All Necessary Force - Страница 3

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2

Two Years Ago

Central Sudan

Brett Thorne’s head jolted forward, snapping him awake, as the decrepit Japanese pickup hit another rut. He gazed at the stars above his head as they drove through the Sudanese desert, the sky infinitely brighter than anywhere he had been in the States.

He nudged a form in front of him with his boot. “How much longer?”

The man, a tall, lanky member of the Zaghawa tribe from the Darfur region of western Sudan, said, “Another hour, maybe less. Are you regretting your decision to ride back here with us? I can have him pull over.”

Brett shook his head. As a CIA operative, he could have easily traveled in the cab of the pickup, but he wanted the ability to fight — and run — without restriction. The cab was too confining. Even if it meant being crammed in the back with five other men, all smelling like they hadn’t bathed in over a month. It was like riding in a basket of clothes that had been dipped in sour milk.

Brett leaned out into the wind, catching the dust from the truck ahead of them but enjoying the escape from the fetid air. He sat back down and reflexively patted the rucksack at his feet.

If they fight half as ferociously as they stink, we might not need this anyway.

The truck abruptly slowed, shutting off its headlights and driving with parking lights alone. Brett stood up and noticed the lead truck had done the same. He heard excited murmurings from both trucks in the tribe’s native tongue, something he couldn’t understand.

He turned to the tribesman who spoke English. “What’s going on? Why are we stopping?”

“Janjaweed. Over there.”

He pointed to the north, and Brett could make out several sets of headlights bouncing across the desert, moving closer.

“You don’t know they’re Janjaweed, and even if they are, this mission is more important than killing some low-level militia. If any get away, we’re screwed.”

“Nobody else drives around in convoys at night. It’s Janjaweed.” The tribesman smiled, his teeth gleaming white in the moonlight. “And I agree with you, Mister Brett, but I cannot make the others agree. They have suffered many times at the hands of the Janjaweed and will not be denied. We just need to make sure we kill them all.”

Brett muttered under his breath, cursing his boss at the Special Activities Division in Langley and cursing his poor, dumb luck to be born African American. Because of it, he was always chosen for any mission in Africa that involved infiltrating with the natives, regardless of the fact that he was a five-foot-five-inch fireplug of solid muscle, and the Zaghawa were all six-foot string beans. He looked nothing like them, although he’d known that before he’d crossed the border at Chad. At the time, he’d laughed about it because all of his buddies in SAD had been denied a seat on the trip based on the color of their skin, no matter how hard they bitched that Brett looked about as native as they did. Bigotry at its finest.

Now, as he often did when plans started falling apart four thousand miles from help, he was wondering about his career choices. He tried one last time.

“We lose a single man, and I’m aborting the mission. The refinery is much, much more important than a random militia patrol. Think about that. You’re risking a strategic gain for a tactical one.”

The tribesman didn’t answer. He simply slipped over the side of the truck and faded into the darkness, along with everyone else. Brett cursed again and jumped over the side himself. Instead of following, he hunkered down next to the cab of the pickup, intent on hauling ass if things went bad.

The Janjaweed, an amorphous group of militias comprised of nomadic tribesmen, were responsible for a campaign of terror in Darfur, committing atrocities as a matter of course in an effort to run out all of the sedentary farming tribes, such as the Zaghawa. In response, the farmers had banded together, forming militias of their own. The Zaghawa tribe belonged to the Sudanese Liberation Army and had formed ostensibly to take the fight to the Sudanese government for the perceived injustice of the government’s lack of effort to stop the Janjaweed from raping and pillaging. The plan had backfired. Instead of stopping the Janjaweed, the government, fearful of the threat, began arming them.

As has happened throughout history, the conflict had escalated out of control until it was genocide, with civilians bearing the brunt of the damage.

Brett knew all of this, but he wasn’t emotionally involved in any way. He was simply, as Clausewitz said over a century ago, the continuation of politics by other means. In this case, Chinese means.

Over the past decade, China’s appetite for resources had grown along with its economy, until it was now a rapacious beast. China had begun pouring money into Sudan, becoming the largest investor in Sudan’s petroleum industry, and the largest consumer of Sudanese oil. Thus, China had more influence in Darfur’s war than perhaps any other country.

Unfortunately for the victims of the genocide, China had little interest in Sudan’s conflict. Chinese arms kept the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed fighting, and because of it, a symbiotic relationship had been created: Sudan favored the Chinese for their support, and China used its sway within the UN Security Council to prevent any meaningful UN action.

Brett hoped to change that equation, if he could keep these backwater natives focused on the mission.

He patted the rucksack again, ensuring the device was with him, then crouched next to the cab of the pickup, hearing the tick of the engine and the clink of weaponry around him as the men deployed in a half-assed tactical manner. Eventually, he heard the groan of the Janjaweed vehicles, steadily growing louder.

The Zaghawa tribesmen had tucked inside a small wadi, preventing him from seeing the approaching vehicles, which was the only tactical thinking that Brett could spot. There was no security to the flanks or rear, no discernible ambush line, and no way they would ever know if anyone escaped. He sighed. Another kindergarten fight.

He prayed the Janjaweed were just as bad. He pulled on a pair of night observation goggles, the darkness immediately replaced with an eerie green.

He saw the glow of headlights against the brush on top of the wadi, bouncing in and out and growing stronger, along with the Zaghawa tribesmen waiting to ambush the convoy in a formation that guaranteed failure. The lead Janjaweed truck reached the edge of the wadi and stopped, its headlights silhouetting the Zaghawa formation. He heard the shouting of the men in back, then the night erupted into gunfire.

It seemed that the Zaghawa had surrounded the trucks and were now firing wildly into them, regardless of the friendly men on either side. Tracer fire arced through the air, most of it harmlessly over the heads of the Janjaweed. Miraculously, they began pouring out of the trucks unscathed, shooting just as wildly as the Zaghawa tribesmen.

Jesus H. Christ. Fucking idiots.

Brett threw his AK-47 to his shoulder and began firing controlled pairs, dropping everything he aimed at in the dim glow of the headlights, his NODs giving him an unbeatable edge. An RPG sputtered through the air and managed to find the lead Janjaweed truck, exploding the gas tank into a fierce ball of fire and throwing Brett backward.

He rolled to the rear of his pickup, still snapping rounds, then realized he no longer had the rucksack. No way could he allow the Janjaweed to get it. If they lost this fight, he needed to ensure it was destroyed.

He sprinted bent over, losing the depth perception in his NODs, forcing him to pat the ground until he hit the rucksack. He snatched it up and continued forward, climbing the wall of the wadi. Rounds were blasting from all sides, going both in and out, the tracers and the fire from the exploded truck causing his NODs to white out. He ripped them off and surveyed the damage.

He was outside the ring of the fight and saw his intrepid Zaghawa tribesmen leaping forward, spraying rounds, then leaping back again. From all sides. Jesus. A circular ambush. Are they retarded?

The Janjaweed were more disciplined, controlling their fire in a synchronized manner. And they had an edge: Using their trucks for cover, they could fire indiscriminately out three hundred and sixty degrees without worrying about hitting anyone friendly. With the Zaghawa’s poorly chosen formation, the fire would devastate any ability to mount an assault. In an instant, Brett saw they were going to lose. They had maybe a minute to gain the upper hand before the Janjaweed men began a systematic attack on a flank and rolled up the entire crew. Brett knew his men would either die or throw down their weapons and run off into the darkness.

The second pickup of Janjaweed militia shifted attention to his side of the perimeter, the flames from the burning vehicle negating any edge his NODs would have provided. He could hear the second truck yelling to the third truck, and knew the assault was close. Rounds ripped the air around him, forcing him to push his face into the desert floor, worming backward for any low ground that would protect him. Bullets snapped through the fabric of the rucksack on his back, causing him to freeze and wonder if he would even feel the devastation should the device go off.

The shooting shifted to his right, and up the line, he saw the men from the third truck massing to flank, unmolested because of the protection provided by the fire from truck two. Need to intercept them.