Troubleshooters (Jackson Chase Novella Book 2) Page 3

  “Kukoma! Stop!” came a shout as we stepped over the broken bricks of the café’s patio. A policeman wearing a high visibility white jacket and matching pants approached.

  “You cannot enter the hotel,” he said.

  “We are here to see Lieutenant Kahembe,” said Naseeb.

  The policeman looked us over, stopping at me. “What is your name?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Jackson Chase,” I replied, hoping to throw a bit of official weight. OK, maybe I was posing just a bit with my new rank. Sometimes I can’t help myself.

  “A moment, please,” he said, and then pulled a radio mic off his shoulder. There was a rapid exchange in Swahili before he said “Karibu” and motioned for us to follow him.

  He led us through the debris and into the lobby. The morning sun angled through the gaping hole of the missing facade, illuminating the mess. We headed towards a group of three policemen talking with one another. Our escort said something quietly to one of them, who then waved our man and the other officers off. He turned to us and said, “Lieutenant Commander.”

  I extended my hand. “Jackson, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Kahembe,” he replied rather sternly. Seemed we wouldn’t be on a first-name basis here. “Arusha Regional Police.”

  The Lieutenant was several inches shorter than I, and I put him in his mid-forties, given the sprinkle of gray visible in the tight curls of his hair. His dark skin showed the hint of wrinkles around strong, commanding eyes. While he wasn’t imposing in size, he projected authority through demeanor.

  I introduced Sterba and Chen, and Naseeb. He shook each of our hands, but remained rather brusque.

  “My government has instructed that I cooperate with you, but I am unclear as to your goal here. My police force is perfectly capable of conducting an investigation.”

  My, aren’t we a little defensive?

  “Sir, I completely understand. We are well aware of your capabilities.” Actually, I had no idea whether or not the local police could handle this, but it seemed the right thing to say. “We are only here to follow your investigation and help wherever you need us.” Again I was being deferential, but given the cool welcome, I wanted to warm him up. If he thought we were a threat to his authority, our search would be significantly more difficult.

  He seemed to think about my reply for a second, his eyes locked on mine, then he gave a slight nod and said, “Very well. Come with me.”

  Lieutenant Kahembe led us from the lobby through a reception area where the only thing left intact was the marble floor. We passed through into what was once the dining area. The floor was covered with debris, and despite the cleanup effort the smell of rotting food remained.

  A handful of tiny pebbles fell from above. I looked up to see not a ceiling, but a gaping hole that had to go up at least two stories further. The explosion had taken out two of the reinforced floors above us.

  “Shouldn’t we be wearing hard hats?” said Chen.

  Sterba and I looked around at the dozen-or-so workers and policemen moving about. Only one wore a hard hat.

  “I don’t think the health and safety police have made it to Africa yet,” said Sterba.

  “Stand under the big guy,” I said, pointing my thumb at Sterba. “His giant head is made of steel.”

  Before he could give me the finger, we arrived in what was once the kitchen. Mangled stainless steel prep counters were twisted and sheared, their jagged edges jutting out like bushes of machetes. The entire room was blackened from fire.

  “What do you know about the device?” I asked.

  “It appears to have been made from artillery shells. Perhaps as many as four,” Lieutenant Kahembe replied.

  “Libya?” asked Sterba. The Lieutenant shrugged, as if to indicate he didn’t know, but it was possible. Chen lifted her eyebrows, wondering about this possible connection.

  Sterba explained, “When Gaddafi fell, the bunkers were raided. Hundreds of thousands of artillery shells went missing, along with small arms, light weapons, and, most seriously, MANPADS—man-portable air defense missiles. The rebels used some, but much of the stores have spread across the continent. They’ve found their way into the hands of every terrorist group from the Islamic Magreb to East Africa.”

  “There are hundreds of thousands of artillery shells unaccounted for?” Chen asked.

  Sterba nodded. “And it only takes one or two to make a car bomb. Or four, apparently, to bring down a sizable portion of a hotel.”

  “How can they be detonated?”

  “Any way you’d like. Simple command det, timer, cell phone, the homemade pressure plates they used all over Afghanistan. Basically, anything that can close a circuit.”

  Lieutenant Kahembe motioned towards one area of the kitchen where the reinforced concrete floor opened to a large hole all the way down to the gravel beneath the foundation. “We believe this was the location of the blast.”

  “What was this area of the kitchen used for?” Sterba asked.

  “Food storage,” Lieutenant Kahembe replied. “Items that don’t need refrigeration.”

  “So the device was brought in with the supplies.” I said.

  He nodded. “Most likely.”

  I looked up. Above the hole, or, more accurately, the crater, the damage went what appeared to be three levels up. The explosion had been far enough from the central spine of the building to find the weak points towards the front of the hotel. The end result was a blast that moved up and out, completely destroying dozens of rooms and the front of the hotel.

  “Have you recovered any parts of the device?” I said.

  “A few,” Lieutenant Kahembe said. “I will show you.” He led us towards the back of the hotel, where a large patio faced an expanse of grass and a swimming pool. The local police had laid out a tarp and arranged the small pieces of suspicious debris much like one would lay out pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. While there was little that hadn’t been completely vaporized, some fragments clearly came from an artillery shell.

  Kahembe reached down and picked up two small bits of wire. The rubber insulation had burned off, but the ends of the wires showed small fragments of solder. One still held the tiniest piece of circuit board.

  “Our best guess is that this connected to some sort of radio device used as the detonator,” he said.

  Chen was looking at the small piece of circuit board. “Can I take a look at that?” she asked.

  He handed her the tiny piece of evidence, and she moved into the sunlight. We followed, watching her turn it over and bend one of the wires back.

  “There are actually two types of circuit board here. This one,” she said, pointing, “is pretty basic. It’s the type you use when building any homemade device. But if you look closely, there’s a bit of green on the other end.” Her fingernail moved to a spec attached to the solder at the opposite end. “That’s from a proper circuit board. And given the small bit of blue plastic that’s hardened into the side of it, I’d say it’s from a cell phone.”

  Kahembe’s eyes darted between Chen’s eyes and the tiny fragment in her hands.

  “Can you get access to local cell provider databases?” Chen asked.

  “Yes,” Kahembe replied, knowing what she was looking for. “But even if you can match a phone used here to the phone at the other end of the call, I would suspect disposable phones were used. They are very easy to find here, unfortunately.”

  “That’s true, but it’s likely that some other identifiers, like the EINs, came through on the handshake with the local switches. They could give us additional data points.”

  “Miss Chen, I worry that we don’t have capabilities to follow something that complex,” Kahembe replied.

  Joe recognized the perfect opening for us into Kahembe’s investigation. The big man offered one of his southern smiles, and said, “Well, Lieutenant, today is your lucky day because Commander Chen here has enough capabilities in that area to keep all of our heads spinning.”

  I wasn
’t sure if it was Sterba’s warm southern charm or relief that he would get some technical assistance, but Kahembe said, “Miss, sorry, Commander Chen, we would very much appreciate your help.”

  “It’s Haley, sir,” she said, offering a smile of her own, “and I look forward to it.”

  Just then another officer came up and spoke quietly to Kahembe. His eyes brightened after the exchange, and he said, “It appears that we’ve been able to recover the kitchen’s security video. It’s taken days to dig it up. Let’s go have a look.”

  We packed ourselves into a small utility room—little more than a closet, really—where an assortment of aged computers and video machines had been cobbled together. A cart held four monitors, one of which was operational and playing a security video.

  What played out in rather poor quality black and white before us was two males wheeling in a stack of boxes on a battered dolly. They lowered the stack onto the ground in the exact spot where the crater was today. The two then withdrew the dolly and walked through a doorway, which took them off camera.

  “Again, please,” Kahembe said to the hotel staffer manning the control board. We watched it again, each of us now focusing on the details.

  There were eight boxes in the stack, though I suspected some had been glued together with the center panels removed in order to hold the shells. They were white, with a name printed on the side. It looked to start with the letter A, but the resolution made the rest of the name difficult to read.

  It was also difficult to gauge how tall the men were, but they were both thin and wearing jeans. One wore a light T-shirt, while the other’s was dark. The poor video quality made distinguishing their faces impossible, and the only thing we could tell was that their hair was short.

  Great. Be on the lookout for two thin black males with short hair. That really narrows it down.

  As my cynicism was getting the best of me, I noticed one of the men on the screen pause and look back at the stack before exiting. The back pockets of his jeans were white. Not knowing what to make of that, I simply filed it away.

  Lieutenant Kahembe had been studying the monitor carefully as well. During the second run through of the video, he had said something to one of the officers in the room with us. The officer had left immediately.

  “One more time, please,” I said.

  As we were going through the video once again, the young officer returned with some papers. He spoke quietly to the Lieutenant. Kahembe thanked him, and with a small wave of the papers, he said, “Invoices for kitchen supply orders.”

  “The letters on the boxes. Nice thinking, Lieutenant,” I said.

  He ran a finger down the list on the first page, then the second. Mid-way through, he stopped. “The bakery that delivers here every morning is the Asha Bakery.”

  Naseeb seemed to brighten up with this news. “I know this bakery. Not far from here. Let’s go.”

  Frankly, I agreed. Assignment One in the bag. Still time for a little safari. Looking at the Lieutenant, it was clear he felt otherwise.

  “Mister Aman,” he said, “we will not jump to conclusions. We do not know if the bakery played any part in this. Someone could have simply grabbed some old boxes.”

  Naseeb lowered his eyes, attempting to be deferential in lieu of an apology.

  “Might still be worth a look,” I said, partially to allow Naseeb to save face and partially because it was something to go on. Plus, I really did like the idea of wrapping this up and going on safari.

  Kahembe considered this for a minute. “Very well. We will go together.”

  On safari?

  Chen observed this exchange silently, glancing between Kahembe and the video monitor. “Lieutenant,” she said, “while you go to the bakery, why don’t I take a crack at this video? I have some software that might be able to clean it up.”

  It was clear that Kahembe was a bit conflicted. I could tell he wanted the help, but it meant he wasn’t completely rid of us. Apparently Chen’s skills won. He nodded and said, “We would appreciate your help.”

  Seizing the opportunity, Chen reminded him, “And if you could get me the cell switch data, we’ll see if we can track the phones used.”

  “I will have someone contact the cell tower operators immediately, Commander,” he replied.

  “I’ll just see my colleagues out,” Chen said, and we took our leave.

  Naseeb started chattering about the bakery lead as soon as we were out the door. Wanting to talk to Chen, I cut him off.

  “Naseeb, why don’t you get the car and meet us by the gate?”

  He agreed, and walked briskly off to the service car park to the side of the hotel.

  “Guy’s pretty fired up,” commented Sterba.

  “He is,” I said. “But for some reason, Lieutenant Kahembe isn’t.”

  “Why?” Chen asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Work the phone angle as much as you can. We’ll see what turns up at the bakery.”

  Once in Naseeb’s Land Cruiser, we descended the hill west of the hotel gate. After crossing a bridge over a small riverbed, we turned off the main road and wound our way through smaller dirt side streets.

  All around us, locals went about their busy day. Small groups stood at street corners chatting and waiting for the ubiquitous dala dalas—minivans that comprised a semi-private bus system. Each was named and decorated differently to stand out and advertise their route for local passengers. There seemed to be a fondness for pop culture references. We passed one called Red Bull, another Madonna. There was even one named after the last American President, complete with the posterized portrait made so popular in his campaigns.

  Clusters of piki-piki—motorbike taxis—gathered here and there, the riders helmeted and ready for a fare. Women sat on tarps selling crops from their home or village, the tomatoes, onions, and potatoes set out in beautiful pyramids. Men steered hand drawn wooden wagons filled with hay or potatoes. Two men wrestled with one that strained under the weight of a mangled car chassis. And wherever there was a break in the buildings and a small patch of grass, small herds of goats or cattle grazed under the watchful eyes of Masai children.

  This truly was a beautiful country of beautiful people. It made me sad to think that perhaps they were too kind and gentle, allowing extremists to bully their way in.

  Naseeb wound us through the pebbled streets, passing a large market. “The market,” he said, “has always been a place for Africans to purchase their supplies. Food, clothing, even machine parts. But every day, more and more westerners are coming. They bring them in by the busload now.” He shook his head in a dismissive gesture. I let it be, and didn’t ask any questions.

  A block further on, a new building stood tall and clean between the more traditional single-story wooden structures. A minaret capped one side.

  “Mosque?” I said.

  “No, that is a school. But I suppose one can pray there as well,” Naseeb said rather quickly. At Naseeb’s reply, I turned to Sterba and raised my eyebrows. He nodded, knowing that I meant we’d just seen an example of the money being spread around the world for schools to teach the Islamic faith. Some were legitimate, but many preached more hatred than following. As we passed by, Naseeb moved his hand from the steering wheel to his forehead, as if to wipe off some sweat or dust. I noticed the skin there was slightly tougher. A callous. I decided not to push him on the school’s curriculum.

  We rode in silence for a while, until he said, “Ah, here we are.”

  He turned right and parked on a dirt patch beneath a tree in front of a dilapidated one story structure. Painted above a stubby awning was the name Asha Bakery. As I got out of the truck, a small dust cloud announced the arrival of the police car that had followed us here.

  Lieutenant Kahembe and one of his officers exited the battered vehicle and approached. Kahembe looked at me and said, “Commander Chase, please come with me. Chief Sterba can go with Officer Mwanga to the back of the building until we determine it is
safe.”

  Sterba nodded and held out his hand to the young officer. “Joe,” he said.

  “Ambrose,” the police officer replied. He showed a small smile, but given that Joe had a hundred pounds on the man, I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or simply thankful to have a meaty barrier to stand behind in case things got ugly.

  “Are we ready, gentlemen?” Kahembe asked.

  “Good to go, Lieutenant,” Sterba replied. “Let’s roll, partner,” he added with nod to Mwanga.

  They headed off around the side of the building. I noticed Sterba’s head swiveling, alert to his surroundings. There were a few small groups of men scattered about, their conversations halting while they watched to see what was going on. I know Sterba was scanning them, alert for the lone man watching a little too carefully, averting his eyes, or talking on a mobile phone.

  I turned to Kahembe. “Let’s go. I’ll follow your lead.” I adjusted my T-shirt for easy access to the SIG Sauer P228 holstered on my hip. My switch to a more tactical mode didn’t go unnoticed by Kahembe as we walked across an open patch of dirt to the front of the bakery. While I knew we were just going to question the proprietor, I was keeping an eye on the door and the two windows to the left. We were exposed between the vehicles and the building, and I adjusted my route to approach the door at an oblique angle.

  Kahembe adjusted his approach as well, saying, “It appears that you’ve done a bit more than sailing for your navy.”

  “Just cautious. Been through a few doors where I wasn’t exactly greeted with a smile,” I replied.

  We stopped at the wall just to the right of the door, using it for some degree of concealment. Being closest to the door, Kahembe tilted his head and took a look through the screen.

  Turning back to me, he said, “I don’t think this is one of those doors.” And with that, he pulled it open and took a step inside, leaving me to wonder how he was so confident.