Chapter 1: Niamey
“Ha, ha, ha. Bless your soul. You really think you’re in control?”
—Gnarles Barkley
Officer Brent Cunningham had promised himself he’d never return to Niger, yet there he stood alone on a tarmac outside Niamey watching the dust flicker through the landing strip lights. It was 11:00 p.m. and still over 90 degrees. Sand and smoke hung dense in the dancing night air. Harmattan winds blew half the Sahara into the city this time of year, and his throat already felt sore after only breathing the harsh air for a few days.
He had promised himself he’d never go back, but duty had called. Well, he thought with a grimace, more like duty had barked; barked tone-deaf orders, anyway, through yellow stained teeth that crouched under an unkept moustache, orders as sickening as the sour coffee breath on which they wafted across the room.
The plane would land soon. The airport was deserted and silent. Only flying insects dared to move in the city after dark. Across the runway, burned pieces of fighter jets and helicopters lay in a heap where Niger’s entire Air Force, destroyed by insurgents, had recently been bulldozed into a pile to clear the tarmac. Beyond the wreckage, single bulb solar lights cast dim glowing cones down the cement walls of houses outside the airport. Public utilities had been destroyed during the battle a few weeks earlier when the government retook the city.
Brent had arrived last week, and the Station Chief had tersely confirmed the orders from Langley: locate Dust, get him on board, and stop Moctar. He flicked a termite off his shoulder and looked at the ground. The third order would be easier than the first two, he thought, raising his eyebrows. After what had happened last time Brent was in Niger, Dust wouldn’t like anyone from the Agency contacting him—especially Brent, especially to ask a favor. As if the assignment wasn’t already difficult enough, the Station Chief had pulled him aside after the meeting and told him in a low tone, “Tread lightly, Brent. We don’t really know who’s side he’s on anymore.”
Course, we don’t really know who’s on anyone’s side in the desert, Brent thought. The French had pulled out shortly after the West Africans started managing their own currencies and the investment banking profits Paris had been making off holding half their national reserves had dried up. England was still too occupied trying to sort out their economy after Brexit, and even the US had decided it had bigger fish to fry in Asia. Without international support, the Sahel states had struggled on, all the while losing ground against the chaos Russia and Iran were all too happy to foment behind the scenes.
In the vacuum of power that ensued, heavily armed fractious groups mostly dispensed with the pretense of jihad and fought unapologetically for power and money. The desolate Sahara became a senseless killing ground, with vicious battles fought for plateaus of bare slate and planes of vacant sand dunes. Groups paid for their carnage with cash from proxies, smuggling, mining, and banditry. The best smuggling routes were highly prized and hotly contested, and groups traveled throughout the desert trafficking everything from weapons, drugs, and people to spaghetti, solar panels, and soccer jerseys. Other sedentary groups took over gold, silver, and uranium mines, operating them with slave labor.
Brent recalled a brief he had received at Langley before leaving Virginia. An ounce of gold that traded for $1,800 on the New York Stock Exchange could be bought from a mine site dealer in Tillaberi for a backpack of spaghetti packets and a few cans of sardines. In addition to free labor, the price was so low because the risk was so high. A buyer would first have to make it to a mine site alive, then make it back out of the desert alive, and then complete the sale on the black market without getting killed in an alleyway in Tripoli, Cairo, Lagos, or who-knows-where-else.
Moctar was an Iranian who had made his name beheading Christians and Kurds in Syria. After his ambitions met their ceiling among the terrorist power players in the middle east, he left to build his own territory in Africa. The Sahara Desert was full of disillusioned youth primed for recruitment, and in five short years, Moctar had built a core following. Sources were now reporting that he planned to hit a refugee camp near Lake Chad at the end of Ramadan—only a month and a half from now.
Brent could see plane lights in the distance through the haze. Slowly they grew and descended toward the runway. The obnoxious one would arrive first, he thought. Alexander Ojo was a Special Operator as tall and good looking as a movie star, and he knew it. He had been a football star at UCLA—wide receiver if Brent remembered correctly—and the summer after graduation he not only survived the grueling three-week selection camp but finished top of his class. Now, at only 26 years old, he was widely considered one of the three best Operators on active duty, and he knew that too. Like most young people with more success than they know what to do with, he was cocky and self-absorbed. Brent braced for impact.
The C-130 touched down with a screech, taxied back around the end of the runway, and halted in front of Brent and his light pole. Before the ramp had reached the ground, Alex leaped off onto the tarmac, outfitted with enough gear to cripple a camel. He was 6’2”, and his lean powerful frame bounded away from the plane toward Brent with a fierce Rambo-esque expression in his eyes. Clear of the runway and satisfied he was not under imminent attack, he slowed to a walk. His dark face broke into a great white smile as he approached Brent.
“Guess you’re James Bond then,” he said wrestling Brent’s hand with his own bear paw. “Alex Ojo. Special Operations. The old white guys in Norfolk said one of you Spooks needed a hand catching bad guys in the desert.”
“Welcome to Niger,” Brent said with composure. “Cunningham, Brent Cunningham. And yes, we appreciate Master Chief Woodford’s willingness to support the mission. Thank you for coming. Your reputation precedes you.”
“Yeah, listen, that was a long plane ride and, uh, nature calls, so which way to the safe house?”
“Right,” said Brent transitioning, “Follow me.” He turned and walked toward the car with Alex and his immense gear towering along behind him.
Back at the safehouse, Brent brought Alex up to speed on the security situation in Niger and his plan to stop Moctar. Alex was not impressed, and he objected throughout. I’m no Spook bodyguard, all right? And I’m definitely not a civilian baby-sitter. You mean this Dust guy might try to kill us instead of help us? If he used to run Red Teams he’ll see us coming a mile away. Whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m a warrior, Brent, not a U.S. Marshall. I storm the castle. I don’t transport prisoners. After about an hour of the exhausting exchange, Alex had heard enough.
“All right, time out,” he said making a T with his hands. “This is crazy, man. It’ll never work! If I’m going to put up with half the none-sense you just laid out, I at least need a small probability of success. No way I’m going to embarrass myself on a half-baked mission like this. Count me out, Bub.”
Brent was prepared for this reaction. It was time to play hardball. He changed his tone and spoke louder and sharper. He explained that Alex would, in fact, do everything he had described and more. Alex would do whatever Brent told him to do because, if he did not, Master Chief Woodford would discover who had actually stolen his Ferrari last summer and crashed it into a tree. The memory made Alex smile mischievously before shuddering at the thought of Woodford’s reaction. Brent reminded him it was useless to deny it and told him to get some rest. Brent would go pick up the civilians.
Alex made his way to his room, and Brent drove back to the airport in a beat-up taxi. The deserted streets made driving easy, and Brent ran the AC full blast. The civilians arrived around 1:00 a.m. on a World Food Program plane that had come down from Italy. It parked inside a raggedy hanger where Brent was waiting. The hull opened, and a young man appeared on the ramp, stretched his arms, and sauntered over toward Brent. To Brent’s chagrin, he was wearing flip flops and a Hawaiian t-shirt. Thankfully Alex wasn’t there to comment.
“The French kid and the Asian pastor, as promised,” said the young man. “The pastor is fine, but the kid was cranky until he finally fell asleep somewhere over Algeria. I’m just glad I didn’t have to chaperon him on the flight from Paris to Rome. He’s quite the little punk.”
Brent looked at his junior colleague repugnantly. Not the only little punk on that plane, he thought, still annoyed by his colleague’s choice of attire.
“Well, you’ve done your job. They’re with me now,” said Brent.
The young man shined a laser pointer back into the hull of the plane, and the two passengers started down the plank. Apparently, this was “the sign” that it was “all clear,” Brent thought, forcing himself not to roll his eyes. The young man looked back at his superior with a satisfied smile. “So,” he said as the two passengers came up behind him, “a French kid, an Asian pastor, and a Catholic spy all meet up in Niamey…now the punch line is up to you, Cunningham. Have fun.”
Brent avoided eye contact with his colleague and greeted the Pastor. “Pastor Peter Kim,” he said, shaking hands with the taller Korean-looking man on the left. “Welcome back to Niger and thank you for coming.” Turning to the shorter curly haired Frenchmen on the right, he shook his hand saying, “And Timoté Lepauvre. Welcome back to Niger and thank you for coming.” Then addressing them both: “I’m Officer Brent Cunningham. You may call me Brent. You’ll be with me from now on.”
Brent gave a reluctant nod of approval to his colleague, thanked him, and wished him a safe return flight. The Hawaiian t-shirt and flip flops sauntered back onto the plane, and the two civilians left the hanger, carrying their backpacks behind Brent. They followed in silence across the vast, empty airport parking lot, taking in the dry heat, smelling the dust and smoke, and seeing the termites flying around the few solar streetlights that still worked. Each was lost in his own memories and stunned by how familiar, yet different, Niamey seemed. Both were asleep 30 minutes after arriving at the safehouse.
With his three carefully selected colleagues tucked away at the safehouse, Brent checked the compound one last time, locked the doors, and turned in for what was left of the night. He woke to the sound of a 5:30 call to prayer that rang out across the city from a nearby Mosque. One by one other Mosques joined in with their own versions, making it difficult for the listener to follow any single prayer yet impossible to ignore.
He walked to the kitchen for a glass of water and found Alex brewing coffee and frying eggs. He had about ten eggs frying and offered to make some extra for Brent. Brent declined and sliced up a large mango instead.
“They’re both still sound asleep,” said Alex motioning with his head to the two rooms upstairs. He poured Brent a cup of coffee and started devouring eggs.
“I told them to sleep in,” said Brent, taking a sip of coffee. “I’ll get my things, and then we’d better get going.”
Across town, a tennis ball struck the white tape at the top of the net with a sharp “clack” and sent a plume of dust into the air. The ball fell on the server’s side and bounced off-beat of the hip-hop in the background before rolling to a stop under Kegger’s yellow Nike. Kegger was an eccentric DoD contractor with a private security firm out of Texas. Kegger had worked in Niger before, but this crew had been in country for about a year. Officially, their task order was a logistics and bodyguard detail, but in the murky world of mercenaries, Kegger was legendary for scraping up lucrative side gigs. Sketchy as he was, he had a genius for mayhem, and he could be counted on to get the job done in a hairy situation without asking a lot of questions, so his employers often looked the other way.
One of Kegger’s men by the pool hollered a crude wise crack at the boss’s lousy serve, and all the sunglasses and ball caps with him laughed and jeered between bites of messy hot dogs. Kegger smirked playfully toward the boys, then got an idea. He put on a scowl, pulled his basketball shorts up to his chest, tucked in his Lakers jersey, and turned his Tupac ball cap backwards. The fellas cracked up and stood to watch what he’d do next. Strutting back to the line, he turned suddenly and served wildly. His serve missed the whole court and stung the cloth tarp hanging over the chain link fence at the far side of the court. The guys roared with laughter and chanted “Ke-gger, Ke-gger, Ke-gger”. He raised his hands, dropped his racket, and strode triumphantly around the court until he saw Brent across the pool at the entrance of the compound.
Alex entered behind Brent. He made a point of looking around the compound directly over the top of the head of the security guard at the gate, who was about six inches shorter than he was. Kegger’s smiling men turned their heads to see what had caught their boss’s attention. Someone turned off the music and two massive men seated on the veranda near the gate stood to face the strangers.
These two were battle-worn men with grisly scars. Twisted skin zig zagged up one’s arm from his elbow and then split into a V that enveloped his shoulder. The other looked like he’d been attacked with a machete and only his thick gnarled jawbone had kept the blade from cutting off his head. Alex was as tall as both, but younger and leaner. He looked them over like a General disappointed by his worst-performing cadets.
Brent stopped when “Humpty” and “Dumpty” (as Alex later came to refer to them) stood up, and he waited for Kegger who had untucked his jersey, fixed his shorts, and was making his way around the pool. With a smile, Kegger told everyone that Brent was a friend, and he and his jolly green giant were welcome. Humpty and Dumpty sat down. Kegger turned the music back on, gave Brent a ridiculous hug muttering various welcomes, squeezed Alex’s left bicep acting impressed, and then showed them to a table beside the bar.
The table was secluded from the pool by a hedge of bougainvillea and a row of sisal plants. Overhead, a straw roof shielded them from the sun’s voracious heat. Kegger told the barman to bring brochettes, fried plantains, two beers for the men, and an apple juice for the “youngster,” Alex. Both Brent and Kegger knew the meeting would be over before the food arrived.
Kegger must have been in his fifties now, Brent guessed, but he was as lean and dangerous as ever. He might even have been described as a good-looking man, but whatever good looks he had were sour now, poisoned with years of hard liquor, nicotine, adrenaline, and greed. His skin was haggard, yet above his scarred, sunk-in cheeks, his eyes twinkled with fitful energy. Brent guessed that his body was still as lightning fast as his mind, and that no one there, except for maybe Alex, could hold his own in a knife fight against Kegger.
“Brent Cunningham,” Kegger said, starting things off. “It’s been a while. Who’s the meat sack?” he asked, looking playfully at Alex. The stereo at the bar started playing the Gnarls Barkley song Crazy, and Kegger winked at Alex.
“Watch your mouth old timer,” Alex shot back. “Brent may need you, but I don’t.”
Brent cut in. “His name is Alex. You know how I work on field trips like this. He’s the best there is right now. Listen Kegger. The office already sent you my shopping list. When and where can we pick up?”
Kegger leaned back in his chair and studied Brent. Then he said flatly, “You’re never gonna find him. A lot of slimy types have been trying, well-funded ones too.
You know, I get around pretty regular—Agadez, Zinder—and know some helpful folks. Why don’t you tell your boss to hire a real professional like me?”
“Find who?” Brent said dodging the question.
Kegger was bobbing to the song now. Amused by the situation, he sang along for a bit before returning to the conversation, “I think you’re crazy, I think you’re crazy… don’t fool around with me choir boy. I know why you’re here, but,” he paused for effect and then continued, “Dust is a ghost. What makes you think you can find him?”
“I do my homework,” Brent replied steadily. “Now, when and where?”
Kegger relented and spelled out the arrangements he and his men had made over the last few days. When he finished, Brent and Alex stood and walked to the gate. Kegger smiled and walked behind them to the bar where he turned up the music. The singer’s shrill voice sprang out of the stereo over the rumbling rhythm, “Who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are? HA, HA, HA. Bless your soul. You really think you’re in control?”
