Free Terminal Justice by Alton L. Gansky

system also sent out false information about the call’s origin. Before the sun would rise, CIA and FBI agents would be scouring the small town of North Pole, Alaska, for the computer genius that who defeated their fail-safe systems, but they wouldn’t find what they were looking for—indeed, they were several thousand miles off course.

    In a Georgetown home overlooking the Potomac the phone rang at 4:30 in the morning, waking CIA director Lawrence Bauman from a sound sleep. The caller’s message was calm but cryptic: “We have a compromise in SRC.”
    “I understand,” Bauman said stoically, camouflaging his churning stomach. “I’ll be there within the hour. See if you can have a report for me.” He hung up the phone and quietly swore.

    It had been four days since Roger had arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia, and it was four days longer than he cared for. Each day had plodded along with a vexing slowness. The equatorial sun would rise over the deep blue Indian Ocean and ascend to its zenith, driving the air temperature over the one-hundred-degree mark. The air conditioner in his room struggled valiantly against the oppressive heat and humidity, but it could do little more than move tepid, stale air around.
    An uneasy feeling washed over him. He hated this country, and he especially hated this city. His animosity was deeply rooted in one catastrophic day in October 1993 when he walked the city streets as a U.S. Army Ranger. He had been part of a detachment to aid and protect relief workers from violence-prone warlords who had been using the famine of that year to solidify their power. He and other rangers and special forces personnel had been charged with the task of capturing the vicious warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. Heavily armed, he and the others hot-roped out of Blackhawk helicopters hovering over the Somali’s headquarters. Everything that could go wrong did. Before it was over, eighteen Americans had been killed by Aidid’s followers, and seventy-six had been wounded. It should never have happened, but it had, and Roger had the wounds to prove it. Aidid had never paid for his crimes, and that fact burned in Roger’s stomach every day. Roger bore as many emotional scars as he did physical. A bullet can wound a soul as well as a body.
    Gazing out the window, Roger took in the city that was Mogadishu. As Somalia’s largest city and busiest port, the ancient town had served as the country’s capital since 1960. It had come a long way since its founding by Arab merchants in the early tenth century. Over the centuries it had grown in importance and prominence, its excellent port being leased by the Italian government, which ultimately purchased the city and made it the capital of Italian Somaliland. Yet despite its potential, its Somali National University, and its ideal location on the horn of Africa, Mogadishu had fallen into disarray. The once bustling city of 700,000 was devastated by infighting, civil war, and clan hostilities in the early 1990s. On November 17, 1991, civil war broke out, leaving 15,000 people dead and 30,000 wounded in the city alone. Now the city resembled Beirut.
    As Roger scanned the buildings from his window he could see the devastation brought by civil war. As usual, it was the innocent who suffered. “The problem with this old world,” Roger said tohimself, “is that it’s populated by people.” Roger lacked the optimism that his employer, A.J., possessed in such great quantities. No, Roger was a pragmatist who considered each day a success if he survived it.
    Turning from the window, he walked across the small hotel room to the bathroom and splashed cool water on his face.
At least the water is running again
. He thought he heard something. Turning the tap off, he listened intently. This time he heard it clearly, a knock on the door. Grabbing a towel, Roger patted his face dry as he walked to the door and opened it.
    “I was hoping it was you,” Roger said as he stepped aside