Alex Berenson - The Night Ranger

“Your read?”

Wells hadn’t anticipated this particular difficulty, a hostage ungrateful for his rescue. He shivered, felt the sweat on his back. Fever and chills. No worries. Once they reached Kenya, he could be as sick as he liked. “I have a little bit of expertise.”

Behind Wells, Wizard’s shouts reached a new pitch. Someone yelled, “Wizard!” and other voices took up the cry, “Wizard! Wiz-ARD! WIZARD!”

“What about right now,” Owen said, “with them all standing around yelling? I’ll bet the Deltas or whoever could rescue us right now.”

Suddenly, you’re an expert on close combat. Wells wanted to flatten Owen, end this nonsense. Or at least point out that if Owen hadn’t killed the guard, Wizard might have agreed to let them go already. Wells made himself relax. Owen was exhausted and scared. Getting angry with him wouldn’t help.

“I’ll say it again. There’s no team in the air right now. And if you look around, you’ll see at least five guys have AKs on us. Two by Wizard”—Wells nodded over his shoulder—“two behind us. One over to your right. All close enough to kill us all with one magazine. Maybe the Air Force could bring in three or four Reapers for multiple simultaneous Hellfire strikes to take all those guys out. But the timing would have to be perfect. Then at least two Special Ops squads would have to land quick enough to kill everyone else before they got to you.”

“Would that be riskier than this plan you’ve cooked up?”

“Having your captor let you walk is always the best alternative. I know you’re mad about what happened to Scott, but I’m not interested in the highest possible body count. I want to get you out alive.”

The men around Wizard cheered, a long joyous oooh . Wizard pointed his pistol high over his head. Crack! Crack! Crack! The shots echoed through the empty sky, the stars gone now, the clouds, so heavy an hour before, now wisps. The sun was still invisible, but it wouldn’t be much longer. “What about justice?”

“What about Samatar, Owen?” Gwen said.

“That was an emergency—”

“I need to know that you’ll do what I say,” Wells said. “If not, you want to wait for your own rescue, tell me now.”

“What kind of choice is that?”

“Yes or no.” Like most of life’s big decisions.

“Yes,” Gwen said.

“Sure,” Hailey said.

“Fine,” Owen muttered, like the word was ash in his mouth.

—

The White Men, the volunteers, Wizard, and Wells walked east, past the latrines, up the hill, into the pall of smoke and gasoline from the smoldering technicals. At the top of the path, Wizard shouted. His soldiers ran for the undamaged pickups, whooping and hollering.

“You got them going,” Wells said.

“Tol’ them the truth. We got the secret weapon on our side, we gon’ smoke Awaale once and for all. Make this whole province ours.” Wizard led Wells and the hostages to the Range Rovers, hidden under a tin sunshade that was camouflaged with sticks. They were beautiful vehicles, their white paint nearly glowing. They looked like they belonged at a country club that the Somalis would be strongly discouraged from joining. Wells remembered an old British joke about Range Rovers, courtesy of none other than Guy Raviv: What’s the difference between Range Rovers and porcupines? Porcupines have pricks on the outside.

Wizard clicked the key fob. The Rover’s locks popped up and its alarm chirped off, an absurd and satisfying sound in the Somali badlands. When Wells pulled open the door, its weight tipped him. “Armored.”

“Doors and windows.” Wizard slipped into the driver’s seat, Ali beside him. Wells went to the back door, but Wizard raised his hand. “Them three go with us. You in the other one.”

“We stay together.”

“Awaale see four wazungu, he get worried. This way you hidden. That Rover got the tints. You be right behind me. Beri driving.”

“Beri?”

“Waaberi.” Wizard nodded at a hard-eyed man a few steps behind them. “Been with me all the time from Mog. Trust me, trust him.”

Exactly the problem. But Wells feared that if he insisted on sticking with the hostages, Wizard might call the deal off. Anyway, if he had to, he should be able to handle Waaberi.

“He knows I’ll be using my phone.”

“Yah.”

“And you know that drone will be watching us the whole way.”

“Counting on it. That magic mzungu bird. It gon’ be fine, John Wells.” Wizard spoke the name like it was one word, Johnwells .

“Drive carefully.” Wells closed the armored door with a heavy thock . Waaberi waved him into the front passenger seat of the second Rover. Behind them sat a tall man, heavily muscled, with a scar that girdled his neck. Wells wished for his Makarov or Glock or even the AK he’d taken from the other camp, though rifles were tough to maneuver inside a vehicle. At least he had his knife, strapped to his leg. Wizard had taken his guns but never properly searched him. Sloppy.

—

The Rovers rolled out, mustered up with the five pickups and lone technical that had survived the Reaper’s bomb. Wizard had left only a couple stragglers as camp guards. The other sixty or so men sat or stood in the pickup beds, AKs slung across their chests. They wore pristine white T-shirts and white bandannas across their faces. They poked and yammered at one another, as high-spirited as seniors tailgating on a sunny fall Saturday.

Rangers or Talibs or Somalis, men readied themselves for battle the same way. They pushed fear from their minds until the fight was so close that the frank risk of death could be ignored no longer. Then they grew grim and settled. Until the shooting started. At that moment adrenaline and fear brought them to a place that no drug could, an extraordinary 360-degree awareness that only extreme athletes like free climbers glimpsed in civilian life. They went from high to low to the ultimate high. Then crashed as the battle ended and they were left to tally wounds and deaths. No wonder some soldiers turned into junkies, for war itself and afterward for cheap chemical highs.

Wizard ordered the technical to lead the convoy, then three pickups and the two Rovers. Two more pickups brought up the rear. They rolled out slow and steady. Waaberi drove with two fingers on the wheel. The Rover was in showroom condition inside, too, its leather polished, its air-conditioning strong. It made Wells want a bath.

The sun breached the horizon, its equatorial rays turning night into day with all the subtlety of a nickel slot that had just hit triple sevens. In the light the land was flat and empty, aside from the low hills where Wizard had set his camp. The rain had left pools of muddy water that were already disappearing, shrinking into the dirt.

The convoy moved east-northeast, almost straight into the sun. Wells raised a hand to shield his eyes, wishing for his Ray-Bans. But they were in his backpack, which he’d foolishly left in Wizard’s hut. He wondered if he’d ever see those glasses again. He missed them, and the woman who’d given them to him.

He reached for his sat phone, dialed Shafer. The call went to voice mail. Wells counted to ten, redialed. One ring . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . Finally, Shafer picked up. “Sorry. My internist says I have a generous prostate.”

“Tell me you’re joking, you left the room to hide from Duto or whatever—”

“Get to my age, you’ll see. I would literally have pissed myself—”

“Enough. Are you back?”

“I’m running back now. Just a sec.” Shafer sounded winded. He was old, Wells realized. Somehow in the last year Shafer had gone from late middle-aged to flat-out old. “I’m back.”