“I could wear a disguise,” she interrupted. Her eyes fired darts at him.
“I know you could.” He stumbled through his words, trying not to sound like a chauvinist. “But the other part of it is that if you were caught… Let’s just say the kinds of people who live in that area do awful things to women.”
“I knew the risks involved when I took this job. I can handle it.”
“Yet you agreed to let me go it alone,” Sean jumped in.
“Only because he’s right about one person moving more easily than two,” she answered. Then she switched gears. “We will take a fishing boat around the border. You’ll be dropped off on a beach where you’ll meet a man who is going to take you into the city.”
That part sounded a little sketchy to Sean. How did they have a connection in Somalia? I guess for the right amount of money, he thought.
“Who is this guy?” he asked.
“Someone we’ve used before. He’s a rebellious sort,” Fitz explained. He read Sean’s reaction and explained. “Don’t worry. He’ll do as told. While he’s got bravery in spades, he’s afraid of Americans for some reason. He won’t double-cross us.”
“If he’s so afraid, why is he working with us?”
“Because we pay him better than any job in his ragged-out country ever could,” Emily answered.
“Yeah,” Fitz agreed. “He won’t have to work for a year. And what we pay him wouldn’t get a studio apartment in a small town back home.”
Sean still wasn’t sure about using hired help, especially from a place full of untrustworthy people. But he didn’t have much choice.
“Fine. So we have the way in. Then what? I go in, find the missiles, and bring down the warehouse?”
Emily and Fitz exchanged a sideways glance.
“No,” Emily said. “Though that would be an efficient way of taking out the warheads, it could also contaminate the area, killing tens of thousands of people. Yourself included.”
“And then there’s the head of the snake to consider,” Fitz added. “If we destroy those missiles, we lose the guy who was behind all this. He’ll rear his ugly head again at some point and start all over again. And next time he’ll be even more careful. We can’t afford to blow this one.”
“So what then?” Sean eyed them both.
Emily reached into a gear bag next to her feet and pulled out three circular discs, each about the size of a bottle cap. She held them out to him. Each one had a tiny button embedded on the side.
“These are fresh from R&D.”
Sean took one out of her hand and inspected it, holding it up in the light and twisting it around. “Tracking device?”
She nodded.
“State of the art,” Fitz said. “Actually, ahead of state of the art by about three years. That beacon has a signal five times stronger than anything currently being employed by our government.”
Sean raised a dubious eyebrow. His eyes shifted to Fitz. “Really? How’d you get your hands on it?”
A clever grin crossed Fitz’s face. He shrugged. “Let’s just say I have a friend who does a little contract work with DARPA. Maybe I’ll introduce you sometime. You two would get along great.”
“Good to have friends in the right places.” Something puzzled him, though. “So why did you get three of them?”
Fitz’s confidence waned. “They’re small, for one. So if you had them, say, in a pocket or something, you could lose one pretty easily.”
“On top of that,” Emily continued for him, “the lithium batteries inside these things aren’t entirely stable. Sometimes they peter out without warning or reason. So to make sure we get a reliable signal, try to place all three with the missiles. If possible.”
“Ah, so there is a catch.” He carelessly tossed the device to Emily. She snatched it out of the air with ease. “Nice.”
“Please be careful with those,” Fitz said. “They are very expensive and very rare.”
Sean turned to him. “So rare that we’re about to put them on some terrorist missiles that may or may not be blown to bits in the next few days?”
“Point taken.”
Emily took over again. “Once the tracking units are in place, get out and meet up with your ride. He’ll be there for up to six hours. After that, his orders are to get out.”
Sean pouted his lower lip. “Should be enough time, unless he drops me three hours away from the target.”
“You’ll be dropped off less than a click from the warehouse. There’s a good bit of activity in that area: pedestrians, delivery trucks, car traffic. Though we advise you not to linger. You need to get in and out—”
“As quickly as possible,” Sean finished her sentence. “Yeah, I get the gist. So when are we doing this?”
Fitz answered the question. “We’re leaving in ten minutes. So get ready.”
28
The waves slapped against the side of the little fishing boat in a mesmerizing rhythm, one after another. Sean had only been in the boat for a few minutes, and he already found himself swaying back and forth in time with the sound.
He and the others had taken a surprisingly luxurious yacht from the port of Mombasa and gone north, staying far enough away from shore to keep any watchful eyes unsuspecting, but close enough that when Sean launched the wooden dinghy attached to the side it wouldn’t take him more than twenty or thirty minutes to make land.
“Sure you don’t want to trade?” he’d joked with Emily. The yacht was lined with plush, creamy leather and glossy wood appointments. There was a fully stocked bar in a living room that approached five hundred square feet. He spotted Fitz eyeing it and had to remind him they were working. Fun could come later.
“We’ll be waiting for you here,” Emily said. “These are international waters. Your boat should have enough fuel for you to get to the shore and back. But just in case, there’s a little canister of spare fuel tucked under the tarp near the front.”
Sean steered the boat via a rudder-like stick attached to an old outboard motor. It sputtered and groaned like it could die at any second. He hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to using the oars that were stowed away on the floor.
He pulled the stained, tattered scarf a little tighter around his face. He’d gotten sunburned once off the coast of Tampa while fishing for tarpon. Exposure to too much UV wasn’t the only reason he was completely covered from head to toe in raggedy clothing. His body perspired constantly underneath the layers of clothing. The Somali sun beat down on the little vessel and trapped the heat inside like a convection oven.
Sean didn’t dare take off any of the clothing. He had to look the part of a fisherman, but he also couldn’t allow himself to be recognized as an American. If that happened, to say people would become suspicious would be the understatement of the decade. From what he understood, keeping covered would actually cause his body to cool itself, kicking the hypothalamus into gear to maintain a constant temperature.
That didn’t mean it was a pleasant temperature. And he wondered how so many desert nomads dealt with it on a daily basis.
The tiny vessel rose and fell between the swells, churning its way toward a place Sean had never considered visiting. Every once in a while, a big splash would wash over the boat, and he’d have to scoop it out with a bucket sitting next to his feet.
He wiped the perspiration from his brow, put the bridge of his hand against his forehead to shield his eyes from the bright sun, and peered into the distance. The white sand beaches of the coastline were a thin strip on the horizon. There were no long stretches of palm trees. Only an outcropping of one or two here and there. And unlike the coastlines of the United States, there were no high-rise condominiums, hotels or multimillion-dollar homes. There wasn’t even a bungalow to be found. The only buildings within sight were a collection of colorful huts huddled together a mile or so north. The huts stood a few hundred feet back from the shoreline and looked like they’d been built several decades ago. The vast emptiness of the shore was a stark contrast to the way things were back home, and a reminder of how different life was between the First and Third Worlds.