Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 7

The Marib’amal, Sailing the Gulf of Aiden

Taylor had never been much of a boat person. Although he never had trouble on planes or high-speed vehicles, something about the rocking motion of a boat underway always made him a little queasy.

He’d managed to keep his food down so far, but it hadn’t been easy. He’d found that fresh air, even the salty air of the ocean, helped a little, which is how he found himself above decks of the trawler, leaning over the side, willing his stomach to calm down for the thirtieth time since leaving Djibouti.

He had expected a trawler of some kind when they’d first mentioned they’d gotten passage on a boat that would drop them off the Somali coastline, something closer to a large fishing boat with minimal below deck room. What they got was a small cargo ship, which hadn’t even been able to pull up at the Camp Lemonnier docks. They’d had to take one of the cargo ships’ small launches and transfer their gear overboard. While the size of the ship was probably why Taylor had managed to keep from vomiting every hour, since the large ship just rocked less than a smaller ship would, it also explained why Stone had set aside so much time for them to get to the drop off point. Even once they got out of port and onto the open seas, these vessels were built for cargo capacity and not speed.

It also meant the ship wasn’t designed for passengers. They’d been given a couple of smaller storage rooms that had been emptied out to use as quarters, which essentially meant throwing a bedroll down on the hard metal floors, which didn’t lead to restful nights. It also meant just going above deck and back down required navigating the warren of thin walkways and hallways that zigzagged around, mostly to give crew access to all parts of the ship without cutting down on any storage area for non-container cargo.

In his many trips, Taylor had at least learned the route by heart now, and his mind was wandering as he made his way back to the emptied cargo area most of the team was holding in, when something pulled at his subconscious. He’d learned to listen to that part of him that noticed things when he wasn’t actively focused on something and stopped, trying to figure out what he’d seen or heard that had alerted him.

For a second he thought it might be a false alarm, and then the sound of voices floated to him from a room he’d just passed. Voices he recognized.

“… I don’t care what they do, as long as they stay near the entryway. I don’t want them anywhere nearby when we secure the package. You’ll need to keep them down in the entryway until we return. The four of us will head towards the basement, where you two will hold in the doorway while O’Brien and I go inside and take out the core.”

“What about the hostages?”

“We’ll get them out on the way out. That’ll be … wait.”

One of the ship’s crew nearby had been working and must have dropped something, because there had been a loud bang. Taylor turned and began walking slowly back, hand on his stomach. It would only take a second for Stone or one of his men to stick their heads out of the door and look down the corridor, and there was no way Taylor would get to a turn-off point before they did. If he was hurrying along, they would almost certainly think he’d been eavesdropping on them and considering the little bit he’d heard, they would probably react badly to the admittedly correct assumption.

On the other hand, everyone knew about Taylor’s constant trips above decks to fight off seasickness. Most of the men, especially the ex-swabbies among them, thought it was funny. Sailors got more ridicule than most branches of service for being less than manly, so they had a habit of really running with those moments when they were able to get a leg up. Besides, Taylor hadn’t been making many friends, and there was a certain glee among the others in seeing him taken down a peg or two. Either way, at the moment it gave him a reasonable excuse for being there, so he leaned into it.

“What are you doing?” Stone called from behind them.

Taylor turned and gave a confused look, “What do you mean?”

“Why are you lurking around the halls?”

“I’m not lurking anywhere. I was up top for air and now I’m headed back to the holding area. What’s your problem?”

He could see Stone calculating, trying to decide if Taylor was lying or not.

“My problem is you need to be with your group as they prepare instead of walking up and down to the deck every twenty minutes. If you can’t handle yourself here, how are you going to handle your shit once we’re ashore?”

Of course, that was a bullshit question, since they were completely different. Taylor wasn’t going to get seasick once they were marching over the rocky hills. Of course, he couldn’t just keep complaining that Taylor shouldn’t be there, so he had to find something new to be upset about.

“I thought you wanted me to stay in the middle with the radio and do nothing? What do I have to do to prepare to do nothing?”

“Just go. I don’t want to see you down here again.”

“Sure,” Taylor said.

Part of him wanted to argue back, mostly because he didn’t like Stone and didn’t feel like giving an inch to the man’s petty little tirade, but right now he had bigger things to think about.

He’d been suspicious since the first moment he’d heard about this mission that there was more going on here than just a rescue mission, but having confirmation was different. More importantly, he now had an idea of what they were really doing, and it filled in a lot of the questions he’d had, although not all of them. Unfortunately, the information didn’t really change anything. He’d already known that there was an ulterior motive and had been concerned they might not take the rescue part of the mission seriously and the new information didn’t actually add much to that. They had something in the basement that they needed to retrieve, and it was probably the reason why they were out here in Somalia in the first place.

The other problem Taylor had was that there wasn’t anything he could do about the new information. He could possibly call Wheeler and let him know what he’d found, but they didn’t actually know anything, so there wasn’t much Wheeler could do until Taylor found out more, and none of it changed his core mission: rescuing Wayne Nash.

For now, he’d keep his eyes open, but other than that he was just going to focus on what he needed to do to get Claire’s husband home.

***

Washington D.C.

Albert had called back a few hours later, with the number for a man named Alan Carter. She’d called him found the man very terse. Their conversation had lasted less than a minute, and almost all of that was taken up by Carter giving her instructions. He gave her a place to meet, which in this case was one of D.C.’s many small parks. She’d asked if there was a specific place in the park they should meet, since they’d never met in person, but he said he’d be able to find her. Although he sounded confident, she’d looked up his website and found a picture of him, just in case.

Kara probably wouldn’t have been able to describe what she thought a private detective looked like if someone had asked her before looking up the man’s picture, but whatever that mental image would have been, Mr. Carter would have been an eighty percent match, at the minimum. The man looked kind of like a sentient thumb. He was bald, his head shaved smooth, and his face was devoid of distinguishing characteristics, save for how plain it was. He had a weak chin and large forehead, accentuating the nothingness that was his appearance. He probably would have done himself some favors with a mustache or a beard, but maybe he liked how nondescript he looked. Maybe it came in handy as a private detective.

Kara took the bus and showed up early, just in case. Although there hadn’t been a pressing need for it, she’d decided to keep what she was doing to herself, with the exception of the two friends of Taylor that she’d reached out to already.

Kara had found a bench that overlooked most of the park and checked her watch continually, watching the minutes tick down until the meeting, which might have been why she jumped when a man said her name from behind her.

She turned around to find the thumb standing behind her, carrying a large bag. Admittedly, she’d been distracted, but she was still impressed by how easily he’d snuck up on her.

“Mr. Carter?” She asked, even though he looked exactly like his picture.

“Yep,” he said, sitting on the bench next to her. “Aren’t you a little young to be asking for a PI?”

“I’m older than I look.”

Once again her young looks made people doubt her, she thought, only to be promptly disproven.

“Maybe, but you’re still only seventeen, which makes you a little young to be calling around for a PI.”

“How do you know I’m seventeen?” She asked.

A side effect of her young looks, aside from being thought of as way too young, was that no one ever seemed to know how old she actually was.

“I looked up your ID with the DMV. How else would I have known what you looked like to find you?”

She hadn’t considered that he’d done that, even though she’d done almost the same thing.

“Yeah, of course. And yes, I’m young to need a private detective, but Mr. Franklin said he knew someone who could help me with a problem when I called him.”

“So what’s your problem? Boy trouble?”

She held her tongue, which was a feat for her, although she couldn’t keep the snark out of her voice.

“No. It’s not boy trouble.”

She explained, in detail, what Taylor was doing, who Packer was, and the background of the animosity between the fat little political operative and her father, and what she knew about his involvement with the mission Taylor was on.

“That is … a lot. So you’re concerned that he might try and take out some of his anger on your father, while he’s in a dangerous situation, or have one of the men you think work for him do it?”

“I don’t know. He’s an evil little man, but he’s smart. If he wanted to just get vengeance, I’m sure he would have done something about it in the months since the election. Sure, I have no doubt he’d try something if it didn’t cost him anything, but he’s all about doing whatever gets him that next step. My father kept saying the whole thing being in Somalia didn’t make sense, that he thought they were up to something, and that Packer being involved convinced him of that even more. I think if he is up to something, and if he was the person trying to keep my father from going, Packer might see him as some kind of threat to whatever scheme he has going on. Which means he will have a reason to do something.”

“Okay. And how do you think I can help?”

“I just want to know what he’s up to. If it’s nothing, then that’s it. If it’s something, then I want to know about it.”

“I see. Well, there are a couple of ways of going about that, but unfortunately, I already have several cases, and this kind of thing mostly requires just watching the target until they do something and being there to see what it is. That, I don’t have time for.”

“Then why even agree to a meeting?” Kara said, her English slipping in her annoyance.

“Because when I told Albert that, he asked if I had some other way of helping you. I told him other than telling you how to do it yourself and giving you the tools, I couldn’t do anything for you. I’d been joking, but he took me seriously, and asked that I do just that.”

“I need to follow him?”

“Look kid, what I think you should do is go home. Your dad sounds like a smart guy and he clearly already has reservations about this other fella. I’m sure he’s watching them and is ready for any sign of dirty dealing. This isn’t a game and if he is into something and sees you, you’ll be the one needing help.”

“Maybe I should go hire someone else then.”

“That’d be the smart thing.”

Of course, Kara didn’t have the money for that kind of thing, and couldn’t very well ask Whitaker for it. Mr. Franklin had set this up even though he knew Carter was busy, so he must have thought it was a viable option. She’d seen in some of the emails between Franklin and Taylor that he knew about her background and knew about some of the things she’d done, including her help in tracking down Mary Jane, so he must have thought she was capable of it. Besides, Kara wasn’t one for walking away from a challenge when it mattered, and she’d been in much worse situations involving men a lot more dangerous than Packer would ever be.

“If I was going to do it, how would I go about it?”

“If you were, which you shouldn’t, what you want to do is follow him at a distance and when he stops, move in close enough to see if he meets with anyone or calls anyone. If he’s doing something illegal and is worried about your father, he’ll do it soon, since it sounds like this thing will only last a few days.”

“I don’t really know how to follow someone.”

“There are ways around that,” Carter said, pulling out a small metal box. “This is a GPS tracker. We sometimes use them to follow a target when we can’t be in visual range, and for someone like you who doesn’t know how to tail someone without getting caught, it’s the only way to go.”

“How does it work?”

“We made an app that works with it. The GPS has a small data transmitter and it sends a signal you can pick up from your phone. You can then see him in the app on a street map and just follow him. When he stops, you move in close enough to see him, but staying far enough away that he can’t really see you. If he meets with someone, snap their picture and send it to me, and I’ll tell you who they are.”

“How much does this cost?”

“Don’t worry about it. Albert said he’d pick up the expenses, but you’re only renting it. I want this back when you’re done.”

“Okay, and what if he makes a call.”

“That’s what this is for,” he said, pulling out a rectangular metal box that looked like some kind of radio set, although with more dials. “This is a cell interceptor. If you’re close enough and you know the number being called from, you can intercept and listen to the call, unless they’re using an encrypted phone. Then you’d need the encryption to decode it, which you won’t have. But, most people just use cell phones without thinking about it and just assume it’s safe. So unless he’s in intelligence work, he won’t have an encrypted phone.”

“Can you show me how to use it?”

“Yes, before I leave we’ll test out both and do some trial runs so you can get a feel for both it and the GPS.”

“What if he uses a landline?”

“Then you’re shit out of luck, but hardly anyone uses landlines anymore, at least in this city. Even in their homes, they end up making most of their calls with cell phones, even if they have a landline available. If he’s out on the street, it’s not like he’s going to find a payphone anywhere, as the phone companies have removed them all.”

“Okay. Show me how they work.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to call the whole thing off? Maybe go find someone who isn’t busy and pay them to do it. I know Albert asked me to help you and I owe him, but I feel weird about telling someone your age how to do this stuff.”

“I’m sure. Just show me.”

“Fine. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

They spend the next hour going over the devices and doing several trial runs with Carter acting as the target. She was going to have to figure out something to do with transportation, since following him while he used a car and she was on a bus didn’t really seem like an option, but this was a start.

***

Somali Coast

The climb down to the rope ladder dropped over the side of the cargo ship and stepping into the small rubber and plastic boat was the thing of nightmares. Taylor had repelled from helicopters and felt more in control than he did working his way down the side of that boat, the seventy pounds on his back pulling at him the whole time.

Worse than the climb was transferring from the ladder to the boat, which was being held next to the ship by what seemed like willpower alone. Taylor might have had a lot of bad things to say about the guys Stone hired, but he could tell the squids and jarheads from the guys who’d been in the army, including himself. They’d clearly done stuff like this before and seemed to just glide down the side of the ship and into the boats that seemed to be more rafts than actual boats. He was impressed in spite of himself.

They managed to get everyone into the three little boats without anyone going over the side and into the ocean which was, in and of itself, a small miracle, and were shortly pulling away, being propelled by small outboard engines. It was dark and to Taylor, the little engines sounded incredibly loud, but he was right next to them. The ocean was loud, especially next to the shore with the crashing waves. It would be hard to distinguish the three small motors from the sound of the ocean until they were all but ashore, but at which time they’d be visible if someone was paying attention, which there should be.

They were several miles from the compound and they’d picked this stretch because there was nothing here. It was just after midnight and this wasn’t a vacation spot. There shouldn’t be anyone to notice them.

The boats made it to the rocky shore and the men all hopped out, splashing in the surf and dragging the boats in from the beach, trying to hide them as best they could. While it was unlikely that anyone would stumble across the discarded rafts in the few days they were in country, the plan still called for the boats to be left intact in case they needed an alternate way to get out. They wouldn’t take them all the way back to Djibouti, but it could take them partway along the coast.

The boats at least nominally hidden, the men who hadn’t been standing watch readied them, removing the covers and other pieces that had been used to protect their inner workings from seawater. Within three minutes of coming ashore, the entire group was moving inland, spread out across in a long line with the two-point men well ahead of the rest of the group.

Taylor was happy to see that once they were in country, the men had finally become at least somewhat professional. There wasn’t chatter or lollygagging and everyone’s head was on a swivel, looking into the dark nooks and crevices for any sign of a threat.

After two hours, Taylor started to think they might actually make it all the way to the compound unobserved, something he’d severely doubted when they’d first gone over the plan. The notion didn’t last much longer, however, as the point man halted the column and everyone crouched down and waited, although in this barren landscape Taylor wasn’t sure how much crouching down would actually help.

At first, Taylor thought the halt might be so they could scout ahead or to check out something suspicious, but after it stretched into five and then ten minutes it because clear something else was wrong. Especially once the two-point men’s voices started to rise to the point where Taylor could hear them all the way in the center of the column. Stone must have thought it was problematic too, because he signaled for everyone to hold their position and headed towards the front of the line. Although he got looks from the other men around him, Taylor ignored the order and followed along behind Stone, arriving at the point men a few steps behind Stone, who gave Taylor an annoyed look but didn’t say anything about it, since they had larger fish to fry at the moment.

Between the two bickering sentries was a small boy, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting on the ground with a short staff next to him and a small group of goats that had started to wander, ignoring the commotion.

“What’s the holdup,” Stone hissed, trying to sound stern while not adding to the noise.

“The kid came out of nowhere,” Tim Ellis, one of the point men, said. “He must have been in that wash over there and come out when he heard us passing by. Webb was worried that the kid might run back to the militia and give us away, but I’m not about to let him shoot a kid.”

“Who the fuck cares,” Webb said. “These kids are a dime a dozen out here and we can’t take a chance.”

Taylor had never been one to shrink from violence, but the casual way Tom Webb suggested they murder the kid was appalling, even to Taylor.

“We don’t have time for this,” Stone said, pulling out his sidearm.

He lifted his hand and squeezed the trigger; only to miss as Taylor shoved his arm at the last second, causing the bullet to ping off the rock-face nearby.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Stone said furiously, his head whipping around.

“You’re not shooting the kid,” Taylor said, his hand on his sidearm.

“We need to get to the compound before daylight and this shit is slowing us down.”

“Fine, then send him on his way and let’s get going, but you’re not shooting the kid.”

“Taylor, you’re here only as an observer and you don’t get a say in what happens. We can’t let some random kid know about us and then send him out into the night where he can tell someone. We have a small window and don’t have time to screw around.”

When he started to bring his weapon back towards the kid Taylor pulled his pistol, pointing it at the side of Stone’s head. Ellis remained still, maybe because he agreed with Taylor but probably more so out of surprise, judging by the look on his face. Webb didn’t have that same response and a second later had his weapon trained on Taylor in turn.

“Shoot him and I do you,” Webb said.

“Fine, then we all go out together. How about it Stone, you ready to call it a day?”

No one spoke for several seconds, until finally Stone lowered his weapon and slid it back into his holster.

“A day is coming very soon where you’re going to regret this,” he said, finally turning his back on the kid to face Taylor.

The threat to the kid gone, Taylor lowered his weapon with Webb doing the same once Taylor’s weapon was down.

“I look forward to it. So are we in a hurry, or what?”

Stone glared at him for another and said, “Webb, let’s get moving.”

The three walked past, followed by the rest of the line, none of them seeming to care that Taylor wasn’t following. Most of them would probably be happy if he’d just stayed behind completely, but Taylor knew he could catch up.

Reaching down a hand to the boy, Taylor said, “Enta bkhair?”

The kid paused for a few seconds, his eyes on Taylor’s weapon, before taking the offered hand and nodding ‘yes’ as Taylor pulled him up. Taylor took this as a confirmation the kid spoke Arabic, which was a common language in Somalia, if not the primary one.

“You should take your goats and go home to your family,” Taylor said, still speaking Arabic. “Stay in tonight, if you can.”

“Thank you,” the kid said, also in Arabic, before collecting his staff and beginning the process of getting his goats moving.

The kid seemed okay, so Taylor hurried to catch up to the line, making sure the guys on the tail end knew it was him, so he didn’t get accidentally shot. Taylor knew he was starting to push his luck and things would probably come to a head before they made it out of the country, but at least the kid made it out okay. Now he just had to get Wayne Nash out before Stone or his men lost their shit any more.