Alex Berenson - The Night Ranger

“Yusuf? Then he’ll have no hostage.”

“He’ll have me and Hailey. He’ll shoot us and then himself. Leave you with nothing.” Gwen wasn’t sure that Wizard believed Owen would hurt her. She wasn’t sure she believed it either. But she was out of cards to play.

“You think your friend will kill you.”

“Why not? He’s desperate.”

Wizard closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he seemed calm. “How old are you, Gwen?”

The question was so unexpected that she needed a few seconds to remember. “I just turned twenty-three. Couple weeks ago.”

“Older than me. But I know something you don’t.”

“You know lots I don’t.”

“People want to live. Do anything to live. Walk across a desert with no shoes, no food or water. Leave behind their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers. Crawl when they can’t walk any longer. Crawl on their hands and knees and blind. You and your friend and the other girl, you might get free tomorrow. You tell me you desperate.”

“We’re not desperate enough for you, Wizard?”

He didn’t seem to recognize the sarcasm. “No. You know what I should do to you?” He leaned down and pulled the knife strapped to his leg. He held it up so she could see the way the weak lantern light pooled on the serrated blade. He twisted it back and forth like a snake dancing.

Gwen shook her head, no no no.

“Should cut your clothes off, tell your friends that unless they come out right now I’m going to let every one of my men take a turn with you. Show them what desperate means.”

“Please.”

On the wall of the hut the knife’s shadow loomed oversized, cartoonishly large. “You know that not even three hours ago, someone, an Arab, he offered a million dollars for you. Cash. Said he would pay tonight.” He nodded at her as if daring her to disbelieve him.

“So are we going with this man? This Arab?”

“I said no. Man gon’ hurt you. Make a vid of you.” Wizard swiped the blade sideways, lazily, a neck-cutting motion. “I told him I send you back to America, back to your families.”

“Why?”

He jabbed the knife at her and she fumbled backward, screaming, shrieking, “No, please—”

He tucked the blade into its sheath, sat back. Her crotch was warm and soaked, and she realized she’d peed herself. Shame on shame.

“You think I hurt you? I never hurt you. That’s for letting my man die. Not telling me so I could stop it. Making me a fool. Now you have a choice. Stay here or go back to your friends.”

She thought of staying. Then was ashamed she’d even considered. “Back.”

“Back, then. Long as you like. You try to escape, we’ll kill you. But not while you stay inside.”

“What about Yusuf?”

Wizard shook his head. “I can’t send more men after him. Lost too many already.”

“I won’t let Owen—”

“If you say so. When your friend gets tired, he puts down his rifle and the three of you walk out.”

“That’s it. No other punishment.”

Wizard’s skin was smooth, but his eyes were heavy, careworn. Old. “Don’t you see. I need money for you, yes. Have to have it. But I want you gone as much as you want to be free.”

22

LOWER JUBA PROVINCE, SOMALIA

Wells rested against a sloppy mud wall, his face kissed with rain. He was as alone as Adam without Eve. Though he was sure that the Garden of Eden was nowhere close.

He’d crossed the border more than an hour before. No fence marked it, but a few minutes after riding out of camp, he’d noticed rusted lengths of barbed wire that must once have sectioned the land, must once have meant the edge of something. The Kenyans had given up the chase. Wells hadn’t seen their lights since leaving camp. He was happy to have lost them, though he hoped they didn’t take out their anger on Wilfred.

The rain started as he left camp. At first Wells welcomed it. The day had filthied him with dirt and gasoline and blood from two species. He smelled worse than Tolkien’s foulest troll, looked like a refugee from the end of the world. Even in Afghanistan, after weeks without a bath, he’d never reeked so badly. The storm came as a relief.

But the rain kept coming, soaking his shirt and jeans, dripping down his chest. He could hardly see. The parched earth turned to mud that sucked at his tires and forced him to creep in second gear. The good news was that the low clouds muffled the engine.

A half hour after crossing the border, Wells spotted three dim lights on a hill to the northeast, the first evidence of human habitation he’d seen in Somalia. He was too far off to hear voices or generators. He cut the engine, waited. But the lights didn’t move or flicker and after five minutes he rode on, doglegging southeast. After another half hour, he checked his GPS. It showed him about twenty miles east of the border, and farther south than he’d expected. The ground was softening under his tires, and not just from the rain. Wells feared he had nearly come to the swamps that stretched from the Indian Ocean. He had only the vaguest idea of this land. His GPS was civilian rather than military, so it had almost no data on Somalia, just the broad outlines of Mogadishu and the other coast cities. Swamps weren’t his favorite topography. Mountains had their dangers, but they were cold and clean, no snakes or gators or quicksand.

Wells saw a wide puddle ahead, rain splashing into open water, and decided to turn northeast and look for a place to call Shafer. After a couple minutes, he saw an L-shaped section of cracked mud wall, the remnants of an abandoned hut. He stopped, reached for his phone. Two-fifteen a.m. He was supposed to see Little Wizard’s men at the border in fifteen minutes. He’d never intended to make the meeting. He’d set it because he wanted Wizard to send men to a place where the drone could find them. When he failed to show, they would return to their camp. The Reaper would follow them. He’d follow it. Simple as bread crumbs. The weather didn’t matter. The Reaper’s thermal-imaging systems and radar could see through walls.

“John.”

“Ellis.”

“Location.”

Wells gave it.

“Awful far south.”

“I’m aware. What are you seeing?”

“Five men. Two on their bellies, covering from a hill to the north. They were there when we got on station. Fifteen minutes ago, a pickup drove up, parked fifty meters east of the border. Two guys in the cab, a third lying down in the bed. Simple setup, but professional under the circumstances. Nobody’s moving too much.”

“Weapons?”

“The cloud cover’s got us stuck on radar and therms, not optics. It’s tough to tell for sure, but we think AKs only. I’d say they have orders to bring you in. Not shoot you.”

“Anyone come from the Kenyan side?”

“No. We did pick up three vehicles maybe five km west of the border. Not moving. You clean?”

“Think so.”

“It would be best if the Kenyans didn’t get more involved.”

“If they were going to get more involved, they would have already. You’ll let me know when Wizard’s guys go home?”

“I’ll call you. But if I were you, I would start heading north. They’re north. You a hundred percent sure you want to do it this way? That SOG team will be in Mombasa in a few hours. And the SEALs would be glad to join the fun.”

“You gave me tonight, Ellis.”

“Ever consider that getting our friends in uniform involved would tie Vinny down?”

Shafer had a point. Duto was oddly bipolar on these high-risk ops. Sometimes he liked belt-and-suspenders protection, presidential findings, memos from the Office of Legal Counsel. But every so often he liked to run off the books, in the dark, do what he thought best with nobody watching. What was best for him might not be best for Wells.