“Until now, we didn’t know the location of the hostages,” Davis proclaimed. Through his research, he had managed to get a fix on the twenty schoolgirls who had been missing for months and were presumably now child brides of the militia members—if they were lucky.

“So what?” Nelson said. “You want us to send in Seal Team Six and smoke a bunch of skinnies in the jungle?”

“I want you to understand that the only way we were able to locate this violent extremist organization was by tracking a primary source of their financing: the trafficking of endangered animal parts.”

Nelson brushed him off. “I didn’t realize we’re in the business of hunting all of the, what, thousand militias running around Africa?”

“Boko Haram is officially designated a foreign terror group by our government!”

“Come on, Davis, this is a regional issue,” Nelson countered. “These guys are just a bunch of thugs in mud huts.”

“Twenty Nigerian girls are being held hostage!” Davis erupted, standing in disbelief at the front of the room. “If we sit by and do nothing, whatever happens to them is on us.” He had found terrorists on our watch list holding children hostage. Wasn’t that enough?

After a long silence, Director Wilkes weighed in. “We’ll notify local authorities, but Nelson is right. This is not a US national security concern, and unfortunately, we can’t save every poor kid in Africa. That said, your point about terror financing and its potential value tracking our enemies is well taken. What about that Sumatra terror link with Jemaah Islamiyah? Tigers, right? Now, that was interesting.”

Before Davis had a chance to formulate a response, Nelson piled on. “Yeah, that’s why we agreed to this whole boondoggle of yours in the first place. Did that fall through?”

To say it had fallen through would be an understatement. Davis had effectively proved that it was impossible to link tigers to terrorism, because there were no tigers in the region of Sumatra where they operated. Davis paused, unsure whether the CIA mantra that “The truth shall make you free” applied in this instance.

CHAPTER 37 THE GANGSTER SQUAD

CHAPTER 37
THE GANGSTER SQUAD

hong kong