The Doctrine of Presence. Benjamin Vance

get a chance to.” Andy cut in with, “Those babies hold three-hundred gallons of diesel and are full. You …” By then, I believe I was shaking. I cut him off with, “I don’t give a fuck, Andy… you know what I’m talking about!”

      One could have heard a mouse fart. I knew we were the only ones who could perform the mission at that point, and I wanted Andy to know that if he purposely screwed us we would not forget. The only reason I saw to trust him was Leo. They went way back. But in the world of spooks, that didn’t mean squat. Leo could just as easily be collateral damage in an international “plausible deniability” scenario. We would be on our own as soon as that plane left the ground and I wanted Andy to know we knew it.

      Andy stared at me and declared, “I will do everything in my power to ensure you guys don’t get left behind. I have never done that and I never will; this you gotta believe.”

      I said, “Okay, I guess we better get to work. Those babies should not be sitting on the runway when the sun comes up. I would like to brief our African employees and then we can get moving. Let’s see if they have some dinner for Tink.” I’ll be damned if she didn’t open her eyes and look at me when I mentioned her name.

      13

      We moved our new vehicles under cover of darkness. We had basic supplies, and off-loaded what we had on the two heavily loaded SUVs and put it in, and on, the Unimogs before we left the air strip. It hardly made a dent in the spacious interiors of the big vehicles. Fredo, Leo and I drove a Unimog each, and they were a pleasure. The empty SUVs were left on the air strip where Andy assured us they would be safe. After we were sure our large vehicles would be far enough away from prying eyes the next morning, we put them in a “U” arrangement facing out for quick movement.

      We fed Tink, fed ourselves and bedded down for what was left of the night. Our employees chose to stay in one vehicle, which I approved conditionally, and the rest of us split the other two. Gimp and I bunked in the same vehicle. The next morning broke cool and clear with somber red clouds to the west. Exotic smells are the thing I remember most about Africa, especially coffee perking over burning exotic woods in the morning. I heard the pleasingly familiar moans and groans and cursing of men getting down from the Unimog ladders and hitting the ground, heading for a bush to relieve bladders. Somehow … even then I sensed we were home.

      I gathered more wood for a small fire, since nothing tastes better than coffee over a campfire. I guess everyone else agreed. Apparently N’tolo, Michaele and Stretch were coffee drinkers as well. They brought the big blue coffee pot filled with water and placed a grate over the fire. The men seemed to work as one person. It was a new technique I hadn’t seen from them before. In fact I had not seen them work together at all. I think our new status impressed them … profoundly. They weren’t alone; none of us had ever seen an outfit like ours.

      We had a leisurely breakfast; well some of us did. Fredo was worried about Tink’s milk spoiling. I told him to put it in the refrigerator. He politely asked, “What fuckin’ refrigerator?”

      “The one in your Unimog, under the second bunk. It’s horizontal, and OD green. Did anyone open the cab-over locked hatch?”

      Fredo turned and practically ran up the ladder into the big shelter mounted on and over the Unimog cabs. I heard him babbling to Tink after he got inside. Leo said, “Daiwee, we need to go over these rigs with a fine-toothed comb, so everyone knows what is what before we pull our first mission.”

      “Yeah, and I want Fredo to find the locators on these things and disable ‘em. I don’t want anyone knowing where we are, unless they have satellite viewing capability or we want ‘em to. Do we have commo with Andy?”

      “Yeah, he left us a frequency to call him on, why?”

      “Once we get the locators out of the mogs we can identify the tops of the mogs in some way so our friendlies can ID us from a satellite if they want. Al Qaeda is not stupid.”

      Once breakfast was cleaned up, we toured our new homes. One was a bit different. By chance, it was the one I drove. All three had four bunk spaces; two permanent and two quickly convertible, sort of like a Recreation Vehicle. There was a small stove, bathroom, refrigerator and heater, lots of storage and over-the-cab space. There were also large camouflaged steel cargo corrals on each roof with a steel access ladder. I could see where a civilian design would sleep six or eight people.

      In two of the Unimogs, the space above the cab was filled with night vision devices, scopes, camoflage masks, mosquito nets, wet weather gear, and weapons and ammo; lots of weapons and ammo. Everything was in slide out drawers and multiple compartments. Not a single round nor weapon had any identification stamped scratched or machined. It was definitely spook stuff; we were the spooks. On the mog I drove, the space was filled with sophisticated communications devices from squad band headsets to satellite cell phones and area radar warning devices. Fredo took an inventory of the commo devices. He was like a kid at Christmas, explaining everything to Tinker Belle mostly.

      After a cursory inventory, we drove to a more remote area of the park, and closer to Lake Amboseli. We found the only way we could effectively reconnoiter an area was to drive up a hill and scope the area for good cover. Maps of the area and even Google Earth were not as current as just looking. Elephants do a lot of damage during the dry season and we could definitely see where they’d been. They can completely change a landscape. The closer we got to an area of the lake that had good tree cover, the more elephant sign we saw and smelled. We decided to check the area on foot for human sign.

      We left Fredo and Gimp in camp with our employees, and three of us headed out with tactical gear and our rifles. Greenie assured us the sniper rifles were L115A3 Brit sniper rifles in .338 caliber. Since nothing was marked, I had to take his word for it; he was the best. We took our day sights which he said were Schmidt and Bender, and I thought, “Who gives a shit?”

      All I knew was that I did not like bolt actions the same way Leo liked them. I liked rifles that emptied their magazines in about two seconds flat while I reconnoitered by fire for possible bad guys. I chose a good old M-14 look alike with a thirty round clip and a lever that switched from semi-auto to “rock and roll”. I knew, and loved, “rock and roll”.

      We all carried nine millimeter pistols that even Greenie didn’t know were fully automatic. We failed to check earlier and when Greenie test fired his and emptied his clip in two seconds, we all yelled and laughed and patted him and ourselves on the back. However, after some deep reflection, we thought to keep them holstered except in a case of dire emergency. That was simply too much firepower to take lightly ... at the time.

      * * *

      We remained in that second location, making one short and one long patrol each day and finding not much at all until the morning of the fourth day. We all woke up to the bellowing of elephants. We cautiously opened up to find we were surrounded by a large family of females and young ones. They were not aggressive at all; just curious about the big green vehicles. One of the young females scratched her trunk on the front bumper of one mog. It rocked a bit but took the scrubbing graciously. We noticed one special little one who must have been only months old. He had a wound to his left rear foot that looked like the result of a bad toe nail day. Of course there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it except photograph it and sympathize.

      Everyone was very quiet while the elephants were present. When they moved on toward the lake, we started talking and laughing all at once; except Koinet Sankaw. He watched them go with something on his face akin to … sadness? That expression prompted me to get to know our employees better, especially since only five of us were armed to the teeth at the time. Gimp and Fredo had been closer to the men over the three days that Leo, Greenie and I had been patrolling. I talked it over with the other four; we were going to have to take the full measure of our African gents. We devised a gentle plan to do so.

      The three had been sticking mainly to their own vehicle and to themselves, especially since Andy’s visit. I understood they were apprehensive and couldn’t appreciate all they