The Night Ranger

He looked up at Shafer.

“The air looks good. Unless you object, I’m going to go brain, fly autopilot on a two-click hold around the Red Six. That way I can focus on the payload. But we’ll only have partial visuals on the friendlies.”

“In English,” Duto said.

Tomaso’s eyes slid to Duto, like he’d just remembered who his real boss was. “We have smooth air right now, nothing the software can’t handle. I want to set the Reaper on autopilot to circle at a two-kilometer radius around those four technicals in the middle. We’re assuming that’s where the enemy commander is—”

“Awaale—” Shafer said.

“Awaale is. That way I don’t have to worry about keeping the Reaper in the air, I can focus on putting the GBU and the Hellfires on target. Only downside is that we may lose visual contact with the friendlies.”

“Sounds fine,” Shafer said.

“Great,” Tomaso said. But his eyes stayed on Duto until the DCI nodded approval.

29

LOWER JUBA REGION

The convoy emerged from the last of the scrub and the White Men fell silent.

Even from five hundred meters away, the technicals loomed over the empty plain. They were Toyota Hilux pickups, crew cabs with wide tires and roll bars, built to be indestructible on the world’s worst roads. The White Men drove them, too. But each of the Dita Hiluxes carried a machine gun, its long steel barrel poking over the top of the cab. Three men stood in each pickup, one to aim and shoot, one to handle the ammunition, and one in reserve.

If Wizard had commanded the Ditas he would have turned around half the Hiluxes so that the guns could shoot out the open bed of the pickups for maximum visibility and flexibility. But the Ditas didn’t seem worried. Wizard couldn’t hear them, but their hands told the tale, loose and relaxed. Awaale stood in the center, a head taller than most of his men.

Wizard wasn’t surprised. In truth, this meeting would have been suicide for the White Men if not for the drone. Even with it he would need every bit of magic in the world. He slipped the Range Rover behind his pickups to give it a few extra seconds of cover if the Ditas opened up. When the Ditas opened up.

The hostages had been silent during the drive. Now Gwen leaned forward.

“Be careful,” she said.

Just then Wizard knew he would never see her again, whatever happened in the next few minutes. He’d be gone, or she would. He missed her already, her and her magic, the magic of her blond hair and blue eyes, the magic she’d won just by being born in America. In his pocket he found a plastic bag that held a sheaf of miraa. The bag was mostly empty, the miraa growing stale. He had nothing else to give her. Nothing else she could possibly want. He handed it to her. She seemed to understand as well as he did.

“You tell everyone at home about Wizard.”

“You know it.”

He popped his sunglasses back on, stepped out of the Rover. His men leaned against their pickups, their sad naked Hiluxes. Their feet sank into the mud as they snuck glimpses at the technicals.

Wizard faced his soldiers one final time. “What I told you before, it’s still true. You acting like these Ditas got tanks. Look over there.”

One by one, the White Men lifted their heads.

“You see tanks? I don’t see no tanks. I see technicals. And I see a bunch of boys never could be White Men. Stupid boys. Weak boys. We the ones with the secret. This all gonna look different soon. So different.” He turned to the Donkeys. “You know what you supposed to do, when you supposed to do it.”

“When you wave,” Donkey Junior said.

“Right. Keep it tight and keep coming. Everyone else, when the shooting start, remember, it the Ditas gonna be scared. Not us. They not expecting this. Done and done.”

“Done and done,” his men said without enthusiasm. Wizard knew that if the bomb didn’t hit quickly, many of them would lose their courage and run. Without further delay he took off his pistol and held it high where Awaale could see and handed it to Donkey Junior. “You ready to give this back to me,” Wizard said.

He started the long walk toward Awaale. The sun stared into his eyes, but he stared straight back, wouldn’t blink even as his eyes sprouted tears behind his sunglasses.

Awaale was taller than Wizard remembered. He stood with arms folded across his chest like he was posing for a statue of himself. Leader of the Dita Boys, Savior of the Somali Nation. He wore a pistol on his hip and the shiniest mirrored sunglasses Wizard had ever seen. He had a new gold bracelet, too, thick and shiny. His men stood close, their AKs trained on Wizard, their lips full of miraa.

“Awaale.” Wizard extended a hand. Awaale looked at it like it was made of dung. “Shake my hand, Awaale. Man to man.”

Back at camp, the American had told him to touch Awaale, nod while he did. Then the people watching with the drone will know they have the right target, he said. They can see that from the drone, Wizard said. They can see that. They can see everything.

Awaale’s lips formed the briefest of smiles, as if to underscore the meaninglessness of the shake to his soldiers. We’re making peace with a man who’s already dead, the smile said. He extended his big right arm. Wizard clasped Awaale’s hand in both of his and nodded to the sky.

“So these you new boys,” Wizard said. “They good for anything but eating?”

“You find out soon enough. You got the wazungu in your Rover?”

“Yes.”

“You tell them they coming with me?”

“Two conditions first.”

Awaale shook his head. All around them men snapped off safeties.

Showy fool. You think you in control, but you backwards as ever. Death up there in the sky, coming for you.

“Just hear me before you say no,” Wizard said.

“Quickly, then.”

“First, you take men of mine who want to come with you.”

“Soldiers leaving you, Wizard? White Men quitting you?”

“Traitors begging to join your rabble. I don’t want them anyway.”

“How many?”

“Twenty, twenty-five maybe.”

Awaale hesitated. Then he seemed to see that Wizard was giving him a cheap way to build his force and that he could always shoot the ones he didn’t like. He grinned. Wizard knew he’d taken the bait. “All right. I show your men mercy, even though they stupid enough to let you lead them.” His smile broadened. “But not you, Little Chicken. I won’t have you.”

“You think I gonna play your slave. Second, you give everyone else one day to break camp, leave the province. We never fight again. You win. Just let us live.”

“You giving up.”

Wizard nodded like it hurt him too much to say yes.

“Say it, then.”

“Yeah. We giving up. I giving up.”

“And I get all you vehicles. You be walking out of this province.”

“Take the pickups.”

“Think I want them pickups? The Rovers.”

“No.”

“Come to me begging for your life and then say no. All balls and no brains, Little Chicken, only you no balls, either.”