Joint Task Force #1: Liberia (9 page)

He turned to the older man—retired Sergeant Major Craig Gentle, a thin reed of a man with long arms out of proportion with his body. The craggy face had been a near-permanent fixture with Thomaston through much of his Army career. He had been happy when his Command Sergeant Major from the 82nd Airborne had elected to follow him to Liberia. Gentle was just another military careerist who finished his thirty years with no wife and no family. Gentle had two kids from his short marriage, but they had been raised half a continent away and he was just a stranger they called Dad.

Sergeant Major Craig Gentle saluted. Like General Thomaston, Gentle had dragged out jungle fatigues from the storage trunk when the news from Monrovia had reached the town. Others had followed suit, and speckled throughout the anxious crowd like a patchwork quilt, former members of the Army and Marines wore their old battle fatigues.

Thomaston wondered briefly what the average age was for these veterans. He was fifty-eight. Gentle had to be about the same age. These militiamen standing in front of him were in
their early twenties. It had been a smart thing after arriving here with those ninety-six families to organize a militia to function as both a police and security force.

“General,” Gentle interjected. “With your permission, I will muster the militia.”

“Good idea, Sergeant Major, plus put out two more forward posts on the road at ten kilometers, with backup force at six kilometers—out of sight. In the event of contact, I want those forward posts to fall back to the six-kilometer mark. When you finish the quick muster, I want a ready-response unit in the armory ready to respond to wherever they may be needed.” Thomaston paused. He lifted his Army beret, ran the back of his right arm across his forehead and up over the high brow created by a receding hairline. Gray hair accented the small gray mustache Thomaston had allowed himself since retiring from Army Special Forces. Not many three-star Rangers were on active duty, and after he retired there were no African-American three- or four-star Rangers in the Army. Only two two-stars that he recalled, and he regretted failing to keep up with their success.

Vigilante—there was a word that conjured up all kinds of ghosts among his fellow African-Americans who made up this community. In Africa, however, a vigilante was a government-approved law enforcer authorized to use deadly force to protect properties and lives. Even
he
carried a Liberian vigilante card in his wallet. A few had had problems with becoming vigilantes, but eventually he’d overcome their objections, and had personally helped each militiaman fill out the one-page paper required to register as a state-sanctioned vigilante.

A young woman ran toward the group of men. The M-16, strapped across her back, bounced as she moved. The slight cotton dress normally on the attractive twenty-year-old Tawela Johnson had been replaced by blue jeans and a long-sleeve blue cotton shirt that clung suggestively to small, firm breasts. It would be better for all concerned if the young lady would wear a bra.

“General!” she shouted as she approached, drawing the attention of the crowd.

Cries from behind startled him. A couple of women stood beside the pickup truck. It was Dan Arts’s wife and mother.
Must have came from the other side. Others helped them away, hushing their pleas to take Dan’s body. In this equatorial heat, the bodies had to be buried quickly. Reverend Hew could do it.

Tawela stopped in front of Thomaston and Gentle, her breathing deep. “Just a moment,” she gasped. “Let me get my breath.”

Thomaston turned to the men. “Go ahead and take care of burying them.”

“General, Mr. Beaucoup has gotten some news from Monrovia,” Tawela said quickly, still breathing heavy. “Sorry, General. I ran all the way over here from the radio shack. I was as surprised as—”

“What did you hear, Tawela?” Thomaston interrupted.

“Yes, sir. Nathan Hammonds is on the road headed this way with five vehicles full of Americans. He is taking the back roads, he said, and expects to be here late tomorrow if everything goes well and they avoid the rebels.”

“How did he get through to us?” Thomaston asked. “We haven’t been able to establish contact with anyone since last night. Beaucoup said those sunspots are playing havoc with communications.” Nathan Hammonds was a friend. The man was a retired Army infantry officer, though for the moment, Thomaston couldn’t recall which unit. His thick eyebrows bunched as he bit his lower lip in thought.

“Hammonds has a radio in his car, General. It wasn’t loud and it was hard to hear, but Mr. Beaucoup Charlie talked with him for a few minutes before he faded away. Yes, sir, he sure did.”

Thomaston nodded. “Okay, Tawela, you run back up there to Radio and you tell Mr. Beaucoup Charlie that I said to keep in contact with Hammonds. If you get Hammonds on the radio again, get a location so we can keep track of him.”

She threw up her hand in an awkward salute, nearly sticking her thumb in her eye. Thomaston caught the raised eyebrows of retired Sergeant Major Gentle. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, he would have laughed. Instead, he winked at Gentle as they watched the athletically challenged Tawela run off.

Though Gentle had been retired for five years, Thomaston
knew he still found civilians exasperating. “How in the hell do they manage to live to ripe old ages and still be so disorganized and dysfunctional?” Gentle always said. “How can anything survive with everyone trying to be in charge?”

He and Thomaston spent a lot of time over beer and pretzels discussing the genetic makeup of civilians and pondering the great mysteries of their survival. Conversations that became more jovial as they sat on the veranda of the community center, watching the sunset while opening their third—or maybe fourth—cold beer. He had to admit beer tastes better after a day in the steaming-hot humidity of the African countryside. Almost as good as those first beers after a ten-mile summer run around Fort Bragg.

“Command Sergeant Major,” Thomaston said firmly. “I thought you were going to muster the troops?”

“Yes, sir. Should . . .”

Everyone looked to the sky. The faint sound of an aircraft broke through the noise of the crowd. “Jet,” Thomaston said softly.

Heads turned right and left as people moved apart, searching for the source of the approaching aircraft.

Then, suddenly, there it was. The aircraft popped up over the top of the community center. In that split second, Thomaston recognized it as one of the four Liberian Air Force Cessna A-37 Dragonfly attack aircraft.

“RUN!” shouted Thomaston, waving his arms frantically. It could be friendly, but this was the first time the Liberian Air Force had ever flown over Kingsville—

The earsplitting sound of the six-barrel machine gun peppered the jet noise. Thomaston ran toward the concrete wall of the community’s warehouse. He looked east and saw Gentle disappear into the armory. Harold Pearson stood at the front bumper of the pickup. The cannon burst went harmlessly over the top of the pickup truck. Rivulets of dirt ricocheted into the air marking where the shells hit. The sound of the aircraft engine increased as the unidentified pilot applied power, sending the aircraft into a turning climb.

Thomaston drew his pistol. Not much use against an aircraft, but you fought with what you had when the fight came to you. He glanced again toward the pickup truck. Harold
Pearson stood there, turning his body slowly, tracking the attacking aircraft as the Cessna made its turn.

Sergeant Major Gentle burst back through the gates of the armory. He carried one of the four Stinger antiair weapons, Thomaston had talked the Central Intelligence Agency Chief of Station at the embassy in Monrovia into storing them at Kingsville. The man thought they were locked in the armory.

Thomaston holstered his pistol and ran toward Gentle.

The sergeant major knelt in front of the armory, braced the canister between his legs, and whipped the cover off the front of the weapon.

“I’ve got it!” Thomaston shouted, falling to his knees behind Gentle. He opened the back, pulled the activation switch, and then slapped his former Command Sergeant Major on the back.

Gentle squinted his left eye as he aimed the weapon. The aircraft’s 7.62MM machine gun opened up again as the small fighter jet finished its circuit. Dirt erupted from the ground in a single line as the pilot corrected his aim toward the pickup truck and Harold Pearson. The tall man raised his right hand and extended his middle finger. About a hundred feet behind the defiant Pearson knelt Thomaston and Gentle.

The blast from the Stinger shot out the back of the tube. The heat singed slightly the left side of Thomaston’s face as the missile left the tube. The missile curled upward toward the approaching aircraft. It was going to be a hard shot. The Stinger was an old handheld antiair missile, designed for infrared detection. The jet engines pointed away. He held his breath as the white contrail of the missile looped and swirled, seeking a target. If the heat signature of the jet engines was masked sufficiently, the missile would be past the aircraft before it could lock on.

The Dragonfly stopped firing, flipped to the left, bringing the aircraft almost vertical to the ground. The missile passed along the bottom of the jet fighter. The A-37 shook from the near miss. The aircraft continued its turn. The wings whipped down suddenly, bringing the aircraft level. The sound of engine power increasing reached their ears. The light-attack and reconnaissance aircraft disappeared behind the community center and out over the rain forest. The pilot was leaving. An
explosion from behind the community center announced the impact of the Stinger missile.

“Good work, Sergeant Major,” Thomaston said, patting Gentle twice on the shoulder.

“Shit, it was,” Gentle said angrily. “If it had been a good shot, it would have splashed that son of a bitch across kingdom come.”

People emerged from where they had taken cover.

“The good news is no one got hurt,” Thomaston said. “They have you to thank for that.”

Sergeant Major Gentle stood. He tossed the useless antiaircraft-missile canister to the ground. “The bad news is, it can come back anytime it wants.”

“That’s true. But now that they know we’re armed, they won’t be as willing to come,” Thomaston said. He also knew if he were on the other side, he would increase the number of aircraft, change the tactics slightly, and mount a combined infantry and air assault.

The option of heading toward the Ivory Coast was available. But when was the question. The Ivory Coast was a smaller African country east of Liberia. The French Foreign Legion provided the security for the Ivory Coast. If the people in Kingsville reached the border, they would be safe.

JAMAL REACHED UP AND WITH THE BACK OF HIS HAND
wiped the dust from his eyes. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of the jungle casting rapidly changing shadows of deep brush and trees into shades of greens, black, and brown. Along with the coming dawn came a better view of what Jamal and the others called “the road.” The leafy limbs of a bush splashed through the open window as the SUV passed it. Morning dew splattered the three in the backseat. The few feet of separation between the lead SUV, where Uncle Nathan rode, and Jamal’s revealed two deep ruts leading farther into the jungle ahead of them. Jamal looked at the driver, who yawned and cupped his fist against his mouth. In the center of the front seat was a young man who Jamal didn’t know. The man was sleeping, his head tilted back against the seat, lightly bouncing with the bumps, dead to the world in his exhaustion. Riding shotgun
was a man Jamal had met during one of the American picnics—he couldn’t remember his name, but it didn’t manner. His mom and dad always told him to call grown-ups Mister and Missus. The older man blinked his eyes several times, reached forward, opened a bottle of water, and splashed some of it on his hand to wash around his eyes.

Behind Jamal, in the compartment area, were rows of plastic containers full of gasoline and water.

The engine sounds of the four SUVs and one pickup mixed with the loud cacophony of waking Africa. They weren’t going fast. He leaned forward and saw the speedometer wasn’t even registering a speed. The car hit a hole, throwing everyone up off their seats. If he hadn’t been belted, his head would have hit the ceiling. As it was, the edge of the rifle barrel clipped his chin, bringing water to his eyes from the brief burst of pain. He touched it, discovered no blood, and moved his jaw back and forth. It was sore. Mom told him he bruised easily.

The wheels tore up the slight vegetation, sending gray dust whirling around the vehicles to settle on the ones following. Jamal rolled the window up another half inch, shut his eyes again, and waited for sleep to come again. At least with his eyes shut, nobody bothered him with cute questions grown-ups enjoy asking kids his age. He didn’t feel like a kid his age anymore. And, he sure didn’t want to feel forced into a series of
Yes’ems
and
No’ems
with a bunch of grown-ups. He concentrated on slowing his breathing as his cousin taught him. She told Jamal that you could go to sleep if you lay on your back, relax your muscles until they feel like jelly, and slow your breathing. He never figured out if it worked because he always fell asleep. With his eyes shut, and morning wakefulness fighting off further sleep, thoughts and travails of last night whirled around his twelve-year-old mind. After several minutes, Jamal decided having his eyes open was more comforting.

He turned in the seat to look behind them. Selma should be in that Land Rover. The dust was thick across its windshield. Jamal could only make out the outline of the driver’s face. It wasn’t only dust that made it hard to see. The jerking of the vehicle made his head bounce, and the light haze of the African rain forest morning wavered a few feet above the
ground, almost at eye level. Probably wouldn’t have been able to see the driver if the man hadn’t been leaning with his face nearly against the windshield. Jamal faced forward again, resting his hands on his knees.

The driver had the window down with an elbow propped through the window. He had turned off the air conditioner hours ago to save gasoline. They had two choices: roll down the windows and suffocate on the dust, or leave them up and suffocate from the heat. Jamal was hot and dirty. He held his hands up, amazed at the dirt caked on them. He’d never thought he would wish for a bath.