The Okafor International compound was highlighted in stark relief, its rooflines silhouetted against the dim glow of orange flames consuming whatever was left of the box truck—not much, if the volume of David’s demolition charge was any indication.
As Ian finally cleared the road and made his way into the shadows, Worthy harbored a sense of disbelief that this thing had, against all probabilities of success, come off more or less as planned. He’d heard Ian’s radio call—I’ve got what I need—but Worthy had no idea what the intelligence operative had found. He’d only been in the office for a few minutes, tops, and it seemed unlikely that anyone, even Ian, could uncover a landslide of valuable information in that short time period.
No time to consider it now, though—if those lead cops had caught sight of a man or two darting across the road at the periphery of their headlights, he could be looking at a long race ahead, trying to weave his way across neighborhoods to lose any pursuers before linking up with Tolu.
Worthy spun to face the alleyway, moving once Ian was a few meters away. His infrared floodlight cut a blazing swath through night vision, highlighting the obstacles to be avoided as he ran: piles of trash, abandoned cinderblocks, a water pump rising three feet from the ground that would be life-changing if he struck it at a full run.
Another issue were the homes’ occupants. No one had yet demonstrated the poor judgment to step outside in the wake of an explosion and audible gunfire, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility of having to negotiate a nonlethal encounter with members of the populace. As things stood now, an unsettling number of windows were lit as citizens reacted to the early-morning raid, and Worthy threaded his way between the pools of light they cast on the ground, ducking beneath window frames when the need arose.
He cut left after the next row of homes, beginning a westward dogleg to his route and pausing momentarily to ensure Ian was still behind him.
They continued running for another fifteen minutes before Worthy gave any thought to halting; but at this point, having cleared two-thirds of their circuitous route away from the objective, he needed to confirm or deny that anyone had managed to follow them.
He ducked into the space between two metal dumpsters planted beside a building, pulling Ian behind him before kneeling and peering left and right around the corner. If he was going to ambush any pursuers, this was as good a spot as any. Then he observed their backtrail in a visual search for any flashlight-wielding cops or civilians—nothing.
Satisfied, he whispered to Ian, “Find anything worthwhile?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Ian replied, a rare segue into gratuitous profanity for the intelligence operative. “All three hostage locations.”
Worthy’s reaction to this news was a conflicted sense of celebration. On one hand, the very act of leaving this place alive was an achievement, much less doing so with information on the current status of the captives. On the other hand, any hostage rescue would be conducted by professionals who specialized in that kind of thing, and not his own team.
But he had bigger problems at present—namely, safeguarding his and Ian’s passage to their pickup site. Until they arrived, every other consideration was futile if not a distraction from the immediate task of surviving long enough to inform the CIA.
Rising from his crouch, Worthy turned and continued their dismounted exfil north, toward the van where Tolu was waiting.
38
I watched the sun rise from the van’s passenger seat as the highway extended endlessly on its southerly course to Gwoza.
Ever since the hostages had been captured, this mission had turned into a virtual open season against Boko Haram. Gone were almost all requirements to operate within the Agency’s exceedingly narrow parameters, to include submitting every minor adjustment to the preordained plan for Duchess’s scrutinizing judgment.
And after Ian had uncovered the Maiduguri ledger, my team had once more managed to stay gainfully employed during the festivities.
This time it wasn’t Duchess’s request but my own that sent us southbound on the A13 Highway toward the three new grids in the town of Gwoza. I’d pitched our CIA handler on the relevance of this mission not to conduct close target reconnaissance, per se—after all, if we got too close we could alert the Boko Haram captors of our presence—but rather to do some drive-bys of the target grids while remaining within the normal flow of civilian traffic. We could then obtain video footage to effect a rescue by a larger and more specialized element of the US military.
Duchess had approved my proposal in record time, though whether because she agreed with our assessment of the ledger contents or because she had no other way to justify our continued presence deep within Boko Haram territory, I had no idea. Nor could I begin to speculate how useful the upcoming reconnaissance effort would be—but Ian’s instincts on new intel were very rarely wrong. If there was the slightest chance of locating the remaining three hostages, then we needed to act on it at once.
Reilly spoke from the cargo area, addressing no one in particular.
“You have to appreciate the irony.”
Ian asked, “What’s that?”
“We came to Nigeria so we could hit Usman in his camp just outside Gwoza. Since getting here we’ve been everywhere in the damn country except Gwoza, and now that we’re headed there, Usman is locked up in Abuja.”
“It’s not ironic,” Ian corrected him, “it’s genius.”
Reilly snorted. “Taking the hostages to a military-controlled town? Yeah, real smart.”
“It’s the only government-owned area anywhere around here. That makes it the last place anyone would think to look.”
“Or,” Reilly countered, “the hostages aren’t there at all.”
But Ian was adamant. “Bin Laden was hiding out half a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy, remember? As long as Boko Haram paid off the Nigerian Army to smuggle the hostages into town, they’d effectively disappear from everyone’s radar.”
“Well with that logic, I guess we can disregard the fact that everything we’ve done has been one snowballing shitstorm of mission creep.”
Turning to face the rest of my team, I asked incredulously, “Mission creep? You’ve got to be kidding me—at this point we’re practically coining the term mission sprint.”
Cancer leaned forward in his seat and shot me a jagged grin. “Would you rather we went home the day after missing Usman? Because that’s what would have happened if those hostages didn’t get rolled up.”
I shook my head. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we’re staying busy. And that may change if I find myself, or any of you idiots, bleeding out on the streets of Gwoza. But the longer we’ve been in Nigeria, the less I understand what we’re doing, or who we’re doing it for.”
Worthy agreed, “David’s right. And let’s not pretend everything we do has the patina of nobility to it.”