Task Force Desperate by Peter Nealen Read Free Book Online Page A

brick and stucco buildings started giving way to ramshackle hovels built out of cardboard, plywood, corrugated metal, canvas; anything their desperately poor occupants could get their hands on. The filth was staggering, the emaciated faces watching us suspiciously a testament to the nightmare of living in such squalor.
    Some of the people were friendly, calling out greetings in French or Arabic. A lot of the kids were excited at the strange faces, and ran alongside us, laughing. There were groups of young men, however, whom the others seemed to avoid. These guys were hostile, mean-mugging us as we went past. I was glad of the weight of my 1911 strapped to the small of my back, covered by the fall of my shirt, but hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. That would only draw attention, something we really, really didn’t need at the moment. I was still nervous about how much that Legionnaire, Kohl, had guessed.
    Several of the hostile young men were moving as we passed, and I started to notice a pattern. “We’re getting encircled,” I muttered to Larry, as we crossed another cramped intersection.
    “Who are these guys?” Larry asked.
    “Best guess?” I replied, stepping over a running stream of sewage. “Some of the young radicals that Kohl was talking about. I think we’re in trouble.”
    Ahead of us, one of the groups of young men was blocking the alley. The ones in the front were all chewing. Great. Khat. Which meant, that aside from all the Islamist claptrap and hatred of Westerners that the jihadis had been putting in their heads, they were high as a kite. We were indeed in trouble. A lot of trouble.
    I tried to turn the corner to get away from them, but another group was blocking that way. I started cussing under my breath. This was not going to end well, for anyone involved. They didn’t appear to have guns, but they didn’t need them to be dangerous. I started to reach for my pistol. Larry was moving laterally, getting a better angle on the ones we’d just turned away from, no doubt getting ready to throw down himself. I found myself kind of wishing I had that STI of his; fifteen rounds of .45 versus the eight I had in my Springfield sounded really good right about now.
    My hand was under my shirt, my fingers touching the butt of my 1911, when there was a torrent of loud Somali from behind us.
    The old man was so skinny I half expected him to collapse just from walking. His bones stuck out from his flesh, and his shirt hung off him like a clothes hanger. He was spry enough, though, and had some considerable lung power, as he yelled at the young men confronting us, and waved angrily at them. One of them said something, only to be cut off with another torrent of angry words. Finally, the young men turned away, shooting glares of pure hate at us, and drifted off into the rest of the slums.
    “Forgive,” the old man said, in broken English. “Boys. No enough discipline.”
    “Thank you, grandfather,” I said. I spoke in English, as I didn’t know any Somali. “God be with you.” Not exactly the local blessing, but I hoped it would suffice. The scrawny old coot with rheumy eyes had probably just saved quite a few lives by intervening. I wondered if he knew it. I suspect he did.
    “ A salaam aleikum ,” He replied. “ Nabakey .”
    I put my hand over my heart. That much Somali I had learned. “ Nabakey .” The old man nodded, waved his skeletal hand at us, and walked back into the maze of alleys.
    “Huh,” Larry said. “Good of him.”
    “Sure was,” I replied. “Let’s get out of here before we need him to come back.”
    Looking up at the sun, I got re-oriented, and this time busted a hard left, moving east to try to get out of the slum, and back over to the Boulevard De General De Gaulle. That would get us close enough to the industrial areas along the shoreline, and hopefully allow us to avoid any more such unpleasant encounters.
     

Chapter 4
     
    W e got back to our little urban base camp as