The Osprey rose behind them, spitting sand and grit in every direction. The aircraft would fly back to southern Egypt, refuel, then go north to Cairo to wait for the rest of the Whiplash team.
Assuming they were needed. Danny wasn’t exactly sure what the situation was; Reid hadn’t given him many details, saying only to get there and find out what had to be done.
“Lonely place,” said Danny as they walked.
Nuri grumbled an answer.
“This place operational when you were here?” Danny asked. “Before Whiplash?”
“Not that I knew.”
A thick clump of clouds floated in front of the moon, casting the base in darkness. As they passed, a pickup truck emerged from the shadows near the building, riding toward them without its lights.
“Here comes our ride,” said Nuri.
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”
“I wouldn’t trust anything the Agency is doing out here.” Nuri stopped. “Black projects have a way of becoming rodeos.”
The pickup arrived before Danny could ask what he meant. The driver rolled down the window. He was white, and spoke with a British accent.
“You’re Colonel Freah?”
“That’s right.”
“You can put your bags in the back.” The man didn’t introduce himself. He waited silently for Danny and Nuri to get in, then put the truck into reverse, made a slow-motion U-turn, and drove toward the buildings. There were five; two about the size of a small ranch house back home, and three slightly smaller.
“Which building?” Danny asked.
“You can wait in the one on the far right.” The building was one of the larger structures.
“Wait?” snapped Nuri.
“What do you mean wait?” asked Danny. “We’re here to meet Melissa Ilse.”
“I don’t know where she is.” The driver seemed almost offended that they would imply he did know.
“How long you been on contract?” asked Nuri.
The man looked at him. “That’s not your business.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Danny and Nuri got out and went into the building. It consisted of a single room. A set of tables formed two long rows in the center, with chairs running down one side. Dim red lights shone from overhead fixtures; there wasn’t enough light to read a watch by.
“Most of them bugged out already,” said Nuri, surveying the room. “Shit.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Too few people. If they were running UAVs from here, they would have needed dozens of people. Even if it was just a skeletal crew. Even if they were flying from somewhere else. And the security would have been tighter. I’ll bet they had tents, and just took everything away. I don’t like this.”
Dubious, Danny looked around the room. It looked more like an empty Knights of Columbus hall than a command post.
“So where’s this Melissa, you think?” he asked Nuri.
Nuri pulled out a chair and sat down. “Damned if I know. I never even heard of her.”
He shook his head. Danny was used to dealing with Nuri—he tended to be a bit of a crank—but this was cantankerous even for him.
“There aren’t that many people who can deal with East Africa,” Nuri added. “I know them all. And she’s not one of them.”
“Maybe it’s a pseudonym.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is a bullshit way to treat us,” said Danny. As he turned to go back to the door, it opened. A short, thin man with several days’ worth of stubble on his face entered.
“Colonel Freah?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Damian Jordan.” He reached out and shook Danny’s hand. He had a grip that could crush rocks.
“We’re supposed to meet Melissa Ilse,” said Danny.
“She’s not here,” said Jordan. He offered his hand to Nuri. Nuri just stared at him.
“Where is she?” asked Danny.
“She got a lead on the aircraft and she went to check it out.”
“By herself?” asked Nuri.
“Melissa is like that.”
“You’re in charge?” asked Danny.
“Melissa is.”
“Where’s the rest of your team?” asked Nuri.
“With the aircraft down, we were ordered to move to a more secure location. We’re pretty wide-open over here. So it’s just me, Ferny—who drove out to get you—and two Ethiopian nationals working as bodyguards.”
“You trust them?” asked Nuri.
“Only until the shit hits the fan,” said Jordan. “Then they’ll take off for the hills. Come on into the other building and we’ll get something to eat. I’ll brief you on the way.”
Chapter 9
Southeastern Sudan
It took Li Han several hours to reach the crash site, most of it on foot. A boy in a village allied with the Brothers had seen the aircraft fall from the sky. He showed Li Han the way himself, plunging down hillsides and scrambling over the rocks like it was a game. The Brothers who were with Li Han couldn’t keep up, and in fact even Li Han, who prided himself on his excellent condition, had a hard time toward the end. The moon kept poking in and out of the clouds, and he stumbled several times, twisting his ankle and knee, though not so badly that he gave up.
And then they were there.
One of the wings had broken off in flight, but the rest of the aircraft was nearly whole. It looked like a black tent, sitting in the ravine where it had landed. Li Han approached it cautiously, afraid that the Americans had booby-trapped it. They were capable of anything.
Li Han knelt down next to the fuselage, examining the strange-looking aircraft. It had landed on its back. A missile was attached to the wing.
Li Han caught the boy as he started to scramble onto the wing near the missile.
“No,” said Li Han. He used English. The child may not have understood the language, but the tone was enough to warn him away. Li Han pointed, telling the boy to move back.
Li Han rose and walked to the nose of the small plane. Its skin was covered with a black, radar-absorbing paint, obviously intended to lower the radar profile. He took an LED flashlight from his pocket and ran its beam over the wreckage. The antennas might be hidden under the wreckage; they would be on the top of the aircraft most likely, where they could receive signals from satellites. But where was the sensor pod with its cameras?
Integrated into the hull. The material seemed almost porous.
The two Brothers who’d accompanied him came over the hill, huffing for breath. They slid down the ravine on the sides of their feet.
“Careful,” said Li Han, forgetting for a moment and speaking in his native Mandarin.
They looked at him sheepishly.
“We must get the wreckage out of here before the satellite comes,” he said, switching to English. “Before it is dawn. We have only three hours. Do you understand?”
The taller one, Amara of Yujst—they all had odd, African names—said something in Arabic.
“Pick it up and carry it out,” Li Han told him, still in English.
“It will be heavy,” said Amara.
“Then get more help,” said Li Han.
Chapter 10
Western Ethiopia
“We’ve been targeting him,” said Damian Jordan, pointing at the hazy black-and-white image of an Asian man on the screen. “Mao Man.”
“Sounds archaeological,” said Danny, looking at the face.