“There,” he said, “that’s everything I’ve got. Take it if you want.”
Davis did. But instead of opening it, he said, “Tell me about your maintenance program.”
“I’ve got two mechanics, a Jordanian and an American.”
“Are they good?”
“They have their licenses.”
“Where do they work? Is there a hangar somewhere?”
“There’s a remote hangar, but we don’t use it.”
“I think I saw it,” Davis said. “Why would anybody build a hangar way out there in the scrub like that?”
“Around here? Probably because somebody’s brother had the asphalt contract. And if you’re thinking about taking a look, you can forget about it.”
“Why’s that?”
“The place is off-limits. Khoury and his bunch don’t give tours.”
“That seems a little secretive,” Davis suggested. “Is that where Khoury hides the cargo he doesn’t want people to see?”
“Damned if I know.”
“And would you tell me if you did know?”
There was a long silence, until Schmitt crossed his thick forearms on the desk, and said, “You know what I think, Davis? I think you’re going to make this whole thing personal. I don’t think you even care about this accident.”
“You’re half right.”
Schmitt sat there looking like a well-shaken beer, pressure building, just waiting to blow.
“I want two things,” Davis said. “First, a place to stay. Second, I want a good look at the flight line. I need to see how things run around here.”
“All right. I’ve got one empty room.”
Davis wanted to make a crack that he likely had two empty rooms, but he held back.
“And as for the flight line tour,” Schmitt said, “help yourself.”
“I don’t need any clearance? An ID or something?”
Schmitt fished into his drawer and pulled out a small plastic card. He tossed it over the desk and Davis caught it. It was Schmitt’s FBN Aviation ID.
“Try that. Staple your own picture on if you want. I haven’t used it since I got here.”
Davis dropped it back on the desk.
Schmitt chuckled. “Welcome to Africa, Jammer.”
Schmitt gave Davis directions and a key — not a plastic card with a magnetic strip, but the old-fashioned metal kind with teeth. Davis went to find his room, and as he walked through the operations building, people stopped what they were doing and stared at him. Maybe they’d been briefed that somebody was coming to perform an investigation. Maybe they’d been told to look professional or pretend to help. Rumors had to be swirling by now — Davis had been here all of twenty minutes, which was plenty of time. Whatever the case, the looks weren’t much different than those he’d gotten in a hundred other places.
A short hallway ran from the operations building to the residence area, and Davis took the stairs to his third-floor room. When he walked in, the air conditioner was blowing at hurricane force, the room chilled to the level of a meat locker. The place stank of sweat and nicotine. Davis went to the thermostat and saw it had been turned full cold, probably by the cleaning staff. People did things like that when they weren’t paying the electric bill. He turned it off and took stock of the place. It was a studio with an attached bathroom. There was one window, one chair, but no desk. A nightstand carried a cheap alarm clock. The bed was shoved against a wall that had to be common to the elevator shaft. Just then, the window began to rattle as a jet outside thundered to takeoff power. Davis figured Schmitt had given him the most uncomfortable room of those available, maybe hoping he wouldn’t get any sleep. Truth was, the bed looked better than most to Davis. There was no headboard or footboard. For a guy his size, that was a home run.
Davis went to the window. The cheap curtains had clothespins clipped to the inner edges. He pulled them off, and bright light streamed in. He could see the runway in the distance, and one corner of the main passenger terminal. Closer in was a parking lot, half asphalt and half dirt, that would hold a hundred cars. There were three. Right under his nose was a recovering swimming pool, bone dry, two men slapping Spackle in the deep end. What wasn’t there — and what he’d hoped to see from the third floor — was FBN’s hangar. He knew from the satellite photos that it was roughly a mile east of here, but his internal compass kicked in and told him that east was at his back.
Davis retrieved the file Schmitt had given him. It seemed thin, weighed almost nothing. Even so, there might be something useful inside, one golden nugget that could be a pretext for gaining access to the hangar. He opened the folder, spread the contents on the bed, and started to read.
When the helicopter landed at Khartoum International Airport, Rafiq Khoury was collected by his ragtag security detail. The motorcade consisted of three vehicles — a well-worn Land Rover sandwiched between a pair of teknicals. The teknicals were both small Toyota pickups, one brown and the other probably white, though it was hard to tell through the shell of dust and grime. Armed with Soviet PK 7.62-mm machine guns, the two makeshift fighting vehicles were fast and mobile fixtures of warfare in North Africa.
The procession moved quickly — always preferred here — and snaked up the mile-long ribbon of asphalt that led from the main airfield to FBN Aviation’s hangar. The pavement was unusually high quality, as it had been laid down not as a road but rather a taxiway, a logistical tributary that connected the remote hangar to the main airfield. The hangar was no different from ten others that dotted Khartoum International, if one could ignore the fence and the armed men stationed around the perimeter. Roughly a square, it was two hundred feet in each dimension and fronted by a wide asphalt pad that fed the main doors, two massive sliding panels designed to accept aircraft as large as a Boeing 737. As had been the case for some months, however, the doors remained closed.
Khoury undertook his usual inspection as they approached the hangar. Two months ago, the place had been busier. Trucks, equipment, and crates moving in a regular flow. Now things were quieter, the only constant being his men. For the moment, he saw them positioned correctly and looking alert. But then, they had known their imam was coming. He doubted they were so vigilant at other times, when his signature parade was not bearing down. A few likely remained watchful, held in line by the constancy of their faith, but they were the exceptions. It all mattered little to Khoury, because in his mind they were guarding against a threat that could not possibly exist. The Americans might search from above with their spy satellites, or — he mused — their high-tech drones, but there was no chance of enemy agents infiltrating this place. Khoury had far greater worries.
The Land Rover slowed as they approached the hangar, and he turned to his driver. Hassan had become a permanent fixture, at his side for many months now. In truth, the relationship had been forced on Khoury, yet he had quickly leveraged the circumstance to its fullest use — the Nubian might not be his most trusted man, but he was certainly the largest. The Land Rover was not a small vehicle, yet Hassan fit into the driver’s seat like a walrus into a fish tank. His far shoulder was wedged against the window and, on most of the local roads, his melon-like head banged continuously against the roof, though this seemed to have no effect to the detriment of either Hassan or the vehicle. The top half of the steering wheel disappeared in his hands and his knees were bent awkwardly underneath. To an even greater degree than with the general, Khoury’s slight stature was magnified by the monstrous Hassan. The man had the added benefit of being an experienced soldier, and as such, Khoury allowed him a free hand in managing his followers.