The Night Ranger (17 page)

She didn’t notice the man beside the shed until she was a step away. He wore a torn T-shirt and green cargo pants with a big oil stain down one leg. Gwen hoped it was an oil stain, anyway. He was broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, with meaty hands and thick shoulders. All the weight training in the world couldn’t build muscles like his, but half the men in Africa seemed to have been born with them.

He raised a hand in a gesture that obviously meant stop. Gwen stopped, wished she hadn’t. She waved her hand in front of her nose like she was a nineteenth-century heroine with the vapors. “I couldn’t take the smell, you know, it’s so stinky—” She was jabbering now, hoping to drown him in a stream of English he didn’t understand. “I should probably get back to my hut, I have decorating to do—”

She stepped past him. He reached for her arm, pulled her close. She couldn’t help herself, she screamed—

—

Ten minutes later, she sat cross-legged in a half-built hut on the western edge of the compound. Today’s life lesson: She wasn’t cut out to be a secret agent. Her scream had brought men running. After some shouting and pointing, they’d led her back to the camp and the hut she shared with Owen and Hailey. Then they’d dragged her out again without explanation and dumped her here. This side of the camp was even more run-down than the eastern half. Two scrawny goats nosed at a pile of trash outside her hut. The hut next to this one seemed to have been converted into a repair shop for the dirt bikes these guys liked. At least two bikes were in the hut, and she’d seen a scrawny boy on his back, tinkering with an exhaust pipe. Now an engine turned over, came briefly to life, and stalled out. Even without knowing Swahili, she understood the curses that followed.

The man who’d dragged her here stepped into the hut. He was chewing that stuff the Somalis liked. Khat, or miraa, whatever they called it. It looked like parsley to Gwen, but they couldn’t get enough of it.

“Where’s Wizard? Is Wizard coming?” She knew she sounded pathetic. Begging for him like a first-grader asking for her dad. If her dad were a Somali bandit and murderer. She didn’t know why she was putting so much trust in the guy. Probably because he was in charge. At this moment she feared chaos more than anything. Maybe she just liked saying Wizard, like the word itself was magic.

The Somali twirled his finger. Gwen wasn’t sure whether the motion meant
he’s not in camp
or
he’s busy
or something else. She leaned against the wall, closed her eyes. A few minutes later, she felt her foot being nudged. Somali men seemed to like foot-nudging as a way to avoid more substantial contact with women.

Gwen opened her eyes. Her captor pulled a rubber-banded packet of leaves and stems from his pants. He removed the bands, stuffed his mouth full of leaves. “Miraa.”

“Everybody loves miraa.”

“Miraa.” He pointed at her, then mimed putting a handful of stems in his mouth.

“You want me to try some.” She pointed at her own mouth. He nodded. “That’s very generous, I always wanted to chew grass out of someone’s pants pocket, but I think I’ll pass—”

He selected a chunk of leaves.

“No, see, I’m saying nada—”

He squatted beside her, smiled. His cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s. And Gwen decided, screw it. What was she worried about? That she’d wind up hooked? It was a leaf. Not exactly meth. And at this point she’d be happy if she lived long enough to get addicted.

She stuffed the leaves in her mouth between her cheek and her jaw. Back home she’d had a reputation for being a bit of a germophobe. Maybe more than a bit. Once, after she refused to eat at a barbecue at his frat, Scott had told her she had OCD. She hadn’t even known what the letters meant. She looked it up later. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Maybe a little. The joke was on him, though. He was dead, and she was sitting with a mouthful of addictive parsley, her head buzzing like she’d just had ten cups of the world’s strongest coffee—

“Hey. It works.”

“Miraa.”

“Dah-duh-duh-dah-dah.” The McDonald’s theme song. “I’m loving it.” She was, too. Uppers were her drugs of choice. Booze and pot bored her. She didn’t see the point of sitting on a couch giggling like an idiot, or getting drunk and weepy and ending the night with the spins. She wanted to stay out all night dancing, see the world in hypercolor. Every few weeks she bought pills from her friends with ADD, which everyone knew was just an excuse to get Ritalin prescriptions. This miraa was a nice solid stimulant, north of nicotine but south of coke. She felt focused, awake, without the crawly feeling Ritalin gave her.

The best part was that the stuff made time hurry by. For an hour, maybe more, she did nothing but track the movements of the tiny lizards running along the creases of the hut. They were fascinating.

When Wizard showed up, she felt she was seeing an old friend. He sat beside her. “You like the miraa? Mostly Somali women don’t do this.”

“Mostly I don’t wear sweats when it’s a hundred degrees.”

He handed her a water bottle. “Drink. Easy to forget when you’re chewing.” She realized as he said the words that she was insufferably hot, her face flushed and sweaty. She drank deep, finished the bottle. He gave her another. “What your name?”

“Gwen. Gwen Murphy. Of the Missoula Murphys.” She spat. “Are you actually a wizard?”

“They call me that because no one can kill me. I was in Mogadishu and they shot me in the belly, and I made the bullet escape without hurting me. Only a little blood.” He lifted his shirt to show her the scar.

“Now you think you can’t die?”

“My men think I can’t die.”

“Cool.”

“I’ll take you back to your friends, but first I must ask, what were you doing out there?”

“Lost. I’m not very smart.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Ask anyone who knows me.”

“Let me tell you again. If I want to punish you, I let you leave. You don’t have to fear anyone here. My men do what I say.”

“Always?”

“Always.” That confidence. “They’ll never touch you. But outside here, if they find you—”

“Okay. I believe.” She did, too. She wanted to ask him about the sentry, Owen’s theory about the threat to the camp, but she couldn’t figure out how.

“Your family wants you to give personal information for them. Something secret, to prove the photo is you.”

My family. He’s emailed them. They know I’m alive.
“Like what?”

“Anything. As long as it’s a secret between you and them.”

“Tell them, tell them when I was little I had a cat named Oscar.”

“Oscar?”

“O-S-C-A-R. He was black and white.”

Wizard grabbed his phone, pecked away on the keypad. “Oscar. Black and white.” Gwen wondered if he was sending a text or just making a note. When he was done, he scrolled through menus, handed her the phone. The screen showed a photo of a white SUV, blurry, like it had been taken with another cell phone.

“Do you know this vehicle?”

“It’s one of WorldCares’s, a Land Cruiser.” She didn’t feel like lying. Anyway, Wizard probably knew already. She noticed that the signal strength showed a single bar, weak but maybe enough for texts. There must be a cell tower somewhere.

Wizard scrolled to another photo of the Land Cruiser, this one closer. A black man sat in the driver’s seat, a white man beside him. The black guy was young, skinny, high-cheekboned, and sly. The white guy was rough, in a good way. Close-cropped hair, strong chin, big shoulders, Ray-Bans. He looked like a soldier. Nice. Maybe a tiny bit old, but Gwen had no problem imagining him coming for her.

“You know them?”

“Never seen ’em before.”

“Tell the truth.”

“I am. No idea who they are. Neither of them.” The time stamp on the photo showed it was taken only a couple hours before.

Wizard stood, extended a hand, pulled her up. Her head went light and the world spun. She braced herself against the mud wall and he held on to her. For a small guy, he was stronger than he looked.

“Too much miraa,” he said. “Any reason they might be looking for you?”

“I told you. I don’t know them. Are they? Looking for us?”

Wizard looked west, like he could see the men and what was about to happen to them. “If they are, they won’t be much longer.”

11

I
JARA
D
ISTRICT
,
NEAR
THE
K
ENYA
/S
OMALIA
BORDER

T
hrough his binoculars Wells saw the motorcycles pounding along the track, big tires churning up rivulets of red dirt. Two men on each bike. White handkerchiefs hid their faces, but not the AKs strapped to their chests. Wells watched them from the compound’s third hut. Even if the riders were looking directly at him, the shadows would hide him.

The track dipped and they disappeared. Wells figured they were maybe two minutes out. Most likely they would stay on the bikes the whole way in. Untrained fighters habitually underestimated the importance of moving quietly, especially in open country like this. These men were making a particularly obvious approach. Maybe they had a strategy Wells hadn’t figured. More likely they were young and high on miraa and fearless, certain that they could deal with whatever they came across.

Wells assumed these men were part of the raiding party that had attacked the camp and grabbed the hostages. He hoped to capture at least one alive, find out where the hostages were now, why Scott Thompson had been killed. But facing four men with AKs, Wells would settle for survival. His and Wilfred’s. He’d come up with a simple plan. He didn’t want to run for the Land Cruiser, or hide in the scrub and wait for darkness. He preferred to use the raiders’ overconfidence against them. He had explained his plan to Wilfred as they stood in the center of the compound, the stinking corpses around them a reminder of the stakes.

—

“Wait in the first hut. Step out as the first bike passes. Make sure they know you’re there. They’ll stop when they see you. That’s what we want. Even before they stop, yell to them. Doesn’t matter what you say, as long as it gets their attention. Once you start talking, don’t stop. I’m going to give you the shotgun. Carry it by the barrel in one hand so it’s clearly no threat. Don’t point it at them under any circumstances. Don’t give them reason to shoot. The first thing they’ll do is tell you, Put it down. Don’t argue with them. Do what they say.”

“Why do I carry it at all, then?”

“If they disarm you, they’ve dealt with you. You’re no threat. Now, if they ask about me, where I am, who, tell them I work with WorldCares. But say you’re alone, you dropped me off before you got here. I was afraid to come so near Somalia. If they ask why you’re here, tell them that you found this place by accident.”

“They won’t believe me.”

“Doesn’t matter. Point is to confuse them, slow them down.”

“Then what?”

“Take another step or two towards them. The closer you can get, the better. They have AKs and we have pistols. We get in close, we shave their edge. Keep your hands in the air. I’ll be in the third hut, but don’t look for me. Not for any reason. Focus on them, keep them focused on you. Talk. I know you’re good at that. When you hear me shoot, you do the same.”

“But I already put the gun down—”

“Not the shotgun. With the Makarov. It’ll be tucked into your waist at the back, where they can’t see it. When I come out of the hut, I’m going to come out shooting. No warning. When I do, they’ll turn towards me.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“It’s instinct to focus on the active threat. And all this is going to happen fast. At most twenty seconds after you first come out of the hut. They’ll be sitting on the bikes, looking at you. When they hear me step out, they’ll twist towards me. That’s when I’ll shoot them. I’ll take out the two on the bike closer to me. You focus on the bike nearer you. Understand?”

“What if they shoot me as soon as they see me?”

“Most men can’t kill someone that fast. Not unless they’ve already met you, know you’re the enemy. They have to ask questions, get themselves ready. Decide.”

“But that’s not what you’re going to do. You’re just going to kill them.”

“Why I’m still alive, Wilfred. Now we practice.”

—

They did, twice, before the motorcycles got loud and Wilfred ran for the first hut. Now Wells heard the motorcycles slow, drop to idle. Seconds passed. Then one bike moved again. The other stayed where it was. They’d split up to approach the compound from both ends. So much for Wells’s plan.

—

Guy Raviv, Wells’s favorite instructor at the Farm, liked to say,
Never forget. The enemy gets a vote, too. No matter how great
yo
ur strategy looks on paper, when the battle starts, nothing works exactly how you drew it up.

Raviv reminded Wells of the best noncoms he’d known during Ranger school. Ranger training was famously tough, nine weeks of runs and marches with hundred-pound packs—on four hours’ sleep. The NCOs helped the guys on the bubble while pushing the toughest soldiers even harder. “Everybody suffers,” a master sergeant named Jim Grant said to Wells. “Don’t let me see you smile. I’ll hurt you more.” By the end, Wells understood the strategy. Ultimately, the instructors were sending the message
Don’t worry about anyone else’s limits. Find your own. Then beat them.
Because no matter how good you are, when you wind up in combat, you’ll discover that the hell we
’ve
put you through is nothing at all.

Raviv treated Wells the same way, a harshness born of respect. The night before the paramilitary survival exercise that the CIA put all its trainees through, he called Wells.

“You awake? Not worried about tomorrow?”

“Should I be?”

“I’ll swing by around ten.”

Wells figured Raviv wanted to run one last countersurveillance exercise. Instead, as midnight approached, Wells found himself in the overheated basement of a backstreet bar in Norfolk playing poker with a table of middle-aged men he’d never seen before. Raviv, who was famously cheap, bought beers for him all night. The game didn’t break until four a.m. Then Raviv insisted on stopping at a Waffle House for breakfast. By the time they reached Camp Peary, the sun was up. So was Wells’s hangover. He reeked of Raviv’s secondhand smoke. He wanted nothing more than to sack out, but he knew he wouldn’t have the chance.

“You did this on purpose.”

“Whining doesn’t suit you. How much did you lose, eighty?”

“I guess.” Actually, Wells had lost a hundred and fifty. He couldn’t figure out how. The game was only quarter-ante. But he wasn’t much of a poker player. After all those Budweisers, the cards and chips floated away like balloons at a state fair. Up and up and gone.

“You gonna be a covert operative, you can’t even play poker?”

“I’m not going to be that kind of operative.”

Raviv pulled to the side of the access road that led to the Farm’s main campus. “You’re a fool.”

Wells felt like he’d stumbled into someone else’s life. “What are we talking about, Guy?”

“Why’d I bring you to that game?”

“I don’t know, so I’d have trouble with the exercise?”

“Idiot. It’s glorified Capture the Flag. Nobody fails. You’re a Ranger. I could cut off your legs, you’d still make it. I made you play poker because I wanted to watch you play poker. And let me clue you in. You have the worst tells I’ve ever seen.”

“Tells.”

“You give away your hands. Raise your eyebrows when you have a winner. Always look left when you’re bluffing.”

“Guy. Gotta be honest. Maybe I’m still drunk, but I’m not getting it.”

Raviv twisted toward Wells in the seat and—a moment Wells knew he’d never forget—slapped Wells across the cheek. Wells suddenly knew that Raviv loved him. Not sexually, maybe, but the desperate feeling here was love all the same.

“You don’t get to pick what kind of operative you are,” Raviv said. “It picks you. You want to go non-official, you’re going to have to lie so deep it’s in your bones. No tells. I promise you one day someone’s going to ask you to do something that’s going to destroy you. Something you can’t even imagine right now, in this pretty place. With its nice high fences so nobody gets hurt. Farm? It ought to be called a nursery. It’s like you’re in strollers in here. And when it happens, that thing, whatever it is, you’re going to have to nod and say, yes, like it was your idea all along. Or you’re going to die. And maybe get some agents killed, too. All this training”—he spat the word like a curse—“they never say a word about that. You understand me? You copy? Over?”

“Yes.”

“No, you don’t. But you will.” Raviv reached across Wells, opened the door. “Get out.”

“Guy—”

“I said out.”

Wells stood in the cool early-morning Virginia air trying to understand what had just happened, what he’d done wrong. Raviv drove off without saying good-bye. Wells didn’t see him for the rest of training. In fact, Wells never saw Raviv again. He died of lung cancer while Wells was living as a jihadi in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier, the deepest cover of all. Wells found out only after he returned to the United States.

But he never forgot that speech. He learned its ugly truth even earlier than Raviv might have expected, in the miserable civil war in the Russian province of Chechnya. The conflict attracted a few hundred Afghan fighters, the true crazies, guys who hadn’t killed enough Russians in the 1980s. Wells joined up, figuring a few months in Chechnya would be the fastest way to prove his devotion to the cause.

The first few weeks were quiet. Wells lived with sixty Afghan and Chechen fighters in the mountains outside Grozny, the Chechen capital. The Russians fired artillery at them, but the shells never did much more than send rock slides down the slopes around their camp. Wells was almost ready to discount the stories he’d heard about the war’s brutality. Then the fighters heard of a Russian convoy that had the bad luck to be traveling at night without helicopter support. They trapped the Russians on a hairpin curve a few kilometers from camp and blew up four BTRs, Russian armored personnel carriers. Wells’s first battle. Everything happened at once. Waves of heat from the carriers as their ammunition and fuel exploded. Desperate Russian soldiers jumping from the hatches, falling down, picking themselves up, running for the forests beside the road as the guerrillas opened up on them. The seven surviving BTRs firing blindly left and right. Wells knew that he ought to be afraid. Yet he was exhilarated. Time slowed to quarter-speed. The relativity of war.

The real hell started when the battle ended. The jihadis took five Russians alive. Back at camp, the rebel leader—a pouch-faced unsmiling Chechen who called himself Abu Khalifa—decided to kill the prisoners. The murders would be taped, the videos sent to television stations in Moscow and Grozny, a warning to every Russian soldier in Chechnya: Don’t expect to be held for ransom if we catch you. Or traded home in a prisoner swap. Expect to die
.

Abu Khalifa gave five fighters the honor of slitting Russian throats. He chose Wells to be fifth. Wells wasn’t sure whether he’d been picked at random or as a test because he was American. He only knew he couldn’t refuse. Backing out wouldn’t save the Russian’s life, but it would end Wells’s own. Yet how could he kill an unarmed prisoner? Wells cursed Abu Khalifa and Raviv both. Somehow he felt that if Raviv hadn’t warned him, this choice wouldn’t have been forced on him.

The prisoners were lined up, the camera set. Like the other executioners, Wells pulled on gloves and a mask. A faceless killer. Abu Khalifa made a long speech that Wells didn’t understand. Then the slaughter began. Wells waited for the fighters to turn away in disgust. Instead a hum went through the men around him. They edged closer so they wouldn’t miss the show. Wells was glad for his hood.
Not supposed to go like this,
he thought. Cavalry’s over the hill. They’ll be here any minute.

When his turn came, he took the knife—a scimitar, really, a curved steel blade with an edge sharper than any razor. The oaken handle was wet under his fingers, slick with the blood and gristle of the soldier who’d just been slaughtered. Wells dried the knife on a piece of cloth and took his place behind the sacrifice chosen for him. Two men flanked him, grappling the Russian’s arms, holding him steady.

No angel appeared with horn or ram. No cavalry, either. Wells knelt, wrapped his hand around the Russian’s forehead. And heard a single word whispered—

Don’t.

Wells wondered if the soldier was speaking. But the Russian wouldn’t know English, and anyway his mouth was gagged tight.

Don’t don’t don’t.
Louder now. His conscience. His soul, pleading its case. Let this crime belong to someone else. You don’t even know his name. But his name didn’t matter. Whoever this Russian was, he would die tonight for the crime of surrendering to an enemy that took no prisoners. Nothing could save him. Not Wells or anyone else.

“Ready?” Abu Khalifa said.

Wells felt the blade heavy and full in his hand as he pulled the man’s head back. The first four soldiers had accepted their fate. This one moaned under the gag, fought the rope that held him, twisted his head under Wells’s gloved fingers. If he hoped for mercy, he was mistaken. His fear fed the bloodlust. The jihadis jeered in four languages, the angry shouts tumbling over one another. A rock gashed the soldier’s cheek. Cutting his throat would be a mercy, Wells saw. Else he’d be stoned, stomped, torn limb from limb. Wells dug the tip of the scythe into the man’s throat and twisted the curved blade deep and sliced. As his blood gushed, the soldier screamed. The moan tore at Wells, maddened him. To stop it, he tore at the soldier’s neck until finally the man was quiet. Even then Wells didn’t stop cutting, not until blood sopped his hands and the soldier’s head flopped loose on its neck. The other jihadis gathered around him and cheered. Abu Khalifa himself took Wells by the wrist and raised his arm high like Wells had just won a prizefight. The blood dripped down from the knife. Wells thought he might go mad.

“Allahu Akbar,”
Wells said. Though he had never felt more distant from God. The jihadis never did put out the video of that killing—upon further review it was too messy even for them—but Wells saw it. Once. He couldn’t believe how little time the whole episode had taken. Nine seconds. Nine seconds to make a living man dead. Nine seconds and a knife.