Night of the Cobra Read online

  The sniper team stayed out all day, immobile while in the scorching sun and drenched by an afternoon deluge. Swanson saw plenty of enemy soldiers running around with guns, but the rules of engagement kept him from firing unless they shot at him first. He prayed that they would, but they didn’t. It was hard not to pull the trigger on the thugs that were the reason he was here; they stole everything they wanted, beat people mercilessly, and used starvation and disease as weapons.

  When the sun finally went down on that first day, the two weary snipers returned to the air base, where more marines had arrived. The place was filling up fast. Swanson cleaned his weapons, pulled fresh supplies, had something to eat, washed his face and hands, and immediately fell asleep amid the noise. For now, Somalia was home.

  By Monday, the secured area was bursting at the seams, and still more soldiers came in by planes every hour: mean-looking Turks and solid Saudis, laid-back Canadians, chatty Pakis, French soldiers, and Kenyans, and ever more marines, until hundreds of troops were penned like cows at the port and airfield. Swanson and his sniper teams extended their overwatch out to two thousand meters and began providing protection for foot patrols that probed into the built-up areas. The newness of being in a foreign land had already worn off, and they settled in for what had all the markings of being a long haul.

  * * *

  BY THE END OF his first week, Mogadishu had him. The place the marines now called “the Mog” hit him in the face the moment he opened his eyes every morning and rode him like a broken-down horse all day. If he got up to pee at night, it was still there. His morale sank almost with every passing hour as his world became all Mog, all day. When he turned on the radio, the Mog topped the BBC World Service. The feeling of despair was fueled by the heart-rending sights of hunger and deprivation all around, and even that grew stale. There was just too much misery out there for any individual to assimilate. It sapped the energy and soul. Staying sharp and keeping his snipers alert was getting harder to do. There was very little fighting beyond the warlords dealing with each other’s forces at night, as if a little secret war was going on right under the nose of a giant.

  Political wrangling had staved off open confrontation, and he could see the bad guys; he just couldn’t shoot them until they were dumb enough to shoot first. It was frustrating. The obviously outmatched gunmen of the warlords in Mogadishu avoided confrontation in the city and spread like rats to seek weaker prey elsewhere. In response, the operations people of Task Force Mogadishu at the airport fanned troops into the countryside as fast as they could to counter the moving bands of thugs.

  The tedium finally broke on Sunday morning, December 20, when Swanson was called to the battalion headquarters tent and told to draw equipment and pick a half dozen of his snipers. An American army unit in the town of Afgoye, twenty-five miles west in the Shabelle Valley, was receiving intermittent gunfire and wanted help. Kyle turned out his marines, and they sailed off in a pair of Humvees, all of them happy to get away from the Mog for a spell, and maybe even find a fight.

  They rolled into an oasis of peace, a lush green belt of mature agriculture that followed a river. The army officer in charge told Kyle that shots had come from a stand of trees that walled the western side of the town, so Swanson and his men spread into the area with their weapons hot. Nothing. People were going about their daily routines, and the crowded refugee feeding station was running like a machine. Army troopers were relaxed in the shade with their equipment scattered on the ground. Nobody was shooting at anybody. Swanson went back to the officer in charge.

  When the major insisted that there had been an attack, Kyle went up to a rooftop to get a better angle into the jungle. He discovered a half-dozen American women soldiers sunbathing in bras and panties. They were very unhappy that he had invaded their private space on a Sunday morning, and he was equally unhappy that he and his team had rushed twenty-five miles to answer a false alarm. Seeing the near-naked bodies of the G.I. Janes did not impress him at all. Swanson stalked back downstairs, barked a bit at the officer about lax discipline, and took his snipers home, back to the big city.

  Mogadishu had waited patiently while Swanson was gone and was ready for another round when he returned.

  * * *

  SWANSON MET THE ENEMY face-to-face two days later on a dawn patrol that went into the city. By then, the foreign armed forces had grown to become the biggest gang in town, and more marines and U.N. troops were still arriving. They owned Mogadishu.

  The marines followed a familiar street to a private compound, and the sergeant leading the patrol winked at Swanson. “You get to do the honors. I did it yesterday. He’s getting annoyed.” Swanson knocked on a door of hard dark wood. It was exactly seven o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, December 22.

  It was opened by a slim man with graying hair and a mustache, sleep still in his eyes. The warlord General Mohammed Farrah Hassan Aidid was consumed with obvious frustration. The marines had come by at this time every single morning for the past week, demonstrating that they could do as they wished in an area that he had supposedly controlled.

  “Good morning, General,” said Swanson, removing his sunglasses to give the Somali warlord a good look. He controlled a desire to smirk, and spoke with an even, polite tone. “We are just checking in with you. Is everything okay here today, sir?”

  The warlord whined through gritted teeth, “Each morning you people do this to me. Why? Why is it always me and not the others?”

  Kyle ignored the comment and touched the brim of his helmet with a mock salute. “You have a good day, sir. Please let us know if we can be of assistance.”

  The patrol moved out, leaving the warlord standing alone in the doorway. The sun rose to scald the earth, was followed by the usual afternoon rains, then a night of gunplay downtown.

  * * *

  GENERAL AIDID WAS NOT helpless, although he was being forced by circumstances to bide his time. The morning call by the marines was bothersome, but it was just another part of the greater game.

  Intel sources at the airport had been receiving reports that he had been stockpiling weapons within a walled compound during the ceasefire, in violation of the truce agreement. That the warlord had lied surprised no one; the big question was whether he would fight for the arms stash. The marines decided to seize those guns.

  The day after he had knocked on the warlord’s front door, Kyle Swanson and two of his teams went out before first light on Wednesday, December 23, and wiggled into a watch position at the walled enclosure. They were glassing for threats, and after they reported all was still at the site, a full marine platoon came in, shepherded by helicopter gunships and modified Humvees that bristled with firepower and were known as combined anti-armor teams, or CAATs. The big force that appeared as if out of thin air looked unstoppable to Swanson as he watched through his scope from a thousand yards away.

  Only it did stop—right in the shadow of the front gate. The buck lieutenant leading the patrol was brought up short by the challenge of a single Somali policeman in a light blue shirt and cap, dark slacks, and desert boots. The cop stood there with his hands on his hips, shouting that the area was private property of General Aidid and was therefore off-limits to the marines and everyone else. Swanson couldn’t believe it. The momentum had been checked and all the implied power was nullified. The gunships above did figure eights and the CAATs idled on the fringes.

  The lieutenant had been a stateside substance abuse counselor and was new to the field, but Swanson believed that was no excuse not to have blown right through this single cop. And the veteran platoon sergeant with him had let it happen!

  Swanson erupted out the hide and stormed forward, arriving almost out of breath after running the thousand yards. He ignored the reasonable lieutenant and the temporizing sergeant and yelled for the marine squad leaders to get their men going, to get inside of that walled compound with weapons ready and their eyes up. This was no friendly visit.

  A pickup truck rushed th
rough the gate, and General Aidid jumped out and began shouting at the lieutenant while Swanson screamed for the platoon to get inside. Only when the marines started moving again did Kyle turn to where Aidid was snapping at the twenty-two-year-old lieutenant. The platoon sergeant was standing back with his thumb up his butt.

  There was a flash of recognition when Aidid saw the face of Swanson, who had awakened him only a few days earlier, and then the sniper snatched the general by the shirtfront and threw him to the dirt.

  “Down on the ground! Get your ass down there! Now!!” Swanson bellowed.

  Omar Jama, who had driven the pickup truck, had stayed with it as he watched his general screech at the lieutenant, but when the other marine came up and abruptly flopped Aidid onto the ground, the Cobra broke into a run. Swanson saw him coming, dodged with a hip fake, and kicked the Cobra behind the knee as he went by, then shoved with a hard shoulder. Knocked off-balance, Omar Jama felt his collar being yanked, and then he also was chewing dirt. “You get down there, too. Both of you stay down!!” Swanson snarled as he pointed his M-16 rifle at their backs.

  Other Somalis in and around the compound watched in disbelief as their leaders sprawled ignominiously in the dirt. They were unused to any challenge, and this was unthinkable. But any idea of doing something brave vanished as the marines stormed into the compound and grabbed them, the big CAATs closing in tight and the helicopters hovering with cannons and rockets at the ready.

  The argument was over. The Somali militiamen, their toppled warlord, and his fearsome bodyguard, the Cobra, had their wrists lashed with plastic cuffs.

  Swanson took a knee beside Aidid and leaned on his rifle. “You listen to me close now, General,” he said. “There is no government in Mogadishu, but there is a new sheriff in town—and it is the United States Marine Corps. Best that you understand that right now.”

  Aidid exchanged a sharp look with the Cobra. The two powerful men had been disgraced in public, rendered helpless in mere seconds, and that rough handling might have planted seeds of doubt among some of their fighters, who either had seen or would hear about the episode. Such a disgrace could not be tolerated. This man would have to pay.

  They had read the black letters stitched to the name tag sewn on the tunic of the marine—SWANSON—and they silently vowed to remember this particular invader. When the chance came, their lost honor would be redeemed in his blood.

  Swanson knew they would hate him. He did not care.

  2

  THE STADIUM

  DECEMBER 24, 1992

  SOMALIA

  REMAINING APART FROM THE human misery in Somalia grew more difficult with each passing day for Kyle Swanson. Every night, there was gunfire deep in the bowels of the city, and each morning Swanson saw new dead bodies. The Mog was very different from real war, and it chewed at his faith in humanity. At least he and his teams were finally busy instead of just moping around for hours on end with nothing to do. The promise of action buoyed them.

  The hope to which Swanson clung like a saving rope was that the longer they were in Mogadishu, the better things seemed to get. Some order was being imposed, more kids were getting food, and more old people were receiving medical care; but the scale of the disaster was still incomprehensible.

  Another radio call for assistance came in, this one from a refugee-aid center, and Kyle rolled on it with Dave Delshay, Big Mike Mancuso, and Corporal Terry Smith. They were glad to go, since they were missing out on the action to the south, where a marine amphibious force had just pulled off a hot combat landing at the port city of Kismaayo. This was just another babysitting job, but it was better than nothing.

  The griping was normal, for the One-Seven snipers were war fighters, not policemen, and these fruitless and repetitive assignments were sandpapering away their combat readiness. They were totally unafraid of anything that General Aidid or the other warlords might have, so all four of the marines were cocky, filled with a dangerous John Wayne bravado. Two CAATs trailed their Humvees as backups, making it a sizable force for something that was actually just up the street from the airport.

  By the time they curved out of the roundabout, none of them were thinking about shooting anybody, and it had all the signs of another dry run in which the stooges would run as soon as the marines showed up. As usual, this place was also quiet, with no enemy firing anywhere. Swanson and his men stepped from their Humvee, and he waved for the CAATs to snoop about on their own until it was time to leave. It was so still that Big Mike and Terry Smith scampered up a water tower, and Swanson didn’t stop their climb, although it was a dumb war-movie kind of thing to do that would put them in an exposed position. But things were so calm that he judged they were in no real danger, and, besides, it looked sort of cool. They all would be gone in a few minutes anyway. Corporal Delshay had his weapon, so Kyle left his own long sniper rifle and personal M-16 in the seat as he went to the main building with Delshay to check in with whoever was in charge.

  The facility was one of the overwhelmed clinics, makeshift hospitals, feeding stations, and refugee camps that dotted the safer areas of Mogadishu. The front wall was pretty chewed up, but the compound seemed safe enough.

  He stopped abruptly when a woman stepped into the courtyard to meet them. She was as tall as his 5 foot 9, with high cheekbones and thick, startlingly red hair and a mouth that seemed to want to laugh. He guessed that she was about twenty-five, twenty-six. Beautiful!

  “Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said, her mind still back in the hospital, and she was also caught momentarily off guard when her sea-green eyes caught the visitor’s intense gray-greens. She had seen hundreds of military men in uniforms from all over the world, but this man surprised her with his open, confident look. It was as if the rest of Mogadishu evaporated for a micro instant and just the two of them were standing face-to-face in a bright tunnel, and slow smiles creased their tired faces. She extended her hand. “My name is Molly Egan. I’m the administrator here for the Irish Aid Society.”

  “Hi.” He took the soft hand in his own. “Sergeant Kyle Swanson, Marines. Glad to meet you” Glad? Not the word. Not even close. He didn’t want to let go. “Are you having some trouble?”

  Molly pulled her hand away first, and busily wiped it on a towel. “Sorry. I’m all messy from working in there.” The red hair bobbed toward the hospital. “Yes. There was some shooting a little while ago.” How can I prolong this? “Would you like a soda?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t know what else to say. He felt like he was back in high school, afraid to speak to the prettiest girl in the lunchroom. Swanson followed her inside. Her torn jeans and blue cotton smock were speckled with tiny droplets of old blood. “Ah. Then. You guys are okay?”

  Egan handed Swanson a Fanta orange drink, tapped out a cigarette for herself, lit it, and blew a line of smoke at the ceiling. “For now,” she said. “Those people can be a nuisance. We appreciate your chasing them away for a while.”

  The soda was warm, but her smile was magic, and he could almost feel little darts of electricity between them. “You have guards here, don’t you?” Damn. What a stupid question. Swanson studied her eyes. They reflected a vast weariness, but she wasn’t mad at his comment, which might have been taken as an insult. That was good.

  She nodded. “Yes, of course we do. Bandits show up now and then to try and steal our supplies and drugs, but our guards, local boys we hire, usually are enough to make the gangsters go away just by returning fire. We don’t always call for help.”

  Swanson thought briefly about that. This woman wasn’t afraid. Freckles. “How are things going here otherwise?”

  “Same as always, Sergeant. Any day that we feed more people than we bury is a good one. We’ve had a lot more of the good days since you guys arrived. Would you like the ten-penny tour?”

  He took a final look around. All remained quiet outside. “Sure. So does the ‘Irish Aid Society’ mean that you’re Irish?”

  “Indeed I am,” she replied
. “My people are in County Cork, close to the sea.”

  Swanson smiled. “I’m Irish, too. Well, American-Irish at least.” He blurted it out for no reason other than trying to continue the conversation. He had long ago outgrown any problems of talking with women. Until now. “My mother’s family came from Shannon. I’m from just north of Boston.” He sipped the orange drink to stop himself from babbling.

  “Swanson is an English name,” Egan said lightly, with a tilt of her head. “Although you do look Irish.”

  “How long have you been here, Doctor Egan?” he asked.

  “Only about two months now,” Molly said. Her voice had only a mild accent. “And I’m not a doctor, just a coordinator for Irish Aid. Before coming here, I was over in Uganda and, earlier, in the Balkans. There are refugees everywhere, Sergeant.” That explained the strain evident in her entire body. Kyle had seen marines get a blank thousand-yard stare after too much combat, and this girl seemed headed that way as she hopped from disaster to disaster. Humanitarian workers got the look after the hopelessness of dealing with too much tragedy. She stopped to tug a ragged red blanket over a child who was sleeping on a piece of cardboard. Her movement was soft, gentle.