by Dale Brown
“This is Ilse. The flight computer is not in Duka.”
“No kidding.”
“Our best bet is that it’s south in the mountains, with the Sudan Brotherhood. One of their members left the city, probably after killing Mao Man.”
“You told me that yesterday, Melissa. This is old information.”
“We need permission to search the camp. Can we?”
“That’s not up to me. You’re sure it’s not in Duka?”
“We’ve looked everywhere, believe me.”
“And it wasn’t at the crash site?”
“God, what do you think? I’m a fool? You do.”
“You have to watch these Whiplash people,” said Harker. “They’re trying to screw us.”
“How so?”
“There’s all sorts of political bullshit back here. You’re sure it’s not in Duka?”
“I’m sure.”
“Did you personally check every one of the hiding places? Or did Whiplash?”
“Personally?”
“You heard me. Did you?”
Screw you, thought Melissa, hanging up.
* * *
Danny patted the repaired engine cover of the Osprey. Dented and crumpled, the skin looked like a piece of paper that had been wadded up and then pressed flat. But it was tougher than it looked — the whole aircraft was. Despite its shaky early history, the Osprey had proved its worth in countless high-risk situations, and not just for Whiplash.
“She’s good for another ten thousand miles,” said one of the pilots, admiring the aircraft from the other side of the wing. “I was thinking maybe I’d dent up the other engine housing so they look like a matched set.”
“Probably not a good idea,” laughed Danny. He pointed to the crew chief and the two maintainers who’d been flown in to help put the aircraft back together. “Those guys might give you grief.”
Pretending to notice them for the first time, the pilot spread out his arms and bowed to them. It was a joke, of course, but it reminded Danny of a truism he’d learned back at Dreamland — you did not want to mess with the men and women who maintained the aircraft.
Nor underestimate them. These aircraft sergeants — both were men, and both tech sergeants — had been personally selected by Chief Master Sergeant Al “Greasy Hands” Parsons, who, though retired, arguably knew more about every operational aircraft in the Air Force inventory than any man or computer. Parsons was always going on about how good a job his people and the Air Force technical grunts in general were; it would have been bragging if it weren’t true.
“Colonel, this aircraft will take you to hell and back,” said one of the sergeants. “But I have to say, sir, your choice in pilots leaves quite a bit to be desired.”
Even the pilot laughed.
Danny walked over to the combination mess/command tent, thinking this might be a good moment to catch a brief nap.
Melissa met him just inside. Her eyelids drooped; she had what looked like thick welts under both eyes.
“When are you going to the Brotherhood camp?” she asked.
“I don’t know for certain that we are,” said Danny. “But it’ll be tonight at the earliest.”
“I’m going with you.”
“All right.”
“You’re agreeing?”
“Yeah. I need all the help I can get.”
“Oh.” Her body seemed to deflate. Danny sensed that she had been prepared to argue with him. But he saw no reason to keep her away; she’d proven herself. And it was at least still partly her mission. “Good.”
“The Sudanese army is escorting a bunch of ambulances and relief workers to Duka,” he told her. “They should be there inside an hour.”
“Oh?”
“Your friend Bloom arranged it. She’s going with them. She is a spy, huh?”
“Used to be.”
Danny nodded.
“You oughta get some rest,” he told her.
“Yeah,” she said. “I should.”
Chapter 9
Ethiopia
Milos Kimko woke on the cot, his head pounding as if he had a hangover. He had no idea where he was, but he could tell from just the smell that he wasn’t in Sudan anymore. The aroma in his nose was less meaty, drier.
He forced his eyes to focus. He was in a canvas tent. He started to get up, only to find that his hands and legs were shackled together.
“You’re awake,” said a voice in Russian behind him.
Kimko leaned over on the cot. A man dressed in a pair of nondescript green fatigues stood near the flap door. There was another man with a rifle behind him.
“What?” said Kimko.
“Do you prefer English or Russian?” asked the man, still in Russian. He was short, though he had a muscular build.
“Your Russian is atrocious,” snapped Kimko. It was an exaggeration — the words were certainly right if a little formal, though his pronunciation could use a little work. But Kimko did not want to give the man the satisfaction.
“English is fine for me,” said the man. “What did you do with the UAV?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do.”
“Who are you?”
“It’s not important who I am. Where is the UAV? Did Li Han give it to you?”
“Li Han. Who is Li Han? I don’t know him. Who are you? Why have you taken me here? You’re an American — I can tell from your accent. Are you CIA? Who are you?”
“It’s who you are that’s important. You’re a Russian gun dealer, violating UN sanctions. You’re a criminal.”
“I’m not a criminal.”
“Do you really think the SVG is going to get you off, Milos? The reality is, they washed their hands of you years ago. When you first turned up with a drinking problem. And when your boss wanted to screw your wife.”
Kimko couldn’t help but be surprised by the amount of information the man knew. He tried to make his face neutral but it was too late.
“Of course I know,” said the other man. “I know everything about you. You were on the scrap heap before they brought you out for this assignment. You thought you hit rock bottom, but it’s amazing how much further you had to fall.” The man reached into his pocket and took out a small, airplane-size bottle of vodka. “This will make you feel a lot better.”
Kimko started to reach for the bottle, forgetting the chains. The man laughed at him and shook his head.
“Where is the UAV?”
Kimko lowered his head, trying to regroup. He had to do better — if he was going to survive, he had to do better.
But he wanted that vodka. The American was taunting him. He knew every weakness.
He had to do better.
He slapped the bottle away. But the man, lightning fast, grabbed it before it fell.
“Good reflexes,” said Kimko.
“Thank you.”
“Tell me your name,” Kimko said. “Tell me your name, so I know who I’m talking with.”
“John. You can call me John. Where is the UAV?”
“In the city somewhere.” Kimko raised his head. “He said he had it and would show me a picture.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” said Nuri. He pocketed the vodka bottle. “I’ll be back.”
* * *
Outside the hut, Nuri had MY-PID replay the conversation. Analyzing the voice patterns, it judged that the Russian had been telling the truth.
He was weak, though. He truly wanted a drink. With a little effort and patience, Nuri knew he could undoubtedly elicit a great deal of information, everything the Russians were trying to do in Africa.
But he didn’t care about any of that. He needed to know where the Raven flight computer was — and that seemed to be the one thing Kimko couldn’t tell him.
Surely he knew something. The only question was, how much vodka would it take to find out?
The little bottle Nuri had shown Kimko was his entire stock. It h
ad been in his luggage, a souvenir from his flight from Europe to Egypt that he’d pocketed and then forgotten. It was barely a shot’s worth.
Damn good thing he’d caught it in midair. Try it a hundred times and he’d never do it again.
“Get him some food,” Nuri told one of the guards. “Don’t talk to him at all. I’m going to go for a walk and clear my head. I’ll be back.”
Chapter 10
Washington, D.C.
It was not easy to find a pay phone. And when Amara finally did find one and dialed the number, he went straight to voice mail.
Flustered, he hung up. He had no idea what to do or where to go. He’d never even been in Washington, D.C., before.
He had a cell phone but was sternly warned to use it only once, and that was to call and say he had arrived at his final destination. Using it for any other purpose was beyond question. He was sure to be punished for doing so; he guessed the punishment would be death.
Amara walked around the train station, trying to decide what to do. He would have to find a place to stay. That part was relatively easy, even though he had limited funds. The question would be what to do next.
The bookstore had a stand with small magazines listing inexpensive hotels. He studied it, then found the taxi stand. But as he queued up for the line, he saw from the magazine ad that he could get there from the Metro. That would be cheaper.
Back inside, he passed the phone booth and decided to try calling his contact one last time.
A male voice answered on the second ring.
“Yes?”
“This is Amara from the old country,” he said. “I’ve come looking for my cousin.”
There was no answer. Fearing a trap or perhaps a simple mistake with the number, Amara was just about to slap the phone down when the man said, “Go to the Air and Space Museum. Wait outside.”
“What train do I take?” asked Amara. But the man had already hung up.
Amara found his way to the Metro and bought a fare card. He could feel the others staring at him as he wheeled his suitcase down to the tracks. But there were other travelers with cases as well.
Someone bumped into him from behind. Amara jerked back.
“I’m sorry,” said a white girl, about nineteen or twenty. She had a stud below her lip. She put her hand up to reassure him. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I, uh…” Amara’s throat was suddenly very dry. He searched his brain for something to say in English. “I… wonder which way.”
“What way?” She gave him a bemused smile.
“I have to meet someone in front of the Air and Space Museum. Is hard to get to? From here?”
The girl led him back over to a map of the subway system, explaining how he would have to go. She smelled like flowers, Amara thought. American girls always did.
* * *
Some forty minutes later, Amara paced in front of the museum, trying to look inconspicuous.
He froze as he saw a police car pass by.
It’s all been a trap, he thought. An elaborate hoax to get me to America. They’ll throw me in Guantánamo and torture me there for life.
“Cousin,” said a deep voice as a hand clapped him on the shoulder from behind.
Amara, startled, spun around. A short, light-skinned man with an extremely scraggly beard stood behind him. It was difficult to correlate the voice with the man — he was diminutive, barely the size of a thirteen-year-old boy.
“How is my uncle and aunt?” asked the man. His English had a Pakistani accent.
“I’m good — they’re good,” said Amara, trying to pull himself back together.
The little man rolled his eyes.
“Come on,” he said under his breath. “Crap.”
He took Amara’s rolling suitcase and began leading him down the block.
“Call me Ken,” said the man after they had gone several blocks. “I will call you Al.”
“Al,” said Amara.
“Nothing else. You have a cell phone.”
“No,” said Amara.
“Good. Anyone give you anything in New York?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Ken continued walking. They had left the Mall area and were now on a residential street.
“This is my car,” said Ken, pointing with a key fob to a battered Impala and opening the trunk. “Get in.”
Amara did as he was told. Ken didn’t speak again for nearly a half hour. By then they were pulling down the back alley of a row of dilapidated town houses.
“Wait while I undo the fence,” said Ken, throwing the car into park. He got out, undid three locks with different keys, then unwrapped the chain that held the fence together. Amara glanced up. There was barbed wire at the top of the fence line.
Car parked and gate relocked, Ken led Amara down a short flight of concrete steps to a steel door. Two more keys. They entered a tiny hallway. Once again Ken had to unlock a door guarded by several locks, one of them a combination. They stepped into a dark basement.
“This way,” said Ken after relocking and bolting the door behind them.
“You have cat eyes,” said Amara, trying to follow in the pitch-black.
“Don’t trip,” said Ken.
Amara managed to follow him across the darkened room to a set of stairs leading up. If there was a light, Ken didn’t bother using it, leading him up to the first floor of the house, where once more they went through the ritual of locks.
“The bathroom’s in the back,” said Ken, leading him into the apartment. “Go through the kitchen, take a right. You can put your things in the bedroom on the left. Don’t touch anything.”
Amara took his things into the room, then went to the bathroom, keeping the laptop bag with him. The room was small and narrow, and smelled of ammonia. The overhead light was extremely bright, and the porcelain, though old, glistened. The taps worked separately; it took a bit of juggling to get his hands washed at a comfortable temperature.
Ken was waiting for him in the kitchen. He had a metal pot on the stove for coffee.
“So you’re the help they sent,” said Ken skeptically. “What’s your specialty?”
“I don’t have a specialty.”
Ken frowned. “What did they tell you?”
“Nothing. I brought a program that will help you.”
“In the bag? Let’s see it?”
Amara removed the computer from the backpack and turned it on. Ken turned his attention to the old-fashioned coffee percolator he’d put on the stove. Brown water blipped up into a tiny glass dome at the top. He adjusted the flame, bending down so close to it that Amara thought he would burn his nose if not his entire face. The pot vibrated on the stove, the liquid percolating inside.
“The people who sent you are ignorant,” said Ken. He practically spat. “They’re all idiots. They’re not much better than the ones we’re fighting against. In some ways, they’re worse. Do you even pray?”
The question caught Amara by surprise.
“I pray,” he said.
Ken pulled the percolator off the stove and poured a bit of coffee into a white mug sitting on the sink counter. Satisfied after examining it, he filled the cup, got another from the washboard, and filled that. He returned the pot to the stove. Only then did he turn off the gas. The flame descended back into the burner with a loud pouff.
The entire kitchen smelled like coffee. Amara felt his senses sharpening.
“Here,” said Ken roughly, setting down the cup. “You’ll probably want sugar.” He pointed to a small covered bowl in the middle of the table. “The spoons are in the drawer behind you.”
Amara tried two spoonfuls of sugar, then added a third and finally a fourth. Ken drank his plain.
“Let me see the computer,” said Ken.
Amara pushed it over. The control program had started on its own, columns of figures filling the screen.
“This is supposed to help me?” said Ken. “How?”
“I
t’s a control unit,” snapped Amara, no longer able to hide his resentment at being treated like a fool. “It controlled an American UAV. Target data is entered on the screen, and then the aircraft knew what to do.”
“Useless,” said Ken. He pushed the keys, paging the screen up and down. “I asked them for a Predator control unit. I was ready to adapt that. I was assured that it could be obtained from the Sudan. And yet this is what they give me? I can’t use this to fly a plane. Where are the controls? Why are we even working with Africans? They are imbeciles.”
“The man who examined this was Chinese,” said Amara. “He was a genius. He said it controlled an aircraft more powerful than a Predator. He knew what he was talking about.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s dead,” said Amara. Then he added, with a touch of cruelty that he hoped would set Ken back a notch, “I killed him.”
“Then he couldn’t have been much of a genius,” answered Ken, not intimidated.
Chapter 11
Washington, D.C. suburbs
Breanna felt a pang of anxiety as she pulled into her driveway and saw Zen’s van. She hadn’t seen her husband since their meeting at the airport the day before. She’d managed to get home after him the night before, and leave before he got up — not that she’d been avoiding him exactly, but the timing was extremely convenient. They hadn’t even texted during the day.
Breanna took her keys from the ignition, opened her pocketbook, then decided that her lipstick needed to be fixed.
That done, she got out of the car, walking slowly to the door. Her daughter Teri met her there, practically tackling her.
“We’re glad your home,” said the third-grader after accepting two kisses, one for each cheek. “Dad and I cooked!”
“He did?”
Zen’s culinary prowess consisted of speed dialing the local pizza joint and hitting the button to talk at the McDonald’s drive-in.
“Lasagna,” said Zen from inside. “And it’s just ready.”
“Eating early?” said Breanna.
“Baseball game.”
“Oh.”
“Problem?” asked Zen.