One Man In

Chapter 1: Stranger on the Road

Overview

A veteran takes a posting that promises comfort and one last taste of real operations. The men he works with don't share his hunger for it. The country around him doesn't seem to be at war. He can't tell if this is a big opportunity or a dead end.

Training in Kenya

On January 15, 2019, Chris trains at a range near Nairobi. He's a British liaison officer and a longtime 22 SAS member. He works with his Glock 19 and a suppressed C8 rifle. He runs the 1-5 drill, firing fifteen shots at three targets against a shot-timer. He moves through the grid of fire, running between cones and shooting from each position. He volunteered for Kenya to see field operations. He hoped to face al-Shabaab.

Faith and Communion

He grew up wanting the Parachute Regiment and joined at sixteen. He has believed in God since he was young, though his relationship with the church has been complicated. In Iraq, after his first killing, a padre gave him Communion. It brought him peace. The padre told him it was the closest he had ever come to God.

Simon

Driving past the Ngong Hills, he sees Simon, a 43-year-old in a beige safari suit. Against military protocol, he offers him a lift. Simon talks nonstop. He tells Chris they were born in the same year and month. He shows a double-pointed knife, twelve to fourteen inches long, that he carries for demons or evil spirits. He asks to be dropped at a village. As he leaves, he says, "Creeze, may God bless you many times this day," then disappears. Thirty hours later, Chris wonders if Simon was an angel, a message from God, or just coincidence.

Key Takeaways

• Chris's skill with a weapon and his belief in God are not in conflict. They are the same thing to him.
• He volunteered for Kenya wanting to meet al-Shabaab. His religion doesn't stand apart from violence. It lives right inside it.
• The peace that came after his first killing, delivered by a padre with Communion, suggests a faith that forgives war rather than objecting to it.
• Chris never figures out whether Simon was a messenger or a coincidence. He just lives with that question.

Chapter 2: I Wanna Be Tough

Overview

Danger rarely gives you a warning. It can show up in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, between lunch and errands, and you won't have time to get ready. The real question is whether you've already done the work ahead of time.

In Nairobi, Chris keeps a bag packed with combat gear in case the city is attacked again. He eats Moroccan beef and drinks a Dawa at the Outpost while texting a British friend. That friend is a former Royal Marine who won the George Cross for rescuing families during the al-Shabaab attack on Westgate mall in September 2013, which killed at least sixty-seven people.

Anne, the maitre d', jokes that Kikuyu women run Kenya. Chris landed on December 8 and was sent to Malindi to search for Sylvia Romano, an Italian aid worker kidnapped near the Tana River. Two weeks of searching turned up nothing, though she was released in May 2020.

Key Takeaways

• In a city that's already been hit, you need your gear packed and staged well before anything happens. You can't figure it out in the moment.
• A two-week search that finds nothing doesn't mean it failed. Abductions often get resolved through channels the searcher has no access to, and over months instead of days.
• You can often hear who really holds power in a place through its jokes, not through its official rules.
• The people who move first and most effectively in a massacre are usually the ones already living and working in the country, not the ones who show up once it hits the news.

Prologue

Overview

A man arrives in a new country to do a job that the people around him do not want done. The danger he was sent to face is already happening. And no one who could help him seems to believe it is real.

British High Commission staff and DFID officials in Kenya were openly hostile. They treated his hunt for monsters they doubted existed as counterproductive. A brief visit to a KDF base showed the country had shut down for Christmas.

Christmas Eve brought a text to a decorated Kenyan general, six years director-general of the National Intelligence Service, and a reply within minutes.

Christmas Day was spent at a Nairobi orphanage run by a Christian charity. A boy named Moses wanted to grow up tough. Home by 3:10, three miles from five al-Shabaab terrorists preparing an attack.

Key Takeaways

• When officials refuse to believe a threat is real, they clear the ground for the attackers.
• What matters most is whether a security service answers at midnight on a holiday, not how big its budget is.
• Ordinary home life and an attack about to happen sit just a few miles apart. Distance offers no protection. Paying attention is the only thing that varies.
• A child's wish to grow up tough and five men preparing violence nearby are part of the same reality. The book asks how a society can hold both at once.

Chapter 3: Paradise Lost

Overview

The DusitD2 hotel and office complex in Nairobi was supposed to be one of the safest places in the city. It had a ten-foot wall, electric fencing, and a single manned gate. Around seven hundred people were inside on January 15, 2019. No one had planned for what happens when the danger gets past the gate.

The DusitD2 Attack

At 3:17 p.m., Mahir Khalid Riziki blew himself up outside the Secret Garden Café, killing five people. Four gunmen led by Ali Salim Gichunge then walked past the gatehouse into the complex. They killed eight more people in just five minutes.

The dead included American businessman Jason Spindler, British aid worker Luke Potter, and Australian visitor Marcus Rodriguez.

Key Takeaways

A wall and a guarded gate only help if the attack is stopped before it reaches them. The first five people died outside the perimeter, so the gate never came into play. A bomb at the start of an attack can also work as a distraction. It pulls attention to one spot while the gunmen move in on foot. And when hundreds of people are gathered in one place, a small team can kill many of them in minutes. Help from outside can't get there fast enough to stop it. The victims were ordinary people from three countries, at work or just visiting. The attack was aimed at everyday life, not at any military or government target.