The Night Ranger

“How many phones does James have?”

“Two, I think.” She scrolled through her own phone. “I have two numbers for him. One local, one U.S.”

“Could he have had a second local handset?”

“Don’t know why. We all use Safaricom here and it works fine.”

“Can you get him back here?”

“That’s up to him. He’s the boss, remember?”

“Okay, say I can convince him to come back. Can he charter a plane tonight?”

“Nobody sane will fly to Dadaab at night. Tomorrow morning is the best you can do. But you’ll need a good reason.”

“I’ll think of one.”

“He has another phone?”

“I saw it. Last night in the hotel. And he lied to me about it.”

“So what will you tell him?”

Wells paused. “What about, I think I’ve found the volunteers, that they’re here, and I want to saddle up tomorrow and go in and get them. I’ll tell him I’m gung-ho and locked and loaded. And if he asks you, you tell him that you think I’m dumb enough to do it.”

“But what if you’re right and he knows they’re not here?”

“Then he has to come. To stop me from causing a riot or worse. Whatever he’s got planned, that’s not part of the program.”

“Okay, say it works. You get him on a plane. But there’s one thing I don’t see. What are you going to do with him when he lands?”

7

LANGLEY

Age brought wisdom. So Shafer had heard. He disagreed.

He was closing in on seventy, old enough to know the truth. His friends and neighbors and college classmates hadn’t grown wiser over the years. They’d just grown more like themselves, become more of whatever they were when they were young. The introverts faded into oblivion. The lazy divided their time between television and naps. The business guys played golf every day, shooting ninety-five with fifteen mulligans. The drinkers . . . they drank. Until they died.

Shafer didn’t understand any of them. So few winks left on this mortal coil, and they wanted to golf? He tried not to spend time with anyone his age, though all too often he had no choice. Only his wife understood how he felt. His friends didn’t want to hear about their mortality, and nobody under fifty had a clue what he meant. They thought they did, but they didn’t. They couldn’t help but find him ridiculous. Young people always found their elders ridiculous. Just you wait, sonny . . .

So Shafer worked. A few months ago, he’d admitted the truth. No more talk of retirement. He would come to Langley until the guards locked his office and dragged him out. He guessed he’d become more like himself, too. He was sharper and more impatient and more cynical than he’d been when he joined the agency almost forty years before. And he’d been plenty cynical then. Working in Africa in the 1970s had wiped away any and all his illusions about human nature. Sometimes he thought that Idi and Mobutu and the rest of the Big Men were running their own private game to see who could be most brutal, most decadent, most flat-out evil. I’ll see your gold-plated electric testicle clamps and raise you a soup bowl made of a human skull. First prize was eternity in hell. Second prize was eternity minus a day. But young Ellis Shafer didn’t protest. No one from the agency did. Human rights had been even lower on Langley’s priority list back then.

Now Africa had come back to him. Thanks to Wells. Poor Wells. Odd to think of the man that way when he’d killed more guys over the years than a plane crash, but Shafer knew as much as anyone the price Wells paid for what he did. Especially the last couple years, as the wars dragged on and the missions got messy. Wells was still big, but the pictures were small.

This one had looked different at first. Simple. Clean. A way for Wells to rebuild his relationship with his son. Shafer wanted Wells to have that chance.

Then James Thompson gave Wells that fake number.

—

Even before the NSA told Shafer about the phone, he wondered about Thompson. Everything about him seemed a little too slick. Pictures of him were all over the WorldCares website. One page highlighted Thompson’s availability for speeches. “Let the head of one of America’s fastest-growing charities share his inspiring secrets with you! Mr. Thompson donates all speaking fees from corporations or for-profit organizations to WorldCares,” the page explained. But when Shafer checked Thompson’s schedule, he found that the guy spoke mostly to non-profit groups like colleges and think tanks. The website was silent on what happened to those fees.

Then there was the Texas attorney general’s report: “WorldCares’s board has been overly deferential to Thompson . . . Thompson’s pay is in the top one percent nationally for all charities of WorldCares’s size . . . Thompson regularly charged meals at some of Houston’s most expensive restaurants to his WorldCares expense account . . .”

Since then, Thompson had run WorldCares more carefully. The group had increased spending on overseas programs. But Shafer wondered if he was doing the minimum so WorldCares wouldn’t get dinged again.

After he hung up with Wells, Shafer scoured Thompson’s life for signs of distress, financial or otherwise. He found nothing. No liens, no lawsuits in state or federal court, no drunk-driving charges or even jaywalking tickets. Thompson attended an inordinate number of galas in Houston, if the Chronicle’s society page was to be believed, but going to fancy parties wasn’t a crime. He’d never been married, but being a bachelor —or gay—wasn’t a crime either. By 7:30 p.m., Shafer’s eyes ached from all the reading. He wanted to go home, but he knew he ought to stay, look over the classified briefings Nairobi station had produced in the last two days. Then the phone trilled—

“Ellis.” His master’s voice. The one and only Vinny Duto.

“Director.”

“I’d like to offer you a ride home this evening.”

“Need a partner to carpool? Sides of beef up front don’t count?”

“Something like that.”

“Don’t you usually make the proles stand aside with your emergency lights?”

“See you in five.” Click.

Shafer had trouble believing the kidnapping of four volunteer aid workers had turned into a seventh-floor problem. On the other hand, the story was everywhere. #freethefour was the top hashtag on Twitter. CNN and Fox were still running clips from Thompson’s tearful press conference.

—

Duto’s convoy was idling when Shafer got downstairs. Three Crown Vics and two Suburbans. The showiness of these official details infuriated Shafer. They sent the message that citizens existed to serve the government, instead of vice versa. A generation ago, CIA directors had made do with a couple of bodyguards. Now even one-star generals who specialized in procurement were given armored cars.

“Evening, Vinny. Shouldn’t you be kissing ass for campaign donations? Instead of riding around like a Russian plutocrat?”

“Your dentures are clicking, Ellis.”

They rolled out the main Langley gate onto 123. The evening traffic was hardly moving, but the convoy wasn’t running its flashers. Shafer figured that Duto expected the conversation to last awhile.

“What’s Wells doing in Dadaab?” Duto said without preamble.

“You care about the Fab Four?”

“What’s Wells doing in Dadaab?” As if Shafer hadn’t spoken at all.

“Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

“You know what he’s doing. Looking for them.”