by Ward Larsen
Davis turned to find Scarface, but didn’t see him right away.
Ten? Twelve? He had no idea. His clock was pointless.
Davis spotted him, ten paces away and half hidden behind the hanging beach towel. He had a knife in his hand, a combat blade. The ten-inch Rambo special would look pretty impressive in a bar or at a poker game. Even useful in a fight if you knew how to use it. Scarface didn’t. He was holding the thing all wrong, jabbing and pointing like it was a fencing foil. Right then, Davis realized that this commander had not been promoted for his fighting skill. Davis walked straight at him, remembering the cut on the kid who’d been with Antonelli.
Scarface started swinging wildly, scything the blade in big defensive arcs. Davis grabbed what was at hand—the loose bicycle wheel. He wound up backhanded, and threw it like a ten-pound Frisbee. It hit Scarface in the head and knocked him back two steps. Davis grabbed an overturned plastic chair and kept going, no hesitation in his advance. The commander recovered and started swinging the knife again. Davis held out the chair and fended him off like a lion tamer, didn’t stop until he’d backed him up against the wall of the building. Davis ripped the Sudanese flag off the support line. With Scarface cornered, he used the chair to keep separation, then the flag to snag the knife on its last pass. He locked down on the man’s wrist, wrestled the knife away and tossed it far into the brush. Scarface should have stopped right there. Instead, his tactical disaster was made complete when he threw what could charitably be described as a punch.
A village somewhere had lost its idiot.
With a vision of Antonelli’s bruised face in his head, Davis pulled back his right hand and unloaded. It was just one blow, a compact delivery, but he rotated all his weight behind the strike, augmented with more than a little anger. The palm heel to the base of the nose, properly delivered, is among the most incapacitating of blows. The force of the strike lifted Scarface off his feet and slammed his head back into the corrugated aluminum wall. In that instant, his head stopped its rearward movement. Davis’ hand did not. Something had to give, and predictably it was the target’s nasal cartilage and vasculature. Maybe to a lesser degree the wall, where a round indentation came pressed into the aluminum.
Scarface collapsed to the dirt. He didn’t move.
Davis took the intermission to check on the others. He saw three men right where he’d left them, barely moving. No threat. The addict was still leaning on the pole in glassy-eyed oblivion. Definitely no threat. Scarface moaned and his eyes flickered. A hand went instinctively to his shattered face. He blinked repeatedly, an involuntary act to wash the blood out of his eyes. When he finally focused, it was on Davis. Six feet up.
“Who … who are you?” he croaked in English.
“I’m with the United Nations—Enforcement Division.”
Scarface spit out a mouthful of blood and asked a slow, gurgling question, “What do you want?”
Davis walked over to the pile of construction equipment, grabbed the dusty jackhammer and hauled it over. He poised it over Scarface’s chest, watched his eyes go wide.
Davis said, “I want you to stop pilfering.” He pointed to the other men strewn about under the awning. “I don’t care about any of them. You are the commander, and from this point forward your unit mission has changed. You will no longer raid. Instead, you are assigned to protect every aid shipment that comes into this territory. If any load of cargo to any aid organization is interrupted, by your people or anybody else, I will come back for the one person in the Sudanese Army who is responsible.” Davis lowered the blade of the jackhammer. “I will find you and use this, and I don’t mean on a sidewalk. I will bend you over and use it on you. Get the picture?”
Scarface nodded to suggest he did.
“Good.” Davis tossed the jackhammer aside, and it crushed the rickety card table in a colorful spray of chips and playing cards.
He walked to his pickup truck. Steam was still coming from under the hood, but less now. There was a chance it might still run for another mile or two, until vital parts of the engine melted and seized. Davis decided it was time for a trade-in, and there was only one other vehicle on this dealer’s lot. He reached into the pickup and took the keys from the ignition, threw them far into the desert. From behind the front seat he grabbed a handful of a mechanic’s most useful tools—plastic zip ties. They were long and thick gauge, probably used for keeping cargo bay panels in place or tying down instruments with broken mounts. A thousand uses really, which was why mechanics loved them. Cops loved them too, but had a different name. They called them flex cuffs.
Ignoring the addict, who had passed out right where he’d been standing, Davis dragged the rest of the squad together in pairs. Moaning and bloody, nobody resisted. Davis sat them down, one by one, and bound their wrists behind their backs, looping the ties through their belt loops. Then he connected them in pairs, bound their wrists so that it looked like they were playing patty-cake back-to-back. He doubted they could drive like that, even if they had a vehicle. He was sure they couldn’t ride a one-wheeled bicycle. But they could probably walk, so Davis considered making it a three-legged race, only to find he was running short on zip ties. Also on time.
He went to the three-ton truck parked in front of the storage building. The keys were in the ignition—that was how it worked in any army. Davis cranked the big diesel, shifted with a grinding of gears, and rumbled off toward the main road. Asphalt was soon humming under the truck’s knobby tires, a steady reverberation that brought Davis down from his adrenaline high. The headlights cast an easy white glow, and Davis took deep breaths. He began to feel the edge from his scrum—a badly scraped knee, a sore shoulder, nerve pain in one wrist. There would be more when he woke up tomorrow morning. Davis then felt something sharp stabbing his upper right thigh. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the source—half of a tiny circuit board. He reached deeper into his pocket and pulled out the rest of his phone. A crushed plastic shell and shattered display.
That was when it hit Davis. He had screwed up. And he was now truly on his own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When he arrived at the aid station, Antonelli was the first one out of the tent. She watched Davis step out of a stolen army truck. Then she looked at what the truck was carrying.
“Idiot!” she yelled.
Davis had hoped for a little more gratitude. But he didn’t argue because she was right.
“What have you done? They will come straight here, you know that. Take it away right now!”
“No,” he said, “we’ve got some time.”
She stepped closer, until she was an arm’s length away. Her hand came up, and Davis half expected another slap. Instead, two fingers went to his chin, and Antonelli turned his head slightly to catch the light. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Right as rain.”
Her tone softened considerably as she shifted into doctor mode. “You need a cold compress.”
“I’d rather have a beer.”
The doctor ignored that. Davis saw a question rise to her lips, then dissipate like a receding wave on a beach. She was wondering about the soldiers.
“They’re a little worse off,” he assured her, “but they’ll be fine.”
It was pure conjecture. Davis had no idea what damage he’d done. Whatever it was, he figured they deserved it. But the soldiers would be talking by now, at least the ones who were coherent. Eventually, they’d extricate themselves from their predicament, at the very latest when the next shift came on duty. Davis was sure he’d put some fear into Scarface, which might buy a little time. But it wouldn’t stop the inevitable. Sometime tonight Davis’ raid would become public knowledge, and everyone would start looking for a big American. Questions would be asked at the aid agencies, and it wouldn’t take long to firm up a connection to the ICAO investigator from Washington. From that point, Davis would be a fugitive, which wasn’t going to do his investigation any good. He really had screwed up.
<
br /> Acting on impulse had gotten him into trouble before, but this time he’d done it behind enemy lines. By midday tomorrow he was going to have a lot of new adversaries. Davis didn’t know how many because he didn’t know how many men were in the Sudanese Army. It had to be a lot.
“I think we’re safe until morning,” he said. “I’ll make sure the truck is gone before then.”
She led him to the tent and made him sit in a plastic chair that looked a lot like the one he’d just used to fend off a knife attack. Antonelli produced some gauze and antiseptic.
“Sit still,” she ordered.
She began dabbing over his right eye. The antiseptic stung. He watched her work, felt her practiced hands smooth over what would soon be the newest scar in his portfolio. He could see thoughts turning in her head.
She said, “My replacements have arrived—three new doctors. As I mentioned before, I am traveling to the coast tomorrow.” She gestured to the truck Davis had brought. “We should unload a few things for this station, things we are in desperate need of, and the rest we can transfer to the vehicle I am taking to the coast.”
Davis said nothing.
“As soon as this stolen truck has been unloaded, you must take it away. Somewhere far from here.”
“Okay.”
Antonelli finished with his eyebrow. She stood back and they looked at one another squarely. He at her bruised face and she, in turn, at his.
“What you did, I cannot condone,” she said. “However, I think your intentions were good. So thank you.”
“Anytime.” He gave her a half smile. “But I do have to ask a favor in return.”
She raised an inquisitive eyebrow, inviting him to continue.
“I may be persona non grata around here tomorrow. I’d like to come with you to the coast.”
Davis wasn’t being completely honest. With a few phone calls and some diplomatic arm twisting, there was a chance he could get out of the hole he’d dug for himself. But he had another reason for going to the Red Sea.
Antonelli nodded thoughtfully, and said, “Yes, you’ve been helpful—in your very unique way. I suppose it is the least we can do in return.”
Davis smiled again, all the way this time.
It took thirty minutes to unload the stolen truck. Ten minutes after that he was at the wheel again, this time rumbling back to Khartoum International. Davis was getting tired, but he had one more chore for the night.
Schmitt’s parking place was empty, and Davis pulled the big army diesel into his spot, not stopping until the front bumper had struck the CHIEF PILOT sign and bent it to a forty-five-degree angle. Like an artist putting his signature on a painting.
In another ten minutes, Antonelli would arrive in one of the aid agency vehicles to collect him. But Davis needed the ten. He walked quickly to the hangar and found the forklift. The crowbar was still underneath the seat. He took it and walked back to FBN Aviation’s front door, holding the bar hard against his leg with his right hand. The front desk was manned twenty-four-seven, but at this hour there was no more than a skeleton crew. Two men eyed him as he came through the door, the same two Davis had met when he’d first arrived, one small guy and the other a tall English speaker. He ignored them both, and they seemed to ignore him. He turned the corner and disappeared down the hall like he was heading for his quarters. Just out of sight from the front desk, Davis stopped at Bob Schmitt’s office door.
Ever since arriving, he had wanted a look at Bob Schmitt’s files. In truth, he’d like a whole day in that cabinet, and in a proper investigation he would have had it. But this wasn’t a proper investigation, so instead of filing a subpoena or an official request for records, Davis was relegated to doing things the old-fashioned way—breaking and entering.
The crowbar was still at his side, but he didn’t need it yet. Truth was, he doubted it would even work here given the door’s heavy steel frame. The red light on the security panel was glowing steady. He raised a leg and gave the door a tap with the toe of his boot. Still red. He kicked again, a little harder this time, and was rewarded with a green light and a mechanical click. Davis smiled and nudged the door open. Before leaving Schmitt’s office that afternoon, he had adjusted the interior motion detector, tilting it down and inward so that the sensor was pointed at the door itself. All it took was a firm kick to rattle things, and the electric eye sensed enough motion to command the unlock. Simple enough.
Davis snapped on a light switch, shut the door quietly, and went to the cabinet with the crowbar ready. He slid it through the exterior locking bar, just below the combination padlock, and was about to heave when he paused. This way would work, but it would make a lot of noise. He wondered if there might be an alternate method. Bob Schmitt was an idiot, but he was also a pilot, and Davis knew how pilots viewed things like information security. He started looking. The edge of the file cabinet, the nearby wall trim, the underside of the wooden picture frame around the Sudanese president. Nothing. On top of the cabinet was a pile of office supplies—copier paper and file folders and staples. He found it on the underside of a stack of Post-it notes, scribbled in pencil. 30–12–28. Davis shook his head.
He spun the tumblers, gave a solid pull, and the lock snapped open. Davis disengaged the bar as quietly as he could, set the crowbar aside, and opened the bottom drawer. He saw personnel files, just like the ones Schmitt had already given him. He saw gaps between the manila sleeves that implied a few were missing. As they were arranged alphabetically, it was easy enough to figure out which ones: Boudreau, Johnson, and Schmitt. The three Americans.
Davis moved to the middle drawer, rifled through maintenance requirements and flight plans. He found records for each aircraft in FBN’s fleet, but noted two missing. Schmitt had given him the file for N2012L, so that was in his room. But there was nothing at all on X85BG. Scanning the records of the remaining aircraft, Davis was struck by a certain symmetry. FBN’s airplanes had been purchased from tiny operators all over the world, yet they had one thing in common—U.S. registration. Every single one. He moved to the top drawer and found Schmitt’s personal gear. A headset, some charts with notes, a pilot’s flight logbook.
Davis picked up the logbook. Pilots were required to track their flight time. There were currencies to keep up, things like night landings and instrument approaches. And if you ever switched jobs, you needed a written record of your fight experience. Davis went to the back of Schmitt’s logbook and found the most recent entry. He’d flown ten days ago, Qatar and back. Davis flipped though a few pages until he found the day of the accident, maybe hoping for an entry to tell him that Bob Schmitt had been flying N2012L on the night of September 20th. There was nothing. Schmitt hadn’t flown the entire week of the crash. At least that’s what it said in his logbook.
Davis was putting everything back where he’d found it when he heard a noise from the hallway. He took one last look in the top drawer and spotted a cell phone on the bottom. One that looked a lot like the one he’d been issued. The one he’d annihilated. He thought, They really do hand them out like candy. Davis pulled it out and hit the power button. Nothing happened. A dead battery perhaps. Or it might be broken. Then again, Schmitt could have confiscated the handset from someone else and disabled it. A lot of possibilities.
Davis put the phone back where he’d found it, and once again pondered the chances of Bob Schmitt being a CIA source. It was no minor coincidence to find a CIA-issued phone in the man’s three-drawer file, but there were any number of scenarios that might have put it there. Davis wasn’t ready to trust Schmitt. Not yet.
“What are you doing here?”
Davis wheeled around and saw part of the skeleton crew from the front desk, the taller set of bones.
Davis said, “I’m investigating.”
“You should not be in here!” the man said.
Wanting to keep him off balance, Davis said, “Never despair of God’s mercy.” It was a quote from the Koran, the only one he knew.
&nb
sp; “You are not Muslim.”
“Me? No, I’m a pugilist agnostic.”
The guy stared at him blankly.
Davis explained, “I believe in hitting people—I just don’t know who.” He took a step toward the man.
Bones looked over his shoulder for help, but didn’t find any. He said, “Abu is calling the security forces!”
“I’ve already met the security forces,” Davis replied. “They’re not coming.” He kept advancing.
The skeleton took one step back, followed by another. And then he was gone.
Seconds later, so was Davis.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The arriving helicopter was late, but Rafiq Khoury was in no position to complain.
It was half past eight in the morning, and he was standing on the tarmac next to Hassan, trying to stand straight as the settling chopper’s downwash raked across them. The sound was penetrating, a thumping pulse that carried right through Khoury’s body, rattling his bones and his brain. The aircraft was a twin to the one General Ali had brought last time, a heavy Russian gunship bristling with antenna and armament. Khoury was sure there were other helicopters in Sudan—he had seen government ministers riding in civilian models that were far sleeker and quieter—but he supposed the general preferred this type for that very reason. It rattled people.
The machine crouched onto the concrete, and a crewman wearing a helmet beckoned them with a wave. For once, Hassan did not let Khoury lead. He strode ahead and climbed aboard, leaving the imam to follow. Khoury struggled to get a leg up into the cabin and, after three failed attempts, felt himself being pulled up by the elbows and directed none too delicately to a webbed seat. The crewman buckled Khoury’s lap belt, slid the access door closed, and the symphony of racket began—churning gears and vibrating rotors.
Khoury held fast to the frame of his seat as the big machine began to levitate. Hassan had taken the seat across, shoulder to shoulder with General Ali. The minister of defense was decked out in his finest regalia. Together the two men made an imposing pair. Ali was not as tall as Hassan, yet his thick chest and heavy gut would sum to a balance on any scale. The general’s pockmarked face held a twinge of amusement as Hassan whispered into his ear. Or maybe he wasn’t whispering—the ambient noise was deafening.
