I lay very still in the false bottom of the cart. I can feel it bumping and jolting over the dirt road, then pausing outside the gates of the Boko Haram compound.
The insurgents have been holed up in here for a week, after taking control of this patch of land close to Lake Chad. We’ve got intel that Yusuf Nur drove into the compound last night. He’ll only be staying here for twelve hours, before heading out again.
I hear Kambar arguing with the guards over the wagon full of rice he’s brought. He’s dickering with them over price, demanding that they pay the full 66,000 Naira they offered, and not a kobo less.
I’d like to strangle him for making such a fuss about it, but I know it would probably look more suspicious if he didn’t haggle. Still, as the argument drags on and on, and he threatens to turn around and take his sacks of Basmati back home, I have to stop myself from giving the boards overhead a thump, to remind him that getting inside is more important than getting his money.
Finally, the guards agree to a price just a little lower than Kambar wants, and I feel the wagon lurch as we drive inside the compound.
I hate being cooped up in here. It’s hotter than hell, and I feel vulnerable, even though Bomber and I are both armed to the teeth. Somebody could douse this cart in gasoline and set it ablaze before we could shoot our way out. If Kambar betrayed us.
We’ve been working with him on and off for two years. So I’d like to think I can trust the guy. But I also know he’ll do a lot of things for the right price. He’s done a lot of things for me, when I scrounged up a good bribe.
Luckily, we pass into the compound without incident. Kambar drives the cart over to what I assume is the kitchen area, then starts unloading his rice.
“I hope that smell is the cow, and not you,” Bomber hisses at me.
For almost three hours now, we’ve been crammed in here together, like two lovers in one coffin. It’s definitely a lot more intimate with Bomber than I ever hoped to experience.
He’s not a bad guy—a little bit stupid, a little bit sexist, and pretty fuckin’ awful at telling jokes. But he’s a hard worker, and I can count on him to follow the plan.
We’ve been hired to kill Nur, the leader of this particular cell of Boko Haram. He’s been running rampant over Northeastern Nigeria, trying to block democratic elections and install his own theocratic state. With him at the head, of course.
He’s taken hundreds of hostages, then murdered them when towns refused to open their gates to him or pay the outrageous ransoms he demands.
Well, that ends tonight. Boko Haram is a hydra with a hundred heads, but I’m gonna hack off at least one of them.
I wish I had my normal crew with me. This job is dicey. I’d rather have Ghost by my side, or even Psycho. But the Black Knights are currently occupied in Ukraine. Bomber was the best option I had on short notice.
“I have to pee so bad,” he mutters.
“I told you not to drink so much water.”
“It’s fuckin’ hot, though . . . ”
“Shh,” I hiss at him.
I can hear at least one other person helping Kambar unload the cart. The last thing I need is for the insurgents to overhear Bomber whining.
I hear Kambar chatting with somebody a dozen yards away. Then a pause. Then the three swift knocks on the side of the cart that tell us the coast is clear.
I reach beneath me, flipping up the latch that holds our little compartment in place. The doors swing open, dumping Bomber and me out in the dirt underneath the cart. I see the bullock’s hooves up by my head, and two rickety wheels on either side of me. Bomber and I roll between the wheels, hiding ourselves behind a pyramid of oil drums.
Kambar doesn’t even glance back at us. He climbs up in his cart again and flicks the reigns, whistling for the bullock to get going.
Bomber and I hide behind the oil drums for another two hours. Bomber digs a channel in the dust and releases his aching bladder, which I wish he wouldn’t do two inches from my elbow, but there aren’t any other options. I hear the cooks rattling around in the kitchen, making the dinner meal for the fifty or so soldiers inside the compound.
I smell the mouthwatering scents of sizzling lamb and bubbling tomato sauce.
“We could sneak in and grab a bite . . . ” Bomber whispers.
“Don’t even think about it.”
At last it’s dark, and I’m pretty sure everyone is done eating. I see the glow of lantern light up in the window at the southwest corner of the compound. The room Nur is using.
“Let’s go,” I mutter to Bomber.
I don’t want to wait until the night watch comes on. I want to act now, while everyone is full and drowsy, while the soldiers who watched the compound all day long in the hot sun are counting down the minutes until they can go have a cigarette and a drink, play cards, or go to bed early.
We’ve been watching the compound for days. I have a fairly good idea where the guards are posted, and what their patrol pattern looks like.
Bomber and I creep up the back staircase.
The compound reminds me of a medieval castle—all big, rounded stones, and windows cut into the walls without any glass. Instead of panes, colored cloth is hung to block dust from blowing inside.
There’s no air conditioning in places like this. They rely on brick or stone, and airflow, to keep the interiors relatively cool.
Bomber hangs back while I poke my head around the corner, checking for the guard. He’s standing at one of the windows looking outward, his rifle set butt-down on the stone floor next to him, the barrel resting against the wall.
Sloppy. These men have no training. They’re ferocious enough against unarmed civilians, against women and children, but their sense of invincibility is unearned.
I creep up behind him and wrap my arm around his throat, covering his mouth with my hand and choking him out. I wait until he goes limp in my arms, then I drop him gently to the floor.
I strip off the man’s clothes. He’s wearing desert camouflage, with a green turban and face wrap to show his devotion. He’s a much smaller man than me, but luckily the top and pants are baggy, probably pulled at random out of a stack of uniforms.
I put his clothes on over my own, grateful for the turban because I can use it to hide my face. When I’m ready, Bomber covers me as I approach Nur’s door.
Two guards bookend the door. These two know better than to set down their rifles or show any indication of boredom. If Nur caught them slacking, he’d shoot them himself. Or order one of his more creative and disgusting tortures.
The last time his insurgents took hostages outside of Taraba, he ordered all their hands be cut off and hung by a string around their necks. Half the hostages died of infection or blood loss. Nur didn’t seem to care.
Looking down at the floor to hide my face, I stride purposefully toward the guards.
“Message for Nur,” I mumble in Kanuri.
The guard on the right holds out his hand for the message, thinking I’ve brought a note or a letter.
Instead, I cut his throat with my Ka-Bar knife.
He gasps soundlessly, bringing his hands up to his neck, more surprised than anything else.
The guard on the left opens his mouth to shout, swinging his rifle around at me.
I block the rifle with my arm, clamping my hand over his mouth. Then I stab him six times in the chest.
Both men drop at almost the same time. There’s no muffling the sound of their bodies falling, or the gurgling of the man on the right.
So I expect Nur to be waiting for me.
I haul up the man on the left and hold his body in front of me as I push my way through Nur’s door.
Sure enough, Nur fires three bullets in my direction. Two hit the body of his hapless guard. The third splinters the wooden doorframe next to my ear.
Running straight at Nur, I throw the guard’s body in his face. He stumbles backward, tripping over a footstool and landing hard on the luxurious Moroccan carpet spread across his stone floor.
I kick the gun out of his hand, then step aside so Bomber can shoot him. Bomber is right behind me, with a silencer screwed on to his SIG Sauer. He shoots Nur twice in the chest and once in the head.
Nur wasn’t wearing a vest. Just a loose white linen top, on which the bloodstains bloom like flowers. I can hear his last breath of air whistle out through a hole in his lung.
I’m always surprised how very human these warlords are. Nur is about six feet tall, soft-shouldered, with a belly. He’s bald on top, the patches of hair around his ears streaked with gray. The whites of his eyes are yellowed, and so are his teeth. I can smell his oniony sweat.
There’s nothing special or majestic about this man. He’s murdered thousands of people and terrorized many more. But right now he’s dying in a dull way, without any last words. Without even putting up much of a fight.
Bomber and I wait until he’s fully dead. I check for a pulse with my fingers, even though I can already see from his glassy eyes that he’s gone.
Then Bomber and I latch on to the window ledge and rappel down the side of the building.
We’re planning to go out through the drainage chute, where the kitchen staff dumps the dirty water and other refuse.
It wasn’t my first choice of exit, but Bomber and I have had all our shots, so hopefully we won’t catch anything too nasty.
As we creep through the dark yard, the guards are beginning to swap shifts. In about ten minutes, they’ll find Nur’s body. They’re sure to check in on their boss.
Bomber and I are passing through a narrow stone hallway to the kitchen when he hisses, “Long Shot, take a look.”
I scowl back at him, annoyed that he’s slowed down. There’s no time to look at whatever caught his attention.
Still, I backtrack to the locked door. Peering through the tiny window, I see five small girls huddled on a bare floor. They’re still wearing their school uniforms of plaid jumpers and white cotton socks and blouses. Their clothing is remarkably clean—they can’t have been here long.
“Shit,” I murmur.
“What do we do?” Bomber says.
“We better get them out.”
Bomber is about to shoot the lock, but I stop him. I can feel something weighing down the pocket of the pants I stole from the guard upstairs. Fishing around, I find a set of keys.
I try each one in the lock, succeeding with the third. The door screeches open. The girls look up, terrified.
“Stay quiet, please!” I tell them in English.
I don’t speak Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, or any of the other Nigerian languages. I only memorized a few words of Kanuri for this job. So I’m just praying these girls learned English at school.
I can’t tell if they understand or if they’re just scared into silence. They stare at Bomber and me, wide-eyed and trembling.
I try the keys on the shackles around their ankles, but none seems to fit. Instead, I wriggle a rock out of the wall and lay their chain over top. Bomber smashes it with his rifle butt until the links part. I can’t remove the metal manacle around their ankles, but we can slip the chain out at least.
Putting my finger to my lips to remind the girls to stay quiet, we hustle them down the hall to the kitchen. Bomber peeks his head in first. He sneaks up behind the cook and hits him over the head with a serving platter, knocking the man onto one of the rice sacks Kambar brought just that afternoon.
I drop the girls down the refuse chute, one at a time. It smells fucking horrible.
Bomber wrinkles his nose.
“I don’t wanna go in there.”
I hear shouting up on the upper floor of the building. I think someone just found Nur’s body.
“Stay here and take your chances, then,” I tell him.
Holding up my rifle to keep it out of the muck, I drop down into the chute.
I slide down the dark, foul passageway, hoping against hope that it doesn’t narrow at any point. I can’t imagine anything worse than being trapped like a cork in a bottle in this disgusting place. Luckily, I slide all the way through.
“Look out!” I call ahead to the girls, not wanting to plow into any of them.
Now their clothes are filthy, streaked with grease and rotten food. I grab the hand of the smallest one, saying to the others, “Go!”
Bomber grabs two more by the hands and we run away across the barren ground, praying that the dark and the sparse scrub will conceal us. It’s good that the girls got so dirty—it helps mute the bright white of their socks and blouses.
I can hear the commotion back in the compound. The insurgents are running and shouting, searching the building for us, but lacking organization now that their boss is dead.
I’m trying to run as fast as I can, but the girls are slow. They’re limping along, barefoot and stiff from however long they were trapped in that room. They probably haven’t eaten.
“We’ve got to leave them,” Bomber barks at me. “We have to be at the pickup point in forty-one minutes or they’re gonna leave without us!”
It’s five miles away. There’s no chance these girls are going to be able to run at that pace. Not in their current state.
“We’re not leaving them,” I growl.
The soldiers are in chaos, but soon they’ll reorganize. They’ll head out with their Jeeps and their spotlights, trying to find us.
Crouching down, I motion for the biggest girl to climb on my back. I grab two more girls and set them on either hip.
“Are you insane?” Bomber says.
“Pick up those two, or I’ll fucking shoot you myself!” I shout at him.
Bomber shakes his head at me, his beefy face red with anger. But he picks up the other two girls. Bomber is built like a linebacker. I know he can carry a few more pounds.
We start jogging across the rough ground, the girls clinging to us with their skinny arms and legs.
Even though they’re small, I must be carrying over a hundred pounds. I don’t know what the fuck kids weigh, but these three seem to be increasing in mass by the minute.
Sweat is pouring off my skin, making it hard for them to hold on to me. Bomber is puffing and blowing like a hippo, too tired to even complain.
We run until my lungs are burning and legs are on fire.
“Two more miles,” Bomber gasps.
Fuck.
Each jolt of my feet sends pain shooting up my back. My hands are numb, trying to cling onto these kids. I’m scared I’m going to collapse and not be able to get up again.
I try to pretend I’m back in basic training, when I had to run ten miles with a forty-pound pack on my back. When I wasn’t accustomed to pushing my body, and I had no idea how far it could go.
I remember my first drill sergeant—Sergeant Price.
I picture him jogging beside me, screaming at me to not even think about slowing down.
“IF YOU DROP ONE GODDAMN STEP PRIVATE I WILL KICK YOU IN THE BALLS SO HARD YOU’LL SING LIKE MARIAH CAREY!”
Price knew how to motivate a guy.
At last, when I really think I can’t take another step, I hear the drone of the chopper. It floods me with new life.
“Almost there!” I say to Bomber.
He nods dully, sweat flying off his face.
The last little bit of ground is uphill. I carry those girls up that ridge like I’m Samwise Gamgee carrying Frodo to the volcano. It is both the best and worst moment of my life.
I lift them up into the chopper, one by one, wondering exactly how the hell I’m going to figure out where they came from and so I can get them home again.
“We don’t have the weight capacity for extra bodies!” the pilot snaps at me.
“Then chuck something out,” I tell him.
I’m not leaving those kids, after I carried them all that way.
The pilot throws out the med kit and a couple other boxes of supplies. Hopefully nothing too expensive—I’m probably gonna have to pay for all that.
Once Bomber and I are settled, the chopper lifts up into the air. The five girls huddle together on the floor, clinging to each other, more frightened by flying than by the rest of the escape. Only one has the courage to peek out the open doorway, to see the dark desert dropping away beneath us.
She looks up at me, big eyes shining in her round little face.
“Bird,” she mouths at me, in English. She links her thumbs together and flaps her fingers like wings.
“Yeah,” I grunt. “You’re a bird now.”
As we fly over Lake Chad, my cell buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out, surprised I’m getting service up here.
I’m even more surprised to see Dante’s name on the screen. Last time he called me, I ended up shot in the side. It gave me one of my nastiest scars yet.
I pick up anyway, saying, “Deuce. You better not be calling me for another favor.”
“Well . . . ” Dante laughs.
Deuce never used to laugh much. I think he’s doing it more now that he got his girl back.
Speaking of girls . . .
“Let me guess,” I say. “You’re calling me ‘cause Riona wants my number. It’s alright—I understand. The chemistry between us was palpable.”
“Well, she didn’t throw her drink in your face, so I guess by the standards of your usual interactions with women, it went pretty well . . . ”
I snort. I only met Riona Griffin one time, but she made an impression on me. You don’t see a girl that gorgeous very often. The fact that she’s arrogant and uptight and hates my guts just adds a little spice to the mix.
“So what are you really calling about?” I ask Dante.
“It is about Riona,” he says. “But not how you’re thinking . . . ”
