2
You must understand, admiral, that it is precisely the destructive reign of Idi Amin that makes Uganda such a shining example. We have made tremendous strides — economically, politically, in the control of disease. But the world doesn’t see this. It doesn’t see how far my country has come. And because of that, donors are pulling back. Problems that were so close to being eradicated are reemerging.”
Smoke from one of Admiral Jamison Kaye’s personal stash of Arturo Fuentes flowed from Charles Sembutu’s mouth as he continued to pontificate about the world’s moral obligation to the country he led.
Kaye kept his expression impassive, exercising his well-practiced gift for hiding his distaste for politicians. He himself had grown up dirt-poor on a farm in Kentucky, and no matter how bad it got, his family had never gone looking for a handout. His father always said that no one had the power to pick you up. Either you did it yourself or you stayed the hell down.
“So you can see the importance of what we’re doing here, Admiral. You can understand the magnitude of the threat.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”
His wife constantly admonished him for judging politicians too harshly, and she was usually right. Not this time, though. Sembutu had taken over Uganda in a bloody coup that had ended in the deaths of the former president, his family, and no less than a thousand of his supporters.
There was a quiet knock on the door, and the admiral watched gratefully as his captain entered.
“The feeds are up and running, gentlemen. If you could please follow me.”
The control center for this operation was buried in the depths of the carrier — a cramped space designated for monitoring events that weren’t ever going to hit the papers.
The two women manning the room’s sophisticated electronics leapt to their feet when the admiral and his guest entered, but a dismissive wave sent them immediately back to their seats.
“These are pictures from your soldiers?” Sembutu asked, pointing to five live monitors. Each cast a greenish glow, depicting a hazy view of the jungle as it slid slowly past.
“Each man has a camera on his uniform that transmits to us via satellite,” Kaye said.
Sembutu moved forward, reading the names of the individuals scrawled beneath their respective monitors while Kaye dialed a number into a secure phone.
He was feeling distinctly queasy as it rang. As far as he was concerned, fighting was the natural state of Africa — war didn’t occasionally break out there; peace did. Sending his boys into a situation that they didn’t fully understand and, in his opinion, was none of America’s business had too many shades of Somalia. But there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. This wasn’t some harebrained operation dreamed up in a forgotten corner of the Pentagon. Not by a long shot.
The phone clicked and the unmistakable voice of Sam Adams Castilla came on.
“Yes, Admiral?”
“They’ve made contact and are on the move.”
“Anyone hurt in the jump?”
“No, Mr. President. So far, everything’s by the numbers.”
3
The light of dawn was beginning to penetrate the jungle canopy, dispelling the darkness that had become so comfortable. Lt. Craig Rivera slipped past the man in front of him, wanting to take point personally until the confusing twilight finally gave way to day.
The condensation on the leaves was already starting to heat up, turning into mist that weighed down his clothes and felt thick in his lungs. He eased up a steep, rocky slope, dropping into a prone position at its crest. More than a minute passed as he scanned the tangle of leaves and branches for a human outline. Nothing. Just the endless shimmer of wet leaves.
He started to move again but froze when a voice crackled over his earpiece. “Keep your eyes on the sky.”
Rivera pressed himself against the broad trunk of a tree and looked up, putting a hand to his throat mike. “What have you got?”
“Bahame could swoop down on us at any minute shooting fireballs from his ass.”
The quiet snickers of the men closest to him were audible in the silence, and he started forward again, trying to decide how to respond. “Radio discipline. Let’s not forget what happened to the other guys.”
An African Union team had gotten a tip on Bahame’s location and come after him about six months ago. All that was left of them was an audio recording.
He’d never admit it to his men, but Rivera could still hear it in his head — the calm chatter and controlled fire devolving into panicked shouts and wild bursts on full automatic, the screams of attackers who sounded more animal than human. And finally the crash of body against body, the grunts of hand-to-hand combat, the bloody gurgles of death.
After he and his team had listened to it, they’d blown it off with the expected bravado. African Union forces? Hadn’t they gotten taken down by a Girl Scout troop in Cameroon? Weren’t they the guys whose mascot was a toy poodle?
As team leader, though, Rivera had seen the dead soldiers’ files. They weren’t reassigned meter maids from Congo as one of his men had suggested after polishing off the better part of a twelve-pack. They were solid operators working in their own backyard.
Rivera threw up a fist and crouched, aiming his AK through the trees at a flash of tan in the sea of emerald. Behind him, he could hear nothing but knew his men were fanning out into defensive positions.
He eased onto his stomach and slithered forward, controlling his breathing and being careful not to cause the bushes above him to sway with his movement. It took more than five minutes to cover twenty yards, but finally the jungle thinned and he found himself at the edge of a small village.
The woven straw wall of the hut in front of him was about the only thing that hadn’t been burned — and that included the residents. It was hard to determine precisely how many blackened bodies were piled next to what may have once been a soccer goal, but forty was a reasonable guess. It seemed that their intel was good. This was Bahame country.
Behind him, he heard a quiet grunt and something that sounded like a body hitting the ground. Swearing under his breath, he headed back toward the noise, finger hooked lightly around the trigger of his gun.
“Sorry, boss. Nothin’ I could do. She came right up on me.”
The woman was cowering against a tree, holding her hands in front of her in frozen panic. Her eyes darted back and forth as his men materialized from the foliage and surrounded her.
“Who you figure she is?” one of them said quietly.
“There’s a village up there,” Rivera responded. “Or at least there was. Bahame got to it. She must have given him the slip. Probably been living on her own out here for the past few days.”
There was an infected gash in her arm and her ankle was grotesquely twisted to the right, bones pushing at the skin but not quite breaking through. Rivera tried to determine her age, but there were too many contradictions — skin the color and texture of an old tire, strong, wiry arms, straight white teeth. The truth was he didn’t know anything about her and he never would.
“What are we going to do with her?” one of his men asked.
“Do you speak English?” Rivera said, enunciating carefully.
She started to talk in her native language, the volume of her voice startling in the silence. He clamped a hand
