Mallory winced. “Hassan.”
“Yes. Il Macellaio.”
“Trent, too.” Another mistake.
Chaplin didn’t respond. Charles Mallory knew he could not afford to think about that now, although of course he would later. If the past became an enemy, you beat it by not thinking about it. He had to process information in the most effective manner possible now. Not haphazardly. “Okay,” he said, closing the folder. “What have we got?”
“Everything points to the next few days,” Chaplin said. “Contractors have been pouring in for a week. Some of them don’t seem to have specific tasks yet. Makes things somewhat easier for us.”
“Less conspicuous, you mean.”
“Yes. There are bunkhouses in half a dozen locations in the city. Some of the contractors are renting apartments. Medicines have been distributed for the past several weeks, at health clinics along the border and to many of the contractors here in the city.”
“Vaccines.”
“Yes.”
Chaplin handed him a second folder, containing color print-outs of aerial photos. “Okoro’s produced a good set of aerials of the whole country. We’ve been able to trace the movement of vehicles and isolate the location of what we believe is the viral property. Here’s the setup, as near as we can tell.” He pointed at the aerial on top of the stack. “The suspected air fields are all marked. The main one is here, northwest of the city. A clearing in the woods about seven kilometers from the city limits. Planes have been taking off from there just about every evening.”
“Planes. Plural.”
“Yes. Spray planes with a range of chemicals known as pyrethroids.” He shuffled two more aerials from the stack. “This shows a delivery truck going in there yesterday.”
“Delivering four-hundred-gallon spray tanks?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
Mallory shrugged. “That’s it, then, isn’t it?”
“We think that’s the viral property, yes. What they’re going to use to depopulate the capital and the surrounding regions. As I say, we’ve traced it very precisely through satellite images. We believe the tanks are here in this hangar. So that’ll be your target.”
“What kind of planes?”
“They’re similar to the NEDS planes your government used to spray drug crops in South America. Combat crop-dusters, they called them.” NEDS: Narcotics Eradication Delivery System. “Bigger than regular crop-dusters. Capable of staying airborne for up to seven hours. The biggest difference, though, is that these appear to be auto-piloted.”
“Drones?”
“Yes. Also, as you’ll see, there are lots of military and police vehicles all over the city. And armed security contractors roaming the streets. There’s also an outlaw contingent that’s supposedly been coming into town at night and kidnapping people off the streets.”
“Oh? Who are they?”
“We’re not sure. Origin unknown, at this point.” Chaplin’s brow wrinkled. As head of operations, he tried to anticipate every question; clearly, he didn’t have a good answer for this one. “City police seem afraid of them, give them a wide berth. Be careful.”
“Who do you think they are?”
“Don’t know. It’s possible they might be connected with the Hassan Network.”
“Really.”
“Possible.” Mallory heard a sound and looked up. Took a deep breath. Relaxed again. It was just the wind.
“We have weapons?”
“Yes. And a dozen IEDs. Wells will meet with you in the morning, at the Blue Star Café at 8:30. He’ll let you know what happened on the border tonight. Only one group meeting tomorrow, 1:40 in the afternoon.”
“Okay.” Only one group meet scheduled, Charlie thought. “And what about Isaak Priest? Any sign of him?”
“No. We hear the name. He’s sort of a phantom presence. He’s made some big deals with the government, evidently. Deals which, in effect, have allowed this to happen.”
“Do we know that he actually exists?
“What?”
“My father thought he maybe wasn’t a real person. That he was an invention of some sort.”
Chaplin frowned. “No, he exists. He moves through the city to the airfields and other contact points the way the heads of the big contracting firms do, in armored vehicles. He has a lieutenant, name of John Ramesh, who’s very visible.”
“Who is protecting Priest, exactly?”
“Private security. He’s escorted in cars with half-foot-thick armored doors, flat-run tires, bulletproof glass. It’s like Cadillac One, your president’s car. There’s an old mansion on the river south of here known informally as ‘the Palace.’ ” Chaplin straightened the papers in front of him. “We think he might be based there. About twenty-five kilometers from the capital. Thickly forested. There’s only one road in, and it’s closed. We haven’t been able to get good pictures of it.
“Anyway, here’s the key to your apartment for the first night. The key to your apartment for the next night will be there, in the kitchen drawer.”
“All right.” Charles Mallory stuck the folders in his bag and left. It was dark now, the streets crowded with pedestrians, rickshaws, bicycles, and mini-buses. He walked among the vendors until he found one selling clothes, bought a used long-sleeve collarless black shirt and dark corduroy trousers, and carried them into a café. White-skinned contractors sat at tables along the sidewalk, drinking beer, talking in loud voices. Charlie took a seat in the back and ordered a beer, along with a plate of red beans and rice and a cup of coconut bean soup.
“Where you from?” the waitress asked, pouring. She had a nice smile.
“Canada.”
“Not America?”
“No.”
“What sort of work you here for?”
“Water projects.”
She nodded. When she came back with his food, she smiled again. “So why are so many people like you coming to our country now?”
Charlie didn’t say anything. The fan stirred the warm aroma of curry spices. She wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Something’s going to happen, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Charlie looked out, at the starry sky above the whitewashed walls and tin roofs. Wondered how many people thought that way. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced behind her and said, quietly, “People are talking about medicines. People are selling it.”
“Are they? Where?”
“At the health clinics, in the country. Some on the street. They say we’re going to need them. That something bad is coming.”
“What do they think it is?”
“I don’t know. They say it’s much worse than AIDS. Everyone will get it and everyone will die.”
“I don’t think so,” Charlie said. She was trying to get him to agree with her, but he didn’t want to do that.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
After she walked away, Charles Mallory finished quickly. He left a hundred and twenty Mancalan shillings on the table and headed back out into the streets toward the rented apartment.
FORTY-THREE
IT WAS A SINGLE room in a musty two-story building with plaster lathe walls. Charlie washed in the sink and then lay on the bed, his feet and ankles extending over the edge. He listened to the sounds outside. Figuring the next day, October 4.
Finally, he closed his eyes and slept, for nearly seven hours. In the morning, he washed his face again, pulled on new clothes, and went out, taking his bag and the key to the next night’s apartment. Already the streets were busy, and he began seeing the security vehicles Chaplin had mentioned—pick-ups with recoilless rifles mounted on the back; Jeeps manned with machine guns. Occasionally, an APC—armored personnel carrier—with smoked-glass windows. Most of the contractors traveled in groups of two or more, Charlie noticed, meaning it probably wasn’t wise to be seen alone.