Task Force Desperate (34 page)

“Might be doable,” Alek said. “We’d need a fair amount of information to make these guys sound convincing. And I don’t think either of you have ever actually operated a Reaper or Predator, have you?” Both Imad and the guy I was already starting to think of as Lanky shook their heads in the negative.

“I think we need to set up a link back to the Colonel, and see if we can’t get some useful information pushed about drone operations,” Rodrigo suggested. “I can have the link up in about ten minutes.”

Alek nodded, so Rodrigo jerked his head at Tim before leading the way out into the night. Our comm gear was still on the trucks. That brought another concern to mind, and I reminded myself to bring it up to Baird when we got to that point--did he have batteries for the comm gear? It was one thing that we hadn’t been able to load up on nearly enough, and we were unlikely to find much in the way of lithium batteries for SATCOM radios and laptops in Somalia.

“So who exactly are we sending in?” Hank asked.

“I will go,” Lanky said. “I have been there before.”

“I’ll go, too,” Imad said. He held out his hand to Lanky. “Imad,” he said, by way of introduction.

Lanky clasped his hand firmly. “Harith,” he replied. “Call me Spider.”

Wonder where he got that nickname
, I thought wryly.

With the general mission determined, namely to get Spider and Imad into Kismayo to find our mysterious target, we got down to the heavy duty planning. Maps and imagery were pored over, our assets were gone over with a fine-toothed comb, and various courses of action started to come together. Through it all, the imminent arrival of Lashkar al-Barbar hovered like a shadow. We hoped we’d get out before they attacked.

It was a vain hope.

Chapter 24

W
e had decided to catch a few hours’ sleep in the early hours before dawn. We’d been up most of the night hammering out the plan. It was rough, but as good as could be expected with the tiny force we had. Baird had set security with the small number of his people who wouldn’t be coming with us, and the rest of us had crashed. Alek and I briefly discussed the wisdom of this, but Alek finally made the call, based largely on Danny’s say-so. Danny insisted that he had it from somebody he trusted in Special Activities that Baird was good, even though he was considered a bit of a dangerous nut by the seventh floor. So, we went ahead and trusted to his security, especially since all of us had been up for nearly thirty hours by then, anyway.

I awoke suddenly, with faint, pale light leaking through the cracks around the shoddily-fitted metal door. It took me a second to place what had disturbed me, but only a second. The thumping of rockets or mortars impacting to the south was pretty distinctive.

I rolled out, grabbing my kit and my rifle. Most everybody else was rousting out, too; if you’ve spent time in a war zone, you don’t tend to sleep through that sort of thing. I was the first one with my kit on, so I slammed out the door and went for the first rooftop post I could find that was facing south.

“You got eyes-on that shelling?” I yelled up.

“Sure do,” came the reply, in a faintly British accent. “It’s still about a kilometer away, looks like they’re shelling the southern edge of the town.”

“Any sign of ground forces?”

“Not yet,” he answered. “Tell Baird if we’re clearing out of here we’d best get moving, though. LaB doesn’t usually start shelling this heavily unless they’re ready to push. If we wait too long, it could be a stone bitch to get out of here.”

“Roger, I’ll tell him,” I shot back, and started in as Baird came out. “They’ve started shelling the south edge of the town,” I told him.

“Damn,” he said, as the
crump
sound grew more intense. “They’re earlier than I expected.” He started to move to yell at the guy on the roof, but I saved him the time.

“He says the shelling’s still a klick away,” I said. “We need to get moving before it gets this far north.” My statement was punctuated by a long shot hitting less than two hundred yards away with a whistling
bang
.

“Right,” he said. “My boys are already packed up, we don’t settle in anywhere without being ready to punch out at short notice.” I was already heading inside, while the rest of the team dragged out what gear they had brought in instead of leaving on the trucks. “I see you follow the same SOP.”

“Most of us were Recon, at one time,” I tossed over my shoulder. “It goes with the territory.”

I dashed into the darkened room where my go-bag was sitting next to where I’d slept, grabbed it, and headed back out. By then, the shelling had intensified, and was now a rolling, thunderous roar to the south. These guys were serious.

As I chucked my go bag into the back of the Defender, I took the opportunity to watch Baird’s guys work. I’ll admit, I was impressed. They were smooth, practiced, and showed no sign of panic. Go bags and equipment cases came out of the main house and the sheds and were loaded on their trucks, along with several heavy guns, mostly PKMs and a couple of Pechenegs, and the cases of ammunition to go with them. We got some extra ammo and fuel, as well. Baird apparently wasn’t poor, and he wasn’t niggardly with his supplies, either.

Since we had been pretty much ready to grab-and-go, and Baird’s people weren’t too far behind, our little Mad Max convoy was ready to roll in about forty-five minutes. By this time, we were starting to hear sporadic small arms fire, and the shelling was getting a little ragged. As the last of Baird’s guys came down off the roof, he reported that there were dust plumes closing on the Kenyan positions on the far side of the unnamed tributary wadi that ran roughly east-west through Baardheere to connect with the Juba. There wasn’t much water in it at the moment, so it didn’t afford the defenders much of an advantage. If the LaB were using four-wheel-drives, which they likely were, they’d plow through the wadi without even having to slow down much.

All of which added up to it being time for us to leave.

Baird’s UAZ took the lead, with our HiLux and Land Cruiser pulling in behind him. Another UAZ and two older, open-top Land Rovers took up the rear, each retrofitted with mounts for one of the PKMs and the two Pecheneg machine guns. We turned out of the little staging area that the odd walls of the compound had set up, and immediately doglegged north. None of us wanted any part of the fight that was brewing up to the south.

But it quickly became apparent that we weren’t going to get clear of Baardheere that easily. And it wasn’t the jihadists we had to worry about. It was the Kenyans.

The Kenyan forces had a fair amount of their support base outside the city, ostensibly for the sake of keeping collateral damage down, but also because the city was the target, and the jihadis would have a bunch of Somalis to go through before they could get to the Kenyans’ rear area. Cynical, yes. Hard not to be in Africa.

They also had security forces in and around their rear area, that got a little twitchy when they saw armed vehicles coming north during a LaB attack.

I figure we got spotted by guard posts on the corners of the big supply FOB that straddled the main dirt road heading northeast out of town. We hadn’t gotten more than about a half mile away from the compound when the dust plumes of three AML armored cars came billowing toward us. Worse, an MD-50 helo lifted off from the FOB and started toward us, holding above the AMLs.

Just what we needed. People who were supposed to be our allies, but scared, suspicious, and trigger-happy, coming after us. Fuck this country.

“Contact, right,” I yelled at Jim and Larry, who were crammed in the back of the Land Cruiser. We had a little more room than before, with Imad and Tim riding in the front UAZ, but it was still cramped. “They’re friendlies for now, but I’m betting they’re going to be a little paranoid, so it might not last.”

We could outrun the AMLs, but not that helicopter. I keyed my radio. “Coconut, Hillbilly. You see our friends to the east?”

“Roger, Hillbilly, I’ve got ‘em,” Alek replied.

“Plan of action?” I asked.

“Try talking to them first,” he replied. “We can outpace the armor, but I’d rather not have to shoot down a Kenyan bird if we can help it.”

“Affirm.” We certainly had the firepower to turn an MD-50 to scrap, but that would be pretty counter-productive in this situation. Not to mention we’d probably get a little shot up ourselves in the process. I twisted my head back to address Jim and Larry over the engine noise along with the banging and creaking of the suspension. “Gonna see if we can talk our way through this one, gents.”

Jim just nodded. “Good call,” was Larry’s assessment.

I didn’t hear it, but apparently Alek got through to Baird, and the lead UAZ slowed, coming to a stop in a slowly settling cloud of dust. As the HiLux moved slightly to the right before stopping, I motioned to Rodrigo to steer us to the left. We were forming a loose sort of modified herringbone as we came to a stop. That way we could still be in a defensive position without being too in-your-face about it. We didn’t want to make the Kenyans’ trigger fingers any itchier.

The AMLs rolled up to us and spread out on-line, while the MD-50 swooped overhead in a big circle, going into a tight orbit over us. I looked up through my open window, and saw the door-gunner watching us from behind an HK21. He didn’t have it pointed at us, exactly, but he didn’t have it pointed elsewhere, either.

“All dismounts out,” Alek called. “Don’t get in their faces, but let’s not be timid, either.”

I didn’t need to pass that one on, as all of us except for Rodrigo were already kicking our doors open and pushing out onto the dusty ground. Rifles hung on slings, muzzles angled toward the dirt, gloved hands rested on firing controls.

There was a squad-sized group coming toward us from the lead armored car. They were dressed in either British camouflage or something similar, with light tactical vests, old Fritz-pattern Kevlar helmets, and G3s, except for one, who walked slightly ahead of the trigger-pullers. He carried no rifle, but had a shiny leather pistol belt and flap holster around his waist, and wore a green beret. Officer, no doubt. He marched up to Baird, who was standing a little forward of the group. He was flanked to the rear by Alek and Jason Van Voorhees.

I stayed back with the truck, and Jim and Larry hung back behind me, watching the Kenyans and our rear at the same time. These weren’t technically hostiles, so we kept our stance easy, relaxed.

I kept toward the front of the truck where I could watch, but was plenty glad not to be in the thick of this conversation. I’ve never been much of a “hearts-and-minds” type of guy, and I find the sort of political posturing and give-and-take of these sorts of meetings and engagements more than a little tiresome. Jim and Larry were of generally the same sort of temperament. We didn’t talk, concentrating on keeping an eye out for unpleasant surprises. At least, anything more unpleasant than the rising pall of smoke and dust behind us, continually roiling with the
whump
of explosives, as well as the sporadic, but increasing, rattle of small arms fire.

The conversation seemed to last forever. The Kenyan officer was arguing vociferously, and Baird and Danny were stonewalling him. Alek was standing in that way that told me he was starting to think about going ahead and shooting these clowns. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could make some informed guesses.

We hadn’t been authorized to pass by his command, meaning we hadn’t bribed him, or hadn’t bribed him enough. He had no assurance that we weren’t terrorists, meaning we hadn’t bribed him, or hadn’t bribed him enough. He had orders to lock down everything coming or going around Baardheere, meaning we hadn’t bribed him, or hadn’t bribed him enough.

I kicked a rock as I let my gaze rove again, picking out pieces of cover where shooters might be huddled. It was automatic now, almost unthinking. My mind wandered, sort of, while my eyes scanned. Once something out of the ordinary popped up in my vision, my focus would immediately snap to it, but for the time being, even with the noises of increasingly intense combat coming up from the south, fatigue led me to woolgather a bit.

Damn, but I hated this bullshit. Making nice with greedy assholes who pretended to give a fuck about their country while they really just did their damnedest to line their own pockets, using the chaos around them as an opportunity. Conversely, making nice with the bureaucratic assholes who obstructed operations that could help their country, just because the latest set of chickenshit boxes hadn’t been checked. I hated all of them. I hated the games. Just let us pass and let us get back to killing assholes.

That’s why I never even thought about being an officer when I was still in. Officers have to be politicians. Enlisted guys just have to make sure their shit’s wired tight, and wreck house. “In case of war, break open glass.” That’s me.

Jim came up to my shoulder, both of us still watching, neither of us looking directly at the other. Jim and I have known each other a long time. He can be wise beyond his redneck exterior, or he can be the utter epitome of “cranky old bastard.” Sometimes, he was both. He also wasn’t terribly consistent about how he came around to either mood. What can I say, he’s old. Says the guy who’s in his thirties, but feels more like he’s in his fifties…

The noise to the south was getting more intense. Sustained automatic fire was now audible, over the continuing rumble of shelling, and the occasional detonations of RPGs. It sounded like lead elements had made contact with whatever defensive positions the Kenyans had in place. From what I’d seen so far, I wouldn’t give the Kenyan defenders a lot of time, but then, I hadn’t been terribly impressed with
anybody’s
fighting prowess out here.

Jim spat a brown gobbet of dip spit on the ground. That said something about his mood right there; he’d been hoarding his remaining Copenhagen for the last few days. “We need to get moving,” he muttered. “Take a look toward the river.”

I looked over to the west, where the Juba ran between Baardheere proper and B-ur-ae-ore. Sure enough, there were small motor boats coming upstream, positively overloaded with people. I had little doubt that they were LaB shooters. How the Kenyans had let the river go unblocked I didn’t know, but it sure looked like they had. I reached for my radio, but it looked like Alek had seen it as well. He stepped forward and tapped Baird on the shoulder. There was a brief exchange of words, and Baird looked west, then, scowling, pointed out the incoming boats to the Kenyan officer.