The Golden Hour

by Todd Moss

  “I know we will speak again soon. Godspeed, Dr. Ryker.”

  “Inshallah, General.”

  18.

  GEORGETOWN WATERFRONT, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  MONDAY, 9:37 P.M. EST

  Judd was sitting alone at a bar, overlooking the Potomac River, nursing a tall beer. Just one to clear my head, then back to the office. The usual mix of lawyers and tourists had already cleared out, leaving the real drinkers at the riverfront bar. Mostly college students and middle-aged drunks.

  An open-bow speedboat pulled up to the dock and spilled out half a dozen boisterous young women who had obviously already been partying. “Wooo, wooo!” yelled one with pale-blue GEORGETOWN labeled across the back of her tiny pink gym shorts.

  The Sahara Desert couldn’t have felt farther away.

  Maybe two beers.

  “Judd?” interrupted a voice that he recognized.

  He spun around on the barstool to find Mariana Leibowitz, holding a martini delicately in one hand. “What a wonderful coincidence, darling. I was hoping to come see you tomorrow, but here you are. Here we are.”

  “Hello, Mariana.” She was wearing a trim red pantsuit, with a large butterfly brooch on the lapel. “How fortunate.”

  Several feet behind Mariana stood a tall, striking black woman, dressed in a power business suit, her braids pulled tightly back into a ponytail. Although her clothes screamed confidence, her eyes were submissively averted to the floor. Mariana followed Judd’s vision line and saw him eyeing the woman.

  “Okay, Judd,” she said, sliding onto the stool next to him and dropping the bubbly mask. “We know each other, so no need for bullshit. This is no coincidence, of course. I won’t patronize you. I have information. I know you can’t tell me anything, but you can listen.”

  Mariana leaned in, close enough that Judd could detect hints of vanilla and jasmine in her perfume. “Point one, I hope that your friends at Langley have told you about Idrissa’s smuggling business. I told you about this before, but it’s even worse than I thought. The place is now flooded with heroin and cocaine, and Idrissa has been running the whole north of the country. Nothing happens up there without Idrissa’s blessing. You do the math. The president was finally building up the support to fire him. That’s the real precipitator of the coup, Judd. Don’t believe all that other nonsense.”

  Judd gave her a slight nod that said, I’m listening but not confirming anything. Not that he knew the truth, either.

  “Point number two, I have it on good authority that Antonov cargo planes landed at a remote airstrip north of Timbuktu within hours of the coup. This happened even though all of Mali’s airports were supposedly shut down and the airspace closed. I don’t know what was on those planes, but it’s damn suspicious. I don’t believe in accidents. Someone needed those planes to land in secret and out of sight of the Americans. And there’s no way anyone could be operating in the north without Idrissa’s knowledge or permission. You need to assume that the general is deeply involved.”

  Another poker-face nod. Christ, she knows more than I do.

  “Okay, and point three, Judd, is that you’ve got to watch your back. I know you are still new to politics here in Washington, but you need to learn fast.” She scanned the room for dramatic effect. “Our military is under tremendous pressure to be more aggressive in West Africa and not allow safe havens. After years of training special units and millions of dollars, Capitol Hill is pushing the Pentagon and the White House to show some results. Congress doesn’t like to spend all that money chasing ghosts. Senate Foreign Relations, especially Chairman McCall, has been calling for more scalps.” She doesn’t know everything.

  “And we all know Rogerson has been in the Foreign Service too long. He’s not going to roll anybody. I mean, who do you think got President Maiga that seat next to the Secretary at the Jakarta Democracy Summit? Rogerson? No, that was me. Rogerson doesn’t even know how it happened. The military guys will eat him alive on this. So will the French. It’s lucky for us he’s tied up in South Africa. We’re lucky we have you, Judd.”

  The news broke Judd’s poker face.

  “You didn’t know? You didn’t know Rogerson was in South Africa?”

  Judd paused then, realizing he’d been outed, shook his head.

  “Well, then I’d say you are lucky to have me, too.” Mariana leaned in closer and whispered, “Rogerson is locked up in the InterContinental Hotel in Johannesburg, trying to get the Congolese rebels to agree to a peace deal. One of the faction leaders is Bolotanga. He’s an old friend. Bolo’s a real teddy bear once you get to know him.”

  “Isn’t Bolotanga the warlord famous for recruiting child soldiers and playing Xbox from his hideout in the jungle?”

  “‘Warlord’ is an ugly word, Judd. Bolo and I prefer ‘freedom fighter.’ He would have been president if the last elections hadn’t been stolen.”

  Judd shot her a skeptical eye.

  “Don’t be so cynical, Judd. Having Bolo there in Jo-burg will be useful. You’ll see.”

  “Thank you for the insight,” said Judd, anxious to shift the conversation. “I appreciate it. I do. If you have more information, you know how to reach me.”

  “You’re fighting a lonely battle, Judd. Right now no one in this town gives two shits about President Maiga and democracy. Don’t be naïve. They aren’t going to just abandon the fight because of a political squabble a million miles away in some palace in a country that no one here’s ever heard of. You’re on your own here. But now you’ve got me.”

  Judd looked blankly back at her, unsure how to respond to this apparent offer of an alliance.

  “I know, I know, you can’t say anything to a lobbyist,” she said, feigning insult. “I’m not looking for any official comment. Just know that I’m working behind the scenes with you on this. You don’t need to reciprocate. Just know it.”

  Judd gave her a subtle nod and smile.

  “And I know when it comes to crunch time that you’ll do the right thing.”

  “You seem to think you know me pretty well, Mariana.”

  “Oh, I do know you, darling. I know you are from Vermont and you were raised by your grandmother. I know you love the Boston Red Sox and became an academic after becoming obsessed with baseball statistics. Your work on civil war metrics won the Trombley Innovation Prize, which set you up for a professorship at Amherst. And then a year ago you took extended leave to move to Washington, D.C., to start the Crisis Reaction Unit. And I know you’ve been struggling at S/CRU and you need a big win. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Impressive, Mariana. And a bit frightening. Are you investigating me?”

  “Of course not. I’m just a professional. I know what I need to know. It’s adorable that you think knowledge is threatening. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s Washington, Judd.” She paused, unsatisfied with Judd’s nonreaction. “Okay, fine. If it makes you feel better. Mariana Katrina Leibowitz. I was born and raised in Miami, my parents were lawyers, now both retired and still living in south Florida. I’m forty-nine years old, twice divorced, probably have at least one more marriage in me. I have one daughter, lives in Los Angeles and doesn’t speak to me. Anything else you want to know?”

  “No,” said Judd, holding up his hands in surrender, a soft smile signaling acceptance of her olive branch. “I really don’t.”

  “Good. One last thing before I leave you to your beer, darling.” She broke into a wide grin and nodded to the attractive woman standing at the nearby table who had caught Judd’s attention. “Dr. Ryker, I want you to meet Tata Maiga, the president’s daughter.”

  19.

  S/CRU DIRECTOR’S OFFICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  MONDAY, 10:43 P.M. EST

  The beer and the barrage of information were churning inside Judd’s head. Too hyper to go home to bed, he returned to the office for ano
ther attempt to unravel the threads.

  On a giant whiteboard in front of him, he sketched out a map linking all the main players: Idrissa, Maiga, Diallo, the Red Berets, the Gendarmerie, the Scorpions, parliament, local media, Tuareg separatists, al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Sahra, drug traffickers, Russians, Nigeria, France, and Britain. The United States was drawn in a large box to the side. Arrows and lines connected many of them. But there were big red question marks. It was a jumble. It didn’t make sense.

  A knock on the door. “Dr. Ryker, can I get you anything?”

  “Serena, what are you still doing here? You should go home.”

  “I’ll go when you go,” she said.

  “I’m going soon. Give me ten more minutes.”

  He looked at his clock. Still too early to call Larissa James. Must call her before the next task force.

  Judd made a list on a lime-green Post-it: Larissa, Papa, Luc, Simon, Sunday. He thought for a moment, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

  Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)

  DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

  ACTIVE REGISTRANT:

  Leibowitz Associates International, Mariana Leibowitz, President, 1599 K Street NW, Washington, D.C.

  ACTIVE FOREIGN PRINCIPALS:

  BPO Industrial, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  Caribbean First Holdings, Cayman Islands

  Kingdom of Bahrain, Manama, Bahrain

  People’s Party of Latvia, Riga, Latvia

  Republic of Mali, Bamako, Mali

  Sumayata Corporation, Jakarta, Indonesia

  SunCity Bank, Geneva, Switzerland

  PREVIOUS FOREIGN PRINCIPALS:

  AKZ Energy, Lille, France

  BamakoSun Bank, Bamako, Mali

  Democracy Union of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe

  Movement for a Free Congo, Lubumbashi, Congo

  Republic of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, Haiti

  Republic of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria

  Sanderson Ogata Farah, Nassau, Bahamas

  ZBR International, Vienna, Austria

  Judd turned his attention back to his call list. He crossed out Simon and added Mariana.

  Judd’s planning for the next day was interrupted by another knock on the door and, before he could say anything, in walked Landon Parker.

  “Ryker? Good. You’re still here.”

  “Hello, Mr. Parker.”

  “Listen, Ryker, I know you are working hard on this Mali thing. The Secretary, the whole seventh floor, is taking a big interest in this Mali business. The Secretary is concerned. Very concerned. She is giving a big speech on democracy in Mexico City tomorrow and doesn’t like what she’s hearing about Africa. She just spoke with Assistant Secretary Rogerson. Bill is going to be tied up for a while longer than we thought. That means Mali is yours. The Secretary wants you to stay on point and work it to resolution.”

  “Thank you, sir. Absolutely.”

  “You’ll have to go to Bamako. You can’t sit here in Washington and fix real problems. You can’t do this from our bubble. You’ve got to get out there.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You need to find out what the hell is going on. Meet with this General Idrissa and see what the fucker wants. The Secretary is worried. This is the goddamn twenty-first century. We can’t have coups rolling across Africa again. It’s not the fucking Dogs of War anymore. Did you read the Secretary’s Senate testimony last week? She said no dominos on her watch. Ryker, you got it?”

  “Yes, sir. No dominos.”

  “Her speech tomorrow is going to announce a new zero-tolerance policy for coups. No compromise on democracy.”

  “Yes, sir. No compromise.”

  “We have too much at stake here to have a setback in Mali.”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “And, Ryker?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t think that because it’s Africa no one’s paying attention. This time, the spotlight is on, Ryker. The White House is calling over here; they’re pissed off. Senator McCall is pissed off. He’s already called the Secretary on her private line about his daughter. He’s pressing hard. You’ve got to get us something for McCall, too. The Secretary assured him that his daughter’s disappearance would be a top priority. No resources spared and all that bullshit. I’m sure he’s called to press the FBI, CIA, and the Pentagon, too. It’s your game now, Ryker.”

  “I understand.”

  “If I were you, Ryker, I’d be wheels up ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m on it,” he said, standing up.

  “Get a plan together and then execute. You’ve got to fix this cluster quickly.”

  He’s telling me about the urgency? “I’ll be on the first flight in the morning.”

  “There’re still flights to Paris and London tonight that haven’t left yet. My office will call Dulles Airport and have them hold the last plane. Ryker, you are good to go, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “One more thing. We’re not sending you in there alone, Ryker. The Pentagon has assigned a special liaison to accompany you.”

  “I don’t need an escort.”

  “Good instinct, Ryker. I like it. You keep the military guy in line. But it’s always useful to have a big motherfucker in a uniform standing next to you. No offense, but we’re not sending in a lone civilian professor to talk tough to a general. Ryker, he’s your muscle. Let’s hope he’s big and ugly. Stuttgart says his name is Durham. Colonel David Durham from Special Ops. Plenty of experience from Afghanistan. So he knows a thing or two about thugs and warlords. Durham is standing by in Germany waiting to meet you at your layover in Europe.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But it’s still your mission. It’s a State Department delegation. DoD is only along for the ride to help you. That means it’s your show. Make sure Durham understands this from the get-go.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You never know what kind of orders he is really getting. Use him. But don’t let him use you.”

  “No, no, I won’t. Is CIA sending anyone?”

  “No. You’ll have the station chief in Bamako. You don’t need anyone from headquarters.”

  “What about the Purple Cell? What are they doing?”

  Parker paused slightly. His face revealed nothing.

  “I don’t know anything about any Purple Cells. I wouldn’t worry about it, Ryker. They’ll tell you if you need to know anything. Stay focused on your task. That’s Idrissa.”

  “I will. Thank you. And thank the Secretary. I appreciate her confidence. I won’t let her down.”

  “Here’s your chance to put your Golden Hour theory to the test. Good luck, Ryker. The United States still stands for democracy, you know.”

  Parker ducked out before Judd had a chance to reply.

  “Serena! Grab my go bag. I need a car to Dulles right now. I’m going to Bamako.”

  “I’ll call Air France.”

  He paused. “Not Paris this time. London. Give me at least four hours on the ground. I need to see someone. And call over to Special Operations Command in Stuttgart to tell them when I land in London. That’s where I will meet up with this Colonel Durham. Tell them he can’t be late.”

  Judd glanced again at the clock. Shit. He looked down at his call list. Have to make these tomorrow.

  At the very top of the list, he added one more name: Jessica.

  20.

  RUNWAY, DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, DULLES, VIRGINIA

  TUESDAY, 12:03 A.M. EST

  HOURS SINCE THE COUP: TWENTY-FOUR

  The flight attendant was wearing the navy blue uniform of British Airways, but had added a ruby-red scarf tied tightly around her neck. She leaned over, reaching toward Judd with a glass of champagne. The rising bubbles drew his attentio
n from the flute up to her eyes. “Would you like anything, sir?” she asked with a slightly mischievous smile and a hint of East London cockney.

  Judd sat up straight. He gazed again at the champagne, then past it to the scarf choker and then back up to meet her eyes again. She was still smiling, her head playfully askew. Judd pursed his lips and shook his head slowly.

  “You let me know if you change your mind, love.” Back to work.

  Out came the BlackBerry. Judd rolled his thumb over the side of the phone, scrolling for the cell phone number for Sunday, the CIA analyst. He typed:

  En route 2 BKO. R u avail?

  Send. Judd then leaned into the aisle, searching for the attendant. I should have accepted that drink.

  Over the loudspeaker, “Welcome to British Airways flight two zero eight to Heathrow Airport. We apologize for the late departure this evening. We had an unexpected delay due to administrative procedures here at Dulles International Airport, but that is now resolved. Please turn off any electronic devices . . .” Judd blocked out the chatter so he could make a mental list of his plan on arrival in London. Just then, his phone bonged with a text message.

  Sunday: Roger. How can I help?

  That was quick. Good man.

  Judd: Stopping in London to see OD. Need update on his intentions, advice on pressure pts.

  Sunday: Ambitious. Wants 2 return 2b king

  Judd: Behind MI?

  Sunday: Maybe

  Judd: In touch with MI now?

  Sunday: Yes

  Judd: OD is Paris favorite?

  Sunday: Probably

  Judd: Who else?

  —

  “Sir, we need you to turn off your phone now.” Judd looked up, ready to charm his way to a few more minutes. But it wasn’t the same attendant. Instead, an older woman, heavyset with a navy apron and her gray hair pulled tight in a bun, was scowling. “Our departure has already been held up for Lord knows what. You are making us even later,” she snarled.

  Judd nodded politely, said, “Yes, ma’am,” and turned his attention back to his phone.