Whiplash d-11

by Dale Brown

  Boston refocused the glasses. Not only were there plenty of soldiers, but the Ethiopian army had brought up two armored cars to cover the road and surrounding area. A troop truck blocked the road near the gate. Nearby, a group of forty or fifty Sudanese were squatting on the ground near the border fence, denied permission to go over the line.

  “The border is often closed at night,” said Abul. “Maybe in the morning.”

  “There’ll be more troops there in the morning,” said Boston, raising the glasses to view the barracks area beyond the checkpoint.

  There were two dozen troop trucks parked near the dormitory-style buildings used as quarters for the border guards. The trucks had arrived late that afternoon, sent as soon as word reached army headquarters that there had been a massive raid on rebel units nearby. Such raids always increased the number of refugees trying to cross the border. As it had periodically in the past, the government decided not just to shut the border, but to be serious about it. The soldiers had been authorized to shoot to kill rather than allow the refugees to cross.

  Boston wasn’t worried about getting shot, but he had yet to hear from Washington about the arrangements for diplomatic passage. He couldn’t see anyone near the checkpoint who looked as if they might be from the embassy, sent to help them across. Being interred in an Ethiopian prison camp — or kept among the refugees — was hardly how he wanted to spend the next few days. Or years.

  “There is another passage one hundred kilometers south,” said Abul. “We can be there shortly after daybreak.”

  “That one will have troops, too,” said Boston.

  “Why don’t we just go south until we find a spot, and cut through the fence,” said Sugar. “Pick a spot, then drive across.”

  “It’s not just the fence,” said Boston. “Satellite photo shows the ditch extends the entire way.”

  The ditch was an antitank obstacle, designed to prevent exactly what Sugar was suggesting. It would probably only slow a determined tank attack an hour or two at most, but the steep sides made it impossible for the bus to scale.

  Boston considered splitting up — he could go across with the body of their dead comrade, then wait for the others to pick him up after crossing legitimately. But that would be inviting even more complications, completely unnecessary if Washington could just make the arrangements.

  “Let me talk to Mrs. Stockard,” he said, handing the glasses back to Sugar. “Maybe they’ve made the arrangements. Otherwise our best bet right now is just to sit and wait.”

  “You hear that?” asked Sugar, turning quickly.

  “What?”

  “I’m hearing a motorcycle over the hill.”

  She’d heard it several times earlier as well. They’d checked once, Boston dropping off as the bus went ahead, but hadn’t seen anything.

  He didn’t hear anything now. He shook his head.

  “Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” she said.

  “Hopefully,” said Boston.

  46

  Room 4

  CIA Campus

  Halfway across the world in room 4 on the CIA’s Langley campus, Breanna Stockard was sitting at her desk, keeping tabs on Danny and the others in Iran. She’d left a message for Ms. Bennett, telling her how to reach her, then brought her work here.

  Being tied into the MY-PID system made her feel a little better. But not much.

  As originally conceived, MY-PID took over many of the support functions spies and special operations units needed, and in theory there was no need for her to watch them from afar. But theory and reality were still struggling to fit together.

  Breanna found it almost impossible not to check on their progress every so often, monitoring their communications and watching their locations. She hadn’t done this when Nuri started out the Jasmine mission alone, but now the stakes were considerably higher. And she knew more of the people involved.

  Maybe the missions should always be directly monitored by someone, she thought, even if that was a deviation from the original plan and philosophy. She’d have to discuss it with Reid.

  But if they were, she wouldn’t be the one doing it. And then she’d feel left out.

  The communications system buzzed with an incoming call from Boston. The wall screen opened a window at the lower right-hand corner, mapping where the call was coming from. Had the area been under real-time visual surveillance, an image would have been supplied.

  “Go ahead,” she said, allowing the transmission to connect. Technical data on the encryption method and communication rates were added to the screen.

  “Mrs. Stockard?”

  “Hello, Boston. I see you’re at the border. I’m still waiting for the embassy. They need to get permission from the Ethiopian government. They don’t think there’ll be a problem, but they have to make contact with the right officials. The situation remains the same — they’ve closed all the crossings.”

  “Do you have an ETA on that permission, ma’am?”

  “I wouldn’t expect it before morning. It may not come until the afternoon. They are working on it.”

  “Yeah…” Boston’s voice trailed off.

  “Is there a problem, Chief?”

  “As I told you before, we left the base camp in kind of a hurry. I’m not sure that the people we left behind are, uh — well, they may be a little pissed at us, if you know what I mean.”

  “You can present yourselves at the border and go into Ethiopian custody if things get crazy,” said Breanna.

  “That’s not my first preference.”

  “It’s not mine, either. We should have an answer in the morning,” she told him. “I don’t think there’s going to be any problem in the end. It’s just the paperwork on their side. And getting to the right person.”

  “All right,” said Boston.

  The resignation in his voice was so obvious that Breanna told him not to worry again; she’d get him out under any circumstance.

  “I’m not worried. I know you will,” said Boston.

  “I’ll talk to you at nine A.M. your time,” Breanna told him. “Can you hold out until then?”

  “That won’t be a problem,” he said.

  As soon as Boston hung up, Breanna called back over to State to check on the request. But instead of the undersecretary who had been acting as a liaison, she got a bubbly assistant — the first bad sign.

  The second bad sign came a moment later, when the assistant told her that all border crossing into Ethiopia had been closed “for the near future.”

  Her voice made it sound like she had just scored tickets for the Super Bowl.

  “I know that already,” said Breanna. “The ambassador is supposed to be explaining that we have a special situation.”

  “Oh. Please hold.”

  Breanna tried not to explode. The assistant was part of the night staff, and clearly not the best informed.

  “We’re still working on it,” said the assistant, coming back on the line.

  “And how long is that going to take?”

  “Well, it’s nighttime over there now. Very late. You realize they’re several hours ahead of us. Six, actually.”

  “Thank you,” said Breanna, confident the sarcasm in her voice would go right over the woman’s head.

  It did.

  “I think we have to make other arrangements,” she told Reid a short time later. “If we can’t count on help from the Ethiopian government.”

  “They’ll help us, I’m sure.”

  “But in how long? Two weeks? I don’t want to leave my people in an Ethiopian jail for two weeks. They’ll put them in a detention center until this gets straightened. And God knows what will happen there.”

  “If we have the ambassador send someone to the border with passports,” said Reid, “we can get them over on diplomatic cover.”

  “I already suggested that. They claimed the border shutdown applies to everyone, even diplomats.”

  “That’s nonsense.”

  “I’ve
been pointing that out for hours now, Jonathon. Why don’t you give it a try?”

  “I will,” said Reid. “But maybe the easiest thing would be to have them sneak across the border.”

  “And leave McGowan’s body behind?”

  “If they must.”

  Breanna wasn’t willing to do that. “I’ll work something out,” she told him. “Even if I have to get them myself.”

  “Now listen—”

  The screen flashed, indicating she had another call, this one from the Air Force Airlift Command.

  “Let me call you back,” she told Reid. “I’m getting a call from the people who are supposed to meet them in Ethiopia. I’m guessing there’s a problem there, too.”

  Her intuition was correct. The major on the line was calling to tell her that the plane originally scheduled to fly to Ethiopia had suffered a mechanical breakdown in Germany. The next flight from Europe wouldn’t be available until the following afternoon.

  “We do have a possible solution,” added the major, “but it would take some string pulling.”

  “No one likes pulling strings more than I do,” lied Breanna.

  “There’s an MC-17 Stretch due in at Andrews Air Force Base in about two hours. It’s en route to Turkey, but could be diverted if the right person were to make the request, if you catch my drift.”

  “Your drift is just perfect,” said Breanna. “Who would the right person make the request to?”

  The aircraft happened to be en route from, of all places, Dreamland, where it had picked up a pair of MV-22-G Osprey gunships. The Ospreys were to be delivered to a Ranger unit temporarily based at Incirlik. A detour to Ethiopia would put the delivery off schedule by about half a day; the Whiplash people could catch another flight home from there.

  The general who was expecting the Ospreys took Breanna’s call. He’d served with her father, and it took only a few seconds of explanation before he agreed that the Ospreys could arrive a day late. But Breanna met a more serious roadblock when she called the wing commander responsible for the aircraft. The pilot had gotten sick on the flight east and was due to be relieved as soon as he landed.

  “It’s not a big deal, really, but I can’t get a full crew until tomorrow,” said the colonel.

  “You don’t have anyone tonight?”

  “You know how tight these staffing cuts have us. We’re low priority on head count. This is a reserve unit and—”

  “I know where you can find a pilot,” she interrupted. “And she works cheap, too.”

  47

  Tehran

  As soon as they heard the siren, the men who had attacked Flash rallied from their injuries. Despite six broken bones between them, they managed to get into their vehicle and flee before the first police car arrived.

  Two people had seen the youths and offered a good description of the vehicle. One of the policemen dutifully wrote down the details, though he knew nothing would come of it. The car described was well-known to him and the other officers who had responded; it belonged to a member of the Iranian parliament, though it was customarily driven by his youngest son. The son and his companions were the subject of several reports, mostly from tourists, who reported being beaten and robbed during late night strolls under circumstances remarkably similar to those Flash had found himself in. The only difference in this case was the outcome. The witnesses’ descriptions made it clear that the attackers had gotten the worse end of the deal, something that cheered the policeman, though of course he didn’t let on.

  Tarid and the hotel owner stayed back with the rest of the crowd, watching more out of curiosity than purpose. The city had its share of thugs operating under the guise of religious police; a number were known to assault people for offenses, real and imagined, for a price. To Tarid, this looked like just such a case.

  “I think I’ll go back to the hotel,” he said when it became obvious there would be no resolution that night.

  “Yes,” said his host.

  Together they walked back around the corner. Tarid could not stop himself from thinking about the man’s daughter. He considered asking if she had many suitors, or if a marriage was being arranged. But he didn’t want to make his lust too obvious.

  She was the sort of beauty that would make even a man like him change his thinking about the entanglements of a family. Logically, he remained steadfast; he had no desire to give up the freedom and luxuries he currently enjoyed, which would be greatly diminished if he were to marry. And he knew his own temperament would stifle any sort of commitment or relationship. He could not be happy staying in one place, yet he could not imagine there was a woman on earth who would be glad to move around as he did. Women were creatures of the hearth, he believed, destined to tend to domestic needs. If he were to wed the hotel owner’s daughter, he would see her only two or three times a year, and even then inevitably grow bored.

  Not that his desire implied marriage. But it couldn’t be talked about with the girl’s father, even obliquely, without implying that it did.

  “A cup of tea?” asked the hotel owner as they reached the building’s threshold.

  “No thank you,” said Tarid, calculating that it was unlikely the girl would be woken to prepare it. “I will see you in the morning.”

  “Good night, then.”

  Tarid’s satellite phone rang as he walked to the elevator. Taking it from his pocket, he saw that it was Bani Aberhadji, his boss and patron. With no one nearby, he clicked the button to let the call through.

  “This is Tarid.”

  “Why have you not checked in? You arrived in Tehran several hours ago,” said Aberhadji.

  “I did not believe I was to call until I was ready for the meeting,” he said. “And, given the hour of my arrival—”

  “I will meet you at one P.M. tomorrow, at the building in Karaj,” said Aberhadji.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The line went dead.

  While the curtness was characteristic, Bani Aberhadji was normally a very even-tempered man, not one to casually display annoyance. The emotion in his voice filled Tarid not just with apprehension but dread, as if he had done something wrong and was about to be brought to justice for it.

  He had, as a matter of fact, occasionally skimmed a few million rials off the payments forwarded to the groups he watched over in Africa. There were also some inflated fees for weapons, along with an occasional unreported kickback. Bani Aberhadji would not have approved, but compared to the men he usually dealt with, Tarid knew he was hardly avaricious. And, he thought, it would certainly be difficult for Aberhadji to prove that this had taken place without some direct complaint against him.

  Most likely, he thought, Aberhadji’s displeasure had nothing to do with him. But it made him nervous anyway, and he knew, even as he stepped into the elevator, that he would get little sleep the rest of the night.

  * * *

  In a Western Hotel nearly a mile away, Nuri told the Voice to replay a snippet of video and audio he and the Whiplash team had just seen. It showed Tarid looking longingly at the room where the hotel owner had just disappeared, then walking slowly toward the elevator. Three steps from it his satellite phone rang. He took it out, looked at the caller ID, then turned around and made sure no one was nearby before answering.

  The conversation was extremely brief. All they had was Tarid’s side, but his responses were so close together that Nuri knew whoever he was speaking with couldn’t have said more than a sentence or two himself.

  “This is Tarid…I–I did not believe I was to call until I was ready for the meeting. And, given the hour of my arrival…Yes, sir.”

  “So he has a meeting,” said Hera, watching the video. “That was already obvious.”

  “He’s scared of whoever he’s talking to,” said Flash. “Look at his face. He’s worried he’s going to be shot or something.”

  Danny Freah dropped down to one knee, studying the image.

  “Flash is right. Remember how defiant he looked when
we rescued him? Whoever he’s meeting is a hell of a lot scarier than bullets.”

  “So how does it help us?” said Hera.

  “Man, you are Ms. Contrary tonight,” said Flash. He laughed.

  Hera reddened, and swore to herself that she wouldn’t say anything else.

  Nuri replayed the conversation again. Aside from the fact that the meeting must be imminent, there was no other useful information in the words. Meanwhile, the signal from the biomarker was deteriorating rapidly. They had to get him first thing in the morning.

  “We’re going to have to line up some vehicles,” he told Danny. “Two at least.”

  “You think we’re going to be able to follow him in cars?”

  “If he’s in a vehicle, we need to be in a vehicle. We need to rent them.”

  The problem with renting a car was timing; the agencies wouldn’t open until nine-thirty, which in practice would mean close to ten. By then Tarid could be well on his way to the meeting, or perhaps even done with it.

  “We won’t need to be that close as long as we tag him in the morning,” said Danny. “Let’s concentrate on doing that well so we don’t have to worry.”

  “Yeah, but if we’re close, we may be able to bug the meeting place,” said Nuri. “We really want to be inside there. Look at how valuable this was, and it’s only a little snippet from the distance.”

  Hera didn’t think it was all that valuable. But she remembered her resolve and said nothing.

  “We may not be able to get that close,” said Danny. “I’d suspect we won’t.”

  “Why don’t we just bug him?” asked Flash.

  “How?” asked Danny.

  “Paste something onto his shoe?”

  The others laughed, but the suggestion gave Nuri an idea. He went over to the closet where he’d put his jacket. He took it out, then unscrewed the top button, revealing the bug hidden there.

  “This would work,” he said.