“Which is possible, given that he needs to maintain a low profile in government-controlled areas.”
“Possible,” Jo Ann agreed, “but I don’t see it. If Usman is conducting an attack it’s going to be something big, and that means he’s traveling with his troops. So my concern is whether David has the restraint to call off the hit if he finds himself vastly outnumbered. In the past, he’s demonstrated an affinity for biting off more than he can chew, and then choking on it.”
“Don’t I know it,” Duchess muttered, then picked up her hand mic to transmit.
“Suicide Actual, this will have to be a mobile vehicle interdiction. My staff will prepare a target packet on the stretch of highway in question. Be advised, I require one vehicle to follow Usman out of Bauchi so we can correlate a team tracker with his cell phone for PID. Then, and only then, will I transmit approval for the kill.”
After pausing to take a final breath, she concluded, “Until then, you are cleared to relocate your team to the vicinity of Jos.”
5
I watched the headlights crossing the two-lane highway beyond my windshield, the view partially obscured by the patch of trees we’d backed our vehicle into.
Keying my command radio, I said, “Raptor Nine One, this is Suicide Actual. Comms check.”
This ostensibly routine procedure was, in this case, code for do you have a fucking update for me?
That particular detail wasn’t lost on Duchess, who responded in kind, “Have you loud and clear. When I have an update, you’ll know—Usman hasn’t activated his cell phone.”
“Copy. Standing by.”
I released my transmit button and breathed a long sigh. We’d staged at nightfall and remained in place for over an hour, and I was growing more uncomfortable with each passing minute.
Behind the wheel of our stationary truck, Reilly looked over and asked, “Why should it be Worthy? I’ve always wanted to do a PIT maneuver.”
“We all did them,” Ian pointed out from the backseat, “in our last driving course.”
“But that’s not real world stuff, man.”
I turned to face him in the darkness.
“Worthy’s got the most tactical mobility experience. He was a shoo-in. And take it easy, you’ll still be in on the demolition derby—”
“As a backup.” He shook his head sadly and repeated, “I’ve always wanted to do a PIT maneuver.”
Behind me, Ian said, “At least you got to drive. The backseats in this thing are like asphalt.”
Practically every other vehicle we’d seen in Nigeria was some flavor of Toyota, and it was no surprise that the humble Agency fleet we had access to included a selection of Camrys, Highlanders, and 4Runners.
We’d selected the SUV option for tonight’s operation, with me, Reilly, and Ian making up the primary assault force. Worthy was behind the wheel of a second 4Runner with Cancer riding shotgun, and they held the unenviable task of following Usman out of Bauchi to achieve positive identification. Once that occurred, my truck would pick up their trail. When Usman was ripe for the picking on the open road, we’d use the same procedure that police used to end high-speed chases.
Worthy would employ a maneuver known as the PIT—pursuit intervention technique—to ram Usman’s vehicle into a spin. Then Worthy would pin the target car from one end, while my 4Runner did the same from the opposite side; after that, it was a matter of everyone bailing out and opening fire. In the best-case scenario, the entire takedown would last sixty to ninety seconds.
And in the worst-case scenario, Usman would be traveling with too much security for us to risk engaging him.
Until we found out either way, I felt vaguely troubled that we didn’t have Tolu present. Nigeria spoke over 500 languages, and while the official one was English, we were in a sufficiently rural area to make that assurance questionable if we encountered any locals.
But expats were generally not harassed by police, and ultimately I’d made the decision to have Tolu stage in the media van outside Zaranda, a highway town to our southwest. That provided us enough flexibility to exfil the team in the event one or both of our interdiction vehicles was disabled, and given the fact that no one had so much glanced in our direction since we’d been staged, I was feeling fairly good about that choice, if nothing else about this situation.
Before I could ponder that thought any further, Duchess transmitted in an urgent tone.
“Usman is on the move—he’s already on the A3 Highway west of Bauchi, now passing through the town of Miri.”
Worthy keyed the ignition of his 4Runner before David had finished speaking his transmission.
“Racegun, get moving—he’s already in Miri, headed west. You need to haul ass.”
Cancer tossed his cigarette out the passenger window, rolling it up as Worthy racked the transmission into gear.
They peeled out of the hotel parking lot, whipping a right turn onto the highway and cutting off a passenger van before Worthy floored the accelerator. He registered Cancer adjusting the HK417 rifle from its barrel-down position between his legs, then consulting his phone as he responded to David over the team frequency.
“We’re on the move. Are they going to relay the cell phone location or what? I don’t see his tracker on my map.”
“She’s working on it; should come through any second now.”
A moment later, Cancer replied, “All right, I see it now—Jesus, this guy’s already cleared Miri.”
“It’s worse than that,” David continued. “There’s a delay on the uplink, so depending on his rate of speed he could be a few hundred meters ahead of whatever you see on your phone.”
Cancer said to Worthy, “You don’t step on it, he’s going to pass David’s truck before we get to him.”
“I am stepping on it,” Worthy said, “and I thought he was supposed to turn on his phone before he left Bauchi.”
“What’s life without a few surprises? Looks like he’s four klicks ahead of us, passing through Dungel.”
The speedometer needle glided past 145 kilometers per hour, and Worthy whipped into the oncoming lane to pass a commuter van. Traffic was sparse at this hour of night, and Worthy weaved his way around a slow-moving pickup as his 4Runner struggled to gain speed at the upper edges of its range.
He blazed through the highway towns of Miri and Dungel without issue, the clusters of roadside buildings a blur as he maneuvered past civilian vehicles. Then they were in the open savanna, the 4Runner’s headlights flaring across clusters of trees and scrub brush. The highway was straight and the right lane clear, so Worthy pushed the truck as fast as it could go—the speedometer reached 170 kilometers per hour before hovering there, the engine maxed out with a steady roar as Cancer raised his voice to be heard.
“Less than a klick remaining—that must be him.”