by Tom Clancy
His dilemma was that each of the paths before him gleamed with fabulous inducements, as if paved with sterling silver.
Where, then, to place his forward foot?
For decades his government in Khartoum had been engaged in civil war with rebels in the nation’s south, their opposition fanned by Dinka tribesmen of black African origin who had resisted acceptance of shari’a, the strict Islamic code of law and conduct imposed after the revolution. Instead, the infidels clung to the barbaric spirit worship of their ancestors or the Christianity spread by missionaries in centuries past, calling for partial autonomy or complete separation, it all depended on which of their many factional groups one chose to heed, and when a particular group made its demands — for they seemed to change as often as the rebel leadership.
The situation had been a morass as far back as al-Ashar could remember. There was a period when the Dinkas had formed an alliance with the Nuer, a bordering tribe with whom they shared — and often feuded over — livestock grazing areas and water resources in the riverine plains around the White Nile. Taking strict measures to suppress the guerilla activities, Khartoum had deployed military land and air elements to the region, sealing it off to UN observers and representatives of the so-called humanitarian aid organizations that were plainly tools of the American CIA-Westerners who in their ignorance, presumptuousness, and mongrel weakness would have been quick to condemn a nation for exercising its right to preserve internal security and engage in a cultural cleansing that would bring about a politically unified and devoutly virtuous society.
Indeed, al-Ashar felt his government had shown the southerners greater leniency than was warranted by their anarchic conduct. Upon eradication of the villages that gave support to rebel garrisons, women, children, and the elderly were spared execution. Mercifully gathered from their crude thatch huts in what their people chose to term kashas, or roundups, they were sent to relocation camps in which ample attention was given to their welfare. Boys certain to be indoctrinated into rebel bands if left to hear the lies and distortions of family members sympathetic to their cause were transferred to separate facilities — the southern refugees who had fled to Ethiopia, Kenya, and Eritrea chose to call these abductions or kidnaps—where they were given suitable Arabic names, taught the holy ways of Islam, and trained to be loyal members of the national militia upon reaching the age of conscription. Was this not generous? Did it not show commendable restraint?
In spite of Khartoum’s efforts to impose order, the rebels persisted in their defiance, but a political dispute had flared between the Dinka and Nuer commanders and left their Sudan People’s Liberation Army divided and weakened. Old tribal conflicts over land and water rights were revived, and soon the former confederates were firing Kalashnikovs at one another. Government forces capitalized upon this by moving into the breach and seizing enemy base towns where the opposition troops were in disarray. With drought and famine spreading across the countryside to further devitalize the rebellion, Sudan’s lawful ruling establishment — the National Congress Party to which Arif al-Ashar belonged — had been encouraged that it might finally be subdued. Partly to silence international cries of outrage that had resulted from the propagandizing of Dinka refugees to gullible representatives of the American and European media, airdrops of water, grain, and medicine had been allowed into the southern part of the country.
There was a second, tactically advantageous reason for the admission of relief shipments, however.
Also struck by drought, the Nuba Mountains in the north had presented a distinct problem for the government. Infiltrating their high notches and passes, SPLA bands had become entrenched in pocket strongholds near remote villages inhabited by Nubians, an indigenous people that had by and large refrained from participation in the civil war, sharing neither the southern tribes’ desire for independence nor the Arabic population’s devotion to Islam. In allowing food and other supplies to reach the plains, the government had gambled that the rebels in the Nuba range, who were low on provisions, would be lured from their hideaways in attempts to replenish their stockpiles. And while the Nubians presented no armed threat in themselves, their refusal to accept shari’a, and their racial kinship with the SPLA, made them an undesirable and potentially destabilizing presence. Khartoum’s hope had been that they, too, would be coaxed from their villages into the relocation camps and government-held towns.
With attack helicopters and army raiding parties lending it impetus, the initiative had produced estimable results.
Then, as Allah would have it, another set of complications arose.
Over the past three years, a series of intertribal councils initiated by Dinka and Nuer elders had led the squabbling rebel factions toward reconciliation. Simultaneously, America and its UN allies had exerted increasing diplomatic pressure on Khartoum — directly as well as through Arab-African intermediaries — to allow relief drops into the Nubas and arbitrate a peace agreement with the southerners, backing their demands with the ever-present threat of trade sanctions. Sharing a long border with Sudan to the north, its commercial shipping and agricultural health dependent on the Nile waters flowing through both nations, Egypt in particular had no great wish to see the southern Sudan split off into a non-Arab, potentially antagonistic sovereign state — but neither could it risk losing American economic and military support. Thus, it had encouraged a compromise settlement to the extended civil war.
Weary from decades of struggle and natural disaster, facing a resolidified insurgent movement that was liable to keep the fighting at an impasse, torn by rifts between religious conservatives and secular reformers in its own parliament, Khartoum had capitulated to mounting demands and entered into a peace dialogue with the rebels, the stated agenda of which was to grant the southern provinces an as-yet-unspecified level of self-determination.
Displeased with the government’s acquiescence, Arif al-Ashar and a small group of his fellow conservatives had at that juncture committed to secretly hunting for a more palatable alternative. Arif al-Ashar himself had contacted a one-stop provider of black market arms, technology, and mission personnel with whom he’d had a long-standing affiliation — and the upshot was the message that had just appeared, then dissolved, on his computer display.
Now the question for al-Ashar remained: Which shining path to take?
Without official government approval, funds for his venture would have to be secured through clandestine means, and there were limitations to what could be funneled from existing budgetary appropriations before the drain became noticeable. The wealthier members of al-Ashar’s parliamentary cabal were certain to pledge additional monies, but the product’s high price tag was still restrictive, and hard choices needed to be made.
He clucked his tongue against his front teeth, watching the file attachment devour itself on his screen. A single disease trigger capable of leveling the Dinka and Nuer without causing a pandemic that would affect all the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa had to be keyed to a gene or gene string unique to those tribes, did it not? Yet even assuming an exchange of such genetic markers had occurred through racial ancestry and generations of living in close proximity to one another, intermarriage between tribal members was traditionally discouraged, and the number of individuals who shared a unique hereditary trait — and were likely to be susceptible — would be fewer than al-Ashar wished. A minimum of two triggers, obtained at a cost of a hundred million dollars, would therefore be necessary to ensure satisfactory results.
But what if only one of the tribes — say, the Dinka — were targeted? Arif al-Ashar’s brow creased in thought. That could prove to the best advantage. The infection would still be sweeping in scale, decimating their population, while claiming significant casualties among Nuer of mingled bloodlines. In the short term, this would mitigate the impact of a brokered treaty granting the south full or partial independence, leaving the survivors too ravaged by their losses to pose a foreseeable threat to the north. At the same time, Khartoum
would have presented a moderate face to the world by having shown a willingness to reach a negotiated solution to the civil conflict. And as long as the triggers were available, dealing separately with the Nuer remained an option.
The third path al-Ashar saw before him seemed less appealing initially, but he would not dismiss it out of hand. Were the outbreak to occur among the Nubians, the Sudanese north would be purged of ethnic and cultural impurity to a highly acceptable degree. Foreign aid to the stricken mountain dwellers might be allowed to demonstrate the government’s new charitability and to blunt criticisms of its supposed indifference to human rights. As talks with the south commenced, international mediators would be tacitly made to understand that a hard-line prosouthern stance could once again lead to a cutoff of access to relief providers. The humanitarian issue that the Westerners had been using as a political lever against Khartoum would become a mallet poised to swing down from above them.
His brow creased in thought under the white wrappings of his emma, al-Ashar reached for the cup of spiced tea called shai-saada that had been steeping beside his computer. Eyes closed, he inhaled the steam curling up from it before taking his first sip, savoring the feel of its moist warmth on his cheeks, the aroma of cloves and mint, the pleasurable tingle it left in his sinuses.
Safety was in caution, regret in haste, he mused. Time remained for him to confer with his brothers in the ministry and arrive at a decision.
For the moment, al-Ashar would relish his sense of wide-open possibility, of roads that glowed with their own bright silvery light stretching out to even brighter crossings yet unglimpsed.
Wherever it led him, the journey was going to be memorable.
NINE
NATION CODE NAME: CAPE GREEN NOVEMBER 6, 2001
He had checked into the hotel five days ago and would need to stay perhaps another two before the diamonds-for-weapons deal was concluded. In this part of the world, haggling was a recreational activity, and ordinarily simple arrangements took on needless and infinite complications. But there was a wealth of precious stones to be derived, and he always fulfilled an assignment to which he’d committed.
And he could not claim that he hadn’t known what to expect.
Antoine Obeng was a thug, a rebel warlord who had secured an official government post through guileful manipulation after the fractures of civil war were weakly repaired. Now he was chief of police in the nation’s capital, a title that validated his ego and legitimized the power he relished above all else. But he continued his behind-the-scenes leadership of the outlaw militias that roamed the city at will and held the inestimably productive mines in the countryside by force of arms.
Much could be said for his endurance in a nation where political control changed hands often and violently, and death by assassination was the fate of most competing warlords.
Nonetheless, it was only the convenient location of the top-end hotel and its exceptional services catering to diplomatic and business travelers from abroad that had curbed the visitor’s annoyance over the inexhaustible convolutions of the bargaining.
A man of rigorous discipline, he preferred sticking to a tight routine. Every morning since his arrival he had taken a swim in the indoor pool at six o’clock, a time when few others were outside their rooms and he stood the best chance of having it to himself. It was also the one time each day he felt at ease moving about without his personal guard, wanting an interval of solitude.
After taking the elevator up from his room to the twelfth-floor recreational area, he would put on his bathing trunks in the locker room between the gym and solarium, rinse off in the shower, then walk through the short connecting corridor to the glass-enclosed pool and do his laps for precisely an hour.
On the first day, a garrulous Dutch banker had intruded on his privacy and asked whether he cared to have breakfast in the hotel restaurant after finishing his “dip.” Shunning interaction with strangers, he had tersely declined and ignored the man until he’d backed off.
In the three days since, he had found the pool empty and gone about his laps without disturbance.
Then, today, he had reached the locker room and again encountered undesired company.
Habitually alert, he whisked his eyes over the men inside. Both were fit and in their midthirties. One had blond hair, the other brown. They were wearing workout clothes and speaking American English to each other with the easy familiarity of close friends or associates. The blond-haired man had a somewhat tousled appearance and a light growth of beard. He was neatly hanging his street apparel in a locker. His companion sat removing items from his gym bag. A folded towel and sports bottle were on the bench next to him.
Superficially, they seemed of a type. Professionals on an overseas junket. Of no particular interest to him besides being trespassers upon what he had come to regard as his proprietary domain.
But he trusted the unconscious perception of environmental cues we call instinct. And something in the air told him to be careful.
As he stood inside the entryway, the men gave him mannerly nods. He noted them without response and went to the nearest free locker to the door, an ear attuned to their conversation.
“The taxis around here, Jesus, that ride from the airport gave me bruises where I sit. Plus he must have just missed getting us crunched at least twice,” said the man with the twenty-four-hour stubble. He yawned. “Thought I’d never make it to the conference.”
The one on the bench looked amused. “You should’ve listened to my advice, taken a metered cab. Their drivers have to be licensed. And they carry identity cards.”
“Like that’s going to do you any good. Or you really think the insurance companies pay off around here? Assuming they have insurance companies.”
“Maybe not, but you’d know who to curse out for putting you in a body cast.”
The bristle-cheeked man grinned and reached inside the locker to adjust his trousers on the hook. The other’s hand was returning to his bag.
Without letting another instant pass, the morning swimmer abruptly abandoned his locker and strode back out the door.
The pair in the room exchanged glances.
His hand coming out of the gym bag with a.22 N.A.A. Black Widow, the man on the bench sprang to his feet and slipped the five-shot minirevolver into the belly band under his sweatshirt.
The stubbled man simultaneously turned from his open locker, leaving its door flung wide. From his trouser pocket he’d removed a holstered Beretta 950 BS semiautomatic, his own choice of a peekaboo gun. He stuffed the deep-concealment holster into the pocket of his loosely fitting workout pants.
Both trotted to the doorway, then slowed as they went into the hall and looked up and down its length.
Neither saw any sign of the swimmer.
They split off in opposite directions, each using restraint to keep from moving too quickly. If the swimmer had about-faced for a reason unconnected to their presence — as they hoped was the case — it would do no good to raise his suspicions now.
Reaching the bank of three elevators, the brown-haired man glanced at the floor indicators above their doors. The numbers over the first and last cars were dark. The second elevator in line was descending, the number eleven and Down arrow lit up. He pressed the call button to be certain that the stationary cars weren’t sitting on his floor, the swimmer perhaps having ducked inside to wait out his pursuers, trick them into thinking he’d taken the other car. Send them chasing it via the stairwell while he stayed put.
No such luck.
Both cars began to rise from the ground-floor entrance lobby, obviously unoccupied.
He returned his eyes to the indicator panel above the middle car.
The eight had flashed on.
Seven, six, five…
The elevator stopped at the fourth floor and its indicator light blinked off.
He frowned, looked down the hall at his partner, shook his head.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself.
&
nbsp; The Wildcat had retreated to his den.
* * *
“I can’t figure where we slipped up,” the blond man was explaining over his handheld radio. “One minute he’s walking through the door, heading toward a locker, then he just takes off. In and out…”
“Never mind,” Tom Ricci said into his communications headset. He’d heard the locker room banter through installed surveillance mikes and thought the slipup was evident. You went incognito, you stuck with what you knew, kept your act simple. Instead, they’d gotten too clever for their own good.
There was an impermeable tunnel of silence over the radio. Then, “How do you want us to proceed?”
Ricci took a breath. Along with a couple of snoop techs named Gallagher and Thompson, he was across the street from the hotel, in an office hastily rented through a cutout and used as a spy post for the past several days.
“Stay at the hotel,” he said. “You’ll hear from me.”
More silence. The blond man at the other end of the trunked connection understood what Ricci’s order meant. He and his buddy were finished. Removed from the action, and soon to be cut loose from the fledgling RDT. Good night, take care, see you again sometime.
“Okay,” he said, his regret and disappointment evident despite the digital scrambling process that robbed so much tonality from the human voice.
Ricci aborted contact and passed Thompson’s headset back to him. He wasn’t unsympathetic to the snatch team but neither were their hurt feelings of paramount concern to him. The bungled opportunity at the hotel meant things were about to get a lot more difficult for him and the rest of his task force.
They had maintained a constant watch on Le Chaut Sauvage—the Wildcat — almost from the moment the terrorist arrived in the country, acting on reliable word from a plant among Antoine Obeng’s inner circle. In essence, their operational model was the Mossad’s abduction of Adolf Eichmann from his safe haven in Argentina a half century ago: success achieved through simplicity of planning and execution. A small team watches the target’s patterns of movement, subdues him when a clean opening is presented, rustles him out of the country.