Frederick Forsyth: The Kill List

At dawn they rigged a truckle bed in the open rear of one of the technicals for the still-sleeping Ove Carlsson, hefted their seven Bergens into the other, bade farewell to the headman and left.

Curly’s estimate was pretty accurate. Eight hours from that speck of a hamlet brought them to the invisible Ethiopian border. Tampa told them when they crossed it and gave them a steer toward the airstrip. It was not much of a place. No concrete runway, but a thousand yards of dead-flat, rock-hard gravel. No control tower, no hangars; just a wind sock, fluttering fitfully in the breeze, of a baking day about to die.

At one end stood the comforting bulk of a C-130 Hercules, in the RAF livery of the 47th Squadron. It was the first thing they saw, a mile away, across the Ogaden sand. As they approached, the rear ramp came down, and Jonah trotted out to greet them, along with his two co-dispatchers and the two packers. There would be no work for them: The seven parachutes, at £50,000 a pop, were gone.

Standing beside the Herc was a surprise: a white Beech King Air, in the livery of the United Nations World Food Programme. Two deeply tanned men in desert camouflage stood next to it. Each soldier on each shoulder wore a flash bearing a six-pointed star.

As the two-truck convoy came to a halt, Opal, who was riding in the back of the lead pickup, jumped out and ran over to them. Both embraced him in fervent man hugs. Curious, the Tracker walked across.

The Israeli major did not introduce himself as Benny, but he knew exactly who the American was.

“Just one short question,” said the Tracker. “Then I’ll say good-bye. How do you get an Ethiopian to work for you?”

The major looked surprised, as if it was obvious.

“He’s Falasha,” he said. “He’s as Jewish as I am.”

The Tracker vaguely recalled the story of the small tribe of Ethiopian Jews who, a generation ago, was spirited in its entirety out of Ethiopia and the grip of its brutal dictator. He turned to the young agent and threw a salute.

“Well, thank you, Opal. Todah rabah . . and mazel tov .”

The Beech went first, with just enough fuel to make Eilat. The Hercules followed, leaving the two battered pickups for the next party of desert nomads that might happen along.

Sitting in a bunker under AFB MacDill, Tampa, M.Sgt. Orde watched them go. He also saw a convoy of four vehicles, well to the east, heading for the border. An al-Shabaab pursuit party, but far too late.

At Djibouti, Ove Carlsson was taken into the state-of-the-art American base hospital until his father’s executive jet arrived with the tycoon onboard to collect him.

The Tracker said good-bye to the six Pathfinders before boarding his own Grumman for Northolt, London, and Andrews, Washington. The RAF crew had slept through the day. They were fit to fly when refueling was complete.

“If I ever have to do anything that insane again, can I ask you guys to come with me?” he asked.

“No problem, mate,” said Tim. The U.S. colonel did not recall when he was last called mate by a private soldier and found he quite liked it.

His Grumman took off just after midnight. He slept until it crossed the Libyan coast and chased ahead of the rising sun to London. It was autumn. There would be red and gold leaves in northern Virginia, and he would be dearly glad to see them again.

When the news of the death of their clan chief came through to Garacad, the Sacad tribesmen on the Malmö simply left for the shore. Captain Eklund took advantage of the — to him — unexplained chance, raised anchor and headed for the open sea. Two war skiffs from a rival clan tried to intercept him but shied away when a helicopter from a British destroyer on the horizon loudspeakered them to think again. The destroyer escorted the Malmö to the safety of Djibouti port, where she could refuel and then resume her journey, but in a convoy.

Mr. Abdi also heard of the death of the pirate chief and told Gareth Evans. News of the rescue of the boy was already through; then came news of the escape of the Malmö . Evans at once stopped payment of the five million dollars, just in time.

Mr. Abdi had already received his second gratuity of a million. He retired to a pleasant villa on the coast of Tunisia. Six months later, some burglars broke in and, when he disturbed them, killed him.

Mustafa Dardari was released from his sojourn in Caithness. He was taken back, blindfolded and released on the streets of London, where he met two things. One was a polite official refusal to believe he had not been in his town house all along because he could not prove otherwise. His explanation of what had happened to him was regarded as quite ludicrous. The other thing was a deportation order.

The Pathfinders went back to their base at Colchester and resumed their careers.

Ove Carlsson made a complete recovery and studied for a master’s degree in business administration. He joined his father’s company, but he never went back to sea.

Ariel became famous in his tiny and, to most people, incomprehensible world when he invented a firewall that even he could not penetrate. His system was widely adopted by banks, defense contractors and government departments. On the Tracker’s advice, he acquired a shrewd and honest business manager, who secured him royalty contracts that made him comfortably off.

His parents were able to move to a bigger house set in its own grounds, but he still lived with them and hated going out.

Colonel Christopher “Kit” Carson, aka Jamie Jackson, aka the Tracker, served out his time, retired from the Corps, married a very comely widow and set up a company delivering personal security for the ultra-wealthy traveling abroad. It made him a good living, but he never went back to Somalia.

Frederick Forsythis the author of sixteen novels and short story collections, from The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File , and The Dogs of War to, most recently, The Afghan and The Cobra . A former pilot and print and television reporter for Reuters and the BBC, he has had five movies and a television miniseries made from his works, and in 2012 he won the Diamond Dagger Award from the Crime Writers’ Association for a career of sustained excellence. He lives in Buckinghamshire, England.