The Exile

by Andrew Britton

  Kealey shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a stretch, John. I can’t believe you don’t realize it. There’s nothing to indicate that Nusairi is linked to the men who raided the camp. If your theory is right, and Nusairi is opposed to Bashir’s regime, we’re looking at the exact opposite scenario. If he knew who did it, he would have already made it public.”

  Harper straightened in his seat. “Maybe you’re right, Ryan,” he said. “But I haven’t told you it’s going to be easy. Nusairi is our starting point, and we have no choice but to see where he takes us. Right now he’s all we have.”

  “He’s all you have,” Kealey corrected. His eyes locked with Harper’s. “I’m sorry. But I want no part of this.”

  He started to slide out of the booth, and Harper knew it was time to bring out his hole card. Okay, Allison, here we go into the proverbial breach. For the sake of everyone involved, I hope it’s worth bulldozing through all those lines of ethicality you talked about.

  “How do you put relative value on good people’s lives, Ryan?” he said. “I’m just wondering.”

  Kealey paused, staring at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Harper put his hands out in front of him, palms up in the air, as if they were two sides of a scale. “Here’s Lily Durant,” he said, motioning with his right hand. “And here’s Naomi Kharmai.” He moved his left hand. “I’m just trying to understand the way you measure one against the other…and then decide the president’s niece had less intrinsic worth. Or was what you did for Naomi more about purging your own conscience?”

  Kealey had frozen across the table, his eyes still boring into Harper. They were suddenly hard as stone. “You miserable son of a bitch.”

  Harper remained very erect. He turned his hands over, set them down flat on the tabletop. “We’ve been working with the Feebs to find Javier Machado and other members of his network. It would help us get to the bottom of some lingering questions about Brynn Fitzgerald’s abduction. And Naomi’s death. But they’re gone, poof, like ghosts after the midnight bells have rung. No one knows what happened to them…which you might agree is probably for the best overall.”

  “Is this a threat, John? Because you don’t scare me.”

  “In all the years we’ve known each other, I’ve never for a second believed anything scares you, Ryan.” He didn’t blink. “Except maybe failing at what it is you do best.”

  “What kind of ambiguous horseshit is that?”

  Harper shrugged. “I was actually trying to be tactful—serves me right for overrating my people skills,” he said. “But to answer your first question…I consider you a friend, and there’s no threat, implicit or explicit, in anything I’ve said. But I am making an appeal.”

  “To what? Some kind of guilt complex you’ve decided I’m carrying in my brain?”

  Yes, Harper thought.

  “No,” he said. “Your sense of justice.”

  Kealey’s lips peeled back in a humorless grin. It was almost a rictus. “Now there’s a platform for your high and righteous sermon. Justice. For Lily Durant, I assume. But how does she figure into this? I mean really figure in. Because as far as I can tell, it’s got nothing to do with finding the people who killed her and everything to do with settling some kind of interagency feud.”

  “You’re dead wrong,” Harper said with an adamant shake of his head. “In fact, we—that is, the director and I—agree that finding the man who pulled the trigger in West Darfur might be the only thing that can bring this all to a halt. Everything Stralen has done so far has been because of what happened to Durant.”

  “Except it doesn’t seem Stralen has done anything without the president’s approval.”

  “Come on, Ryan. You’re acting like you haven’t heard a word out of my mouth. If Lily Durant hadn’t been the president’s niece, or if they hadn’t been as close as they were, maybe Stralen wouldn’t have been able to talk him into it…whatever the hell ‘it’ may be. But she was his niece, and they were close, and he’s been making political decisions based on misplaced emotion.”

  Kealey shook his head. “I’ve got news for you, John. Lily Durant can’t be brought back to life. No matter what the hell we do.”

  We. Harper filled his lungs with air, exhaled slowly through his mouth. There you had it—the word he’d wanted to hear. Allison had more than earned her chit.

  “No,” he said. “She can’t. But if you can find the man who killed her, we can take the emotional element out of it. Perhaps then he’ll be more likely to listen to reason.”

  Kealey gave him a long look, settling back into the booth. “And justice will have been served. Is that right?”

  Harper’s smile was tinged with sadness.

  “As much as it can be,” he said.

  CHAPTER 13

  NORTH DARFUR

  The Beechcraft A36 Bonanza wasn’t much of a plane, even by North Africa’s lax aeronautical standards. Certainly, it would never have passed an FAA inspection. The exterior was painted eggshell white with a brown stripe running the length of the fuselage, a dated color scheme betraying the aircraft’s twenty-nine years of service. Fresh paint on the port wing hinted at recent damage to the wing’s leading edge, a defect that would have grounded any pilot with an ounce of concern for the lives of his passengers. But for all its faults, the single-prop plane was ideal for the ninety-minute flight from Khartoum to Nyala Airport. They were now less than twenty minutes out, having departed the Sudanese capital just after eight that evening, and both passengers were eager to get on the ground, though only one showed any sign of his inner turmoil. Ismael Mirghani was sweating profusely, despite the frigid air inside the cabin, and his hands were in constant motion, searching for some way to fill the time.

  The second passenger was oblivious to Mirghani’s fidgeting. His interest was fixed on the reading material he’d picked up at Khartoum International. Al-Rayaam was by far the largest and oldest newspaper in Sudan. It could trace its roots back to the 1940s, but as he read through the headlines, Cullen White was disappointed to see that its reputation for honest, straightforward reporting was completely undeserved. As far as he could tell, Al-Rayaam was nothing but another mouthpiece for the Sudanese president. The paper neglected to mention the demonstrations that had taken place the day before in Zalingei, Tulus, and Al-Fashir. Even the massive protest in Khartoum—a demonstration that had cost White more than three hundred thousand dollars in bribes and “donations” to organize—had been largely ignored.

  That in particular bothered him more than he cared to admit.

  The article he was looking for was buried in the back of the political section, a bad sign right from the start. Anything that showed Bashir in a positive light would have appeared on the front page, but the fact that they’d printed the story at all meant they had skewed the facts to their liking. When White finally managed to find the passage, he read through it quickly:

  Approximately three hundred students gathered in Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace Tuesday to protest the ongoing violence in West Darfur, despite clear indications that the army has been working hand in hand with local leaders to ease the SLA’s stranglehold on the region. According to Deputy Police Commander Mohammed Najib al-Tayeb, the incident outside the palace could have been easily avoided.

  “These young men were clearly misguided,” al-Tayeb said in a written statement to the press. “For this reason alone, it is difficult to hold them accountable. In many ways they are victims themselves. Victims of Zionist propaganda and colonial lies, and I sincerely hope that they use this opportunity to examine their choices. If they hope one day to have a country of their own, they must learn to stand as one, united against the imperialists.”

  The deputy commander was pleased to announce that the dispersal of the crowd resulted in no serious injuries, though he noted that additional police units had been dispatched around the square to prevent another such incident.

  White lowered the paper and shook hi
s head in disgust. He had watched the demonstration gather outside the palace from the safety of a nearby rooftop and had seen what had actually transpired. Needless to say, it was nothing like what the paper reported. More than 4,000 people had been in attendance that day, and they had not run at the first sign of trouble, holding their ground against the rapid response of the state police and the brutal tactics they’d employed to put down the revolt. By the time the crowd eventually broke up, White had lost track of how many ambulances had come and gone. And though he didn’t have access to any hard numbers, he guessed that at least 100 protesters had been taken into custody before the square was finally cleared of people. The brutal efficiency of the state police made him grateful he had not tried to recruit their deputy commander, an act that would have surely resulted in his immediate arrest.

  It was disheartening to see that his work was being so thoroughly dismissed by Sudan’s major news agencies, but with just five weeks in-country, he was already making some serious inroads, and he knew it was just a matter of time before the truth came out. To a certain extent, the regime could control what was printed, but many of Sudan’s most popular publications had flourished regardless, including the Tribune and the Mirror, two of the more successful independents. It was no coincidence that the former was based in Paris and the latter in Kenya. For Sudanese nationals, freedom of the press was something that could be found only online or outside the country, but it could be found. Sudan was not immune to external influence.

  White couldn’t help but smile at the thought; he was proving as much with each passing day.

  It had been ten days since he’d visited Walter Reynolds at the embassy in Khartoum, and he’d accomplished a great deal in the interim. He’d met quietly with public figures in and around Khartoum and the capital cities of the three federal states in Darfur: Al-Fashir, Al-Geneina, and Nyala, his current destination. Prior to the meeting with the ambassador, he’d spent several days in Juba, the regional capital of Southern Sudan, where he’d worked with the local SLA commander to stage a large demonstration in Buluk Square. That event had cost the U.S. taxpayers a hundred thousand dollars, but it had been a major success. A huge mass of people had shown up to protest the government’s nationwide expulsion of aid workers from the International Red Cross, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. Most of those workers had been based in the south, where they had been in the midst of a campaign to eradicate the polio virus, which had popped up six months earlier, after seven years in remission. More than 400 children had been infected in Juba alone, and with the aid workers out of the picture, it seemed likely the virus would continue to spread. The epidemic had almost been enough to incite a revolt on its own, and with the support of the SLA, which carried a great deal of sway in the area, White had convinced the locals to stand together for much less than he’d initially anticipated. Most of the funds he’d dispersed in Juba had gone to families affected by the polio outbreak, and that was money he didn’t mind spending.

  He put the paper aside and stared out the window, letting his mind drift. Technically, there was nothing surprising about the way things had progressed. He was, after all, adhering to the timeline they’d developed during those endless meetings at State, but he’d never really expected things to go according to plan. Even before his plane touched down in Khartoum, he’d come to terms with the fact that something would happen to throw him off track. Something to delay his forward progress. But much to his surprise it had never happened, and now he was about to finalize the arrangements they had made back in April. The importance of the meeting he was about to attend could not be overstated. As it stood, the work he’d accomplished over the past five weeks could all be undone with a single call, but that was about to change. The window for retreat was rapidly closing, and in less than two hours there would be no turning back.

  White smiled to himself as he gazed into the pitch-black night. Everything was coming together as planned, and he had accomplished most of it all by himself, circumventing Bashir’s regime at every turn. As Harold Traylor, he had entered Sudan on a false passport without incident, a remarkable feat given the countrywide security clampdown that was put into effect after the massacre at Camp Hadith. As James Landis, he had bought politicians, recruited senior rebel leaders with the SLA and the JEM, and engineered mass demonstrations in five major cities in the largest country in North Africa. As Cullen White…

  The smile faded, and he saw his reflection change in the port-side window. As Cullen White, he had made mistakes. That was the cold, hard truth, and though he had tried to run from his past, he had never been able to leave it behind. Over the years he had tried to console himself with the fact that he had been young, that there was no way he could have seen what was coming. But he had never really been able to convince himself. Nor had he been able to convince his immediate supervisors. As far as they were concerned, his age was no excuse for what he had done, or rather, for what he had failed to prevent, and they had reacted accordingly. He’d been with the Operations Directorate for less than a year when Jonathan Harper, the DDO at the time, had brought him back to Langley to ask for his resignation in person. That was in ’96, a few months after the incident that marked the end of his career with the Central Intelligence Agency.

  The ensuing years had seen him drift from one meaningless government job to the next. After his embarrassing departure from the DO, he was shuttled over to State, where he worked as a passport specialist at the Washington Passport Agency, a consular officer in Gabon, and a cultural attaché in Dubai. Those were just a few of the figurehead titles they had seen fit to saddle him with. Middle-management roles in thankless posts, the career path to nowhere—to becoming another Reynolds. White knew they would have loved to cut him loose completely, but it was a risk they couldn’t afford to take.

  He never asked why they had kept him close, mainly because he didn’t need to. Despite his short-lived association with the Agency, he had seen and heard a great deal—much more than he should have, given his age and rank. It would be just as dangerous for them as it would be for him if the truth came out. But they had learned from their earlier mistakes. He was never again placed in a position of authority or given any real responsibility. Nor was there any chance of his security clearance being reinstated, and while his promotions arrived on schedule, his workload did not reflect his seniority. Nor did his staff. In his thirteen years with the State Department, he had never had more than three people working under him. At least to his way of thinking, that spoke volumes about the contempt his superiors felt for him.

  At first, he had tried to make the best of it. He had sought in vain for some way to redeem himself, but nothing he did seemed to make a difference. As the years rolled past, his bitterness had gradually seeped to the surface. Much of his rage was focused on the people who’d sold him down the river, his former employers at Langley—and for good reason. After all, there was no question that they were the ones at fault.

  He’d been twenty-three at the time, just six months out of the Career Training Program at Camp Peary. Twenty-three years old. Even now White had to shake his head at the sheer stupidity of it. There was no way he should have been given the responsibility they’d thrust upon him. But they’d done it regardless, and in retrospect, it was easy to see what a bad decision that had been. Even he could admit as much, though it pained him to do so….

  Catching himself, he grimaced and shifted his eyes away from the window. He did not want to dwell on the past. It had no bearing on what he was doing now, and besides, he was not the same man he had been back then. He had been immature and ill equipped for the work he was tasked with, but those days were over. Ironically, his work with the State Department—which was meant to be more of a punishment than anything else—had provided him with many of the skills he’d lacked as a young operations officer with the CIA.

  The three years he’d spent in Jordan had given him rudimentary Arabic, which he late
r improved on, and an endless stream of embassy functions in half a dozen countries throughout Africa and the Middle East had taught him about the dark side of diplomacy. He’d learned how to spot the intelligence officers posing as minor functionaries, and an interview with a stunning female reporter from Khoa Ditore—a supposedly independent newspaper in Kosovo—had shown him just how far the host government was sometimes willing to go to recruit a source, even someone as lowly placed as himself. He could still picture the reporter’s silky black hair, blood-red lips and full, perfectly formed breasts. He remembered the way she had leaned forward to give him a glimpse of her cleavage, the smell of her perfume as she whispered her proposition an inch from his ear.

  White had possessed photographic recall since he was a child, and even now, eight years later, the memory was still enough to bring about a physical reaction. And that was the memory alone; confronted with the real thing, he had not been able to resist the temptation. He had told her what she wanted to know, and she had rewarded him with the best sex of his life, right there on the ratty couch in his small corner office.

  The memory brought a smile to his face. White still wondered how she might have reacted when she learned that he’d made it all up, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt. She had tried to manipulate him, and he had simply reversed the process. That was the name of the game. It was also the most important thing he’d learned during his time overseas—namely, how to manipulate people. He’d learned how to determine what they wanted, which told him in turn how to get what he wanted. The trick, he’d discovered, was simply listening. Listening to their problems, hopes, fears, and desires. It was amazing what people would say when given the chance, even at an embassy function, where they were surrounded by their countrymen and more than a few of their own intelligence officers, many of whom would gladly kill the loose-lipped official for speaking out of turn.