Raven Strike

by Dale Brown; Jim DeFelice

  Breanna frowned.

  “It’s going to cause trouble with your husband,” added Reid. “I’m sorry for that.”

  “We’ll deal with it.” Breanna straightened and rose from the table. “Which one of us will tell the President that we have the UAV but not the computer?”

  “I think we should both make the call.”

  Chapter 2

  Duka

  In the end, it was momentum rather than logic or threats that got the women moving—Nuri and Boston pulled each to their feet and nudged them in the right direction, simply refusing to take no or inaction as an answer. They shuffled rather than walked, but it was progress nonetheless. Nuri took the infant from Bloom, hunching his body over it to keep it warm. It was sleeping, its thumb in its mouth.

  Boston led the way around the outskirts of the woods, hiking toward the north-south highway that ran through the city to the south. There was still a glow from the center of town; the air smelled of burnt wood and grass. Sudan First appeared to have wiped out Meurtre Musique, but the rebels had lost so many people that in all likelihood the city would eventually be abandoned.

  They were just in sight of the picket Danny had set up around the fallen plane when the backup Osprey arrived. It came in from the north, having taken a wide circle around the city to avoid any possible enemies. The aircraft swung down to the ground ahead, barely a shadow in the night.

  “Why’d you bring the women?” asked Danny as the small group staggered into the makeshift camp.

  “I didn’t know what else to do with them,” said Nuri.

  “They can’t stay with us.”

  “I know, but we can get them to a refugee camp or something.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.” Nuri turned to find Bloom. She was walking with the woman who’d given birth, moving mechanically.

  “We’re going to take you to a camp,” he said. “Where would be the best place?”

  Instead of answering, Bloom reached her hands out to take the baby.

  “A camp,” said Nuri, reluctantly turning him over. “Where would the best one be?”

  “Maybe you should ask which is the least worst,” said Melissa. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “It’s all right. I have it under control,” said Nuri.

  “She’s not talking to you.”

  “She’s not going to talk to you either.”

  But Bloom did, haltingly and in a faraway voice. She suggested a place called Camp Feroq, which was run by her relief organization a hundred miles southwest.

  “I never heard of it,” said Nuri.

  “I’m sure we can find it.”

  Nuri found himself arguing against it, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. He told Melissa that they should be relocated somewhere nearby, which would make it possible for them to eventually return. Yet he knew that wasn’t logical at all.

  “You just suggested they go to a camp themselves,” said Danny.

  “Most of them are hellholes,” answered Nuri. But he knew Danny was right, and he let the matter drop.

  As far as Danny was concerned, his mission was to retrieve every bit of the UAV, and so he wasn’t surprised that Reid and Breanna told him that the control unit had to be recovered. But the fact that Breanna was suggesting an attack into the Sudan Brotherhood camp put the matter into an entirely different category.

  Before he dealt with that, he needed to finish the search and pick up the Russian.

  Given the fact that Nuri could speak Russian, it made sense that he come on the mission, which would be launched from the backup Osprey. Melissa wanted to go as well. Danny told her flatly he didn’t want her help.

  “I know what the flight computer looks like,” she argued. “You need somebody along who can identify it.”

  “It’s a frickin’ computer,” snapped Nuri. “How hard is that to figure out?”

  “The Osprey’s going to be pretty packed with the combat team,” said Danny diplomatically. “We have to make a couple of drops and then move in. It’s a coordination thing. Why don’t you watch after the women and help Boston make a plan to research the first building we hit and the area near it. This is just a pickup job. We’ve all practiced this a million times.”

  She finally agreed. Aboard the aircraft, Nuri asked Danny why he was being so nice to her.

  “I’m not being nice to her.”

  “She’s been lying to us the whole time,” said Nuri, standing over him as the aircraft spun toward the hills.

  “When has she lied?”

  “She hasn’t told us the whole story,” said Nuri. “She’s trying to save her ass and take the credit for getting all the pieces back.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Don’t let these Agency types bulldoze you. They’re sweeter than crap to your face, then you find out they’ve been knifing you in the back.”

  “Sometimes you act like you got a stick up your ass,” Danny told him. “Other times it’s a two by four.”

  The pilot announced they were five minutes from the first insertion.

  Exhausted, Kimko lay on the ground, halfway between sleep and consciousness. His mind threw thoughts out in odd patterns, numbers mixing with ideas, old memories filtering into what he saw around himself in the jungle.

  Most of all he wanted vodka.

  Kimko thought about letting go and falling asleep. But it would be the same as accepting failure, and that he could not do. So after a long time on the ground he took a deep, slow breath and struggled to his feet.

  There were noises around him—wind rushing by. He turned quickly, sure he was being followed by some animal, but nothing appeared.

  No, he was alone, very alone, lost in the middle of Africa and sure to die here, thirsty and tired, a spy, unknown and unloved.

  His mind wandered even as he tried to focus on the jungle before him. He saw his ex-wife and spit at her.

  He looked down at the ground, looking for the path.

  When he looked up, a man in a black battle dress was standing before him.

  Kimko turned. There were two more. He was surrounded.

  Not by soldiers, by aliens.

  A short, youthful man with wide shoulders appeared behind them. He spoke Russian. He was a human.

  “Where is the control unit for the UAV?” asked the man. “The flight computer. What did you do with it?”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Kimko.

  The man raised his pistol and held it in his face.

  “Tell me,” said the man.

  Kimko jerked away, but one of the aliens grabbed him by the shoulder. The grip was intense. It drained all of his strength away.

  “Where is the control unit?” demanded the short man, pointing the gun directly at his forehead.

  “I have no idea—”

  The gun went off. The bullet flew by his head.

  Am I dead?

  I’m dead.

  No, no, it’s an old trick. Intimidation. I’ve done this myself. I’ve done this.

  It’s a trick.

  “You are coming with us,” said the man.

  Was he dead? Had Girma the idiot shot him after all?

  Kimko started to struggle. This was real, though it didn’t make any sense—he pushed and threw his fists.

  “You’re not taking me alive!” he yelled.

  But as the words escaped his mouth, he smelled something sweet in his nose. Something was poking his back, poking him in a million places.

  Sleep, said a voice inside his brain. Sleep.

  Milos Kimko collapsed to the ground, already starting to snore.

  “Sounds like he’s got a breathing problem,” Danny said.

  “He’s OK,” said Sugar, checking him over. “That Demerol will keep him out for a while.”

  “Nolan, you and Shorty see if you can backtrack the trail he came up through. See if he threw anything away,” said Danny. MY-PID had already looked at the video feeds, but Danny wanted it che
cked anyway. “Work your way back to the city. We’ll hook up with you.”

  The two men set out. The rest of the team fanned out nearby, checking to see if Kimko had hidden or dropped anything nearby.

  “Searching’s a waste of time,” said Nuri. “He never got it. I’m beginning to think they never had a control unit in the first place.”

  “They needed something to fly the plane,” said Danny.

  “Maybe Melissa took it and she’s been lying all this time.”

  “What do you have against her?”

  “I told you, Danny, she’s a bad seed.”

  Danny shook his head.

  “I want to take him to Ethiopia and question him,” said Nuri.

  “That’s fine.”

  “We’ll know what he knows in a few hours. But best bet now is probably the Brother who killed Li Han. That’s who we need to find.”

  Chapter 3

  Jomo Kenyatta International Airport

  Nairobi, Kenya

  Amara took his shoes off and placed them in the plastic tub. He put his backpack into a second tub, then pushed them together toward the X-ray machine. He felt as if everyone in the airport was looking at him, though he knew that couldn’t be the case. He’d already gotten through two different security checks; this was the last before the gate.

  With the tubs moving on the conveyor belt, Amara stepped over to the metal detector frame. A portly woman in a military-style uniform held out a blue-gloved hand to stop him from proceeding.

  Heart racing, he saw the light on the nearby X-ray machine blinking red.

  Don’t panic! Don’t run!

  He looked back the officer. She was motioning him forward.

  He stepped through, half expecting the alarm to sound, though he had no metal in his pockets, no explosives, no knives, no weapons. His clothes had been carefully laundered before he was driven to the airport.

  Clear. He was clear. On his way to America.

  He started to look for his shoes. But the woman with the blue gloves took hold of his arm.

  “Sir, step this way,” said the woman in English.

  Startled, Amara wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Please,” she said, pointing to the side. “Step over there.”

  Two other officers, both men, came over behind her. Amara stepped to the side, as she had asked. His throat started to constrict. He wasn’t afraid—he’d never been a coward—but it seemed unfair to be stopped so early in his mission.

  “Please open your bag,” said an officer on the other side of the conveyor belt. He spoke English in an accent so thick and foreign that Amara had to puzzle out what he said, and only understood because he was pointing.

  He tried to apologize for his hesitation. He’d been told repeatedly to be nice to the guards; it would make them much more cooperative. “I didn’t, uh—”

  “Open the bag, sir.”

  Amara reached to the zipper and pushed it down. He had only a shirt and a book here, as instructed.

  “You have a laptop?” said the man.

  God, the laptop. He’d forgotten to take it out of the compartment so they could look at it specially.

  What a fool! The simplest thing! And now trapped!

  “I do, oh I do, I forgot—” he said.

  “Could you turn it on, please?” said the officer.

  Amara pulled the laptop out and fumbled with it as he reached for the power button. In the meantime, another officer came up behind the first and whispered something in his ear, pointing behind them. They turned around to watch someone else in line.

  The computer took forever to boot up. The screen blinked—the hard drive failed the self-test. He had to press F1 to proceed. He did so quickly; the computer proceeded with its start-up.

  The security officer who’d had him take out the laptop called over to the woman with the gloves. Then he turned and went with the other man to check on the person he’d pointed out. Momentarily confused, Amara focused on the laptop, waiting patiently for its desktop to appear.

  “What else do you have in the bag?” asked the woman officer.

  “My shirt, my uh—some paper,” he said.

  “In this compartment.” She reached in and pulled out the power cord and mouse.

  “To make it work without the battery,” he said.

  “Yes, yes, of course. Very good. You must remove laptops separately from now on.”

  “I’m sorry. I—I forgot.”

  “Go. You may go.”

  Amara hastily put everything back in the bag, then went to find his shoes.

  He was through. Next stop, America.

  Chapter 4

  Washington, D.C.

  President Todd stared at the worn surface on her desk, her eyes absorbing the varied scars and lines. The desk was her own personal piece of furniture, one of the few pieces she brought to the White House. She’d always found a certain mental comfort in familiar physical objects; the small, solid desk reminded her of her many past struggles, not only hers but those of her father and grandfather, both of whom had been small town doctors in what seemed a different America now. Many a patient’s life was saved at this desk, she believed; if wood could be said to have a soul, this one’s must surely be a powerful force for good.

  She needed some of its strength now. The day’s developments had not been good.

  There was a knock on the door to her small office.

  “Come,” she said.

  David Greenwich, her chief of staff, poked his head in.

  “Mr. Reid and Ms. Stockard have arrived, ma’am,” he said. “Everyone else is in the cabinet room, waiting for you.”

  “Very good, David.”

  “You have that dinner with Kurgan and some of the New York crew this evening.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  “We could cancel.”

  “Oh, stop, David,” she said, rising. “You’re mothering me.”

  “Just looking out for you. I know how much you’re going to enjoy that one,” he added sarcastically.

  “I assure you I’m fine. And tell my husband that as well.”

  “He didn’t say anything.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Todd smiled to herself as she left the office. All of these men, fussing over her—it could easily go to her head if she let it.

  Then again, reality was always waiting to give her a good kick in the gut if she got too full of herself.

  It was giving her a double job today.

  Breanna took a seat at the long table, making sure she was between Edmund and Reid. Edmund had brought Reginald Harker with him, along with another man, Gar Pilpon. Pilpon, about forty, had extremely white hair and a set of thick, trifocal glasses that made his eyes look almost psychedelic. His pupils were red, or at least appeared to be red in the light of the cabinet room where they were meeting.

  President Todd’s National Security Advisor, Dr. Michael Blitz, sat at the other end of the table opposite Edmund. Next to him was the President’s political advisor, William Bozzone. If the request to brief her in person hadn’t been unusual enough, Bozzone’s presence signaled that what seemed a routine matter a few days before had blossomed into a full-blown crisis.

  “Very good of you all to come on short notice,” said the President as she entered. “Don’t get up gentlemen. Breanna, I’m glad you could make it. How’s your daughter?”

  “Very good, Ms. President.”

  Todd’s smile disappeared as she sat down. That was her style: right to business.

  “So, as I understand it, we have everything but the computer that runs the aircraft,” she said, looking around the table. “Am I correct?”

  “That is right,” said Breanna.

  “And we know where it is?” Todd turned to Edmund.

  “My person on the scene is continuing to search.”

  “I was under the impression that Whiplash had been called in to supervise the recovery,” said Todd sharply. Clearly, she was not happy with him
or his Agency. She turned back to Breanna. “Am I right?”

  “Yes. We recovered the aircraft in a building that was being used by the target of the assassination program. We subsequently found his body on the other side of the city. He apparently was killed by a member of the Muslim separatist group he was helping. We think the killer took the control unit. That’s one of our theories, at least.”

  “How many theories do you have?” asked Blitz. “Jonathon?”

  “We are pursuing several,” said Reid dryly. They had agreed he would speak sparingly.

  “How long before we recover the rest of the aircraft?”

  “I can’t give an estimate,” said Breanna.

  “Do they know what they have?” Blitz asked.

  Edmund answered before Breanna could.

  “The Raven control unit looks exactly like other UAV control units,” he said. “It would be impossible for them to know.”

  “It actually looks quite different,” said Reid sharply. “And of course, the programming inside it is very different.”

  Breanna gave him a slight tap with her foot under the table. He was doing exactly what he had sworn he wouldn’t do.

  “These Africans are primitive,” said Harker. “That’s one of the reasons the region was chosen in the first place. They have no idea.”

  “If they have no idea,” said Todd, “then why did they take the control unit?”

  “American technology can always be sold. They’d sell a toaster if we dropped one there.”

  “We have to assume that they can figure it out,” said Blitz. “Eventually. We need to get the unit back.”

  “I agree with that,” said Edmund.

  The President turned toward Breanna and Reid. “You’re confident that you can get it?”

  “We’re reasonably sure,” said Breanna. “But it would be foolish to make guarantees. We don’t even have all the technical data on the flight computer. We’ve made our own assessments based on what its capacity is supposed to be, but quite honestly, the amount of information—”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not following this,” said Bozzone, speaking for the first time. “Are you saying you don’t know what you’re looking for?”