Alex Berenson - The Night Ranger

He pushed himself down into the mud, reached for his phone.

“I’m here. Can you hit the target we talked about in five minutes?”

“Hellfire or bomb?” Shafer said.

“Bomb.”

“That’s one five-hundred-pound GBU special delivery. Your order will be ready in five minutes,” Shafer said.

“Roger that.”

“Over and out.”

23

Another new number on the screen of Wizard’s mobile, the longest he’d ever seen. He let the call go. He couldn’t talk to anyone else. Too many men wanted these wazungu. He couldn’t fight them all. He’d pushed his juju too far. He’d forgotten his name. Little Wizard.

Yet he knew, too, that he couldn’t let the wazungu go, not without getting something for them. He would die with them first. Not only because he needed the ransom money to fight the Ditas. Not only because giving them up would cost him the White Men. Because they belonged together. Magic or fate or Allah had brought them here. Wizard was captive as much as captor. And his hostages had a hostage of their own.

He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want his men to die. He didn’t even want the wazungu to die. If he could find a way out, he would. But he wasn’t letting these three leave for nothing while he waited for the Ditas to attack. They were all in it now.

—

The phone rang again. Muhammad’s number. Which meant the American. Wizard wondered what excuse the man might offer for missing the meeting. He half expected the man to lie, say he’d been there.

“Where were you?”

“English, please,” the man said. “You forget I don’t speak your language.”

“Of course you don’t,” Wizard said in English. “Where were you? I sent men for you.”

“Decided to come to you instead. Service with a smile.”

“I told you last time, I don’ tell you where I live.”

“You don’t have to. I found you.”

“Lying.”

“You know where you keep all those pickups and technicals?”

“Talking nonsense.”

“Past the hill where you have the sentry.”

How could this man know the camp’s layout? Not just the trucks, but the watchman, too.

Wizard didn’t reply, waited for what the mzungu would say next.

“Ever heard the term ‘collateral damage,’ Wizard? Make sure nobody’s standing too close to those technicals. You understand?”

“Crazy.”

“You may feel differently in a minute.” The man hung up.

Wizard stepped out of his hut, waved Waaberi over.

“Nothing new,” Waaberi said. “Yusuf groaning in there like he hurt. Some boys mad about Samatar, saying we should go in there and get them wazungu. Say it past time to kill the one and take the others.”

Wizard didn’t have to ask which one they wanted to kill, or what Waaberi meant by “take.” “That don’t happen, Beri. They get hurt, they no good for ransom. Anybody touches them answers to me.”

“You say so.”

Waaberi spoke out of the corner of his mouth, sullen. They both knew he’d told Wizard that the hostages ought to be locked up, or at least handcuffed. Wizard wondered how many more mistakes Waaberi would let him make.

“Omar or anyone walkie-talkie from out east, Beri?”

“Last check an hour ago. They all clicked in fine. Since then, nothing. You think the Ditas moving?”

“Could be.” Wizard turned to look for Shiny Khalid, ask him if anyone could have followed him back from the border—

To the east, an explosion busted open the night. The earth shook. A gust of flame spurted above the hill at the edge of camp. It bloomed high and flared out in the rain. The camp was silent for a second, shocked, the only noise the fire chafing behind the hill. Then a windmill of motion. Boys ran from their huts in underclothes and socks, yelling: The Ditas coming . . . Shabaab found us . . . Got to be the Americans. Saying we terrorists. Gon’ kill us all . . .

Wizard saw his men were close to melting down, disappearing into the scrub. How could they keep their courage when they didn’t even know what they faced? Until tonight Wizard had convinced them to think of themselves as an elite fighting force. His truest magic. That illusion was fading at the worst possible moment.

“Listen! Now!” Wizard raised his hands. First the Donkeys and then the rest formed a loose half-circle. Even now, twenty or more wore white T-shirts that stuck to their skinny bodies in the rain. The sight gave Wizard hope. “You all listening?”

“We listening,” they grumbled.

“Then listen. Thunder and lightning don’t scare White Men.”

“That no thunder and lightning—” Shiny Khalid said. “That a missile.”

Coward. “Whatever it is, we take care of it together. Like always. Ali and me, we going to check this out. Waaberi, watch the wazungu. Everyone else, weapons ready, but into your huts. Nobody goes anywhere until I say. Whether it five minutes, ten minutes, an hour, nobody. Been much much noise tonight, and it stops now. Done?”

“Done and done,” they said. Some more loudly than others.

Wizard didn’t run. He wanted his men to feel his confidence. He walked. Past the latrines and up the hill. He found disaster. Three of his four technicals were destroyed, blown apart, fires greasing their steel bodies. The stench of burning gasoline hung over the hill. The flames were cooking machine-gun rounds, sending them sizzling and popping into the night. The Rovers were parked apart from the other vehicles and hadn’t been damaged. Yet Wizard hardly cared. He loved the Rovers, sure, but his men couldn’t fight the Ditas without the technicals and their heavy machine guns.

He turned to the sentry on the hill, Donkey Junior. “Anybody hurt?”

“No. All out there.” He pointed east, beyond the flames.

“What you see?”

“Didn’t see nothing. No rocket trail. Just a—” Junior whistled. “Then boom, and the technicals go sideways.” Junior grinned. He was young enough and dumb enough to think of this attack as cool.

“Only one whistle? One explosion?”

“Only one. A big one. Whole hill shake.”

So a bomb, not a missile. A missile could come from anywhere. Even Shabaab had a few. But a bomb had to be dropped from a plane. Which meant the Americans had a drone or a jet overhead. Probably a drone. Wizard would have heard a jet. He could no longer doubt that the Americans had found him. He wondered how. Maybe all the phone calls.

As if the American could read his mind, his phone rang again. This devil. Wizard stepped away from Junior and Ali. He knew the drone might be watching, ready to blast him. He answered anyway.

“You see.”

“I’ll kill you. Coward.”

“You’re hurting my feelings, Wizard.”

“Hiding in Kenya. Come here, I show you how to fight. Cut you up.”

“I told you I’m here.”

“I don’ believe you.”

“Then get yourself to the other side of the camp. The southwest corner. Sentry there will tell you different.”

The man hung up, leaving Wizard cursing. He snapped his phone away. “Come on. Going to Two-Finger Hussein.”

Ali turned to walk back down the hill toward camp.

“No.” Wizard couldn’t face more questions from Waaberi. The best alternative to walking through was a footpath three-quarters of a kilometer south that paralleled the camp for its entire length.

“Ditas out there, Wizard.”

“Now, Ali.” Wizard tapped Donkey Junior’s shoulder.

“Me, too?”

“You got nothing left to watch.”

—

They marched single-file through low scrub, Wizard leading, moving as fast as he could without running. The rain had picked up again and his feet sank into the mud. Water sopped through Wizard’s T-shirt and khakis and even snuck into his black leather boots. He’d bought them in a market in Garissa months before after a successful smuggling run, winding up with a packet of thousand-shilling notes too thick to fit in his pocket. Everything had seemed easy that day. Now he was slogging through a storm, his technicals burning. He couldn’t even imagine what he’d find ahead. He kept his hand on the butt of his pistol.