Deployed (12 page)

Mendoza kept praying, shaking from the pain or the fear—Pike wasn’t sure which.

“This is the only warning you get.” Pike pressed the pistol muzzle harder against Mendoza’s head to get his point across. “You don’t know me, but I know you. When you get free of
the cops—if you get free of them—you get yourself gone. You don’t come around here again. You do and I’ll put you in the ground. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” Mendoza nodded and his eyelids fluttered.

“Give me your phone.” Pike collapsed the ASP and shoved it back into his hoodie.

Mendoza fumbled in his pants pocket and brought out a cell. Pike took it and headed back through the house. He didn’t know if the neighbors had called for the police.

Outside the house, with no one following him, Pike flipped the phone open and dialed 911. When the dispatch officer answered, he gave her the address and told her to send an ambulance with the cops. He spoke in Spanish. Then he hung up, vaulted the back fence, dropped the phone into the spillway, and disappeared into the darkness.

12

PEOPLE HUNKERED
in the shadows of the boswellia and commiphora trees and watched fearfully as the trucks rolled to a stop in the tall weeds that somehow managed to sprout from the parched earth. Seated in the passenger seat in the lead truck with an AK-47 in his lap, Rageh Daud watched the people and wondered how many men among them had weapons. It wouldn’t be much of an arsenal, a few old single-shot rifles that had been carefully cared for and perhaps a few pistols.

His men, fifteen strong now, rode on the trucks in prominent positions while brandishing the automatic rifles they carried. They would look fearsome and lethal to the displaced people.

Afrah drove the truck and sipped from a whiskey bottle. The al-Shabaab hadn’t just had food and medicine in their stolen cargo. There had been a case of whiskey. Some of the
men in Daud’s group were like Afrah, men who had turned from their Muslim ways to embrace only death.

A man was born and then he died. The time in between was measured in blood and weighed in suffering. Daud’s father had told him that, and he had refused to believe it as a young man. His father had even seemed to turn from it when he had set Daud up to go to school.

But Daud had learned that lesson now. This world was the hell the Christian Bible had spoken of, and there were many demons that lived within it. Daud intended to become stronger than any of them, and to do that he needed to raise an army. He couldn’t have too many, though, because a large group would slow him down and become more detectable. They had to stay lean and hungry.

They could make safe places for themselves, though, and that was what he intended to do here.

The gathering of shelters wasn’t a town. It was a pocket of survivors who had thrown in together in hopes of living. They’d made
aqals
, traditional homes constructed from long branches bent to create ceiling arches and covered in blankets. In earlier times, such structures had been covered in animal skins. This group might have had blankets, but they weren’t far removed from those long-ago days. Starvation shadowed them even in the brightest sunlight.

Naked, emaciated children hid behind trees with the women. The men formed a loose line in front of them, armed with the few firearms they had as well as spears and clubs.

“Foolish primitives.” Afrah shook his head and took another sip from his bottle. He didn’t drink enough to be
drunk. Daud made certain of that. “One man with a full magazine could take them all out.”

“Perhaps. But they’re not just foolish. They’re brave enough.”

“Do not confuse a lack of somewhere to run with bravery.” Afrah hawked up phlegm and spat out the truck window. “If they’d been brave, they would have attacked us along this pitiful excuse for a road before we got here.”

“They might have hoped we’d drive on by.”

Afrah waved at the arid plains that stretched out before them. “And go where? There is only thirst and starvation in any direction.”

“Yet they live here.”

“Only because they lack the sense to lie down and die.”

“They haven’t given up, Afrah. Even after all the hardship and turmoil they’ve been through. You should respect that.”

“I do.” Afrah glared through the dusty, bug-encrusted windshield at the people. “But they make my heart hurt because I know there is still much pain coming their way.”

Daud slapped the bigger man on the shoulder. “We came to alleviate some of that, so let’s get to it.” He opened the door and stepped out onto the truck’s running board. Even just moving from the truck cab to the outside meant an immediate rise in temperature. By the time he touched ground, most of his men had also stepped down with their weapons at the ready.

Afrah came around the truck and stood near the bumper. His fierce visage drew the attention of most of the people.

Daud waved his men to stay back, then walked forward
as he slung his rifle over his shoulder. He wore a white shirt, a blue bandanna over his head, sunglasses, and khaki pants. His boots thudded against the ground and raised small puffs of dust.

From within the sparse trees, goats and sheep bleated and a few of the children cried out fearfully. Chickens occupied small crates that served as coops. The people hadn’t been totally without resources.

Daud stopped ten feet from the line of men. He faced them from behind his sunglasses, his small army at his back. “I would talk with your elders.”

A middle-aged man held a single-shot rifle to his shoulder. His aim was on Daud. “Who are you?”

“I wish to speak with your elders.”

“You are in no position to make demands.”

Daud swiveled his attention to the man. “Put your rifle away. Otherwise I will kill you, then bury your woman and your children with you.”

The man stubbornly held on to his rifle, but his hands started shaking.

One of the old men in the group stepped forward and placed his hand atop the rifle, gently pushing the barrel toward the ground. “Put your rifle away, Ghauth. If they meant us any harm, they would have killed us from the trucks.”

“Then why did they come out here, Nishaaj? There is nothing for men such as these out here.”

The old man had a gray beard that trailed nearly to his stomach. He looked thin and frail, and his belly was
distended. Daud knew the old man wasn’t fat. Probably he was more starved than anything. He wore a traditional long white cloth wound around his body, a
benadiry kufia
on his head, and a pair of tennis shoes. He carried a gnarled shepherd’s crook, but that looked like it was more for support these days than for tending a flock.

“The only way we can know the answer to that is to ask them.” Nishaaj looked at Daud. “I am Nishaaj. I am the elder of the people.”

“I am Rageh Daud, and I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you, father.”

“Of course.” The old man shuffled forward, and his fear was evident in his small steps and the way he kept scanning the rest of Daud’s men. Still, despite his fear, he walked to Daud and stopped. “Is there anything I may get you?”

“No, but there is much I can give you.”

Nishaaj looked at him curiously. “Who are you with?”

Daud looked past the man to the people in the sparse trees. “I am not with the al-Shabaab, if that is what you fear. My warriors and I kill those animals wherever we find them.” He pointed back at the trucks. “That’s where these vehicles come from. From the al-Shabaab. Only a few days ago, my warriors and I killed a band of them and took the trucks. They are loaded with goods the al-Shabaab took from the Westerners who say they are here to help us but seek only to shore up the Transitional Federal Government to serve as their puppet. I came here today to share with you our good fortune.”

The words hung in the hot air. Slowly, Ghauth and the
rest of the men relaxed and lowered their weapons, but the hate did not die from their eyes. Daud did not fault them for that. His presence there struck their pride, and that could be as deadly as fear, just slower to react.

“I have food and medicine on those trucks.” Daud spoke loudly, letting his voice ring out. “I have clothing and other supplies that will make your lives easier.”

“And what do you want in return for these treasures?” Ghauth spoke bravely and in disgust. His pride was obviously stung at being upstaged. “We have nothing you could want. You can look around this place and see that.”

Afrah’s voice was a low rumble that only reached Daud’s ears. “That one, he will be trouble.”

“I do not want to hurt any of these people, Afrah.”

Afrah growled in displeasure and spat again.

Daud addressed Ghauth. “I want nothing from you. I only want to share our good fortune.”

“Your misery, you mean.” Ghauth turned to the men around him. “Do not let his smooth tongue fool you. Whoever he took those trucks from, they will come looking for them. They will punish anyone who has anything of theirs.”

“The men I took these trucks from will not come looking.” Daud lifted his voice and made it strong. “Those men I left stretched out for buzzards to pick clean their bones.” He shifted his gaze from Ghauth back to the elder. “Is that what you wish for your children, father? Do you wish them an unkind death and only carrion birds as their pallbearers?”

Nishaaj hesitated only a moment; then he firmed his jaw
and stood more erect as he spoke in a low voice. “I know what you want here, Rageh Daud.”

Daud nodded and spoke gently enough that only the old man could hear him. “I knew that you would, father, but there is nothing to be done for it. I have already won and will have what I want. The question is, do you want what I have to offer before I take my leave?”

“God will punish you for what you do.”

Daud grinned coldly. “If there is a God, he has already punished me more than I can bear, and I did nothing wrong. So if he is there, and if this is his doing, then he will have to strike me down himself before I will stop.”

“Do not taunt God. That is an evil thing to do.”

“That will be the least evil thing I will do, old man. Now do you want these medicines and supplies?”

“Yes.” Nishaaj turned and waved to his men. “Come. Help me welcome our new friends.”

Daud walked back to the first truck and hauled himself up into the cargo area. He threw wide the tarp and revealed the cargo that he’d carried to the outskirts of Mogadishu. Within minutes he stared down at a pack of half-starved men and women who began celebrating and thanking God for all the things they saw before them.

That night the people threw a big party. There was a lot of food to eat. They opened cans and poured the contents into large cook pots. In only a short time the smell of broth, meat, and herbs filled the air.

Daud sat on a crate with his back to the large tree behind him. He kept his AK-47 close by but did not in any way act fearful. From across one of the cook fires, Ghauth kept watch over him, but the man was also aware that he was under Afrah’s scrutiny. There was no doubt that he would be dead before he could more than think about acting against Daud.

One of the young women approached Daud with a bowl of meat and vegetables. If she hadn’t been so malnourished, she might have been pretty. There was something in her eyes that reminded Daud of his dead wife, some simple innocence, and that recognition sent a sharp pain through his chest.

“For you.” The woman bowed as she handed him the bowl.

“Thank you.” Daud took the bowl and returned the bow from his seated position. “You should eat, sister.”

“I will.” She looked at him. “Thank you for all you have brought.”

“It was my pleasure.”

“It was God’s will. I will ask that you be blessed for your kindness.”

Daud nodded and smiled, but he didn’t think the God this woman believed in would have wanted men left torn and twisted the way Daud had left them in his wake.

The woman hurried back to her mother and younger siblings.

Daud spooned up the broth, blew on it, and ate. The women had enhanced the canned goods with herbs, and the food tasted fresh and good—better than it had any right to. The fact that he was eating it here, away from the city and among simple people, might have had something to do with that.

Mogadishu had held danger not only from the al-Shabaab but from the outsiders. His job also had been filled with unaccustomed pressures. Even the TFG, with their attempts to bring a different and freer government to Somalia, had been dangerous. The TFG soldiers didn’t always wait to verify someone’s identity before opening fire. The pirates who had gone into business over the last few years had added another element of danger. All three factions fought for Somalia, and the Western military forces only added to the deadly mix.

The people gathered around the cook fires and talked excitedly. Some of the women worked with three of Daud’s men who had some medical training. Together, his men and the women cleaned and cared for the children. Many of the children were covered with sores caused by near-starvation and infections. His men worked tirelessly, medicating the children and educating the women on dressings, medicines, and giving injections.

The children played in the shadows, running among the trees and darting in and out of the firelight. Watching them play hurt most of all. Daud had too many memories of his son.

And here you sit, Rageh, unashamed of your intention to take some of these people’s children with you.

The truth, though, was that he did feel shame. However, there was no other way. In order to survive, he had to build an army, and that army demanded a fresh influx of bodies.

One of the young men came to Daud first. The man was nineteen or twenty—almost too close to a boy to stand as a man, but wilderness and hardship had aged the young man drastically. By the time Daud had been the young man’s age,
he had already killed several times. He wasn’t proud of that, but it was a fact he knew he had to remember.

“Sir.” The young man bowed slightly. He proudly held the spear that served as his weapon.

“Call me Daud.”