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Especially since we’d been hunting him the better part of the last decade.
“When exactly was this taken?” asked Gage.
“Two days ago,” Ramos grunted. He pointed at a time stamp. “Fifty-one hours, to be precise.”
The Rear Admiral scratched at his salt-and-pepper beard, which had a lot more salt in it than the last time I saw him. He looked tired. I guess at a certain point we all got tired. It just takes some of us longer to get there than others.
“So when are we getting him?” demanded Devyn, anxiously. “We should leave right now.”
Ramos shook his head. “No one’s getting anyone,” he said. “Not just yet, anyway.”
Maverick threw up his hands. “And why the fuck not?”
“Because there’sprocedure, that’s why,” Ramos snapped. “There’s rules to follow. Yes, we have confirmation that Bashir’s back in Somalia. But that’s all we have right now, until the rest of the intel comes in.”
The room was too hot, too small, too plain for my liking. I could never understand the mindset when it came to shit like this. We’d flown all the way to Point Loma for an emergency briefing, only to be stuffed into a closet the size of a bathroom.
“He could be halfway across Africa by the time the intel comes in,” said Devyn, in what we always called his ‘diplomatic’ voice. “Do you really think it’s wise to wait?”
“It’s a lot smarter than rushing in and finding a bunch of candy bar wrappers and empty water jugs,” snarled Ramos, “then getting rained on by mortar fire.” The Admiral’s expression went dark. “Do I have to remind you about Damascus? That was a goddamn mess! A total clusterfuck if ever I saw one!”
Damascus. Of course he’d bring it up again. Never one of the other two-dozen successful missions we’d run for him. No. Always Damascus.
“You know how many months I spent explaining what the hell happened,” Ramos shouted, “to half the fucking command? And all because we didn’t wait. We dropped you in there guns blazing, dicks in your hot little hands, only to have—”
“Alright, alright,” Gage assuaged. “Let it go.”
Ramos laughed manically. “Let itgo?”
“We get it,” I reiterated. “Trust us.”
“No, youdon’tget it!” Ramos countered loudly. “Because if you got it, you wouldn’t be asking. You wouldn’t be pressing for—”
“Damascus was a longshot right from the beginning,” Devyn jumped in. “A desperate fantasy based on bad intelligence, pushed by some higher-ups hellbent on making a name for themselves.”
The Rear Admiral’s mouth twisted to one side. He couldn’t argue. That much I knew.
“He’s right,” I said calmly. “Things got rushed all around.”
Ramos had been pacing the room ever since we showed up. Only now did he finally stop.
“Look, we’re all on the same side,” he eventually relented. “We all want to nail this asshole.”
“Then let’s nail him.”
“We will,” the Admiral assured us. “But it’s not just a matter of locking down his whereabouts, it’s also confirming he’s accessible.”
Gage hissed and folded his arms. “You mean making sure he’s not hiding out in the back of an orphanage, or camping at some children’s hospital.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Bashir was slippery, but mostly because of his dirty tactics. The man had spent his whole life surrounding himself with innocents and incidental targets. We’d watched helplessly as he planted mines and IED’s along roads leading into whatever city he’d hole up in next, then move on without caring about the havoc and collateral damage caused afterward.
In short, we’d cleaned up too many of his messes already.
“We need to get him sooner rather than later,” Maverick advised. “His army never shrinks, it only grows.”
Ramos’ mouth curled in bitter agreement. “That’s the problem. He’s recruited enough children from nearby villages over the past decade to create a whole second army.”
