children, and he could not bear to witness their suffering.
“We had to destroy the village to save it,” he muttered under his breath and inside his hot turban.
His Thuraya buzzed on his hip under his clothing, and the call came through his covert headset. He answered with an explanation. “Almost to you, One. Need about five more minutes.”
“That’s good. We’ve been waiting on your ass so long the landlord is hitting us up for first and last month’s rent. How’s the town?”
“It’s getting stuffy, a lot of jurisdictional issues all these organizations have to iron out. Plus the dead and wounded everywhere adding to the confusion. We need to take advantage of this disorder. The time to move is right now.”
“Negative, we can’t exfil just yet.”
Court stopped in his tracks. “Why not?”
“Sierra Five is MIA. I need to know what happened to him.”
“Copy that. I’ll find us some wheels and get set. Six out.”
Zack had his three men ready to move seconds after Court hung up. They had spent the last half hour on the roof at the northern tip of Mall Bravo, not forty meters east of where the Hip crashed in the souk between the two malls. Their rooftop position did not give them any view, however. They’d found a ripped and rotting green tarpaulin held up by driftwood and wire, under which someone had stored firewood and empty water tanks, and Whiskey Sierra had ducked into the deepest recesses of the structure for maximum concealment. There they sat and waited, bled and perspired, thumped scorpions off of each other with gloved fingertips.
The four men had patched themselves up as well as possible. Zack had bandaged his forearm and effectively stopped the bleeding, consumed water and salts from his rations to replace that lost in his profuse sweating, and consolidated all his partial magazines of ammunition into one thirty-round mag in his gun, plus a partially loaded mag in his canvas chest rig. Brad now wielded a fully loaded Type 81. He’d hurt his back and knee while crashing the van. He thought he might have cracked a rib or two on his right side but had not reported himself as a casualty to Sierra One. Dan carried a scavenged Type 81 as well. Dan was the sole uninjured member of the team.
Milo was stabilized for the time being. Dan had used massive amounts of duct tape to secure Brad’s F1 to his leg like a stiff-legged splint, and he’d rebandaged the young Croatian American’s shattered leg. But Sierra Four was without a rifle; he only carried a 9 mm H&K pistol, and all of his armor and gear had been left behind or passed around the team so that he could continue to move. He vigorously protested everything done for him, insisted he was good to go, but his bluster just annoyed the shit out of the older, more experienced operators. They understood his condition better than he did, and they treated him professionally, even if they continually berated him for trying to tell them he was fine.
The four men left the roof in a tactical train, descended two floors in a tiny and darkened metal stairwell, and ended up in an east-west alley. Milo stumbled twice on the stairs. Zack then ordered him to keep his pistol in his right hand and Dan’s shoulder in his left. This helped his balance.
The alleyway ran towards the harbor, and the team took it slowly. Men’s voices were heard on the other side of a wooden door, and Whiskey Sierra formed around it, but the voices faded. Sirens in the distance mixed with the guttural roars and cries of camels. The team did their best to shut out all the noises that were not tactically significant. Soon they made it to the mouth of the alleyway, and here they warily stepped into sight of the harbor.
Dan was first out of the alley, into the open street in front of the water. The others moved close behind him.
Dan stopped dead in his tracks. “Contact front!”
FORTY
Fifty yards in front of the mouth of the alley, atop the crystal green water in front of the island of Old Suakin, sat a Sudanese Navy coastal patrol boat. It was one hundred feet in length; men stood on the deck behind a 12.7-mm machine gun. Quickly they turned the barrel of the big weapon towards the white men appearing in front of them.
Zack ground to a halt next to Dan. “Disperse!” shouted Zack, and