The three men stood in the small kitchen as Steve opened a manila folder and spread half a dozen photos across the counter. The images were from various U.S. manned and unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets that routinely overflew much of the country. CIA may have been the nation’s lead intelligence gathering agency, but the U.S. military had exponentially more assets in the Horn of Africa.

“Six days ago,” Steve said, “the Port of Kismaayo was hit with staggered, vehicle-borne IEDs, followed by mortars and heavy machine gun fire. The Air Force deployed a U-28 surveillance aircraft on an overhead collection mission after the attack and spotted this three-vehicle convoy just north of the city.” He pointed to an ultra-high-resolution image of an anchor and crossed rifles on the side of one of the trucks. “These are four-ton Leyland trucks, clearly marked as Kenya Defence Forces, but we talked to the KDF after the fact and they didn’t have any assets in the area.”

“Where did the trucks go?” Pickens asked.

“We don’t know,” Steve said. “The U-28 saw the KDF markings and moved on. We dialed up a couple Predators once we realized the trucks were fakes, but the aircraft didn’t find anything noteworthy except two facilities along the Jubba River: one outside the town of Jilib, and one in Dujuma.”

He pointed to two images on the counter.

“Either of those mean anything to you?” he asked Pickens.

The CIA officer studied the photographs. He might have been stuck in a dead-end job, but his eight years in-country had made him a go-to resource for many of the U.S. agencies and military units that were operating in Somalia.

“The place outside Jilib used to be a commercial farm,” Pickens said, “but the Jubba River is fed by rainfall from the Mendebo Mountains, and they haven’t seen so much as a drop in two years. The river dried up and that region turned to dust. I’m guessing the place near Dujuma was a livestock ranch, but those animals are long-since dead and the ranch is probably abandoned.”

“Well, that’s fan-fucking-tastic,” said Steve. “We’ll keep looking, but keep your ear to the ground. We’ve picked up some chatter that one of the warlords is running a camp somewhere out there, but we haven’t been able to locate it.”

“Do the warlords operate in the open?” Jake asked.

“Like they own the place,” said Pickens. “They have motorcades and regular tables at the local restaurants. They provide security and dispense justice. The government here is so corrupt that the warlords have taken over the job.”