Force Protection

But what would be memorable about that?

USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inbound Channel, Straits of Gibraltar.

‘You know Al Craik?’ asked a lieutenant-commander in a rumpled flight suit. He wore an old leather flight jacket against the forty-knot wind that blew through the Straits of Gibraltar. He was short, compact, and thin-faced, and the pocket of his flight jacket, embroidered in the blue and gold of VS-53, said ‘Narc.’

‘Never met him. But I went through AOCS with his wife. Rose Siciliano, then. Man, she’s a tough chick. Great pilot, too.’ He grinned at the memory and turned to look up at Narc as he descended the ladder from the O–3 level to the hangar deck. He, too, wore a flight suit and a jacket, only his was embroidered with the black and white of chopper squadron HS-9. It said ‘Skipper Van Sluyt.’ They were both officers in the same air wing: CAG 14, six days away from transiting the Suez Canal to relieve the USS Thomas Jefferson off Africa.

Narc nodded. ‘She’s at NASA, going to fly the shuttle.’

‘No shit? Well, good work if you like that sort of thing.’ Skipper Van Sluyt started down the ladder again.

Narc followed him down, surprised. ‘What, the publicity?’ Narc did like that sort of thing. He had an Air Medal of which he was very proud.

‘Yeah, Narc. That and the ever-present corporate –’ Van Sluyt had turned his head, perhaps wondering if his anti-NASA speech was going to have the right effect on Narc the Navy Yuppie, when the carrier hit the crosscurrent at the entrance to the Mediterranean. Ninety-five thousand tons of carrier are not easily moved, but the constant flow of water between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic creates something like a wall. The great ship gave a lurch, and Skipper Van Sluyt’s feet jerked out from under him. He fell down the rest of the ladder, his tailbone breaking on the second to last step and his collarbone at the bottom. As he said later to his wife, ‘That’s what you get for bad-mouthing NASA.’

Mombasa.

From the landward walls of Fort Jesus, he could see the Muslim neighborhoods of Old Town laid out at his feet like a map, although the streets were tiny and twisted like a collection of old rubber bands. The fort served to draw the tourists, and nearest to it were prosperous shops owned by Kikuyu or Hindus with money; plastic Masai spears and plastic Masai beads woven in China grabbed at the attention of German and American tourists, and sad-looking tall men with heavy spears and a trace of Masai in their veins guarded the shops. Farther off toward the dhow port were the real shops of the Muslim residents, tiny shops with deeply embrasured doors and windows capable of resisting a siege. The smell of cardamom and curry carried even to the top of the wall. And to the north, he could see the slow rise of the ground into the natural amphitheater of the park in front of the old colonial offices.

The man atop the walls squatted in the coral ruins of a tiny sentry kiosk on the landward side and carefully unwrapped the burlap package under his arm. Seventy feet above the streets of Old Town, he exposed the receiver of an AK-74 and inserted a clip.

Alan Craik loved Africa. He’d seen the bad parts – Rwanda, Zaire, Somalia. He’d seen the parts in Tanzania and South Africa that looked like wildlife shows on the Discovery Channel. But this is where his love of Africa had had its birth, at the top of this narrow Mombasa street that ran down from the shiny oddness of a Hard Rock Café to a fifteenth-century mosque and the Old Town of Mombasa. He smiled broadly, boyishly, looking at the coral walls of Fort Jesus, where he had first tried his halting Swahili, and at the glint of the water in the dhow harbor beyond. It wasn’t like coming home, but it was like returning to a beloved vacation spot. He didn’t even realize he had started walking down toward Old Town until Martin Craw’s hand grasped his arm.

‘Whoa, there, Commander. We got less than an hour before we’re due at the det.’

Alan smiled back at him. I’m in Africa! was what he wanted to say, but he swallowed it. Then he thought, Screw the command image.

‘You’re the one who said we should leave them alone until they got the place straightened up, Martin. That’s why I’m still lugging this ball and chain.’ He indicated the heavy helmet bag in his maimed left hand, the two green loop handles wrapped around his wrist to keep the pressure off the stumps of his fingers. ‘I thought dropping Laura at the Harker would take longer.’ USNS Jonathan Harker was a ship supplying the battle group, in port for three days. Laura had drawn the duty of checking with the captain and crew on their experience of Mombasa as a liberty port – plus, as she had found when they had pulled up at the dock, the BG’s flag was making a tour of the ship, and she’d got roped into his party. She hadn’t been a happy force-protection investigator.

Craw smiled as if he wished it had taken longer and looked at his watch again. ‘If I let you loose in an African city, you’ll be out till all hours.’

‘Martin, you look to me like a man who needs a beer.’

‘Beer? And air-conditioning? That’s a big yes.’

‘We’ll have one, repeat, one beer here, and then I get to cruise Old Town for thirty minutes.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Craw’s reply was deliberate overenthusiasm; he was a man capable of quiet sarcasm, often so deep it was difficult to detect. He paused on the crowded sidewalk to ogle a local woman in blended Western and African clothes. Alan hustled him inside.

The interior of the Hard Rock was cool, pleasant, and entirely American; only physique and face shape made the crowd different from a bunch of American blacks in an American city. Most of them were speaking English. The Hard Rock franchise was genuine, unlike that in Bahrain; it had been hit hard by the Nairobi embassy bombing, but was still a bastion of burgers, milkshakes, and beer – and a magnet for sailors. One wall had plaques from ships of the US, British, and Canadian navies, and one from an Australian destroyer.

They sat at a table and ordered beers: Alan a White Cap, because it was Kenyan, Craw a Rolling Rock, because he was delighted to find it. Alan watched the city bustle by the huge picture window. He could see the park in front of the old British Colonial Office away to the left, surrounded by monolithic bank buildings – still a spiritual center of the town, although the real economic center had moved up Moi Avenue since he was last here. He was growing nostalgic for a town he had barely visited. ‘I know a great restaurant here, really world class, called the Tamarind Dhow,’ he said, still bursting with the notion of being in Mombasa. ‘Want to grab some food there after we visit the det? It’s on me.’

Craw smiled slowly, not raising his eyes from the menu of the Hard Rock. ‘I sort o’ have some plans, tonight, skipper, if you don’t mind. Rain check?’ he drawled, and then looked up with a sudden laugh.

‘Master Chief, do you have a date?’

‘That would be “need to know,” sir.’ He smiled again. He seemed happy about it. ‘Do you really need to know?’

‘Nope.’ Alan thought of saying Don’t hurt yourself, but he let it pass. ‘But if you’re going to sit here and drool over your good fortune, I’m going to shop.’ Craw smiled again. Alan couldn’t remember seeing him smile so often, at least since he had reached command rank. Craw waved him away. ‘It’s only Mombasa, skipper; I can find you. I’ll catch you in ten minutes. If I don’t see you in Old Town, I’ll catch you around Fort Jesus. Leave the helmet bag.’ He reached out for it. ‘I’ll watch it.’

‘I’m signed for it.’ Alan wrapped the handles around his wrist again. He waved, tossed an American tendollar bill on the table, and headed out into the street, checking his watch. Time to see if the same old silversmith was still in business.

The interior of the shop was dark and cool, a profound contrast with the white-hot street outside. Three young boys were working in the back, two of them drawing wire by pulling a core through ever-smaller holes in a steel plate. He had seen the same craft demonstrated at Colonial Williamsburg, but these boys did it better. They were doing it for real. The third boy was polishing silver with ashes and a lot of elbow grease. Alan smiled and called a greeting as he entered; later, he couldn’t remember what language he had used, but he would remember the slight tension in their body language as they turned to him. He knew the shop was off the beaten track, but couldn’t imagine they were against tourists.

A fine old sword stood in a niche behind the counter; that caught his eye as he ignored cases of bangles and earrings. Rose never fancied such stuff. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her in any earrings except military studs. But just under his hands, as he leaned on the counter, there was a heavy chain of solid links, almost like big beads; it was crisp and very well made. He smiled; it was usually so difficult to find anything for Rose.

‘May I see the heavy silver necklace?’

‘Oh, yes.’ One of the young men sprang down from the bunk-like bench where he was working and opened the case. Alan couldn’t pin down what was out of place, except that the young man should have been talking a great deal more.

The necklace was just as handsome close-up as in the case. He caught the young man’s eye. ‘Bei gani?’ he asked. He showed a US twenty-dollar bill. When here many years before, he had learned that it was easier to buy everything with US dollars. Cheaper, too.

The boy held up his hand and spoke rapidly without smiling. He went too fast. Alan thought he heard something like ‘Mia moja na thelathini na sita,’ which would have been a hundred and something. More than a hundred. That seemed unlikely; silver wasn’t that expensive.

‘Ghali sana. Pudunza bei kidogo, rafik’.’

The young man on the other side of the counter kept looking past him into the street, and Alan wanted to turn around, except that the other young men were just as interesting. They seemed to be listening for something, utterly still. Not getting much work done.

The boy at the counter muttered something about his father. Perhaps serious bargaining had to be done by an adult, although in most of Africa all three of the shop boys would be thought men. In Somalia they would have been fighting for years. One of them even looked Somali. Not impossible.

‘Lini?’ Alan couldn’t remember how to ask something as complex as when the father would be in. It might not even be polite.

‘Kesho!’ Did he really mean tomorrow? The young man at the counter waved his hand as if eager for Alan to go. He was eager. Then, swiftly, his expression changed and he retreated to his work area, his face blank, as a new, older man came in through a beaded curtain to the side of the counter. He was looking at the three boys in puzzlement, but he smiled as he looked at Alan. ‘My son. I do not know why he torments me this way. You are interested in the necklace? I made it myself.’

‘It is very good.’

‘It is, isn’t it? Too good, I think. Tourists want a cheap memento of Africa, not a good piece of silver.’ Alan liked him instantly; he had the directness that Alan associated with craftsmen. Men too busy for bullshit. The young men were listening; no wire was being drawn, no silver polished.

‘What price did my son quote you?’

‘Tafadhali, mzee. I did not really understand him. My Swahili is never as good as I think it is. Not nearly as good as your English, for instance.’

The older man polished the chain idly, unfazed by flattery. ‘Hmm. Yes. It is. One hundred twenty dollars.’

‘I could perhaps go as far as eighty dollars.’ Alan wanted it more now than when he had first looked at it. He also wanted an excuse to prolong the meeting. The older man was interesting, a type; and the young men were clearly on edge – waiting for something, something that a foreigner, an mzungu, was not part of.

The mzee looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Alan settled on to a bench by the counter with a sigh, as if ready for a long siege.

‘Perhaps if we had some tea?’ The mzee was happy to dicker; indeed, would have been sorry if the business had been concluded directly.

The plan to meet Craw was somewhere around the edge of Alan’s consciousness, but Craw wouldn’t worry and Alan knew where to find him. The tourist part of Old Town wasn’t more than a couple of streets, really. And tea, sweet cardamom tea, drunk in this medieval shop, would make Alan’s day. The det wasn’t going anywhere without him, either.

The older man turned to the boys and said something in Arabic, a language Alan didn’t speak but easily recognized. Arabic was the language of education in Old Town Mombasa, the language of the Koran. Alan’s attention sharpened. Nobody answered the mzee, and Alan was surprised, but it was of a piece; they were waiting for something. Finally, the one who had first come to the counter dropped his eyes and darted out of the main door. He returned with a small tray, rattled off some Arabic as he entered. Alan was reaching for a cup when the older man caught his eye and motioned with his hand. He looked very serious.

‘My son says there is a bad crowd in the street. Perhaps you should go now.’

Alan looked out the shop doorway, wondering how long the boy had been waiting for this ‘bad crowd.’ Then he could hear, in the distance toward Fort Jesus, a sound like waves on a beach.