CI: Mission Liberty

by David DeBatto, Pete Nelson

Genres: Literary Fiction; War & Military; Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

This third thrilling espionage novel in the exciting CI series finds special agent David DeLuca up against those responsible for mass suffering in the war-torn African country of Niger. Civil war has broken out in the West African country of Liger, where violence and famine are rampant. Nearly two million people are forced into refugee camps. Accusations abound that atrocities in the region are perpetrated by both government and rebel forces, including mass executions, rapes, and mutilations. The Pentagon fears an alliance between rebels and terrorist groups will lead to more violence in neighboring countries, and send the USS Cowper and Glover to the African coast to begin Operation Liberty. David DeLuca and his elite Army Counterintelligence team must help to stabilize the region and find out who among the various groups in Liger poses the greatest threat. But as DeLuca and his team soon find out, in such a volatile environment, it's difficult to determine friend from foe.

Release date: May 9, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 369

Sample

A1 International

US forces poised off coast of Liger

By Roddy Hamilton ASSOCIATED PRESS


BAKU DA’AL, Liger—Over five thousand United States Marines from the 3rd Marine Division, out of Ft. Bragg, North Carolina,
are waiting 10 miles off the coast of Liger aboard the landing ships USS Cowper and Glover for final word from the White House to begin Operation Liberty. In addition, 10,000 reservists from the 27th Mountain Infantry
Division at Ft. Drum, New York, are on standby.


The White House has said General Thomas Mfutho, leader of the Ligerian People’s Liberation Front, has until midnight Saturday
to pull his troops out of the capital city of Port Ivory to positions held as of the first of the month, and to honor the
cease-fire agreement currently in place, or the president will give the order for U.S. troops to come to the assistance of
beleaguered President Daniel Bo’s government.


“We want General Mfutho and the others to understand that the president’s resolve in these matters is as strong as it was
in Afghanistan and in Iraq,” said White House spokesman Daryl Firth. “We will not sit by and watch while another Rwanda transpires.”


Civil war in the West African country of Liger began six months ago in the famine-plagued northern region of Kum when rebel
faction leader John Dari accused Bo of using food as a weapon.


The Pentagon fears that an alliance between rebel forces and the group IPAB or Islamic Pan-African Brotherhood may lead to
wider-spread violence in neighboring countries. IPAB may be associated with Al Qaeda, says Marine commander four-star General
John Kissick.


“We’re here both to provide air and logistic support and to put boots on the ground, wherever they need to go. We’ve shown,
in Afghanistan and again in Iraq, that quick decisive U.S. military action is the best way to avoid unnecessary loss of lives.”


The war escalated a month ago when President Bo sought to nationalize the Ligerian oil industry. Liger is the United States’
fourth-largest supplier of oil, pumping at a prewar rate of over 1,200,000 barrels a day. Production has dropped to under
half a million barrels per day since the fighting began.


Liger was a British colony from 1674 until 1962, when a bloodless revolution left King Mufesi Asabo in power. Asabo was dethroned
and placed under house arrest in 1972 by General Sesi Mutombo, who was displaced in 1980 in a bloody coup by President Daniel
Bo, Sr., father of the current president. Strife in Liger has generally been between the president’s mainly Christian Fasori
tribe, in the south, and the traditionally Muslim Kum people in the north, with the Animist-Christian-Muslim Da people of
central Liger caught in the middle. Fears of religious genocides are ever present (see story p. B1).


“In order for democracy to flourish and take root in West Africa or elsewhere on the African continent,” said U.S. Ligerian
Ambassador Arthur Ellis, “the people on both sides of the issue need to realize that without dialogue, there can be no freedom.”


“Despite its oil wealth, Liger is one of the poorest, most corrupt countries on earth,” says People Against Yet Another War
president Carol Kennedy. “There’s never going to be democracy in Liger until Ligerian resources are more equitably divided
among its people.”


Aggravating Liger’s political difficulties are five consecutive years of drought and a plague of locusts that have left the
northern regions of the country devastated by famine and disease. Nearly two million people have been forced from their homes
and into refugee camps, where they’re preyed upon by bandits or recruited by IPAB. Accusations of atrocities in the region
perpetrated by both sides, including mass executions, rape camps, and mutilations, are unconfirmed, according to a State Department
spokesman. ♦


A1 International

U.S. Ambassador Ellis, staff evacuate embassy

By Kurt Hess REUTERS


PORT IVORY, Liger—In advance of the arrival of rebel troops from the Ligerian People’s Liberation Front, under the command
of General Thomas Mfutho, the decision was made late last night to move American Ambassador Arthur Ellis, his staff, and his
contingent of Marine guards from the U.S. embassy to the Castle of St. James, a former slave-trading stronghold.


“We decided rather than take unnecessary chances on the safety of our people, we could relocate to a more defensible position,”
says State Department spokesman Dennis Abney. “No people, papers, or documents were left behind.”


The embassy came under threat when angry mobs began to surround it a month ago. Before that, it was the site of frequent protests
against United States involvement and international oil interests.


Government troops under the command of General Kwesi Emil-Ngwema are believed to be positioned just west of town, ten miles
from the castle. Also in Liger are 300 African Union troops, commanded by General Ismael Osman, and 500 United Nations peacekeepers
led by Belgian General Rene LeClerc.


“Our plan is for the safe and orderly withdrawal of embassy personnel in the next few days, depending on developments in the
city,” said a representative of Marine General John Kissick. “Captain Allen, of the embassy’s Marine contingent, assures me
that his people are fully in control of the situation on the ground.”


“It’s tempting to draw parallels between this event and the fall of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, or even the evacuation of
the U.S. embassy in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War,” says Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tai Rutledge,
“but the circumstances are entirely different. We still have a friendly government in power, not to mention 5,000 Marines
offshore. When order is restored, and we expect it will be soon, we’ll know more about what’s going on, but we don’t think
the ambassador or his staff are in any danger. We are in communication.” ♦


B1 National

President’s spiritual “guru” still missing

By Madeleine Stern HOUSTON CHRONICLE


HUMBOLDT, Texas—“He’ll be back,” says Alice Dunn of First Baptist Church in this dusty east Texas town of 6,000. “If you’re
a person of faith, you have to believe that the Lord is watching over him.”


Dunn’s pastor at First Baptist on Plain Street, the Reverend Andrew Rowen, disappeared two weeks ago while touring the central
part of war-torn West African nation Liger. Having once served as a missionary in Liger for the Baptist church, Rowen, a friend
of the president and frequent White House guest, returned to the country in hopes of fostering peace. He was last seen leaving
a refugee camp in a white Land Rover, accompanied by soldiers from the African Union.


“We’re still awaiting word,” says State Department representative Sabina Lake. “Unfortunately, communications in Liger right
now are so poor that it’s possible Reverend Rowen doesn’t even know we’re looking for him.”


Rowen received the nickname of the President’s Guru after converting the former Texas governor to born-again Christianity
in 1995. Rowen gave the prayer at the president’s first and second inaugurals.


Critics have said they’re afraid that the president has made this both a holy war and a personal mission to rescue his close
friend and advisor.


“That is patently ridiculous,” says Lake. “First of all, the president needs the approval of Congress before he can declare
war on a sovereign nation. There are no personal wars.


“Second of all, we don’t even know that Rowen is missing.”

“It’s a matter of great concern,” said Minority Whip Senator Lester Solomon (D., IL), “that we should even give the appearance
of waging a holy crusade of any kind.”


Solomon is making reference to a statement by the president yesterday, when he said, “This is not a holy war, but our cause
is holy. Freedom is sacred. Liberty is holy.”


“I think if we have to send troops and our boys have to die to protect Christians, then we have to do it,” says First Baptist
parishioner Leon Spivy. “Look at it the other way—would we turn our backs on people, simply because of their religion? I don’t
think so.”


“I went to high school with Andy Rowen,” says Humboldt mayor Ray Lamont. “I know that if anybody could survive something like
this, he could. He’s a strong man.”


Rowen was born in neighboring Ghana, where both his parents were missionaries from 1951 to 1962. He attended Harvard from
1968 to 1971, where he and the president were roommates. ♦


THE CAR BOMB HEADING FOR THE U.S. EMBASSY, a fifteen-year-old Isuzu passenger van carrying two sixty-four-gallon drums marked
“ammonium nitrate,” enough to sink an aircraft carrier, was driven by a young man wearing a vest that appeared to be packed
with C4 explosives. He was joined on his mission by four men in ski masks carrying AK-47s and glancing nervously at the mobs
that were throwing stones and looting stores and burning everything that had the taint of “foreigners.” A fifth man rode on
the roof, grabbing the roof rack for support whenever the vehicle hit a pothole or crossed one of the open sewers.


Down an alley, they saw a group of men with machetes chasing three boys who slipped through a hole in a fence. At the next
corner, they were slowed in their progress when four women with babies strapped to their backs crossed in front of them, carrying
portable stereos still in their boxes. The palm-lined avenue called Presidential Way was strewn with debris, the smoking shells
of burned and overturned cars, the blackened armor from what used to be a military half-track with two burned bodies falling
from the back, one corpse with its head intact and one without. Groups of children dressed in cast-off clothing donated by
American charities, wearing T-shirts bearing logos for Georgetown University or faded images of Britney Spears, huddled in
doorways, aiming toy rifles and broomsticks at the passing vehicles and laughing. Mixed with smoke and cordite and the pungent
aroma of raw sewage flowing in the gutters was the faint smell of tear gas in the air, lingering in the areas where government
troops had beaten a retreat in the face of the onslaught. Uncontrollable mobs now surged through the streets of Port Ivory,
driven forward by rebel troops in green forest camo uniforms and red berets. Many of the regular rebel forces hadn’t been
paid in weeks and now took their compensation in the traditional way of conflict, seizing whatever they could load into their
Jeeps and trucks or carry in their arms, and in whatever pleasures could be gained along the way.


The driver of the Isuzu, an Arab man in his early twenties, slowed as they passed the British embassy, where thick black clouds
of smoke poured from the former colonial governor’s mansion beyond the cast iron fence, the fire not enough to deter the gangs
of looters darting in and out of the building, braving the flames in search of treasure.


The Isuzu slowed again as it approached the American embassy, on the opposite side of Presidential Way from the British embassy.
Their target was Ambassador Arthur Ellis, but they feared they were too late, the grounds of the American compound overrun
by Ligerians and rebel troops, the top corner of the building blown away where a shell from a seized Ligerian tank had detonated,
the windows all broken, pieces of roof tile scattered across the yard. A thick black plume of smoke poured from inside the
embassy, the image captured by a film crew with Belgian flags taped to their shirts. There was a large U.S.-made M-113 military
transport parked in front of the gates, where six men in green uniforms and red berets fired their rifles in the air in celebration,
a response that was returned by the man on the roof of the van, raising his AK-47 in the air in a gesture of victory.


A man whose uniform bore the insignia of a captain approached the van, smiling, his eyes hidden behind his wraparound sunglasses,
his machine gun hanging casually from a strap over his shoulder.


“Where is the ambassador?” the driver of the van asked the captain in accented English. “We come for the ambassador.”

“They moved him,” the captain said. “I don’t know when.”

“Where did they move him?” the driver asked, at which point the captain pointed down the road with his gun.

“To the castle,” he said. “They could not defend this place. We were too many. Too strong! They have their Marines, but not
so many. We have them up a tree, man.”


“I will see,” the terrorist leader said. He made a brief inspection of the embassy. In the ambassador’s office, he found shredded
papers, a wastebasket in which documents had been used to light a fire, and atop the fire, burned and melted CDs and videotapes.
All had been destroyed. He returned to the van. The massive Castle of St. James loomed at the far end of Presidential Way,
at the opposite end of the esplanade from the presidential palace, which was also under siege.


“Can you take us there?” he asked the captain. “To the castle?” The captain nodded, glancing inside the van at the drums of
explosives in the back. He ran to the transport and ordered his men to take their guns and get in. The troops moved slowly,
too drunk to move any faster. The leader of the car bombers saw a man dump a half dozen empty beer cans out the rear of the
truck in front of them.


“We have an escort,” the man in the front seat said.

“Praise Allah,” a voice from the backseat added. “God is great.”

They heard machine-gun fire from inside the soccer stadium, an open-roofed ring of concentric concrete risers where the banks
of lights already blazed white as the twilight approached. There was no telling who was being killed inside the stadium or
how many, though the men in the van saw a half dozen orange school buses parked just inside the gates, as well as another
dozen military transports. Throngs of barefoot onlookers pressed up against the fence that enclosed the parking lot to see
if they could get a glimpse of what was going on inside, with mothers crying out for their sons and wives crying out for their
husbands.


The Castle of St. James loomed immense above the town, originally a trading outpost built in 1534 by the Portuguese and later
captured by the Dutch and then by the British, both powers adding to its original fortifications, though in each case, the
main defenses were focused inland, to protect the occupants of the castle from attack by Africans, and not toward the sea
where an attack could come from rival colonial powers. It stood on a natural mount, its outer bastions and casements forming
a wall that girded the fortress on three sides, its fourth side backed against the sea atop a natural rock precipice where
the wild surf from the Bight of Benin pounded on the foundation and the rocks below. A barbican village had grown up around
the castle, where Fasori traders did their business with the Europeans, first in ivory, then in gold, then in human beings,
and now it formed the oldest part of the city. Cannons from inside the fortress had destroyed the town of Port Ivory, or parts
of it, on three separate occasions over the centuries, but the city was always rebuilt, brown and gray houses of wattle and
daub and cinder block with red tile and corrugated tin roofs, open stalls, street vendors, shops, and merchants, the air hazy
and stinking of kerosene cook fires and curry, car exhausts and the open sewers that ran down both sides of the streets in
shallow gutters, and everywhere, chickens, goats, sheep, donkeys, and mangy short-haired dogs with curly tails. And rats.
Several shops near the castle were on fire, filling the air with black smoke and an acrid stench.


The M-113 parted the crowds, the soldiers in it occasionally firing their rifles in the air in warning. Some who saw the Isuzu
van behind the transport, filled with men in masks, seemed bewildered, while others cheered and blew kisses. The truck stopped
at the base of a long curving stone ramp leading uphill for fifty yards to the castle’s main portcullis. The gatehouse forming
an outwork at the base of the ramp had been seized, with loudspeakers set up atop one of the turrets, from which Radio Liger
blared, inciting the crowd, a voice saying, “Kill them, kill them all, you have much work to do…”


The captain walked from the transport back to the van. He was smoking a cigar. When he offered one to the man in the van’s
passenger seat, the man refused.


“We have machine guns and RPGs on the roofs surrounding the castle,” the captain said, “and many SAM-7s hidden. SAM-9s. We
think they will send their helicopters, and when they do, we will shoot them all down.”


“Where are your SAMs?” the Arab in the passenger seat said in Arabic. The captain looked confused, so the man repeated the
question in accented English.


“We have one in the church steeple, there,” the captain said, pointing with his cigar, “and one is in the mayor’s office,
right there. And we have another in the red truck over there. That one. Yes. I chose the locations myself.”


“And the men firing them, they’ve been trained? They’re not your children warriors—they’re actual soldiers?”

“Oh, yes,” the captain said. “They are my finest. Handpicked.”

“You’ve done well,” the Arab said. “Keep them there. Now move your truck, please.”

“What will you do?” the captain asked.

“We came for the ambassador,” the Arab said. “We have his family. He has said if we release them, he will take their place.
Move the truck now.”


The captain gave orders, and the M-113 was moved. The man atop the van attached a large white flag to the barrel of his rifle,
and then the Isuzu began to inch forward up the ramp. The curtain wall forming the outer bailey was lower than the bulwark
inside, allowing the American soldiers visible at the rampart’s embrasures to shoot over it, if they chose to, but they held
their fire. The crowd below watched in anticipation. Many backed away, expecting a massive explosion as word spread that a
car bomb had penetrated the American defenses. The Arab in the passenger seat saw a pair of fifty-millimeter guns mounted
atop the parapet guarding the main gate and told the driver to slow down. When the gates opened, the van drove slowly through,
and then the gates closed behind it.


The driver parked in the inner ward, just in front of the castle keep, and then the men got out of the van. They were met
by a pair of Marines, who escorted them into the historical museum’s main exhibit room. Ambassador Ellis, wearing a helmet
and a flak jacket, accompanied by a half dozen Marine bodyguards, stood in front of a large glass exhibit case, inside which
was displayed a long flowing garment called, according to the brass plaque at the top, the Royal Sun Robe, worn, historically,
by a succession of Fasori kings. The man who’d been riding in the passenger seat took off his ski mask, saluted, and extended
his hand to the ambassador.


“Special Agent David DeLuca, U.S. Army counterintelligence, Team Red,” he said. Some of the soldiers looking on were surprised
to notice that one of the “men” in the ski masks was in fact a woman. “Thanks for not shooting us. I wasn’t sure you got our
message. My driver is Agent Zoulalian. This is Agent Sykes, Agent Vasquez, and Agent MacKenzie. Sorry we weren’t able to visit
you under happier circumstances. Your wife and kids are fine, by the way, but the cover story is that we’re swapping them
for you, so they’ve been kept out of sight on the carrier.”


“This is Captain Allen, in charge of my security detail,” Ambassador Ellis said. “Sorry we had to leave the embassy. What’s
the plan? They’ve been jamming my goddamn SATphone.”


“Who do you have here for staff?” DeLuca asked, scanning the massive stone walls. It was the kind of place where a few Marines
with machine guns could hold off an entire army, for a while, anyway. He could hear the staccato stutter of gunfire beyond
the castle walls, the voice from the loudspeakers at the gatehouse muffled, as if coming from a pair of headphones left on
a pillow.


“Just my secretary,” Ellis said. “Everybody else got out. What’s the situation at the embassy?”

DeLuca shook his head.

“How about the British embassy?”

Again DeLuca shook his head.

“The British pulled out yesterday and lost seven men trying.”

“I’m blind here, DeLuca—fill me in. Why can’t I use my phone?”

“We believe they’re using U.S. jamming equipment we sold the government,” DeLuca said. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Where’s General Ngwema? What’s Osman doing? Where’s LeClerc?”

“LeClerc can’t move until the Security Council says he can,” DeLuca said. “Osman’s AU forces are waiting to hear from Addis
Ababa, but I don’t think they have what they need, even if they get clearance. Most of the city’s Christians have fled. Ngwema’s
holding the ground west of town. We think the majority of the refugees are behind him.”


“Why isn’t he moving?” Ambassador Ellis said. “What’s he waiting for?”

DeLuca shrugged.

“He might not be waiting for anything. He might be protecting the oil fields and letting the city fall. We’re not sure just
what his mind is.”


“Bo?”

“President Bo is in the presidential compound, which, from the looks of it, is more strongly fortified than this place,” DeLuca
said. “We can debrief on the carrier if you want, sir, but I’m not sure I’m the person to do it, and I’m quite sure this isn’t
the best time or place.”


“Why did they send you?” the ambassador said. “No offense, but there are only four of you.”

“Five,” DeLuca said. “We couldn’t do anything until we had more intel.” He turned to the Marine captain. “We want to fly in
a couple of jollies for you and your men with CAS and AI but we weren’t sure what your ADOCS were,” DeLuca told Captain Allen.


“We lost prepositioning along with our APS grids when the embassy fell,” Captain Allen said. “I have a lieutenant who served
with a COLT in Kabul as the ‘lino’ and a sergeant who spent a week with a FIST team, but we could use an artillery intelligence
officer for the DISE. We took a G/VLDD (he pronounced it “gee-vlad”) off a Hummer and mounted it at the top of the turret
but it’s not going to be much use without the pulse codes.”


“Agent Zoulalian has the codes,” DeLuca said, turning to his driver. “Run upstairs and program the laser. Number one is the
church steeple, two is the mayor’s office, and three is the red truck parked across from the gatehouse.”


Zoulalian took off on the double. Captain Allen looked at DeLuca quizzically.

“We found a rebel captain who was only too eager to brag about where he put his SAMs,” DeLuca explained. “I think the intel
is good, but my worry is that he wasn’t telling me everything. That and the RPGs—what’s your sense there?”


“We haven’t seen much, but I’m sure they have ’em,” Allen said. “The question’s what we can suppress.”

“Shock and awe,” DeLuca said. “Works for me.”

“Plain English, gentlemen,” the ambassador said. “I know I’m a civilian, but I’m still in charge here.”

DeLuca’s orders had been to take charge if he had to, but for now he could let Ellis continue under the illusion that he was
in control.


“I was asking Captain Allen if he had any deep ops coordination system,” DeLuca said. “He told me he has a man who served
as a liaison officer with a combat ops laser team and another man who served with a fire support team. A gee-vlad is a ground/vehicular
laser locator designator—that’s the laser we use to paint targets for the smart bombs. He took one off a Humvee and mounted
it on a tripod on the tower. The rebels have three Soviet shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles, in the steeple, the mayor’s
office, and the red truck parked by the gates. The lasers emit a pulsed code to tell the bombs where to go. My sergeant is
upstairs programming the codes into the laser. What we’re going to do is blow those three things up and then fly in a couple
of helicopters…”


“Jollies?”

“Yes, sir,” DeLuca continued, “under close air support and air interdiction. Noise and smoke. With minimal collateral, if
we’re lucky. They’re going to get the Marines out, but what we don’t know about are rocket-propelled grenades, which can still
down a helicopter.”


“It sounds risky,” Ambassador Ellis said.

“It is risky,” DeLuca said. “That’s why we’re going to take you out a safer way.”

“Which is?”

“The same way we came in,” DeLuca said. “You look like you’re about a forty-four regular, am I right?”

Deluca pulled the abaya he was wearing over his head. Beneath it, he wore his “second chance” ballistic body armor, but beneath that he wore dress
pants and shoes and a white shirt (soaked with sweat) with a red bowtie of the sort that Ambassador Ellis was famous for wearing,
his identifiable trademark. Back home, the only time DeLuca ever wore suits was when he had to testify in court in the trial
of somebody he’d arrested. He asked the ambassador if he could borrow his sport coat. The ambassador complied. Over the sport
coat, DeLuca donned the bomber’s vest that Zoulalian had rigged from a Kevlar flak jacket, a spare set of distributor wires,
and six cans of black Play-Doh, but it looked real. DeLuca bade Ambassador Ellis to don the flak jacket, the abaya, and a ski mask and then handed him an AK-47.


“Is it loaded?” the ambassador asked.

“It is,” DeLuca replied patiently to an incredibly stupid question. “But if we do this right, nobody’s going to fire a shot.
In fact, they’re going to cheer you as you leave. I’ll bet you weren’t expecting that.”


“We’re done setting up the Mark-10s,” MacKenzie reported, referring to the oil-drum-sized smoke bombs that had been disguised
as explosives in the back of the phony car bomb, one in the near corner of the inner bailey and the second in a bartizan upwind
from the keep. “Dan’s setting the delays.”


“We’ve got a J-STAR zeroed with a Hellfire on the jamming gear they’re operating, in a building about a block from here,”
DeLuca told Allen as he climbed onto the roof of the van. “Once that goes, your coms should work. You’ll hear it when it does.
Fire support will call you at that point. It’s going to happen fast.” DeLuca saw Zoulalian returning at a quick jog. “You
all done upstairs?”


“Roger that—locked and loaded,” Zoulalian said, turning to Vasquez, who’d resumed his position atop the van. “You wanna drive?”

“I’m good here,” Hoolie replied, raising his AK-47 and setting the safety, testing the trigger to make sure the safety had
engaged. “How often do I get the chance to take my team leader hostage?”


DeLuca turned his back to Hoolie and placed his hands together. Hoolie used a pair of flex cuffs to bind DeLuca’s hands behind
his back, but with the plastic teeth filed off s. . .