Born of War (20 page)

“I have another question.” Paul Stewart looked ready to collapse.

“Doctor, we believe she is alive,” Tola said. “I took a patrol out last night and we found a wrapper from a piece of chewing gum. It was clearly a signal that she wanted us to find.”

A
s Omar and his guide headed west they ran into more and more fighters of Al Shabaab heading away from the sound of the artillery shells. The thud of the impact caused the ground to vibrate. At night he would see the flash of yellow explode in the distance, especially when they reached a higher point of land. During the early morning hours a cloud of smoke would follow the explosion. One shell out of ten caused a black trail to rise up into the sky, meaning that a vehicle had been hit. The black clouds would last for some time as the fuel burned off.

“We need to head more north.” The guide pointed towards the distance. Somalia seemed to go on forever.

“We need food,” Omar complained.

“Yes.”

“Do you know where we can get some?'

“No.”

The conversation was always short. They did stop for prayers, getting on their knees and pointing to the northeast. And in the middle of the day, the two would stop and seek cover under a tree.

Chocolate.
Omar became obsessed with the thought of the Baskin-Robbins that was down the street from where he went to college.
A chocolate milkshake with dark chocolate ice cream.

In the evenings, they often ran into a patrol. Each time they heard a noise, they stopped and lay on the ground behind a rock. They would start to call out so that the patrol would not be surprised. Once the two connected, the man with Omar would hug a member of the patrol and talk in a fast rattle of Swahili. It seemed the man had cousins across all of Al Shabaab.

Sometimes the patrol had some biscuits and stopped to start a fire.

“Must eat and move,” a member of the patrol would say. They would build a fire between several rocks, bring out a metal pot and another plastic liter jug of water, and put it to a boil. A man then took out a bag of rice and poured it into the pot. They shared one metal plate with each one having a corner of the plate for his portion.

Omar would talk religion as his guide relayed his words on to the others.

“We must obey what Allah says.” Omar was strict in his interpretation.

They listened to the white man with a look of bewilderment on their faces. The men lived in a dark world where a television was a foreign object. Its images, always images, of an unimaginable world. It was when Omar and his guide met the second patrol on the road to Baydhabo that they learned more of the two prisoners.

“Yes, we have heard of two white people. A man and a woman.”

“Where?”

“North of here.” The man pointed off across a long stretch of sand, rocks, bush, and a scattering of trees.

“Allah be praised.” Omar pulled out a map and unfolded it.

The man could not read.

“What village were they near?” he asked his guide.

“He doesn't know.”

Omar became frustrated. He swung his AK-47 from one shoulder to the other.

“Was it by water?”

Again the question was changed into a string of words that climbed and sunk with a variety of sounds.

“Near the Shebelle.”

“The river?”

“Yes.”

“But it is a long river.” Omar needed more details.

“Tayeeglow.”

“Tayeeglow?” Omar looked at the map. There was a town thirty kilometers to their northeast with the name of Tayeeglow. “But it is not on the Shebelle.”

“Yes, but it is on the way to the Shebelle.”

 

 

Omar and his guide stopped to sleep below two trees that night.

“We sleep in the tree.” The guide pointed to two large branches that extended out from the trunk.

A quiet had descended as they continued to head north and east. It seemed the fighting was off to the west.

“Why in the tree?” Omar asked. The risk of lions and baboons was constant but they could make a small fire and the smoke and flames would keep the predators at bay.

“See.” The guide pointed to the ground. A line of large black ants led to a battlefield where one army of ants was waging war with another. A stream of red ones was moving in the opposite direction. Omar had already learned that the small red ones were more dangerous.

“I had a friend once.” Omar's mind went back to Mobile. “He had a boat and the gas can exploded.” The ants had a path that they followed as willed by Allah just as Omar's friend's life was willed by Allah.

The boy was given use of a duckboat that they used to travel the back nooks of the bay. It was meant for shallow water and had a flat bottom. They snuck cans of Budweiser from the ice cooler that was on his father's truck and stole packs of Marlboro cigarettes.

Omar was not with his friend the time that the cigarette dropped into the bottom of the boat where the fuel had leaked. He did visit him at the burn unit in Mobile. The friend died soon thereafter. It was another brick in the wall of why he had a special path. If Allah had wanted it, Omar would have been on that boat that day.

“We will sleep in the tree.” Omar agreed with the guide's advice. “It is Allah's wishes.”

“No ants in the tree.”

“Yes. No ants, brother.”

Omar used his long black turban to tie himself to the tree trunk. He hung his rifle from a nearby branch. He would drift away for a few minutes thinking of his wife and child and then start to roll off the branch. It seemed that whenever he started to roll he let out a noise that woke him up.

By early morning he could barely keep his eyes open. The dim light was like a dose of morphine. He fell asleep sitting erect. And then the hot sun started to penetrate through the small leaves of the tree.

Finally Omar awoke, rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, and felt the sweat from a short deep sleep. He swung his legs across the branch.

“Our prayers.” He mumbled the words. There was no answer.

“Hey,” he called out again as he looked around the trunk of the tree. There was complete silence. It was then that he realized that the guide was gone.

Omar climbed down and headed northeast. He was learning to survive. Soon he would achieve what he wanted. Along the way he would become the most wanted man in the free world and he would not even know it. Someone else would help him reach his goal.

“C
olonel Parker, Dr. Stewart needs you.” The nurse had on a white plastic bio suit with the hood pulled down around her neck.

“Yes.” Parker had been taking advantage of the opportunity to sleep.
I may need this later on.
He had a gut instinct that a reserve would be needed. Once he had that extra sleep, Parker could go for days on adrenaline alone.

“What time is it?” He pulled on his camouflage jacket as he looked at the tactical watch he wore. It showed 3:00.

“Three a.m.?”

“Yes, sir. He needs you now.”

Parker followed her across the compound to the CDC tents. A strip of yellow plastic marked the “do not cross” area and encircled three tents that were interlinked and sealed. Plastic tunnels led from one tent to another and to another. Generators ran continuously, one for each tent. He followed her to the regular canvas tent on the far end that was lit with two lightbulbs strung on a wire. In the dim light he saw a metal sink with pink plastic bottles and water that would run when she flipped a switch.

“Scrub!” She barked the order like a trauma nurse who was used to handling gunshot wounds at an emergency room. Her voice and manners indicated that the woman, who stood barely to his chest, was a pit bull dog when it came to taking care of the patient.

“How did you get here?” he asked as he took off the jacket and scrubbed from his elbows down to his hands. The water was warm. It had been brought in by the 24/7 run of Sea Stallion helicopters supporting the base.

“Got tired of the boring life of an emergency room.”

“Too boring? An emergency room?”

“Here, put this suit on.”

He suited up and went through a zipped and sealed first chamber to find Paul Stewart looking at a computer screen blowup of the virus. It had a loop to it like a twisted donut but with small spikes on the ends similar to the bristles of a new beard.

“Hey.”

“The nurse called me Parker.”

“I am sorry. They are all good and they all have TS's.” The top-secret clearance cost the CDC, via the FBI, more than $100,000 per background check. At the CDC, only one out of five made the cut unless they were well published and had unique knowledge necessary to the organization. Those few scientists who had the knowledge unique to a disease but not the ability to get a top-secret clearance were allowed in, but were constantly on the watch list. They never had the access that the few others with top-secret clearances did.

“What's up?”

“We have two Marines that are sick.”

“I heard.”

“One is from California.”

Parker was waiting for a pitch. The doctor hadn't gotten him up in the middle of the night to socialize.

“You've got blood typing of the Marine?”

The lab technicians had taken blood samples, DNA swabs and even chest X-rays.

“Yes, we do; yes, we do.” Stewart was hesitating.

“And?”

“I would like to do a transfusion. You and the Marine share the same blood type.”

“O positive?” Parker knew his type. It was a part of combat that he had written it with markers on the top of his boot and taped it on the side of his pants. If a medic got you transported in time from something bad, he and other combat veterans knew that it was important to not lose a minute on the typing of blood. The final lace of his boot had strung into it a metal dog tag that had been printed with “O positive.”

“Exactly.”

“So the transfusion might give him a chance?”

“I think so. It might buy us some time. His friend was not O positive.”

It was clear what had happened to the other Marine during the night.

“Dr. Stewart? You didn't bring me to Africa just to do blood typing or transfusions, did you?”

Stewart looked embarrassed.

“You had one transfusion in mind. A last-ditch effort if the others didn't work.”

Stewart turned back to the computer screen. He didn't have a poker face.

T
he van sped north on Interstate 95 leaving the Richmond area behind after Wassef picked up the FedEx box of money. Well north of the city, he took an exit where there was only a Chevron gas station on a side country road. After passing the gas station, the road twisted to the right and into the darkness. He traveled on it for several minutes not seeing anything, not even a farmhouse. He drove another five miles or so until he came to a dirt road that intersected with the highway. It was obviously rarely used, as the branches of nearby trees pushed out from the sides, giving it the appearance of a path more than a road. Wassef turned the lights off and pulled the van onto the road, drove a hundred yards, slowly backed it up under a tree, and turned the wheel. When finished, it was below the branch of an oak that was nearly as wide as the door to the van and pointed out towards the county highway.

Allah, prepare me for this journey.
Wassef sat in the still silence and dark. He had a sheet of paper that had his scrawl on it. He could not read it in the darkness without a flashlight and he would not turn one on. He knew what was written on the paper, which was all that counted.

The country road remained silent and dark. There had been no rain in days so the road was dusty and dry. He could feel the dust as he sat in the van not moving. He could smell the van, and the oil, and gas. He remained still. A car door could be heard. A light was seen. He continued to sit there in the dark.

A car's lights followed the road in the distance. It originated in the opposite direction from where he had come. He watched as the lights moved and turned with the curves of the road. He sat up like a cat that had suddenly seen a mouse. The car moved down the road and off into the distance. It never slowed down nor seemed to care about what was off to the sides in the darkness. It confirmed that he had not been followed.

Probably a carpenter going to work,
Wassef thought as he sat there. He could feel the smooth cool steering wheel under his hand.
The man probably drives the eighty miles or so into Washington each and every day. He lives in a single-wide trailer on land he rents, and drives the miles so he can live in the forest at night. He probably hates the city.

The thought randomly went through his mind as he sat there in the darkness.

As it neared first light, he realized that for a moment he had fallen asleep.

Allah, forgive me.
He had promised himself not to fall asleep. He wiggled to the back of the van, quietly, without opening the door or making a sound. Wassef had a bucket and bottle of water, which he used to wash himself. And then he pulled out his prayer rug and turned it towards the east in the small space he had in the van. It was to be his last prayer. He took his time and slowly whispered the words.

As he climbed back into the driver's seat, he looked at the FedEx box next to him, lifted it, and saw the kitchen knife under it. He had followed orders well. There were to be no other weapons, as the purchase of weapons left a trail. The knife was all that he needed.

He pulled the van out onto the paved road and headed back towards the gas station. As he passed it, he made a point of turning the left blinker on and heading south. If there were eyes at the station, it was important that they saw a van heading south and not north. He rode the next few miles to the south, took the exit, and pulled into a BP station. The van was nearly empty of gas but he only put $42 of gas into it. He paid with a twenty, two tens, and two one-dollar bills. Everything was planned so as to reveal little to suspecting eyes. He bought two Red Bulls and a bag of Lay's Potato Chips.

“Breakfast?” the clerk asked as he paid for it all with another well-used ten-dollar bill.

“Yeah, the breakfast of champions.”

She laughed.

“See you later.” She smiled.

She will be on CNN tonight.
He opened a Red Bull and sipped it as he walked out to the van. This time, he pulled out of the station and turned to the north.

 

 

“It just doesn't feel right.” The senior agent of the TFOS team in Richmond had more than a decade of experience. She watched the video feed from the holding cell at the jail. The two women in their burqas with the niqabs pulled back sat in silence with their hands folded. They were too content.

“Have we checked all of their contacts?”

“Yes. All that we know.” The other agent had been up all night. “They didn't have a lot of money.”

“What was the final count?”

“About two thousand dollars.”

“But they have been a regular channel for some time?” She knew the answer but was going over the points both in her head and out loud.

“Yes, we picked up the trail several months ago. We got the okay and started monitoring their calls. A lot to Kenya.”

“That made it easy.” It took out a lot of the guesswork when the calls were being made to central Africa. The red flag went up the pole.

“You know how much funding was needed for Oklahoma City?” The bombing of the courthouse was a classic plan and execution. “Just over four thousand bucks.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The terror money trail doesn't have to be very wide nor very long.” She sensed what they found was just the tip of an iceberg.

“And they have said nothing to each other since?” She gazed at the monitor while she spoke.

“Not a word.”

“They look too content. It is as if they know the other shoe is going to drop.”

“Yes.”

“Something is going on.” The senior agent knew that an alert too early could send someone underground. The only thing worse would be an alert too late. “I am going to call Washington. We are too close to too many things to just let this sit.”