Eden's Exodus (Plague Wars Series Book 3)

by David VanDyke

  “I also ordered for both of us,” said Cassandra. “From my understanding, you’re partial to salmon, and the waiter assured me theirs was superb.”

  Geoffrey seemed surprised, though he tried to cover it with a drink.

  “So what do you think our chances are?” asked Cassandra.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Getting your government to agree to the terms,” said Cassandra. “What did you think I was talking about?”

  “Nothing,” said Geoffrey. “Like I said, it will be very difficult.”

  “What will it take to make it happen? The FC is not without resources.”

  Geoffrey sat back in his chair and looked away. He seemed to be making up his mind and Cassandra was content to let him do it.

  “It might be possible,” said Geoffrey.

  “How?” asked Cassandra.

  “You worked for the CIA for what, twenty years?” asked Geoffrey.

  “Twenty-two,” she answered.

  Geoffrey nodded. “And now you’re the head of the FC’s intelligence service.”

  “You know this,” said Cassandra gently. “You don’t have to beat around the bush. What are you getting at?”

  Geoffrey smiled. “You know how this works, Cassandra. We’re both in the same business. You need information and I need information. That information has value. You are in possession of information that I might find useful.”

  “You mean work for you as an intelligence source?” asked Cassandra. She found that she was more amused than offended.

  “No need to look at it that way,” said Geoffrey. “More of a friendship. You do me a favor and I do you a favor. That’s what friends do, right?”

  Cassandra smiled. “That’s very good. I’ve used almost the exact same line many times before. So, you’re saying if I were to agree to this, you could get your government to agree to the Kenyans’ terms?”

  Geoffrey nodded smiling. “It will be tough, but I think we can make it happen.”

  “I understand. It’s good for me to know that you’re flexible.”

  “Why is that?” asked Geoffrey.

  “Because I have a counteroffer for you.”

  “Counteroffer?”

  “Yes,” answered Cassandra. “When I was at the CIA I did everything by the book. Never tried to go out of my lane. Focused on my area of responsibility and left others to theirs.”

  “I would expect nothing less. You’re a professional.”

  “But I still have many friends there,” continued Cassandra. “They tell me things. Now that I am not in the CIA, I feel at liberty to snoop where I would have never dared.”

  Geoffrey chuckled. “Of course.”

  “Imagine my surprise,” said Cassandra. “When I ran across a CIA source file on you.”

  The man froze with the glass halfway to his mouth and the blood drained from his face. He finished taking a drink and set the glass on the table, but Cassandra detected the slightest tremor in his hand.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Geoffrey, but he didn’t look at her.

  “Evidently you’ve been working for the CIA for nearly ten years. You fell in love with one of your Chinese sources while you were in Beijing and got her pregnant. You knew this would get you kicked out of MI-6, but you also loved her.”

  “What an amusing tale.”

  Cassandra shrugged. “I’m only telling what was in the file. I haven’t even gotten to the best part. The CIA found out and offered you a way out. They agreed to sneak her out of country and put her up in the U.S. They were willing to keep everything secret and allow you to visit your new family when you came to the States. In return, all they asked for was a little information. Favors among friends, you might say.”

  Geoffrey glowered at Cassandra as she continued. “Mia and Geoffrey Junior are living in an apartment in Alexandria now. Junior is about to start the fourth grade, and from my understanding he has your eyes.”

  “Enough,” said Geoffrey angrily.

  Cassandra asked quietly. “When was the last time you saw them?”

  He sat silently for a few seconds. “Before the Los Angeles and West Virginia nuke strikes.”

  “Hasn’t anyone from the CIA reached out to you?” she asked. “Have you tried to contact them?”

  “Yes,” said Geoffrey. “I was told to lay low until things settled down. My handler was evidently forced out and no one has been reassigned to me. Insight into an ally like the UK isn’t high on their radar right now.”

  “Sloppy.” Cassandra considered Geoffrey for a moment. “What if I could get them out of the U.S.?”

  Geoffrey returned her look. “Why would you do that?”

  “Don’t be coy. You know why. Unlike the CIA, I’ll never ask you to do anything to betray your loyalty to king and country.” Cassandra hoped she could lead horse Geoffrey gently to the water trough and get him to drink without too much trouble.

  “Where would you put them? They can’t come to the UK. The CIA would find them too easily.”

  “Depends. Where in the FC do you travel?”

  He thought for a moment. “I expect with the queen relocating to Australia, that I’ll travel there to coordinate with their security services.”

  “Good,” said Cassandra. “We’ll get them a home in Australia.”

  “And I visit them whenever I want.”

  “Of course. But for this favor I need something in return.”

  “I know.”

  Cassandra leaned forward. “I need you to convince your prince and your government to agree to the Kenyan’s terms.”

  “I’ve already told you I don’t think that’s possible,” said Geoffrey with a pained look. “Ask for something else.”

  “No. You already claimed you could arrange it if I agreed to work for you. So, make it happen. You’re resourceful and persuasive – and now you’re motivated. I have every confidence in you.”

  They stopped talking again as the waiter brought their salads and refilled their glasses. After the man left, Geoffrey lifted up his glass and chuckled ruefully. “I suppose we’re celebrating something after all. A successful recruitment. Well done, Cassandra.”

  “I expect it’s the beginning of a wonderful relationship.”

  “Speaking of relationships…” Geoffrey slid his hand across the table to cover hers.

  Cassandra suppressed laughter, knowing that would be a blow to the man’s pride. She gently disengaged her fingers from his. “Sorry. I try never to mix business with pleasure.”

  There. That should assuage his ego without making this thing messier than it already is.

  Chapter 22

  Skull and Zinabu made their way out of the densely populated capital into green hills and plateaus to the south. The road turned muddy and potholed, and their progress was slow. They frequently found themselves behind herds of goats or horse-drawn carts.

  Still, Skull didn’t feel frustration. He saw farmers and herders going about their normal lives. Children played along the road and waved at them as they passed, and he found it impossible not to wave back. It again reminded him of the time he had spent with the Hopi in northern Arizona: poor, simple people, yet somehow they seemed happier than many of the so-called rich.

  The two men were stopped several times by soldiers or local police, but experienced no significant problems. Their cover story of Skull as a tourist and Zinabu as his guide seemed to work fine, especially when accompanied by “gifts” of a few dollars. On several occasions they had been forced to pay unofficial “tolls,” but this was also expected.

  Although Skull didn’t believe the Ethiopian authorities had a centralized “be on the lookout,” or BOLO, system, nevertheless he switched out the van plates with a similar vehicle at a small rest stop. It was doubtful the other driver would notice for days.

  The first night on the road after leaving Addis Ababa, they asked permission of Lebna, a local tribal elder, to camp for the night on his land. He directed them to a spot on a hill near
a mountain stream after insisting they share coffee with him first.

  To Skull, Lebna seemed truly ancient. It was hard to tell in places like this, though, where everyday life was difficult, brutal, and often short. The man in front of him, who appeared to be in his nineties, could have been far younger.

  Sort of the opposite of the Eden effect, thought Skull.

  “He asks how you like Ethiopia,” said Zinabu as they sat on rugs around the elder’s fire. A much younger woman, perhaps an unmarried daughter, had brought coffee and small pastries with nuts, like baklava.

  “A beautiful land,” answered Skull.

  Zinabu translated for the old man. “A safe answer. It is beautiful to us also, but few from here have any basis for comparison.”

  Skull looked around at the nomadic tents and grazing animals. Women and girls prepared food over fires while men and boys tended to the animals. “What is the furthest you have ever been from here?” he asked.

  Zinabu translated the question and the man was silent while he thought.

  Probably trying to decide if the ridgeline is farther than the river down in the valley, Skull thought.

  Lebna spoke and Zinabu translated. “I am not sure. Which is farther, Rome or Casablanca?”

  “Rome?” asked Skull. “When were you in Rome or Casablanca?”

  “I joined the British army. During the Second World War.”

  Skull laughed and drank his coffee. “Didn’t you pick up any English in that time?”

  “A little,” Lebna said hesitantly. “A long time since speak.”

  “How did you end up in the British Army?”

  “Fought Italians first. Here in Ethiopia. British come help. I join. We go kill Italians. Some Germans.”

  Skull smiled. “Guess you have good reason to dislike the Italians.”

  Lebna shrugged. “Long time past. Italian food good.”

  “That it is,” said Skull. “You could do worse than to judge a country by its food.”

  “What think Ethiopian food?”

  “Not bad. I like the berbere spice. Makes things hot, although I’m not terribly fond of your flat bread. What do you call it again?”

  “Injera,” said Lebna. “You like my wife’s injera. Addis injera not fresh.”

  “Maybe,” said Skull skeptically. Then he looked around. “Your wife?”

  Zinabu jerked his head at the tent. “The woman who served us coffee.”

  “She must be forty years younger than him!”

  Lebna grinned. “No worry. She too old for baby. Not too old for me.”

  Skull chuckled. “Good on you, sir. Tell me about your time in the British army.”

  “Make deal,” Lebna said. “Tell you stories if you stay, eat dinner.”

  Zinabu looked at the food being prepared and gave Skull a wide-eyed nod.

  “Deal,” said Skull.

  They ate and told stories late into the evening, until some unperceivable point in time arrived. Perhaps it had something to do with where the moon stood in the sky. Then everyone drifted away to their sleep tents.

  Lebna bowed to them. Skull bowed back. “Thank you for the food and hospitality.”

  The man walked forward and laid one hand each on Skull and Zinabu’s shoulders. He then closed his eyes and spoke in Amharic for nearly a minute.

  When they were done, Skull noticed that Zinabu appeared emotional.

  “What did he say?” Skull asked as they walked up the short hill to their van. “There at the end?”

  “It was a blessing...and a prayer. ‘May the God of my fathers be with you. May the rain always fall gently on your fields. May your children and livestock multiply and fill the land. May you have wisdom all your days. May you always have victory in battle and your enemies flee before you. May God Almighty always hold you in the palm of his hand.’”

  “Amen to that,” said Skull.

  The next morning they continued south. Military vehicles came and went with more frequency as they traveled farther on the road.

  Around noon they crested a hill and looked down upon a wide valley. A mountain stood in the distance. Smoke rose here and there in thin ribbons.

  “Pull over,” said Skull. When the vehicle had come to a standstill, he got out a set of binoculars. He was able to see a sprawling military camp spread out at the base of the mountain. A thin picket line of personnel and positions extended around the bottom of the imposing rock.

  On the mountain itself he could see little, but ribbons of smoke told him people were there, presumably the Edens they had come to help.

  “I think we’re here,” said Skull.

  “What now?”

  “Now we...” Skull stopped and looked over his shoulder. The sound of a heavy truck coming up the road behind them caused both men to turn toward an Ethiopian army cargo truck laboring up the hill.

  Zinabu made as if to leap into the van, but Skull held up a hand. “If we drive off, they’ll pursue, and this road goes straight into the army camp. We’ll have to talk our way through.”

  The truck stopped on the road beside them. Soldiers piled out of the back and a man wearing officer’s rank leaped out of the passenger seat, yelling at them. The soldiers crouched down on the ground or behind the shelter of their vehicle in a small perimeter facing outward.

  “He wants to know what we are doing here,” said Zinabu.

  “Tell him the truth,” said Skull. “I’m on vacation and want to see the countryside.”

  Zinabu began to talk, but the officer interrupted him, speaking contemptuously.

  “He says we shouldn’t be here,” Zinabu said. “He is telling us we must go back the way we came, but he first must check our vehicle to make sure we are not providing supplies to the rebels.”

  “Rebels? What rebels? I’m just here for the scenery.” Skull counted ten soldiers, including the driver and officer.

  Zinabu translated, but the officer didn’t respond. Zinabu turned to Skull. “He doesn’t care. They’re going to look in the vehicle.”

  “Be my guest,” said Skull. “They’re not going to find anything except my dirty underwear.”

  “They may be looking for a toll payment,” said Zinabu quietly.

  “Fine. Arrange it.”

  The officer opened the back of the van and began throwing bags and gear out onto the ground. He then stopped and began pulling out Skull’s large rucksack.

  “That’s mine,” Skull said loudly, walking forward in protest.

  The officer pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Skull, yelling at him.

  “He says to stay where you are,” Zinabu said. “This is a military issue backpack and is therefore not allowed here. He is confiscating it.”

  “No,” said Skull.

  “Yes,” the officer replied thrusting his pistol forward at Skull’s face.

  “Zinabu,” Skull said in English, keeping his eyes on the officer. “When I move I want you to drop to the ground and get under the van, do you understand?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Just do it,” answered Skull. He held his hands up and backed away.

  The officer sneered at Skull and holstered his pistol, yelling at his men. The soldiers reluctantly turned back to watch their perimeter, obviously bored.

  Opening Skull’s pack and pulling back the flap, the officer lifted out a raincoat and tossed it on the ground before freezing with surprise at what lay below.

  He looked up just in time for Skull to shoot him twice in the chest.

  The soldiers were taken utterly by surprise, as they had followed their officer’s instruction to look outward. Skull rushed forward, emptying his pistols, shooting four of the nearest soldiers. When the handguns locked open, he reached into his rucksack and pulled out the MP5.

  He felt a heavy blow to the back of his calf and fell to the ground. Bullets struck the dirt around him as Skull rolled under the van and out the other side, where he caught three more soldiers in a spray of bullets from hi
s submachine gun.

  Twisting to see where the other two soldiers had gone, Skull heard the truck crank and then stall. A man in the driver’s seat was frantically trying to get the vehicle started. He looked at Skull with wide eyes.

  Crawling out from under the van, Skull raced forward and stepped up on the sideboard. He stuck the barrel of the MP5 in the window and let loose a burst. The truck stalled again.

  “Where did the other one go?” Skull yelled back to Zinabu. “Did you see where he went?”

  “To the north,” said Zinabu, pointing.

  Skull looked down at his calf and saw that a bullet had grazed it. He limped to his rucksack, pulled out a field dressing and wrapped it around his lower leg.

  “You okay?” asked Zinabu.

  “I’ll be fine. The dressing is infused with antibiotics and clotting agents.” He chuckled grimly. “They used to call this a flesh wound in all those western movies I watched as a kid. They never tell you how bad flesh wounds hurt.”

  “What now?”

  “We have to get all these bodies off the road.” Skull looked at the truck, and then down at the camp. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “What?”

  “First, find two soldiers whose uniforms aren’t too torn up. Try to get some that are close to our size.”

  “We’re not going to do what I think we are going to do, are we?”

  Skull smiled. “Come on. It’ll be fun.” He collected all their gear and loaded it in the back of the truck, which was already half filled with unmarked crates.

  “Here, try this one,” said Zinabu passing him a set of fatigues. Skull pulled them on over his other clothes, as they were a little large for him.

  “Load the bodies into the back of the van,” Skull ordered.

  They both grunted and strained as they rushed to get the bodies into the rear of the van. When they were all loaded, Skull shut the doors. “Drive it down into that ditch over there. Make sure it can’t be seen from the road.”

  Zinabu nodded and did as Skull had told him.

  He’s come a long way, thought Skull. Even a few days ago he would have argued with me about all of this.

  Skull was in the passenger seat of the truck when Zinabu returned. The man climbed into the driver’s seat and looked at Skull. “Alan, I think I know what you are planning, but you don’t look like an Ethiopian soldier. No offense, but we don’t have that many farenji serving in our military.”