He sent that message by way of telling everyone else to keep the radio net silent—after all, he’d need all the focus he could manage. After sweltering hours of sipping water between nicotine tablets, Cancer had yet to move more than an inch in any direction and was running on zero sleep; and now, he’d have fleeting seconds to analyze and interpret whatever was about to transpire.
The truck swung back north, coming to a stop facing away from the dome tent. Within seconds, the tailgate dropped and three armed fighters scrambled out. A fourth man rounded the side after exiting the passenger door—this one bearded, strolling with the authority of command, and Cancer saw at a glance that it was Usman.
He aligned his scope, fighting for any view of the truck’s contents as the camp guards and incoming fighters crowded around the tailgate. Their bodies blocked his view, but not completely—he caught sight of a terrified Caucasian face at the rear of the truck, a man with a handlebar mustache being forced off the back with his hands and feet bound before the Boko Haram fighters muscled him into the dome tent.
Other restrained passengers followed them, and Cancer ticked off their distinguishing features—one man had silver hair, another was bald—but the swarm of camp guards shifted until it was all he could do to count bodies.
The scene ended as quickly as it had begun, the hostages now inside the dome tent and out of sight along with Usman. A guard closed the truck’s tailgate, and it rumbled off as quickly as it had arrived, moving north and away from the camp. Cancer felt his heart slamming as he processed the sight, swallowing hard before he keyed his radio.
“A truck just dropped off four additional enemy fighters, including Usman. I have positive identification of Hostages Two, Three, and Four. Another white male that I couldn’t PID, possibly Hostage One. All are inside the dome tent, along with Usman.”
David responded excitedly, “Any sign of the fifth hostage?”
“Yeah, about that…” Cancer hesitated before continuing his transmission, replaying the mental images almost in an effort to convince himself he was wrong. But the sight had been clear enough, and with a final, steadying breath, he keyed his mic again.
“There aren’t five hostages on target. There are seven—and at least one of them is a woman.”
17
I watched the night sky from the edge of the clearing, scanning the cloudless starscape for any signs of movement. I couldn’t hear or see any aircraft, but I knew they were up there somewhere. Then, turning my attention to ground level, I saw the tall grass drifting gently with the nighttime breeze, but no sign of life beyond the rolling symphony of insects. The sight was familiar: this was the enormous field we’d skirted on our infiltration the previous night. At that time, I’d seen the clearing as an enormous liability, a massive danger area far too close to our MSS.
But after the hostages arrived, it had become a godsend.
I checked my watch, expecting to be within range for a radio transmission any minute now. Then I quite abruptly realized I had to pee, and that this was my absolute last chance to do so. For a moment I prepared to take a bathroom break where I stood before looking at the night sky again, thinking better of it, and taking a few steps into the woods instead.
Somewhere overhead was an unseen fleet of aircraft surveilling the field and transmitting the footage to a host of locations from the Agency to JSOC, to say nothing of the Pentagon and White House. That level of scrutiny made me a little self-conscious about my last-minute urination, so I did my business under the cover of the forest canopy.
I was so dehydrated that I could smell my urine, and just as I noticed this peculiar detail, my earpiece came to life with the staticky voice of a man.
“Passing through 4,000 feet on a nine-zero bearing. Suicide, throw me a visual.”
Shaking off, I quickly recovered the strobe from my kit and returned to the edge of the field, turning it on and holding it aloft. The blazing pulses of infrared light came to life at six-second intervals, and I keyed my radio to say, “Strobe up.”
Within seconds, the man replied, “I have your strobe at the north end of the DZ. Kill it.”
Turning off the device, I pocketed it and transmitted, “Ground winds are five knots from the north, gusting to ten.”
I had enough skydiving experience to make the estimate reasonably accurate; still, I cursed myself for not having the foresight to purchase a simple handheld device to measure wind speed while we were in Abuja. At any rate, my estimate didn’t matter much now—the train of a massive military operation was already in motion, and nothing would stop it.
The biggest wild card so far had been the appearance of two additional hostages, one of them female. According to my updates from Duchess, no one thus far had figured out who in the hell they were. Without reports of missing American citizens beyond the six oil executives, one of whom had been executed and three of whom had been positively identified on our target, there was no telling who the woman could be. But as with many terrorist groups, Boko Haram were no strangers to kidnapping foreign nationals. They could have snatched a few expats off the street for all I knew, and until a concerned family member or employer reported their absence, we’d be none the wiser.
I caught sight of the first incoming man a moment later—the silhouette of a body suspended beneath a rectangular parachute crested into view as he turned into the prevailing wind. He was followed seconds later by a second man, then a third, as a file of jumpers guided their canopies into the landing area.
Adjusting the rifle in my grasp, I watched the proceedings with a profound sense of awe.
The assault force was massive. With eight enemy fighters on the objective, I’d expected Delta Force to drop in a dozen of their superhuman shooters and call it a day.
So I’d been shocked to learn that they were inserting a staggering 23 men. The vast majority were Delta assaulters and snipers, but they also had three Air Force personnel—a combat controller to manage aircraft, and two pararescuemen for treating the hostages—along with an Explosive Ordinance Disposal specialist.
The parachutists lowered their rucks on retention lanyards, and the first one to land did so a few seconds after his pack thumped to the ground. He was only a few meters from my position in the woodline, having flown close to the edge to leave room for the waves of shooters flying in behind him.
Others began landing in roughly ten-second intervals, and after clearing the woods behind me to ensure there were no approaching enemies, I watched them assemble. It should have come as no surprise that they were supremely efficient; they were, after all, the apex predators of special operations for a reason.
They worked in pairs, with one man pulling security as his buddy stripped off his parachute, along with the oxygen equipment and cold weather gear required for a high-altitude parachute flight. Then they began laser-checking their weapons, the treeline glinting with infrared beams as each shooter confirmed his sight alignment survived the landings.