"Great," she said with a wide, friendly smile designed to put the men at ease, although they surely didn't seem on guard. "Ellen Walsh, United Nations." It was a lie, but it was delivered without a batted eyelash. "I sure am glad to see you boys. I've been stuck here at Al Fashir for three days. I'm looking for transport out of here, Khartoum, Port Sudan… at this point I'd go just about anywhere just to get out of this terminal. I'd be happy to pay you cash for the trouble, and I'm sure my office could work it out with your employer."
The lecherous pilot clearly didn't understand every word. His head cocked a couple of times. She knew she was speaking a little fast; the pace of her words seemed to follow along with her elevated heart rate.
"Perhaps we can make an arrangement. Join us for dinner first, please, and we will discuss this."
"Delighted." Ellen sat, smiled, but she could tell this guy wasn't going to let her fly on his plane. He was stringing her along for personal reasons.
She knew now that a flight out on this mysterious aircraft was too much to hope for, but she would string this bastard right along as well, to see if she could glean information from him or even just get a closer glimpse at the Ilyushin or its cargo.
Two could play the game he was playing. She leaned in close to him.
"Chto vy delaete?" came a voice from the end of the table. Ellen looked to the speaker, saw that somehow she had miscounted the Russians before. There were six men at the table, not five, and this sixth man was asking a question of the pilot. He, like the majority of these guys, wore a thick beard and scruffy hair; his was longer than the others. He seemed more athletic than the rest, and darker complected. When the pilot did not answer him, he repeated himself.
"Chto vy delaete?"
"What do you mean, what am I doing?" replied Gennady in Russian. "I am asking this lovely woman to have dinner with us."
"You must not allow her on the aircraft," Court said flatly, straining his Russian abilities to do so.
Gennady looked at him and replied, "You do not tell me who I can and cannot allow on my plane. I don't know who you are, but I know who I am. I am the pilot. I am in charge."
Court looked away. His eyes drifted back out over the concourse. Turning away from what was beginning to look more and more like a fucking mess in the making.
The Canadian woman introduced herself as Ellen. She shook each man's hand with a smile. Court did not make eye contact when he shook her hand limply and grunted out the name "Viktor."
"So, where are you guys from?"
"We are Russian," said Gennady.
"Russian. Wow. Neat."
Court turned to study the woman's face carefully now, like an art student studying the brushstrokes of an oil painting on a museum wall.
"What brings you gentlemen to Darfur?"
Play cool, Gennady. Court said it to himself in Russian.
"What is your job with UN?" the Russian pilot asked warily, responding to a question with a question and not exactly "playing cool" in Court's eyes.
The woman smiled at the Russian, asked him to repeat himself, though Court sensed she understood him well. Gentry was trained to look for clues in the limbic system, the part of the brain that controls subconscious actions. Court knew how to discern the movements and expressions and postures that were indicators of deception. This woman glanced away quickly to the right when asked what she did, and to Court this was a signal that she was going to attempt to deceive with the next words out of her mouth. That she delayed by asking him to repeat himself was only more indication that a deceptive or untrue answer was being prepared and would soon be on the way.
Finally she replied, "Oh, I'm just an administrative officer for relief supplies." She shrugged her shoulders, "Logistics and such. Nothing very interesting." Her right arm reached across her body and rubbed her left arm.
Bullshit, thought Court. Gennady, on the other hand, seemed eased by her air of nonchalance.
"Yes. Well, we bring oil equipment into Darfur," the pilot said as the Egyptian waiter brought steaming cups of tea to the table.
Court wasn't satisfied with Gennady's answer; he'd much prefer he'd said it was none of her business. But at least he didn't say he was schlepping in tons of belt-fed machine guns and ammo.
The woman seemed perplexed, and Gentry's built-in trouble meter flickered higher up the dial.
"I see," she said, but her body language indicated that she did not. A micro-expression on her face revealed excitement, not confusion. "I would have thought the Chinese would use their own equipment."
"The Chinese? Why are you speaking of the Chinese? We Russians are experts in oil. Much oil in Siberia," Gennady said with a smile that he likely thought was sexy.
Court's research of the Sudan and the oil situation during the last two weeks afforded him with knowledge that, obviously, this Ellen Walsh woman would also have. The Chinese had control over all the oil exploration sites in the Darfur region. It was clear that Gennady did not know this.
"Oh." She feigned surprise, but Court picked up clues that she recognized that the Russian pilot was lying to her about the cargo. She let it go and began spooning dingy gray sugar into her tea even as the waiter placed it in front of her.
Was her hand trembling?
"Why are you in Al Fashir?" Gennady asked.
She hesitated, again reaching a hand across her body to rub her other arm, both covering herself and comforting herself with the action. Obvious tells of anxiety and deception to a trained body language expert such as the Gray Man.
"I came out to survey the Zam Zam IDP camp. Unfortunately, my staff didn't have all my documents and permissions in order, so they won't let me out of the airport. I'm really desperate for a ride out of here." She looked at the pilot again, and he back at her. He raised his eyebrows suggestively but did not offer her a seat on his aircraft.
Gennady said nothing.
"Have you been to Darfur before?"
"Yes," the pilot answered cockily. "Many times."
The woman nodded, still smiling. "It's horrible out here. Four hundred fifty thousand murdered in the past eight years, and no end in sight. Millions more in the camps, either here or over the border in Chad."
"Da," said Gennady. "War is very bad."
Court wanted to reach across the table and slap the insincerity off his face.
After a few seconds Ellen said, "That plane of yours is awesome. It's an Ilyushin, isn't it? Looks like some we have in our inventory." Quickly she added, "I ship a lot of cargo in my job, though I've never actually been in a cargo plane."
"It is an Ilyushin. An excellent Russian aircraft," said Gennady, and Walsh nodded along with him, seeming to fawn all over his words.
"Here is some pilot trivia for you," Ellen said with an excited smile. "Did you know Amelia Earhart landed here at Al Fashir on her attempt to circle the globe?"
Gennady cocked his head a little. "Who?"
"Amelia Earhart. The female pilot? The famous female pilot who disappeared flying around the world in 1937."
Gennady just looked at her.
"Surely you have heard-"
"I have never heard of this woman, but I am not surprised she disappeared. Women do not make good pilots," he said, as if this were the most basic fact of aeronautics. A dismissive wave of his hand and a loud slurp of tea followed his comment. Court caught the woman dropping her veil of admiration for the Russian man and revealing her true feelings of disgust.
But the veil rose again almost instantly.
"Well, I've heard great things about Russian aircraft. And the Ilyushin. Our UN planes do the job, but they are a bit boring. Do you think I could possibly get a closer look at your beautiful plane? Don't worry, I won't try to fly it. I'd probably just disappear."
Her smile was wide, friendly, and, Court recognized, a total sham.
Gennady just smiled back at her a long time without answering. He gave his shoulders a shrug, but it was a shrug that indicated anything was possible.