Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (32 page)

Joseph shook his head. "No, not if they're reasonably discreet. The troops won't care as long as Stauer doesn't play favorites and doesn't flaunt that he's dipping his wick when the boys can't."

Coffee rocked his smoke-wreathed head from side to side before agreeing, "Yeah . . . probably."

A hundred meters away the landing craft continued its gentle rocking, waves forming from the current as it passed around the stern.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Of all branches of military science, military sketching

and reconnaissance is perhaps the most practical.

-Lieutenant Colonel A.F. Mockler-Ferryman,

RMC Sandhurst, 1908

D-80, Beach Green Two (tentative),

west of Bandar Qassim, Ophir

Waves washed up on the low tide beach, just west of the city that was named-so local legends said-for its founder's camel. All the way out, as far as the eye could see, there wasn't a rock bigger than two fists held together. The slope was smooth and gentle. A Marine would have had an orgasm, just looking at it.

The city to the east had grown tenfold in recent years, the result of its original tribesmen, scattered all over what had once been the country, returning to the safety and security of their own tribe. For all that it now housed nearly half a million people, it was still a low-built city of mostly mud brick with wide swaths of tent townships around it. Animals still walked and grazed in the streets, to the extent there was much of anything to graze from. Mostly, the streets were just mud and garbage and general filth.

At the center of the northern edge of the city, where road and building met sea, was a double port mildly reminiscent of old Carthage in that it had a major harbor area partly enclosed by jetty, and a small one almost completely enclosed that led off from the major one. To both sides were beaches. Though the sand of the beaches was smooth, generally, just behind them was a series of rough wadis which cut the area of the beaches into segments as little as one hundred feet across. This was common in the area. The wadis presented both difficulties and opportunities. They were difficulties in that they would tend to disorganize and separate any attacker doing a landing and could provide good cover for any defender, opportunities in that if one were to land, and were it not defended, one could take cover quite quickly from casual observation. At least from the ground. Air was another story entirely.

"It's a pity," said Buckwheat Fulton to Wahab, as they walked along the shingle, stopping occasionally to take a digital photo, "that this isn't where we're intending to land the major force. It's the best beach I've seen. Even better than Green One, to the west of here." The camera had an integral GPS, Global Positioning System, to it, so there'd be no doubts about where any given picture related to.

Wahab agreed, saying, "You know more about such things than I do, but even I can see the advantages of the gentle rise of the sands. That said," he pointed with his chin toward the almost rectangular port-it was a rectangle but with one corner nipped off, "they may have something to say about that."

Since returning home, Wahab had barely had time to see his wife and children. He and Fulton had arrived, briefed Khalid, spent a single night at Wahab's house, and then headed north. Still, one night is better than no nights. I missed her . . . and ours.

He turned his attention back to the problem at hand, that, and the relative competence of the black American noncom and the black African officer. I don't think Buckwheat's any smarter than I am. And I've had schooling, within his own country's armed forces, that is way above anything he should have had. And still he knows more about it than I do. I wonder why that is. Self study? Maybe. We've never been so good, this side of the ocean, at worrying about what is to come or preparing for it. But some of us must have and I still don't know anyone here who understands military operations as well. And there's no bloody racial component to it because this man is black, too.

He asked Buckwheat about it.

"Osmosis," the American replied, simply. "All my adult life I was surrounded by people who studied these things and did them. You just pick it up, without even being aware that you are picking it up."

"Oh." Then Wahab had a still odder thought. I could pin general's insignia on this man, put him in charge of our "army," and we would be unbeatable on this continent.

Fulton looked over toward where Wahab's chin had pointed. They'd already looked at the recognizable pirate ships, an easy dozen of them, in the smaller, better protected, and almost rectangular harbor. Guards, who seemed unusually alert and well disciplined, walked the docks, the fences, and the jetties of the harbor. As near as Buckwheat and Wahab could tell there were nearly twelve hundred such full time warriors in the town, along with tens of thousands of part timers who might well show up to fight in a pinch. Could Stauer's force take them? Who the hell wanted to pay the price finding out?

In reply, Fulton said, "The boats are toast if we want them to be." He mused for a moment, then added, "Of course, we do want them to be." White teeth shone bright in a black face, "And they will be. But, depending on how we go about that, it will make many loud noises which would alert people that we're coming. Or here. So we'll take them out but probably only after we're landed elsewhere and moving. Well after. And we absolutely don't want to tangle with that much tribal infantry. That's why"-he chinned towards the bay-"Biggus Dickus Thornton has the job of sinking the boats and we're not planning on landing a single man near here."

"On which note," Wahab said, "we'd better find another beach."

Buckwheat nodded agreement but said, "Not west of here. Green One is fine for a small team, say, one to take out the stuff on the airfield, not so good for a large. The mountains along the coast could make getting very far off the beach a serious problem. Also it's too long a drive from Objective One."

"South, then," Wahab agreed. "The eastern coast. North of Bandar Cisman, maybe." The two remounted their automobile. Oddly enough, while everyone back at base in Brazil was making do with ATVs and such, the recon and intelligence party had a Hummer, gift of a charity with more money than brains, which gift had been duly stolen and put on the market, sans engine hood and windshield. Wahab had picked it up for a fair price.

Since purchase, the Hummer had been further modified, this time by the guards Wahab had hired in the town. One of those three stood up in the back of the Hummer, manning a machine gun, while the other two rode the back seat, rifles clutched in their hands. The guards were actually from a sub-clan of the Habar Afaan tribe. Even so, they seemed diligent. Then again, why not? It wasn't as if they knew why Fulton and Wahab were taking pictures, nor even why they'd stopped at certain villages, taking photos of nearly everyone present and providing copies from a color printer that rode the back of the Hummer, taking its juice from the battery.

The beach and the town lay far to the northwest, after a long day's kidney-pounding drive. The sun was sinking in the west behind sand dunes. The Hummer, Wahab driving, had been parked in low ground between three dunes. While one guard, with the machine gun, lay atop the highest of those, scanning the horizon for threats, another pitched a tarp with one edge tied to the Hummer and the other staked to the sand. He used a shovel rather than a mallet, digging holes and burying crossed stakes, with the lead ropes attached, within them. The third guard took care of cooking, a simple meal of azuki beans with a small side of goat. Spiced tea brewed on the fire, next to the pot holding the beans. It gave off the scent of cinnamon and cardamom.

While the guards busied themselves with housekeeping, and Buckwheat fiddled with a small satellite dish mounted on the ground behind the Hummer, Wahab-rifle in hand-watched the guards. Paranoia, in this part of the world, was only good sense unless one was surrounded by close kin.

"What you do?" asked the guard squatting over the fire of Fulton.

"Getting ready to send the pictures we took back to my magazine," Fulton replied. "Anything happens to us, at least they'll have a part of a story."

"Nothing happen," the guard assured Buckwheat. "Here . . . now . . . we have peace. Even stinking, goat-fucking Marehan no bother us anymore."

"Peace is good," Fulton answered, noncommittally. Even so he looked casually at Wahab. Yes, his comrade of the day and hour had heard. No, if he took any offense he didn't show it. Indeed, he was smiling. Got to love a cool comrade.

Fulton left the dish for a moment, walking the couple of steps to the computer and checking reception.

"Where you learn do that?" the cook asked.

"Journalism school," Buckwheat lied. At SWC at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, back when Bronze Bruce was still on the other side of the street.

"Wish I could learn," the cook said, suggestively.

"Tell you what; when we finish my photo shoot I'll show you. Fair enough?"

"Better than fair," the cook answered. "For that you get extra portion of goat."

D-78, Rako, Ophir

While the United States Army had never been a force in which idiotic personnel management boners were unknown-for example, at a time when it had been critical for Special Forces personnel to be able to blend in with the locals, it had on at least one occasion assigned a black captain to a Special Forces A team oriented to Norway, and this at a time when there were virtually no blacks in Norway-in Fulton's case it had made the far more sensible decision, deep in the throes of the Cold War, to assign him to a Special Forces Group, the Third, and team oriented towards the fringe where Islamic Africa met Christian, Animist, and Christian-Animist Africa. Thus the continent held few surprises for him. He'd seen it all. As Buckwheat said, more or less frequently, "Thank God my multi-great grandpappy got dragged onto that boat."

He'd said just that, once, after demonstrating the use of a condom to the men of a nominally Christian village. For that particular demonstration, he'd used a stick to simulate the male appendage. The next morning, after he'd arisen, he'd discovered that every married man had used his condom exactly as he'd shown them. Outside of each hut, planted in the ground, was an upright stick and on each stick a properly rolled out condom. He'd thought then, as he thought now, Thank God my multi-great grandpappy got dragged onto that boat. Tough shit for him, of course, but awful good for me and mine.

The reason for him thinking so, on this occasion, was the village into which he and Wahab and their guards had just driven. More precisely, it was the young girl, kicking, crying, begging, and pleading for all she was worth as she was dragged by her feet to where a collection of grim faced women stood, one of them holding a knife, another several rags, and a third a basket that Fulton already knew held acacia thorns. The thorns were a suture substitute.

Who do you blame for this? Fulton asked himself, as he had every time he'd been a near witness to a female circumcision. The Arabs? Islam? Nope, this predates them. The people doing it? "Nothing is stronger than custom." And how do you change their minds? Answer: you don't; I've tried. Poor little shit.

Neither Wahab nor the guards so much as blinked when the girl, now concealed inside a hut, began to scream in earnest, heartbreak incarnate. Again, Fulton thought, Poor little shit.

Though Wahab didn't blink, he likewise thought, Poor creature. Thanks to Allah my Alaso wasn't so treated when she was young. Of course, I can't say anything. Even if the mission we are on didn't require "cover," I am already so embarrassed in front of Buckwheat that I want to puke.

No more than had Wahab or the guards did the chief of the village seem to pay the slightest mind to the girl's voiced agony. The chief wore what amounted to a skirt, below, and in a sort of plaid, no less, with a bright blue shirt and a light, patterned shawl. On his head was perched the snug-fitting, rounded cap, called a "qofe." The chief looked to be truly ancient, from which appearance Buckwheat assumed they were about of an age.

The guards made the introductions while Wahab remained in the background.

"You are an American," the village chief, Zakariye, observed. It was not a question.

"Indeed, yes," Fulton agreed. "Is this a problem?"

"Not at all," said Zakariye. "Indeed, we hope someday to have closer relations with the United States, so says my eldest boy, Gutaale. That, however, is for the future . . . and is in God's hands."

"As are we all," Fulton agreed. While the chief's wives and daughters, modestly wrapped in accordance with their faith but not in the stifling burkas of more fundamentalist regions, served lunch, Wahab busied himself with taking pictures. Eventually, the girl being clitorectomized not so far away ceased her wailing and shrieking.

D-77, Rako-Dhuudo highway, Ophir

Wahab said exactly what Fulton was thinking, "We're so fucked!"

"Why fucked?" asked the guard manning the machine gun.

The reason for the exclamation was the column of dust-covered tanks-at this distance Fulton made them as being either Russian T-55s or the Chinese copy, the Type 59-passing across the road heading north to south. The tanks threw up a thick, linear cloud of dun-colored dust.

"He just worries whenever he sees soldiers he isn't one hundred percent sure are harmless," Fulton lied. "I thought you guys didn't have any tanks,"

"People you call ‘pirates' took them from ship," the guard explained. "Maybe . . . a month ago. Radio say we got . . . ummm . . . twenty-four. Me, I think the pirates didn't steal anything and there was a deal"-the guard winked- "under the table between our people and the Russians. But, hey, I'm just hired guard. What I know?"

"I do know," said another guard, "that there are black men training the crews. I never heard of no black Russians."

Fulton suppressed the chuckle that the line deserved, even if the speaker didn't know why it deserved it. Besides, having to face tanks, even T-55s, in armored cars is not a laughing matter. Shit.

CHAPTER THIRTY