“You’re not going to go ahead with a meeting,” Hera told Danny. “That would be suicide.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“No, no. We’ll set something up.” Nuri studied the map on the Voice command unit, looking for a place they might stop to eat before Tehran.
“Set something up? You’re nuts,” said Hera. She leaned forward from the backseat. “You can’t go to the meeting, Colonel. There’s just no way.”
“If we arrange it right—”
“We have to get close to him,” said Nuri. “We have to follow him.”
“Then you should take the meeting if you’re so gung-ho,” said Hera.
“Maybe I will,” he told her.
“You don’t have to actually meet him,” said Flash. “Just have him walk through a populated area, brush by him and mark him.”
“It’ll need to be more elaborate to get a bug on him,” said Nuri.
“It’s not for another couple of days,” said Danny. “We have plenty to do in the meantime. I want to get inside the compound and take a look at it.”
Danny’s heart pounded at the idea of meeting with Tarid’s boss. Hera was right — it would be a setup, one almost impossible to escape from. And yet, part of him believed he had to agree to it, had to go, just to prove he was brave.
Why should he have to prove that now? Hadn’t he been brave in Sudan? He’d frozen for a moment, the briefest moment. No one else had seen, or known. How much courage was enough?
He’d acted bravely, yet he felt like a coward.
Because McGowan had died. That was part of it. His man had died. The cost, the terrible cost.
He was measuring himself against an impossible standard, yet he couldn’t help it.
“That farm isn’t on any CIA surveillance list,” said Nuri. “It’s most likely just an arbitrary meeting place. There probably won’t be anything there.”
“Then it’ll be easy to check out,” said Danny. “We weren’t doing anything interesting tonight anyway.”
As soon as tarid left the building, Aberhadji slipped out the small two-way radio he kept his pocket.
“Have someone take the car and follow him,” he told the head of the resident security team. “Make sure he goes to Tehran. I want to know everything he does, everyone he meets. Go yourself.”
“That will leave you with only one guard to watch the building. And yourself.”
“I can count.”
“Yes, Imam.”
The security team had assured Aberhadji when Tarid arrived that he wasn’t followed, but Aberhadji no longer knew what or who to trust. For this reason alone, prudence suggested he shut down the operation, keep it completely inactive for six months, a year, then arrange for a new incarnation. There was already the one warhead, after all, with material hidden for two more; he could wait.
Especially given that the council had decided to back the president and his treacherous acts.
They were the more serious problem. He would have to increase his influence before the president could be dealt with.
Aberhadji felt a headache coming on. It had been months since he’d had one.
He bent to pray, asking forgiveness for his sins, and requesting that the pain be lightened.
Allah was merciful. The metal prongs that had begun to tighten around his skull receded.
So he would lay low. That was the best direction now. He would dismantle everything, starting here. The tools would be moved to the mines. The material and the warhead would be relocated.
He’d need a crew here immediately. And more security as well. Even if it attracted attention.
He picked up his sat phone and started to dial, then stopped. The Americans were very good at stealing transmissions and breaking encryptions. He would have to assume, for the time being, that they would be able to listen into any conversation he had.
It meant inevitable delay, but it couldn’t be helped.
He took the radio out again.
“I am going into town,” he told the lone watchman. “We will need reinforcements. I will arrange for them to arrive as soon as possible. In the meantime, shoot anyone you find on the property.”
“It will be done, Imam.”
54
Boston, Sugar, and Abul spent a difficult night sleeping in the bus, taking turns on watch. It wasn’t just the threat of the mercenaries’ revenge that kept them awake; their dead colleague’s body affected each to some degree. None would have admitted it to the others, but each kept his or her own distance from the body bag at the back aisle of the bus.
Abul remembered a childhood story involving a lion that preyed not on the dead, but the mourners who watched over the bodies. The story haunted him so badly that every shadow outside the bus took a lion’s shape, until he could neither look at the windows nor close his eyes, certain that they were about to be attacked. He sweated profusely as he lay across the seats, the moisture creeping like acidic slime across his body, eating away at his skin. His breathing became shallower, and quicker, until he gulped the air without absorbing the oxygen. Not even the idea of the money he would get from enduring this horror calmed him. Instead, he thought only of the many ways it could be wrested away.
Sugar had not heard any similar stories, but she felt uneasy nonetheless. She hadn’t known McGowan very well, but working with someone during an operation compressed time greatly. And it was impossible not to wonder why he had died, and not her.
For Boston, McGowan was a reminder of his responsibility to the others, and the fact that even the best commander might lose people, no matter how hard he fought or tried to protect them.
The dawn offered little solace. The battery in the UAV they’d launched during the night ran down shortly before sunup, and Boston launched a replacement. But its battery failed prematurely less than a half hour later, and it took nearly twenty minutes to get another aircraft ready to fly. Sugar and Abul hunkered over their rifles as Boston prepared the tiny planes, his fingers turning klutzy just when he needed them calm and precise. By the time he had the plane up, the sky was bright blue and the temperature was rising quite high.
The mercenaries were not within the five-mile radius the Owl patrolled. On the Ethiopian side of the border, however, a hundred more troops had just arrived. Boston stared at the screen, mentally counting the force and trying to guess its intentions.
“Maybe they’re coming to party,” said Sugar, joining him.
When Boston didn’t laugh, she asked what he thought they were going to do.
“That many troops, without a threat — I’d say they were going to push the refugees away from the border,” said Boston. “It’ll be a massacre if they do.”
“Maybe they won’t use force,” said Sugar.
On screen, the men were jumping from their trucks, rifles in hand.
“I don’t think you can count on them not using force,” said Boston. “Those aren’t aid workers.”
Abul, his eyes burning with fatigue, came over and squinted at the screen.
“There are no UN people there?” he asked, looking around the screen.
“No,” said Boston. “Why?”
“The agency that deals with refugees. They’re not there.”
“Why’s that important?” asked Sugar.
Abul shook his head. “There are many different attitudes here. Mostly, the Ethiopians are a good people. But sometimes…it is possible that they would see the refugees as members of a different tribe.”
“They’re going to just shoot them?” asked Sugar.
“No, no. Not at first. But, if they didn’t move or, worse, if they resisted.”
Abul made a face.
“What will they do?” asked Sugar.
“Tear down their tents. Push them to disperse,” Abul said. “Get them away from the border. The camps — they consider them a breeding ground for political dissension. And they are not related to the people.”