“We are heading north. Could it be something in Israel?”
“That was my first guess, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Why?”
In truth, Davis couldn’t peg where his reservations had come from. He said, “I took a look through Khoury’s Land Rover, the one that was near the—” his voice trailed off.
“Body? I have seen bodies before, Jammer. I also see the wound on your head, so I won’t pass judgment.”
“Fair enough.” He had taken one of the posters from the Rover, folded it up and stuffed it in a pocket. He pulled it out and showed Antonelli. “Any idea who this guy is?”
She looked closely. “I may have seen his picture before. But I definitely recognize the name. General Ali is the Sudanese minister of defense.”
“Okay,” he said. “Now look closer, at the bottom. Check the title.”
Antonelli did, and the revelation clearly hit her. “What could this mean?”
Davis studied the picture again, and had the same odd feeling he’d had earlier — that he’d seen it before. Then it dawned on him. He hadn’t recognized the picture. It was the pose. Eyes cast downward slightly. Watching. Just like the propaganda photos of the president that were hung in every office of every building in Sudan. There were a thousand copies of General Ali’s photo back in the Land Rover, all cut to fit in the very same picture frames. Davis stared at the poster.
“Contessa …” he hesitated.
“What is it?”
“I haven’t seen much news lately, but that Arab League conference is taking place today, right?”
He could see her run a quick calendar in her head. “Yes, it is scheduled for this morning.”
“And who will be there?”
“The leaders of virtually every Arab country,” she said.
“What about the Sudanese president?”
“Of course, it has been in the local papers for weeks.”
That’s it, Davis thought. It all made perfect, wicked sense. He stared at Antonelli and waited. She was a smart lady, so it didn’t take long.
“A coup d’état?” she exclaimed.
“Disguised as an attack by the United States. Ten or twenty heads of state killed, including the Sudanese president. If it happens, there will be power struggles all across the region tonight, just like after the uprisings that got rid of Mubarak and the rest. The Arab world will be so shocked and incensed by the idea of a U.S. attack that nobody will give a second thought to the minister of defense taking charge in Khartoum.”
Antonelli stared out the front window. “What can we do?” she asked.
Davis checked the manifold pressure on the engines and bumped up the throttles, pushing the old radials as hard as he dared.
“We can fly faster.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The clock moved with glacial speed.
Davis tried the radio every five minutes. Twelve times in the first hour. The second hour he called every three minutes. Not a word came in reply. He was in a familiar arena, indeed his area of expertise — one airplane hunting another. Only he didn’t have radar for guidance, and wasn’t talking to anyone who did. He was fighting blind, just lumbering along as fast as the big machine would go, hoping like hell they were flying in the right direction. He figured the geometry of the intercept for a classic tail chase. His only chance was speed, but in that respect Davis was on unfamiliar ground. If he were flying an F-16 in full afterburner, he’d be somewhere over Europe right now, albeit out of gas. As it was, he might be gaining ten miles an hour on the pair of aircraft in front. Assuming they were in front.
He knew he couldn’t rely on radio contact alone. Schmitt might not be in a position to reply. Truth was, he might already have a bullet in his head like the two poor Ukrainian bastards. So Davis kept a keen eye out the window, looking for a slow-moving dot. Or better yet, two. It was like playing hide-and-seek, only the playground was the size of a country, a hundred thousand square miles of empty sky.
“I need to look at that,” Antonelli said, interrupting his thoughts. She was staring at the side of his head, the place where an oak log had slammed into his skull.
Davis didn’t argue.
Her hands held his head gently, and after a brief appraisal the doctor disappeared for a time into the aft cabin. She came back with a first-aid kit.
“Is that really necessary?” he asked.
Antonelli didn’t bother to reply. She cleaned and dressed the wound, and at the end wrapped a long bandage around his head three times. Davis saw his reflection in the side window.
“I look like a pirate.”
“Good, because you often act like one.”
He grinned. “Anyway, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now can you tell me where we are?”
“Egypt, I think.” Davis left it at that because there were no positives in an expanded answer. He was sure they’d crossed the border, and that was a problem. He hadn’t talked to an air traffic controller all morning. Not that he was concerned about air traffic — running into another airplane over the middle of the Sahara Desert was one chance in a billion. But he was very worried about an Egyptian fighter draped in missiles swooping up on his wing. Not by choice, Davis had reverted to bygone days. He was flying this old crate like pilots had flown her when she was fresh out of the factory. Maneuvering a slow airplane in a big sky, keeping out a sharp eye.
He tried to raise Schmitt again on the radio. Still nothing. Davis checked his fuel state and saw another worry. In thirty minutes, maybe forty, things would get very quiet. Antonelli had her eyes glued to the sky now, helping him look. She was clearly anxious, and Davis decided she could use a distraction. He handed over the microphone.
“Here,” he said, “keep calling. Electrons are free.”
“What do I do?”
“Just press the button and talk. The captain’s name is Schmitt. No wait — his call sign is Schmitthead.”
With a questioning look, Antonelli put the microphone to her lips.
Fadi Jibril heard the woman’s voice. He pressed his headset to his ears and listened more closely.
“I repeat, are you there?”
Jibril wanted desperately to say something, yet he had not designed the workstation with any capability to transmit. From his seat, he could monitor the frequencies but not talk. Jibril was trying to think of a way around this when a familiar hand grasped his shoulder. The gesture that had once comforted now felt like the hand of death.
“Is the drone in position?” Khoury asked.
Jibril pointed to the screen. “Yes, here. It is established in a holding pattern at the initial point, very near our own position but at a lower altitude. If you go forward and look out the window, slightly to the right, you should see it.”
Khoury didn’t move. “It is time to finish our work, Fadi. Achmed has received the final coordinates.”
For Jibril, these were the words that brought the truth crashing down. It was a lie, pure and absolute. He had been listening to the auxiliary frequency for the last two hours. There had been no instructions from any contact in Israel. The only thing Jibril had heard was the desperate voice of an unknown woman. He suddenly realized that Rafiq Khoury was not alone behind him. One of the guards was standing at his side.
“Yes, of course, sheik.”
Khoury placed a handwritten set of coordinates on the work table in front of Jibril. N29°58′50.95″ E31°09′0.10″.
“Now!” Khoury commanded.
Jibril’s hands went slowly to the keyboard. The coordinates were not in Israel — he knew this instantly — but without a map he could only estimate. Jibril tried to mentally plot the lat-long pairing using the map on his display. Somewhere north of their present position. Near Cairo perhaps? He thought about questioning the numbers, but Khoury would only grow suspicious.