadn’t stirred from my position.

“Yeah, the commander will be here in the morning, and he’ll make the decision as to whether or not to sell us supplies, take us prisoner to ransom back to the US, or just kill us and take our money and weapons,” he said dryly.

“Great.” I circled my PEQ laser on the side of the UAZ, using that as the signal to fall back to our consolidation point. The others blinked once, then vanished. “Okay, let’s move.”

I rose from my crouch, my knees protesting, and did my best to glide through the grasping bushes. The rasp of the thorns and branches against my trousers and the crunch of sand and gravel under my boots sounded impossibly loud, even over the yelling and commotion back in the town. I didn’t like the tone in Imad’s voice, and was increasingly expecting to get swarmed by pissed-off Galmudug soldiers any moment.

But we reached the consolidation point without incident, and the link up with Larry, Hank, and Bob went off without a hitch. Crouched in the tiny depression, Imad filled us all in, just in case things went pear-shaped on the way back to the trucks.

“Well, the guy with the beret is apparently the equivalent of Sergeant of the Guard, though he identified himself as a Captain. He said that their Colonel, named Qasi, wasn’t there, though I’m not entirely sure if he wasn’t there, or was just asleep or passed out. He doesn’t know if the Colonel will agree to help us, even for gold, but we should come back in the morning. He said that it might be possible, especially if we are going to cause trouble for the Egyptians.” That turned heads, even as we lay in a three-sixty, facing outward for security.

“Yeah,” he said, seeing our reaction. “That’s what I thought, too. Seems there’s a substantial Arab presence down south now, mostly from Egypt, Sudan, and the Arabian Peninsula. I’m guessing he’s talking about Al Masri and his bunch, though how he’s drawn this many foreign fighters, I don’t know. He didn’t seem to know, or care, either.”

“What about the pirates?” Bob asked in a loud stage whisper. Damn, I knew he could be quiet, but he’d get excited sometimes.

“I don’t think we really need to worry about them this far west,” I said, notably more quietly. “They’re not going to tangle with a Galmudug military unit, not willingly. They’ve taken some setbacks from the Galmudug forces in the last couple of years, when they’ve pushed further inland.”

I turned my head to direct my whisper back to Imad. “Anything else?”

“Not yet. Guess we’ve got to see what this Colonel Qasi says in the morning.”

“All right, then,” I said, levering myself back up to one knee, and turning my head so that I could be heard, without taking my eyes off my sector of the horizon and the town perched on it. “Let’s move back to the trucks, link up, fill in the rest of the team, and start getting a plan together for the morning.”

The morning in Balli Gubat was bright, windy, and hot. The five of us from the night before had come to see Colonel Qasi, geared up and rifles in hand. We wouldn’t be mistaken for anything but Americans, but our hope was that between the threat of our firepower and their hatred of Al Masri and his goons, we’d be able to deter violence and do some business.

There wasn’t much sign of the locals as we came up the dusty track to the town square. A few goats bleated in the enclosures we passed, and there were a few childrens’ eyes watching us before being swept away by frightened parents. The locals didn’t know what was going to go down this morning, and they wanted to keep their families out of the way if shooting started.

The square was empty as we walked up. I spotted several groups of Galmudug soldiers in varying degrees of uniform, mostly consisting of old tri-color or Russian camouflage trousers and t-shirts, though a few were wearing camouflage blouses as well, usually not quite matching the trousers. Most were wearing combat gear, though that didn’t consist of much more than an old AK chest rig, or cartridge belt with mag pouches.

They were trying to be nonchalant, and there wasn’t as huge a display of weaponry that might otherwise be expected. That didn’t mean that we couldn’t spot them anyway. AK-47s predominated, though there were a couple of SKS variants, and I thought I saw a G-3 or two.

Hank and Bob took the left, and Larry and I took the right, spreading out into the square. We kept our posture about as nonchalant as the Somali soldiers did. We didn’t bother to watch our backs, because the trucks were down to the south, just barely visible over a slight rise in the ground, with no fewer than three sniper rifles covering us and anyone near us who might start feeling froggy.

I glanced at my watch. Morning was getting on, and there was no sign of anyone here to meet us aside from the soldiers scattered around the square. They might have managed to look less like an ambush if there had been locals in the square too, but the locals didn’t appear to be interested in serving as human shields. I made eye contact with Hank across the way, and he nodded slightly, his hand flexing ever so slightly around the pistol grip of his Galil ACE. There was no other word or action, but everyone was primed.

It felt like a long time, standing there in the sun and the dust. There wasn’t much noise, especially since there didn’t appear to be much in the way of power in the town. A generator chugged somewhere and goats bleated out of sight. Several of the soldiers were talking quietly among themselves, but none approached us, and we returned the favor. They watched us, we watched them. Time crawled, as we baked in the rising heat.

It must have been nearly an hour before there was a rising chatter of voices, and several of the soldiers started to straighten up, and try to look a little more menacing. One of them, not much more than a kid, with an ancient SKS that I could see the rust spots on, lifted his rifle toward me and puffed up his chest. I just watched him impassively, refusing to rise to the bait. Of course, he took this to mean I was afraid of him, and got even more of a big head. Before he could cause any real trouble to where I might have to shoot him, the officers showed up.