He could only suspect, and he suspected he was losing, outwitted by barbarians cleverer than he. The secure phone rang.
It was Master Sergeant Orde from Tampa. “Colonel, sir, there’s a technical approaching the target.” Tracker resumed his study of the screen. The compound occupied the center of it, about a quarter of the space. There was a pickup at the gate. The cab had a black roof. He did not recognize it.
A figure in a white dishdash came out of the house at the side of the square, crossed the sandy space and opened the gate. The pickup drove in. The gate closed. Three tiny figures emerged from the truck and entered the main house. The Preacher had visitors.
• • •
The Preacher received the trio in his office. The bodyguard was dismissed. Opal introduced the emissary from the north. The Sacad Duale glared with his one good eye. He, too, had memorized his brief. With a gesture, the Preacher indicated that he could begin. The terms of al-Afrit were terse and clear.
He was prepared to trade his Swedish captive for one million dollars cash. His servant Duale should see and count the money and alert his master that he had actually seen it.
For the rest, al-Afrit would not enter al-Shabaab land. There would be an exchange at the border. Duale knew the place of the exchange and would guide the vehicles bearing the money and guards to it. The delegation from the north would make the rendezvous and bring the prisoner.
“And where is this meeting place?” asked the Preacher. Duale simply stared and shook his head.
The Preacher had seen tribesmen like this in the Pakistani border territories, among the Pathan. He could pull out all the man’s nails, both fingers and toes, but he would die before he spoke. He nodded and smiled.
He knew there was no real border between north and south on any map. But maps were for the kuffars. The tribesmen had their maps in their heads. They knew exactly where, a generation earlier, clan had fought clan for the ownership of a camel and men had died. The spot marked the place where the vendetta had begun. They knew if a man from the wrong clan crossed the line, he would die. They needed no white man’s map.
He also knew he could be ambushed for the money. But to what end? The clan chief from Garacad would get his money anyway, and what use to him was the Swedish boy? Only he, the Preacher, knew the true, staggering value of the merchant marine cadet from Stockholm, because his good friend in London had told him. And that immense sum would restore all his fortunes, even among the supposedly pious al-Shabaad. North or south, money not only talked, it shouted.
There was a tap on the door.
• • •
There was a new vehicle at the compound site, a small sedan this time. At 50,000 feet, the Hawk wheeled and turned, watching and listening. The same white-clad figure crossed the sand and conferred with the car’s driver. In Tampa and London, Americans watched.
The car did not enter the yard. A large attaché case was handed over and signed for. The figure in white headed for the main building.
“Follow the car,” said the Tracker. The outlines of the compound slid out of screen as the camera suite high in the stratosphere followed the car. It did not go far; under a mile. Then it stopped outside a small office block.
“Close up. Let me have a look at that building.”
The office block came closer and closer. The sun in Marka was overhead, so there were no shadows. These would come, long and black, as the sun set over the western desert. Pale green and dark green; a logo, and a word beginning with D in roman script: “Dahabshiil.” The money had arrived and been delivered. The overhead scrutiny returned to the Preacher’s compound.
• • •
Block after block of hundred-dollar bills
were removed from the case and placed on the long polished table. The Preacher might be many miles from his origins in Rawalpindi, but he liked his furnishings traditional.
Duale had already announced he had to count the ransom. Jamma continued to interpret from Arabic to Swahili, Duale’s only language. Opal, who had brought the attaché case, stayed in case he was needed, the junior of two private secretaries. Seeing Duale fumbling with the bundles, Opal asked him in Somali: “Can I help you?”
“Ethiopian dog,” snarled the Sacad, “I will finish the task.”
It took him two hours. Then he grunted.
“I have to make a call,” he said. Jamma translated. The Preacher nodded. Duale produced a cell phone from his robes and tried to make a call. Inside the thick-walled building, he could get no tone. He was escorted outside to the open yard.
“There’s a guy in the yard on a cell phone,” said M.Sgt. Orde in Tampa.
“Grab it, I need to know,” snapped the Tracker.
The call trilled in a mud-brick fort in Garacad and was answered. The conversation was extremely brief. Four words from Marka and a reply of two. Then the connection was severed.
“Well?” asked the Tracker.
“It was in Somali.”