by Dale Brown
“You are a brave man,” conceded the leader. “But not a foolish one.”
“When you need to call me, use this phone,” said Danny, pulling a small satellite phone from his breast pocket. “Use it only for that. Make one call only. Say nothing. When the call registers, I will come that night. Use it only for that purpose.”
Uncle Dpap gestured for Tilia to take the phone.
“I want to deal with everyone,” said Danny. “It is very expensive to bring weapons here. But I can supply whatever you want. I have no trouble getting anything. That gun is an American Army pistol. There are none better in the world.”
“OK,” said Uncle Dpap. “Perhaps we will have your meeting after all.”
* * *
Boston felt as if he’d been holding his breath for the past half hour.
“I thought that bastard was going to slap the bullets in the gun and fire,” he told Danny as he maneuvered the Land Cruiser through the crowd of people on the street. “I really did.”
“He only pulled the trigger to see if I would flinch.”
“Did you?”
“A little,” admitted Danny.
Had Uncle Dpap put the bullets in the gun, Danny would have ordered the Voice to fire the two small guns secreted in the yellow lights on top of the Land Cruisers. The guns — basically miniturrets — had been targeted on Uncle Dpap and his closest bodyguards the whole time.
“Careful where you’re driving,” Danny told Boston as he came a little too close to a truck on the side of the road. “You put any scratches in this and Nuri’s going to have to pay to have them fixed out of his own pocket.”
Boston stopped himself from answering that the CIA was rolling in cash. The men in the back didn’t speak English, but they might recognize the letters CIA and start thinking. The last thing Boston or Danny or anyone else on the team wanted was them thinking.
Nuri, of course, would have disagreed about the funds, since he was sure to be hounded about the expenditure. But leasing the trucks had been well worth it.
The handle of the gun Danny presented so casually to Uncle Dpap had been smeared with a bio marker that allowed the MY-PID system to track the rebel leader wherever he went. The phone contained a bug that uploaded audio whenever anyone nearby spoke. Any phone call would be recorded as well, though by now the NSA was listening in to practically all of his communications anyway.
Once past the guard post at the entrance to the village, Danny began to relax. They’d launched a small Owl UAV to supplement the blimps, which watched the area farther north. The Voice told him there was no traffic within the entire area.
“Pretty girl, huh?” said Boston. “That translator.”
“She was.”
“Like to jump her bones.”
“She’s too much for you to handle.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She has to be tough to deal with those characters. And she looked it.”
“I can charm a snake into giving milk.”
Tilia reminded Danny of his ex-wife Jemma, when they’d first met. The similarity wasn’t in their features — Tilia’s skin was lighter, her nose a little smaller, her eyes prettier. What struck him was her expression: all business. She wasn’t very old — early twenties, maybe a few years more. At that age she should be smiling more, happy. But her job weighed her down.
Jemma had been in law school, en route to becoming a professor, en route to becoming a political activist, en route to becoming an assemblywoman and state senator. She was out of politics now, out of law, out of everything — burned out before forty. The last he’d heard, she was living in Vermont, living on a farm that she’d bought with money her parents left her. A mutual friend said she was raising sheep, and selling organic wool and meat.
“I think she has a crush on you,” said Boston.
“Who?”
“Tilia. She was making eyes at you. Circumstances were different,” he continued, “you could have a hell of a time with her.”
“You’re the one that wants to sleep with her,” Danny said.
“Absolutely.” Boston turned to him. “You don’t mind, right?”
“Hell no. As long as you don’t.”
“Maybe we’ll have to,” said Boston. “To keep our cover up.”
“Dream on, Boston.”
“All I’m saying is, I’m sworn to do my duty. It’ll be a sacrifice, but I’m ready.”
19
Jabal Dugu, Sudan
As soon as the arms dealer was in his truck, uncle Dpap returned to his office. He told everyone but Tilia and Commander John to leave the building. Then he carefully dismantled the pistol and examined it.
“Do you think he cheats you?” asked Commander John.
“I want to make sure this is not some type of trick,” said Uncle Dpap.
“What kind of trick could it be?”
“A trick. Europeans are very tricky.”
“He’s not European,” said Tilia. “His accent is American.”
“I think he’s British,” said Commander John.
“He was trying to disguise where he was from,” said Tilia. “He is most likely CIA.”
“Maybe,” said Uncle Dpap, picking apart the slide group and barrel.
“Why would the CIA help us?” Commander John asked. As pretty as she was, he resented Tilia for sounding too much like a know-it-all.
Satisfied that the gun was not booby-trapped, Uncle Dpap reassembled it. He had never owned a Beretta, and knew of the weapon mostly by reputation. It was used by NATO and the Americans, a good recommendation.
Commander John reached for it. Uncle Dpap slapped his hand.
“I just want to try it,” said John. “Maybe it is defective. You shouldn’t be the one to test it.”
Uncle Dpap loaded the magazine, slapped it into the pistol butt, then handed the weapon to his brother. “Go outside. Make sure you are not near anyone.”
“You don’t have to treat me like a child,” said Commander John, though in fact he was gleeful at the prospect of trying the new weapon. “Should I call the others in?”
“Not yet.”
Uncle Dpap reached down to the lowest drawer in his desk and took out a small pencil case filled with tools. He sorted through them and retrieved a small screwdriver, then began dismantling the phone.
“You think he was CIA?” he asked Tilia.
“Very likely.”
“Why would the CIA help us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to ambush us.”
“To what purpose?”
“I don’t know.”
“If he is CIA and not a dealer, he is trying to get us to ally together. Why would that help them?”
She thought for a few moments. There were no obvious reasons. Every American who came through the area, even the relief workers, was assumed to be working for the CIA, though Tilia knew this was rarely the case.
“We had science visitors the other day,” she noted. “And now this one. The man who was our main source of ammunition dies, and now these men show up.”
“I would think this Mr. Kirk killed him,” said Uncle Dpap. “To get more business.”
“Maybe. If he is truly dead.”
Uncle Dpap did not particularly care for Luo. Except for his inability to find a new source of weapons and bullets, he would not have been disappointed in the least at his demise.
“If he is an arms dealer, why get us together?” asked Uncle Dpap. “What would be his benefit? To save a few dollars transporting the weapons?”
“He would be afraid of a price war, or of being ambushed,” said Tilia. “That was Luo’s concern as well. If he sold to all, yes, he could make more money.”
“But Luo didn’t try to gather us together.”
“Luo knew Sudan. This man — he is still feeling his way.”
“Yes. But he was confident.”
“Or if he is CIA, he might be working with the Egyptians,” said Tilia. “To counter the Iranians.
That would not be bad for us.”
Uncle Dpap took the last screw from the back of the phone and edged it up carefully. The phone circuitry was printed on a single card. There was no bomb. It was possible that the phone line was tapped, but Mr. Kirk himself had said to use it only to contact him, and not to say anything. So what would the point of tapping it be?
Uncle Dpap didn’t know that much about cell phones, but unless he had been the man who designed this particular model, it was unlikely that he would have realized that the phone was actually bugged: what looked like a small magnet for the miniature speakerphone was already transmitting to the portable unit used by the other bugs in the town.
“You like this Mr. Kirk,” said Uncle Dpap, starting to put the phone back together.
Tilia blushed.
“You think I’m too old to notice things like that,” he continued, amused. He liked to tease the young woman, who was more like a son to him than the three he had. “His motives are not very important, except for this question — why would he want to deal with several groups together? That is our real question.”
Tilia recognized from his tone that he had come up with an answer.
“The answer could be that he is impatient,” continued Uncle Dpap. “As you say, he is afraid of competition, and being ambushed. But I think he has a very large amount of weapons and ammunition sitting somewhere that he must get rid of. To take the time to sell it piecemeal — you see he has us do all the work.”
“It may be.”
“And he is greedy. That, of course, goes without saying. Greed is impregnated in these men’s souls. It is a universal disease, but the men who sell weapons have it very strongly. It is one reason they do not live very long lives. Something to consider, Tilia.”
She straightened her back and lifted her shoulders, determined to remain stoic and not answer him.
“You will have to think of leaving your Uncle Dpap and the rest of your family sometime,” said Dpap, suddenly wistful. He looked over at her, admired her form. She had a regal face. In another time, she could have been queen.
“We have work to do,” she told him, her words and tone exactly echoing what he would have said had she suggested something silly.
Uncle Dpap chuckled and went back to the phone, screwing it together. When he was done, he handed it to her.
“There is another possibility we haven’t considered,” he said. “Perhaps it is the Iranians who are really behind this.”
“They back Colonel Zsar.”
“Yes. They give him much money. But Zsar has trouble bringing people to his side. If we joined with him, then he would have a good core force.”
“And Red Henri?”
Red Henri, in Uncle Dpap’s opinion, was a crazy man, not to be trusted to remain sane for more than a few minutes at a time. But his men were well-trained. They would be a valuable addition to any force.
Uncle Dpap had turned down several overtures from the Iranians. Their religion made him nervous.
But not as nervous as running out of ammunition did. The danger was not just from the government forces, but from the other rebel bands, who coveted his village and other resources.
“Red Henri would not join in an alliance with either of us,” said Uncle Dpap. “He is content to herd his goats in his own way. But Zsar we could deal with. Go to him and tell him about my meeting. Tell him I do not trust this Mr. Kirk, and do not recommend a meeting yet. But maybe he will give us all a good price. Tell him I am open to buying bullets for the best price. As I have always been.”
“If we tell Zsar that, he is sure to tell the Iranians.”
“Exactly.”
20
Base Camp Alpha
Sudan
Boston insisted on collecting the submachine guns from the mercenary bodyguards as soon as they got back to Base Camp Alpha. Nuri thought it was unnecessary, and maybe a little foolish, in effect telling the men that they didn’t trust them. But Boston didn’t care. He didn’t trust them, and he saw no reason to be cute about it.
The men didn’t complain. After a big lunch beneath the tent pavilion that served as their mess hall, Boston set them out in a picket watch around the perimeter, with two of his Whiplash people as supervisors. The blimps would see anyone who approached in plenty of time for them to be armed.
To a man, the mercenaries believed Danny was an arms dealer, something Nuri had been careful to hint at but not say explicitly when they were hired. They assumed that the trenches were part of whatever story Danny needed to give the authorities so he could operate here without problems. They were all illiterate, and had no idea what dinosaurs were, let alone how paleontologists worked. Their prime concern was money, and they were being paid plenty of that to keep their curiosity in check. As long as they were kept busy, they wouldn’t be a problem.
The question was how to keep them busy. Boston suggested holding training sessions. Danny nixed that idea.
“That’s all we need. Better trained soldiers of fortune.”
“They could use the discipline.”
“Come up with something else.”
Boston finally decided that he would use the soldiers to dig the trenches, making them look a little more realistic. The initial response was unenthusiastic.
Then Hera came up with an idea.
“Ten dollars to the first man who finds dinosaur bones,” she said.
Once she explained what dinosaur bones were, there was no trouble getting volunteers.
* * *
Even before Danny and his men arrived back at base Camp Alpha, Tilia was driving to Colonel Zsar’s fortress on the other side of the hills. She’d chosen two men to go with her — one, because he was the biggest man in the troop, and the other because he was the best shot. She had no illusions, however, that they would be able to protect her if things went bad. All three of them would die, with luck quickly.
Tilia carried two pistols in bandoliers across her chest, and a sawed-off elephant gun besides. If she had to fight, she would reserve one bullet for herself.
They had to pass through a small village in the shadow of the hills to reach Colonel Zsar’s stronghold. She had been there only once before, more than a year ago. The changes astounded her. The village had been a complete wreck, most of its buildings still destroyed from a raid three years before by Ethiopian forces, who at the time were angry with Colonel Zsar as well as the legitimate Sudanese government. Stones lay at the edges of the street; foundations were cluttered with weeds and windswept sand. Perhaps two dozen people lived in the surviving shanties, ramshackle structures built of cardboard and other refuse on the southern end of town.
Those were gone now. In their place was a village of prefab trailers, five dozen arranged in a tight rectangle just off the main road. On the other side of the road, where the abandoned foundations had been, sat three steel buildings, barns where cattle were kept and milk processed. Three milk trucks, with gleaming tanks, were lined up in the yard next to them. Fifty head of cattle grazed in the fields beyond.
Tilia was tempted to stop the Jeep and talk to the people. If the Iranians had brought this prosperity, there would be no question of allying with them. But it was getting late, and she wanted to be sure to conclude her business with Colonel Zsar before nightfall.
Colonel Zsar’s fortress was embedded in a cliff, centered around a pair of caves dug out by successive generations of fighters and smugglers. Tilia’s Jeep was observed well before she came to the checkpoint leading to the stronghold’s entrance. Jeeps were not plentiful in the area, and though the colonel’s forces had little interaction with Uncle Dpap’s, it was quickly recognized. The colonel was alerted, and gave his permission for the vehicle to proceed.
Seeing that there were two men — as far as they were concerned, the woman didn’t count — the guards at the gate decided there would have to be six escorts. Two men sat on the hood of the vehicle, two clung to the rear fender, and two others trotted behind.
Ti
lia drove the truck up a steep, serpentine dirt road, passing three different sandbagged machine-gun emplacements before reaching a parking area in front of one of the caves. Once again she was surprised. There were a dozen white pickup trucks in the lot, all nearly brand new. Belts of bullets crisscrossed the guards’ chests, and there were extra boxes near a sandbagged gun emplacement covering the entrance to the building — if the colonel’s forces were experiencing a bullet shortage, he was doing his best to hide it.
A man in a flak vest met them at the door.
“Your weapons,” he demanded.
Tilia’s escorts looked at her. She nodded, but did not hand hers over.
“Your gun, miss,” said the man.
“My gun stays with me.”
“You are just a woman,” he said, with obvious disdain. “Why do you think you deserve such a privilege?”
“You are afraid of a woman?”
“Wait here.”
The man turned on his heel and went back inside. Tilia realized she’d made a mistake. Uncle Dpap had told her to deliver the message no matter what. If the guard insisted on her handing over her gun, she would have to do so. It would be very bad to start the meeting with such a sign of weakness.
“Since you are a woman, we won’t worry about it,” said the man when he returned. He looked at the others. “This way.”
The interior of the cave had been divided into a bunker with masonry and concrete walls. An external generator supplied electricity, and while the lights were relatively dim, they were still ample enough to light the long corridor back to Colonel Zsar’s post. Tilia had arrived just as the colonel was waiting for dinner. Ordinarily he would have had her and the others wait — assuming he had decided to see them at all — but his men had told him about the woman soldier’s beauty and he wanted to see it for himself.
It surpassed their descriptions.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am an aide to Uncle Dpap,” she said.
“Have a seat.” He snapped his fingers at the two bodyguards standing near the door, gesturing for them to bring over a camp stool. The men rushed to comply.
