Force Protection. Gordon Kent

and the Atlantic creates something like a wall. The great ship gave a lurch, and Skipper Van Sluyt’s feet jerked out from under him. He fell down the rest of the ladder, his tailbone breaking on the second to last step and his collarbone at the bottom. As he said later to his wife, ‘That’s what you get for bad-mouthing NASA.’

      

      Mombasa.

      From the landward walls of Fort Jesus, he could see the Muslim neighborhoods of Old Town laid out at his feet like a map, although the streets were tiny and twisted like a collection of old rubber bands. The fort served to draw the tourists, and nearest to it were prosperous shops owned by Kikuyu or Hindus with money; plastic Masai spears and plastic Masai beads woven in China grabbed at the attention of German and American tourists, and sad-looking tall men with heavy spears and a trace of Masai in their veins guarded the shops. Farther off toward the dhow port were the real shops of the Muslim residents, tiny shops with deeply embrasured doors and windows capable of resisting a siege. The smell of cardamom and curry carried even to the top of the wall. And to the north, he could see the slow rise of the ground into the natural amphitheater of the park in front of the old colonial offices.

      The man atop the walls squatted in the coral ruins of a tiny sentry kiosk on the landward side and carefully unwrapped the burlap package under his arm. Seventy feet above the streets of Old Town, he exposed the receiver of an AK-74 and inserted a clip.

      

      Alan Craik loved Africa. He’d seen the bad parts – Rwanda, Zaire, Somalia. He’d seen the parts in Tanzania and South Africa that looked like wildlife shows on the Discovery Channel. But this is where his love of Africa had had its birth, at the top of this narrow Mombasa street that ran down from the shiny oddness of a Hard Rock Café to a fifteenth-century mosque and the Old Town of Mombasa. He smiled broadly, boyishly, looking at the coral walls of Fort Jesus, where he had first tried his halting Swahili, and at the glint of the water in the dhow harbor beyond. It wasn’t like coming home, but it was like returning to a beloved vacation spot. He didn’t even realize he had started walking down toward Old Town until Martin Craw’s hand grasped his arm.

      ‘Whoa, there, Commander. We got less than an hour before we’re due at the det.’

      Alan smiled back at him. I’m in Africa! was what he wanted to say, but he swallowed it. Then he thought, Screw the command image.

      ‘You’re the one who said we should leave them alone until they got the place straightened up, Martin. That’s why I’m still lugging this ball and chain.’ He indicated the heavy helmet bag in his maimed left hand, the two green loop handles wrapped around his wrist to keep the pressure off the stumps of his fingers. ‘I thought dropping Laura at the Harker would take longer.’ USNS Jonathan Harker was a ship supplying the battle group, in port for three days. Laura had drawn the duty of checking with the captain and crew on their experience of Mombasa as a liberty port – plus, as she had found when they had pulled up at the dock, the BG’s flag was making a tour of the ship, and she’d got roped into his party. She hadn’t been a happy force-protection investigator.

      Craw smiled as if he wished it had taken longer and looked at his watch again. ‘If I let you loose in an African city, you’ll be out till all hours.’

      ‘Martin, you look to me like a man who needs a beer.’

      ‘Beer? And air-conditioning? That’s a big yes.’

      ‘We’ll have one, repeat, one beer here, and then I get to cruise Old Town for thirty minutes.’

      ‘Yes, sir!’ Craw’s reply was deliberate overenthusiasm; he was a man capable of quiet sarcasm, often so deep it was difficult to detect. He paused on the crowded sidewalk to ogle a local woman in blended Western and African clothes. Alan hustled him inside.

      The interior of the Hard Rock was cool, pleasant, and entirely American; only physique and face shape made the crowd different from a bunch of American blacks in an American city. Most of them were speaking English. The Hard Rock franchise was genuine, unlike that in Bahrain; it had been hit hard by the Nairobi embassy bombing, but was still a bastion of burgers, milkshakes, and beer – and a magnet for sailors. One wall had plaques from ships of the US, British, and Canadian navies, and one from an Australian destroyer.

      They sat at a table and ordered beers: Alan a White Cap, because it was Kenyan, Craw a Rolling Rock, because he was delighted to find it. Alan watched the city bustle by the huge picture window. He could see the park in front of the old British Colonial Office away to the left, surrounded by monolithic bank buildings – still a spiritual center of the town, although the real economic center had moved up Moi Avenue since he was last here. He was growing nostalgic for a town he had barely visited. ‘I know a great restaurant here, really world class, called the Tamarind Dhow,’ he said, still bursting with the notion of being in Mombasa. ‘Want to grab some food there after we visit the det? It’s on me.’

      Craw smiled slowly, not raising his eyes from the menu of the Hard Rock. ‘I sort o’ have some plans, tonight, skipper, if you don’t mind. Rain check?’ he drawled, and then looked up with a sudden laugh.

      ‘Master Chief, do you have a date?’

      ‘That would be “need to know,” sir.’ He smiled again. He seemed happy about it. ‘Do you really need to know?’

      ‘Nope.’ Alan thought of saying Don’t hurt yourself, but he let it pass. ‘But if you’re going to sit here and drool over your good fortune, I’m going to shop.’ Craw smiled again. Alan couldn’t remember seeing him smile so often, at least since he had reached command rank. Craw waved him away. ‘It’s only Mombasa, skipper; I can find you. I’ll catch you in ten minutes. If I don’t see you in Old Town, I’ll catch you around Fort Jesus. Leave the helmet bag.’ He reached out for it. ‘I’ll watch it.’

      ‘I’m signed for it.’ Alan wrapped the handles around his wrist again. He waved, tossed an American tendollar bill on the table, and headed out into the street, checking his watch. Time to see if the same old silversmith was still in business.

      

      The interior of the shop was dark and cool, a profound contrast with the white-hot street outside. Three young boys were working in the back, two of them drawing wire by pulling a core through ever-smaller holes in a steel plate. He had seen the same craft demonstrated at Colonial Williamsburg, but these boys did it better. They were doing it for real. The third boy was polishing silver with ashes and a lot of elbow grease. Alan smiled and called a greeting as he entered; later, he couldn’t remember what language he had used, but he would remember the slight tension in their body language as they turned to him. He knew the shop was off the beaten track, but couldn’t imagine they were against tourists.

      A fine old sword stood in a niche behind the counter; that caught his eye as he ignored cases of bangles and earrings. Rose never fancied such stuff. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her in any earrings except military studs. But just under his hands, as he leaned on the counter, there was a heavy chain of solid links, almost like big beads; it was crisp and very well made. He smiled; it was usually so difficult to find anything for Rose.

      ‘May I see the heavy silver necklace?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ One of the young men sprang down from the bunk-like bench where he was working and opened the case. Alan couldn’t pin down what was out of place, except that the young man should have been talking a great deal more.

      The necklace was just as handsome close-up as in the case. He caught the young man’s eye. ‘Bei gani?’ he asked. He showed a US twenty-dollar bill. When here many years before, he had learned that it was easier to buy everything with US dollars. Cheaper, too.

      The boy held up his hand and spoke rapidly without smiling. He went too fast. Alan thought he heard something like ‘Mia moja na thelathini na sita,’ which would have been a hundred and something. More than a hundred. That seemed unlikely; silver wasn’t that expensive.

      ‘Ghali sana. Pudunza bei kidogo, rafik’.’

      The