On target

NINETEEN

The Gray Man had sprinted one hundred yards through the warm night, with no real plan other than to find the woman and to figure out some way he might help her. He wasn't going to pick a fight with an airport full of secret police and soldiers, so he didn't have any real idea where he was going with this impetuous charge, but he'd been around long enough to put some confidence in his powers of improvisation. Ahead he saw the bright shaft of artificial light from the opening of the terminal's employee access door. The two NSS men appeared in the beam, and behind them, two armed GOS army sergeants pushed Ellen Walsh forward and into the back of the four-door sedan. The soldiers climbed in on either side of her, and the NSS men got in the front. The vehicle pulled away, in the opposite direction of Gentry's run, just as he arrived at the terminal's side entrance. He knew they were heading to the exit of the airport, taking the woman away.

And he knew where they were going.

The NSS detention facility in Al Fashir.

The Ghost House.

"Dammit!" he shouted again as he stopped running. Two airport guards eyed him from the doorway, vaguely curious perhaps, but they did not come outside.

Gentry looked around for a vehicle but found nothing. Instead, he turned around and began walking back towards the aircraft. As soon as he left the dim lights coming from the terminal and disappeared from the guards' sight, he began running again. This time he turned around the side of the building and shot between several shipping containers that had been lined up to serve as mobile offices for some NGO that had apparently long since pulled up stakes. Passing these, his feet left the warm tarmac and sank into thatch-covered sand and hard dirt. A small hill rose towards the end of the airport property, another fifty yards away. There was a metal fence here. Court had noticed that it ran alongside a reasonably well-trafficked road, back when there was still enough light to see this far into the distance. Now he did not see any headlights, but neither did he see any guards out here in the desolate darkness. He ran past the wreckage of a hulking, high-winged, twin prop aircraft that had obviously crashed and then been towed here to await the eventual burial in the sand that would occur over years of swirling winds.

Court skidded to a halt at the base of the fence. It stood ten feet high and was topped with thick coils of razor wire. He untied his boots but left them on his feet, then climbed the fence quickly and adroitly. At the top he held on with one hand just below the razor wire, pulled off one boot and then the other. He struggled to put his hands into the boots, again one at a time, the skin between his toes burned as they pinched in the chain links, supporting all the weight of his body that he could not hold up with one hand. He pushed into the razor wire with his boot-covered hands, doing his best to cover as wide an area as possible. He pressed the dangerous barbs tight against the top of the metal fence with the thick rubber soles. Then, while keeping the boots stationary, his feet continued up the fence until they were near the top, positioning his body like a swimmer on the block waiting for the starting gun. From here he shifted all his body weight to his arms, kicked his legs up until he was in a sloppy handstand position on the top of the fence, and then let his legs continue forward. He completed the flip and went airborne, his boots flung off his hands as he left the razor wire, and he landed in a rolling heap in the dirt on the outside of the airport grounds.

He was not hurt, maybe a small bruise or two on his arm and back, and he found his first boot immediately in the dark. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the other was still stuck in the razor wire, and he had to climb back up and tear it free. Another thirty seconds to retie his laces, and he headed down the small hillock towards the road.

Court had not studied a map of Al Fashir, wasn't certain he'd even heard of the place before that afternoon. But he had sat in the cockpit and paid attention to the terrain and the surrounding area as the Il-76 flew its base leg alongside the airport. From this he knew that the road the NSS vehicle was taking headed off to the north for a mile or so before meeting up with the highway that ran east and west. At this intersection they would make a right turn, and it would take them several more minutes to get to Al Fashir town. Court knew that if he could commandeer some sort of vehicle, he could get in front of them and intercept them before getting to the Ghost House. A light ahead of him on the road at first filled him with optimism. Within seconds he saw the single headlight of what he assumed to be a motorcycle approaching. This was ideal. Court would like nothing better than getting on a bike. He could skirt through traffic at his own speed and find Ellen Walsh and her captors.

He ducked back into the dark to await its arrival.

Of course he had no clue where to find the Ghost House, but he knew that virtually everyone in this town would know the location of the secret police's clandestine prison. He doubted anyone would walk with him up to the front door and knock, but he did not expect too much trouble getting directions from a local on a street corner if Court whipped out a small wad of Sudanese pounds.

Court hurried to the side of the road now. His plan was borderline brutal, certainly cruel, but he did not doubt its effectiveness. He would wait for the driver of the motorcycle to get within a few yards of him, and then he would step into the road and knock the man and his vehicle over. He prepared himself for this action, but noticed the bike was moving slower than it should have been with so much open road. He then presumed it to be only a motor scooter, which would still be an effective vehicle to make his way through narrow streets and thick third-world traffic, even if it wasn't going to move very fast, even with an open throttle.

But then, after an eternity, the vehicle appeared behind its single headlight, and Gentry cussed aloud. It was a tiny motorized rickshaw, a scooter with a covered three-seat bench behind the driver, a feeble two-stroke engine, and a wide tricycle-type rear axle.

Gentry was pissed. This was probably the slowest vehicle in existence with the exception of a donkey cart. Still, he recognized it would be a hell of a lot better than jogging, so he stepped into the dark road. He did not try to topple the little vehicle; instead, he just flagged it down.

The rickshaw pulled over. A black man in a turban sat behind the handlebars. "Taxi?" he asked, no shock or surprise at the sight of a bearded white man in a military-style jumpsuit. Apparently Court wasn't the first foreigner to wander stupidly around the darkened suburbs of Al Fashir. He climbed in hurriedly, and the driver twisted the throttle forward on his handlebars, sending the machine slowly again on its way with a whine like a lawn mower in thick, wet grass.

Court told the driver to take him into Al Fashir's souk, or marketplace. Every town has a market, he assumed, and apparently this backwater was no different, as the driver did not press him further. Instead, as the fortyish Darfuri tribesman set off for town, he turned back to his fare and offered to sell him a drink from a tiny cooler he kept in the backseat. Court checked it out, saw a half dozen bottles of tepid water, the bottle caps' safety seals broken. Gentry admitted to himself that he was thirsty, but he wasn't about to chug old plastic bottles refilled with local tap water. Also on the floor he found a small repair kit for the rickshaw in a burlap bag. There was nothing of interest to him in the kit, save for a single red road flare and a small, rusty screwdriver.

Court pocketed the flare and the tool as the first vestiges of an idea began forming in his mind.

They headed east for no more than three minutes before they hit the bustle of the city. Nearly a fourth of the vehicles on the road were powered by donkeys instead of engines, and suddenly the two-stroke job under the seat of the rickshaw did not seem quite so impotent in comparison. Another third of the vehicles on the road were NGOs of some sort: UN, UNICEF, CARE, the Red Cross. Additionally there were some UNAMID military vehicles on the road and GOS army men on motorcycles. The last 10 percent of traffic were locals in cars and trucks. They were very much a minority on their own streets.

He pressed the driver to hurry more than once, but even with the slow speed he imagined himself still to be well in front of the NSS sedan, which had gone far in a different direction to meet up with the highway. He knew, however, it would only take one traffic jam or missed turn to make this a close race.

They pulled up to the marketplace and stopped. "Here is the souk. Twenty pounds."

Court said, "I want you to take me to the Ghost House." He was hardly surprised that the man jerked his head around to look back at his passenger. No one wanted to go to the secret police interrogation facility. Court had already yanked a fat wad of cash from his wallet. He held it up for the man to see.

But, whatever the value of the currency in his hand, it was not enough. "I don't know this place. Here is the souk. You want a drink? Many soda stands still open. Tea stands. It very nice."

"I don't want a fucking soda. I want the NSS head-quarters. Just get me near there. Show me where it is. I will walk the rest of the way." Court now lifted another lump of wrinkled notes out of his wallet. From the light of a storefront powered by a roaring and smoking gas generator, Gentry looked into the wide eyes of his driver. He nodded slowly at the money, then up at the insane American.

"I take you two blocks from there. I take you to soccer stadium."

"The soccer stadium is two blocks from the Ghost House?"

"Yes," said the man with a nod. Court could see the nervous tension; he felt sure the man was telling the truth.

"Good. More money if you go faster!" The man turned back to face the road ahead, leaned forward into his handlebars, and seemed to twist out another horsepower or two from the impotent machine.

Just then Gentry heard a noise high in the sky above him. He knew what it was instantly; he really did not even have to look. But he did look and saw the silhouette of an Ilyushin Il-76MF climbing into the starry heavens.

"Motherfucking Russians," he muttered, but he couldn't say he blamed them.

Court felt incredibly alone, but there was no time to think of that now. He needed a plan.

In seconds they were stuck in the evening traffic again. Stationary in the middle of the street. Court's driver's honking was lost in the melody of louder car horns. A donkey cart on the right of the rickshaw pushed forward a few feet, and Court caught a glimpse of the unpaved promenade running alongside the road. There, under the light of a bare bulb hanging out a second-floor window, a man sat on an overturned metal bucket resting on the ground. Beside him was a container the size of a beer keg, with a rubber hose snaking out of the top of it and looping down the side. In front of the contraption stood a handwritten sign in wood, the writing in both Arabic and English: Gas. The man picked at his dinner of rice with his fingers.

Immediately Gentry leaned into the front of the rickshaw, reached past the driver, and pulled the keys from the ignition. "I'll be right back," Court said, but this did not stop the man from shouting at him when Gentry left him behind in the center of the busy street as he ran to the gas man.

Court pulled out his wallet hurriedly, yanked another fold of Sudanese pounds free, and handed them to the man. The elderly gasoline vendor took them and stood, nodded quickly, but then looked the hurried Westerner over curiously. Court didn't get it for a second, so he said, "Gas!" pointing at the keg. Behind him cars and motorbikes began honking, and those on horse and mule carts began yelling at the stationary rickshaw blocking traffic. Court shouted "Gas!" one more time, then realized the vendor was looking to see just what the hell he was supposed to siphon the gas into. Court had no container, and he drove no vehicle. Court pulled another note from his wallet and pointed to the metal bucket the man had been using as a stool. Court picked it up himself, flipped it over. It would hold two gallons or so. The man looked at him like he was crazy, but he nevertheless began sucking on the hose to draw the gas out into the tin bucket.

It took a minute and a half to siphon the fuel and complete the transaction, and by the time Gentry returned to his tiny taxi scooter, he was certain he was the most hated man in all of Al Fashir. Horns honked in chorus behind him. He handed the keys back to the driver, who continued to berate him while he restarted the little putt-putting motor of the vehicle. Court crammed the metal bucket on the floor between his feet. Then he grabbed a fistful of money out of his wallet and, reaching up, waved it next to the complaining Darfuri tribesman. The man shut up and reached for it, but Gentry pulled it back to him, patted the man on the back instead as if to say, "Soon, my friend."

The driver pressed on. As he did so, Court opened the cooler of bottled water next to him on the bench. Even in poor lighting from the buildings as they passed them and the headlights of the other cars on the street, he could see black sediment in the liquid. Drinking it would have probably given him dysentery, but he was not going to drink it. Instead he doused himself with it, completely covering his face, his arms, and his clothing. He pulled out a second bottle and did it again, drenching himself in water.

The driver looked back over his shoulder at this odd fare, but Court motioned for him to keep his eyes pointed forward.

Court opened a third bottle and then a fourth, pouring water all over his clothing and hair and face.

The Darfuri man soon pulled over next to a large but aged soccer stadium. He pointed at the busy intersection ahead and then gestured with his hands that it was just to the left. He turned fully around in his seat with his hand out for his money now, and Court reached deep into his wallet. The American pulled out a wad of bills of a different color than the Sudanese man expected, but the Darfuri knew euros when he saw them. He nodded slowly, then became more serious when he saw how much he was being handed. Four hundred euros was enough to buy a brand-new rickshaw, the driver realized, and he could not help himself from swallowing hard.

It took a few seconds more for the turbaned driver to realize that that was exactly what the kawaga was asking him to do. After the driver took the money, the waterlogged white man with the tin bucket of gasoline stepped out of the back, unzipped his jumpsuit, stripped to his soaking wet shorts and T-shirt, and handed the jumpsuit over to the driver. It did not take the Sudanese man long to realize he was being asked-no, forced-to change clothes with the white man. He climbed out of his vehicle grudgingly but quickly and took off his clothes right there on the side of the street. Passersby stopped and stared. The kawaga pulled the long tunic and the brown pants on, pocketed the screwdriver and the flare, cinched the pants tight with a leather belt, and reached up and took the turban off the Darfuri's head and used it to wrap his own face and head in a white mask. Without a word or a nod, the white man removed the cap from the gas tank of the covered scooter and tossed it in the road. Then he hurriedly climbed behind the handlebars and positioned the bucket tightly between his knees. He opened one more bottle of water and doused his new clothing with it, and then he jammed the throttle forward, and the rusty red machine leapt forward and back out into traffic.

The Darfuri driver stood in the dirt under a street-lamp next to the soccer stadium, no shirt on his back, scratching his head as a crowd converged on him with unbridled curiousity.

Court hoped he was not too late. Once Ellen Walsh was taken through the front gates of the Ghost House, it would be suicide to even attempt trying to get to her, and it would do nothing to help her chances. He just had to do something before the NSS car made it in.

Just up ahead at the last intersection he saw another traffic jam of crap cars, beasts of burden pulling wood and rusted carts, and NGO vehicles. He jacked the handlebars to the left and bumped up on a little curb, drove straight through men walking home from work or out for dinner or an evening stroll. White-turbaned men leapt to the side as if for dear life, though the rickshaw was probably not big or powerful enough to do much more than cause bruises or a few broken bones to a pedestrian.

He tried to picture the scene ahead because he had no real idea what he was going to find around the corner. But he'd seen his share, more than his share, of secret police HQs in third-world, ex-colonial outposts. There would be a squat building with a fortified wall around it, a front gate with a guard shack and some sort of movable barrier. Often there would be a sandbagged machine gun emplacement or two, or even an armored personnel carrier at the front.

This damn Canadian investigator better appreciate this, he thought to himself. Then he remembered that if not for him, she would be nowhere near the predicament from which he was now trying to extract her.

He was at the left turn now, leaving more screaming and shouting and horn honking behind him. He pulled too hard for the turn, and the little two-stroke machine rocked high, its left rear wheel off the ground for a few seconds before banging back to the dusty pavement, causing the cab of the vehicle to bottom out with an ear-piercing scrape. Gasoline sloshed on his pants leg, but he'd managed to save eighty percent of the contents of the bucket by lifting his opposite knee to compensate for the tilting in his seat.

And then there it was, right ahead of him and on the right. The wall was lower than he had expected, and the building was taller and a bit more ornate than he had envisioned. There was an access gate with a guardhouse on the near side of the road, and some sort of tin-shack bunker on the far side.

And there was the NSS car, about to make a right turn at the intersection ahead, just beyond the entrance to the Ghost House.

Shit, thought Court. Not going to make it.

But he floored the little rickshaw and leaned forward, hoped against hope something would slow down the sedan's advance on the entrance.

A donkey pulling a cart overladen with plastic watering cans entered the intersection in front of the NSS sedan, causing it to slow and honk. It was twenty-five yards tops to the entry drive of the Ghost House, and Court knew this was his chance, he would get to the sedan in time, though his odds for success at any part of his plan after that were still pretty lousy. He grabbed the bucket of gas by its rickety handle, held the rickshaw straight by its throttle, and barreled in on the stationary car. Just as the donkey cart began rolling out of the way and the sedan started to drift forward again, Gentry let go of the handlebar, spun out of his seat, and leapt out of the rickshaw. Though he stumbled forward and splashed another twenty-five percent of the gasoline from the bucket, he remained on his feet, running into screeching and honking traffic.

The rickshaw slammed into the front passenger-side door of the NSS car at twenty miles an hour, jolting and denting the car with a crunching crash and knocking it into the wooden cart in front of it.