Raven Strike

by Dale Brown; Jim DeFelice

  “Then what?”

  “My Osprey will come in and pick us up. Depending on the circumstances, we’ll have it evac the civilians as well. I just don’t know where to put them.”

  “All right.”

  Danny smirked at her.

  “What?” she said.

  “You’re approving my decision.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  “Colonel, I keep telling you—this is my operation. You’re just helping.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. Sooner or later you’ll believe it.”

  Boston eyed the woman who’d just given birth.

  “I don’t know, Colonel. Moving her. I don’t know.”

  “We don’t have a stretcher,” said Danny, “and we’re not leaving her.”

  “I can carry her, that’s not the problem,” Boston told him. “But I don’t know about moving her. She’s lost a ton of blood.”

  “She’ll lose a hell of a lot more if they put a bullet through her,” snapped Nuri.

  That settled it for Boston. “Boost her on my back and tell her to hang on.”

  Nuri and Danny helped her onto Boston’s back as gently as they could. The woman was exhausted and barely conscious. Boston grabbed her forearms to hold her in place.

  Flash, meanwhile, had doffed his armored vest and pulled off his shirt to wrap the child. Bloom put the baby into the shirt and tied off the bottom, swaddling it, then snugging it against her chest. She folded her torso over the infant, protecting it as much as possible.

  The baby boy’s round eyes looked at the world with unabashed inquisitiveness, undoubtedly wondering what the hell he had just descended into.

  Flash started to put his armored vest on Bloom.

  “No,” Danny told him. “You have a point. You need the vest.”

  “She’s got the kid.”

  “They won’t be in the line of fire. Don’t be a hero.”

  Slowly, the small group began moving through the field, Flash at the front, Danny at the rear, Boston, Nuri, and the women in the middle. Melissa had the toddler in her arms; the two other patients who’d been in the clinic flanked her, each holding onto the back of her shirt.

  As they crossed the road, they heard grenades and gunfire from the direction they’d come from.

  “Keep moving,” said Nuri. He repeated it in Arabic and then the local language, helped by MY-PID. “Get across the road and move west.”

  Chapter 15

  Washington, D.C.

  When Christine Mary Todd was elected President, the pundits and chattering class had declared that her main attention would be on domestic affairs, issues like unemployment, health care, and education. She’d expected as much herself. Having spent years focusing on the world’s problems, the time seemed ripe for the U.S. to turn its attention homeward. There was an enormous amount of work to be done in the country. America was recovering from a deep recession, and while the war on terror seemed never-ending, it had been wrestled into a manageable if still tricky state—or so it appeared from a distance.

  But since she’d been in office, Todd had found that more than sixty percent of her time and an outsized amount of her energy were spent on international affairs. China and Iran were openly hostile, North Korea threatened war with the U.S. as well as South Korea, the Germans were making noises about rearming in the face of a rising Russian defense budget, and the war on terror grew more intricate every day.

  At the same time, the tools Todd had to deal with these problems were unwieldy. They also came with complications of their own, the latest being the CIA and its clandestine Raven program.

  It wasn’t clear when rumors of the program’s existence had first begun circulating, much less where they originated. But literally within hours of her ordering Edmund to tell her everything he knew about it, word of its existence seemed to have reached every corner of the D.C. establishment.

  That word, of course, was wildly inflated and focused on the sensational; the rumors had the U.S. attempting to assassinate world leaders and even using the program domestically. The lack of hard data encouraged the wildest speculation and attracted the most diverse political agendas possible. The fact that the computer software at the heart of the program wasn’t mentioned was hardly reassuring. It wasn’t surprising that as soon as word reached the Senate Intelligence Committee, they voted to call Edmund in.

  “I don’t think everyone in Washington has heard.” National Security Advisor Dr. Michael Blitz shifted uneasily in the chair in Todd’s working office, a small former cloakroom next to the cabinet room in the West Wing. The President liked to work there, like most of her predecessors, reserving the Oval Office for meeting visitors and ceremonial occasions. “I think what we have here are a set of older rumors being given some fresh wind. I would bet that someone on Edmund’s staff gave the information to Ernst. Once he got it . . .”

  Blitz made a fluttering motion with his hand, mimicking a bird taking flight. “That will just make things worse.”

  Todd pushed herself up out of her chair. She’d never liked sitting for very long, and this job required a lot of it.

  “You can’t let him testify before Congress,” said Blitz. “Not until the weapon is recovered. Assuming what Reid told you is true.”

  “I realize that.” Blitz’s mention of Reid bothered her—she was hoping to somehow protect him as the source of her information. But she’d had to tell Blitz where she’d gotten the assessment of Raven in the first place, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken it as seriously as he should.

  If it were up to her, she’d let the committee roast Edmund for having gone ahead with the program without proper authorization. In fact, she was planning to fire him over this—as soon as Raven was safely in hand.

  But in the meantime she couldn’t take the chance of word getting out and the terrorists in Africa discovering exactly how potent the weapon was. In theory, Edmund might be able to limit his testimony artfully enough so the real purpose and value of Raven would remain hidden. But she wasn’t willing to take that risk.

  “Very possibly this weapon isn’t as effective as anyone believes,” said Blitz. “You know how these things go. The contractors pump them up—”

  “We can’t really take that chance.” Todd paced around the very small office, literally moving only a few feet each way. Finally she sat back in her seat. “I can’t have him testify until Raven is recovered. His schedule will have to be full for a few days, that’s all.”

  “That will get them talking all the more,” said William Bozzone, her politcal advisor. Bozzone was a lawyer and former congressman who held the official title of Counsel to the President, but was well known in Washington as her personal ward healer.

  “I understand.”

  “There’s another problem, you know,” added Blitz. “Senator Stockard. Maybe you should brief him before his wife does.”

  Todd frowned. Zen was an ally on some matters and an antagonist on others. The fact that his wife headed the Office of Special Technology worked in Todd’s favor, to an extent, even if he abstained from matters relating to it. Still, he could be a potent critic, all the more so because he knew what he was talking about, unlike people like Ernst.

  “I don’t think there’ll be any pillow talk,” said Todd.

  Blitz raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

  “I don’t.” The president liked Breanna Stockard; she reminded her of herself twenty years before.

  “Irregardless, you want to keep him on your side,” said Bozzone.

  “I can’t tell one person on the committee and not the others,” said Todd. “Even Zen. I know he’ll be discreet, but even so—you see how far this has gone already.”

  Todd folded her arms. The committee had voted to ask Edmund to appear immediately. Washington’s definition of “immediately” was a lot looser than most; even so, she doubted she could delay Edmund’s appearance for more than two or three days without some political ramific
ations—and undoubtedly a new round of rumors. Reid had assured her that Whiplash was moving ahead with the recovery operation, and expected to have the UAV in hand by the end of the day. But she didn’t want any word of the weapon’s potency reaching the committee—or more specifically, Ernst and his rumor mill—until after it was back in the U.S., which would add another twenty-four hours.

  Two days. Surely that was understandable.

  “His calendar is going to have to be full,” Todd said finally. “And I’ll find something for him to do for the next day. Then he can go before them. If I haven’t fired him by then.”

  “They may subpoena him. Cause a big stir.”

  “We’ll quash it.”

  “Ernst would love that,” said Bozzone. A subpoena would only be for show—but in Washington, the show was as important, if not more so, than the substance.

  “Too bad Raven didn’t target him,” said Blitz.

  “Don’t even joke,” said Todd.

  Chapter 16

  Duka

  Nuri led them to a group of dilapidated brick buildings tucked into the side of a rolling hill. Even though they didn’t stop, it took nearly forty minutes to get there, weaving across the fields and down a pair of narrow, crooked paths. The fighting remained behind them. While the sun had pushed below the horizon, a glow could be seen from the center of town; MY-PID said much of it was on fire.

  The only good news was that neither Li Han nor his people had moved since the battle had begun. Hera, in charge of the assault team waiting with the Osprey, reported that they were ready to move whenever Danny gave the order.

  Even though MY-PID declared the cluster of buildings clear, Danny decided he wasn’t going to take any chances with the women and the children. He had Flash run ahead and make sure there were no lookouts hiding in the brush. Then he went to check the buildings.

  There wasn’t much left of four of the five. Their roofs were collapsed, and in one case two sides had been completely removed, the clay bricks salvaged for some other project in town. Hiding in the ruins would be better than nothing—but only just.

  The fifth building was two stories tall, with a large, boarded-up window on the second floor facing the direction of the railroad tracks. The door at the front was boarded as well; there were no other openings.

  The wood blocking the door was nailed tight. Flash took his knife and began prying out nails, sliding the blade in and then working the edge near the hilt under the heads until he could get them with his fingers. Getting the first board was slow, tedious work, but once it was off, he found he could pry out the board directly below it, and then the next, making a space large enough to crawl through. Flash hit a button on his uniform sleeve, activating an LED flashlight sewn into his cuff.

  “Looks clear,” he told Danny from inside.

  Dropping to his knees, he pulled down the visor on his helmet and slipped into the building. Danny turned around, making sure no one was following them.

  “Jesus,” Flash muttered over the radio.

  “What’s up?” said Danny.

  “Looks like a torture chamber in here. Damn.”

  “What?”

  “Take a look.”

  Danny slipped his visor down as Flash shared his image over the Whiplash circuit. A small window opened in the lower left-hand corner of Danny’s screen. Instantly it filled with images from Flash’s helmet infrared sensor, giving him a hazy view of the interior of the building.

  There were rings in the walls. Chains hung from various points, including two beams that ran across the ceiling.

  “Is the place clear?” Danny asked.

  “Of people, yeah,” said Flash. “Probably filled with ghosts. There’s a trench in the floor, and a drain. Shit.”

  “It’s a slaughterhouse,” Danny told him. “For animals. Food.”

  “Oh.”

  Flash swept the interior. Besides the large main room, there was a corridor and a set of smaller rooms on the west side of the building. All were empty.

  Danny signaled to the others to come up. In the failing daylight they seemed to take forever.

  “Let’s get them inside the building,” Danny told Nuri. “Get them safe and figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “They don’t want to go inside,” said Melissa.

  “What?”

  “Marie says they think it’s unclean. It was a slaughterhouse.”

  “Tell them it’s the only safe place for them.”

  “They want to go back to their homes.”

  “No way,” said Danny. “There’s fighting all through the city.”

  Melissa nodded and went over to talk to Bloom. The two women huddled with the patients they’d rescued from the clinic for several minutes, trying to persuade them that the building was the only safe place for them.

  Danny looked at the overhead images of the city. Much of the downtown was either on fire or destroyed. There was a running gun battle in the cluster of huts at the western end of Duka. The two sides were slowly being drawn to each other, converging in the residential area. There must have been at least a hundred dead by now; he avoided asking MY-PID for an estimate.

  The pregnant woman was in shock, staring blankly into the distance while clutching her baby. Melissa didn’t entirely understand what the other two women were telling Bloom—the slaughterhouse was unclean or haunted or both—but the gist of it was obvious: they weren’t going inside the building under any circumstances, including gunpoint.

  “They won’t go inside,” Bloom told her. “They just won’t. It’s taboo. They want to go back to their families.”

  “It’s impossible. The city’s in flames.”

  Bloom argued with the women some more, but it was no use.

  “They want to go back and get their families,” added Bloom. “They’re insisting.”

  “They’ll be killed,” said Melissa.

  “I’m trying to tell them that. I suggested a camp—they won’t even go there.”

  Melissa gave up.

  “I can’t get them to budge,” she told Danny. “They want to go back to their houses. Despite everything.”

  “Look, we’re just going to leave them here,” he told her. “There’s a jeep heading for the building where Li Han was holed up. The Russian’s in it. We have to go.”

  “All right.”

  “You can stay with them if you want, but—”

  “I’m not staying,” she told him. “I’ve helped them as much as I can. Now I have to take care of business.”

  “Osprey will be here in two minutes.” Danny spun around. “Nuri! Take my rifle. You and Boston stay with the women. We’re going to go get the Russian at their meeting place.”

  Chapter 17

  Duka

  The city was a bloody, Third World disaster, the two rebel groups savaging it as they tried to get at each other. There would be no winners here, only survivors who’d be left to crawl through the rubble, and probably ultimately abandon it.

  Kimko hated them all, including and especially Girma, who sat behind him in the open-top jeep, AK-47 in his hands, bouncing up and down on the seat with khat-fueled excitement and adrenaline. There seemed to be no getting rid of him.

  They were nearly to the warehouse when Girma leaned forward and yelled instructions to the driver. He immediately slammed on the brakes and began making a U-turn.

  “Where are we going?” Kimko demanded.

  “Ha-ha, we have blown up Gerard’s house,” said Girma, holding up a two-way radio. “I want to see it burn. I have heard on my radio.”

  “I need to be at my meeting.”

  Girma frowned. “First we see the house.”

  “Damn it, Girma, I need to get there!”

  Girma’s frown morphed into something more threatening. “I am in charge,” he said. “You are a salesman. We will go where I want. Then you can get your trinket.”

  Kimko cursed to himself. These people were animals. Worse.

  They veered t
hrough the city square where Girma had started the war the day before. The pavilion lay in a pile of rubble. The buildings on either side had been gutted by fire; there were pockmarks in the facade. Across the way, the clinic that Girma’s people had run was now destroyed; part of its front wall lay scattered along the road. But that didn’t stop the wounded from gathering there; two aides were ministering to them, overseen by a pair of fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds with Kalashnikovs.

  Small fires were burning everywhere. The air smelled like burnt grass and acrid dust, mixed with cordite and the scent of burning metal. A pack of dogs ran down the street, dragging something between them.

  A corpse.

  They swung west, moving into a district of traditional round huts with their cone-shaped roofs. It was here that most of the tribesmen belonging to Meur-tse Meur-tskk lived. Bodies were scattered in the yards. The majority were women and children. Dead animals lay along and in the road; the driver made no effort to avoid most of them, simply speeding over the remains.

  Girma, meanwhile, chewed his khat leaves.

  Two men with guns stood in the street ahead, waving their arms as the jeep approached. Kimko put his hand on his holster, ready to pull the pistol out if needed.

  Girma stood up, holding onto the roll bar. He raised his rifle and fired a burst in greeting.

  The men ran to him, jabbering. Girma leaned forward and pointed the driver to the right.

  “Too many enemies down road,” he told Kimko. “We’ll see them later. Dead.”

  Chapter 18

  Duka

  With the Russian heading to the west of the city rather than Li Han’s house to the north, Danny decided not to commit his small force or risk the aircraft getting close to the fighting yet. He told the pilots to hold back; in the meantime he and the others would proceed to the stationmaster building and set up an ambush.

  “I want to hold the Osprey off as long as I can,” he told Melissa. “It’s a straight shot for us through that field and then up the hill and over. Flash and I can get there pretty fast. Can you keep up?”