The Hunters (7 page)

C
arolyn Stewart arrived in Djibouti on an Air France flight from New York via Paris. She came down the air stairs by herself. That gave Parson a good first impression; he'd expected an entourage.

The actress wore Dior sunglasses and an Orvis shirt with the sleeves secured by roll-up tabs. In contrast with the four-hundred-dollar eyewear, she'd tied her red hair back with a rubber band. Stewart carried a khaki-colored backpack by one strap over her shoulder. Gold and Parson greeted her in the terminal. Parson carried no illicit weapon today. They'd had to go through airport security to meet their guest at the gate.

“Ms. Stewart,” Gold called out.

Stewart turned, and Parson thought he saw a hint of annoyance. An instinct brought on by years of harassment by paparazzi, he guessed. The actress's expression softened when she saw no photographers.

“Are you Ms. Gold?” Stewart asked.

“Yes, ma'am, and this is my partner, Colonel Parson.”

Stewart shifted the bag on her shoulder, extended her arm. Gold shook her hand.

“Please, call me Carolyn,” Stewart said. She turned to shake hands with Parson. “Nice to meet you, Colonel.”

Parson noticed her cold-cream complexion and hint of perfume. “On this mission, it's just Michael,” he said.

At the baggage carousel, Stewart picked up one piece of luggage—a rolling duffel bag with shoulder straps. Parson took it from her and carried it to the Land Rover. The actress sat in the front passenger seat while Gold drove, with Parson in the back.

“How was the flight?” Gold asked.

“Not too bad,” Stewart said. “I bought two first-class tickets so nobody in the next seat would wake me up, and I popped an Ambien when we took off. Slept most of the way.”

“Well,” Parson said, “that's one way to fight jet lag.”

Stewart dug a Nikon camera from her backpack and snapped photos.

“I never can get used to sights like that,” the actress said as she took a shot of roadside hovels.

“It gets a lot worse where you're going,” Parson said. He thought to himself: You're gonna think that Ambien sleep has put you in a very bad dream.

“Oh, I know. I think the worst place I've seen is Darfur. Went there a few years ago with George Clooney.”

“Oh, yeah?” Parson said. “What's he like?”

“Perfect gentleman. Very committed.”

Parson nodded. He really didn't care what George Clooney was like; Parson was just making conversation. Sometimes these A-listers and their causes seemed like just a lot of grandstanding. But, he conceded, if they used their star power to bring this stuff to people's attention, that was better than throwing tantrums in nightclubs and wrecking Alfa Romeos.

“We understand you'd like to get into Somalia as soon as possible,” Gold said.

“I would,” Stewart said. “In fact, I hope to set up a meeting with the president.”

Oh, hell, Parson thought. Since the missile attack yesterday, his sense of unease had grown. He felt vaguely that Stewart's visit, however well intentioned, pulled things out of alignment. Stirred up forces best left alone. The Somalis at Baidoa certainly seemed to think so.

Nah, Parson told himself. You're getting superstitious, like the old-time sailors who got caught in storms and blamed it on the stranger who'd booked passage. He chided himself for getting spooked. Just because the bad guys put a shot across your bow—literally—didn't mean you had to lose your nerve. He had seen worse.

“Glad to have you with us,” Parson lied. “But the World Relief Airlift operations center in London runs the show. Everything depends on where the cargo needs to fly.”

He really meant:
All right, lady, you're cute and all, and it's kinda cool hanging out with a movie star. But I'm not your taxi driver, and I won't waste WRA money flying you around in an empty airplane.
Diplomacy, never Parson's strong suit, came with effort.

“Oh, I realize that,” Stewart said. “Moving that food is a lot more important than anything I'm doing. In fact, I'd like to shoot some video of you while I'm here. I'm making a documentary.”

“Yeah, we heard,” Parson said. “I was surprised you didn't have a film crew with you.”

“Well, it usually makes my life easier to have a real cinematographer do the shooting, and a sound man, too. But when you deal with people who aren't used to media, like the Somalis, the smaller your footprint, the better. You make a more authentic picture that way.”

“Sounds like you've put some thought into it,” Parson said. “Sophia told me you took a break from acting to learn about making documentaries.”

“I did,” Stewart said. “Master's program at Stanford. After I finished my undergrad degree, I planned to go into TV news. Then the acting career took off. After a while I realized I had the freedom to go do other things, too. I really appreciate you letting me fly with you. I understand you have a vintage airplane, and that will add some great visuals.”

Parson wasn't sure he liked that idea. A famous actress taking pictures of his airplane? Let's just paint a big arrow on the DC-3 that reads
AIM HERE
, he thought. Maybe they won't miss next time.

He almost wished one of those old radial engines would break down hard, so he and the crew could drink in the bar until Carolyn Stewart decided to go the hell away. Then he thought, No, publicity would probably boost donations to WRA. With more money, the organization could buy more airplanes and do more good.

So quit complaining, Parson told himself. This mission—just like a military mission—has its risks and its rewards. You volunteered for it.

A loud boom stopped Parson's thoughts.

Black smoke boiled upward from something on the road up ahead. The car in front of their Land Rover—maybe fifty yards away—slid to a stop. Gold slammed on the brakes.

“Ambush,” she said.

No panic in her voice; she didn't even shout. Just stated a fact.

“Oh my God,” Stewart said.

“Get down,” Parson told Stewart. She didn't move fast enough for him. He reached over the seat, grabbed her by the back of her shirt collar, and pushed her down below the dashboard.

Gold shifted into reverse. Checked the mirrors. Two other cars stopped behind her, but not at an angle to block the road. No signs of gunmen. She backed up a few yards, shifted into drive, stomped the gas, turned the wheel.

She's on it, Parson thought. In the Army, Gold had learned to drive a vehicle as tactically as he could fly a plane. He knew what she was thinking: Keep moving or die.

The Land Rover's tires threw grit as Gold executed a 180-degree turn back toward the airport. That worked for Parson. Unarmed and in a thin-skinned SUV, he wanted to get away from trouble as quickly as possible.

Four hundred yards behind them, figures darted among the stopped traffic. Men with guns. They fired at something; Parson could not see the target.

The gunfire spat intermittently. Five or six shots, then a pause. Then another five or six rounds on semiauto. Sounded almost like a training drill.

An ambush, all right. Just not against this Land Rover. Not yet, anyway.

Gold drove for about two miles. Parson wondered whether multiple attacks would come, but he saw no more signs of trouble. Finally, Gold pulled over beside a dirt soccer field. At the far end of the field, shreds of netting hung from a rusted goal frame. The area looked safe enough—no cars or buildings within a few hundred yards, so no one could get close to the Land Rover unobserved.

“You guys okay?” Gold asked. She sat with her foot on the brake, transmission still in drive, ready to move fast if she had to.

“I'm good,” Parson said.

Stewart sat up in the front seat. She adjusted her blouse, retrieved her Dior sunglasses from the floor. She looked pale but not terrified. Wisps of her red hair, loosed from the rubber band, lay across her cheek.

“Good driving,” she said. Stewart braced herself against the dashboard. She let out a long breath as if struggling to keep her composure.

Parson still didn't know what to make of this woman, but he gave her credit for not screaming and freaking out.

“Sorry to grab you by the scruff of the neck,” he said.

“No, it's okay,” the actress said.

Parson wished he had his weapon with him. He made a mental note not to go without it again; he'd just avoid walking through the civilian passenger terminal.

“What do you think that was all about?” Gold asked.

“Not something random,” Parson said. “Sounded like they took their sweet time firing into one particular car. If they'd wanted to kill just
anybody
, they'd have sprayed full auto on
everybody
.”

“Lucky for us, maybe,” Stewart said.

“Yeah,” Parson said, “but somebody else just had a real bad day.”

Though he had no confirmation of a fatality, and he'd not seen much of the attack, he'd heard plenty. The sounds carried echoes of a well-planned and well-executed hit. In Parson's long travels he had witnessed all manner of death and injury—so much that he'd learned the patterns of violence, its varied natures, much the way he could hear an airplane and tell fighter from transport, turboprop from turbojet.

Twenty minutes passed with no more booms or gunfire.

“Whatever happened,” Parson said, “it's probably over. Might as well get back to the hotel.”

Gold drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking.

“Yeah,” she said. “Even if that was one of those double attacks that target first responders after the initial blast, the secondary strike would have happened by now.”

“I don't think that's what it was.”

“Me neither.”

Gold turned the wheel to move back into the street.

“What do you think is the safest route?” Parson asked.

“Let's go back the way we came,” Gold said. “If the shooters fled on foot and are still running around, I don't want to bump into them. That's less likely if we stay on the road they ran away from.”

Made sense to Parson. If the police blocked off the attack site, Gold could just detour where necessary. You could overthink these things and still get killed.

Gold made a U-turn and headed back toward the Sheraton. Sure enough, the traffic slowed where a police car blocked the road, blue lights flashing. A Djiboutian officer dressed in olive fatigues with blue epaulets diverted traffic down a side street.

“Seems safe enough now,” Parson said. “Let's see if we can find out what happened.”

As Gold pulled up near the police vehicle, Parson dug his wallet from his pocket and pulled out his military ID. Rolled down his window.

“We're with the United Nations,” he said. Not entirely the truth, but Gold was UN, at least. “Is it all right if we observe?”

Parson planned to keep his distance, but he wanted to know more about the threat. He handed over his ID. The officer read it, handed it back.

“You may, Colonel,” the man said in accented English. “But please do not cross the yellow tape.”

Gold parked the Land Rover along the side of the street. Crime scene tape marked off an entire intersection. The tape carried script in both of Djibouti's official languages, French and Arabic. The French wording read
SCÈNE DE CRIME, NE PAS ENTRER
.
Parson, Gold, and Stewart got out of the vehicle.

The smoking carcass of an armored Toyota SUV sat in the middle of the intersection. Two police officers worked around the wreckage, pointing and snapping photos. The driver's door hung open. A covered body lay slumped on the ground beside the vehicle. Blood soaked the front seat, and more blood stained the door and the pavement beneath.

“That's horrible,” whispered Stewart. She raised her camera, adjusted the zoom, and took a picture.

Parson and Gold moved as close as the crime tape allowed. From a distance of about forty yards, Parson tried to discern the story told by the evidence. An explosion had clearly struck the Toyota, but not ripped it apart. That was interesting; some IEDs, especially EFPs, or explosively formed penetrators, could rip right through armor. Parson had seen those used in Iraq; the blast formed a slug of copper that could turn an up-armored Humvee into a tangle of scrap metal. This explosion, however, had inflicted only enough damage to stop the vehicle.

Brass cartridge casings lay scattered all around. Rounds had gouged white pocks in the Toyota's bullet-resistant glass. Most of the bullets had hit near the top of the back window. There, concentrated fire had opened a baseball-sized hole in the glass.

Son of a bitch, Parson thought. Yeah, they did take their time—and aimed at the seam between the glass and the metal. The weakest point.

No such thing as bullet
proof
glass, he knew. Bullet-resistant glass only bought you time. In this case, not enough.

Gold went to the officer directing traffic and asked, “Who was the victim?”

“His identification said Dr. Maurice Kalinga,” the officer said.

Gold's mouth dropped open slightly, and she closed her eyes for a moment.

“Was anyone else with him?” Gold asked.

“No, ma'am. A terrible crime, I must tell you. We found him beheaded. They took the head.”

Gold closed her eyes again. Stewart shuddered.

“Al-Shabaab?” Parson asked.

“Unknown,” the officer said, “but that is a fair guess.”

Wouldn't be the first time al-Shabaab had struck outside of Somalia, Parson knew. They stormed that mall in Kenya in 2013, and in 2010 they bombed bars and restaurants in Kampala, Uganda, on the night of the World Cup Final. The Uganda attacks killed more than sixty.

“Sophia,” Parson said, “you look like you recognize the victim's name.”

“I do,” Gold said. “Dr. Kalinga is—was—the police training director of the African Union Mission in Somalia.”