Born of War Page 21

  The van was white, which was perfect. It was so similar to a delivery van that the witnesses would hardly take notice. There was nothing that he had done so far that stood out.

  Wassef adjusted the seat, turned the mirrors, and reached into his back left pocket, where he had folded a printout from Google Earth of the street address to which he was heading. He looked at his watch and realized that all was in place and he was on time.

  The Koran calls for punishment for the disbelievers. He repeated the thought in his mind over and over. The Koran was calling him to do something that he had never done before.

  Wassef’s van passed the entranceway to the Wind-view neighborhood at eight in the morning. It was important for him to be there at eight. He followed through the maze of streets, and passed signs that said DEAD END, where the cul-de-sacs held only a few homes.

  The houses looked similar in shape and color. It was a neighborhood of consistency. Each yard had been cut, trimmed, and cleaned. And it was trash day. Gray plastic trash bins, all of the same size and make, were lined up on the curbs.

  Trash day. Wassef didn’t like the idea. It was the first wrinkle in a perfect plan. It meant that he had to have the luck of Allah with him.

  The Google map led him to the third cul-de-sac on the right. He had traveled the route several times on Google Earth. His tracking of the locations on the Internet would leave a trail for the FBI to pick up. But Wassef didn’t need more than an hour. If the two women who provided his support were not at their house, the women had to keep their mouths shut long enough for it all to work. They never knew the entire plan but they did have an idea as to where he lived. An FBI HRT team would be at his apartment soon enough.

  The Bureau’s HRT, or the Hostage Rescue Team, did much more than just rescue people. It was a special team of operators trained in tactical operations. It had all of the toys and any type of transportation required. If Wassef hadn’t heard the faint sound of the blades of a helicopter by now, his mission was a “go.”

  The last house on the right of the cul-de-sac had roses in the front yard. They were the difficult type that required constant attention. The hybrids were red and white and the leaves were large petals of green. Wassef’s mother, Matta, had roses even in the cold where they lived. The flowers were dormant for the winter but came back in the late spring. The cold helped. The months of subfreezing weather pulled the plant back into its roots. It gave the plant the chance to “reboot.” The bugs and diseases had less time to do their damage.

  Matta would like their roses. He thought of how much effort had been spent on these flowers. He thought of how it made the home different.

  Wassef pulled the white van into the driveway. His heart started to beat quickly. If the plan failed, it was a harmless enough visit, although certainly odd. The police would arrest him, link him to the two women, and he would get a few years in prison. He would be on the news as an American jihadist. He smiled.

  Wassef rang the doorbell and heard movement inside.

  The corner of the porch had a Home Depot–type camera, made for night and day; however, it looked cheaply made and probably did not feed into anything more sophisticated than the man’s recorder. He heard the fumbling of the locks.

  I hope it is him. Wassef feared that it would be a wife and not the man he had met at the gun show. He had prepared himself for the man. If it is him, it is easy.

  “Hello?” The man had on a white T-shirt, loose pants, and brown leather moccasin slippers. His tone was a question. It was likely that he had a revolver close at hand and a pickup truck in the garage that was covered with stickers such as NRA and hate for gun control.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Oh, the boy from the gun show.”

  Wassef held up the FedEx box with his left hand. Fortunately, there was no screen door. The man swung the stained-glass door to the inside.

  “Yes, sir, good to see you again.”

  “What on earth are you doing around here?” The question proved that the man was still unaware of what was about to happen.

  “I found that my aunt lived just down the street and I remembered you. This was on your front porch.” Wassef started to hand him the FedEx package. It would not have been unusual. The man probably received parts and gun gear by FedEx all the time. Wassef knew that he was retired from the power company and probably did little except work on his guns.

  As the man reached for the box with his dominant hand, Wassef pushed the box towards his chest and thrust the blade of the butcher knife into the center of his chest just below the sternum. He felt the resistance of the muscle as he pushed the blade all the way to the handle. He could feel his hand shaking as the knife struck deep.

  The man gasped for air and reached out with his hands, grabbing his assailant by the shirt. Wassef continued to push at the blade. The man started to fall backwards but his hands held on to Wassef’s shirt, pulling them both to the ground.

  As the two started to fall together, Wassef felt the hilt of the knife push into his own chest. He was face-to-face with his victim, the man’s gray eyes staring directly into his. Wassef felt the last warm breath pass over his face and smelled the sour breath of coffee that had been swallowed a short time before.

  The two came to rest on the floor. Wassef had to pull himself out of the man’s grip and then he rolled over onto the floor.

  Odd. He thought. The white shirt was stained with only a little red blood, as if there was just a small cut below.

  Wassef’s heart started to race. His fate had now been sealed. He stood up. Walking to the door, he peeked out and saw no activity on the street. He closed the front door behind him. He reached into the man’s right pocket until he found a chain full of keys.

  “It will be easy,” he whispered to himself. Wassef could not hear anyone else in the house. As Wassef moved past the man, he was struck by how the dead man looked, his two hands frozen in an imaginary grip, and his gray eyes looking at someone who wasn’t there. Wassef moved quickly down the hallway to the back and quietly swung the door closed to the room.

  Wassef sensed that when he saw his objective he would know it. He passed by the kitchen with the white Mr. Coffee pot on the counter next to a green coffee cup. He turned from the kitchen to the hallway that led to the garage.

  Not in the garage. He knew that it would not be outside the burglary alarm system. What he didn’t know was whether it had its own system. The second door on the right in the hallway had three brass keyholes. They were all lined up from top to bottom above the knob. He started to search through the keychain, matching the make with the type of key. Time was no problem. The house remained quiet. There wasn’t even a television on in the great room.

  She must still be asleep.

  After three tries, the first key fit. He twisted it and felt it unlock. He did it again, going through several keys until another unlocked. Finally, he tried the third lock and it opened as well. He put his hand on the metal knob. The door was also metal and it was in a frame that was metal. He turned the knob but it didn’t budge.

  Another key? He looked at the knob to see a fourth key slot. Again, he went through the keychain looking for one that seemed to fit. None came close. He tried the door again and it didn’t budge. His hands started to sweat.

  I can break it open. Even with a metal door, if it came down to just one lock it was possible, but the noise would reduce his time before someone came. He leaned back against the hallway wall and considered the problem.

  Possible! Wassef thought. He slid his hand over the lip above the door and felt a fourth key.

  “Allah is great.”

  He turned the key and felt the door open.

  If there is a separate alarm I will have less than thirty seconds.

  He stopped, let go of the knob, and then went into the laundry room across the hallway. In the dryer, Wassef found several sheets and pillowcases. He pulled out a sheet and wadded it up in a ball.

  The knob turned open, and a
s it did, he felt for a light switch. The room was the size of a typical closet but what was in it was not typical. The walls had racks of weapons, including Thompson submachine guns and Barrett .50 caliber rifles. Another shelf had pistols and another one had an open wooden box that was split into little slots. Each slot held a hand grenade.

  The room smelled of gun-cleaning fluid and there were rectangular cans marked “gunpowder.”

  Wassef was looking for only one thing. He found it in the corner behind the shelves. The man had bragged that he might have known who had one.

  Wassef moved quickly, pulling it out and wrapping it in the sheet. He then turned back to the weapons closet and carefully took out a grenade, pulled the pin, and then slid the grenade back into the wooden crate. He did it again a dozen times.

  One bottle of gun-cleaning fluid was on the shelf next to the pistols. He squirted the liquid in a stream around the wooden shelf and crate and then made a trail out to the corner of the door. Then Wassef turned off the light. He left the door slightly ajar and went back to the kitchen. One drawer was near several bottles of liquid that made up a makeshift bar. He opened the door to find a match, gathered up his load, and started out. Wassef lit the carpet near the streak of gun fluid and then turned the hallway light out.

  He looked back at the closed front door as he pulled out of the driveway.

  The blue sheet covered the weapon, which was just behind his driver’s seat. Wassef tried to move slowly, not speeding, leaving the quiet neighborhood behind.

  He was on the interstate in just a few minutes. There were no sirens. They would come later.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  “Where did they come from?” A new face assigned by Doctors Without Borders stepped out of his tent in the MSF compound. He had been pulled in from Paris as soon as the word had gotten out that they had lost two of their own. MSF—like the World Health Organization, the CDC, and the Ethiopian Minister of Health—had to constantly work hard to fight the disease at its front line.

  “You wouldn’t think there are that many who live here.” A nurse from the south of France was smoking a cigarette as she stood outside their tent.

  A line of tired and thin people stood at the entrance point. Helpers moved around in white suits, with blue gloves and boots. Each helper and nurse wore a face mask. It was an odd sight: people in Bedouin wraps, black turbans, and sandals on their feet; or children in bare feet—all standing there. They did not all look sick, but they all looked frightened. Word of the village of death had started to cross the borders.

  “What’s the count?” the doctor asked in French.

  “We lost well over a hundred in the last two days. We have a problem with the bodies.” The logistics of death were mounting up.

  “Is anything helping?”

  “It seems that those who have been inoculated with the general meningitis vaccine are holding their own. Some get sick, but when we can keep their fluids up they seem to be making it.” She took a pull from her cigarette. It had the bitter smell that only French tobacco has.

  “You know that those things will kill you.” He was a young thoracic surgeon who was regarded as a pain in the ass as much as a good surgeon. Chest surgery wasn’t needed here; however, his dedication was.

  “We are surrounded by stacks of bodies that are dead from this deadly disease. I will enjoy my cigarette.”

  “And now this report that we have to worry about being attacked.” The doctor turned back into his tent before changing into the infectious-disease suit. “The military has brought the war to our front door while we are trying to save these lives.”

  He looked out to the rise of land on the other side of the valley and several helicopters circling the armed camps beyond Ferfer. And then he looked back at the line of the sick, wondering which ones were here for a shot. And which ones simply went back over the hill to pick up their AK-47 again.

  “The world is mad.”

  The noise of a vehicle caused him to turn back towards Ferfer. It was climbing the road up to their compound. The doctor could see a young Ethiopian solider behind the steering wheel and another one beside him. The passenger had gold-rank insignia on his shoulder boards that flickered in the bright light of the rising sun.

  “Now what?” A young German surgeon had, by seniority, become the director of the MSF encampment and, as a result, had the job of speaking with the visitor.

  The nurse watched as she continued to smoke, her arms folded.

  “Hey, you.” The Ethiopian officer walked up to the edge of the tents. The medical staff had strung white-and-red tape around the line of tents and posted signs yards apart. The top sign had the large red letters MSF and the words MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES below. The other sign was more significant. It had an AK-47 in a red circle with a line across it. The camp was meant to be unarmed.

  The officer stopped short of the tape.

  “Here goes.” The doctor went to the line and stopped. He knew that the people beyond were watching. He would not cross the line, and he would not allow the Ethiopian colonel to cross it either.

  “Doctor, thank you for helping my people.”

  “We are here to help.” He was right. They provided medical care to the poor in over seventy countries. But only once in MSF’s history had it asked for military help. Its neutrality had come at a great price. In the south, Sudan raiders struck an MSF clinic, killing hundreds. The lack of medical care there, as a result, caused thousands to die. Because of incidents like this, MSF continued its attempts to maintain neutrality.

  “You need protection. We detect movement.” The colonel pointed to the line of the sick. “You know that some of the people who want to kill you are standing in that line right now and looking at us.” He never took his hand off his pistol in the holster on his belt.

  “We are unarmed and remain so.”

  “You think this piece of tape and these plastic signs will stop a bullet?”

  “Is there anything else, Colonel?”

  “No.”

  “I have to go on shift.” The doctor turned back to the nurse. “Give me one of those cigarettes.”

  “I thought you didn’t smoke.”

  “Boss, something’s up.” Moncrief looked like the cat with the mouse’s tail sticking out of his mouth. With Gunny, however, the tail was a chewed-up stump of cigar.

  “You know if you go out of the wire you will have to ditch the cigar.” Parker gave it back to the Gunny in spades. “They will smell your Cuban coming from a click away.”

  “How did you know that it was Cuban?”

  “I know you.” Parker’s guess was close to the point.

  “I talked to the Ethiopian colonel. He wants to meet you.”

  “Let’s go.” Parker followed Moncrief past the sandbagged bunkers that had been thrown up at the entrance to the Marine compound. The road led down the hill to a similarly bunkered entrance at the Ethiopian base. Moncrief waved his hand and a guard stood up and motioned for them to come forward.

  The Ethiopian camp was just as organized as the Marine camp. Tents that looked more like ones used by the Bedouin were lined up with their sides rolled up during the heat of the day. As Parker passed the tents, he noticed that they were all empty. He walked up to a tall, thin man with dark black skin who was wearing a beret and a camouflage uniform with gold-rank insignia on the shoulders.

  “Colonel, this is Marine Colonel William Parker.” Moncrief never used such a formal statement except when there was a purpose for doing so. The two shook hands.

  “I know why you are here.” The colonel squatted down.

  “Oh, really?” Parker and Moncrief squatted down as well. It seemed the accepted way to talk to each other in a country that had few chairs in the desert.

  “You have survived this disease.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are blessed.”

  “Yes.”

  “But will you survive the attack?”

  Parker hesitated.

/>   “What can we do to help?”

  “Would you like to go on one of our patrols tonight?” The colonel wanted Parker and Moncrief to see how they fought their battles.

  “We are not armed.” Moncrief was speaking to one of the Ethiopians. It was nearing midnight. Parker was looking on. He was armed with his Heckler & Koch automatic pistol in his shoulder holster but it would only help in a close-quarters situation. The Ethiopian was the senior enlisted and spoke perfect English. He had a sister who lived in Denver.

  “No problem.” He turned to another of lesser rank and gave an order. In a short moment, two young soldiers came out of a tent. Again an order was issued; the two soldiers turned and shortly came back with what looked like two brand-new Kalashnikovs.

  “Are they new?” Parker asked.

  The senior enlisted officer took one, turned it over, and looked at the serial number.

  “Six years old.” The weapons were in immaculate condition. “When a recruit is accepted and is allowed to join our battalion, he is given his beret and his weapon. Both are for life. He must sleep with his rifle, clean it, and care for it.” He handed the automatic to Parker. “Take care of it.”

  There was little known of the Ethiopian Battalion 50th. They were feared and were fearless. It was the secret battalion that even the CIA knew little about. One was in training for years to be admitted, and it was a grueling, relentless physical and mental challenge.

  “What about them?” Parker was talking about the two who volunteered to give up their rifles to the Marines.

  “They get to stay at home tonight. For them, it will be a bad night. We don’t like missing the action.”

  “I understand.” Parker pulled the rifle to his shoulder. He looked through the sight to a light on the far end of the camp. He felt the wood stock in his left hand.

  “What is it sighted to?”