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  The Nigerian nodded. “That would be good, if we had the bullets,” Ezeji mocked. “And, if we had soldiers who would—”

  “We have great soldiers,” Ojo said, his voice soft as he intervened. I may never have to make the decision as to when Kabaka will die. Kabaka is too arrogant to recognize the deadly consequences of antagonizing the Nigerian, he thought.

  Beneath Ezeji’s corpulent rolls of fat were muscles capable of doing great harm. Further, hidden deep inside his Nigerian general was the discipline to know when death was a positive influence on an army.

  “Gentlemen,” Ojo said. For some reason, the thought that Ezeji might kill Kabaka made him want to laugh in gratitude, but he held it and continued. “What the Americans don’t know is that Abu Alhaul is also somewhere along the Liberian border. We don’t know where, but I hoped we could ease our way south, inside the border of Ivory Coast and find him.” He moved his finger in a circle around the center of the chart. “We are here, and the last location of Abu Alhaul was in this area, but, unfortunately, our patrols and our questions to fellow Africans have yielded nothing. It is as if the man has disappeared into the jungle.”

  “Maybe he has left West Africa? Maybe he has returned to Egypt?” Darin asked. Suddenly, he slapped the side of his face and looked at his hand to see if he had killed whatever had bitten him. “Yes, maybe he has left,” Darin mumbled as he wiped his hands on his khaki shorts.

  Ojo shook his head. “No, I know this Abu Alhaul. I was with him when he led other Africans against the fort in Kingsville, Liberia. The battle where the Americans’ arrival destroyed most of his forces and caused us to recognize that if we ever want true independence and a native Africa where a person may be born, grow up, raise a family, and die of old age in a land of stability, then we must do it ourselves.” It was also where an American child warrior nearly killed me, he remembered suddenly.

  “We should continue our search,” Kabaka insisted. “Once I have the Jihadists in my hands, we will find where their leader is hidden. Everyone loves to talk to me,” he said, laughing at his own joke.

  “We have two problems, my fellow generals,” Ojo continued, ignoring Kabaka’s boast. His finger moved to the right. “About twenty kilometers to the west is Liberia. We can turn back north, but we will lose this chance to rid Africa of a major enemy. I think we should turn east, go deeper into Ivory Coast; but we will have to be careful, for thirty kilometers east is a French military outpost. The one no one is supposed to know about, but everyone does because of the aircraft. Our patrols would scout ahead. Find what is out there so we may avoid the French. While they aren’t snakes quick to react like the Americans, they still have a sting that can hurt us deeply.”

  “We should take it,” Kabaka added. “Overrun the airport; take the French. Show the world something to keep them off our continent.”

  Ojo shook his head. “No. For the future, we will avoid entanglements with the western powers.” He looked at Kabaka. “I, too, would like to drive the French, the Americans, and the Chinese from Africa, but we must be patient and take one step at a time so we avoid alarming either the French or the Americans until we are strong enough to do so. There is a chance the opportunity to do this may not arise until after we are long dead.”

  “Then, the Chinese are fair game?” Darin asked.

  “Seems the Americans have already been alarmed,” Kabaka said, laughing as he looked around the table.

  “No,” Ezeji snapped. “We must keep our focus as General Ojo merits. Clean our own house first.” He held a clasped fist over the table. “Consolidate our forces and then surprise the Western world by beating them at their own game. Force them with politics and guile.” Ezeji shook his head, huge jowls rolling back and forth. “We will never be strong enough to face Western powers with force, so we must wield the court of world opinion like a sword. We must show the world the strength in leadership they recognize.”

  “World opinion seldom works in Africa,” Kabaka said. He turned his head to the side and spit, his eyes never leaving Ezeji.

  “Thank you, General Ezeji,” Ojo said. “Eloquently spoken.” He sighed loudly. “I wish we had the luxury of avoiding the Western powers, but with the French controlling Ivory Coast and the Americans with their puppet general as president over my home country of Liberia, we walk through our own countries avoiding mine fields of confrontation.”

  “I think we should stay and fight the Americans. There are only four of them,” Darin said.

  “Four? Only four?” Kabaka asked, holding up his right hand with four fingers spread.

  “Only four, but they’re Americans,” Ojo said. His gaze traveled around the small table. “According to our sources who watch the Americans, they are coming for me.” Out of the corner of his eye, he detected a slight widening of Kabaka’s eyes; a sharp twinkle in the good one. The man enjoys the idea that Americans could be hurrying here to do his dirty work for him. The thought fuels an already dangerous ambition.

  “We will withdraw deeper into Ivory Coast. Turn east toward the French, but avoid contact with them,” Ojo said. “Once the Americans leave, we will continue with our search. The Americans will come here to where we stand now. General Ezeji, you will provide the rear guard, and I would like to have our best trackers wait and follow the Americans. I want to know how their special forces operate. If the night does belong to them, I want to know how to make it work for us.”

  “I think I should stay behind to handle the Americans,” Kabaka said sharply.

  “No, I need you with me, General,” Ojo said. The Americans wouldn’t even be out of their helicopter before you’d have shot them and brought the wrath of this power against me. No, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. And right now, my friend, you are a friend in words only.

  The cellular telephone on the side of the table beeped several times. Ojo picked it up, instead of waiting for his sergeant to get it. He said hello and listened for several minutes before clicking the telephone shut.

  A forced smile crossed his face. “They continue east toward the border and are headed this way. We must leave before they arrive.”

  “How long before they get here?”

  “General Darin, I believe we have less than two hours. By then, we can be ten kilometers to the east, and as long we avoid the French, it will be too late for the Americans to do anything.”

  Within forty-five minutes of the telephone call warning Ojo of the American helicopter, the African National Army was moving east through the brush and jungle of Ivory Coast — a multitude of single-file columns weaving back and forth, moving in the same direction.

  * * *

  Commander Tucker Raleigh’s stomach dropped for a moment as the Sea Stallion helicopter jerked suddenly, gaining altitude. He turned and looked out of the small round window on the left side of the helicopter. Africa was such a different battlefield from the desert sands of Aden and Iraq. Even different from the scratchy brush of Somalia. Down there, below them, was the jungle and brush of West Africa. Jungle and brush — friend to those we want to kill and to us special warfare types who want to kill them. Even in the pitch-blackness of a moonless night such as tonight, desert sands reflected starlight. You could see the ground. Over jungle, it was a different story. No lights shined to identify where the sky ended and the ground began. Nothing but darkness surrounded the helo as it flew toward their departure point. Nothing below to show signs of human life existed.

  The door to the cockpit of the huge helicopter had been strapped open with a thin leather cord hooked to a bolt on the fuselage. Tucker could see the green glow of the cockpit instruments between the two pilots when the flight engineer leaned to the left. The gyrocompass showed a northerly direction, which meant they were still inside Liberia, paralleling the border. He lifted his cammie sleeve and twisted his wrist to see his watch. They had been airborne about forty-five minutes.

  Across from him, the two petty officers sat. Ricard, the lanky Seabee expl
osive expert had the top open to the small ammo chest containing the C-4. The blasting caps had been shifted to a pocket halfway down his right leg. Brute—Petty Officer McIntosh—sat with his back against the bulkhead, his head tilted back. From the quiver of his lips when he exhaled, Brute seemed to be snoring. The noise of the engines drowned out the sound.

  They say only two types of people are unafraid going into battle — the ignorant and the suicidal. He hoped Brute was the former. Tucker leaned back and shut his eyes. He thought, This is the worst-planned operation I’ve ever gone on. I know nothing of these three, and they know even less about me. Special Ops is about having confidence in your fellow team members, not flying into danger with a bunch of strangers. He glanced at Ricard—one of them is an EOD dropout; his eyes moved to Brute—another is a barroom hero. He stopped himself from glancing at the master chief, knowing the man would return his stare—the master chief is ex-Army, has some combat training, and may have some idea of what combat is. None of them know what a firefight is like when it’s dark and you’re unsure where your teammates are. He shut his eyes for a moment. Somewhere someone was crawling into a Washington bed, thinking what a great job he or she did sending an untrained, unqualified team into harm’s way to do something he or she could deny any knowledge.

  A tap on his shoulder caused him to open his eyes. The master chief leaned forward. “Commander, I know what you’re thinking,” he shouted into Tucker’s ear over the roar of the engines. “I’m a little worried, too, but I think we can do what needs to be done.”

  The master chief turned his head forward so Tucker could speak into his ear. “Master Chief, I hope you’re right.”

  The helicopter jerked again; a momentary feeling of weightlessness hit Tucker as the Super Stallion began descending.

  The flight engineer rose from his fold-away seat near the cockpit. Tucker saw the young petty officer’s hand cradling the push-to-talk switch on the cord that connected the earphones inside the helmet to the helicopter Internal Control System. After several seconds, the flight engineer disconnected the cord, pulled the loose end up, and held it so it wouldn’t whirl around and hit someone. The sailor stepped back into the passenger area, the free hand braced against the side of the fuselage to keep his balance as he moved toward Tucker.

  “Commander,” he shouted. “Lieutenant Commander Maxwell said to tell you that we’re clear of the trees. He’s going to come down to three hundred feet. We’ll be turning east in about thirty minutes, and unless the ground terrain radar shows more tall trees, we’ll stay this altitude until we reach the landing area inside Ivory Coast.”

  Tucker couldn’t hear every word the man said, but he caught enough of the shouting to understand that they were descending and would be heading east shortly. I shouldn’t feel nervous about this. The only dangerous spot is going to be when we get near the French. No one knows we’re coming, so there should be no unexpected reception party.

  Ricard shut the C4 box and slid it under his web seat. Tucker grimaced involuntarily when the box jammed against one of the aluminum stanchions holding the webbing. Instead of pulling it out and sliding the box in at a different angle, Ricard used the back of his combat boot and kicked the box. Tucker slid forward, his fingers fumbling for the release on the seatbelt. Ricard kicked a couple of more times and the box bounced around the stanchion to stop against the inside bulkhead.

  Tucker reconnected the seat belt and thought, He’s going to blow us up if this is how he handles explosives. It mattered little to Tucker that C4 was harmless unless ignited. When ignited, though, like the grenade without a pin, Mr. C4 wasn’t your friend. And just because they taught him that C4 was harmless until activated by the small explosion a blasting cap would bring, it didn’t give him a warm fuzzy feeling knowing the instructor was right.

  Tucker lifted his Carbine. His heart beat furiously as he ran his hand over the weapon, checking the safety, checking the clip to make sure it was secured tightly into the weapon.

  The clip was firmly seated. He recalled Beau Pettigrew telling of how a clip fell out in the middle of a firefight when he was with Admiral Duncan James rescuing the president of Algeria. It was not only dangerous when that happens, but very embarrassing. If you lived, your fellow SEALs never let you forget the incident.

  Tucker rested the Carbine between his legs and leaned his head back against the vibrating bulkhead of the helicopter. He took a deep breath, breathing in the combination of fumes, stale air, and body odors. He stared ahead and mentally went over the operational plan thrown together only hours ago for their mission. He knew to consider everything that could go wrong would take up the remaining minutes of flight time. Plus, there were so many possible pitfalls, none of which they had planned for. He glanced at his watch. Nearly eleven o’clock.

  They should land in a slight clearing that the overhead satellite imagery had revealed. What those high-resolution photographs couldn’t show was what was beneath that impassible canopy of trees that was between the landing zone and where the French reconnaissance aircraft waited for them. Five kilometers of unknowns. What if beneath those trees was a marsh or yard after yard of thorn-decked bushes? If they didn’t drown or get sucked down by quicksand, then they could have their bodies ripped to shreds. I can’t dwell on the what-ifs and the multitude of other things that can go wrong. Some things I have no control over. Besides, you don’t know what you don’t know, he told himself.

  He would muster the team together at the drop zone and hurry to the edge of the jungle while the noise of the departing helicopter covered their movement. Get a GPS reading while still in the landing zone, and then use Geopositional Satellite readings to work their way to the target. I will try to do what they want, he thought, but if that aircraft is too heavily guarded and/or I don’t think we can get aboard without one of us getting killed, then I’m going to blow it up and they can just worry about whether this laser weapon survived or not. He glanced at Ricard. Unless we blow ourselves up first.

  * * *

  Ojo followed the faint trail ahead of them. Even in the darkness of night, eyes became adjusted to the faint starlight interspersed with the cascading curtain of grays and blacks composed of the heavy growth of the African jungle. He didn’t worry about the lions, tigers, or even the ornery wild pigs. His army was like the army ants of Africa weaving along various paths, sometimes separated by less than a meter and sometimes by kilometers, but always moving constantly toward a single point. Everything ahead of it scurried out of the way.

  A slight murmur rode over the noise of thousands of fleeing feet. Fleeing! Ojo’s eyes narrowed over the idea that he was fleeing from four Americans. Four Americans who his people said were coming to kill him. Americans who would support him if they only knew about his vision for Africa; but to talk to the Americans would violate the trust of his army. An army that believed Africa must be rid of all foreign influence; an Africa for Africans. Why didthey believe this? Because I told them this, that’s why.

  The soft ring of a cellular telephone broke his battle rhythm, nearly causing him to trip on one of the many vines that crisscrossed the faint jungle trail. He caught the vague outline of a soldier stepping to the side of the path so he wouldn’t block the movement of the army. The army moved, and it moved without stopping. Those who fell in front of it were marched over, for forward was the only direction.

  As Ojo neared, he recognized that soldier as Darin, talking on the cellular telephone. He was young enough to understand the few items of western technology they carried. Ojo caught a few words of the conversation. A watcher along the border heard the noise of a helicopter as it crossed the Liberia — Ivory Coast border. The lights were off, but he saw the silhouette against the starry night as it passed, heading east into Cote d’Ivoire. So, the Americans were still coming. How could they know where he was? Ojo wasn’t even sure where they were. Maybe they were going after Abu Alhaul, but if that was so, they would send many, for it would not only be the terrorist le
ader they would want to kill, but his followers also. No, they’re coming after me, for the vitality of this army is me. Without me, it will fade into the jungles like so many other movements.

  Darin had his hand cupped over the mouthpiece to muffle the noise. Ojo smiled as he marched past. The noise of the cellular telephone and Darin’s conversation faded as Ojo moved onward, Darin’s voice lost in the noise of the steady tramping of marching feet, one after the other, stepping to their own internal drum, as they continued eastward. Five kilometers, Ojo estimated, since they left the encampment. He followed the dark back in front of him, recognizing the man as a sergeant in the Enforcers. The Enforcers were Ojo’s own security guards composed of fellow Liberians who would give their lives to protect him.

  Darin would catch up and tell him what the watcher said. Regardless of what additional news he may bring, there was little Ojo could do. He could turn and fight; he’d win, but then the Americans would surely come after him. He could continue his attempt to avoid the incoming American Special Forces team and hope the Americans lose interest in him. If they would leave him alone for two years — even a year — he would rid Africa of Islamic influence. He would destroy the child bombers that the Madrassas trained to be martyrs, and he would impale, decapitate, and mount on stakes throughout West Africa the heads of the Arab mullahs who taught such ideas to the youth of Africa. As a side-effect his freeing of Africa would free America of some of its terrorists.

  Ojo caught the sound of feet, out of step with the army’s movement, approaching. He wanted to turn and be prepared, but if he believed everyone approaching him was intent on killing him, he would be hunched over with his arms spread, constantly ready to fight. He recognized the gait and knew it was Darin. What now? he asked himself.

  Ojo felt a tap on his shoulder. “Yes, Darin,” he said without turning.