by Dale Brown
“This ain’t like the movies,” said Sugar. “You don’t know what else might be screwed up or broken. You need X rays, and really they oughta do an MRI on you. I’d guess you have rotator cuff tears—”
“Just can the talk and put it back in place.”
“Don’t go ghetto with me, girl,” snapped Sugar. She had earned her nickname because of her extremely sweet nature, but she could be a demon when someone rubbed her wrong.
“I know what I’m talking about,” insisted Melissa. “I’m a nurse.”
“Yeah, and I’m the President of the United States.”
“I’ll handle this,” said Danny. “Shug, go see what Nuri’s up to. All right?”
“Anything you say, Colonel.” Sugar rolled her eyes and left.
A half-dozen small canvas camp chairs had been left in the building. They were the only furniture, if you didn’t count the boxes and gear the Whiplash team had brought. Danny pulled over one of the chairs and sat down in front of Melissa. She had her shirt pulled down, exposing the top half of her breast as well as her shoulder.
Danny concentrated on her shoulder, gently touching the large bruise.
“I don’t think popping it back into place is a good idea,” he said.
“Have you ever done it before?”
“Have you?”
“Twice.”
“On yourself?”
“No.”
“If the muscle and ligaments are torn—”
“I need to get Raven back. It’s in Duka. I’m the only one here who can get in there and find it.”
“That’s not even close to being true,” said Nuri, standing near the door. Sugar was next to him. “Who are you working for?”
“Who are you?”
“Nuri Lupo. I spent six months out here, living with the rebels. I’ll tell you one thing, you’re damn lucky you’re alive. Riding out through those hills? American? Woman? Anyone who found you could have hit you over the head and hauled you back to their village. Ransom on your dead body would have set them up for life. And that’s if they dealt with us — give you to al Qaeda or one of the groups they support, you’d be worth a lot more.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’ll bet. Who do you work for?” Nuri asked. “Are you even authorized to be here?”
“If my shoulder didn’t hurt so badly, I’d slap your face.”
“All right, kindergarten time is over,” said Danny. “Sugar, get her some morphine.”
“I’m not taking any morphine,” insisted Melissa.
“If you want us to fix it, you’re getting a shot,” said Danny.
“I have a job to do here, Colonel. I’m not doing anything that will endanger it. And I’m sure as hell not going to Alexandria or anywhere else for a hospital. I’m not leaving until we have Raven.”
“That may be a while,” said Nuri.
Danny looked over at Nuri. “Let’s talk outside,” he told him.
Melissa grabbed him as he started to get up.
“I need to do my job,” she told him. “I don’t want morphine. I don’t want to be knocked out. Give me aspirin. That’s all I need.”
“I doubt that,” said Sugar. “Your muscles are in splint mode. Super hard. You need something to relax them.”
“Just get aspirin.”
Sugar glanced at Danny.
“Try aspirin,” he said. “Can you get her shoulder back into place?”
“I can try,” said Sugar. She sounded doubtful. “If her muscles relax enough.”
“How about a half dose of the morphine?” asked Danny. “Just enough to loosen up.”
“All right,” said Melissa. “Half a dose.”
* * *
“They took the aircraft to an old warehouse building near a train line,” Nuri told Danny outside. MY-PID superimposed the locator signal on a satellite image of Duka and the surrounding area, projecting it onto a large slate computer Nuri had tied into the system. “The train line was built about a decade ago for some mining operation, but it hasn’t run in years. Most of the locals live in huts on the south and western ends of town, but people will squat in empty buildings all the time. We can’t really be sure what the hell’s going on there without having a look from the ground.”
He moved his finger over the screen, increasing the magnification.
“There were at least two different rebel groups in Duka when I was here,” Nuri went on. “They sometimes work together, at least to the extent that they don’t kill each other. Which is saying something out here.”
“MY-PID have anything new?”
“Nothing more than I’ve said. They’re really small bands.”
“What about this Raven project? Is it related to the place, Duka?”
“I don’t think so. There’s no connection with Li Han and the town. He may have been in the area, but he’s been working with the Sudan Brotherhood. They’re much farther south.”
“So he’s out of the picture?”
“Probably ran off,” said Nuri.
“Anything new on Raven?”
“Totally black,” said Nuri, with more than a hint of I-told-you-so. “Not available in any system MY-PID has access to either. I thought of telling it to go over the wall.”
“Don’t,” said Danny sharply.
“I didn’t.”
Going over the wall meant telling the system to break into Agency computers and other systems that were supposed to be off-limits to it. Theoretically, the safety precautions built into the computer system — meant to prevent it from ever being used against the U.S. — would prevent this. But MY-PID had enormous resources, and Nuri was sure the system could get in if asked.
Which he still might do. He just wouldn’t tell Danny about it.
“What’s Duka like?” asked Danny.
“Typical shit hole. Little city. Used to be about ten times the size but shrunk with the fighting over the past two years. Relatively peaceful now. Two rebel factions share control. One’s religious. The other’s just crazy.”
Nuri had been in Duka twice. He’d had dealings with a man named Gerard, who was the unofficial head of a band of rebels from a tribe whose name — phonetically, “Meur-tse Meur-tskk”—was bastardized by Western intelligence services into Meurtre Musique—“murder music” in French.
The group was actually a subgroup of the Kababish tribe, with a historical connection to French colonists or explorers who had apparently intermarried with some of the tribe during the eighteenth or nineteenth century. It was now more a loose association of outcasts and their families than an extended family, too small to have any influence outside the area where they lived.
The other group — Sudan the Almighty First Liberation in the Name of Allah, to use the English name — was larger, with informal and family ties connecting them loosely to other groups around the region. Like Meurtre Musique, the members were Islamic, but somewhat more observant. Despite their name, they were not affiliated with the powerful radical Islamic Sudan Brotherhood, which was a dominant rebel force in the south.
Meurtre Musique and First Liberation ran the city; the only government presence was a police station “staffed” by a sixty-year-old man who spent most of his time in Khartoum, the capital well to the west.
“You think we can get into the city with the Osprey?” Danny asked.
“Attract a hell of a lot of attention,” said Nuri. “We’d be better off going in low-key, or maybe waiting until night and scouting around.”
There was a short, loud scream from inside the hut. A string of curses followed.
“Sounds like Sugar fixed the princess’s shoulder,” said Nuri.
“What’s her story, you figure?” Danny asked.
“Besides the obvious fact that she’s a bitch?” Nuri shook his head. “Women officers are all one of two kinds — either they use sex to get what they want, or they play hard-ass bitch. She’s the second. We should get rid of her. Shoot her up with morphine and pack
her off. The shoulder’s the perfect excuse.”
“This is her operation.”
“No, it’s our operation,” said Nuri. “Her operation ended when the aircraft crashed and we were called in to clean up. I don’t like the fact that it’s walled off, Danny. There is a huge amount here that they’re not telling us.”
“I know.”
Sugar came out of the building. She was smiling.
“Done,” she told Danny. “She didn’t want to wait for the aspirin to take.”
“She gonna be all right?”
“Phhhh. That attitude tells me she wasn’t all right to begin with. I’m gonna get some chow and get some rest, Colonel, all right?”
“Sure. You setting up your own tent?”
“You got that right. I’m not sleeping with those pervs. No way, Colonel.” She thrust her finger at Nuri in mock warning. “And you watch yourself, too, Mr. Lupo.”
Sugar exploded with laughter and sauntered away.
Danny picked up the small touch screen and looked at the satellite image. The warehouse where the UAV was located could be attacked easily enough, but he’d prefer to make the assault at night for a host of reasons, starting with operational security. The question was whether they could wait that long.
“How likely are they to move the UAV, you think?” he asked Nuri.
“I have no idea. We don’t even know who has it. If it’s one of these groups, they won’t bother. They have no place to go with it. If it’s just someone moving through — which I doubt — they’ll probably wait until nightfall and start out again. In that case, they’ll be easy to take on the road. Shoot out the driver, grab the bird, and go home.”
“What about Li Han?”
“It could be him,” said Nuri. “This isn’t a Brother village, though. He’d be a fish out of water.”
“Isn’t he already? Being Chinese?”
“True. Maybe we should go in and nose around a bit.”
“Just walk in?”
“Drive in,” said Nuri. “I’ve been here before. I’ll use my old cover. We can plant some bugs for MY-PID to use. Augment the feeds from the Tigershark.”
“OK.”
“Hell, I may be able to buy the damn thing,” added Nuri. “Save us a lot of trouble.”
“Buy it?”
“We’re in Africa, remember? Everything’s for sale.”
“Not to us.”
Nuri laughed. “I’m a gun dealer. I had some dealings with a man named Gerard, trying to sell him some guns. If he’s involved, it’ll be for sale. And if he’s not, he’ll tell us who is.”
“That’s safe?”
Nuri laughed again, this time much harder.
“Of course it’s not safe,” he said when he regained control.
Chapter 2
Over Sudan
With the UAV located and the CIA officer recovered, Turk’s job settled into a sustained fugue of monotony. He had to orbit above Duka, watching to make sure that the rebels or whoever had grabbed the UAV remained in the warehouse building with it. He had two problems: conserving fuel and staying awake.
The second was by far the hardest. Turk had a small vial of what were euphemistically known as “go pills” in the pocket of his flight suit, but he preferred not to take them. So he ran through his other, nonprescription bag of tricks — listening to rap music tracks and playing mental games. He tried to trace perfect ellipses in the air without the aid of the flight computer, mentally timing his circuits against the actual clock.
His eyes still felt the heavy effect of gravity.
He was at 30,000 feet, well above the altitude where anyone on the ground could hear him, let alone do anything about him. As far as he knew, his only job now would be to circle around until the Raven was recovered. At that point he could land, refuel, and head home.
Maybe with some sleep in there somewhere.
Turk amused himself by thinking of places he might stop over. The Tigershark had been at a number of air shows — the aircraft had been built as a demonstration project and toured before being bought by the Office of Special Technology — so as long as he could get Breanna to agree, he could take it just about anywhere.
Maybe Paris. They said the women were pretty hot there.
Italian women. Better bet. He could land at Aviano, find some fellow pilot to show him the city…
“Tigershark, this is Whiplash Ground. How are you reading me?”
“I read you good, Colonel. What’s our game plan?”
“We’re thinking of sending someone into the city to scout around. If we have an operation, we’re not going in until tonight.”
“What’s the status on that tanker?”
“We’re still waiting to hear.”
A tanker had been routed from the Air Mobility Command, but it wasn’t clear how long it might be before it would arrive. Not only had the mission been thrown together at the last moment, but Whiplash’s status outside the normal chain of command hurt when it came to arranging for outside support. Tankers were in especially short supply, and finding one that didn’t have a specific mission was always difficult.
“I can stay up where I am for another two hours, give or take,” said Turk. He glanced at the fuel panel and mentally calculated that he actually had a little more than three. But it was always good to err on the low side. “If the tanker isn’t going to be here by then, it might be a good idea for me to land and refuel at your base. Assuming you have fuel.”
“Stand by.”
Turk gave the controls over to the computer and stretched, raising his legs and pointing his toes awkwardly. This was the only situation where he envied Flighthawk pilots — they could get up from their stations and take a walk around the aircraft.
Not in the B-2s that were controlling the UAV fighters now, of course, but in the older Megafortresses and the new B-5Cs. Then again, most remote aircraft pilots didn’t even fly in mother ships anymore; they operated at remote bases or centers back home, just like the Predator and Global Hawk pilots.
Scratch that envy, Turk thought.
“Tigershark, we have a tanker en route. It’ll be about an hour,” said Colonel Freah, coming back on the line.
“I’ll wait,” he told Danny. “Give me the tanker frequency and his flight vector, if you can.”
“Stand by.”
Chapter 3
Western Ethiopia
Nuri needed to gear up to go into Duka. The first thing he needed was better bling. An arms dealer could get away with shabby clothes, but lacking gold was beyond suspicious. At a minimum, he needed at least a fancy wristwatch. Transportation was critical as well.
Most of all, he needed American dollars.
Which was a problem. The CIA had temporarily closed its station in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. The nearest officer was in Eritrea somewhere.
“Use the cash the existing operation has,” said Reid. “I’m sure they have plenty.”
Reid seemed grouchy, probably because of the hour. D.C. was eight hours behind eastern Africa, which made it close to two in the morning there.
“I’m not getting a lot of cooperation,” said Nuri.
“Shoot them if they don’t cooperate.”
It didn’t sound like a joke.
“Get back to me if there’s still a problem,” said Reid before hanging up.
Melissa had gone to rest in her quarters, one of the smaller huts farthest up on the hillside — not a coincidence, Nuri thought, as she had undoubtedly chosen it for the pseudo status its location would provide.
From a distance, all of the buildings looked as if they had been there for ages. But up close it was obvious they were recent additions — the painted exterior walls were made from pressboard, relatively rare in this part of Africa.
Even rarer was the door on Melissa’s hut, all metal. Nuri knocked on it.
“What?” she snapped from inside.
“You awake?”
“I’m awake,” she said, pul
ling open the door. Her right arm was in a sling.
“Can we talk?”
Melissa pushed the door open and let him in. There was a sleeping bag on the floor. A computer and some communications gear sat opposite it, pushed up against the wall. The only other furniture was a small metal footlocker. A pair of AK-47s sat on top, with loaded magazines piled at the side. A small, battery-powered lantern near the head of the sleeping bag lit the room.
“I need some cash,” Nuri said.
“And?”
“I need money.”
“Why do you think I have money?” snapped Melissa, sitting down on the sleeping bag. She pushed back to the wall, spreading her legs in front of her. She was wearing black fatigues.
“Look, I just got off the line with my boss,” said Nuri. “He told me I should shoot you if you didn’t cooperate. And he was serious.”
“Give me a break.”
“I know you got a stash of money,” he said. “Nobody works in Africa, especially out here, without bribe money. Piles of it.”
“Why do you need money?”
“I’m going into Duka and nose around. I have a cover as an arms dealer.”
“I have a few thousand, that’s all.”
“It’s a start.”
“I go with the money.”
Nuri shook his head. “Ain’t gonna work.”
“It has to.”
“Nope. Come on. I have a cover here I’ve established. I go in with an American girl — I’d be dead.”
“You don’t exactly look like you belong,” said Melissa. “You’re the wrong color.”
“I’m from Eritrea,” said Nuri. His cover story wasn’t that far from the truth, if you went back two generations. “I’m an Italian. Don’t make a face — it worked for months. I can speak most of the tribal languages, including Nubian, as well as Arabic.”
“I’ll bet.”
“You want Lango or Madi?”
“Nobody speaks Lango up here,” said Melissa.
“No shit. That wasn’t my point.”
“Look, we can work together,” she told him. “We don’t have to be enemies.”
“Just give me the cash.”
“You’re stuck if I don’t. There are no cash machines outside of the capital, which is too far for you to go, right? And Eritrea isn’t going to help. Because there’s one person in Eritrea, and you can never get ahold of him. And the embassy is useless.”