by Mark Greaney
Gennady shouted at her, “You lie! We were not supposed to come to Al Fashir. We were only diverted at the last moment. No one sent you here to spy on us!”
The secret policemen recovered from their surprise and stormed around the table, heading straight for Ellen Walsh.
“ICC!” Gennady began shouting outside the room to the rest of the flight crew, who were standing out in the terminal. Court couldn’t stop him from doing so. The two NSS men immediately confronted her, spun her around, and put her arms behind her back. These guys did not possess more than two speeds—off and on—and she had just flipped their switch. No doubt they were concerned about their own careers, their own lives even, allowing this woman to wander the airport while the Rosoboronexport flight was parked on the tarmac.
“You fucking Canadian whore!” shouted Gennady, turning back to the woman.
The big Russian slapped her face with his powerful hand. Court started to move forward with the objective of breaking Gennady’s jaw and pushing the NSS officers back, but he stayed himself. He was in two forms of cover at the same time, and neither of these alter egos would have any incentive to stop the secret police from detaining this woman. He could not show the Sudanese that he was anything more than a Russian cargo aircraft crewman, and he could not show the Russians that he was anything more than some dispassionate agent they were bringing into the country.
So he just stood there, watching, as the NSS men handcuffed her, and she kicked out at Gennady as he stood in front of her shouting in Russian. Soon four armed GOS soldiers stormed in, alerted no doubt by the shouting and wrestling in the interrogation room. Gentry’s Russian cohort scooted back out the door, and a couple of the other Russians peered in, with gawking stares of fascination and even amusement.
The older secret policeman grabbed her by her chin and turned her face towards his. “There is a place we take unwanted guests. I promise you that within minutes of arriving at the Ghost House, you will regret your espionage against the Republic of Sudan.”
“Espionage? I am not a spy! I have every right as a member of the international community to—”
“Don’t say another word, lady!” Court shouted aloud, no attempt now to hide his American accent and stay in cover. This fool was making her own situation direr by the second. “Just shut up and do what you’re told. You don’t know anything. Get out of here and do what you have to do, but don’t let on that you know any—”
“You speak English?” She looked at Gentry, confusion replacing her fury.
Court tried to reason with the woman in short bursts so the others would not understand. He switched to French. He hoped like hell that, as a Canadian, she understood it and hoped, also like hell, that the Sudanese did not. “You are not ICC! Do not say you are ICC, or they will kill you! Tell them you were lying. Tell them you are nobody. UN, that’s all.” One of the NSS men looked up at him in surprise but was too busy trying to pull the strong woman over to a chair to stop what he was doing.
Ellen began crying, screaming at the same time, “I don’t speak French, asshole! Do you speak English or not? Help me!”
After she was led to the chair, her small hands still cuffed behind her back, some of the soldiers cleared out, and one of the NSS men left the room to use the phone. The Russians had all returned to the concourse, sensing that the show was over.
Court remained in the room with the girl, pacing back and forth. He stepped in front of her and leaned close. Her lip bled where Gennady had slapped her, and her rust-colored blouse was torn at the shoulder from the soldiers’ rough treatment.
He spoke to her softly, quickly, so the NSS would not pick up all of it. “Listen carefully. Don’t fight with them, but be firm. Demand to speak to someone from UNAMID. Don’t say anything else. You are not in the ICC. You saw nothing. You know nothing.” Gentry looked down at the floor. Not up at her eyes. “You’ll be okay.” He turned away and headed back out the door slowly. “You’ll be fine.”
“Who are you?” she called out to him.
He slowed but did not turn back and look at her. “Nobody.”
Gentry and the rest of the Ilyushin’s crew walked together across the darkened tarmac towards the huge aircraft.
Court was mad and worried, and he felt like shit about the Canadian woman. His shoulders sagged as he walked in the rear of the group, his head slumped down. He tried to tell himself that her outburst condemned her, and that was her fault, not his, and he could not do anything about it.
He’d told her she’d be fine, but from pretty much everything he could see and guess about the situation, he was certain she would be killed. It would be just too easy to make her disappear right here and now, and too damaging to let her walk away to reveal what she knew. Court also knew that if he could come to this conclusion, it made absolutely no sense for the NSS or the GOS to come to any other conclusion.
Miss Ellen Walsh was dead.
“Your fault, Gentry.” He said it aloud, softly, as he walked through the night with the flight crew.
They were still a couple hundred yards from the aircraft. Court began to slow. He looked up and saw the others were ahead of him by several yards now. He slowed some more. Then his slumped shoulders raised and stiffened. He looked up from his sulk and said, “Gennady. Don’t leave me.”
The pilot turned, continued walking backwards. “What? Leave you where?”
“Just wait for me. I have to—”
“We are going now. Fifteen minutes for preflight, and then we are in the air. I don’t know what you are talking about, but I’m not waiting for you. Come on.”
Court stood firm in the dark; insects chirped and buzzed and trilled and clicked in the scrub around him. He looked back over his shoulder towards the dark terminal. A black four-door sedan pulled up to the employee access door.
“Dammit!” he shouted into the night.
“Let’s go!” barked Gennady, angrier this time.
Court looked ahead at the aircraft still two hundred yards ahead. He thought about his fifty pounds of gear. He wished he had some of it with him now.
Gennady asked, “What is the matter with—”
Court interrupted him. He pointed a threatening finger in his face. “Don’t leave me! I’ll be right back. Do not take off until I get back!” He knew if he invoked the name of Gregor Sidorenko this pilot would do exactly as he said, but he was not about to violate operational security to that level just yet. Instead he just threw out a “Please!” He did not wait for a response. Instead, he turned on his heel and began running back to the terminal. “Dammit!”
NINETEEN
The Gray Man had sprinted one hundred yards through the warm night, with no real plan other than to find the woman and to figure out some way he might help her. He wasn’t going to pick a fight with an airport full of secret police and soldiers, so he didn’t have any real idea where he was going with this impetuous charge, but he’d been around long enough to put some confidence in his powers of improvisation. Ahead he saw the bright shaft of artificial light from the opening of the terminal’s employee access door. The two NSS men appeared in the beam, and behind them, two armed GOS army sergeants pushed Ellen Walsh forward and into the back of the four-door sedan. The soldiers climbed in on either side of her, and the NSS men got in the front. The vehicle pulled away, in the opposite direction of Gentry’s run, just as he arrived at the terminal’s side entrance. He knew they were heading to the exit of the airport, taking the woman away.
And he knew where they were going.
The NSS detention facility in Al Fashir.
The Ghost House.
“Dammit!” he shouted again as he stopped running. Two airport guards eyed him from the doorway, vaguely curious perhaps, but they did not come outside.
Gentry looked around for a vehicle but found nothing. Instead, he turned around and began walking back towards the aircraft. As soon as he left the dim lights coming from the terminal and disappeared from the guards’ sight, h
e began running again. This time he turned around the side of the building and shot between several shipping containers that had been lined up to serve as mobile offices for some NGO that had apparently long since pulled up stakes. Passing these, his feet left the warm tarmac and sank into thatch-covered sand and hard dirt. A small hill rose towards the end of the airport property, another fifty yards away. There was a metal fence here. Court had noticed that it ran alongside a reasonably well-trafficked road, back when there was still enough light to see this far into the distance. Now he did not see any headlights, but neither did he see any guards out here in the desolate darkness. He ran past the wreckage of a hulking, high-winged, twin prop aircraft that had obviously crashed and then been towed here to await the eventual burial in the sand that would occur over years of swirling winds.
Court skidded to a halt at the base of the fence. It stood ten feet high and was topped with thick coils of razor wire. He untied his boots but left them on his feet, then climbed the fence quickly and adroitly. At the top he held on with one hand just below the razor wire, pulled off one boot and then the other. He struggled to put his hands into the boots, again one at a time, the skin between his toes burned as they pinched in the chain links, supporting all the weight of his body that he could not hold up with one hand. He pushed into the razor wire with his boot-covered hands, doing his best to cover as wide an area as possible. He pressed the dangerous barbs tight against the top of the metal fence with the thick rubber soles. Then, while keeping the boots stationary, his feet continued up the fence until they were near the top, positioning his body like a swimmer on the block waiting for the starting gun. From here he shifted all his body weight to his arms, kicked his legs up until he was in a sloppy handstand position on the top of the fence, and then let his legs continue forward. He completed the flip and went airborne, his boots flung off his hands as he left the razor wire, and he landed in a rolling heap in the dirt on the outside of the airport grounds.
He was not hurt, maybe a small bruise or two on his arm and back, and he found his first boot immediately in the dark. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the other was still stuck in the razor wire, and he had to climb back up and tear it free. Another thirty seconds to retie his laces, and he headed down the small hillock towards the road.
Court had not studied a map of Al Fashir, wasn’t certain he’d even heard of the place before that afternoon. But he had sat in the cockpit and paid attention to the terrain and the surrounding area as the Il-76 flew its base leg alongside the airport. From this he knew that the road the NSS vehicle was taking headed off to the north for a mile or so before meeting up with the highway that ran east and west. At this intersection they would make a right turn, and it would take them several more minutes to get to Al Fashir town. Court knew that if he could commandeer some sort of vehicle, he could get in front of them and intercept them before getting to the Ghost House. A light ahead of him on the road at first filled him with optimism. Within seconds he saw the single headlight of what he assumed to be a motorcycle approaching. This was ideal. Court would like nothing better than getting on a bike. He could skirt through traffic at his own speed and find Ellen Walsh and her captors.
He ducked back into the dark to await its arrival.
Of course he had no clue where to find the Ghost House, but he knew that virtually everyone in this town would know the location of the secret police’s clandestine prison. He doubted anyone would walk with him up to the front door and knock, but he did not expect too much trouble getting directions from a local on a street corner if Court whipped out a small wad of Sudanese pounds.
Court hurried to the side of the road now. His plan was borderline brutal, certainly cruel, but he did not doubt its effectiveness. He would wait for the driver of the motorcycle to get within a few yards of him, and then he would step into the road and knock the man and his vehicle over. He prepared himself for this action, but noticed the bike was moving slower than it should have been with so much open road. He then presumed it to be only a motor scooter, which would still be an effective vehicle to make his way through narrow streets and thick third-world traffic, even if it wasn’t going to move very fast, even with an open throttle.
But then, after an eternity, the vehicle appeared behind its single headlight, and Gentry cussed aloud. It was a tiny motorized rickshaw, a scooter with a covered three-seat bench behind the driver, a feeble two-stroke engine, and a wide tricycle-type rear axle.
Gentry was pissed. This was probably the slowest vehicle in existence with the exception of a donkey cart. Still, he recognized it would be a hell of a lot better than jogging, so he stepped into the dark road. He did not try to topple the little vehicle; instead, he just flagged it down.
The rickshaw pulled over. A black man in a turban sat behind the handlebars. “Taxi?” he asked, no shock or surprise at the sight of a bearded white man in a military-style jumpsuit. Apparently Court wasn’t the first foreigner to wander stupidly around the darkened suburbs of Al Fashir. He climbed in hurriedly, and the driver twisted the throttle forward on his handlebars, sending the machine slowly again on its way with a whine like a lawn mower in thick, wet grass.
Court told the driver to take him into Al Fashir’s souk, or marketplace. Every town has a market, he assumed, and apparently this backwater was no different, as the driver did not press him further. Instead, as the fortyish Darfuri tribesman set off for town, he turned back to his fare and offered to sell him a drink from a tiny cooler he kept in the backseat. Court checked it out, saw a half dozen bottles of tepid water, the bottle caps’ safety seals broken. Gentry admitted to himself that he was thirsty, but he wasn’t about to chug old plastic bottles refilled with local tap water. Also on the floor he found a small repair kit for the rickshaw in a burlap bag. There was nothing of interest to him in the kit, save for a single red road flare and a small, rusty screwdriver.
Court pocketed the flare and the tool as the first vestiges of an idea began forming in his mind.
They headed east for no more than three minutes before they hit the bustle of the city. Nearly a fourth of the vehicles on the road were powered by donkeys instead of engines, and suddenly the two-stroke job under the seat of the rickshaw did not seem quite so impotent in comparison. Another third of the vehicles on the road were NGOs of some sort: UN, UNICEF, CARE, the Red Cross. Additionally there were some UNAMID military vehicles on the road and GOS army men on motorcycles. The last 10 percent of traffic were locals in cars and trucks. They were very much a minority on their own streets.
He pressed the driver to hurry more than once, but even with the slow speed he imagined himself still to be well in front of the NSS sedan, which had gone far in a different direction to meet up with the highway. He knew, however, it would only take one traffic jam or missed turn to make this a close race.
They pulled up to the marketplace and stopped. “Here is the souk. Twenty pounds.”
Court said, “I want you to take me to the Ghost House.” He was hardly surprised that the man jerked his head around to look back at his passenger. No one wanted to go to the secret police interrogation facility. Court had already yanked a fat wad of cash from his wallet. He held it up for the man to see.
But, whatever the value of the currency in his hand, it was not enough. “I don’t know this place. Here is the souk. You want a drink? Many soda stands still open. Tea stands. It very nice.”
“I don’t want a fucking soda. I want the NSS head-quarters. Just get me near there. Show me where it is. I will walk the rest of the way.” Court now lifted another lump of wrinkled notes out of his wallet. From the light of a storefront powered by a roaring and smoking gas generator, Gentry looked into the wide eyes of his driver. He nodded slowly at the money, then up at the insane American.
“I take you two blocks from there. I take you to soccer stadium.”
“The soccer stadium is two blocks from the Ghost House?”
“Yes,” said the man with a nod
. Court could see the nervous tension; he felt sure the man was telling the truth.
“Good. More money if you go faster!” The man turned back to face the road ahead, leaned forward into his handlebars, and seemed to twist out another horsepower or two from the impotent machine.
Just then Gentry heard a noise high in the sky above him. He knew what it was instantly; he really did not even have to look. But he did look and saw the silhouette of an Ilyushin Il-76MF climbing into the starry heavens.
“Motherfucking Russians,” he muttered, but he couldn’t say he blamed them.
Court felt incredibly alone, but there was no time to think of that now. He needed a plan.
In seconds they were stuck in the evening traffic again. Stationary in the middle of the street. Court’s driver’s honking was lost in the melody of louder car horns. A donkey cart on the right of the rickshaw pushed forward a few feet, and Court caught a glimpse of the unpaved promenade running alongside the road. There, under the light of a bare bulb hanging out a second-floor window, a man sat on an overturned metal bucket resting on the ground. Beside him was a container the size of a beer keg, with a rubber hose snaking out of the top of it and looping down the side. In front of the contraption stood a handwritten sign in wood, the writing in both Arabic and English: Gas. The man picked at his dinner of rice with his fingers.
Immediately Gentry leaned into the front of the rickshaw, reached past the driver, and pulled the keys from the ignition. “I’ll be right back,” Court said, but this did not stop the man from shouting at him when Gentry left him behind in the center of the busy street as he ran to the gas man.
Court pulled out his wallet hurriedly, yanked another fold of Sudanese pounds free, and handed them to the man. The elderly gasoline vendor took them and stood, nodded quickly, but then looked the hurried Westerner over curiously. Court didn’t get it for a second, so he said, “Gas!” pointing at the keg. Behind him cars and motorbikes began honking, and those on horse and mule carts began yelling at the stationary rickshaw blocking traffic. Court shouted “Gas!” one more time, then realized the vendor was looking to see just what the hell he was supposed to siphon the gas into. Court had no container, and he drove no vehicle. Court pulled another note from his wallet and pointed to the metal bucket the man had been using as a stool. Court picked it up himself, flipped it over. It would hold two gallons or so. The man looked at him like he was crazy, but he nevertheless began sucking on the hose to draw the gas out into the tin bucket.
