by Dale Brown
Then a blank space and the word: TERMINATE.
Below that: PROJECT ONGOING.
And at the bottom: STATUS: HOLDING.
All the words were in blue, except for STATUS: HOLDING, which was in red.
Li Han stared at the screen. He’d set up the program to run with his debugger. He was about to go back to the shell so he could get a peek at a different part when the words on the screen began blinking: STATUS: SEEKING.
The program was active in the laptop, or at least thought it was.
What the hell was going on?
Chapter 30
Duka
Gerard’s “fortress” consisted of a row of slum buildings behind a patchwork of round huts and small lots at the western end of the city. The buildings, most smaller than a one-car garage back in the States, were pushed together in a jumble behind an abandoned dump. It could be reached only on foot; Danny parked the Mercedes at the edge of the landfill and they hiked in through a maze of alleys.
Two men were sitting in the front room of the two-room shack, drinking some home-brewed concoction. Gerard shouted something at them and they leapt up, grabbed a pair of rifles from the floor and ran outside.
A piece of fabric separated the back room from the front. Gerard pushed it aside and led them into the room; there he introduced Nuri but not Danny to the five men sitting on the floor, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and talking. They were all members of the Meurtre Musique hierarchy. Gerard’s overview filled the four youngest with energy, and they immediately left to rally different members of the group. The fifth, well into his sixties, sat stoically, nodding as Gerard repeated what had happened with more detail.
Danny wanted to get Melissa and get the hell out of there, the sooner the better, but Nuri sat down and started a conversation in French. They talked for nearly a half hour, Danny standing by the curtained door, sliding his hand up and down the barrel of his assault rifle, one eye on the front door. Finally, Nuri rose, and despite the others’ protests, took his leave.
“What took so long?” asked Danny as they left the building.
“We’re being watched,” whispered Nuri. “Wait until we’re back in the car.”
They wended their way back out through the alleys. There were men with Kalashnikovs on the roofs. On the way in Danny had spotted a couple of kids playing and some women working in the yards; all were gone now.
“The older man had heard there were strangers in the village,” Nuri explained when they got to the car. “One was Asian. I asked him where he thought he might be. He gave me a few different possibilities. They’re on the other side of town.”
“You’re not suggesting we go there now, are you?” asked Danny.
“Why not? We’re not part of their war.”
“I’ll remember to say that when the bullets start flying.”
* * *
Li Han was examining the interface coding when Amara came trotting down the steps.
“Someone is coming,” he said breathlessly.
“Who?” demanded Li Han.
“A white man,” whispered Amara. “He’s speaking Arabic.”
“Ask what he wants. Then get rid of him.”
Li Han went up with him, crouching in the front room while Amara went to the door. The African shouted something; the man outside answered in Arabic.
“He says he is looking for a man who found a UAV,” said Amara. “He wants to make a deal.”
“Tell him you don’t know who it is.”
“He named a man from Meur-tse Meur-tskk.”
Li Han shook his head. “You don’t know who it is. Say nothing else. If he talks, don’t answer.”
The man outside seemed reluctant to leave. Li Han watched from the corner of the window as he finally walked away with his bodyguard to a Mercedes and drove away.
“Who was he?” Li Han demanded, rising.
“A gun runner or spy, I guess,” said Amara. “He had a foreign accent.”
“Obviously. He’s white.”
“He said he would make a very good deal if he could find the man who had the aircraft.”
“Did he speak English?”
“Not to me.”
“You should have asked,” said Li Han, though he hadn’t thought of it himself.
Chapter 31
Duka
A woman’s voice answered from behind the door of the second house. She knew nothing of an aircraft or a man from China.
“Can I come in and talk to you?” asked Nuri.
“You can talk to my husband when he comes home,” said the woman.
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know.”
Nuri asked a few more questions, then told the woman he would try back later. He backed away, reaching Danny in a few steps.
“What do you think?” asked Danny.
“Could go either way. I stuck a bug near the door stop. MY-PID will activate it once the satellite comes overhead.”
“I think it was the first house.”
“Maybe,” agreed Nuri. “But we still have two more to check. One thing that’s very unusual — ordinarily, people are extremely friendly to strangers. The shooting has everybody on edge. Very on edge.”
“So I see.” Danny nodded in the direction of two men with AK-47s standing in the shadows at the side of the house across the way.
The muscles in Nuri’s shoulders immediately tensed, and his throat tightened. But he’d been in situations like this dozens, even hundreds of times in Africa. He continued to walk toward the car, keeping an easy, almost lackadaisical pace.
“They’re just watchin’ us,” said Danny.
“Yeah. Just move nice and easy.”
Danny opened the driver’s side door but didn’t get in. Nuri went around and got in the car. He kept his eyes straight ahead, but took his pistol out from his waistband.
Danny eased into the seat, pulled the door closed and started the car.
“You have to make a U-turn,” said Nuri.
The Mercedes stuttered as it started out of the turn, then stalled.
“Shit,” muttered Danny.
He turned the car over — once, twice. It wasn’t starting.
“Don’t flood it,” whispered Nuri.
“No shit.”
“Maybe our friends will push us,” said Nuri.
The car caught. Danny put it into gear gently and they edged forward.
“Maybe our friends will push us?” mocked Danny after they turned the corner.
“I was making a joke.”
“It wasn’t very funny.”
“It was funny. A little.”
“Not even a little. Which way to the next house?”
Nuri consulted the map on MY-PID.
“About a quarter mile down here. Take a left. There should be a bunch of huts.”
There were. There were also three men with guns blocking the way.
“What do you think?” Danny asked, slowing to a stop in the middle of the intersection.
The men were standing about ten yards away. Each held a Belgian FN Minimi machine gun. They were relatively large guns, but the men were so big the weapons looked like scale models. The man in the middle had a bandolier of bullets around his neck and was dressed in generic fatigues similar to Danny’s. The other two wore the dusty, cream-colored clothes more common there.
“I’ll ask what’s going on,” said Nuri. “Stay in the car.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Danny.
“Just wait.”
Nuri pushed open the door and got out. His heart was pounding.
“Hello,” he said, starting in English. “I am looking for a Chinese man named Li Han.”
There was no reaction from any of the trio as he gave his spiel. He switched to Arabic but did no better.
“Are you with the Brothers?” Nuri asked finally.
“The Brothers are dirt,” said one of the men, using English. He fired off a few rounds to emphasiz
e his point.
“Right,” said Nuri. “Can I get through?”
“You better leave, mister,” said the man who’d fired. “Now.”
Nuri thought it best to comply.
Chapter 32
Duka
Melissa finished taping the bandages on the old man’s arm and straightened. He turned his head toward her as she rose. The pupils in his eyes were large black disks, edged by the faintest gray. They met hers for a moment, drilling in with a wordless question.
Am I going to live?
“You’re going to be OK,” she said in Arabic.
The old man’s eyes held hers as she put her hand on his back and eased him to his feet. Melissa helped him from her corner of the examining room, gently pushing him past the table where Marie Bloom was working on another patient.
Bloom’s patient was a young boy who had caught shrapnel in his leg. He was much better off than the old man or any of the other patients they’d seen, but the pain on his face touched Melissa in a way none of the others had. She suddenly felt overwhelmed by sympathy for the people here, like a tree that had bent under the weight of heavy snow until finally it snapped.
“Who’s next?” she asked in English.
The aide who’d been helping triage and organize the patients shook her head. They were done.
For now.
Melissa went back to help Bloom get the boy down from the table. He winced, unable to put much weight on the leg.
“We’ll have to get one of the men to carry him home,” said Bloom.
“I’ll take him,” said Melissa. She dropped down to one knee, propping him up as he continued to test his leg. She guessed he was four or five. “Where’s his mother?”
“She was one of the dead,” said Bloom.
The boy’s shirt was splattered with blood, and Bloom had cut off the bottom of his pants leg to work on him. He wore sandals rather than shoes.
“One of the women I treated earlier is his aunt,” said Bloom. “I sent her home already. That’s where he should go.”
“It’s terrible,” said Melissa.
“Yes.” Bloom frowned at her.
“What’s wrong?” Melissa asked.
“Go ahead and take him home.”
“Where?”
Bloom said something to the boy in Nubian. They spoke for a few moments, getting directions to his house.
“He’ll show you where he lives,” Bloom told her finally. “He can’t speak English, or very much Arabic.”
“All right.”
“Be careful. It should be quiet for a while, but there’s sure to be a reprisal. They won’t try to kill you since you’re an outsider, but in the cross fire anything can happen.”
“I’ll be safe.”
“Here.” Bloom pulled a satellite phone from her pocket. “Call my number if you have a problem.”
“I’ll be OK.”
Bloom gave her a stern look.
“What’s your number?” she asked. “Let me try it and make sure it works.”
* * *
The boy couldn’t have weighed more than thirty pounds. Melissa took him in her arms, boosting him up against her shoulder as she started out. The clinic was at the top of a knoll; he lived in one of the round grass huts at the bottom. The boy jerked his arm forward, pointing with his whole hand, fingers spread wide to show her the way.
Small garden patches surrounded the huts; here and there a goat was tied to a post or wandered freely around the property. All the people, however, were hiding inside the structures. Melissa felt as if they were being watched but saw no one as she followed the boy’s directions, turning right along a rutted path, then left and left again. Finally his hand swerved to the right, and she walked through an opening in a low fence of shrubs, entering a dirt-strewn yard just big enough to house the wreckage of an ancient flatbed truck.
The vehicle’s tires had long ago rotted away. The metal body and frame were covered with red rust. There was a large hole in the center of the cab roof, and part of the front fender had disintegrated into flakes. Dirt was piled on the bed; a hodgepodge of weeds grew from it.
The hut was in better condition. Made of straw and mud, the thick fronds of straw on the roof stretched down gracefully in a circle over the body of the house, whose cementlike walls were smooth and seemingly impenetrable. A carpet hung in the doorway, shutting off the outside world.
“Hello!” shouted Melissa as she approached. “Hello!”
The carpet moved at the bottom. The head of a child about the age of the one she was carrying poked out from the side. The boy in her arms wiggled around, pushing to be freed. Melissa went down on one knee to release him, sure he wouldn’t be able to stand. But after a few tentative steps he managed to hop to the door of the hut, shouting to the people inside.
The carpet was pushed away by a woman about her age. A worn, worried look on her face, she stared at Melissa a moment, then beckoned her inside.
“I have to get back,” Melissa said. But the woman reached out and took her hand, nudging her forward with a forced smile. Even in extreme grief and danger, the local tradition of hospitality was still upheld.
The interior of the hut was practically bare. Four children sat at one side on woven mats, a pile of grass dolls in front of them. The boy Melissa had taken home already sat among them, moving the doll as if it were a plane or perhaps an angel, leaving for heaven.
The interior walls were covered with shallow cracks where the mud had dried ages ago. A series of lines came down the sides, raised designs that to Melissa looked like random squiggles and rays, though they were obviously a conscious design. There were no windows, but the roof’s circular rafters left an open space above the wall where air could circulate.
The woman who had invited her in scooped up a water bottle from the ground and offered it to her.
“Thank you, but I’m not thirsty,” she said.
The woman didn’t seem to understand. She said something unintelligible — Melissa only knew that the words were neither English nor Arabic — and pushed the water bottle toward her. Melissa took the tiniest sip possible from the water. When she handed it back, the woman refused — it was a present, gratitude for helping her nephew.
“Thank you,” Melissa told her. “Thank you.”
She nodded and backed out of the hut, trying to remember the turns she’d taken to get there.
* * *
“You were good with the patients,” said Bloom when she returned.
“Thank you.”
“But you’re not a nurse. Not with any experience here, at least.”
Two hours before, Melissa would have argued and worked hard to keep her cover. But whatever change she’d undergone had affected every part of her.
“I am trained as a nurse,” she told Bloom. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Why is it?”
“I’m looking for an Asian man. Chinese. His name is Li Han. He’s a murderer.”
“I don’t know him.”
“He came into the city a day ago.”
“I don’t know him.”
“One of your aides may. He has something that doesn’t belong to him, and I have to get it back.”
“Are you going to arrest him?”
Melissa shook her head.
“You’re going to kill him?” asked Bloom.
“If we can.”
“Was he responsible for this?”
“I don’t know,” said Melissa.
“There’s so much tragedy here. You’re just going to add to it.”
“No. Li Han has caused a lot of deaths. He helps people who want to murder others. We have to stop him. And we can.”
“That won’t end the violence here.”
“It’ll help.”
Bloom raised her right hand to her mouth, biting her ring finger as she considered what to do. For the first time, Melissa noticed she wore a narrow wedding ring.
“You remind me of myself,” said
Bloom. “I was like you.”
“How’s that?”
“I worked for MI6.”
* * *
In fact, Bloom still did, though now informally. She’d quit the British Intelligence Service some years before, haunted by what she had seen in Africa, the suffering. She tried to join the Red Cross, then a group sponsored by the Anglican Church. For various reasons — very possibly her background as a spy — they wouldn’t take her. Persistent, she finally settled on a little known agency called Nurse for the Poor. It received a considerable amount of money from the British government, undoubtedly at MI6’s behest.
“The idea is to find terrorists before they become terrorists,” said Bloom.
“Do you know who Li Han is?” asked Melissa.
Bloom shook her head. She seemed to have aged a decade, perhaps more, in the few minutes they’d been speaking.
“I give the service reports from time to time, but they don’t tell me anything. I–I’m doing more by helping the people here.”
“Even people like Gerard.”
“Oh, he’s a loon.” Bloom smiled. Her British accent had suddenly become more pronounced. “But his group is better than the other, to be honest. They’re all nuts here, the leaders. But the people are sincere. Loving.”
Melissa nodded. She thought it odd that a spy, even a woman — especially a woman — would use the word “loving.”
But maybe that’s why Bloom was an ex-spy.
“I’ll help you,” Bloom told her. “But you must protect my people. These people.”
“All right,” Melissa said.
“Come.” Bloom rose. “Let’s talk to them.”
Chapter 33
Parsons, Maryland
Well before she became the country’s first female president, Christine Mary Todd had carefully studied the power of the presidency. Among the many conclusions she had reached was that much of this power consisted of imagery. The pomp and circumstance of the office were not just props, but weapons that could be yielded by a prudent President.
So was the President’s motorcade, especially when it pulled across a suburban lawn at five o’clock in the morning.