Born of War Page 15

  “High fevers, and they scream if they are not in complete darkness. When the sun came up they all cried.”

  “Can they move?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, wait here.”

  Bertok Genret thought that unusual.

  “Should I not show you where to go?”

  “No, I know this villa. I have been here before. The Countess who lived here before was ill.”

  Genret stood by the car while he waited for some word. After a brief moment, the doctor came out running. He was generally a calm man who rarely got excited.

  “We must get help.”

  “What is wrong?” Genret was stunned.

  “Are you the only one who has been exposed to them over the last forty-eight hours?”

  “He came back from a trip late Thursday, and no one else has been here besides the family and me.”

  “The military will want to isolate the villa.”

  Genret looked out over the lake.

  “Will they be okay?”

  “No.”

  The World Health Organization’s headquarters was just beyond the valley in the city of Geneva. Word got to them later that day that another case caused by the Neisseria meningitidis bacteria had been registered. The lab slides didn’t take long. Everyone in the village had been started on an inoculation program. And the WHO began giving shots to each of its physicians, scientists, and employees. A Swiss team was leaving for Somalia when they received the news that their family members at home were in as much risk as they were.

  Genret and his children died that night. The wife survived but had to have both feet amputated. The price of gunrunning was high.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Do you know where you are going?” Hernandez sat in the front fidgeting with Gunny Moncrief’s radio. “He doesn’t have a cell phone.”

  “Yes. Leave the radio alone.” Moncrief enjoyed listening to his baseball on a channel with Sirius. It was a close one between the Braves and Philadelphia.

  The truck headed back north, and after passing Interstate Beltway 285 that circled the city, he pulled onto the exit to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

  “Are we stopping?”

  “No. Just listen to the game.” Moncrief had forgotten what a pain Hernandez could be. He drove the truck around the loop, passing through a tunnel near the terminals. It was the meeting spot. They slowed down and as they did, Moncrief looked up in his rearview mirror. A black truck suddenly appeared just behind them.

  “Okay, let’s go.” He headed south to the beltway and then turned onto the west side of Interstate 285. They traveled north, again, until the highway intersected with Interstate 20. They traveled on I-20 west for more than a dozen miles. The black truck stayed in his rearview.

  The exit off I-20 had the usual Waffle House and a new Walmart, but the road soon turned into woods and the occasional small fields of grass and stumps of trees. They drove for another thirty minutes until they crossed a bridge over a river. Just beyond the bridge, Moncrief took a turn to the left onto a dirt and gravel road.

  Several hundred yards in, a gate spanned the road with several signs that said NO TRESPASSING and WARNING—DOG.

  “Damn, Gunny, I haven’t been here for years.” Hernandez looked around the woods. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

  “Don’t.” Moncrief was looking in his rearview mirror to make sure that the truck had also made the turn. “Need one, though. Best burglar alarm system in the world. Here, go unlock the gate.”

  He handed Hernandez a key on a chain containing an eagle, globe, and anchor.

  The two trucks pulled up to a small shack no bigger than a one-car garage. The house was tucked underneath some tall pines and in the shade it was nearly impossible to see. A small skiff was on a trailer bed parked next to the house. The Boston Whaler could not have been more than thirteen feet in length.

  A flatbed trailer was parked on the other side of the house and next to it was a van that was marked MONCRIEF PAINTING COMPANY. Less than fifty yards on the back side of the cabin, the river they had just passed over cut through the property. The sound of running water filled the forest.

  “Come on.” Moncrief turned off his truck.

  “I need to see your computer.” William Parker swung the door closed to his truck.

  “Hey, boss.” Hernandez held out his hand.

  “Hernandez, how’s your daughter?”

  “Growing like a weed.”

  “Gunny, sorry to bug you.”

  “No problem.”

  “Let me show you something.”

  Despite his isolation, Moncrief had one telephone line running to the cabin. It was used for his sole source of business besides his Marine Corps retirement. Moncrief’s paint company had a Web site that got him just enough business. Not too much and not too little. He didn’t want to do more.

  “Sure.”

  They walked into the cabin, which was divided into a bedroom and small living room with a large lounge chair in front of a television and two open doors. One room had a small bed with the blanket stretched as tight as a drum, and the other room had a small kitchen. It was as close as you could possibly get to being a BEQ; the Bachelors Enlisted Quarters room of old—not one of the revised enlisted barracks of more recent times.

  “It’s over here.”

  A small desk was in the corner with an old computer and printer.

  “Need to upgrade.”

  Both Parker and Hernandez looked at each other and smiled.

  Moncrief sat down at the table and started up the computer.

  “Go to Google and search for Omar and Al Shabaab under YouTube.”

  It didn’t take a minute for several choices to show up. Omar had been busy even in combat. The videos showed a white-faced, bearded man who seemed overly theatrical. He moved his hands as he spoke. There was a burned-out, armored personnel carrier in the background.

  “Any idea as to where this is from?” Moncrief asked.

  “Yes, I think it is south of Luuq in western Somalia.” Parker sounded authoritative as if he had studied the footage for some time. “There was a battle there a few days ago and that is a Kenyan APC. It is still smoldering from the round it took.”

  A wisp of smoke rose from the wreckage.

  “Look at his hands.” Parker pointed to the screen over Moncrief’s shoulder. “See how he uses his finger one way and then another?”

  Omar gestured, then pointed with his index finger, and then gestured again. Then he waved his hand with his thumb out and his index finger up.

  “So what do you think?”

  “When you got me out of jail didn’t you talk to the operations group from the FBI?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they have someone from TFOS?” Parker knew who they needed to talk to.

  “Probably. If they didn’t, I am sure that they would know how to get in touch with that section.” TFOS was the Bureau’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section. They had the job of tracking the money that fed the terrorists. Gunny Moncrief had kept the telephone number on his desk.

  “He is telling somebody in the United States something. The letters he formed are D and L.”

  “D and L?”

  “I think what he is really doing is activating another cell.” Parker looked at the screen closely.

  “But they have a million guys looking at this video.” Moncrief was thinking of the scrutiny Omar’s videos had gotten.

  “Sure, but he doesn’t care about the thousands of techs at DOD or the FBI who are looking at it. He only cares about one out of the millions who are looking at it. The Internet has become our own worst enemy.” Parker was right. The Internet had given Al Shabaab and every other terrorist group in the world a free and unlimited ride. Instant communications around the world were always available. A terrorist cell from Toronto or Minnesota could be on standby to respond immediately.

  “So what’s the TFO section
have to do with all of this?” Hernandez asked.

  “You can’t trace the people who are watching it, but you can trace the source of money. The money can tell you who is really vested in this guy.” Parker continued to study the screen as he spoke. “Even the most basic terrorist operation needs money, whether for gas or fertilizer or the odd purchase of a pipe at Home Depot. And the more money, the more serious they are.”

  “Shit.” Moncrief let it out like a breath of bad air. “What’s the scenario?”

  “Who knows?” Parker kept watching the video. “He obviously needed to send another signal to both the world and his bosses. Faud and Godane are known to be temperamental. They will keep him as long as he proves he’s useful.”

  Moncrief had heard the names before. Godane was the CEO and Faud the CFO of Al Shabaab.

  “They will always want weapons. And the more they can afford, the more dangerous they become.” Parker continued to study the face of the man. “Their pirates steal any ship that comes within a hundred miles of the coast. And if Al Shabaab had something to shoot at American jets or destroyers to help its pirates steal the ships, Al Shabaab would be in the market to buy.”

  “We didn’t tell you why we were at your cabin.” Moncrief pushed his chair back from the table. “Dr. Stewart needs your help.”

  “Yeah, he wants to talk to you real bad.” Hernandez had been squatting down as they spoke but stood up when the subject was raised. “Really bad.”

  Parker kept studying the video. The picture was frozen on the one frame of Omar staring into the camera. The barrel of his AK-47 rested against his shoulder. He wore a smirk of a smile as if he was getting his revenge on America. “What’s going on?”

  Moncrief went back to Google and searched for the World Health Organization’s Web site. It had one category of health alerts. He clicked on “News” and an emergency alert appeared on the screen warning that anyone traveling to or from either Yemen or Somalia needed to be aware of an outbreak of meningitis.

  “Meningitis is all over that part of the world. It’s called the belt.” Parker wasn’t immediately impressed.

  “Not this one.” From his years with security at the CDC, Hernandez did have some sense that this strand was something very different. “They are acting like this is a bad bug.”

  “Yeah, Colonel.” Moncrief rarely mentioned rank. It was a trump card that he used only when he needed to get Parker’s attention in a special way. “And you are the only one that they know for sure who has survived it.”

  “So, they need me to come in and give them some blood?” Parker didn’t see the complication. Donating a tube or two of blood wasn’t that difficult a process.

  “Stewart wants to talk to you today. He has been sitting by his telephone at his CDC office since daylight.”

  “Okay.” Parker sensed something more to the story. “There were two doctors taken by Al Shabaab from an MSF encampment. Wasn’t one of them an American with the name of Stewart?”

  “Yes, sir.” Hernandez spoke again. “Stewart lost his wife not too long ago.”

  Moncrief stared at Hernandez with a frown that could have frozen him in his place.

  “I mean . . .”

  “No, don’t apologize.” Parker kept looking at the screen. “You don’t need to apologize.” There was a silence in the room for what seemed to be several minutes.

  “I don’t want to meet him at the CDC. There are too many cameras.”

  “He will meet you anywhere.”

  “You need to call the FBI—and not from a cell.”

  “I know a temp store at Walmart where we can buy one with a few minutes on it. You can stay in the truck.” Moncrief paused. “I will call the folks I talked to about Mobile. One of them was a wounded Marine who got a job with the FBI after Afghanistan.”

  “Okay, let’s get the word to them that he is using this video to activate another cell and then we can go see Dr. Stewart.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The rain started during the night. Karen Stewart huddled underneath the small truck with Peter by her side. They shared a piece of plastic that kept them somewhat protected from the dirt below, but the smell of grease and fuel was only inches from their faces. At least the truck had been parked on a mound so that the water ran away from it and the spot where they were twisted together. The ground under the truck was also crammed with several other fighters. Only the driver slept in the cab. He had a beard that was long and had gray streaks through it. The beard gave him seniority.

  “I am thirsty, so thirsty,” she whispered in the middle of the night.

  “Yes.” Peter’s voice was weak.

  Despite the close quarters under the truck they were still able to have the net pulled over their faces and arms. But it gave no protection to their legs, and the buzz of mosquitoes continued through the night like a dentist’s drill. She looked down at her legs to see her khaki-colored, pocketed pants covered with black as if someone had spurted her with black ink. There were mosquitoes covering her from the net down to her boots.

  “I must drink.”

  It was a danger, but Karen pulled out from underneath the truck and opened her mouth to the sky. But the rain had stopped. She continued on, and in the darkness felt around the bed of the truck until her hand touched a bucket half tilted over. It was upright enough that it had captured some of the rainwater. She drank the cupful of water not caring about the oily taste.

  “Where are you going?”

  As a reminder of her captivity, she felt Xasan’s hand on her boot.

  “I am going to the bathroom.”

  “Okay, don’t go too far. Remember the lions. The baboons are worse.” He chuckled but she knew what he said was true.

  She wandered out into the darkness barely able to see beyond her hand. Finally, she stopped a short distance away between two thorn bushes. She got down on her soaked knees and began to throw up. It was a dangerous loss of fluid. She sobbed and sobbed but was determined that Xasan not hear it.

  “I don’t care if I die here. He isn’t going to know.”

  She had steeled herself to fight for survival.

  At daylight, Xasan ordered them to gather some wood. It was wet on the outside, but when they peeled away the bark, the inside was dry enough to burn. He had them pile it up near the front of the truck and then he poured some gas on it. He had a lighter that was, as Karen learned quickly, as valuable as a Kalashnikov.

  The fire started to crackle in the early morning light. The other men had a metal pot and they filled it with the red water from the river. Soon the pot began to boil and after much time they poured some of the steaming water out into the bucket.

  “You!” Xasan pointed to Karen. It was a reminder of her place in the hierarchy of this world. She understood and took on the task. She washed out the bucket with some of the hot water, first cleaning her hands and then rubbing the inside as best as she could. She carefully took the bucket to the water’s edge and held it in the current, without wasting a drop or exposing it to the contaminated water, until it cooled. Before she walked back, she turned her back to the others and drank. She filled herself with as much as she could stomach. And then, while the other men were boiling something else in the metal pot, she pulled Peter’s arm. He was sitting in the mud and water, out from underneath the truck and up against the wheel.

  “Quickly, drink.”

  “What?” He started to say something out loud but she put her hand over his mouth to silence him. She looked into his eyes.

  “Drink!”

  He guzzled the water. She stopped him twice and he gasped for air and then drank again.

  “Hey, Amriiki!”

  She pulled the bucket up from Peter and walked back to the campfire.

  “Don’t do that again!” Xasan warned.

  “Okay,” she said, and then thought for a moment. Her dead body was of no value. Her body alive was of great value, at least in their minds. She had some leverage.

  �
�We must eat or we will both die.” She could not believe that she had the boldness to speak.

  Xasan came across and raised the butt of his rifle.

  And then he hesitated. It seemed that he too realized the value of the prisoner.

  “Okay, we are making some soor.”

  It was a strange word to her. She soon learned, after being given the plate that the other men had shared and emptied, that it was a gritslike meal. It was warm and tasteless, but it was the first food she had eaten since they’d been kidnapped. She took her plate to Peter and helped him slurp the warm meal down. It covered the sides of his mouth and she watched as he used his fingers to gather up every grain and eat it.

  As the sun started to rise, she saw the men suddenly look up. They grabbed her and pulled her to the base of a tree just beyond the truck. The river had risen during the night and as it did, the huts that were closest to the water’s edge flooded. The back wheels of the truck were now under the red rising water, but it wasn’t the water that had spooked the men.

  The old man jumped into the cab, started it up, and drove underneath another tree. The other men pulled their larger truck down the road, finally running it into the bush, and cover. Just as it came to a stop, a green-and-black camouflage helicopter came across the tree line. Karen looked up to see a red, black, and white circle on its fuselage.

  “Ethiopians!” Xasan cried out as he knelt down under the tree.

  Karen wanted to scream out and run. She thought about it for a moment but then realized that Peter would never make it. And in the crossfire of bullets, she would have little chance of survival as well. In a split second, she considered her options and decided that her best chance at staying alive remained with Xasan.

  “God.” She looked at the trail of the last helicopter as it headed down the river. She held out her hand as if she could reach up and touch it.

  “Allah,” Xasan said. He looked up at the helicopter and pointed his rifle at it.

  It didn’t seem possible that the two names—God and Allah—could have been for the same power.