Mission Liberty (4 page)

To the west, DeLuca saw palm tree after palm tree splinter and fall, mowed down like blades of grass by the incoming rounds
as the
Minneapolis
opened up with all its guns, six-inch and eight-inch shells raining down with incredible precision. A pair of F14 Tomcats
crisscrossed in the sky above them, strafing the beach in either direction as the Apache they’d seen before returned to send
a fire-and-forget wave-seeking Hellfire at the automatic weapon on the apartment building roof, taking it out with the first
shot.

Down the beach, a pair of SEALs rose from the surf, gesturing for DeLuca and his party to join them.

“It’s too dangerous to land a craft but once you’re in the water, your target profile is minimal,” Riley explained. “Mr. Ambassador,
are you a strong swimmer?”

The ambassador shook his head.

Riley handed him a float vest from his pack and told him to put it on, while the others jettisoned their gear, dropping it
in the surf that crashed all around them. DeLuca was happy to lose the tie.

“SEAL four, five, six, and seven, need your help,” Riley barked into his radio, and in an instant, four other SEALs in scuba
gear rose from the water where they’d hidden, submerged.

“Sorry we’re late,” DeLuca said as the Apache circled back to strafe the beach in the direction of the presidential palace.
“Traffic was bad.”

“That’s all right,” Riley said. “Any chance I get to work on my tan is always appreciated. We’re not used to doing this in
daylight.” The second and third SEALs held remote detonators, one looking west, the other east. Riley regarded the screen
on his handheld, which showed infrared satellite images of the approaching rebels.

“We should go,” he said, extending his arm and pointing into the sea.

The water was warm, rising in broad swells beyond the breakers. Each member of the team had a Navy swimmer as a partner, Lieutenant
Riley taking the ambassador by the back of his vest and pulling him forward. DeLuca turned briefly when he heard an explosion
on the beach where a rebel soldier had tried to cross the hinter line, which the SEALs had also mined. Three rebels streaked
in through the beach, firing on them with AK-47s.

“Don’t worry about it,” his SEAL swim partner said. “Hitting a person this far out is like shooting at a coconut.”

Then the
Minneapolis
put a round on the beach, directly in front of the shooting rebels, and when the smoke cleared, DeLuca saw only body parts.

One hundred fifty yards from shore, the SEALs directed them to form a line and hold their right arms in the air. A PBR fastboat
appeared, its .60-caliber deck gun blazing toward shore. A SEAL in a Zodiac tethered to the starboard side dropped rings attached
to lines over their arms, at which point they closed their arms over the rings, and then the PBR yanked them out of the water
one by one, never slowing to less than five knots. Two SEALs with arms the size of buffalo haunches hauled them into the Zodiac
and helped them roll into the fastboat. When the last man was out of the water, the PBR throttled up, hydroplaning at fifty
knots as it sped toward the waiting LST, bouncing across the waves.

DeLuca gazed astern. He saw plumes of black smoke rising above the city, several buildings on fire in the neighborhood beyond
where the Castle of St. James sat atop its mount. A single CH-47 Chinook flew toward the carrier.

Over the radio, DeLuca learned that the Marines holding the castle had lost a “jolly” on liftoff to a rocket-propelled grenade,
taking three casualties in the process before the flight crew and passengers could be transferred to the remaining helicopter.
He passed the news on to the ambassador, who’d said very little since leaving the castle.

“Believe it or not,” DeLuca said, “it looks like we took the easy way out.”

“Agent DeLuca, I’m recommending you for the Congressional Medal of Honor,” the ambassador said. “I believe your conduct today
has been absolutely outstanding.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” DeLuca said. Evidently the ambassador had no idea what the Medal of Honor was for. “I’m not being
humble. The more attention I get, the harder it is for me to do my job.”

“Then I’ll buy you a beer,” the ambassador said.

“Thanks, but I don’t drink,” DeLuca said. The fact was, DeLuca drank as much as the next guy, but if the next guy was going
to be Ambassador Ellis, he’d pass. They were paying him to rescue the guy, but they couldn’t pay him enough to like him.

DELUCA AND HIS TEAM CHANGED INTO DRY clothes aboard the LST, the USS
Cowper,
then choppered to the USS
Lyndon Johnson,
to debrief and await transport to a British base in Ghana, where they would, if everything went according to plan, catch
a flight home.

DeLuca knew, when he saw his friend, General Phillip LeDoux, waiting for him in the briefing room aboard the
Johnson,
that the plan was about to change. They were joined by a dozen others, including the captains of the
Johnson,
the
Cowper,
and its sister ship the
Glover,
two admirals, a Marine four-star, an Army two-star, Ambassador Ellis, and a handful of civilians DeLuca knew he’d be introduced
to soon enough. He saluted his friend. At the time that they’d both been accepted to OCS, DeLuca’s ratings were higher than
LeDoux’s, but DeLuca had chosen to go in another direction. LeDoux’s career vector had been the proverbial skyrocket, distinguishing
himself in Panama, Gulf One, Kosovo, and Iraqi Freedom. Sometimes DeLuca wondered if somebody was trying to slow LeDoux down,
putting him in charge of counterintelligence. “Why do they have you watching over guys like me?” he’d asked his friend, who’d
replied, “Because it’s the toughest job in the Army and I’m the only bastard up to the task.” In mixed company, DeLuca saluted,
but between the two of them, they were as equal as a three-star general and a chief warrant officer could be.

Night had fallen. Given that DeLuca had been up for nearly twenty-four hours, planning the day’s mission, which they’d launched
before getting official approval, he accepted LeDoux’s offer of coffee with gratitude.

“Navy coffee any better than Army coffee?” he asked.

“Light-years,” LeDoux said. “This is Starbucks. The
LBJ
is subcontracting with ’em on a trial basis. Army still has KBR.”

“I didn’t expect so many important people to show up, just to hear me describe my day,” DeLuca said.

“They didn’t,” LeDoux said, stating the obvious. “This isn’t about you.”

“You sound like my wife.”

“I’m afraid you’re not going home just yet.”

“I was afraid of that, too,” DeLuca said.

At the last minute, a half dozen civilians entered the room. DeLuca recognized two, one a senator from California, the other
a representative from Florida. The others were either congressmen he didn’t recognize or their aides—it was, no doubt, a fact-finding
commission of some sort. DeLuca wondered what part he was going to play in the dog and pony show.

“Gentlemen,” the
LBJ
’s captain said, a man named McKinley who DeLuca had been told was a distant relation to the former President McKinley. “If
we could all be seated, we’ll get started. As your host, please let me know if there’s anything I can get you. There are drinks
and light snacks in the captain’s mess afterward for anybody who’s still hungry, and I apologize for the late hour, but we
wanted to wait until Ambassador Ellis could attend. Mr. Ambassador, welcome aboard.”

“Captain,” the ambassador said.

The table was large, oval, made of teak, with a glass of water, a black three-ring binder containing a report, and a notepad
and pen at each position. The carrier’s captain stood in front of a seventy-two-inch plasma screen, mounted on the wall behind
him, and on it, a map of Liger, divided into three sections. He also had a laptop on the table in front of him.

“We’ve got some special visitors who I’d like to introduce first, and then I’ll let General Kissick introduce the others.
We have with us tonight, just flown in from Washington, Senators Todd and Morelli, Representatives Lacey, Stephens, and Hokum,
and their aides.”

Each member of the delegation nodded when Captain McKinley said his or her name. DeLuca shot LeDoux a look, but LeDoux didn’t
respond.

“They’re here to find out the latest intel regarding Operation Liberty and to get a sense of our preparedness,” McKinley said.
“We welcome you, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard. Please let me know personally if there’s anything I can do to make
you comfortable. Now I’ll turn the floor over to General Kissick. He’ll get you up to speed.”

The Marine general, wearing his DCUs, was a slender man with close-cropped hair and a voice that sounded more like a high
school math teacher than a more typical boo-ya Semper Fi jarhead—he sounded more like an accountant than what DeLuca expected
a Marine general to sound like.

“I know some of you have already been fully briefed but some haven’t,” Kissick said, “so those who have been, bear with me,
and the rest of you are going to have to drink from the fire hose on this. Most of the names and facts I’m going to give you
are in the report in front of you. Those of you freshly arrived from Washington have no doubt been reading the newspapers
as well as the official briefings. My name is General John Kissick, United States Marines. Why don’t we go around the table
and introduce ourselves.”

“Admiral Donovan Webster, Sixth Carrier Group, Task Force 32,” the man to Kissick’s immediate right said. He was about fifty,
with fair hair and a default facial expression that stopped just short of a smirk. “We’re here to provide close air and missile
support.”

“Rear Admiral Stanley Pulaski, Task Group 32.5,” the next man said. He was smaller in stature than Webster and a few years
older, balding, with round wire-rimmed glasses and bushy eyebrows that made him look a bit like a troll. “We’re here to put
the Marines on the beach, or wherever they need to go. I believe we have a number of Army Rangers who are going to need taxis,
too.”

“Captain Henry Long, with the
Cowper,
” the next man said. He looked as if he was barely out of his twenties, clean-shaven to the point that DeLuca wondered if
he could grow a beard if he tried.

“Captain Alan Gates, with the
Glover,
” said the man next to him, early forties, handsome, good posture, hair beginning to gray above the ears.

“Wes Chandler, CIA station chief for Liger,” the next man said. Chandler was corpulent and pasty, like a hairless rat on an
unlimited cheese budget. DeLuca’s first thought was that for a station chief in Africa, Chandler didn’t appear to get out
and about much. “I’ll be the general travel advisor.”

“General Phil LeDoux,” DeLuca’s friend said. “Commander G-2, DOD Ops Intel.”

It was DeLuca’s turn.

“Special Agent David DeLuca, U.S. Army counterintelligence,” he said, “and as far as I can tell, I’m just here in case you
need to send somebody out for pizza.”

“A bit more than that,” Kissick said, after the laughter died down, “but all in good time.”

The man next to DeLuca introduced himself as Hanson Sedu-Sashah, assistant to United Nations general secretary Kofi Annan
and the UN’s liaison with General Rene LeClerc, commander of the UN peacekeeping forces in Liger. “I am Ghanaian,” he said,
“but I know a bit about Liger, if you have questions.”

The man next to him introduced himself as Hans Berger, with WAOC, the acronym for the West African Oil Consortium. “My group
includes Dutch Shell, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, and Agip. I am here only to listen, but I can also answer any questions
you might have about the oil industry in Liger.”

“Lionel Ayles-Kensey,” the next man said, his Britishness given away by both his accent and his bad teeth. “British foreign
service. My family had a farm outside Baku Da’al until the locals had enough of the Brits and threw us out in ’62. I could
give you a bit of historical background, I suppose, but I’d better not speak for the prime minister—I believe General Denby
was going to be here for that…”

“General Denby was unable to attend,” Kissick said.

An African man of about forty, in combat fatigues with three stars on his collar and with a face showing the markings of ritual
scarification, introduced himself as General Adala Bukari, representing the African Union, another peacekeeping force, as
DeLuca understood it, unable to keep the peace anywhere it went but probably still a good idea, an alliance of military personnel
from across Africa tasked to observe elections and cease-fires but not interfere.

“I have been working, for some time,” he said, his voice barely rising above a whisper, “with Ambassador Ellis and with President
Bo, to oversee the camps. And food shipments. General Ismael Osman is our contact in Liger.”

The last man at the table was a full bird colonel named Suarez, representing the 27th Infantry Division out of Ft. Drum, New
York, where ten thousand reservists were getting ready for deployment. The division commander, General Gaines, had stayed
behind to oversee the preparations.

“Liger,” General Kissick began, a map of the country appearing on the plasma screen. “Mr. Kensey has written a more complete
history for you in your printouts, but let me thumbnail it for you so we’re all on the same page. You can bridge the oversimplifications
yourselves. British colony since 1674. Dutch before that, Portuguese before the Dutch. Three main tribal regions, with the
Fasori in the south, along the coast…” He pointed to a line on the map. “The Da in the middle and the Kum people in the
sub-Saharan north. The Sahel. The European traders built a string of fortresses and castles along the coast but never ventured
more than a few miles inland, which was considered ‘The White Man’s Graveyard.’ The whites traded with the Fasori. Most of
the slaves who passed through the castles were Da, captured either by Fasori slave traders or by Kum warriors bringing their
slave caravans south to market. Because of their contact with Europeans, most of the Fasori today are Christian, maybe half
Catholic and half Protestant-Pentecostal. It used to be 85 percent Catholic, but the Pentecostals have been making inroads
and doing heavy missionary work throughout the country. The Kum have traditionally been Muslim, moderately so until 1990 or
thereabouts, when radical extremists began preaching a more Wahhabist point of view, U.S. as Great Satan supporting the evil
Zionists and that whole tune. If you were to ask an average Da what his religious affiliation was, he’d probably tell you
that he was an animist, a Christian, and a Muslim. They don’t seem to understand that you have to pick one, nor do the Christians
or the Muslims understand that, actually, you don’t.”