Raven Strike

Chapter 1

Danny Freah turned onto the hard-packed road, gingerly pressing his foot against the Mercedes accelerator. Their subject was only two hundred yards ahead.

“I have a full connection,” said Nuri. “Everything’s being routed back through MY-PID. All right. He’s heading east… Whoa, slow down. He turned off onto a dirt road. I think there may be a lookout about fifty yards away. MY-PID, analyze and identify this position.”

Danny concentrated on the road as Nuri pointed at the screen and talked to the computer.

“One of the bugs I set isn’t in the proper location,” Nuri told him. “It’s in the truck we’re following.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I’m listening to a conversation in Russian.”

“Russian?”

“Shhh.”

MY-PID provided the translation on the fly, almost instantaneously. It heard not only the caller in the car, but was able to amplify the conversation on the other side.

“MY-PID, can you ID either of the voices?” asked Nuri.

“Call was made to a phone registered to the Stalingrad Export Company,” reported the Voice. “Caller voice patterns are being compared to Russian SVG and GRU known agents.”

“Good.”

“Caller 1 is identified as Milos Kimko, known operative with Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki,” said the Voice a few seconds later. “He was posted to Africa 03-02-13. Dossier available.”

“Hold it for me,” said Nuri. “Where’s the old stationmaster house?”

“Insufficient data.”

“Is there a stationmaster house in Duka?”

“Two possible buildings identified,” responded the computer. “Both are near the railroad tracks.”

“Place them under constant surveillance.”

“Are you talking to a person, or a machine?” asked Melissa.

“Nuri can fill in the details later,” said Danny. “Right now we have to decide which way we’re going. The turnoff the truck took is ahead.”

“Don’t turn,” said Nuri. “Keep going. We’ll have to head back to follow Li Han. This guy doesn’t have the UAV. Not yet, anyway.”

Chapter 2

They dumped Li Han’s body inside the building, raked over the dirt where he had fallen, then climbed into the trucks.

Amara started away. He drove quickly, exactly as he had rehearsed, moving toward the main road south. It was dark but he didn’t use his headlights. The fewer people who noticed him, the better.

He’d driven nearly halfway to the road when his hands began to sweat. Until now he’d been completely calm, unmoved by what he had done. Li Han was nothing to him, an infidel and worse. Ali Aba Muhammad had told him to kill Li Han and take the item back; obeying was as easy as breathing.

But his body began to rebel. The sweat was the first sign. It wouldn’t stop. He wiped his right hand on his pants, put it back on the wheel, then wiped his left. The sweat kept coming.

“There is no God but the true God,” he said to himself, beginning to pray.

The prayer calmed him, but only slightly.

By rights, he should hate Li Han and feel no remorse. His killing of Swal — a man whom Amara had, admittedly, despised — showed that he was a sinner and infidel of the worst sort. But for some reason Amara remained disturbed.

Li Han was not the first man he had killed. But the others had been during battles, and in truth Amara was not even sure that any of them had died — they had been far away, and he’d been either under cover or running. Nor had he known them. Here, Li Han had been right next to him. They had spent several weeks together. Even though Amara suspected from the beginning that he would kill him, even though he had quickly grown to despise the foreigner with his haughty manner, still, Amara had been close enough to him to actually see his face, his eyes, as he died bare inches away.

He had to die. It was God’s will, as the Mentor had explained, and he was preparing to betray the Brotherhood to the Russians. But with all that, with all these good reasons, still Amara felt a tinge of regret and even fear. Twice as he drove he thought Li Han was in the truck beside him; once he even swore for a moment that he was there just before he glanced over.

The seat of course was empty, and he knew for a fact that Li Han was back in the building. But the feeling lingered.

When he reached the highway, Amara flipped the lights on and stepped on the gas, determined to put as many miles between himself and Duka as quickly possible.

He rolled down the windows. The wind rushed into the cab. It filled his lungs with energy and braced his cheeks. He would be in the south very soon. Li Han’s ghost would be left far behind.

Chapter 3

“Vehicle located,” MY-PID declared.

“Display on a grid map,” commanded Nuri.

The system popped the image onto the control unit screen. Li Han’s pickup was parked outside of a ramshackle house on the western outskirts of town.

“Can you locate the subject?” Nuri asked.

“Subject appears to be in building,” answered the computer, interpreting the infrared heat signature inside. “Certainty is eighty-four percent.”

“How many people are with him?”

“Subject appears alone. No activity.”

“Looks like Li Han found a new place to stay,” Nuri told Danny. “He’s sleeping in a little shack outside the city.”

“Why’d he change location?” Danny asked.

“Don’t know.” Nuri magnified the image, but it was impossible to see inside the building; the thick roof filtered and dulled the IR signal. “When’s the rest of our gear getting here?”

“The MC-17 should check in any minute,” said Danny. “I’ll arrange a drop near here.”

“Good.”

Nuri told MY-PID to examine the house where Li Han had been earlier. Someone was there as well. The computer declared that there was too little data to positively rule out that Li Han wasn’t in that building; only so much could be determined from studying heat signatures. They would have to watch both buildings.

Meanwhile, the bug tracked the Russian as he headed to a ramshackle compound southeast of the city, wedged into a trio of craggy hills. This was the Almighty First Liberation’s “fortress.” MY-PID counted twenty-eight man-sized heat signatures within the various buildings, accounting for the bulk of the rebel force. They were in defensive positions spread out in the rocks, guarding the approaches; clearly they expected retaliation for their leader’s attack.

“Why are the Russians working with these guys?” Danny asked. “I thought Russia wasn’t involved in Africa at all.”

“It’s something new,” answered Melissa from the back.

Nuri tried to keep his teeth from grinding. She was right, but he still resented her, and something compelled him to answer everything she said. “They try to come in every so often.”

“You know this guy?” Danny asked.

“Never even heard of him,” said Nuri. “According to his dossier, he’s been around awhile, was in Iran a while back. This may have been a demotion, or maybe he’s interested in something special. Hard to tell.”

“The computer keeps track of all this?” asked Melissa.

When Nuri didn’t answer, Danny did, which only annoyed Nuri more.

“The system is like having a thousand assistants at your beck and call,” said Danny. “It’s a serious force multiplier.”

“It’s just a computer,” said Nuri. His tone was so harsh that Danny glanced at him.

“Can I interface with it?” asked Melissa.

“You have to be trained,” snapped Nuri.

“It responds to certain voices,” said Danny, still staring at Nuri. “But we all benefit.”

“I’m authorized to terminate Li Han,” said Melissa. “Once we’re sure we have the UAV, we take him down. I don’t think we should wait,” she added, sliding forward and leaning near Danny. “I think we should get it now.”

“We tried that already, and we missed,” said Nuri quickly. “We’re not positive where the UAV is. We can’t afford another miss.”

“Can’t your device figure out where the plane is?”

Melissa said it innocently, but Nuri took it as a challenge.

“It’s not omniscient,” he said. “It needs data. The area wasn’t under surveillance when it went down. We don’t have our sensors in place.”

“I’m for moving sooner rather than later,” said Danny.

“You think we can take over the whole city?” asked Nuri.

“No, but we will have reinforcements soon,” answered Danny. “Enough to deal with the people here. The problem is, if it’s not here, we’re losing a lot of time.”

“If it’s not here, where would it be?” said Nuri. “Anywhere in Africa.”

“True,” said Melissa.

God, thought Nuri, I must be wrong.

With the connection to MY-PID now permanently supplied by the satellite, the Tigershark was no longer needed. Danny released Turk to fly home, which he reluctantly agreed to do.

Meanwhile, Danny located a spot for the Whiplash MC-17 to make an equipment drop. It was an open field about four miles northwest of the city. With the Osprey holding south in case the rest of the team was needed, Danny decided they would go up and meet the newcomers and their supplies, setting up a temporary base there. Driving or even flying back and forth to Ethiopia would take too much time. And ideally, he wanted to close the operation down quickly — as soon as he had a definitive word on where Raven was.

They got to the drop zone five minutes ahead of the aircraft. With Nuri monitoring what was going on in Duka through MY-PID, Danny got out and placed some chem markers in the field. The markers were small sticks that emitted a light visible only through infrared gear. Technically, the Whiplash MC-17 could make the drop without the lights, but Danny liked the extra measure of safety.

Melissa got out of the car with him, walking along as he set out the lights.

“I owe you an apology,” she said after he had finished.

“What’s that?” he asked, surprised.

“I was — I felt that you guys were barging in and trying to take over. I didn’t realize how professional you were, and I acted… territorial. Bitchy.”

“Forget it.”

“I am sorry.” She touched his hand and smiled. “I was afraid — this is my operation. You’re trained to not let people in.”

“Sure,” said Danny.

Her hand lingered for just a moment.

“There were a lot of sick people in that clinic,” added Melissa. “They’re pretty desperate for help here.”

“Yeah, I know. We were in a village to the west a few months ago, a couple of villages. It’s a shame. They’re so poor.”

“Do you think — being black…”

“Like what? It could have been us?”

“Something like that.”

“No. Not at all.”

They were silent a moment. The wind picked up slightly, softly howling in the distance.

The MC-17.

“Plane’s coming in,” said Danny. “Come stand over here.”

He led her back away from the target area. The Whiplash support aircraft was a specially modified Cargomaster II. Among other things, its engines had been muffled so they were barely audible even at a few thousand feet. Like the extremely capable stock aircraft, the Whiplash version could land on a small, rough airfield; in fact, it probably could have landed in this field, though taking off might have been problematic. There was no need to risk it.

The plane came in low and slow, dropping a trio of large containers on skids within a few meters of each other. The large crates bounced on air cushions attached to the bottom of the skids, giant air bags that inflated just before impact.

As the airplane cleared upward, three smaller figures appeared overhead — Hera Scokas and two Whiplash trainees, Chris “Shorty” Bradley and Toma “Babyboy” Parker. Hera hit her mark dead on, walking right up to the chem marker in the bull’s-eye. The two men came in a bit to her left, blown slightly off course though still well within specs.

“Colonel, good to see you,” said Hera. The short, curly-haired Greek-American gave Danny a wave, then immediately stowed her parachute and checked on the two newcomers who’d jumped with her.

A variety of Whiplash equipment had been packed onto the three crates, including tents, two motorbikes, surveillance gear, and almost a ton of ammunition. There was also a solar panel and battery array to provide the temporary camp with electricity, along with point defenses that included ballistic panels — high-tech versions of claymore antipersonnel mines — and a surveillance radar held aloft by a blimp. The body of the blimp was covered with an adaptive LED material that allowed it to blend in with the sky, making it virtually invisible to the naked eye.

As soon as they were unpacked, Danny launched two small UAVs to supplement the Global Hawk’s coverage. Barely the size of a laptop computer, the robot aircraft looked like miniature versions of Cessna Skymasters, with twin booms to the tail and engines fore and aft of the cockpit. They flew neither fast nor high — sixty knots at 5,000 feet was roughly their top speed and ceiling, respectively. But their undersides were covered with LED arrays similar to those on the blimp, making them difficult to pick out even in daylight. And the top surfaces were covered with solar cells that supplemented and recharged the batteries powering their engines. As long as the day was sunny, MY-PID could manage the power consumption so the aircraft would fly 24/7.

Melissa pitched in, quietly working beside the others. She’d changed somehow, Danny realized, or maybe fatigue had just worn off the sharp edges.

Whatever the reason, she was actually pleasant to work with now. She volunteered to brief Hera and the others on the overall situation, and even helped set the posts for the command tent.

Maybe, thought Danny, they could work with her after all.

Nuri didn’t understand the significance of what was going on at first; he was too busy following MY-PID’s brief on the Russian and his connections in Moscow. But the computer did.

“Large force gathering near the town center,” the Voice told him as he paged through Kimko’s file on the mobile laptop he’d hooked into the system. “Armed.”

Nuri immediately brought up the image on the computer. Then he got out of the truck and went to find Danny.

The colonel was bent over a tent stake, hammering it in with a large mallet. Some technologies were impossible to improve on.

“Meurtre Musique is going to war,” Nuri told him. “Two dozen of them, trucks, machine guns, grenade launchers. They’re getting together near the town square.”

“Do they have night vision gear?”

“Probably not.”

“They’re going to have a hard time hitting the hills where Sudan First is holed up,” predicted Danny. “They’ll spot them coming, even in the dark.”

“That’s not where they’re going,” said Nuri, watching the screen.

The trucks swung south down the main street, then formed two columns turning up different roads to the east. After they’d gone about three blocks, yellow and white flashes began appearing on the screen.

“Is something wrong with the image?” asked Melissa, peering at it over Danny’s shoulder.

“They’re shooting up houses,” said Nuri flatly. “They’re getting their revenge.”

Melissa felt her stomach sink as the gunfire continued on the screen. The trucks moved slowly through the streets, going no faster than four or five miles an hour, raking everything they passed with gunfire. In the western part of the city, a good portion of the bullets might be absorbed or deflected by the mud bricks of the buildings. But here the buildings were made mostly of discarded wood. There would be little to stop them.

Suddenly, something caught fire at the top of the screen. Danny poked his finger at it, increasing in magnification. A cottage had caught fire. The flames quickly formed a crown as they spread around the outer walls.

Something bolted out from the wall of fire. A finger of flame trailed it, even as it threw itself on the ground.

A person.

Two people, one big, one small.

A mother and child, Melissa imagined.

“This is terrible,” she said. “We have to do something.”

“Like what?” snapped Nuri.

“Colonel, we can’t just let them shoot each other up,” she told Danny. “They’re killing innocent children.”

“It’s not our business,” said Nuri. “Didn’t you say something yesterday about not wanting these people to get in your way? You weren’t worried about collateral damage.”

“This is different.”

“There’s nothing really we can do,” said Danny. “We have our mission. And we don’t have enough force to stop this.”

Melissa knew he was right — and she had said that, and felt it, and did feel it.

But these were real people getting killed.

“Sudan First will retaliate,” said Nuri. “Once they hear what’s up. Both sides go after soft targets first. They’re basically cowards.”

Melissa thought of the clinic. It was an obvious and easy target.

She went over to the tent where they were making coffee, remembering the women and their children there, the people she’d treated before the shooting victims came. Her mind conflated the two, imagining the children shot up, the women bleeding from bullet wounds.

She had to do something.

Danny watched as the pickups retreated back toward the residential area of the city where the Meurtre Musique supporters lived. Their grass huts would be easy targets for retaliation. Didn’t they realize that?

Most likely they did. But just as likely they felt they had to avenge the earlier shooting, and would have to fight it out.

It was senseless, but there was nothing he could do about it. The question was whether it would interfere with his mission — random bullets flying in the air weren’t going to make things easier.

On the other hand, all the gunfire would make a perfect cover for a raid. No one would notice if he went in.

“Thirsty, Colonel?” asked Melissa, walking over to him with a cup of coffee.

“Sure.”

She gave him the cup. “How do you take it?”

“Black’s good.”

“I want to borrow one of the motorcycles to get into town,” she said, sipping her own. “I need to be there in an hour, just at dawn.”

“What?”

“The clinic,” she told him. “I need to get back.”

“It’s not a good idea to go there,” said Danny. “There’s going to be a lot more fighting.”

“I think that’s why I should go.”

Danny stared at her. She was like his wife more than just physically; he couldn’t quite figure out what she was thinking.

“We put you in as a spy yesterday,” he told her. “That made sense. Now, though, we have all our gear here — we don’t need someone on the ground.”

“You’d be amazed at what these people tell me.”

“Like what?” said Nuri skeptically.

“I found that first house.”

“So did we,” answered Nuri.

“I’m going, Colonel,” she said, turning back to him. “I’ll go if I have to walk.”

“Let’s talk about it in private,” said Danny.

The night suddenly seemed incredibly cold, and Melissa wished she’d taken a sweater. She and Danny walked away from the tent area, moving along the hardscrabble field. The remains of a stone foundation sat overgrown by weeds; with a little imagination, Melissa could picture a prosperous native farm.

“You can’t go back in there,” said Danny as they walked. “You’ll be a target.”

“No more than anyone else.”

“I can’t let you. It doesn’t serve any purpose.”

“It does serve a purpose.” She felt she owed Bloom, who had helped her, and now would be a target. But at the same time, Melissa also thought that being there might allow her to get Li Han — he might come right to her. But she hesitated telling Danny all of this — her emotions and her sense of duty were all confused. “I can gather intelligence. I can find out what’s really going on.”

“We can drop bugs in there. There’s no need to risk your life.”

“Eavesdropping gear just tells you what people say. It can’t steer conversations. It can’t tease information out.”

“You want to go in to help these people,” said Danny.

“I’ll help them because it will help me. But that’s not why I’m going in. Li Han may come to them. I’ll be able to get him.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Danny.

“Whatever. I’m not going to argue. You may be in charge of Whiplash, but you’re not in charge of me.”

“You need sleep,” he told her, staring at her face. “You’re tired.”

He had strong eyes. He was a strong, powerfully built man. Yet there was care and concern in his voice. Softness.

“I want to get Bloom out,” she told him. “She helped me. She was an MI6 agent. Now she’ll be in danger.”

“She’s a spy?”

“No. She was. She got out and became a nurse. But she helped me find the house. With what’s going on, she’ll be targeted.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Honestly, Colonel, there is nothing you can do.”

Danny stared at her for a few moments more. Melissa suddenly felt weak — it must be fatigue, she thought, or perhaps hunger: it had been a while since she’d eaten.

Danny clamped his lips tight together.

“I can’t stop you,” he said finally.

“No, you can’t.”

“First sign of trouble, you get the hell out of there.”

“No shit,” she said.

Chapter 4

Jonathon Reid stepped into the elevator in the lobby of the CIA headquarters building and pressed the button to go up to his office. He hadn’t had much sleep — after returning from the White House he’d lain in bed, eyes open, for hours.

A parade of past problems marched across the ceiling. Reid had participated in a number of operations and projects during his career that could be questioned on any number of grounds. He could think of two that were frankly illegal. In both cases he was operating under the explicit orders of the director of covert operations. And in both cases he felt that what he did was completely justified by the circumstances, that not only America but the world benefited by what he did.

But not everyone might agree. He imagined that if he were the case officer here, if he were on the ground in Africa, or even further up in the chain of command, he would feel completely justified by the goal. Li Han was a clear danger to America. He was not a “mere” sociopath or killer. He possessed technical skills difficult for terrorists to obtain, and he was willing to share that skill with them for what in real terms was a ridiculously cheap price. He was, in a military sense, a force multiplier, someone who could influence the outcome of a battle and even a war.

The U.S. and the world were in a war, a seemingly endless conflict against evil. Li Han clearly deserved to die.

Given that, was the process leading to that end result important?

Under most circumstances he would have answered no. As far as he was concerned, dotting a few legal i’s and crossing the bureaucratic t’s was just bs, busy work for lawyers and administrators who justified their federal sinecures by pontificating and procrastinating while the real work and risks were going on thousands of miles away.

But Raven required a more nuanced view. Li Han deserved to die, but should the Agency be the one making that judgment?

And should they alone decide what to risk in carrying out that judgment?

Raven wasn’t a simple weapon, like a new sniper rifle or even a spy plane. It was more along the lines of the atomic bomb: once perfected, it was a game changer with implications far, far beyond its use to take down a single target.

It was Lee Harvey Oswald all over again.

Of course, he was assuming the President didn’t know. Perhaps she did know. Perhaps she had played him for a fool.

Or simply felt that he didn’t need to know.

Maybe his problem was simply jealousy. Maybe the real story was this: Jonathon Reid couldn’t stand being out of the loop. Even now, far removed from his days as a cowboy field officer, he went off half cocked and red-assed, laying waste to all before him.

He knew it wasn’t true. And yet some might see it that way.

Inside his office, Reid sat down and looked at Danny Freah’s most recent updates on the Whiplash operation. The involvement of the Russian agent alarmed him. He quickly brought himself up to date on the Russians and their various operations in Africa. It wasn’t clear whether they were trying to make a new push onto the continent, perhaps to be part of future mineral extraction operations, or were simply on the lookout for new clients for their weapons. Either theory made sense, and in any event neither changed the situation.

It was inconceivable that they had caught wind of Raven and knew it would be tested there.

Or was it?

Even though it appeared that Whiplash had things under control at the moment, Edmund had to be informed about the Russian. Reid took a quick run through the overnight briefing, making sure there wasn’t anything major he had to be aware of, then called up to the director’s office.

“Mr. Reid, the director is out of communication at the moment,” said his secretary. “I’ll put you through to Mr. Conklin.”

Out of communication? That was a new one on Reid.

Conklin came on the line. He was Edmund’s chief of staff, an assistant. Reid rarely if ever dealt with him.

So it begins, he thought.

“Jonathon, what can we do for you?” asked Conklin.

“I need to speak to Herman.”

“I’m afraid that’s going to be difficult to arrange for a while.”

“This is critical.”

“I’m sure. But—”

“Why would it be difficult to arrange? Is Herman all right?”

“The director is fine.”

“It has to do with Raven,” said Reid, unsure whether Conklin would even know what that was.

Apparently he did. “You should talk to Reg on that.”

Reginald Harker: Special Deputy for Covert Operations, head of the Raven project, probably the idiot behind the whole screwed-up situation in the first place.

Not the person Reid wanted to speak to.

“This is really a matter for Herman,” he said. “It’s critically important.”

“Reg is the person to speak to,” said Conklin.

“I’ll do that. But inform Herman as well.”

“I will pass a note to Mr. Edmund at my earliest opportunity.”

Reid hung up. He started to dial Edmund’s private phone, then stopped.

How paranoid should he be? The system would record the fact that he had made the call; the internal lines could also be monitored.

Should he worry about that?

What if it wasn’t a coincidence that the Russians were there? What if someone inside had tipped them off?

But who?

Reid debated with himself, but in the end decided that paranoia had its uses. He left his office, left the campus, and drove to a mall a few miles away. After making sure he wasn’t being followed, he took a lap through the building, found a drugstore and bought a prepaid phone. Then he walked through a large sporting goods store to the far entrance to a parking lot. He went outside and after once again making sure he wasn’t being followed, used the phone to call Edmund’s private phone.

He went straight to voice mail.

“We need to talk ASAP,” he said.

Reid hung up, then made a call with his encrypted satellite phone. When he got voice mail again, he hung up. After sending a text through the secure system — it took forever to hunt and peck the letters — he set the ringers on both his phone and the cell to maximum and went back inside. He pretended to be interested in the treadmills and T-shirts before leaving.

On the way back to the campus, he called Breanna, this time with an encrypted phone. She answered on the second ring.

“Have you seen the overnight update?” he asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“We can’t let the Russians get ahold of this. If a handoff is made to the Russian, they must take him out,” said Reid. “There should be no question.”

“All right. We’ll need a finding.”

“I’ll take care of that,” said Reid.

“Did you speak to the President?” Breanna asked.

“We had a brief session,” he said.

“Anything I should know?”

Reid spent a long moment thinking of what to say before answering.

“There’s nothing that came out that affects us directly,” he said finally.

“Jonathon — is there anything else I can do? Should I come back to D.C.?”

“No, I think I have it under control,” he said finally. “Stay in touch. Keep your phone handy.”

“You sound tired,” she added just before he was about to hang up.

“Well, I guess I am,” he told her before ending the call.

“You’re trying to trump this up into something,” charged Harker when Reid met him in his office. He picked up the coffee cup on his desk, brought it about halfway to his mouth, then in a sudden fit of anger smacked it onto the desktop, splattering some of the liquid. “You want to create a scandal. There’s nothing here, Reid. Nothing.”

“I’m not creating a scandal,” replied Reid. “I’m simply doing my job.”

“Which is what?”

“Getting Raven back. Keeping it from our enemies.”

“I know you’re angling for the DIA slot,” said Harker. “It’s not going to work. Everybody can see through the games you’re playing.”

Reid said nothing. Denying interest in the job — which he had absolutely no intention of taking — would only be interpreted as a lie. In fact, everything he said would be interpreted through Harker’s twisted lens. It was pointless to even talk.

“I only came to you because I’m having trouble speaking to Edmund.” Reid rose. “And I’m concerned about the Russians.”

“Herm doesn’t speak to traitors.”

Reid stared at Harker. The man’s face was beet red.

“This isn’t a question of loyalty to the Agency,” he said.

“Get out of my office,” said Harker.

“Gladly.”

Chapter 5

Melissa watched Marie Bloom survey the reception room, her hands on her hips. The clinic director turned and looked at her with a worried expression.

“Ordinarily, this room would be full,” she said. “But maybe we should count our blessings.”

“Yes,” said Melissa softly.

They had seen only a small handful of patients since opening at dawn. Now it was past noon.

Bloom sat down on the couch that faced the door. Her face was drawn. “Did you bring these troubles?”

“No,” said Melissa.

“Did the man you’re hunting for?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“One of the people from Sudan First fired on the leader of Meurtre Musique.”

“I know that. What’s really going on?”

“That’s all that I know.”

“The problem with you people…”

Bloom let her voice trail off, not bothering to finish the sentence.

“I’ll leave if you want,” said Melissa finally. “I’m only here to help. That’s the only reason.”

“How could I ever believe that?”

The door opened. Melissa felt her body jerking back, automatically preparing to be on the defensive.

A pregnant woman came into the room. In her arms she had a two-year-old boy. The child was listless, clearly sick.

Melissa looked over at Bloom. She had a shell-shocked expression.

“I’ll take this one,” said Melissa, going over to the woman.

She held out her arms. The mother glanced at Bloom, but gave the child over willingly. She said something in African, explaining what was wrong. Melissa could tell just by holding the baby that he had a fever.

“Come,” said Melissa in English. “Inside.”

The woman followed her into the far examining room.

It was an infection, some sort of virus or bacteria causing the fever. Beyond that it was impossible to diagnose, at least for her. The fever was 102.4; high, yet not so high that it would be alarming in a child. There were no rashes or other outward signs of the problem; no injuries, no insect bites. The child seemed to be breathing normally. Its pulse was a little slow, but even that was not particularly abnormal, especially given its overall listless state.

Melissa poured some bottled water on a cloth and rubbed the baby down.

“To cool him off a little,” she said, first in English, then in slower and less steady Arabic. She got a dropper and carefully measured out a dose of acetaminophen. Gesturing, she made the woman understand that she was to give it to the baby. The mother hesitated, then finally agreed.

As she handed over the medicine, Melissa realized that the woman was running a fever herself. She took her thermometer — an electronic one that got its readings from the inner ear — and held it in place while the woman struggled to get her baby to swallow the medicine.

Her fever was 102.8. More serious in an adult.

And what about her baby? The woman looked to be at least eight months pregnant, if not nine.

Melissa took the stethoscope.

“I need to hear your heart,” she said.

She gestured for the woman to take off her long, flowing top. Unsure whether she truly didn’t understand or just didn’t want to be examined, Melissa told her that she was concerned about the baby.

“You have a fever,” she said.

The woman said something and gestured toward the young child on the examining table, who was looking at them with big eyes.

Realizing she was getting nowhere, Melissa went out to the waiting area to get Bloom to help.

Bloom had nodded off. Melissa bent down to wake her. As she did, the pregnant woman came out from the back, carrying her child.

“Wait,” said Melissa, trying to stop her. “Wait!”

“What’s wrong?” asked Bloom, jumping up from the couch.

“She’s sick. Her baby may have a fever, too.”

Bloom spoke in rapid Arabic. The woman answered in her own tongue. Whatever it was she said, Bloom frowned. She answered, speaking less surely. The woman waved her hand and went to the door.

“You have to tell her,” said Melissa.

“I can’t stop her,” said Bloom as the woman left.

“We could at least give her acetaminophen, something for the fever.”

“She won’t take it,” said Bloom. “It’d be a waste.”

“But—”

“If we push too hard, they won’t come back. They have to deal with us at their own pace.”

“If she’s sick, the baby may die.”

“We can’t force her to get better.”

Melissa wanted to argue more — they could have at least made a better argument, at least explained what the dangers were. But her satellite phone rang.

“I–I have to take this,” she said, starting for the door. “I’ll be right back.”

Thinking it was Danny calling to tell her what was going on, she hit the Talk button as she went through the door.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Melissa, what’s the situation?” asked Reginald Harker.

“Hold on, Reg. Let me get somewhere I can talk.”

She walked outside, continuing a little way down the road. The harsh sun hurt her eyes. There was no one outside, and the nearby houses, which yesterday had been teeming with people, seemed deserted. Otherwise, the day seemed perfect, no sign of conflict anywhere.

“I’m here,” she told Harker.

“What’s going on with Mao Man?” he asked.

“We have him tracked to a house on the northeastern side of town.”

“What about the UAV?”

“We think it’s nearby.”

“Think?”

“We’re not entirely sure.” His abrupt tone pissed her off. Try doing this yourself, she thought.

“When will you be sure?”

“I don’t know. There’s a Russian who’s trying to buy it—”

“Do not let the Russian get it.”

“No shit.”

“Mao Man has to be terminated. Take down the Russian, too. Take down the whole damn village — what the hell are you waiting for?”

“Reg—”

“I’m serious, Melissa. Why do you think I sent you there? What the hell did we invest in your training for?”

“I have no idea,” she told him stonily.

“Don’t let these Whiplash people run the show. They have their own agenda. Tell them to stop pussyfooting around and get the damn thing done.”

“Fuck yourself,” she said. But he’d already hung up.

Melissa pushed the phone back into the pocket of her baggy pants. She was so angry she didn’t want to go back into the clinic; she needed to walk off some of her emotion. She clenched her hands into fists and began to walk.

She’d gone only fifty yards or so when she heard trucks in the distance. The sound was faint, the vehicles far off, but instinctively she knew it was trouble.

Chapter 6

Zen sat in the hospital waiting area, tapping his fingers against the arms of his wheelchair. Not since he ran for the Senate had he felt such a combination of anticipation and anxiety. Not that he’d cared about the outcome — he would have been just as content retiring from politics as a two-term congressman and getting a job in the private sector. In some ways he’d have been happier, since few jobs had such a demand on anyone’s time.

The door opened. Dr. Esrang walked in, alone.

“Doc, how are we doin’?” asked Zen.

“Hard to say,” said Esrang. “Brain activity is normal. For him. Physically, no problems. Mood — well, that’s always the question, isn’t it?”

“Once around the block and back inside,” said Zen.

“You’re not actually—”

“Figure of speech, Doc,” said Zen.

“Yes, of course. All right. We’re ready.”

“I think it’s going to work,” said Zen.

Esrang started for the door, then stopped. “Jeff, let me say something, if you don’t mind.”

“Shoot.”

“There may be setbacks.”

“I understand.”

“If you’re serious, we have to keep at it. If this doesn’t go well, then we try something else. All right?”

“Absolutely,” said Zen.

“We keep at it.” Esrang went in then. Pep talks were out of character for the doctor; maybe it was a good omen.

Stoner emerged a few minutes later, flanked by a female nurse who was nearly as big and broad-shouldered as the two male attendants/bodyguards waiting for him. Esrang trailed them, a concerned expression on his face.

Just a damn walk in the sunshine, Zen thought. But it was the first time Stoner would be allowed into the unfenced public area outside.

A baby step, but an important one.

“Hey, Mark,” said Zen. “I was thinking we’d get outside a bit today and walk around. I’m feeling a bit frisky. What do you say?”

Stoner turned toward him but said nothing. His face was blank.

“Good,” said Zen, as enthusiastic as if Stoner had agreed. “Let’s go.”

He began wheeling toward the exit. Stoner and the nurse followed. Dr. Esrang stayed back.

“Did you catch the game last night?” Zen asked. “Nationals took the Mets with a homer in the bottom of the ninth.”

“Good.”

It wasn’t much of a response, but Zen felt vindicated. He rolled slowly down the corridor, pacing himself just ahead of his companion. Jason Black, his aide, was standing there waiting. Jason pushed open the door and held it as the small entourage exited the building. Zen took the lead, rolling along the cement path toward a small picnic area.

“Good view, huh?” Zen wheeled to a stop.

“Of garbage cans,” said Stoner.

It seemed like a non sequitur, just a random comment. Then Zen realized Stoner was looking at the back of a building some hundred yards away.

“Can you see them?” he asked. “How many?”

“Eighteen.”

“What about the flowers?” asked Zen, pointing to the nearby flower bed.

Stoner looked, then turned to him. “Yeah?”

“Bree likes flowers,” said Zen, searching for something to say. “Teri, too. My daughter. Teri. You have to meet her.”

Stoner didn’t reply.

“Good day for baseball,” said Zen.

Stoner remained silent. Zen tried to get a conversation going, talking about baseball and football, and even the cute nurse who passed on an adjacent path. Stoner had apparently decided he wasn’t going to talk anymore, and said nothing else. After they’d been out for about fifteen minutes, Dr. Esrang came over, looking at his watch.

“I’m afraid it’s time for Mr. Stoner’s physical therapy,” he said loudly. “If that’s OK, Senator.”

“It’s OK with me,” said Zen. “Assuming Mark feels like sweating a bit.”

Stoner turned toward the building and began walking. Zen wheeled himself forward to catch up with him.

“Maybe we’ll take in some baseball, huh?” he asked. “If you’re up to it.”

Stoner stopped. “Baseball would be good.”

“Even if it’s the Nats?” joked Zen.

Stoner stared at him.

“Their record is — well, they are in last place,” admitted Zen. “So, it may be a tough game to sit through.”

“Baseball is good,” said Stoner.

“That went very well,” Esrang told Zen after Stoner had returned inside. “Very well.”

“You think so?”

“He talked to you. He said a lot more to you than he’s said to anyone.”

“He said three or four sentences. Then he just shut down.”

“It’s what he didn’t do that’s important,” said Esrang. “No rage, no attempt to run away. I think he’s slowly coming back to his old self.”

“Maybe.”

“I would say he might be able to go to a ball game, as long you’re under escort,” said Esrang.

Zen was surprised, but he wasn’t about to disagree. “I’ll set something up. You coming?”

“Absolutely… The Nationals will win, right?”

Zen laughed. He’d started to wheel into the building when he heard Jason Black clearing his throat behind him.

“Excuse me, Doc. We’ll find our own way out.” Zen turned back to his aide. “What’s up?”

“Steph needs to talk to you,” said Jason. “Like as soon as you can.”

Zen pulled his BlackBerry from his pocket. There were half a dozen text messages, including two from Stephanie Delanie — Steph — his chief legislative aide. The Senate Intelligence Committee had scheduled an emergency session for eleven o’clock — they’d just make it if they left right now.

“Grab the van, Jay,” said Zen. “I’ll meet you out front.”

“What’s up?”

“Just the usual Senate bs,” said Zen.

Chapter 7

Twice Amara came to checkpoints manned by government soldiers, and twice he drove through them, slowing then gunning the engine, keeping his head down. He’d learned long ago that most times the soldiers wouldn’t risk trying to actually stop a pickup, knowing they faced the worst consequences if they succeeded in killing the driver: whatever band he belonged to would seek vengeance immediately. The Brothers were especially vicious, killing not only the soldiers but any relatives they could find. It was an effective policy.

Besides, the soldiers were more interested in bribes than checking for contraband. Their army salary, low to begin with, was routinely siphoned off by higher-ups, leaving the privates and corporals in the field to supplement it or starve. Amara knew this from his older cousin, who had been conscripted at twelve and gone on to a varied career in the service until dying in a shoot-out with the Brothers at sixteen. By then his cousin was a sergeant, battle-tested and the most cynical man Amara knew, a hollow-eyed killer who hated the army and admired the Brothers, though eventually they would be the death of him. He had urged Amara to avoid the army, and warned him twice when bands were coming to “recruit” boys from his village—“recruit” being the government word for kidnap.

His cousin’s influence had led him to the Brothers. Amara lacked the deep religious conviction many of the Brothers and especially their leaders held. He joined for survival, and during his first action against a rival group, found he liked the adventure. His intelligence had been recognized and he was sent to a number of schools, not just for fighting, but for math and languages as well.

He liked math, geometry especially. His teachers told how it had been invented by followers of the one true God as a method of appreciating God’s handiwork in the world. To Amara, the beauty was in the interlocking theorems and proofs, the way one formula fed to another and then another, lines and angles connecting in a grid work that explained the entire world. He sensed that computer language held some of the same attractions, and his one regret in killing Li Han was that the Asian had not taught him more about how it worked before he died.

Amara’s promise was so great that he had won the ultimate prize: an education in America. Handed documents, he was sent to a U.S. college in the Midwest to study engineering. He was in well over his head, simply unprepared for the culture shock of the Western country. He was not a failure — with effort and struggle he had managed C’s in most of his classes, after dropping those he knew he would fail. But within two years the Brothers recalled him, saying they had other jobs. Someday, he told himself, he would return, only this time better prepared.

The black finger of an oil-drilling rig poked over the horizon, telling Amara he was nearing his destination. He slowed, scanning both sides of the road. Here the checkpoints had to be taken more seriously; they would be manned by the Brothers rather than soldiers, and anyone who didn’t stop would be targeted by an RPG.

He found the turnoff to the hills, then lowered his speed to a crawl as he went up the twisted road. Moving too fast was an invitation to be shot: the guards had standing orders to fire on anything suspicious, and they were far more likely to be praised for caution than scolded for killing a Brother who had imprudently alarmed them.

Amara spotted a man moving by the side of the trail. He slowed to a stop, and shouted, “As-Salamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.”

The shadow moved toward him. Two others appeared on the other side of the trail. Then two more behind him. Amara was surrounded by sentries, all of them four or five years younger than himself. They were jumpy and nervous; he put both his hands on the open window of the car, trying with his body language to put them at ease.

“I am Amara of Yujst,” he said in Arabic, naming the town he had taken as his battle name. “I have completed my mission.”

“What mission was that?” snapped the tall man he’d first seen. He was not necessarily the oldest of the group — he had only the outlines of a beard — but he was clearly in charge.

“The mission that I have been appointed. It is of no concern to you.”

“You will tell me or you will not pass.”

“Are you ready for Paradise, Brother?” said Amara.

The question caught the tall one by surprise, and he was silent for a moment.

“One of you will ride with me,” Amara continued. “You will come into camp. The rest will stay here and guard the pass.”

“What gives you the right to make orders?” said the tall one, finding his voice.

“I told you who I am, and why I am here. I need nothing else.”

“Two of us will come,” said the tall one, trying to save face with the others.

Amara might have challenged this, but decided he didn’t want to waste time. “Move, then.”

The tall one got into the cab; another man climbed into the truck bed, squatting on the tarp. They drove through two more switchbacks, watched by guards crouching near the rocks. As Amara turned the corner of the last curve, he spotted a small fire flickering in a barrel ahead. Men were gathered around it, warming themselves. The stripped shell of a bus stood behind them, crossway across the path. Amara slowed even further, easing toward the roadblock in an almost dead crawl.

The man in the back of the truck yelled at the sentries near the fire, telling them to move quickly because an important Brother had arrived on a mission. Even so, they moved in slow motion over to the bus. The vehicle had been stripped of its engine and much of its interior, its only function now to slow a determined enemy. The men put their shoulders and backs to the front and pushed, working the bus backward into a slot in the rocks. They held it there as Amara went past, then slowly eased it back in place.

Amara pulled the truck to the side of a small parking area just inside the perimeter. Vehicles were not allowed any farther; the way was blocked by large boulders, protection against vehicle bombs. He took the laptop from beneath the seat and got out of the truck.

“You will guard the contents below the canvas with your life,” he told the two men who’d accompanied him. “If they are even touched, you will be hanged, then fed to the jackals.”

Even the tall sentry had no answer for that.

Amara turned and held his hands out.

“You will search me, then take me to Brother Assad,” he told the approaching guards. “And be quick.”

Chapter 8

Less than three minutes after Melissa ran back inside the clinic, bullets crashed through the windows. By then she and Bloom had barricaded themselves inside one of the examining rooms with the patients who’d been inside.

Melissa hunkered down behind the desk they’d pushed against the door as a truck drove past outside. There were shouts and a fresh hail of bullets. She reached down and rolled up her pant leg, retrieving her 9mm Glock from its holster.

“That’s not going to do much,” said Bloom, a few feet away. Two patients, a mother and four-year-old daughter, were huddled next to her. The other patients, both teenage women, both pregnant, were at the far end of the room, crouched down behind the overturned examining table.

“It’s better than nothing,” said Melissa.

She took out her sat phone, forgotten in the rush for cover. There were two missed calls. Before she could page into the directory, the phone rang. She answered quickly.

“What the hell are you doing in that building?” demanded Danny. “Why wasn’t your phone on?”

“It was on,” she told him. “The volume on the ringer was down. I couldn’t hear.”

A round of bullets blew through the building. Two or three whipped overhead. One of the women screamed. Another was crying.

“What’s your situation?” asked Danny.

“We have four patients in here, three women and a child. What’s going on outside?”

“They’re shooting up the town,” said Danny. “Where in the building are you? I can’t get a good read.”

“The back examining room.”

“Stay there. One of the trucks is coming back.”

There was fresh gunfire at front. This time, though, none of the bullets was directed at the clinic. The Sudan First gunmen were driving through the area, firing indiscriminately.

“All right,” said Danny. “They’re moving south. Are you all right?”

“So far.”

“We’re coming for you. Is there a basement?”

“No.” She’d already decided this was the safest room in the building.

“Don’t do anything until you hear my voice.”

“Sure,” she told him.

Danny closed the connection.

“She’s nothing but trouble,” said Nuri. “I told you. And this Bloom. If she’s really a washed out MI6 agent—”

“Not now, Nuri,” snapped Danny. “Boston, Flash, you’re with me.”

Danny left the tent, trying to control his anger as he strode toward the Mercedes. The truth was, Nuri was right — even if he should’ve kept his mouth shut about it.

Boston and Flash hustled behind him, humping two ammo-laden rucks apiece. Beside their SCAR assault rifles, Boston had an M-48 squad-level machine gun.

They piled into the car. Danny started the engine and was about to pull away when Nuri grabbed the back door.

“I thought you were staying,” Danny said.

“We better hurry — there are two dozen men coming by foot from the Sudan First camp.”

Chapter 9

Amara’s escorts eyed the laptop nervously. The case was more than large enough to hold a charge of plastic explosive powerful enough to take out a good portion of the small cluster of buildings that served as the nerve center of the camp.

He’d shown them that it worked; beyond that, Amara could offer no other assurance. He held it under his arm and walked with them to the small hut where Assad lived and worked.

Assad had served an apprenticeship in Iraq and was one of the older members of the Brotherhood, respected for his experience, though not completely trusted by all because he had been born in Egypt. He and Amara had not been particularly close before this assignment, and in fact Amara suspected that Assad was not the one who chose him.

Assad’s cousin Sayr served as his aide and bodyguard. He was standing outside the house, and put up his hand as Amara approached.

“You’re back,” said Sayr. “You’ve taken your time.”

“I drove night and day,” answered Amara. “And ran two blockades.”

Sayr pointed to the laptop. “That is not allowed in the hut.”

“This is why I came,” said Amara, holding it out.

“It’s not allowed inside. I’ll take it.”

Amara hesitated, but turned it over. There was no alternative.

“Be careful,” he said. “It has a program on it that’s important. Do not even turn it on.”

Sayr frowned at him. Amara wondered if he even knew what a program was — unlike his cousin, Sayr was not particularly bright.

One of his escorts knocked, then opened the door to the small building. Assad sat in the middle of the floor on a rug. There were pillows nearby, but no other furniture.

“I have returned, Brother,” Amara said, stepping inside. “I have eliminated the Asian as directed and returned with the computer and the guidance system.”

Assad nodded. He stared blankly at the rug, seemingly in prayer, though it was not the time to pray. Finally he looked up and gestured for Amara to sit.

“The Asian is dead?” Assad asked.

“As you directed.”

“He was an evil man,” said Assad. “But a useful one.”

The door opened. Sayr entered and walked over to his cousin, stooping down and whispering in his ear. As he straightened, he shot Amara a look of disdain.

“Very good,” said Assad, his gaze remaining on Amara. “Fetch us some tea.”

Sayr gave Amara another frown, then left.

“How strong is your belief?” asked Assad. “If it were necessary to sacrifice yourself, could you do it?”

A shudder ran through Amara’s body. A true believer was supposed to be prepared to sacrifice himself for jihad, accepting death willingly for the glory of the Almighty. But it was a complicated proposition. It was one thing to be willing to die in battle, and quite another to accept what Assad seemed to be asking: deliberately sacrificing himself.

The Brothers did not as a general rule use suicide bombers to advance their agenda. They were considered unreliable. But there were always exceptions.

Amara hoped he wasn’t to be one.

“Could you become a martyr?” repeated Assad.

“Of course,” said Amara, knowing this was the only answer he could give, even if it did not come from his heart.

“You hesitate.”

“I… only question my worthiness.”

Assad smiled but said nothing. Sayr returned with a small teapot and two cups. He carefully wiped Assad’s and set it down before him. He was much less careful with Amara’s; liquid dripped from the cup.

“He doesn’t like me,” said Amara when Sayr had left. “But I have done nothing to him.”

“You’ve taken his place on an important mission to America,” said Assad.

“I have?”

“We have been asked by friends to help a project they have undertaken. One of our Brothers is in the Satan capital. He needs some technical assistance, and equipment. We think you can help him.”

“What sort of help do you mean?” asked Amara, unsure if the question was meant literally or was a more subtle way of asking if he would be willing to become a martyr.

He certainly hoped it was the former.

“Drink your tea,” said Assad, nodding, “and I will instruct you.”

Chapter 10

They were still about two miles from the city when MY-PID told Danny that the trucks blasting the area occupied by Meurtre Musique had met up with the men on foot.

“Where are they headed?” Danny asked the system.

“Insufficient data.”

“They’re kind of aimless,” said Nuri, watching on his control display. “They’re just intent shooting up whatever they can. There’s a group of men in Meurtre Musique’s area. Looks like they’re planning a counterattack.”

“We’ll go north and come back around from that end.”

“Don’t get too close to the house where Li Han is,” said Nuri. “We don’t want to spook him.”

“We’re the last thing he’s going to worry about,” said Danny.

He pressed the accelerator to the floor, speeding down the road. There was gunfire in the distance.

I shouldn’t have let her go, he thought. He’d put the whole mission in jeopardy.

Why had he given in? The argument that he couldn’t stop her didn’t hold water.

It was because she was pretty, he realized, and he liked her.

What a fool he was.

Despite the fact that Danny had told her not to leave the building, Melissa asked Bloom if there wasn’t a safer place in the vicinity. The clinic, she reasoned, was the largest building in the area, and a ready target for anyone who didn’t like Meurtre Musique.

“There are the huts,” said Bloom. She was shaking. “The walls are mud.”

“It still might be better than staying here,” Melissa told her. She pulled the desk back from the door.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to scout the front.”

“What if they’re nearby? Don’t go.”

“Are you OK?”

“Of course not.”

Melissa looked into the older woman’s eyes. She saw fear there for the first time. She hadn’t completely believed the story about Bloom leaving MI6; she thought there was a good chance that she was in fact still an agent under deep cover. But the look in the nurse’s eyes told her it was true.

Or close: maybe she hadn’t quit. Maybe they had eased her out because she wasn’t strong enough.

“They’re not nearby,” Melissa told her.

Bloom nodded reluctantly.

Melissa scrambled across the hall to a room with a window looking toward the road. There was no one outside.

“Marie, come on!” she yelled. “Let’s get out of here.”

“They’re moving out of the building,” said Nuri. “Shit. Why the hell can’t that bitch just do as she’s told?”

Danny felt a swell of anger — not at Melissa, but at Nuri, for calling her a bitch. “She’s just trying to do her job,” he said tightly.

“Bullshit. Her job was getting Li Han. She’s not even doing that. She’s screwing everything up. Typical Agency prima frickin’ donna.”

Boston reached across from the passenger seat and tapped Danny on the knee. Danny glanced over. Boston had his game face on, a look that said he shouldn’t waste his brain on trivia.

Right as usual, thought Danny.

“Give me directions to Agency officer Ilse,” Danny told MY-PID. “Avoid contact. Avoid the warehouse area.”

“Proceed forward one hundred yards.” MY-PID began a terse set of directions that took them over the old railroad tracks, skirting the warehouse area they’d raided. Then the system had Danny turn right and go up a hill; they passed a run of circular huts, each smaller than the next.

A red ball erupted in the city center.

“Mortars!” said Nuri.

“Colonel, these huts are filled with soldiers,” said Flash. “I just saw two guys in a doorway with guns.”

“Yeah, all right,” said Danny.

A second later something tinged on the fender.

“They’re shooting at us,” Flash said calmly.

Melissa heard the explosions in the distance as she helped the woman and child into the front room.

“Come on,” she said in English, scooping up the little girl. The mother grabbed her arm and together they ran out of the clinic, hurrying across the road into the empty field.

“Stay here,” said Melissa after they had gone about twenty yards. She handed the little girl over to her mother. “Here. OK?” She gestured with her hands. “Here.”

“Stay. Yes,” said the woman.

Melissa raced back across the street. She heard automatic rifle fire not far away.

One of the pregnant women appeared in the doorway, holding her belly. Melissa worried that she was about to give birth.

“Here. Quickly,” said Melissa, grabbing her arm. “Marie? Marie!”

“We’re coming,” said Bloom inside.

Melissa started walking the pregnant woman across the street. The woman was gasping for air, clutching her stomach.

“It’s OK,” said Melissa. “Relax. Relax.” A stupid thing to say, she realized, even under much better circumstances.

She steered her toward the other woman and her child. The tall grass made it harder for the pregnant woman to move; it seemed to take forever to get there.

“We have to go farther back from the road,” said Melissa. “Back in that direction — on the other side of those bushes.” She turned and saw Bloom and the other woman just reaching the field. “Come on,” she said, reaching down and scooping up the little girl. “Let’s go.”

A high-pitched whistle pierced the air. A dull thump followed, and the ground shook with an explosion. The girl screamed in her arms.

“Come on!” yelled Melissa. “Come on. They’re shelling us.”

Danny jerked the wheel hard, trying to stay with the road as it swerved between a pair of native huts. Shells fell fifty or sixty yards to his left, and there was sporadic gunfire from some of the houses nearby.

“We’re about a half mile away,” said Boston calmly. He pointed to Danny’s left. “They’re on the other side of that field.”

“That’s where they’re shelling,” said Nuri behind him.

Danny gave his phone to Boston. “Get Melissa on the line and stay with her,” he told him.

The Osprey was barely five miles away. He could call it in if he needed to.

And what then? He’d have to hit Li Han right away, then go for the Russian.

He didn’t have all his gear yet, and their presence would be obvious. But better to blow their cover and accomplish the mission than keep their cover and fail.

The road bucked with a pair of fresh explosions. The mortar shells were coming closer.

“There’s your turn,” said Boston, pointing ahead.

Danny started to slow.

“Duck!” yelled Boston.

The roof of the Mercedes seemed to explode. Someone was firing at them from the hut near the intersection.

“Shit on this,” said Boston, leaning out the window and returning fire.

Danny swerved hard, fishtailing onto the new road in a hail of gunfire. The car lurched to the right as he pushed hard against the wheel, trying to keep moving in a straight line.

“Our tires are shot out,” he yelled. “Hang on!”

Melissa struggled to keep the pregnant woman moving. The mortar shells were landing harmlessly in a wide, rocky ravine no closer than a hundred yards away. But she knew that at any moment the men firing them would adjust their aim.

Bloom and the woman she was helping caught up.

“There’s another farm there — see the building?” said Bloom, nodding ahead. The building was up a gentle slope about two hundred yards away.

“OK,” said Melissa. It was a destination, at least. She glanced to her right, making sure the woman with the child was coming.

A few seconds later she saw something moving through the field on the left. She thought at first it was an animal, a horse or even a zebra. Then she realized it was men — three of them, rushing down in the direction of the clinic.

Bloom started to yell and wave her hand.

“No, no,” hissed Melissa. “We can’t trust them.”

“They’re with Gerard,” said Bloom. “They’ll help.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m sure of it.”

“You don’t know!”

Melissa grabbed her as she started to wave. But whoever they were, or whatever side they were on, the men didn’t stop, or even seem to notice; they kept running in the direction of the building. The mortars had ceased firing, but there was another ominous sound in the distance — the trucks were returning.

Suddenly, the woman Melissa was helping screamed in agony and stopped moving. She bent her head and shoulders down, caught in the midst of a convulsive contraction.

Melissa dropped to her knee and looked at her face. The woman gasped for air, closed her eyes, then moaned with a fresh contraction.

Less than thirty seconds had passed between them.

“Marie! Marie!” yelled Melissa. “She’s having the baby now! Right here! Help!”

Chapter 11

D.C. traffic was surprisingly light, and Zen managed to make it to the Intelligence Committee meeting a few minutes early. He quickly wished he hadn’t: Senator Uriah Ernst hailed him in the hallway outside the room and immediately began haranguing him.

“What exactly is the administration up to, Zen?” said Ernst. “What the hell is your President doing?”

“Probably nothing good,” laughed Zen.

“Don’t try and snow me. I know you’re on her side these days.”

“I don’t really know what we’re talking about,” said Zen.

“I’ll bet. You’ve never heard of Raven?”

Zen shook his head.

“It’s an assassination program — or so I understand.”

“New one on me.”

“I’m getting to the bottom of this,” said Ernst. He shook his head and went into the hearing room.

Ned Barrington, the committee chairman, met Zen just inside the door. “Got a moment?”

Zen nodded and wheeled himself over to the corner.

“Ernst says the CIA is running an assassination program outside of the oversight procedure,” said Barrington. “He thinks the President set it up to circumvent us and the law.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” said Zen. “This isn’t one of the 6–9 programs?”

“No. Not at all. Supposedly, anyway. I don’t even know if it exists,” admitted Barrington. “I wouldn’t believe anything based on Ernst’s rantings.”

The 6–9 programs were targeted “actions”—the word assassination was carefully avoided — directed at terrorists who were deemed a threat to the U.S. Similar to other programs conducted by earlier administrations, 6–9 was tightly controlled, with targets approved according to a strict set of standards. As it happened, Zen had argued that the standards were too restrictive; they required two different sets of legal review, and many inside the CIA, which administered the program, felt they were too time-consuming.

“Your wife’s not involved in any of this, is she?” Barrington asked.

“I haven’t a clue,” said Zen truthfully.

“I hope not, for her sake.”

A few minutes later Zen found himself trying to clamp his mouth shut as the meeting began with a blistering diatribe from Ernst. He claimed that the President had circumvented the constitution by authorizing assassinations of “who knows who.”

“She’s leading us into World War Three. That’s where we’re going,” declared Ernst.

“With all due respect, Senator,” said Zen finally, “how exactly do you see this leading to World War Three?”

“The government cannot have a policy of exterminating its enemies. Especially when they are heads of state.”

“This program is directed at heads of state?” said Zen.

“That’s what I’ve heard. Raven is a sign of an Agency and an administration run amok.”

Barrington tapped his gavel. Zen suspected that Ernst was simply ramping up the charges so the committee would vote to investigate. For all Ernst knew, there might not even be a Raven program — or a rumor. He’d used the tactic before.

Unfortunately, he was a senior member of the Senate, an important fund-raiser for the other side, and a frequent talk show guest. He couldn’t simply be ignored.

“The senator from Tennessee has a point,” said one of Ernst’s fellow party members, Ted Green. “We should get Edmund up here and find out what the hell is going on.”

“And the National Security director,” said Ernst.

“Why not ask the President herself?” said Zen sarcastically.

“If she’d take my phone calls, I would.”

“All right, all right,” said Barrington. “We’ll have Edmund come in.”

Chapter 12

Danny managed to keep the car on the road as both tires on the passenger side blew out. He rode the rims for a few hundred yards, wrangling it more or less into a straight line, before the back of the vehicle lifted with an explosion. Someone in the shacks behind them had fired a rocket-propelled grenade; fortunately, it hit the road far enough behind them that most of the blast and shrapnel scattered harmlessly. But the shock threw the car out of Danny’s control, pushing it into a ditch.

“Everybody out!” he yelled.

They flew through the doors a few seconds ahead of the next grenade, which turned the Mercedes into a fireball. Danny could feel the heat as he scrambled through the field, trying to find cover. Nuri was on his left, Boston and Flash somewhere behind them.

It took him a few moments to orient himself. He checked his rifle — locked and loaded — then reached for his ear set, which had fallen a few feet away.

Boston and Flash were calling for him.

“I’m here,” he told them. “Forty yards south of the car. Nuri’s near me,” he added. Nuri was hunched over the control unit for the MY-PID a few yards away.

“I see ya,” said Boston. “Ya got three tangos coming down the road on your right as you look back at the vehicle. We have shots. What do you want to do?”

Once slang for terrorist, “tango” had become a generic word for any hostile.

“You have them?” Danny asked. “Take ’em.”

Two quick bursts and all three fell dead.

Danny crawled over to Nuri.

“Our missing CIA officer and the women are in a field over that little ridge,” said Nuri, pointing. “On the other side of this farm building. MY-PID says one of the women is in labor.”

“Labor?”

“The trucks are moving up from that direction, and there are men on foot coming straight up this way. We’re in the middle of deep shit, Colonel.”

“You’re a master of the obvious, Nuri,” said Danny, starting down in Melissa’s direction.

The baby was definitely coming. Its mother squatted in the field, bent low but still on her feet. Melissa, on her knees, cradled the woman’s head as Bloom worked on the other end, clearing the brush down and rolling the mother-to-be’s dress back so she could see what was going on.

“Crowning!” said Bloom. Her voice was steadier than before, braver, as if by attending to the woman she was finally able to push away her fear.

Melissa’s training for birth consisted of a single twenty minute lecture with a quick simulation involving a plastic doll. She held her breath as the woman pushed in response to another strong contraction.

“Almost, almost!” said Bloom. She switched to Nubian, pleading with the woman to push. The woman was beyond instructions, acting instinctually; her body tensed, and Melissa gripped her, knowing she was about to convulse.

The outside world had slipped away. If there was gunfire, if the mortar shells were still falling, Melissa heard none of it. She was oblivious to everything except the pregnant woman’s body as it pushed a new life into the world.

The mother fell back against Melissa. Bloom held up the bloody, gasping infant.

“I need a knife!” she said.

“I don’t have one.”

“Here!” yelled a voice in the field a few yards away. “I’m coming!”

It was Danny Freah.

Chapter 13

Milos Kimko lowered the field glasses and rubbed his forehead.

“Very good, these mortars, no?” said Girma. “You see how we crush our enemies.”

“These were your allies, weren’t they?”

Girma waved his hand. He was still in the middle of a khat jag; Kimko doubted he had slept in the past forty-eight hours.

There were at least three firefights in the city, two on either end of the main street and another up in the area where most of the Meur-tse Meur-tskk followers lived. Kimko hoped Li Han was hunkered down well.

“By tonight we will own Duka,” said Girma proudly. “And from here, we make our mark — all of Sudan.”

“You’re not to target any building near the railroad tracks and the old warehouse, you understand?” snapped Kimko. “Or you will get no more weapons.”

“You give me orders, Russian?”

Girma’s eyes flashed. For once Kimko forgot himself. Seized by his own anger, he balled his hand into a fist. Only at the last moment was he able to hold back — there were too many of Girma’s followers nearby.

“I need what the Chinaman has if I am to get you more weapons,” said Kimko. “If it is destroyed, I will have a very hard time.”

Girma frowned, but turned and said something to the men working the mortars.

Be patient, Kimko told himself. Once you have the UAV, you can leave. Take it back to Moscow personally — the hell with the expert Moscow is sending, the hell with the SVR, the hell with everyone but yourself.

“I need a jeep,” he told Girma.

“Where are you going?” yelled Girma. “Are you trying to betray us?” He grabbed the pistol at his belt.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Kimko. “My country wants the aircraft. I have to meet the Chinaman. It’s almost dusk.”

Girma pointed the pistol. Kimko, his own weapon holstered, felt the strength drain from his arms. But he knew that the best way to deal with Girma was to remain defiant and bold; these Africans hated weakness.

“Shoot me and you’ll never get another bullet,” he told him Girma. “My employers will come and wipe you out.”

Girma frowned. Slowly, he put his thumb on the hammer of the pistol and released it.

“You are lucky I like you,” he said.

Chapter 14

Danny folded the umbilical cord against the edge of his combat knife and pushed hard, slicing clean through. The baby seemed pale but breathing.

The shelling had stopped, but there was still plenty of gunfire in the distance. A black swirl of smoke rose from the center of the city.

“They’re fighting on both ends of town,” said Nuri. “Sudan First has some men and trucks moving up the road in that direction. The last of the Meurtre Musique men will be down there in a few minutes. Our best bet is that way,” he added, pointing northeast.

“Any action where Li Han is?” asked Danny.

“Not even a guard posted,” said Nuri. “Two brothers are in a building about a quarter mile closer to the village.”

“What are they doing?”

“They’re inside. Maybe they’re sleeping.”

“They sleep through this shit?” said Boston.

“They’ve probably slept through worse,” said Nuri. “They’re two miles out of town,” he added. “As far as they’re concerned, the fighting might as well be in L.A.”

“What about the building where he was yesterday?” asked Danny.

“The two brothers that went back are still inside. The trucks are around back.”

Danny rubbed his chin.

“Whatcha thinkin’?” asked Boston.

“I’m thinking we hit that building first,” said Danny. “It’s close enough to the fighting that they’ll be distracted. We take out the trucks, get in there, see what’s what. Then we go and get Li Han.”

“When are we doing this?” Nuri asked.

“It’ll be dark in an hour,” said Boston.

“You think we should wait?” asked Nuri.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” said Boston. “But the Osprey is an easy target in the day — if it comes down now, they can hit it with RPGs, let alone a missile.”

“We’ll take the women someplace safer,” said Danny. “We’ll have the Osprey come in when it’s dark, if we can wait that long. They pick us up, and we’ll go directly to the raid.”

“What do we do about the women?” asked Nuri.

“We’ll take them with us. Evac them as soon as we get a chance.”

“All right,” said Nuri. “Fighting’s going to stoke up in a few minutes. The two sides are just about close enough to see each other.”

“Come on,” Danny told Melissa.

“What are we doing?”

“We’re going to get out of this mess — the forces are moving together across the way in a field about a half mile from here. One or both of them will probably try flanking in this direction. We want to be out of here.”

“Then what?”

“My Osprey will come in and pick us up. Depending on the circumstances, we’ll have it evac the civilians as well. I just don’t know where to put them.”

“All right.”

Danny smirked at her.

“What?” she said.

“You’re approving my decision.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Colonel, I keep telling you — this is my operation. You’re just helping.”

“Keep telling yourself that. Sooner or later you’ll believe it.”

Boston eyed the woman who’d just given birth.

“I don’t know, Colonel. Moving her. I don’t know.”

“We don’t have a stretcher,” said Danny, “and we’re not leaving her.”

“I can carry her, that’s not the problem,” Boston told him. “But I don’t know about moving her. She’s lost a ton of blood.”

“She’ll lose a hell of a lot more if they put a bullet through her,” snapped Nuri.

That settled it for Boston. “Boost her on my back and tell her to hang on.”

Nuri and Danny helped her onto Boston’s back as gently as they could. The woman was exhausted and barely conscious. Boston grabbed her forearms to hold her in place.

Flash, meanwhile, had doffed his armored vest and pulled off his shirt to wrap the child. Bloom put the baby into the shirt and tied off the bottom, swaddling it, then snugging it against her chest. She folded her torso over the infant, protecting it as much as possible.

The baby boy’s round eyes looked at the world with unabashed inquisitiveness, undoubtedly wondering what the hell he had just descended into.

Flash started to put his armored vest on Bloom.

“No,” Danny told him. “You have a point. You need the vest.”

“She’s got the kid.”

“They won’t be in the line of fire. Don’t be a hero.”

Slowly, the small group began moving through the field, Flash at the front, Danny at the rear, Boston, Nuri, and the women in the middle. Melissa had the toddler in her arms; the two other patients who’d been in the clinic flanked her, each holding onto the back of her shirt.

As they crossed the road, they heard grenades and gunfire from the direction they’d come from.

“Keep moving,” said Nuri. He repeated it in Arabic and then the local language, helped by MY-PID. “Get across the road and move west.”

Chapter 15

When Christine Mary Todd was elected President, the pundits and chattering class had declared that her main attention would be on domestic affairs, issues like unemployment, health care, and education. She’d expected as much herself. Having spent years focusing on the world’s problems, the time seemed ripe for the U.S. to turn its attention homeward. There was an enormous amount of work to be done in the country. America was recovering from a deep recession, and while the war on terror seemed never-ending, it had been wrestled into a manageable if still tricky state — or so it appeared from a distance.

But since she’d been in office, Todd had found that more than sixty percent of her time and an outsized amount of her energy were spent on international affairs. China and Iran were openly hostile, North Korea threatened war with the U.S. as well as South Korea, the Germans were making noises about rearming in the face of a rising Russian defense budget, and the war on terror grew more intricate every day.

At the same time, the tools Todd had to deal with these problems were unwieldy. They also came with complications of their own, the latest being the CIA and its clandestine Raven program.

It wasn’t clear when rumors of the program’s existence had first begun circulating, much less where they originated. But literally within hours of her ordering Edmund to tell her everything he knew about it, word of its existence seemed to have reached every corner of the D.C. establishment.

That word, of course, was wildly inflated and focused on the sensational; the rumors had the U.S. attempting to assassinate world leaders and even using the program domestically. The lack of hard data encouraged the wildest speculation and attracted the most diverse political agendas possible. The fact that the computer software at the heart of the program wasn’t mentioned was hardly reassuring. It wasn’t surprising that as soon as word reached the Senate Intelligence Committee, they voted to call Edmund in.

“I don’t think everyone in Washington has heard.” National Security Advisor Dr. Michael Blitz shifted uneasily in the chair in Todd’s working office, a small former cloakroom next to the cabinet room in the West Wing. The President liked to work there, like most of her predecessors, reserving the Oval Office for meeting visitors and ceremonial occasions. “I think what we have here are a set of older rumors being given some fresh wind. I would bet that someone on Edmund’s staff gave the information to Ernst. Once he got it…”

Blitz made a fluttering motion with his hand, mimicking a bird taking flight. “That will just make things worse.”

Todd pushed herself up out of her chair. She’d never liked sitting for very long, and this job required a lot of it.

“You can’t let him testify before Congress,” said Blitz. “Not until the weapon is recovered. Assuming what Reid told you is true.”

“I realize that.” Blitz’s mention of Reid bothered her — she was hoping to somehow protect him as the source of her information. But she’d had to tell Blitz where she’d gotten the assessment of Raven in the first place, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken it as seriously as he should.

If it were up to her, she’d let the committee roast Edmund for having gone ahead with the program without proper authorization. In fact, she was planning to fire him over this — as soon as Raven was safely in hand.

But in the meantime she couldn’t take the chance of word getting out and the terrorists in Africa discovering exactly how potent the weapon was. In theory, Edmund might be able to limit his testimony artfully enough so the real purpose and value of Raven would remain hidden. But she wasn’t willing to take that risk.

“Very possibly this weapon isn’t as effective as anyone believes,” said Blitz. “You know how these things go. The contractors pump them up—”

“We can’t really take that chance.” Todd paced around the very small office, literally moving only a few feet each way. Finally she sat back in her seat. “I can’t have him testify until Raven is recovered. His schedule will have to be full for a few days, that’s all.”

“That will get them talking all the more,” said William Bozzone, her politcal advisor. Bozzone was a lawyer and former congressman who held the official title of Counsel to the President, but was well known in Washington as her personal ward healer.

“I understand.”

“There’s another problem, you know,” added Blitz. “Senator Stockard. Maybe you should brief him before his wife does.”

Todd frowned. Zen was an ally on some matters and an antagonist on others. The fact that his wife headed the Office of Special Technology worked in Todd’s favor, to an extent, even if he abstained from matters relating to it. Still, he could be a potent critic, all the more so because he knew what he was talking about, unlike people like Ernst.

“I don’t think there’ll be any pillow talk,” said Todd.

Blitz raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“I don’t.” The president liked Breanna Stockard; she reminded her of herself twenty years before.

“Irregardless, you want to keep him on your side,” said Bozzone.

“I can’t tell one person on the committee and not the others,” said Todd. “Even Zen. I know he’ll be discreet, but even so — you see how far this has gone already.”

Todd folded her arms. The committee had voted to ask Edmund to appear immediately. Washington’s definition of “immediately” was a lot looser than most; even so, she doubted she could delay Edmund’s appearance for more than two or three days without some political ramifications — and undoubtedly a new round of rumors. Reid had assured her that Whiplash was moving ahead with the recovery operation, and expected to have the UAV in hand by the end of the day. But she didn’t want any word of the weapon’s potency reaching the committee — or more specifically, Ernst and his rumor mill — until after it was back in the U.S., which would add another twenty-four hours.

Two days. Surely that was understandable.

“His calendar is going to have to be full,” Todd said finally. “And I’ll find something for him to do for the next day. Then he can go before them. If I haven’t fired him by then.”

“They may subpoena him. Cause a big stir.”

“We’ll quash it.”

“Ernst would love that,” said Bozzone. A subpoena would only be for show — but in Washington, the show was as important, if not more so, than the substance.

“Too bad Raven didn’t target him,” said Blitz.

“Don’t even joke,” said Todd.

Chapter 16

Nuri led them to a group of dilapidated brick buildings tucked into the side of a rolling hill. Even though they didn’t stop, it took nearly forty minutes to get there, weaving across the fields and down a pair of narrow, crooked paths. The fighting remained behind them. While the sun had pushed below the horizon, a glow could be seen from the center of town; MY-PID said much of it was on fire.

The only good news was that neither Li Han nor his people had moved since the battle had begun. Hera, in charge of the assault team waiting with the Osprey, reported that they were ready to move whenever Danny gave the order.

Even though MY-PID declared the cluster of buildings clear, Danny decided he wasn’t going to take any chances with the women and the children. He had Flash run ahead and make sure there were no lookouts hiding in the brush. Then he went to check the buildings.

There wasn’t much left of four of the five. Their roofs were collapsed, and in one case two sides had been completely removed, the clay bricks salvaged for some other project in town. Hiding in the ruins would be better than nothing — but only just.

The fifth building was two stories tall, with a large, boarded-up window on the second floor facing the direction of the railroad tracks. The door at the front was boarded as well; there were no other openings.

The wood blocking the door was nailed tight. Flash took his knife and began prying out nails, sliding the blade in and then working the edge near the hilt under the heads until he could get them with his fingers. Getting the first board was slow, tedious work, but once it was off, he found he could pry out the board directly below it, and then the next, making a space large enough to crawl through. Flash hit a button on his uniform sleeve, activating an LED flashlight sewn into his cuff.

“Looks clear,” he told Danny from inside.

Dropping to his knees, he pulled down the visor on his helmet and slipped into the building. Danny turned around, making sure no one was following them.

“Jesus,” Flash muttered over the radio.

“What’s up?” said Danny.

“Looks like a torture chamber in here. Damn.”

“What?”

“Take a look.”

Danny slipped his visor down as Flash shared his image over the Whiplash circuit. A small window opened in the lower left-hand corner of Danny’s screen. Instantly it filled with images from Flash’s helmet infrared sensor, giving him a hazy view of the interior of the building.

There were rings in the walls. Chains hung from various points, including two beams that ran across the ceiling.

“Is the place clear?” Danny asked.

“Of people, yeah,” said Flash. “Probably filled with ghosts. There’s a trench in the floor, and a drain. Shit.”

“It’s a slaughterhouse,” Danny told him. “For animals. Food.”

“Oh.”

Flash swept the interior. Besides the large main room, there was a corridor and a set of smaller rooms on the west side of the building. All were empty.

Danny signaled to the others to come up. In the failing daylight they seemed to take forever.

“Let’s get them inside the building,” Danny told Nuri. “Get them safe and figure out what we’re going to do.”

“They don’t want to go inside,” said Melissa.

“What?”

“Marie says they think it’s unclean. It was a slaughterhouse.”

“Tell them it’s the only safe place for them.”

“They want to go back to their homes.”

“No way,” said Danny. “There’s fighting all through the city.”

Melissa nodded and went over to talk to Bloom. The two women huddled with the patients they’d rescued from the clinic for several minutes, trying to persuade them that the building was the only safe place for them.

Danny looked at the overhead images of the city. Much of the downtown was either on fire or destroyed. There was a running gun battle in the cluster of huts at the western end of Duka. The two sides were slowly being drawn to each other, converging in the residential area. There must have been at least a hundred dead by now; he avoided asking MY-PID for an estimate.

The pregnant woman was in shock, staring blankly into the distance while clutching her baby. Melissa didn’t entirely understand what the other two women were telling Bloom — the slaughterhouse was unclean or haunted or both — but the gist of it was obvious: they weren’t going inside the building under any circumstances, including gunpoint.

“They won’t go inside,” Bloom told her. “They just won’t. It’s taboo. They want to go back to their families.”

“It’s impossible. The city’s in flames.”

Bloom argued with the women some more, but it was no use.

“They want to go back and get their families,” added Bloom. “They’re insisting.”

“They’ll be killed,” said Melissa.

“I’m trying to tell them that. I suggested a camp — they won’t even go there.”

Melissa gave up.

“I can’t get them to budge,” she told Danny. “They want to go back to their houses. Despite everything.”

“Look, we’re just going to leave them here,” he told her. “There’s a jeep heading for the building where Li Han was holed up. The Russian’s in it. We have to go.”

“All right.”

“You can stay with them if you want, but—”

“I’m not staying,” she told him. “I’ve helped them as much as I can. Now I have to take care of business.”

“Osprey will be here in two minutes.” Danny spun around. “Nuri! Take my rifle. You and Boston stay with the women. We’re going to go get the Russian at their meeting place.”

Chapter 17

The city was a bloody, Third World disaster, the two rebel groups savaging it as they tried to get at each other. There would be no winners here, only survivors who’d be left to crawl through the rubble, and probably ultimately abandon it.

Kimko hated them all, including and especially Girma, who sat behind him in the open-top jeep, AK-47 in his hands, bouncing up and down on the seat with khat-fueled excitement and adrenaline. There seemed to be no getting rid of him.

They were nearly to the warehouse when Girma leaned forward and yelled instructions to the driver. He immediately slammed on the brakes and began making a U-turn.

“Where are we going?” Kimko demanded.

“Ha-ha, we have blown up Gerard’s house,” said Girma, holding up a two-way radio. “I want to see it burn. I have heard on my radio.”

“I need to be at my meeting.”

Girma frowned. “First we see the house.”

“Damn it, Girma, I need to get there!”

Girma’s frown morphed into something more threatening. “I am in charge,” he said. “You are a salesman. We will go where I want. Then you can get your trinket.”

Kimko cursed to himself. These people were animals. Worse.

They veered through the city square where Girma had started the war the day before. The pavilion lay in a pile of rubble. The buildings on either side had been gutted by fire; there were pockmarks in the facade. Across the way, the clinic that Girma’s people had run was now destroyed; part of its front wall lay scattered along the road. But that didn’t stop the wounded from gathering there; two aides were ministering to them, overseen by a pair of fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds with Kalashnikovs.

Small fires were burning everywhere. The air smelled like burnt grass and acrid dust, mixed with cordite and the scent of burning metal. A pack of dogs ran down the street, dragging something between them.

A corpse.

They swung west, moving into a district of traditional round huts with their cone-shaped roofs. It was here that most of the tribesmen belonging to Meur-tse Meur-tskk lived. Bodies were scattered in the yards. The majority were women and children. Dead animals lay along and in the road; the driver made no effort to avoid most of them, simply speeding over the remains.

Girma, meanwhile, chewed his khat leaves.

Two men with guns stood in the street ahead, waving their arms as the jeep approached. Kimko put his hand on his holster, ready to pull the pistol out if needed.

Girma stood up, holding onto the roll bar. He raised his rifle and fired a burst in greeting.

The men ran to him, jabbering. Girma leaned forward and pointed the driver to the right.

“Too many enemies down road,” he told Kimko. “We’ll see them later. Dead.”

Chapter 18

With the Russian heading to the west of the city rather than Li Han’s house to the north, Danny decided not to commit his small force or risk the aircraft getting close to the fighting yet. He told the pilots to hold back; in the meantime he and the others would proceed to the stationmaster building and set up an ambush.

“I want to hold the Osprey off as long as I can,” he told Melissa. “It’s a straight shot for us through that field and then up the hill and over. Flash and I can get there pretty fast. Can you keep up?”

“I can keep up.”

Danny led the way at a strong trot. The circuitry in the night vision screen on his helmet could turn the dull dusk as bright as day if he wanted, but Danny found that too distracting: it looked so real that it was hard to remember it was just being synthesized by the sensors; in his opinion, that made it easier to subconsciously miss something. So he stayed with traditional night vision mode, which made it clear that he wasn’t seeing the entire picture; the difference could be critical.

When they reached a narrow dirt road on the other side of the field, Danny picked up his pace, sprinting about thirty yards to a stream that emptied into a small pond near the railroad tracks about a quarter mile away. The streambed was rocky, and he had to pick his way, glancing back every so often to check on Melissa behind him. Her breathing was labored but she was keeping pace.

“Subject jeep has stopped in residential area,” declared MY-PID.

“Why?” asked Danny.

“Insufficient data, operand uncertain,” said the Voice, getting technical on him.

“Display jeep video feed in lower screen one,” said Danny.

The image from the Global Hawk popped into the lower-left-hand side of his visor. It was grainy, magnified beyond its optimum size. Danny couldn’t make out much more than an indiscriminate crowd.

He slowed, then stopped so he could focus on the image. He was worried that Li Han was there.

“Subject identified as Milos Kimko — confirm he’s at the jeep site,” Danny told MY-PID.

“Confirmed.” A box appeared around the figure in the passenger seat of the jeep.

“Is Li Han there? Subject code-named Mao Man — is he at the jeep site?”

“Negative.”

“Confidence level?”

“Confidence level 98.3 percent,” said the computer tartly.

“Where is he?”

The building two miles east of town was highlighted.

“Confidence level?”

“Confidence level 98.2 percent,” snapped the computer.

Melissa saw Danny stop a few yards ahead. Even though she was straining, she waited until she caught up to him before slowing. She huffed for a few moments, trying to get her breath back.

“I thought you’d tire eventually,” she said to him.

He turned toward her. With the shield on his helmet down he looked like a space traveler.

“What’s that?” he asked, pushing the shield up.

“You’re tired?”

“Just checking to make sure we got the right place.”

“Do you always run to your targets?” Melissa asked. The front of her thighs were suddenly stiff. She pumped them slowly, knowing she had to keep them loose.

“If necessary.” Danny gave her a tight yet disarming smile. “Once we bring the Osprey in, the Russian will know something’s going on. If word gets to Li Han, we’ll spook him.”

“I see.”

“There are two possible buildings,” he told her. “We’re not sure which one they meant, but they’re close to each other. We’ll check them out, then set up an ambush. Ready?”

Not really, she thought, but there was no way she would admit it.

Danny set out again, this time at an easier pace. They crossed the stream and trotted down in the direction of the abandoned warehouse area.

The two buildings MY-PID had marked as the possible meeting place were located right next to the tracks. One was small and squat, little more than a locker. The other, about thirty yards away, was a three-story shell, a ruin that towered over everything around it.

Danny slowed to a stop about two hundred yards from the building. The back of the house where Li Han had been when they left the bug was to his right, nearly a quarter mile away. The warehouse they had raided was in the complex, a half mile to the east, directly on his left as he looked at the three-story building.

“What do you think, Colonel?” asked Flash. “We close enough?”

“Big one first,” said Danny, magnifying the image the helmet was projecting. If people were around, they were well hidden. “We check them, bug them, then swing around to the other side and wait. This way, when the Osprey comes in, we’ll have the far side covered.”

Danny lifted the visor and looked at Flash. The trooper nodded. Melissa was a few feet away, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

“You all right?” Danny asked.

She held up a hand, waving at him.

“Does that mean yes or no?” he asked, coming over.

“I’m good,” she gasped. “You set a pretty quick pace.”

“I like to run, I guess.”

“So do I.” She looked up and smiled. “At least I thought I did.”

“Can you breathe?”

“I can breathe,” she snapped.

“Come on around this way. We’re going to check the buildings. If they’re empty, we’re going to bug them, and then duck back to a spot over there where we can cover them both.”

“What if they’re not empty?”

“Then we’ll deal with it.”

Chapter 19

The body they dragged through the yard of the house and into the dirt road was barely recognizable as a human being. It had been battered and its clothes almost completely torn off, except for the shoes. As Kimko approached, it looked more like a collection of meat held together in a mesh sack.

Remarkably, the man was still alive. He writhed and jerked, arms flailing. Kimko watched as the men pulling him let go, ducking away as if afraid of his blows.

Two men nearby held torches; they threw a yellow hue around the semicircle of tormentors and victim. Half a dozen Sudan First soldiers stood in a loose circle watching the man as Girma walked over and laid his boot into his midsection. He placed it there gently at first, letting it rest easily on the man, who paused his writhing to stare up at him. Girma grinned, then stomped. The man curled around the blow, gasping.

Kimko saw the man’s face clearly as he turned in his direction. It was Gerard.

A shudder of revulsion ran through Kimko. If the man had any true courage, he would have died fighting rather than letting himself be captured and humiliated.

Animals.

“How great are you now, Gerard?” yelled Girma. “Now that your bodyguards and lackeys are gone? Where is your haughty manner?”

Girma kicked him in the head. Blood spurted onto Kimko’s boot. This enraged him; he stepped back, than lowered his AK-47 and fired point-blank into his enemy’s skull. The men nearby shielded their faces against the bits of flesh and blood that splattered toward them.

“Let the dogs have his body!” yelled Girma. He fired into the dead man’s midsection to emphasize his point.

A woman screamed inside the hut on the other side of the road. Gunfire quickly followed. Kimko turned in time to see three soldiers, none older than fifteen, emerge from the hut. It took absolutely no imagination to realize what they had done.

“We are in control!” yelled Girma, clapping Kimko on the back. “Come! We will go and get your airplane. You are our hero. You have made all of this possible, with your weapons.”

Chapter 20

They went to the smaller building first. Even at a trot, Melissa found it hard to keep up with Danny and Flash. They were dressed in full combat gear, helmets, vests, and heavy boots, along with their guns and assorted equipment, and yet they moved like cheetahs, leaping forward. She quickened her pace, then dropped belatedly as they hit the dirt.

“What?” she said, but either they didn’t hear or simply ignored her, rising and moving in opposite directions to flank the concrete structure. Unsure what to do, Melissa decided to follow Danny; she half crawled, half ran in an arc behind him.

“Clear,” hissed Danny when she caught up to him.

At first she thought he was giving her some sort of command, but then realized he was telling Flash over the radio that there was no one on his side.

“Come on,” he told her. “Let’s have a look. I want to plant a bug inside.”

The only opening was a steel door, secured by a combination lock. Danny took out a small key gun — a lock-picking device that offered various small picks to work keyed locks.

“I hate picking locks,” he said.

“Here, let me see,” she told him.

Melissa took the small device — folded, it was about the size of a pocketknife — and worked the main lock on the door, clicking the tumblers quickly. But the combination lock was wedged in a way that prevented her from seeing the back. She twirled the dial a few times, then tried a popular combination, passing thirty-six, then coming back to twelve, then coming back as she gently applied pressure, hoping to find the last number.

She didn’t. The lock remained fastened.

“You’re going to have to remember some numbers for me,” she told Danny.

Holding the lock in her left hand, she put her right ring and middle fingers through the lock and began turning the dial gently back and forth, feeling for the gates. She ended with ten numbers, separated by four digits.

“What are you going to do? Try every combination?” asked Danny.

She wasn’t, just the most likely ones, which on that sort of lock were almost always the solutions. She went slowly at first, then fell into a rhythm. She got it on the fourth try.

“Here you go,” she told Danny, slipping the lock off its hasp.

He creaked the door open, dropped to his knees and peered inside.

“Forget it,” he said. “Inside’s filled with junk. They’re not meeting here.”

They were halfway to the second building when MY-PID told Danny that the Russian had just gotten into his vehicle.

“They’re on their way,” Danny told Flash over the radio. “Drop back and cover me. I’ll get some bugs down.”

“Yeah, roger.”

Danny turned back to Melissa, who was huffing next to him as he ran.

“They’re coming,” he told her. “I want you to hide over there.”

He pointed to the ditch across the road. It was about thirty yards from the building.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll get a bug in and get out.”

“Is Li Han coming?”

“He hasn’t made a move yet that we’ve seen. Stay back,” Danny added. “If you see anyone coming, just keep your head down. We’ll take care of it.”

He didn’t wait for her to answer, sprinting toward the building. Much of the roof had fallen in, and the UAV’s infrared camera could give MY-PID a fairly clear view into about two-thirds of the interior. There was also no door, and hence no lock. Danny stepped over a small pile of rubble into the ground floor and scanned the interior. An old desk sat to his left, surrounded by bricks and the debris. The two floors above looked like the broken teeth of a sawed-off comb, jagged and leaning down. He hopped onto the desk, reaching up to the remains of the floor above, and placed a bug there.

“Subject is estimated to be two minutes away,” warned MY-PID.

Danny jumped back down. As he turned to go, he realized he’d left two large boot prints on the top of the desk. He swept the top with his hand, but that only made things look even stranger — now the desktop was the only thing in the place not covered with dust.

Not sure what else to do, he reached his hands under and pulled the desk up onto its back, removing the top from sight. Then he spread bricks and some large beams over the area.

“Subject is thirty seconds away,” warned the computer.

“What happened to my two minutes?” he demanded.

MY-PID took the question seriously and asked him to rephrase.

Danny bolted to the door. He sprinted toward the spot where he’d left Melissa, bounding in with a head-first dive.

“Here he comes,” said Flash.

“Any sign of Li Han?”

“Negative.”

Chapter 21

Kimko got out of the jeep and walked over to the building, trying to get as much distance between himself and Girma as possible. He needed a plan to get away from him. The odds of that happening peacefully shrank exponentially with each khat leaf Girma stuffed into his mouth.

The sun had gone down about a half hour before. Li Han was undoubtedly waiting somewhere nearby, watching. Hopefully he wouldn’t be spooked by Girma and his men.

Maybe he’d kill the bastard. Now there was a possibility, Kimko thought. Maybe he could work that into the deal.

The building was a wreck, though at least this one couldn’t be blamed on Girma. Kimko took a small LED flashlight from his pocket and shone it around the place. There was a battered desk and a massive pile of debris, and nothing else.

The hell with the UAV, he decided. He was getting out of Africa as soon as possible. He’d walk if he had to.

“Where is your man!” shouted Girma, back near the truck.

Kimko could shoot the bastard himself — but could he take the bodyguards as well?

Girma walked through the door. “Where is he?” demanded the African. His AK-47 was slung under his shoulder, his hand near the trigger.

“He’s late,” said Kimko.

“Ha! You see — you cannot trust these people. Chinese.”

“He’s working with the Brothers,” said Kimko.

“Ha, the Brotherhood are cowards. You see, none of these people have the strength of Girma. Girma is a lion!”

Girma is an asshole, thought Kimko.

“How long do you wait?” Girma asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t wait!” shouted Girma. “You go to see him.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

Girma smiled. “You are with the lion now. Come.”

Chapter 22

The women had settled into a kind of semicomatose state of shock, huddled together next to the ruined outbuilding on the slaughterhouse property. Gunfire continued sporadically in the city, stoking up for a few minutes, then dying down, like a fitful whale surfacing for a romp before heading back to the depths. Nuri knew from MY-PID that the Sudan First army was routing Meurtre Musique. It was a murderous fight, with the defeated shown no mercy; both sides simply gunned down anyone who attempted to surrender, women and children included.

“Looks like some of them are headed in our direction,” he told Boston. “Can we call in the Osprey?”

“They ain’t gonna make it,” said Boston. “They’re waiting for Li Han to show up at the meeting. Colonel Freah wants the MV-22 to stay away until they make the attack. Might spook him.”

Naturally, thought Nuri. It was the right decision, but it didn’t make things easier for them.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked.

“I say we cross out of this field and head north,” said Boston. “We get into the brush, hide there. Sitting here makes no sense. The tangos are more than likely to come up and look in the building. I know I would.”

“You think we can get them moving?”

“We can always carry them,” said Boston. “I’ll scout down to the road and come back. Be ready.”

Nuri got up and went to the nurse, Bloom. She was holding the baby in her arms, swinging him gently back and forth. The baby’s mother was passed out next to her, slumped backward against the side of the building.

“We have to move,” he said. “The troops are coming this way.”

“They’re exhausted,” said Bloom.

“We have to move.”

“I can’t.”

“We have to.” Nuri looked at her. “You’re with MI6?”

She shook her head. “I was. I quit.”

“Well don’t quit now.” He reached down and helped her up. Then he looked at the woman who’d given birth. Her mouth gaped open; Nuri wasn’t even sure she was still alive until he bent close and heard her breathing.

There was no way she was moving on her own. He dropped to his knee and shifted his shoulder so he could lift her in a fireman’s carry. He rose with a grunt, stumbling back a step, not quite balanced. Then he started to move toward the road.

There was a low whistle in the air behind him.

Shit, he thought as the mortar shells began to land near the main building.

Chapter 23

“Where’s the Russian going?” Flash asked Danny over the radio as their subjects got back into the jeep.

“Damned if I know.”

“They didn’t take anything.”

“Yeah, I know. Stand by.”

Danny had MY-PID replay the translated conversation. It sounded as if the African Kimko was with knew where Li Han was.

“What’s going on?” asked Melissa.

“They didn’t want to wait for Li Han,” Danny told her. “I think they’re going to find him.”

“Shouldn’t we go there?”

“Let’s let them get there first,” said Danny. “If I bring the Osprey in, Li Han may run.”

“It would be easier to talk to you if you didn’t have the helmet on,” Melissa said. “At least flip the shield up.”

“I’m watching them,” he told her.

“Oh.”

He flipped the shield up anyway. “I’m not trying to be rude.”

“I know. I just — I’m not familiar with your gadgets.”

MY-PID told Danny the car was stopping at the house where they had placed the initial bug. He flipped down the screen again and watched the UAV feed as the men went to the door. The African who’d been talking to the Russian took the lead. Their two escorts fanned out around them. There was a flash, then they entered the building.

“Shit,” said Danny. “Whiplash team — Osprey, get to that building! Flash, let’s go.”

He turned and started to run. Melissa climbed out of the ditch and sprinted just behind him.

“What?” she gasped between breaths. “What’s going on?”

“Looks like they’re trying to get a discount on the price,” said Danny.

Kimko gripped his pistol as Girma leapt from the jeep, gun blazing. The gunfire had actually started from the house, but that was immaterial — the whole thing was bollocks.

Damn, damn, damn.

Kimko started toward the front door, then realized that was exactly the last place he wanted to be. Even if he managed to get the UAV now, Girma was sure to shoot him. He was just too unstable.

If he was going to get out, he was going to get out now.

Without the UAV?

Without the UAV. But with his life.

“I’ll cover the back,” he yelled, bolting from the front of the house.

Danny was about fifty yards from the back of the house when the Osprey swept in, pivoting around to the street side and depositing the team. The Russian’s people had gone through the door; there was gunfire inside the building, a metal staccato of Kalashnikov rifles.

“Left!” Danny yelled to Flash. “Take the left.”

“Subject running eastward,” warned MY-PID.

“Zoom.”

The system ID’ed the figure as the Russian. He was about sixty yards from the house, running toward the warehouses.

“Was he inside the building?” Danny asked MY-PID.

“Negative.”

“What does he have with him?”

“One handgun, unidentified.”

“Radio?”

“Uncertain. No transmissions.”

“Track him. Stay on him.”

“Tracking.”

Danny decided they could ignore the Russian for now; obviously he’d panicked.

“Osprey, take out all the vehicles around the target house,” he radioed. “Team, stand back.”

The chain gun under the MV-22’s nose began to revolve. A spray of black and red began to spit from the mouth of the 30mm twin cannons, chewing the vehicles into pieces with the staccato jabs of a boxer hitting a speed bag. The quick and brutal rhythm eliminated the jeep and the two white pickups parked at the side.

Suddenly the Osprey jerked hard on its wing, fire igniting behind it — flares.

Someone inside the house had fired a missile.

Chapter 24

The woman Nuri carried seemed to gain ten pounds with every step. She was slung over his shoulders and inert, like a sack of rapidly hardening cement. His pace slowed as he ran down the hill toward the road, and even the inspiration provided by the mortar shells that were starting to fall in the field near the house began to wane. He squeezed the woman’s legs tighter as the shaking ground caused him to lose his balance. He caught himself, only to jab his left foot into a hole a moment later. He tumbled forward, trying to send his free shoulder to the ground first and avoid crashing onto the woman.

The next thing he knew, he was in Boston’s arms. The trooper broke their fall and set them on the ground.

“Damn, you’re heavy,” he told Nuri.

“Thanks.”

Boston scooped up the woman and hurried across the nearby road. Nuri followed, out of breath. It was now dark, and in the uneven field Nuri tripped again and fell flat on his face. As he rose, he heard machine gun fire back near the slaughterhouse.

By the time he reached the others, Boston had organized them into a little clump behind some brush at the edge of a thick layer of woods.

“Osprey will be here soon,” said Boston. “They just went in.”

“Good,” said Nuri, getting his breath.

The women clustered around Bloom, hugging her for warmth or perhaps protection.

“Shit,” said Boston, looking back toward the slaughterhouse.

“They’re coming down toward the road,” he said. “They must have seen us.”

One of the small buildings near the slaughterhouse erupted in fire. The red light silhouetted three figures with guns coming down the side of the hill.

“We can get deeper into the woods,” suggested Nuri.

“Don’t want to get too deep,” said Boston. “Who knows what the hell’s in there?”

“Whatever it is, it’s better than what’s in front of us.”

“I’m going to draw them away.” Boston got to his feet.

“Wait!”

“Don’t worry. Take them into the woods. I’ll get them from the side. When the Osprey is clear, I’ll hear and come back.”

“Boston! Hey! Stop.”

But Boston was gone.

Chapter 25

The Osprey pirouetted in the sky, its propellers straining. In level flight it was at least twice as fast as the average helicopter and considerably stronger. But in a hover it was not much more maneuverable than the average Blackhawk, and a somewhat bigger target.

The Stinger that had been launched at it sniffed its decoy flares, homing in on them rather than the baffled exhaust from the MV-22’s engines. It quickly realized it had been duped and exploded, spraying the air with shrapnel. Fortunately, the Osprey pilots were able to get the aircraft far enough away from the warhead so the hot metal fragments completely missed.

But they had a much more difficult time with the simpler rocket-propelled grenade, launched from a different window. Aimed by sight, it was fired as the MV-22 swung away from the Stinger, and by luck or well-trained design, it crossed the path the aircraft was taking. It struck the fuselage a glancing blow. The effect was not unlike what would have happened had the shell hit a caged armor arrangement, greatly decreasing the weapon’s impact. Nonetheless, it sent pieces of metal through the side of the aircraft and one of the propellers.

The MV-22 shuddered abruptly, a frightened horse trying to buck its rider at the sight of a rattlesnake. The two pilots settled her quickly, easing off the stricken engine and trimming their controls to compensate. They edged the aircraft into a wide bank as gently as they could, then found a place to land in a field opposite the railroad tracks, about eight hundred yards away.

In the few seconds it took for the Osprey to right herself, Danny located the room the missiles had been fired from. Hopes of recovering the Raven without damage were no longer operative; he pumped a grenade into the launcher attached to his SCAR, took aim, and fired the 40mm shell into the house.

There was a low thud as it exploded. The corner of the building imploded, crumbling in on itself.

“Osprey, what’s your status?” said Danny as the dust settled.

“We’re intact, Colonel. We’re on the ground. We have problems with one engine.”

“Can you fly?”

“We’re checking the systems. We should be able to, but I don’t know what our payload will be. I’m just not sure yet, Colonel.”

“Roger that. Keep me informed.”

My fault for letting them get too damn close, Danny thought.

“Colonel, doesn’t look like we have any more resistance,” said Sugar. She was on the other side of the building. “No more activity. No gunfire.”

“Hold your positions,” he answered.

Whether he’d been too aggressive in bringing the Osprey up close, Danny now reacted by being cautious, having MY-PID analyze the situation before proceeding. The computer assessed at fifteen percent the likelihood that some of the gunmen inside were still alive and able to fight. It based this assessment on an elaborate algorithm, the sum not only of what it had seen of the battle to this point but of hundreds of other firefights whose data had been entered into its memory.

But what did fifteen percent really mean? Danny didn’t know. In truth, he wasn’t comfortable with using the system in that way to help him make combat decisions, which was why he hadn’t bothered to ask for the assessment earlier.

It was better just to go with your gut.

“All right, team up,” he barked. “Shug, you know how this is done. Anything moves, nail it down. With prejudice.”

Sugar quickly organized a small group to enter the building. Rather than going through the front door, they blew a hole in the side, tossed grenades in for good measure, then entered in undertaker mode: anything that was alive wouldn’t be when they were done.

Danny watched the building anxiously for signs that it might collapse.

“Secure,” said Sugar finally. “We have seven individuals, all dead, on the main floor. Checking the rest.”

“Seven?” It was several more than MY-PID had predicted.

“There’s a basement, Colonel. Looks like they might have been sleeping or hiding down there.”

“Roger that.” He flipped up his shield. Melissa was standing nearby, looking at him.

“Nothing so far,” he told her.

“I want to go in.”

“I don’t know if it’s safe.”

“If it’s safe for them, it’s safe for me. This is my deal.”

“All right.”

“Where’s Li Han inside?”

“He’s still back at the other house.” MY-PID had the other building under surveillance; no one had moved inside.

“Don’t you think that’s strange? He missed an appointment here,” added Melissa. “With all the fighting? He’s still just sitting there?”

“You’ve been watching him, you tell me. You say he’s patient — he sat in a cave for weeks.”

“True.”

The damage to the Osprey upset Danny’s plan to hit the house immediately after taking this one. He needed to get over there fast, but they didn’t have transportation.

“Boston, you on the circuit?” he asked.

Boston didn’t answer right away. Danny had MY-PID zoom the Global Hawk image onto his location. He was surprised to see that Nuri and Boston had split up — Nuri was across the street, and Boston was in the field.

Then he saw why.

“Busy at the moment, Colonel,” answered Boston. “How long before that Osprey gets here?”

“We have a problem with the bird,” said Danny. “What are you dealing with?”

“Dozen tangos in the weeds. I have it under control.”

There was a burst of gunfire.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” Danny told him.

Melissa stepped through the hole in the side of the building, then moved to the side, trying to get her eyes to adjust. It was dark outside but even darker in here; she saw absolutely nothing.

One of the Whiplash people loomed in front of her, the black combat gear making him blend into the background.

Her blend into the background. It was Sugar.

“Ms. Ilse?”

“Yes. Are any of the people in the house Mao Man — Li Han, the Chinese agent?”

“No Asians. All African. There’s gear and what looks like the UAV in the basement,” said Sugar. “Can you come this way?”

“OK.”

“Uh, you can’t really see, can you?”

“No.”

Sugar reached to her sleeve and flipped on a light. An LED beacon was sewn into the cuff. “Better?”

“Much,” said Melissa. She followed the trooper to a door near the front of the house and descended a set of steps. There was a body halfway down, riddled with bullets. The blood on the steps below was still wet.

Melissa scooped up the AK-47 at the bottom of the stairs.

“This way,” said Sugar, leading her to the side.

The Raven UAV sat in the middle of the basement. It was missing a wing and part of the tail section. Part of the fuselage had been disassembled, and the cover for the computer area was missing as well. Melissa rushed over to it, sliding to her knees to examine it like a child rushing to open presents on Christmas.

The computer was missing.

Shit. Damn.

She looked up at Sugar.

“We need to search the basement and the rest of the house for circuitry, memory boards,” she told her. “Anything that looks like a computer.”

Chapter 26

When Nuri heard the gunfire in the field, he glanced at the women. They stared at him blankly, sharing the frozen expression of people resigned to a terrible fate. Even Bloom seemed to have given up. Her lips were moving rapidly though no sound came from her mouth.

She was praying, he realized.

Only the newborn seemed to have any spirit left — his eyes darted around, still in wonder at the wide world around him.

No way was he going to get them to move.

“All right, I need you to stay here,” he told Bloom. “Whatever happens, stay hidden. You understand? Do you understand?”

She didn’t answer.

“Hey!” Nuri started to shout, then realized that wasn’t wise. The result was a loud hiss, foreign even to him. He grabbed Bloom’s arm and shook her. “Do you hear me? You’re going to stay. All of you.”

“We stay,” she repeated.

Nuri took his Beretta from its holster. “Use this if you need it,” he told her.

She stared at it.

“If you need it,” he told her, pushing it at her.

What he meant was — kill yourself and the women so you don’t have to suffer if the bastards get past us. But he couldn’t say that.

Bloom remained frozen.

“It’s here,” he told her, putting it down. “I’ll be back. Watch them.”

Nuri pushed into a crouch, then scooted to his right, deciding he would take the bastards in the field from the side opposite Boston, catching them in a cross fire. Unlike Boston, he didn’t have a combat helmet, which meant he didn’t have night vision. But he didn’t mind it: he could see the outlines of the field and where the enemy was, and he could move without the claustrophobic sense helmets always gave him.

“Boston, I’m going behind them,” he said over the team radio circuit.

“Move the women back.”

“They ain’t movin’. You keep these guys’ attention, I’ll nail them from behind.”

Nuri scuttled along the edge of the woods, his enemy to his left. He wasn’t exactly sure how much room to give them before turning. He simply ran for a few seconds, glanced to see where the gun flashes were, then ran a little more. Finally he threw himself down and began crawling in the field.

The Sudan First fighters were clustered near the dirt road where they’d crossed, scattered in a staggered line about four men deep. They’d only had rudimentary training. Besides being packed relatively closely and not recognizing that they were opposed by a single man, they fired wildly, wasting bullets and not coming close to their target.

Three of them, apparently having lost their nerve, began crawling to the west, moving perpendicular to Nuri as he came down the hill. Trying to get away, they were inadvertently coming toward him.

Nuri raised his rifle. He leaned his head over, peering through the scope. But he couldn’t see the image. He raised his head, checking to make sure the caps were off — they certainly were, and the scope was on and operating. But for some reason his eyes just wouldn’t focus. He moved his head back and forth, still trying to see through the damn thing, his nerves starting to rise.

I need to shoot these bastards now!

Finally he decided they were so close he didn’t need the scope. He started to pull his head back — and of course that was when the image appeared in front of his eye.

The men were low to the ground, moving on their haunches. He raised his shoulder slightly, bringing the crosshair level with the chest of the first man in the group. Slowly, he swung to the left, praying he wouldn’t lose the image.

He tightened his finger against the trigger. The SCAR was a light gun, and for Nuri it always seemed to jump to the right. His plan was to take advantage of that — he’d move in that direction, left to right, taking all three if he could.

His target rose, full in the crosshairs.

The gun gave a light, rapid burp as he pressed the trigger. He swept it right, then brought it back, pumping bullets into the tangos. All three were now on the ground, though he couldn’t tell if he’d hit them or they simply flattened at the sound of bullets crashing nearby.

“Grenade!” yelled Boston over the radio.

Nuri turned to look in Boston’s direction, hoping his friend would be able to avoid the explosion. Belatedly, he realized that Boston was warning him that he’d fired. He ducked as the shell exploded less than forty yards away, back near the larger clump of tangos.

A collective scream followed the bang, one of the wounded men screeching in pain. Nuri turned his attention back to the men in front of him, sighting the prone bodies through his scope. One moved. He fired, but the gun jerked against his shoulder, the bullets flying too high. He leaned back left, fired again. The bodies jerked with the impact of the bullets.

Nuri jumped up and began running toward them. He reached them in a few quick strides, his thighs straining. They lay a few feet from each other, guns on the ground. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed the weapons and tossed them into the field.

Gunfire stoked up again near the road.

“Boston — what’s going on?”

“I got three or four more still moving, right by the road. You see them?”

Nuri got to one knee and peered through the weapon’s sight. Once again he had an almost impossible time sighting.

Jesus, I’m going blind out here.

Finally he saw them. He loosed a stream of bullets, then saw a glowing tracer flick from his barrel — he’d reached the end of the magazine.

He slammed the box out and around, using the spare — the team rifles had their mags doubled up so they were easy to change. He fired another burst, then rose to a crouch and began going down the hill.

“What do you think? What do you think?” he asked Boston.

“Yeah, they’re down. Hold your position. I want to make sure no one’s moving up on the left from the buildings.”

Nuri dropped back to one knee. He looked down at the scope and saw it was flickering — it wasn’t his eyes; there was something wrong with the optics or circuit.

Somehow, that failed to reassure him.

A dark veil hung close to the ground. He took the scope and found that the image held steady if he kept his hand on the top. He scanned the field. The men closest to him were dead or dying. Nothing else moved.

“All right,” said Boston. “We’re clear here. You see me? I’m on the road.”

Boston rose and waved his arm.

“I see you.”

“I’m going to check these bodies here. Then I’m coming up in your direction. You’re covering me.”

“Right. My scope’s screwed up.”

“What?”

“Aw nothing. I’m good.” Nuri rose. His legs had stiffened and his arm had tensed so long that it felt almost numb. He swung his upper body back and forth slowly, trying to loosen the muscles.

His eye caught something moving in the area where the grenade had exploded. He froze, staring at it.

Nothing.

Nuri started walking in that direction, moving slowly. The men there must be dead, he knew, yet he was filled with nervous energy, anticipation.

Fear. That was what he was filled with. He was so tired he was starting to be afraid of things.

He stopped about ten yards from the closest dead body.

All dead. Nothing to worry about. Once again he scanned the field, left to right, then back, slowly. He could hear his heart pounding in his chest.

And something else. Something pushing against the tall grass.

He turned in its direction and started to raise his rifle so he could use the scope. A shadow rose near the road.

“Watch out!” he yelled.

In the same moment he lowered the barrel of his rifle and fired a burst, short of the shadow. Without thinking he raised his left arm slightly and fired another burst, this one dead on.

There was a scream. Boston, on the other side of the road, fired as well.

“You OK?” he asked Boston.

“I’m good, I’m good. We get him?”

“Yeah, he’s done.”

Nuri took a long, deep breath, then tried not to breathe at all, listening.

“Not bad work for a spy,” said Boston when he came close. “Back to the women?”

They found them exactly where Nuri had left them. The pistol was still on the ground, a few feet from Bloom.

Chapter 27

Kimko ran until his lungs felt like red hot iron burning through his chest. Explosions, gunfire, the Osprey — he was running from the Apocalypse, the Horsemen determined to drag him to hell. Finally his legs gave out: he tumbled forward in a heap, collapsing in the front yard of a native hut.

He had no energy, no will to live. The damp ground swallowed him; the night soaked into his pores.

At some point he realized the gunfire had stopped.

I must go, he told himself, before they come for me. And so he began to crawl, tentatively at first, then more steadily.

Escape.

Finally, Kimko climbed to his feet and began walking. He took stock as he walked, figuring out where he was — east of the city, in the scrub hills that rose into mountains. He tried to make sense of what had happened: the Americans had intervened in the small war, surely to get their UAV back.

He tried to think of what to do. He couldn’t go back to the Sudan First camp, clearly, and to go back to the city was death. But by the same token, he couldn’t survive out here by himself. Even if the Americans didn’t hunt him down and the two different factions left him alone, the wilderness was not a place for a man with only a pistol.

It would take at least a day on foot to reach another settlement; it could easily take longer if he got confused.

What was he to eat? Or drink — he craved vodka, and would gladly now have drunk a liter without stopping, without even thinking.

He had his sat phone. He could call his supervisors for help.

It meant admitting that he had failed. It also wouldn’t guarantee help would be sent. On the contrary, further failure might be viewed in the harshest possible light. They might leave him to rot.

He needed to think of a better plan.

Chapter 28

Danny’s first priority was the Osprey. The aircraft could take off with one engine, the pilots assured him, but it would be slow and its lifting ability would be limited; better to wait while they assessed the damage to the propeller and the engine, which they believed might be easily repaired. Though dubious, Danny agreed. He assigned Hera and two troopers to help and maintain a perimeter.

The next problem was to retrieve the UAV Sugar had found in the building. The aircraft was light, but Danny didn’t want to waste time or manpower carrying it to the Osprey. Instead, he told Sugar and two other troopers to leave it in the basement with charges in case it had to be destroyed; in the meantime they would guard the house.

That left two problems: Li Han and the Russian.

According to MY-PID and Danny’s own review of the surveillance footage from their UAVs, the Russian had run off without taking anything. He was armed with only a handgun. They had a good view of where the Russian was, about a mile and half to the east. He was on foot, with no one nearby; Danny decided they could leave him for now and concentrate on Li Han.

Which meant getting across town. That was more a problem of distance than resistance: the fight had devolved into a raucous pillaging of the Meurtre Musique area, with about a dozen Sudan First members setting random fires and massacring any civilians who hadn’t fled into the fields and jungle to the west.

Danny mapped a path to Li Han’s hideout that would skirt the troubled area. It was about three miles by foot.

“Anybody with a gun gets in our way, take them down,” he told his small group as they set out.

“I’d like to just shoot them all,” said Melissa.

“Yeah, me too,” he muttered, then he added more loudly, “Let’s stay focused.”

They’d gone about a half mile when MY-PID reported a pair of pickups heading in their direction.

“Here come our taxis,” said Danny. He divided the group, splitting them along the road.

“Flash, you have the second truck; I have the first,” he said. “Shorty, if we don’t get the drivers, the trucks stop no matter what.”

“Gotcha.”

“Who you going with?” Danny asked Melissa.

She hesitated, then ran after Flash.

By now her body had been bruised and strained to a point beyond exhaustion. Her mind seemed to have sunk into a place below her head somewhere, as if her body were a tower where it could roam freely. The gunshots, the explosions, the Osprey rotors — all of the miscellaneous loud noises had hardened her eardrums and encased her head in a shell.

Melissa copied the team as they took positions, sliding down on one knee like the others. At the last moment her trail foot snagged and she tumbled sideways, rolling awkwardly. She stayed down for a moment, dizzy and embarrassed. Finally, she tucked her elbow against the ground and levered up just in time to hear a gun burst nearby. There was another pop, then silence.

Unsure what was going on, Melissa craned her neck and saw that everyone was moving. She pushed to her knees, then hopped up and ran with the rest.

Danny took a position a short distance from the road, visor up, sighting through his scope as the two trucks barreled toward them. The drivers appeared to be either drunk or having some sort of contest; they veered back and forth, the one in the front not letting the other pass. He zeroed in on the driver, pacing his weave.

“Mine,” he said, and fired. The bullet slammed into the driver’s forehead, killing him instantly. The pickup veered to the right; the vehicle behind it rammed into the rear, twisting and then stopping itself, the driver shot through the temple by Flash.

The rest of the team opened fire then, downing the five men packed into the rear of the trucks. The gunfight was over before any of the tangos had a chance to pick up their weapons.

“Let’s get the vehicles,” said Danny, starting to run.

Chapter 29

Zen rolled his wheelchair forward as soon as he saw Breanna walking toward the baggage area. It felt good to see her — all these years, and there was still a twinge of excitement after a long separation.

“Hey, if it isn’t the lonesome traveler,” he said loudly, getting her attention despite the crowd.

“Zen — what are you doing here?”

“I was looking for somebody to have a scandalous affair with.”

“Tired of being a senator?” She leaned down and kissed him.

“Actually, I think it would help my career.”

“Teri?” she said, asking about their daughter.

“I sold her to the nuns.”

“Stop,” she said, swatting at him playfully.

“Misses her mother terribly. I guess my cooking just isn’t good enough for her.”

“I’ll bet. And how are you?”

“Trying to duck the latest tempest in a teapot — there’s your bag.”

Breanna grabbed it off the carousel, and with a well-practiced flick of her wrist, extended the handle.

“Jay’s in a no-parking zone out front,” said Zen, spinning around to lead the way.

“Just because you have government plates doesn’t mean you can park where you like,” scolded Breanna playfully.

“Sure it does.”

She laughed. “So what controversy are you ducking?”

“Some big blowup about a CIA program. Something called Raven. Ernst has a bug up his ass about it.”

Breanna was silent. Zen glanced up at her. Her face had suddenly gone white.

“Bree?”

“Where did you park?”

“Is there something I should know about?” said Zen. “Do you have something to do with Raven?”

“Why?”

Crap, he thought. Breanna had to be the worst liar in the world.

“Bree—”

“Maybe I’ll grab a cab and head straight for the office,” said his wife.

“Whoa, hold on.” He grabbed the bag handle — it was the only thing he could reach as she started to pull away. “Truce, OK? No work discussion. None.”

“I have to get to the office.”

“We’ll drop you off.”

“That might not look right.”

“Breanna, what’s going on?”

They were stopped right in front of the doors. People swerved around them, a little more indulgent than they might have been as one of the obstacles was in a wheelchair.

“Jeff, I can’t discuss it. You know.”

“Come here,” he told her, motioning with his head to the side. “Come on.”

She went over, clearly reluctant.

“Listen,” he started, “just to fill you in — Ernst has heard all sorts of rumors about this CIA program. Supposedly it’s some sort of unauthorized assassination deal. You know Ernst, you give him a whiff of something to bash Ol’ Battle-axe with and he’s off to the races.”

Ol’ Battle-axe was one of Zen’s nicknames for the President. It was considerably more benign than many of his others.

“If you’re involved in this,” he added, “you really oughta tell me.”

“Raven is not an Office of Special Technology project.”

“You’re lawyering up.”

“Jeff — don’t push me.”

Zen put his elbow on the chair rail and leaned his forehead down. When he had urged her to take her job — and he had urged her — he promised they would keep their private lives separate.

It was the sort of promise that always came back to kick him in the butt, time after time.

“I’m not going to push you,” he said. “Let’s grab something to eat. Just you and me.”

“I have to get back to the office,” she said, pushing away.

“I’m glad you’re back!” he said as she went off.

The sentiment was sincere, but so were the curses under his breath as he wheeled around and headed for his van.

Chapter 30

There were no parallel roads to the highway leading out of town, and the hills would make it hard to flank the house quickly. Danny decided it would be best to race past the house to the south where some of the brothers were and go directly to Li Han’s. MY-PID would track Li Han if he escaped; his lack of a vehicle meant he couldn’t get very far.

There was gunfire from the lower house as they passed, but neither of the trucks was struck. Two troopers jumped from the back as they passed, securing the road in case the men there decided to interfere. The rest of the team sped on to the target.

By now Danny had a bad feeling about the house and Li Han. MY-PID was powerful but not infallible. He hypothesized that there might be a tunnel deep enough and long enough for the bastard to have escaped.

No one fired as they pulled up and surrounded the place. They blew out the front door and went in with flash-bangs and guns ready.

Li Han was lying exactly in the middle of the floor, dead. The flight computer and missing circuitry for the Raven was nowhere to be found.

“Looks like somebody did your work for you,” Danny told Melissa when she rushed in.