marble felt good on his aching feet. He flung open the stainless-steel Bosch refrigerator and yanked out a frosty cold Stella Artois. As he was twisting off the bottle cap, the phone rang again. He took a long swig and marched back over to the phone, slamming the glass bottle down on the nightstand. With any luck, he’d have the fool on the other end of the line in chains before nightfall and a twelve-volt car battery clamped onto his balls.
Moi snatched up the ringing phone.
“Who is this?” As an educated Kenyan, Moi spoke excellent though heavily accented English. Like many Africans, he was conversant, if not fluent, in several tribal languages, but in the polyglot world of Mogadishu, the English tongue was the most commonly employed, particularly among African troops. “This is an unlisted number.”
“Colonel Moi, turn on your television set.”
Moi cursed under his breath. The voice was a white man’s. An American, he guessed. Moi stared incredulously at the phone. “My television set?”
“Yes, the big eighty-inch LCD hanging there on the wall in front of you.”
Moi glanced at his eighty-inch Samsung LCD television, a gift from a local Somali government official in his debt.
“How in the blazes do you know about my television?”
“I know a lot of things about you, Colonel Moi. Why don’t you turn it on, and I’ll tell you all about yourself.”
“When I get my hands on you, you shall learn things about me you wish you did not know.”
“Keep yammering and it’s gonna cost you one million pounds sterling.”
That caught Moi’s attention. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your bank account in the Cayman Islands. Do you want me to tell you the account number?”
Moi frowned.
Moi picked up the remote control and snapped on his television. It was linked to a satellite service. What he saw made him nearly crap his camouflaged pants. It was a crystal-clear infrared image of his compound from several thousand feet above.
The colonel quickly pulled on his combat boots and laced them up without taking his eyes off of the screen. When he finished, he approached the television and studied the image closely from just inches away. It was a live feed and he could make out each of his twenty soldiers at their various stations around the compound, even the ones loafing in the barracks. There was even a glowing gray image of him located in his second-story penthouse.
“Satellite imagery. Impressive,” Moi acknowledged. Obviously, the white man had some sort of satellite reconnaissance capability at his disposal. That likely meant he was with the American government.
“What does the CIA want with me? And what is your name?” Moi asked again, but in a less threatening tone.
“I’m not with the CIA. I’m a private citizen. A businessman, to be specific. As far as you’re concerned, my nationality is money, and my name isn’t important.” This time the American’s voice boomed out of the television’s surround-sound system. “And you can turn your phone off now. No point in running up your bill.”
Moi shut his phone and pocketed it. “Then what do you want, Private Citizen?”
“I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Colonel,” the voice on the phone said. “You’re a man of routine, like most military men are. Routine makes men predictable. It also makes them targetable.”
Red target reticles suddenly appeared on each of the men visible in the high-definition video image and tracked them as they sauntered through the compound. Fortunately for Moi, no reticle appeared over his image, at least not yet.
“Not satellite. Predator,” Moi confidently concluded with a smile. Satellites couldn’t target men on the ground like that.
“Bingo. And what I want from you is to deliver the CSB shipment to the refugee camp as you promised, and I want you to do it right now.”
“Oh, so you are a Good Samaritan as well?”
The American laughed. “Me? Hardly. The Good Samaritan gave his money away.”
“It sounds to me like you want the CSB for yourself, Private Citizen. It is worth quite a bit of cash.”
“I was hired to make sure you fulfilled your contract, nothing more. One way or another, the CSB will be delivered today.”
“That is not possible. The Shabaab militia would like nothing more than for me to expose this shipment to one of their terror squads who would either steal it or burn it.”
“There hasn’t been a Shabaab militia unit in Mog in over six months. You know that better than I do.”
“African politics are quite complicated. Since you are a foreigner, I can hardly expect you to understand,” Moi insisted. He kept his eyes glued to the television set. He was glad that his image still wasn’t targeted.
“To tell you the truth, I hate politics, African or otherwise. I’ve lost way too many friends because of it. And we both know you’re stalling. You’re holding the CSB shipment hostage. My employer wants to know why. He’s already paid you to ensure safe delivery of each shipment.”
“I have broken no agreement. The food is safe here with me and will be shipped out when the conditions warrant.”
“What conditions? And don’t hand me any Shabaab bullshit either.”
Moi quickly weighed his options. He could bolt out of the room, but then what would he do? His unit didn’t have any antiaircraft weapons to speak of. If he entered the compound, there was a chance he’d be targeted and taken out by a Predator. But if he could get to his Land Rover, he might be able to escape, but then again, a Predator could easily track that, too.
“Colonel, you’re pissing me off. The clock’s ticking.”
“My apologies.” Moi swallowed hard. He hadn’t apologized to any man in over twenty years, even when he was in the wrong. “My expenses have gone up. There are more government officials to bribe. And the roads are increasingly dangerous. Not from Shabaab, of course, but from street gangs and even those filthy Djiboutis.” He was referring to one of the other AU peacekeeper nations with forces stationed in the sprawling city.
“So you want more money? Jeezus. How much is enough?”
“A question for the ages, Private Citizen. But I might ask you the same. What is Harris paying you? I shall double it.”
“With what?”
“With the money I have in the Caymans account.”
“You mean the one million?” the American asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Or did you mean the three million? There are three accounts in three separate Cayman banks, each worth just over a million. Look.”
Moi gulped when his three separate account statements were displayed on the big plasma screen.
“The only problem, Colonel Moi, is that you don’t have any money. At least not anymore.”
Moi watched the balances of each account zero out.
“You are no businessman. You are a thief!”
“I only returned the money to my employer for your failure to abide by the terms of your contract. He’ll use it to buy more food supplies, which will probably be stolen by some other petty tyrant.”
“Tell Lord Harris that if my money is not returned immediately, I shall order my men to dump the CSB into the ocean, and I shall not let one grain of food pass on to the camps in the future.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Colonel.”
Moi smiled. “Thank you. I take that as a compliment.”
“You shouldn’t.”
Muffled thunder boomed overhead. Moi instinctively flinched. He recognized the sound of large-caliber rifle fire and the whir of rotor blades. Moi watched in horror as the plasma screen switched to multiple live video images from several overhead cameras, all of them at much lower altitudes, swooping and careening over the compound.
