"Maria?" Aideen said.
"I've been thinking," Maria said. "We may not have to stay out here for very long. Dhamballa, what is the best-known landmark in this area? A village, a mountain, a river. Anything."
"We are about two miles from Wraith's Point," he told her.
"It's a dried geyser that whistles when the sun and temperature go down."
Maria asked for the phone, and Aideen gave it to her. While the Spanish woman placed a call, Father Bradbury moved behind the wheel of the Jeep. He made sure he knew where all the controls were located.
Aideen stood behind the vehicle, watching the sky. The smell of the gasoline made Aideen dizzy. She breathed through her mouth to minimize the impact. The lights she had noticed before had doubled in size. The patting sound had grown louder. Aideen looked anxiously at Maria. She could not imagine what the woman was planning. Whatever it was, she hoped it happened very soon.
Suddenly, Maria shut the phone and strode over. She took the can of gasoline from Dhamballa and poured fuel onto her palm.
"We'd better get going," Maria said as she rubbed the gas on. "Those are definitely helicopters."
"Who did you call?" Aideen asked.
"The cavalry," she replied. "Let's go."
In Spain, Aideen had learned that it did not pay to try to pull information from Maria. Aideen would go along with this because they had no choice. Battat seemed too tired to argue. Nor was there time. They had to get away from the Jeep.
Aideen turned to Dhamballa. "Which way do we go?" she asked.
"To the southwest," the Vodun leader said. "I will leave you with this," he added and handed her the flashlight.
"Leave us?" Aideen said. "Aren't you coming?"
"No," he replied. "I go a different way."
"Where?" Maria asked.
'To a new beginning," he replied.
"You need not do this," Maria said. "I will tell them you did not kill the bishop."
"The bones have told me that someone betrayed us," Dhamballa said. "I must find out who that is. And you must go!"
"We will," Maria said. "Be careful."
Dhamballa thanked her. Then he walked overdo Father
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Bradbury. Aideen listened to the exchange as she, Maria, and Battat walked off.
"I am sorry for all that has happened," Dhamballa said.
"The truly repentant are forgiven," Father Bradbury replied.
"I do not require forgiveness from you or anyone," Dhamballa answered confidently. "But I will do things differently the next time."
"I hope you will," the priest replied. "There is room for your faith and mine to coexist."
"Not here," Dhamballa replied. "Not in Africa."
That was the last thing Dhamballa said before walking off in the blackness.
Aideen heard the Jeep as Father Bradbury started the engine. She turned back as the headlights came on and the priest sped into the night. Soon, the Jeep engine was a faint buzz, its lights lost in the distance.
The choppers sounded louder. They were nearly as loud as the locusts. Battat was looking toward the east as they walked.
"We may have dodged a bullet," Battat said. "The helicopters seem to be veering off."
Aideen looked over. Battat was right. She took a long, slow breath. Aideen had not realized how tense she was. Not until she felt the relief of seeing the helicopters following the Jeep.
It was strange. The three of them had accomplished far more than they set out to do. Yet Aideen could not help but feel a sense of defeat.
It was not just the blood that had been spilled. She could not shake the idea that something pure and fragile had been corrupted during these past few days. A vision. An idea. An ideal. Perhaps it was too old or too young to bear the weight that had been placed upon it. Maybe it had been polluted by politics and finance and having an army.
She did not know. All she knew was that this was not a victory.
For anyone.
SKTY-THREE
Makgadikgadi Pan, Botswana Saturday, 3:19 A.M.
Light.
Throughout this long and troubling night, the danger had all been about light. The searchlights of the helicopters in the sky. The hungry eyes of predators behind the scrub. Finally, after a long trek, Maria and her group were endangered by the failure of light.
The flashlight died nearly a half hour before Maria and the others reached the extinct geyser. Fortunately, Wraith's Point was appropriately named. The group was still able to locate it. The site howled deep and hollow. It reminded Maria of a strong canyon wind in the Pyrenees. The sound came intermittently, every minute or so. It was caused as gases baked underground throughout the day rose through the channels just below the surface. The group simply followed the sound. With nothing to create an echo, it was relatively easy to track the howling. They stumbled here and there over rocks and into gullies. But if there were any predators, Dhamballa's solution kept them away.
Aideen had asked Maria why they were going to the geyser. Maria told her. Aideen accepted the information without cornment. Maria did not know whether the woman believed her. She did not know whether she believed it herself. Over the years, she had grown extremely skeptical about people and their promises. But cynicism did not mean having no hope. She had that.
When the three reached the mound, they stepped around it single file. They moved carefully, feeling their way as they went. They determined that the geyser mound wtfs approxi-
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mately twenty feet around and three feet tall. Up close, the howling sounded like someone was blowing into a giant bottle. Maria was surprised to find that there was very little outgassing from the geyser. It was primarily an acoustic phenomenon.
After rounding the geyser, the group sat. There was nothing else to do. Father Bradbury had been given the cell phone. By now, he was probably safe aboard the helicopter. Maria felt a great sense of accomplishment about that. But she also felt sadness for Dhamballa. He was a young man with a vision. Maybe he was too young to have carried this through. If his beliefs were as important to him as he said, he would be back.
Maria also felt bad for Leon Seronga. She did not imagine that he had survived the night. Someone had to take the fall for the deaths of the deacons and the killing of the Unidad Especial del Despliegue. He would not want the Brush Vipers to take that hit. They were protecting their leader. Presumably, the soldiers would all return to the lives they were living before the Vodun movement began. She did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes nations benefited from a good shaking. Maria came from a country that had its own active, separatist movement. As long as the challenge did not degenerate into anarchy, she found the process, the questioning, to be a healthy one.
But Maria felt good about what she and her colleagues had done. She enjoyed being in action, in a new environment. Yet there was also something disturbing about it. A familiar loneliness. A familiar weight. The responsibility of leadership, of getting friends and adversaries to do what you needed them to do. Maria wondered the same thing she had wondered when Darrell proposed this second time. Whether it was a good idea to continue carrying that load. The challenge was invigorating, exciting. Yet when that responsibility became too much, and it was time to put it down, she did not want to be alone.
That puts you right where you were when you said yes to Darrell, she realized.
They sat there in silence for forty minutes. There were no sounds other than the blasts from the geyser. There were no more lights moving in the sky. Their eyes were accustomed to
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the dark, and the stars were breathtaking. It was good to have this short stretch of peace.
And then there were two lights on the horizon. They were far away, moving toward them on the ground. If Maria was correct, they were lights that signified help, not danger. A few minutes later, there was sound.
&
nbsp; "I don't believe it," Aideen said. She started to rise.
"Stay down," Battat said. "We don't know who it is."
"David is right," Maria said. But she rose anyway. She brushed off the dirt of the mound as she walked slowly toward the oncoming lights. Maria did not think it was a military vehicle. They would most likely be traveling in pairs for protection. It could be a ranger on patrol for poachers. Or it could be a tour group out on a real safari, not one of those luxury trips. They might be heading for a site to watch the sunrise.
But it was none of those. It was a taxicab.
It was Paris Lebbard.
The taxi bounced forward and pulled to a stop near the geyser. Maria walked over as Lebbard rolled down the window. She could see his face in the wide glow of the headlights. He was smiling broadly.
"Thank you," she said.
"You are very welcome." Lebbard beamed. "This is going to cost you a great deal."
"Doesn't it fall under the day rate I paid you?" she asked.
The Botswanan shook his head. "This is a new day, my friend."
'True enough," Maria replied. "I will pay, and I thank you anyway, Paris. You saved our lives."
"Several times today," Lebbard pointed out. It was a proud statement not a boast.
The others had walked over. Maria introduced them by first name. Lebbard invited them to get in the back.
"You smell of petrol," Lebbard said as Maria got in beside him.
"Animal repellant," she replied. "It's probably a good thing I gave up smoking."
Lebbard swung the taxi around, and Maria slumped in her
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seat. She was spent. Her mind immediately lost the focus to which it had clung for so many hours. She found herself feeling detached from the others. They were not the familiar faces from Interpol. And what was this place? The salt pan, even Maun, were not the well-known streets of Madrid or the outlying cities and towns and mountain roads. And she had never smelled like this.
It was all very disorienting. Maria had never worked set hours. It was always on a case-by-case basis. But maybe she needed structure more than she had ever imagined.
There will be time enough to consider all that, Maria told herself. To think about the past and the future. Right now, she needed to rest.
She did not close her eyes, but she closed her mind. And for the moment, that was enough.
SKTY-FOUR
Gaborone, Botswana Saturday, 6:09 AM.
Henry Genet watched the sun rise.
The Belgian diamond merchant was sitting in a comfortable armchair in his room at the Gaborone Sun Hotel and Casino on Julius Nyerere Drive. He was drinking coffee he had made in the in-room coffeemaker. His chair was angled so that he could see both the sun and the imposing National Stadium, which was located to the southeast.
There were no swarming or biting insects. There were no birds or amphibians vocalizing. Just the hum of the air conditioner, which was turned on high. This was far, far better than the hut and canvas cot he had been forced to endure in the swamp.
If only things had worked out differently.
Genet had flown back to the city in his small plane. Then he had come here to wait for a flight to London on Monday. He had left the camp harboring doubts about whether Dhamballa would be able to reach the mine for his rally. Upon reaching the hotel, he turned on the radio. There was news about a showdown on the salt pan. It claimed that the abducted Catholic priest had been rescued. The report also quoted the military commander in Gaborone as declaring that the Brush Vipers had been dispersed and their leader slain. He concluded by saying that the "minor cult leader" Dhamballa had disappeared. Officials presumed that he was in hiding and would probably attempt to flee the country. The government wanted to reassure everyone that order had been restored.
Of course they did, Genet thought.
But they were wrong.
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Genet took a sip of coffee from the white ceramic cup. He contemplated the things that he and his partners would be doing over the next few months. These things would have been quicker and easier with a revolution in Botswana. A revolt that would have spread to South Africa and the rest of the African nations. A war that would have required countless weapons and ammunition provided to both sides by Albert Beaudin. A war that would have given Genet and his partners the diamond mines as well as access to countless ore-producing sites.
A war that would have given them the money to ramp up for the bigger war they hoped would come. That war would have left them poised to become one of the most powerful military-industrial consortiums in world history.
Now Beaudin and his people would have to settle for something else or find another way.
Genet was tired, but he could not go to sleep. He had to call his partners in Paris. They had to be informed, before they heard it on the news, that they had failed to put a puppet in a place of power. Genet was bracing himself to make that call. This operation was under his direct supervision. Beaudin and the others would not be pleased.
Beyond the failure to elevate Dhamballa, what bothered Genet most was what did happen here. The Brush Vipers had not assassinated the American bishop. His own people had not killed him. Theoretically, the Vatican could have shot him to rally support. But apart from being against God's law, a move like that would be politically insane. If it were ever revealed that the Church had acted, they would be crippled for decades. Perhaps the Chinese had some idea who had done it. Beaudin would have to ask his contacts there. If they would speak with him. For they, too, lost with the failure of the Vodun movement. They were going to share in the growth of Beaudin's industries. Many of the new factories would have been located in China. Beijing would not only have earned profits, they would have benefited from the development of new weapons.
Genet looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was nearly six-thirty. He would place the call at seven. Beaudin would just be waking up then to check the stock markets in Asia.
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The diamond merchant took another swallow of coffee. He glanced at the package he had made it from. Ironically, it was a French blend.
Henry Genet's world seemed strangely inverted. He had no idea how the Group would proceed. Yet he still knew one thing.
He knew how the matter would end.
SIXTY-FIVE
Washington, D.C. Saturday, 12:52 A.M.
After Rodgers had placed the call to Aideen, the ventilator died in Hood's office.
"Overworked from all that musk and testosterone we've been pumping out," Herbert deadpanned.
More likely it was something that hadn't been updated when the former Cold War command center was renovated for OpCenter. Hood, Rodgers, Herbert, McCaskey, and Coffey moved into the Tank. The conference room had more space and more phones. Also, it had been renovated. Hood should have shifted there in the first place. But they had all been too caught up in the moment to move. They grabbed sandwiches from the vending machine down the hall and talked about anything else while they waited to hear from one of the three members of the group. Some of them checked E-mail. Knowing that Aideen no longer had the cell phone made it worse. At best, they would hear nothing until the operatives reached Maun. With luck, that would happen around two-thirty.
Hood had received E-mails from his son Alexander. That was how the boy communicated when his father was tied up. They had a separate life together on-line. Different topics and a different language. Even a different relationship than they had when they were together physically. Alexander was more serious on-line, and Hood more flip. It was strange. Hood knocked out some quick responses so the boy would have them in the morning.
The first call that came through to the Tank was from Edgar Kline. Hood put the VSO officer on speakerphone. The Vatican Security officer was calling to inform them that Father
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Bradbury was located by
a Botswana military helicopter. He was safe.
"I wanted to thank you all," Kline said. "Especially you, Bob and Paul. I know we had some disagreements along the way, but I hope that won't stand in the way of future cooperation."
"Every family has its disputes," Hood replied. "The point is, we are still family."
Herbert made a face. He moved both of his fists up and down. He was right. But this was how the game was played, and Herbert knew it. And in the end, the results were what mattered.
"Against the odds, your people secured Powys Bradbury's freedom," Kline went on. "You probably saved his life."
"Thank you, but we don't know that Father Bradbury's life was in danger," Hood cautioned.
"Perhaps he would not have been murdered as the bishop was," Kline acknowledged. "But I am informed that he had been tortured and looked deathlike. We cannot be certain he would have died without you. But we are certain, now, that he will live."
"I'll grant you that," Hood said. "I'll also pass your thanks along to the others."
"I also want you to know that a Botswana patrol has found Leon Seronga," Kline reported. "He is dead."
"By whose hand?" Hood asked.
"He took his own life."
"Are they sure?" Herbert asked.
"They're very certain," Kline replied. "He took a single gunshot wound to the temple. He must have known it was over. Or maybe he was trying to keep the government from interrogating and trying him."
Hood looked at Herbert and Rodgers. Obviously, they were all thinking the same thing. Leon Seronga did that and more. He fell on his sword for Dhamballa. He had given the government of Botswana a fall guy. They could blame this on him and present his death as the end of the threat. There could be an immediate return to normalcy. . "**
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Kline had nothing else to say. He asked to speak with the three field operatives as soon as possible. The Vatican wanted to convey their thanks to them personally. He was sure Father Bradbury would like to do that as well. Hood promised to make that happen.
"What about you?" Kline asked. "Do you have any further information on the murder of Bishop Max or about Dhamballa?"
Clancy, Tom - Op Center 09 - Mission of Honor Page 40