Chapter 10

Underneath the belly of the BO-105, the brown, tan and cream-white landscape of Lower Jubba slid past at 134 knots indicated air speed. Here and there low shrubs and small trees were hugging the low land and slight low hills. This was flat country. Even the electricity pylons were low in relation to the ones I was used to in South Africa.

The pylons were just wooden poles about twenty feet high. Every fifteenth pylon was twin poles next to each other and sometimes one could see a transformer suspended on a steel bar between the upright pylons. This was no hazard to the heli, as I kept to two hundred and fifty feet above the ground.

The sun kept rising higher into the sky, but still I had to drop the sun-shield down to keep the sun out of my eyes as the helicopter flew above the dusty, sandy ground.

“I think that priest has overplayed his hand,” Mai-Loan said, while scanning ahead as far as her position allowed her.

“Where about do you think we should intercept them?” Darya asked.

“Around midway to three quarters of the way to Kismayo,” I replied.

“Eagle One, Spotty Bird, how are you guys doing,” Lorie transmitted on the ground frequency to Ash.

“We are about a kilo behind them. I can see the Merc ahead. Just be advised that he stuffed Olivia into the trunk of the car!” Ash replied.

“Copy, Olivia is in the trunk at the back,” Lorie acknowledged.

“There, to the left, just before that slight s-turn. It looks like a Merc!” I broke in.

“Okay, we got him in sight. Advised we are coming in low,” Lorie transmitted to Ash.

We were coming in fast on the yellow car from the back, and I dropped down to one hundred feet, swung to the right and slipped over the high-tension electric cables next to the road. The priest was pushing his luck by driving faster than twenty kilometres an hour. He was doing at least fifty on this uneven and potholed road; dangerous for both him and his passenger.

With only the road beneath us, I dropped down to fifteen feet and flew over the car, blasting it with the rotor downwash. Lorenzo clearly didn’t expect to be intercepted by the helicopter and swerved frantically in the dust and pebble-strewn hurricane that battered his car.

I was past the car and stepped on the left rudder pedal, lifting the nose of the aircraft by pulling the cyclic to the left and back into the pit of my stomach. The result was the helicopter swinging diagonal to the road and stopping in flight, hovering about ten feet off the ground, right in the path of the oncoming car.

I heard the .50 of Mai-Loan being cocked.

“Wait up Mai! One five-oh will go right through the car and may hit Olivia!” Darya advised.

Glancing to the left, I saw that the car was not slowing down. He came straight at the helicopter, playing chicken with us.

I waited until the car was fifteen meters away and pulled high collective. The heli responded and shot upwards, the car flashing past beneath us. At sixty kilometres an hour a car moves thirteen meters per second. Lorenzo was much slower than that, but I did cut it a bit fine.

“So, you want to play, do you, mister fake priest! Well let us see how you handle this!” I said.

“What are you going to do?” Lorie asked, wide-eyed.

“Watch! We are going to observe Sir Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion.” I responded while turning the heli around its axis and dropped the nose, lining up with the car from behind.

“What does Newton’s law of motion got to do with rescuing Olivia?” Mai-Loan asked, and I chuckled.

“F=ma,” I responded, still smiling. “In the first law of motion an object will not change its motion unless a force acts on it. The second law states that the force on an object is equal to its mass times its acceleration. The third law states that there’s an equal and opposite reaction for any action.”

“Huh! Say that in plain English,” Lorie responded.

“A body at rest remains at rest, and a body in motion remains in uniform motion in a straight line, unless acted upon by an external force...” I replied. Darya giggled; of course, she knew this piece of science.

“What the hell are you going to do, Ronny?” Lorie asked with wide open eyes.

“I said: Watch. See science in action...”

“Oh, God! No! You’re gonna ram him!” Lorie exclaimed, and I could see my ex-flight instructor go pale in the face.

At five meters from the car, I started to match the speed of the car. Then slowly crept forward while dropping down.

With a clunk of metal on metal the right skid connected the car roof, and I kicked in a little left rudder, to exhort a little left sideways pressure, while dropping more collective to put the weight of the 105 on the speeding car.

The result: one yellow Mercedes-Benz swerved involuntarily to the left, the wheels dug into the ground down to the metal rims, and the two back tyres burst with the weight the helicopter pressing down on them. A deep dent in the roof of the car showed where the helicopter skid contacted the car. With the buckling of the roof, the windscreen and back window shattered into ten thousand splintering glass bits.

Lorenzo tried his best to control the car, but at that moment I pulled collective and lifted the helicopter off the car’s roof. The sudden release of weight from the car added to the wild swerving.

Lorenzo tried to get the car under control, but with the two back tyres out of commission, the speed dropped to around ten or fifteen kilometres an hour, still swerving wildly across the dirt road.

“Get to the left of the car!” Darya called. “I’m going to put a single five-oh through the engine.”

“Just don’t start a fire!” I cautioned.

“If Nadia can do it with her Desert Eagle, I can do it with a Browning!” Darya retorted. “Now watch my science in action!”

“Here goes!” I said and swung the helicopter to the left of the car. As we came level with the car, a single bark of the five-oh sounded, and the yellow Merc stopped about dead in its tracks, smoke and steam billowing out from under the hood, its engine block shattered.

I turned the helicopter around to have Darya cover any movement and saw Ash and the Land Rover pull up behind the dead Merc. The Land Rover stopped, and the doors flew open. Ash to the right of the Merc, Nadia and Leah to the left, approached the stricken car.

I was still hovering about forty meters from the Merc. From that vantage point, I saw a stupid move from Lorenzo. He jumped out of the car and levelled his gun at Leah.

The hovering helicopter and the noise of the spinning rotors and turbines drowned out any sound, but I saw the gun in Lorenzo’s hand recoil. A dust fountain exploded next to Leah in the road.

Nadia made no mistake as the 9-millimetre recoiled in her hand, and Lorenzo staggered back, trying to balance himself with uncooperative legs. He went over backwards and fell against the car. His hand opened and his gun fell to the ground, then his body followed to lay in a crumpled heap in the dust of the gravel road.

By the time I landed the helicopter in a dust cloud next to the road, Ash, Nadia and Leah had managed to find the trunk latch and open the car’s trunk and help a dazed and shaking Olivia out of the trunk.

Shaken, but not stirred in any way, Olivia was simultaneously shocked and angry, first by being taken by surprise and secondly by not being able to do anything about her attacker. Mai-Loan and the rest of the girls took care of her while Ash came over to me.

“NOW! That was some flying! Where the hell did you come up with that idea to run him off the road?” Ash asked.

“Same experience as stopping runaway crooks in car chases. I’ve done it a few times in my life so far...”

“You’re crazy! Certifiable, loony crazy! And we need a new nickname for you, Smudge-no-longer. Cobra! That’s it. Cobra!”

“All in a day’s work...” I demurred.

“Well, I’m glad I got you aboard our outfit. You come up with the most crazy ideas that seem to work!” and under his breath he mumbled. “A Cobra in a Mirage. Damn!”

“It is all in the wrists...” I laughed, feeding Ash back his own words.

“What a bloody mess! What do we do with that piece of shit there next to the car?”

“Well, I could drop him off in the ocean?”

“Nah, if the sharks don’t get him, he might wash up on the beach in a day or two.”

“Not if I drop him, say about halfway between Burgabo, and the second stream ... say fifteen nautical miles offshore?”

“You’re funny! No! We’ll report this to the Somali Police and give our statements. Kidnapping is a serious offence here in Somalia; even carries the death penalty,” Ash said. “Besides, there were some of the Kenyan soldiers at the airport that saw what he did and will attest to the kidnapping. One even fired a shot at the car as he drove out the parking area.”

“Okay then. You take his body back, and I will airlift Olivia to the base,” I suggested.

Ash looked at me for a moment and then nodded his head. “Do it! We’ll take the creep back with us. Besides, he’s not dead. Nadia kept her cool and only winged him.”

“Shit! But I suppose it’s better that way,” I reasoned.

“Now, Cobra, let’s get Olivia out of here. She’s not injured, but have the girls take her for a check-up at sickbay.”

“Roger, Boss! Let’s get going,” I said and turned to go back to the 105.

With the BO-105 converted to a gunship, there was not much space in the back between the two seats, but somehow, Mai-Loan and Darya got Olivia secured between them. Okay, the guns were in the stowed position, and the seats swivelled back to face the front. This left some space in the middle. Not much, but at least Olivia’s small frame could fit in there.

We were about five kilometres from the base, straight as the crow flies, and after the take-off just five minutes to touchdown on the apron next to our hangar.

Angie and Roxy had monitored our frequencies, were up to date on the developments, and were waiting on the apron for us.

Mai-Loan, Angie, and Roxy whisked Olivia away to the sick-bay. Lorie, Darya and I secured the helicopter and stuck her away in the hangar.

“Phew! I could do with a beer right now,” Lorie said.

“Then we need to vacate from here to the diplomatic immunity of the compound,” Darya replied with a twinkle in her eye. “I could do with an ice-cold one too.”

“Well, Ladies, let’s make like rock-off!” I said, and started to the Land Rover parked next to the hangar.

The motion was seconded by the girls, and they were both in the Land Rover before I could get to it myself.

“Ah, Darya, are you driving?” I asked Darya, who had got into the Landie on the right side, and was looking perplexed at the steering wheel in front of her, then shyly at me, then giggled. Finally, she scooted over to the left side. Lorie chuckled.

“Poor girl, you got her so mixed up between the South African and Somali cars, that it is not even funny!” Lorie said.

“Not that I blame her. It’s confusing even for me. Sitting on the right side of our South African Land Rover and driving on the right side of the road,” I said. “The side-walk is on the wrong side!”

“The RIGHT side, you mean!” Lorie chuckled.

“Yeah ... right, the other left side...” I replied, and Darya giggled.

“Try driving from France on the car-ferry to the UK ... Now that is confusing!” Darya giggled. In France, they drive on the right side, and in the UK they drive on the left side. So, you need to remember to stay on the other side when entering the destination country!”

The rest of the day was taken up with mostly giving statements to the Somali Police. After a certain Ahmed Yusuf from the security branch showed up, things went more smoothly. He only introduced himself as “Ahmed,” but after some really good chatting, Ash and I came to know the man, and he opened up to a more friendly tone of questioning.

“I do know that there was some sort of covert operation scheduled, but not the full details of it. I presumed it would be the normal USA drone strike on al-Shabaab,” Ahmed said after we got through the main part of why “Father” Lorenzo Romano ended up with a 9-millimetre bullet through his right shoulder.

“The USA wanted the camp ‘dealt with’, but not in any way traced back to them. I suppose it has to do with the latest rumours that the American troops will be withdrawn by their newly elected president,” Ash said.

“The President Elected was always a little radical; making decisions without thinking them through,” Ahmed said. “Like the wall to keep the Mexicans out, and blabbering out military secrets to Russia.”

“Don’t worry, Ahmed. In the famous words of the Terminator: They’ll be back!” I joked.

Ahmed chuckled at my lame joke. “I really hope so, and pray that you are right, my friend. Our security depends on it. Let’s just hope it won’t be too late.”

“Well, I don’t see the Africa Command being decommissioned. Africa is too much a strategic concern for the west.” Ash elaborated.

“And Somalia is part of Africa while Al-Shabaab is affiliated with Al-Qaeda. They are Middle-East, and don’t belong in Africa. They should go back to what deep cesspool they crawled out of...” Ahmed said. “Can I get you guys some tea?”

“Well ... anything wet will do, thank you,” Ash replied. Ahmed looked around the room where we were seated in the open spaced office of the police station.

“Come along, we are done here. I have an office across the street,” he said and got up. Then he added softer and winked: “I might have something cooler and better enjoyed in the privacy of my office.” Chuckle.

“Now, you are talking my language...” Ash replied, also at a soft tone.

I just smiled.

We got up and followed Ahmed out of the police station and across the dusty road to a double story building. He showed his badge to the guard at the entrance, who waved us on, and we continued to follow Ahmed up a flight of stairs to the first floor of the building, down a passage and into a mid-sized office second from the end of the passage.

The office had a large desk plus a round conference table to the side. The impression I got was that Ahmed was not just your run-of-the-mill police officer. In fact, this had all the hallmarks of a ranking officer.

He seated us at the conference table and proceeded to open a cupboard to the side of the table. He came up with three glasses and a bottle of whiskey. I say whiskey with an “e” because it ain’t Scottish.

“Best Kentucky I could wrangle out of the UN guys!” Ahmed chuckled. Ash cringed but said nothing. When in Rome, do like the Romans do!

Ahmed poured us each a generous measure, added ice and handed us each a drink, then sat down and took a sip of his drink.

“Now, gentleman, why I brought you over here was not only for the whiskey, but I need your input on another matter that may or may not be linked to our mutual friend the priest.”

Ash sat back in his chair and took a sip of his whiskey. “Speak, I can at least listen,” he said non-committally.

“Gentleman, this stays between us and in this office,” Ahmed said, took a sip of his whiskey and placed the glass on a coaster next to him on the table. “A few days ago, we had a cowardly terrorist attack on a hotel in Mogadishu.”

“I heard about it. Go on...” Ash encouraged.

“A day or two before that, our friend the priest met with three men in the old destroyed cathedral. These three men were identified as members of al-Shabaab; high ranking members. One of them was killed by security forces during the hotel siege. The other two are still at large, but we did come to know of their whereabouts.”

“And...?”

They are in a compound West of Kismayo.”

“And you want us to take them out?” Ash asked.

Ahmed chuckled. “Yes! Take them out. Out of that compound and bring them to me!”

“What!” Ash exclaimed. “We are pilots, not a SEAL team!”

“But you do have the resources.”

“Well, I don’t have two hundred men at my disposal...”

“Ten or twenty will be enough. There’re only fifteen or twenty troops in the compound.”

“Then why don’t you do it?” I asked.

Ahmed was quiet, looking down at his hands in his lap. Then he raised his head and looked at us. “For the same reasons as your employer did. I can’t be actively involved...” he almost sighed.