by Ward Larsen
“Except one of your mechanics.”
Schmitt said nothing, and Davis sensed a dead end. He said, “I watched a squad of soldiers hijack one of your shipments yesterday afternoon.”
“Not the first time. They hit us every month or two.”
“Are they really soldiers?”
“More or less. It’s the airport security contingent, maybe seven or eight guys. They have a little building half a mile up the main road to Khartoum. I guess they get bored, so they heist the occasional shipment.”
“Bored?”
“This airport’s new, and there’s twenty miles of nothing between here and the city. Not much call for police work in the middle of the desert.”
Davis recalled his run-in with a band of thieves not ten minutes after he’d arrived in-country. “So nobody complains?” he asked.
“About losing supplies? It’s the cost of doing business around here. I think the word they use is ‘tax.’”
“Right.”
“But they only take aid stuff, never anything of ours.”
“So Khoury gets special treatment?” Davis asked.
“Not exactly. The two just keep out of each other’s way—like a professional courtesy, I guess.”
“Honor amongst thieves?”
“Khoury has connections with the military. That’s what it’s all about in a place like this. Those soldiers wouldn’t do anything to tick off the sheik.”
There was a thump at the door, and Davis saw a keg on a handcart. Then came the delivery man, a kid, medium height and rail-thin. He was dressed in a pair of baggy blue trousers and a madras shirt. Or maybe it wasn’t madras. Davis had never been sure what the heck that was.
Schmitt said, “It’s about time, Achmed. I’m getting thirsty.”
The kid said nothing. He looked put out, angry—then again, what nineteen-year-old boy didn’t? Davis’ mug was empty, but he wasn’t going to stay for another. He hung the chief pilot’s mug back on the rack without washing it, and was halfway to the door when Schmitt called out.
“Hey, Davis.”
He turned.
“Boudreau’s going down range tomorrow. You should go along—you said you wanted to see how we fly around here.”
Davis thought about it. Schmitt was right, in a way. It would be good to see the operation up close. But he doubted that was the real reason for the invitation. After a long hesitation, he said, “Sure, sounds like fun.”
Bob Schmitt smiled.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Davis managed three solid hours of sleep and woke at midnight.
He opened the curtains and dressed by the light of a dim half moon. A black pullover, baklava, and desert boots would have been perfect. What he had was a navy blue cotton shirt, brown Dockers, and a scuffed pair of steel-toed work boots. It would have to do. Davis used the stairs to reach the first floor, moved silently down the hallway, and stepped into the night.
The air outside was tormenting. If the desert were blistering hot all the time, one would succumb, not appreciate that there could be anything else. But each night the temperature moderated. Not to the point of being cool or refreshing, but enough to make you dread the next sunrise. That was what Davis felt—the teasing night air.
He walked south on the shoulder of the perimeter road, his boots crunching over stones and sand. Ten minutes out, a vehicle approached, and Davis diverted into the scrub to let a small panel van pass. As soon as it was gone, he went back to his steady pace for another five minutes. Then he turned into the desert.
He began his arc around the FBN Aviation hangar at a distance of half a mile. The moonlight was minimal, but enough for Davis to make his way without stumbling amid the tough-looking stands of brush. In the open desert, the night air seemed more fresh and dry, like the world had taken a deep breath after exhaling the day’s heat. Insects that had been heat-struck during the day were active now, chirping and buzzing—happy that the sun was finally gone. Davis was comfortable with the distance he’d chosen. He doubted there would be any patrols out this far, doubted that Khoury’s people would have night-vision gear to monitor the perimeter. They were going through the motions of safeguarding whatever was inside. Not expecting an invasion. All the same, he moved carefully. The vegetation was mostly chest high, and as Davis edged closer to the compound he found himself crouching lower. Two hundred yards out, he took a knee and made his first detailed observation.
Set away from the main airfield, the compound stood out like a raft of light on a black sea. It was fenced all the way around, nothing that would keep Davis out—nothing that would keep anybody out—but rather the kind of barrier that showed possession. A line in the sand. The hangar was shut tight, though Davis could see light lining the edges of the big entry doors. A handful of vehicles were parked carelessly near the front entrance. None were big enough to carry a Black-star drone with a fifty-one-foot wingspan. There was also a pickup truck stationed squarely at the center of the rear fence. Davis figured this for a makeshift guard shack, probably one man inside. He saw three other men at the front of the compound, all watching and moving, weapons hanging at their chests. He saw scaffolding piled in a heap at one side of the building, and next to that was a digging machine, like a small backhoe fitted with a bucket. Davis watched for a full twenty minutes, largely concentrating on the guards. He noted a few casual conversations, but no cell phones or magazines or catnaps. No clear patterns of movement.
Davis decided that they were reasonably competent. Not in his favor. Also against him was the layout. The perimeter fence would be easy enough to breach, but it was surrounded by a fifty-foot clear area all the way around, so any direct approach would necessitate a lot of time in the open. But there were weaknesses. His favorite was the configuration of the lighting. The floodlights belonged on a maximum-security prison, eight tall poles with banks of sodium lights situated at regular intervals along the perimeter fence. But they had been installed to point inward. Good for a working mechanic, which was probably the original intent. Lousy for security. The lights should have been mounted on the hangar itself and pointed outward. As it was, the guards had to stare right into the blaze. Davis didn’t. Then there was the matter of dogs—he didn’t see any. Tally another in his column.
He began moving again, not getting closer, but circling counterclockwise. Watching, probing. Davis had never been a Special Forces type in the military, but he’d done his share of foot soldiering, so he knew how to find a position with a good line of sight. As he neared the back, Davis saw a man walk around the hangar and swap out with the guard in the truck. He heard a generator humming, and noted that there were no above-ground power lines running to the compound. He tried to think of a way to get inside. In his favor, he didn’t have to extract anything from the building—he just needed one good look. If the Blackstar drone was there, Davis could go back to his room, make a phone call, and that part of his job would be done.
Then a sound made him freeze.
His reaction had nothing to do with military experience, but was rather a caution cued from some deeper, evolutionary part of his brain. A growl, followed by a rabid yelp and a snarl. A dog—no, dogs. Not from the hangar complex, but behind him. Davis whipped around and set his legs in a strong crouch. Ready for snapping jaws, a handler with a machine pistol. Ready for anything. He saw commotion behind a tangle of nearby brush, ivory flashes in the drawn moonlight. Then an intense light stabbed in from behind.
Davis fell flat, his lips kissing sand, as a spotlight from the compound scanned the area. He heard shouts from behind the fence a hundred yards away. The words were in Arabic, but the intonation was crystal clear. Alarm. The light kept moving over the brush, searching for the source of the disturbance. It settled on something.
Davis craned his head until he saw them twenty paces away. Dogs, indeed. Three, maybe four. Coats the color of gray brush, wild eyes glinting red, frozen in the stilled white glow. But not guard dogs. Wild, feral beasts. Coyotes or jackals
or dingos—whatever the hell passed for canine packs in this part of the world. They were spinning and snapping at one another, a flurry of mangy fur and sharp snarls. Then an even more alarming sound pierced the night. The crack of a rifle shot.
The report was followed by a yelp. Davis hugged the dirt like gravity had reversed, sinking lower and tighter to the sand. Another crack, and a bullet zinged off a rock not ten feet away. He heard canine whimpering, sensed the pack scurrying away in a rustle through the gnarled brush. A stretch of silence was followed by distant laughing and chattering—the guards in the compound. The searchlight went back to acquire mode, playing back and forth for thirty seconds, a minute. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the light extinguished.
Davis lay still for what seemed an eternity. He closed his eyes to focus on sound. Any sound. Would the guards come to the source of the skirmish to investigate? Or was this their nightly sport? A few potshots at the neighborhood pack to break the monotony? Inch by inch, Davis rose to his knees and surveyed the compound. Everything seemed quiet. The lone guard was back in his truck, and Davis didn’t see any posse heading his way. He rose up, haunches on heels and hands on his knees, and took a deep breath. He hadn’t noticed the spotlight. He should have noticed the spotlight. The guards had been quick to shoot. Reckless, almost. Right then, Davis knew he wasn’t going to get into that hangar tonight. He would need better intel, more time to prepare.
He took a bearing from his internal compass and began moving east, away from the hangar. He’d only made twenty paces when he came upon a tract of beaten ground. It was the place where the dogs had been working, a small clearing with a distinct mound in the middle. Davis stopped and stared. The dim glow of the moon was aided by indirect light that spilled out from the distant complex, just enough for him to see the ghastly sight. The mound of dirt was rectangular and flat, freshly turned, but one side had been breached, a hole dug by worn claws and sharp-toothed muzzles.
Hanging out of that opening was a human hand.
Another urge from that deep part of his brain. Check for a threat—sounds, sights, smells.
There was nothing. No guards, no dogs. Davis edged closer and recognized an entire arm that looked like it was reaching out from the grave. The skin was torn, meat ripped away by the marauding animals. He figured the dogs would be back if they were hungry enough, and in a place like this they probably were. Davis then saw more earth uncovered on the far side of the flat mound, and in the thin light, a second body. The upper torso had been uncovered and dragged out chest high. Again, the corpse had been mauled.
The smell hit Davis next. He’d worked enough crashes to know the stench of death. Bracing himself, he went closer. Davis was no expert when it came to dead bodies, but he was sure these hadn’t been here long. Probably a week, two at the outside. He saw a faint glint and recognized a ring on the hand, dangling on a nearly severed finger. Ring finger, left hand. He crawled to the mound to get a better look at the second body. This one was worse, meatier sections of the shoulder and chest having been ripped apart in a textbook display of scavenger behavior. In the dim light, Davis could make out high Slavic cheeks and fair hair. He also saw a neat hole in the broad forehead.
Davis took stock of the mound itself, and figured it was just the right size to hold two bodies. No more than that. A sick feeling rose in his stomach, a combination of the smell, the visual, and the putrid thought that was building in his head. Then more trouble.
Growls. Deep and menacing. Not one, but a chorus. He saw movement in the brush to his left. More on the right. The dogs were indeed hungry, and they’d come back for more. Davis could fend them off for a time. He could swing a stick or throw a few rocks. But that would make noise, and noise might draw more fire from the shooting gallery. No, he decided. There was nothing more he could do here. It was time to go.
He scrambled off the mound, sidled a few steps away. But then Davis stopped. He thought he knew who these two were, but he needed to be sure. Needed proof. He crawled back to the hand that was reaching from its grave and saw the ring finger lying in the dirt, connected by no more than a tendon to the bloodless hand. He reached down and pulled to complete the disconnect, slid the ring clear and stuffed it in his pocket. He left the finger there. Davis then paused for a moment. He wasn’t particularly religious, but right now that didn’t matter. These two men might have been. Or maybe someone who cared about them relied on God. Davis did his best with a silent prayer, a simple, nondenominational request that the souls represented by these two torn bodies were at peace and in a better place.
Just as Davis finished, an engine fired to life near the hangar. Then another. In a low crouch, he turned east and ran.
Davis moved along the main road, his pace quicker than when he’d been on the reciprocal track an hour earlier. Approaching the FBN building, he considered his options. He could report the bodies. But to whom? He had already seen the military police in action. Any authorities would question why he’d been out hiking the desert in the middle of the night. If Davis reported what he’d found, it would invite all sorts of questions. Questions he didn’t want to answer. It would introduce an untold number of Sudanese agencies to complicate matters, and likely bring his own investigation to a grinding halt. And the real bottom line—it wouldn’t do a damn thing for the two men who were half buried out in the desert. Davis decided to keep the discovery to himself. The scavengers would have their day, a macabre but necessary sacrifice. The most decent thing he could do for the two men was to find out what had happened.
When he got to his room, Davis went straight to the shower. There was something about death—touching it gave an irresistible urge to scrub and cleanse, to wash the scourge away. Yet if the physical grime could be rinsed, the mental residue was far more persistent. It stained your thoughts and dreams, and the only agent that would ever wash it away was the truth. All the same, Davis scrubbed. He spent a full ten minutes under spray that was hot enough to hang a curtain of fog on the bathroom mirror. For the first time since arriving in Sudan, he wanted the heat. Davis bent his head down so the stream could beat deep into the muscles of his neck and shoulders.
When he was done, he dried and wrapped a towel around his waist. Davis fished the ring from his pocket and took a seat on the bed. Turning the ring to get an angle on the best light, he studied it inside and out. It was a simple enough thing, a plain gold wedding band, maybe wider than most. On the inside was an inscription, the lettering in Cyrillic—just like on the crate he’d seen yesterday. But this time Davis had a head start, knew what it might say. He only needed a single word, one he could probably translate given enough common letters. And he did see it, clear as day. ЙPEHA. He was certain of that translation: IRENA. He remembered the name from Gregor Anotolii’s personnel file. Wife: Irena. When Davis looked closer, even the rest of the inscription made sense. ЙPEHA AHД ГPEГOP. He knew enough characters, and knew what it might say. IRENA AND GREGOR. No doubt about it.
He eased down on the bed and held the ring between two fingers, turned it back and forth. Davis stared at the ceiling and added this revelation to his other results. A forged maintenance write-up. A downed aircraft that was still flying. Radar data that showed a normal flight profile. And now? Two crewmen dead in a way that had nothing to do with a crashed airplane. More than ever, Davis was investigating a crash where any reasonable investigator would relent and say, There never was a crash. But if that was true, then why was somebody going to so much trouble to convince the world otherwise?
Davis closed his eyes and let the fatigue of a long day settle in. His thoughts began to drift as the numbing tendrils of sleep wrapped around him. There, in that limbo of consciousness between dreams and reality, he heard a distant sound. The pitch ebbed and flowed, though not in any lyrical way. Indeed, there was nothing good in how this sound registered. Davis sat up, wide awake again. The sound was definitely there, and he was sure he recognized it. An everyday occurrence, given the right time and the right
place. This was neither.
Davis couldn’t let it go. He had to know.
Dressing quickly in fresh clothes, he left the ring on the night-stand. The hallway was quiet, the rest of FBN’s expatriate staff fast asleep. He went to the stairs and climbed to the roof. Stepping softly across an asphalt-broomed rooftop, Davis made his way to the eastern ledge. He knew exactly where to look, and sure enough he saw it. His second telling discovery of the night.
The roof was bathed in still night air, and so the engine noise was more distinct here, even if the commotion was taking place over a mile away. Davis had good elevation, and there was nothing to block his view. Right at the spot in the desert where he’d encountered the bodies, he saw two security trucks from the compound parked so that their headlights were trained on a single spot in the brush. There, two men with rifles slung casually on their shoulders watched as the backhoe worked the ground. The digging machine’s own headlights vibrated as the modest bucket strained and clawed through hardpan earth.
Davis watched for a full ten minutes. What he saw told him nothing about what was in FBN Aviation’s hangar. But it told him a lot about Rafiq Khoury. This was no exhumation. They were digging deeper.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Davis woke early the next morning, dressed, and headed for the bar. He found pastries in the refrigerator, took one, and put two U.S. dollars in the honor box. At the front desk he checked the big scheduling board and saw that his flight was set for a 5:15 a.m. departure. Call sign: Air Sahara 12. He didn’t see Boudreau, or anyone who looked like a copilot, so Davis headed to the flight line.
The air outside was motionless and cooler than he expected—still teasing—with the sun lost over the horizon. Building and percolating. The flight line was well illuminated, a yellow sodium glare that would carry for another hour, until it was overpowered by nature’s heat lamp. Even at this hour the ramp held its familiar scent, the acrid tang of vaporized kerosene hanging on the breeze, cut by the musty aroma of desert sage.
