Closer To God, Forlorn Hope, Chapter X

Closer To God
Forlorn Hope
Chapter X

The Beach Africa hostel was nothing like other beach hotels I had frequented, up and down the coastal regions of Africa. We drove into to a collected bunch of what seemed like high school students, waiting for their school bus. Our Pajero was missing a lot of glass, which attracted a little attention, but, as we climbed from the vehicle, no one questioned or interdicted us. I opened the back hatch, intending to help Helen from the vehicle. I saw immediately that that was not going to work. She was just too messed up, mentally and physically. Some piece of feminine clothing was tightly wrapped and knotted around her upper left arm. She smiled weakly up at me. I felt guilty. The four women were not road warriors. They were just regular kids, tougher and more experienced than most, but still kids. And I had used them for our own purposes to a bloody outcome.
Leaving Anice to look after her, the rest of us waded through the crowd to arrive at some desks set against the wall of a large tiled room. African artifacts, looking like Walmart imitations, adorned the walls. I noticed that everyone was white, and frowned. I didn’t really mind, but it seemed uncommon for where we were. The small fishing village we’d had to work our way through to get to the hostel had been just the opposite. All local. No whites or foreigners.
The young lady checking us in was Irish, and cute as a button. An eighteen year old button, if that. Everything was ‘grand.’
“This is grand. Almost everyone has checked out. How many banda’s do you want?”
“Three,” I said, a bit taken up with all the youthful good cheer going on all around me. I looked over my shoulder when I handed her several of the five thousand shilling notes. It would be hard for the police to get a line on us where we were, but any of the residences nearby the recent shooting would be able to describe the Pajero with a missing windshield.
“Can we park around back to unload? I asked the Irish lass, returning my attention to her. When we came in I had noticed how thick the brush grew, just beyond the the Beach Africa compound.
“That’ll be grand,” she replied, “and each banda is only three hundred shillings a day, sir,” the woman said, holding out several of the notes in her right hand.
“Keep’em,” I responded. “We’ll be staying a while.” We wouldn’t be but I wanted no money problems from the hostel haunting us while we were there.
She handed me three forms to fill out. I scrawled across all of them using the writer Ben Johnson’s name, artist as occupation and Great Britain as country of origin.
When I completed the forms I handed them back and waited, hand in my pocket, in case there was going to be a need for more shillings. But the young lady didn’t ask for any identification or proof.
“Where are the rooms?” I asked. The Irish lass looked up at me without responding. “I mean, how do we find the bandas we’re staying in?” I re-phrased.
“Oh, grand, here’s a map.” She quickly circled the three northernmost small squares on a poorly copied piece of printing paper. I was relieved. We could drive the Pajero through the bush, and then unload out of sight, unless there were obstacles I was unaware of.
I turned to the group assembled behind me. “Back in the car, we’ll drive around back and unload.”
“You can do what you want. I’m walking,” Joan said. “Sam will get my bag.”
Sam beamed, as if he had received some sort of high compliment. Joan headed out the back of the building toward the visible pool and beach beyond. Her expensive slacks and day coat marked her as out of place and overdressed, but attractive as hell.
The rest of us loaded back into the SUV and drove through the brush. It was thick brush but no match for the brute force of the big vehicle. It took half an hour to unload everything and get Helen into one of the bandas. The single rooms, each with a bathroom and running water, were not large, but after packing into the cabin on the train they seemed bright and spacious.
Sam, Burt and I gravitated to the innermost of the bandas, automatically understanding that the women would arrange themselves in ways we neither understood nor cared about. Once settled I motioned both to sit and listen.
“We need a new vehicle. They’re going to be looking for our’s and we can’t move anywhere quickly with no windshield. We’ve got to make it over to Shimo la Tewa prison, then down to the ferry. Rafiq is probably on the ferry running back and forth.” I stopped, waiting to see if both men were getting what I was saying.
“What of the woman?” Burt stated, his voice flat, his distaste for Joan palpable.
“We need the DCM,” I replied. “She’s a major diplomat and not to be screwed with by the authorities. We also left a little mess back there in town.”
“You left a mess,” Sam said, unexpectedly, then cleared his throat, as if he had spoken out of turn. I noted his failure, for the first time, to use the word ‘sir.’
“Yes, I left a bit of a mess, following a single shot that could have gone right through your cranium instead of Helen’s arm.”
“Yes, sir!” Sam said, falling back into the rigid behavior required by the Corps when in the presence of an officer. Except I wasn’t a officer in the Marine Corps. The edge to his voice when he’d made the first statement made me uncomfortable, as if his opinion of me from other knowledge was significantly less than what he’d led me to believe earlier. I filed away my thoughts and feelings about the subject for later reference.
“And I’ve got to call in. We can’t proceed further without the Agency. We just don’t have the assets and we’re going to run into the local authorities at some point. The Agency doesn’t have a clue about any of this. I’ve got to bring them in. People are dying over what this is about. The Agency comes in or we get the hell out, no matter how we felt about Smith.” I took a seat on the edge of the bed to wait. I wasn’t running a real mission and I could only make believe for so long. There was terminal risk for all involved, as had been graphically proven. The players deserved to be heard.
“I’m in,” Burt said, almost before I was done speaking. He pulled out the nine millimeter and then disassembled it on the rug in front of a canvas drawer dresser. I looked at Sam.
“I ride for the brand,” he stated, his eyes boring into my own. The expression seemed self-explanatory, but I wondered what he considered the ‘brand’ to be. There was a depth to the young man I could not plumb, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sitting in a banda on the beach. He seemed awfully young to be as cool as he appeared. The blowing out of the Pajero’s windshield hadn’t affected his driving one bit, and he’d been completely emotionless about Helen’s violent injury. Both of those reactions didn’t seem to fit behavior when stacked agains Sam’s age or innocent demeanor.
Burt moved to the sink, cradling the pieces he had laid out on the floor. He threw them into the basin, then ran hot water and started to scrub them. Hot water and soap.
I hadn’t seen an operational weapon cleaned with soap and water since training, although it made complete sense. I presumed that the huge man had a bottle of gun oil squirreled away somewhere in his wrappings. Walking to his side I pulled the AMT out and set it next to the sink. I knew he’d want to clean that as well. It was nice to work with another thinking professional, but I said nothing, knowing that Burt would not want to hear a compliment about something he so took for granted.
“I’m taking a walk on the beach. I’ll be back after the call.” I looked at both men after I spoke. Sam leaned down to go through his pack. Burt worked away on the gun parts, ignoring me.
The beach was not much of a beach. Further north there was a real hotel called the Serena. I could see where the beach expanded and grew into a thick strip of white sand in that direction. I walked on sand that was mixed with small chunks of rough rock. The water breaking along the shore broke on hard flat rock, not sand. The Beach Africa could have been more aptly described as the Rock Africa, but, of course, that would never have worked. I dialed the international number.
I was put straight through to Tony, my control officer.
“What do we owe the privilege of this communication?” he inquired.
“This isn’t a secure line,” I began, telling him something I knew he already knew. No cell phone discussions anywhere in the world were secure. I was alerting my control that there was more information backing what I was going to say than I could communicate. I filled him in, omitting the name of the organization of the men who’d opposed us, as well as the train incident. I did mention Sierra Leone, and later diamonds, in a passing way. He caught the connection right away, however.
“Alright, he agreed. Pursue this stone thing. I’ll send a couple of drones down from the consulate in the morning, for your ferry transit at nine local.”
Ferry transit meant the isolation and questioning of our Lebanese contact, Rafiq, I knew. His mention of that interrogation without my bringing it up told me that he was closer in touch with our situation than he was telling me. And his mention of ‘stones’ told me what the Agency was really interested in. Smith was dead, but the diamonds were part of a living mystery to be solved.
I asked for more money.
“Twenty, but no more Charlie Delta. Do you understand me?” he asked. Charlie Delta was alphanumeric code for the letters C and D. Collateral Damage. Twenty meant that the men he was sending would bring twenty thousand in U.S. cash with them when they came.
“You want me to play this or do you want me to whistle Dixie?” I asked. I hated collateral damage although it seemed to follow me around like a recurring case of the common cold. Tony and I liked one another for different reasons, although neither he nor I appreciated our respective senses of humor. He hung up without responding.
I passed in front of Joan’s banda. I knew it because she was sitting outside of its sliding glass doors in a cheap plastic chair. I walked up, and then sat in the chair next to her.
“What are you planning?” she asked, without preamble.
“Visit the prison today. The ferry tomorrow. Need a rental car.
You’re the obvious choice. You’re not going to be on anyone’s radar. Not yet, at least.
Got a credit card?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot.
“Where do I go down here to get a rental?” she asked.
“You and Sam can catch a cab back to the Intercontinental. They have an agency right on site,” I answered. “Why are you really here?”
She didn’t say anything for a minute or so. I waited, watching the waves impact on the rock shore, and then wash up to the thin layer of sand, time after time.
“I don’t know. There’s something about all this. Something about you.
How do you assemble all these people to do your bidding? Those women think you’re some sort of heroic figure. How do you do that?”
It was my turn to remain silent for awhile. I had no good answer. A sales guru had once told me that the most effective salesperson was a conscious competent person.
Most people were unconscious incompentents. I didn’t like the feeling that, about what Joan was speaking of, I might be an unconscious competent. But I had no ready answer for her question.
“The cause is just. People follow a just cause,” I finally answered. And the answer felt good, until she spoke again.
“They don’t have any idea what the cause is. It’s a hell of a lot more than a just cause. How are you going to get rid of them? Even shooting them doesn’t seem to dim their enthusiasm.”
“I’ll work on it while you’re gone,” I replied, avoiding further discussion altogether by changing the subject. “You can’t come to the prison. A woman, like yourself, would stick out like a sore thumb. Burt and I will be bad enough.”
“Where is the prison?” she asked, not arguing with my decision, at least.
“Two miles from here, if that, by the inlet to the north. It’s about the most modern structure on this part of the coast. There’s a courthouse attached. We’ll go there to see what we can rake up, for a bit of cash.”
“I’ll get a car. If you keep building this entourage we’ll need a bus.” She smiled for the first time when she said the words.
“So you came down here for me?” I ventured.
“You’ve changed something in the fabric of the universe here. I don’t know what. I still don’t like what you do. I think your heart is good, however, yet I’m not altogether happy with that conclusion. Sometimes you seem so directly dumb, and then you seem brilliant.” She raised one hand in a gesture of helplessness.
“Idiot Savant, I think its called,” I interpreted for her.
“There’s nothing idiotic about you at all, so no,” she replied, rising from her chair.
“I’m going to check on Helen. I think she’s fine though. Happy to have been shot during an adventure in Africa. You’ve twisted her mind in some god-awful manner.”
“Like yours?” I asked, to her departing back. She didn’t turn.
It took almost three hours for Sam to show up at the banda with a rental rig.
I was impressed. It was an aging Range Rover. V8 power. Large and Heavy. The gas mileage of an Abrams tank but air conditioned and extremely comfortable. Sam, Burt and I drove the short distance up Highway B8 to the prison. There was no missing it, as it was the only multi-story structure along the highway.
Same wheeled the Rover into a parking lot the size of two football fields, that sat in front of the main building. Most of the cars parked were clustered near the far end, closest to the bridge running in a high arc over the inlet.
“That’s got to be the court building,” I pointed out to Sam. He pulled the vehicle in among all the other cars. There were no Rovers. It was far too expensive a vehicle for most indigenous citizens to own, or even rent.
“Well, sir, what now?” he asked, turning the ignition off. I twisted in my leather seat to look back at Burt.
“We go in, find a contact, and then pursue whatever lead he might be able to give us. I don’t know what we’re looking for. Better strip down. No weaponry. They might have detectors all over the place in there. It’s pretty modern for this part of the world.” I looked at the structures we were in front of. The place looked modern for almost anywhere we might be in the world, I realized. It had to be American built. America builds great prisons.
“Stand by, nothing more. Stay alert. Use your head,” I said to Sam.
I waited for Burt to strip down in the back seat.
“Ready,” he said, finally. “When small bands of English soldiers were sent into the breach against the French cannons, what were they called?” he asked, getting out of the passenger door of the Rover.
I thought for a moment. Cornwell’s Sharp series came to my mind.
“The Forlorn Hope,” I answered.
“Roger that,” he whispered, as we walked together toward the imposing structure.

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Closer To God, If One Would Dance, Chapter IX

Closer To God
If One Would Dance
Chapter IX
The view in front of the train was wide and clear when seen through the huge open space at the back of the engine. It was windy, however, as our speed was about forty-five. Dawn was moments away and visibility was less than a quarter mile, but it was enough.
As we came in toward the area of the station, according to the engineer standing at my side, the track would curve left to head in around the outer edge of the station. He showed me the small radio console that controlled four switches in the yard, the left most of which was the one that, when thrown, would allow us to proceed straight into the yard.
“We’re going in hot,” I said, seeing the buildings of the yard appear out of the morning gray.
“Hot?” he asked, his voice rising an octave.
“There’s nothing there. We can see. Hold the speed,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the tracks, noting how many more spread out further ahead. I slipped another five thousand shilling note from my pocket, this time passing it directly to the man’s squatting wife, who grasped it quickly, smiling again. I saw the track curve away to our left.
“Hit the switch,” I instructed, but the engineer shook his head.
“One more moment. We must give them no time to switch it back.”
The man’s hand hovered over the board. We were only feet from the curve when he eased down on the small lever. I watched the track ahead break and spread, and then we were over it.
“How far to Moi Road?” I asked. Both of us peered intently ahead, not moving our heads to look at one another. If there was something ahead there would be no stopping in time to avoid a collision.
“Kilometer. Minute. Two,” he clipped off, his voice tense, both hands braced to push back on a huge lever rising from the steel floor. I presumed the lever to be the brake, not that it might matter. There were at least twenty cars behind us. The inertia of the train was tremendous. We blew by the yard buildings, one man running out to watch us go by, a look of wonder on his face.
“Better slow this thing down,” I mentioned, as if I knew anything about stopping a train. “Where does the line end?” I asked.
“Used to be the Lakoni ferry, but we don’t go that far anymore. Don’t think there’s any track,” he answered. I recalled that the Lebanese and his family ran a ferry at that location.
The train began to slow, the engineer reaching for a cable that ran along the top corner edge of our small space. I caught his arm.
“No whistle.”
The man returned to his position, gently pushing on his big lever.
Jack saw cars crossing the tracks ahead. A lot of cars for so early in the morning. The intersection had to be Moi. I heard the universal ding ding ding of the railroad alarms signaling, as wooden guards descended to the block the road.
“You’re doing fine,” I said, my voice calm, although I didn’t feel calm at all. Had Burt received and properly interpreted the message? Was there going to be a Pajero waiting, or were we on our own? I punched the auto dial butto for Burt on the cell phone. He answered after the first ring.
“Hot, high and dry,” he said, and then hung up.
It was flight talk. I had not known that Burt was a flier. Hot, high and dry referenced the most dangerous kind of landing for an aircraft, outside of an emergency. If conditions were hot in temperature lift was less across the wing. High meant high altitude. There was less lift in thinner air. Dry finished the description. Dry air had less density than moist air, and ergo less lift. Using the expression as he had, meant that the Pajero was coming in but it was going to be a very risky landing.
“Gee, like I wouldn’t have guessed that,” I said to nobody, the engineer fully taken up with stopping the train. We were moving at about fifteen miles per hour when we approached to within fifty yards of Moi Road. I climbed around the rear guard of the engine, then jumped ten feet down to the slanted earth next to the tracks, using a series of Aikido rolls to minimize damage to my body as I decelerated.
The Pajero pulled around traffic, then came right down the railroad right of way, bouncing to near where I was rising, patting the dust from my shirt and trousers. The train’s air brakes gave off a huge whooshing sound, up and down the sides of the long line of cars. Burt and the Earth Mothers ran toward us from that direction.
Sam jumped from the vehicle and opened the back door. The Pajero was big but it was going to need all of its space for the six of us getting aboard. It would have been much simpler and safer to leave the Earth Mothers behind, but I knew they would have nothing to do with that. Burt and I would have to ditch them when we found some place to stay, and get our act together.
I ran to the passenger side of the vehicle and opened the front door.
Joan smiled down at me.
“What?” I asked, in total surprise and confusion. “What are you…” I began, but got no farther.
“I thought it would be a good idea to provide a little guidance. My ex-husband has had a hand in all this, and its my responsibility to make sure no more mistakes are made and that there’s no more violence.” She slammed the door in my face when she finished speaking. I got in the back.
Wendy was wedged between Burt and I, while the other three were crammed over the back seat into the cargo area. Sam hit the gas and rocketed around in a tight circle, throwing us roughly about the interior of the car.
“Where to?” he asked, looking back with a huge smile, obviously enjoying the driving and our obvious discomfort.
“We need a place out of the way where people won’t think to look,” I said to Wendy.
“The Beach Africa is it. Student hostel. About three hundred shillings a day
and okay. No air conditioning. You get a paraffin lamp and a mosquito net in a banda built for two. We got the sleeping bags though,” she said. “Go North on Moi,” she went on, leaning forward and pointing her finger for Sam to follow.
The wood crossing guards were still down. The engine had come to stop in the middle of the intersection, the engineer having delivered accurately for his money. Sam careened around the barrier, narrowly slipped between several cars and then accelerated in the direction Wendy had indicated. There were no cars in our way, as the barrier behind us blocked them all.
Wendy held to her center position, body wedged between the front seats, instructing Sam as to our direction. I peered over Joan’s right shoulder and grew ever more uncomfortable. We were headed back into the center of Mombasa, which was built on an island. The rail station was close to the center of town.
“Just head north and we’ll hit D eight, the highway and get off island. It doesn’t matter what road we take,” Wendy said.
We crossed another major road. There was little traffic. Sam did not bother to stop for the stop sign, and my worst fears were confirmed. A Maruki four wheel drive drove right past the rear of our Pajero at high speed, narrowly avoiding a collision, before screeching to a halt, and then spinning around to pursue us. Sam hit the gas. There was a sharp crack from behind us. Our windshield turned into biting little chunks of safety glass, and blew inward. European safety glass, not the good stuff used in America, which has a thick sandwich of gooey plastic in the middle, to prevent just such catastrophic failure.
There was a scream from the back at the same time. I turned, with glass pieces cascading from my throat and shirt.
“Helen’s hurt,” Anice stated, loudly, but not in panic. “I think the bullet hit the outside of her arm.”
“Get some material on it and apply pressure,” I instructed, hoping the projectile had not hit bone or an artery. We were in no condition to make for an emergency room, and we were not in a country where there was any decent medical care anyway.
I had not been angry since entering Kenya for the mission. I was not angry when we had been shot at earlier, and I wasn’t mad about the attempt on the train.
Those were the risks that went with the business. Fear I had experienced but not anger. However, I was getting sincerely pissed off that the Aegis people thought it was just fine to fire away at anything that moved.
“Give me the nine millimeter Burt,” I said, pulling the AMT from my pocket. I had one in the chamber and five in the magazine of the little back-up gun. The short barrel, and therefore lower muzzle velocity, would not allow for much penetration of the heavy .45 rounds however.
Burt handed me his gun.
“Loaded to fifty thousand C.P.I., one plus sixteen, “ he said, pushing the butt of the weapon into my open hand, behind Wendy’s back.
I examined the automatic for a brief second. The side of the slide read ‘F.N. 65.’ I knew the manufacturer. Belgian. The gun itself was made in the U.S. I liked that. Burt only seemed to carry American armament. Fifty thousand units of chamber pressure meant that the bullets, one third smaller than the .45 rounds, would launch from the barrel very fast indeed. Penetration was not going to be a problem.
“Take the next right hard, and then slow enough to drop me. Flip around
after a few more blocks and pick me up. Unless I go down. Then leave me and proceed.”
“Yes sir,” Sam replied crisply, veering the vehicle into a ninety degree turn. I loved the Marines. The vehicle slowed as we passed a wall. With the AMT back in my pocket and the FN in my right hand, I operated the handle with my left hand, opened the door, and leaped out. Sam had slowed to the perfect speed for my egress.
I was able to run a few paces and stop, without having to go down and roll out. I pulled out the AMT, flicked the external safety off by pushing it with my right palm, as the sharp little lever was made for right handed use.
The Maturi rocketed around the corner. I stepped to the edge of the crumbling curb holding up the FN. When the SUV was twenty feet away I opened up, shooting at the front glass, then the passenger doors as the car drove by.
I emptied the gun, brought up the AMT and waited. The Maturi slowed to a stop.
I moved into the street and steadied to take down anyone stepping from one of the
four doors, but nothing happened. The car just sat there.
The Pajero braked to a halt next to me. The passenger door was thrown open right at my side. Sam Hill was one hell of a driver, I realized, jumping in.
The door slammed as Sam accelerated us away from the scene.
It had all taken only seconds. My ears rang from the gunfire. The FN had been loaded to the maximum and the vibrations generated had caused some damage to my ears. The AMT was back in my pocket. I handed the used up FN back across to Burt.
“What happened back there?” Joan asked, twisting back to face me, her eyes wide, her lip quivering, but just a little.
“If one would dance, one must expect to pay the piper,” I answered. “Those clowns have been getting away with murder, or at least trying to get away with murder for days. I gave them something to think about.”
Joan turned, giving me her back again.
“Are they dead, the guys in that car?’ she asked.
“I have no idea,” I answered, truthfully. That I didn’t give a damn I kept to myself. Citizens were, after all, citizens, and it did not pay to attempt to bring them into the real world Burt and I lived in world. The Earth Mothers had come into our world for a brief visit and one was already wounded.
I checked the rear cargo area. Only Dingo was visible.
“How’s Helen?” I asked.
Anice spoke from the floor. “She’s got a slice out of her outer left arm, but he bleeding has stopped. A bit of shock. She’s real tired. But its so cool. Helen’s got a bullet wound.”
I rubbed my face, noting the bleeding cut across my right hand when I did.
The safety had cut right into the meat my palm. I had not noticed. The adrenalin of combat had cut the pain receptors and quite possibly the bleeding. Now I had both.
I grimace, clenching the hand to apply pressure. We had to get cleaned up, both Helen and I, before we entered any kind of hostel. Blood gets reported to authorities, and there was going to be some kind of very active investigation over the mess I’d left behind us. Possibly, there were no dead bodies in the Maturi, but I doubted that that was true.
Burt methodically replaced the empty magazine in the handle of the FN, pulled back on the slide, and then seated a round in the chamber. It took him another minute to take out the magazine, squeeze an additional round into the top of it, and then reset it into the automatic. The gun disappeared back into his multi-faceted outfit. He looked over at me. We both communicated the simple fact, it was good to be working with a real professional, without word or expression.
I looked out the window and watched our vehicle pass over the bridge. Mombasa was behind us. My clenched hand shook. I caught the wrist in my left hand, securing it. I wasn’t used to shooting people, and it didn’t feel good, even when the people getting shot had it coming to them in the worst way.
Wind blew with gusto right through the Pajero. I didn’t realize that the vehicle was a different one than the one we’d rented until that moment. How had Stevens and Sam come up with a vehicle of the same type and color? At the Safari hotel we’d lost the driver side passenger window and the rear glass. Either the damages had been repaired in extremely short order or we were riding in a different car. I tucked the information away for later consideration.

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Closer To God, Silver Streak, Chapter VIII

Closer To God
Silver Streak
Chapter VIII

The train seemed to take forever to reach its maximum velocity, as dinner came and went inside our small cabin. We prepared for the night ahead. I sent Burt off to check on the men we had left in custody, while the Earth Mothers prepped our area for sleep. I moved into the top bunk, by direction. The laws of sociobiology reigned, much as I knew they would, and Wendy declined to join me, preferring the company of her friends on the floor. Burt would be relegated to the bench seat, which would suit his overly large body badly, while Dingo would remain zipped in below.
Women do not have sex for sport. No women. Men believe they do, because women perpetrate that myth, just as men claim to be in love in order to enjoy sex.
Each gender gets mad at the other when it is time for real cards to be turned over on the table of life. My card was the empty upper bunk, but I was not upset about it. Sex always comes with entanglements. No matter what is said going in, the old phrase: “will you respect me in the morning?” has true merit. Plus there was the group phenomenon. Women do not like to perform in front of their peers. And I was bone tired, which had to be close to Burt’s condition. You do not get shot at, or play the fugitive, without substantial psychological, and emotional, energy output.
Burt returned, but motioned me from the door.
“Secret stuff?” Wendy intoned. “I thought we’d thrown in together.”
There was a silence in the room following her remark. Burt had closed the door, no doubt pacing up and down in the outside passage. Whatever he had to say I knew I was not going to want to hear.
“I think Burt’s afraid to come in. I better go reassure him,” I said, getting some small snickers, but nothing from Wendy. I didn’t feel guilty. The Earth Mothers were bright, tough, and had been around the Horn, but they were not equipped or ready to deal with what was facing Burt and I. Collateral damage was acceptable, but I did not want it to be any, or all, of these women. I stepped out, closing the door carefully behind me. I didn’t say anything, leaning back against the hardwood.
“They’re gone. Room’s empty. None of the porters or the conductor is saying a word. What do you think happened?”
I could tell from Burt’s tone that he already knew what had happened.
The Aegis men had used the money I’d given them to bribe the train people. They had skipped right over the custody issue they’d committed to and gotten off while the train was still stopped. I had underestimated just how tough they were. I pictured the two guys with broken wrists trying to support the broken ankle off the train, and across the quarter mile, or so, of rough country to Mombasa Road. The passage would have been a physical nightmare to go through. But those guys had nightmares every night anyway, I knew. We were all brothers in Post Traumatic Stress.
“My mistake,” I said, seriously. “We’re now more than likely to have company at the station when we arrive. They don’t have cell phones but they might just find a willing soul passing by on that road tonight.”
Burt stared out of the window into the fading light. The sun was already down, but the play of evening sunset splayed through the tops of the Baobab trees.
Our movement magnified the great beauty of the Savannah.
“I don’t know. Three white guys, rough looking, damaged, and trying to thumb a ride on that road at night? We might just get lucky here.” Burt turned to meet my eyes. We both knew that we had been ungodly lucky just to be alive to ride the train.
Could our string last? But there were no options. We could stop the train and bail out ourselves. That would put us in the same pickle as the Aegis team. Our odds were best if we continued on down to Mombasa as we were doing, and rested for the day ahead.
“You’re on the bench. I’m up in the top bunk. Both alone,” I said, opening the door behind me.
“Figured. Life just isn’t that good,” he replied.
I didn’t know what time it was when a poking finger in my right side awakened me. I looked down at my wrist in the dark, but the Omega was long gone.
“Can I come in?” Wendy’s voice said quietly, near the edge of the bunk.
“Just to sleep. I haven’t slept with a man for years. I’d like that. Just too sleep?”
“Okay by me,” I replied to her request.
She settled in next to me, her back pressed into my side. I stared up into the dark, seeing nothing. Her body felt comforting and protective. I hadn’t slept with a woman in years, but I would never admit that to Wendy, or anyone else.
Kenya is one of only ten countries in the world through which the equator passes, and Mombasa was about a hundred kilometers from that imaginary line. Dawn was always, year round, at about six forty-five in the morning, and the sun set around seven at night. It was dark when I awakened to the sounds of the Earth Mothers preparing for a new day. A paraffin lamp burned atop what passed for a dresser inside the tiny cabin, sending an eerie wavering light flickering off the lacquered wood of the walls.
I checked my non-existent watch again, grimacing at the thought of not having one.
“What time is it,” I asked, noting that I was alone in the bunk.
“Five,” Burt said, his voice penetrating up from among the girl’s moving bodies. Burt appeared to be making believe he could fall back into sleep.
“What’s our plan?” Wendy said, her head popping up from below, chin
resting on the edge of the bunk. She looked like the portrait of a beautiful angel, backlit by soft yellow light from the lamp.
I slung my feet over the side of the bunk.
“What do you think, Burt?” I asked.
“Mmmmm,” was all he responded.
“They’re likely to be waiting at the depot in Mombasa, Wendy. We can’t exactly get off with everyone and get lost in the crowd.” I massaged my unshaven chin. I hated not having a shave in the morning, or brushing my teeth and a shower, for that matter.
“Silver Streak,” Burt mumbled from across the cabin, Dingo having pushed him into a sitting position, then hugging him closely.
“Yeah, it was a movie, what about it?” I shot back, impatiently.
Burt frowned at the girl, uncomfortable with her physical attention. I wondered if he was one of those people who hated any contact with humanity just after rising in the morning.
“In the movie the train ran out of control, right through the station. We could try that,” he said, massaging his temples with both hands. There had been a lot of wine consumed the night before.
“ I’m not even sure we can reach the engine on this thing,” I replied, thinking about his idea. “And the depot is just a side building along the tracks, like the one in Nairobi, but maybe the tracks continue somewhere for shipping purposes.”
I climbed down to the floor, and then put my shoes on. “We’ve got a lot of shillings. Let’s see what I can find out. Wendy, you see if you can get hold of some coffee from the dining car, maybe something sweet to get the blood flowing. I pulled out a five thousand shilling note. She took the money. We both headed for the door.
“Be right back,” I said to Burt. “Maybe you can handle all these women on your own.” The light was sufficient for me to see that Helen and Anice, unlike Wendy and Dingo, were dressed in only panties, as they prepared for the day ahead.
I followed Wendy through the dining car, and then went on into the fourth class carriages until I found the conductor. I wondered, as I shelled out another five thousand, whether he also held some of the money I had given the Aegis guys. He informed me that the engine could be reached, but it would be a climb, as the thing was attached backwards. I would have to jump down to a catwalk, and then make my way back to the engineer’s small capsule on the other end. He didn’t bother to ask why I wanted to reach the man. The conductor was having a rewarding run down to Mombasa, no matter what I might be up to.
When I got back to the cabin, coffee steamed up from a pot set next to the paraffin lamp. Everyone was eating some sort of pastry, including Burt, who had grown more accustomed to Dingo having attached herself to his right side. The women were dressed, and all the packs were lined up near the door. Things could not have been more organized on a Marine Corps operation.
I explained the plan over coffee, standing with my back pressed against the door. Wendy poked a hole in the plan immediately.
“Right past the station the rail ends. We could only get fifty or sixty feet past it, which wouldn’t be enough to help at all. Unless the train didn’t switch tracks to run into the station, I mean.”
“What switch?” I asked, my coffee ignored in my left hand.
“The train storage facility and turn-around is right there, on the other side of the station. We have to switch tracks to curve into the station or we go right past on the other side,” she answered.
“Time?” I asked the room.
“Six,” Burt said, checking his watch. The window next to him was beginning to give off faint light. Dawn was minutes away. We were supposed to arrive in Mombasa at dawn. I wondered if the engineer had run faster because of our stop or whether we were going to be late, not that it mattered.
“Wendy, what’s the first major road the train would cross if it went through the storage facility?” I inquired.
“I don’t know Mombasa that well,” she answered, but Helen has a Michelin map.”
Helen of Troy opened a zipper in her pack, and then began unfolding a large road map. Mombasa took up on whole corner. Anice brought the paraffin lamp to the floor, holding it just above the flattened paper. I peered at the map.
“Moi,” I said, pointing at the only main road to cross the tracks after the depot. If we can get to that interchange, then we’ll be a good mile or more from the station, and I’d be willing to bet the Aegis people will take a while getting organized before they figure out what we’ve pulled, anyway. If we pull it off.”
“I’ve got to go forward, see if this can be done, then come back,” I went on. “If we can do it then you’ve got to call our Marine on the cell and have him meet us. If he’s made it himself, that is.” I pointed at Burt’s chest when I spoke.
“You have to go back up there if we can,” Burt said, after a moment. “You can’t just pay the engineer, then expect he’ll do the job. Our lives are riding on this.”
I did not miss his slight inflection, the words left unsaid, the words that would have stated my complicity in risking ourselves so badly.
“Yeah,” I replied, simply, gulping my coffee down, then went through the door. I checked my pockets filled with shillings and the small automatic. One way or the other we were going to Mombasa, but not to the station, not if I had anything to do say about it.
Standing on a small platform outside the passage car, I realized that the job I had taken on so casually was going to be fairly challenging. I stood at least eight feet above the coupling that connected us to the engine. There were no handholds to use in climbing down, or back up on the engine on the other side, if I was able to get there. The catwalk that ran around the noisy diesel was not open at the end. The only way to get over was to jump six feet through the air, catch the rail at my waist as my feet found purchase under it, and then vault over the top. Everything was made of very hard looking metal, and the light was so slight that I could not fully make out the far end of the engine. The jump was three feet down to the engine’s catwalk level. There would be no jumping back. I was a field agent in pretty good shape. I was not a gymnast. I returned to the cabin.
“Here it is,” I said, grabbing another cup of coffee from Helen. “The trip to the engine is one way. You’re right Burt, I can’t leave the man to change his mind, if this can be done. And I can’t make it back. We have to gamble that we can do it. Bailout is that I have him stop before we hit the station.” I motioned for the map again.
“There it is,” I pointed. “Makande. Quite a ways before the station, and in a lousy area, but it’ll do. If we have to bail there we’ll be running across a lot of tracks, then some through some swamp and cardboard housing. I know that area.
Give me the extra throwaway cell,” I said to Burt. He handed it over. The phone only had half a charge left. We had no charger. I checked the autodial screen.
The other phone was the only number listed. I hit ‘send.’ Burt’s phone rang once and I hung up.
“I’ll call. If I don’t, then I’ll use the train’s whistle. Three short means Plan A is a go. Two means Plan B. If there’s no call, and no use of the whistle, then you’re on your own.” I looked around the brightening room. I noted that the Earth Mother’s no longer seemed as certain of the adventure, as they’d been the night before, but there was nothing to be said. Mortal danger was upon us, and nobody sane ever took that lightly.
I wanted to grab Wendy, bend her over for a kiss and say something like “Here’s lookin’ at you kid,” but that feeling quickly passed. I headed back to the front of the car. We were operational. My body and mind were running on all twelve cylinders. I was doing what I lived to do and I felt the adrenalin kicking in to help.
The leap to the engine was not as difficult as I had considered earlier. The pain of hitting my hips on the single pipe, which served as the rail, was worse. I almost bent over the rail and fell into the face of the engine’s metal cover, but I caught myself. It took a few seconds sitting on the catwalk to get my breath back, and let the pain lessen to a tolerable level.
I made my way to the angled window where the catwalk ended. A small door was cut into the side of the engine cover just forward of the window. There was no handle on the outside. I breathed in and out deeply, considering. Finally, I took out the automatic, and then smacked the window several times hard, but not hard enough to break it. I quickly put the gun back in my pocket, took out a handful of shillings and pressed them against the glass. The engineer’s face appeared over the splayed bills. His eyes grew large. He disappeared and the door opened.
Once down inside the small enclosure I realized that the engineer and I were not alone. A woman crouched in one corner, clutching two small children to her with both arms. The children stared at me as if I had landed from outer space.
“My family. They ride for free here. You not notice. I not notice you.”
The engineer smiled a big smile, extending both arms out wide. I looked at him and smiled back. His family’s illegal presence might help me. I told him what I wanted.
“Yardmaster and switch operator control everything in the yard. I can use the remote control switches here when we get near the yard, but the yardmaster will be very very angry. The switch operator there may change the track back. He knows we are supposed to go to the station, and we don’t know what is on the tracks up ahead. There is terrible risk.”
I produced thirty thousand shillings. More than the man made in a year of operating the train.
“If you don’t tell them, go very slow, and we make it to Moi Road,” I said, handing him ten thousand. “The rest when we’re there. You can tell them what you want, but not about me.” Kenya took its railroad system very seriously. I did not want the authorities to pursue us with any kind of zeal. The engineer took the two bills, and then handed them to his wife. Her face lit up. I stared into the darkness ahead, hoping that I’d made the right decision. If we hit something, the engineer, his family, and I would certainly be among the earliest fatalities.
I pushed the button for Burt on the cell phone. He answered on the first ring.
“Three quick blips on the whistle,” I told the engineer. He complied, a look of question on his forehead.
“Got it?” I asked into the device. The sound of the engine was too loud for me to hear anything. I imagined it was the same for Burt on the other end, but there could be no misunderstanding the signal from the engine’s whistle.
The Silver Streak was headed on in to Mombasa, come what may.

http://www.jamestraussauthor.com
http://www.themastodons.com
copyright 2010

Diamonds and Rust

Closer To God
Diamonds and Rust
Chapter VII

I carefully removed five more one thousand shilling notes and presented them to Wendy.
“That’s about one fifth the average wage in Kenya. It ought to get us dinner served in this cabin, and, unless my judgment about such things is sadly flawed, your natural allure ought to count for something.”
Wendy took the money. I saw a glint flash from her eye under raised eyebrow. I wondered how much of the five thousand would end up in the hands of the crew. She and Dingo headed out into the aisle.
“Who are you two?” I asked the remaining women.
“I’m Helen and this is Anice,” the blondest of the two blonds said, waving one hand toward her companion.
“Where you from?” I asked, making conversation while I thought about everything that had happened to us since stepping aboard the train.
“Troy,” she said, noting my lack of real attention.
“Helen of Troy…neat,” I responded with a smile.
“Why don’t you two join your friends at finding us all something to eat?” I said. I held the door open. Anice went by me, her short curly hair so thick and tight it resembled Velcro. When they were out of the room I secured the one-sided deadbolt. I stood before Burt.
“Want to tell me about it?” I asked him, pointedly, my arms crossed. He watched the evening countryside go by for at least a full minute before answering.
“Ah, about what?” Burt answered, his tone evidencing both ignorance and innocence at the same time.
I frowned. I was not accustomed to my team members withholding information pertinent to the mission, nor on acting independently.
“The three bad guys you forced to leap from the train. Take a close look at the window next to you. They’re safety latched, but you’d play hell at getting them open far enough to squeeze a full grown American through without using a lot of time and tools. Then there’s the terminal nature of what would have likely happened to guys. I don’t think you’d send three men to their deaths that way. I know something about you now. You didn’t force them from the window, so where are they?”
I watched Burt consider. I was determined not to be surprised at whatever he came up with. I didn’t know what had happened to our pursuers, but I knew Burt was lying about whatever had happened.
“I’m sorry, “ Burt apologized, But this isn’t a mission you know. Not anymore. I don’t have to report to you or do what you tell me. We’re on our own. I said I threw them off the train to impress the lassies. I haven’t been with a woman for awhile.” His eyes left mine to roam again across the moving Savannah.
In spite of myself, I was surprised. Burt was impressing young women while three guys, apparently still on the train somewhere, were trying to kill us for unknown reasons. I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to respond to that part of what he’d said, so I ignored it.
“Where are they?” I said instead, getting right to the point.
“Back in their cabin. Just like I left ‘em. One has a broken ankle and the other two broken wrists. They don’t have any guns. I threw their cell phones out the window.” Burt offered the last as if it made up for his earlier lie.
I glared at him, getting control of myself before speaking.
“This is a mission and I’m the mission commander, unless you don’t want to survive. We’re not going to get through this by trying to impress young women. We won’t live long doing stupid things like throwing their cell phones away either. Those phones had numbers and identities on them. Now you either accept that or you’re on your own. And, if you accept it, I don’t want any more of this crap. I make the decisions, on everything. That’s what I do. You implement those decisions in the manner I tell you to. That’s what you do. And you don’t keep anything from me. Got it?”
My voice had dropped in both tone and volume. Burt and I were in more trouble than I could calculate. I needed him, but I could reasonably survive without him. On his own, he wouldn’t last another day.
Helen of Troy’s voice could be heard through the solid wood door. She had one of those irritating nasal voices, but her looks were so great you tended not to notice when in front of her. I waited, my hand on the deadbolt, staring back at Burt.
“Alright. It’s a mission. I’ll do my part.” This time Burt's tone was sincere, but I didn't know what to think. However, Burt was all the team I had.
I twisted the small brass knob. Four women filled the cabin, settling onto bunks and floor as if a gaggle of geese looking to forage.
“It’s done,” Wendy stated, proudly. “They’re bringing dinner in about an hour, between the early servings. I couldn’t understand their word for the meat.
I think its called Punda.”
“Punda milia,” I added, instantly sorry I’d spoken up. The words translated into striped ass or Zebra.
“Means beef, I think,” I recovered, looking over at Burt, who was staring at Dingo too intently to pay attention to me.
“About the sleeping arrangements,” I began, but got no further. Obviously, the Earth Mother’s had discussed more than dinner when they had gone to the dining car.
“You’re sleeping in my bunk. I’ll stay on the floor with Helen. Burt can have the padded bench, with Dingo on the floor next to him.” Wendy’s rapid delivery gave away the preparedness of her comments.
There was silence in the room. The earlier arrangements discussed had seemed to include a whole lot more than just sleeping, but the amended plan suited me perfectly. The last thing any of us needed was more complexity, although I could not ignore the fact that the small room was going to occupied through the night by four attractive females and two men who had not known many women of late.
“The train is likely to stop soon,” I informed them. “While its stopped would be a good time to have dinner served. I’ll try to time it right,” I said, gesturing toward Burt to accompany me. Wendy frowned, but asked no questions.
“Wine, you have more wine. Might as well trot it out. We’ll be right back.”
I slipped out into the passageway with my last words hanging in the air. We didn’t need company with what we were about, and the Earth Mothers were just a bit too bright and adventurous. Keeping them from participating in anything would not be accomplished with force. Especially not since I’d allowed one of them to become armed. Our current and continuing presence in their lives was a risk to them, however, and I would not overlook it.
Burt led our passage through the dining car. I marveled at the old world charm of the décor. Red leather, deep brown wood and polished glass. It resembled some Hollywood director’s idea of what a dining car should look like, rather than what you would expect to find in a third world country. Eating in the cabin would be much less entertaining, but a whole lot more secure.
We made our way to the last car. We reached the last door, which Burt plunged right through, his weapon out and raised. I noted that the lock had been shot away, just like the one in our door.
Three men were in the room. Two sat on one lower bunk, opposing us, and the remaining man sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall. With the bunks down, there was not much floor space in a Fourth Class cabin. Burt moved deep enough into the space to allow me to sit on the lower bunk, across from the two men.
“Who are you gentlemen?” I asked, no threat in my voice. Burt’s gun was out and ready, but mine still in my pocket. They looked at me. The man on the floor had the broken angle. It was evident from off angle of the bones. The other two had wrapped wrists. One right wrist. One left wrist.
“Left handed?” I asked Burt, pointing at the appropriate man, but his attention was on the three men.
“Who are you people?” I inquired again. None of the three answered, each looking from one to the other.
I noted the very bottom of a tattoo sticking out from under the short sleeve of the one with the broken right wrist. I stepped carefully over the broken ankle of the floor positioned one. I pulled the sleeve gently upward. The tattoo was in blue. It was of the head of a water buffalo. Then I noted the age of the man. He was not young. Older than I, all three of them were, and I was old for the business.
“Thirty-two Battalion?” I asked. The man nodded once.
“Shit,” I mouthed to myself.
“What is it?” Burt asked, gauging the regret in my tone.
“Thirty-two Battalion is the old Boer Commando outfit, disbanded in 1993, I think. It was pretty hot shit. All three of you?” I pointed at the other two. I received no answer.
“Burt here will be glad to take your shirts off, and then break your remaining joints,” I offered. The one who had signaled before did so again.
“Who are you with now?” I inquired, not expecting an answer. I waited, but I knew I was wasting my time. The situation could only play out in one of two possible ways. Either the men were actually going to jump from the train, at high speed with their injuries, or they were going to see reason. I could only play the cards I had been dealt. I couldn’t change them.
“Okay. Have it your way. I don’t expect much. I know you guys. I was a United States Marine. I have a mission to perform. Either Burt here tosses you off the train or you tell me whom you’re working for. I’ll work something out. It’s not much that I’m asking. No names. Not even what this is all about. “ I waited, while once again they looked at each other. They had to be mercenaries. They worked for the money, so their loyalty was not to a cause. But their habit patterns where from the old school, and it would near impossible to break them down. I was not willing to resort to physical torture, and I didn’t really have the equipment for such an operation anyway. Physical torture always works. On everyone. No single human is immune, or tough enough to ‘gut it out,’ as that is the province of movies and television. But it comes with a high price, for the tortured and the torturers. I’d tortured. I knew the price, and I was no longer willing to pay it.
“Aegis,” the man said, his voice low. “Diamonds. It is about diamonds.”
I sat back stunned. Aegis didn’t bother me. It was one of the mercenary companies operating out of London. There were bunches of them. But his volunteering of ‘diamonds’ perplexed me. Tea, textiles, coffee and a few other things were exported from Kenya. There were no diamonds. Not that anybody had ever found or reported on.
“Where,” I asked, not sure what I expected to hear. And what I got I did not expect.
“Freetown.” We cannot tell you more. Our families will never be paid if we tell you.”
I liked the fact that the man was thinking about the money Aegis would pay out to their families following death. I had their full attention. There was no Freetown in Kenya. There was a Freetown in a place that had a ton of diamonds, however. Sierra Leone. A shit-hole of a place. The unadvertised, unclaimed, and nearly unknown, poorest country in Africa, which was saying something.
“We cannot give you anything else. Do your will.” The man bowed his head. Without sharp instruments and a controlled environment I knew that I wasn’t going to get more.
“Lighten up, Francis,” I quoted from the movie Stripes. “You did what you were asked. Here’s the deal. I’m gonna pull the emergency stop.” I stood up and grabbed the single line running corner to corner near the top of the car. “The trains gonna stop. Only you three will be here. They’ll come in hordes once they figure out the cord was pulled in this room. Stopping the train is a First Class Felony in Kenya. You’ll be arrested, guarded, and taken to jail in Mombasa. When you get there one of you needs to confess that he did it. Claim drunkenness. The natives think all White Men are drunks. Or you can claim that you need medical care from the injuries you suffered fighting with one another. Once one of you confesses the others will be set loose. Strange Kenyan Justice. The two released can pay the fine for the felony, and then you can get some splints and treatment for your problems.” I stopped and looked at them carefully.
“If you don’t claim you did it, then there is going to be trouble. Burt here is going to take your going back on your word badly. You won’t survive this mission, I promise you. I want your word as an ‘Os Terriveis’” I stopped again. Portugal had contributed a lot of men to 32 Battalion, and had loaned it the name “Terrible Ones,” not without good cause.
“We agree,” the man said, this time without looking to the others for approval. I was giving them a rare gift, and the man seemed to understand. It would be safer to leave them for dead, strewn along the harsh landscape of the beautiful Savannah, then have them reaching their superiors to tell of their contact with us.
I pulled down hard on the cord. Squealing sounds came from the wheel brakes of our car. It was going to be a slow stop as the emergency cord only worked for the car it was pulled in. The train whistle blew long and loud. The crew had figured out that there was a problem.
I took out another ten thousand shillings and placed them firmly in the man’s good hand. “You’ll need this for the fine. They won’t take your cash when you’re in custody. Trust me, I know about custody in Kenya.” I then took my box of cigarettes out and offered one to each man. They sat there, each with a white tube sticking out of his mouth. Burt brought out a lighter and went slowly from man to man, keeping his suppressed automatic trained on each while he lit their smokes.
“Dankie,” the man said. Dankie is Afrikaans for thank you. He slipped the bills into his shirt pocket. Burt and I stepped out of the room, then made our way quickly back to the dining car, which was full. The non-stop train was slowing to a stop, which caused a lot of discussion from everyone around us as we made our way through.
“What if they try to lay it on us?” Burt asked, just before we reached the room.
“They’re screwed. Strange Kenyan Justice. They’re the ones in the room where the cord got pulled. The exact place is registered down by the side of the car, near the tracks. There’s no Crime Scene Investigation over here.”
“Will it work the way you told them?” Burt inquired, his voice evidencing skepticism.
“I lie when necessary Burt, but I’m not cruel. Those were brothers-in-arms, whatever path they’ve taken since, and, because of your ‘assistance’ they won’t be a problem for us anymore.” I didn’t mention any of the problems that might arise from they’re eventual report to higher ups.
Wendy welcomed us into the room, locking the door behind us. I noted another empty bottle of wine primly set against the far wall, where a partially filled one sat next to it.
“We’ve been wondering where you were. And the train is almost stopped, just like you said would happen. How did you do that? And, when are we going to get to Mombasa?”
I laughed at her tone and obvious gaiety rather than her comments.
“When is dinner served?” I asked. I was terribly hungry and so very tired. I looked up at Wendy’s upper bunk with longing.
“It’s coming. It’s coming, Wendy giggled, but first we want to sing you a song.
Dingo has a ukulele. It’s made from Koa wood carved in Hawaii."
I slunk down the wall between the bunks. I prayed that there were no more players aboard the Iron Snake. Our stopping had risk. Anyone paralleling the train on the Mombasa Road could use the opportunity to get aboard. We could only plan for so much, however.
The Earth Mother’s started their song, the words brining an immediate rye smile to my face: “Well, I’ll be damned, here comes your ghost again…”
The song was a Joan Baez thing from many years in the past. I knew that the final words were: “…and if your offering me diamonds and rust, I’ve already paid.” I hadn’t understood the phrase any of the times I’d heard it. I could never figure out what diamonds had to do with rust, since diamonds are a crystal and rust is, well, rust formed on iron. I listened to song, being sung by some of the toughest angels I’d ever come across, and I knew that diamonds and rust did indeed go together and that the amalgam was one of hardship and pain, just as delivered by the words of the song.

http://www.jamesstraussauthor.com
http://www.themastodons.com
copyright 2009

"We're Going To Mombasa"

Closer To God
We're Going to Mombasa
Chapter IV

We didn’t make it to the Railway Station, instead stopping the small van down around City Central near Kenyatta Avenue. The driver, conductor and two other teen passengers had remained silent during our trip, not that it would have made much difference with rock blasting from all the speakers. The conductor had rotated once to look at us, with attitude, but something about us had kept him from commenting, or doing anything else.
Burt and I were broke. We had to have cash, which meant we needed an ATM. A few businesses would take credit cards, but not many, even in a large developed city like Nairobi. Africa was third world, outside of a very few places. Our Teeny Matata plunged back into the ‘fishball’ of traffic as soon as we were out. I watched my Omega disappear with a glum expression.
“Got a cell phone?” I inquired of Burt, hoping that I had not been wrong about his over-supplied pack rat nature. I was not disappointed. He handed a small phone over to me.
“Will it work here?” I said, opening the Star Trek flip cover. I wasn’t sure why I’d asked the question, as I already knew the answer. Burt didn’t bother to reply.
I examined the phone. It gave the time of day in big numbers on the screen. I knew that young people did not even wear watches anymore. They got their time from cell phones. I wasn’t that young.
“Agency?” I went on.
“Safaricom chip,” Burt said back. That meant the phone was on a local system instead of any international. It was a relatively untraceable way to communicate, but I wasn’t thinking of calling anyone until we knew more of what we were involved with. Phone calls would give more information out than I was comfortable with. I wondered what other toys Burt had. The mission had been cadged together at the last minute. There had been no clearance meetings, or even initial planning sessions. Things like ingress, egress, communications, armament,
and even financing, had been thrust upon us instead of being homogeneously put together with forethought and design. I put the phone in my pocket. Now I had a bulge on each side, but high fashion was not something common to Eastern Africa.
“Braclays is over in Queensway House on Kuanda,” I pointed out.
I walked in that direction, looking around to see if any of our pursuers had picked us up. If they were Agency personnel we would not have much time on our own. The Agency was terrific at surveillance, and two white guys in downtown Nairobi would not be too hard to find no matter who was looking.
We walked into the lobby of the bank. There were private security guards stationed everywhere, including one on each side of a bank of ATMs. I inserted one of my Visa debit cards, punched in the four-digit code and hoped. Local shillings were all we were going to get from any ATM in the country, which was okay, except for the fact that the largest shilling note issued was for a thousand. With the exchange rate running at about seventy shillings to the dollar, that meant a
Thousand-shilling note was only worth about thirteen dollars.
I used four cards to get a total of sixty thousand shillings out of the machine. The stack of bills was over an inch thick. I shoved the folded wad into my back pocket and we headed for the door. Nine hundred bucks, or so, would have to do.
There was nobody noticeable on Kaunda Street, so we crossed to the Catholic Basilica. We went straight in through a huge gothic entrance. The place was straight out of the dark ages, with tourists gathered together in small guided clumps.
I took Burt all the way to the front of the huge old church and sat him in the front pew. Unconsciously, I genuflected before taking a seat next to him. The lighting was dim to the point of darkness. The place was perfect.
“Stay here. I’ve got to berth us aboard the train going east tonight.
I’m less noticeable alone. Whatever we ran into started down there, where Smith died, so we’re going back to the scene of the crime, if we live that long.”
I looked over at the big man, wondering what the hell he was doing. I was known for my rather unconventional behavior, which had gotten us into the mess we were in, but it was uncommon for wet workers like Burt to be anything but sticklers for following Agency directives and rules.
“What about the woman? You told her to meet us. You don’t think she’ll come?” Burt asked. I rubbed my forehead, thinking for a moment.
I do think she’ll come, but I don’t want to take her to Mombasa on this, not that she would go. I wanted her to meet us so I could talk to her about what she knows. We can’t drive all night down to Mombasa. We’d be sitting ducks on that rough road. The Agency has drones. We have to hope that whoever is after us will calculate that we’ll run to Jomo and fly out as quickly as we can.”
“We’re going to Mombasa?” Burt asked.
“Yes, we’ve got to get out of Nairobi.
“We’re going to Mombasa,” Burt repeated, this time with a strange tone of enthusiasm. I had more questions about his involvement but they could wait until we were on the train.
I left him there, heading of across the downtown common area for the station. I realized that I should have asked to see if he had a second phone, when the cell phone in my pocket rang. It was Burt.
“I have another phone. The number’s on the dialer, titled King Kong.”
I thought about his self-derived nickname he had given himself. I tucked away a thought to examine his phone to see what he’d chosen for me.
“Thanks,” I responded, not knowing what to say. The man was proving to be an enigma, like maybe a bear with human intelligence would be. Burt hung up. I waited until I was tucked into a corner alcove of the Kenya Bank, right across Haile Selassie Avenue from the station, and then flipped the phone open again. I called Staff Sergeant Stevens, hoping he was still around. I was compromising the cell phone by calling the Embassy, but I had little choice. I had to have more data. I did not believe that the Agency had sent men to kill me. It was just not done. There was no need. They could just recall me and lock me up any time they wanted. They didn’t need to kill field agents. They had worse punishments. Imprisonment and loss of retirement were much more feared punishments, and very commonly applied. In the final analysis, when Burt had been instructed to shoot me, he had refused. Field agents did not kill field agents. There was no career left to an agent who participated in such action, and we all knew it. It was not even entirely believable that he had been ordered to do such a thing.
“I can’t tell you anything at this point,” Stevens said, without preamble.
I held the phone out and stared at it for a second. Whether Burt’s phone was already target material, or whether Stevens had been waiting for an unknown call, I did not know, but there was no point asking. Stevens was a Marine, first and foremost, above wife, country and even God. It resonated through him.
“Is she coming?” I asked.
“Tower, in twenty,” he said, and then hung up.
I turned to my right and looked up at the tallest building in East Africa. The Times Tower. That was the tower. Twenty, in Marine parlance meant twenty minutes. She was coming. I was relieved, and intrigued, by her conduct. I hadn’t been absolutely sure that she would come. Not nearly as certain as I’d led Burt to believe.
Seeing no one of any consequence over at the long cinder block construct of a railway station, I crossed the street and entered the facility. I was always surprised that it was clean. Even the bathrooms were clean. And the rain earlier in the day had helped, giving the place a fresh, although local, scent. I went to the line of booths under a sign that said “Kenya Railroad Berthing Allotment.’ I could not help looking around suspiciously as I approached the attendant behind his bars.
“Two, first class cabin for Mombasa.”
The man looked at me, the black visor of his blue cap shined to a high luster. As a former Marine myself, I could tell that it was polished leather and not the fake Corfam junk. There was one train to Mombasa every night. It arrived there, from Nairobi, early in the morning. Tickets were booked in advance, and for cash.
“Papers,” the man said, primly, holding out one hand toward the slot under the bars.
I took out my wad of shillings, peeled off four of them, then slid them through the slot. The 1st class fare to Mombasa was posted on the chalk board behind the man. It said nine hundred shillings. I waited. He stared down.
“For two,” he said. “Private room with clean bedding and first service in the dining car.”
The money was gone when I looked down. I had not seen the man’s hands move. He took two tickets from a drawer, shoved them toward the slot, then looked behind him and made believe he was concentrating on something else. I let him, taking the tickets and walking back toward the platform, until I saw the woman.
A white woman stood out form the building, peering up and down the platform, as if looking for a train. But there was no train, nor would there be until the evening run was ready to be made at around seven. The events at the Safari Park had occurred so quickly and intently that I could not recall if the woman was the same as the one with the camera crew. But she was looking for something. And I knew I was being looked for. I went into the restroom without going out onto the platform. From a stall I called King Kong and filled him in, about the woman and about Joan’s pending arrival, now only fifteen minutes away. Burt’s analysis was better than mine. If the woman was there, then the others would be in the area. We decided that I would try for the Railroad Museum just north of the station.
Before leaving the bathroom stall I removed a full roll of toilet paper. I carried it with me in my right hand. The station was not crowded, which was unfortunate for my purposes, although no one gave me the slightest glance as I went out to the street side, gained the far edge of the building, and then darted across a twenty yard concrete expanse. The Railroad Museum was right there, with an old engine and cars lined up next to it. I hid behind the cars, kneeling to look up from under them. I did not observe any extraordinary interest or pursuit. After a five-minute wait, I did see the woman. She stood at the outside lip of the wooden platform. She gestured with one hand toward someone who seemed to be in the direction of my position, but I couldn’t see who she might be waving at. Finally, I went through the door into the museum.
The object of the woman’s attention was obvious once I was through the door. A large white male stood in front of me, his arms extending up and outward, as if to engulf me. Without thinking of the potential of terrible repercussions, my left hand went down. I brought the small forty-five up out of my pocket, flicked off the double-sided safety and walked right into the arms of the huge man. His attempt to grasp me never reached conclusion. I jammed the AMT into the side of the toilet paper roll, pressed the arrangement hard into his belly and squeezed the trigger.
The sound was not nearly as loud as I thought it would be. The toilet paper roll shredded, but the man, amazingly, did not go down. Instead he held both hands to his stomach, an awful expression of pain on his face and a mewling grown coming form his open mouth. I marveled. The man appeared to be made of something tougher than hide, gristle and hair.
I ran, using a casual lope, which covered ground quickly but made me look more like a jogger than someone running from something. The gun stayed clutched in my left hand, so small it was invisible to anyone who might have been looking my way. I could not have run with a two-pound chunk of metal in one front pocket. One thick hand waved from around the far side of the bank building, as I approached.
“What happened?” Burt asked, when I pulled up next to him, reseating the gun out of view.
“What in God’s name are you using for ammo?” I shot back. I had never known a forty-five round, at close range, fired into a man’s torso, to leave him standing and complaining0.
“Shot-shell,” Burt said, rather ruefully.
I waited, looking back around the corner for some sign of pursuit, but there was none. When my head swung back I spotted the Pajero across the side street, just pulling up to the steps of the Times Tower. Burt saw it to. We started out together while he talked.
“I load a cartridge of birdshot as the first round. In all my guns. I’ve had a few occasions where I shot the wrong guy. A few years back I decided that I’d rather apologize for causing pain and misery than live with the other result.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The man was demonstrating an application of intellect and good judgment that I had never seen from any gun or pyrotechnics expert I had ever met. His forethought had saved the day. There would be no unexplainable dead body at the museum. No Caucasian ‘tourist’ slain by terrorists or robbers. The man I had hit would be marginally injured and very likely ambulatory. No cordons. No investigations. Our train trip was still possible.
“What’s the second round, some sort of nuclear device?” I asked, not entirely kidding. Burt didn’t answer. We were upon the car, which was not driven by Joan.
A young blond male with short hair sat behind the wheel. I got in behind him, while Burt went around. The DCM was in the front passenger seat.
“Drive into the traffic,” I told the kid, assuming he was one of Steven’s Marines. Without a word he wedged us in among the Matatas, trucks, and other conveyances trying to get from Kenyatta onto Mombasa Road. I looked behind us, but could not make out anything, but realized we had been either followed to the Railway Station without our realizing it or our behavior had been predicted.
“Thanks for coming,” I said to Joan, “and who are you?” I followed, rapping the youngster on his right shoulder .
“Corporal Sam Hill, Sir,” he answered. “I got the week off for leave but nowhere to go. Sergeant said I might come with you guys, if that’s okay.”
He looked to be a teenager to me, but most Marines do, as I get older.
“A guy just got shot back at the museum, and we’re being hunted by people we don’t know. Are you sure you want a piece of this?” I retorted. I didn’t mention that I’d done the shooting.
“Yes, sir,” the boy-child replied, filled with enthusiasm.
“Why’d you come?” I asked Joan, noting that her medium cut brown hair was perfectly combed. It seemed to float around her head. When she turned to face me, it bounced on its own a few times. I felt a warm glow. She’d carefully prepared to see me again.
“I wasn’t doing anything else,” she said, then smiled for the first time since I’d encountered her. I had a million questions I wanted to ask her but none of them had anything to do with our current situation.
“Thank you,” I repeated, getting control of myself, enough to find out what we needed to know. “How did your husband get involved in a CIA operation?” I asked her, directly.
“He’s not my husband, and I don’t know, but I know he did. What was it all about?” she asked me, in return.
I noted that the nails of her left hand, draped over the side of the seat, were manicured, and painted to a high gloss. I could not tell the color, as blue was the only color I really saw well at all. Her eyes were intensely blue, with thick brows over them. I could see those. She had a stunning presence.
“What happened to Smith, down in Mombasa?” I countered, ignoring her question.
“It didn’t’ start in Mombasa,” she replied. “It ended there, down in that prison outside of town.”
“Shimo la Tiwa?” I asked? I knew the prisons of Kenya. Not hellholes like the prison typified in the movie Midnight Express, put out in the seventies, but dirty bad places to try to survive in, especially for a Caucasian.
“G.K,” she said, shaking her head, “I think it was called, from what I heard.”
G.K. were the two letters mounted above the iron grate entrance to Shimo prison. I’d never found out what they stood for, but I said nothing to Joan. We had a location to work back from. It was also instructive that Smith had been in prison, not in jail. It spoke of an unlikely permanence.
“Where did it start?” I asked her.
“What?” Joan replied, not focused on the data I was trying to get from her.
“Smith. You said all of it started somewhere. Where?” I asked, patiently.
“Oh,” she answered, taking her time. I wondered if it was because of perplexity or evasion. “At the Embassy. Smith came to see Paul at the Embassy.
Neither of them were happy about the meeting, but I don’t know what they talked about.”
“Was your Communications Director present for the meeting?” I inquired, wanting to know if the local CIA ‘cowboy’ stationed at the Embassy was involved.
“That guy?” she came back. “Tyrell? No, why would he be there?”
I couldn’t believe that the DCM of a major embassy could remain unaware of the facility’s only CIA operative, however ceremonial his role was, but I let it pass. I would deal with Tyrell later.
“We’re going down there, to Mombasa,” I told her, not really understanding why I was giving her any information whatsoever. I just felt that I had to trust somebody and, for some reason I could not fathom, I found the DCM to be imminently trustable.
“The train. You’re taking the train tonight, aren’t you?” she correctly assumed. “You’re going after Rafiq, aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer. Rafiq Salim was the name of our Lebanese target from the mission. I tried to think of why Joan would think we would pursue him down in Mombasa. The Agency had informed me that he lived in Nairobi where he ran a jewelry business. Without prompting, she gave me the answer.
“He lives down there. His family runs one of the ferries.”
I almost groaned aloud. Whatever we were involved in just kept getting more and more complex. I couldn’t seem to find any truth in anything.
“What do you want me to do, sir?” the corporal asked.
“Well for one, Sam Hill, I want you to stop calling me sir. My name is Jack.” I didn’t make the obligatory joke about ‘Sam Hell’ as I presumed he had been living with that all of his life. “Then, when we’re done here, I want you to drive this vehicle down to Mombasa. You have a cell phone?” The boy handed me a white card, like the generic Marine Corps card Staff Sergeant Stevens had given me. There was a Kenyan number on it in pencil. A ton of numbers really, but they seemed to work.
I noted that he was attired in a worn canvas outfit, with lots of pockets. He looked like an assistant to a tour director for one of the tourist ‘safari’ adventures, or maybe one of the redemption-seeking workers for an aid agency. In Kenya to seek redemption from living a life of spoiled ease and meaninglessness. Joan’s information, if it was valid, changed everything. Mombasa was revealing itself as the key to our mystery, or at least the place where the key might be found.
“When you get down there, and you should arrive hours before us, go to the Inter-Continental and hang out. I’ll call you. We need a car down there, and it might as well be this one.” I could not rent a car for cash in Kenya. Renting another car, no matter what the bribe, would take a host of paper and plastic backup I was not willing to give out. I no longer believed that the Agency was after us. But somebody with assets and motivation was. I was not going to give them anymore than I absolutely had to.
“The embassy is locked down,” Joan said.
“How’d you get out?” I asked, but then didn’t wait for an answer, already knowing that Stevens was at work. The Ambassador would be howling mad when he discovered his ex-wife, his DCM, was not there. “When you going back?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll catch a Matata home. I don’t understand any of this and I need to think, and maybe drink half a bottle of Grey Goose while I do it. Can we go somewhere and talk? Do you have time? Is there some place?”
I was surprised by her request. I was also surprised, however, that she had gotten out from under an embassy lockdown. The woman was starting to amaze me even more than Burt. We had several hours to kill before getting aboard the train, and we needed to be someplace where we could be off the streets. The bottle of Grey Goose sounded wonderful, but it was not to be.
“The Java House, on Argwings, just off Kenyatta, you know it?” I said to the corporal.
“Kinda,” he answered, biting the sir off before it came out of his mouth. He made me feel old and slow, totally unlike what I got from Joan.
“Make it so,” I said, emulating Jon Luke Piccard from Star Trek.
“Engage,” he laughed back, diving out of the traffic, across two medians and reversing our course of travel. I noted that another vehicle tried the same maneuver but only managed to create a massive traffic tie-up behind us. Whoever they were, they were persistent and good. Just not as good as a crazy teen-aged Marine driving a Pajero in downtown Nairobi.
“What changed?” I said to Joan, as the Pajero rocked back and forth, avoiding all manner of obstacles I tried not to pay attention to, only too happy to be taking the train instead of riding with Sam.
“What changed about what?” she retorted, holding fast to the sissy bar mounted above her window.
Communicating with the woman was maddening.
“We’re going to Mombasa,” Burt said, unaccountably.

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copyright 2009

Hakuna Matata

Closer to God

Hakuna Matata

Chapter III


The reinforced double-steel door of the underground parking lot slowly retracted sideways across our view. It was too impossibly heavy to rise vertically.
We sat waiting in the Pajero, DCM next to me in the passenger seat and Burt
just behind her. Staff Sergeant Stevens pushed another button and rock barriers at the top of the drive began to sink into pre-formed slots. He held up one hand, watching the stones, until they were gone, replaced by metal grates that snapped loudly into place. His hand moved and became a salute. The kind only a Marine is capable of making. I nodded at the man, putting the Nissan into gear. Mrs. Haggerty waved to him, as well, but I knew the salute was intended for me. I smiled my appreciation. His arm came down. He pointed at the windshield as I drove by. I looked at the small white card under the wiper, then reached my hand around through the open window and claimed it.
Bright afternoon sun had replaced the rain, and a cooling wind blew through the Pajero’s open windows, as we waited to take a left onto Limuru Road. Traffic was heavy, and Kenyan’s gave no quarter when it came to driving. We plunged into the melee but didn’t have far to go. Muthaig’s crowning feature was the Safari Park, Kenya’s only real five star hotel with any local flavor.
We waited to take the turn into the hotel.
“May I call you Joyce?” I asked.
“No, you may not,” the DCM shot back, not looking at me, instead examining the wedding band still located on the appropriate finger of her left hand. “You can call me Joan,” she relented. “I hate the name Joyce.”
“You look terrific, Joan,” I said, quite truthfully.
“Fuck off,” Joan stated, her voice evidencing disgust, “don’t try your smooth, urbane, man-of-the-world crap on me.”
I checked the rear view mirror, to see Burt trying to cover his smile with one hand. He avoided my eyes.
“Thank you,” she followed up, unaccountably. The woman was confounding me. I was afraid to speak, but felt somehow, that she wanted me to say something.
I was in a verbal minefield.
“How long have you been divorced?” I tried, figuring that almost every divorced person I had ever met loved to talk about the divorce, and how rotten the other person was.
“None of your God damned business,” she hissed, massaging her wedding band hand, but looking out the side window. I waited for more, but nothing came.
“Two years?” I offered.
“Two years?” she turned on me, speaking the words loud enough to make me raise my right shoulder and wince. “Two years? What kind of idiot are you? Oh, I almost forgot, you’re a spook. One of those Southern-Fried-Chicken-University types who populate Langley. What’d you major in, Bo Weevil Mating? If I’d been divorced for two years, do you think I’d still be the DCM for that idiot?” Spittle hit my cheek.
I heard a barely audible giggle from behind me, but I didn’t look in the mirror. I finally hustled the Pajero through the broken ‘tiger-teeth’ jam of the opposing traffic.
“Ah, no,” I blurted out to her series of questions, driving as fast as I could manage to get to the hotel as quickly as possible.
“No, what?” she yelled. “No, you have a degree is something else, like maybe Burro Husbandry, or ‘Poor-White-Trash’ farming?” I shook my head, in agony.
The huge pyramidal structure of the Safari Park main building appeared and I headed the car for it like it was a laser-guided smart bomb. Supposedly the willow reed thatched buildings had been designed with clues taken from native Kenyan hovels, but in truth, there was nothing in the country that looked like the place.
Without meaning to, I skidded the Pajero to a halt directly in front of the lobby, and jumped out. I moved around the vehicle to get Joan’s door, but one of the bellmen had already attended to that. She stood waiting. Burt was out and leaning against the back fender, as if ready to enjoy more of the show. The show being my complete humiliation.
Joan headed straight for the lobby. I followed closely behind her, noting how powerfully she strode, her black pumps clicking loudly across the tiled floor of the entrance. Burt ran into me, because I had run into Joan. She had stopped too suddenly for me to avoid her. The three of us grabbed one another and swayed.
“Oh great, slimed by a Halloween spook,” she exclaimed, pushing herself from my fumbling grasp.
“Would you stop that?” I said, as quietly as I could to her retreating back.
“Look what happened to the last guy who got outed on your watch?” I followed up. She flinched, but kept walking.
“Good one,” Burt whispered behind me, which made me frown.
We trailed behind the fast moving woman through the lobby and out the back, around a great blue pool surrounded with palm trees of all sizes, and on past the cascading series of wonderful waterfalls that gave all the interior rooms of the establishment a special serenity. The Hilton, and the Sarova hotels have better rooms than the Safari, but none can come close to matching its ambiance. I knew where we were headed. The Nyama Choma Ranch Restaurant was the only thing left between us and the Muthaiga jungle forest. It was simply the finest African food restaurant in Kenya. Nothing else was close. I yearned for an Ostrich steak covered in Monkey-brain gravy. No monkeys involved, of course. Its only a name.
Under one side branch of the falls I caught a flash of movement. Then it was gone. It had been part of a head, sticking out of the bushes, viewing our arrival. I slowed. Burt stumbled into me. I was a little shaken, as I came to a stop, while Joan disappeared into the opening of the restaurant.
“What?” Burt inquired, backing up a step.
“I wouldn’t take an oath on it, but I think the Lebanese just checked us out from beyond the falls.” The water pouring down upon the rocks made talking difficult, but Burt got my message. He turned automatically, putting a palm trunk between himself and the falls.
“You still got that hand cannon under your coat?” I asked, remaining in the open. If we had walked into an ambush no thin palm tree was going to save us.
Burt nodded, but did not make any moves to access it.
“Got anything else?” I asked, feeling a bit naked.
Burt showed me three fingers, held down at his side. Special Forces hand chatter. I always liked the one where the leader takes two fingers of one hand and aims them at his own eyes, so everyone will look at him. In practice, however, I’d found that the gesture, like so many, was all for show. Anybody who could see the gesture was already looking.
“Three?” I said, in amazement. “The Mau Mau’s were put down in 1960, for Christ’s sake. Give me anything small.”
Burt leaned down by genuflecting on right knee, hand sweeping back to flick the bottom of his pant leg upward. Quickly and smoothly, like an unfolding python, the thick muscular man rose up and delicately inserted a .45 Caliber AMT automatic into my open left hand. I stuck it immediately into my front trouser pocket. The five shot auto was small, yet as thick as a full blown Colt. The bulge was noticeable, but I had little choice. Klingon’s preferred to die fighting in combat, or so they said on Star Trek, and I was not going down unarmed.
“What does it mean?” Burt whispered, his eyes never leaving the area of the falls.
“I don’t know. Not good. What would he come here for? If Haggerty decided on Executive Action, then why would the man come where the man is? He’s a U.S. Ambassador, for God’s sake. And how would he know where he was? I haven’t been able to make sense out of anything since we were out there on the Serengeti.” Joan came back out of the restaurant, looking even more impatient then when she’d walked in.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, clicking up to us.
“Admiring the falls,” I covered.
“Oh great, a gay spook and his cultured Troglodyte,” she complained, in exasperation. “Paul’s in there having lunch with one of his mysterious companions.
Should I announce you or do you want to make a grand entrance?”
“We’re coming. Please show us the way,” was all I could say. The woman did not elicit lengthy response, not without dealing out considerable pain.
“What’s a Troglodyte?” Burt asked, from behind. I was about to answer when I had another thought. I stopped again, this time with the four-top table, where the Ambassador sat with some unidentified white male, in sight. “Back out Burt, this could be a hit on Haggerty.” Why else would the Lebanese not take a taxi home, but instead head straight for his antagonist. Who was the Lebanese? He’d acted as prey, very convincingly, but he wasn’t acting that way anymore. Burt backed up to the restaurant entrance, and then disappeared into a hidden alcove. I moved to Joan’s side at the table.
“What’s this?” Paul said, slowly getting to his feet. He stared at me in surprise, and recognition. I stood stunned. The man could only have recognized me if he had a file photo. I relaxed a little as I realized that someone might have called him from the embassy. Cell phones worked amazingly well in Nairobi. I didn’t carry one but I was willing to bet that Burt had three or four under his “Q” designed safari rig.
“Sit,” I commanded the DCM, pulling out a chair for her. She hesitated.
“There’s danger here, sit and act like everyone else,” I continued. She took the chair. I sat at the one next to her, across from the two men. The Ambassador joined us.
“What,” he began, but I held up my right hand. I slid my left hand into the .45 pocket at the same time. The automatic was double action, I knew. In the silence over the table a distinct metallic click sounded. The automatic was off safety. All four of us sat frozen.
“You can worry about me later Paul,” I said, conversationally. “The same Lebanese, the subject of our attention a few hours ago, was out by the falls a few minutes ago. I let him off near the airport, where he was supposedly going to go into hiding. I might have erred and cost you your life, but I don’t want Joan here, or your friend, to go out with you. What do you think?” The waiter came over and placed water, without ice, in front of both Joan and I. We sat in silence.
“Ah, how sure are you,” Paul began to ask, but I cut him off.
“This is the Choma, and the waiter just brought us glasses of water, not bottled water like you have.” I smiled, wondering if the man would get it, as I prepared to go to the floor and attempt to crawl behind some nearby decorative rocks. If anybody opened up I could count on Burt to provide intense covering fire, but his ammo wouldn’t last long. The only safety might be found in staying less than a foot off the ground. An assassination at such a notable hotel and restaurant would have to be over in seconds. Surviving the first few seconds would be everything.
“The waiter’s not a waiter?” Joan said in a low tone, her voice shaking. “What have you done Paul? What are we in?”
“Alright,” the Ambassador said, ignoring his ex-wife and speaking directly to me. “Maybe I was wrong about you. I apologize. What do we do?”
I was amazed. The man was apologizing for attempting to kill me. I sighed.
Being an operational agent for the Agency could not be taught in schools or learned in books. It was too bizarre for that.
“We leave. Slowly, without fanfare, you move toward the kitchen over there Paul, while your friend heads for the washroom in back. Joan, you’re going out all the way to the street, where you’ll wait in the Pajero. You drive. I’m going to knock my silverware onto the floor, then lean down to pick it up. If there’s fire, then you all drop and stay where you are, without moving at all. If there’s fire, it‘ll probably be at me, here at the table, where they intended to shoot. The silverware hitting the floor is your cue. Got it?” Nobody said anything. “Tell me you got it?” I instructed.
Joan murmured something, while Paul and his companion said yes at the same time. I pushed my fork onto the floor. It hit with the sound of a ringing bell.
Everyone moved. I went to one knee, then leaned under the table and fell to my stomach, turning to bring the .45 out and up. I had no more time than that. The phony ‘waiter’ stepped out of the bushes holding an old-fashioned double barrel shotgun. The ends of the barrels looked huge, as he stood only two feet over me.
My AMT was only inches from his stomach. I laid there, looking up into his eyes while taking all the slack, and a little more, out of the .45’s trigger. Slowly, he moved the shotgun aside, cocking his head, as if in question. I gave him back the thinnest of smiles, wondering what Burt was thinking, since he wasn’t doing anything. The man stepped back into the bushes and was gone. I breathed for the first time since I’d hit the floor. I then crawled to the front of the restaurant, right past the host at the front desk. He looked down at me in amazement, until he saw the automatic in my hand. Then he dropped down and disappeared.
I got up and began loping back through the areas of the falls and pool. I saw nothing of anyone, save a few tourists laying near the water or taking pictures of everything around. At the main entrance I paused to observe some kind of film crew who were set up down near where cars circled to let people off. The Pajero idled near their large, tri-pod mounted, camera. Several large Caucasian men milled nearby, and one long-haired young woman. The passenger door snapped open. I saw Joan at the wheel and Burt’s hand sticking out from releasing the door. I jumped in.
“I think we’re gonna be famous,” I said, but nobody laughed.
Joan jerked the Pajero into gear and tore off back around the circle, headed for the traffic mess on Limuru Road. “What happened back there?” she asked.
I was about to answer her when Burt made a comment.
“The woman. I saw her. At the airport in Joburg. I think she was on my flight.”
I twisted around to face him, letting go of my seat belt.
“You flew direct from Johannesburg, and she was on the flight?”
Where where you flying to? You came down from Lake Victoria.”
I watched the big man closely. I had come to trust him, but I didn’t know just how far yet.
“Zurich. Then Zurich to down here. I met Walt up at the falls, to check it out. We had a couple days.”
“Shit,” I said, out loud, turning back to face Joan. “Pull down into the traffic, and then stop. Burt and I are getting out. You take the car to the embassy. You should be alright. I pulled Staff Sergeant Steven’s card from my shirt pocket.
Give me your cell phone number.” I took out my pen to write.
“Are you crazy? You’ll get killed out there. All this because somebody was on the same plane? And that whole restaurant thing? You’re looney and paranoid, and maybe dumb as a post.”
“The number,” I repeated, patiently. “There was a guy with a shotgun at the restaurant. I think he was there for your husband.”
“Double gun.” Burt added, from the back seat. I looked back to him in question.
“Looked like one of those Holland and Holland things. Big bore.
Elephant gun.”
I whistled. A gun like that would sell for a cool twenty-five thousand dollars, if not more. Whoever was involved in the mess we’d stepped into was very well heeled. And that was bad news indeed.
“He’s telling the truth?” Joan asked of Burt, her voice going up.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied. “Donner is the best there is. Not well liked, but the best there is.”
I would have commented but the back window of the Pajero blew out, along with the rear driver’s side glass. There had been no sound, except the whoosh and tinkle of breaking glass. Joan screamed, then drove recklessly right out into the middle of Limuru Road. Cars, vans and trucks careened and honked, but no contact was made. The SUV stalled out. I looked out the back, through the gaping hole, over the seat where Burt crouched down. The camera crew had scattered to cars and vans, now fighting one another to get out of the narrow driveway.
“The Railroad Station. We’ll wait there. When I call you, come get us.”
I flew between the seats and shot out the driver-side passenger door, Burt behind me.
“Like hell I will,” Joan yelled, “and you don’t have my number.”
I stood and put my hand up against the flow of traffic, which flowed around us like a thick school, of metallic fish. I liked the woman. She was tough as iron and she wouldn’t abandon us after we’d stood up for her. She’d figure it out.
A red mini-van, with a strange hand-painted poster of The Lion King splashed across its front, screeched to a halt, almost touching my hand. A gold stripe ran around the van’s body. I’d stopped a Matata, one of the thousands that constantly prowled the streets of Nairobi. They came in three kinds, regular, gospel and teeny. The regular one’s were for regular people, like most tourists. The gospel one’s blared reborn gospel music at impossibly volumes. The teeny ones were even worse, pumping out acid rock and rap. The latter two were mostly for locals.
Joan got the Pajero started. She joined the traffic flow. The side door of the Matata opened and a young hand waved. Burt and I crawled inside. There were already three teens inside, plus the driver and his ‘conductor,’ who collected the fare. Matatas had gotten their name from their original fare of three shillings. Now, the prices were variable, going all the way up to fifty shillings or more. Fifty shillings being about seventy-five cents American. The Matata didn’t move. Teeny conveyances were weird. They would carry people they liked, or thought were cool for free, or not let you in at all if they didn’t like your look. I could tell that the conductor didn’t like our look.
“You got any money?” I asked Burt. He shook his head. I stared at the evil looking teenager in front of me, trying to ignore the blast of horrid rap coming out of the Matata’s speakers. We had to get the hell out of there. I took off the Omega and held it up.
“Omega, Speedmaster, Astronauts took to the moon, four thousand U.S.” I said. The kid looked at the watch.
“Sare,” he said, then grabbed the watch. Sare, I knew, meant ‘free’ in the local street slang called Sheng. The kids spoke it, like pigeon in Hawaii.
“Sare, my ass,” I responded, angrily. “Railroad Station, right now.”
I tried to see out the windows of the mini van, to see if our new band of followers were there. They had to be. But I also knew they’d never be able to stay on us unless, somehow, they’d been able to attach a GPS unit to our specific Matata. Not likely. Not likely at all.
Matatas were the locusts of Nairobi streets, and they were nearly indistinguishable in outer appearance. We drove Limuru toward Mombasa Road in a veritable sea of them, our vast overpayment of fare overwhelming the driver’s natural tendency to stop for anyone else. Our teenage riders stayed with us to the station, without complaint or comment.
“Who were those guys, anyway?” Burt asked.
“Don’t know,” I answered. “They’re Caucasian, all of ‘em, and I don’t think they’re with the Lebanese. They look like Agency. And they fired on us.”
Ironically, a piece from the Lion King soundtrack blared out from the radio. Hakuna Matata played. I looked around at my fellow passengers. They didn’t seem to get the irony at all. Then the words of the song hit me. “Hakuna Matata! It’s a wonderful phrase. It means no worries for the rest of our days.”

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