Duchess leaned back in her chair. Any minute now, her phone would ring with someone wanting answers—and with a dearth of assets in West Africa, her tactical command of a five-man ground team was about to catapult Project Longwing into the bleeding edge of US response.
Choosing her words carefully, she said, “If this is the work of pirates or vigilantes, the hostages will remain in the delta and the Nigerian government can lock that area down.”
“Concur.”
“But if this is the work of Boko Haram—and I agree, that’s perhaps not such a big ‘if’—I think it’s safe to assume the hostages would be moved north, back into terrorist-held ground.”
Lucios nodded without speaking.
“And if that’s the case,” Duchess continued, “where would they go?”
Lucios blinked, consulting his computer screen and tapping the mouse to pull up a report. “We’ve had two independent human source reports in the last twelve hours indicating a buildup of Boko Haram forces in the Sambisa Forest. It covers thousands of square miles, contains an unknown number of terrorist camps, and Boko Haram has taken captives there before—most notably some of the Chibok schoolgirls.”
“Do you have a specific location?”
“I do, ma’am. Well, sort of—one of the reports referenced Location Mijad, which I cross-referenced against an old SIGINT hit. I’ve got a grid, but no further means to corroborate the validity. And even if—”
Before he could finish the thought, Duchess’s desk phone rang.
Holding up a finger to silence Lucios, she lifted the phone to her ear and said, “Duchess.”
“This is Senator Gossweiler. I need everything you have on the situation in Lagos.”
Given the late hour, this was a remarkably swift response from the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, but as the main political oversight to Project Longwing, particularly with a team in a country with a late-breaking hostage crisis, Duchess knew she wasn’t the only one being pressed for answers.
She replied, “Senator, based on the recent movements of Usman Mokhammed, we believe this may be a Boko Haram operation. If that’s the case, there’s little doubt the hostages will be moved to the northeastern portion of the country.”
“What’s the military response?”
Duchess looked to Jo Ann, who had already tilted her computer screen in anticipation of the inquiry. Scanning the information, she replied, “A Delta troop plus enablers is standing by to forward-stage in Germany, with a full suite of JSOC intelligence assets ready to go wheels-up provided they get approval.”
“They’ll get the approval,” Gossweiler replied. “It’s in the works as we speak. How long until they’re boots on the ground inside Nigeria?”
“At a minimum, sir, we can plan on 24 hours to arrive, and 36 to 48 hours before they’re set to take action.”
“Why so long?”
Clearly, Duchess thought, the senator was unaccustomed to the tyranny of distance as it pertained to Africa. Since the equator shrank on global projections, most people assumed Africa to be far smaller than it actually was; the true size was larger than the US, China, Japan, Mexico, Europe, and India combined. Somalia’s coastline alone was as long as the entire eastern seaboard.
But she wasn’t about to explain that to him, and sided with a hollow platitude instead.
“Travel time for personnel aside, Senator, the surveillance aircraft they’ll require to do their job will have to make a long multi-leg journey, even if we can reroute some from the Middle East. And there’s very little Allied presence in West Africa, so our intelligence assets will have to start their operation from scratch.”
“Not from scratch,” he corrected her. “Your team is already in-country. Now how can we put them in play?”
Well, Duchess thought cynically, they weren’t an intelligence asset at all, but a paramilitary one. In truth, they were little more than a kill team to be sent only after a vast intel effort had pinpointed a target location, and even if she knew exactly where the hostages were at that moment, it would take a hell of a lot more than five men to overcome an enemy force in possession of six hostages—at least if any of those hostages were to make it out alive.
Still, if she could parlay this situation with Gossweiler, she could keep her team on the ground and in the hunt for Usman. Given that she was less than a day removed from being ordered to send them stateside, that was no small victory.
She said, “Senator, we received corroborated intelligence of a location that is being reinforced by Boko Haram personnel. It’s in the Sambisa Forest, which is within enemy-held territory and about as remote as Boko Haram can get for hiding American detainees. With your permission, I recommend retasking our Longwing team to that area to conduct a recon effort. Given the imminent arrival of JSOC assets, that’s the best use of the team given the situation. It’d be a stretch of their charter, but—”
“Forget the charter,” he snapped. “The administration wants a full-court press—get them moving.”
9
Reilly’s first shout sounded distant, his voice distorted as it echoed through the safehouse walls.
“All hands on deck!”
The second time he shouted the words, I was reasonably confident I wasn’t dreaming. Blinking my eyes open and sitting up, I saw the room was largely dark—sunrise had yet to arrive in full, and I checked my watch to see that it was just past six in the morning.
Reilly burst into my room a moment later, speaking breathlessly.
“Duchess on the line for you, boss.”
Sliding out of bed, I asked, “What for?”
“Dunno. She said to spin up the whole team, though. It’s something urgent.”
I followed him into the hallway, moving quickly as the rest of our team emerged from their rooms and followed suit.
We met in our ad hoc operations center, the team converging in a mix of boxer shorts and T-shirts except for Cancer, who strolled in groggily in his old-man briefs.
Worthy was the first to speak.
“Usman must have surfaced.”
“We’ve already been fired,” I answered.
“Maybe someone had a change of heart.”
Ian pushed his way through our ranks, taking a seat before the computer as I pulled up a chair in front of the conference phone whose blinking red light indicated Duchess was still waiting.
By the time I reached for the phone, I felt the team clustering in tight behind me. Ian opened the classified email along with a string of intelligence databases on the secure computer. Shifting to the next keyboard with surprising dexterity, he opened a series of browser tabs linked to open-source news websites as he spoke.
“We knew Usman left Gwoza to conduct an attack. Whatever that was, it’s already occurred.”
I tapped the button to put Duchess on speaker.
“David here,” I said.
Duchess’s voice held a measured tension as she replied, “Have you seen the news?”
Ian tapped my shoulder and nodded toward the unclassified computer monitor. A muted pair of news correspondents were engaged in a heated discussion, and the graphic in the corner of the screen showed a map of Africa with one country highlighted.