Duff used the flashlight to pick his way up, but from behind him he heard his wife shout. “It’s Nichole! I’ve got Josh and a policeman. We’re coming in.”
He knew that those people above who were armed would be looking at the approaching lights with concern, so he was glad his wife had thought to warn them.
A minute later he found Jennifer Dunnigan lying in the wet moss, her right leg elevated on a tree stump, wrapped in cargo netting torn from the helicopter, her head up. She had a cell phone in her hand and it looked like she was checking it for a signal as the rain fell on her, but she put it back down again and gave a little wave to Josh.
Nichole said, “I administered morphine.”
Ben Manu sat next to Dunnigan, an M4 in his arms. The gunshot wound to his leg was wrapped, but the bandages looked like they had loosened to where they weren’t doing him much good. Malike was on her other side; he looked past Duffy with a thousand-yard stare.
Arletta James, the forty-year-old Foreign Service Officer, sat with her back against a tree, holding a compress to her bloody forehead.
ARSO Chad Larsen lay flat on his back, his right leg wrapped. Blood dripped down his face from an open cut above his eyes, and bandages were wrapped around his bare chest, but he appeared awake and alert.
Now Nichole said, “Chad refused anything for pain.”
The other ARSO looked at Duff and said, “Just you two?”
“This is Sergeant Opoku from RIVCOM. He got me here, but the rest of his force is protecting the dam.” Duff shrugged as water drained off his short hair. “What’s left of the dam, anyway. We have a truck down on the road, but it’s a hike.”
Larsen said, “Yeah, afraid I’m gonna have to pass on a hike right now. Take the ambo.”
Before Duff could respond to this, Isaac shined his light around more, and a little farther up the hill he saw a group of people, all Black, either standing or sitting around. Some were clearly hurt; makeshift bandages were wrapped around a man’s head, and a woman used her shirt as a sling to immobilize her arm.
Josh recognized one of the civilians. It was the deputy plant operator.
Softly, he said, “You’ve got ten more people?”
“Yes,” Chad said, “two from the plant died in the crash, but this is everyone else.”
Nichole added, “We wouldn’t have been able to get the injured out of the wreckage and up here to cover without their help.” Josh nodded. He was glad these people were alive, but he was also painfully aware now that he and Isaac weren’t going to be able to get everyone out of here.
Duff was in the process of trying to figure out a game plan, but while doing so, Martin Mensah pushed through the foliage and stepped up to Isaac. He spoke English, likely, Duff decided, for the benefit of the Americans. “Sergeant. What is the status of the dam?”
“When I left there were thirty-five or more RIVCOM, including the captain. We knew of no enemy inside the dam complex, but they were beginning a search.”
Mensah nodded. “And the bombs?”
Duff said, “The bombs are still there, but I have the computer with the detonation codes. The power is off at the facility, though.”
To this Mensah cocked his head. “Off? Why?”
“A pair of RPG blasts to the switchyard. The lights went out immediately.”
Mensah put his hand on his head. Softly, he said, “I have to get back there.”
Chad said, “Duff, you and Isaac pick the three strongest here, and get the ambo back to Accra.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
The man on his side waved his hand in the air. “We’ve got five people who absolutely can’t walk, myself included.”
Duff said, “We’ll fit as many as we can in the truck; I’ll have to come back for the others.”
Chad shook his head now. “You have to leave all the incapacitated here except for the ambo. Take her, Ben, Malike, and Nichole, and get out of here.”
Duff shook his head. “We can get more wounded out.”
“No. Everyone is stable enough. Leave me one long gun.”
Chad had been in DS for five years longer than Duff, and he was the senior of the two men. With Jay dead, Chad was in charge.
“Look,” Duff pressed, “I don’t know how long—”
Isaac spoke now. “There are big cats out here. Hippo by the river. Snakes. Other dangers.”
Larsen waved a hand and put his other hand on the pistol resting on his chest. “I’m not worried about a fucking snake.”
Dunnigan spoke up now, her voice a little slurred by the opioid coursing through her. “Do I get a vote here?”
Duff knew that the actual answer to this question was no. Diplomatic Security could, in some cases, pull rank on an ambassador in matters pertaining to their security. But he also knew Chad wasn’t about to do that.
Larsen said, “Ma’am, I think we need—”
“Let’s take as many as we possibly can. Once we get to safety, we’ll send others back here to pick up the rest.”
A female hydroelectric plant worker called out to them from higher on the hill. “Lights in the trees, that way.”
Duff shut off his flashlight; Isaac did the same. They looked down the hill and saw an unmistakable flickering.
Isaac said, “Those are headlights on the road. Looks like at least four vehicles, maybe five. Worst-case scenario is forty opposition, but maybe they will drive past.”
Duff shook his head. “They’ll see our truck, they’ll stop, and they’ll eventually find the trail we cut.”
He said, “Isaac. How do we get out of here?”
The sergeant just shrugged and said, “I have no idea. I’ve never been off the road here.”
“I thought you lived here.”
“I didn’t grow up in the jungle, man. I grew up in a town on the other side of the river. The N2 highway is to the east. I’m not sure how far, but it can’t be more than a couple of kilometers. If we can find it and get some vehicles, we can take that south, over the Adomi Bridge, and then all the way to the capital.”
Chad spoke up now. “We’re not moving this bunch a couple of kilometers.”
“Okay…” Duff said, and he looked to Mensah. “Can you and your people build us five stretchers?”
Martin looked around. “Yes, of course, but I will need more material from the crash site.”
Ben and Malike volunteered to take him back down to the wreckage.
Chad looked to Duff now. “What are you thinking?”
“We have to be ready to move.”
Chad nodded. “Let’s get off the X.”
Conrad Tremaine sat in his truck with his two Sentinel men while eight rebels from Second Platoon’s Bravo squad entered the jungle and disappeared into the darkness.
A security team from Charlie squad stood in the rain on the road around the mercenaries’ vehicle.
Junior spoke up over the sound of the storm beating on the roof of the Toyota. “We placing bets?”
“Even money,” Tremaine said.
When they came across the RIVCOM truck on the bridge ten minutes earlier, they knew the crash site must be close, but Krelis had suggested that whoever was here probably would not park right alongside the crash. The lack of tracks in front of the truck meant the vehicle hadn’t turned around and come back, so they all took that to mean it had passed the helicopter and then whoever was inside the pickup had debussed and gone back on foot.
They immediately radioed the Dragons’ vehicles, and then the entire five-vehicle convoy backed up, powerful flashlight beams sweeping across both sides of the road, looking for fresh-cut jungle brush that would indicate someone had burrowed their way in.
It took time, but the rear vehicle eventually spotted just such a disturbance on the northern side, and the Delta squad leader called into the radio for the trucks to halt.
Now the search squad disappeared from the Sentinel men’s view; the four who carried flashlights were still visible for a moment, but soon even their lights no longer penetrated the trees.
The Liberian with the call sign of Copper stepped up to Krelis’s side of the truck, and the Dutchman lowered his window. “Who did you send?”
“Eight men. Bravo.” Copper shrugged. “You want me to go with them?”
Tremaine shook his head in the front passenger seat. “Not in the first wave. If they can manage to suppress any threats, we’ll follow them up. For now, just stand by. We need to find out if Duffy was on board, and we need to recover the tablet.” He sniffed. “Can’t trust the Dragons to do that right.”
“Who’s Duffy?”
“He’s the one who could fuck this all up. Keep security on this road.”
Copper nodded and headed back to his truck, shouting at rebels along the route and ordering them to stand guard in the dark rainy night.
Behind Tremaine, Junior said, “How do you suppose that RIVCOM truck found the helicopter?”
“Got to figure they just drove around till they got into radio range.”
“That means someone’s alive at the crash site.”
“Exactly.”
They listened to the radio comms of the men heading up; the squad leader reported that the small trail blazed by the arrivals from the RIVCOM truck was narrow and steep in places.
Tremaine said, “I see this going one of two ways. Either those eight Dragons heading up there are going to overrun the survivors, and this’ll be over quick, or else we’re gonna hear a real fucking fight. And if the fight is real enough, that tells me that Josh Duffy is up there.”
Krelis said, “This Duffy…he’s a warrior?”
Tremaine chuckled. “He’s one of those men who’s as cool as a cucumber until the fight starts.”
“And when it starts?”
“Then he’s a fucking maniac.”
From the back seat Junior said, “So…touched in the head, you mean.”
“A complete head case,” Tremaine confirmed.
Martin Mensah and several others worked in the heavy rain fabricating stretchers for the wounded. They wrapped cordage around small tree limbs and tied netting to it, and although Duff wished they’d hurry up, he was damn sure they were working faster and making better stretchers than he’d be able to.
Larsen spoke from where he lay on his side on the ground now. “Duff, have you tried your sat phone?”
Dunnigan clarified. “We can’t get to either of our two units. They’re both apparently somewhere under the helo.”
Duff pulled out his Iridium phone. He assumed comms were still being jammed, but he hadn’t checked since leaving the dam.
He started to dial the ARSO back at the embassy, but then he decided to call someone else. He was doubtful he’d make any connection; all his previous attempts in the truck had been failures, but to his utter astonishment, the phone began to ring. He put his finger in his left ear to drown out the rain and pushed the phone up to his right, and he walked away from the rest of the group.
After a few rings he heard a click on the line. “Gorski.”
“Bob, it’s ARSO Duffy.”
“Jesus Christ, Duffy. Are you guys safe?”
“We are so fucking not safe I can’t even tell you…We’ve got dead and injured, and we’re still on the X.”
“Who’s dead?”
“Aldenburg. All her people. I mean, check the river, but there’s no fucking way anybody survived that crash.”
“Son of a bitch! Crash?”
“The president’s flight made it away from the dam, but the other two helos weren’t that lucky. The EU group fell a thousand feet into the Volta. I’m with the wreckage of the aircraft the Americans were in. Dunnigan is hurt but alive; Costa’s dead. Larsen looks pretty fucked up to me, but I guess he’ll pull through.”
“My God. What is happening?”
Duff’s emotions got the best of him now. “I wouldn’t know, to be honest, because I’m hiding in the fucking jungle in the middle of a thunderstorm.”
Gorski said, “What you guys are in? It’s part of some larger-scale coordinated attack. The power’s out in the city, and some force is attacking police and military targets. They’ve got RPGs, mortars, assault rifles. My people in the street tell me they think they are JNIM, likely from Nigeria.”
Duff said, “Well, up here it’s rebels from Togoland we’re dealing with…we think. Plus, you were right about Tremaine. I talked to him over the radio. He’s running all this.”
Gorski whistled. “I fucking knew it. What’s their play?”
“Unknown, but one of the mercs said the army wouldn’t respond to the dam because they’d soon have more to deal with than they could handle.”
“Meaning the attacks around here?”
“I don’t think so. Accra is a couple hours away; the military down there wouldn’t be the first responders to a crisis at the dam.”
“You have a way of reaching out to Tremaine still?”
“Affirmative, but I don’t want him to know anyone survived the crash. It’s a long shot—he doesn’t strike me as the type to just give up searching for us—but at the moment we don’t have a better strategy.”
“Good thinking.” Gorski hesitated, then said, “There’s another player in this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tremaine isn’t the strategic brains of something this big. He’s a merc leader; he’s not going to bring in jihadists, recruit rebels on his own. There’s a Chinese intelligence officer I’ve been tracking across the continent for years. I think he’s involved, but I can’t get anyone here or at Langley to listen to me about China.”
“Where is he?”
“He fell off the map in Sierra Leone some time back, haven’t picked him up since. When Tremaine was seen in Togo last month, I came here on a hunch that something was brewing, and this Chinese guy was somehow involved. As soon as the shooting started tonight, I thought this might have been the opening play in a coup, so I sent a group from Accra station over to the Chinese embassy to look for any special activity. It looks like it’s buttoned down tightly, so I’m thinking my guy has some other operations center.
“Believe me,” Gorski said, “what’s going on has all the fingerprints of an operation by this guy and his people.”
“How so?”
“The social media stuff pumping up Professor Addo and the Togoland rebels. The hacking of the Internet providers and national cell carrier. I’d bet my life it’s him, and I’d bet my life that he’s here.”
“Here, in Ghana?”
“Here, in Accra. That’s how he did it in the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone. He likes to be close to the action to oversee it all, like he’s a conductor on a stage.”
Isaac appeared in the rain next to Duff, a worried look on his face. “More lights. Coming this way.”
Duff said, “Bob, we might be a few minutes away from a firefight. If I come out on the other side, I’ll call you back when I can.”
“You just worry about yourself and your people. I’ll let DS know about your situation.”
“Last thing, Bob. Do you know the status of all the dependents?”
“Yeah, everything is fine on that front. One of the Accra station analysts was just telling me that all the residences are secure, everybody is accounted for in the city.”
“What about Iris Gardens?”
“I’ve been staying at the Movenpick hotel, using radios to communicate, and I haven’t been to any of the residences myself. I’m just telling you what I heard.”
He added, “Don’t worry about your kids, they’re safe and sound.”
“Any chance of getting military assets into the region?”
“So far, nothing. Sigonella air base can have planes here in five hours, plus the time it takes to muster assets there, but the comms are so bad right now and the picture so opaque in the city, that order hasn’t come through. There have been no direct threats to the embassy or personnel, so everyone’s waiting to see if this is going to blow over.”
Duff said, “Fucking stupid.”
“Agreed. But no one has sounded the alarm about the ambo yet. I’ll do that the second I get off the phone with you, and hopefully that will get aircraft en route.”
“It’s a no-brainer, Bob. They’ve got to bring in the Marines.”
“Yeah, well, Benghazi was a no-brainer, too, and look what happened. Good luck, kid, you’re on your own for now.”
Duff hung up, secured the sat phone in his backpack, then headed back to the group to find Chad sitting up somehow and looking down the hill. “Those aren’t headlights,” he said. “They’re flashlights. Troops are searching the jungle.”
Duff agreed with Chad’s assessment. “We’re going to have to make a stand.”
“Shit,” Dunnigan said, her voice still slurred.
Nichole moved closer to her husband. “Josh. Those lights…you don’t know those are enemy. It could be a rescue.”
Duff realized she was right. He immediately opened his pack again, pulled out the radio he’d taken from the dead Russian, then turned it on. After several seconds of hearing nothing, a voice crackled, speaking English with a Ghanaian accent. “We’re close, I can smell burned plastic, probably the electrical wires.”
A reply came soon after, “Understood, continue.”
It was the voice of Conrad Tremaine.
Duff turned the volume of the radio down and dropped it back into the pack reluctantly; he wanted the intelligence he could glean from listening to the enemy’s comms, but he didn’t have an earpiece for the unit, and he didn’t want the speaker to give their position away.
Larsen looked to him now. “All right.” He turned to Dunnigan. “Duffy is now the agent in charge of your detail.”
Duff looked to Nichole, concern on both of their faces, but she nodded to him.
He said, “It’s going to take them a few minutes to get to the helicopter. I’ll take Isaac, Ben, and Malike and head down there, give them a reception. Everybody else stay up here, no lights, no noise.”
To Nichole, he said, “Take Isaac’s trauma pack and do whatever you can to stabilize the injuries for a move through the jungle.”
She nodded. “I’ll splint the broken bones, get everyone taped up, at least.” But before she moved away to begin, she said, “But you don’t know how many enemy there are. How can you—”
Duff said, “It doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with it. Once we get some stretchers made we can start moving the wounded, but that’s going to take some more time. We need vehicles and gear. There’s only one place around here where we’re going to get vehicles and gear.”
Dunnigan was a little slower than the others because of the medicine. “Where?”
Duff said, “At some point we’ll have to figure out how to go down there and take a couple of those trucks.”
Nichole cocked her head. “How do you know they’re trucks?”
“You haven’t seen that road.”