The Night Ranger (19 page)

—

Wilfred lay on his side, his eyes closed. Wells picked up the bike, put it in neutral, dropped the kickstand, sparked it. Wilfred opened his eyes, tracked the chains. “Mzungu. You dirty man.”

“I’ll cinch them around us. You hold me and I’ll hold you.”

“Sound like a song.”

Wells knelt behind Wilfred, reached under his arms, pulled him up. Wilfred grunted and his body shook, but he didn’t complain. He leaned against Wells and held his bad leg off the ground. Wells halfthrew him over the bike and wrapped the chains around his back and slid in front of him. Wilfred put his arms around Wells’s waist, but he had no strength. Without the chains supporting him, he couldn’t stay on the bike. Wells needed his right hand for the throttle, which meant he would have to hold the chains in his left hand. But he couldn’t get the bike going unless he pulled in the clutch, put the bike in gear—a move that required that same left hand. He tried twice. Both times he lost his grip on the clutch handle and stalled the engine as he struggled to hold the chains. After the second try, he sat in silence and listened to the hyenas gibbering. The animals had moved closer. It wouldn’t be long before the bold one, the big one, returned.

“Let me,” Wilfred said.

“You know how?”

“Come on.”

Wells leaned forward until his chest nearly touched the bike’s gas tank. He pulled the chains tight to keep Wilfred close. Wilfred snaked his left arm under Wells’s shoulder and pulled in the clutch. Wells twisted the throttle a fraction, giving the engine a taste of gas. Twenty-plus years of riding had made these moves as intuitive as inhaling and exhaling. But today he was on a respirator, trusting Wilfred to help. Wells tapped down his left foot, put the bike into first. “Let go—”

Wilfred eased off the clutch and Wells rolled his right hand a half inch on the throttle. Dirt bikes were twitchier than street bikes, and the bike jumped ahead. Wells thought Wilfred would drop the clutch too quickly and stall them. But he let the handle out smoothly. Wells added gas and then they were moving, bouncing along. Wilfred jabbered in Swahili, no doubt cursing Wells for this mess, but Wells held the chain tight, and with every turn of the tires, they left the corpses and vultures and hyenas behind and rode toward the Cruiser. And life.

12

L
ANGLEY

I
n his golden years—oh, my, how he hated that phrase—Shafer had unaccountably developed a liking for sugar cereal. He had a boy’s taste buds and an old man’s colon. So it was that he sat down to a lunchtime bowl of Frosted Flakes and Lactaid as he watched a White House press conference livestreaming on CNN.com.

The question-and-answer period had started a few minutes before, with every question so far about the hostages. Now Josh Galper, the White House spokesman, pointed at a dark-haired woman in the front row. Galper wasn’t afraid to smack down dumb questions. Shafer appreciated him. The reporters didn’t.

“Emily. I’m sure
The Wall Street Journal
has a question on the budget? Taxes, maybe?”

“Can you tell us if the President has been in touch with the families of the missing volunteers?”

“The President has spoken privately to family members to express his concern.”

“Can you tell us what he said?”

“Last time I checked, that wasn’t what ‘privately’ meant.” Galper pointed to a black guy in the second row. “Brett?”

“Brett Ward,
Washington Post
. Would the United States consider the use of force to rescue the hostages if and when their location is confirmed?”

“We’re ready for any eventuality.”

“Including an invasion of Somalia?”

“All options remain on the table.”

“Including military action?”

“I’ll say this as clearly as I can. It would be premature to discuss an invasion at this time. That said, I think the American people should understand al-Shabaab is a terrorist threat both within and outside Somalia. For many years, the United States and United Nations have been concerned about the situation. That’s the context here.”

“So this would be a full-scale invasion, not just a rescue mission.”

“I didn’t say that. Please don’t say that I did.”

“Would the President ask for congressional approval before an invasion?”

“You’ve gone way past what I’ve said, Brett. However, in the theoretical event of a theoretical invasion, the President would inform senior congressional leaders—”

“That’s not what I asked—”

“Brett, you know I love dancing with you, but I need to let some other reporters cut in.”

—

Shafer had seen enough. The war drums were a-beating, as Duto had predicted. He muted the conference and dug into his Frosted Flakes before they could get soggy. But he managed only two spoonfuls before his cell phone rang. Wells. Who was probably in Mogadishu by now, hanging out with clan leaders as he pretended to be a Saudi royal with a hankering for blondes from Montana. Say what you wanted about the man, he wasn’t boring.

“John. Roofied anyone lately?”

“I found the camp where they were being held.”

“That’s great—”

“Not so much.”

“Are they dead?”

“Scott Thompson was. The others, gone. It’s possible they were killed and I didn’t find them, but my best guess is some Somali bandit group got wind of them and came after them and whoever was holding them.”

“When?”

“Probably last night. The bodies were still fresh.”

“By bodies, you mean Thompson.”

“And a bunch of Kenyans.”

“Did it look like a real kidnapping? Like they were prisoners? Or hiding out, waiting to come in?”

“Prisoners. There was a hut where they were chained up. Where I found Thompson.”

“This was Somalia?”

“Kenya. Near the border, but Kenya.”

“You have a lead on the others?”

“Not yet. My fixer took a bullet. I’m getting him to a hospital.” Wells told Shafer how the bandits had attacked him and Wilfred at the compound, how Wilfred had been wounded.

“And you think the ones who attacked you were Somali?”

“Yeah. The Somalis look different than ethnic Kenyans. Plus I took a cell phone off one. The numbers in the register have the Somali country code, 252, not the Kenyan.”

“Where are you now?”

“Outside this village called Bakafi, ninety miles south of Dadaab. There’s an infirmary here. I’m hoping they can stabilize Wilfred. But he’ll need a helicopter to medevac him to Nairobi tomorrow morning. Otherwise, he’ll lose the leg.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“No ifs. Promise me, Ellis.”

“All right.”

“Now. Please tell me the grown-ups have put a stop to this invasion nonsense—”

“I’d say we’re up to at least fifty-fifty.”

“To attack Somalia?”

“There’s momentum. And when people hear Scott Thompson’s been killed—”

“But he was killed in Kenya. After being kidnapped by Kenyans.”

“The Kenyan police will tell a different story. And I’ll bet by the time they get to that compound, there’s nothing left but bones. Can you tell a Somali femur from a Kenyan? Because I can’t. And there’s something else. Even if the Kenyans were wrong about what happened before, they’re not anymore. You said it yourself. The other three are probably in Somalia now.”

Wells was silent.

“John, I have to give Vinny a heads-up about the camp. Can’t leave that kid’s body rotting. And he’s going to have to tell the families and James Thompson. It’s going to leak, and the hysteria’s going to hit a whole new level.”

“You can’t tell Thompson. I’ve got proof he was in on it.” Wells told Shafer about the Joker’s mask he’d found, the corpse that had to be Suggs. “What must have happened, Thompson figured Suggs could hold the hostages a couple weeks while he got publicity and money for WorldCares. He didn’t count on it getting this big. Or these Somalis catching wind of it.”

“A mask? That’s your evidence?”

“What was James doing with that third cell phone? Why was he calling the kidnappers?”

“He had every reason to talk to the kidnappers, John. He’ll say he was trying to put together a back-channel deal to free the volunteers quietly.”

“But he knew Suggs—”

“Exactly. He knew Suggs. So Suggs set this up with some Somalis and then came to him and said, ‘I kidnapped your nephew and his friends, now pay me, and by the way, if you tell anyone anything, I’ll kill them all.’ And Thompson agreed. Who’s going to say he’s lying? Not Suggs. Suggs is dead. Which limits his ability to offer a contradictory narrative.”

“You can’t seriously believe that.”

“I’m just saying, don’t assume he’s going to go away quietly. He’s got cards to play, and remember the Kenyans want to pin this on Shabaab as much as Thompson does. They won’t be happy you’ve been playing vigilante.”

“I thought I was killing the Somali bandits they hated.”

“The beauty of life, John. All kinds of ways to look at things. So many different perspectives.”

“Like you think you’re witty and clever, and I think ninety percent of what comes out of your mouth is nonsense.”

“All I’m saying is, you want to be sure Thompson can’t get to you, find the hostages.”

“Noted. Has NSA gotten back to you on the numbers from Thompson’s third phone? Locations or anything?”

“Not yet.”

“Ellis—”

“Truly beyond my control. But give me those Somali numbers and I’ll put them on the list, too.”

Wells did.

“Any other good news?” Shafer said.

“Walk through one last set of what-ifs with me. Suppose I find the other three, and the White House and Duto already know that Scott Thompson was killed. We’d go in with a special ops team, yes? We’d have to assume their lives are at risk.”

“Sounds right.”

“And then it gets messy, the hostages get killed. What happens next?”

Shafer saw where Wells was headed. “The public pressure, we’d have to invade. Teach them a lesson.”

“Because from what I saw today, these guys, they’re young, but they’re real soldiers—”

“You took out four by yourself.”

“It was close. I’m not saying they could stop a commando team for long. But long enough to kill the hostages. Wasn’t there something like that in Nigeria?”

“Last year. The British sent in a team to rescue two hostages. They didn’t get there in time.”

“Let me chase this, Ellis.”

“I have to tell Duto what you found. You want this kid Wilfred choppered out, he’s going to insist on knowing what happened. And you know I’m right about that body. It needs to come home. Not fair to the family.”

“Give me the night. One night.”

“Best I can do, if the delay with the numbers from Thompson’s phone is my guide, NSA will need at least twenty-four hours to get anything on the Somali mobile numbers. So I’ll call over on those, and I’ll tell Duto what you found. But I forgot to ask you exactly where the camp is. Oops. He’ll make me call you back, but I can’t make you answer—”

“Thank you, Ellis.”

“Not finished. By the time Duto wakes up tomorrow, I won’t be able to put him off any longer. And he wakes up early. Which means within twenty hours, give or take, early afternoon tomorrow your time, dawn here, we’ll have a team on the way to the camp to pick up what’s left of Scott Thompson. And the families are going to know. After that, you better figure things will happen fast. Not to mention whatever James Thompson tells the Kenyan police.”

A long sigh from the other side of the world. “I get it. Can I go now?”

After all he’d done, Wells still acted every so often like the high school football star he’d once been. The coolest kid in town. Shafer relished those offhand moments. He hoped they revealed that Wells’s sunny Montana boyhood hadn’t entirely fled his soul.

“Try not to get in too much trouble.”

“Call me if NSA comes through.” Click.

—

Shafer returned his attention to the bowl on his desk. Unfortunately, the life expectancy of Frosted Flakes was measured in minutes. They sagged in the Lactaid like an overage starlet’s arms. Even so, Shafer shoveled them into his mouth, hoping the sugar rush would give him a kick start as he imagined how to spin this call to Duto.

He’d just finished when the phone on his desk trilled. This time the caller ID showed Duto’s office.

“I saw the press conference. You were right.”

“Not why I’m calling. Can you come up? There’s something you need to see.”

—

Duto’s personal assistant, a bright-eyed thirty-something who would surely join Duto in his quest for the Senate, led Shafer into the director’s giant seventh-floor office. Shafer had been introduced to the assistant at least twice but refused to remember his name. Duto raised a single finger, the universal
Give me a minute
sign, and went back to pecking at his keyboard.

Over the years, Duto’s office had filled with the gifts that men like him received for the work of their subordinates. The items ranged from kitschy to extraordinary. Tucked on a bookshelf, on a cream-colored card an eighth-inch thick, a personal note from Prince William. In tightly scrawled blue ink, the prince elliptically thanked Duto for disrupting a terrorist plot against Kate Middleton on a trip the princess had taken to Turkey. Hanging on the room’s far wall, a fifteenth-century Katana samurai sword, three feet of sleek and vicious steel. The sword arrived after the agency intercepted four North Korean operatives plotting to bomb Tokyo’s subways. On Duto’s desk, the depth gauge from a miniature submarine that a Mexican drug gang had used to move tons of cocaine. The Drug Enforcement Administration offered up the gauge to commemorate the agency’s help in disrupting the cartel.

The sheer number of tokens in the office testified both to Duto’s longevity as director and the CIA’s reach. The agency went wherever the United States had interests, and the United States had interests everywhere. Even eastern Kenya. Shafer wondered what trinket Duto would receive if the agency rescued the hostages. Probably nothing. He’d settle for a Senate seat.

Shafer grabbed the Katana off the wall. The sword’s blade was narrow and angled and polished so closely that it seemed to glow. Shafer took a practice swipe. Duto ignored him and kept typing. The assistant raised a hand.

“I don’t think you should be doing that.”

“Avast, Handy Smurf—”

“Handy Smurf?”

“Out!” Shafer sliced at him. The blade nearly sliced off the tip of the assistant’s tie. He fled. Shafer raised the Katana high in victory.

Duto stopped typing. “Unnecessary.”

“I get bored, I act out.”

“Put it back before you hurt yourself.”

Shafer sat, resting the blade on his lap. “Think they’ll let you keep it?”

“Sadly, no. I didn’t know when I got it, but it came straight out of the Tokyo Museum. Been appraised at six hundred thousand.”

“A little over the gift limit.”

Duto turned his laptop around so Shafer could see the screen. “Recognize her?”

The woman’s face filled nearly the entire screen, with slivers of a mud wall visible behind her. She had circles under her eyes and a scared puckered mouth. But she was still beautiful. Still Gwen Murphy.

“This was emailed to Brandon Murphy’s personal account six hours ago.” Duto pulled up two more photos, Hailey and Owen. “These two went to the Barnes and Broder families.”

“Not Scott Thompson’s parents?” Shafer said. Though he knew that Thompson’s parents hadn’t gotten a photo and never would. A half-eaten corpse would be tough to ransom.

“Nothing yet. They’re freaking out, which is understandable.”

“Do we know where they came from?”

“Nairobi. NSA has tracked the IP address to a few square blocks of downtown. They claim they’ll have an exact location in the next two hours. But we’re all assuming it’s a public space, an Internet café or unlocked hotspot. They’ll look for surveillance, but Nairobi’s not DC. Very few cameras, even downtown.”

“Have we told the Kenyans?”

“Not yet. The feeling is this thing’s too hot already. You can imagine, the parents went crazy when they got these. The FBI is trying to talk them down, asking them to stay calm, not go public. The families emailed back, asked for proof of life. Nobody’s heard back yet, but we’re assuming the photos are real. Our experts say they look real.”

“They look real to me. Any guesses on location?”

“The background doesn’t give much to go on. The images are poor quality, like they were shot on a cell phone and then sent to another phone.”