“All right.”
“All right, what?”
“All right, you get the Rovers, too. We walk back to camp, take our stuff, leave.”
“Go to Dadaab with the rest of the women.”
Wizard shrugged.
“You know what, Wizard? I in a good mood this morning, now that you roaches not bothering me no more. Gonna let you live. Can’t take anything, though. Can’t go back to camp. Soon as you leave this field you gone to Kenya.”
For a moment, Wizard wondered whether Awaale might mean to keep his word, let him live. Then Awaale looked over his shoulder and nodded at one of his men and Wizard knew he was lying. He and the White Men who didn’t defect would die within the hour.
“Thank you, Awaale. Thank you.” The words stuck in Wizard’s throat. Even knowing they were a lie, he could barely force them out. “I tell my men who want to come to you, split from the rest of us, walk over.”
“No tricks. Or we shoot all everyone.”
“I swear, no tricks. You too much for me.”
“And the wazungu?”
“Told you. In the Rover. You going to hurt them? Sell them to Shabaab?”
“No business of yours, Chicken. They mine now. Like them Rovers.”
“I tell you they much much trouble.”
“Maybe for you.” Awaale patted Wizard on the cheek. “What happened to that magic, Wizard?”
Wizard was thankful he’d left his weapon with Donkey Junior. He had the desperate urge to put it to the big man’s chest, squeeze the trigger. He knew the drone would do its work so soon. Still his fingers itched for the pistol. A bomb was too sudden, too quick. Wizard wanted Awaale to know that Wizard had killed him.
“Go on,” Awaale said. “Wasted too much time. Send me my wazungu.”
Wizard turned, walked back across the field. “Everyone who want to go with Awaale, his no-teeth Ditas, walk now,” he yelled.
Men stepped forward, until two dozen walked across the field toward him, heads down in defeat. The Donkeys led the way. If Awaale had known the White Men, he might have wondered why Wizard’s most loyal soldiers were defecting en masse. For his part, Wizard screamed abuse at his men.
“Traitors! Wizard protected you, looked out for you, now you quit me! Awaale gon’ shoot all you fools!”
Step. Step. Step. Mud caked the bottom of his pants. He wondered if even now Awaale was getting ready to open fire. He didn’t look back. Nothing to do but play the role of the defeated commander. He hoped the Americans would wait long enough to let his men get close but still drop the bomb while they were outside the blast area. He trudged through the mud, shoulders slumped.
Halfway across the field when he passed the first of his men. Of course, it was brave, stupid Donkey Junior. “Junior,” Wizard said quietly.
“Wizard. It okay?”
“Keep walking.”
Then Wizard heard the sound he’d been waiting for, the whistle that meant the drone had let loose its magic egg—
He turned and grabbed Junior and pulled him down and—
30
From across the field, the blast didn’t look that impressive, a boom that shook the Range Rover’s windows and kicked out a white cloud that was quickly overtaken by a flood of inky smoke. But in the seconds that followed the damage became clear. Fire consumed the four technicals around Awaale. Men’s screams carried to Wells across the muddy flats.
Wizard and his men had flattened themselves before the bomb hit. Now they picked themselves up, their white T-shirts dripping with mud. Wizard grabbed a pistol from one of his soldiers and raised it over his head and fired like a starter at a track meet. His men howled and charged. They had the field to themselves, facing not a single return shot as they ran. The air above them sizzled and two bright streaks torched the air, the Hellfires. The missiles registered more as blurs than physical objects until they connected with the two technicals on Awaale’s right flank. The explosions that followed spun the Toyotas onto their sides and sent up waves of black smoke and flame.
The two undamaged Dita technicals on the left flank opened fire, raking the field. But the White Men were widely scattered and only three went down. Then the White Men’s lone technical fired a long rattling burst that tore open the windshields of the Dita technicals and sent the men in back diving for cover. The Dita machine gunners had made a basic tactical mistake. They should have disabled the White Men’s technical before aiming at the men on the field. Lightly armored vehicles were great on the attack, but nearly useless once they came under sustained fire. Now the White Men’s technical edged forward, firing shorter bursts now at the Dita vehicles, pinning them without wasting ammunition. Textbook.
For the first time since Wizard had walked across the field, Wells thought they might all survive.
—
Wizard and his lead soldiers reached the crater where Awaale had stood. The thick black smoke from the burning technicals screened Wells’s view, but he heard sustained return fire. The Ditas were responding at last. Wizard waved his men forward, into the cloud. The White Men had to keep attacking. The Ditas still had more soldiers, and they had those four technicals that Awaale had kept in reserve. Awaale wasn’t around to order them into the fight, but his lieutenants might be. In open ground like this, a charge could look completely successful until the moment the enemy counterattacked.
The rest of the White Men jumped into their pickups and rolled across the field, shouting as they bumped through the mud. Only the two Range Rovers and four White Men remained. One sat in the Range Rover with the hostages. Another stood beside it. Waaberi and the guard in the backseat had stayed with Wells.
Wells unbuckled his belt, reached for the door handle. Waaberi put a hand on his arm.
“I did what I promised,” Wells said in Arabic. “It’s time for us to go.”
“They go. You stay.”
Wizard planned to hold Wells hostage. One last double-cross. Wizard should have been happy Wells had given him a chance to live. But he couldn’t quit. A trait he and Wells had in common.
So Waaberi and the guard would die.
Wells lifted his armrest, shifted left in his seat. The Rover had a wide console between the two front seats. Driver and passenger could sit side by side without ever touching accidentally, or even acknowledging each other’s existence. Very English. Wells looked over his left shoulder. No surprise, the guard sat in the middle of the backseat, legs splayed wide, the pistol loose in his right hand. Wells waved and the guard shook his head blankly. He nodded the pistol at Wells:
—
Wells wasn’t sure of his next move. He’d hoped to reach down for his knife, come up, put it in the guard’s belly in one quick motion. But squirming from front seat into back was a slow and awkward motion in any vehicle. And these Rovers had generous backseats, plenty of space. By the time Wells came across the console, the guard would have enough time to get the pistol up. Another reason to hate luxury SUVs.
Waaberi leaned over the console, put a hand on Wells’s shoulder, pushed him back. “Enough—”
—
Just that quickly, Wells knew what to do. He leaned into Waaberi for a moment, pushing against him. Intuitively, Waaberi shoved back—
And Wells twisted his body away, and forward, toward the dashboard. As he broke contact with Waaberi, the Somali slipped toward him. In one fluid move, Wells swung his big right arm around Waaberi’s shoulders, used Waaberi’s own momentum to pull him out of the driver’s seat and slide him across the console. Wells was fully out of his seat now, crouched under the windshield, his ass against the dashboard. The guard lifted his pistol, but too late. Wells put his right hand high on Waaberi’s back and shoved him over the console through the space between
