Born of War Read online

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  “He has meningitis.” Karen Stewart tried to rotate Tarriq’s head to the side. His skin was red hot and he kept his eyes closed.

  Omar considered the situation as he watched the man curled up next to the fire. The heat caused their cotton uniforms to steam the closer they got to the flames. He tried to clean his rifle with the dry inside of his sleeve so as to keep rust from forming.

  “You need to keep your weapon clean and greased even if you must use some of the lube from underneath the truck,” he said to the men as he pointed to the nearby truck. He had seen many men killed in his short time in combat due to rifles that jammed at the wrong time.

  “I remember Abo from Australia was blown apart by the Kenyans when his Hungarian gun jammed just as he stood up.” Omar loved to tell his stories of combat. “May Allah accept him as a martyr!”

  “What of Tarriq?” one of his followers asked. They were of the same clan and were cousins in some way.

  “He needs antibiotics.” Stewart looked back over to the truck as she responded. Peter was still under the tarp, closer to dead than alive. “He has no hope without some medicine.”

  The disease was the will of Allah. They knew little of being saved by medical care and after watching death walk in and out of their lives with frequency, the rush for antibiotics didn’t matter.

  “The clinic at MSF has antibiotics,” she added.

  Omar looked at her like she had lost her mind.

  She tried to make him see reason.

  “He is highly infectious. You must understand that, Omar.”

  He continued to clean his rifle.

  “What was that?” One of the men held up his hand. There was a soft rumble that seemed to come from some distance away.

  “The fire!” Omar jumped up and started to kick dirt and mud onto the burning sticks. Soon, it was dark with only smoke lingering in the thick humid air. The men knew to separate and went out in four different directions. Omar moved away from the truck knowing that the Reaper would strike at the object in the center of the group.

  He crawled on the rocky ground, wet with the rain, to an outcrop of rocks several yards away. A blanket of clouds covered the sky; however, they were at a higher altitude than they had been for the last several hours. He listened for the sound again. It hadn’t disturbed nature, as the mosquitoes continued to hum around his head.

  “I am sure that something is there,” he whispered to himself.

  He would have been right. The F-35 was more than twenty thousand feet above, but its sensors were relaying a view as if the camera were only a dozen yards away.

  Tola stopped and grabbed Parker’s shoulder. He pulled him back to just behind a group of thorny bushes and bent down on one knee to show Parker the rugged iPad. It gave off a subdued green glow.

  “There are five of them, and a woman near one that is curled up as if he is sick, and another in the bed of the truck.” The signal was being sent from the F-35 back to the base and on to Tola. The first system had been called “Rover,” which started the process of integrating all the knowledge of the battlefield into something the man on the ground could easily carry.

  “How far?”

  “At least twenty miles.”

  Pop-pop-pop. Three shots rang out, with the bullets cracking just above their heads.

  They scrambled in different directions.

  The damn screen. Parker realized they had let their guard down to look at the image on the tablet. He waited, like a hunter, for the next sign. He hugged the wet earth, barely breathing. Slowly, he slid his Kalashnikov up to his shoulder. There was no further movement and then, minutes later, he heard a voice to his far left. He waited, and in a few minutes he heard a second voice. They had found Tola.

  “Al-salamu alaykum!” He heard Tola’s voice.

  It was important to wait to see how many there were.

  “Wa alaykum s-salam,” a voice returned the greeting.

  Parker slowly raised his head to see three figures in the low light standing near a shape that looked like Tola. They had their rifles pointed at his chest.

  Twenty yards. He had only shot the AK-47 several hundred rounds, if that. And he had fired only a magazine or two before leaving the base camp so that he could get the feel of the Bulgarian suppressor. It had little effect on a shot within fifty yards but beyond that it caused the round to drop.

  Parker listened to the conversation. He had a natural sense of language and had picked up Swahili quickly. Sometimes they shifted to French, which made it even easier for him

  “Who are you?” Tola was being asked.

  “I am a brother from Jilib.” Tola held his hands up high. He continued to hold the stock of his rifle in his hand.

  “Where are you from?”

  “I am from Tunisia.” Tola was smart. His voice didn’t crack or seem the least bit on edge. He sounded like a neighbor talking over the fence to another.

  Parker watched as the three men moved in the direction he had hoped for. One fell back slightly after holding the rifle too long. Any rifle held at arm’s length is like holding the end of a broom. The broom may be light as you pick it up, but if you hold it by its end for any length of time it will soon weigh a ton.

  “Do you know Abo Xafs?”

  “Yes, yes I do.” And then Tola said something that saved his life. “He is the explosives expert.”

  Parker figured Tola had studied his intel. Abo Xafs was a bomb builder with Al Shabaab.

  They started to put their barrels down, and when they did there was a muffled thump that came out of the darkness.

  Parker took each, one at a time. He was a hunter. He knew that the shot had to be a head shot, dropping one in the back of the head, followed by the next one, and finally the one closest to Tola. The order of the shots meant that they had no time to turn around and see what was happening to the others. The bullet had to strike the brain stem so that there would be no time for any reaction on their part. Anything less was unacceptable.

  Tola fell back onto a rock.

  “Are you okay?” Parker called out as he saw him fall.

  “Yes.” Tola felt his legs and chest with his free hand. A bullet could do damage and the body did not always sense the pain or injury. “No blood!”

  “Are they alone?” Parker asked as he approached the dead men with his rifle pointed back towards where they had come from. Another one hidden in the bush could fire at any moment.

  “Yes, they are.”

  Tola kept his rifle trained on each as he turned them over like scorpions. Each of the men was limp and did not move.

  “They were looking for someone named Tarriq.”

  “Tarriq?” Parker brought down his rifle. He could smell the burnt graphite from the gunpowder. He still felt the edge.

  “They said he was with the Amriiki.”

  Parker had not heard all of the conversation.

  “Wait one minute.” Tola searched the leader and pulled out a Russian hand grenade. It was one of the older F-1s that looked like what the Americans called a pineapple. The Russians called it “the Lemon” due to its size and shape. Tola pulled the pin and placed it under the body just below the arm. If someone tried to retrieve the rifle, it would go off.

  If the grenade exploded, Tola and Parker would hear the sound and know that someone was behind them. No Al Shabaab fighter would leave a weapon on the battlefield.

  “I am going to pull the MarSOC team off from behind.” He pulled out the tablet again but this time knelt down and covered it with his arm. “They are too far behind us to help. With these patrols out looking for our man, there is too much of a chance for trouble.”

  “I agree.” They were now on their own. Parker pulled out the magazine from his Kalashnikov and checked the bullets. He had another fresh magazine under his jacket that he slid into the rifle. A round was still in the chamber.

  “We need to move.” Tola pointed in the direction of the road. “And move qui
ckly.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  “More of the boat captains are reporting movement.” The lieutenant was standing before Faud with his report.

  “What type of movement?”

  “Amriiki fighters overhead. Some of them are the Super Hornets and some are something different.”

  “Different?”

  “Yes, something different.”

  They did not recognize the signs of the F-35 Lightning IIs.

  “The carrier is near.” Faud put his rifle in the Toyota truck and started to get in. He paused for a moment.

  “What happened to Abo Musa?” Musa was to bring word of another gunrunner who was to meet Faud in Said.

  “He was killed in Yemen yesterday by a Reaper strike.”

  “What? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  The lieutenant looked down at his feet.

  “May Allah accept him as a martyr,” Faud said the customary blessing.

  When will they say that about me? he thought as he climbed into the truck. Little did he know that a Reaper, or F/A-18, was sitting above him at that moment and only needed a confirmed target. Faud would be on the approved list for the remainder of his life.

  “What of our weapon?”

  “It has been moved to Jamaame.” The village was between Jilib and the coast.

  It was only a few miles northeast of Kismaayo.

  “Tell them to ready it for fire.”

  “That may expose it.”

  “The carrier is near. There may be no reason to save it for later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the Amriiki?”

  “We have not heard from Tarriq. When we last did, he was near Tayeeglow.”

  “What unit is near Tayeeglow?”

  “We have a thousand men in Xudur, which is only twenty kilometers away.”

  “And the Ethiopians?”

  “They were repelled from Beledweyne.”

  “A great victory for us.” Faud closed the door and put his rifle through the open window.

  The lieutenant shook his head.

  Faud knew the lieutenant. His father was a martyr in the battle of Mogadishu that cost the Americans so much. His brother was killed in Al Shabaab’s attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. His brother and others murdered many men, women, and children before they were also shot.

  The lieutenant would fight and die like his family before him. It was Allah’s will.

  “Yes, get the missile ready.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Kevin Moncrief stood outside the operations center of the MarSOC camp. He walked back and forth nervously, and occasionally looked in to see the movements on the tactical screen.

  “When are you going to put a team on top?” Moncrief asked the major at one point.

  The operations center was wall-to-wall with Marines on portable, field-hardened computers. They were all focused on their computer screens, all armed with M4s next to them.

  “We are getting ready to launch. As soon as they let us know they are near their target we will go.”

  “Save me a seat.”

  “No way.” The major was pleasant but inflexible.

  “Listen, I can talk to Warren or go up the chain.” Moncrief wasn’t one to take a no. “But here is the bottom line.”

  The major listened with folded arms.

  “I know how my guy thinks. I know what he will do. And that can be important to the success of your team.”

  The major wasn’t persuaded.

  “Let me think about it.”

  Moncrief was going to be on one of those Ospreys if he had to tie himself to the landing gear.

  “Okay, I will be ready.”

  He started back across the compound to his tent to suit up when he saw a man standing outside in his white scrubs.

  Oh, shit. He wasn’t generally good with people—particularly one who had his only child in harm’s way.

  “Hey, Doc,” Moncrief said to Paul Stewart.

  “Why are you still here?” Stewart was almost slumped over with exhaustion.

  Moncrief was surprised that he cared.

  “They are out there and moving well.”

  “Isn’t it just the two of them?”

  “No, that’s not the plan.”

  “You are going with them, aren’t you?” Stewart asked.

  “I am trying to work that out right now.”

  “With whom?”

  “The C.O.”

  “I will go talk to him.”

  Stewart moved past Moncrief and headed towards the operations tent.

  Kevin Moncrief was going to be on that bird.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  “We have a lead on another cell.” An agent was manning a front-row workstation when the classified email came through from the National Security Agency.

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Strategic Information and Operations Center had kept a special work group focused on Omar since Mobile, and now Reagan. As at other high-speed operations centers, the rows of desks and computer stations faced a wall of digital flat-screened panels. A large panel dominated by several side graphics showed information from around the world.

  “What is it?” The SIOC duty officer had a number of people on the list he had to keep informed regarding Omar. He typed in some key words and a photograph of Abo Omar Fazul al-Amriiki, al-Kanadi, as-Somali, popped up. It showed his date of birth, making him no more than twenty-five years old, and his place of birth being Mobile, Alabama. It showed a picture of his wife with a last-known location of Cairo. And another photograph showed a small ranch home with a black mailbox on a wooden pole in the front yard. It was a well-cut yard with the bushes trimmed and roses blooming in the front flower beds.

  Another photograph showed an older man with the light brown skin of someone born in the Middle East, and a black moustache, in a pose for an Alabama driver’s license. He wore a white shirt with the collar edges sticking up slightly, and a striped tie tied in a large knot. Another photograph showed a woman, a schoolteacher, with large-rimmed glasses.

  The house could not look more American. The operations chief played with his mouse, amplifying the photograph of the suburban home somewhere across Mobile Bay.

  “NSA had him on the list.”

  Omar was an easy one to track. Despite the media’s uproar about NSA’s search through millions of Americans’ lives, this one passed all the tests for a closer scrutiny. They had every telephone call pulled in from America to Somalia, and from Somalia to America. As a result, a federal court had cleared it so that Omar could be the target of all levels of scrutiny.

  Omar had another distinction. He was rapidly moving up the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The government had just issued a reward of $5,000,000 for him.

  The tracking of telephone calls to the wife in Egypt was also high on the list. They knew that the wife was pregnant with their first child. And they knew that she was trying to leave Egypt. Her loyalty to the cause seemed to be withering. The mother-to-be did not seem to be as committed now that her child was involved.

  The resident agent in Cairo had been working with the Egyptian intelligence service on keeping track of Mrs. Omar Dhaahir. Despite the public chaos reported by the media in Egypt, the intelligence service still had a strong grip on what was going on locally. They particularly had no love for the jihadists who were passing through Cairo from around the world to either Somalia or Iraq or Pakistan. The connective tissue to the tumor called Al Qaeda often had a common passing point, and the crossover was Cairo.

  “What did they find?”

  “We had the emails we pulled from when he was in Toronto.” The Bureau could reach deep and well into the past when they had a strong target. “He mentioned ‘Papafour five eight zero’ more than once.”

  The email from the NSA showed the transcription of a telephone call made from a cell phone, triangulated to a location on the plateau on the west side of southern Somalia. The location was pictured on a map.
The call was to Cairo.

  “He is asking his wife to tell the Somali milkman to deliver $45.80 worth of milk and eggs to the Waajib.” The junior agent read the transcription out loud while the others in the room listened.

  “So?”

  “P4580 is an MSDS.”

  The number was known in the chemical transportation world as a reference to a greenish-yellow, corrosive, oxidizing chemical; a liquefied gas with a horrible, irritating odor. It was an odor that didn’t last long to the person inhaling it because they quickly died.

  “Which one?”

  “Chlorine.”

  “Hell, the stuff is used everywhere,” the watch officer spoke his thoughts aloud. “So it is likely that someone from Toronto is going to come into the United States and be looking for a concentrated source of the stuff?”

  “We are talking trucks or maybe a railroad tank car?” The shift agent who took the incoming email turned his chair around as he spoke to the central desk. The entire shift of officers all turned their chairs so as to face the chief officer.

  “Probably a tank car in a populated area?” the chief asked the group.

  “Yes, sir. You remember South Carolina?”

  They all had studied the South Carolina incident. It didn’t involve a crime or a terrorist act. It did involve a railroad tank car that ruptured near a small town. Nine died as they were running from a slow-moving, green-yellowish cloud that seeped into the air-conditioning of a nearby factory. One witness said he saw people running, and as the cloud reached them on the far side of the factory they dropped in their tracks, gasping, with their hands to their throats.

  “We need to watch the crossover point Omar used when he left the U.S.”

  “Do you think another would be crazy enough to use the same trail?”

  “Perhaps.” The chief agent was on duty when the word came across about the attack at Reagan National. He had been on duty when too many calls like that had come across the wire.

  “I have another idea. If we are sure it will be chlorine gas, we can stop it at the source.”

  “How?”

  “We stopped every airplane that flew over America in 2001. Why not stop the movement of any large quantities of the stuff?”