As it turned out, that didn’t take long to occur.
A pair of infrared lasers met the downed man almost as soon as he fell, and apparently these Delta guys didn’t like to take chances. Two of them fired a combined total of six to eight rounds into his figure, at least two at his skull, before racing past the body and setting up security at the north woodline.
They were followed moments later by a swarm of shooters establishing a perimeter in all directions from the camp, including one who knelt beside a tree and faced Reilly and his partner in the brush. The medic wasn’t afraid of friendly fire per se, but erring on the side of safety, he twisted a knob on his night vision to send two infrared flashes in a momentary designation of his position.
The nearest shooter responded in kind, two blinks of an IR flash to indicate he’d seen the signal. No sooner had that occurred than David transmitted the impossible.
“All secure,” he said. “The seven hostages are alive, no friendly casualties, and they’re prepping for exfil. Activate your strobes and consolidate on the objective.”
Reilly could barely believe what he was hearing—the assault had just begun, the entire sweep from first shot to last occurring over the course of two minutes at most.
From his position beside Reilly, Worthy said, “Let’s do it.”
Then the point man activated his infrared strobe, reaching for his rucksack as Reilly did the same.
Worthy shouldered his pack and took the first tentative steps toward the clearing, shouting, “Friendlies coming out!”
After 28 hours of not speaking above a whisper, the announcement felt almost alien to him, his parched throat straining at the effort.
But the nearest operator responded in kind, “Come out,” and when Worthy and Reilly emerged from the woods, turning off their IR strobes, he pointed to their left and said, “Command cell is at the south woodline. Link up there, we’re stepping off in five mikes.”
Worthy nodded in gratitude as he made his way to the center of the objective, hearing Reilly address the perimeter operators as they passed.
“Nice work, fellas.”
His comment went unanswered—these guys were all business. As Worthy made his way through the camp, he took in the frenzy of post-assault activities around him. While much of the visible force was occupied with securing the camp perimeter, those who remained were moving with a choreographed fluidity. Some operators were searching the tents and bodies for intelligence, others consolidating the enemy weapons in a pile where an EOD man was preparing a demolitions charge on a time delay to blow them in place.
Cancer came slogging past the final few bushes at the western edge of the clearing, hissing in pain as his legs collected thorns. Worthy turned his attention to the dome tent, where he saw operators pulling out the hostages one by one.
It was hard to quantify the immense relief he felt at the sight; three men were already lined up outside, clearly in shock and recognizable from the hostage profiles he’d studied as the missing oil executives. The hostages were getting the VIP treatment—operators were addressing them by first name, asking if they had any injuries and assuring them they were safe. Worthy actually saw an operator handing the men water bottles and Snickers bars, which seemed ludicrous until he considered their blood sugar was probably at rock bottom after two days of Boko Haram hospitality.
A fourth man was escorted outside next—another executive, this one shaking badly—and as Worthy slowed his pace, he watched for the fifth and final ExxonMobil employee to appear.
But a woman was led out of the tent next: dark hair, maybe mid-thirties, and very fit. She was sobbing as she joined the others for processing, and Worthy was horrified to see that the next hostage wasn’t an oil executive at all, but a second female.
This one was more composed, arms folded tightly across her chest as she was questioned. Then, impossibly, came a third woman, beautiful even from a distance, and Worthy realized that they were still short one known hostage...his first indication that something had gone horribly awry.
His second indication came a moment later, causing him to halt in his tracks with disbelief.
“Let’s go,” an operator called to them. “All OGA to the command cell. We’ve got to move.”
He was using the acronym for Other Government Agency, the catch-all military term for CIA personnel, but Worthy was only half-listening. He watched another man being escorted out of the dome tent, this one with his hands restrained behind his back and a Delta operator holding each arm.
Worthy felt his jaw drop, unable to process the sight.
The captive was Usman.
20
I was slogging through the brush, keeping a tight interval behind the Delta commander, when the distant blast reverberated on the objective.
Whatever weapons the Boko Haram fighters had in the camp just went up in a fireball, and as the echo faded, my attention returned to the exfil-in-progress: a boring march through the forest, the assault force entirely uncontested. To say it was a letdown was an understatement. I was hoping to serve as a rear vanguard for the withdrawal, perhaps sent to deal with an enemy force while allowing the hostages to proceed toward the clearing unhindered.
But these guys wanted us to stay in the center of the formation with our mouths shut, and the last thing they needed was any more shooters. Over the entire course of the mission, I hadn’t even gotten to see the objective—the GFC and his accompanying radio operator and combat controller had remained ten meters back in the woodline, coordinating aircraft and relaying to their command.
The movement out couldn’t have been more at odds with the movement in—while their approach had occurred with painstaking stealth, their exit was only quasi-tactical. Hostage escorts were using their taclights to illuminate the ground for the newly-freed Americans, while a file of shooters moved on either side in a formation that could best be described as forming a human shield. Noise discipline was a distant afterthought to moving as quickly as possible—a fitting compromise, I thought. While the night had been almost silent prior to the assault, now it sounded like we were on the flight line of an airport.
The sky hummed with multiple levels of support aircraft that had swooped into audible range the moment the hostages were recovered, least of all the unmistakably low roar of fighter jets orbiting above the Sambisa Forest. They were joined now by a thin buzzing noise that sounded almost comically understated by comparison, at least to anyone who didn’t know what it was. Seen from most angles, the AC-130 gunship looked like any other cargo plane; but when it banked left, the business side of the bird tilted an array of deadly cannons and missile pods toward the unfortunate souls on the receiving end.