Chapter 5

Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti

The flight took just over twelve uncomfortable hours. White Mountain had acquired a Beechcraft King Air that had clearly seen some miles as a cargo plane. Most of the seats had been pulled out of it to make room for cargo and replaced with jump seats mounted on the walls. The paint was faded and it was vibrating so hard for the whole trip, it was all but impossible to get any sleep.

It was just after two in the morning when they landed, although you couldn’t tell from the airstrip, which still had a lot of activity going on, with high-powered lights shining all over. Because Camp Lemonnier was the only permanent U.S. base in Africa, it saw a fair amount of traffic all day long.

The entire team was required to stay on the plane as it taxied to a small hanger on one far corner of the base, where it finally pulled to a stop and opened the doors to let everyone out. Taylor couldn’t help but notice the MPs stationed on either end of the hanger, looking in towards the offloading plane rather than out towards the rest of the airport. They were there to make sure none of the White Mountain team wandered from their assigned spot, which meant the short rest they were allowed would be on cots or on the floor inside of the hanger.

Taylor watched the team unload and carry their personal bags into the hanger, leaving Lopez to unload the rest by himself. Taylor felt for him and part of him wanted to help the kid, but he had something to take care of himself that wouldn’t wait. Climbing down the steps Taylor walked towards one of the MPs instead of into the hanger like the rest of the team.

“Hey,” the guy called Webb called after him. “We’re supposed to stay in the hanger.”

“Let him go,” Stone said as Taylor passed the team leader and O’Brien. “If he gets thrown in the brig, we don’t have to worry about hauling him with us the rest of the way.”

Taylor ignored them.

The MP held up a hand as he approached and said, “Sorry sir, you’re not allowed to leave this area.”

“Could you have someone call over to the Embassy and let the Station Chief Virgil Wheeler know that John Taylor’s here. He knew when we were landing.”

“One second,” the MP said, stepping away to a Humvee parked a few paces away, leaving his buddy to eyeball me.

Civilians always had this idea that MPs were hard asses, mostly because that’s how they were always portrayed on TV. In fact, the military went out of their way to train their cops to be polite and respectful as long as the person they were dealing with stayed inside the lines.

Taylor just stood by patiently while he waited, looking out across the base tarmac. Despite their non-confrontational attitude, these guys were professionals and they’d be looking for signs that Taylor was up to something, since he wasn’t doing what they’d been briefed on, so he didn’t pace or fidget while he waited.

The wait stretched into five and then ten minutes, which was probably the other MP calling his command to let them know what Taylor was asking and that sergeant or lieutenant on the other end kicking it upstairs to whoever was awake in operations, since they weren’t going to just call an embassy station chief on the word of some guy who just walked up.

Wheeler must have left word, because instead of handing him a phone, the MP came back and said, “Come with us, sir.”

Taylor could feel Stone’s eyes boring into the back of his head as he got into the Humvee with one of the MPs and drove away. He hadn’t told any of the rest about his meeting and he wasn’t planning on it, since if this whole operation was as shifty as it seemed, the last thing they’d want to do is let Taylor know. He knew Stone would grill him about the detour when he returned, but Taylor wasn’t particularly worried about that.

Wheeler must have been tracking their flight, because they drove Taylor to the small building at the end of the runways near the control tower that was helpfully labeled Air Operations. The MP handed Taylor off to another MP and drove away, probably back to the hanger while the new guide led Taylor into the rectangular building and down a hallway into a small, unfurnished room with a short conference table. This must have been meant for non-cleared personnel, since there weren’t the computers or displays or anything else he’d expect in an actual meeting room. There wasn’t even a phone.

Taylor sat quietly, hands folded on top of the table and waited. Eventually, a short red-haired man in a suit came strolling in, carrying a fairly thick folder under one arm.

“Wheeler?” Taylor asked, not standing up.

“Yep,” he said, pulling out the chair across from Taylor and sitting down. “I’m curious about something, Mr. Taylor. I’ve checked into you and you have some very powerful friends. Besides your friend the President, it seems like everyone from the Secretary of Defense to the Director of the FBI owes you some kind of favor. Why would someone with your connections need a guy like Dave Bryant to call me directly and ask me to brief you? Couldn’t you just pick up a phone and get this from a more direct source?”

“Maybe, but I’m not working for the federal government on this and Northbridge is doing something they want very much to keep off the books. They have pretty good connections in Washington too, and they could make it impossible to help my friend out. Northbridge didn’t have to cooperate or let me go on this and Bryant and I go way back, so I thought this might be a better way to find what I needed while not getting shut out by Northbridge.”

“Makes sense, and you’re right about their connections on the hill. I hear they’re already asking questions about you. I think some of the higher-ups are concerned the whole ‘helping a friend’ thing is a smokescreen and you’re really investigating the company. They let you in because they think that might be true and they didn’t want to force an investigation to become more public.”

“Well, at least the paranoia works in my favor this time. So ... what do you have for me?”

“Several things. Dave said the thing you wanted to know about most was why they were in that area in the first place, and unfortunately, that’s the thing I have the least amount on.”

“Do you know anything? The official reason doesn’t make any sense. Even if they needed secrecy for whatever they were working on, there had to be better places to do it than Somalia. Maybe in the US was no good, although with their connections I can’t see how that’s possible, but they have better infrastructure in multiple middle-eastern countries, rather than on the African coast. And even if there was some reason to put it in Africa, why Somalia of all places. There are a dozen countries with a more controlled central government that could keep their people safe than where they put them. Hell, one of Somalia’s growth industries is extortion. It just doesn’t add up.”

“I did some checking, and this project is incredibly compartmentalized, whatever it is. That right there suggests why they needed somewhere like Somalia. The more organized the central government is, the more likely a country will start asking questions, wanting to know what Northbridge is up to. They’ve always kept their projects close to the vest, but this is the first time I’ve heard of the higher-ups not knowing what one of their groups is up to. From what I can find, your ex-fiancée’s pressure campaign was the first time most of the higher-ups have heard of this group. I think that’s why they chose to send in mercenaries rather than just pay them off. The company wants to know what’s going on just as bad as you do.”

“So not even the company knows what they’re doing? That’s a bad sign. Did Bryant mention a guy named Edward Packer?”

“Yes, I’ve done some checking, and man does this guy hate you.”

“I already knew that part,” Taylor said, deadpan.

“After he got blackballed out of politics he convinced Northbridge to bring him on, although it looks like they only half-heartedly hired him, since he’s being paid well under what they’d normally pay for someone with his contacts. From what I’ve been able to dig up, he was just kind of coasting along until about two months ago, when he vanished into a new project in their cryptography section. They normally keep that section of the company’s projects pretty tight as it is, but this group is a ghost. I have no idea what they’re working on.”

“Can you find out? I really don’t like how little this whole thing makes sense and it would explain what they’re doing out here.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep checking.”

“Good. What about this compound?”

“It’s an old British fort circa the nineteen-fifties that the Somali government happily sold to Northbridge for a song five months ago. The first group to come out modernized and fortified it to house staff and whatever they were working on. The closest village is several miles away, which was a selling point. Although, hardly any multinational companies operate in the country because of all the banditry. Those that have quickly ran into problems from having staff live inside of a city. They kept getting snatched and ransomed. The go-to thing is to keep everyone inside an enclosed compound, protected by company-paid security staff and hired portions of the Somali army, although that’s really only available near the capital. That’s what makes the placement out here so strange, since they basically opened themselves up to the militias, who don’t go that close to the capital, anymore.”

He pulled out a few pages with drawings and layouts of the fort with marks on the changes done to it, “I wasn’t able to get much beyond the old fort’s layout, but they did have a problem with some local hires in the construction that we managed to talk to. They didn’t know much, but I wrote up some of it for you, to see if it was helpful.”

“Do you know which group has control of the compound now?”

“Yeah, and that’s more bad news. They call themselves the Muharibi Allah, but that’s just marketing. They’re run by a guy named Samatar Barsane and the only thing he cares about is himself. He’s never worked with any other Islamic groups and he’s never shown any kind of interest in forwarding their cause. Barsane came into power about ten years ago when his brother-in-law died from a sudden case of car bombing. Most everyone assumes Barsane was behind it, but I’m not sure how much anyone cared, since his brother-in-law was apparently a massive asshole. Barsane changed the name of the militia the year after he took power and has been expanding his base of control ever since, although he’s started to bump into some rival militias in recent years.”

“There’s no government presence out here?”

“No. They have tried to man expeditions into this region a few times to trim back the power of the warlords, but it hasn’t gone well.”

“He supports himself and his militia through this kind of thing? Kidnapping and whatnot?”

“Partially, but he’s also clever. There are some decent-sized mines in the area that he shut down when he took over, which he now leases to major outside firms for a cut of the profit in exchange for his ‘protection.’ The workers for it are little more than slave labor, mostly prisoners taken in raids on villages where the locals are too poor to actually pay to get their relatives back. His people run everything and only let the foreign companies send in advisors. He handles everything else. They’re all still small scale, but word is he’s looking to expand.”

“It’s rare for these guys to be this entrepreneurial, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. This guy is a hell of a capitalist, although don’t get me wrong. He still fits in a good deal of smuggling and kidnapping.”

“So he controls this region?”

“No, and that’s the strange part. This area is loosely controlled by another militia, and while they’re too weak to push Barsane out, they’re strong enough that he hasn’t tried to push into their territory either. He’s based out of the Sanaag province but the compound is a good fifty miles outside his territory in the Woqooyi Galbeed province. He wouldn’t have just done any kind of raid that far into another warlord’s territory without a damn good reason.”

“Just taking hostages wouldn’t be worth it?”

“No. He can’t afford an all-out war right now since he’s busy pushing south, trying to secure a few more mineral deposits, which is where the real money is for him. I can’t imagine any ransom would have him change everything, especially for a compound that small. He couldn’t have gotten more than a dozen people, and that’s if everyone survived the attack.”