Brown’s buddy Pig-Pen. Still, Wells had the windows down. He preferred the acrid taste of dust to the sweet stink of gasoline rising from Mark the cop.
The track dipped over a dry streambed and the Cruiser bottomed out its shocks. Wells laid off the gas, but only for a moment. He knew he risked blowing a tire, or worse, but he had no choice. Five minutes outside Bakafi, he’d seen light in the darkness behind him. No doubt the other cop had found a ride, and the concerned citizens of Bakafi had joined in the fun.
Wells didn’t think they could catch him. But he didn’t think he could outrun them either. They could track his taillights as easily as he saw their headlights. He’d tried to run with his beams off, but flicked them on again a few seconds later. The road was impossible in the dark. He did have a night-vision scope that he’d brought from New Hampshire, standard infantry gear. It strapped over one eye and lit up the night with an eerie green glow. But he didn’t want to use the scope for driving. On patrols or in fixed positions, night vision offered an enormous advantage. But the scopes also provided a strangely flattened perspective. To compensate, most soldiers now used gear that covered one eye and left the other uncovered. Putting the two views together took practice, especially at driving speed on a road as bumpy as this one. So his scope stayed in his pack, and the Cruiser’s lights stayed on. Thus his pursuers could track him no matter how far ahead he pulled. Wells thought he might have a way to use that fact to his advantage, though the trick he had in mind would leave him exposed if it failed. He had a few minutes to decide.
He reached down through the dust for his phone, called Shafer. “Our friends have a location?”
“Not your lucky day, John. It’s gonna be a while.”
“I even want to ask?”
“In the bush, the signals are carried by low-power microwave repeaters before they get to real cell towers. In the U.S., we only use them a few places, like to keep calls from dropping in underwater tunnels. But where you are, they’re a cheap way to get coverage to places where there isn’t enough demand for full service.”
“So NSA can narrow the phone to a single tower—”
“But that still leaves a huge area to cover. They’re not sure there’s any solution, and if there is, it’s gonna take time. Days at least.”
The NSA was so good at solving these puzzles that Wells had hardly considered it might not be able to find the phone in time. He wanted to be angry, but he knew the truth. Like everyone else in the field, he had grown too dependent on the magicians back home.
“Shame. Things are getting messy.” He told Shafer about Bakafi.
“You beat up a cop and broke out of jail.”
“Let’s just say I released myself on my own recognizance.”
“You stole that line, and don’t think I don’t know it. Cop gonna live?”
Wells looked back at Mark and was rewarded with a curse and a cough. “Long as he doesn’t go near any open flames.”
“Even so, you’ve reached your sell-by date. Forget Shabaab. When the sun comes up tomorrow, you’re public enemy number one. And you don’t fit in so good. In case you haven’t noticed.”
“Still leaves tonight.”
“If I were you, my number-one goal would be getting somewhere safe. Though I’m not sure where that might be. Maybe you should beg the UN for help.”
“Funny.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’ve got a line on the Somali militia that took the hostages. The locals in Bakafi know them, call them the White Men because they wear these white T-shirts and bandannas.”
“How creative.”
“They smuggle sugar into Kenya, so they have to be close to the border. Leader’s a guy called Little Wizard. He’s got a reputation as magic. Can’t be killed.”
“How conveeeenient.” This in the voice of the
“I ever find him, I’m going to ask him the secret.”
Wells heard Shafer typing. “You won’t be surprised to hear that neither the White Men nor Little Wizard are anywhere to be found in our Somali database.”
“If I can pin them down, I don’t suppose there’s a SOG team ready to roll?”
“I believe I just heard you ask for help. This must be even worse than it sounds.”
Wells offered Shafer an Arabic curse that roughly translated into
“Duto ordered a team to Mombasa, but they don’t land until tomorrow morning. It’ll be too late for them to do anything but get you out of there. It’ll be something of a miracle anyway. We’re going to have to beg the Kenyans to look the other way. That means me begging Duto, and you know how I feel about that.”
“I think I can find them. Tonight.”
“John. You cannot go into Somalia on your own. Suicide. And even if you could, even assuming you’re right and these White Men are based near the border, that’s, what, a zone sixty miles long, forty deep, twenty-four hundred square miles of scrub. How will you narrow that down?”
Wells explained, waited for Shafer to respond. And waited.
“Ellis?”
“I’m thinking. What if your new friend loses it when he realizes what you’ve done, shoots you and the volunteers?”
“Why would he do that?”
“You’re asking for rationality from a Somali warlord named Wizard?”
“He wants a deal. He took them last night, and he’s already looking for ransom.”
“This is beyond foolish, John. Way too many variables. The only reason we’re still talking about it is that you’re so far out on the ledge already. I’m not sure the Kenyan police will let you surrender under any circumstances. No doubt they’re thinking dead or alive.”
The headlights behind Wells were creeping closer. He edged down the gas pedal and the Cruiser surged. Meanwhile, Shafer had gone quiet again. Wells could almost see Shafer in his office, pulling on the last wisps of his hair, the Sideshow Bob tufts that stretched over his ears. He’d be scanning a map across his desk, looking for answers, not finding them.
“I have to ask Duto,” Shafer said. “I can’t promise what he’ll say. Even if he goes for it, I’m not sure how fast we can get operational. And you’re going to have to get this guy to bite. You really think you can do that?”
Almost too late, Wells saw a foot-high rock about to lance his left front tire. He braked, twisted the steering wheel right. The Cruiser skittered sideways like a two-ton puppy just learning how to run. Its right front tire slid into a rut and the ugly screech of metal on rock filled the night and the Cruiser tipped, its left back wheel coming off the ground. The jerricans and spare tire and Mark all banged around the cargo compartment. Wells kept both hands on the wheel and feathered the brake and the Cruiser leveled out, though it now had an odd clicking coming from the right front tire like the bearings were damaged. Wells edged it back onto the track. The steering felt loose, but after a few seconds the clicking stopped and the Toyota kept moving.
“Didn’t sound good,” Shafer said.
“Work your end and let me make my call.”
“Talk soon.
—
Wells drove in silence, rehearsing his lines. Then he reached for the phone he’d taken from the dead White Man at the camp. He found the missed-calls register and the most recent incoming number. Odds were it belonged to Wizard. He called Wizard’s number from his own Kenyan phone. Two rings later, someone answered in a language he didn’t understand.
“Do you speak Arabic?” Wells said. In Arabic. The phone went dead. Wells called back, repeated himself. “
“You speak Somali?” the man said in Arabic.
