The Somali Deception Episode I (A Cameron Kincaid Serial) (12 page)

The first light of dawn shot
from the eastern sky illuminating the five-story face of the now docile
compound and cratered beach.
 
Two
boat lengths from shore a final water column erupted to the starboard of the
zodiac, the last of the mines.
 
Four
seconds later Pepe cut the throttle as the craft slid into the bright
effervescent spume at the shoreline.
 
In a fluid motion, Alastair launched from the bow, towline in hand, and
as he did two shirtless men with Kalashnikovs, ran from a near door.
 
The two men immediately fell, the second
falling into the first before either hit the ground.
 
Cameron, positioned to fire again,
waited for Pepe to clear the inflatable so they could complete their three-man
beachhead.

Cameron, Alastair, and Pepe went
directly to the door the two shirtless men had exited from.
 
This shore side structure was main
building number one and the most likely to hold hostages.
 
Cameron and Alastair climbed the short
porch first.
 
The stucco wall of the
compound was caked with muddy sand, as were the steps up the porch to the
door.
 
From the side of the building
four men came running out onto the large break wall, oblivious to the three
commandos on the beach below them.
 
The yelling four men waved behind them to someone unseen and then
frantically pointed out to the Kalinihta.
 
Cameron raised his MP-5 submachine gun toward the four men and then,
before discharging, yielded to Pepe’s gesture.
 
Pepe, below the small porch on the
beach, could see something Cameron could not and had tilted his MP-5 up on a
slight angle.
 
Alastair shifted his
attention from the open doorway he and Cameron stood in front of to the side of
the compound.

Cameron and Pepe were focused on
the break wall four and their unseen friend.

From the edge of the building
another man came running to join the first four, on his shoulder, bobbing forth
and back as he clumsily jogged, was an RPG-7 already loaded with a single stage
warhead.
 
Trailing behind was a
younger man, maybe an older boy, half carrying, half dragging,
three
more warheads.
 
The four men on the break wall were ecstatic, waving and pointing to the
Kalinihta.
 
When the grenadier got
into position Pepe flipped thumbs up to Cameron and in six easy headshots the
frantic break wall mob became a pile of corpses.

The Kalinihta slipped safely
south out of view of the small harbor.

Through the outer doorway, a
second door, solid iron and locked from the inside, blocked their entrance into
the building.
 
Alastair secured a
small cake of C4 to each of the two hinges then signaled Cameron down to the
side of the outer doorway.
 
Alastair
then slid himself around the other side of the outer door.
 
Pepe positioned himself on the second
step of the porch, hunched clear.
 
With a nod to Cameron and Pepe, Alastair thumb punched the detonator to
the explosives.
 
From inside the
vestibule came a thud and a mist of dust.

A door opening out was a bad
design for security yet an advantage for the three.

Pepe was the first up and into
the vestibule.
 
He immediately
assessed the space that once held the upper hinge and from one of his long
pockets produced a thick wide shiv.
 
He jammed the shard into the newly formed crevice.
 
Pepe’s portliness gave him easy
leverage
to jar the heavy metal door to the side.

Alastair and Cameron’s MP-5s
filled the new-formed void, the room empty.

As they had with countless other
incursions, Cameron, Pepe and Alastair began to clear the first building of the
compound, room by empty
room.
 
The rooms were large and interiors out
of place for this region and time.
 
The furnishings were fine and intact, paintings, murals, lamps with
detailed trim, and the amount of fine woods impeccable.
 
This was truly the refuge of a rich man,
and in southern Somalia in these times that meant a warlord.

That each room was coming up
empty in the first building did not surprise Cameron.
 
The assault during the Fajr dawn prayer
was meant to minimize confrontation.

Still someone had locked that
metal security door behind the first two shirtless men, and somewhere in this
building or the next, someone was holding Christine.

* * *
* *

Abbo’s Compound

At the beach level, the sheer
walls of the compound were windowless in defense of monsoon force or tsunamis
that may clear the small harbor break walls.
 
The top two stories of the ocean facing
building were walled in industrial glass, allowing the dull blue hued low
morning light to wash through.
 
Easily confused with a penthouse suite from any metropolitan city these
upper two floors of the five-story compound were adorned with an array of
modern art, huge sofas, panel televisions, and flowing white panel curtains
that punctuated the ocean vista.

Cameron and Pepe entered the top
floor, an open loft space, from a spiral staircase in the center of the
room.
 
From where they stood the
room was clear,
their
only blind spot a short wall
behind the stair.
 
The two each
chose a different side and circled the divider from separate directions.

On the other side of the
division wall was a lounge.
 
A
wooden bar was at the far end and occupying the space between them an Olympic
size billiards table.
 
That is where
Cameron and Pepe came upon Nikos, seated on the floor at the end of the
billiards table, his back against the division wall.
 
Nikos was clean, well dressed, and although
very shaken and bruised, he appeared otherwise unharmed.
 
Also sitting on the floor, at the end of
the billiards table, was a thin man of dark Somali complexion.
 
This second man was also clean and well
dressed yet holding a large golden handgun.
 
He held the gun tightly with both hands
wavering to either side of Nikos head.
 
He held the gun too tightly, as the weapon quivered in his hand.

The gunman did not move his
watery glazed eyes away from Nikos.
 
He waved the cannon side to side, his breathing noticeably getting
heavier.

Though muffled by the glass and
the
five floor
distance to the courtyard below,
yelling could be heard as men rallied to discover what had caused the beach
cacophony the few moments before.

Pepe waited and watched the
heavy gun, a gold-plated .50 caliber Israeli Desert Eagle, hover in front of
Nikos’ face.
 
He eyed the man
holding the expensive weapon, dressed in silk shirt, linen slacks, and Prada
shoes.
 
Pepe was certain this man had
never fired the fancy trophy that was now dangerously waving in the air.
 
Pepe also knew that the action on the
.50 caliber was sensitive and that if this man became any further stressed,
there was going to be a hole through Nikos, on through the wall, and into the
next building.

Pepe paced the rhythm of the
nervous thin man’s breathing with the sway of the .50 caliber, and when the
small cannon was pointed at the wall beside Nikos’ head, he acted.
 
A shell from the MP-5 made a small clink
against the floor and blood from the man’s head sprayed Nikos.

“Bloody hell!” said Nikos, his
eyes wide, his feet shuffling him into the wall in a failing attempt to put
space between himself and the recently departed.

The fleeting moment passed.

Nikos sucked in a deep breath
and tossed his head back against the wall.

“Êtes-vous d’accord!” said
Pepe.
 
“Everything is okay.”

Nikos ran his fingers across his
face then, seeing blood on the ends, flexed them in an odd attempt to rid them
of the stain, “You just blew a hole through Feizel’s bloody head.”

“Are you okay?” asked Pepe.

“Yes,” said Nikos.
 
He began to stand, “I’m fine.”

“Where’s Christine?” asked Pepe.

“She’s gone.
 
They took her,” said Nikos.
 
He went to the bar across the billiards
table.
 
“By helicopter, two, three
days ago.”

“Who took her?” asked
Cameron.
 
“Did Abbo take her with
him?”

“No.
 
Not Abbo.
 
He was never here.”
 
Nikos surveyed the bar then found a
bottle of seltzer.
 
“It was the man
who boarded the yacht,” he doused his hands with the seltzer, “A Somali.
 
A really tall bald fellow.”

Cameron flashed his eyes at
Pepe, “I think we’ve met.”

The sound of rapid fire and
single shots rose up from the courtyard.

“We have multiple shooters out
here,” said Alastair into the headset.
 
When the shooting began, he had gone down to secure the door leading out
of the building into the courtyard.

Cameron put his finger to his
headset, “Are you engaged?”

“No,” said Alastair.
 
“They’re shooting at shadows and each
other.
 
We better get out of here
though.
 
I have a feeling it’s going
to get
pretty hot
.
 
You have the packages?”

“We have one package and we are
on are way,” said Cameron.

Nikos paced to the side of the
room, both of his hands clasped behind his head.
 
He spun back to Cameron and Pepe, “This
is shit.
 
We’re dead.
 
Do you know who you just killed?”
 
Nikos waited for a response that was not
coming.
 
Cameron and Pepe watched
him with still faces.
 
“Well, do
you?” asked Nikos again.
 
“You just
blew a hole through the head of Abbo Mohammed’s son.
 
We are so dead.”

Cameron glanced down at the
corpse sprawled below the billiards table, “Is that who that was?
 
Pepe did you know who that was?”

Pepe did not take his eyes away
from Nikos, “No.”

“Pepe did not know who that
was,” said Cameron.
 
“I’ll tell you
this though.
 
If we don’t get out of
here, you are dead.
 
Your friend
Alastair is downstairs if that makes you feel any better.”

The presence of someone familiar
appeared to calm Nikos, “Alastair is here?”

“For the moment,” said
Pepe.
 
“Shall we?”

Nikos lowered his hands slowly
at first then dropped them to his sides.
 
“Yes let’s go.”
 
Though Nikos
was clean, fed, and dressed, his face was horribly bruised.
 
There was no mistake that Nikos had
taken a beating.

The three began to walk around the
divider, “Wait,” said Nikos.
 
He
bent over and relieved dead Feizel’s still warm hands of the .50 caliber Desert
Eagle.

“You sure,” said Cameron.

Nikos lifted the .50
caliber
and pulled the slide back from the barrel allowing a
round to flow into the chamber, “Unlike Feizel I know how to use this weapon.”

* * *
* *

Abbo’s Compound

Alastair nodded toward the door
that led to the harbor.
 
“We head
out onto that beach there is no way to guarantee that inflatable stays
inflated.”
 
He shifted his gaze to
Nikos.
 
Beads of sweat poured from
the young Greek.
 
Alastair pursed
his lip.
 
“The zodiac is out of the
question.”

Nikos’ tone was rushed, “So that
was your plan.”

From the courtyard came a large
concussion then a barrage of rapid machine gun fire followed by the ever closer
rhythmic chopping of rotors.

Alastair stretched the back of
his neck extending his height.
 
“No,
that’s our plan,” Alastair arched a brow, “You remember Ari?”

Nikos bobbed his head, “Of
course, right.”

Cameron peeked past the edge of
the window.
 
The courtyard was full
of silhouettes, backlit by the stucco of the compound’s other buildings, and
from above by the indigo glow of the
ever brighter
predawn sky.
 
Some shadows were
frozen in position while others were frantically trying to evade the sheets of
strafing fire from the copter.