Deployed (4 page)

Bekah had nothing to say. She knew the sheriff’s cruiser
had audio and video pickup equipment in the back. That was standard these days even in Callum’s Creek.

Deputy Alvin Trimble approached the car and touched his hat to Billy Roy. “Hey, Billy Roy.”

“Hey, Alvin.” Billy Roy grinned like a possum. “Got you a bad ’un tonight, huh?”

“Man, you sure knew how to pick ’em, didn’t you?”

“We all make mistakes.” Billy Roy nodded toward Bekah. “You’ll want to watch yourself. Them Marines have sure riled her up.”

“I get her back to the jail, she’ll gentle down pretty fast.”

Billy Roy nodded and touched his beer bottle to his hat brim. “I’ll leave you with it.” He turned and walked away.

Bekah took another breath and worked on the next one.

4

WHEN THE FOUR-WHEEL-DRIVE JEEP
rumbled down the narrow street, Rageh Daud ducked into the nearest alley and attempted to hide. The early-morning light filtering through Mogadishu betrayed him, though. Or perhaps the men in the jeep were wide awake and looking for opportunities, and the sudden movement merely landed him on their radar.

Whatever the reason, the jeep pulled into the alley after Daud, and he hardened his heart for what he knew he must do, for what he must accept.
Only for the moment.
That was a promise he silently made to himself. Hardening the heart these days didn’t take much. Sometimes he was surprised at the violence that he could unleash. Perhaps he was not so different from his father.

“Hold on there. We want to speak to you.” The voice was blunt and heavy, full of authority.

Daud kept facing the other end of the alley and walking.
He wore khaki pants that were a little too big for him and a lightweight cotton shirt that had once been white. He was slim and of medium height, his skin dark except where months-old scars crossed his arms, neck, and right cheek. His hair was short and curled tightly in toward his scalp. He no longer looked like the man he had been. His losses had marked him and changed him forever. He was a hollow man now, filled only with hate and a desire to make others hurt.

One of the men released the slide on an AK-47. The sound was immediately distinctive, and Daud knew it well. He stopped and held up his hands.

“Now you understand.” The men laughed in the bullying tone that made Daud so angry. Lately, there were many bullies in Somalia, many killers and defilers who did atrocious things in the name of God.

Daud hated those men and knew they were worthy of his attentions. Slowly, he turned to face the three killers. His gaze swept over their faces, and he knew them in a glance more deeply than they would expect. After all, he had grown up around such men. His father had commanded them, keeping them in line with his hard fists and a bullet when necessary.

The one holding the AK-47 lowered it. He was young and brash, a youth who had taken to the hard side of life because he feared being a victim. His scraggly beard barely shadowed his cheeks. He couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen. Still, even small children were dangerous when armed with assault weapons as they often were these days.

For a moment, though, Daud thought of his own son, how he had held him after he’d been born, and how he’d held
him the last time only a few months ago when he’d laid him in the same grave as his mother. Daud quelled the flicker of pity he felt for the boy holding the rifle and instead focused on the ice-cold intensity of the ever-present rage that wore him like a suit of clothes.

The driver was a slightly older version of the boy. Not a relative. He was just what the boy would become if he lived so long and learned no other direction in his life. Older, heavier, with eyes that were totally dead and uncaring. He picked at his yellowed teeth with a fingernail.

In the passenger seat, their leader sat and glared arrogantly, filled with self-importance. He was in his early thirties—the oldest of the men—and wore better clothes. A gold tooth gleamed at the front of his mouth. That tooth told Daud that the man wasn’t a native of Mogadishu, and probably not of Somalia either. The Somali people knew better than to choose something like that gold tooth because it would mark them for thieves who would take that very tooth out of their mouths to put food on the table.

Daud guessed the man was from the Middle East, come down to be a leader among the al-Shabaab faction. Many were arriving from the Middle East since they had more training than the local people.

“What do you wish?” Daud lowered his hands to his sides.

The leader nodded curtly, his lips curled cruelly. “We are al-Shabaab, and we are raising funds for our efforts to retake our city. We wish for you to donate.”

The al-Shabaab were Islamist militants warring with the Transitional Federal Government. When the TFG had taken
over the city, the al-Shabaab had retreated to the jungle, but they hadn’t entirely gone away. Mogadishu was too big and scattered for the TFG and the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) to effectively police. Plus, the TFG and AMISOM units got distracted watching over each other as well.

There was little trust left in Somalia. The al-Shabaab were believed to be funding the pirates that captured international ships and held them for ransom. Even if that were not true, the Islamist faction still raided the city and left decapitated citizens in their wake as a message.

Daud quietly regarded the men for a moment. They claimed to be al-Shabaab, and he had no reason to doubt them, but he knew they were truly there merely to rob him. He was a man alone in the city. “I have only a little money.”

“I do not believe you.” The leader cocked his head. “Your shoes say you have money.”

Daud resisted the impulse to look down. He had deliberately chosen worn clothing, but he’d been loath to jettison the hiking boots. Somalia was rough country. A person had to have a four-wheel-drive vehicle to get around. Traveling the land on foot was no easier.

Now it looked as though his boots might be the death of him.

Reluctantly, Daud reached into his pockets and pulled out a thick wad of paper Somali shillings. The paper currency was almost worthless in the present economy. Buying a loaf of bread took a fistful of banknotes.

The man in the passenger seat climbed out and stepped forward. Daud resisted the impulse to smash the man’s face
in when he came to a stop in front of him. Such an action would only get him killed. Perhaps the young man with the rifle might not respond quickly enough or accurately enough, but the driver would. Daud was certain the man already had a hand on a pistol beneath the jeep’s dashboard. At this distance, he would not miss.

The leader took the currency from Daud and quickly riffled through it. The bundle held a mixture of old notes and new, and even some of the Canadian notes that had been brought into the country when the Transitional National Government had been formed in 2000. The influx of additional monies had almost bankrupted Somalia. The people of Mogadishu had revolted and forced the TNG to buy back the foreign currency.

Smiling coldly, the leader shoved the bills into his shirt pocket. “This isn’t the money I was referring to. I want the real money.”

Daud didn’t try to hide his subterfuge. He had prepared for this as well. He reached into his other pocket and brought out the thin sheaf of American money he had hoarded for his trip to Mogadishu.

The leader stared at him suspiciously. He flipped his thumb idly over the money. “American bills. Where did you get these?”

“I sold personal belongings. A computer. Some jewelry.” His wife no longer had need of her wedding rings or the other things he’d bought her during their marriage. He’d still felt guilty about not putting those things into her grave with her, but he’d needed money if he and his son were to survive.
Then, after his son had died, Daud had needed the money to get supplies, information, and a pistol. He was going to survive, and he would recognize few friends and few allies.

“Liar.” The word cut the air like a bullet.

Daud stood quietly in front of the man. “I am telling you the truth.”

“The American CIA pays our people to spy on their brothers.”

“I am no spy.”

“I do not believe you.”

“I am sorry, but that is the best answer I can give you. Months ago, I was a businessman. The attacks within the city killed my wife and son.” Daud felt the wetness gathering in his eyes, and it surprised him. He’d felt certain he had no more tears left. But he told the truth so the man could sense no falsehood. “My business was destroyed. I sold what I had left.”

“And you did not leave the country?”

Daud shrugged. “Where would I go? This place has always been my home.”

The man waggled the American currency. “I do not believe this is all the money you have.”

Daud stood still and silent.

“Give me the rest of it.”

“There is—”

The man moved more quickly than Daud would have believed possible. With a practiced economy of motion, the man smashed his pistol butt into Daud’s forehead.

Stunned, head suddenly throbbing with pain, Daud
dropped to his knees. He almost reached for the man’s legs to yank them out from under him, but he stopped himself just in time. If he did that, the man or the boy with the assault rifle might shoot him. Still, he was tempted, and he could be fast when he wanted to be.

The man hit him with the pistol again, then whipped Daud down to the rough ground. At one time the alley had been covered by concrete, put there by the Communists who had been in control of the country in the 1970s, when Somalia had been the Somali Democratic Republic. But time and use had worn the concrete back down to bedrock. The rough surface dug into Daud’s face, but he could barely feel the heat or the abrasive texture against his nerve-deadened cheek. He tasted his blood, though.

Although he was not completely stunned, he pretended that he was. The leader was very thorough in his search of Daud’s clothing. The man found the thicker sheaf of American currency hidden in Daud’s belt. As a last insult, he took Daud’s boots and socks, leaving him barefoot in the alley. Then he kicked Daud in the head.

As the new explosion of blood filled his mouth and his senses faded, Daud mocked himself.
Welcome back home, Rageh.
His vision blanked, but he heard the leader walking back to the jeep.
Enjoy your newfound wealth, Gold Tooth. I will come for you.

When Daud regained consciousness, his face had swollen considerably and a small child was laboring to rob him. The
boy had his hand deep inside Daud’s pants pocket and was rummaging for change. Feeling the shift of Daud’s body, the boy looked at his victim and squeaked in alarm. He knotted his fingers into a fist, seized all the coins he could, and withdrew his hand; then he took off running.

Head spinning, thinking he was going to be sick, Daud glanced up and stared into the bright sky that temporarily blinded him. Sharp lances of agony fired through his brain. The slap of the boy’s bare feet against the alley ground echoed inside his skull. At the other end of the alley, glimpsed through spots that swam through his vision, the boy joined a few other children in a pack and they all ran as if for their lives.

Daud touched his nose and felt the caked blood on his upper lip. He’d been unconscious for a while. He took another breath, then forced himself to his feet. When he glanced at his wrist, he discovered the al-Shabaab men had taken his cheap watch as well. He’d bought it for an American dollar from a sailor at the harbor.

He started walking, and the sharp rocks along the alley bit into his feet. Thankfully, the thick pads that had formed on his feet as a young boy hadn’t completely gone away. The feet were not nearly so much of a problem as his head.

A half hour later, Daud arrived at Afrah’s house. The home was a small building covered in corrugated metal in the middle of a small sea of such structures. Half of those had been destroyed not so long ago, and their charred remains stood out like meteor craters among the other makeshift houses.

His son had never had to live so hard, and Daud took pride in that. But Ibrahim had died hard, suffering from infections that had taken three days to steal his life from him. Daud had been forced to open his wife’s grave to lay their son with her.

After that, Daud had given up. His heart had turned to stone, and he had walked away from everything he’d believed in. Now he was back in the old neighborhood where his father had raised him, a place that was just across the city but a world away. His wife had never seen this part of him. She had known only the college graduate and the businessman he had become, not the son of a brigand who had grown up hard and hungry until his loving father had set him on another path.

Daud stood to one side of the door and knocked, out of the way in case Afrah was drunk and paranoid. Afrah had taken to alcohol when he’d renounced the thin veneer of Muslim faith he’d learned from his mother. The metal covering the door felt hot beneath Daud’s hand.