Chapter 2

Anyone observing the couple leaning shoulder to shoulder against the wall across from the boarding gate for the Alaska Air flight to Sacramento, would take the tall, slim, dark-haired teen, and the tall dark-haired thirty-something man for father and daughter. The fact the pretty long-haired girl had a café au lait complexion, and could be a relative of Queen Nefertiti, while the man was a deeply tanned Caucasian, would most likely cause little notice in these days of mixed marriages and blended families, especially on the west coast of the US. Furthermore, any observer would note they had the same posture and mannerisms, and if they were close enough, would hear the same patterns of speech, which would identify them as natives of southern California. The couple was even dressed similarly - both wore jeans, ankle boots, heavy wool sweaters and khaki-colored Nomex flight jackets. Mostly, an observer would see the deep affection each held for the other as they talked quietly while watching the ebb and flow of travel-weary passengers through the long concourse that held the boarding gates at the Orange County/John Wayne airport.

Jonas Kaufmann made a face as he sipped some particularly dreadful coffee while watching the crowds of people that surrounded them. “Damn, they have some nerve calling this swill coffee.” He deposited the cup in a nearby waste container and sighed, “What I wouldn’t give for a cup of freshly brewed Nyeri Ichamara.”

His daughter, Kesi, turned slightly so she could look at him, and said with a smile, “I tried to warn you about that coffee, and you owe me a dollar.”

“Huh?”

“Just because we’re 15,000 kilometers from home doesn’t mean you can swear without paying up.”

“Damn’s not a swear word anyway. These days it’s just an expression.” He tried to hide a smile.

“Now you owe me two dollars!” she giggled.

Smiling, they turned their attention back to the crowd. It wasn’t as if they were particularly curious, they watched out of a sense of self-preservation. For over ten years he’d been in the military in one form or another and had served in places where the people were openly hostile or where terrorists hid among the populace, looking for crowded venues to create chaos. Sometimes, it was simply the fact that the criminals in those places wanted something he had, or thought he had, or figured a foreigner might be an easy target. He knew that there was little chance of thieves or terrorists in this relatively secure place, but years of necessary personal safety paranoia had created an ingrained situational awareness which had saved his butt more than once. Over the past five years he’d passed this knowledge on to Kesi.

After a couple of minutes she turned to him, and this time her expression was serious. “We’re never going back to Kenya are we?”

He shook his head and spoke to her softly and reassuringly. “There’s no reason to go back. We’re together, and that’s the most important thing. I know you want a place to settle – we both do. We’ll find that place – a place where it’s quiet and the people are friendly. There are lots of places like that here.

He paused for a few moments and then went on. “When I came to Kenya five and a half years ago I set some pretty lofty goals for myself, and my command, and even though I didn’t get everything done, it was time for me to leave. Major Nyamai was more than ready to take over.”

He took her hands. “Want to know my greatest accomplishment in those years?”

She nodded, watching him closely with her expressive hazel eyes.

“You - an orphan girl named Makena, who captured my heart, and became my daughter Kesi.”

Her eyes glistened as she moved close and hugged him tightly.

“I love you Daddy.”

“And I love you Princess.”

They stood that way for a couple of minutes. Then she stepped back, hunting for a tissue in the pocket of her flight jacket.

Kesi wiped her eyes. “Maybe that place is in California. Grandpa Mike and Traci said we could stay with them until we get settled, and I really enjoyed our visit, especially getting to know Christy and Emma.”

“I know, and I enjoyed it too. It was nice getting to know my dad again, and meeting Traci, but he has his new family and adding a couple of people to the household for the next few months would quickly become a strain. Plus, I’m not sure I want us to settle in southern California, but I promise wherever we end up we’ll see them often.”

Kesi digested his words. “I really like Christy and Emma, and they said they always wanted a little sister.”

“Technically, they’re your Aunts.” Kesi smiled slightly. In Kenya an ‘Auntie’ was an older lady and often not a relative, just a close friend of the family. Eighteen year old Christy and sixteen year old Emma hardly fit that description.

“They definitely wanted to keep you around, if nothing else to have fun using you as a life-size dress up doll - using my credit card. I don’t know how many more hits it could take from those two and Traci taking you shopping. Several merchants in Lake Forest probably decided to take early Christmas vacation after your shopping sprees!” Jonas grinned, letting her know he was teasing.

She smiled in return. “Well, I did need a few things, including warmer clothes, and there were all those pre-Christmas sales...”

Jonas laughed. “And a very large suitcase just to carry that new wardrobe!”

Kesi gave a fake pout. “You said they all looked good on me.”

“And they do. You’re worth every penny.”

She gave him a brief hug and put her head on his shoulder, as she leaned against him.

Serious again, he asked. “Are you going to miss Kenya?”

She looked up at him and after a bit of thought, shook her head. “I’ll miss Sergeant Mwangi, and Sergeant Kimani, and Chalky, and of course, our 172.”

“No surprise there. You and Sergeant White practically rebuilt that plane from the ground up.”

A couple of years ago Jonas had discovered the Cessna, covered by a tarp, parked in the back of a decrepit hanger at an abandoned airstrip north of the coastal city of Kismayo, Somalia. Kenyan forces had moved into that area in pursuit of al-Shabab, and he and his helicopter squadron were flying support. Someone had done a poor job overpainting its original white with a mixture of desert sand and some darker squiggles in an attempt at camouflage. There was no visible registration number and no documents.

Sergeant White, Chalky to his friends, Flight Sergeant RAF retired, got it running, and Jonas had flown it (heart in his mouth) 200 air miles to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Wajir in northeastern Kenya, where the helicopters were assigned. The manufacturer’s serial number showed it was built in 1986 and registered in the US, and then sold to some (now defunct) holding company in 2010. How it got to Somalia was anyone’s guess. With registration fees paid, the plane became his, and it soon sported a Kenya registration number along with a coat of gleaming pearlescent white paint set off by red pinstripes and a bright metallic red tail.

“I’ll never forget our first flight.”

“Yes, and I’ll never forget the look on your face that morning in the hangar when you saw what was painted on the nose.”

Kesi got a far-away look in her eyes and said softly, “Kesi’s Dream.”

He’d become her instructor, and on her thirteenth birthday – just six months ago - she had soloed. Most of the personnel from the squadron had turned out to greet her when she stepped out of Kesi’s Dream. There was a roar of approval when Jonas removed the Velcro name patch on the left breast of her flight suit and replaced it with a patch that had her name and Kenya Air Force wings.

“Yes, Kesi’s Dream. We had some wonderful adventures in that little plane. I wish we could have crated it and brought it along, but we’ll find another.”

She looked at him and seeing the sincerity in his eyes, just nodded.

Her eyes suddenly narrowed as her light-hearted mood evaporated. “But I won’t miss FOB Wajir, with its blowing dust, heat, mosquitos, scorpions and rats.”

She seemed hesitant to go on, obviously distressed. “Most of all I won’t miss watching you fly off to who knows where, wondering if you’ll be hurt...” Kesi touched the place on his left forearm where under his jacket there was a long jagged scar. “Or if you’ll ever come back ... leaving me an orphan ... again.” This last was said softly but with a sob as she pressed herself against his chest to be quickly encircled by his protective arms.

I knew she worried, but we never talked about it. Kesi was always on the flight line, smiling, and giving each aircraft commander a parade-ground salute just before lift-off. She and her salute became a talisman, and she never missed a day regardless of the hour or weather. She was also the first one to the helicopter when I returned, standing by with a large olive drab insulated metal container, filled with her own concoction of iced tea and tropical fruit juices. She’d bring it out in that beat up Radio Flyer wagon that she’d scrounged somewhere and repainted bright yellow. The yellow paint was complemented by flower appliqués. Even the couple of times I was hurt, and it was always minor, she never said a thing. She’d just follow me to the base hospital and sit stoically while Doc Koinet patched me up. The only exception was last January when I returned, bloodied, bandaged, and late, from the mission to the Congo.

“No more combat for me, Princess.” he said soothingly into her hair.

Trying to lighten the mood he said, “Maybe when our visit to Grandma Anne in Lodi is over we’ll take Grandpa Mike up on his offer, and then look for a home overlooking the beach. I’ll retire and sit on the balcony all day getting fat drinking beer and watching the girls go by in their bikinis!”

Kesi smiled faintly and released her grip, but only slightly, as she again reached into her jacket pocket for a tissue. She looked up at him while dabbing her eyes. “You will not. You have to find a job to keep me in the manner of a princess!”

That’s better!

Little do you know Princess that we could probably afford just about any home overlooking the beach in any part of California, and I could retire and we would never have to worry about money.

“Well there is that, but the only thing I’m good at flying helicopters and light aircraft.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully for her benefit. “I know. Since you’ve already soloed in a 172 maybe you could get a job as one of those traffic reporters and support us. God knows there’s enough traffic in California!”

“Nice try, but I checked already, and in the US you have to be 16 to solo and 17 to get a pilot license. So that means you’ll still have to support me for three and a half more years!”

“Damn!”

“Now we’re up to three dollars.”

They both chuckled. The storm had passed.

They watched the crowd for a few minutes and Kesi finally asked, “Do you remember the first day we met?”

He grinned. “Vividly.”

“You do? I thought you were too important to take notice of me.”

He laughed. “Five and a half years ago - my first day as the commander of the helicopter squadron - and I was having dinner in the Officers’ Mess with the commander of FOB Wajir and the Air Marshall for the Kenyan Air Force. You came to the table with a tray as big as you and set it up on a stand and served us as professionally as any waiter I’d ever seen. And you were dressed in a cut down, perfectly pressed, Kenya Air Force camouflage uniform – no boots though – just sandals.”

She nodded, obviously thinking about that day. “They just didn’t have military boots that small.” She paused. “I was pretty nervous, but Sergeant Mwangi said your table was my responsibility. I’d already heard all about you – the big tough Marine aviator who was going to get the Hueys operational and train the pilots and get the new hangers built and go looking for al-Shabaab in Somalia.” She grinned. “I almost spilled the nyama choma and kachumbari in your lap!”

“That would have been unfortunate.” He said dryly.

“Yes, it would have. Cook had been working on the nyama all day.”

He smiled as he recalled that day. As a newly arrived foreign officer in the Kenyan Air Force he’d just reported to Forward Operating Base Wajir near the border with Somalia. Kesi was maybe seven or eight at the time – that was just a guess since she didn’t have any documents when she was found two years before. She was just one of the countless kids across Africa who was orphaned. The four horsemen of the apocalypse roamed freely across much of Africa and their legacy was millions of orphans.

Jonas had asked about her. According to Sergeant Mwangi, the man who ran the Officers’ Mess, she’d just appeared one day. How she got through the razor-wire topped, double row chain link fence, and past the constant security patrols was a mystery.

Sergeant Mwangi explained his theory, “Major, she was starving and sick, and I think the angels were taking her to heaven when they flew over this desolate place and decided she was just the right person to bring joy to all the people here, so they left her outside my Mess.”

Because of her sunny disposition and her ability to make even the most grizzled veterans laugh, Mwangi had named her ‘Makena.’ It was a name used in his tribe for ‘one who brings happiness.’ Other members of the mess would occasionally refer to her as ‘Makena ya yatima.’ He found out that ‘yatima’ was simply the Swahili word for orphan.

She also had a rare talent in playing the nyatti, the native Kenyan stringed instrument which was strummed with both hands. It looked like a combination of a drum and a harp. About a year ago she’d taken up the guitar, and displayed the same talent.

No one knew where she came from, or who her family was. Located in eastern equatorial Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, Kenya is a crossroads for many peoples and cultures. From her features she was probably a mixture of Egyptian and south Asian, with some English thrown in.

Fortunately, Sergeant Mwangi was a kind-hearted family man, and had agreed to take her in ‘temporarily.’ He had several children of his own and his wife had drawn the line at bringing one more home, so he fixed up a place in a storage room at the Mess and put her to work. By the time Jonas arrived she was a fixture, indispensable to the operation of the Mess. At least, that was Sergeant Mwangi’s opinion. And because of her sweet disposition and unflagging work ethic, the officers didn’t mind adding a little to their Mess bill each month to keep her.

By the time Jonas had been at FOB Wajir a few months, Makena had become an important part of his life too. When she wasn’t working in the Mess, she became his self-appointed assistant – bringing meals to his office, or to the flight line - she had an uncanny ability to find him anywhere on the sprawling base. She’d take his clothes to the laundry, run errands, or gladly do any of the dozens of things that saved him time.

She seemed to have only two speeds, full on and stop. He marveled how she could keep it up in the constant, equatorial 90-plus degree heat. One time he’d mentioned that he needed a large scale map of the border area of northeastern Kenya/western Somalia. His Kenya Air Force assistant, Sergeant Absco Kimani, put in a request though channels, but cautioned it could take weeks. Two days later the requested map miraculously appeared on his office wall.

Makena soon found a replacement for herself at the Mess, explaining to Sergeant Mwangi that she was just too busy, ‘helping the Major.’

One day, soon after, he’d returned to his quarters, a small concrete block building with a sloping metal roof, and found her moving her few belongings into the place.

Puzzled, he asked, “Makena, what’s going on?”

She’d given him one of those looks that women excel at when dealing with the opposite sex, especially when the opposite sex has not discerned the obvious. “Moving in,” she replied, as if that explained everything.

There was an anteroom just inside the door and she’d set up there. The room wasn’t very big but big enough to hold her folding cot, a small battered chest of drawers with peeling paint, an equally battered military foot locker, and a folding wood tray table. On the tray table was an ancient-looking, round, wind-up alarm clock, and a wood-framed photo of Jonas and Makena standing in the evening sunshine next to a UH-1. The photo commemorated her first flight.

Makena had been on the flight line, as usual, late one afternoon with her yellow wagon, when he had come back from a routine resupply mission to Kenyan troops in Somalia. One of the newly arrived pilots was ready for a familiarization flight of the local area, so on a whim, he had pointed to Makena and told her to get aboard. Her expression went from shock, to happiness, to serious in the space of a couple of heartbeats. His crew chief smiled broadly as he strapped her into one of the canvas-covered seats in the cabin and got her fitted with a headset. For the next thirty minutes every time he looked over his shoulder he saw an ear to ear smile.

The photographer captured her in her neatly pressed camouflaged uniform, her straight dark hair much shorter than now, and Jonas in a sweat-stained khaki flight suit, his close-cropped hair matted from being under a flight helmet all day. Her yellow wagon was next to them, and both held a large red plastic glass. The photo caught them grinning at each other as they touched glasses in a toast to her first flight.

That began her love affair with flying, and from then on she’d be in his aircraft, assisting the crew chief, as long as it was a training flight, or a pilot check ride. A spiral notebook became her logbook, where she kept meticulous notes about each flight. Her first long flight was 307 air-miles to Moi Air Base in Nairobi. One time they’d flown south to FOB Lamu on the coast, and she had stared wide-eyed when the Indian Ocean came into view.

Not only did she move into his quarters on that memorable day, but she also announced, from then on her name was to be, ‘Kesi.’

Puzzled, Jonas asked her about it, and she had simply explained she liked it better than Makena. He accepted her decision. It was a pretty name after all, and she had not chosen the name Makena, even though it was accurately descriptive.

When she had announced her new name to Sergeant Kimani, she had great difficulty stifling a laugh. When Kesi was off on her next errand he had asked Kimani, “What’s so funny about her new name?”

“Major, in Swahili it means, ‘born at a time of great trouble for father.’”

“What? I don’t understand.”

Kimani explained, “It seems she has chosen you to be her father, and Makena is an orphan’s name. She doesn’t see herself as an orphan any longer, and in her mind the months you have been here have been very difficult for you ... her father.”

And just like that he had a daughter.

The legal adoption took a great deal longer, but with a Nairobi barrister and packets of dollars to overcome obstacles, such as the fact he wasn’t married, the adoption went through. So ‘Makena ya yatima’ became Kesi Makena Kaufmann (He had persuaded her to keep ‘Makena’ as her middle name), and because of the Child Citizen Act she would became an American citizen the day she arrived in the US.

She was as indispensable to him as she had been to Sergeant Mwangi and also became a fixture at his office. Kesi was affectionately known as ‘Kidogo Meja,’ or ‘Little Major.’ Sergeant Kimani went out of her way to include her in running the office and also provided a treasure trove of school texts. If Kesi wasn’t running errands, or flying with him, she was at a table in his office studying.

Soon, Jonas found himself her tutor and most evenings they would sit together in his office, which was air-conditioned as opposed to his quarters - and go over the lessons he’d assigned the previous day. English and Swahili are the official languages of Kenya, and they taught each other the two languages. Kesi, ‘you may no longer call me Makena,’ had a decent grasp of English but it was mixed with Swahili words. Eventually they made a pact that one day they would speak only English and the next only Swahili. Kesi was a knowledge sponge and her grasp of spoken and written English (along with every other subject she attempted) quickly outpaced his abilities with Swahili.

Sergeant Kimani, educated in England, who spoke English with a ‘BBC’ accent, was quite amused as she watched him struggle with Swahili, especially since all of the officers in the helicopter squadron, and most of the NCOs spoke excellent English. But he persevered, and by the time he’d been there five years his Swahili was quite good – but not as good as Kesi’s English.

“She sounds as American as you do,” Kimani commented one day. “She’s even got the idioms down.” He’d laughed because early in the teaching process Kesi had made a list of those he used, especially those involving baseball, and had quizzed him about them.

From somewhere, Kesi had acquired a large world map which took up part of one wall in the outer office where she and Sergeant Kimani had their desks. Kesi was fascinated by geography and one evening she stood in front of that map, hands on hips, and very seriously announced, “It’s 15,607 kilometers from Nairobi to San Diego, where you grew up, and one day I’m going to go there.”

He remembered how she had beamed when he’d replied, “We’ll go together.”

For her ninth birthday – she had chosen July 4^th – he presented her with a laptop. She was stunned. She had already become computer literate using the computer in his office or at times his personal laptop, but those times were limited because those machines were often tied up with the running of the squadron and keeping their ten UH-1s operational.

With the laptop and internet access at FOB Wajir, suddenly the whole world opened to her.

His musings were interrupted when she asked, “Do you miss her? I mean Doctor Amélie.”

He nodded. “I knew you didn’t mean Erica.”

Kesi shuddered theatrically. “That mbwajike!”

“Even in Swahili, you owe me a dollar.”

She reached into the flap-covered pocket of her flight jacket and pulled out three ones and tried to hand them to him.

“What’s this?”

“That’s for this time, and the next two times I call Lieutenant Commander Erica bitch Yang, a mbwajike! She’s like some evil Lucy Liu.”

He laughed, “And what have you got against Erica, other than she’s a condescending, selfish, narcissistic, mbwajike, treats you like a child, and calls you ‘the brat’ behind your back?”

She grinned as she put one of the dollars back in her pocket. “That pretty much covers the bases. Guess you noticed.”

“Pretty hard not to...”

“Why is she so obsessed with you? In the last two years she’s been to FOB Wajir seven times, always with a bunch of Brass from AFRICOM or some VIPs from Washington. And they always have to have,” here she did a pretty credible imitation of Erica’s voice, “‘Major Kaufmann’s expert briefing.’ I thought she was the one who broke the engagement with you.”

Erica Yang, now Lieutenant Commander Yang of AFRICOM, located in Stuttgart, had been Jonas’ fiancée when they graduated from the Naval Academy ten years before, but she put her military career advancement ahead of everything else, including him.

“She did. We were supposed to get married right after graduation, but she kept putting it off. She got a plum assignment to the Pentagon and I was sent to Florida for helicopter flight training. One day she called and ended our engagement – her only explanation was that it was too soon in our careers to get married, especially with the uncertainties of assignments and all. Within a few months she married some Admiral’s aide.”

“She’s married? She doesn’t act like it, especially around you.”

“No, within three years she’d jettisoned the Admiral’s aide, but only after she’d secured an early promotion to lieutenant and a prestigious assignment to CENTCOM in Florida.”

Jonas suspected the marriage had been a calculated move, and when he’d heard about the divorce coming on the heels of the selection for promotion and new job, he felt his suspicions justified.

“So what does she want from you?”

He shook his head. “Maybe she thinks she made a mistake ten years ago, but I doubt it. With Erica everything is about her.”

“It was her mistake, but you benefitted.”

“No doubt in my mind. I was crushed when she broke our engagement, although, I admit, I wasn’t really surprised. Now, the more I see her the more I’m convinced I dodged a bullet.” He reflected for a moment. “Actually, just before I came to Kenya she tracked me down. We’d had no contact in five years and all of a sudden she strolls into my office at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina.

“When I stood, she hugged and kissed me like there was still something between us. I have to admit that she’d grown more beautiful since I’d seen her last. She was wearing a perfectly fitted white uniform with skirt which showed a lot of leg and she’d obviously put a lot of effort into her hair and makeup that morning.”

Kesi rolled her eyes.

“I’d learned my lesson though, with Erica beauty is truly only skin deep. At that point she announced she could get my discharge expedited and she had the perfect job for me as a civilian intelligence analysist, working with her at CENTCOM.

“Since I couldn’t fly as I was awaiting discharge, I was assigned all the lousy jobs like supply inventory, Mess officer, range safety officer, and perpetual duty officer. She probably figured I’d jump at the chance, but I was not the least bit tempted by Erica, or the job, and I told her so. She was shocked, and clearly offended that I didn’t appreciate her efforts.”

“Guess it was a good thing she didn’t have a Samurai sword like O-Ren Ishii.”

He looked puzzled for a few seconds until he got the reference. “So that’s why you called her ‘an evil Lucy Liu.’ You shouldn’t even know about O-Ren Ishii, much less Kill Bill.”

“It’s part of American culture...”

“R-rated Quentin Tarantino films are hardly what I’d describe as ‘American culture’ ... and where’d you see that anyway?”

She shrugged, looking a bit chagrinned. “It’s on the internet,”

“Wait, why do I suspect Christy and Emma had something to do with it? Maybe a little tradeoff for teaching them insults and swear-words in Swahili?”

Even under her light caramel complexion, he could see her blush.

He tried unsuccessfully to look stern. “Yes, I know about that.”

She looked down. “I was trying to teach them a bit of Swahili and they asked...”

“So if they’re ever in the market in Wajir and someone tried to cheat them, they’d know how to respond?”

Kesi grinned. “Exactly, it would be very helpful.”

Jonas shook his head and had a hard time hiding a smile, as he imagined blonde Emma, and red-headed Christy, haggling in the teeming and often chaotic central market of Wajir.

“No more R-rated movies, okay?”

She hung her head and tried, without much success to look contrite. “Okay, guess it will just be The Princess Bride from now on.”

“Yes.”

She smirked. “As you wish.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes.

They were silent for a few minutes. Finally, she turned to him, this time with eyes filled with sadness. “When you saw Erica that time in North Carolina you were being discharged because you were hurt in Afghanistan.” It was a statement, not a question. Kesi had seen the scars, especially the surgical scar around his left shoulder.

He nodded. It was common knowledge he’d flown attack helicopters in Afghanistan, but he never talked about his injuries or his several tours there, much less that he’d been medically discharged.

I tried, without success, to land my shot up Cobra on the side of a hill. One of the skids collapsed and we went rolling. Fortunately it wasn’t a big hill and there was no fire, and fortunately my copilot/gunner was only a little banged up and was able to get me out.

“Yes, it’s just I had some trouble with my left rotator cuff after they repaired it - my range of motion wasn’t up to Marine Corps standards.”

“I’ve never seen you have trouble flying.”

“I don’t, but for the US military, if you can’t pass a flight physical you can’t fly.”

Kesi brightened. “I guess that’s lucky for me, because then you got to come to Kenya and be my father.”

Jonas took her hand. “Lucky for me too.”