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The next intervention was in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Sergeant Ortiz, walking beside the Colonel, looked at his GPS display. “We need to turn left at the next cross street.”
The two soldiers were followed by two cameramen continuously recording the scene.
Four scruffy soldiers wearing piecemeal uniforms stood ten feet in front of them. Surrounding the group was a noisy, milling mob of more than a hundred soldiers and local citizens. They walked and ran and talked and shouted like any mob. They threw rocks and bricks, which stopped in mid air two feet away from the Sergeant and Colonel, and then fell to the ground. The four soldiers screamed vile epithets and emptied their AK-47 automatic rifles at them. The bullets, like the rocks and bricks, also stopped in mid-air two feet in front of the Sergeant and Colonel, and also fell to the ground.
Someone in the crowd laughed. But when one of the enraged soldiers turned his now empty weapon toward them, the laughter stopped.
“Then about 100 meters on the right,” said the sergeant.
“Copy that,” said the Colonel. “I’m glad they thought to install noise-cancelling comms in our helmets. It’s noisy outside.”
“I’m glad they installed backup batteries for our MAGEs. It keeps outside outside.” They each wore a backpack containing a MAGE, as did the cameramen.
The four scruffies drew machetes from their belts and charged, screaming. They had all the effect of butterflies attacking a sliding glass door. The MAGE maintained a constantly shifting web of force fields flexibly anchored deep in the ground. The anchors kept the sergeant and Colonel from feeling any impacts on their shields. The constant shifting allowed them to walk normally.
The sergeant looked at the shops and vendor stalls as they walked by. “Oooh, look, Colonel. They have snake on a stick.” He pointed at a food vendor. “With a good curry sauce, that’s one of my favorites.”
Someone tossed a grenade in their path. The mob screamed and scattered in noisy panic. The Colonel and Sergeant paused until the grenade exploded. Then they continued walking.
“Agreed,” said the Colonel. “I got good snake curry in Afghanistan. Though I never did get used to lizard. Didn’t agree with me. Sensitive stomach.”
A little boy ran up and poked at the shield with his finger. The sergeant bent down and smiled at him. The boy smiled back. His mother, obviously scared, ran up, grabbed him, and carried him off. The sergeant waved bye-bye to the boy.
The sergeant said, “Yeah, lizard always seems a bit greasier than snake. And I’ve found my stomach is getting more sensitive as I get older. I can’t eat lutefisk anymore.”
A man shouted a warning and a path cleared through the mob. At the other end of the path was a soldier in kneeling position preparing to fire an RPG, a shoulder-launched rocket.
“Oh, shit,” said the Colonel. “The shrapnel from that will kill people in the crowd.” He pointed his wand. “Expelliarmus!” The RPG flew into the air and landed on a rooftop a hundred meters away. The soldier stood up, bewildered.
“What an idiot,” he said. Then, “Lutefisk? You ate that? God, I’d rather eat drain cleaner.”
“Hah! You got lutefisk in the house, you don’t need drain cleaner. I grew up with it in Minnesota. No big deal. But it’s better dipped in nuoc mam.”
Several ragged soldiers continued to shoot at them, reload, and shoot some more. But by now it was more to make noise and have fun rather than with any expectation of hurting them.
“Nuoc mam on lutefisk!? Christ, Sergeant, get me that RPG. I’ll shoot you myself!” said the Colonel.
The Sergeant laughed, then looked around and said, “Looks like we’re here.”
They stood in front of the gates to Villa Somalia, a compound that held one of the few nice-looking buildings in Mogadishu. Villa Somalia was the palace of the warlord who ran the country. The gate was guarded by fifty heavily armed, but nonetheless nervous, soldiers.
A battered pickup truck with a heavy machine gun mounted on the back rounded a corner a block away and raced toward them, accelerating, while the machine gun peppered their shields. Again the crowd scattered.
“Think our shields will stop a truck?” asked the Sergeant.
“Probably. But it’s not worth the risk.” He pointed his wand, “Arresto momentum. Levicorpus.”
The truck stopped, rose about five feet into the air, turned over with its wheels pointing upward, and floated there upside down. The gunner fell out onto the street and ran like hell. The driver untangled himself from the steering wheel, jumped out, and followed the gunner.
The Colonel and sergeant stood and looked at the front gate. The sergeant asked, “Should we use the gate or make our own?”
“We might hurt somebody in that cluster fuck. Let’s make our own.”
“My turn then,” said the sergeant. He pointed his wand at the wall about twenty meters from the gate and said, “Bombarda.” With barely a sound, the wall disassembled itself, with pieces flying in every direction.
The fifty guards opened fire, causing a lot of noise, but nothing else.
The Colonel and sergeant walked through the new gap in the wall. “The weather here is quite nice,” said the Colonel. “If the Somalis ever get their shit together, this could be a pleasant vacation spot. And we already know the food is good.”
The barrage of small arms died down, and soldiers started throwing themselves at the Colonel and sergeant. Ignoring them, the Colonel pointed down the driveway. “If I’m not mistaken, that heavy-set gentleman boogying away from us is our target.”
“Shall I grab him?” asked the sergeant, lifting his wand.
“No, let him go into his palace. Extracting him there will make for a better show on the evening news.”
Some soldiers ran up carrying a length of chain-link fence. “Looky there,” said the sergeant, “they’re finally starting to use their heads.”
The soldiers started to wrap the fence in a wide circle around the Colonel and sergeant, outside their shields. Another followed with metal tent stakes and a sledgehammer to secure the fence to the driveway.
The Colonel said, “Good try, boys. Well done.” Then he pointed his wand and said, “Alarte ascendare.” The fence shot high into the air. Unfortunately, one of the soldiers went with it.
The Colonel watched the terrified soldier rise 200 feet, then start falling back to the ground. He pointed his wand and said, “Molliare.” The soldier’s fall slowed, and he landed gently on the driveway.
The other soldiers, wide eyed, backed away from the Colonel and sergeant.
“I think they’re getting the message,” said the sergeant. “We’re trying not to hurt anybody.”
They walked toward Villa Somalia, with their two cameramen still trailing behind. The four guards at the large, ornate front door backed away to either side of the door.
“I can’t open the door manually,” said the Colonel, “without dropping my shields. Oh, well, this is more impressive anyway.” He pointed his wand, “Aberto.” The front door should have swung gracefully open. Instead it ripped off its hinges, flew across the parking area, and embedded itself in a parked limousine.
“Oops,” said Ortiz.
“Don’t know my own strength,” said the Colonel.
They walked into the palace, finding themselves in a vast, gold and velvet encrusted, nauseatingly ornate entry room. Blood-red velvet drapes drooped from the crown moldings all around. Large tassels hung from the bunting. Small tassels hung from the large tassels. The entire grand room seemed to whimper, Please, kill me.
“Good place for square dances,” said the sergeant.
“And bingo,” said the Colonel. “Now where’s our warlord? Don’t want him running away.” He raised his wand. “Protego totalum.” That raised force fields all around the building so the target couldn’t escape.
Three soldiers in crisp, clean uniforms appeared at the top of a grand staircase. They opened fire.
“Someone’s giving them orders. I suggest we go toward the source of the bullets.”
“Agreed.”
They walked up the staircase, followed by their cameramen. The shooters ran out of ammunition and attacked with the ever-popular machetes as the Colonel and sergeant reached the top.
A shouted command came from the hall behind the soldiers. They immediately broke off their attack and ran down a side hall.
The Colonel and sergeant looked at the man who gave the command. “We’ve found our target,” said the sergeant.
“And he’s found a flamethrower,” said the Colonel, seeing the backpack of fuel tanks the man wore. “He’s smarter than he looks. That could be a problem for us. We can’t walk over burning oil or we might get choking smoke inside our shields.”
“How come he gets a flamethrower in his office?” asked the sergeant. “I’m jealous. I don’t have a flamethrower. Colonel, do you have a flamethrower in your office?”
The warlord fired the flamethrower and the Colonel and sergeant were quickly surrounded by flaming oil.
“Not yet,” said the Colonel. “But I’m beginning to like the idea. These shields don’t stop heat. If we don’t stop him soon, he’ll roast us.”
“My wife won’t let me play with flamethrowers in the house. This guy must have a much more understanding wife. Time to fly,” said the sergeant. They both raised their wands, pointing them in the direction they wanted to travel, in this case toward the warlord. “Sui leviosa.”
The warlord sprayed them with a high-pressure stream of flaming oil. It pushed them back.
“Looks like a bug in this app,” said the Colonel. “We should be anchored by force fields in the walls and floors. Some programmer must’ve forgot them.”
“Well, this sucks,” said the sergeant, drifting backward with the Colonel toward a tassel-bedecked wall. The burning oil sprayed and splashed, igniting the bunting and tassels across the entire wall. “Though it improves the decor.”
The warlord’s eyes widened as he realized the stream of oil could push his tormentors back. He quickly shouted orders to three soldiers who immediately ran away down the hall. Five seconds after a crash of breaking glass, they reappeared carrying the nozzle of a fire hose. In another five seconds the fire hose started spouting a gout of water that could topple a standing man. It hit the hovering Colonel and sergeant and quickly pushed them back against a wall over the entry way.
“You’re right,” said the Colonel. “This sucks. And this guy is much smarter than he looks. I’m beginning to understand why he’s running this part of the country.”
The sergeant pointed his wand at the soldiers and said, “Expelliarmus.” The fire hose leaped back down the hall and, from the crashing sound, through the far wall.
“At least they put out some of the fires,” said the Colonel. By this time, the flame thrower was out of fuel. So the Colonel and sergeant floated toward the warlord, who turned and ran. But not fast enough.
The Colonel pointed his wand and said, “Mobilicorpus sequitur.” The warlord floated in the air and moved toward them, beating his fists against the invisible walls around him. His three soldiers tried to grab him to hold him back, but a gravity field is slippery indeed. Totally frictionless. He slid past them, all four of them shouting with frustration.
The Colonel and sergeant leviosa’d themselves back down to the front door. A livid, loud floating warlord followed them.
As they went out the front door they floated into the shield surrounding the building. “Oops. Forgot,” said the Colonel. “Protego finis.” The building shield ceased to exist, and they and their cameramen leviosa’d back to their base, trailed by a continuously cursing warlord.